Chapter 87
The little girl was what had done it. The way she had looked at him. She was just a child. No more than thirteen or fourteen. She needed protected. Proverbs or Psalms stated: “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.”
She was just a little girl who needed, deserved, protected. If her grandfather wasn’t going to do it, wasn’t Melvin morally, biblically, obligated?
He knew what Ernie had done to the girl’s mother five years ago. Her mother had been ill and had reached out to Ernie for financial help. To help her child.
She had been entitled to it. There was no denying that Riely was Ernie's granddaughter.
Ernie should have wanted to help, to protect.
And he had plenty of money to help. Instead, within a week, Riely's mother and grandmother, the two women who had raised Riely her entire life with very little input from her father at all, were dead. Just like that.
Problem solved. For Ernie.
He killed that woman, her mother, and then had arranged to take the child for himself. So he could…control.
Like so many others who had opposed Ernie Newcomb through the last four decades. Ernie had killed those two women—and taken the girl to raise himself.
Melvin had known, but he had said nothing. Done nothing to make things right.
Melvin had prayed, since the moment he had learned of the ambush of Dom Acardi and that innocent young woman had failed.
He knew what he was supposed to do now. He had called Adrian and told him that Melvin had needed to speak with him today. Adrian had counseled him. Reminded him that honesty mattered.
Doing the right thing. Doing the Biblical thing.
Melvin was resolved in what he was doing now. No…no matter the consequences.
There would certainly be consequences.
He had written Skylar a long letter and dropped it in the mail on his way to the Finley Creek post this morning.
What he was doing was going to hurt her—it was inevitable.
He had lost his daughter through his own actions.
That was something he would have to live with for the rest of his life. The fruits of his own actions.
He had reaped what he’d sown.
Melvin stepped inside the Major Crimes bullpen.
He'd always gotten a bit of a kick out of how sophisticated it looked now.
Far cry from what it was when he'd first started it, no more than twenty-two years old.
Now the requirements to join the TSP were twenty-four years old, and at least an associate's degree even to get into the academy.
That had been instituted around five years ago.
It wasn't like what it used to be back then.
Maybe that was a good thing. Look at what kind of death and evil Ernie and the rest of them, and Melvin included, had managed to inflict using the power that they had.
He would be ashamed of who he had been for the rest of his days.
He looked into the young man's face. He’d always somewhat respected the man in front of him.
Dominic Acardi was almost brutally honest. Had never been a problem, although he had a habit of going cowboy when he felt it was warranted.
Melvin had never found a speck of dirt on this man, either.
He’d certainly looked at all of Major Crimes before. For Ernie.
And maybe…considering what had happened to the woman this man so obviously loved—maybe it was fitting that it was he in front of Melvin now.
"Acardi, I need to speak with you. There's something I need to get off my chest.”