And he wondered if he’d ever know everything.
Or if he even wanted to.
Chapter Thirteen
Back then
Mark held June. That was all he could do, while they sat on the couch in the living room and the detectives questioned them, having them go through everything.
June sobbed, distraught.
“And you were together tonight?”
Mark nodded. “At my parents’ house.”
“What time did June arrive?”
“I don’t remember, exactly. Around eight, I think. I know she called here and left July a message minutes after she arrived. She didn’t want July to worry if July called their parents’ house and she didn’t answer.”
He turned and pointed to where the answering machine sat on their breakfast bar.
One of the detectives walked over to the answering machine and played the message. “Time-stamp on Caller ID says 7:52 p.m., so that checks.”
The detective talking to them noted it. “Log that tape into evidence, please. Miss Corden, can you prove where you were earlier today?”
“I was at school, then I went to my parents’ house. They’re out of town for the weekend in Atlanta. We’re taking care of the cat and we go there to do our laundry.”
“The alarm logs,” Mark said. “You can check with the alarm company for the exact time.”
“And I called Mom at the hotel from their place with a question,” June said, her tearful voice barely audible. “I need to call them but I don’t have the number here. I need to tell them about…” Her sobs started again.
The detective looked grim as he wrote all that down. “I know this is difficult, and I appreciate you talking to me. What time do you think you reached your parents’ house? It’s okay if you can’t remember exactly.”
“I…I don’t know. I left school and went straight there. Traffic was bad with the rain. My class ended around four, so maybe quarter till five or five o’clock?”
“And then what did you do?”
“Laundry and reading. And taking care of Zorro. The cat.” Her gut-wrenching sobs threatened to break Mark’s heart. “I knew I should have come here first. July asked me not to, but I should have.”
“Why did she ask you that?”
“She said she was going to break up with her boyfriend today. He was supposed to meet her here this afternoon at four, after he got off work. If I’d been here, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”
“What’s his name?”
“Matt Gorsky,” Mark answered for her. “He has a roommate, too. Stu. I don’t know what his last name is. They live in an apartment over off Fruitville. I don’t remember the address, but I can tell you how to find it, or take you there.”
“July has it written down in her address book in her purse,” June tearfully said.
“Where is her purse?” the detective asked.
“I…I don’t know. It’s usually on her dresser.”
The detective stepped aside to talk to one of the crime scene techs. A moment later, they brought it out, in a clear plastic bag. “Is this her purse?”
June sniffled as she nodded.
“Okay, Miss Corden, I know this is difficult, but can you go through this and tell us if anything’s missing?” He handed her a pair of gloves.
Mark took them instead, earning him a look from the detective, but he still put them on and reached in to go through the purse, showing June the contents.
“There’s money in her wallet.” He showed them.
“Her address book is blue,” June said.
Digging down, he found it and pulled it out, opening it to Matt’s name so the detective could write down the information.
The other detective got on the radio and called for two marked units to go there and to take Matt into custody for questioning.
“Does anything appear to be missing, Miss Corden?”
She shook her head, more tears falling.
“What does her boyfriend drive?”
“A Ford F-150,” Mark told them. “Last year’s model. Grey, crew cab. No topper. I don’t know the tag number, but it’s a standard state plate, not one of those specialty ones.”
The detective jotted down that information. “Miss Corden, do you think Mr. Gorsky is involved in this?”
“I do,” Mark said, no longer trying to stay calm. “That asshole is abusive. She’s tried to break up with him before and he always talked her into staying. She’s been dating him for a couple of years now.”
The detective focused on him. “Mr. Jarette, can you prove where you were today?”
“I was at school until five, then I went home. I got gas just down the block from my house.” He pulled a credit card receipt from his pocket to show the detective, who noted the information.
“After that?”
“My parents had already left for Tampa when I got home, but my mom called a little before six to ask me to tape a show for her on the VCR. She can vouch for me.”
June spoke up again, but they struggled to hear her. “July told me Matt was supposed to be here at four, after he got off work at three thirty. I should have come home! I just wanted to go relax and read that stupid book because we’ve done nothing lately but train for the gymnastics camp in a couple of weeks. This was the first night off I’ve had in weeks. If I hadn’t been so selfish…” She dissolved into tears again.
“Mr. Jarette, show me your hands, please.”
He felt loathe to release June, but knew why he was being asked. He held up his hands, front and back, for the detective to look.
“Mind standing up and removing your shirt?”
Gently untangling himself from June, he did, without hesitation, turning.
“Okay, thank you. You can put your shirt back on.”
“What was that for?” Although Mark already knew why.
He didn’t want the detective to know he knew, for fear they might suspect him anyway.
The detective glanced at June, then waved Mark into the kitchen. He dropped his voice when he spoke so June couldn’t hear.
“Miss Corden—July—fought with her attacker. She has blood and tissue under her fingernails. And I needed to see if your hands had any wounds on them, or if you had any scratches on your upper body.”
“I would never hurt July. But I bet Matt did. You better catch him first.”
