Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I woke up to the sound of the Potomac and a dog snoring.
Oscar was at the foot of the bed with his chin on my ankle, his whole body rising and falling in that deep, boneless way dogs sleep. Outside the tall windows the sky was already bright.
Jack’s side of the bed was empty, and I could tell he’d been gone awhile. I looked at the clock and saw it was past nine. He’d let me sleep.
I’d slept deeply until dreams of Wade invaded.
I’d stood over his body with his skull bashed in and the knife in his groin, and his eyes had opened to look at me.
Even in death there’d been a smirk on his face, as if he’d known all along that death would be his fate and was willing to face the consequences with no remorse.
It had been a dream filled with lies and sex and deception, all leading to those black eyes staring back at me.
Wade was a man who put himself first. Who made himself the center. It was his pleasure, his wants, his needs, his vanity, and his greed that drove him.
Oscar opened one eye when I moved. He looked at me.
“Not yet,” I told him.
He put his chin back down.
I showered and got dressed in navy wide-legged pants, a red-and-white striped top, and a pair of red Mary Janes that felt like clouds and that I don’t remember buying. Then I went downstairs with Oscar on my heels.
Jack was at the island with his coffee and his laptop in a navy KGSO polo that showed off his biceps and made me want to take a bite out of them.
“You must have slept well if you’re looking at me like that,” he said.
“I slept,” I told him, going straight to the coffeepot. “Weird dreams though.”
I poured a cup and sat across from him. The back windows looked out over the woods, dense and already hot looking even at this hour, the light coming through the canopy in long flat slats. The Potomac was somewhere below the cliff doing what it always did.
“How long have you been up?” I asked.
“Few hours,” he said. “I’ve been digging into the Callums.”
“I’m so pissed about this,” I said. “I hate this case. From every angle. I liked him. He seemed like a standup guy. Excited about a new baby, firefighter, works hard. But then we find out he’s screwing around with Jessica on the side, so maybe it’s not so hard to believe.
This is why you can’t trust people. They’re never what they seem. ”
“I did too,” Jack said. “Doesn’t make him the killer though. Maybe his wife got in too deep and he helped her clean up the mess.”
“Yeah, I guess so. What have you got on her?”
“Brianna Callum,” he said. “Brianna Dryer Callum, age twenty-nine. King George Proper address, no record, no violations. Graduate of KGU, doctor of veterinary medicine, small animal practice in Newcastle, been there four years. Married to Brett fourteen months.”
He turned the laptop toward me.
“She’s not in the membership roster at Form and Flow. She was never a client. Her initials aren’t in the notebook. She’s not connected to Wade’s professional life in any way we can find.” He looked at me. “Which means we don’t know how they met.”
“You said an initial background check,” I said. “I’m assuming you looked deeper?”
“Not me,” Jack said sheepishly. “You know how Margot is. No boundaries.”
“What’d she find?”
“Four hospital visits in the past thirteen months,” Jack said. “Different hospitals. Broken wrist, concussion, dislocated shoulder, and debilitating headaches. No records that she was involved in extreme sports or activities.”
“Oh, man,” I said. I knew what that meant.
I’d been an ER doc long before I’d started working for the dead, and I’d seen the women who’d come in with those injuries.
They were the same women who’d come up with one creative excuse after another and rejected the idea of calling the police and reporting their spouse.
The kitchen was quiet except for Oscar settling onto his bed in the corner and the distant pop of someone’s early firecrackers somewhere down the street.
“I’m really starting to question my judge of character,” I said.
“I’ve told you before,” he said. “Everyone is lying about something, even the ones you think are decent people. If you go into every interview with that thought in your head you’re never disappointed. You’ll like what I found out about Brett though.”
“You should’ve woken me up,” I said. “I missed all the good stuff.”
“If I’d woken you up like I wanted to we would not have been talking about this case. You need to eat breakfast.”
He moved around the kitchen perfectly comfortable selecting ingredients and the right kitchen tool. I was not like Jack in that regard.
While he whipped up batter for waffles and cooked bacon and eggs, I did my part by making him another cup of coffee and staying out of his way.
“So what did you find out about Brett?”
“He’s got a sealed juvenile record,” he said. “But he’s squeaky once he hit adulthood. Graduated high school and went straight into the Marines.”
