Reunion (A Psychological Suspense with Murder, Mystery and the Paranormal) (37 page)

Rick knelt down and lifted the crusty comforter and peeked under the bed—nothing but dust bunnies. He stood up and followed the impressions. The tiny tracks pooled, still shimmering wet. He curiously shadowed the prints as they made their way out of the room, into the hall and faded as they descended down the stairway.

He stood among the dancing diamonds, staring at the tangible evidence, and scratched his head in wonderment. He questioned how he and everyone else had missed the footprints.

He pulled out his cell phone and snapped a few pictures but they weren’t quality images. There was only a shadow where there should have been bloody footprints.

“Shit.” His voice echoed through the mammoth structure.

He charged down the stairs.

There’s got to be an office in here, a ruler … something
, he thought.

He tripped on the Persian rug in the foyer, crashed to the floor and grunted as he forced himself back up. He burst through the French doors leading to the library and rummaged through the drawers until he found a twelve-inch ruler. He lifted it into the air as if presenting King Arthur’s sword and briefly glanced at the pictures displayed on the many shelves.

“Nice family. What a shame.” He looked back at the ruler. “Thank you, Frank. God bless you, brother.”

He sprinted out of the office, ran back up the stairs and placed the ruler next to one of the footprints. “How big are you, little feet?” he asked. “Let’s see … five, five and a quarter inches.”

Rick’s mind launched into an analytical frenzy as he studied the new evidence. He figured it could be the same boy the neighbor saw. He observed how the feet pressed heavy on the heels. He thought it could be a five- or six-year-old, perhaps—a boy maybe, but not a killer. Not like that. No way. He could be an eyewitness, sure, but not a murderer.

He stared at the prints and realized that he finally had something to go on.

He opened his cell phone and dialed Pete’s number, then removed one of the gloves and stuck his finger in his mouth to pull out a wad of desalted shells. He stuffed them in his coat pocket to avoid soiling the crime scene.

“Gains here.”

“Pete, y-you gotta get back here!”

“Whaddya got, Burns?”

“Footprints. Bloody—footprints—kid-sized.”

“Where?”

“In the bedroom, by the bed and hall and stairs.”

“What? I don’t think so. I didn’t see anything like that.”

“Neither did I. We overlooked them somehow. I don’t understand it myself. But you’ve got to see them. They’re perfect. They’re—wait. Oh God. No!” Rick lost sight of the tracks and bent down, fraught with hysteria, and rubbed the wooden steps, frantically scanning for the trail that was once there.

“They were here, Sarge. I swear. About thirty prints.”

“Burns?”

“Five and a quarter inches. I measured them myself. Shit. They disappeared.” Rick nervously ran his fingers through his hair and shook his head in frustration.

“Burns?” persisted Gains. “Come on in to the station. We’ve got the wife and neighbor.”

“What about the boy?”

“No luck. We’ll have to work with what we’ve got.”

Rick rubbed his eyes, blinked hard to regain his focus and studied each step one last time, crawling on his hands and knees, hoping to see a trace of the prints. He searched every room of the house, but found nothing. The blood had disappeared.

“Where’d you go, damn it?” He gagged as he passed by the master bedroom and slammed the palm of his hand against the wall. “Oh, that smell.”

•  •  •

Rick flipped open his notepad, jotted down his findings and left the house, weighed down by defeat and a heaviness he had grown familiar with. The ghost detective had doubts. The unbelievable and mysterious things of the world always left him shaking with uncertainty, causing him to revisit his past—his nightmares.

He needed to chew. The seeds were gone, but there was always his pen, deformed and twisted at the end. The tension in his mind beat him down, testing his belief system, a system based on a bet, a simple game.

“Burns,” he said to himself as he started his Pontiac. “You know what you saw. You’re not crazy. Not yet, anyway.”

The engine roared, the pen crunched in his mouth and five-inch bloody footprints embedded in his mind like a sunspot in the eyes. They wouldn’t go away. They lingered and festered in his brain. A young witness to the Bertrum murder had escaped detection, hiding and terror-stricken. He could feel it, sense it, taste it.

“T
his way, Burns.”

