A Dark Mind

by T. R. Ragan

  Tuesday, May 8, 2012

  Lizzy heard a car pull up in front of the house and went to the window to peek outside. “Jessica is here,” she told Hayley, before realizing she might as well be talking to herself. Hayley was engrossed in a book.

  Tonight would be the first time Hayley and Jessica had seen each other since Hayley had been incarcerated nine months ago. The two didn’t always get along, but whether they were willing to admit it or not, there was an undeniable connection between them.

  Hayley was more reserved than ever. Not sad. Not happy. Just quiet—keeping her feelings to herself.

  Before Jessica had a chance to knock, Lizzy opened the door. Jessica blew past her and headed straight for Hayley. She leaned low and held Hayley tightly in a bear hug.

  The contrast between the two was startling. Jessica was tall and healthy, with a pinkish complexion, while Hayley appeared pasty white and much too thin. Long seconds passed before Jessica finally released her and straightened. “I’m so glad you’re back.”

  “Thanks,” Hayley managed, squirming in her seat.

  Lizzy kept her eyes on them as she headed for the kitchen.

  Jessica set her backpack on the floor and took a seat next to Hayley. “So, you’re OK?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yep.”

  Jessica gestured toward Hayley’s ankle. “How long do you have to wear that thing?”

  “Six months to a year.”

  Lizzy brought a tray of cheese and crackers from the kitchen and set it on the coffee table in front of the couch. While Jessica made idle chitchat and Hayley did her best to feign interest, Lizzy picked up the remote and pointed it at the television. Before she hit the Off button, a picture of Michael and Jennifer Dalton flashed across the screen.

  She moved closer to the television and increased the volume.

  “Woman brutally murdered in a truly bizarre chain of events. Husband is in custody. More at eleven.”

  “Unbelievable,” Lizzy said.

  “What is it?” Hayley asked.

  “That’s the same couple who recently hired me to watch one of their employees. Jennifer and Michael Dalton own J&M Realty in Sacramento.”

  “How well did you know them?” Jessica asked.

  Lizzy turned off the television, figuring she’d watch more at eleven. “I met them twice. They were very loving toward each other, and they were planning to throw a big party to celebrate their fifteenth anniversary.” She shook her head. “There’s no way Michael Dalton would harm his wife.”

  “Maybe it was all an act,” Hayley said with a shrug.

  “That makes sense,” Jessica added. “Who would pay more attention to all of the little details than a private investigator? Maybe that man hired you on purpose and then put on a big act.”

  “But they were both kissy and huggy,” Lizzy explained. “What you’re suggesting would make sense if it had been just one of them being affectionate.”

  “Well, you know how women are,” Hayley said without elaborating.

  Both Lizzy and Jessica stared at Hayley and waited. They knew the drill. If you stared at her long enough, she would eventually come around and finish her thought, which she did.

  “Let’s pretend this couple is like most couples out there in the world. Lizzy arrives at their initial meeting. The husband knows Lizzy is coming, and he’s ready. He knows he’s going to kill his wife, but he doesn’t know when he’s going to do it, so he wants to make it look like he and his wife are getting along. Days before their scheduled meeting with a private investigator, he tells his wife that they should throw a big anniversary party to demonstrate how in love they are after all these years. The wife, who has been waiting years for her husband to show her some affection, is thrilled beyond words. Husband continues to woo his wife up until the day the private investigator arrives, making it look as if the two of them are madly in love and have been all along.” Hayley leaned against the cushions behind her. “Women can be so naïve when it comes to men.”

  “You don’t look convinced,” Jessica said to Lizzy.

  “I’m not. Jennifer was a sweet woman, but she wasn’t a pushover. I don’t think he did it.”

  “Statistics will likely prove otherwise,” Hayley said.

  Davis

  Wednesday, May 9, 2012

  Lizzy stood at the kitchen sink, rinsing dishes as she talked to Jared on the speakerphone.

  “Looks like I’ll be staying in Virginia longer than I thought,” he told her.

