The Devil's Closet (12 page)

“Yes, thank you, they were lovely.”

“Did everybody else like them?” he asked, a transparent question that confirmed his not-so-sincere intent.

“Well, no one has actually seen them. Everyone is out of the office right now.”

“Oh,” he said, his disappointment showing. “Well, I’m gonna get to bed. I’ll see you tonight. I love you.”

“Hmm. Bye.”

I stared at the phone, half expecting him to call back, but he didn’t. I forced myself to get back to work, and remembered to call the utilities company with the addresses of Carl Malone’s rental properties. I obtained all five tenants’ names, but none had any type of criminal record. There was one name for which no information could be found. That name was Jim Carlson.

I would have to wait until tonight to check the apartments. Perhaps I wouldn’t break in tonight, but I would watch them for a while and get a good idea of when the occupants went to bed, when they worked, and when they were home the most. It would take a couple of days to lay it all out.

I had been at it a while when Michael, who had been out tracking Albert Whitfield all morning, walked in and announced that he was ready for lunch. We were in the parking lot when Michael’s cell phone rang with the call we were dreading. Emily Yoder’s body had been found. Michael insisted that I accompany him to the scene. Any thoughts I’d had of a quiet lunch and some time alone were gone.

They had found her in a Dumpster behind a chain restaurant in the city. It wasn’t close to looking like the other murders. Emily had the makeup on, but in a sloppy, clown-like fashion. Her fingernails were unpainted, she was dirty, and the red ribbon was nowhere to be found. She was also covered with garbage, which made it a difficult crime scene to process. Any trace evidence found could easily be argued to have come from the Dumpster itself.

The important constant between Emily’s murder and that of the others was that she had been strangled and sexually assaulted. Throwing away the trappings of the perfect makeup and grooming, our suspect was beginning to come unglued.

A national search for Albert Whitfield ensued. The FBI gave his name and picture to the media, an act of stupidity, as I stated loudly. Albert only knew that the police were looking for him, which he probably assumed was due to the neighborhood boys he was molesting.

However, if he saw he was being fingered for mass murder of children, we would never find him. The supervising agent, Michael’s boss, who was standing by the Dumpster, didn’t see it my way, as I expected. He was looking at public relations for the FBI and nothing else. I was looking for the killer.

I walked away from the scene before I said something to him that would likely end my career. Michael was smart not to follow. I must admit he’d caught on quickly as to how to deal with me.

Kincaid was standing by her SUV, so I thought I’d get her thoughts on the matter. Her eyes looked as bad as they had the night before, and I figured she had continued to cry all night long.

“How are you feeling, Naomi?”

“Like I was drugged for the last twenty-four hours, but holding up.”

She didn’t have much makeup on, and her dark blonde hair was thrown back into a ponytail. Anyone meeting her would say she was strikingly pretty, and I actually thought she looked better now than usual. Except for her red, swollen eyes, of course.

“CeeCee, thanks again for yesterday. It meant a lot to have someone to talk to. By the way, have you had a chance to get together with Eric yet?”

“That’s something we’ll have to discuss over several bottles of wine,” I groaned. “I’ll tell you later.”

Her phone rang. When she answered it, she went completely pale.

I walked away when I heard, “Why are you calling me?”

Ah, her “man of the hour.” I watched to see if she was on the verge of another breakdown, so I could shovel her out of here. Miraculously, she was OK. The next time I looked, she was finishing the call with a smile on her face.

She actually waved at me before driving away. I was happy for her. Obviously, something positive happened during that phone call, but, at the same time, I also didn’t want her to get her hopes up. If I knew who the guy was, I would be half inclined to give him a piece of my mind. Shortly after Naomi left, Michael walked over to brief me on the crime scene.

“Did you tell the crime lab to check for traces of fiberglass on Emily?”

“Of course.”

It was almost dark by the time we left, and I had surveillance to do. Michael wanted to know if I was going to go home and finally talk it out with Eric. Despite all that was said between us, I think Michael assumed I would back out of my precipitous promise in some way.

