NO CLOSURE NO FORGIVENESS (3 page)

And since keeping
secrets was turning out to be so exhausting, Jessica decided to stop holding
back.

“Andrew,” she
whispered, just in case it wasn’t true. Because she hadn’t expected he’d come
after she’d told him to stay away, even though he’d said he wouldn’t.

Tears filled
her eyes. She ran towards the man who had saved her life—and Irene Brenner’s.
She wrapped him up in a tight bear hug reminiscent of the ones her grandmother
once gave her so long ago. She felt moisture on her cheeks as he told her how
much he loved her.

Jessica knew
the tears were his. She knew the time they had to express their love wouldn’t
last anywhere near as long as she needed it to be.

“Jessie baby,
I know this sounds crazy. But we gotta get outta here. And your partner’s gonna
help us do just that.”

Jessica
didn’t answer. She just held Andrew closer as Shelton looked on.

Why can’t
you just let me go?

All I wanted
was for us to be together.

And look
how it worked out, Patrick.

Irene, it
worked out beautifully! I went to therapy, I got off the booze. We have a kid
for crying out loud!

Yada,
yada, will you quit your complaining, Patrick. I’m going out
.

Patrick
Brenner exhaled as he wiped sweat off his forehead. He knew why Irene had gone
out that night. He’d been there, addicted to a substance, knowing he was
throwing his life away. He’d also remembered throwing a few punches, in
desperation, to keep Irene from walking out with her son that night.

And now here
he was, ending yet another ten-hour shift and feeling more empty than ever
before. He had nothing to live for, nothing to care for. Not even for himself.
Revenge was on top of his mind. His counselor had told him that revenge
wouldn’t help him move on; it would only help him feel better in the moment.

My son was
denied justice, but I can’t fail him. I’ll get him justice. All by myself.
He kept telling himself.

Patrick
sighed as he contemplated his next move. He hadn’t expected the lady detective
to be such a problem and it had backfired. If the whole plan was as simple as
walking up to Jessica Galloway and Andrew Hoffman and taking their lives, then
he would have done that long ago, no problem. But it wasn’t that simple. It
never had been. These people had to know what it was like to have control
completely taken away from them, the very people and things they loved forever
wrested away.

The time
would come for both Jessica and Andrew to admit the truth.

Patrick
managed a small grin as he punched his time sheet for the evening. Holding an
odd job or two had never been an issue for him. His co-workers at the power
plant downtown didn’t need to know a thing about his personal life, after all.
Patrick kept his eyes low to the floor as he moved through the warehouse. He’d
learned from experience over the years how one minor mistake could catch up to
him. A neighbor who got a bad impression from him. A cashier at a supermarket
who found him unusually interesting to the point that she left work and
gossiped. Mistakes added up and over time became a mess.

His plan to
eliminate his targets and escape would never work if he could not succeed in
making people believe he was a changed man.

Patrick exited
the warehouse and walked towards his pickup truck. He’d worked at the power
plant since Irene had been acquitted. The work was nothing more than a charade
that allowed him to stalk the old area where he’d once lived with without
creating suspicion. In fact, the old house was less than two blocks away from
the warehouse.

Patrick
jumped into his pickup truck and switched on the radio as always. He nodded to
a few of the men, shot a thumbs-up at his supervisor, and pulled out of the
parking lot. Confident that no one was around to see him behave the way he
truly felt, Patrick slammed his fist into the steering wheel. Once again, the
haunting images returned, Little David’s grinning face, his drug rehab
counselor telling him if he could just stay clean he’d learn to stop being
violent, the horrible car crash. And Irene, half-drunk, being transported away
from the mangled vehicle on a stretcher wearing her usual stupid grin.

He gritted
his teeth, rolled the windows down in the truck even though the temperatures were
below twenty degrees. A few drivers in other vehicles stared as they noticed
his erratic behavior. He couldn’t help it. At any given hour of the day,
Patrick felt as if he were a mere seconds from exploding.