  “OK,” Lizzy said, feeling the same unease she’d been feeling more often than not. She felt safer with Jared here, but she had Hayley to keep her company. Besides, she didn’t like the idea of becoming too dependent on him.

  “Is anything wrong?”

  “No, just a lot on my mind.”

  “You’re working too hard.”

  “I think that’s what most would say is calling the kettle black.”

  “You’ve been awful quiet lately,” Jared said. “What’s going on?”

  Lizzy was still looking out the window when a dark Mercedes drove up and parked at the curb across the street. Their neighbor Charlee had a guest, and Lizzy now had an opportunity to change the subject. “Looks like your neighbor might have found herself a man.”

  “Don’t tell me you have your binoculars out again,” he teased.

  She laughed.

  “It’s good to hear you laugh.”

  After a short pause, she said, “I’m going to meet with Lieutenant Greer in the morning. After I file a report, he wants to talk to me privately. I’m hoping he’ll take me to Jennifer Dalton’s office, where I talked with her last.”

  “Are you sure you want to get involved?”

  “I have to get involved,” she said, but even as she said the words she knew it wasn’t completely true. She had no proof Michael hadn’t killed his wife. She believed that Michael was innocent based solely on intuition. In fact, she had yet to tell anyone about the strange look Michael Dalton had given her when she left the realty office that day. Something had been bothering him. More than anything, Lizzy wanted a chance to talk to Michael herself, but she wasn’t ready to tell Jared that bit of news, since it would only worry him. She would talk to the lieutenant tomorrow and see what he had to say about the matter.

  “Are you still there?”

  “I’m here,” Lizzy said.

  “What are the neighbors doing now?”

  Lizzy smiled. “It looks like her new boyfriend drives a big, shiny Mercedes. He carried a large bouquet of roses to the door. He’s inside the house now, so I have no idea what’s going on.”

  “Sounds like I need to step up my game.”

  She laughed again. It felt good to laugh. “I like you just the way you are.”

  “I’m glad,” he said. “How’s Hayley?”

  “She’s bored stiff. She already reorganized my files, and so she’s on to doing all of my paperwork. I ran out of books to give her to read, so now she has my Kindle. I have hundreds of books on there. That should keep her busy for a few weeks.”

  “If you run out of things for her to do, I’m sure I can find something to help keep her busy.”

  “That would be great. I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too.”

  Lizzy didn’t like battling all the conflicting emotions within. She loved Jared. There was no denying that. Although living in a new house in a new area was proving to be a challenge, having Jared in her life was anything but challenging. He was flexible and easygoing and, at moments like this, she wondered how she’d ever managed without him.

  Sacramento

  Thursday, May 10, 2012

  At eight o’clock sharp the next morning, Lizzy walked toward the entrance of the Sacramento police department. Less than a block away, she saw the Channel 10 News van. With any luck, she would be able to avoid the media altogether.

  Hours later, Lizzy was sitting in Lieutenant Greer’s offi
ce. The lieutenant was a close friend of both Jared and his father. Lizzy had the good fortune to have met the lieutenant on more than one occasion. He was a giant of a man—six foot six, with big broad shoulders. If not for his charming smile, his size might be intimidating. His eyes were the same shade of gray as his hair. His misshapen nose made him look as if he might have been a boxer in his younger days.

  She had spent most of her morning writing a detailed report about everything she’d seen the last time she met with Michael and Jennifer Dalton. Now she was repeating, word for word, what she’d just spent over an hour writing down. It was redundant, repetitive, and ultimately a waste of time, since nobody really seemed to care what she had to say about Michael Dalton. But she knew the drill, and she knew if she pushed long and hard enough, she might get a chance to talk to Michael in person. And that’s all that mattered. She needed to talk to him, look him in the eye. Five minutes with the man, that’s all she needed.

  Lizzy sighed. “I’m telling you, Dalton didn’t kill his wife.”

  “I hope you’re right, because some of the things that were done to Jennifer Dalton go beyond the human imagination. It’s hard to believe she could be married to someone for fifteen years and never know her spouse was capable of such peculiar and horrifying devastation.”

