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“I agree.”She’d not expected that and told the man that.“I know.You seemed to have a full head of steam going as soon as you answered.And I do have answers, or at least partial answers, for some of your concerns.Mattie hasn’t been cremated as yet.Her body and that of Mick’s mother are being put on hold until the state can bring in a person to do the autopsy on them.Nothing will be done to them until that time.Also, the girls are in protective custody.He made some odd comments around the police that had them keeping him away from the girls for the present time.Also, you’ll be happy to know he’s already tried to cash in the policy on her but can’t without a death certificate.Could be another reason he wants her cremated so quickly.”
“I’m an insurance investigator.If you can tell me the name on the policy, I can get more information on it than you can.”After he told her the company and the policy number his dad had found, she started to work immediately.“It’s for one million dollars.I’m betting if you have a look around like I’m doing right now—bingo.He has seven policies on Mattie worth a million each.And he’s the benefactor on all of them.However, there isn’t one on him.I guess he plans on never dying.All right.Let me dig a little deeper here and find out about his mother.Yes, the same thing.One million with each of the seven policies.Also, there are none on his father.Which to me it’s a giant red flag.”
Her desk phone rang, and she answered it.Robert told her he’d found a few things.Telling Mr.Strong that she was going to put him on speaker phone with her brother and her, Robert started telling them what he’d been able to find out.
“There are several records of the little girls being in and out of the hospital emergency room over their lifetime.The first one was when they were two weeks old, and Sunny suffered a broken arm.Mattie told them that she’d been picking her up in the middle of the night and had dropped her on the bed railing.They must have believed her because there isn’t any record of a police report filed.It happened again, a burnt hand for Bethany when she was flaying her hands around and touched her too-hot coffee.That was investigated as well, but no arrests were made.There are a few for Mattie, too, but nothing like the girls.”Mr.Strong asked about the mother-in-law.“Hang on a minute.I can pull that up right now since I’m already in the system.Yes.I have fifteen times where she was brought into the hospital by ambulance over the last twelve months.The husband or her son would go and get her, take her home, and there wasn’t any follow-up made to any local doctors.Let me see here.Broken leg.Broken jaw.There is also a couple of times when she was unconscious when she was found.Blunt trauma is what I’m seeing here.Again, she didn’t stay any longer than it took for one of the others to come and get her out.”
“What is it you do, Robert?Carrie said she is an insurance investigator.You have to be something similar to that.”Robert told him what it was he did.“So you’ve gotten into the hospital system and gotten what you need.I don’t think that is legal.”
“Depends, I suppose.Neither is trying to kill off your wife or sister.Nor selling off six-month-old babies to perverts.I do what I do in order to help Carrie with her job.It pays well, and I have no reason to leave the house unless I want to.If you have a problem with me and—”
“No.No, I’m sorry if I gave that impression.What you’re doing for this case, and I’m thinking that it’s going to have to be taken before a judge sooner rather than later, is going to be a great deal of help keeping the little girls safe.”Robert thanked him.“No worries there.But I do have to ask again.Will any of you be coming here to help out with your sister’s murder?If for no other reason than to help the children of her be safe?”
“I’ll be there on the next flight out.That is if you’re accepting of my husband being with me.”Mr.Strong said he didn’t care who he was partnered with so long as they could get to the bottom of this.“Carrie?You’re going as well, aren’t you?”
“Yes.I’ll be there.If for no other reason than to see Mick put in jail for the rest of his life.”She didn’t want to ask but needed to know.“I’m assuming the children were examined by a doctor.Have they been sexually abused?”
“Yes.”Nothing more was needed than that answer to have her hurting for them.“I’ll wait to hear from the two of you when you’re arriving and have a place for you to stay.We’ll get this prick.”
After they all hung up, she sat at her desk for a few minutes just to think about what had happened to those babies.Then it occurred to her that Mattie more than likely knew it.She had to.And that made her hurt all the more for those two little girls.
Chapter 2
Mick didn’t care for waiting his turn.He never had, even as a child.But today, he had been told to be on his best behavior or else.He knew well enough not to ask his dad what he meant by that.The shit would be knocked out of him, and he’d be in the fucking vet’s office again recovering.
The vet that they’d been using for the last few years also knew better than to say a word about what he was doing behind closed doors.The man had gotten rid of so many bodies for them over the course of the last ten years.Having to cut the dead up so they’d fit in his crematorium wasn’t all that bad when he thought about it.Mess?Hell yeah.But there wasn’t a single bit of the body left but some ash that went out with all the little doggies that had kicked the bucket too.He did oftentimes wonder if people wondered why their little bitty dog had so much ash in his jar.Laughing at what their faces might look like if they found out was funny to him.
