7
Jude
Feeling more relaxed after his shower, Jude chopped vegetables for the salad, while Cope put the tray of baked ziti into the oven. He was cutting onions when the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it!” Wolf called from the living room.
“Me get it!” Lizzie insisted.
“You’re too little!” Wolf shot back.
“Me no wittle!”
The bell rang again. “I’ve got it.” Jude breezed through the living room and hoped to god West Strickland wasn’t early. Thankfully Ten and Ronan were standing on the other side of the door. Ten held a bright pink bakery box in his hands. Fitz and Aurora were behind them.
“You good?” Ronan asked.
Jude shrugged. “We’ll talk in the kitchen.”
Everly walked up to Jude and wrapped her arms around him. “I love you, Uncle Jude.”
Jude hugged his niece back and shot Ronan a questioning look. He hoped to hell Ronan hadn’t told Everly about his breakdown in the office this morning. “I love you too, honey.”
Ronan shook his head.
“Hey, Cope,” Ronan said when he walked into the kitchen. “We grabbed a cheesecake. I figured we could all use a little treat.”
Cope took the box from Ronan. “Thanks, guys.”
Jude set the table while everyone settled into a seat.
“Tell me what you know about this Strickland guy and why he’s coming to dinner.” Ten frowned as he spoke. Obviously he wasn’t thrilled over the idea of breaking bread with that man either.
“To be honest, we don’t really know anything about him,” Jude said. “He’s an accountant and according to Fitz has been with his firm since college.”
“Inviting him to dinner was my idea,” Fitzgibbon said, wearing a guilty look.
“He has our unit, our careers, and our partnership in the palm of his hand. I just figured if we could show him who we are, what kind of family men we are, that might go a long way in Strickland seeing the importance of the cold case unit.”
“Wait, hold on,” Cope said, “he doesn’t see the importance of solving cold cases?
That makes no sense. Any idiot could see that there are families in pain who’ve waited years, sometimes decades, to find justice for their murdered family member.
The only hope some of them have in finding a resolution are the four of you. ”
“Well,” Strickland said from the kitchen door, “call me an idiot.”
“Mr. Strickland, my husband didn’t mean that like it sounded.” Jude felt himself starting to sweat. Cope calling the man an idiot in absentia might be what sank them all. “When did you get here? We didn’t hear the bell.”
“I was about to ring it when a little red-headed girl opened the door and invited me inside. She stared at me kind of funny.”
“That’s my daughter, Everly.” Ronan got up from his seat and returned with Everly in tow.
“Hi, Mr. Strickland. Sorry you thought I was weird, but I was having a conversation with-”
The oven timer beeped and whatever Everly had been about to say was lost. “Honey, why don’t you go in the living room and I’ll bring you all plates.” Jude tried to communicate through his eyes, but he didn’t think it was working.
“Okay, Uncle Jude. Can I have two breadsticks?”
“You sure can.” Jude pasted on a smile.
Ten minutes later, the kids were settled with their dinner in the living room, and the adults were passing around the salad bowl.
“So, Mr. Strickland, where are you from?” Cope asked, dumping blue cheese dressing on his salad.
“Don’t you already know?” Strickland pegged Cope with his stare. “I thought you were one of the psychics.”
“I am one of the psychics,” Cope began, “usually people find it unnerving if I just come out asking what it was like growing up in Cambridge with a single mother who ran a tenement house and rented to lawyers and doctors.”
Strickland froze at Cope’s words.
Jude couldn’t help getting a little thrill over Strickland’s reaction. “West doesn’t really believe in psychics and what you all can do.”
“That’s right,” Strickland said, most of the color had returned to his face. “It’s all a bunch of bullshit meant to part gullible people from their money.”
“That’s not what your mother thought,” Everly said walking into the kitchen. “Alice loved psychics and didn’t make a big decision without talking it over with her favorite, Geraldine. She doesn’t like what her death has done to you and wants you to know that she’s safe and happy.”
“Safe and happy?” Strickland asked, looking astonished. “Safe and happy! She was viciously murdered fifteen years ago all because I worked late instead of coming home on time to take her out to dinner.”
