Justifiable (5 page)

She’d left that life behind. She’d thought.

From her point of view, she had an uncomplicated job description – find the evidence necessary to convict criminals.

End of statement.

Kirsten met Cecelia’s uncompromising stare with an equally determined one of her own. “I can appreciate the timeline you and the Mayor are facing for his speech, but I’m
not
going to perform a faulty investigation to hit a PR-inspired deadline.” 

“
Every
investigation for this office had better be top notch, but be careful what you discount.”  Cecelia drew her thick lashes together, cranking the threat in her glare to gladiator level. “There’s nothing trivial about this deadline. Bringing tourism into Philadelphia shows industry this is a thriving city, a place people want to visit and a place their employees will like to live. The mayor can’t get new industry to come in if people think this is a war zone.”

“I’m more interested in making sure we have a safe city for our citizens to live in
now
.”

Cecelia’s animation quieted abruptly with a chilling change. “Don’t ever make the mistake of insinuating that the safety of our citizens is not my first priority.”

There was the face and voice of Cecelia’s dangerous political ambition. Kirsten was duly warned, but she wouldn’t bow to pressure. “I didn’t insinuate anything.
If
we’re both after the same thing – protecting Philly’s citizens – then I don’t understand rushing due process.” 

The unflattering look Cecelia gave her questioned Kirsten’s IQ before her gaze swept the hallway that grew more crowded with people. “Step into the pressroom.”

Once Kirsten entered the room, Cecelia followed her and closed the door. She swung around and crossed her arms. “We aren’t rushing due process, just being efficient. All of these businesses and people pay taxes that finance salaries, as in money for
your
position that will be the first cut when the coffers run dry. Solve this murder ASAP and put a lid on the media so we can focus on the higher-priority news of an expanding tourism program.”

“Not until I get my questions answered,” Kirsten persisted.

“Such as?”

“Why was the body of a destitute woman dropped on Judge Berringer’s yard? We need to interview his neighbors – ”

“No, no, no.”  Cecelia shook her head like a dog splaying water. “I told the judge we’d keep him and his wife out of the limelight. Reporters are camped out there as it is. Don’t give the media anything.”

“The media is already digging around. If we shove this under the rug they’ll cry foul and how will
that
look in the news?”  Kirsten understood both sides of the media, better than most in the DA’s office.

“I’ll worry about the press. You worry about closing this case, Massey. You’ve got to learn how things work around here. You’ve been here a year. That’s long enough to have a clue on how we roll in Philly. They may do things differently in Chicago, but here we protect our innocent VIPs – and that includes judges – from being harassed by news vultures.”

That was how Cecelia
rolled
, not the city.

Kirsten tapped a finger against the files she still carried. “If the Stanton murder fits a domestic violence profile, we’ll limit city resources on investigating, but – ”

“There is no
but
,” Cecelia sliced in. “Judge Berringer has had no case involving Sally Stanton. I checked that out
myself
this morning. Stanton was probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Process the paperwork, declare it DV and move on.” 

“I’ll file my report once I’ve finished – ” 

Cecelia released a hiss of frustration. “This wouldn’t even make the news if not for being a slow news day. Don’t be so anal.”

Kirsten slapped her head. “Yeah, I’d hate to be that invested in finding a killer.” 

Cecelia gave her a don’t-be-so-dramatic eye roll. “What about St. Catherine’s? They’re behind Philomena House. You want to stir up trouble for that little church after all the bishop has been through?”

She
would
poke at Kirsten’s empathy for someone publicly humiliated, blast it. “No, of course not – ”

“Then don’t,” Cecelia snapped. “Even the media has enough sense to leave them alone after victimizing St. Catherine’s
twice
in the past year. The embezzlement case practically closed their doors. Why do you think they brought in the Enforcer?”

Who?
“You talking about the new monsignor?” 

“Yes. The city loves this guy. How many times do I have to remind you not to screw with good press? Seems like you’d know that with your family background.”

Anything else Kirsten said at this point would not serve her purpose, but she wouldn’t budge another inch on this investigation. Cecelia could shove her ridiculous opinion where her head was obviously planted.

Kirsten’s cell phone rang, saving her from having to respond. She answered, “Massey.” 

“Detective Turner, Philly PD. I’m at the morgue. Coroner found something odd on that body from Germantown – ”

She did not want to discuss this in front of Cecelia. “Excuse me, detective. Would you please hold on?”  Kirsten cut him off and made a point of glancing at her watch. She had a morning full of interviews and meetings, but she wanted to find out what the detective knew about this case. Talking in front of Cecelia would only cause more problems. She pulled the phone back to her ear. “I’m in a meeting right now. Can I meet you there at 11:00?” 

“Meet? Here?”

“Yes, I’ll meet you there.”  She wanted Cecelia to think the call was about asking for a meeting and she could get more done on this case outside the office.

“
Fine
.”

She flinched at Turner’s curt answer. Add him to the list of people she’d rubbed wrong today, but she’d smooth it over with Turner when she saw him.

“Something on the Germantown murder?”  Hope for confirmation of a domestic killing curled in Cecelia’s voice.

“Possibly. Catch you up when I get back from the morgue.”  Kirsten squashed the guilt fingering her neck over letting Cecelia think this would be positive news.

She’d done more than her share of stretching the truth since entering the investigative field, but she still felt the slap of a ruler on her hand from back in Catholic school.

