The shard of redemption, p.8
The Shard of Redemption, page 8
Chapter 13
Neil continued to sketch when the Uber stopped in front of his apartment building. He had to get it out of his head and onto the page: Emily bent over a survey map, head cocked in thought. He could hear the whisper of her voice. Murmuring connections. Drawing lines no one else could see.
“Mr. Ames,” Winston said, “looks like someone’s here with a delivery. Is that the messenger you were expecting?”
Neil looked up. A courier in a windbreaker was already approaching the building. He closed the sketchbook and climbed out.
“Hold on, Mr. Ames, you forgot this,” said Winston, handing a small bag of dog food through the car window.
Neil took the bag, then walked to meet the courier, flashed his ID, and accepted the packet.
Sherlock met him at the door with a soft bark, ears tilted forward, his expression the perfect blend of relief and reprimand.
“I know. I took too long,” Neil murmured, heading into the kitchen. He set the packet on the counter. Sherlock followed, spinning occasionally, then stood on his hind legs, sniffing the air and licking his lips.
Neil refilled the water bowl and poured food into a dish beside it. Sherlock chowed down the food and lapped at his water, as Neil made coffee. Then the dog came to Neil’s side and nuzzled his hand.
“You want outside?”
The dog pirouetted, then galloped to the door, snorting.
“All right, let’s go,” said Neil as he slipped his coat back on and grabbed the leash.
They walked the waterfront, Sherlock sniffing and marking along the way. The air was cold and moist. The outdoor amphitheater steps were empty.
“Sit,” he said quietly, and Sherlock obeyed, tail sweeping once across the stone.
Neil pulled his sketchpad from the inside pocket of his coat and started a quick sketch of Sherlock, paw lifted, nose pointed west.
He felt his phone vibrate.
He glanced at it. Aidan Sterling.
“This is Neil.”
“Just checking in on Sherlock,” said Aidan.
“He’s fine,” said Neil. “What time are you picking him up?”
“A little later than I had planned. Mary at the Trotter wants me to check a plumbing issue. She’s unhappy with the work some other plumber did. So, I’m going to do that tomorrow. I’ve got Mom’s files boxed up, so I’ll pick him up after that and drop those off.”
Neil didn’t respond.
“Hello? Are you there?” Aidan asked. “There’s something else.”
“What?”
“Jerry is not long for this world. He’s back in his apartment with a hospice nurse. He’s requested no life-extending measures. No food. Only pain meds. He’s got days at the most. Just thought you’d like to know.”
“I’ll meet you there,” said Neil.
“What?”
“I’ll meet you at the Trotter. I’ll bring Sherlock.”
“Okay. I’ll see you then.”
Neil hung up and tugged on the leash. “Come on, Sherlock, we need to go home.”
The dog trotted over, rested its chin on Neil’s knee, and let out a soft sigh. Neil reached down, and Sherlock immediately leaned into his hand, enjoying the scratch behind his ear.
“We’re going to see an old friend of yours tomorrow; we need to go home.”
He stood and inhaled deeply, catching the scent of the salty air, before he cast a final gaze at the boats rocking softly in the harbor.
“Come, Sherlock, the game is afoot!”
Neil watched as Sherlock snorted and danced around him, a flurry of movement.
“You up for a run, buddy?”
With a happy bark, the dog’s paws tapped against the ground as he danced on his hind legs.
“Come on, we’re wasting time!” Neil called out as he began sprinting toward his building with the dog bounding happily beside him.
Sherlock lapped thirstily from the water bowl while Neil heated more water for coffee. They settled in. Sherlock, in the overstuffed chair, while Neil sipped coffee and flipped through the packet from Upton at his drafting table.
The years came back with every page of the initial police reports. Some parts were done on IBM Selectrics. Courier 72 font. Uniform. Most of the reports were written on a word processor. Times New Roman. Cold. Clean. Then he hit the handwriting. Wallace’s notes on the autopsy report. All block print. Heavy strokes, fast and certain. The rhythm, though, started to falter and become more tentative halfway down the third page.
