by Rob Cornell
A smile, probably brought on by the ten out of twelve beers he’d consumed for the night, cracked Peter’s face. “Not very Christian, trying to kill your husband.”
Debra looked at the knife in her hand as if she hadn’t a clue how it got there. Then her face twisted into a livid scowl. She waved the knife at him again, this time with more menace. “You don’t know what it means to be a Christian.”
Even with the knife, he egged her on. “If it means threatening your spouse with sharp knives, I’m sure glad I don’t.”
She swung it again. Debra was a small woman with knobs for elbows and a waist so narrow she had to shop for pants in the juniors section. Her slight size gave her speed. The knife looked like a flash of light arcing toward Pete’s chest.
He tried to step back, but the beers made him unsteady. He moved crookedly and bumped against the kitchen counter. The knife sliced open his shirt. From underneath, blood welled up. The cut hadn’t gone much deeper than a couple centimeters, but the blood flow was extraordinary.
Sasha dropped the plates she was holding and screamed.
The scream snapped Debra out of her angry daze. She looked at the blood on the blade and tossed the knife onto the counter as if the handle had grown hot. She put her fingers to her lips. “Oh, God. What have I done?”
Peter staggered, the alcohol combined with the loss of blood making him lightheaded. He dabbed his fingertips at the wound and gazed at the blood that came away. “You really cut me?” He started to list to one side. Luckily he had the counter to lean on.
Debra came around to his other side and took his arm. “We need to get you to the hospital.”
He looked at her, the stunned expression on his face like nothing Sasha had ever seen on her father.
“We can’t tell them the truth,” he said. “They’ll arrest you.”
“We can’t lie.”
“We have to.”
So they did. They made up some story about Pete standing behind her, only she didn’t know it, and she turned around to say something to Sasha, turned too fast with the knife, and sliced him good.
After Sasha shared this story with Carrie, she added, “I’d never seen my mom lie so convincingly. I didn’t know she had it in her.”
* * *
I leaned back in my chair and steepled my fingers. My brain worked at processing Carrie’s story. She told it well, with a number of details. She might have embellished to convince me. But stories like this one were more common than these kids realized. I didn’t need convincing.
“Anything like this happen again?” I asked Carrie.
She shrugged. “Not that Sasha told me about. But Mr. Brown would have probably made her lie about it again.”
I wondered about their automatic dislike of Sasha’s father. Was it because he wasn’t religious like them? Something else, more specific, they’d yet to share? I felt like I could ask them questions all afternoon.
“You guys don’t like Mr. Brown.” I left it as a statement.
The trio exchanged glances. Then Carrie said, “It’s not that we don’t like him—”
“Remember what I said about lying to me.”
She sighed. The trio did their exchange of glances again. This time, Rachel spoke up.
“We feel he is a bad influence on Sasha.” She made a pained face. “Or was…I guess.”
“Because of his drinking? Smoking?”
“His lack of faith,” Carrie said. “He talked to Sasha about her faith a lot. He didn’t have nice things to say.”
“You think that weakened Sasha’s faith somehow?”
“Obviously,” Holden blurted with an eye roll. “Life is God’s greatest gift. She would have never taken her own, forsaken that gift. He had her questioning.”
“So you want me to find him so you can…what? Shame him?”
Carrie shook her head. “No. It isn’t our place to judge another’s sins. We want to find him because that’s what Sasha wanted. It tore her apart when he left. And I think his leaving had a lot to do with her last, terrible choice.” Carrie crossed her arms again. The pose suited her. “Would I love to rub his face in the damage he’s caused? Yes. But I won’t. All I want is for him to come back to his daughter, even though it’s way too late.”
Chapter 5
This was the kind of case I turned down. Too emotional. Too convoluted. Too many dark corners to get lost in.
I thought I could get off the hook the easy way by quoting the top tier of my retainer and hourly wage—the tier meant to discourage clients from hiring me. But Carrie pulled out a checkbook, flipped it open, and asked to borrow a pen.
I handed one over, wondering what the hell I was doing. Then tried to console myself by looking at the case boiled down to its basic nature: nothing but a simple missing persons case. Find Sasha’s dad. Easy-peasy.
Then I thought of Sasha. Found myself wondering about why a girl with such a beautiful voice would walk into a karaoke bar, sing one gospel song, leave, then kill herself that same night.
And there was the real reason I shouldn’t have taken this case.
I kept letting my case merge into another case I had nothing to do with. But I try to make it a policy to stay honest with myself. When Carrie ripped the check for my ridiculous retainer from her checkbook—which told me something about her—and handed it over, I took the check knowing full well that I wanted to investigate Sasha’s death more than I wanted to find her father.
That should have shut down this whole deal then and there.
Only I took the check while thinking about my own teen daughter, the one who doesn’t even know I exist, and who I didn’t know existed herself until only a few years ago. Maybe that clouded my judgment here a little, too.
I slid the check into my top drawer for the time being. Then I gave Carrie my boilerplate contract for her to read through and sign. Once that was done, there was little left to do.
I had them all write contact information down for me on a sheet from a legal pad. “Expect to hear from me again as questions come up. I can never get everything in on a first visit.”
