“If you promise to stay put, I’ll go call him. But tell me first.”
“Blood. Covered….in…blood…blood…everywhere…”
Libby was haunted by images of Noodles and the violence that was done to him.
That was just two days ago!
“Mom, the door’s locked. We’re safe in here, okay? Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”
Carla was staring off through the kitchen windows vacantly.
Libby went to her father’s study so her mom wouldn’t hear the scolding she was going to give him.
Isolated incident.
I’m the target, not you.
Just some nut who didn’t like cats.
She was frustrated to get her dad’s answering service.
“This is his daughter. It’s urgent. This is an emergency.”
“Is anyone hurt?” the nasally voice of the dispatcher asked. “If it’s an emergency, you should call 911.”
“I KNOW WHAT THE HELL TO DO! FIND HIM! Send. Him. Home. Immediately.”
When Libby returned to the kitchen to pick up the police detective’s card, her mother wasn’t there. Panic seized her as she searched the large great room, then out to the dining room.
“Mom?” Her voice echoed, and tumbled onto the marble foyer.
Then she heard traffic. The front door was open! Libby dashed to the porch and watched her mother with steely determination walking back out to the mailbox. A truck was driving by the front of the house, slowly. Birds stopped chirping. Libby felt like she was in a time warp, or vacuum. Her lungs sought air as she tried to catch up to her mother. Her running felt like in slow motion.
“Don’t touch a thing, mom. Please. Stop!” Libby shouted, but Carla didn’t flinch or slow her speed. She pulled down the flap of the mailbox again. It made a metallic high-pitched groan. Blood pudding dripped.
Libby stopped her mother’s arm from plunging deep inside the metal container. Dark burgundy ooze was dripping onto the petunias below.
“We need to get back in the house. Let the police deal with this, Mom.”
But her mom wasn’t having any of it. She retracted her arm, holding a fist full of bloody mail. She clutched several envelopes to her chest, getting the red sludge on her beautiful silk robe. With straightened spine, her mother turned and headed back toward the front door. On any other day, she’d have stopped to admire and touch her flowers. Today, her grim expression made her look older. Rigid and cold.
She’s scared out of her gourd.
Inside the house, her mother deposited the bloody envelopes onto the kitchen island and walked up the stairs to her bedroom, completely ignoring her daughter, who stood at the bottom of the stairs watching.
Libby was stunned. She eyed the envelopes covered in crimson goo. One of them did not have a stamp on it. That was the one she wanted to open first.
Getting a set of rubber gloves from under the sink and a sharp knife, she opened the top of the envelope, carefully took out the letter inside, and spread it on the marble countertop.
The letters had been cut from magazines and pasted in a sick collage on pink stationery she recognized, revealing the single message which sent a shiver through Libby’s body:
A-N E-Y-E F-O-R A-N E-Y-E.
The pink stationery was from Libby’s own desk drawer. It had been a gift from her father.
This sicko has been in my bedroom!
Austen Brownlee arrived the same time Detective Clark Riverton did. Libby directed her dad upstairs. Riverton eyed her, nervously hitched his pants up by the waist and sighed.
“You got any ideas who could have done this? See anyone?” he asked.
Libby shook her head. No.
Riverton poked the letter with the end of his pen. “You use these to open it?” He pointed to her crumpled pile of rubber gloves.
Libby nodded. Yes.
“You see anyone outside last night or this morning?” he asked.
“Nope. But around midnight I thought I heard the mouth of the mailbox open. Thought maybe my Dad put something in there.”
“Your Dad put something in?” Riverton was frowning, alert with concern.
“No. Didn’t see him. Just heard the flap squeak. It was too dark to see who it was.”
“What made you think it was your dad?” Riverton wanted to know.
“Who else would put something in there or take something out late at night?” She looked down at her feet, and took a deep breath.
Riverton studied her for a minute, then asked, “Everything all right at home?”
Libby shot him a glare to show him he’d better watch his line of questioning. Riverton didn’t budge. He stood impassive, continuing to silently observe. He was good at his job.
“My father’s been a basket case lately. Under a great deal of stress. I’m guessing he knows a lot more about all of this than he’s letting on. And I’m guessing you do, too.”
It was Riverton’s time to nod.
“Well, detective? What’s next?” Libby was drilling for a direct answer this time.
“That’s hard to say. But I’m going to be very straight with you. You guys are all in danger. This whole business is escalating. The guy is picking a fight.”
“So you’re telling me someone’s out to get my family?”
“Don’t know. I think the guy is a crazy.”
“We don’t use that word in his house,” Dr. Brownlee said over Libby’s shoulder.
“Fuck’s sake, Austin.” Riverton leaned toward Libby and whispered, “Pardon me, Libby.” He continued to Dr. Brownlee, “When are you going to join the human race, doctor?”
Dr. Brownlee turned to Libby. “Go upstairs and be with your mother. She’s getting dressed.”
“Dad, I’m not moving until you tell me what’s going on.”
“I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Like hell you don’t. Are there more of these letters?” Libby could see from the guilty look in her father’s eyes the answer was yes.
“When were you going to tell us about this? And you had the nerve to send that SEAL away…”
“SEAL?” Riverton suddenly wanted to know.