“Mr.Cartwright, the attorney will see you now.”This was the fourth attorney he’d seen today about getting the county medical examiner to release Mattie’s body.As he stood up with his file in hand, he looked at the woman who had summoned him just now.She hurried behind her desk when he asked her out.“No.Didn’t your wife just die, sir?I’d think you’d be mourning her rather than hitting on someone else already.”
“I just need some comfort, you know?A little fucking around with you could go a long way in making me feel better.”She didn’t say a word to him, which, as usual, he took as a nod for him to keep at her until he got his way.However, before he could tell her how good he was in the sack, the attorney called to him from the office he’d been headed to.“We’ll talk later.I promise.”
He was in the office when he realized that there were too many people in the room for him to be having a private visit with the man.Not that he could remember his name, but something was amiss, as his dad would say.Sitting down when he was asked to have a seat, he waited on them to make the first move.
“Mr.Cartwright, you’ve come to see about getting your wife’s body released to you.Is that correct?”He said they’d had her long enough that he wanted her in her resting place.“Yes.I have that on the notes here.You also said that you wanted no autopsy done nor anything taken from her body, such as tissue samples and blood.Is that also correct?”
“It is.I want her to be cremated like she came into this world.With everything where it belongs.”His dad had come up with that before Mattie had been killed.“She was my wife of six years, and I would know her better than anyone else on that matter.I think…no, I know she would have been sorely upset to know someone had tampered with her body before she was cremated.”
“Why cremation?”He didn’t know the woman who asked though he thought he should have.“Doctor Jade Strong.I was at the mall the day your wife and mother were killed.Why are you having her cremated?According to what we’ve been able to find out about your wife, she never mentioned that was her plan to any of her friends.”
“My wife didn’t spread her personal information around like most would.”He had no idea why, but this woman was making him very nervous.Sitting on his hands so that he’d not be giving away any telltale information, he smiled.“Mattie also said that she didn’t want to linger in a vegetable state either.”
“It’s a vegetative state.According to her diary that she had on her when she was murdered, she was fearful of something happening to her that you would have been involved in.She left numbers for the police to call if something did happen to her.She also detailed how the two of you were not getting along and she was afraid for her daughters.What do you think she meant by that?”He didn’t know but was afraid to open his mouth to make anything up.“No answer?All right.As you know, her daughters are in protective custody.Do you know why?”He said he had no idea why he wasn’t able to have his precious babies back.“They’ve been sexually abused.Also beaten and burned with what appears to be a—”
“It’s all Mattie’s doing.”He felt the air in his lung refuse to exhale, and he was getting a little dizzy from it.“Mattie was an abusive person.She had men at the house all the time when I was working.”
He was off script, and he knew that he was just a few more sentences away from getting himself into deeper trouble.Closing his mouth, biting his lips hard enough he could taste blood, he stared at the woman who was messing things up for him.
Mick wanted his dad.He needed him to tell him what to say, what to do.But as it stood right now, he thought that keeping his mouth shut, no matter what they asked him about, was his best bet.Taking a few calming breaths, he looked at the woman again when she asked him if he was afraid.
“Afraid?Of what?I’ve done nothing wrong.”Not that they knew about anyway.“I just came in here to see about getting Mattie’s body released so I can move on with my life.I think I’ve made it perfectly clear what I want to be done, and these accusations that you’re saying to me are making me think you’re going to try and blame whatever happened to my wife on me.”
“No.We’re only going to try and get you to confess to abusing your daughters.”The look the attorney gave him when he spoke made the sweat he was feeling running down his spine start to feel like a waterfall.He wanted to get up and leave, but he wasn’t sure that his legs would carry him very far.Mick was afraid.Terrified really.While he didn’t know how they’d come to know so much, he was sure that if he could just get out of there, he’d be all right.“Your home, the one you shared with your wife and daughters, has been locked from your being able to enter.Your father’s home has been as well.There are just too many holes in the story that we’re getting from the two of you about what happened to the two women and your daughters.”
“I want my daughters.”The attorney told him that, for now, it wasn’t going to happen.“Why not?I’m their father.I should be with them now that they’ve lost their mother.”
“Regardless of your relationship to them, you’re not going to see them until such time as the courts deem you fit to be their guardian.”He stood up and sat down when a man about the size of a car told him to sit down.The attorney continued.“Your credit cards have all been closed off from you being able to use them as well.Your bank account has been frozen as well, as your passport and other credentials have been confiscated.”
He didn’t know what to do.Mick tried to think what his father would have done and laughed.Dad would laugh and pretend to blow things off like it meant little to nothing to him.Even though they could see the sweat stains on his shirt, he tried for the bravo behavior.
