Little Broken Things

by Cheryl Bradshaw

  “Mm-hmm. How did you know about the pipe?” I asked. “We haven’t released information about the murder weapon yet.”

  “Casper told me.”

  “When did you talk to him?”

  “Yesterday. I stopped by his house to see if he’s doing all right.”

  Casper hadn’t mentioned seeing Brandy.

  I wondered why.

  “Where were you on Monday night between the hours of five and eight?” I asked.

  “Why does it matter? I just told you—I didn’t have anything to do with Olivia’s murder.”

  “Answer the question, Brandy.”

  She sighed. “Having dinner at my parents’ house, all right. Ask my mom. She’ll vouch for me.”

  “What time did you get there, and what time did you leave?”

  “I left work at five and went straight to their house. Got there about twenty minutes after five. We had dinner, watched a movie, and I went home around nine.”

  The murder had taken place in a short window of time. I envisioned a scenario where Brandy stopped off at the bookstore, murdered Olivia, and then went on her merry way, reaching her parents’ house just in time for dinner, providing herself with a perfect, well-planned alibi.

  “When you confronted Olivia outside of the movie theater, you threatened her. You told her you knew where she lived. Did you ever show up at her house?”

  “Once. I wasn’t there long. Five minutes, maybe ten. We talked in the driveway for a bit, and then she ran back inside her house.”

  “When were you there?”

  “The day I found out Casper proposed, and they were getting married.”

  “What did you and Olivia talk about?”

  Brandy glanced to her right and said, “I don’t know. Can’t remember.”

  Deception at its finest.

  “You’re lying,” I said. “Try again.”

  She twisted her lips into a wry grin and looked at me like she didn’t care if I’d caught her in a lie. The conversation had been between her and Olivia, which meant she could say anything, and I wouldn’t be able to prove whether it was the truth or not.

  “You said Olivia ran off,” I said. “You must have said something to upset her.”

  “Olivia was a timid, emotional mouse. Say one unkind thing to her, and she couldn’t handle it. I’ll admit it. I hated her. Doesn’t mean I thought she deserved to die.”

  “You shoved her, hard, which tells me two things: One, you have a temper. And two, you’re violent.”

  “I would have done a lot more if Casper wasn’t in the way. The little brat ruined my life. Casper and I were planning a future together until she came along.”

  “Casper is the one who broke things off with you, right?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  She knew this, and yet, she hadn’t placed any of the blame on him so far.

  “Has it ever occurred to you that you may have been planning a future with him, but he hadn’t planned on a future with you?”

  “Never. He loved me. He still loves me.”

  “Has he said as much?”

  “He doesn’t have to say it. I know how he feels. Look, Olivia knew we were in a relationship when she threw herself at him. What he felt for her was nothing more than infatuation.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “They didn’t know each other long enough for it to be anything else. I was with him twice as long as he was with her. Now that she’s gone, I’ll swoop back in, pretend I care about what happened to her, and then, I’ll take my man back.”

  Some stone-cold balls right there.

  Chapter 20

  I stood outside of the interrogation room at the police station, watching Harvey get nowhere with Roxie. After a few minutes, he ran a hand across his face, stood, and excused himself. He stepped into the hall, closed the door behind him, and huffed a long, frustrated sigh.

  “Good, you’re here,” he said. “Maybe you can get something out of her. I’ve tried. This little bird doesn’t want to sing—not to me, at any rate.”

  “She’s a firecracker, isn’t she? Told me her name was Harley Quinn when we first met.”

  “Yeah, well, I asked her where she lived, and she said Gotham City.”

  I laughed. “Huh. At least she’s sticking to the same storyline.”

  “Let me ask you something. Do you think she intended to shoot Brandy Jacobsen when she showed up at her place with a gun?”

  “Hard to say. Seemed to me like she was trying to scare Brandy enough to admit whether she had anything to do with Olivia’s murder. Give me a few minutes with her, and I’ll see if I can find out.”

  Harvey patted me on the shoulder. “Good luck. I believe you’ll need it.”

  Roxie rolled her eyes when I entered the room. “I was wondering when you were gonna show up.

  I pointed at the glass of water on the table. “You want something other than water?”

  “Sure, I’ll take a beer.”

  I sat across from her. “Water it is, then.”

  “On a scale of one to infinity, how much trouble am I in?”

  “I’d say a level or two below infinity for now. Might not be too bad if you cooperate.”

  “I don’t need to cooperate. I need to call my dad.”

  “Who’s your dad?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “What’s with the old lady clothes?”

  It seemed she wasn’t digging on my puffed-sleeved, white, satin shirt and black wide-leg trousers. At least she was talking. It was something.

  “They’re not old lady clothes,” I said. “They’re vintage.”

  “You know what decade you’re living in, right?”

  “I do … do you?”

  I expected a sharp, snarky comeback. Instead, she said, “You know what? I kinda like you.”

  “And I’d kinda like you to explain what happened today and why you threatened Brandy Jacobsen. Chief Kennison says you’re not talking.”

  “I’ll talk, just not to him.”

  “Why? What’s your problem with him?”

