He tears out a piece of paper from his notebook and pushes it toward me. He doesn't ask me anything, doesn't say what he wants, but he doesn't need to either.
I grab his pen, write down her name. Leigh Kits. "If I had my phone, I'd give you her number too." I'm trying to be polite.
"I know Leigh. She's good." He looks at the name, gives me a nod and folds the paper in half.
He doesn't say anything. Why isn't he? Why isn't he bombarding me with questions? My stomach is a cauldron of mixed emotions, anxiety, fear, worry, anger...I'm not in control and I hate that.
"Is Donny going to be okay?" I ask, turning the conversation away from me. "He's innocent."
“So you’ve said.” Something crosses Detective Spikes face that bothers me, but I can't pinpoint the expression. His shoulders push back and he taps his finger on the file in front of him.
My file. I’ve never liked having a closed file in front of me.
"How exactly is it you'd know he's innocent, Starla? I have multiple bodies being dug out of flower beds that tell me a different story."
Good question. Even though I feel gut punched with that knowledge, I'm not sure I'm ready to answer.
4
Cockroaches Always Survive
10:15 pm
“Tell me Donny is okay.” I sound calm, much to my surprise. Tension builds inside me, until I’m about to erupt.
Old Starla would have. New Starla can’t.
Spikes left eye squints, a nerve in his cheek twitches but he remains silent.
That silence weighs about as much as a rock. A rock the size of Mt. Everest.
“Okay isn't the word I'd use to explain the predicament he's in.” There's a tone to his voice...I can't quite make it out. Sarcasm mixed with...something. Irony?
I want to ask more, figure out what he's trying to tell me but I stop myself.
“Will I get introduced to your partner?” I ask instead. Eventually she’ll join us. They always do.
“Kaarns? She does the heavy lifting while I’m in here.” He lifts his right shoulder and rolls it. Despite his calm façade, he feels the unease between us.
Glad it’s not just me.
“Are you going to arrest me?” It’s the question I’ve wanted to ask but haven’t.
Spikes leans back, pushes his shoulders until the crack doubles then triples until his whole spine sounds like a xylophone.
“If I need to, yes. If evidence shows you’re more involved than we’ve been told, yes. But for now, your cooperation is appreciated.”
My cooperation, which means I have a choice. Force the issue, demand to leave and have them arrest me, detain me and make my life hell or I play nice, answer their questions, play the game. Win the game and walk out of here a free woman.
“There's things about Donny you don't know."
"Like what?" Spikes seems patient, ready to wait as long as it takes for me to tell him everything.
"He won’t give up his ex-wife, for one. He’ll do what he can to protect her. But he doesn’t know that this,” I lift my hands and point to the mirror behind him, “this whole experience will destroy him, his career…he has no idea.”
“But you do.”
I nod.
“I can promise you he’s fine.” Spikes must read my face, understand my thoughts. Didn’t need the sarcasm though.
“How do you know? You’re in here with me. Unless,” I lean to the side to see if he has an ear piece in, “someone just gave you a check in?” Yep, it was there. Good to know. He’ll be fed information as it comes.
“I know Donald Dixon. We…go way back. He’ll survive, always does, always will, the man’s a …” Spikes clears his throat but doesn’t finish the sentence.
“A what? A cockroach, that’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it?”
Spikes shrugs. “Like I said, I know the man.”
Every hair on my body bristles at his tone. “I know the man too,” I rush to defend him.
Spikes shakes his head. “You know the man he wants you to know. I’ve known him since we were kids. Men like him, they don’t change.”
“Or women like me?” I take exception to this because I did, I am…changed, changing.
Spikes pulls back with a knee-jerk reaction.
“I believe you.”
I’m stunned. First an apology and now belief. Two things I've never experience from a cop. Until now. There's a hint of sincerity in his voice that surprises me.
“Him on the other hand…” Spikes doesn’t finish but I get it. I can read between the lines.
This isn’t a first for me, meeting someone with a different opinion of Donny. Truth be told, I once felt the same way. Until I got to know him. But to hear it so matter-of-fact, without the hint of a past between them but as if it is what it is, I’m on the edge of a ledge crumbling beneath my feet.
“He’s a man who’s been through shit and came out looking like a diamond,” I say. "Just because he’s into politics and sells used cars, doesn’t mean he’s a sleaze bag.”
“I’ve always thought of him more like a fungus,” Spikes says, something between a sneer and a snort in his voice.
I play with my ring, twirling it around my cold finger.
“Fungus that grows in shit. There’s no diamond quality about that.” Spike looks at my ring. “Look, it’s plain you worship the guy. How about you tell me why?”
Worship Donny? I’m not that naïve. I believe in him, which is what he needs right now. I'm probably the only one right now who does.
5
More News Isn’t Good News
DETECTIVE LEXI KAARNS
10:47pm
A low buzzing vibrates in my pocket. I pull out my phone and scroll through the messages lighting up my home screen.
“We found another one.” I swallow the mixture of excitement and dread as I turn from the mirror and face my team. “Add the Kincaid property to the map. Corner of Cedars and Pike. Find the contract date for that one, add it to the list.”
My stomach coils, winding tighter and tighter until it resembles an unopened Jack-in-the-Box.
I count, even though I don’t need to, how many locations are on the map now.
Four.
Four unearthed gardens with multiple bodies. How many in each grave, we haven’t determined. But it makes me nauseous. One body is too many, as Spikes said earlier.
My fingers are solid bricks of ice. I rub them together, needing some heat. It’s shock, that’s why I’m so cold. Not to mention the hours spent outside, standing over the mounds of dirt at our first location, as the crew carefully repositioned each bone found from the garden bed to the blue tarp.
Bodies were expected. What I hadn’t expected though, was how I’d process finding them.
Spikes had pulled me aside to walk me through the next few hours. Nothing he said, nothing I’d seen, could have prepared me.
What they show you on television, those detective shows where forensics finds and catalogs bones, that sure as hell didn’t prepare me.