“CeeCee, are you staying with me tonight?”

“Not until I tell Eric. Which I promise will be first thing tomorrow when he gets home. Plus, I really have work to do that I’ve been putting off.”

Michael simply gave up, dropping me off at the department so I could get my car. Eric’s cruiser was in the lot. Only when I heard a loud fuss coming from behind did I figure out Michael and Eric had run into each other. Michael had unknowingly pulled around and parked next to Eric’s cruiser. Eric was walking toward the door when he saw Michael drop me off and pull around, so he waited. I got to them just as they started squaring off. Eric was ranting.

“Are you glued to her fucking hip? When are you gonna learn she doesn’t want you? Really, it’s pathetic the way you chase her around.”

“Eric, enough!” I yelled over two parked cars.

They both turned to look at me briefly before going at it again. This time it was Michael who had his say.

“Are you done? Because it seems to me your insecurities are all over the place and you’re getting paranoid,” Michael said, suddenly quite calm.

“Is that right? I don’t suppose CeeCee told you she was late this morning because she was home with me. Did she tell you we were—”

It happened very fast. Michael coldcocked Eric right in the jaw, and sent him flying backward. But not back far enough that Eric wasn’t able to retaliate and slug Michael. The fight was on, and they started falling over the cruisers, even breaking a window out of one.

The parking lot has security cameras monitored by the communication center. Seeing the fight, they dispatched patrol cars to the lot to stop the ruckus. I was in the middle, trying to pull the guys apart when I was bombarded by about ten uniformed officers who quickly got Eric and Michael separated. Michael was the first to take it further. Neither was going to stop, physically or verbally.

“You know what, Eric? You showed a hell of a lack of class and disrespect talking about your wife like that. I’m sure she appreciated it!”

Eric was being held by three officers and Michael by three. A tie, at least in my book. They both had faces and noses dripping with blood, and their arms were cut from having gone through the window of the cruiser.

It was only when the afternoon shift lieutenant, who unfortunately happened to be my uncle Max, arrived that the crowd began to disperse.

“CeeCee, what the hell is going on?” He looked bewildered.

“Nothing, Max. Just some full-fledged marital problems, as you can see.” I couldn’t believe it had come to this.

Max, always one for practical jokes and lightening up a bad situation, pulled me off to the side of the melee. “Well, your last name
is
Gallagher. Had you not kept your maiden name when you married Eric and gone with his name—Schroeder—like you were supposed to, this may not have happened. Gallagher is the definition of multiple marriages.”

I didn’t laugh. It was true. Everyone in the Gallagher family, father and uncles included, had been married at least three times, a couple of us more than that. The Catholic Church had seen more annulments come from our family than confessions to the pope.

Since the fight was over, Max kicked it under the carpet and told Eric to go get cleaned up and ready for his shift, but first Eric had to see the nurse in the jail, who would take care of the cuts on his arm. Michael was already on his way back to his car. It was best to deal with him first.

“Are you okay? Let me see your arm.” I tried to look at it, but he pulled away.

“I’m fine, CeeCee!” He was still pretty keyed up. “I’m going to my room to get cleaned up. This is unbelievable. I haven’t gotten into a fight like that since college. I’ll call you.”

He was in his car, driving away before I could say anything more. Now it was time to see Eric. He was at the nurse’s station putting bandages on his own arm. The nurse was nowhere to be found.

“Where’s Donna? Don’t you think she should look at that?”

“I’m fine. She’s downstairs with a sick inmate.”

“Eric, what is the matter with you? Why did you do that?”

He blew up. “He sucker punched me, or didn’t you see that part? What the fuck do you expect? You can’t imagine the shit I’ve been hearing at this department since he came back. There’s only so much I can be expected to take.”

“I’ll wait for you in the morning when you get home. It’s time we finally got the rest of this out in the open.” No matter how apprehensive I was, I was also somewhat angry since Eric had, essentially, provoked the fight.