  “He reminds me of my grandpa, and we … ahh, we don’t get along.”

  “I don’t know about your grandfather, but Chief Kennison is one of the nicest men you’ll ever meet.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Let’s start with the gun,” I said. “Where did you get it?”

  “It’s my dad’s. I took it to Brandy’s place because I thought if she saw it, I could get her to talk.”

  “You mean confess, right?”

  “If she’s guilty. The way I see it, one of two people are responsible for Olivia’s death: Brandy Jacobsen or Shawn Murphy.”

  Brandy the ex-girlfriend of Casper, and Shawn the ex-boyfriend of Olivia.

  “Why do you suspect Brandy?” I asked.

  “She was jealous of Olivia and tried to break them up. She showed up at Olivia’s parents’ house and told Olivia she was still having sex with Casper. Olivia wouldn’t believe it though.”

  “And you? What do you think? Could she have been telling the truth?”

  “Who knows? It’s not like I could prove it or anything.”

  “What else did they talk about that day?”

  “It’s not so much about what else Brandy said as what she did. She lifted up her shirt and showed Olivia her new chest tattoo—a heart that said Casper + Brandy Forever inside of it.”

  Wow.

  Talk about a woman obsessed.

  “Brandy admitted she was at Olivia’s house to me, but she didn’t say what they talked about,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, you can imagine how messed up Olivia was after Brandy stopped by, playing her little head games. And they worked, until I talked sense back into her.”

  “Did Olivia talk to Casper about Brandy?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Olivia didn’t like confronting people about things. She was like a vault that way. We’ve been friends since we were kids, and we were close, but I alway
s knew there were things she never told me.”

  “Why do you suspect Shawn Murphy?” I asked.

  “He’s a dick, for starters.”

  “Oh…kay. I’m going to need a little more to go on.”

  “How about this? Olivia was afraid of him.”

  “During their entire relationship, or …?”

  “No, it was after they broke up and he found out about Casper. He sent her some nasty text messages, and she was afraid he’d go after Casper.”

  “Was he trying to get back together with Olivia, or were the texts about something else?”

  “He was pissed that she dumped him for another guy, and the whole town was talking about it. I thought I had anger issues. But Shawn Murphy … he’s ten times worse when he wants to be.”

  “Did you ever see any of the messages he sent Olivia?”

  She reached for her glass of water and drank it all down. “Olivia deleted the messages right after they came in. She didn’t want Casper or her parents to see them.”

  “Why didn’t she tell anyone she was being harassed?”

  “Have you met Shawn?”

  “Not yet.”

  “He’s a big guy. Casper’s not.”

  “She could have reported Shawn to the police. We would have protected her.”

  “Unless he was in jail, you couldn’t have. He’s not the type of guy who gives a crap about a restraining order.”

  For such a smartass, I was surprised how candid she’d been with me so far.

  “What do you know about the poetry Olivia wrote?” I asked. “Olivia told her teacher one of the poems was about her mother, who’d confessed to her that she’d been raped.”

  “I don’t know anything about that, but, uhh … there was a rumor going around when we were in high school.”

  “What kind of rumor?”

  “There was this girl we went to school with, Kennedy Nixon. She dated Shawn before he dated Olivia.”

  “Which would have been …?”

  “Freshman year, I think. After they broke up, she said Shawn had raped her. No one believed it, and they started making fun of her. Guys didn’t want to date her because they figured she’d start the same rumors about them too. It was kind of a bad deal, you know? She lost almost all of her friends over it.”

  “Why didn’t anyone believe Kennedy’s rape allegation?” I asked.

  “I dunno. Shawn can be an aggressive bully at times, but a rapist? He isn’t the kind of guy who needs to rape anyone. He could get any girl he wants. Trust me, when you meet him, you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

  Just because the guy had the pick of the litter and every girl in school swooned over him, didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of rape.

  “Did Olivia say whether Shawn ever pressured her to do anything?”

  “Naw. If Shawn had ever forced himself on Olivia, she would have told me.”

  This coming from the girl who’d just admitted Olivia had kept secrets.

  “I suppose I’d better locate Kennedy Nixon so I can talk to her,” I said.

  “You can’t.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “Why not?”

  “Kennedy Nixon is dead.”

  Chapter 21

  Three years earlier, Kennedy Nixon had been home alone, taking a bath while her parents were out for dinner. They arrived home a few hours later to find their daughter lying motionless in the bathtub. All attempts to revive her failed.

  I decided the best way to get answers was to give Silas a call.

  “And how are you this fine evening, Gigi?” he asked. “How’s the love life?”

  Even though I couldn’t see him, I could picture him now, with a wide, childish grin on his face.

  “I’m … it’s fine. Hey, I need to ask you something about a girl you did an autopsy on when I was living off the grid.”

  “Sure, what’s the name?”

  “Kennedy Nixon.”

  “Ahh, right. I remember her. Sad deal.”

  “I heard she died in a bathtub. What can you tell me about it?”

