Severed Relations

by Rebecca Forster

  When he arrived at his destination, Finn parked his car behind a black and white and two panel vans. There were two more black and whites parked a half a block down. A uniformed officer watched the perimeter of the house while one stood on the porch, eyes forward.

  Finn took note of the time and of the well-kept women huddled together in the street. They swayed like tall grass every time a whispered speculation or murmur of disbelief passed from one to the other. When Alexander was killed the women came to Finn's mother, too. They had casseroles and arms to wrap around her while the men lamented the horrible crime over their whiskey. These women would not bring casseroles to whoever was inside and there was no doubt someone was in the house from the looks of the Jaguar in the driveway. The car was bronze-colored, top-of-the-line, and new. The trunk yawned. There was a suitcase still inside and two on the ground. One had burst open, and the contents had spilled over the concrete and brick. A wrought-iron gate stood open in front of the car and past that, deep into the property and hardly visible from where Finn stood, was a large garage. The folks of Fremont Place seemed to be fond of fancy, useless gates.

  When Finn got out of his car, it was a lady with red hair who saw him first. She did a double take, touched the woman next to her, and said something. That woman looked at Finn and then another and another. It had been that way since he was thirteen and puberty ambushed his childhood. Overnight he had become a strapping man with a swagger. Of course, that was God's doing and not his. Kicking a soccer ball half his life had made him quick and graceful on the run but the swagger left no doubt he was not meant to fly. He did not regret that he looked like a tough – it was good for the job – but Finn regretted that, at times, the good people feared him because of it.

  He went past the gaggle of neighbor ladies, acknowledged no one, and looked for anyone who didn't seem overly curious, stunned, or horrified. That would be the person to talk to. Finn saw no one who fit the bill, so he didn't break his stride. When a news van pulled up Finn O'Brien gave it the evil eye for good measure, picked up the pace, and was past the cop on the porch before the van doors opened and the fools with microphones saw him.

  CHAPTER 3

  The heels of Finn's black boots made a hollow sound on the veined marble floor of the entryway only to muffle when he hit the intricately woven oriental runner on the staircase. The carpet was delicately colored in shades of ginger, melon, and okra and it was fastened to each riser by polished brass fittings. It did not escape his notice that there was a time when Irish maids polished those fittings. Now it was probably a Spanish-speaking woman who did the same. In fifty years another woman who had not quite melted into America's pot would be doing the polishing in this fine house. On it would go, the women disappearing but the brass always gleaming.

  The bottom half of the wall on his right was wainscoted and painted in a whisper of beige. Above the wainscoting, wallpaper with a crosshatch bamboo pattern covered half a football field of stairwell wall. To his left were formal rooms and to Finn's right less formal ones. The house was immaculately kept. Nothing appeared out of place, but Finn jumped to no conclusions about what had gone on here. He looked at the stairs again, keeping his eyes down as he took them one at a time. He paused before stepping around the plastic tent that marked a spot of dried blood on the fourth riser. His eyes flicked further up and he noted two more yellow tents with numbers on them.

  When the blood was scraped and the evidence collected, the markers would be gone but stains would remain. He would wager that the lady of the house wouldn't notice those little spots for a very long while. Finn, though, took a look as he passed each one. They were not the result of an attack on the stairs because the drops were perfectly round as if dropped from a weapon or a wound held toward the ground. There was no spatter on the walls or the bannister. Above him, Finn heard the muted sounds of an investigation in full swing and when he looked up he saw that one cop had stopped to watch his progress. The guy was in decent shape, middle aged, and looked none too friendly. Finn put two fingers to his brow.

  "Officer Mallard. Good to see you."

  "Can't say the same, O'Brien."

  Finn tucked his tongue into his cheek, taking a minute before making his way up the stairs to the landing. Once there, he stood beside the man, touched one finger to his shoulder, and inclined his head as if he were about to suggest meeting up for a pint when this dirty business was done. Instead he said:

  "There are dead children in this house. Perhaps we could be civil so our bickering won't be the last thing their wee little souls hear as they wing their way to heaven."

  Mallard answered:

  "Stuff the Irish crap."

  Finn's smile faded as he stepped in front of the man. He wanted no mistaking what he was about to say.

  "Here's the thing, Officer Mallard, my day has not started well. You see my wife, who had decided we needed time apart because of the awful situation that had befallen us, came to my apartment last night. We made love. I was a happy man, Mallard. This morning my wife tells me that she hadn't intended to make love to me. Instead, she wants a divorce. Do you know why? It is because my fellow officers have made our lives hell during these last many months. Ostracized us. Belittled us. Threatened us. She simply can't take it anymore so she is leaving me.

  "Now I have this horrible thing to attend to and that has just made the day a whole lot worse. In fact, all this has made me angry. I find it hard to do my job when I am angry. Since I am in charge, I suggest we make a pact in order to keep me from becoming raging. You will do your job and I will keep my temper. Is that understood?"

  "You son o–"

  Finn stopped the man with a look. His expression hadn't changed, but the light in his blue, blue eyes became hard and sharp so Mallard shut his mouth. O'Brien had a reputation and he didn't want to be the one to test it – at least not all by himself.