“Wait. I’m sorry I reacted out there. That was wrong, and I didn’t mean to disrespect you. It’s just that I’m grabbing at anything I can to keep our marriage together, and every straw I clutch keeps breaking.” He sat down on the small cot against the wall. “Let’s go away. Your mom already has the kids, so let’s just leave tomorrow. We’ll go to the condo in North Carolina to get away from everyone and everything. It’s quiet there, and we can focus on working it all out.”

Of course it sounded nice, but it also broke my heart. Eric was desperate and no matter what we were going through, I felt sorry for him. It was getting hard to believe I would ever have the guts to ask him for a divorce. We agreed to talk about it in the morning and parted.

I had no idea what I was going to do. The seesaw was back. Now I truly believed I couldn’t keep my promise to Michael. But I couldn’t lose him either. For the first time I wished he had never returned and that everything between Eric and me was normal. None of this garbage would have happened if Michael hadn’t come back. I was to learn later it wouldn’t have made a difference.

I made my way to the first house on the list and parked directly in front of it. The house was separated into two apartments. It was on the south side of Elmwood Street, a quiet neighborhood. When I saw an elderly couple come out of the top apartment cone and a woman with a small child come out of the bottom one, I knew this house was a dead end in terms of clues.

On my way to the second house, Michael called. I let the phone take a message, needing to focus my full attention on this case without any distractions. I was back in business, and it was a welcome mental shift. The second, third, and fourth houses had lights on the entire time I watched them, and the fifth house, Jim Carlson’s, was dark. There weren’t any cars in the drive, so I walked around and peered through windows. The house looked empty. I couldn’t see one piece of furniture. Maybe it was free to rent and that’s why the lease was attached to the board.

If Jim Carlson had moved recently, it could indicate he was trying to get away from something, or maybe not. It was late when I decided to give up for the night. But before pulling away, I saw a full bag of garbage in the can in front of the house. I grabbed it and threw it in my trunk.

Garbage is a fantastic tool in investigations, for it can show someone’s entire lifestyle in microcosm. There is also no expectation of privacy regarding garbage as far as the law is concerned. Garbage set on a curb requires no consent, search warrant, or any paperwork at all, and it has set the foundation for many cases to acquire a warrant.

If this guy had just moved out, he probably threw away a lot of things. Possibly important things, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up just yet. I was going to go through the bag the next day, but curiosity got the better of me. I pulled into an old factory parking lot and parked next to a Dumpster on the building’s west side. I could go through the bag here, and if I found anything I’d keep it; if not it would go right into the Dumpster.

I was lifting the bag out of my trunk when I heard a woman yell from behind the building. It sounded like she was crying. I quietly put the bag back in the trunk, grabbed my gun, and slid along the wall of the building until I came to the corner. It would be just my luck to pull up to the one building where a rapist had dragged his victim.

My luck these days was downright extraordinary. I peeked around the corner and saw Eric and Jordan standing in front of Eric’s cruiser.

Arms crossed, Eric was leaning against the hood, looking at the ground, while Jordan stood in front of him, alternately screaming and crying. She was waving around the note that came with the flowers. (I guess she found them.) I could hear every juicy word.

“You promised! How could you do this to me?” She shook the note at him. “I’m done, Eric! I can’t take this anymore. Your precious wife is fucking around on you, and you’re
still
chasing after her! I thought you had it up to here with her and you loved me?”

I don’t know about Jordan, but I felt like howling myself. I had to hold my hand over my mouth to keep from reacting. All I seemed to do lately was cry uncontrollably, probably because this situation showed no sign of being resolved. For some reason, I never deep down believed that Eric was being unfaithful. But here it was, slapping me right in the face.

Eric approached Jordan. He held her in his arms while she cried into his shoulder. I couldn’t take my eyes off them. That was even before I heard what he said, which made it worse.

“Listen, please don’t cry.” He tilted her face up to look at him. “You know I love you. What’s it been, three months now? I haven’t quit yet. I was ready to leave until Michael came back, but I’m not going to lie to you. I got scared. Just give me a little more time, would you? We have two little girls who’ll be crushed if we split up, and I’m having a hard time dealing with that.”