He sped
through a red light less than a half second after it had changed. Horns blared.
An angry pedestrian cursed. The weather had worsened in the last twenty-four hours
and Patrick wrestled the steering wheel as the tires lost traction on the icy
roads. After driving manically for a few minutes, Patrick reduced his speed as
he pulled into the neighborhood where he’d raised his little boy and tried to
build a life for himself and his family.

As he
approached to within a block of the house, Patrick spotted a shiny red pickup
truck parked in the driveway. Then he spotted the unmarked police cruiser and
another vehicle he’d never seen before. He knew what was happening here. The
lady detective, realizing her career was on the line, and that Andrew would
eventually lead her to a world of trouble, had decided to meet with her
supposedly protected-in-witness-protection secret boyfriend. Another cop had
showed up to make it all happen.

Patrick
switched off the engine and allowed the car to roll down silently up to the
house. He stopped the car in front of the house and crouched down in the
driver’s seat. He rolled down the windows and kept the front door ajar so that he
could just make out the conversation coming from inside the house.

He waited in silence,
his anger gone now. The closeness to the house, which once used to be his sweet
home, made him feel nostalgic. The memories of the good times he had spent with
his wife Irene and his little son David kept appearing like flashback. A
pensive sigh escaped his throat and he incoherently uttered “David” as images
of he and David having a mock pillow fight kept coming before him. Before he
could wipe his eyes, a few drops of tear fell on his cheeks, giving him a warm
sensation.

Andrew, we
might get a head start if we leave now…

Patrick was
startled back to reality and was all ears listening to the conversation coming
out of the house.

“What do
you expect me to say to the supervisors when you two just run off
? Another officer, one Patrick had
never heard or seen before asked the question.

Patrick had
to resist the urge to laugh as he listened to the interchange. It was clear the
group was discussing vigilantism. And hilariously, it was probably Jessica
Galloway’s dumb idea in the first place. The hotshot homicide detective was
unaware that the subject she hunted was listening to her every word.

She’d given
him the chance he needed. Again.

From inside
his truck, Patrick froze as he heard the sound of snow crunching beneath
someone’s shoes. Someone was approaching the truck, slowly, carefully. His
heart began to race as he realized now he’d been played, that Detective
Galloway had set him up for trying to avenge his son’s death. As the sound of
the approaching footsteps increased in volume, Patrick reached below the passenger’s
seat for his pistol.

“The
neighbors get wary when people sit in their cars,” a man’s voice said weakly.

Patrick
laughed politely and smiled into the man’s eyes. Although he appeared to be
aged around sixty, his eyes and behavior indicated he was fully willing, and
fully capable, of handling himself in a dangerous situation.

Patrick
played it cool.

“I’m terribly
sorry, sir. I was waiting on a friend to come by. I’ll be leaving though.”

The neighbor
didn’t respond and for a second Patrick felt as he were back in his childhood
home in Atlanta, Georgia, a timid, alienated child struggling to fit anywhere
outside the comfort of his own bedroom. Angered and overwhelmed with the need
for exact violence, Patrick considered killing the nosy old man with the hopes
of leading the detective and her friends on a wild-goose chase. But he
controlled himself thinking that it would distract him from his main purpose. Ultimately,
he decided he’d learned enough for the day and it was safer to move on.

He apologized
again to the neighbor who now stood nearly in the middle of the street, his palms
flat outstretched to his sides.  Patrick started the pickup truck and sped away
in the opposite direction. As he drove, he kept his eyes peeled on the rearview
mirror just in case Detective Galloway or her boyfriend raced out of the home
to see who was speeding away.

But neither
the police officer nor her lover exited the home. Nothing about the ongoing
conversation indicated they had a clue the killer they searched for was less
than fifty feet away.

Patrick
thumbed the steering wheel as he headed home. How much could Detective Galloway
accomplish if she were no longer a police officer?

The thoughts
delighted him. And for the first time during that exhausting workday, he
considered the possibility of returning to a normal life when this was all
over. Find another job far away, meet another woman—preferably someone with a
little more sense than Irene—maybe settle down and get married all over again. After
all, the vow he’d taken upon marrying Irene was no longer relevant.