  "Fine, then. I'm glad we understand one another." Finn gave the man a pat on the back. "Now, where are the parents?"

  Mallard indicated the double doors behind him. "In their bedroom."

  "How long have they been in there?"

  "About forty-five minutes. It took us awhile to get the wife to stay inside. She wanted to come out and…" Mallard seemed to find his vocabulary lacking. "She wanted to make sure, you know."

  "That, I do," Finn muttered.

  He reached into his pocket for his notebook but had to search for his pen. A mention of the victims' mother hit his heart. It was hard to see anyone in pain, but a woman who had lost her children was an unsettling thing. Finn knew exactly what had happened as they tried to herd the woman to neutral ground. She would have insisted that it was someone else's children dead in her house. Hysteria. Shock. Denial. Rich people were supposed to be masters of the universe, but they shattered like crystal when the world turned on them. Finn's mother was of a different sort. Her heart broke like pottery. It was picked up, patched together, and put back to use despite the chips and ill-fitting pieces. Finn didn't know which was the right way; he only knew that a woman's sorrow diminished a man's place in the world and Officer Mallard was no exception.

  "And the husband?" Finn pulled his pen from the pocket of his jeans.

  "He's in bad shape."

  "And you?" Finn asked.

  "That's rich, O'Brien," Officer Mallard snorted. "Considering the source, if you take my meaning."

  The man started for the stairs and then thought again. This time it was his finger on the detective's shoulder. This time Mallard leaned in like he was going to suggest having a pint together. Instead, he said:

  "You know, O'Brien, I would like to apologize to your wife for all the misery we caused her." Finn turned, words of thanks on his lips. Those words were never spoken because Mallard came a little closer and said: "Write her number on the wall in the john when you get back to the office, and I'll call her."

  Officer Mallard left Finn O'Brien staring at an empty space. A second later the detective turned his head to watc
h the man go only to find himself making eye contact with the technician who was dusting the front window. The tech was young and homely. Finn gave him a small smile. He smiled back. Finn appreciated the encouragement even though it probably wasn't that at all. It was just the secret handshake of the brotherhood of the shunned.

  CHAPTER 4

  Finn was back on the landing outside the bedrooms ten minutes later. He clutched his notes in both hands like a prayer book. His usually precise drawings had little shivers of squiggles at intervals too consistent to be a slip of the hand. Alone on the landing, he breathed deeply trying to find his hard core once more, the one that everyone was so sure was impenetrable. Raising his head, settling himself, Finn took some comfort that others in the house were busy doing the things that would ensure a conviction once Finn found the bastard who did this unspeakable thing. But these folks were cops and technicians and that worried him. He had expected a secondary detective on site and there was none. Not only would Finn welcome the assist, selfishly he wanted a witness to everything he did.

  Reaching into his jacket, he stashed the notebook in favor of his phone. Before he could punch in the number for Wilshire Division, the door behind him opened. Finn glanced over his shoulder, put his phone away and turned full-face to look into the most beautiful room he had ever seen.

  It was cavernous but the furnishings and the light flooding through the tall windows made the room warm and inviting. There was a sitting area with a chaise covered in silk, a brick fireplace tall enough for a boy to stand in, and a king size bed, its four carved posters rising nearly to the ceiling. On the gleaming wood floors were big, deep rugs, the colors of which echoed the one he was standing on. Those rugs were laid at the side of the bed so a bare foot would never touch a cold floor and at the end of the bed so that a body could lie cozy in front of the fire.

  On the bed lay a woman. She was weeping, sobbing in such agony that it was hard to believe she was able to lie still. She clutched a large pillow in both arms as if it were the only thing that kept her from drowning in the waves of the yellow brocade duvet. There were more pillows mounded behind her in shades of yellow and gold, blue and crimson. Her knees were pulled up; her feet were shoeless. Judging by the length of her spine and the rise of her hip, she was slim and tall. Her long black hair was splayed out like an oil spill on that ocean of yellow. Even without seeing her face Finn knew she was beautiful, but he noted this dispassionately as a man in his position should. His objectivity was short lived, ending when the woman fell silent. That sudden silence caught him like a bullet in the gut. The man who came out of the room looked like the same bullet had hit him. Since it also appeared as if this man still had some wits about him, Finn took an educated guess and said:

  "Doctor?"

  "Yes." The man's voice was as flat as the look in his eyes.

  "How are they?" Finn asked.

  "You're joking, right? You find your kids hacked up like a side of beef? How would you be? Why don't you answer me that? If you can do that, then you know how in the hell they are."

  The doctor exhaled through pursed lips. He had exhausted himself with his tirade. He ran his hands through his hair as he mumbled 'I'm sorry' and 'good Lord' over and over again. Calling on the lord didn't stop the shaking in his voice or put the tears of sadness and horror back behind his eyes. He swiped those away without embarrassment.

  "I've never seen anything like this in my life. I mean, blood in an operating room is one thing, but this! I'm a plastic surgeon. A plastic surgeon, for God's sake." He held out his hands as though Finn could understand how little that meant in the face of such a tragedy. "Elizabeth called. She said 'the girls are hurt'. That's what she said. Holy mother. Elizabeth said, 'please come, the girls are hurt'. She said please. Can you imagine? Please."

