Page 66 of Done Dirty

“Four hospital visits in the past thirteen months,” Jack said. “Different hospitals. Broken wrist, concussion, dislocated shoulder, and debilitating headaches. No records that she was involved in extreme sports or activities.”

“Oh, man,” I said. I knew what that meant. I’d been an ER doc long before I’d started working for the dead, and I’d seen the women who’d come in with those injuries. They were the same women who’d come up with one creative excuse after another and rejected the idea of calling the police and reporting their spouse.

The kitchen was quiet except for Oscar settling onto his bed in the corner and the distant pop of someone’s early firecrackers somewhere down the street.

“I’m really starting to question my judge of character,” I said.

“I’ve told you before,” he said. “Everyone is lying about something, even the ones you think are decent people. If you go into every interview with that thought in your head you’re never disappointed. You’ll like what I found out about Brett though.”

“You should’ve woken me up,” I said. “I missed all the good stuff.”

“If I’d woken you up like I wanted to we would not have been talking about this case. You need to eat breakfast.”

He moved around the kitchen perfectly comfortable selecting ingredients and the right kitchen tool. I was not like Jack in that regard.

While he whipped up batter for waffles and cooked bacon and eggs, I did my part by making him another cup of coffee and staying out of his way.

“So what did you find out about Brett?”

“He’s got a sealed juvenile record,” he said. “But he’s squeaky once he hit adulthood. Graduated high school and went straight into the Marines.”

“Oh,” I said. “So he left the flag as a sign of his patriotic duty to kill the enemy.”

“Sounds as good as anything,” he said, putting a plate overflowing with food in front of me.

“I can’t eat all this.”

“It’s okay, I’m sure Doug will take whatever you don’t eat.” He took his own plate and sat across from me. “Anyway, Brett did his four years and then went to the fire academy. He’s got some commendations. But Margot dug around and managed to find two domestic dispute calls in the last year. I looked in my archives to see what happened, and it looks like both instances were called in by a neighbor. An officer responded, the fire chief called my captain who’s in charge of that jurisdiction, and had him remove any records of it. All I’ve got are the initial phone calls to report it. Everything else is gone. No files at all.”

“That’s not good.”

“I’ll be having a discussion with my captain,” Jack said. “Unfortunately it happens a lot. You don’t want to piss off someone you might need for a case or anything else later, so you give a little to get a little. First responder culture thrives on the barter system.”

“So we can place Brianna in Wade’s condo based on Gerald’s witness statement, and a probable DNA match from the panties left at the scene. We know Brett had access to the condos, he had his own key fob, and if he was sleeping with Jessica it probably wasn’t too hard to lift the key for Wade’s condo and have a copy made. But what we don’t know is which of them actually killed Wade. Was Brianna another victim, or was Wade killed by a jealous husband?”

“A jealous and violent husband,” Jack said. “We need to talk to Brianna Callum.”

Ridgeline Drive was quiet except for the birds and a neighbor’s lawn sprinkler going in slow arcs across the grass. Mature trees, basketball hoops in driveways, flags already out on half the porches. The Callum house had a full-size flag on a proper pole at the edge of the front yard. It was moving in the morning breeze and I couldn’t stop looking at it.

Jack pulled into the driveway, and we sat there for a second.

“You think she’s here?” I asked.

“Battered spouses tend to do what they’re told to do,” Jack said. “If Brett killed Wade then she’s a witness. Which means she’s a liability to him.”

“She could already be dead.”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “I’ve thought of that. I asked for a unit to wait down the street just in case. Brett drives a Ford 150, and I don’t see it anywhere. He should be on his shift at the fire station.”

We got out of the car, and Jack immediately rested his hand on his weapon as we approached the house.

The porch had two rocking chairs and a hanging fern and a wreath of red, white, and blue ribbon on the door. I kept my eyes moving the way Jack had taught me—windows, door, the gap between the curtain and the frame. Nothing moved.

Jack knocked.

We waited. I could feel the weight of Jack’s hand near his weapon without looking at it.

There was movement behind the glass panel beside the door—a shadow, someone looking out without opening it.