Fatal Intimacies (Romantic Suspense) (2 page)

3

Detective Thomas Garcia ducked underneath the yellow police tape. The apartment had been cordoned off. A uniformed officer from the Seattle PD blocked his access. He moved aside his suit coat, revealing the gold shield underneath, and the officer said, “Sorry, Detective.”

“It’s alright. We haven’t met, Tom Garcia.”

“Justin Henri, sir.”

“You’re new right?” Garcia said, stepping into the living room.

“Yes, sir. Two weeks.”

“Well you got any questions you come ask me. Some of the older
guys’ll mess with you.”

He grinned. “Yeah, they already called me out to a home break-in and it was the Assistant Chief’s house. I thought he was going to fire me. But he just yelled until he turned red and then threw me out.”

Garcia smiled. “Yeah, that’s standard. But don’t hesitate to ask questions. That’s how you learn.”

Garcia walked through the living. He looked at the decorations, which weren’t much.
A poster of Edgar Allan Poe, some flowers, a bookshelf with a handful of books on poetry and old American literature. Garcia bent down in front of the bookshelf and scanned the titles. You could tell a lot from what a person had on their bookshelf. He rose and scanned the rest of the living room before heading past the kitchen into the bedroom.

The apartment was tiny. No more than five hundred square feet. The
bed was just two mattresses stacked on top of each other. Garcia went to the closet and glanced at the clothing. A forensic tech and another officer were in the bathroom, but he ignored them for now.

He searched the top shelf of the closet. A box was there. He pulled it down. It was white with a pink top, the size of a shoebox.

“Hey,” he said to the tech, “throw me some gloves.”

Garcia snapped on the latex gloves and opened the box. It was filled with letters. He flipped through them until getting to the bottom of the box. A spiraled notebook was there with a pen
tucked through the spirals. He took it out and flipped through the entries. A journal. The first one was dated nearly a year ago, and the most recent one was last week. He read the most recent entry:

i
met David finally. we talked for almost a week online before meeting, i think he’s shy. but way cute. i’ll have to see how he does with Pebbles though. here’s hoping for the best!

“Did you guys find a cat or a dog?” Garcia said.

The uniform in the bathroom said, “Um, yeah, Detective. A cat. It was hiding under the bed. Called Animal Control out.”

“The relatives may
want her. Her name’s Pebbles. Tell AC to hold her.”

“Okay.”

He closed the notebook and put it back in the box, and placed the box down on the bed. Searching the rest of the closet, he found a makeup kit and a bong, but nothing else. He ran his hand over her clothes one more time and then stepped over to the bathroom.

Blood spray was
over the walls and had pooled on the white tile. The way it spread and spattered… it could almost be beautiful if it didn’t come with the horror. The horror that someone was ripped away for no other reason than because it brought pleasure for someone else. And he was left with the mess. With the families that had the vacant stares, with the children and husbands that no longer had a mother or wife… with the aftermath of insanity.

He pushed it out of his mind and leaned against the doorframe. The woman was nude and the puncture wounds covered her chest. He could see the bright purple bruises on her neck in the shape of fingers.

“Sexual assault?” Garcia said.

The tech was photographing the scene. He stopped and looked up. “We did a SANE kit. Came back for semen and vaginal tearing. Definitely raped. We’ll have to wait for the autopsy to see what else.”

Garcia bent down and lightly touched her face. She was beautiful, and young, and even in the rigidity of death her loveliness shone through.

“Who is she?” he asked.

“Michelle Barlow. Her purse is in the front room.”

“We find a point of entry?”

“Nothing we could see.”

Garcia rose. “Someone she knew
, maybe.”

“That was my guess.”

“Unless he picked the lock on the door.”

“Can’t help you there, Tom. No way to tell.”

“Might be scratches inside the lock.”

“Might be. But
it might also be caused by the keys. Impossible to tell.”

Garcia nodded. “I’m going with the uniforms to talk to the neighbors. Text me when the ME’s people get here, would you?”