They all three nodded.
I looked at them from face to face. Their uniform clothing. Their nicely styled hair. When I finally stood, indicating the meeting’s end, the others stood and I noticed their loafers. Only Carrie’s didn’t have scuff marks. Made sense she was the one with the checkbook.
As they filed toward the door to go out, I hit them with my last question, the one that had bothered me from almost the beginning.
“Hey, gang.”
The three of them stopped and turned back to me.
“Drinking alcohol’s a sin, right?”
They all nodded.
“Then how come the three of you ordered drinks last night?”
Carrie smirked. Holden blushed. Rachel looked away.
Carrie said, “Sasha had wanted to come to the bar to sing for a long time, but we were under age. Then when we turned twenty-one, we thought you had to order alcohol if you came in. Sasha insisted we didn’t, but we didn’t want to be freeloaders. So we ordered.”
I cocked my head and gave them a skeptical stare. “You didn’t have to drink it.”
“Satan’s most powerful weapon, Mr. Brone, is temptation. You of all people should know that.”
They left. I stood there a minute or so, mouth hanging open, wondering what she meant by that last bit. I have plenty of faults, but I never had much trouble with temptation. Had I? She must have meant because I own a bar and I see it all the time.
Yeah, that must have been it.
“Temptation,” I said aloud. “Gimme a break.”
Then I sat down in front of my computer and started Googling for news clips about Sasha Brown’s death.
* * *
I got very little new info from reporters. Young girl, Sasha Brown, graduated from Hawthorne High, was currently finishing her degree in religious studies at Western Michigan University in nearby Kalamazoo. Cause of d
eath unknown at this time.
Nothing about her amazing voice. Nothing that indicated she used that voice, either in a choir membership or a musical studies minor. They all ran with the same picture, probably handed over by the family or gleaned from some social media site or corner of the Internet where Sasha hung out. She looked drab in the head-and-shoulders shot. Nothing like the glowing creature with the voice as pure as her white-blonde hair.
Jeez, I really had built her up in my imagination.
I stopped bothering with the net surfing and turned to the old-fashioned way. I dialed Lieutenant Palmer, who had just recently inherited the new title. He answered on the second ring.
“What is it, Brone?”
Freaking caller ID. You could never surprise anyone with a phone call anymore. “What’s up Palmer?”
“I’m up to my elbows in a case. But you probably knew that.”
“Sasha Brown?”
“What do you want?”
Palmer’s always been very brusque. But he likes me, I swear it. “We should get together for drinks.”
“Is that why you called? You want to take me out, get me drunk, and take advantage of me?”
“You wish,” I said. I got to the point. “What can you tell me about Sasha?”
“I find it interesting that you’re on a first name basis with my vic. You’re not going to come in and muddle this up, are you?”
“Not at all. I’m working something parallel. I just need some info.”
“What do you mean, ‘parallel?’”
“I’m not sure I’m ready to give out too much info there, buddy.”
Palmer’s voice turned to gravel. “Okay, buddy. I’m not ready to give out any more than we’ve released to the press.”
“I already know more than they do. For example, I know it was a suicide.”
Palmer made a choking sound through the line. I gave him time to recover.
“Who gave you that idea?” he growled.
“I’m not going to hand my clients over to you, Palmer. You should know better than that.”
He huffed. “One of her friends, I’d bet. The redhead?”
I said nothing.
“Brone, I think our connection is breaking up. What did you say?”
“I was giving you the silent treatment.”
“Fine. I can make my own assumptions. Better yet, I can haul her in for questioning and let her know a certain PI might have dropped her name.”
“Why are you being so rough about this one?” I asked. “I told you, I’m not investigating Sasha’s death. But I need a few facts about her before I feel comfortable moving forward on my own investigation.”
Or, I was just being damn nosey, which was going to get me in trouble if I pushed this too far.
“I’m ‘rough’ about this one,” Palmer said, “because she was young and had her whole damn life ahead of her, and it’s bothering me more than usual.”
I let go a sigh. At least I wasn’t the only one. “You should have heard her sing.”
“What?”
“Night before she came into the High Note. Sang an old gospel tune. I’m not much for gospel music, but she could have made a Weird Al song sound like opera.”
There was a long pause. I thought I heard Palmer swallow. “It’s a sad damn thing.” His voice sounded thin and strained. I’d never heard Palmer get emotional before—besides his typical grouchy nature. “I got my fair share of info from her mother about her and her life. You know her dad took off on the family three days ago?”
With Palmer softening a bit, I wanted to be honest with him, but if I admitted knowing about Peter’s walk off-stage, I’d expose my clients. Never a good thing unless you had to. Right now I wanted to protect my case, keep any outside influence off. Palmer had the same reasons for holding tight to any info about Sasha’s death. You want to keep the flow of information going in one direction for as long as possible, until it benefited you to change the flow’s direction.
Rather than outright lie, I stayed quiet. I figured it was more rhetorical of a question anyway.
“Then this shit happens,” Palmer went on. “I don’t remember Hawthorne being such a stage for tragedy.”
