by Mike Omer
“No.”
“I suggest we play a game. I call it the game of silence. The idea is, everyone has to stay silent. And you know how good my kids are at that game?”
Jack blinked, confused.
“They’re crap at it. They’re the worst. They lose every time. Are you good at playing the game of silence?”
“Y—yes.”
“Then let’s try.”
They sat in silence for a few moments. Bernard stared straight ahead at Jack. Jack tried to look back, then stared at the floor, then tried to look at Bernard again. Then he said, “Listen…”
“You aren’t good at this game at all, Jack!” Bernard said, raising his voice. “You said you were good at it! Did you lie to me? No, don’t answer that! You know why? Because you have the right to remain silent!”
Hannah walked inside, a small paper form in her hand. She sat by Bernard, pushing the form forward, the paper crinkling on the metal table.
“This,” Bernard said, “is what we call a Miranda rights form. We’ll go over it, see that you understand every word, okay?”
“Okay.”
Bernard read him his Miranda rights. Jack said he understood. Then he signed the form.
“You have to lift your left hand and say that you understand your Miranda rights,” Bernard said.
Confused, Jack lifted his left hand. “I understand—”
“Did I say left hand?” Bernard asked. “Sorry, I meant right hand.”
Jack switched hands, lifting his right hand. “I understand my Miranda rights,” he said solemnly.
Bernard looked at the hand, feeling Hannah staring at him as if he was insane.
“Now we can talk,” he said. “You weren’t at work yesterday.”
“No, I told you! I am having an affair. I met her at the motel yesterday morning.”
“But Curt told us you were at work.”
“Look, man, Curt is my friend. I told him if my wife or anyone called and asked him where I was, he should say I was at work. He covered for me in case Sophia called, that’s all. I told him that three days ago, before… before everything. He just told you what I asked him to.”
“Your friend would lie to the police for you? That’s one hell of a friend.”
“Yeah, I have a good friend. Is that a crime?”
“False testimony is a crime,” Hannah said. “And so is murder.”
“I was at the motel! Did you call to check? Just call!”
“What time did you get to the hotel?” Bernard asked.
“I think… eight thirty? Maybe nine?”
Bernard and Hannah exchanged looks. This didn’t even give Jack an alibi for the murder. The murder had been committed around eight in the morning.
“What’s the name of the woman?” Bernard ask.
“What woman?”
“The woman you met. The woman you had an affair with.”
“Listen, she has nothing to do with this. Leave her alone.”
“Jack.” Bernard folded his hands. “You are in very, very deep shit. So deep, you should probably close your mouth and hold your breath. Personally, I think you killed your mother-in-law, but Hannah here, she has a soft spot for you. She thinks you are a good soul. She believes she saw innocence in your eyes, would you believe it? So what I suggest is, you give us your so-called alibi before we call the prosecutor to let him know we have the murderer of Jacqueline Mune in our interrogation room. For the last time, what was her name?”
Jack paled, and Bernard wondered if he was about to faint. He was tired, and it was late, and he really just wanted to get that name. The woman, if there was one, could tell them if Jack was upset when he’d met her, if he’d had blood on his clothes, if he had gotten rid of a gun. That woman would make things a lot easier.
“It’s Val,” Jack said. “Valerie Mune.”
Crap.
Things had not gotten any easier.
Chapter Nine
Bernard and Hannah were quickly becoming the Mune family’s least favorite people. Ginny’s face was frosty when she opened the door.
“A friend of mine is representing Jack, pro bono,” she said. “He’s one of the best criminal defense lawyers in Glenmore Park. I don’t think you’ll get another shot at him in the interrogation room.”
“Okay,” Hannah said. “How lucky for him that he has a lawyer in the family.”
“That’s right.”
“Would you mind if we come in? We want to ask your daughter a few questions.”
“Oh, you’re harassing Val now? No. Get out.”
“We can do that, ma’am,” Bernard said. “But Jack asked us to talk to Valerie. You see”—he raised his voice, noticing Val hovering behind her mother—“she’s his alibi.”
“That can’t be,” Ginny said, her mouth twisting in distaste. “If you want to talk to Val, you’ll have to do it with our lawyer present—”
“Mom, it’s okay, I’ll talk to them.”
“Val—”
“I’ll talk to them, Mom. Alone.”
Ginny hesitated. Bernard could see the look on her face. He knew that look. Realization. He’d seen it more times than he could count.
“Okay,” she said, her voice weakening. “You can sit in the kitchen.” She walked out the front door, brushing past Bernard, and took a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket, putting one in her mouth.
“Come on,” Val said and led them to the kitchen. The three of them sat around the table. Val didn’t offer them anything to eat or drink.
“Valerie,” Hannah said, “Jack said you and he met at a motel yesterday morning.”
“That’s right.” She nodded.
“Which motel was that?” Hannah asked.
“The Park’s Lodge.”
“And at what time did you two meet?”
“Nine in the morning.”
