Page 24 of A Simple Mistake (Deadly Mistakes #1)

TWENTY-FOUR

Liam

Two years ago

“I feel like I could go to bed early tonight, you know? This Jon Davies case has been a bit of a mess, and then we got swamped with other stuff. We’ve spent weeks on it, and I feel like we’re getting nowhere. I swear Davies has some higher power on his side. Everything I find is just smacked down with ‘Not enough evidence.’ Like how much more evidence do you need than a fucking body ? It’d help if I could find the goddamn son, you know?”

He doesn’t seem to know or care. I swear, some people are so self-centered and really only want to talk about themselves.

“Are you listening?” I demand.

He looks over at me, at least acknowledging that I exist. “I hear you,” he says.

“Now was that so hard?” I ask. “And then my partner is just… too nice. He’s not bad, but he literally thinks the best of everyone. He’s totally the ‘I will love you until you prove otherwise’ kind of person. He reminds me of those dogs that just adore you no matter what happens. Speak of the devil, he’s calling right now. I guess he’d be more like one of those angels who’d be sitting on your shoulder whispering what all you’re doing wrong.”

I accept the call as I lean against the wall that crinkles a little. I really need to get this placed fixed up a bit better.

“Did you feel so lonely on your day off that you needed to hear my wonderous voice?” I ask.

Gabriel scoffs, like he could possibly have an issue with my voice. “More like Michaels just called. He was hoping we could come in real quick to see something Jon Davies’ neighbors brought in.”

“Oh? Color me intrigued. Hopefully it’s a video of Davies stuffing his wife into the trunk,” I say.

“Might be. He hasn’t specified. Michaels just thought we’d be the best ones to talk to them since we’re the head detectives on the case. Want me to swing by to pick you up?”

“Nah, I’m not home. I’ll meet you there in fifteen.”

“Oh! Did you hear that Jacob Anderson has been reported missing?”

“You don’t say,” I respond as I look up and catch Anderson’s eyes. “You mean someone cared enough to report him missing? I feel like after killing two teenagers, people wouldn’t care a whole lot.”

“That’s how they noticed, I guess. He was being watched by some neighbor who was hoping to get more proof since the court keeps dismissing the case. Just because he’s a big-name lawyer, it’s like he couldn’t possibly be involved.”

“Ah. Well, I hope he’s lying dead in a ditch somewhere.”

“Uhhh. I think you’re supposed to hope he gets caught and sent to prison,” Gabriel says.

I laugh. “Ah, shit, you’re right. I forgot about that.”

He chuckles. “You’re a man of the law and you forgot about prison?”

“Gabriel, I’m a simple man who simply forgets about such things on my days off,” I assure him.

Anderson opens his mouth, but I smile at him, and he closes it again as his eyes flicker over to the knife in my hand. How many words could he really get out before I silenced him?

“ Are you a simple man?” Gabriel asks. “You’re literally the most difficult person I’ve ever met in my life. Everything you do is convoluted and confusing, and then you jump up and go, ‘Look, I tripped over this cold case from 1956 and have deduced that the stableboy from fifteen towns over did it with an ounce of rat poison from his great-grandma’s stash.’”

“Don’t make me blush, Gabriel.”

“I was making fun of you! Not complimenting you.”

“Didn’t sound like it. Sounded like a compliment,” I say as I trail the knife over Anderson’s neck, just to remind him that we’re keeping quiet.

A bead of sweat rolls down the man’s forehead.

“I’ll see you in fifteen.”

“Sounds good,” I say as I hang up and lean against the table I have Anderson strapped to. “He’s cute… like a little puppy dog.”

Anderson stares at me. I think he weirdly believes if he stays quiet, that will fix everything. I slap some tape over his mouth and check his binds. “I will be back. You just sit here and think about how scared those two girls were and how you will never touch another. Okay? Okay.”

I give his cheek a little smack and head out the door to my car. I’ll finish dealing with him later.

When I reach the department, Gabriel is getting out of his car. I get out of mine and glance over at Gabriel, who is all smiles as he comes rushing over.