Sergeant Gains led the detective through the police station and into the interrogation room to speak with Mrs. Bertrum. Pete raised his brow and smirked. “She’s all yours.” He leaned toward Rick and whispered, “Good luck with that one. She’s somethin’ else.”

Rick noticed the beads of sweat that escaped from Pete’s forehead.

“Thanks, Pete. I think I can handle her.”

Pete winked and nudged Rick inside, pressing him forward with his thick arms.

Rick’s lips bent in a nervous grin. He hated post-homicide interviews with the survivors. They were always uncomfortable and usually hurtful to the family. But regardless of how he felt, he had to do his job.

He opened the door and saw Mrs. Bertrum standing across the room, holding a pocket mirror to her face and applying a fresh coat of blood-red lipstick. She turned toward Rick and said, “Oh, there you are. Is it time to interrogate me now?” She tucked the lipstick away and snapped her purse shut.

Detective Burns shook his head. “No, ma’am. I just need to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

Rick walked into the room and pushed a flesh-colored folding chair out of his way, tucking it neatly under the table. He reached out his hand. “I’m Detective Rick Burns.” She ignored his gesture and turned toward the large mirror on the north wall.

He noticed the woman’s nose and eyes flinch whenever she inhaled the musty air. The room smelled of sweat and dingy clothes because of the many hardened criminals that had smeared their soiled and malodorous clothing against the chairs and walls.

“This shouldn’t take more than a few minutes, ma’am. I’ll try to make this as painless as possible.”

“Good.”

She licked her lips with revulsion, as if tasting the filth, and then flipped a stray hair away from her face. “My lawyer’s on his way, so don’t get your hopes up.” She tucked her hair behind her ears and strolled toward the table like a runway model, hips swinging, heels clicking. “Good Lord, what’s wrong with you people? My husband was murdered, for God’s sake, and you’ve got me locked up?”

Rick gestured toward the chair and pulled it out. “Why don’t you have a seat, ma’am? I have to go over a few standard questions, and then you can go home.”

She turned her head and sneered, “Home?”

When Rick realized what he had said, he added, “Or someplace safe. We can help you with that.”

He felt terrible about questioning her at the time of her loss, but it had to be done. He had to cover all his bases, no matter how difficult it was for him or Mrs. Bertrum.

She sat down and crossed her legs. Her pin-striped ensemble fit snugly across her hips, and a silky white button-up stretched enticingly downward, revealing the last good years of her sensuality.

“Would you care for something to drink?” asked Rick.

“Yes, please,” she said. “Dirty martini, if you don’t mind.”

“Uh … well,” Rick faltered, shocked by her audacity. “We’ll do what we can.” He looked at the one-way mirror and snapped his fingers, directing one of the observers to meet her request.

He then turned his attention back to Mrs. Bertrum, fumbling through his pockets, searching for his pen and notepad. The detective sat down in a chair on the other side of the table, licked his thumb and turned to a clean page in the pad.

“Would you mind telling me a little about your husband while one of the officers gets your drink? You know, what he was like, so I can get a feel for who may have done this.”

“Oh gawd. That’s an easy one.” She removed a nail file from her purse and started filing. She chuckled and examined her fingers. “Bet you spent weeks practicing the delivery of that one in the academy.”

“Pardon me?”

“Oh, never mind!”

She rolled her eyes and swooshed her hand and file over her head, indicating his ignorance, even though he understood her point.

“What do you want to know about the old bastard, anyway?”

Rick remained calm, but he wanted to scream,
What’s with the attitude, lady? I’m trying to help here.
Instead, he asked, “What was he like?”

Her eyes snapped toward Rick. “To me, or to everyone else?”

“To you.”

She stopped filing.

“Okay … What’d you say your name was?”

Rick cleared his throat and sat up in his chair.

“Detective Burns.”

He gripped his pen, ready to write.

“Okay, Detective Burns,” she said. “To me, Frank was cruel and angry and a cold son of a bitch. The older we’ve grown, the farther we’ve pulled apart. He loved me and hated me, and I’ve got the scars to prove it. I used to be his hairstylist long ago. After I became his sex toy, we married and I graduated to punching bag.”

Rick edged forward. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Bertrum.”

