#longprose

I got my first 'big kid' office job, and every weekday I drive out of the big city to a little suburb, a small town, a world of winding neighborhoods and one high school and competing Easter egg hunts happening across the street from each other. The office in which I work is along the main street of this little place, and every morning I pass by the elementary school with its gray and brown playsets and the town museum that I'm confident can't hold more than three rooms' worth of artifacts.

The office itself is mostly just two big rooms with little closet-like rooms that line the sides, my desk softly occupying the corner of the biggest room, directly across from the big window that has a view of only the empty, grass-filled lot that sprawls multiple blocks across the street. I'm usually alone in the mornings. I connect to the speakers in the office and listen to music, and I work, and I draw, and I drink my coffee.

Around eleven every morning, I get up from the chair and desk that is my world for forty hours a week and I make my way to the little bakery and general store that are to the right of the office, walking along the sidewalk instead of crossing the parking lots inhabited along the edges by little birds and in the middle by broken glass.

The bakery is this oddly-shaped building that juts up from the landscape, emanating a stately and all-knowing presence. I've always thought that it looked almost like a steamship that had run aground and lost its smokestack. There's an entry way, a set of doors before another, and there is this wooden, musty smell that permeates everything within that small space, and I am reminded of the old farmhouse in which I grew up every time I go.

The only words that accurately describe the interior are cluttered and homey. A large espresso machine takes up half of the counter, glass-fronted fridges are squeezed up against the wall, holding pre-made lunches for those that work along the main street, like I do, and every possible place that a display table could be, there is one. The items change out regularly, and range from homemade breads, fresh-baked muffins, ceramic dishes, decorative metal chickens, block-printed kitchen towels, and farmhouse-themed signs. I usually gravitate towards the breads first.

The ladies who work at the bakery are nice - at least, most of them are. I've heard conflicting things about all of them, but they've only ever been nice to me. There's one who's about my age that I see often, and she remembers my name and my coffee order and compliments my outfits. She asks about how things are at the office, and she asks about the Easter egg hunts, and she asks me if I've seen that stray dog again, and if I left out the treats she'd given me for him.

Once I've gotten my second latte of the day and my pre-made lunch (it's usually chicken salad of some sort), I leave the bakery, and make my way back to the office, always taking the crack-ridden sidewalk, careful not to step on the worms and bugs that like to join me on my journeys.

I think I miss my hometown.

I think I miss something that isn't quite the simplicity, but rather the feeling that whichever coffee shop I went to, they always knew my name, and they'd ask about my grandmother, and they'd ask about my teaching job, how it was going, if the museum was so cold I always needed a sweater, if the rumors they'd heard about the renovations were true. I think I miss the brick-lined roads and the old Victorian homes and the church bells that would ring out in the morning, cutting through the fog and dawn-lit hours of the morning.

I miss careening down those dusty country roads with my best friend in my old red truck, and we'd always laugh because it was so funny that instead of some teenage boys in that truck, it was two teachers in their twenties. And it was funny, but it was also clandestine and fated and by God, we knew we were on borrowed time, on stolen time, chasing the summer air as if it was something that we could catch but I knew, and I think that I always knew, that the first winds of fall would catch us by the split ends of our hair and force us to fall backwards and scrape the palms of our hands.

I saw that friend earlier this week, and it was like no time had passed since I last saw her that summer. I think I laughed so hard I cried. But near the end of the night, I saw the bags under her eyes and realized that she'd gotten older - that I'd gotten older.

We've all gotten older.

       She couldn’t sleep.

       It was frustrating to her that her body couldn’t perform its basic functions simply because it was too busy catering to the foreign life that was feeding off her, using her as an incubator for its own growth. It seemed unfair that suddenly she was secondary as far as her internal systems were concerned. Her body’s maternal instincts were making her extremely cranky as she laid awake, the chronic ache in her lower back preventing her from slipping into unconsciousness.

       Her mind, as was common with insomnia, was on overdrive, thrusting itself into considerations far beyond the scope of reason. As hard as she tried to keep them at bay, feelings of regret kept wriggling their way into her heart so that tears formed behind her eyes. She wished he would come in and lay next to her, hold her close and tell her that everything was going to be okay. But she wasn’t expecting that to happen. Logic was still somewhat intact, and she was well aware that he was helping her now only because he had to and not because he still loved her. Seeing him had made that crystal clear.

       Still, he was the reason she had done all of this in the first place, so she couldn’t let go of the possibility that they might be able to rekindle what they once had. It would fuel her until she saw this thing through to the end. You can’t quit, she heard her father’s voice yet again, a constant presence in the back of her mind. You’ve come this far, there’s no going back.

