After wasting the afternoon at Waterford College, I needed good news.
I didn’t get it.
I drove back to my station and parked in the lot. Almost the moment I opened my door, though, my cell phone buzzed. It was my vet. I closed my eyes as the strength left my arms and legs. He had asked me to stop by and talk about Roger, but I had forgotten. I ran a hand across my brow to wipe away sweat before answering.
“Dr. Johnson, it’s Joe Court. Sorry I didn’t call earlier. I’ve been busy at work.”
“That’s all right,” he said, his voice subdued. “Are you free to talk for a minute?”
I swallowed a lump in my throat. “Please tell me Roger didn’t die while I was at work.”
“He’s alive, but he’s not drinking or eating. We ran a blood profile and urinalysis on him. Roger has anemia, and his electrolyte levels are abnormal. We ran an ultrasound yesterday to check out his kidneys. They’re very small for a dog his size, which—along with his other symptoms—is indicative of chronic renal failure. I’m sorry, but we need to talk about his end of life, and the sooner we talk, the better.”
I blinked but said nothing.
“Are you still there, Detective?” he asked after a pause.
“Yeah,” I said, my voice a low rasp. It was all I could get out. “I’m here.”
“If you’d like to come by, he’s awake and alert,” said the vet. “This would be a good time to tell him goodbye. He’s in a lot of pain. We can talk about the procedure when you get here.”
Procedure. It was such a cold, clinical word. It didn’t convey what would happen.
“Can I take him home?” I asked. “I can give him a shot or whatever it takes.”
The vet hesitated. “It would be kinder if we did it here without moving him.”
I closed my eyes and nodded. My throat was tight, and my lip quivered.
“All right,” I said. “I’m on my way.”
I hung up and drove. When I got to the vet’s office, Roger lay on his side on a big pillow. He licked his lips and thumped his tail once when he saw me, but he didn’t lift his head. His eyes looked glassy. He didn’t seem to know where he was, but he recognized me. For the next hour, I held his head in my lap and told him how much he had brought to my life and how much I loved him.
And then I told him goodbye.
I didn’t cry in the office. For the moment, my case didn’t matter. I had other things on my mind. After the vet and his assistant wheeled Roger away, I drove home and grabbed a shovel. I dug until my arms and back ached and every muscle of my body screamed at me to stop. Then I kept going until my aches turned to pain and I couldn’t move my arms. As the moon rose and the stars appeared, I stopped digging.
The hole was about five feet deep and four feet around. It was big enough for Roger to rest in. I climbed out of it and sat on the edge. The tears came as I looked into the cold, dark earth. I drew from the silence around me and allowed the solitude to creep into my bones.
I didn’t like being alone. For years, I had pushed everybody away when they tried to draw close. In my mind, that had made me strong, but it wasn’t strength that had persuaded me to keep the world at bay. It was fear. Roger showed me I didn’t have to live like that. He loved me with reckless abandon even when I didn’t love myself. I could never thank him enough for everything he had brought to my life.
A big part of me wanted to drink until I stopped hurting. Booze helped me cope. Tonight, I didn’t want to run from the pain. I wanted to experience it. I wanted to remember my friend, but I didn’t want to be alone.
My hands trembled as I called my mom. She answered on the second ring.
“Hey, Joe,” she said, her voice light. “I didn’t expect to hear from you. How are you doing?”
“I’ve had a bad day,” I said. “I needed to hear a friendly voice.”
“Everything okay?”
I thought about Roger and about my empty house. Part of me wanted to tell her everything was fine and to cut the call short so I could get the vodka from my freezer and drink. I didn’t, though. Instead, I did something I hated doing. I let myself be vulnerable.
“No, it’s not okay. Do you have a minute? I need to talk.”
It was two in the morning when my phone rang. My eyes refused to focus, and my back and arms still ached from digging Roger’s grave. I rolled over and turned on a light on my nightstand before grabbing the phone. According to my caller ID, it was the front desk at my station.
I rubbed my eyes as the phone rang a third time. Then I ran my finger across the screen to answer.
“Yeah?” I said, my voice low.
“Sorry to wake you up, Joe,” said Jason Zuckerburg, our night dispatcher. “We’ve got a shooting at Waterford College. Delgado’s in charge, but he asked for you.”
“Okay,” I said, sighing. Jason wouldn’t have called me in the middle of the night for a normal shooting. Something was up. “Was Logan Reid involved?”
“No,” he said, his voice low. “This involved a young woman named June Wellman.”
My stomach crashed into my feet. I closed my eyes.
“He shot her, didn’t he?” I asked, my voice low.