Deeper in, the witness statements were limited in scope: Katherine's and Jerry's statements. No one else saw or heard anything. Wallace’s notes were clinical, passive, built to obscure: Victim located lying prone adjacent to a tipped kettle …The tea kettle. Just like Katherine wrote.
He continued reading: Scald burns across the face … No defensive wounds … No sign of forced entry. Wound morphology consistent with impact from a smooth cylindrical object. A bronze globe was found on the floor with cranial matter. Specific implementation undetermined. Blunt force injuries suggest seven impacts, potentially inflicted by multiple assailants. Injuries show variation in angle and force, with at least one blow delivered with sufficient force to cause death.
Neil placed his elbows on the drafting table as he pressed his forehead against the palms of his hands. His mind racing.
One strike, precise and fatal, had caved her skull. The others weren’t for killing. They were for punishment. Or a cover-up. No defensive wounds. She was still alive but unconscious after the first blow. The facial burns occurred after the blows.
He felt it on the page, in the falter of Wallace’s pen. The hesitation before the lie … before he signed off on everything.
“Goddamn it!” Neil shook his head and pushed Wallace's notes aside. He reached for the crime scene photos. He didn’t want to. But he did.
There it was. The bronze globe from Emily's desk, a 13th-century replica of the known world. Everyday items. A tea kettle and a globe. Things that belonged in the apartment, the home Neil and Emily had once shared. The globe and the tea kettle next to the fractured skull and face in the images that had been blistered beyond recognition, features melted into a mask of horror.
Then another photo captured his eye. The body sprawled on the floor … but … "The ring," he whispered. "The ring is on the wrong finger."
The memory strong … vivid. The memory of Emily defending her choice to put her engagement ring on the ring finger of her right hand instead of the left hand. "My fingers on my right hand are slimmer and more elegant," she had said. "The ring is going to look so beautiful on this hand, and I want to show it off." She had grinned broadly, "I can't wait to call you, my husband."
The ring in the picture was on the wrong hand, and the ring was too large for the finger.
He slammed his fist on the table. Sherlock flinched and lifted his head, eyes wide. Neil began to pace.
Wallace hadn’t missed it. Couldn’t have. That hesitation in the handwriting … It was doubt. He saw the crack and walked past it. Maybe he was protecting someone. Maybe he got leaned on. Maybe he … It doesn’t matter. He let it go. And I let it go too. I should have pushed … got my eyes on the files. Stupid … How could I have been so stupid?
He went to the cupboard and reached for the Jameson's … but stopped himself and stepped away. Instead, he turned back to the drafting table and opened the medical examiner's report.
He read through the 18 pages outlining in detail the circumstances of the death, the documentation of clothing, the injuries and body condition, the organ systems, toxicology report, the details of each wound. It had taken twelve weeks to complete. He read it again, taking notes. Everything fell in line with Wallace's notes. Until he looked at the demographic and administrative sections. One line in particular was out of alignment with the formatting of the document. A subtle shift, but to Neil, it screamed.
“Victim consistent with known photo identification.”
“Consistent,” he said aloud. “Not confirmed.”
No ID. No confirmation. And I took their word for it.
He pulled out his magnifying glass to get a closer look at the medical examiner's signature. It did not match the initials on the following pages.
Then came the closer. The victim's blood type was listed as O-positive. Emily's blood type was A-negative.
Neil grabbed his phone and tapped a message to Dr. Chen.
NEIL
Emily Granger autopsy. Font’s off.
Inconclusive identification. Possible forgery
Wrong blood type. We need to meet.
He sent the text. But his thumb hovered over another name.
Octavia Clarke.
“It’s 10:30 pm on a Tuesday night in Destiny Pointe. That makes it 2:30 pm Wednesday in Tokyo.”
He looked back at the screen. Octavia’s face lit it. And something hit him in the gut, like a vital organ was missing.
“She knows every twist of my mind. She knows …”
Sherlock perked up his ears.
