AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Why’d you do it?” she screamed. “I always knew you were a monster. You’re going away for life!”
Ripley’s efforts to calm the woman down were in vain. Ten minutes ago she could barely move off the sofa, now she’d miraculously summoned the abilities of a mixed martial artist.
“Patricia, please,” Ella said. “We’ll take it from here.”
“No. I want to know. I have a right to know.”
Ella couldn’t argue. She did indeed have a right to know why her ex-husband had been stalking through her garden.
Ella asked, “You going to say anything, Jasper Edwards?” She gave his name a final sendoff, the last time it would be spoken outside the confines of a courthouse or prison.
“I just wanted my things back,” Jasper spat with a heavy Boston accent. Lots of unnecessary vowels. “You know, the things you owed me?”
“You deserve nothing. I hope you rot inside.”
Ella turned her attention to Patricia while Ripley took care of the suspect. “Patricia, you have every right to be furious, but we’ll help you get what you’re owed. He’s going away for a long time. You’re still legally married?”
“Yes we are,” Patricia said, her stare still firmly planted on the man chained up in the car.
“Then everything he owns is yours. Okay?”
“Good. He’s a pervert and a cheater, frolicking with Junkie Joanne behind my back.”
Ella paused for thought. She tried to usher Patricia away from the car but to no avail. “Joanne Gustafson?” she asked.
Patricia’s eyes widened with further rage, defying ocular physics, reaching a circumference Ella didn’t know was possible from the human body. “Yes! You know her?”
Ella felt Ripley’s stare on her. She looked over to see a smiling partner, clearly ecstatic at the unexpected connection between killer and victim. The first nail of many in Jasper Edwards” coffin.
“Joanne Gustafson is dead. Killed a few days ago.”
Patricia began pacing in a circle as though her bodily response system had malfunctioned. The sign of a woman in the throes of mass distress, processing a storm of conflicting emotions. Patricia exhaled deeply, buried her face in her hands and began crying. Ella used the moment to lead Patricia away from the car towards the house, away from the influx of neighbors who’d begun watching the theater performance from their doorways.
“I know it’s a lot to take in. I’m sorry you had to find out like this.”
Patricia rested her hands on Ella’s shoulders and between sobs said, “Thank God you were here. I owe you everything.”
“You owe me nothing. But if you’re willing, you could help us secure a conviction for Jasper. Make sure he never gets out.”
“Anything. That rat bag deserves to die in there.”
“He most likely will, but can you tell me some things about him, just in case I need to pull them out during questioning.”
Patricia’s tears slowed to a stop. “Okay. What do you want to know?”
“Jasper is religious?”
“Not really,” Patricia said firmly.
Ella suffered a brief jolt of electricity in her bones. Nothing to worry about, she told herself. He might have found God only recently. “Okay, you were with him a while, right?”
“Nine years.”
“Were him or you familiar with a David Harper? Or a Gary Weathers?”
Patricia glanced directly to the left then downward, signs of auditory and dialogue recollection. More importantly, signs of a truth-teller.
“No. Those names mean nothing to me. I’m sorry.”
