Scar Tissue Read online

“Private investigators working for the family. This is my partner Griff Cole.”

  Griff nodded. She looked at him squinting her eyes as she did. “I’m her mother, Loraine. Whadya want with Mitzi?”

  “Like I said, we have a few questions about Ashley. We’re trying to get some answers for the family.”

  She took a few steps back and opened the door wider. “Come in,” she said.

  Inside the small kitchen a fly buzzed above plates piled in the sink. New ones I hoped.

  “Mitzi,” her mother yelled with a force that almost matched Gary’s. “Get down here.” She motioned us toward the table. “Have a seat. Get you something?” she asked, pushing a Bible and a stack of papers off to one side of the checked tablecloth.

  I sat down and glanced at the paraphernalia on the table, a tiny book of psalms, a Bible opened to the Lord’s Prayer and scraps of paper with religious mantras.

  “Don’t mind that stuff,” she said catching me looking. “I was just sayin’ my morning devotionals.”

  I nodded and smiled. “That’s nice.”

  “Who the hell else is gonna take care of me if He don’t?” She raised her eyes to the ceiling and held them there for a moment as if awaiting His confirmation.

  I looked at Griff. He grinned. I kicked him under the table.

  “Now what?” Mitzi said walking into the kitchen.

  It was nice to feel welcome in the little Christian home.

  “We’re here to ask if you knew about Ashley’s drug use,” Griff said.

  Mitzi skipped a beat. Looked at her mother then back to us and shuffled her feet on the linoleum floor. “I told you. Ashley wasn’t the type.”

  “The tox screen says differently.”

  Her eyebrows went up. “No shit? I wish I’d known. I’d have blown the fuckin’ whistle on her.”

  “Mitzi,” her mother fog horned. “Watch your language.”

  “Ma, I could have taken my rightful place, first through the ribbon.”

  “You never saw her talking to anyone on a regular basis?” Griff cut in. “No visitors in your dorm room that you didn’t know?”

  “Like I told you. The girl had no friends. I never saw her with anyone except for the team when she was at practice.”

  “Anybody hanging around practices?”

  She shrugged. “Sometimes there was this dude she’d talk to.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “I don’t know. I never got close. It wasn’t like she introduced him to anyone. He’d just be on the sideline somewhere and she’d go over and talk to him. I don’t know if it was even always the same guy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sometimes he’d have on a cop uniform and sometimes he was riding a bicycle or sometimes he just looked regular. Could a been three different guys for all I know.”

  “You never saw his face?” I asked.

  “He always had on a hat or a bike helmet and sunglasses.”

  “What was his build like?” I asked. Women usually notice a guy’s physique.

  She shrugged. “Medium, 5’10” or 11”, I’m not sure. You think he was selling her drugs? I never saw her take anything from him. They’d just talk a minute and then he’d leave.”

  I looked at Griff. He raised his eyebrows.

  “What?” Mitzi said. “You know who that is?”

  Griff stood. “Thanks, Mitzi. You’ve been really helpful. We’ll be in touch if we need anything else.”

  I followed Griff to the door and turned to thank Loraine, but she was already seated at the table paging through her bible, oblivious to us.

  “Mike was Ashley’s supplier,” I said as we got into Griff’s car.

  “Makes perfect sense,” Griff said. “How better to get back at someone than to mess with their kid?”

  “His payback to Gwen for treating him like shit all those years was to screw up Ashley. What a bastard. And the large cash withdrawal…”

  “Was either an exorbitant charge for the drugs he was supplying or he threatened to expose her drug use to the school and her parents which would have taken everyone down.”

  “She could have just told him she didn’t want the drugs anymore.”

  “He had her either way. She needed the drugs to maintain her performance, which in turn maintained her family and kept Greg at home. If she stopped taking them she’d begin to lose meets, which meant losing Greg’s interest, losing her family and Mike would expose her. She couldn’t win. She was going to Johns Hopkins to major in Ethics and yet the way she was living couldn’t have been more unethical. What else could she do but jump? At least by her way of thinking.”