  “Crime scene was simple enough. First thing I noticed when I walked in was the clothes she’d been wearing and an empty wine bottle on the ground. Her mother told me it was an expensive bottle of wine, worth about two hundred dollars. They were saving it for a special occasion.”

  “Which means, she must have opened it and drank the entire bottle while her parents were away.”

  “Yep, downed the whole bottle in a couple of hours.”

  “One bottle of wine, even with an unexperienced drinker, wouldn’t have killed her though.”

  “Shouldn’t have. Thing is … she fell asleep in the tub. My guess is she started drinking, decided to take a bath, and then passed out once the wine kicked in. Bottom line is—she drowned. You know how it is with drownings. They’re a bit hard to prove, whether the crime scene is obvious or not.”

  “Did you find anything to suggest her death was anything other than an accident?” I asked.

  “I didn’t. There were no signs of foul play. No forced entry. No unidentified fibers on the victim or in the bathroom itself. No signs of a struggle. No wounds on the victim.”

  “Sounds like you’re right, and it was just an accident.”

  There was a pause and then he said, “You going to tell me why you’re so interested in the Nixon case?”

  “Kennedy Nixon dated a guy named Shawn Murphy in high school. After they broke up, she started telling her classmates he’d raped her.”

  “Did you look to see if she ever filed a police report?”

  “She didn’t.”

  “Huh. Weird.”

  “What’s weird?”

  “Shawn Murphy was at Kennedy Nixon’s funeral. Seemed broken-up about her death.”

  “You know him? How?”

  “We surf at the same locations sometimes. Dude is built like a Mack truck.”

  So I’d heard.

  “After he dated Kennedy, he had an on-again-off-again relationship with Olivia Spencer,” I said. “I’m just wondering whether there are any dots to connect between the two women and their deaths.”

  “You should talk to Harvey or Lilia Hunter. Hunter worked the case while you were away.”

  Lilia Hunter had been promoted to detective in my absence, a job she didn’t relish. When I returned, she wasted no time handing the reins back over to me. She was smart and intuitive, and several months back I’d talked her into managing the police station as head secretary. She also moonlighted for me, gathering information about my active cases whenever I needed her help.

  “Where are you on the blood spatter gathered at the crime scene?” I asked.

  “So far, everything I’ve processed matches Olivia’s blood type.”

  Yet another dead end.

  I paused, then said, “I can’t help but wonder if there’s more to Kennedy Nixon’s death.”

  “When it comes to drowning, it’s always possible.”

  He was right.

  It was possible.

  Tomorrow morning I’d pay a visit to the Mack truck himself.

  Chapter 22

  I slipped into a nightie and patted down the side of the bed, urging Luka to hop up and relax next to me. He was all too happy to oblige. I leaned back and checked the time. It was half past nine. Perhaps too late to make a call, but since my mind had no intention of shutting down anytime soon, I went ahead and made it.

  Two rings in, the call was answered by a groggy, unimpressed Lilia Hunter, by the sounds of it. “Georgiana? What’s going on? You all right?”

  “Sounds like you’re sleeping. Sorry, I’ll talk to you in the morning, okay?”

  “No, no. You’re fine. I stay up until midnight most nights. I think the tea I was drinking knocked me out. What’s up?”

  “I want to talk to you about a case you worked on a while back. The victim’s name was Kennedy Nixon.”

  A pause, and then, “She’s the one who drowned at her parents’
house, right?”

  “Right. What do you remember about the case?”

  “I’d have to go back and look at the report. Off hand, I seem to remember one of the neighbors saying she thought she saw a dark-blue truck pulling out of the Nixon place around the same time Kennedy’s parents were out for dinner.”

  “Did you ever find the owner of the truck?”

  “I didn’t, and none of the other neighbors saw or heard anything. You wouldn’t call this late asking about the Nixon case unless you had a good reason. What is it?”

  I told her about the connection between Kennedy Nixon and Olivia Spencer.

  She listened and then said, “I remember Kennedy’s mother saying her daughter didn’t have a boyfriend and wasn’t dating anyone at the time, which I found weird because there was a satin two-piece lingerie set on the bathroom counter. It was skimpy—not the kind of thing a teenager wears in front of her father without a robe.”

  “Maybe she didn’t have a robe on because she was home alone.”

  “Yeah, well, the top was a see-through, sheer material. It just seemed odd you know?”

  Hunter was right.

  It was odd.

  I thanked her for the information, and she promised to deliver the file to me in the morning. No sooner had I ended the call than my phone rang. It was Giovanni.

  “I was just going to call you,” I said.

  “How are you, cara mia? How’s the case?”

  “I’m good. The case is slow but gaining momentum. I’ll get there.”

  “I have no doubt.”

  “How’s New York?”

  “Busy. Daniela sends her love. She wants to fly over for a visit sometime this year.”

  I’d spoken on the phone to Daniela here and there over the years, but we’d never reconnected in person after living together in college.

  “I’d love to see her,” I said. “How’s the family matter you two are working on? Have you got it all figured out?”

  “It’s slow but gaining momentum.”

  I laughed at his attempt to mimic what I’d just said. “How long do you think it will be until you’ll be able to come back?”