-Derek-
I can't believe I have to go to this judge and plead the case of why I don't have to pay child support to my ex-wife. I can't believe this, because I have my son right now, because she dropped him off and left him with a stranger. What am I paying for exactly?
"Your honor, this is absurd," my lawyer says to the judge, who's sitting at the desk, his head supported upright in his palm with his elbow on the desktop.
Caroline has been my lawyer since Grace and I got divorced. She's a good lawyer, but this judge is insane. We've petitioned five times to have a different judge appointed, but they keep getting denied because Grace keeps fighting the petition. No surprise, this is the same judge that ruled an unemployed former drug user with prior convictions a more fit parent than a decorated veteran who's a police officer.
I should have learned my lesson with her, but I didn't. We continued to hook up even while divorced, some bad habits dying slow. Jesse was born when we had already been divorced for three years. I'd question the paternity if he didn't look so much like me. Jesse is the only good thing we ever did, and she uses him like a pawn. The first time she used him as leverage, that was when I was completely finished with her.
Caroline is old enough to be my mother and has all of the indications she used to be one hell of a prosecutor. Her own son was divorce raped years ago, and that made her change her practice into strictly divorce law. Now she represents the man in the divorce, taking payment based on income and circumstance of the divorce.
"I need to consider the reasons she could have done so. Perhaps allowing her to accumulate a few payments will allow her to reestablish..."
"She's been unemployed for over a year," I say, the judge's eyes darting to me. "How exactly was she ever stable to begin with? Last year she took them on a trip to Disney world, then said she was out of money."
"I will not judge how she spends her money..."
"Are you serious?" Caroline chimes in. "You're a judge, judging is literally your job. And it isn't her money, it's his money given to her directly to support their son that she is not using for that purpose."
"Watch how you talk to me in my chambers," the judge shot back, anger on his face now.
"What is there to consider? Is child support for the other parent, or the child? Who has the child? Why is this even a discussion?" Caroline asks, and the judge sighs. She's backed him into a corner.
"Current alimony and child support stays..." he starts.
"Petition number six mother fucker, seeing now that she's gone, it'll work. We're done," Caroline says and storms out with me.
Caroline is digging into her pocket for her cigarettes before she even reaches the bottom of the stairs from the court house. Reaching the bottom stair, she found her reds and lit one up with a zippo she snapped back shut. It's silver with a Betty Boob decal on the side.
"I really hope he loses his fucking bench over this," Caroline says, taking in her first drag and exhaling it away from me into the air. "I've dealt with some pussy worshiping judges before, but I'm pretty sure this is fucking illegal. How the fuck is he making the decision you pay child support, when you have the kid."
"On paper she still has custody..."
"On paper my fucking cunt," Caroline says.
Damn, to see her in her prime. That mouth, smoking Marlboro Reds, that must have been mesmerizing. The kind of chick after you finished fucking her, she tells you to drink some Gatorade and come back in five minutes because she isn't done yet. Now she's just a sixty-year-old lawyer with a low voice who curses a lot.
"I'll file the petition. We might actually be able to blind side her with it this time. Get a more sympathetic judge. Bonus, if she doesn't show, you win by default. I'd say pursue child support but we both know she'll stiff you and not go to jail for it. She's a monumental piece of shit and still got custody. All because you shot a guy, on the job, who was pointing a gun at you."
"That guy was also the Alderman's nephew unfortunately," I say.
A few months back before I transferred precincts, I was working in the narcotics division. During a sting we catch a guy trying to sell undercover officers about fifty pounds of cocaine. When the sirens were approaching, he pulled a gun on me and I put a round into his shoulder. The drug trafficker was the nephew of a city Alderman named Douglas Hart.
Then my Captain, wanting to save my job and his own, transferred me into a precinct that would put me outside of the Alderman's reach. The only opening was in missing persons.
"You shot a drug dealer. How the fuck does that hurt your career and not the Alderman's?" Caroline asks and I shrug.
"Politics," Is all I can muster to say.
"Go to work, I'll let you know when I formally file it," Caroline says, pinching the cherry of her cigarette off and crushing it under her foot before flicking the butt to the curb.
"Let me know," I say, Caroline kissing my cheek before walking toward her parked car at the front of the building. With a final wave she merges into traffic, and I walk to my car.
-
I'm standing the doorway of a little girl's room with her window broke. Shards of glass are still on the sill, with a few sprinkles on the floor in the carpet. Other than the window smashed, it looks like any other room. Her bed is against the wall across from the entrance, unmade with pink sheets with a princess cover of a popular movie. The shelves of her room are filled with toys, as are the bins under them. There is a small plastic table surrounded by four chairs, one occupied by a brown stuffed bear in a top hat and monocle. A princess doll with a tiara is sitting in another. The table is set for three, the cups properly placed on top of small plates with a small fake tea pot in the center.
