Audrey and I arranged to connect up at Charlotte’s place, and Maddie was meeting me there afterward so we could go talk to the chief about the poison she’d found. On the way over I placed a quick call to Nick. He didn’t answer, and I wasn’t surprised. I left him a message in which I did my best to downplay the events that occurred the last time we were together. I also gave him a brief idea of what happened at Parker’s but omitted the part where he had me in a choke hold against the wall. Nick never approved of my line of work, and given the fact we weren’t speaking, now wasn’t the time to make things worse.
The door to Charlotte’s condo was unlocked and all the lights on when I arrived, but I didn’t see anyone in the front room. “Hello?”
A voice echoed from down the hall. “In here.”
I followed the sound to the bedroom where Audrey sat in the middle of Charlotte’s bed, flipping through the worn pages of an old photo album. She traced her finger across a photograph of a young Charlotte, who beamed with joy atop a purple bicycle with a yellow banana seat.
“Just reminiscing over all the good times,” she said.
“You were right about what happened to Charlotte.”
Audrey closed the album and tucked it into an oversized handbag on the floor. “What do you mean?”
Audrey listened in silence while I relayed the information Maddie gave me. I gave her most of the details but left out the part where Charlotte may have been alert until the end. Audrey had suffered enough.
“I’m not surprised,” she said, when I finished. “You know that feeling you get sometimes in your gut? I’ve had it all along. Maybe now everyone won’t look at me like I’m some kind of deranged lunatic. I wonder how much pain my sister endured, and if she suffered; I could kill him, I really could.”
“I haven’t proved it was Parker yet.”
“Isn’t it obvious? He did it,” she said.
“There’s something else…earlier today I confronted Parker, and he got a little aggressive.”
She cupped her hand over her mouth. “Are you all right?”
“I’m a lot better than he is.”
Audrey raised an eyebrow and shot me a devious wink. “What did you do?”
“Let’s just say he won’t get much use out of one of his hands for a while,” I said.
We both laughed.
“Serves him right.”
“He had a woman at his place in town last night,” I said. “Things got heated when she wouldn’t consent to sex, and I’m glad I showed up when I did.”
Audrey raised a brow. “What happened?”
I explained what transpired between Parker and Daniela. Audrey hung on to my every word like a child clinging to the bar on a roller coaster.
“Turns out they dated for about a year.”
She threw both hands up in the air.
“Unbelievable!” she said. “I don’t think anything you say at this point will surprise me.”
“Don’t count on it. The woman said Parker hit her, and on more than one occasion.”
Audrey shook her head back and forth. I continued.
“I think she was one woman in a whole string of them. Earlier in the day, I found him out with a blond woman. I haven’t had the chance to talk to her yet so I’m not certain, but they looked like much more than friends.”
Audrey crunched her hands together the way a person did when they were trying to relieve tension on a stress ball. “I want to wrap my hands around his scrawny little neck and squeeze.”
“I need you to steer clear of him, Audrey. I mean it.”
“You can’t expect me to sit back after all this. He needs to pay for what he’s done.”
“And he will, but I want to make sure it’s done the right way. Besides, we don’t know what he’s capable of.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not my sister, I can handle myself.”
“I believe you can, but let me see this through.”
“I suppose you’ll be working with the police now, huh?”
I nodded.
“A lot of good that’s going to do,” she said.
It was clear no amount of persuasion would change the perception she’d formed in her mind about the PCPD, so I didn’t attempt it.
“Let me worry about the investigation side of things, okay?” I said.
“Well, I got this far with your help, so I suppose I owe you that much.”
“Did you ever notice any bruises on Charlotte?”
“She never said he hit her. Now that I think about it though, Charlotte dressed conservatively. If she was being abused, she could have hidden it from everyone.”
“What about Parker’s other women, did she ever talk about them?” I said.
She shook her head.
“The ME found no sign of abuse on her body. No bruises, scars, or anything to suggest he had abused her recently. The only injuries she had were the ones she sustained in the accident.”
Audrey glanced at the clock on Charlotte’s wall and then reached for her handbag.
“I’m sorry, I need to run. Vicki boxed up some of Charlotte’s personal effects at the office, but you can stay as long as you need.”
“And if you get the urge to confront Parker, call me first, okay?” I said.
“I can’t guarantee to stay away from Parker forever, but for now you have my word.”
Audrey reached into her bag and took out a pack of cigarettes. “Just nail that son of a bitch before I change my mind.”