Till death
do us part.
Patrick
snickered at the irony. Then he turned the dial up on the radio and patted the
cushioned seat beside him. Laying on top of the cushions was a fairly
comprehensive notebook he kept documenting the police officer’s activities over
the last three days. Soon, Detective Galloway would have far too many questions
to answer, and little time to get in the way.

Every second
Jessica Galloway spent driving away from Baltimore City was another second she
wished she could stop and turn around before it was too late. The truth was,
she’d probably made enough mistakes to end the careers of a half-dozen police
officers, let alone a detective who was already under fire for dereliction of
duty.

Yet the
complications that awaited back at the precinct, and her love for the only man
who could help make it all go away was worth the risk of running away with a
federal witness, not to mention jeopardizing an ongoing homicide investigation.
And of course, there was still Patrick Brenner.

“So you’re
the cop,” Andrew said to her as she drove fifty-five in a forty-five miles per
hour neighborhood. “What do we do now, Detective?”

“We prove
that Patrick Brenner killed his wife, then we prove just how far gone he really
is.”

“Okay, I get
it. You still planning on being a cop after all this is over?”

 “I haven’t
figured that part out yet,” Jessica said coyly. She smiled, tossing her head to
the side long enough for him to see her teeth peeking out from under her lips.
“Look, my supervisor wanted to keep me away from this investigation since the
beginning. So unfortunately, we’re going to have to start from the beginning.”

“Where else
would we start?” Andrew asked with a chuckle.

“What I’m
saying is, this is going to take some time. I know a couple of Brenner’s
friends from his A.A. meetings.”

“Are we not
looking at any other suspects?”

Jessica
sighed. “Not right now, no. I at least want to interview this guy, maybe
pressure him a bit and find out what he knows.”

“Okay, I’ll
tag along then,” Andrew said.

 “No offense,
but I don’t think that’s a good idea, babe. It’s not safe for both of us to be
doing this.”

“No one knows
I’m around.”

“That’s not
the point. You stick your neck up in the wrong places and your friends are
going to come back and, well, you know what I’m getting at.”

Andrew seemed
to think about it for a moment. Then finally he spoke. “I’ll go find some place
to lay low. But I
am
coming with you to talk to whoever the heck you’re
plannin’ on talking to. Who is he anyway?”

Jessica
slowed the vehicle down at the next intersection and tried to avoid making eye
contact with a nearby patrol officer. Any minute, the folks back at Homicide
would start to wonder what was really going on. The story Detective Shelton had
to offer would only buy them so much time.

The two
agreed on the plan. Jessica looked down at the GPS system inside Andrew’s red
pickup truck. They were roughly twenty minutes away from the Methodist church. If
she hurried, she’d make it to the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting before it began.

Jessica
gunned the engine and yanked the steering wheel hard to the left. Car horns
blared as Andrew protested in the passenger’s seat. She managed to mumble an
apology before cutting across an empty parking lot and swerving back into
traffic.

“I’m just
trying to save us as much time as possible,” she said. “It won’t be long before
people start getting the wrong ideas.”

Her cell
phone started buzzing in her pocket. Ignoring the caller wouldn’t work so she
answered. “Lieutenant Mann?” she asked.

“You’ve lost
your mind, haven’t you? Why aren’t you with Shelton?”

“I’m sorry
Lieutenant. Things were getting a bit—

“I don’t want
to hear your excuses, Galloway! The commissioner will have
my
badge for
this!”

Jessica
swallowed the lump pushing its way into her throat. Why couldn’t she ever be
faced with a decision that worked out well for a change? Whether she’d gone
with Andrew or not, nothing would have gotten better. At least this way there
was hope.

“Lieutenant—

“I don’t know
where you are, but I’ve sent patrol and Internal Affairs to pick you up. If
you’re out running around with a gun, then you have one hour to get in here
before I start telling people you’re a rogue cop.”

He ended the
call, his last words being among the most horrible Jessica had ever heard. The
traffic had thinned out significantly over the last few minutes and the drive
had become quieter. The temporary calm in the midst of grave danger produced a
wave of nausea in the pit of Jessica’s stomach. She felt sick and overwhelmed
with despair. Worst of all, there wasn’t much that Andrew could do about it.

