by Alex MacLean
“Catch the son of a bitch,” Bill said. “Before I’m gone. That’s what you can do for me.”
13
Halifax, October 18
9:35 p.m.
Audra carried the case folders into the den and set them on her desk. She began sorting the files in proper sequence so one report built upon the one before it. Lastly, she began laying out heaps of Allan’s notes. They detailed his narrative from the moment he’d arrived at the Mary Driscow murder scene to the day he received the DNA report clearing Gary Strickland.
“Hey, babe.”
Turning, Audra saw Daniel in the doorway. He was still dressed in his office clothes: shirt pulled out over his pants, sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
“Oh, hey,” she said. “Whatcha doin’?”
“Watching the sports highlights.”
“Yankees play tonight?”
“This afternoon.” Daniel twisted one side of his mouth. “They got their asses kicked. Eight zip.”
“Shit. What game was it?”
“Third,” he said. “Rangers are up two to one. They’ll probably take the series.”
“It’s not over yet. They have to win four, right?”
Doubt tightened Daniel’s face. “Hmmm. The fat lady’s warming up her vocal cords.”
“You don’t think they’ll come back?”
“I don’t think they have it this year.”
Audra continued sorting the notes.
Daniel said, “Daphne told me you gave your speech today.”
“I did.”
“How’d it go?”
Audra stopped a moment. “I was scared shitless.”
“I can imagine,” Daniel said. “Are you hungry?”
“I wasn’t until I smelled the pizza.”
“Yeah, we decided to order out.”
Audra raised an eyebrow. “Uh, would it kill either of you to cook something?”
Daniel smiled. “Well...you know my cooking. We have to pray after we eat.”
The two of them burst out laughing.
“Uh-huh,” Audra said. “That’s true.”
“We got you a salad.”
“Piatto’s?”
“Tomavino’s.”
“We haven’t ordered from there in a while.”
“Thought we’d try a different place.”
“Any pizza left?”
“A few slices. Want some?”
“What kind is it?”
“Bel Cibo.”
Audra perked up. “Is that the one with prosciutto and artichokes?”
“Yup. The one you like.”
“In that case, I will have a slice.”
“Tea?”
“Sure.”
“Chamomile?”
“Green. I need to be up for a while. I have all these files to go through.”
Daniel frowned. “All those?”
“All these,” she said.
“I’ll put on the kettle.”
Audra finished laying out Allan’s notes. There had to be over a hundred.
Before starting them, she went upstairs to Daphne’s bedroom. The door was closed. A light shone under it.
Audra gave a quick knock then walked inside. Daphne was sitting at her desk with her nose buried in a textbook. She looked over and flashed a bright grin.
“Hi, Mom,” she said.
“Hi, honey. You doin’ homework?”
Daphne swiveled around in the chair to face her.
“Studying,” she said. “We have a test tomorrow.”
“Oh, I won’t keep you.”
“That’s all right. I’m just reviewing stuff.”
“What’s your test on?”
Daphne wrinkled her nose. “Science.”
“Ah. I always found that intriguing.”
“I guess I’m not the sciency type.”
“What’re you learning?”
“Atomic theory. Protons. Electrons. Neutrons.”
“Cool stuff.”
Daphne shot a quick breath out through her nose.
“You don’t think so?” Audra said.
“Not really.”
Audra smiled at her. “How was your day?”
“Good.” Daphne matched her smile. “I loved your speech this morning.”
“Did it sound okay?”
“It was awesome. A lot of other kids thought so too.”
Audra snorted. “I was scared shitless up there.”
“Really? You didn’t look like it.”
“Oh, I was. Believe me.”
“I don’t know how you did it,” Daphne said. “I couldn’t. Get up there in front of everybody. Talk about that.”
“Talking about bullying was easy. Sharing what I went through was hard.”
Daphne’s face went slack, and a small hint of sadness appeared in her eyes. “Did you do it for me, Mom?”
Audra held her gaze for a moment, felt all that bleak fear and stress of her suicide attempt flooding her mind.
At last, she nodded. “I also did it for the kids.”
Daphne’s smile returned. “I’m proud of you, Mom.”
Audra felt the words melt her heart. There was something priceless in hearing that from your child.
“Oh, honey.” She gave Daphne a hug and kissed the top of her head. “You could never be as proud of me as I am of you.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Good luck on your test tomorrow.”
When Audra returned downstairs, Daniel handed her the cup of green tea.
“Pizza’s on your desk,” he said. “I warmed it up for you.”
“Thanks, hon.” Audra stopped at the doorway to the den. “Can you give Daphne a lift to school in the morning? I have to be at the office early.”
“Sure. What time are you leaving?”
“Have to be there for six.”
“Big day ahead?”
“Yeah,” Audra said. “Hopefully, I’ll get a couple hours of sleep before then.”
She walked into the den and closed the door.
14
Halifax, October 18
9:47 p.m.