       But so many deaths. So many innocent people killed. She’d never intended for that to happen. Some had been planned, of course. Violet, for example. She’d had no choice but to take her out of the picture. She was the baby’s mother. She would have stopped at nothing. But the rest of them? She closed her eyes so tight she saw strings of light dancing across the backs of the lids. She’d never planned on so many casualties.

       She had to stop thinking about it before she drove herself crazy with guilt.

       She climbed out of bed and tiptoed across the room to the chair where she’d piled her belongings, digging around in the heap until she found her phone. She couldn’t remember the number exactly but she gave it her best shot, waiting nervously as it rang.

       “Hello?” the voice was weary but frantic and just about as regretful as she felt.

       “It’s me.”

       Silence filled the line broken only by heavy breathing.

       “Where are you?”

       “You think I’d tell you that?”

       “Camilla.” A sigh. “Why are you calling?”

       “Hormones.”

       “Just tell me where you are. Let me help you.”

       “I don’t need your help.”

       An extended pause ensued. As she was wondering whether he’d hung up, he spoke again.

       “Tell me you’re not with him.”

       The basement was damp and less than welcoming. Though it was supposed to be cleaned and organized on a regular basis, Briggs’ guess was that it had been several months since anyone had given it any attention, and cobwebs had gathered in the corners amongst thick layers of grime. Gifford shivered and rubbed her arms briskly, letting out a deep cough as dust clouded up around the file Briggs tossed on the counter.

       “What’s that?”            

       “The Steele case,” he said. There was no need to remind his partner of the specifics. They both remembered all too clearly the gruesome murder of the twenty-four year old pregnant woman from their first year on the job. Cases like that weren’t easily forgotten.

       Gifford opened up the file and flipped through it, her face draining of colour as she gazed upon the series of photos from the crime scene.

       “Why am I looking at this?”

       “I think it may be related to what we’re dealing with now.”

       Gifford looked skeptical, as she always did when Briggs presented one of his outlandish ideas, but she cocked her hip and crossed her arms, an open invitation for him to elaborate.

       “I got to thinking,” he began, “that whoever we’re dealing with seems to be an extremely calculated person who makes a hell of a lot of errors.”

       “The hair in the drain? I thought we decided she planted that on purpose.”

       Briggs shook his head. “I’m not talking about that. I think the murders at the Wingfield farm may have been a slipup, not part of the original plan.”

       “Another hunch?” Gifford mocked.

       Briggs ignored her. “This woman is smart. So smart, in fact, that it’s very likely this isn’t her first time. I started looking at old cases, trying to find patterns, and after a while it just started to seem strange that someone with experience would make a mistake that led to killing two extra people. You know as well as I do that serial killers don’t often stray from their plan, and the Wingfield murders were more than just a minor speedbump. So I started thinking that maybe this is a first timer after all or maybe,” he paused for emphasis, “it’s an experienced killer who just isn’t thinking straight. Someone who was being run by her emotions rather than her head.”

       Gifford raised her eyebrows, unimpressed. It wasn’t uncommon for killers to slip up when their emotions began to override their plans. He certainly hadn’t broken any new ground.  

       He held up a finger. “Hear me out.” She complied, folding her lips together, summoning patience. “I couldn’t stop thinking about the Steele case. You don’t need me to remind you that the killer in that situation was a deranged woman who had just endured multiple miscarriages in one year. She cut the fetus from Ms. Steele’s uterus with a paring knife.”

       Gifford swallowed her emotion.

       “Violet, please wake up.”

       Bette was in tears, praying that adrenaline would subdue her emotion as she shone the light from her phone onto her friend’s wound, searching for signs of internal bleeding. There was nothing apparent, no symptoms that were noticeable at first glance, and this worried Bette more than if she’d found something fatal. What if she wasn’t a good enough doctor to find anything at all?

       “There has to be something,” she said aloud to the dark car, touching Violet’s cheeks every few seconds with the hope that the clamminess of her fingers might jolt her awake. But Violet remained motionless, slumped in her seat with only the seatbelt keeping her from collapsing forward into her own lap. Bette unclipped it now and eased her down gently, probing around on her lower back to search for discrepancies in that region. Not to her surprise, there was nothing out of the ordinary.

       No cars had passed since she’d pulled over. Bette was both discouraged and grateful for this, as even though help might prove lifesaving, she had no idea what she might say to anyone who stopped. She worried, admittedly, that this was all her fault, and that if someone found them like this, she risked being put away for life. Though she continued her physical scan, Violet’s dire situation was put on the backburner in her mind momentarily as she imagined spending the rest of her years in prison, her entire life ruined as a result of her own stupidity. But she realized, disgruntledly, that she would stop at nothing, not even the prospect of arrest. Stupidity at its finest disguised as ultimate human kindness. She was no saint, that was for sure, but she’d saved Violet once and she would do it again at any cost, because though it hadn’t started out as such, this had, somewhere along the way, become her problem to fix, and she had no choice but to see it through to the end, whatever form that end might take.

