Page 9 of Sinful Sorrow

He silences the sirens and shuts down the lights, because there are no media vans here. No crowd lining up to watch a man break down. No one besides our killer and those back at the house knows who, exactly, our victim is. Which means no one has raced us across the city to tell him, purely for the thrill of being the breaker of devastating news.

“Gordon Wallace works night fill. Stocking shelves after the evening rush. His shift began less than an hour ago.”

Curious, I meet my partner’s eyes. “So he wasn’t here when Naomi was murdered. But he wasn’t at home, either. He was driving and lacks an alibi.”

“Sounds to me like you’re about to start a fight.” He cuts the engine and takes the key from the ignition. Then pushing out of the car, he waits for me to do the same on my side and stares at me over the roof. “I’m not saying it’s impossible. His first-born, teen daughter is pregnant and fresh out of high school. She’s staying with the father of the baby, keeping it, and risking her future scholarship. For a family barely tiptoeing the line between poverty and not, that’s gotta be vexing for a man who has to work at night to make his mortgage payments.”

“Everything has changed for him in the past three weeks,” I add. “He’s found out his daughter is having sex. He probably knew before, but now he knows.”

“And now she’s becoming a mom, and she’s getting vocal about making a family with this other dude. Men have snapped over less. But if you go in there and start with that, we might walk away with a few extra bruises tonight.”

“I’m not here to make it worse.” I push away from the car and slam my door shut, then I head toward the hood and dig my hands into my pockets. “I’m just thinking out loud. With my partner.” I meet his eyes. “I recall a time we could discuss a case and it not become an argument.”

“We’re not arguing.” He follows me to the front of the car and hunches when an icy breeze crosses a half empty parking lot. “I’m pointing out that we have no proof to support your hypothesis.”

“And I’m pointing out that it’s possible, and that he lacks an alibi. Either way, we’ll know what’s up in a few minutes. But until then, it’s just me and you. We’re theorizing. And it’s apparent your ability to solve this case is being hampered by your private life.”

His jaw hardens every time I bring his family up. His junkie ex-wife who was clean for all of ten minutes, and his four-year-old daughter who is everything to him. Heart. Soul. Stars in the sky, and reason for waking up each day.

I toss them back into our conversation, time and time again, because it’s better for everyone—him, his family, and our vic—if he admits he can’t do the job earlier in an investigation. I’m not saying he can’t. And I’m not saying I won’t carry him when he needs help.

But I’m saying that, if he can’t do it, own it. Communicate, so we’re on the same page.

“I’m gonna run the case,” he rumbles, his voice tight and his face hard. “I’m gonna find out who killed Naomi and her unborn baby. And I’m gonna take care of Jada and Mia, too.”

“Busy guy.”

He grabs the heavy glass door at the front of a colossal warehouse store, and waves me forward so I go ahead of him. “I’ve been busier before. I’ve handled bigger, badder, in the past. Don’t doubt me now, Arch.”

“What happened between you and Fifi while we were on the boat?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” His snapped words draw the attention of every worker and shopper within a hundred-yard radius. Then he snarls on my right, biting out an angry, “Nothing happened between me and Seraphina. Nothing will ever happen between me and Seraphina, because I have a sick ex-wife who needs my help, a four-year-old daughter who can barely keep her eyes awake at the dinner table these days because she’s adapting to big school, and Seraphina is a prickly, stuck up, high maintenance, extremely beautiful and caring woman.” He flashes a predatory smile that promises he’s coming for my throat if I don’t stop. “We flirt sometimes. That’s it, that’s all we have the time for.”

“So I didn’t see you and her coming out of a room together during my honeymoon… alone?”

“No. You didn’t see that.” He turns to the expansive store and clocks the service desk on the left, then starting in that direction, he leaves me in his wake and bristles every step he takes. He’s an angry, repressed man, and soon, shit is gonna blow. “Hi there.” He gentles his voice and takes out his badge to show the high schooler working at the desk. “My name is Detective Charlie Fletcher. I was hoping you could direct me toward Gordon Wallace.” He grabs the little price-check microphone, snatching it away when the kid reaches for it. “Discreetly. Please.”

MINKA

“What the hell am I supposed to do about him?”

The record is going. My building, mostly quiet, even with the night shift staff going about their work. Copeland City, outside the floor to ceiling windows I lean against, is pitch black but for the lights. And all the while, Aubree makes the Y cut in Naomi’s chest and prepares the separators to open her up.

“He’s coming to my workplace,” she growls. “Stepping on to crime scenes. Muddying waters and compromising investigations. And for what? To annoy me?”

It’s fun to see her all out of sorts. To see the typically easygoing, hippie-esque, happy-all-the-damn-time Aubree Emeri lose her shit. And even with the recorder on, I can’t muster a lot of energy to tell her to stop.

Timothy Malone has made a move.

A giant, more-than-coffee declaration, without saying the actual words. And now Aubs has no clue how to right her tilting world.

“He gave me the freakin’ emeralds, Mayet.” Plastic glasses cover her eyes, and an apron protects her clothes. She wears gloves on her hands, and still has blood smears on her wrist. She cracks an eighteen-year-old mother-to-be’s chest, filleting muscle and fat to the side before setting the separators in place. And all the while, she obsesses on the love life she doesn’t actually have with the man who was born to lead his family in a dark, dark mafia underworld. “Then Archer told you the story about the Irish Malones. Tim would have known that story too, right? He didn’t just coincidentally give me a gift that means what Archer says it means, without realizing the implications behind the gift.”

“Coincidences are rarely coincidences.” I fold my arms and settle against the glass. “Usually it’s just a buzzword used to calm tensions or gaslight someone into thinking things aren’t as they so obviously seem.”

“Right!” She pulls back from Naomi, but studies the girl’s chest cavity. The damaged heart. The sliced organ. “Blade lacerated her left lateral ventricle. For the record.”

“Noted.” I should probably be at the table with her. Helping. I should be her Aubree, since she so often assists me. But she asked to do the autopsy, so… she can do it. “Is that your formal diagnosis for how Ms. Wallace died?”

---