Violence of the Father (A Trinity of Death Romantic Suspense Series Book 2)

I
f you enjoy reading books
, be sure to sign up for daily ebook deals @
www.BookZio.com

Choose your favorite genres and BookZio delivers free and bargain books to your email daily.

C
opyright
© 2016 by Charlotte Raine

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

A
couple of years ago
, I investigated a woman who had been dead in her house for over two weeks. I will never get that smell out of my nostrils—sometimes when my mind wanders, that smell just creeps back into my senses and I can’t suppress my gag reflex. At that crime scene, Annette Harris, our medical examiner, told me that the stench is caused by bacteria breaking down the body’s tissues and creating gas. The process is known as autolysis, and she said it would eventually happen to everyone.

If I could ask some higher power one thing, it would be that my body doesn’t consume itself for two weeks before I’m found. If I could ask for two things, the second one would be that my body isn’t found in the middle of a kid’s baseball field nailed to a wooden cross.

“Wouldn’t it make more sense to put it on home plate rather than the pitcher’s mound?” I ask, my hands shoved in my pockets. The victim is a tan man, muscular, with black hair. He doesn’t have a shirt on, but I can see some gashes that extend from his back onto his sides. This kill is definitely different from Mary’s murders. “These religious killers—The Son or whatever—seem to be all about the message, and it would seem like a better metaphor if he was on the home plate. Some kind of cliché about Heaven and home or something.”

“We have to remember this is a whole new killer,” Lauren says. The sun is setting, leaving a fiery glow in the sky and making Lauren’s usually light brown hair seem darker. I know she does have a darker side—I saw it when she shot Mary with the nail gun—but now that I see it physically represented, I know I love both sides of her.

She continues talking, oblivious to my thoughts. “He and Mary might be connected somehow, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re two different people. For all we know, this guy could be completely free of delusions—he could have used Mary and her mentally ill mind to commit some murders for him while he just killed for…enjoyment, revenge, financial gain, or whatever else. We’ll have to restart our investigation from scratch.”

“I find it hard to believe a person could do this without being delusional,” I say. “Though, a sane person would be easier to track down since their motive is more likely to be something that makes sense.”

“I agree with wanting the person to be insane,” Annette asks, checking the hand wounds left by the nails. “This is the one time that crazy is the preferable choice. A chemical imbalance could cause a person to think, and therefore do, anything. A sane person however…that’s just an evil soul. If the person doing these things is evil, then I would believe in devils.”

“Well, did you find any evil soul in your initial review of the body?” I ask.

“No, no evil souls,” she says. “It’s pretty much the same as the others except he was flogged. Also, his legs were broken, which caused him to die in a shorter amount of time than the others since he couldn’t use his feet to relieve the pressure on his wrists…I suspect he lived on this cross for a day at most.” She paused and examined his feet. “Also, instead of the nail gun that Mary used, this killer used a hammer, evident by the indents in the wood of the cross. And speaking of the cross, this cross has something different on it.”

She gestures for Lauren and me to follow her to the back of the cross. I peer over their shoulders. Slightly below where the two pieces of wood meet is a triangle with an eye in the center. Yellow painted lines surround the triangle.

“Isn’t that…Illuminati?” I ask. “Are we going from religious to secret society?”

Annette shrugs, but Lauren shakes her head. “It’s still religious. That symbol is originally known as the Eye of Providence. It’s on our dollar bill, which is why the Latin phrase
Annuit coeptis
is above it. It means God approves of what we’re doing. In the symbol, the eye is about God being omniscient or God looking down with approval at whatever the symbol is attached to. The triangle usually symbolizes the Holy Trinity and the yellow symbolizes illumination—spiritual or any other kind.”

I stare at her. “Do you just memorize random facts? Why do you know all this?”

“After my parents died, I became extremely religious for about ten years,” she said. “I almost ended up going to a Christian college, but…I realized that I didn’t think that’s what God truly wanted me to do. So, I went into criminal psychology.”

“I really would have preferred if we were working with a secret society. At least those people have cool secret hideouts and, occasionally, hidden treasure.”

She smiles. “Sorry, Tobias. We won’t find any secret lairs…or at least, I don’t think we will.”

“So, the Holy Trinity,” I say. “This could be The Son that Mary was talking about.”

“It could also be The Father,” she says. “But maybe The Father is literally God to both of them, though He is really all three. The Son should be a Jesus-like figure to Mary, so he would be an older male that’s very important to her—her father, her manager, one of her music producers…I’m pretty sure her last CD and her two EPs were produced by the same guy.”

“Do we really have to look back into Mary’s life? I was so sure that case was closed. The only time I wanted to hear her name again is when I pointed to her in a courtroom and I said,
that’s the bitch who shot me twice with a nail gun.
”

“Well, I’m sure you can tell her father that, but I don’t think he’ll take it well.”

I groan. Annette looks between us.

“Wait a minute. I was just told that Mary was arrested for the other murders when I got here, but you were shot with a nail gun?”

“Twice!” I hiss. “Two nails!”

“On purpose?”

“No. The psychopath who was trying to crucify a man right in front of us and we were trying to arrest didn’t try to shoot nails at me on purpose because that would be the craziest part of this whole case,” I say, sarcasm coating every word. “Yes, Annette. She shot me on purpose. And then Lauren nailed her ass to the floor.”

Annette’s jaw drops open as she looks over at Lauren. Lauren raises her shoulders in indifference.

“It was actually her foot and her hand. I needed to keep her still while I got help for Tobias and our other victim.”

I glance back over at the cross. The Eye of Providence seems to stare straight back at me, but instead of approval, it seems to be conveying judgement.

I have to solve this case before it drives me crazy.