       Sheer stupidity.

       Her hand fell across a protuberance, a small lump in the left lower quadrant in the same area as the incision. Bette pawed at it blindly, reaching with her right hand to click the overhead light. It illuminated things enough that she could set her phone aside, but it was barely enough to allow foggy visibility. She would have to go by touch.

       “Stay with me,” she said. Violet remained unconscious as Bette continued her examination. The lump wasn’t close enough to the original wound to be directly related, she realized with confusion. On top of that, there wasn’t much she could do from the outside. Either Violet needed to get to a hospital, fast, or another incision would have to be made right here and now.

       Bette nearly broke down, backing away for a moment and taking a few deep gulps of the cold night air. She kicked angrily at the small stones along the shoulder of the highway with resentment, all but cursing the heavens for creating yet another obstacle. For the first time in her life, she questioned why she had ever gone to medical school. Secretarial work required so much less stress.

       “I’m going to make something to eat.”

       Bette turned to face her comrade, an expression of shock plastered across her face.

       Violet shrugged. “The envelope isn’t here. We may as well get something out of the attempt.”

       She left the office in a dejected rush. Bette closed the desk drawer through which she’d been rifling, giving one last glance around to ensure they’d returned everything to its proper place, and followed jadedly behind. She didn’t feel right about taking food given that the police could show up again at any moment, but her stomach was refusing to comply with such logic.

       “Sandwich?” Violet asked her as she entered the large kitchen. She was bent out of sight, her head in the open fridge as she clamored around in search of ingredients. “There’s cheese and bread and lettuce. Best I can do.”

       “Sounds great,” Bette said, reluctant to sit. Instead, she leaned against the doorframe and observed, her mouth watering at the sight of the fresh bread Violet was slicing now.

       Violet glanced up and let out a small chuckle. “Come relax for a few minutes,” she said, beckoning with her head. “No one’s going to find us. The cops won’t think we’re stupid enough to return immediately to the scene of the crime.”

       Bette entered reluctantly and took a seat at one of the stools on the opposite side of the island counter, resting her forearms on the cool marble.

       “Speaking of police,” Violet said as she tore lettuce, “what did they ask you in there?”

       “They asked if I took you to the hospital after I found you shot,” Bette replied, recalling the sense of dread upon receiving the question.

       Violet lifted her gaze.

       “What’d you say?”

       “I said no, that the bullet had just grazed you so I patched you up myself.”

       Violet waited.

       “They warned me that it’s my responsibility as both a citizen and a medical professional in training that I report any gunshot wound regardless of its nature.”

       “That’s it? A warning?”

       “I played dumb and cried a little.”

       Violet chuckled again, slapping mayonnaise onto the bread before assembling the pieces. She handed Bette a sandwich sans plate. “Nicely done, partner.”

       Inwardly, Bette beamed. “Thanks. What’d they ask you?”

       Violet finished chewing and swallowed. “They asked me where Camilla was because I said that she may have taken the envelope with her.”

       Bette allowed this information to settle. Before she could ask, Violet spoke again.

       “Seriously, Briggs, where are you going with this?” Kelly Gifford asked him as he rubbed his forehead, trying to think.

       “It just doesn’t add up,” he said, scratching aimlessly at the faux wood surface of his desk. “This woman takes precautions all the way along not to leave a single trace of evidence, but takes a bath and forgets to clean her hair out of the drain? Seems careless, don’t you think?”

       Gifford shrugged. “Even serial killers aren’t perfect.”

       “Maybe not,” he said, a headache developing between his eyes. “But it still just seems a little too careless.”

       “We see it all the time,” she said. “Murderers clean the scene until it’s spotless and then leave behind the bottle of bleach with their fingerprints all over it. Stupid stuff like that.”

       “Yeah,” he nodded slowly. “I guess so. But looking on the personal side of things, this Penelope person is a mother you said, right?”

       Gifford was beginning to look skeptical, but she played along. “Yes.”

       “As a mother, if you’re doing a thorough clean, do you take a bath and then forget to sweep out the drain?”

       “An oversight,” she replied.

       “But she scrubbed the rest of the tub.”

       “Maybe she was in a rush. I would be too if I was on the run.”

       He shook his head. “This woman hasn’t shown any sign of rushing the entire way along. She cleaned every inch of that tub, including the silver ring around the drain, but she left a hair in it. A strand of hair from a woman with a sick daughter who lives in Dayton, Ohio.”

