Sketch of a Murder

Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Six in the morning. At least it's Sunday. Nita glared at her watch for a moment longer like it was at fault for her inability to sleep before she pulled sock-covered feet from the windowsill to make her way to the kitchen. As she carried her refilled coffee cup back to the living room her cell phone played the refrain from a country song, "Take This Job and Shove It..."

"Hey, Lieutenant."

"Lil' Mary Jane won't have to testify after all."

Coffee slopped all over the floor as she set the cup on the end table by the couch and sank onto the edge of the cushion.

"Restaurant owner in Bellevue was prepping to open, walked out back with some garbage, and found three of them propped up next to the dumpster."

"Three of them?" Nita could barely squeeze the words past the pounding of her heart in her throat.

"Yes, all three of the jocks. Over in Bellevue. I'll text you the address. I'm heading that way now."

The phone was barely shoved in her pocket before the bars of "Independence Day" played. "Hey, Dawn." She answered as she hustled into the bedroom and yanked a pair of black slacks from her closet.

"The Avenger did another special delivery via street kid to my condo."

"Yeah," she struggled into her blouse one-handed. "We know. He got the jocks."

"Yes, that's what the letter said. Left them in Bellevue next to a dumpster. The letter says he left Gareth at the boy's house, where he killed him."

"Oh, shit! Gotta go." She stabbed Williams' number, put the phone on speaker as she finished struggling into her clothes and shoes. She was locking her front door by the time he answered. "Lieutenant, I'm headed to Marysville. Dawn got special delivery from The Avenger. Told her about the jocks and claims he killed Gareth at the boy's home and left the body there. Can you call ahead for a car to check it out?"

Before she got her motorcycle revved, he called back. "Marysville Police are in route to Gareth's house. They received a 9-1-1 from a neighbor about a fight next door three minutes ago. I told them to set up a perimeter, but I'd bet The Avenger is long gone. I'll call Albert and have him get the rest of the team together and get their butts up there. Call me when you know something."

***

A haphazard jumble of police cars and emergency vehicles surrounded Foster Gareth's house like jackstraws flung down, their red lights painting bloody arcs across the front of the tidy white house. She dismounted from her motorcycle before it came to a full stop. Flashing her badge, she raced past the uniform guarding the door.

Urgent voices snapped orders in a book-lined study. A uniformed officer was restraining a gray-faced woman in a nurse's uniform, in the hallway.

The first thing Nita noticed, as she stepped through the doorway and into the study, was the spray of dark red streaking the lime green walls. Papers, some with droplets and smears of dull red, lay scattered over the cheap, pressed-wood desk and spilled to the floor. A dried, bloody handprint smeared the white painted doorframe, as if someone had tried to grab hold, but had been dragged back into the room.

She rushed to where the EMTs squatted next to a still form sprawled on a light-colored carpet dyed red with the boy's blood. "Is he alive?"

"Barely," the male EMT grunted.

The female EMT inserted an IV. Two others helped load the slashed body of Foster Gareth onto a stretcher. They hurried out. She stared at that square of carpet until she could no longer hear the siren's screams.

Yellow crime scene tape fluttered in a slight breeze as she pushed her bike up the street crowded with gawking neighbors. She needed to get busy interviewing potential witnesses before they contaminated each other's memories, yet she couldn't seem to force herself to do it. Albert and O'Hara can oversee gathering the witness statements.

"Hey, there," Dawn sidestepped and caught the bike's handlebar before the tire bumped into her. "Looks like you could use some coffee. Park that thing. I saw a Starbucks as I drove in."

Scone and coffee in front of her, Nita struggled to pull herself from the consuming numbness that had settled in her chest. Too late. Too late. It radiated outward, made her arms too heavy to move. She let them lie on the small table, her shoulders bowed inward, back bent. It was simply too much effort to sit up straight. It was almost too much effort to breathe.

"Nita."

Dawn's voice sounded far away and she was too tired to respond anyway.

"Nita!"

Dawn's warm hands clasped her cold ones. She shivered. From a distance she heard the scraping of a chair across a tile floor. Something warm settled around her shoulders.

A voice whispered in her ear. "It's not your fault."

Raising guilt-stricken eyes to the other woman's anxious face, she responded in a dead voice. "Yes, it is. I should have seen this coming. I should have..." Wearily she let her head droop.

"Come on, we're getting out of here."

She held it together until Dawn set her on the couch in her condo. Everything was so orderly, so clean. The tears came silently at first, tracking hot streaks down her face. Then the sobs wrenched her guts, clawed their way up her throat. She turned her face into Dawn's shoulder. Slender, strong arms wrapped around her as Dawn rubbed circles on her back.

When she sniffled to a stop, Dawn handed her a handful of Kleenex. "I'll get some coffee started. You know where the bathroom is."

After a grilled cheese sandwich and a pot of coffee, she looked across the tidy kitchen to where Dawn was refilling her own cup. "Sorry about the waterworks," she mumbled.

"Don't you dare!" Dawn whirled on her. "Don't you dare start feeling apologetic about being human!" Coffee set on the clean table, she sank onto the chair closest to Nita, reached out and cradled one of Nita's hands in both of her own. "If Gareth doesn't make it, his death is no more your fault than Chelsea Greene's was."

Her eyes snapped up from the table. "What do you know about Chelsea?"

"There wasn't much written up about it, but I know the old guy who covered the attack. He told me the parts of the story that didn't make the papers."

Her voice rasped from her throat. "Then you should realize it was my fault. I'm the one who talked Chelsea into cutting across the cornfield."

"First," Dawn scooted closer. "You were just a kid. You didn't cause those boys to hunt Chelsea and her sister." In a softer tone, she continued, "You fought for her. You fought for your friend, Chelsea, and her little sister, and you were injured trying to defend them until the cops got there."

Head bowed, Nita said, "Too late. I didn't realize we were even being followed until it was too late."

"Listen to me. You are not to blame for someone else's actions. You are not to blame for what those boys did, and you aren't to blame for The Avenger's attack on Gareth." She reached out and lifted Nita's chin until they were looking into each other's eyes. "If you give up, if you let them shift the responsibility for what they did onto you, for that you are to blame."