Page 36 of Den of Iniquity

Leann:Yes, I was. Mom insisted that the whole thing had to bea mistake and that Dad couldn’t be dead, but of course he was. They found his ID in his wallet, and that was one of the reasons they said it was unlikely it was a robbery. Nothing was taken, not even the two hundred-dollar bills they found in his wallet.

I almost jumped out of my skin!Holy crap! Are you frigging kidding me? Two hundred-dollar bills?

I wasn’t aware I was talking to myself, but I was, enough so that I disturbed Sarah. She raised her head off her rug and gave me a look as if to reassure herself that I was all right. But I wasn’t, not at all. I was beside myself, because I really had found that damned pony!

I had started that day with two overdose cases linked by DNA. Now one of those was linked to yet a third case by the presence of Darius Jackson’s two hundred-dollar bills. Yes, I was definitely on the right track, and no matter how many more files Yolanda Aguirre sent me, I was going to read every one of them word for word.

Eventually I settled down and got back to reading. Yolanda’s subsequent questions led Leann through the immediate aftermath of her father’s death.

Leann:Mom never recovered. She believed that if she had somehow taken better care of my father, he wouldn’t have died. That wasn’t true. You can’t save someone who isn’t interested in saving himself, but she never got over losing him. She committed suicide five years ago. Her suicide note said, “It’s all my fault.”

Yolanda:I’m so sorry. What a tragedy. How are you, your sister, and your brother doing?

Leann:Marlise will be retiring from the navy in a couple of years. She’s trying to figure out what she’s going to do with therest of her life. Andrew is married with two kids. He lives in Greeley, Colorado, where he’s a high school special ed teacher.

Yolanda:And you?

Leann:I’m still single. I’m a nurse and work at the U Dub Hospital. In my spare time, I volunteer on a suicide prevention hotline. It’s the best I can do.

That was the end of the interview. I didn’t have to see Leann’s face to understand the hurt and lingering heartbreak in those last few words. Leann’s mother had tried and failed to save her father, and Leann had failed to save her mother, and seven years later, Leann was still trying to save everyone else.

At that point, she was still Leann Nolastname as far as I was concerned. We had never met, but from that moment she became one of my clients. She still believed that her father had died due to an accidental overdose. I, on the other hand, was pretty sure Raymond had been murdered, and one of these days I hoped I would somehow bring his killer to justice not only for him, but also for his kids. All three of them deserved it, but most especially Leann. Her mother had borne the brunt of her husband’s physical violence, but Leann was the one still carrying the weight of the emotional fallout his death had left behind.

Chapter 17

Bellingham, Washington

Saturday, February 29, 2020

I stayed up until the wee hours Friday night and Saturday morning reading Yolanda Aguirre’s interview files. I went to bed only when my eyes were too tired to read any more. When Sarah nosed me awake Saturday, she was probably surprised when I walked straight past the coffee machine twice, coming and going, without even pausing. Once she was back inside, I fell into bed and slept until several hours later when Mel shook me awake.

“Time to rise and shine,” she told me. “Alice is almost ready to work on our room, and she can’t do that when you’re still sleeping.”

I quickly pulled on some clothing. When I exited the bedroom, I found Alice Patterson waiting in the hallway right outside. She was standing there looking annoyed with one hand resting on her hip while the other held her trusty Dyson at the ready.

“It’s about time,” I heard her mutter under her breath as I walked past.

“Sorry,” I murmured, but I doubt my apology was accepted. Alice is your basic worker-bee with little or no patience for people who are slugabeds.

I made my coffee and headed into the living room where Mel was perusing something on her iPad.

“I held her off as long as I could,” she explained. “The problem is, Alice usually starts with our bedroom, and she doesn’t like having to change her routine. How late were you up?”

“I’m not sure,” I answered. “I got caught up in reading those overdose family interviews and time got away from me.”

“Find anything?” she asked.

“I certainly did,” I told her and spent the next fifteen minutes and my first cup of coffee bringing her up to speed. It wasn’t until I was ready for cup number two when I noticed the two of us were alone—no Kyle and no Sarah, either.

“Where is everybody?” I asked.

“Sarah’s still leery of the vacuum cleaner,” Mel explained, “so Kyle took her for a walk. I figure an extra walk or two is good for both of them.”

“Speaking of Kyle, how did his room inspection go?”

“He passed with flying colors.”

Intent on staying out of Alice’s way, I settled down in the living room. Worn out by reading files, I decided to try following up on the Jake Spaulding case. Gretchen had given me the direct number to Detective Ron Wang, the original Liberty Lake detective working the case. When I dialed it, however, the person who picked up wasn’t Detective Wang.

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