An Eternity in a Moment

by K Carothers

  “No. Before the mayor was elected to office, he and Meredith ran a law firm together, and Tina was their legal secretary.”

  Erin closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the chair, unable to bear watching the sunrise any longer. “I guess her promotion isn’t looking so good now.”

  Jenna didn’t respond, and for a while neither of them said anything else.

  Erin eventually peeled her eyes back open and glanced over at Jenna, sensing something was wrong as the silence grew heavy between them. And when she saw the anguished look on her friend’s face, she knew something was seriously wrong. “What is it, Jen?” she asked, sitting up straighter in her chair.

  Jenna remained silent at first, nervously wringing her hands. “There’s—something I’ve been meaning to tell you,” she finally said, avoiding Erin’s direct gaze. “I know this is really bad timing, but—but with this murder…I’d rather you hear it from me. I’m so sorry. I should have told you this long before now. But I knew how much it would bother you, and I—I just couldn’t tell you. And I never expected you would come back here…”

  Erin watched Jenna struggle to find the words she wanted to say, and it brought back memories of that awful night in Boston when she’d told her about the cancer. Erin knew that whatever her friend was trying to tell her now wasn’t going to be pleasant, and dread stirred up the already sick feeling in her stomach. “Just say it, Jenna,” she urged, bracing herself for the news.

  “Erin, your father isn’t in prison anymore. He lives here in New Dublin.”

  Erin stared at her in shock. “But that’s impossible. He’s in prison for life. My grandmother said…” She realized her mistake then. She’d never thought to second guess her grandmother about that—she would never have wanted to. It hadn’t once occurred to her that her father might get out of prison someday, that she should have checked to make sure.

  “His sentence was twenty years to life,” Jenna hesitantly explained. “There’s a big difference. I asked Luke to find out more about him years ago. It turned out he’d already been released on parole by then. He finished that last year and moved back here. He lives with his mother.”

  For a moment Erin was in such a state of horrified disbelief that she didn’t know what to think or say. Her stomach finally said it for her. “Oh God!” She shot to her feet and ran to the far end of the porch, then leaned over the railing and vomited into the rose bushes.

  Jenna came up alongside her and held the hair away from her face until the heaving subsided. “Erin, I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I should have told you when I first found out.”

  Erin folded her arms on the railing and lowered her head onto them. She felt like her world had just spun completely out of control, and she took several slow, deep breaths, trying to calm herself. Her father was here—her mother’s murderer. He was walking the streets, and she could run into him at any moment. Then she remembered there had just been another murder. “You don’t really think the mayor’s ex-wife killed her, do you?” she asked, looking up at Jenna. “You think he did it.”

  Jenna shook her head in distress. “No, it’s just that after Tina married the mayor, they bought the Irish Waters Restaurant in town. Seth is a cook there, so his past is bound to come up if they don’t arrest someone else right away. But that doesn’t mean he did it. Who knows? Maybe Meredith really was involved. She certainly keeps plenty of criminals on the streets. She could have hired one of them to do it.”

  “Why would she risk everything to get involved in something like that, Jen? No, Seth Slater has got to be a prime suspect. He worked for Tina. And no matter how many petty criminals are out there roaming the streets, I’ll bet he’s the only convicted murderer.” And if he had done it, that would make her the daughter of a serial killer. Oh God. Now she really was living a nightmare. Bile rose in her throat, and with a soft moan she dropped her head back down, willing herself not to vomit again.

  “I don’t know what motive he would have for murder,” Jenna said. “Luke’s been keeping an eye on him, and he hasn’t caused any problems here. He also had a clean prison record in California.”

  “That’s reassuring,” Erin murmured dryly, keeping her head buried in her arms. And after a pause, she asked, “Does anyone else here know he’s my father?”

  “Only Luke and I. No one else needs to know.”

  “Oh God, Jenna.” Erin abruptly stood up and pushed away from the railing. “I can’t deal with this right now. I need to go inside.” But as soon as she turned toward the door, she let out a startled gasp and stepped back, seeing a man standing at the top of the stairs on the other side of the porch.

  Jenna looked that way in alarm, and then lifted a hand to her chest, breathing a sigh of relief. “It’s only James, Erin. Luke asked him to come today to build the ramp for the porch. He’s Father Burnett’s nephew.”

  “I made these for you last night, Jenna,” James said in a somewhat bashful tone, walking over to them with a plate of cookies. “I know chocolate chip is your favorite.”

  “How thoughtful of you, James. Thank you,” Jenna responded, smiling half-heartedly as she took the plate from him. “This is my friend, Erin. She’s—”

  Erin took one look at the cookies and spun around, vomiting into the roses again.

  Jenna winced. “She isn’t feeling very well right now.”

  Erin eased herself up and turned back to them after a moment, clutching her stomach. “So much for the aspirin kicking in. And I don’t think I’ll be eating cookies anytime soon.” She glanced painfully at James. “Sorry to meet you under these circumstances.”

  Feeling too miserable to be embarrassed about those circumstances, she headed inside. But just as she started climbing the stairs she caught sight of someone else out of the corner of her eye: a woman with long red hair standing between the dining area and the living room beyond. She stopped short and looked directly at that spot, but no one was there. Shannon.