“This guy came to the house a couple of days ago…”
“Four days ago, Dad,” Libby corrected.
“Four days ago. Saying he wanted to meet the family of Will Brownlee. My brother. Who…” Brownlee couldn’t finish the sentence and briskly walked to the wet bar pantry and poured himself a drink.
Riverton nodded at Libby, getting a note tablet from his chest pocket and began to write. “You think he’s involved, somehow?” he asked while looking down at his notes.
“No.” Libby answered, annoyance rumbling beneath the surface of her words.
“How’s that?” Riverton probed.
“Because she thinks she’s in love with him,” her father shouted across the kitchen. “She’s fucking him.”
They were words Libby never thought she’d hear coming from her father. Even in anger, he’d always maintained control. She was seeing another side of him, a shadow cast over the shoulders of the man she’d loved her whole life.
“How dare you! Can’t you hold yourself up without a drink? Can’t you quit the self-absorption and think about the rest of us in this household?” Libby spewed. The venom of her words heightened her anger towards him. She was spinning out of control, ready to launch into another verbal attack.
She also felt her cheeks flush with anger at hearing the words spoken in public ‘she thinks she’s in love with him’ when she hadn’t said the same words to herself.
“Wait, wait a minute, you two,” Riverton interrupted. “Stop all this. I need to ask some questions here.”
Silence. Fire was in the air, but it was mute.
Riverton began again, cautiously. “Who is this SEAL? I need you both to settle down and give me his name.”
“Cooper,” Libby said, glaring at her dad, who was twirling his drink over several ice cubes, frowning, deep
in thought. He was avoiding eye contact.
“Cooper what?”
“I don’t remember,” Libby said. “We call him Cooper, Coop for short. He told me, but I’m...too freaked out to remember.” Libby was filled with embarrassment. She’d had sex with this man several times, and didn’t even remember his first name.
What have I done?
Riverton was about to ask another question when Libby’s cell phone went off. She didn’t recognize the number.
Chapter 14
“Coop.” Libby worked not to sound too needy, but her knees were shaking. She bit her lip.
“Libby, I’m sorry about last night. Maybe—”
“Ah, I’m in the middle of—”
“Sure. I can call back later.”
“No.” Was that a plea? She looked to the faces of her father and Detective Riverton, who stopped their conspiratorial whispering to watch her.
“Libby, what’s wrong?” he asked.
“Can you come over? The police are here.”
Riverton put his finger to his lips and her dad frowned.
“What’s happened?” Cooper asked.
“Just—I can’t go into it on the phone. Can you get over here?”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Is someone hurt? Did someone hurt you?”
“No, I’m fine. Everyone’s fine.” It was a lie and a gross misstatement, but it hopefully gave Cooper enough of an excuse to come to the house. Besides, the blood in the mailbox didn’t belong to—
Oh my god!
She turned to her dad. “What about Neil and Marsha and the girls? Should we be alerting them, too?” Libby looked between the two men, forgetting Cooper was on the phone.
“I’m coming over right now,” Cooper said and hung up.
Dr. Brownlee winced as he searched the detective’s face. Riverton scowled and answered her curtly, “I’ll contact them later. I don’t want to get anyone else involved unless I have to. We simply don’t know enough and all I’d do is scare them, perhaps unnecessarily. I’ve barely started to study the letters—”
“Letters? As in plural, letters?” Libby interrupted.
The two men gave her a blank stare.
“How many letters?” she shrieked.
Riverton said, “Three.”
Dr. Brownlee said, “Four.”
“Four,” Riverton corrected himself. “One your father threw away. I’ve got three to study, plus this one.”
“You didn’t think it was important to let us know we were getting letters?” Libby insisted. “Letters like this?” Libby thought her dad looked small and older as she pinned him with her angry stare. “This is my stationery, Dad. This came from my bedroom here at the house.”
Her dad gasped.
“Libby, you’re sure?” Riverton wanted to know.
“Absolutely. “
Her mother made her entrance, hair still wet. She stood beside Libby and crossed her arms. Carla leveled her gaze at Libby’s father. She was not smiling.
“I want the truth. All of it, Austin,” she said.
“Ma’am,” Riverton began, “we’re talking about the other letters I have down at the station. We’re studying them.”
“Letters? What letters?” Carla looked at the display on her kitchen countertop, and walked over to it. After reading the note, she looked up to her husband’s face a second time.
“You lied to me,” she said.
Brownlee leaned back against a countertop and stared at the ceiling, appearing to be searching for words. “I had no idea it would come to this, Carla. I brought them into Clark on Sunday when we met. We were starting to investigate…”
“Investigate?” Carla spat. “You kept us in the dark on purpose, Austin. On purpose! We’re the bait while you investigate?” She nodded to Detective Riverton. “This your idea?”
“No ma’am. We’re just doing our job. Look, if you don’t mind, before he gets here, I’d like some information on this Navy SEAL fellow your daughter’s been seeing.”
Carla laced her fingers through her wet scalp, swizzling her hair haphazardly. “You don’t really think he had anything to do with this, do you?” she asked the room. Libby couldn’t understand why no one had a quick response.
