Page 54 of Vengeance of Childhood Proportions (Till Death Do Us Part #7)

Chapter Forty-Four

Mal

We were finally able to track down Jason Kadeer. The man lived in the lower forty-eight now and I had a video call scheduled with him at the ass-crack of dawn tomorrow morning because he was on Eastern Standard Time.

Abiatha Kirlin, the ADA, was currently in Carr’s office, along with Sheriff Mawere.

Since Holly Marteen’s rape did not fall under my jurisdiction, they were inside trying to determine what charges could be brought up against Roberts, Renfrew, and Steiner.

We were also finally able to get a judge to allow Kaylee Collins to come in with an escort.

So much fucking red tape. My head was throbbing; all I wanted was to get back to the club tonight to see my little owl.

I was thirty-seven years old, and I was fucking exhausted. I loved my job. I loved bringing criminals to justice, but there had to be a better system. I did not become a cop to protect rapists. Maybe it was time to look into retiring.

“Staring at that picture won’t bring her back.”

I barely blinked at Mira’s comment. She’d been better since our talk in the car on the way to interview former Sheriff Renfrew.

I was starting to feel like she was a reliable partner again, but the woman did not have to remind me every five fucking minutes that I was staring at Holly Marteen’s photo.

After Emmet Renfrew had ripped the other one, I had printed a new one of her. This one was bigger.

“Who’s left?” I asked Mira, ignoring her comment. If I wanted to stare at the picture of, who I believed was, the true victim, then that was my prerogative.

“After this again?”

“There is no other avenue.” I stood up off the conference room table.

Everyone else was breaking for lunch, but Mira had insisted on working through her lunch break with me.

“Look at all of this, Mira! It all goes back to her attack,” I pointed at Holly’s photo.

“None of this would be happening if not for that day. This is all about Holly.”

Mira walked up to stand next to me, shoulder to shoulder.

“I know you think so, but maybe we’re missing something.

Clearly, Holly isn’t back from the dead to do all of this and she has no family left.

From what we found, she didn’t have that many friends.

So what if this isn’t about avenging Holly? ”

I shook my head. “It’s too personal, too specific otherwise.”

“Look,” Mira made a face. “What happened to Holly was awful. The fact that an entire town backed a hockey team instead of a traumatized girl is tragic.”

“Despicable,” I added under my breath.

“That too,” Mira agreed. “But she’s dead, Mal. You can’t bring her back and you’re far too focused on her assault and not our current victims.”

“They’re not victims, Mira! All of them, they’re the offenders !”

“Not today!” Mira shot back. “In 2010, yeah, they were. Today? They’re being hunted and it’s our job to protect them.”

“And you’re okay with that?” I asked, surprised. “You’re okay with protecting a group of adults who, as teenagers, gathered together to humiliate and rape their classmate?”

Mira sighed. “No, not really, but that’s the job, Mal.”

I stared at the photo of Holly Marteen. “This job sucks then.”

Mira frowned at me. “You love this job and you know it. But you’re getting too fixated on her. You think that because you didn’t save her that all of this is your fault. Which is ridiculous, Mal. You didn’t even know her.”

“Pull a psych eval on me?” I asked wryly. “Because you’re wrong. I feel sorry for her. I’m pissed on her behalf. But I don’t feel guilty.” I rolled my neck to crack it. “You think too highly of me if you think that.”

“Then why do you keep staring at her picture?”

Why indeed? “She’s the key, Mira. Someone is fighting her battle.”

Knocking on the glass door had us both turning to see Dr. Robinson enter. Since he worked in the City Building on Seward Street, it was rare to see him in our offices.

“Welcome to the Saunders Building,” I said sarcastically. “And what brings you to our neck of the woods?”

The coroner put two file folders on the conference room table. “I identified the body found at the hourly motel this morning. Now that we have a checklist that we’re working off, it makes IDing a body a little too easy.” He handed the first to me. “Samuel Keene.”

“Fuck,” I murmured as I accepted the folder.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mira walk up to the whiteboard and move Keene’s photo from the Missing column to the Victims column.

“We’ve increased patrols in the area. The entire town is on edge waiting for the next body to drop.

How is this guy getting around unnoticed? ”

Dr. Robinson caught sight of Mira moving, too, and then his eyes flicked to the right. “Is this her?” I turned as he approached my whiteboard. “Holly?”

I leaned my ass back against the edge of the table, crossing my arms over my chest. I was still holding Keene’s file, though I hadn’t opened it yet. “Yeah, Holly Marteen.”

“So young,” Dr. Robinson’s voice was filled with sorrow. I’d overheard an intern once ask Dr. Robinson how he didn’t cry at every body. “I am the voice for the dead,” he’d replied. “And I won’t be able to speak clearly if I cried for the dead.”