“Mark—”
“I mean it.”
He laid a hand on Mark’s shoulder. “Son, you aren’t the first friend or relative of a victim to make that statement, but I’m going to tell you what I tell them—let the law handle this. Now, do you feel up to looking around and seeing if anything else is out of place so she doesn’t have to?”
He nodded.
They started with June’s bedroom, since the crime scene techs were still processing July’s bedroom and they hadn’t removed her body yet. He turned on the light and looked around.
“Nothing looks out of place.” He walked over to her jewelry box and opened it. “Everything’s still here, as far as I can see.” He pointed to her TV and stereo. “This wasn’t a robbery. Nothing’s missing. And it can’t be a coincidence that July’s murdered on the same day that she was going to break up with that guy.”
“We will be looking at him as a person of interest. Don’t worry. Now, June’s parents are out of town?”
“Yeah, in Atlanta for the weekend. A business trip for her dad, but her older sister, May, lives here in Sarasota. She was going to a wedding rehearsal dinner with her boyfriend tonight. They might be home by now.”
“Do you have her address?”
“Not on me. I know her number, and I know where she lives. It’s probably…” He sighed. “It’s probably written down in July’s address book.” Then he spotted June’s on her dresser. “Wait.” He opened it and flipped through it. “Here it is.”
The detective noted it and May’s phone number. “We’ll send someone over to notify them.”
“
Please ask them to come here. And we need to call their mom and dad.” He slumped onto the edge of June’s bed. “Can I call my parents and see if they’re home yet? They’re good friends with June and July’s mom and dad.”
He nodded. “Sure.”
Mark used the extension in June’s room, the detective standing there and listening.
Thankfully, his dad answered. Mark started to speak and then found himself choked up, crying as the reality fully hit him. “Dad…” He couldn’t hold back his sobs, unable to get the sight of July’s lifeless eyes out of his brain. “Dad, I need you to come to June and July’s place, please? Right now. You and Mom both. I…”
He finally handed the phone to the detective, who quickly and professionally took over while Mark sat there and cried.
He didn’t want to cry in front of June. Not when she needed him.
When the detective hung up, he turned to Mark. “Son, I know this is hard, but we need your help if we’re going to catch this guy.”
He nodded.
They returned to the living room, where a technician spoke in whispered tones to the detective.
“Let’s go out into the back for a minute,” he said, reaching down to help Mark get June on her feet.
He knew why—because they needed to move July’s body.
“I want to see her,” June said, her tone soft and dead. “I need to see her again. I need to make sure it’s really her.”
“Honey, not like this,” Mark said, tightening his arm around her waist. “You don’t want to see her like this.”
“Was it really her?”
“Yeah, baby. It was really her.”
“He did this, didn’t he?”
If it wasn’t for the detective on her other side, Mark wasn’t even sure he could keep June from running to be with July.
They took her through the kitchen and out the back door to the small, sheltered lanai that both apartments shared.
“Promise me you’ll catch him,” June begged the detective.
“We will, June. I promise.” He looked toward the other side of the duplex. “What about the people there?”
“Snowbirds, and they’re up north right now,” Mark said. “They own the duplex. They’re friends of my parents. Older couple.”
“Oh. Okay.” Rain blown under the roof by the wind misted them. “I’m going to need you to come give us full statements tomorrow. Both of you.”
“Whatever we have to do,” Mark said. “I’ll even take a lie detector test if that’ll speed things up. Just tell me what you need from me and I’ll do it. I want that guy locked up.”
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” the detective said. “Not as long as everything checks out.”
“I should have come home,” June mournfully said. “If I’d come home…” More tears. “Then I went over to Mark’s. If I’d come home, maybe I would have found her sooner and gotten help for her…”
“There wasn’t anything you could do,” the detective said. “She hit her head when she fell during the attack. It looks like it fractured her skull. She’s probably been dead since this afternoon. I hate to sound so blunt, but you can’t blame yourself. Nothing you could have done would have saved her.”
The other detective stepped out the back door to call the first one in for a moment. When he returned, he spoke to Mark. “You’re sure Matt drives a grey F-150?”
“He did as of yesterday when I saw him. Why?”
“No one’s answering the door at the apartment, and there isn’t a vehicle matching that description in the parking lot.”
“His roommate drives a yellow VW Bug.”
The other detective headed back inside, then returned a few minutes later and shook his head.
“I’ve met Stu a few times. He seems okay, but I don’t know him very well.”
Then a distraught May and Jim arrived, followed shortly thereafter by Mark’s parents.
When Ed and Kelly Jarette walked in, the lead detective walked over to shake his hand. “Ed? I must be more exhausted than I thought. I wasn’t even putting together Mark’s your boy. Man, when’d he get so tall…”
The detective hadn’t exactly been hostile before in how he’d treated them, but he was definitely far more friendly and relaxed realizing that Mark’s father was a friend of his.