“You’re awfully happy for being here on a precious day off. Is it my face you missed?”

“Immensely,” he teases. “I just sat at home all day going, ‘My life would be complete if only I could see Liam’s shining face.’”

“Well, here it is. Would you like a picture of it so when you lie awake at night thinking, ‘If only I could be as perfect as Liam,’ you’d have an image to gaze at?”

“No, I’m okay. Thank you for the consideration, though,” he jokes, heading inside as I trail after him. We go up to the third floor and are waved over to the two neighbors who are sitting in the chairs by the secretary’s desk. They’re both looking around curiously, clearly expecting something more interesting to happen, like they just walked onto the set of a TV show.

“This better be good,” I say.

Tobias looks startled, like he might be in trouble if what he has to show us isn’t good enough, but Becca’s excitement can’t be swayed.

“It is,” she says. “I didn’t realize my doorbell camera got the road. I forgot I set it up and… forgot it was even a thing.” She looks a bit sheepish, but even that can’t deter her enthusiasm.

“Did you get Davies lugging a dead body across the screen?” I ask.

“I kind of thought you’d be excited to see what we have, but now I feel like it’s not substantial enough,” Tobias says as Becca pulls out her phone. She struggles with it, so Tobias takes it from her and pulls up the video.

Gabriel and I watch as a car drives by.

“It’s quite dark, but that’s William Davies’ car, right?” Gabriel asks.

“It is!” Becca exclaims. “I didn’t even realize it at first because the car is new, and I’d only seen it when he pulled in earlier that day. He usually drives around one of those, uhhh…”

“It used to be a Honda,” Tobias says.

I rewind it and watch the car again. It’s out of frame before it turns, but I do see the glow of brake lights, telling me that it likely turned into the driveway. “What time is the recording from?”

“Like two in the morning? Let me look… 2:21.”

Interesting. Did Jon Davies put the bodies in his son’s car and not his own? Or did his son not arrive until then?

“You said William was there earlier in the day?” I ask.

“Yeah, I saw him pull in before dinner.”

“Did you ever see him leave?”

Becca shakes her head. “I don’t know, I went out with my sister and never thought to look over there when I got home.”

“May I see this?” I ask, and she quickly hands it over.

I click back further to check for Jon Davies’ car, but the camera doesn’t catch anything going into the driveway from the direction Jon Davies would have been driving since her house is a little bit down the road from theirs. The device only records movement, so even if there was a flash of light from his headlights, it wouldn’t be seen on this camera.

“Can we have this footage?” I ask.

“Of course!” Becca says. “We’re always happy to help.”

Tobias hesitates, so Gabriel gives him a smile. “Was there something else?”

“Um… I’m just… being paranoid. But if he gets out of this… will he know we said something?” Tobias asks. “I really think he thought I was sleeping with his wife or something from the snide comments he’d make. And I just… I really wasn’t doing anything. I’m sure you already noticed, but there was a call for a domestic dispute the week prior to this. A neighbor heard shouting. It didn’t look like anything ever came of it, so I’m sure he talked his way out of it, but the whole thing started because a package had been delivered to my house. I opened it without looking at the label, realized it was hers, and quickly took it over. When he saw that it was a dress, he snatched it from her and started saying shit like, ‘Did you buy this for my fucking wife?’ Like it literally had her house number on it.”

“You didn’t think to say this before?” I ask.

“I didn’t think about it. He’s done stupid shit like that before. And I didn’t know another neighbor had called the cops on them until they told me yesterday. I must have been at work when they called. I’m really sorry,” Tobias says.

“It’s okay,” Gabriel assures him. “And you will remain anonymous. Jon Davies will not be aware that you shared this information. If you think of anything else, let us know.”

We direct the two of them over to the tech team so they can acquire the footage before I head back into the hallway with Gabriel. “I want to see William’s car. When they examined it, nothing was found, was it?”

“I don’t think so, but I can double-check that really quick. It’d only take me a minute,” Gabriel says. “You think he moved the bodies in his son’s car?”