“No, she shot a boy named Chad Hamilton,” he said. “You should get over there. She was asking for you.”
“Okay,” I said. “Tell Delgado I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
My head sunk into my pillows after I hung up.
“Shit.”
I dressed and headed out. The college streets were empty, and I didn’t know where I was going until I saw the police cars outside the Sigma Iota fraternity. There were probably a hundred young people in pajamas on the front lawn of the dorm next door. I parked about half a block away and jogged toward the scene.
Bob Reitz and Tracy Carruthers, two of our uniformed officers on the night shift, were stretching crime-scene tape around trees to erect a perimeter. They must have just gotten there. I nodded hello to them both.
“Hey,” I said. “Is Delgado around?”
Bob pointed toward the police cruisers.
“Thanks,” I said, already turning and hurrying away. As I approached the cruisers, Delgado stepped out of the backseat of one and walked toward me, a scowl on his face.
“Hey,” I said. “Dispatch called, so I’m here. What’s going on?”
“You tell me,” he said, crossing his arms. “Girl only wants to talk to you.”
“I know her,” I said. “What’s the story here?”
Delgado looked toward the fraternity house and pulled a notepad from his pocket. He licked his lips.
“Campus police received reports of shots fired in the Sigma Iota fraternity house at ten after one this morning. They arrived at the house within moments to find dozens of men and women running through the front doors. They corralled the students and called us for assistance.
“Bob Reitz got here at 1:14 AM. Tracy Carruthers got here at 1:16 AM. While campus security dealt with the crowd outside, Bob and Tracy cleared the building’s interior. They sent a couple more kids out before coming across the crime scene on the third floor. There, they found a young woman named June Wellman holding a Ruger EC9 pistol. A young man named Chad Hamilton lay on a couch. He had a gunshot wound to the forehead.”
A knot grew in my stomach, and I swore under my breath. Delgado cleared his throat.
“You got something to say?” he asked.
“Chad raped her a few days ago,” I said. “Let me talk to her. I’ll see what’s going on.”
“You sure you can remain objective?”
I narrowed my gaze at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Someone raped June, and she shot the guy,” said Delgado, blinking. “Someone raped you when you were a teenager, and you shot the guy. The parallels are obvious.”
My body ached, and my eyelids threatened to stay closed every time I blinked. I didn’t want to get in a fight, so I balled my hands into fists and counted to five in my head before responding.
“I see the parallels, and I understand where you’re coming from,” I said. “If you want me to talk to her, I will. If you want me to go home, I will. I’ll do my job gladly and to the best of my abilities, but you don’t get to call me to a crime scene in the middle of the night so you can question my professionalism in front of our colleagues.”
Officers Reitz and Carruthers looked away, both trying to seem busy. Delgado’s eyes narrowed as I crossed my arms.
“We’ll talk about this later,” he said. “For now, talk to the shooter. Get me a confession.”
“Will do, boss,” I said, walking to the cruiser he had just exited. June Wellman sat in the backseat crying. Since I didn’t know what had happened, I didn’t know how I felt about her at the moment. They had cuffed her hands in front of her. A hair tie held her brunette hair behind her head. She looked tiny in that car. I opened the door and sat beside her. “You okay to talk?”
She nodded, so I shut my door and sighed. I didn’t look at her as I ran a hand across my brow.
“So you shot him,” I said.
She nodded, and I closed my eyes and swore in my head.
“Okay,” I said, reaching into my purse for my phone. I opened a recording app and put my phone on the seat between us. “Before you say anything else, I need you to listen. June Wellman, you are under arrest for the shooting death of Chad Hamilton. You have certain rights. First, you have the right to remain silent. You don’t have to talk to anyone. If you choose to talk to me, the prosecutors can use anything you tell me against you in court. You have the right to have an attorney anytime a law enforcement officer interviews you. If you or your family has an attorney, I can call him now and have him come down. If you can’t afford an attorney, the court will provide one for you free of charge. Bearing those rights in mind, do you want to talk with me right now?”
I wanted her to say no, but she nodded again.
“I need you to acknowledge your rights aloud,” I said.
She nodded once more and cleared her throat.
“Yes,” she said. “I want to talk.”
I glanced out the window to see George Delgado talking to Bob Reitz on the periphery of the crime scene.
“In your own words, tell me what happened tonight.”
“I shot him in the head because he deserved it.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to think how I should best approach this. “Why did you shoot him?”
Her eyes locked onto mine. They almost pleaded.
“Because of you. I did it because of what you did.”
All at once, a heavy weight pressed down on my chest.
“Let’s take a step back. Tell it to me from the beginning.”