I waited too long to get to her. I wanted to solve Beaulieu’s code. I showed up too late. The bruises and fractures she suffered weren’t just from Smyth. They were from me too. Bruises by omission.
“I didn’t have her back. Not when it counted,” he said aloud.
Sherlock looked at him and wagged his tail with a single thump.
Neil lowered the phone. Set it face down.
You don’t get to lean on her just because the truth’s getting ugly, Neil chided himself.
He reached into the inner pocket of his trousers. The silver vial clicked open. He tapped a tablet into his palm and dry-swallowed it.
The taste was bitter.
Fitting.
Chapter 14
Detective Jubal Hayes felt the port city’s moist chill in his bones. Bones that had been baked in Texas. He stepped through the glass doors of Destiny Pointe PD, his cowboy boots hitting tile with a crisp, echoing rhythm, like a metronome with swagger. He didn’t unzip his coat until the elevator doors closed behind him.
He’d just come from Dr. Chen’s office, where Neil Ames had laid out his theory. No theatrics, no wild leaps, just pieces. Pieces that didn’t fit the story Hayes had been handed.
He had called the squad just after noon, and when he stepped into the bullpen, he expected them to be at peak efficiency. Hayes had an extreme dislike of the glass-walled, wide-open layout. Desks arranged like they were expecting a TED Talk, not a homicide briefing. It was designed for transparency and productivity, but delivered neither. Half the unit had earbuds in. One detective was swiping through his phone. No urgency. No edge. Just a hum of screens and the smell of takeout. Only one screen showed the Wallace file, Detective Lucia Cordero, the newest member of the squad.
Hayes let out a whistle. Loud and sharp. The kind you used to turn a herd. Heads turned.
“Board room. Now. Bring your laptops and what you have on the Wallace vehicle case.”
Detective Stan Rucker interrupted his phone scrolling. “That case is closed.”
“Now,” Hayes commanded, his voice firm, and the word lingered like the heat of a smoking gun.
The board room was lit by the glow of the wall monitor. Four detectives, all seated. Three brought laptops. One sat like he was on break. Rucker.
Each took turns presenting: Cordera had split the footage into quadrants: southbound traffic, from four separate cams. She ran it back at half speed, eyes tracking for inconsistencies.
Detective Doug Martin flipped between frames, looking for license plates of nearby vehicles, pausing on a dark SUV parked on an exit ramp just before the overpass. He flagged it, bookmarked the timestamp.
Detective Jack Hawkins analyzed vehicle telemetry: brake pressure, steering angle, and throttle percentage. All data normally piped in from the event data recorder. The screen showed a blank input field. He frowned. Clicked. Refreshed. “Still nothing from Everett PD,” he muttered. “Supposed to be here by now.”
Hayes watched the cursor blink where the numbers should’ve been. Then flipped open his yellow legal pad.
EDR missing — Everett. He underlined it with a bold stroke.
Cordera came on board after the initial investigation. She was taking notes and asking questions. “The accident occurred on I-5. What does the Washington State Patrol say in their vehicle incident report?”
Rucker leaned back. Smiled. “Captain, with respect, and Detective Cordero, this wasn't an accident. The WSP and the ME both came to the same conclusion … suicide.”
“Here’s the concluding remarks by WSP,” said Hawkins. The report popped up on the monitor.
Based on the totality of the evidence reviewed, including traffic camera footage, vehicle damage assessment, event data recorder information available at the time of investigation, witness statements, the findings of the Medical Examiner, and a written note recovered at the scene and attributed to the driver, this incident is determined to be the result of an intentional act by the driver.
The investigation identified no evidence of mechanical failure, roadway defect, or third-party involvement contributing to the collision. Vehicle movements observed immediately prior to impact are consistent with deliberate steering input.
Toxicology results indicate the driver was under the influence of a combination of prescription medication and alcohol at the time of the incident. While no definitive motive can be established, the contents of the recovered note are consistent with self-harm and support the conclusion that the collision was intentional.