S
ince yesterday
when I last saw Captain Thomas Fitzgerald, Mary’s father, he seems to have become a bit taller, a bit broader, his hair a bit grayer, and he’s absolutely several notches more intimidating. I’m going to guess that it’s because he found out yesterday that we arrested his daughter for three homicides, one attempted homicide, and Lauren nailed her hand and her foot to her grandparent’s barn floor.

That’s just a wild guess though.

“You know that man you said that was in that barn with my daughter is a murderer?” Captain Fitzgerald snarls. He reluctantly let us into his hotel room—mostly, I’m assuming, out of professionalism since he has every reason to hate us and it’s almost eight o’clock at night. It’s a plain room with pale green walls, dark green blankets on the bed, and a tiny desk in the corner. It’s the exact opposite of the extravagance his daughter used to enjoy, though maybe his hotel choice is his version of paying penance.

“He’s some gang member that shot some other gang member—but are you concentrating on sending his ass to prison?” he asks. “No, of course not, you’re concentrating on railroading my daughter because you can’t catch a crazy serial killer. What is it? Did you think that by charging a famous person, you would get into the press’s good graces? Did you think the paparazzi would love this idea of a fallen angel so much that they wouldn’t question your story? Did you tell that gang member that if he corroborated your story, you wouldn’t convict him?”

I lean closer to Lauren.

“He’s not going to be happy when we tell him we found a new body,” I mutter.

“Unless he’s the killer and he’s just ranting to throw us off,” she whispers.

“Why the hell are you two whispering?” Captain Fitzgerald hisses.

“Well, he doesn’t
sound
like a Christian,” I say, making sure my voice rings through the whole hotel room. Captain Fitzgerald stands up so quickly that I jerk back, expecting to have to defend myself. But he just shoves his finger an inch away from my face.

“How dare you judge how devoted I am to God,” he says. “You have no right to declare who is or isn’t a Christian.”

“I wasn’t declaring anything,” I say. “I was just saying that your words didn’t sound very Christ-like. Your actions aren’t very Christ-like, either.”

He sits back down, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t know why you two came here. I’m not going to say anything that’s going to help you convict my daughter. I already helped you find the barn and you used that against my only child. So whatever you came here to fish for, you should know that I’m not going to bite. I’m not your average dimwit that you can interrogate into a confession.”

“Maybe that’s how you do it in California,” I say. “But that’s not how we do it in Detroit.”

He glares at me. “Detective Rodriguez, do you have children?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then you couldn’t possibly understand what this is like,” he says, his voice becoming soft for the first time. “I know my child. I raised her. I know what she is and isn’t capable of. She would never kill anybody. I know you’re lying about what happened and I will make sure you pay the consequences for that.”

“I don’t have children, but I can understand that loving someone makes it hard to see that…it makes it hard to see that they have issues…that they need help,” I say. “Mary is mentally ill. You need to accept that. We are not framing her. We just want the truth.”

“My daughter was raised right,” he says. “She wouldn’t hurt anybody.”

“You’re her father,” I say. “How could you look at her any differently? I don’t think anybody looks at their child and thinks they’re capable of evil.”

“Are you telling me that your father would give you a glowing review?” he asks.

“We’re not talking about me.”

“That means no,” he snorts. “Well, I could see how your father would be disappointed.”

I clench my teeth, and my fist taps against the coffee table.

“Captain Fitzgerald, where were you yesterday afternoon?” Lauren asks.

“Why? Are you trying to frame me for murder now too?” he retorts.

“Please just answer the question,” she says.

He sighs, rolling back his sleeves. “I was with Mary, visiting her in jail. There’s surveillance footage, prison guards, prisoners, my daughter, and a signature which can prove it.”

Lauren nods. “Thank you. Also, were there any other older men in Mary’s life that you think had substantial influence on her? Other than yourself, of course.”

“Yes,” he states, standing up. “God had substantial influence on her. Now, I think I’ve answered enough of your irritating questions. You can either leave or wait for my lawyer to arrive.”

“There’s no need for that,” Lauren says, standing up as well. She offers her hand, but he doesn’t shake it. She lets it drop back down. “Thank you for your time, Captain Fitzgerald.”

She grabs my arm and leads me out of the house. As soon as we’re out, I pull my arm out of her grasp.

“What was that about?” I demand. “I thought I was taking lead on this interview.”

“You two were clearly having a pissing contest,” she says. “I thought it was best if a woman intervened.”

I jerk open my car door. “He’s telling the truth. Even I can tell that he isn’t showing fake anger—he is truly pissed at us because he thinks we framed his daughter for her murders.”

“I know,” she says. “He never really had enough control over his emotions to be our killer, though. We were just making damn sure before we eliminated him as a suspect.”

We both get into my car. After she buckles her seatbelt, Lauren stares at me. I turn on the car and begin to drive.

“Why are you staring at me?” I ask.

“How is your dad doing?”

“I have no idea,” I say. “He hasn’t reached out. I’m not going to reach out to him.”

“Maybe you should.”

“My family isn’t like yours,” I say. “I barely know either of my grandparents while you seem very close to your grandmother…and you tolerate your half-brother.”

She looks out the window. “We need to question her manager next.”

“Really? You’re dropping the conversation that easily?”

“Yes,” she says. “Sometimes I get tired of arguing and this conversation isn’t worth the battle.”

I feel the need to say that we’re always arguing—it’s a large part of our relationship—but I feel like that would only highlight her point. Like Captain Fitzgerald’s relationship with his daughter, my relationship with her would be the thing I love so much that I refuse to see it has issues and I can’t accept that it needs help. I fail at many things, but I can’t fail Lauren. I have to have faith that everything will work out just fine.