  “So now what? Should we go give Greg and Gwen the news?”

  “I don’t know that we have enough evidence to point the finger. We have no definite proof of blackmail or drugs yet. It’s all circumstantial at this point.”

  “We have Mitzi’s description of a guy with Mike’s build in a cop uniform or biking gear. We have his axe to grind with Gwen. We have the fact that he’s living too large for someone with a cop’s salary.”

  “Let me think about it. Anyway, I haven’t got time right now. I’m meeting with Guy Hendricks at one o’clock.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Our new case.”

  “The antique dealer?”

  “Yeah. He and his accountant want to show me the discrepancies they’ve found over lunch then we’re going to his warehouse. He’s got some articles that aren’t matching inventory and I need to get pictures. You want to come?”

  “Not really. I mean it sounds interesting and I’ll do whatever you need me to, but I thought I might hang around the house this afternoon so…”

  “So you’ll be close if Rhea needs you,” Griff said completing my sentence.

  I looked at him and nodded. “Okay?”

  “More than okay. It’s a good idea. I’ll feel a lot better when that baby is born and the two of them are living miles away.”

  “What’re we gonna do about Mike?”

  “For now, nothing. He doesn’t know what Mitzi’s told us so there’s no rush getting to Lambert’s. It’s going to have to wait until tomorrow. After I see Hendrick’s I’ve got to go to the office for a while. I won’t be late but go ahead and eat without me.”

  “Pick up Chinese on your way home and I’ll open some wine. We’ll have a late dinner.”

  “Even better,” he said. “We’ve hardly spent a day together since buying the house.”

  “Tonight we’ll make up for lost time.”

  Twenty-Five

  It was five twenty-seven when Rhea called. I heard the phone and assumed it would be Griff telling me he was on his way, but when I slid my thumb across the screen to accept the call all I heard was breathing…hard, raspy breathing.

  “Rhea?” I asked, my heart quickening.

  “Britt, come quick.”

  At first I thought I’d dropped the call due to the silence that followed, but then I heard a crash, like a piece of furniture hitting the floor and then the scream. Rhea’s scream…“Britt.”

  I dropped my phone on the counter and ran barefoot in a tee shirt and yoga pants for the front door, leaving it wide behind me. On the path through the trees, the overgrown lilac bushes devoid of their blooms grabbed at my arms and face. Roots that I’d barely known were there erupted from the dirt slowing my progress, stubbing my toes and bruising the soles of my feet. But it was Rhea’s screaming my name that drove me forward as fast as I could move.

  I flipped the metal u-bracket on the chain link fence and ran into the backyard, across the stone patio and up the stairs to the kitchen. Sliding back the glass door, I froze for a moment to take in the scene. Rhea was on her knees, bent over, her head grazing the floor, arms wrapped protectively around her bulging belly. Mike stood over her in uniform, his nightstick in hand. The kitchen was destroyed. A drawer of silverware upended on the floor. The pantry cabinet lay on its side, its contents, including the glass panel
s from its doors, strewn over the Mexican tile. That was the crash I’d heard on the phone. I started toward them.

  Rhea looked up. “Britt,” she said, whining like a kitten.

  “What the hell do you want?” Mike said, his baton still hovering over Rhea’s back. “Get the fuck out of my house.”

  I started toward him. “Put it down,” I said hoping my voice wasn’t as shaky as my knees.

  “Screw you.”

  I kept moving forward.

  “Britt, your feet,” Rhea said, her voice stronger now.

  I looked down at the bloody footprints I was leaving stepping on slivers of glass that littered the floor like chicken feed. It was everywhere, impossible to avoid. I kept walking.

  “Get the fuck out.” Mike’s eyes bounced from Rhea to me, and back.

  “We know about Ashley,” I said hoping to shift his focus away from Rhea long enough for her move.

  He looked at me. There was no missing the surprise in his eyes. “You don’t know shit,” he said. There was less strength in his voice.

  “We know you were supplying her with drugs, performance enhancers to keep her winning and ultimately destroy her. The same way Gwen destroyed you by treating you like you were worthless and stealing your self-esteem. What better way to get back at her than to do the same thing to her daughter?”

