The Body Reader (12 page)

CHAPTER 24

A
s Uriah stared, the lid went back on the box, and the officer carried the evidence away. “I’ll contact the parents,” Uriah said. The fact that Lola Holt was dead just hours after he and Jude had talked to her wasn’t lost on him. “Any sign of the body?”

Emanuel rested a hand on his belt. “We’ve got officers working the area where your partner was attacked, but nothing yet.”

A dead body was hard enough for family to deal with, but a severed head and no body?

“Someone shot Fontaine’s motorcycle.” Emanuel gestured up the street. “They jumped her in an alley a couple blocks from here. Most of the BCA team is there. You’ll have to see the scene. Her bike was there, keys in it. Nothing taken. She still has her phone, although it’s broken.”

“Find any shell casings?”

“Not yet. Bullets pierced a fuel line and back tire.”

“So maybe they were aiming for the bike and not Jude.”

“Kinda looks that way. Bike is evidence. Got a tow truck on the way to collect it.”

Someone caught Emanuel’s eye, motioning him over. Uriah turned and approached the white van where Jude was being processed.

“She’s about done,” a member of the crime-scene team said upon spotting Uriah. “We’ve bagged and tagged her clothing and shoes. That’s about all we can do.”

“Thanks.”

Inside the van, Jude sat dressed in blue scrubs, a white cotton blanket around her shoulders, a cut above one eye. “Did you see my helmet?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He sat down on the bench next to her. “I saw it.”

“It’s her, isn’t it?”

“Pretty sure. We’ll have to wait for the parents’ ID to make an official announcement to the press.”

“Anyone find the body?”

“Not yet. What happened, Jude?”

Without looking at him—maybe eye contact would have been a distraction—she related how she got a text from Lola Holt and went to the café to meet her.

“You were lured there. Somebody was watching for you.”

“I agree.”

“See anybody?”

“No. My head was covered too quickly.”

“What about a voice? Sounds?”

“Nobody said a word.”

“Why didn’t they kill you? That’s the big question. People with no qualms about killing and decapitating a teenage girl, yet they let you live?”

“I don’t get it either. As far as Lola Holt goes . . . maybe they’re sending the other girls a message. Speak up and the same thing will happen to you.” She slumped against the wall of the van, head back. He could almost feel her exhaustion.

“Somebody must have seen us with her this afternoon,” Jude said. “No wonder she was so afraid.” Pause. “This is our fault.”

“We were doing our job. And if she’d opened up to us, there’s a good chance this wouldn’t have happened.”

“I know, but I can’t help but feel we could have handled it differently.”

“What about the attack on you?”

“A warning? A game? I’m someone who’d guarantee a lot of media attention.”

He’d been thinking the same thing. “The press will be all over this.”

The crime-scene tech appeared at the back door. “We’re done here. You’re free to leave,” she told Jude. “I’m sorry, but your clothing might have to remain evidence for quite some time.”

Jude pushed herself upright, stood a moment to stabilize, then stepped out of the van unaided while Uriah watched, ready to jump in if she needed help, knowing she wouldn’t want it.

“I’m gonna catch a cab and go home,” she said as soon as her feet hit the ground.

Barely past midnight, but a few confused birds were singing in the darkness.

“I’ll give you a ride and put a couple of guards on you. Whoever did this is still out there.”

She didn’t argue, and for once she seemed too exhausted to pick up on the signals he was undoubtedly sending, this time about those goddamn photos.

CHAPTER 25

A
t Jude’s place, Uriah checked for signs of forced entry, but the apartment seemed fairly safe. Fourth floor, one way in, a thick metal door with an impressive dead bolt. Jude was asleep on the couch by the time the two plainclothes officers showed up, so Uriah woke her with orders to lock the dead bolt behind him.