Dr. Brownlee made the point in his gentle negotiator voice, “All of these letters arrived after the SEAL did, Carla. Detective Riverton has to investigate him.”
“If we can figure out a motive, we have a much better shot at getting the guy,” Riverton offered.
“Hasn’t this cretin who’s writing these letters told you what he wants?” Carla added. “It says, An Eye For An Eye. That’s pretty clear to me.”
“But we aren’t sure if it’s directed at me, or…Libby.” Dr. Brownlee hesitated.
Libby felt another wave of confusion and fear wash over her.
Could this have something to do with Dr. Gerhardt? Perhaps her reporting him to the Department Chair made him snap.
Is this retaliation because he lost his job? How could they think it was Cooper?
Her stomach did cartwheels. She found it impossible he could be the one responsible for all of these events. It had to be coincidence. Just had to be.
Cooper parked the scooter in the driveway, blocking the garage door. He knew he might catch hell for it, but wanted the bike closer to the house. Besides, the unmarked and marked police cars took up the majority of the parking on the street.
His splitting headache hadn’t subsided, even though he’d taken something for it. His hangover this morning had been an unwelcome event. It had been three years since he’d taken a drop. Those beers last night came as quick and smooth as in the old days. Back then, they would have been the prelude to oblivion. Yes, his Higher Power was definitely on his side this morning, not screaming in his ear, just giving him a good headache and plunging him right into some drama with Libby and her family.
Libby was out the front door before he could ring the bell. She smelled wonderful. The distance he had tried to create between them suddenly shrank. He had to work not to take her in his arms.
He was grateful to be sober enough to deal with whatever was going on today. He was grateful for the way Libby seemed to be happy to see him, perhaps needed him.
He looked into her terrified eyes, pushing unruly hair from her face. “Tell me.”
Pools of tears started forming as she whispered, “Someone is sending letters—horrible letters. And there’s blood in the mailbox.”
Cooper turned to look at the innocuous metal object, with its mouth shut, dripping onto the flowers below. Vampire mailbox.
Weird. Twisted. Someone very sick.
He recalled Libby’s tale about the cat. How angry he felt as she was telling him. Bad guys were one thing. He could deal with those, no problem. But he was not trained to deal with a sick, twisted individual, a crazy person who hurt animals. He knew about zealots, evil men who knew only death and destruction. It was easy to send them back to the source as they called it. But someone with his own private war against a family, against Libby? He felt ill prepared. But he damn well had to try, even if it wasn’t wise.
Dr. Brownlee was at the opened front doorway. “Cooper. The detectives here need to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.”
“No, sir. I don’t mind. Someone going to tell me what’s going on?” Instinct made him take Libby’s hand as he followed the doctor into the house. He smelled coffee. Carla called to him from the kitchen and, yes, he certainly did want a steaming cup. Black.
He was led to the living room, where he took a seat next to Libby. She clutched his fingers between her own, their hands buried in the couch cushions between them. Her public show of affection made him a little uncomfortable. He sipped from his coffee with the other hand, resting the mug on his right knee. A non-uniformed policeman started first.
“I’m Detective Clark Riverton, San Diego PD.” He showed a badge Cooper couldn’t possibly read.
“I’m SO Calvin Cooper.” He
observed Riverton making notes in a small spiral book the size of his vest pocket.
“SO as in Special Operator?”
Cooper nodded, taking another sip.
“Spelled just like how it sounds?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So, I have to ask you if you know anything about this incident with Libby’s cat, and the letter.”
“Just what I’ve been told.”
“And what have you been told, son?”
Cooper heard that name again and flinched, but held himself in check.
“Libby just told me there were some letters, not just one, and something about blood in the mailbox.” He rubbed Libby’s upper arm and shoulders. She was so stiff, and he couldn’t get her to soften. It was a natural reaction, and it felt damned good to try to bring comfort.
“You have anything to do with these events?” Riverton asked pointedly.
“No, sir.” He began to see something forming. He was becoming a suspect. “You don’t think I—”
“We’re just here to investigate all angles. Tell me again how you came upon the Brownlee’s doorstep.”
“I was ordered to go meet the family of a fallen SEAL. Dr. Brownlee’s brother, William. I carry a KA-BAR knife with his name engraved on it.”
“You have this knife on you?”
“No. I keep it at home.”
“And where is that?”
Cooper cleared his throat and eased himself away from Libby. “I live in a motor home at the beach.”
“Which beach?”
“Mission, mostly, but it varies.”
Riverton tilted his head and looked at him askance. Cooper knew he was being summed up and wasn’t sure what the verdict was.
“There’s no public parking at Mission Beach.”
“I have a private arrangement with the guy who lives there. Used to own the park.”
“You got a permit for that?”
Coop just stared back at him. No, he didn’t have any permits. And he wasn’t going to get any, either.
“Would you mind if I search your place?” Riverton asked.
He balked at the intrusion into his private life of guns, destruction and surveillance—his job in real life. But this was a civilian matter, and he was charged with cooperating with all local authorities, even if he didn’t trust any of them.
Fallen SEAL Legacy Page 12