“So you had to sleep with her this morning?”

I had to hold on to the wall to keep from charging out there and confronting them. Since my arms and legs felt like Jell-O, that didn’t seem to be the best idea. Three months! Three months was long before Michael showed up. And Eric said he planned on leaving me.

I thought back to how Eric reacted when I told him Michael was back, and it made me furious. I no longer felt guilty. He had already been seeing Jordan at that time. All the late calls and late nights I never paid attention to, he was with her. The nights I lay awake feeling guilty about Michael, before we slept together, and now I find out Eric was the unfaithful one. After Jordan began to calm down, Eric finally was able to speak again.

“You know what that was about this morning. I’m sorry, Jordan. If I could take it back, I would. Ego got the better of me, and it won’t ever happen again. I love you.” And then he began kissing her. I couldn’t watch it anymore. I’d finally had enough.

Forgetting about the garbage in my trunk, I ran to my car and pulled away. I was so hysterical I didn’t believe I would be able to drive. I was not only upset, but also flabbergasted. I never, ever, thought Eric would do this to me.

It was more than clear that he’d never gotten over Michael last year. Our current problems didn’t have anything to do with Michael reappearing. If anything, Michael’s arrival prevented Eric from leaving sooner. What hurt even more was that there was no question that our marriage was finished.

If I had been confused and unable to ask Eric for a divorce, I wasn’t anymore. It was so utterly clear.

For a long time I had convinced myself all that had gone on in the past year was entirely my fault. The hard reality was that even if Michael didn’t exist, Eric still would’ve fallen for Jordan. I saw problems in our marriage now that I had never seen before, years of them. This entire fiasco had opened my eyes, and we were both to blame. Equally.

I couldn’t bear the thought of going home and sleeping in our bed, so I bought a bottle of whiskey at the nearest liquor store and drove to a park close to home.

For the next hour, I alternately cried and shook, drinking half the bottle before I acknowledged that I was entirely too drunk, not to mention too upset, to drive home. I didn’t know what else to do but call Michael. He answered immediately, and I was so drunk and teary I could barely talk. I did my best to explain where I was and soon ended up putting the phone down and letting my head fall on the steering wheel. I was barely conscious by the time Michael arrived and put me in his car.

When we got back to Michael’s room, he carried me in and laid me on the bed, kneeling down beside me. I opened my eyes and saw three of him. From all three views, I could see his face had bruised quite nicely from the fight with Eric. He tried to ask what had put me in such a state, but I was simply too distraught, and drunk, to answer.

“I think I’m gonna get sick.” I tried to get up, but needed Michael’s assistance to the bathroom. I begged him to leave, but he wouldn’t.

For at least the next hour, between crying jags, I threw up. Michael kept holding my hair back, taking a cold washcloth and wiping my forehead off while my head hung lifeless in the toilet. When he wasn’t tending to me from the neck up, he sat on the bathroom floor and rubbed my back, all the time not saying a word. The last thing I remember was the inside view of the toilet bowl.

When I woke up, I was in bed and dressed in one of his T-shirts. I felt like I had been run over by a truck, but even that wasn’t enough to cover my embarrassment. The room was bright, and I could see Michael sitting on the edge of the bed looking down at me. I grabbed a pillow to cover my eyes. And my pounding head.

“Michael,” I said hoarsely, “I’m sorry.”

He actually laughed a little. “There’s nothing to be sorry for, CeeCee. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“Why do I have your T-shirt on?” If we slept together last night, I’d missed it entirely.

“You threw up all over yourself, clothes included.”

Still under the pillow, I groaned. How humiliating. There’s nothing like breaking in a new relationship with an all-night throw-up marathon.

I asked how badly soiled my jeans were, and he said they were still wet because he had rinsed them out. Since they were all I had to wear, my options were limited.

“Honestly, just take it easy for a while and get some sleep.”