  He straightened up and lowered his arm. Still staring at me. “Get up Rhea,” I said. “Move away from him.”

  He glanced down at his wife as she began to rise. His arm twitched. He raised the baton.

  “On top of the drugs, you were blackmailing her.”

  That caught his attention. He looked back at me.

  “You were either charging her an exorbitant amount for the drugs or you were blackmailing her, promising to keep quiet about what lay at the root of her success as long as she kept paying you.”

  Rhea was now safely out of his reach, but he didn’t seem to care. His eyes hadn’t left my face.

  “I never took money from Ashley. I didn’t want their money. It was payment enough to watch Gwen dissolve when her golden child went down. I supplied the drugs, but that’s all. In the beginning, everyone got what they wanted, success. But I knew it was only a matter of time before Ashley either physically or mentally gave out and I got what I wanted. Killing herself, killed her family. I had no beef with Ashley. She was a means to my end.”

  “Then how do you explain all this on a cop’s salary?” I waved my hand indicating the million-dollar home they lived in.

  “Guilt money from my father. It made him feel better after he abandoned my mother and me. I didn’t give a fuck. I gladly took it when he offered. But I never took a dime from Ashley.”

  “We’ll see about that. You’ll have your day in court and you can explain it all then, but right now Rhea’s coming with me.” I moved past him trying to avoid the glass cutting like barnacles into the bottom of my feet.

  “Like hell. She’s not going anywhere.”

  “She needs to go to the hospital. Look at her.”

  Rhea’s forehead was split, as was her top lip. Her left cheekbone looked like an over ripe peach, pulpy and wet.

  Mike gazed at his wife’s face. “You’re not going anywhere like that.” He turned back to me. “She stays here and you get the hell out. This is my house. I’ll handle things.”

  “If you don’t let me take her I’m going to the police. I’ll tell them about Ashley and I’m gonna tell them what I saw when I walked in here, you beating the shit out of your wife. She might lie for you, but I sure as hell won’t.”

  I moved toward Rhea. She was standing to Mike’s right, leaning against the doorframe that led to the living room. From the look of her, I wasn’t sure she could even make it to my house. I reached out my hand. Her eyes drifted from my face to what she saw behind me. They were wide with fear. I started to turn, but before I made it all the way around something hard hit the back of my head and the room went black.

  “Britt, Britt…”

  I could hear Rhea’s voice but it was miles away. Swirling images in front of my face triggered a wave of nausea from my stomach to my throat. I closed my eyes, took a breath and tried again. “Rhea,” I managed.

  “I’m right here.”

  I felt a hand holding mine.

  “Are you okay?”

  Silence.

  “Rhea,” I said again. This time forcing my eyes open, fighting nausea back where it belonged.

  Rhea was sitting beside me holding my hand. She was crying. “I’m okay,” she said meeting my eyes. “But…”

  I turned my head to survey the kitchen. Bad idea. A pain like a railroad spike drove itself through my head. “Where’s Mike?” I managed.

  She looked across the room and very carefully I followed her gaze. Mike was lying about six feet away, his head in a pool of blood. I stared at him for a few minutes trying to see the rise and fall of his body as he breathed. He didn’t move.

  “Is he?”

  She nodded. “It was an accident, Britt. I didn’t mean to kill him. After he hit you I went at him, beating his chest with my fists. He shoved me away. I fell. My hand landed on the baton where he’d dropped it. When he came at me, I swung it at his head. He fell and…and, I couldn’t stop”. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I hit him again and again, his head, his chest and his head again. I couldn’t stop.”

  I looked at her as she spoke, hearing the confession of a thousand battered women who once they’d murdered their abuser went into overdrive. Killing him repeatedly for every beating they ever took. I squeezed her hand.

  “Help me,” I said nodding toward the wall.”

  Rhea moved behind me and put her hands beneath my arms. I shoved my palms into the floor and scooted until I was leaning against the wall. On the back of my head I felt a lump the size of an apple and my hair was matted and wet against it.

