The Flight Before Christmas

I chuckled reflexively at what I thought was only a macabre joke, but her expression didn't change.

"What the⁠—" I stammered.

A tear fell from her eyelash. I didn't know whether to be terrified or what.

"Don't get the wrong idea, okay?" She sniffled. "I said killed, not murdered. There's a difference."

"Sure. Okay," I said. I didn't intend the two words to sound sarcastic, but I wasn't entirely certain they didn't.

"That's why Sheriff Farber gives me grief. Even now, he still thinks it was premeditated. The ADA refused to prosecute because it was clearly self-defense, so that fat-assed sheriff locked me up on a bogus infraction for two weeks."

"What the hell happened?" I asked, unsure why I did.

"I began suspecting he was abusing Stacie. I was finding bruises which couldn't be explained. I noticed how she'd get anxious and fussy when he'd hold her.

"Then, one night, I was taking a shower and heard her screaming. Since I didn't shut the water off, he didn't notice me coming. I saw him holding her by her legs, upside down. Her calves and feet were as purple as an eggplant! He was squeezing her legs so tight her little feet were swelling!"

I gasped. I couldn't stand what I was hearing.

"The look on his face … he was smiling, Todd!

Smiling

! When I screamed at him to stop, he tried to convince me he was only playing with her and didn't know why she was crying. But when I took her from him, her little thighs looked like … they were depressed where his hands had been, and the skin there was so pale! She was only six months old," she whimpered.

She propped her forehead on a hand. I heard her swallow a sob. I remained quiet. I sensed she needed an ear, not a mouth, just like any number of my clients.

"I called the sheriff's office that night. I had to do it in secret. It took a week before he sent Child Protective Services, and they didn't even do anything! By the time they came out, there wasn't anything visible. The bruises on her legs had already faded.

"I never let her out of my sight. But I can't stay awake forever, you know? Sometimes I'd fall asleep with her in my arms and something else would happen. It's like he just got this … this

thrill

from it. It was never anything … you know, he didn't do anything like … abuse her

that

way, but …"

"I understand," I offered. "Still. I can't imagine how anyone can want to intentionally inflict pain on a helpless child."

She nodded and stood from the table to fetch a box of tissues. She blew her nose, then returned.

"You know, I need to thank you right now because you haven't asked why I didn't just get the hell out of here."

The thought had definitely crossed my mind, but, like I said, it wasn't my place to judge or speak an opinion. I only wanted to listen.

"People don't understand how it's not so cut and dried when you're knee-deep in it. The man was my husband. He was the father of our child! People

can't

understand unless they've been through it. Everything gets grayed out, you know? There's no black and white, one strike and you're out moment. Plus … he started gaslighting me, telling me I was crazy and making stuff up, and suggesting I didn't know how to care for my little girl. I'd almost become convinced he was right. It didn't help at all how that Farber prick would come out here to tell me I was over-reacting. I think the two of them were best buddies.

"It was a few months before I opened my eyes and realized we had to leave him. I took Stacie with me to stay with my cousin in Omaha.

"Her husband would sneak around here and keep an eye on things since I still had the business to run. I mean, this is

my

house. Of course, he refused to move out, so I couldn't simply waltz around here myself.

"We learned my husband was being shipped out on exercises for his two-week stint in the Reserves, so I used the opportunity a few days later to come back here and make sure the irrigation was working right. I'd left Stacie with my cousin for the day, thank God, or she'd probably have been deafened. Or worse.

"I planned on being inside only long enough to get the grid maps to plan the next cut.

"I came around the corner over there," she said and pointed to the hallway adjacent to the stairs, "and he was sitting right where you are now, glaring at me, twiddling his Benchmade⁠—his tactical knife."

The instant discomfort I felt at her reference made me stand from my seat. I didn't want to be in that spot.

"I found out later he'd gone absent without leave. He failed to check in on base and then missed his movement because the process server had served him the divorce papers the morning he was supposed to fly out with his unit.

"He said something which made me almost lose my mind. He said, 'How's the little ragdoll, bitch? You think a divorce is gonna keep her away from me? I have rights!'"