  Erin felt another wave of nausea hit her. And with a groan she rushed upstairs to the bathroom.

  In the meantime, Jenna retrieved her cane and gave James an apologetic, flustered look. “I’m sorry. I need to go in too. Thanks again for the cookies—and for working on the ramp, of course.”

  She left him standing there scratching his head in bewilderment and hurried into the house, setting the plate of cookies on the foyer table. Then she grabbed her cell phone and quickly sent a text to Luke:

  CALL ME ASAP. URGENT!!!

  Chapter

  12

  The chief wasn’t kidding. They had a real mess on their hands.

  Luke looked over at the body on the bed again in disbelief. He’d never seen anything like it before. He’d never heard of anything like it before.

  Tina Murdock was lying naked in a spread-eagle position on the bed. Clearly her killer had wanted her displayed like that. She had multiple stab wounds over her lower abdomen, and a knife was buried in the middle of her chest. There was very little blood, though. The stab wounds had probably all been inflicted after her death.

  But above that was where things got especially bizarre. It appeared she’d been strangled with barbed wire. And then her head and neck had been wrapped in it, leaving her barely identifiable. The mayor said he didn’t own any barbed wire, which wasn’t surprising. He lived in an affluent subdivision on the edge of town. It was a heavily wooded area, which allowed for a lot of privacy, but wasn’t a place where barbed wire would be of any use. So her killer must have brought it along. This was definitely premeditated murder, executed in the most barbaric fashion—literally.

  Everyone working around Luke was eerily quiet, and no one wanted to go near the bed if they didn’t have to. Several of the other officers still looked green, and the chief was especially reserved. Luke knew he was good friends with the mayor and his wife. The mayor himself was outside, walking around in a
daze. And they still hadn’t been able to locate his son, Connor.

  The crime scene response unit was processing the scene—a meticulous task that would probably take a few days to finish—and the medical examiner was there as well. She figured the time of death had been somewhere between 9:00 p.m. and 1:00 a.m.…Right around the time he and Erin had been making love. Or it could have happened while she was sleeping in his arms. He remembered the look on her face last night…But then the sound of her ex-husband’s name on her lips this morning when he’d kissed her echoed through his mind all over again, slicing into his heart like a freshly sharpened dagger, and he forced himself not to think about her anymore. He couldn’t afford to be distracted right now. He had a murder to solve.

  But a moment later the text alert on his phone went off, and he read the frantic message from Jenna. So much for not being distracted. And with a resigned sigh he walked into an unoccupied room to call her.

  “Luke, please tell me this murder has nothing to do with Erin’s father,” Jenna immediately said.

  “I don’t know, Jen,” Luke answered wearily, running a hand over his unshaven jaw. “In fact, there’s not a whole lot I do know right now. But he’s certainly a person of interest at this point.”

  “Erin knows he’s here. I told her this morning.”

  Shit. “How did she take it?”

  “She started throwing up over the side of the porch. I’ve never seen her so upset before.”

  Luke winced. The vomiting probably had more to do with a hangover. So Erin had been drunk and in love with another man when she’d slept with him last night. His day was getting better by the minute.

  “You need to talk to her,” Jenna continued. “You’re wrong about Peter. She doesn’t—”

  Scott Ripley walked into the room as she was talking. “We have a major problem, Luke,” he said at the same time.

  “Jen, I’m sorry, I have to go,” Luke interrupted her. “I’ll come by when I can.”

  He ended the call and looked up at Scott as he put his phone away. “What is it?”

  “Dispatch got a call from the hospital. Jesse Torres escaped. Someone drugged Ben Watkins while he was on shift last night and helped the kid get out. A nurse found Ben handcuffed to Jesse’s bed this morning.”

  “Jesus Christ!” Luke softly cursed. Ben Watkins was a deputy fresh out of the police academy, and he’d been assigned to sit outside Jesse’s room overnight.

  “It gets worse, Luke,” Scott said in an especially somber tone. “Ben’s alive, but he’s in pretty serious condition. Someone stuck a chest tube in him—the one that was supposed to be in Jesse.”

  “What the hell do you mean by that?”

  “When Torres had surgery the other day Dr. O’Reilly put a tube in his chest and attached it to a machine they use to keep the air from building back up. Last night either Torres, or whoever was with him, pulled the tube out. Then they cut Ben’s chest open and stuck it in him instead, probably to make it look like Torres was still there. Dr. O’Reilly is taking Ben to the OR as we speak.”

  For a moment Luke wasn’t able to speak. And when the full impact of Scott’s words hit him, rage thundered through his veins. His fellow officers were like brothers to him. He would put his life on the line for any one of them. And for something like this to happen…He felt like his own chest had just been cut open.

  “We need to get an APB out on Jesse Torres right away,” he finally said, shaking off his anger. There was no place for emotion right now.

  “Already done,” Scott responded.

  “Does the chief know?”

  “Yeah. He’s outside right now making sure everything’s secure. As if we don’t have enough to deal with, there’s a storm coming in. I’ll help him with that, and then we’re going over to the hospital. He wants you to keep working this case.”

