[Ash Park 01.0] Famished

by Meghan O'Flynn

  Petrosky nodded. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you.” Her lower lip quivered and Petrosky smothered the rush of warmth in his belly that tried to well up for her.

  Focus. He stood on the other side of the table and put his hands palm down on the top. “I need to know about his movements in the days before his death. Tell me anything you can remember.”

  “I think he went to his mother’s. Dinner the night before, maybe.” Her brows furrowed. “Everything is so … fuzzy.”

  “Try.”

  “I think dinner with his mom. That’s all I know about. He … I … I work during the day. I don’t really know what he did when I was gone.”

  “Why didn’t you report him missing?” Petrosky kept his voice even, trying not to scare her into silence. Three days was a long time not to notice he had disappeared.

  She shrugged. “I didn’t know he was missing, I guess, not really.”

  “Neighbors say you had a disagreement the night he disappeared.”

  She stared hard at her lap.

  “Quite the bruise you have there.” He waited for a response, and when none came, he switched tactics. Maybe he’d surprise a real answer out of her. “How did you not think he was missing when he didn’t come back home for three days?”

  Finally, she met his eyes. “He was moving out.”

  “That must have made you pretty upset.”

  “I … I don’t know,” she whispered. A tear dripped on the metal tabletop where it formed a shiny little bead.

  Petrosky wished he had a tissue. He pushed the thought away. “You were angry enough to go out with someone else the day after he disappeared.”

  Her eyes widened with surprise. She choked back a sob and gripped the sides of her chair as if she were trying to hold herself upright. “It was just a friend thing. I didn’t want to go home.”

  Guilt jabbed at his chest.

  Do your fucking job. He balled his fists behind his back. “Where were you on the night of October tenth?”

  “October tenth?”

  Petrosky froze. Repeating phrases was a classic sign of lying.

  “I don’t know,” she said “I mean probably at home with—”

  “How about the first of October?”

  He waited for a telltale twitch, a flash of guilt. She just shrugged.

  “Anyone else who might have seen you on those dates in October?”

  Montgomery shook her head. “Maybe at the apartment? I don’t know.”

  “I’ll look into it. What about your friends?”

  Silence. Again. Talk to me, dammit.

  “Anyone else who may have wanted to hurt him?”

  Montgomery jerked her head up and her eyes were brighter, her mouth open in stunned realization. “Maybe. He had another girlfriend. She sent him a letter the night he left.”

  That was what she had found in the mailbox that night, the note that had sent her sobbing to the stairwell. “What’s her name?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “But you knew he was messing around on you?”

  Her face crumpled.

  Petrosky wiped his own face with a beefy palm. She’s not Julie, for Christ’s sake. Get it together, Petrosky. “Do you have the letter?”

  “Um … no, I don’t think so. He took it.”

  “Did you look at the postmark?”

  “It didn’t have one. It was just slipped into the side of the box.” She was gripping the chair hard enough to turn her knuckles white. Her eyelashes were wet.

  Petrosky looked away. “I’m going to look into your alibi and check some security tapes. I’ll also need to look through his things, check out your apartment.”

  She stared at him. “All his stuff is in a box by the door.”

  “He do that?”

  “No. I did.” Her voice shook.

  It sounded like she couldn’t get away from him soon enough. “Do I have your permission to search or do I need a warrant?”

  “You can look.”

  Petrosky pulled a page from the folder and unclipped a pen off the cover. “I’ll need your signature here. Until we sort this out, don’t leave town.”

  She left without another word. He strode to his desk and rummaged in the top drawer for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. They had been there for six years, since the day he’d promised Julie he’d quit.

  They’re bad for your health. His daughter’s voice echoed in his head. He could almost see Julie, her face tilted toward the sun, her dark hair shining. He wondered what she would have looked like had she been allowed to grow up.

  Probably a lot like—

  He ground his teeth and tore open the pack on his way to the parking lot, trying to shut out the voice that told him he had just badgered an innocent girl. Julie had been innocent, too. She had died innocent.