This incident is classified as a suicide by vehicle. The investigation is closed.
Hayes sat silently, writing notes on his legal pad.
WSP Conclusion —
Event data recorder information available at the time of investigation: Phrase doesn’t sit right. Why qualify it unless something was missing?
Consistent with deliberate steering input: Consistent isn’t proof. It’s an opinion dressed up as fact.
The contents of the recovered note are consistent with self-harm and support the conclusion that the collision was intentional — classified as a suicide by vehicle. The investigation is closed.’
AKA Suicide note. Case closed. Don’t look any closer.
Hayes activated the large monitor. On screen, the frozen frame of John Wallace’s 2024 Cadillac Lyriq SUV shimmered under streetlight glare. Footage of Wallace’s SUV rolled into action through the moment of collision.
The Cadillac signaling left. Then veering right. Hard. No hesitation. No correction. Straight into the embankment.
A palpable, silent tension filled the room. A chair creaked. Someone cleared their throat.
Most of the team leaned in. One man didn’t. Rucker.
“Any of you ever ride with Wallace?” Hayes asked.
Two of the detectives responded. “Yes." Martin added, "But usually we drove.”
“Why is that? Was he a dangerous driver?”
“No, the opposite,” said Hawkins. “He was too cautious.”
Detective Martin nodded. “He always said he wasn't a fan of high-speed chases. He said it was too dangerous, innocents could get killed.”
“Is what we're seein' here … look like something Wallace would do with other cars around?”
The room fell silent as the detectives looked at the screen.
“No,” Martin and Hawkins responded in unison.
“Cordera, get with DOT, let’s broaden the timeline by four hours," said Hayes. "Tell them we’re lookin’ at a possible murder investigation."
“You’re reopening the case?” Rucker abruptly sat up straight. “Why? The guy offed himself. End of story.”
“We’re takin’ another look,” Hayes said without looking at Rucker. He continued his instruction to Cordera. “Broaden the radius to include north and southbound lanes from Destiny Pointe to Bellingham. Let’s see if we can spot him on the freeway leaving from Destiny Pointe heading north and then see what time he was drivin’ south toward the area of the bridge. I want to see where he came from.”
“Yes, Captain,” she said and left the room.
“Martin, rewind to the start of what we have now, before the impact.”
There was a pause as the monitor was reset.
They’d only been lookin’ at the moment of impact, nothin’ before. That fact alone rankled Hayes. This team should have been more on point, especially since Wallace was one of their own.
The screen shifted. Frames ticked backward, then rolled. Hayes stood up from the table, hands loose in his jacket pockets, as he watched the footage.
Wallace’s SUV glided down the freeway, signal blinking, preparing to change lanes. Then, without warning, the vehicle jerked right, crossing two lanes, before slamming into the bridge embankment. Traffic responded, slamming on brakes.
“This isn’t someone lookin’ to die,” said Hayes. “He lived in Destiny Pointe. Why was he so far north? Where did he go? What did he do? Who did he meet? Did any of you check on that?”
The room was silent.
He pointed at the monitor. “Why pick that embankment?” Hayes stood thinking as if asking himself the same question. “I don’t think he did.” There’s something else, accordin’ to the ME’s report, Wallace had a high level of alcohol in his system.”
“Liquid courage for doing himself in,” chuckled Rucker.
Hayes gave Rucker a searing look. “There’s a problem with that. Wallace didn’t drink.”
“That’s right,” said Hawkins. “When he took us out to celebrate my promotion, he drank ginger ale.”
“So, he was a secret drinker,” Rucker laughed, “Didn’t want to mess up his squeaky-clean reputation. Well, the truth came out, didn’t it?”
“Why would he drive all that way up north to do that?” Hayes asked. “If he was drunk, he drove perfectly before the sudden swerve into the embankment. Nothin’ to indicate he was impaired. Perfect spacing between him and the cars in front of him.”
“Like his car was on autopilot,” Martin remarked.