Allan shut the car off in his driveway and slumped back against the seat. Crossing his right arm over his chest, he gripped his left shoulder and rested his chin on his wrist. It felt as if someone had placed a weighted block on his heart.
Joyce Driscow was dead. Gone to her grave with no closure over her daughter’s murder. In a few months or sooner, Bill would be joining them both.
The whole tragedy sickened Allan. It wasn’t fair. Life could be so damn cruel and so damn heartbreaking.
After this day, he wished he hadn’t crawled out of bed in the morning, and tomorrow he’d have to summon the courage to get up and face the same shit all over again.
Through the windshield, Allan watched a gash form in the cloud cover, revealing a spattering of stars underneath.
He let out a heavy sigh as he felt those old feelings of guilt, sadness, and self-recrimination begin to stir inside him like a dormant virus waking up.
Allan shut his eyes. He thought about the Driscow/Saint-Pierre case. Did he and Audra have a prayer of catching the suspect? A year had passed, and no one knew what the man even looked like. Someone at the park had to have seen him. Was he a regular there? Had he already been interviewed in the course of the first sweep?
The efficient and methodical way he’d committed the murders suggested someone experienced. So had the staging of the bodies. Had he done this before, somewhere else? Then why hadn’t ViCLAS made a connection to any other murders out there, besides the one committed by Gary Strickland?
So many questions and no answers to any of them. Not one.
Allan flung the car door open and stepped out. He walked slowly to the back of the house. Before going inside, he took a brief moment to compose himself.
He set his keys on the kitchen table, removed his jacket, and draped it over the back of a chair.
The place smelled of baked ham. He o
pened the refrigerator and saw a plate wrapped in tin foil. A note on the top of it read: Supper.
Allan smiled.
He found Melissa in the living room, filing her nails and half-watching a sitcom on TV.
“Hi, Al,” she said. “I thought I heard your car come in.”
“Hi, sweetheart.” He sat on the sofa beside her. “How’d your interview go?”
Melissa gave a soft roll of her eyes. “Well...they’ll call me, they said. Usually, that’s not a good sign.”
“They might call.”
“I’m competing with forty-five other applicants. So not much to be positive about.”
“Wow. Forty-five.”
“I know, right?”
“A sign of the economy,” Allan said. “If not this job, you’ll find something. You’re resourceful.”
Putting the nail file on the coffee table, Melissa slouched back against the cushions and crossed her arms.
She said, “I have another interview in the morning.”
“Awesome. Where at?”
“Penningtons. They’re hiring a manager for their store at the Dartmouth Crossing.”
“That’s right up your alley.”
She nodded. “I hope I get it.”
“I hope so too.”
“Positive thoughts, right?”
Allan forced up a smile. “Exactly. So how was Brian’s day?”
“Good. He played with Nathan for a while after school. I put him to bed ’bout an hour ago.” Melissa cocked her head at him. “How ’bout your day?”
Allan thought of Bill Driscow, and he winced inside. Quietly, he said, “Oh, you know.”
“Good? Bad? Ugly?”
“There’s never much good.”
“Want to talk about it?”
Allan hesitated. “I don’t need to burden you with my work.”
Melissa reached over and lightly stroked his forearm. “Talk to me, Al. Are you okay?”
“I think so.”
“Think so? You look like a castaway. I noticed that when you walked in here. Something’s bothering you.”
Allan saw the mix of love and worry in her hazel eyes. She could see through him so easily. She always had. Always would, he was sure.
He’d never told her about the broken world he dealt with out there. One filled with sorrow and senseless people driven by senseless motives. It was a subject he had never wanted disrupting the peace of their home. But tonight Allan wanted to talk about it, and he didn’t know why.
“A year ago,” he said, “a young woman was murdered in Point Pleasant Park. I exhausted every avenue I could think of. I just couldn’t solve that case. It bothered me for months. Even when I had other cases to work, that one was always there, lingering at the back of my mind.
“That page I got this morning, it was back to Point Pleasant Park.”
Melissa’s mouth dropped open, and her eyes widened. She picked up the remote, muting the TV.
“That missing woman,” she said.
“She’s connected to that case from a year ago,” Allan told her. “The same man killed them both.”
Melissa touched her throat, briefly looking away.
“Oh my God,” she said.
Allan lowered his chin. “I blame myself.”
“Why?”
“’Cause if I had caught him, I might’ve saved two lives.”
“Two?”
Allan clenched his jaw, trying to hold back a sudden surge of emotion. It took a moment before he trusted his voice to speak.
He said, “I found out tonight the mother of the first victim has died. The husband thinks the death of their daughter caused it. That kind of stress—losing a child to murder—can do that to a person.”
“Those are circumstances you can’t control, Al.”
“I know.”
“Then you can’t blame yourself.”
He knew that too. But his damn brain just wouldn’t cooperate. Sometimes it would race out of control, filling him with irrational worries. Other times it would fill his head with haunting flashbacks—the shooting in Acresville or how he’d nearly died at the hands of Lee Higgins and his gang before Seth Connors saved his life. For two months after that brush with death, any loud bang would send him ducking for cover.