He and I had clearly opposing viewpoints on that score. I didn’t argue the point, though.
I leaned back in my chair. It creaked loudly. I needed to oil it or get a new one soon. “Do you think you can help me out, Palm?”
“Only if you can help me out,” he said.
“I’m just looking for cause of death. I don’t think I can’t help you much, though. You’re the police, right?”
“You know it was a suicide, but you don’t know how?”
“My sources have limits. Why are you dancing around this?”
“We can’t get an autopsy scheduled until tomorrow.”
“So? You don’t have a preliminary cause of death from the ME?”
“Not definitive.”
“What are you saying?”
Palmer’s voice sounded as worn and breathy as I’d ever heard. “We don’t know cause of death. She was just laying on that snow bank as if she’d fallen asleep.”
I leaned forward in my seat and it creaked as it rocked into place. “Had to be drugs, right?”
“That’s the running theory. But I talked to her mother. There weren’t many drugs in the house. Family had a strange religious bent. Most meds are taboo.”
“So she got them from someone else.”
“Exactly.”
I tripped over the sticking point Palmer had led me to. “Which means you have a suspect you need to run down. What kind of charge are you thinking?”
“It depends on what we can convince the DA of. Basically, someone helped her kill herself but we don’t know who, we don’t know why, we don’t even know with what yet.”
A heavy pit dropped into my gut. I even felt queasy. It was bad enough that Sasha had taken her own life, but that someone had assisted her made the whole thing seem that much more sinister. Unless…
“Could the drugs have been forced on her?”
“Like I said, autopsy’s tomorrow. But there’s no evidence of struggle. And…” I couldn’t see him, but I have the feeling he shuddered. “Only her footprints in the snow.”
“There was no pill bottle, I take it.”
“Oh, gee, I didn’t think of that.” Palmer made a disgusted sound. “Just a Zip-Lock baggie in her coat pocket. Which bolsters the theory that someone else gave her those pills, or she took them from someone.”
Palmer had given me way more information than I expected. Then I recalled him asking for my help in return. “What do you think I can do?”
“I know you’re working for her friends,” he said.
I glanced around my office as if looking for the right response. No one in the Star Wars posters offered advice. Nor did the clock. My computer monitor had switched to the screensaver. A slide show of surveillance pictures cycled through, each photo containing a shot of my daughter. Yes, I had stalked her to take these photos while, no, I still had not made my existence known to her. As far as she knew, the parents she lived with were the real deal. She had no clue she’d been sold to them as a baby on the black market.
I twitched my mouse, not in the frame of mind to see those pictures.
“You there?” Palmer asked.
“Just tell me what you want,” I said, “and I’ll tell you if I can give it to you.”
He cleared his throat. “Since you have an in with her friends, you might have an easier chance getting a name of someone who could give her the drugs. Teens tend to stick together, whether or not it’s smart. And they don’t talk to cops.”
I must have fell silent for a while, like dropping through a time warp.
“Brone? You there?”
I grunted. “Yeah, I’m here. Just trying to get a handle on this. Are you seriously asking me to take an active part in your police investigation?”
He growled low in his throat.
“I was afraid of this. You really gonna rub it in?”
“I never admitted who my clients were. You’re making a big assumption.”
He chuckled, but it still sounded like a growl to me. “Probably not such a big one.”
“What would they hire me for?”
“That’s the piece I can’t figure. But you’ve practically admitted I’m right.”
“I never said who I was working for. And since you’re being such a dick about it, maybe I won’t help you.”
That growly chuckle again. “Yes you will.”
“Why should I?”
“Because Sasha Brown isn’t just some girl. She’s the girl. The poster child for small town America.”
“Hawthorne isn’t that small.”
“Shut up. You know what I mean.” He paused for a second. “This one is different.”
That’s all he had. But it was all he needed. I knew exactly what he was talking about, even if I couldn’t describe it myself.
“Fine,” I said. “I’m not admitting anything about who my clients are or are not. But if an opportunity to help comes along, I won’t pass it up.”
“I don’t care what everyone says, you’re a good man, Brone.”
“You only say that because I saved your life.”
“Saved my life?” He sputtered. “You nearly got me killed, more like.”
“Talk to you later, Palmer.”
I disconnected the call and set my phone on my desk. I scanned the office again, still not finding any answers around me. I looked at the computer and my ass cried out for mercy. I’d been sitting too damn long. Time to hit the field.
I stood and stretched. My tailbone ached. My spine popped mid-stretch. I could smell that musky kind of sweat you get from sitting behind a desk for a long while. Yuck.
I decided to swing home, get a shower, then brave a hell of a difficult interview. Difficult, but instrumental to the investigation.
Chapter 6
The news vans found her first, of course. A line of three of them sat parked along the curb in front of the house and into a neighboring house’s turf. A break between the back two provided access to the driveway. Otherwise they looked like a defensive wall topped with satellite dishes instead of machine guns. But there was nothing defensive about these guys and gals. They would do anything to get their precious story, including impose on a poor woman who had just lost her daughter and whose husband had taken off three days ago. All of this with only three weeks until Christmas.