The mother is in the hall, crying while trying to give a statement to my partner. Another team is already setting up the kidnapper phone kit to trace a call. We're already treating this like a kidnapping.
I walk into the room and sit down for tea after the tech is finished with pictures and sample collection.
I close my eyes. Stop, look, listen, smell. One of the few skills I learned in the Army that I carried over to my detective work.
What do you see Derek?
I see this girl is spoiled. Her toy bins are overflowing, but her room is clean. The mother is either very attentive to the mess she could make, or the girl cleans up after herself. She may be spoiled, but she's probably not a brat.
The window is broken, but by the looks of it, from the inside. Too much glass is outside for the blow that broke it to have originated from the outside. This already puts into question the mother's statement.
What do you hear Derek?
The walls are thin, I can hear the mother from here. I close the door and I can still hear her. The walls in the house are very thin, putting into question the mother saying she didn't hear it happen.
Her initial statement was that she woke up to get a glass of water and checked on her daughter on her way back to bed. I doubt she is a heavy enough sleeper to not hear a window being smashed, her daughter struggling, maybe even shouting for help.
What do you smell Derek?
I smell laundry. It smells like lavender scented fabric softener. I open one of the girl's drawers, but it's not the source. It gets stronger as I approach the bed. The sheets are fresh. So fresh they're still warm when I place my palm on the pillow case and sheet.
Did the mother do laundry, after she was taken?
The initial report says she was taken before five in the morning, because the mother discovered her missing at roughly five. It's ten. These sheets were changed hours ago, but still recent enough to still be warm. These were changed after midnight, at the time the mother says she was asleep.
I walk out of the room and gesture for my partner who steps over to me.
Theo is my young partner, and I mean young. At twenty-six he's the youngest detective we have. Handsome guy, clean shaven face because he admits he can't grow any facial hair that doesn't make him look like a middle schooler trying to appear mature. Average height, roughly five feet, ten inches. His hair is long, black, and slicked back and held in place with a odorless gel. Dresses to impress with a suit and tie. I keep telling him to dress down, but he never does. Shoulders holsters under his left arm.
"Theory?" Theo asks.
"Not sure yet, but what she's said so far, doesn't add up," I say and Theo pulls out his book to take notes. "Window was likely broken from the inside. The walls are thin, I could hear your conversation with her clearly, yet she says she didn't hear anything. Also, the sheets were changed, recently."
"What does that mean?"
"They're still warm from the dryer. She's not telling us something," I say and walk over to her myself. "When did you change the sheets?"
"A few days ago maybe..."
"Don't lie, they're still warm from the dryer," I say bluntly, and she's evasive immediately.
"What are you suggesting detective?" she asks.
"I'm not suggesting, I'm stating as a fact those sheets were changed hours ago," I say and she looks away and took a long step into her kitchen.
"What are you doing to find my daughter, besides questioning me and when I did my laundry?" She asks, and Theo sees my face and jumps in.
"I assure you ma'am, we'll find her, we just need to hash out the facts we can determine. Sometimes what appears small is all the difference," Theo says as I step through the living room and out the sliding glass door to the back yard.
Stop, look, listen, smell.
What do you see Derek?"
The backyard is poorly maintained and fenced in. The fence is seven feet tall and even in elevation at every point. There's a gate at the side of the front and back with a padlock securing both. If a kidnapper came through her window, how did he get her over a fence this high? To the left and right are neighbor's backyards, and I doubt he escaped or moved through another property and risked drawing more attention to himself. We found no indication of anyone being behind the back fence recently. If this was a kidnapping, he went around to the street to a vehicle, taking the chance that someone sees him or his car.
The grass is patchy, but by the looks of it, she's been trying to fix it. There is a wheelbarrow next to the door full of gravel and a pile of garden stones. She's in the process of creating a garden with a path edged with the stones that she's pouring the gravel between. No trees or sheds, so it's a generally open space. I see the girls broken window, and the glass confirms my original theory.
What do you hear Derek?
I hear the wind blowing the branches of the trees on the other side of the fence in her neighbor's yard. Geese are flying overhead. A car drives by the house on the street. It's a very quiet neighborhood where sounds echo for a few seconds. There is so much resonating sound on this street and no one heard anything? Not even a child screaming and a car speeding away?
What do you smell Derek?
I smell moisture. It's humid today. The end of summer has welcomed this awful wet heat. The rain earlier this morning isn't helping. I smell the old coffee can the mother uses as an ash tray next to the door. There are two brands of cigarettes in the can, Camel and Pall Mall. Both lights or menthol based on the color of the filter. I take one of each and smell menthol on the Camel's. Who else lives here, or is here frequent enough to warrant this many cigarette butts?