"I almost went after him, but it was the menace in his voice which flipped a switch in my head, and my training kicked in. I went into calm and passive mode to try to deescalate, but it didn't work. It only made him angrier.

"He drew his knife across his leg. It cut clean through his BDU trousers and blood started dripping on the floor. He didn't even wince. I was thinking he had to be drunk or high or

something

."

I reflexively looked under the chair in which I'd been sitting. It's not that I expected to see anything there. It was a reflex.

"He said, 'You're going to have to cut me deeper than that to make it look like I'm only defending myself! It needs to look

convincing

!'

"Then he did it again! To his shoulder!" she shouted, grasping her own.

"I walked over to the coffee table over there, and I picked up the remote and pretended to try to turn off the TV, all so I could get close to the gun cabinet which used to be right here," she said, walking to the room and pointing to an empty space on the floor near the couch I'd awakened in that morning.

"He started moving toward me with his knife in an icepick-grip." She held her fist up, and bumped the front of her shoulder with its folded thumb. "I knew the cabinet was locked. The key was on the top of it, and I knew I didn't have enough time to get it. I had to smash the glass. I jammed my hand through it, grabbed the forearm of the shotgun to pull it through the glass, and cocked it because I didn't know if there was a shell chambered. I knew for a

fact

there were loads in the magazine because he insisted on keeping it loaded with double-aught. For defense from home

intruders

."

When I saw her subconsciously rubbing her hand, I realized what I'd seen earlier were subtle scars across her knuckles.

"Cocking it didn't stop him, Todd! He didn't stop! Training taught us to fire immediately if a close-range assailant lunges, but I hesitated," she cried.

I was about to become unhinged. Not in fear of her, but in anger at him. I despised someone I'd never even laid eyes on or heard of before.

"He got me right here first," she said and rubbed her chest a few inches below her collarbone. "I kneed him hard in the crotch, and he went down. Then, he got me here near a major artery." She touched the inside of her right thigh just above her knee. "Three inches higher and he would have killed me.

"I pulled the trigger, Todd! I shot him! Right here!" she cried through clenched teeth, angrily slapping her own chest. "I still have nightmares where my ears are ringing!"

I saw her legs wavering. I clutched her before she could fall onto the brick hearth of the fireplace. She collapsed into a heap on the couch I'd slept on. I held her in my arms, trying my best to ease her sobs. Considering my clientele, I'd experienced similar events with distraught people. But, with her, it felt wildly personal and connected. Her narrative wracked my soul. I absolutely felt it and was pained by her anguish on a very instinctive level.

"Mommy?

Mama

!" I heard the frightened voice near the stairs.

"Come here, chigger," Brenda answered, muting a cry. "You're supposed to be napping."

She wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. Stacie bolted into her mother's outstretched arms.

"Did you make my mommy cry?" she yelled, quite forcefully.

"No, sugar, he didn't. I was only telling him about a very bad day from a long time ago. My own memories made me cry," Brenda said, hugging her daughter tightly. "Mr. Todd is a very kind man. He didn't make me cry, and I'm very sorry if I frightened you, baby girl," she added, kissing the top of her head.

Stacie was staring at me resolutely. All I could think to do was wiggle my bruised nose at her again, but she continued her piercing gaze.

"What did she tell you?" she asked.

"Miss Stacie, that's between your mother and me. I will only say your mommy is an incredibly strong, tough, brave, kind, and very beautiful woman. She's kinda knocked me over a little."

I saw Brenda's expression change at my impromptu confession.

"Mommy, did you try to knock down Mr. Todd?"

Stacie cocked her head backward to look at her mother's face directly. She was obviously confused by my idiom as well as the expression on her mother's face. Brenda's eyes didn't meet her daughter's. She maintained her gaze at me. I couldn't quite decipher her eyes, but when the corners wrinkled, I knew my admission had set in.

Brenda broke the non-verbal exchange between us by looking at her daughter. She patted her backside lightly.

"Shoo, chigger. I guess it is a little too late for a nap, but I want you to go play in your room for a little while, okay? Have a tea party with Elmo and his friends."