“Yup.”

The f
irst neighbor was stoned and so off balance Garcia nearly had to catch him in front of the door. The second didn’t answer, and the third, two doors down, said she didn’t hear or see anything and didn’t know who the hell Michelle Barlow was.

That was life in the big city, Garcia thought. Everyone an island unto
themselves.

It took over two hours with three officers to canvas the entire apartment building
and the one next door. No one knew anything helpful. Garcia checked back after receiving a text that the medical examiner’s people were in the apartment. By the time he got there, they had already placed the body in a black bag and were zipping it up.

Candice, the assistant medical examiner, was there. She looked up at him and smiled.

“Fun way to spend a Saturday,” she said.

Garcia shrugged. “What do you think?”

“At least fifteen stab wounds with a good sized knife. It was thicker than a kitchen knife, so maybe a hunting knife or something. But she was strangled, too. As she bled to death and her heart stopped.”

Garcia moved out of the way as two people from the ME’s Office placed the body on a gurney and began to haul it out.
He watched until it was wheeled out of the room and turned back to Candice who was scanning the bathroom.

“No weapon, huh?” she said.

“No.”

“I bet you hate these ones.”

“Yeah.” Garcia stepped out and stared through the windows in the bedroom. He walked out to the living room and found Michelle Barlow’s purse. He put on some latex gloves and then took out her cell phone. He searched in her recent calls and then checked her messages. Under “Contacts,” there was no listing for a husband, mother or father. But there was one for “Big Sis.” Garcia took out his own phone and dialed the number.

4

“Yes, is this the sister for a Michelle Barlow?”

Jessica felt
a heaviness in her gut. No one ever started a conversation off that way that had good news. “Yes. This is Jessica Barlow. And who is this?”

“Ms. Barlow, is Michelle currently residing at 56 North Street in Seattle?”

“I think so.”

A pause. “This is Detective Thomas Garcia
with the Seattle Police Department. Are you somewhere you can come down and meet with me?”

“I live in Texas, Detective. What’s going on?”

Another pause. “I’m afraid your sister has passed.”

Jessica went numb. Every part of her felt like clay and
she nearly dropped the phone. Memories flooded her mind. Images of playgrounds, and schools, and dances.

“I’m sorry,” the detective said.

“How?”

“She was killed.”

“Killed how?”

“We believe it was a homicide at this point in the investigation.”

“By who? What’s going on?”

“I’m sorry, but that’s all we have for now.
Your sister was killed in her apartment by an intruder. Possibly someone she knew.”

Jessica shook her head. “This can’t be happening.”

“Is there anyone here that you know of that I can speak with? Friends or relatives?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to Michelle in almost two years. I don’t know who she was around.”

Jessica heard voices in the background, and the detective giving some orders. “Ms. Barlow, I’d like to call you later. Perhaps tomorrow. Would that be alright?”

“Y—
Yes, that would be fine.”

“The Medical Examiner will call you as well regarding arrangements for the body. I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

She hung up and stared at her phone like she didn’t know what it was. She placed it down on the desk. The words on the computer screen in front of her didn’t make sense right now. A pain was welling up inside of her, but it wasn’t here yet. All she felt was unbridled shock. She closed her eyes and then a thought hit her.

That couldn’t have been a real call. It had to have been Sarah, or maybe even Michelle. She was always fighting for attention. Maybe she thought this would be funny? Jessica picked up her phone and googled the Seattle PD’s homicide division and their phone number. She dialed and asked for detective Thomas Garcia.

“I’m sorry, Detective Garcia is out on a call. Would you like his voicemail?”

“Um, no. Thank you.”

She hung up. Laying her head down on the desk
, she wanted to cry. To get it over with now and get all that emotion out so that it wouldn’t be inside her anymore. But she couldn’t. It just sat in her belly and in her throat and wouldn’t let go.

Jessica rose and went out to the front room. The kids were watching some show with a dog puppet on the Disney channel. She sat next to them, staring blankly at the screen.