  He walked out into icy drizzle, feet squelching on half melted snow and parking lot sludge. He yanked a cigarette from the pack and lit it. Acrid smoke burned his throat.

  Sorry, honey.

  Sunday, November 8th

  Some days I missed him so terribly I could almost taste the despair. Other days, I hated myself for feeling relieved that Jake’s murder was connected to the others. “Serial killer,” the news said. I still cried myself to sleep, wondering if my actions had caused him to leave, caused him to die, but the idea that he was killed by a stranger and not as a direct result of my past made me almost giddy. And my guilt at this almost giddiness weighed on me like a ton of rock. It was a vicious cycle.

  If I weren’t so paranoid, so afraid, would I have wanted him to die?

  This morning, as I applied makeup over my still-bruised face, I was thankful to the person who had taken him even as I feared that the creaking footsteps in the hallway outside would stop at my door. It was all too much. I could almost hear the moment I shut down and separated from myself, like the clank of a bank vault.

  The detachment accompanied me to the grave of my murdered almost-ex-boyfriend. I stood still and silent in my black funeral attire with dry eyes and a fluttering in my chest, like a sparrow trying to escape, though it was someone else’s chest, someone else’s bird. Beside me, Noelle clasped my numb fingers, and though I gripped her back, it still felt like she was holding someone else’s hand.

  Jake’s mother stared daggers at me across the gaping hole in the frozen earth as they lowered the casket. The hem of my wool dress flipped in the breeze, and arctic air bit at my ankles. I smoothed the dress and pressed my feet together in a halfhearted attempt to warm them.

  To the side and a dozen feet behind Jake’s mother stood Mr. Harwick, solemn in a black suit and wool overcoat. He raised his eyes from the casket, focused on me, and my mouth went dry. I looked away.

  The casket found the bottom of the hole and the straps kicked up ice and sludge as they were removed. The shh of the straps on the ground sounded like the earth trying to breathe.

  A wailing, like a wounded animal, split the air as Jake’s mother threw herself on the ground at the graveside, tearing at the dusted snow with her fingernails. The priest tried to restrain her. I looked away, dropped Noelle’s hand, and stepped back.

  Noelle raised her eyebrows. Want me to come? the look said.

  I shook my head and escaped across the cemetery. The wails faded, replaced by the crackling of frozen leaves. I was halfway to the car before I realized that I wasn’t alone. Another set of footsteps ground ever closer, stalking through the snow behind me. I stopped. I was too far from the gravesite for anyone to see us, but maybe they’d still be able to hear me scream and send help. I whirled around, hands fisted at my sides.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you.” Mr. Harwick’s ice blue eyes met mine, kind and sincere.

  I relaxed my hands, heart still in my throat. “No, it’s okay. I just didn’t know it was … you.”

  “I gathered. Shall we?” He gestured to the gates and I nodded. Our feet crunched across icicles of grass, leaving a trail of brow
n footprints.

  “I was saddened to hear of your loss, Ms. Montgomery.”

  “Yes … I mean … thank you.” What the hell was wrong with me? I tried to avoid looking at his mouth. I failed. A branch caught my foot and I was falling, the ground growing closer, my arms windmilling—

  Strong hands under my arms righted me and sent currents of pleasant electricity through my chest. “Oh, uh … thanks,” I said as he released me. So much for electricity—my face felt like it had been seared by a blowtorch.

  He met my eyes. “If there is anything you need, you know where to find me. And you are welcome to take some time off past the bereavement period. Just apply and I will approve it.”

  “Thank you.”

  He nodded once and turned toward the front entrance once more. I watched the back of his head as he walked over the hill and through the wrought iron gate at the front of the cemetery.

  Behind me, new footsteps drew closer, but their rhythm was familiar, as was the clank of Noelle’s jewelry.

  “What was that all about?” Noelle asked.

  “Wanted me to know I could take some time off if I needed it.”