Mira put her hands in her suit jacket pockets. “She was fourteen in that picture. We couldn’t find a picture in the next year’s yearbook, though she was still registered as a student. She was sixteen when she committed suicide in 2011.”

Dr. Robinson nodded slowly, still studying her picture. “You were right that she’s the cause of all this.”

I knew he was speaking to me, even though his back was to me. “What makes you say that?”

Other investigators had taken the body at the motel this morning so I could stay and deliver Roberts’ confession to the ADA.

“Open the folder.”

I did. “Oh shit.” Picture after picture of writing etched into Sam Keene’s skin, and it was all the same name.

Over and over. It wasn’t done cleanly either.

Even though I had no doubt the instrument used had been sharp, this was very sloppy.

“Holly,” I murmured as Mira approached. I handed her a handful of the pictures so she could see too. “This is rage.”

Dr. Robinson nodded, turning to face us. “The body was frozen, making it nearly impossible to determine time of death.”

“Frozen?” I repeated, confused. Looking at Mira, I asked, “Did we have anything on Keene being afraid of the cold or snow or something?”

She shook her head. “He’s the one with the long list of mistresses. His wife wasn’t exactly forthcoming with information. Basically said ‘good riddance’ and wiped her hands of him.”

I snorted when I came across the next picture. “Well, that explains the ‘A’ then.” I held up the picture of the brand to show her.

“Jesus.” She bent closer to take a better look. “It’s like that book, The Scarlet Letter .”

I closed the file folder. I would look at it more thoroughly later. “He’s turning their fears against them. Every single one of them. This took time, knowledge. Who knew these people so well that they could use their deepest fear against them?”

“How is ‘Holly’ being etched into his skin a fear?” Mira asked, holding out the photos in her hands as if in example.

I shook my head. “This is different. Off pattern. Look at that writing. He died bloody and in pain. This wasn’t control, this was wrath.”

“Something happened with Keene then. Maybe something personal? Should we look into his mistresses as suspects?”

I rolled my shoulders, shaking my head. “This isn’t about Keene. Unless he was sleeping with a relative of Holly’s, it doesn’t fit.”

Mira’s icy blue eyes glared at me. “You can’t throw out evidence because it doesn’t fit your theory that Holly is the cause of all this, Mal.”

I did not raise my voice as I said, “You’re more than welcome to follow that line of thought, Mira. Just be prepared for it to lead nowhere.”

“God! You are such an asshole sometimes!” She slammed the pictures down on the table. “I’m going to get lunch.”

I said nothing as she walked out the door. Dr. Robinson looked between the two of us before asking, “Are Mommy and Daddy fighting again?”

I snorted. “More like Big Partner is about to kick Little Partner’s stubborn ass.” I did not like the implication that Mira and I were more than coworkers.

“I looked into Holly Marteen’s death as you asked.” Dr. Robinson walked back over to the conference table and picked up the second folder. “I don’t know the coroner who did the autopsy personally, but based on the records he sent over, it was a simple fracture of the hyoid bone.”

I swapped folders with him. The top picture was a copy of an x-ray with fractures indicated.

Next was the police report, interviews with the parents, and photos of her bedroom.

But none of her. I don’t know why I was so grateful for that.

I’d seen a lot of dead bodies before and some of them were children.

It was hard when it was kids, but seeing their pictures made me a better cop.

“Says here she made it into the ambulance. Was she alive?”

“It’s rare, but it generally happens when the noose isn’t the right height or anchored correctly. The bones snap but the nerves take longer to?—”

I held up a hand to stop him. “I got the picture. Fuck.”

“It’s heartbreaking, what was done to her.”

“‘There is no beast more crueler than man’,” I quoted softly.

“Am I crazy, Doc? To think that all of this leads back to her? Mira says I have a stick up my ass about it, but look at all of this.” I gestured to the window and the board.

“It fits . It’s her ,” I tapped Holly’s file in my hand.

“But I don’t see who . No one is left .”

Dr. Robinson studied the pictures, scratching his close-cropped beard. “Maybe there’s someone dead who isn’t dead.”

I snorted. “Just what I need, an order to start exhuming bodies. It’s bad enough I have to do a fucking press conference every morning with no updates.”

The doctor shrugged. “I’m just a coroner.

I talk for the dead.” He pointed at the pictures of Harrow, Jamison, Keene, Martell, Wise, Butler, and Ritter-Hogan on my board.

“We’re still waiting for forensics back on them.

Hopefully that will be able to tell you what I cannot and you’ll be able to find this guy. ”

“Problem is,” I confided in the coroner, “even if I do find him, I don’t know if I should slap a pair of cuffs on him or give him a fucking medal.”