5

Jessica sat on the porch with the tea
cup lightly burning her fingertips. She took a sip and stared out into the street. Sarah sat next to her. To her credit, she had come over, made the tea, and sat out here with her without saying a word.

“You’re waiting for me to talk,” Jessica said. “But I don’t have anything to say.”

“I only met Michelle once. She was… spunky.”

“That’s one word for it. She was reckless. She would walk into a party and strangers would give her drugs and she’d take all of
them. Not one or two hits. She’d take everything that was offered to her. My parents thought she would become a junkie.”

“Was she?”

She shook her head and took a sip of the tea. “I don’t think so. We hadn’t talked for almost two years, so who knows for sure.”

“Why
didn’t you talk?”

“I don’t know. It just felt like we weren’t clicking. Like we tolerated each other but we couldn’t see eye-to-eye on anything. The last time I spoke with her, we got into a fight. I don’t even remember what it was over now.”

Sarah thought a moment and then took a deep breath. “Did you call your parents?”

“Not yet. I don’t even know what I’m going to say to them.”

“Tell them the truth.”

“I don’t know the truth. I called and spoke with another detective and they asked me a bunch of questions, but they didn’t really have any information for me. They don’t know why she was killed.” She placed the tea down on the table next to her. “Do you want to know the worst part
, Sarah? I know I should be devastated. She was my only sister. We should have been closer than anybody. But I don’t feel anything. I’m just numb.”

“It’ll come. Our emotions control us, Jessica. And they work at their own pace. It’ll come when it’s ready. You loved her.”

“I feel bad that I’m not taking this harder.”

She placed her hand over Jessica’s.
“It’ll come, trust me.” She leaned back in the seat. “So what are you gonna do? Are you going out there?”

She shook her head. “She’s already gone. I don’t know what that would do. Besides,
who would I leave Jacob and Ruth with?”

“They can stay with me.”

“No, foster care rules are pretty strict. They have to stay with another state approved foster family if I’m out of the state.”

“So they’ll be fine. And I’ll check up on them. I think you need to go out there, Jess.” She rose. “I’ve
gotta go. Meeting Ty at the Circle Lounge. Call me later?”

“Sure. Thanks, Sarah.”

When she was gone, Jessica went for a walk. The neighborhood she lived in was upscale with only a few minor drawbacks. One was the family that lived across the street from her. They were a middle aged couple that had been married too young in life. They fought at all hours and everyone in the neighborhood could hear them. The police had been called at least half a dozen times. More than once, Jessica had seen the husband being dragged out in handcuffs. Despite the black eyes and mysterious bruises, the woman never left.

Around the corner was a small grocery store owned by an elderly man named George Ross. Jessica walked there and
ambled around the store a while. She finally chose a Diet Coke and put it on her Visa.

A memory came flooding back as she paid. As a child, she and Michelle would save their pennies. When they had enough, they would hop a fence near their apartment building and go to the grocery store next door. They would purchase strawberry milk and candy bars, as much as their money would allow, and then sit on the fence and eat them and talk.

Jessica thought it was around fifth grade for Michelle and sixth for her; the closest they had ever been. They would talk about who they were going to marry and what boys at school were cute. Which teachers were treating them unfairly.

And then Jessica went to middle school.

It was only a year difference, but some sort of change happened in Michelle. When she got to middle school, she didn’t spend time with Jessica anymore. Worse, it didn’t seem like she wanted to spend time with her. She had her own group of friends, and not a group that Jessica wanted to be around. One of the girls had a tongue piercing, and Michelle had followed suit. Now, it was hardly something to be noticed. But fifteen years ago it was a sign that something was wrong. Her parents had put Michelle in therapy, and after that, the rift between them and her grew so wide, it could never go back to what it was.

As Jessica walked out of the store, she thought about the last conversation she had with her sister. She tried desperately to remember what they had fought over. As if remembering would somehow make her feel less awful about it.

But the memory just wouldn’t come.