  “What do you need, Britt? What should I do?” She was on the verge of panic or shock. Either one could send her into labor. Not what we needed right now.

  “Water,” I said giving her something else to focus on. “Get me water, aspirin and…” I touched the back of my head. My hand came away smeared with blood. “Some gauze and tape.”

  Rhea disappeared down the hallway and I sat staring at Mike’s lifeless body. He’d just come home from work. Had a bad day, ready to take it out on his wife, his pregnant wife. But she’d turned the tables first by calling me and then by delivering the deciding blows. Her rage had set her free. Blood saturated his hair, a matted mess stuck to his battered head. It had seeped onto the shoulders of his blue uniform shirt, turning it deep maroon.

  “Here.” Rhea knelt beside me. She dumped four aspirin into my hand, set the gauze and tape on my thigh and went to the sink for water stepping over Mike’s body.

  I took the glass and washed down the pills keeping my eyes on her face. “Are you alright? I mean, he’s dead, are you…. “

  “Sorry?” She shook her head keeping her eyes on mine. “Relieved and scared, but not sorry.” She cradled her belly in the palm of her hand. “Are you going to call the police?”

  “It’s my duty as a PI and a public citizen to report a crime.”

  Rhea’s eyes bore into me. “Britt, you know they’ll arrest me. He’s a cop. He’s been beating me for years, but they’ll never take my word over his. I’ll go to prison for murdering my husband. “She ran her hand over her bulging stomach. “My baby…” her eyes filled with tears. “I can’t lose this one too.”

  It was hard to think over the pounding in my head, not to mention my heart working triple time. “I saw what happened. I can vouch for you.”

  She shook her head. “No, you didn’t see what happened. You were out cold. That’s what you’ll have to say when they put you under oath.” Tears spilled onto her cheeks. “Britt, please, you can’t. They’ll never side with me over him.”

  I knew she was right. It was the ultimate travesty of justice. Women found guilty for killing
their abuser. I looked around the kitchen as an idea started to form. I didn’t have my cell phone so I couldn’t call Griff and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Two things I love about him are his ethics and his honesty, but neither of those would be helpful right now. What I needed was a way to help Rhea hide what had happened.

  “I’m not going to the police.”

  Her body visibly relaxed.

  “We’re going to make this look like an accident and we’re never under any circumstance going to sway from our story. Can you do that?”

  She caressed her stomach. “Yes. But what if we get caught?”

  “We won’t.”

  “Go get all of Mike’s biking gear. Whatever he wears when he goes for a ride, right down to the socks, shoes, underwear, helmet, everything.”

  She got up nimbly for a woman in her ninth month of pregnancy. I listened for her to start up the stairs then I unwrapped two squares of gauze and ran a piece of tape around my head to hold them in place. I was sure the wound called for stitches, but that wasn’t happening. I scooted over to Mike and began to undress him. By the time Rhea came back into the kitchen he was naked. She dropped his cycling attire onto the floor beside me.

  Once he was dressed from his helmet to his shoes, even his wrist ID, we had to get him outside. No small feat for two women, one pregnant, one concussed. We dragged him to the door.

  “Leave him here. I’m going to get my car.”

  I ran through the path. Every step sent a blade slicing through my head. Before going inside, I stopped beside the back deck and turned on the hose. I ran the icy water all over my feet, top and bottom, rinsing fresh and coagulated blood into the grass. I did the same with my hands, then slid open the back door, crossed the kitchen and grabbed my car keys, phone, sneakers and a baseball hat to cover my bandaged head.

  Rhea was sitting at the kitchen counter when I returned.

  “You okay?”

  “Yes. You don’t have to keep asking.”

  “Just checking. We need to get him outside to my car. Are you able to do that?”

  “I think so.”

  “Do you have a tarp?”

  “In the garage. I’ll get it.”

  I watched her go down the stairs, gripping the railing. She wasn’t okay, that much was plain on her face, but it wasn’t regret. I took it as fear and maybe to some degree, shock over what had happened and what we were doing. She wasn’t alone.