After leaving Jude’s apartment, Uriah drove straight to the Holt house, where the door was answered by a man in his late forties dressed in plaid pajama pants and a white V-neck undershirt. Charles Holt. His wife, Donna, the woman Uriah and Jude had met the day they’d stopped by in hopes of interviewing Lola, appeared behind her husband, hands busy tying a white robe, hair flat on one side of her head. They’d both been asleep.

Cops practiced this stuff. How to break bad news to people. Uriah had actually taken a seminar in which officers tried out different methods on one another. The big takeaway? There was no single best style other than delivering the news clearly and concisely. Thing was, people knew. They knew before you told them. That’s what Uriah had learned not only in practice, but also firsthand. Because he’d been on the other side of that door.

It didn’t help to take it slow, chat a moment, have them sit down. You had to get the news in while you could, before the brain began creating its own story. He understood how that worked too, when you know what’s coming is going to be bad so you start grasping for a lesser kind of bad. Maybe a loved one maimed but not dead. And you start imagining how you’ll care for that maimed person, and how that person will deal with the severity of her injuries. Those were the bargains you made. Or maybe it was a way for your brain to ease you in, a lesser horror before the full-blown truth.

Uriah preferred to tell people straight out. Clearly. Plainly. And that’s what he did now. Not only the news of Lola Holt’s death, but the circumstances, because there was nothing in the world that could lessen that blow. No amount of buildup, no sitting down.

The Holts clung to each other, shock mirrored in their faces. They turned, and with awkward, jerky motions, they moved deeper into the house to drop to the couch, all the while muttering words of denial and disbelief.

He knew that part too, and what came on the heels of denial. Pain, followed by fog. Without the fog, a person would break into a million pieces.

“Let me drive you to the morgue,” Uriah said. Neither of them was in any shape to get behind the wheel.

His offer took a while to sink in. He could wait. And then they finally disappeared to get dressed, then reappeared to awkwardly gather belongings: a light jacket for a cool night, a purse, billfold—all part of a life that no longer held any meaning.

Uriah didn’t remember how he’d gotten to the morgue when Ellen died. There was a big blank spot in his memory. Cops came to the door, and the next thing he recalled was being at the morgue. Like he’d teleported there.

“Lock the house behind you,” he reminded the couple.

Keys were found, the door locked.

Uriah rarely questioned his line of work, but he was questioning it big time tonight. This was one of those moments when any job on earth had to be preferable to what he was doing right now.

He put the Holts together in the backseat, where they clung to each other in a silence broken only by sobs. After signing in at the morgue, he led them down a fluorescent hallway to a small room designated for viewing. When the night-shift assistant pulled back the sheet, Uriah could almost feel the room tilt.

Nothing could have prepared the parents for the sight of their daughter’s severed head. There was no way for the human mind to process the horror. And that’s what it was. Not only had these poor people lost their daughter; they’d lost her under the most horrific of circumstances.

“Is it her?” Uriah asked quietly. He was like the scene director, gently prodding the actors forward. At the same time, he heard the tremor in his own voice. No shame in that. Shame came when there was no tremor. That’s when a guy had to start worrying.

Lola’s father nodded, his mouth a grimace of pain. Beside him, his wife let out an anguished wail before buckling. Uriah managed to break her fall and ease her the rest of the way down while the husband stood and watched, his brain unable to grasp what was going on right in front of him.

Was there a limit to how much the mind could endure? If so, this couple deserved oblivion.

The husband finally kicked in, reached down, and helped Donna Holt to her feet; then they both stood there, too stunned to contemplate their next move.

Uriah felt a little woozy himself. Maybe it was the similarities between Ellen’s suicide and the Holt girl. That knock at the door in the middle of the night. The deaths of two young women who’d had their lives in front of them. Same morgue. Those similarities confused Uriah’s brain, and for a fraction of a second he thought he was there to identify his wife’s dead body.

But no.

That was over.

That had already happened. He’d lived through it. He’d shattered, but now he was back. Not the same, but back.

The kindest gesture Uriah could offer right now was to leave the Holts alone with their grief. He thanked the assistant and led the couple from the room. Outside, he put them in a cab and sent them home.

