12
Sullivan Residence, 5652 North Glenwood Ave.
“Pete was taking a lot of medication. M-Maybe that’s why he did it. Maybe some of it messed with his h-head or something.”
Debra Sullivan sat on the edge of the sofa. She wore a well-loved terry-cloth robe that had bleach spots on the sleeves. Her brown hair was secured in big, foam rollers. Her eyes were puffy from crying. And when she spoke, she did so haltingly, as if she had trouble talking around the lump lodged firmly in the center of her throat.
Julia and her partner had tried for ten minutes to convince the woman her husband had murdered his boss and the majority of the guests at the cocktail party. But Debra had refused to believe them. She’d kept shaking her head and insisting,“Pete is a pacifist. He voted for Bernie Sanders. He believes in commonsense gun laws. He would never.”
They’d finally resorted to turning on the television and tuning it to a local news source that was reporting on the situation. Then they’d showed her the Facebook post that had gone live on her husband’s profile an hour earlier. It wasn’t some long, self-aggrandizing manifesto à la Patrick Wood Crusius. It’d simply been a heartfelt apology to his wife.
Dear Deb,it had read.I know you’ll never understand what’s happened. And I know you’ll never forgive me. But please believe me when I say this was the only way for me to make sure you’re all taken care of. And we both know all I did was hasten the inevitable. I’m sorry I couldn’t stay with you longer. I’m sorry I won’t see the wonderful men you’ll raise our boys to be. I’m so, so sorry and I’ll love you for eternity. ~Pete
At that point, Debra had broken down into chest-heaving, face-mottling sobs that had made further questioning impossible. Julia had left Dillan in the living room with the devastated woman while she’d made her way to the kitchen to get the poor thing a glass of cold water.
She’d taken her time on the journey.
One, she prided herself on being cool, calm, and collected on the job. But her tender heart—the one that made her a two-time foster dog failure and a sucker for every cookie-selling Girl Scout in the neighborhood—couldn’t stand seeing anyone cry. She invariably ended up crying herself. And two, she wanted to study the family photos hanging on the wall in the hallway leading to the kitchen.
She’d only seen Peter Sullivan post-mortem. And death was the great eraser on the chalkboard of life. Whatever mien or demeanor Peter had maintained while breathing had been obliterated the moment the Grim Reaper touched him with his scythe.
The photographs, however, gave her a better idea of who the perp was. A man who had doted on his wife and two small boys. A man who wasn’t afraid to be silly and wear matching pajamas for Halloween and Christmas. A man with a genuine smile and a lightness in his eyes that made it truly difficult to imagine him committing the night’s dark deeds.
And yet, he did…
“Why was he taking so much medication, Mrs. Sullivan?” Julia asked Debra now, briefly glancing at her phone to make sure it was still recording the conversation.
“He had cancer.” Debra Sullivan’s hand shook as she reached for the glass Julia had placed atop the coaster on the steel and glass coffee table.
The Sullivans had juxtaposed the ornate architecture of their home with minimalistic furnishings and decorations. It looked very classy and chic. But Julia had always thought old Victorian homes should be whimsical, stuffed with tchotchkes and clutches of drying herbs and overstuffed, well-worn furniture.
“What sort of cancer?” she asked.
“P-pancreatic,” Debra answered haltingly as if saying the word aloud left a foul taste in her mouth.
“That’s a death sentence, right?” This from Dillan. “Which explains the line in his post where he said he hastened the end.”
Every time he opened his mouth, Julia wanted to scream. He was about as subtle as a sledgehammer. And Debra Sullivan was on the verge of breaking down again.
The last thing they needed was another fifteen minutes of time wasted while they waited for the poor woman to regain enough composure to finish answering their questions. With each ticking of the second hand on the clock, the pressure to come up with a lead or a motivation or some iota of an explanation weighed heavier on Julia’s shoulders.
She needed to do well on this first case. Shehadto do well. And not just to prove her metal to her supervisors and anyone who’d ever doubted that a pipsqueak of a Southsider could rise through the ranks of the FBI. But to drag into the light exactly what had happened at the senator’s house—andwhyit’d happened—before some bored, basement dweller who spent way too much time on the internet started circulating conspiracy theories.
The World Wide Web was a wonder in that it allowed everyone equal access to any information they might seek. But it’d also proved just how gullible and idiotic humans truly were because most people chose to seek the most titillating, scandalous, and far-fetched information out there.
It was Julia’s responsibility to focus the narrative before the flat-earthers and Holocaust-deniers got their Cheeto-dusted fingers on it. But to do that, she had to have actionable facts. Hard evidence.Believablemotivation.
There was nothing worse than going to the press with bad intel and then having to recant that message later. It would make her look incompetent. Make her bosses look ineffectual. Make thebureaulook bush league. And that was the quickest way to get knocked down to the mailroom.
Huge tears slipped down Debra’s cheeks and landed on the lapel of her robe. But she managed to keep from dissolving completely.
Julia and Dillan were seated in the two armchairs facing the sofa. The tissue box was on the little occasional table between them, and Julia hastily pulled out two tissues and passed them across to the woman all while shooting Dillan a look that said,Could youbeany more of a dick?
His expression ofWhat did I do?was emphasized by the shrug he gave her.
Sigh.
Julia’s father liked to say everyone had their cross to bear. Julia’s cross was 6’3” and went by the name of Dillan Douglas.