  “You going to?”

  I considered my empty apartment, Jake’s toothbrush moldering in the bathroom, the prickling of my spine every time I passed the living room window, the heart palpitations every time a floorboard creaked.

  “No. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  Monday, November 9th

  Petrosky’s desk chair groaned as he leaned back in it. He tapped Morrison’s smartphone and rewound the video again. Morrison had taken Plumber’s apartment surveillance tapes and installed them into some fancy ass thing on his phone. An app, he’d called it, which wasn’t even a whole fucking word, and yet the damn thing was working pretty well.

  Petrosky tapped play and squinted at the tiny screen as the wall of mailboxes appeared. Then came the girl—at least he thought it was a female. Small, lithe and fast. She wore a long jacket with a hood pulled over her face. Dark blue or black jeans. And she was watching. Back and forth, scanning, nervous. What was she scared of? Was she looking for Hannah, her lover’s girlfriend, afraid of getting caught? Then the letter from a coat pocket. He zoomed in. She wiggled it into the slit in the door of the box and pulled her hood tighter over her face, shielding herself from the camera. She had known where the camera was; knew her actions would have consequences. It would be tricky without a face, without even a hair color, but they’d find her.

  Morrison rushed into the bullpen and headed toward him.

  Petrosky tossed him the phone. “Nice work, California. Now to find out who she is.”

  “I’m on it. But we’ve got a situation. Jacob Campbell’s mother is here.”

  Petrosky followed Morrison down the stairs to the public section of the building where citizens came to whine about their neighbor’s dog. Ms. Campbell stood in the middle of the waiting room wearing a pink muumuu over a black tank top, the straps cutting into her bared, pudgy shoulders. No coat, despite the snow. She had a cigarette tucked behind one ear.

  Petrosky approached her. “Can I help you, ma’am?”

  She turned glassy eyes in his direction. “Yeah, you can fuckin’ help me. I need to know how to get around this shit.” She thrust a sheaf of papers at him. “It’s like all the government wants to do is fuck over good tax-paying citizens while they give everything to those bitches and their welfare babies.”

  Petrosky took the papers and gestured toward a door that led to their interrogation rooms. “Follow me, ma’am.”

  Morrison sat at the head of the table. Ms. Campbell sat across from Petrosky and glowered at him as he looked over the paperwork. It was notification of a monetary settlement to be paid to Mr. Jacob Campbell. The amount was nearly thirty-six thousand dollars.

  “I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to do, Ms. Campbell.”

  “What I’m trying to do? That money should belong to me.”

  Petrosky turned the page, trying to figure out why she was there instead of at her lawyer’s office. But he’d be damned if he suggested she get a lawyer before she told them something useful. “Why didn’t Mr. Campbell have the money before now?”

  She shook her head. “It’s in there somewhere. There’s a bunch of shit.”

  Petrosky passed half of the pile to Morrison and they spent the next few minutes looking over the information. Morrison spoke first. “It looks like there’s a provision to turn the money over to Mr. Campbell when he gets married or turns thirty, whichever happens first.”

  Ms. Campbell shrugged. “Yeah, what the fuck ever.”

  “And in the case of death, all monies go to the closest living descendent or relative,” Morrison said.

  He and Morrison looked at her.

  “Ma’am, you did realize this is a motive for murder?” Petrosky asked.

  “For who?”

  “For his closest living relative.”

  She gnashed her teeth. “It isn’t me. It’s his fucking kid.”

  Petrosky set down the papers. His kid?

  “He always said that bastard wasn’t his, but she put his name on the certificate. Now the lawyers want to give the money to him once he’s big enough.”

  Petrosky’s mind raced.

  She pulled the cigarette from behind her ear and stuck it in her mouth. “So, what do I have to do to get my boy’s name off that fucking birth certificate?”