CHAPTER 26

S
tanding outside the Holt home in the stark morning light, waiting for an answer to their knock, Jude glanced at her partner, noting the paleness of his skin, the dampness of the hair around his face, the hint of stress at the corners of his mouth. In the ride over, they’d decided Uriah would do the talking since he’d already established a rapport with the couple, but now Jude could see he was in no shape to question them. She felt a vibration coming from him, an inner trembling even though outwardly he appeared calm and in control. She guessed his reaction had something to do with the wife he’d lost. He talked about Jude not being ready for Homicide, but she wondered about him. His buried emotions lay close to the surface, and every bad thing that happened seemed to increase his vulnerability. His state of mind might be invisible to others, but it was there, hard for her to ignore, but too personal for her to address.

Jude heard footsteps from inside and said, “I’ll do this.” Along with the questions, she planned to watch both parents closely since everyone was suspect, especially family.

The door was answered by Charles Holt.

She pulled out her badge and introduced herself. “I believe you met my partner earlier. We know it’s a bad time, but we’d like to ask you and your wife a few questions.” Jude dropped into the role of compassionate cop. Not that her compassion wasn’t real. Not that she didn’t feel their pain and feel a familiar echo of sorrow and sympathy, but at the same time her life now was about looking at the world through a window. She felt more of an observer than a participant—a good thing in this situation.

“Have you found the body?” the man asked.

“No.” Jude tucked her badge and leather case back into her jacket.

“We need to make funeral arrangements. You need to find the rest of her.” The father’s voice cracked on “the rest of her.”

“We’re trying,” Uriah said.

The guy stared too long, then seemed to remember why the detectives were there. “My wife is upstairs sleeping.”

“Maybe we could just start with you,” Jude said. “Maybe she’ll feel like seeing us before we leave.”

Grieving people tended to either comply without question or lash out in anger. Mr. Holt complied, and Jude and Uriah stepped inside.

The interior had brightly colored walls, eclectic décor, plants that climbed to the ceiling, turned, and headed back to the wooden floor. Bohemian, artistic. And, in this moment, almost cruelly joyful.

They sat down on a couch in front of a coffee table. “I made this,” the man said when he noticed Jude unconsciously trace fingers across the wooden surface. She hadn’t realized she was doing it, and now she pulled her hand away.

“It’s beautiful,” she told him.

“I’m not sure my wife will be able to talk to you. She took something to knock her out.”

“I understand.” Jude had no real ties to anyone, but she could imagine what it might be like. She still remembered love even though she didn’t think she wanted to experience it again. She didn’t even know how it felt to have a pet. There was the roof cat she fed, but she thought of him in the way she thought of the plates that had been in the apartment when she arrived. He belonged to no one. That was the best she could do, and it worked for her. For now. Maybe forever. The mere act of allowing herself to have such thoughts brought a fresh wave of sympathy for the Holts that she couldn’t allow herself to feel. Sometimes the world was just too much.

“Lola was everything to us,” the man said. “Everything. My wife couldn’t have children,” he went on to explain. “We tried for years; then, after we gave up, Donna got pregnant. Our daughter was a treasure. A gift.”

“I’m sorry.” Right words for the situation. The only words, really.

“I feel like we let her down. We
did
let her down. We weren’t paying attention.”

“It’s not your fault,” Uriah said.

“But it is. A parent’s job is to protect his child. I had one important job to do, and that was to keep her safe.”

From above their heads came the sound of movement. A dull thud, a door opening and closing, footsteps that faded before becoming more pronounced.

“What are they doing here?”

Heads turned.

Halfway down the stairs stood Mrs. Holt. She was dressed in a pair of pajama bottoms too frivolous for the turn her life had taken, along with a vintage T-shirt with the white text partially worn away. Her eyes were red rimmed, her face puffy. “Why did you let them in?” she shouted at her husband. “They can’t be here. Not in our house!”