“When did you two schedule this meeting?” Hannah asked, pulling out her notebook.
“Two days before.”
“And you agreed to meet at nine?”
“That’s right.”
“Why did you meet?”
“I assume that it’s obvious,” Val said, lowering her eyes.
“I’m a bit dense at times,” Hannah said. “Spell it out.”
“We were having an affair.”
“For how long?”
“About six months,” Val said, toying with an empty ashtray on the table.
“So you met yesterday to have sex?”
“That’s right.”
“You met at nine, and what time did Jack leave?”
“Jack got a phone call from Sophia around eleven thirty. She said that her mother was dead. He left immediately.”
“How did he react to the news?”
Val shrugged, a single tear sliding down her cheek. “He was upset, of course.”
“When he got to the motel in the morning, did you notice anything strange about his behavior? Was he tense? Anxious?”
“No. He was excited to see me. We hadn’t met for two weeks.”
“Were you excited?” Bernard suddenly asked. He was looking at the ashtray, entranced. It was sparkling clean.
“What?”
“Were you excited to see him?”
“Yeah, I… guess. Like I said, we hadn’t met for—”
“Yes, of course,” Bernard said, his pulse quickening. “You hadn’t met for two weeks. But you also had some news for him, right?”
“What? I don’t know—”
“Maybe not.” Bernard smiled. “Tell me, Val, how long have you been doing tarot readings online?”
“I don’t know. A couple of months. What has that got to do with—”
“Do you read palms?”
“What?”
Both Val and Hannah were looking at him with a confused stare.
“Do you also read palms?”
“Of course not.”
“Why not?”
“Well… it wouldn’t work online, right? I’d need to
see the person’s hand.”
“Can you read my palm?” Bernard asked. He offered his palm, facing up.
She stared at him. “I don’t read palms,” she said. “I don’t know how.”
“You just make it up anyway.” Bernard shrugged. “Right? You don’t believe in this shit?”
“Look, Detective, if you don’t want to talk about Jack—”
“Let me show you,” Bernard said. He took Hannah’s palm in his, looked at it, and said, “Your life line is very long. That means you’ll live for many years. And this line here says that you’ll be spending it with a very annoying partner. Though I can clearly see that he has really great hair.” He grinned at her.
Hannah snatched her hand back, shaking her head in disgust.
“Now you,” Bernard said. Before Val could say anything, he took her hand and looked at it. “Oh my,” he said. “It says here that you’re pregnant.”
For a moment, no one moved. Val tried to pull her hand back, but Bernard gripped it just a bit harder. “Also,” he said, “that’s a really nasty scratch you have there. Cut your hand while washing the dishes?” Hannah looked down at the palm, then at Bernard. There was a long red scratch in the center of Val’s palm.
Val pulled her hand back. “I want you to leave,” she said, her voice trembling. “I won’t say another word without my—”
“You don’t need to,” Bernard said. “Now I’m going to talk. All you need to do is listen. You’re pregnant. You’ve recently found out about it. That’s why your mother can’t smoke around you. I was wondering about that. I mean, your mother just lost her sister—why would you be so critical of one little cigarette, right?”
Val didn’t say anything. Her hand was still on the table, facing up. She was staring at the scratch, her eyes glazing over.
“Now, you went to your aunt. I suppose you wanted some herbal help with your pregnancy. One of the herbs was squaw vine, right? But when you were there, you realized that she knew who the father was. And it wasn’t your fiancé. She had somehow found out.”
Val pursed her lips, saying nothing.
“She went to get your herbs, and you panicked. Maybe you thought she’d tell her daughter that you were sleeping with her husband. You suddenly remembered that she’d told you she’d bought a gun recently, to protect herself from that psycho who has been harassing her. She probably even showed it to you. So you knew it was in her purse. You took it out, and when she came out of the back room, you shot her. Then—and Val, this is where I really admire your coolness—you quickly picked up the bag of herbs. Did it have a label with your name on it, or were you just worried it might lead us in the right direction?”
Val remained silent, looking out the window. In the darkness, her mother was a vague shadow, only the burning tip of the cigarette clearly visible.
“You wiped off the purse and then washed the glass you drank from, to eliminate evidence. But no one is that cool. Your hands shook. You dropped the glass. It shattered in the sink. When you cleaned it up, you cut your hand. You grabbed a towel, wrapped your hand, and ran outside with the gun, cleaning the doorknob with the same towel.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Here’s what you don’t know. You smeared some blood on the doorknob. So we have that. And we can get your DNA with a warrant. Nothing would be easier. And they’d match.”
The silence stretched longer this time.
“Now, like I said, we really don’t need anything from you,” Bernard resumed. “We’ll be on our way to get that warrant. But I must admit, I’m curious. How did Jacqueline find out about the baby’s father?”
Her chin quivered slightly, her eyes wet. Still, she looked outside, ignoring the detectives.