       Gifford waited.

       “You know what I might do if I had a child with cancer?”

       “Harbour deep, penetrating anger at the universe, run away from home and become a serial killer in Northern Canada?”

       “No,” Briggs shook his head. “I might donate my hair to a wig company.”

       A wide smile spread across Gifford’s face. “And that,” she said, praising him with a nod, “is why they pay you the big bucks.”

       “Call the Dayton police,” Briggs ordered, jumping to action. “Get them to speak with Penelope Hartzel and confirm that she donated her hair. I could be way off base here, but it’s worth a shot.”

       Gifford was already dialling. “If we can figure out what donation company she went through, we might be able to gain some headway.” 

       Saving him from further minutes of pesky nostalgia, his partner called at seven o’clock on the button the following morning with news.

       “They found a strand of hair.”

        “Where?”

       “Drain of the hotel room. It matched the description given by the hotel clerk.”

       “DNA results?”

       “Not yet. We put a rush on it.”

       Briggs jumped out of bed, shook off the lingering slumber, and pulled on his uniform.

       “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

       He drank his coffee on the way to the station. When he arrived exactly twenty minutes later, Gifford was sitting at her desk getting caught up on a few final reports. It was the last day of December – New Year’s Eve – and the office was bustling with co-workers rushing around to get stuff done, hoping to leave early to celebrate the passing of another successful year.

       “How long have you been here?” Briggs asked his partner, eyeing her desk as he passed and discerning by the clutter that she hadn’t just arrived.

       “Got here around five,” she said. “We can’t all afford to sleep halfway through the day.”

       He ignored her, took up residence at his own desk across from hers and fired up his computer.

       Another officer, a buff, bald bloke by the name of Charles Howard, stopped to slap him chummily on the back. “You coming out with us tonight, Briggs?”

       Briggs looked up slowly, wondering why everyone other than himself seemed to possess the social gene. He couldn’t think of anything less appealing than spending an all-nighter out with the “gang”, drinking and being merry.

       “Don’t think so,” he answered shortly, avoiding eye contact. Out of his peripherals, he saw Gifford suppress a grin.

       “Don’t look so smug,” he said to her once Howard had retreated.

       She shrugged, nonplussed.

       “I’m not smug. I’m just sitting here trying to remember the last time you went anywhere other than here and home.”

       “I went to Motel Plus in Brittenham yesterday,” he said, trying to keep the mood light.

       Gifford chuckled. “I guess that’s better than nothing. You’re really not going to celebrate New Year’s? C’mon,” she coaxed. “It’ll be good for you.”

       “I can’t believe you figured it out,” Bette said, trailing behind Violet as she wove her way through Camilla’s mansion, passing hurriedly through one room after another on a mission to locate the alleged envelope. They’d managed to silence the alarm within seconds of entering the house, thanks to Violet, whom Bette respected even more now that she had restored her faith in her competence. “What was the code?”

       “Their anniversary,” Violet said, not slowing as she spoke.

       “Whose?”

       “Camilla and Michael’s.”

       Bette narrowed her eyes, puzzled. “She hasn’t changed it since they were together?”

       Violet came to an abrupt stop in front of a room whose door was the only one closed in the long stretch of hallway. “No,” she said, preoccupied as she stared at the handle for a minute before trying it, only to find it locked. She cursed under her breath.

       “What’s this room?” Bette questioned.

       “I don’t know. I’ve only been here a few times.”

       “But why lock it if there isn’t something inside that you don’t want anyone finding?”

       “Exactly.”

       She tried the door a second time for good measure, wiggling the handle firmly between both hands. Once again, it remained securely in place.  

       “Can we look for a key?”

       But before she could make a move to act upon the suggestion, Violet bent her knees and braced herself, throwing her shoulder into the door with a crunch that made Bette’s stomach turn.

       As Violet cried out in pain, the door swung open in contrasting silence.

       Bette was unable to find words. She watched in abhorrent disbelief as Violet stifled a shocked grimace of pain and, caving in on herself slightly as if protecting herself from further harm, gently rolled up her shirt to check her stitches.

       She quickly rolled it back down at the same time Bette closed her eyes to shield them from the sight of the fresh, bright blood.

       “You can fix them again later,” Violet said.

       “I’m more worried about internal bleeding,” she replied brusquely, reopening her eyes.

       “I’m fine.”

       “You can’t go around throwing yourself into doors. You’ll be dead before the week’s end.”

       “I’m fine,” she said unflinchingly, steeling her jaw. “Now let’s go. If we don’t find that envelope, I won’t be fine.”