“I have to go into work, I love you,” I rush out, and walk over to drop a kiss on Melody’s cheek. Then I flee the awkwardness in my kitchen, with Mel’s eyes burning into the back of my neck.
I can’t blame the kid. Mel is as stunning as she always has been, age apparently forgetting she’s in her late thirties. But Cereus is a mini me of her Mom and had never struggled to gain boys’ attention. None of them had gained hers until now. I decide this is something my sister, Ruth, can help with and I’ll go visit her tomorrow and plead for her advice.
The precinct is a flurry of activity when I arrive, the stench of over-brewed coffee stagnant in the air being pushed around by the air coolers. Voices carry over phone lines and detectives busy themselves at their desks as I lift a hand in acknowledgement as I pass them. Mason approaches me, his eyes heavy with bags beneath them. He needs sleep and a vacation but in the ten years I’ve known him, he hasn’t taken any time off. He lives for his job since his wife up and left him, taking his son with her a few years ago.
“Hey, I’ve got something for you,” he says with a nod, handing me a file. “Joey Max is in interview room one.” He tilts his lips into a smile.
My stomach rolls at the name. We’ve been looking for this son of a bitch for nine months. He’s wanted for the murder of his wife, three kids and brother, and had gone AWOL, presumed to have crossed the border into Mexico.
“Picked him up in a strip joint a few miles from here. We were in to question a bar maid about a robbery that resulted in the murders of three dancers. Pure coincidence. Un-fucking-believable right? Thought you would want to question him.”
“You thought right. Good job, Mason.”
His chin lifts and he pats my shoulder.
This case is one believed to have been committed in a drug and alcohol-fueled rage. Once you commit murder on this scale involving children, you rattle the badges of a lot of officers and detectives. Finding this son of a bitch should be celebrated. Our in-house profiler warned us he might go on to commit other murders now he had a taste for it.
I enter the adjoining mirrored room to the interview room, joining a few of my colleagues looking through the glass at the scum. He looks clean and well fed. “Has he said anything?” I ask Pierce and Donovan.
“Nope, hasn’t asked for a lawyer, nothing.”
I smirk up at my friend. “A lawyer can’t help him. We have the bastard.”
I tap at the file holding the hard evidence.
I make my way into the interview room and take the seat opposite him. I slap the file down on the table and open it, lifting a piece of paper as if reading it and then let out a low whistle.
“You really did a number on your family, Joey.” I slide a few of the photos of his massacred children towards him.
He glances briefly at them and then back at me. “Who said I did it?”
I laugh, pointing down at the picture. “The evidence. Your daughter had your skin under her nails from where she clawed at you to stop attacking her brother. Your wife had your semen on her legs from you raping her, and your brother had your blood on his hands from walking in and trying to stop you by taking his small switch blade and stabbing you with it.” I look him over for injury. “You seem fine, though. I assume it didn’t go very deep.”
His hand instinctively rubs at his arm but he doesn’t speak.
“You were clumsy,” I continue. “Left your footprints in the blood and tracked it all through the house. The front door was closed with no sign of forced entry and you left one of the murder weapons in your brother’s head with your fingerprints on it.”
He grins and shakes his head. “Couldn’t get the axe out. Our papa always said my brother was thick-skulled.” He sneers.
That’s as good as a full-fledged confession.
Two hours later and all the little sick bastard could say in his defense was, “Bitch deserved it. So did that cunt brother.”
Turns out his wife was partial to the kid brother and Joey was questioning who fathered which kids in a drunken rage. When he convinced himself they were all laughing at him behind his back, he killed them. It started with an argument with his wife who refused his sexual advances. He raped her then killed her. His brother, who was staying with them, heard the commotion and came to her aid, but he failed and was killed with an axe Joey kept under his bed. He then went to the kids’ room with a kitchen knife. Case closed. What a waste. Those three kids were aged between two and eight, and innocent. Another case of the kids paying for the sins of a parent.
I pull out the letter from Ryan’s Doctor and dial the number given. The answer machine beeps and informs me of office hours and an emergency number if I need it. I leave a message letting him know I’ll be there tomorrow then make my way home to my family.
THE WALLS ARE TALL AND daunting, the metal gates loud and heavy, locking me inside. I could have ended up here in Bluewater if my sins were discovered but they never have been. I was good at covering my tracks and exceptional at the job I once used as an outlet for the anger inside me. After witnessing Mel’s soul incinerate in front of me when she found her murdered parents, it changed everything for me. She was so fragile; if I breathed too hard in her direction she would have crumbled into ash in that moment when she discovered the blood bath my brother had left for her. Watching someone else fracture changes a man. I spent eighteen years trying to make up for the absence of the people who brought her into this world, nurtured and raised her into a magnificent woman. Fate can be a cruel bitch but I always felt it was fate that made our worlds collide. Mel was my redemption; she taught me how to live again. My dark side still lingers but I have enough light in my life now that the dark remains as shadows. Mel opened me up to love and once I felt how powerful it can be there was no going back. Numbing the pain and hate doesn’t help when you finally open up and start letting yourself feel, it just makes you realize what a waste it was living frozen all those years.
The guards manning this place remind me of those at a maximum-security prison. I suppose Bluewater is more dangerous than a prison and it’s comforting to know they guard it so well. The building is huge and segregated so the higher risk patients are separated from the less crazy patients. The guy escorting me gestures with his hand to a desk inside the main entrance and says, “Sign in please.”
I allow him to pat me down without flashing my badge or middle finger, keeping my eyes focused on the office door I’m being led to. I hate the eerie vibe this place has; it seeps into your flesh and mind and plays tricks. Every door closing makes your heart thud. The receptionist, who introduced herself but I can’t remember her name despite just being told it, knocks on the office door and opens it, gesturing for me to enter.
“Ah, Mr. Braxton. Thank you for coming.”
I shake Dr. Leighton’s outstretched hand and take the seat opposite him. I assess the paintings adorning the walls; they always make me want to roll my eyes. Total cliché. Ink-spattered art open for interpretation. I wonder what me seeing a squid coming says about my mental state?
“I was reluctant but curiosity got the better of me,” I reply, giving my attention back to him. He looks at the paintings and smiles
“Well, whatever got you here, I’m glad you came. I see you pay an interest to those paintings each time you come, Mr. Braxton. Your brother likes them also.”
“Oh really? And what does he say they look like?”
He tilts his head, assessing me and making me fidget. I hate coming here and I know that speaks volumes about me. “Ink splatter,” he replies. I raise a skeptical brow at him and he grins. “Blood splatter, at first,” he corrects. That sounds more likely. “And you?” he asks, and it’s my turn to smirk.
“You’re not my Doctor.”