Bernard shrugged. “It might help if you cooperate now—I could put in a good word with the prosecutor—but I don’t really care either way. Come on, Hannah, let’s—”
“I let her touch my belly,” Val said, her voice hardly audible. “To see if it was a boy or a girl. She always got it right. Always.”
Bernard leaned back, looking at her.
“And she suddenly had a really confused look on her face. And she said she wasn’t sure. Like… wasn’t sure it was a boy or a girl. It was ridiculous. She could always tell. And then I knew. She felt it. The father was her son-in-law. She knew it. She would tell Sophia, and it would all blow up. My fiancé would leave me.”
“I thought you didn’t believe,” Bernard said softly.
Val looked at him and shrugged. “Everyone believes a little,” she said. “They’re lying when they say they don’t.”
Bernard didn’t even know why he went by Jacqueline Mune’s house. He had gone to Appleton Road to investigate a robbery. His trip had been a dead end, as he knew it would be. No one ever saw anything, or heard anything. Then, instead of going back to his car, he went down the street to Jacqueline’s house and looked at it, a feeling of melancholy taking over. He shook his head and was about to return to his car, when a loud bark drew his attention. He looked up. The bark had come from the open second-floor window of the adjacent house. The dog that had molested Bernard’s leg stood in the window, wagging his tail, licking his lips in a lascivious manner. Bernard snorted and began to walk back to his car, when the dog began to climb the windowsill.
“Oscar!” Bernard heard the owner scream in horror. Oscar, by that point, stood with three of his paws on the windowsill and was looking at Bernard with a hungry stare.
“Oscar, don’t,” Bernard said. “Don’t even think about it. No leg in the world is worth dying for. No, no, don’t!”
The dog jumped.
Bernard had never seen a dog fly, but Oscar came close as he leaped into the air. For a second, it almost seemed as if he would keep on floating. But then gravity noticed the perverted canine and pulled. He dropped like a stone, and Bernard leaped forward, catching him just in the nick of time. The look in the dog’s eyes was unmistakable. Gratitude, mixed with wanton excitement. Disgusted, Bernard quickly put Oscar down, and the poodle leaped and latched itself on to Bernard’s leg, humping it with gusto, its tongue lolling.
“Oscar!” the owner screamed, barging out of the house. “You!” she spat as she saw Bernard.
Jacqueline Mune’s door opened. Sophia stood in the doorway, looking out to see what the commotion was about. She spotted Bernard, the poodle having his way with his leg, and folded her arms.
“Could you take your dog please, ma’am?” Bernard said.
The woman snatched the poodle from his leg, giving him a hateful look. She seemed to believe that Bernard was set on seducing her dog. Huffing, she turned around and walked inside.
“You really have a way with people,” Sophia said, her voice cold.
“It’s a gift,” Bernard said, brushing the dog hair from his pants. “How are you doing, Mrs. Thompson?”
“It’s Mune now,” she said.
“Oh,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you?”
“Yeah.”
Sophia seemed to consider this. “What are you doing here, Detective?”
“Well, believe it or not, I was just passing by.”
“A cop in this neighborhood? I can definitely believe it.”
“You live here now?” Bernard asked.
“Just until I manage to sell the house. I hate this place. Too many bad memories—some of them very fresh.”
“Yeah.” Bernard nodded.
“You heard about Valerie’s plea bargain?”
“The prosecutor told me,” Bernard said. “Five years, right?”
“Yeah. She claimed she never intended to kill my mother.”
Bernard shrugged. “For what it’s worth,” he said, “I believe she didn’t. She was scared, and she reacted violently.”
“I don’t really care what you believe.”
Bernard sighed. “I’m very sorry. For all that has happened,” he said again.
She nodded, her face softening slightly.
“Thanks.”
He turned to leave.
“Detective,” she said, “do you want a tarot reading? On the house?”
He thought about it, then shrugged. “I live in the present,” he said. “I don’t really want to know what the future holds.”
Interested in reading additional Glenmore Park books and meeting the detective squad members again? Great! You can try:
Spider’s Web - Detective Mitchell Lonnie is pursuing The Deadly Messenger, a psychotic serial killer. But when his sister gets involved, the stakes rise very high. Get it on Amazon Here
Deadly Web - One Night, Two Dead Victims. Killers Don’t Patiently Wait Their Turn Before Committing Murder. Get it on Amazon Here
Web of Fear - Detective Hannah Shor is looking for a kidnapped twelve-year-old girl. But when the ransom note is posted on Instagram and goes viral, the situation spins out of control. Get it on Amazon Here
About the Author
Mike Omer is the author of the Glenmore Park Mystery Series. He has been in the past a journalist, a game developer and the CEO of the company Loadingames. He is married to a woman who diligently forces him to live his dream, and the father of an angel, a pixie and a gremlin. He has two voracious hounds that wag their tail quite menacingly at anyone who comes near his home.
Mike loves to write about true people who are perpetrators or victims of crimes. He also likes writing funny stuff. He mixes these two loves quite passionately into his mystery books.
You can contact Mike by sending him an e-mail to [email protected]
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
About The Author