Page 45 of Sinful Justice

Stopping at the front door, I knock only once before a hush overtakes the inside of the house. Like the family was having a heated discussion, like Garry was handing down orders now there are no witnesses to his bullshit. But the moment I knock, the house turns silent except for the soft sniffles of little girls crying.

“Go away!” Garry’s voice booms through the walls. “We’re grieving.”

“My ass,” Fletch murmurs. Then, “Mr. Thoma. It’s Detectives Fletcher and Malone. We just have a few more questions. We’d really appreciate if you could—”

The door swings open with a ferocity that makes cold air slam against my chest. Then the asshole stands in the doorway, his nostrils flaring and his arms bunched with muscle. “I’m done answering questions.”

“We only want to help your family, Mr. Thoma.” I take out my recorder once more. “I’m going to record this, if that’s alright with you. Mr. Thoma, I was wondering if you could tell me how long you were in the shed today?”

“All fuckin’ day. Someone’s gotta work around here, don’t they? My wife’s apple pie doesn’t pay the damn bills.”

“Okay, sure.” I glance toward his neck and remain as unthreatening as I can manage. “I was wondering how you got that scratch?”

His hand slings up and slaps to cover the mark. “What scratch?”

“That one.” I tip my chin toward his neck. “I was just wondering if you could explain it.”

“Shaving.” He lifts his head and looks down his nose at me. “A man has a right to privacy and time to grieve, Malone. Now is not an appropriate time for you to interrupt us.”

“You have my sincere condolences, Mr. Thoma. Just one more question, if I may?” I look at his arm. “You seem to have a cut under your shirt. Could you explain that one too? And would it be okay if we took photographs of both marks? We want to make sure we cover all our bases.”

“I nicked my arm in the shed while I was working.” Stepping closer, he doesn’t stop until his nose is a mere three inches from mine. “Accidents happen in sheds, Detective Malone. Lots of sharp tools, lots of hidden threats. And no, you can’t photograph shit, nor did I consent to a recorded conversation. Now fuck off.” Stepping back, he slams the door shut so the wood rattles in the frame and the three of us remain standing on his porch in the dark.

“Well…” Turning, I slowly make my way to the steps and down onto the icy footpath. “He’s a nasty one, huh?”

“Doctor Mayet’s gonna nail him to the wall when she gets the DNA back.”

“Hopefully.” I turn to the investigator. “You can go. Finish whatever you were doing. I’d like everything on my desk by the morning.”

“You got it, Detective.” Spinning on his heels, he takes off in the cold and continues with his work while Fletch and I make our way back toward the cruiser.

“He seems really fucking flippant for a child killer who’s about to be slammed by forensics,” Fletch growls. “Makes him unstable, Arch. Makes him dangerous.”

“Or maybe he’s just stupid.”

But then another thought niggles at my brain. Another consideration that makes my stomach ooze with poison.

“Or maybe he’s not our guy. And if he’s not, we have to do the job and find who is.”

“My ass.” Opening the door, Fletch slips in and waits for me to join him. “I’m calling it. I’m saying that motherfucker killed his daughter. And soon, if we don’t tie it up, I’m saying he’s got two others to punish.”

Bringing his eyes to me, lit only by the dash lights that power up when I switch on the car, Fletcher’s jaw is hard as he grits out, “There’s the judicial process, Arch. I get that. And there’s needing to prove he’s our guy. But there’s also knowing in our guts who did this. It’s just like with Dowel.Everyoneknew it was him, but the courts wouldn’t fucking put him away.”

“So we collect the evidence.” Pulling away from the house in suburbia, I start our journey back toward the city in almost silence. “We don’t get to be pissy at a judge when it’s our job to present to the courts our proof. If we can’t nail it shut with evidence, then we fucked up long before the judge did.”

“You know that ain’t the whole truth, Arch.” Sitting back in the dark, Fletch rests his elbow on the door and glares out into the night. “Sometimes we have everything we need, and still, some assholes get lucky, or they get a judge who is just plain stupid.That’sthe fuckin’ problem.”

He brings his heated eyes to me. “The court is supposed to be impartial. They’re supposed to follow the line of evidence, so that we know if we tickthisbox, andthisbox, andthisbox, we’ll getthisoutcome.” He shakes his head. “Instead, we can tick every single fucking box we’re supposed to, and at the end of it all, the judge can phone it in on his part and fuck it all up anyway.”

“So what do you suggest we do?” I open my legs wide and settle in for the fifteen-minute drive. The doctors are ahead of us, already back at the George Stanley with the little girl. “We’re doing the job, Fletch. We’re ticking the boxes. There’s nothing more we can do.”

He grunts under his breath. “We’re doing the job. But if Dowel’s killer was looking to take a swing at this, I wouldn’t be mad.”

Surprised, I glance across at my partner and narrow my eyes. “That’s called murder, Fletch. What the fuck?”

“It’s called taking out the trash.”

“It’s calledvigilantism.” I bring my gaze back to the traffic. “And the second we condone that shit on our streets, we’ll end up with a pile of dead bodies on our desks, and at least half of ‘em won’t have deserved it. That’s why we have the system we do. That’s why we collect the evidence and present it to a jury, so we know, when we convict, we got the right guy.”

I slow at a red light and look across to find Fletch’s jaw clenching. “If one person gets to be judge, jury,andexecutioner, you know damn well there’s gonna be just as many innocent lives taken as there are guilty.”

When we get the green, I press my foot to the gas pedal and move across the intersection. “What the hell is wrong with you, Fletch? You believe in the judicial system.”

He shakes his head and keeps his eyes plastered on the road ahead. “I’m not so sure anymore, Arch. The only thing Iknowright now is that a little girl is dead, her last minutes alive were not painless or peaceful, and we just left our prime suspect all alone with her two sisters and their mom, who is too fucking weak to stop him if he wants to hurt them.”

He brings his eyes back to mine. “Sometimes, the idea of skipping the law and doing it myself keeps me warm at night. That’s something Ibelieve in.”

---