If she were a good Catholic, she’d go to confession

No. If she were a good Catholic she’d have taken this position just to do the job and not for her own agenda – to find the truth behind a missing person.

Cecelia headed for the door. “Unless you receive indisputable evidence at the morgue that proves otherwise, this case is DV.”

Kirsten considered using the stack of files getting bent in her grip to beat some sense into this woman. Refusing to allow Cecelia’s threat to burn a hole in her control, Kirsten gave a noncommittal, “I understand.”

Once Cecelia disappeared down the hall, Kirsten headed to where she’d left her purse and coat with the receptionist outside the conference room. She took a minute to hook up her cell phone Bluetooth receiver on her way out of the building. She considered swinging by her office in Three Penn Square to pick up her emails, but that would run her late with meeting the detective she was already inconveniencing. Besides, he could catch her up on the case in person.

Her cell phone beeped with a call coming through on her way to the elevator. When she hit the receive button on her ear piece, she heard, “Hello, Kirsten?”

How had
he
gotten her cell phone number when she’d just changed it? “Hello, Dad.”

Chapter 6

Kirsten exited the elevator on the ground floor of City Hall, waiting to find out why her father was calling. What game would he play this time to get her to come home?

“I left messages for you.”  Her father said that in his lecture tone, the one he used on employees who revered Theodore Massey.

They didn’t recognize it as the voice of a man who could be cold as the Grim Reaper when someone refused him.

Especially his daughter.

She hated how the Bluetooth earpiece made it feel like he was inside her head. Flexing her jaw to loosen her clenched teeth, she tried to sound civil to the man whose voice turned her stomach inside out. “No, your assistant left voice mails. None that stated what you specifically wanted.” 

“I want to know how you’re doing.”

Hadn’t taken long for his first lie to surface.

“I’m fine. Anything else?”  Kirsten clutched her trench coat close and wove her way around slower-moving pedestrians while brittle silence answered her.
Don’t like it that you can’t bully me?

“Your mother would want us to be together, to support each other.”

No, she wouldn’t. Kirsten worked around the pain lodged in her throat. Her mother had rarely uttered her own opinion about anything when Kirsten lived at home, always parroting whatever her father said. The last time Kirsten had seen her mother at the family home in Chicago, her mother had cautioned her not to provoke her father.

Kirsten had replied sarcastically, “I’m twenty six. What’s he going to do? Ground me?”

Her mother’s voice had carried a chill of warning when she said, “You have no idea what your father is capable of.”

Years of watching her petite mother live in the shadow of her father as nothing more than a doormat trophy wife had blown the lid off Kirsten’s patience. She’d stopped packing her clothes that last day at home and said, “You’re still very attractive. Divorce him and find someone who appreciates you. You deserve to be loved.”

Hope had flared in her mother’s eyes before she looked away. “I can’t.”

“Sure you can. I’m taking my bar exam in a week. I’ll represent you myself and – ”

“No.”

“Why are you so afraid of him?” Kirsten had finally asked.

Her mother just shook her head. “I made my bed and can’t walk away from it. Just don’t cross him. He wants you here in Chicago and working with his company. Give him what he wants and you won’t have any problems.”

Kirsten had heard that all her life.
Do what your father asks. Mind your father. Your father is right.

“I am
not
you, Mom. I will not live under his thumb like a helpless bug,” Kirsten had said in a snarling tone she regretted two weeks later as she’d watched her mother’s casket lowered into the ground.

Four days before the unexpected funeral, Kirsten had received a cryptic voice mail from her mother saying, “I’m sending a friend to you who needs help.”

After two hours of trying to locate her mother by phone, Kirsten had finally dropped what she was doing and driven to Chicago. By the time she’d arrived, her mother was in the hospital in ICU after having suffered a major stroke from which she died six hours later.

The doctors had no idea what caused the seizure in a forty-eight-year-old woman who was an avid tennis player in optimum physical condition.

Kirsten wanted an autopsy.

Her father refused to have his wife’s body desecrated, but he’d had no problem cremating her.

“Kirsten, I miss you,” her father’s voice said from the Bluetooth, yanking her back to the present. “Come home for a visit.” 

She inhaled a quick breath of icy air that froze her lungs. “I’ve got a heavy caseload and little time off.”

“You don’t take time off.”

“What do want from me, Dad?”

“I feel like I’ve lost my whole family. I need to see you.”

She struggled against all the things she wanted to scream at him. The audacity of his acting as though
he’d
lost a loved one.
She’d
lost her mother,
because
of him. “We never were a touchy-feely family. I do better working all the time. Like you.”

He allowed the quiet to fill in for a few seconds, something he liked to do to put his opponents on edge. Didn’t work on her. She waited him out until he finally spoke again.

“The new marker is finished. I thought it would be nice for us to be together the day they set it in place.”

No, it would be nice to have her mother back. Kirsten couldn’t care less about the elaborate statue he’d probably had carved in honor of his wife. She’d bet the media would be involved as well, but refusing him would only raise his suspicions. “When do they plan to set it?”

“Next Monday afternoon.”

That only bought her a week. “I’ll ask about getting off work.”  Kirsten moved on shaky legs toward the parking lot where she’d left her car. She squeezed the files when she wanted to have her hands around her father’s neck. He’d guilted her into doing what
he
expected of her since childhood, to make her perform according to his vision of a Massey woman. Her rebellion had started before her teens, when she’d recognized her mother’s meekness as fear.

But what she felt now went way beyond rebellion and she was no longer a child.