“But then where was his car?” I ask. “There were no visible tire marks in the yard. The driveway is only wide enough for one vehicle. So if the son was there first, which it sounds like he was if he came around dinnertime, then Jon Davies’ car was blocking him in. I guess he could have backed out onto the road, but if he backed out toward Becca’s house, her camera would have caught the movement.”

“Unless he backed out the other way.”

“If you were backing out onto a two-lane road just to move some vehicles, would you back out to the left or the right?” I ask.

“I would… back out so that the car would be in the correct lane closest to my house so I wouldn’t have to run across the road to reach the other vehicle or have mine facing the wrong direction.”

“Which means he would have backed up in front of her camera. That’s not to say he couldn’t back the other way or have his car facing the wrong direction, but it’s definitely not the first move someone would make.”

“Right…”

“What if William came after? The father was already there, then the son pulls in. He’d left for some reason… probably not to go home, he has a pretty long drive to just turn around and come right back… maybe he went out with friends.”

“Would Jon still be there at 2:21?” Gabriel asks. “Jon Davies’ roommate at the conference said he was up by seven. That’s pushing things if the son is still alive at 2:21. And he’d still have the bodies to deal with, but it doesn’t make it impossible.”

“Right… I want to look at William’s car.”

“So much for our day off.”

“Hey, you said you didn’t reach your quota of seeing my face yet today,” I tease.

“You are quite right. That’s one hundred percent what I said,” Gabriel replies with much sarcasm as he starts after me. “I’ll meet you downstairs. Give me a second.”

“Going off to do something secret without me?”

“Yes, I was going to drop off a document to Michaels asking for a day off and to take a piss, but if you want to come and watch, I guess I can let HR know.”

“HR loves me. There’s never been a single complaint about me. Have I complained to them? As many times as allowed, but Suzy from HR told me that ‘Someone looking at you and saying hi is not harassment.’ But I think Suzy’s on their side and not mine.”

That makes Gabriel laugh as he hurries off.

I head downstairs to find someone miserable that I can make more miserable, but sadly no one is listlessly wandering around this late. It is seven in the evening, so the place is definitely not as busy.

I do see Tobias looking a bit lost, and question whether he’d be a good victim to harass. I am feeling rather irritated that my lovely date night with Anderson was ruined, so I need something to make myself feel better. He’s giving me the eye flick now… like he wants me to come over and ask if he needs something because he’s too useless to come over himself and ask.

The problem is that I really don’t care about his issues, but he keeps staring at me. It’s quite apparent at this point that he’s begging for me to come over and ask him what he could possibly need.

But I’m not going to lie… I love the torture I’m causing him.

“Um… excuse me?” Tobias asks, finally caving.

“You need something?” I say this like I haven’t noticed him trying to get my attention for the past five minutes.

“Yeah… Becca. She said she was going to the bathroom and one of the officers passing by said the bathroom was that way, but Becca went the other way. I think she thinks this is like one of those crime shows, you know? Where she’s going to stumble upon some crime scene board with the string and she’s going to figure out the case, and you guys are going to hire her on as a consultant because she’s so much smarter than everyone working the case… not that she is! I was just saying… that’s how she’s acting. She reads too many books and watches too much TV.”

“If she was smart enough to solve the case, she’d have been able to figure out her door cam was recording the street and wouldn’t have needed you to find the recording for her,” I say.

Tobias laughs before quickly covering it up. “I did not just laugh at that.”

“Well, have fun.”

“Uh… you’re not… like… going to help?”

“No, I hadn’t planned on it. It’s my day off.”

“So… if it wasn’t your day off, you’d help?”

“I’m going to be real honest, I wouldn’t have helped then either,” I say as Gabriel comes out of the elevator. “Here, this is Lassie, he’ll find your missing person.”

“What’s that?” Gabriel asks.

“Becca wandered off and I didn’t know if either of you knew where she was? She went that way,” Tobias says as he points.

“I don’t, but I’d love to help you,” Gabriel tells him.

“Love is such a strong word,” I mutter.

“I would be absolutely delighted to help you,” Gabriel says. “Is that better?”

“Somehow worse.”