  Shellie Dermont lived just outside Pontiac on a side street carpeted with last season’s leaves and the oily residue of hopelessness. Even the house she lived in appeared to be frowning, its filthy awnings drawing furrowed brows over sagging window eyes, its front door a yawning howl of a mouth. Tax forms indicated she was broke, but stable, supporting herself working two waitressing gigs in the area. Still, people killed for a lot less than thirty grand.

  Petrosky stood in the living room. Dermont sat on the couch, paperwork on her knee, finger moving in time with her lips. “I don’t understand what this is.” The black ring in her nose matched the heavy metal T-shirt she wore. In the next room, a boy rolled a toy truck back and forth under a rustic dining table right off the cover of one of those shabby chic magazines Petrosky’s ex-wife used to read.

  Morrison pulled out his notepad and sat at the table. Petrosky glared at Morrison until he stood, then turned back to Dermont. “You’ve never seen this before?” Petrosky asked.

  “No.” She held the papers out to him. He waved them back and she laid them next to her on the couch.

  “It was sent certified mail to an address on Carper,” Petrosky told her. “But it was never signed for.”

  “I only lived there for a few months. There were roaches in the cupboard and the landlord … I guess you don’t need to know that, huh?”

  “When was the last time you talked to Jacob Campbell?”

  She laughed. It was a melancholy sound. “Not since Jayden was born, so around five years. He came to the hospital to see us. Took one look at him and bolted. Never even held him.”

  Petrosky waited for Morrison’s pen to stop scratching on the notepad. “So you were separated before the baby was born?”

  She nodded. “He was … mean sometimes. I didn’t know I was pregnant when I left, and after I found out, I couldn’t bear the thought of—” Her eyes moved to the boy who was now lying on his back, feet in the air. “Anyway, I told him about Jayden and he wanted a paternity test, so I had one done.”

  “Did you file for support?”

  She shook her head. “He never had a job while I was with him and I didn’t expect that he would suddenly get one after the baby came. I didn’t want him around, anyway. He was always pushy, always asking me to marry him, especially when he found out I was pregnant. He got mad when I said no. It was kinda … scary.” She shuddered.

  “In what way?”

  “Just the way his eyes got. Like he wanted to hit you.”

  “Did he?”

  “A few times. After
the last time, I left.”

  “Good for you.”

  A sad smile flashed and was gone.

  “Hear anything else about him? Through mutual friends?”

  “We didn’t have mutual friends. When I was with him I didn’t have friends at all. He kinda made sure of that.”

  Typical abusive bullshit. “I see.”

  “I know, it was stupid. At the time I just didn’t … it’s hard to see when you’re in the middle of it, you know?” She looked at her hands. “To be honest, when I saw the story on the news, I wasn’t all that … sad. I mean, it was a shock, but not all that sad.”

  There was a scuffling sound behind Petrosky as the boy ran to his mother and put his head in her lap. She stroked his hair. “Hey, Care Bear, you want to go get a book? We can read before I have to go to work.”

  “Stay home, Mama.”

  “I can’t, baby. But Ms. Ross is coming and you always have fun with her, right?”

  He shrugged. “I’ll find the dog book.”

  “Okay.” She watched him scamper off down a back hallway then turned back to them. “What else do you need to know? I have to get ready for work soon.”

  Petrosky and Morrison exchanged a glance. “We’re almost done, Ms. Dermont,” Petrosky said. “Were you aware that Mr. Campbell had an insurance policy that reverts to your family in the event of his death?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t understand.”

  “Mr. Campbell had an insurance policy from his father. He was to receive thirty-six thousand dollars after he got married.”

  “That’s why he wanted to marry me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, I didn’t marry him, so—”

  Jayden skipped into the living room carrying a book and leapt into his mother’s lap. “Found it, Mama!”

  She smiled and kissed him on the cheek.

  Petrosky waited until Dermont looked back up. “In the event of his death, that money reverts to his closest living relative.”

  “His mom, huh?” She smirked. “She always hated me, but she’ll be happy now.”

  “Not the way it’s written. In this case, children get precedence over parents.”