Stacie nodded obediently. Brenda watched over her shoulder until Stacie had reached the top of the stairs and we both heard footfalls over our heads. She looked at me and closed the distance on the cushion between us and hugged me. I wrapped my arm around her and held her. She kissed my cheek and hugged me even tighter. I softly stroked her back with my hands. When she released me, she kept a palm on my arm and leaned back a little.

"You know, she wasn't even a year old when it happened. She doesn't have any memory of her father at all."

"That's a good thing, right?"

"Oh, yeah. For sure. I spent months making sure there wasn't even a single photograph of that monster anywhere in this house. But she's sharp, you know? She sees how people look at me and behave around me. This is a small, rural community. Everyone knows everyone, and I'm an enigma to them. At some point, she's going to start getting curious. Or she'll hear something. One way or another, she'll figure it out on her own if I don't tell her. I don't ever want to lie to her. I'm thinking I might have a four-year countdown to figure something out."

"I can't imagine what such a burden feels like," I said, trying and failing to put myself in her shoes. "I know it'd only delay the inevitable, but have you considered moving?"

"Of course I have. But we depend on this place to survive. I can't simply run away from it."

"I'm guessing this is a sod farm you're running?"

She nodded. "My dad started it fifty some-odd years ago."

"So that field out there where the helo landed is yours?"

"Yep. It's 320 acres. Roughly 240 acres of it is fescue. I've been running it since he passed five years ago."

I nodded somberly, then asked, "Sod pays good?"

"Better than a lot of crops. It takes a lot more work than corn or soy to maintain, but, in a typical year, I'll net around thirty or forty thousand, so we usually get by."

"Usually?"

"Yeah. More often than not."

She simply watched me for a minute.

"You're a really sweet, compassionate man," she said. "I expected you to run fast and far."

"Few people have one like yours, but every single person on this planet has a story," I offered. "Yours might keep me awake for a few nights, but I feel for you. I'm not saying I pity you, because that'd be shallow and demeaning. No. I feel for you because you did what you had to do to protect your child and yourself, and I can't imagine the anguish you two were subjected to both before and after.

"Ma'am, you and your daughter seem so well-adjusted. You've done an incredible thing raising her and bringing her out of such a hell. I can't imagine what you've gone through. But … well, I'll just say … I'm impressed by your strength and courage.

"You said he called you a bitch. I'll say you're a damned

tough

bitch who did what she had to do to protect her pup," I said, implying the denotation instead of the insulting connotation of the word.

It made her laugh pretty hard.

"That makes me feel better! I really do appreciate your kind words, but if you call me 'ma'am' again, I might have to kick your ass," she added with such a totally level tone and expression that I burst out laughing myself.

"Fair enough, Miss Mays."

I received another stern look in response.

I grinned. "Brenda?"

"That's much better. Sheriff Fife out there just really got to me when he called me by my married name. I'm sorry you had to hear that, but I really do appreciate you listening to me. I haven't talked about it with anyone in years. No one has ever simply listened without passing judgment or telling me what I should have done differently. Thank you."

I simply smiled an unspoken 'you're welcome.'

"So, enough about that. I'm still curious. Does the ferry thing you do have you flying all the time?"

"Not at all. It's really more of a hobby and a bit of an escape. My job can be intense sometimes, so those opportunities come as welcome diversions."

"What do you do full-time?"

"I own a business that's part consultants, part accountants, and part snoops. Some people try to equate what I do with a private investigator, but I really don't like the term for some reason. We're usually hired by attorneys, or directly by some individuals, or maybe

their

PIs. I'm kind of an ultra-nerd. I'm … I guess you could say I'm good at finding things."

"Like … what? What kind of things do you look for?"

"A client might be an estate attorney. For whatever reason, some people squirrel away assets and hide stuff. Sometimes intentionally, but often just forgotten. An attorney might hire us to dig into bank accounts, life insurance policies, property deeds, et cetera, so they're not lost in the wind. After a period of time, depending on the various laws, unclaimed assets go into the states' coffers, and the surviving heirs may never see them.