  Since arriving at the station, Lizzy had picked up pieces here and there of the mutilation Jennifer had been subjected to. Her eyes had been glued shut and organs had been not only removed, but replaced with undisclosed objects. Jennifer had not been granted a quick death; instead, rumors had it that her killer had kept her alive for hours after the horror began.

  “Tell me more about the phone call, if you don’t mind. You mentioned that while you were at Michael and Jennifer’s office downtown, Jennifer was talking to someone on the phone.” Greer skimmed over the report. “A man, it says here. Could you hear his voice?”

  “No, but I remember Jennifer referring to the caller as a ‘him’ or a ‘he’ after she had finished with the call.” Lizzy sighed. “I didn’t hear her mention a name. She hung up the phone and told me the guy would not take no for an answer.”

  “Was she crying?”

  “No, she wasn’t sad. She was frustrated. She was busy and she had work to do, but she also felt sorry for the caller because she figured he must be desperate for work. The call had something to do with a car picking her and Michael up on the day of their anniversary party. There was a yellow sticky pad in front of her and she was doodling on it while she was listening to the man talk.” While Lieutenant Greer made additional notes, Lizzy couldn’t help but wonder what had been on that sticky note that Jennifer had tossed.

  “Is there anything else?”

  “Everything I know is in the report, but I do have a question.”

  He waited.

  “The more I learn about the Michael Dalton case, the more I find myself wondering why the FBI isn’t looking at it more closely.”

  “Why would they? Hundreds of women are killed every year by their husbands. How is this case any different?”

  “Jennifer’s body was mutilated. That sounds like the work of a sadistic killer to me.”

  “The Lovebird Killer?” he asked.

  “Precisely.”

  “I haven’t requested assistance because there is absolutely nothing to connect Jennifer’s murder with the cases currently attributed to the Lovebird Killer.”

  “For starters, Michael and Jennifer were a couple,” she reminded him.

  “And Michael Dalton is alive and well.”

  It was quiet for a moment before Greer added, “I would love to hand the Dalton case over to the feds. I have plenty of other work to keep me busy, but as things stand, there is too much evidence against Michael Dalton. Fingerprints on the knife used to cut her body. Fingerprints on the needle plunged into her heart. Tire tracks outside belonging only to Jennifer and Michael’s vehicles. Nobody else. Same can be said for footprints and fingerprints inside the home. The same superglue used to glue her eyes closed was found in Michael’s glove compartment. Neighbors saw Michael arrive. According to witnesses, nobody else came or left. Should I go on?” Lizzy sighed as she shook her head. “Is there any way I could talk to Michael?”

  Greer rubbed his chin thoughtfully for a moment. “There’s nothing I would like more than to get that man to talk to someone, but since his arrest, he’s pleaded the Fifth.”

  “Maybe if Michael knows I think he’s innocent—if he knows I’m on his side—he’ll agree to talk to me.”

  “It wouldn’t be a private affair,” Greer said matter-of-factly. “Your conversation would be taped…and that, of course, is only if he agrees to talk to you in the first place.”

  “I understand.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” He stood and offered her his hand.

  She stood too. “Aren’t we going to the Daltons’ realty office?”

  His hands fell to his sides. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Lizzy.”

  “Come on, Greer, let me in the office for five minutes so I can show you exactly what she was doing the last time I saw Jennifer alive.”

  “Channel 10 News has been camped outside for days,” he said. “If they see you here, they may become even more disruptive.”

  She angled her head. “The media? Disruptive?”

  “It’s been known to happen,” he said with a sparkle in his eye.

  “I know you don’t eat well,” she said, glancing at his half-eaten pastry, “but worrying about things you can’t control isn’t going to help your insomnia and—”

  He shook his head. “Your boyfriend has been talking too much, I see.”

  “Jared’s worried about you, that’s all.”

  Greer gestured a hand toward the door.

  “Does that mean we’re going to the realty office?”