I insisted that he take me back to the park to pick up my car. I really needed to get home. Michael winced at that.

“Michael, I need to go home to get some things. Eric should still be awake. I’m planning to leave there today, at least until he can make other arrangements,” I said defiantly.

I finally had to tell him what happened last night and that what upset me most was all the guilt I had been feeling, mainly because Eric was making me feel guilty. Michael simply held me. No questions, no judgments. When we were ready to leave, he handed me his room card.

“You are coming back here, right?”

“Do you want me to?”

“I’m not even gonna answer that. I’ll tell Kincaid you won’t be in today, and I insist you come back and get some sleep. I’ll check in on you later.”

Michael dropped me off at my car in the park. When I got into the driver’s seat, my stomach wanted to heave again. The entire inside of the vehicle smelled like stale whiskey. Somehow, I held it in (not that I imagined there was much left to throw up), before I headed home to face off with Eric.

He was sitting in the living room, waiting for me, his face looking as bad as Michael’s. Seeing him, I was reminded of last night’s scene between him and Jordan. As bad as I felt, I was more than ready to have it out at long last. The endless waiting would finally end.

I walked in and sat down in a chair that faced the couch. For a few moments, we just stared at each other silently. All I could see was his anger.

“Want to tell me where you’ve been?”

“Yes, actually I do. I was with Michael.” There it was, out in the open.

He was surprised to get such a bold response, and somehow found the words to throw the doors wide open.

“Did you sleep with him?”

“Not last night, no. Ask me about the other night I didn’t come home and you might get a different answer.” I was pushing it, painfully and deliberately, but not without a strong sense of relief.

He stood up. “What the hell is the matter with you!”

I unloaded. I told him everything I had seen and heard last night between him and Jordan. It was now hard to stop talking. I spewed about how this entire time I had been confused about things, but no more.

“I saw the light last night, Eric. It was in the form of a short brunette. All this time you tried to blame Michael for our problems when you were just as much, if not more, to blame….” I paused before dropping the bomb. Even after the scene I witnessed last night, I felt my heart thud and my stomach flip at what I was about to say. “Eric… I’m filing for divorce. I’ve had enough and I want out.”

To my surprise, he sat down heavily. It was as if someone had just driven a knife in his chest. Tears were beginning to roll down his cheeks.

“CeeCee, no, we can fix this….”

“It’s over, Eric. You’re just as guilty as I am.”

I expected some combination of protest, silence, and hostility, but surprisingly, Eric began simply to talk and confess his relationship with Jordan. To an extent, I was right. He had never gotten over what happened last year and it permanently affected our relationship. Even though Michael and I hadn’t slept together, Eric was wounded just the same. So when he met Jordan and she thought the sun rose and set with him, not only did she make him feel good but also his self-respect returned.

“With you, I always wondered if you were thinking about Michael. Every time you were quiet, or staring into space, or asleep and dreaming, I wondered.”

He didn’t have to do that with Jordan; the slate was clean. By the time he was finished, we were both drained. Now wasn’t the best time to figure things out, as far as the house and kids went, so we agreed to talk about those details later. I already knew we would be sharing custody of the girls. Neither of us would ever want to keep them away from the other. No matter what the relationship was between Eric and me, the four of us would always remain a family.

We would have to take things one day at a time. Eric came right out and told me to keep the house since it was the girls’ home, but that he did need some time to find a place. This was not a problem. I told him I had already made arrangements to stay somewhere until he did. Despite knowing the obvious answer, he never asked where. As I went upstairs to shower and pack a couple of bags, Eric grabbed me and held me tight. Even after seeing him with Jordan last night, we both hurt terribly. We never imagined ever being at this point.

He remained downstairs while I showered and got some clothes together. I composed myself enough to call my mother, explaining the situation as briefly as possible. I asked her to keep the girls another week until we sorted out arrangements here. Eric and I agreed we would tell the girls together. My mother was reduced to tears and wanted to know more, but I wasn’t in the mood to get into it. Actually, I wasn’t sure I was capable of talking about it any further.