  He fell back against the wall; that pretty wall with the crosshatched pearl-colored paper. He fell so hard that the framed pictures of little girls growing up were knocked askew. The man plucked at the zipper of his sweatshirt and then pushed himself upright again. He pointed down the stairs like he was calling the last play of the big game and knew his team would lose.

  "I come rushing over. I run upstairs. Elizabeth grabs me and drags me into that room. 'Put her back together, Donald', she says. 'Alexis. Put her back together.' I couldn't even look at the little one. I wanted to puke, but Elizabeth's got a grip on me like a vice. I never knew a woman could be that strong. She's usually such a reserved soul. She just kept telling me to put Alexis back together while Sam's running around like a crazy man, pumping on their dead little chests, yelling at them to wake up."

  The doctor chuckled miserably. Tears rolled down his cheeks freely now. He sniffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

  "And the nanny. Can you believe something like this happened here? It's a mess, I tell you. It's a mess. I'm not cut out for this. What will I tell my wife? I tried to help, but good grief."

  Finn touched him in an effort to stop the incessant movement of the man's hands: hair, wall, zipper, pockets, hair again. If the doctor didn't stop he would be bald or naked before he left the house.

  "You came. You stayed," Finn said. "Most wouldn't have done that."

  "You do this all the time, do you?" He was oblivious to everything but where his own thoughts were leading. "Let me tell you, no one should have to deal with this. You should quit."

  "The suggestion has been made before," Finn said and left it at that.

  The doctor pulled in his lower lip and hung his head, probably taking stock of his fine life. It was a sure bet that he and the Barnetts would not be having drinks at the club again in this lifetime, but steering clear of these tragic people wouldn't change anything. The doctor would tell the story of this day for the rest of his life; he would tell it to anyone who would listen. The man might sell his house and move away. He would get religion, or get more if he already had it. In the end, though, the good doctor would be left with a big hole inside him that he would carry to the grave. He took another deep breath.

  "Can I go home now? My wife is afraid." Finn nodded. So did the doctor. He was a man and men had to face up to the bad stuff. It was in the rulebook. They both knew that.

  "I'll be needing to talk to the parents now," Finn said. The man shrugged.

  "You can try, but I don't think you'll get much out of them. I wish they would let me call someone. A minister. A relative. Sam said no. Maybe when they're thinking a little straighter." The doctor was already half way down the stairs when he added: "If they ever do."

  Finn barely heard him because the master bedroom door opened again. There was no mistaking who the man coming out of the bedroom was: the husband, the father, the lawyer, Sam Barnett. He moved like a blind man familiar with his surroundings but when he reached for the banister Finn stepped forward and took his hand.

  "Don't touch the railing. Not just yet," Finn cautioned.

  Before Finn could let go, Sam Barnett's other hand clamped over the detective's wrist. Instinctively, Finn's muscles went tight and his feet repositioned for leverage. He looked the man in the eye, but when a look wasn't enough to back him off Finn took one of Sam Barnett's fingers and bent it back. That should have broken his grip but Barnett was unfazed. He fought Finn as if they were playing some awful game. Instead of pulling backward, Finn stepped in until they were chest to chest.

  "Let go, Mr. Barnett." He spoke as if he were talking to a puppy with a slipper. "Let go, man. Deep breath. From the gut."

  Sam Barnett quaked and a second later he started to relax: neck, shoulders, arm. When it was time, Finn eased his hands away until they were separated. He stayed close to catch Barnett should he collapse. He didn't. He put one foot in front of the other, hands hanging by his side, feet landing heavily on each step. He had the sense to navigate around the plastic markers.

  The doctor plastered himself against the wall to give his neighbor room. Finn moved to the bannister and looked over to make sure Barnett would have an escort. He motioned t
o Mallard who took the man in hand and led him toward the formal living room that had already been cleared. That was when Finn found himself distracted by a big haired, round-bootied blonde who was standing aside to watch the two men go by. When the blond turned, the first thing Finn saw was her impressive, gravity-defying breasts. He took time to admire them as any man with blood in his veins would. After that he took note of the shit-eating grin on her heart-shaped face and the helmet of big hair that was curled and teased from crown to shoulders.

  "Hey, O'Brien." She greeted him with a honeyed voice that should have been singing at the Grand Ole Opry.

  "Good day to you, Cori."

  CHAPTER 5

  "Not a week at Wilshire Division, O'Brien, and you're already drawing attention to yourself. You think you would have learned your lesson."

  Cori drawled like a southern belle asking for a refill on her Julep as she came slowly up the stairs. But that wasn't what she was. Her drawl, like her hair, was a remnant of her small Texas town, teenage badass days, when Cori Anderson drank whatever anyone was pouring when time and circumstances allowed.

  "I'm a bit of a slow learner, don't you know." Finn met her halfway and then Cori went up one more step to put them on even footing.

  "Could have fooled me." Cori took hold of the zipper clasp on his jacket and gave it a little tug. "You can't catch a break. All this drama is getting kind of tiresome, if you ask me."