Chapter 24 #2
Unless it’s not loyalty that’s keeping them in check, but fear, I realize, recalling Jones’ widow’s frightened expression.
Or maybe, just maybe, my overactive, jump-to-conclusions imagination is making me assume absurd things. Maybe my parents really did have a suicide pact, and maybe Jones did kill himself in the weirdest way possible.
A shot to the head.
I don’t have time to repress the image before it pops into my brain. Dad, his eyes staring unseeing, blood trickling out of his mouth… the front of his head missing.
He was also shot in the center of his forehead.
So was Mom, I think with a shudder, remembering her slumped-over form.
The only thing keeping me from falling to the ground and hunching over in pain at the vivid images burning my brain is the significance behind them.
Three people, shot in the exact same way. It’s not a suicide. I’m sure of it. It can’t be.
Since when do police officers cover up for serial killers?
I train my eyes toward my left, where I’m expecting Josh to be waiting for me docilely, like the naive, kind of annoying golden retriever I still imagine him to be, in spite of the way he’s been proving me wrong lately.
He proves me wrong yet again as he’s nowhere in sight. I look around and spot him a little further away, speaking to… Jones’ widow. A police officer is standing behind her, glaring at Josh.
I hurry over to him, just in time for him to say, “Are you sure you don’t remember?”
Her own glare is a mirror of the officer’s. “I have nothing to say. Leave me alone. All of you, leave me alone.”
She grabs her daughter’s hand, who can’t be more than three, and marches off.
“Let it be,” grunts the officer who had been behind her. “I don’t know why you’re being so insistent. It’s a suicide, the others said so.”
He stares at me with the look of someone who doesn’t know who I am, which means he must have only recently arrived in Astley.
I decide to take advantage of that. “And you just go along with what the others say?”
He shrugs. “I’m a traffic cop. What else would I do?”
“What’s a traffic cop doing, investigating a murder?
“They said all hands on deck. I’m just following orders. Anyway, I told you, it’s not a murder.”
“Right. A suicide, with your chief pointing his gun straight into the center of his head, which means he must have twisted his hand like this.” I mimic the gesture, showing him how unnaturally Jones’ hand would have been held so that he could shoot the gun point blank and straight into his skull.
The same unnatural pose Dad and Mom would have taken if they’d ended their own lives.
How could Jones even have been sure of what had happened since he gave me two theories? A murder-suicide and a suicide pact?
The evidence should have at the very least shown whether they’d each ended their own life, or if one had killed the other.
I don’t know much about blood spatter—it wasn’t really covered in the Nancy Drew books—but I feel like I can safely assume that much, at least. If the evidence didn’t allow them to make such a call, how the hell could it have led Jones to tell me, with such certainty, what had happened?
It’s because it didn’t happen. And he knew it.
But the officer in front of me merely repeats, doggedly, “It was a suicide. That’s what they said. That’s what Mrs. Jones said. That’s what her little girl said.”
I stare up at him, feeling pretty deflated, because I know they’re all lying to me, but I have no idea how to force the truth from them.
If only we could organize a dinner party and confront them or something. Dashiell Hammett really set me up for failure.
I sigh, getting ready to turn back so I can—I have no idea what. I’m feeling once more like I’ve reached a dead-end.
But yet again, Josh surprises me by not following me. Instead, he asks, “How do you know that’s what her little girl said?”
“I took her deposition myself. She witnessed it.”
I whip back around, my heart twisting in my chest for this poor little girl. To see her father die like that…
But Josh doesn’t seem affected. At least, not in the same way as me. “I guess she was with her mother when you spoke to her,” he says. “Maybe the mom fed her that line. Right?”
I frown, confused at what he’s doing. The officer hisses in annoyances. “Wrong. We separated the two of them, and I spoke directly to that little girl. She was all by herself, and she told me, ‘Dad committed suicide.’.”
“She used those very words?”
“Those very words,” insists the officer. “And when I asked her what she meant, because those are some pretty big words for a kid her age, she said he killed himself.”
Josh represses a smile. “Thanks.”
Then he grabs me by the arm and leads me away.
“What the hell was that about?” I question as we walk down the avenue.
He stops as soon as we’ve turned into the nearest deserted side street. “I have a little sister, about the same age. She’s four.”
“That’s nice,” I say, trying to show the kind of interest I assume a friend would show, even though I’m thinking this is not really the time for listening to Josh tell me about his family. “What’s her name?”
“Doesn’t matter.” I raise an eyebrow as he clarifies, “The point is, they’re about the same age.”
“So?” I’m starting to feel pretty stupid, because I have no idea what he’s getting at.
“So,” he says, “there’s no way that little girl knows the meaning of someone committing suicide. Beyond just the words, kids that age don’t understand death. They don’t understand murder, let alone suicide. Someone explained things to her. Someone told her what happened. Or someone told her…”
“What didn’t happen,” I finish, my eyes wide at the implication.