Gabriel just laughs as he pushes through a door, and we see Becca on the other side of the room chatting up a police officer. Becca, noticing us, hurries over. “I’m so sorry. I got distracted. You know how much this stuff fascinates me. Did you guys ever figure out the identity of the body that was behind Jon’s house? I have a theory.”

“Here she goes,” Tobias says with a sigh. “Becca, I do have work in an hour.”

“It won’t take an hour… unless I’m right,” she retorts. “So, years ago I would notice this young woman—probably late teens or early twenties—walking down the road each night. She freaked me the fuck out because she reminded me of the girl from The Ring . Every night at the same time, she’d walk by, until one night… she never walked by again.”

“Why, because she got a car?” I ask. “Or do you think she got spooked by the creepy neighbor staring through the window at her every night?”

Gabriel waves me off, as though I could possibly be of no help. “Do you know how long ago this was?”

“Oh… I don’t know. Maybe eight years ago or something?”

“Did you ever talk to her?” I ask.

Becca hesitates, clearly wishing there was more to this story than there is. “No…”

I stare at her. “So some young woman was walking home from work or school every day, and you thought she was a monster who’d come out of your TV. And then she stopped walking past… That’s what you have for me?”

“Okay… it sounded a lot better in my head. Fuck. I’m just saying that maybe Jon snatched her as she walked by one night.”

“Can you give me a detailed description?” Gabriel asks.

“She already did—the girl from The Ring ,” I say as I pull up a picture on my phone and flash it to him. “White gown, long hair like Cousin Itt and in this case completely black.”

“Well… okay… maybe she had light brown or blonde hair and it was short. Maybe shoulder length?”

I scrutinize the picture on my phone as I try to determine how her description matches. Weirdly, I’m not seeing it.

“How long did she travel your street?” Gabriel asks.

“Maybe a week before she never came again.”

“Always going the same way?”

“Yeah. Tobias wasn’t there at the time or he could back me up.”

“I’m… not sure I want to back you up. It kind of just sounds like you’re confusing them more,” Tobias says with a grimace. I flash him the picture of the girl from The Ring and his grimace deepens.

“Do you know the time of year you saw her?” I ask.

“Is it her?” Becca asks, looking excited.

“I don’t know. She doesn’t look like she’s climbed through too many TVs, but I don’t like to judge someone before I understand them better.”

Gabriel gives me a look that blatantly states that I judge everyone, or maybe he’s wanting me to get off my fixation of the girl from The Ring.

“I don’t know the time of year. It was so long ago. I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay. Thank you for your help,” Gabriel says.

“Did they help?” I ask.

“Very much. Very helpful. The footage is very important. And we’ll look into this young woman.”

“Wonderful! If you need more, just hit me up,” Becca says.

“They don’t need more,” Tobias mutters as he directs her away.

So much time wasted when I could be playing with Anderson.

“You ready?” Gabriel asks.

I draw my thoughts away from my toy waiting for me. “Sure, sure.”

“While I was up there, I wanted to go over the report about William’s car.”

“I was wondering what took you so long. I had to stare menacingly at Tobias for a good five minutes while waiting for you,” I say.

“You literally saw he needed help and chose not to help him?”

“One hundred percent. No one will get anywhere in life if they have to rely on others to help them,” I explain.

“I’m ignoring you and getting back to the report. There were multiple unidentified fingerprints in the vehicle, but what’s most important is that Jon’s fingerprints were in it. We have to assume at least one set of unidentified prints belong to William. At the time this didn’t stand out, but now that we know it’s a newer car…” Gabriel says as he glances at me, like he wants to see if I’m impressed.

“Right. Was Jon inside the vehicle at any point? It didn’t seem like he and William got together too often. Had Jon even been in it since he bought it?”

“Right? His fingerprints were identified on the display screen and gear shift.”

We head out to see the car, and when we get to where it’d been held after being thoroughly examined, we’re given permission to look it over.

“So… the information Becca gave us about the dead woman…”

“Matches her description but still not enough to guarantee it’s her,” I say.

“Right. We still haven’t identified her… but if she was in the area every day for a week, it makes it sound like she lived in the area and wasn’t traveling.”