"Or, as a different example, I remember one case where a woman divorcing her husband had almost three million dollars in residential real estate and commercial properties she'd hidden under a pseudonym. The hardest part was proving she was living under two different identities. Once we were able to satisfy the burden of proof, the judge issued a court order forcing her to turn over her PO box's key. The treasure really started rolling in then.

"We work for a commission based on what's recovered. In that case, my firm brought in almost $150K for about two months of digging and sifting through all that stuff. Her ex-husband was alright with it because he got 1.5 million more in the settlement because those assets were considered community property."

I saw the look on her face change. I thought I'd, again, shoved my foot down my throat somehow.

"Brenda, holy crap. I don't know what I said, but I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply⁠—"

"No! It's nothing like that!" she said, excitedly pointing toward the front of the house. "Todd, think about it. Is there any chance maybe you pissed someone off as a result of one of your scavenger hunts?"

"

Ohmygod

," I said, standing bolt upright so I could pace to think more clearly.

"Laptop, laptop, laptop," I stammered as I tried to remember where I'd situated its bag. "You are absolutely

brilliant

. The excess insurance distracted me because it's not an unusual scam and is seldom successful anyway.

"Okay, okay … yeah. There's still the insurance thing, but … me? My

life

? This is a whole different angle."

I pulled out the notes I'd taken while talking to the underwriter and held it toward my sudden muse.

"Only 50K for loss of life? Now it's making a lot more sense. I figured I was only supposed to be collateral damage, not the whole reason. How'd you think of that?"

"When I was in the service, I was in the Office of Special Investigations. If CBS favored the Air Force instead of the Navy, the hit TV show would have been called AFOSI, not NCIS. What you described in your second example sounded very similar to an investigation I was a part of, and it flicked a switch."

I stopped scrolling and looked at her. She was twirling a lock of her red-tinged blonde hair around her finger.

"What'd I say?" she asked when she saw me staring at her.

"You do what

I

do."

"

Did

. Sort of. But I only got paid about $30K per year as a staff sergeant. Nothing like the cheddar you make. I joined the service to see the world and serve my country. Besides. I really loved the work."

"Why'd you exit?" I asked, resuming my challenge.

"I was released on a dependency discharge when my father passed away. I was able to demonstrate how I was the only person who could keep the business afloat. They honored it and let me loose a month later. My tour was about to end the following year. I would have definitely re-upped had that not happened. I miss having that job.

"I considered selling the place so I could re-enlist and get back to work, but then I got married, got pregnant with Stacie … and then … well, all that other stuff. I'll just say that running this business provides a great balance because I'm at home with her."

"Tell me more. What's the most interesting investigation you were a part of?"

I listened intently to her. I was working on my laptop, but I could multitask since the database query I was constructing didn't take a lot of thought to devise. I didn't execute it because I knew studying any results would distract me, and I wanted to keep my attention on Brenda's answer.

I laughed at the conclusion of her account.

"Whoa. Let me get this straight. You busted a full-bird colonel when you were only an E-5?"

She guffawed as she said, "Hell

yes

I did. He'd knocked up a lieutenant, and they both were trying to frame another officer. It wasn't just me. There were a handful of NCOs being watched over by command. But yeah. I was the investigator who did most of the field work and was credited with the charge."

"I follow. I employ a couple of people who have some particular expertise. In fact, that's how I knew how to find my way back here after my hospitalization yesterday. I didn't think to mark in my phone where the plane came down and didn't realize it until I was discharged. A seriously skilled white hat hacker managed to find the plane's ELT pings in SARSAT logs."

"Illegal much?" she asked with a chuckle.

I grinned. "Don't ask, don't tell, right? All I wanted was my bag."

She smiled knowingly. "Roger that."

After a few moments, she pointed to the laptop and said, "Well? What'd you come up with?"

"Nothing yet. I was paying attention to you. You're more interesting."

My answer earned me the most delightfully beautiful smile I'd ever witnessed, not just on her, but on any woman.

"Thanks," she tried to say, but it sounded a little squeaky, like her breath had caught. It was incredibly cute.