Sparkle City Read online

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  When a bullet enters the human body it doesn’t just leave an entry and exit hole the size of that tiny piece of metal. It does a lot of damage internally. It rips through the delicate flesh, tears through muscle and ligament, obliterates major arteries, and turns vital organs into ground beef. Any piece of bone the bullet shatters then becomes its own projectile shredding more tissue, maybe puncturing a lung. If the bullet goes through and through, some of those pieces it pulverizes on the inside of the body are now on the outside, splattered on a wall, the ground…the chalkboard.

  You can’t just scoop up the pieces and put them back, hoping everything will be ok. There’s so much to put back together and so little time to do it before the victim bleeds out or the organs fail. That poor little girl didn’t stand a chance. I knew there was no chance they could save her in time. My throat swells making it hard to breath. I think about my own two girls and how all I want to do right now is hug them tight and never let them go. That little girl’s mom would never get to do that again. There would be no more handprint projects coming home from school. No more little girl belly laughs, no more bear hugs or Eskimo kisses. No birthdays. No weddings. No grandchildren.

  My eyes began to water. There was no reason to stop the tears from falling this time. I let them spill over; they were hot as they ran down my cheeks, the bridge of my nose, leaving dark stains on my uniform. Detective Aldrich pulled a small travel-sized package of Kleenexes from his shirt pocket and set them on the table in front of me. I took two, and wiped the tears away, hating myself for feeling even the slightest bit guilty about what I had done.

  The detective and I sat in silence for a while, both of us mulling over the horrific events from today. Fighting with our consciences over what was right and what was wrong. Our jobs were one in the same. We are public servants. We are expected to follow the law, to protect and serve, to save lives, not take them. We both knew deep down what was right, but that didn’t change the predicament I had gotten myself into; right or wrong.

  My mind replayed the disturbing way the man’s muscles clenched with each convulsion. The sound of his raspy breathing as he struggled against the acute respiratory failure would be something I’d never forget. It was a quick, yet painful death, less than what he deserved, but all I could suffice given the time and place. I was surprised it had been so easy to accomplish. A little insulin through the IV Cath and it was all over for him.

  After a few minutes, the detective opened up the manila folder on the table, keeping it hidden from my view at first. He flipped through the pages, analyzing the content before looking up at me, his cold gray eyes meeting my anxious stare. “Did you know the suspect, Tris?” he asked me, breaking the silence.

  “No,” I said, confused.

  “Didn’t recognize him? Never seen him before?”

  “No, not that I can recall…”

  He looks at me with that analyzing gaze, gauging whether I am telling the truth or not. He then slid the open file over to me. Inside there was a mug shot of a man I didn’t recognize. He had steel blue eyes, dark hair cut in a short military style. A good looking man, gorgeous even. It was hard to believe that this man was a criminal. It was the name that stuck out. Hendrickson.

  “Lewis Hendrickson… Erin Hendrickson’s husband. He was in our custody yesterday. Released early this morning when his mother came to bail him out… again. He’s no stranger to us. Domestic charges were filed by Erin. He did a number on her yesterday, we encouraged her to go into the ER.”

  My jaw dropped. This was the man who was responsible for the bruises on Erin’s face. The broken wrist. The miscarriage…“Yes, she came in yesterday.” I say, still looking at the man in the picture. This is what evil looks like. “I worked with her, actually. I told her to leave him… told her… is she?”

  “Dead? No. We don’t know where she is yet. However, when he was released he went home, discovered she had packed up and took off with the girls. He went to her mother’s house, Katherine Wilbanks, broke down the door, demanding she tell him where Erin ran off to. When Kathy refused he pulled a nine-mil from his waistband and shot her in the face… point blank…then he went to the school to see if the girls had come in today. They hadn’t and when he couldn’t find them he lost it. He killed ten kids between the ages of eight and eleven, two teachers, a custodian…one of our officers.”

  “I didn’t know who he was when I…”

  “It doesn’t matter.” He interrupts. “It doesn’t matter. I. Don’t. Care. The man was a monster, has been all his life. There’s no fixin’ that…” he scoops up the folder, stands up and walks around the table to where I sit. He leans in close, his voice a mere whisper. “We all have a darkness inside of us… we all do. Most of us know how to keep that darkness at bay until we need to use it; some of us can’t control it at all. Other’s who can control it don’t want to ‘cause they like the way the darkness makes them feel. Lewis Hendrickson? He was one of those people. Lewis Hendrickson deserved to die… should have long before you got a hold of him.”

  The detective puts his surprisingly warm hand on my shoulder, urging me to stand. “What does matter are the kids he killed. The teachers… all of them. That’s what you need to remember, too. Don’t you dare feel an inch of remorse about what you may or may not have done.”

  He nudges me a little coaxing me to move with him towards the door. My mind works frantically to make sense of what he is telling me. What I think he is saying and what he should be saying are two different things. I should be cuffed again, I should be getting booked for murder, but that’s not what is happening. He is letting me go. Are they going to sweep my crime under the rug with all the others that could mar the good name of our perfect little city?

  He opens the door to the interrogation room and walks me through the nearly empty office of the police station. If there had been anybody behind the mirror watching, they had left long ago.“There’s a media circus outside. They are circling like buzzards waiting for the Sherriff to make a statement. None of them know about this…” he says, moving a pointed finger between his chest and mine, as if the two of us shared some secret bond. “None of them ever will, understand? As far as you’re concerned, Lewis was a diabetic. There was too much going on inside the ER, too much chaos… got it?” he looks at me sternly. I nod. I understand. Shocked, but I understand. “Good. I’ll take you out the back way. Your husband is waiting for you.”

  We walk swiftly through the office to a brown emergency exit door at the back of the building. He opens the door, and then hesitates. “She lived… the little girl, Paige. She lived. She’s in critical condition, but she lived. You should know that…” he says, his own eyes seem to water up, but he doesn’t let those tears fall. His job has taught him how to keep his emotions in check, to shut them off completely. Until today, that is. He pushes the door open the rest of the way, ushering me into my husband’s arms.