Maybe he
knew. Maybe that explained why this was the first time he wasn’t saying
anything, because there were no perfect words he could utter to make her feel
better. She snuck a glance over in his direction and she could see the concern
burrowing its way into his eyebrows. His normally smooth, calming demeanor was
gone, replaced with tension and stress. And for a moment, she couldn’t help but
wonder what that stress could cause him to do.

Seeing Andrew
among the enemy, a man who could harm her like before, was the worst part of it
all. She’d hit rock bottom and couldn’t depend on the one man who’d once promised
to save her.

At the next
light, Jessica slowed the vehicle and shut her eyes for a moment. She took a
deep breath and struggled to regain the confidence she’d had the day she went
to visit Irene in the parking lot. Finally, she opened her eyes and pointed to
a large church where a group of people were congregating outside.

“There,” she
said to Andrew. “That’s the church where Patrick has his AA meetings.”

“I thought
they usually do these things at night,” Andrew said. He reached underneath the
seat and pulled out a green baseball cap. He placed it on his head, then turned
it around backwards. With his sunglasses, jeans, and hooded sweatshirt, the
former marijuana user would have no problem blending into the recovery scene.

Today’s
Alcoholics Anonymous meeting took place in the afternoon, just after one
o’clock. Jessica didn’t expect Patrick to be present but she knew a face that
would. After parking the truck, she used her phone to show Andrew a picture of
a glaring man.

“His name is
Carson. He’s a known criminal, when’s he using cocaine, that is.”

“Let me
guess, he’s not using cocaine now?”

“I haven’t
heard from him. But there he is, up ahead.”

Jessica
nodded at a short, bald man sitting on the church stairs. In his right hand was
a large pastry, in his left a two-liter bottle of soda. From the way his belly
protruded from his shirt, afternoon snacks like these were all too common.

A car stereo
softly played rap music. A few of the meeting attendants looked up and smiled
warmly as they approached. Carson didn’t look as happy to see them. As soon as
he caught Jessica’s eyes, he stood up, dropped the soda and pastry, and ran in
the opposite direction.

This is
not good
, Jessica
thought as she waved her badge. “Carson, stop! Police!”

Carson kept
jogging, moving slow enough that Jessica could have caught him if she tried to
crawl on all fours. Jessica waited for him to duck into a nearby alley before
she and Andrew raced in and grabbed him, turning him around, and slamming his
body against the wall.

“Yo, I didn’t
do anything, officer!”

“Oh shut up,”
Jessica said as she cuffed him and searched him for weapons. So far, no one had
called the police. So far things weren’t going as bad as she had assumed they
would.

“Look buddy,
I know we don’t always see things eye to eye, but right now I need your help.”

That was
enough to get him to stop yelling. The binge-eating career criminal frowned.
“Why do you need my help? That doesn’t make sense.”

“Be quiet and
listen. I need to know if you talked to your old friend, Patrick Brenner.”

Carson began
breathing heavily. “Look, I got nothing to say about that guy. I want a
lawyer!”

“Hey, hey,”
she said trying to get him to calm down. But Carson only became more anxious,
fighting and yelling in protest.

“Hey, what
are you guys doing to that man?” a woman asked from the end of the alley.

Jessica
glanced at her—and the crowd of onlookers—quickly walking towards the scene.
She read Carson his rights, making sure that her badge was visible to the
witnesses. It was no use, a young woman who looked like a younger sister to the
woman who had initiated the protest began recording the incident with her cell
phone camera.

“Is this a
false arrest?’ she asked. A quiet chant ensued. The crowd of six began
repeating the words FALSE ARREST. The situation was all but completely out of
control as she shoved Carson into the back of the pickup truck. The recovery
meeting attendants shouted louder, drawing the attention of a half-dozen late
evening pedestrians who dared to brave the weather. Smart phones came out. Text
messages and social media updates would draw a larger crowd if Jessica and
Andrew didn’t leave while they had the chance.

Catching a
killer was becoming increasingly impossible.