AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Still sore, but the case is wrapping up. The rush came back on that DNA from Sandra’s tree, and it matches the profile we have on file for Jennifer Woods. Apparently she cut her hand on the tree bark.”
“So we would have caught her anyway,” Arnett said.
Jo nodded, and didn’t say what they were both thinking: that he might be dead if they hadn’t put the pieces together earlier. “Bernard is back home, but shaken to discover how close her house came to being barbecued. When are you and Laura going to be able to move back in?”
“Not sure yet. Between the fire damage and the water damage, the guy said three weeks. But there was a twinkle in his eye I didn’t like.”
“Thank God for home insurance,” Jo said.
“Another true story.” Arnett paused to take a sip of his beer. “So. I heard that Woods is pleading guilty. That’ll save time and taxpayer dollars,” Arnett said. “I haven’t seen the recording yet. Did she say why the different MOs for each kill?”
Jo tried to read Arnett’s demeanor as she answered—she had a strong suspicion about why he’d asked her to join him for a drink, and was clinging to the hope she wasn’t right. “She did. Like we guessed, she wanted them to see her before she killed them, but wasn’t confident she’d be able to overpower some of them. Winnie Sakurai was older and frail, so she had no problem there. Deena Scott was fit, but still small, and Jennifer had the element of surprise in the parking lot of the gym. Steve Murphy was drunk, and wouldn’t have been able to fight off a kitten. But Sandra Ashville was relatively strong and very fit, and Cooper Ossokov was, not only big and strong, but psychologically terrifying to her. So she shot them.”
“So why not shoot everyone? And why not just shoot Ossokov in the head and have done with it?” Arnett asked. “Never mind, I know the answer to that. Far more psychologically satisfying to physically cave in his skull.”
The bartender appeared with the Calvados, set it in front of her, and walked off without a word.
“I’m gonna tell myself the reason he didn’t react is he didn’t hear what I said, not that he hears ten times worse every day,” Arnett said.
“Whatever works.” Jo lifted the snifter and sipped. “She didn’t shoot them all because gunfire at the park, the gym, or the bar would have instantly drawn attention before she could get away. As for Ossokov, she wanted to disable him, but be able to look him in the face when she beat him to death. To literally take back her power from him.”
“Yeah, well. She’s gonna need that power where she’s going.” Arnett took another sip of the Guinness.
Jo watched Arnett’s expression carefully as he lifted the beer. They’d worked on more cases together than she could count, and she knew the range of his end-of-investigation emotions. Pride and relief when they handed a strong case to an ADA, frustration when they couldn’t find the needed evidence to prove what they knew, stubborn disappointment when they had to consign something to the cold case files. The mix of anxiety and dread on his face was new.
“So,” she said pointedly. “Not that I don’t love the excuse to have a drink with you, but I’m getting the sense there’s something more you want to say.”
He took another a gulp of the beer, then pushed it away. “I want to thank you for staying by my side through all of this. Not everybody would have.”
“You’ve been by mine through some ugly times,” she said. “And if you tell me you didn’t know what Murphy did, I take that at face value.”
He glanced away, then met her eyes again. “I didn’t know. But I suspected.”
She nodded, and waited.
“I’m not trying to make excuses, I just need you to know what exactly happened and why. You pretty much accused me of putting both of us at risk because of my unresolved guilt, and you were right. You deserve an explanation.”
“The most important thing to me is that we’re honest with each other,” Jo said, careful to keep her face neutral.
“I didn’t know Murphy well. I’d never worked with him before. From the start he liked to do his own investigating. That was frustrating, but working with him was temporary, so I didn’t give much of a shit. But then, after the power struggle between Sandra and Grace, it got weird. He talked to Sandra without me present, then disappeared to ‘follow up a couple of leads.’ But when I asked him about them, he just said ‘nothing panned out.’ Then, all of a sudden, there was this question of blood in Ossokov’s car.”
Jo nodded.
“I asked him about it—he said the tech saw it and swabbed it but forgot to send it in. It smelled fishier than a dried-up swamp but I let it go. Told myself I didn’t know him and his style well enough and I had no reason to doubt his integrity. I’d only ever known him to be a good, honest cop. But then, everybody’s always honest until they’re not, right?”
“I think it’s natural to believe the best of fellow law enforcement in the absence of counter evidence,” Jo said. “Especially when we have to trust them to protect our backs.”
“Maybe. But at the end of the day, I fell into the big trap. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Cooper Ossokov was guilty of the other rapes. I’d met his victims and saw the DNA match, and I watched the smug smirk on his face when he told us how the sex with Woods was consensual. So I did exactly what we’re not supposed to do—I let that cloud my judgment. And when I had to choose whether or not to make an enemy of a fellow detective by questioning his motives when I had no evidence, I decided it wasn’t a risk that made sense when we were talking about a low-life rapist that was better off behind bars.”
Jo gripped the snifter’s stem. “We all make choices we regret. But what you did isn’t the same as what he did.”
“Isn’t it? Don’t good cops have a responsibility to shine a light on bad cops?” he asked, face drawn and eyes searching.
“We do. But it’s easy in hindsight to look back and tell yourself you should have done something different. It’s one thing if you’d known for certain he’d engaged in misconduct, but you didn’t. So you learn from the experience by trusting your gut from now on in those situations. You make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“That’s exactly what I’ve done. I’ve second- and triple-guessed every potentially questionable situation for the last fifteen years, and I’ve made clear to everyone I work with what will and won’t wash. And it’s one of the main reasons I’ve wanted to stay partnered with you over the years. I know I don’t have to think twice about your priorities.”
Jo’s mind flew to a moment, just a few months before, when for a split second she almost let a killer walk free. How close had she been to making the wrong choice that day? Just considering the question made her break out into a sweat. “We’re all human. We try every day to be better.”