  “Do you think I would dare say no and risk having an ex-judge and the FBI snapping at my throat?”

  Before he changed his mind, she grabbed her bag and followed Greer out of his office and through a sea of desks and cubicles. They stepped through the double doors and outside onto the wet sidewalks and into a media frenzy. Scores of reporters and photographers swarmed the area, making it difficult for Lizzy and Greer to get to their vehicles.

  Two news stations followed Greer to the right, while the rest stayed glued to Lizzy as she tried to cut a path across the parking lot.

  Reporter Stacey Whitmore was one of the new gals anchoring for Channel 10 News, which meant she was hungry…like a shark. Stacey’s assistant held an umbrella over her head while Stacey shoved a microphone toward Lizzy. “Is it true that you knew Jennifer and Michael Dalton?”

  “No comment,” Lizzy said as she pushed through the crowd toward her car.

  The woman stayed glued to her side. “Rumor has it you met them both weeks ago when they hired you to investigate a workers’ compensation claim.”

  “Whether I knew the Daltons or not has no bearing on this case.”

  “You believe Michael Dalton is innocent, don’t you?”

  Lizzy flinched and immediately regretted it. How could Stacey Whitmore or anyone else know she had her doubts about Michael Dalton’s guilt? William Greer was the only person, other than Jared, who knew any of her private thoughts about the case. Reporters weren’t only like sharks, they were like flies. Always somewhere…waiting, watching, spreading their germs.

  By the time Lizzy was within a few feet of her car, every media crew with the exception of Stacey’s had disappeared. Lizzy pulled out her keys and pushed the Unlock button. She climbed in behind the wheel, but before she could shut her car door, Stacey handed her a card and said, “If there’s something, anything at all, that you know about this case and want to get off your chest, give me a call.”

  “And why would I do that?”

  Stacey ordered her crew to back off. They did as she asked, dispersing like ducks in a pond after the bread runs out.

  Lizzy shut her door but rolled
down her window, curious to hear what Stacey had to say, because obviously she had something on her mind.

  “Michael Dalton and I both attended UC Berkeley,” Stacey confided.

  “So, you and Michael are friends?”

  Stacey sighed. “We dated for a few years before he met Jennifer.”

  Ahh, it’s starting to make sense. Jilted reporter wants to make sure ex-boyfriend burns in hell, or at least in prison. “So, you think he’s guilty?”

  “On the contrary. I know with one hundred percent surety that Michael Dalton is innocent. If you agree, which I think you do, we need to talk.”

  “How do I know you’re not just saying all of this to use me? You know, to find out what I’m thinking so you can be the first to tell the people of Sacramento that Lizzy Gardner is once again involved in a murder case?”

  Stacey waved that thought away with a hand through the air. “That’s old news, Ms. Gardner.”

  “Please, call me Lizzy.”

  “We weren’t the only news station that caught wind that you were talking to Greer this morning. Everyone knows Lieutenant Greer is focused on the Dalton case right now, but that’s beside the point. I’m not using you. I know Michael’s innocent. My husband and two kids will tell you the same thing.”

  “You and Michael remained friends after he left you for another woman?”

  She smiled. “You met Jennifer. She’s beautiful and she’s a wonderful person. Who could blame him?”

  Lizzy looked intently at Stacey as she realized the shark might not be the great white she’d first imagined.

  “Jennifer and Michael babysat my two kids for a week while my husband and I were in Hawaii. Would I let a killer babysit my kids?”

  Lizzy saw that Greer’s car was gone. “I have to go,” Lizzy said as she turned the key and started the engine.

  “Come to my house tomorrow night. Anytime after six p.m.,” Stacey added as she moved away from the car. “I wrote my address on the back of my card.”

  Thursday, May 10, 2012

  Whenever he looked into a mirror, he saw his mother. They both had small, straight noses. They also had the same round blue eyes, which according to Mom were their best feature. Although they were both small boned, he was a smidgeon over five foot ten, while Mom had been five foot three inches at most.