AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Nuh uh.” I grab the next stack of notes. “Doesn’t explain why she drove a couple hours north instead of straight home. Husband?”
“Reported her missing,” Fletch relays from his printout. “Henry Wade called Shirley’s at midnight. He had been expecting Holly home already, but when she didn’t arrive, he assumed she was working late.”
“And Shirley told him she’d already left?”
He shakes his head. “Both women closed up at ten. The place was locked down, lights out, empty. Henry’s statement says he got the answering machine but didn’t leave a message.”
“So at midnight, Holly’s still alive,” I murmur as I read. “She’s driving the wrong way. An hour after that phone call, she goes toe to toe with a semi.”
“And loses,” Fletch concludes. “Henry’s phone statements prove that call was made at three minutes past midnight. Holly’s death was two hours north of here, at one o’clock, which means he wasn’t in or around any vehicle when she hit that truck.”
“Ruling out his involvement if there’s foul play.” I nod. “Got it. But there’s more.” I set my papers down and meet Fletch’s eyes across the table. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Mental health.”
My brows pull together as I watch him. “Holly’s or Henry’s?”
“Holly’s.” Taking a sheet of paper from the file, he slides it across the table so it stops by my hand. “Bipolar disorder. Severe anxiety. Recurrent depression. Cluster B personality.”
Picking up the sheet, I read the long list of “issues” the woman had, as diagnosed by a Doctor Hector Brown. “Says here she started seeing Brown early ‘85. Formally diagnosed and medicated in the summer. Seven months later, she’s getting married. Was she taking her meds?”
“Yup.” Fletch tosses another page. Despite the age of this case, the format of the report still rings familiar to me. “Medical examiner says she’d taken all but two of her routine meds up to the day of her death.”
“Allbuttwo?”
“The one for her bipolar disorder wasn’t as strong in her blood as it should’ve been. M.E. concluded that she’d neglected to take those meds in the last two, perhaps three days prior to death.”
“So…” I try to think it through. My brain is slow after a week off, and my thoughts harder to piece together. “Holly might’ve been manic on the day of her death? Is that where you’re leaning?”
“It’s where the original investigator pulled up stumps. It’s entirely plausible she was suffering from a mental health situation. Add in that she was newly married… big change like that can trigger an episode. Shirley’s was a new job for her, too—so again, unfamiliar place, unfamiliar life, new environment, late hours. Chances are she’s tired. She’s still learning to regulate.
“Finally, her and Henry had bought a house together in the fall. Not a perfect home, but a fixer-upper, so they’re working on that. Maybe they’re thinking about starting a family. Life is seriously fucking dysregulated during this time. It’s absolutely possible she was manic and drove into that truck on purpose.”
“Okay, well…” I set the sheets of paper down and cast a fast glance over an old newspaper clipping. “It’s possible. What are you hoping to achieve by opening it up again?”
He stands and collects the photographs of Holly, pre-mortem and post. Tacking them to our wall by pushing the pin through the image, Fletch starts us on a brand new case. “I wanna poke at it and see what we see.” Turning back to the table, he takes out a different newspaper clipping and sets it down in front of me. “Henry Wade remarried in the winter of ‘87.”
“Geez.” My eyes scan the headline.Widower of Tragic Accident Finds Love Again. “He didn’t wait long, did he?”
“Would you?” Fletch’s eyes scan mine. “Minka bites the dust next week; are you getting hitched again next Valentine’s Day?”
“Fuck no.” Pushing up to stand, I take out my phone and ignore the bolts of pain slicing through my shoulder as a result of my movement. Unlocking the screen and finding Minka’s number, I hit dial and wait only a minute for her sweet voice to soothe my soul and justify my seriously codependent state.
“Detective Malone?” Like she so often is, Minka’s on the move. Heels clip against tile, and her breath comes a little faster than usual. “Have you taken your pain meds in the last hour?”
Holding the phone between my good shoulder and my ear, I drop my hand in my pocket and fish out the meds Minka says Ihaveto take. “We didn’t do a whole big wedding, Mayet.”
For just a moment on her end of the line, everything goes silent. “What?”
“Like, a church. A priest. You, wearing a white dress. Me, buying cufflinks.”
“I feel I made myself abundantly clear when I said I wanted amarriage.” She starts walking again. “Not a wedding. But you can wear a dress if you wanna.”
“Har-har.” Crossing to the corner of the room, I snatch a paper cup from the water dispenser and slowly fill it with lukewarm water. “You’re not mad it was… ya know… anticlimactic?” I set the pills on my tongue and follow them with the water. “One day, you’re not hitched, the next, you are?”
“Wasn’t anticlimactic to me. It’s what I wanted. Now I’m married—which is exactly the outcome we were aiming for.”
“What about a honeymoon?”