It was nearly an hour later, after Mark and May were able to enter July’s room and verify it didn’t appear anything was missing, before they were all free to leave. Mark’s mother grabbed clothes and toiletries for June from her room. May rode with June and Mark over to their parents’ house, with Mark’s parents, Jim, and the detective following.
Fortunately, the detective volunteered to make the call for them to break the news. Once he had the worst of it out, he passed the phone off to Ed Jarette.
“Paul? Yeah, it’s Ed. Kelly, Mark, Jim, and I are here with May and June…”
They wouldn’t be able to get a flight until morning. With the late hour, Mark’s dad somehow talked them into not trying to rent a car and drive home that night. Especially not as upset as they were. He would go pick them up at the airport tomorrow when they flew in.
The detective left several copies of his card and the case number with Ed Jarette. “I’ll coordinate with you tomorrow about bringing them all in for official statements. Let’s try to make it as easy on them as possible.”
“Please call me here or at home if you find that little bastard before then. Paul will want to know as soon as you do.”
“Will do.” The detective left.
Jim had to say good-bye, too, since he had to be at work at nine in the morning and wouldn’t be able to call off. He would try to get out early after talking to his boss.
One Jim left, Ed turned to his son. “You need to go home and get some sleep.”
“I don’t want to leave June alone.”
“She’s not alone, but someone has to be there in the morning to open the gym. Cara counts on the four of you. We’ll all be here. You take care of the responsibilities.”
“But June—”
“Son, I know you love her. But when she is able to think again, she’s going to tell you I’m right. I wish you hadn’t had to learn these hard lessons at this age, but loving someone sometimes means doing hard things we don’t want to do, because it’s what’s right.”
As much as he hated to admit his father was right…Mark knew he was right.
But at that point, Mark also knew he didn’t dare go to sleep for fear of not waking up in time to get to the gym.
After saying good-bye, he started to head home when he pulled in at the new park not far from June’s house. Alone, he threw back his head and screamed, raged, swore, and finally released a little of the pain building inside him ever since the discovery.
That fucker has to pay.
* * * *
Mark got the gym open on time a couple of hours later after taking care of a few necessary things, but he hadn’t had any sleep. Maybe in the harsh light of day things would make better sense. Matt was an abusive asshole, yes, but he’d never actually hit July as far as he knew.
Was it possible someone besides Matt broke in and killed July? Maybe caught her off-guard?
He doubted it. There was no sign of forced entry. She’d had time to change clothes from what she’d been wearing that morning, according to June, and those clothes appeared to be missing. That meant she likely didn’t surprise an intruder. Maybe Matt had been waiting for her when she got home, which would explain why she’d been distracted and didn’t turn on the AC. And the deadbolt hadn’t been locked, while the knob was.
As the morning wore on, Mark called his dad a little after seven to check on June and May. The detective had already updated them that they still couldn’t locate Matt, and to be on the lookout for him. His roommate put them in touch with Matt’s parents, who swore they hadn’t seen him.
“Paul and Susan will fly into Sarasota at noon,” his dad said. “I’ll go meet them.”
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“Can I talk to June?”
“She’s still asleep. Your mom will stay with them.”
Behind the counter he spotted one of his mystery novels, a book he’d loaned to one of the other part-time coaches, and a flurry of thoughts all hit him at once.
“What if he shows up and tries to hurt June? Or hurts Mom?” He suspected that wouldn’t happen, but he couldn’t give voice to why. Especially when it would mean revealing why he suspected that.
“He won’t,” Ed said. “His parents are probably lying for him. He can’t hide for long. Craig said they’re staking out the apartment, his work, and his parents’ house.”
“Craig?”
“The lead detective. I’ve known him for years. I do his taxes. And they got a court order to search Matt’s apartment. They took some stuff from Matt’s room. Craig wasn’t able to tell me exactly what, but indicated what they found looks like it will prove Matt did it. I’m guessing they’re going to match his DNA to the evidence they recovered, or maybe they even found July’s blood on his clothes. Looks like Stu and his girlfriend weren’t home last night, and they have alibis.”
The rest of the morning passed in a blur, mostly due to stress, grief, and exhaustion. Mark was able to get someone to come in and take over for him once he told them what had happened. Then he stopped by home, took care of a few things, showered, and headed back to the Corden house.
His mom already had the door open when he walked up, a backpack slung over his shoulder.
“Hey, sweetie. May and June are still asleep, and your dad just left.”
“I need to take a nap before we go,” he said.
“Okay. Go crash on the couch.”
He did.
When he awakened, he saw June kneeling there by the couch, looking down at him. “Hey,” she whispered.
He reached out and pulled her in, kissing her. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”
“Was it a nightmare?” she asked.
He shook his head.
She shook hers.
He sat up and pulled her into his lap and found his mom sadly watching from the doorway. “You slept for a couple of hours. Your dad called and said they’re on their way back from the airport. He already called Craig and we’ll go to the station at four to talk to him.”
Walk Between the Raindrops [Suncoast Society] (Siren Publishing Sensations) Page 11