Uriah got to his feet. “Sorry for the intrusion. We just need to ask you a few questions; then we’ll be on our way.”

“I don’t care why you’re here. Get out. Now.”

“I understand, but—”

“Unless you have a daughter who’s been decapitated, you
do not
understand.” She raised her arm, the movement revealing a revolver she aimed at Uriah. “Out!” she screamed. “Get out of my house!”

Mr. Holt gasped. “Donna!”

The gun shifted to point at him. “I want them out of here.”

Jude stood up slowly, table in front of her, couch behind. The gun shifted, and now the barrel was pointing at her chest. She felt no fear.

Trembling arm, shaking gun, tears and anger and hatred. “You’re the reason my daughter is dead,” the woman said. “Coming around here. Chasing her at the funeral. Yes, she told me about that.” Each word was delivered with a thrust of the weapon. “You put her in danger, and now she’s dead. Because of
you
.”

Jude couldn’t argue. It
was
her fault. If she’d been more discreet . . . If they hadn’t chased Lola in front of the whole world, at an event the killer had most likely attended, then the girl might still be alive. She started to repeat her earlier apology but stopped herself.
I’m sorry
was for bumping into people.
I’m sorry
was for misunderstandings, not murder.

“Donna.” The husband, the broken husband, took a step toward his wife. The gun pivoted.

She was still standing on the stairs, too far for Jude and Uriah to rush her. “Do either of you have children?” she asked them.

Jude shook her head, and Uriah echoed the movement.

“Did you hear that?” The words were shrieked to her husband. “They don’t even know what it’s like! They don’t even know how it feels! Our daughter would be alive if they hadn’t put her in the spotlight, if they hadn’t drawn attention to her.”

With that accusation, the gun barrel shifted again, discharging this time, the sound deafening. The couch exploded; white stuffing floated in the air.

Now that it had happened, now that the trigger had been pulled, Mrs. Holt released a bellow and came roaring down the stairs, gun braced in both hands as madness and grief took over and she fired one shot after the other.

In unison, Jude and Uriah dove behind the couch. Lamps shattered. Photos crashed to the floor. The husband let out a cry and dropped. Above everything was the woman’s high-pitched wail.

In those adrenaline-saturated seconds, as a series of thoughts rampaged through Jude’s brain, taking her from one rejected plan of action to another, she found herself thinking,
Good for you.
She found herself siding with the mother, cheering the mother, while at the same time knowing this had to stop.

From way out there in the world, beyond the ringing ears and the mad sorrow, came the scream of sirens.

Someone had called the cops.

Shots fired.

The woman must have heard the sirens too, because her feet pounded the wooden floor as she moved toward Jude and Uriah with purpose and intent, leaving the detectives no choice.

They jumped to their feet, weapons drawn, arms extended as Uriah shouted for her to stand down.

The front door burst open, and uniformed officers poured in.

In that moment there was nothing more chilling and
heartbreaking
than the desperate click of the firing mechanism repeatedly striking the empty chamber. Donna Holt continued to pull the trigger, the clicks the only sounds in the room until a moan broke through.

Attention shifted to the bleeding husband on the floor. One of the officers called for an ambulance while Jude rushed to the side of the injured man and Uriah helped restrain the woman.

Maybe their lives hadn’t been perfect. Maybe the husband was having an affair, and maybe his wife longed for something more and resented the hours he spent at work or in his woodshop. Maybe the teenager was a narcissistic brat who talked back to her parents and snuck out at night, because that’s what teens did. But even if their lives hadn’t been perfect, they’d never get a chance to fix what was wrong, never get a chance to work it out or forgive or find the peace that came with time. They would be forever locked in this moment, and this loss would inform every breath the couple took for the rest of their lives.

“I’m sorry,” Jude whispered to the man on the floor. She could no longer depersonalize. This time she felt the words. This time she directly linked the words with a pain deep in her gut. “I’m so sorry.”