  Luke nodded. “Once I wrap things up here I’ll have Frank Murdock meet me at the station for a formal interview. I told him to track Connor down and get him over there too. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that he and another kid had a shootout yesterday and now his stepmother is dead today.”

  They walked out of the room and Scott motioned to the master bedroom down the hall. “There’s going to be a media frenzy over this, you know. I wouldn’t be surprised if it makes national news.”

  Luke didn’t even want to think about the level of chaos that would ensue then. “It’ll help if we can keep some of the more gruesome details quiet. But the chief will have his hands full with the press no matter what. I hope he pulls it together. He’s not taking this too well.”

  “Do you think DCI will get involved?” DCI was the Division of Criminal Investigation—sort of like the FBI at a state level.

  “That’ll be up to the chief,” Luke said. “But we could use the help, that’s for sure.”

  “What we could really use are a few more cops in our own department—and a decent raise for once. But I’m beating a dead horse there.” Scott’s lips twisted into a sardonic smile. “Anyway, I’d better get going. The chief is waiting.”

  After he left, Luke headed back to the master bedroom to do one last inspection of the body before the medical examiner had it removed. And he soon caught something he’d missed the first time around: She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

  He leaned down, picking her stiff hand up to take a closer look. There were multiple bloodless wounds over the second knuckle of her left fourth finger, which meant the killer had probably ripped the ring off post-mortem.

  He stood up and slowly shook his head, murmuring to himself, “We’ve got one hell of a monster in our midst.”

  No sooner did he say that than lightning flashed through the bedroom windows, followed by the deep rumble of thunder.

  * * *

  Luke sat in the interview room at the police station a few hours later, oblivious to the storm still raging outside, and wondered if he wasn’t looking into the bearded face of that monster—the man who’d always reminded him of a younger, slightly less rotund version of Santa Claus, with gray hair instead of white: jolly old Frank Murdock.

  A day ago Luke would never have thought the mayor capable of such an atrocity. But then, a lot of things had happened in the last day that he never would have expected. And the statistics already pointed to Frank: Most female homicide victims were killed by someone they knew—more often than not by a current or former male partner.

  Frank hadn’t said or done anything in particular that was overtly incriminating. In fact, he’d gone out of his way to cooperate with them and hadn’t even requested another lawyer be present. But there were subtle things in his behavior and speech that raised plenty of red flags.

  The story Frank gave was that he’d gone to City Hall late yesterday afternoon to work on some issues with the budget in preparation for a city council meeting today. He’d ended up working longer than expected and had decided to sleep in his office, something he’d been doing a lot lately because of the budgetary issues. Then he’d headed home early this morning, exiting from the back entrance to the parking lot where he’d left his Cadillac all night.

  Frank had mentioned early on in the interview that video surveillance would be able to confirm his whereabouts—the first red flag. His responses had also been subtly evasive at times, with an uncertainty in his tone that he hadn’t quite been able to hide. And when Luke had asked more detailed questions about the problems with the city budget, Frank had been especially ambiguous, taking way too much time to answer them. If he’d really been working so hard on the budget last night, he shouldn’t have had any trouble answering those questions.

  He’d shown other signs too: frequently clearing his throat or covering his mouth with his hand—almost like he was covering up a lie. And he’d smiled way too often, even attempted to joke around here and there. The mayor was well known for his jovial personality, but th
at kind of behavior was completely inappropriate under the circumstances.

  Luke could smell lies from a mile away, and the mayor reeked of them.

  A moment later there was a brief knock on the interview room door, and a uniformed officer popped his head in. “Meredith Armstrong is here with Connor.”

  “Okay, send them in,” Luke said. Connor had apparently been at his mother’s house last night, making her his alibi—and his attorney.

  She’d been with him Friday for the interrogation at the Sheriff’s Office after the shooting as well, which Frank hadn’t bothered to attend, despite the fact that his son’s future was at stake. He’d said he was letting Meredith handle Connor’s legal matters herself, since his area of expertise was banking and finance, not criminal defense. But everyone knew the truth: He just couldn’t stand being anywhere near his ex-wife.

  Luke had insisted Frank stay for this interview, though. And it was for one specific reason: Getting the three of them in the room together was the best way to throw them all off their game.

  “Connor, Meredith,” he said in greeting as they sat down at the interview table across from him, with Connor taking a seat between his parents.

  “Good morning, Detective Mathis,” Meredith briskly responded. “I hope you haven’t forgotten that this is an informal interview, and we need to keep it brief. I have other business to attend to this morning.”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Luke said, making a conscious effort not to let her condescending tone get to him. He should be used to it by now anyway. But nothing about Meredith Armstrong was easy to get used to.

  Some might consider her attractive with her medium length brown hair and deep-set brown eyes. But the perpetual scowl on her face completely detracted from any beauty. And her intense, unwavering stare was enough to make any man want to run from the room. Luke thought maybe next time he would wear his bulletproof vest.

  He shifted his gaze to Connor. “My condolences for the loss of your stepmother.”