I walk around the car as I think. “Jon comes home. Thinks his wife Eleanor is cheating… finds son at home. Jon attacks wife and son. Kills them, hides the bodies. Puts them in the trunk of son’s car and brings it back before taking his own car… but now the miles don’t match up.”

“What do you mean? Oh, with his car?”

“Right. If he drops the wife’s body off… that’s what? Fifteen miles from his home? It’s on the route back to the conference center… so what if the son came back after the wife was already killed, found the mess, and then Jon killed him?” I mutter, trying to get this to make sense.

“Why was he out and then coming back after two?”

“Last call for alcohol is two a.m. But I’m still stuck on why the fuck would he have done such a shitty job hiding the body of his wife but not his son?”

“Maybe we just haven’t been as lucky finding William,” Gabriel suggests. “If the rope holding her down hadn’t come free, we still might not have found her. Water can shift the time of death… so Jon might have gotten there at two something and killed them then, but like you said, that would make getting back to the conference center by seven difficult.”

“I just can’t grasp what I’m missing here,” I say. “It’s right in front of my face and I just can’t see it. Let’s see if we can get Jon Davies to specify when he last saw the new car. If we can catch him saying he never saw it, we’d know that he was there that night.”

I walk around the car again as Gabriel calls to set up another interview with Jon Davies. In the meantime, I’ll scan through all the messages that were exchanged between Jon and William since he bought the vehicle, but I have no idea what was said over the phone. No part of this will stand if Jon claims to have been in the car with his son at some point.

Going our separate ways, Gabriel heads back home, and I hurry off to play with my prize. Really, I’ve been away too long already, and it would be rather rude of me to keep him waiting any longer. I pull up to the old silo and rush inside.

“Anderson, did you miss me? I sure missed you…” I say before stopping dead as I see that the table is empty of life. There’s blood on it… clearly, he took some drastic measures to get free, but the man in question is gone and he’s now out there roaming around with the information that the detective in charge of his case is tying criminals up in a silo.

“Well… fuck,” I mutter as I follow the trail of blood. Moving quietly, I notice some drops that lead around back to a shed that’s close to falling down. I hold my gun tightly in my hand as I inch toward it while noticing that the door is shut.

Stepping closer, I reach it and use my foot to swing it open, knowing there’s no way to lock it from inside. It’s dark within the shed, so I can’t quite tell if he’s hiding in the shadows or was using it as a distraction. Hearing a noise behind me, I turn just as Anderson swings a shovel at my head. I miss the hit but sure don’t miss him pummeling me to the ground. He’s a big man who’d played football in college and has a mean tackle on him.

He drives me to the ground as I twist to the side, trying to free the gun that’s gotten wedged under him. I yank it up, hoping to pull it out, but his weight is keeping it down. He tries to punch me in the face, but I ram my hips up, knocking him off balance. This would have worked perfectly if he hadn’t used the momentum to grab me around the neck.

Anderson’s hands tighten, cutting off my air, but I know not to panic. I just need to get my arm free, and when I do, I grab the side of his head and jab my thumb into his eye. I dig in, pressing as hard as I possibly can, and he screams and jerks back in an attempt to get away. It loosens the grip he has on me as he rears back in the hopes of saving his eye. I try to use the moment of relief to aim the gun at him, but he’s quick, snatching my wrist the second I get the gun up.

I rock my body back and slam my heel into his stomach before snaking my now free arm around the arm holding mine. Then I twist under him, ramming my shoulder into his body and flipping him down onto his back.

“I’ll kill you! I’ll fucking kill you!” he screams as he fights for all he’s worth to keep hold of the gun. But it’s not enough.

“Such a pitiful threat for a man who’s not going to see tomorrow,” I say as I pull the gun free and shoot him in the head.

He slumps down and falls off me as I look down at the mess I have to clean up. It was awfully nice of him to bring the shovel to me.

I sink down to my ass and soak in the bliss of it all. He added a bit of spice to the night… like he actually thought he’d go free.

Oh, what a hilarious joke.

One less parasite roaming the ground I walk on.