Career or no career, Jude was five seconds away from kicking this man out of his house. No one was going to speak to Everly like that in his house.
Everly was silent for a few seconds. “Alice says it’s not your fault, West. She says that if you’d gotten home on time, you would have been the one to find her. The cops wouldn’t let you into the house that night because they wanted to spare you the pain of seeing what that animal did to her.”
“You’re a little kid. How do you know this stuff?”
“I have gifts like my Dad.” Everly pointed to Tennyson. “The reason that I told you what I saw is because my Dads spend their days trying to help people and I want to do the same thing.”
“The cops wouldn’t let me see her. I never got the chance to say goodbye.”
“You’ve said goodbye in dozens of ways over the last fifteen years. Alice knows how much you love her. She wants you to find your smile, get married, start a family, adopt a dog named Ketchup.”
West barked a quick laugh. “We always joked I’d have a dog named Ketchup and she’d have one named Mustard.”
“Everly, do you know who hurt West’s mother?” Jude asked gently.
Everly shook her head. “Dad, I don’t understand why I can’t see who it is. It’s like something’s blocking me, like on the funny video show when a man splits his pants and they blur out his buns.”
Ten offered his hand to his daughter. His eyes slid shut. “You’re right. I can’t see it either. It’s like trying to see through glasses that are the wrong prescription. Cope, what about you?”
“Same. I can see what happened before the killer arrived and after that person left, just not what happened or who did it. I’m sorry, West, I wish I could see more.”
“If only you had some new friends who were experts at working cold cases, huh, West?” Everly shrugged and walked to the fridge. She grabbed a bottle of salad dressing and walked back into the living room.
“How many different detectives worked on your mother’s case?” Fitzgibbon asked.
“It started off with five or six, then dwindled down over time. After the first month, the detectives didn’t call me with updates anymore.
After two months they wouldn’t return my calls.
Over the years, I’ve heard from five or six different guys who promised they’d get this case solved, but it never went anywhere. ”
“That explains your attitude about cold case detectives.” Jude sighed. West had rubbed him the wrong way more times than he could count, but he still wanted to find Alice’s killer and find justice for her son. “Where did the crime happen?”
“Cambridge, like Cope said.”
“Ronan and I both worked in homicide and cold case when we were with the Boston Police Department. We worked with the Cambridge Police on several occasions when events or suspects crossed jurisdictions. One of our friends is the captain of the Boston unit now. If memory serves, Cambridge doesn’t have its own cold unit.
When those sorts of cases arose, they were sent to me.
It might be worth a phone call to find out if that’s still the case. ” Fitz wore a hopeful look.
Ronan and Jude nodded. “No promises, but we can look into this case for you.” Jude had a feeling if they looked into this case, they’d be able to get somewhere with it.
“Even if you find my mother’s killer, I’m still going to give Salem’s mayor and city council my honest opinion about this department and if the budget should be allotted to keep your team.”
“This isn’t a quid pro quo. We’re not trying to exchange finding your mother’s killer with recommending Salem should keep our unit,” Fitz said.
“Finding killers is what we do, all day, every day. There are just so many cases that have gone cold over time. I showed you all the cases we worked on over the last three years and how we haven’t made much of a dent in the unsolved pile.
I imagine it’s the same for other departments. ”
“Even with as big of a jerk as I’ve been, you’re still willing to look into this for me?” West asked.
“Oh, please,” Jude said. “We’ve worked with bigger assholes before. Take Ronan for example!” Jude laughed. The rest of the table laughed along with him.
Fitzgibbon had been right on the money when he suggested inviting West for dinner.
They’d shown the accountant what kind of detectives they were and what the power of family had done for them.
Jude knew it wasn’t going to be a cake walk getting the Cambridge Police to look into Alice’s murder.
The same went for finding evidence that would lead to the killer after fifteen years, but Jude was up for the challenge.
Looking around the table at Cope, Ronan, and Fitz, they were too.
It was time to show West Strickland just how valuable cold case detectives were.