“Hell, don’t feel sorry for me. I’m not the one with my guts splashed on the bedroom ceiling.” She checked her watch. “Anyway, professionally, he used to have lots of friends, associates and golf partners; you know the type.”

Rick nodded.

“He was in sports marketing and knew all the players in television, radio, publishing, the athletes, the franchise owners, everyone. I guess you could say he lived his dream, a dream that started with playing basketball at Indiana University and ended in the heart of Indiana professional sports. He golfed with Larry Bird and was Peyton Manning’s agent for a short time. Did you know that? It was only an interim arrangement, but exciting nonetheless.”

She looked away for a moment, and her eyes pooled with water. Rick handed her a tissue and she sopped up the tears.

“He made me rich, you know. I was still a young cosmetologist when I created a facial base to cover all the bruises he gave me. Abused women and men buy it like candy—have for years.” Her eyes drifted off in search of lost memories.

Rick’s mouth opened, shocked.

“I… I’m so sorry, Mrs. Bertrum.”

She sat still, thinking, staring at the tabletop.

Rick cleared his throat. “Mrs. Bertrum?”

“Oh.” Embarrassed, she put her hands over her chest. “Please, call me Anita. I really don’t mean to be a bitch. It’s just that this is really hard. I… I don’t know why. I’ve prayed for this day to come for years. And now—”

She finally buckled. Her shoulders slumped, her head dropped into her hands and tears dripped down, soaking into her slacks as her body shook with each sob.

The grief Rick had been waiting for had finally arrived. He figured she felt guilty for wishing him dead, but that didn’t mean she didn’t kill him or pay someone else to do it. She certainly had the means to hire a hit man. Rick knew it wouldn’t be the first time a wealthy woman knocked off her cruel husband.

“Anita?”

She sniffled and sat up. “Yes?” Her fiery red bangs drooped over her eyes.

“We’re going to look for a motive from anyone who knew him.”

Rick swallowed. He lacked tact in moments like these and he knew it.

“So, can you help me out and clear up the money issue?”

Her forehead wrinkled with confusion. Her lips tightened, and she wiped her blackened eyes.

“Money issue?”

Rick hesitated. He felt so intrusive.

He lifted his hands apologetically.

“I’ll be blunt. I need to know how much money is at stake.”

Her jaw collapsed and her eyes brimmed with rage.

“Are you insinuating that I’d murder my husband for money?”

She jumped to her feet, grabbed her purse and made a beeline for the door, heels pounding with fury. Rick smelled Clive Christian perfume whirling through the air as she passed. He’d sniffed the fragrance once with Stella. Too rich for his taste, but Stella enjoyed smelling like a movie star for the day.

At that moment an officer walked into the room, holding a martini glass half filled with liquor. The room fell silent, and Anita grabbed the glass from the officer’s hand, splashing much of its contents on his uniform, and took a sip. The two officers watched her swallow and close her eyes, and she licked her lips as she took in a calming inhalation.

She exhaled and her eyes opened, peering at Rick. “My husband, if you must know, wasn’t worth a dime. He squandered every penny he ever made on booze and gambling and God knows who or what else.”

She lifted her chin in an effort to regain her composure.

“The money was all mine.”

Her eyelashes batted with pride.

“If anyone had anything to gain by committing murder, he did. I stood by him through all of his shenanigans because he stuck with me through my, shall we say, misdeeds. I could have divorced him years ago, but I made a promise and I kept it.”

Rick certainly understood promises.

“Mrs. Bertrum, I’m sorry. I didn’t kn—”

“I said to call me Anita.”

She lifted the martini glass as if giving a toast and said, “And I said, a
dirty
martini.”

She twisted the vessel and studied the remaining fluid.

“And …”

One by one she released her fingers that gripped the drink and said, “There’s—no—olive!” and then dropped the glass.

The officer at the door leaped to save the barroom chalice, but fumbled it as it slipped through his fingers and shattered across the floor, tiny pieces tinkling into the hallway. Anita whipped her head around with haughty yet graceful maneuverability, and stomped out of the room.

Rick and the officer stared at each other in disbelief. In the distance, Anita’s tapping heels and voice echoed. “If you need anything else, call my lawyer.”

She flicked a business card with a snap of her fingers, and it fluttered to the floor…