Nighttime brought other problems. Besides the bad dreams, any slightest sound in the house would wake him up and send him checking every room, every door and window. A few times, he’d taken his loaded pistol with him.
Since Melissa and Brian moved back in, Allan had managed to keep the flare-ups under control. He didn’t want them screwing things up; he and Melissa had spent months rekindling their relationship. The fact that she wanted it as much as he did aided her decision to reconcile and eventually move back.
It was a crazy paradox he found himself in. Trying to hide the stress of his job from his family only stressed him out even more.
When Allan looked at Melissa, he caught her searching his face.
“Before you went back to work,” she said, “you told me you didn’t know if you were ready.”
Allan gave her a small nod. It was true. Still, he’d lied to Dr. Galloway so she would consider him fit for duty.
“I remember,” he said.
“How do you feel now?”
Slumping forward, Allan clasped his hands together and stared down at his feet. “I’m not sure.”
Melissa rubbed his back. “I think you are. This is why they put you on stress leave, isn’t it?”
Part of him wanted to run from her touch and caring voice. Run from the whole fucked-up world and hide somewhere dark until these feelings passed. Another part of him wanted to hug Melissa and cry out his soul into her shoulder.
“Yes,” he said and hated himself for telling her a half truth.
“Did you eat today?” she asked.
He had to think about that one. “A few coffees.”
“Any food?”
He shook his head.
“Jesus, Al. You have to eat something. I left a plate in the fridge for you.”
“I saw it. Thanks.”
“I’ll heat it up for you.”
He had no appetite, but he didn’t try to stop her. The next sounds he heard were the opening of the microwave door, the beeping of buttons being pushed.
Shutting his eyes, he scraped a hand over his face and let out a long breath. Then he rose from the sofa and went upstairs.
Brian’s bedroom door was open a foot. Allan poked his head inside.
In the semidarkness, he saw Brian curled on his side, hugging one of the pillows. Buddy—their white-and-cinnamon Chantilly—slept on the comforter at the foot of the bed.
Allan stood there for a few minutes, watching his son sleep. He felt a radiant glow spread through his chest. He was so grateful to have them back in his life.
When he went back downstairs, Melissa had set a plate of ham, peas, and sliced potatoes on the kitchen table.
“Eat,” she said.
“I probably won’t finish it all.”
“Then eat what you can. Save the rest for tomorrow.”
Allan sat down and forked a chunk of ham into his mouth. “This is delicious. I love the pineapple glaze.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m probably going to be gone before you get up in the morning. I’m meeting Audra Price at the office for six. We have a lot of work to do.”
Melissa tilted her head. “She’s working with you?”
Allan speared a potato slice. “The captain teamed us up.”
“I always remembered you working alone.”
“It depends on how busy we are. Things are slow right now. Plus, I could use the help. Two heads are better than one.”
Even as those words spilled from his mouth, Allan knew the real reasons—they were watching him, worrying about him. Thorne. Audra. Probably half the department. He could see it in their eyes, hear it in their voices. And deep down, he realized their concerns had merit.
> Killing someone in the line of duty ranked as the number-one stressor in a cop’s career. Allan had killed two men in separate shootings.
Being physically attacked ranked number three. Allan had gone through that as well. Beaten within an inch of his life by Lee Higgins and his thugs.
But Allan knew his troubles had started long before those incidents. The critical period in a cop’s career lay between twelve and eighteen years. Over that time, the buildup of stress effects and tragedies could begin to show its ugly face in the form of PTSD.
Common sense told Allan that was his problem.
Melissa said something.
Allan looked at her. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Audra Price. She the one with the daughter?”
“Yes.”
“How’s the daughter now?”
“A lot better. She’s practically made a full recovery.”
“That’s good.”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, it is.”
Melissa slid her arms around his neck and kissed him. “Think I’m going to get ready for bed.”
“Okay, sweetheart. I’ll be up in a bit.”
Allan sat there for a while, picking at his plate, eating only a few mouthfuls. When he heard the shower running upstairs, he wrapped the plate in foil and put it in the refrigerator. Then he brought down a bottle of rum from the cabinet overhead.
At the sink, he filled a shot glass and tossed it back, grimacing at the burn. He poured another one, then a third.
The rum warmed his stomach. A pleasant lassitude crept through his limbs. Allan welcomed it. He needed it to soften the edge in his brain.
He tipped the bottle to the glass again, stopping just short of pouring a fourth drink. For a long moment, he stood there with the neck of the bottle resting against the rim of the glass. Then he pushed the bottle aside.
Gripping the edge of the sink, he bowed his head and clenched his eyes. He could feel that need to weep building inside him, inflating like a balloon until his throat and lungs grew sore.
The tears came. Gushes of them.
They lasted only briefly and were gone.
Allan raised his eyes to his reflection in the window. Through blurred vision he saw other faces there—ghosts of people, both long dead and recent, staring back at him.
15
Burlington, October 21