THE ROUTINE IS always the routine, and I go through it like one of those smiling robots at Disney World, just nodding and looking around and following the lead of Detective Bannon. We go to the open entryway into the apartment building, ducking under the police tape, and he thoughtfully holds up the tape for me. We go upstairs and the detective talks aimlessly to me—the weather, the baseball playoffs—all in an effort to distract me from what I’m about to see.
It doesn’t work.
At the open door to our apartment, a uniformed police officer with a clipboard takes our names and checks the time of our entry, a good way of controlling access to a—
Crime scene.
My apartment is no longer the refuge for an angry mom and scared daughter, trying to make sense of a crumbling marriage and family, but is now the scene of violence and death.
Toward a man I once vowed to spend the rest of my life with.
“Here,” Detective Bannon says. “We need to put these on. And I know you live here, but—”
“I know,” I say. “Don’t touch anything.”
We both slide on light-blue paper booties over our footwear, and then I take that first step into a place that is no longer a home.
The first thing I notice is the smell of cooked bacon, from that morning, and I turn away from the detective and wipe at my teary eyes. This morning I had been in this very kitchen, with my daughter and my husband, and did I take an opportunity to be nice? To thank Ben for making breakfast? To thank him for trying to make amends?
No.
The remembered voice of my daughter slices through me like a razor: If you weren’t so mean, we’d still be a family! Why do you have to be so mean?
“Ma’am?” Detective Bannon asks quietly.
“Ah…just give me a sec, okay?”
“Sure.”
I take a deep breath, feel like bawling out loud, but no, I’ve got to see this through. I wipe at my eyes again and turn and say, “It’s all right. Let’s do it.”
He briefly touches my upper arm. “We don’t have to do this. We don’t.”
“It’s all right. Where…where’s Ben?”
“In your bedroom.”
We walk past two forensics techs taking photos, dusting for prints, and I go with Detective Bannon, and the oddest thing happens—my muscle memory comes back. I remember the times I’ve gone into crime scenes over the years, the chatter of the police radios, the murmur among the forensics techs, the smell of the chemicals…it’s all familiar to me.
It’s almost comforting.
Detective Bannon stands at the open door and I stand next to him.
Oh, Ben, I think. Oh, Ben.
My husband, the man I had loved, the man who wooed me after we had met when I was in the Virginia State Police, investigating a complaint at the Green Springs National Park, my Ben is on his back, legs splayed wide, one arm across his chest, the other stretched above his head. Another forensics tech—this one a chubby woman—is taking photographs, and Bannon says, “Sandy, give us a moment, will you?”
“Sure,” she says, stepping past us and out to the hallway. I step closer, look down at my dead husband. His face has grayed and his head is turned at an odd angle, and he’s wearing a waist-length leather coat and he has a blue knitted scarf tucked around his neck. The detective looks at my scarf and says, “They look similar.”
I say, “My…our daughter made them. Red for me, blue for him. She hoped that, well, I think she hoped that the two of us sharing the same kind of scarf would soothe things between us.”
Bannon just nods.
Poor Amelia.
I ask, “Cause of death?”
“Not official, but it looks like his neck was snapped.”
“Jesus Christ,” I say. “Any idea how it happened?”
Bannon says, “Your daughter…she heard the door being unlocked and then your husband yelling out a greeting, like—”
“‘Honey, I’m here,’” I say dully. “That’s a code phrase we both used, if we’re coming home…I mean, well, coming in. That way Amelia won’t be startled or scared.”
“Okay,” he says. “Your daughter says she had called Mr. Miller earlier, because the neighbor who usually watched her after school couldn’t make it, and you were running late.”
My throat is so thick it feels like it’s choking me. Detective Bannon says, “Your daughter says Mr. Miller came in, there was a brief greeting, and then he saw your bedroom door was open, and there was a shadow back there. He…he told your daughter to be still, to call nine-one-one if something happened, and he went to investigate. There was a struggle, then the intruder ran past, knocking your daughter over, and she got up, called nine-one-one.”
I say, “Did she see Ben dead?”
“Well, I, well—”
“Detective, did my daughter see her dead father?”
He sighs. “I’m afraid so. After she made the call…she ran back. She tells me that she thought he was unconscious, that he had been knocked out while trying to protect her. Your daughter…a brave girl.”
“She has a brave father,” I say, and then the memories and the good times Ben and I shared, from our first dates to our marriage to our Alaskan honeymoon and that magic night when a small and squealing baby girl was placed in my arms, just overwhelm me, and I kneel down next to him and I kiss his cold forehead.
Back in the kitchen I’m answering more questions from Detective Bannon, and then I say, “Hold on.”
“Yes?”
“You said…you said that Amelia heard Ben come through the door, right?”
He looks to his notes. “That’s correct.”
“She didn’t say anything about her undoing the chain?”
“No, she didn’t.”
“Are you sure?”
“Ma’am, what are you getting at?”
I walk to the door, see the chain dangling free. “When I last talked to her, when I said I was…running late.” Another sob avoided and I go on. “I told her to make sure the door was locked and the chain was secured.”
Detective Bannon says, “Maybe she forgot.”
I shake my head. “No. I told her to do it…I was on the phone when Amelia said she was at the door, putting the chain in.”
He says something, and my fingers gently touch the dangling chain. Halfway up the chain is the sticky residue of an adhesive.
Like an adhesive tape.
I say, “He broke in. He picked the lock, and when the door opened, he saw the chain was fastened. Then he used…oh, I don’t know, a string, a cord, a length of rubber band, and some tape…and he got the chain off.”
Detective Bannon touches the chain as well. “Ma’am, you’re on the third floor. To get entry, the intruder had to have had a key, or picked the lock. And then he had to work to get this chain off.”
My mind is racing. I don’t say a word back to the detective. He says, “Which tells me this wasn’t a random burglary. Or some crackhead or meth head breaking in to steal some jewelry or electronics. You…this apartment was targeted.”
“Yes,” I say.
He steps closer, lowers his voice. “Your daughter says you’re a secret agent. I thought she was just being a kid, you know? But ma’am, what is your job?”
“I work for the Secret Service.”
Bannon absorbs that for a moment. “What do you do for the Secret Service?”
I answer automatically, like I always do. “I’m the special agent in charge, Presidential Protective Division at the White House.”
“The White House…,” he starts, and then stops. He takes another step closer. “Special Agent Grissom, I need to ask you this.”
“Yes?”
“All of the evidence here is leading me to think that the break-in was deliberate, was planned. Is there anything going on with your job, Agent Grissom, that would cause someone to…take action against you?”
Where do I begin?
“No,” I lie. “Not a thing.”