“Oh,” I said. “So he left the flag as a sign of his patriotic duty to kill the enemy.”
“Sounds as good as anything,” he said, putting a plate overflowing with food in front of me.
“I can’t eat all this.”
“It’s okay, I’m sure Doug will take whatever you don’t eat.
” He took his own plate and sat across from me.
“Anyway, Brett did his four years and then went to the fire academy. He’s got some commendations.
But Margot dug around and managed to find two domestic dispute calls in the last year.
I looked in my archives to see what happened, and it looks like both instances were called in by a neighbor.
An officer responded, the fire chief called my captain who’s in charge of that jurisdiction, and had him remove any records of it.
All I’ve got are the initial phone calls to report it.
Everything else is gone. No files at all. ”
“That’s not good.”
“I’ll be having a discussion with my captain,” Jack said. “Unfortunately it happens a lot. You don’t want to piss off someone you might need for a case or anything else later, so you give a little to get a little. First responder culture thrives on the barter system.”
“So we can place Brianna in Wade’s condo based on Gerald’s witness statement, and a probable DNA match from the panties left at the scene.
We know Brett had access to the condos, he had his own key fob, and if he was sleeping with Jessica it probably wasn’t too hard to lift the key for Wade’s condo and have a copy made.
But what we don’t know is which of them actually killed Wade.
Was Brianna another victim, or was Wade killed by a jealous husband? ”
“A jealous and violent husband,” Jack said. “We need to talk to Brianna Callum.”
Ridgeline Drive was quiet except for the birds and a neighbor’s lawn sprinkler going in slow arcs across the grass.
Mature trees, basketball hoops in driveways, flags already out on half the porches.
The Callum house had a full-size flag on a proper pole at the edge of the front yard.
It was moving in the morning breeze and I couldn’t stop looking at it.
Jack pulled into the driveway, and we sat there for a second.
“You think she’s here?” I asked.
“Battered spouses tend to do what they’re told to do,” Jack said. “If Brett killed Wade then she’s a witness. Which means she’s a liability to him.”
“She could already be dead.”
“Yeah,” he sighed. “I’ve thought of that. I asked for a unit to wait down the street just in case. Brett drives a Ford 150, and I don’t see it anywhere. He should be on his shift at the fire station.”
We got out of the car, and Jack immediately rested his hand on his weapon as we approached the house.
The porch had two rocking chairs and a hanging fern and a wreath of red, white, and blue ribbon on the door. I kept my eyes moving the way Jack had taught me—windows, door, the gap between the curtain and the frame. Nothing moved.
Jack knocked.
We waited. I could feel the weight of Jack’s hand near his weapon without looking at it.
There was movement behind the glass panel beside the door—a shadow, someone looking out without opening it.
Jack held up his badge and kept it there.
The lock turned. The door opened six inches and stopped on the chain. Through the gap I could see a sliver of her—silvery-blond hair and one eye, higher up than I expected. She looked at the badge. Then at Jack. Then at me.
Jack said, “Mrs. Callum. I’m Sheriff Lawson. This is Dr. Graves. We need to speak with you. Can we come in?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “Now isn’t a good time.”
“Mrs. Callum,” Jack said softly. “You’re safe with us. But we have to talk to you.”
The chain slid free. The door opened the rest of the way.
My stomach dropped.
She was tall—five-nine, maybe taller—with silvery-blond hair loose around her face and the kind of direct gaze that said she was used to being the one in charge of a room.
Except for the injury to her nose, which no concealer was going to cover.
The bridge was swollen and dark and the bruising had spread under both eyes, gone yellow-green at the edges.
Something moved across her face when she looked at us—relief, terror, both—and then it went still. She stepped back and held the door.
The living room was neat and lived in. A sectional sofa, a coffee table with a stack of books and a candle burned almost to nothing.
Family photos on the wall—a wedding photo, a beach somewhere sunny, what looked like a fire department gala with Brett in his dress blues and Brianna in a red gown with her head thrown back laughing at something off camera.
“Why are you here?” she asked. “I really don’t have time for this today. I’ve missed work this week, and I have paperwork to catch up on.”
“Why don’t we sit down?” Jack asked. “Wherever you’re most comfortable.”
She kept looking at the door and out the front window.
“He’s on shift isn’t he?” I asked. “He won’t be home anytime soon.”