I turn and flee, but a strong arm grabs me from behind before I can get down the hall. Just then, Officer Lopez reaches the hallway, her gun drawn.
“Don’t move,” she says, slowly moving forward.
“No, you don’t move. I feel something cold press against my neck, knowing it’s a knife. “I will slit her throat.” I start to panic, and tears pool in my eyes. Is this it? Will I die at the hands of this person? “Drop the gun, and no one gets hurt. I’m just here to get something in his room,” he said, but his voice didn’t seem convincing.
“Okay, I don’t want to cause you to use that against her.” Officer Lopez slowly places the gun on the floor and shows her hands; while doing so, her eyes trained on me, and I swear I can see her eye twitch, or was it a wink?
“Good girl. Now, I’m going to keep this old woman here as a hostage while I look for something. If I see anything or if you come after us, she’s dead. Got me?” Again, with the old woman spiel.
“Yes.”
He drags me to my nephew’s room and closes the door behind us. “If you stay right here, you won’t get hurt.” I then watch him riffle through drawers, upend the mattress, throw open the closet, and pull out everything.
I wasn’t just going to stand there while he destroyed my home. “What are you looking for? Maybe I can help you.”
The man turns around. “Unless you know where he stashed the money, you can’t help me.” I instantly know he’s here to steal the $20,000 my nephew received from killing Troy. I doubt he would have left that much money lying around.
As I see him looking under the bed, I see Officer Lopez just outside the window. She came the same way the intruder did – climbing our large cottonwood right outside my nephew’s window. I always hated that tree because of the tons of leaves I had to rake up every fall, but today, I'm grateful it's here and that she had the intelligence to outsmart this jackass, as she put it.
I try not to stare when I see another gun. She slowly lifts one leg into the room and then the other. The man shoots up and sees the gun. “Hands up, now!” She comes to the side, never moving the gun off her target. The man slowly raises his hands.
“Ok, ok, no need to get your panties in a bunch.”
She finds the knife he laid on the dresser but doesn’t pick it up. It has his fingerprints on it. She pulls out a pair of handcuffs. “Turn around, hands behind your head.” The man does as he’s told. When she’s behind him, she puts her gun in her holster, grabs his hands, cuffs one of them, then leads him to the bed and cuffs the other hand to the bedpost. She reads him his Miranda rights. She grabs her two-way radio and calls for backup. I’m still shaking and press my fingers to my neck, knowing that this lunatic could have killed me.
“What are you doing here?” Officer Lopez points the gun at him.
He chuckles. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“If you don’t tell me, you can tell the Chief.”
“I got rights, remember, so until I have a lawyer, I’m not saying a damn thing.”
He’s right; he does have rights, but I wished I could have gotten more out of him about the money. But I will forever be grateful to Officer Lopez for saving my life. If he hadn’t found the money, he might have killed me anyway or kept me hostage until my nephew gave him what he wanted.
“Okay, we’ll play it your way. But you’d better have a damn good reason for breaking into this woman’s home and threatening to kill her. Oh wait … it doesn’t matter. You’re going to prison.”
Soon after, I hear police sirens, and it’s de ja’ vu from when my nephew shot the guy in this very room. I hear heavy footsteps on the stairs, and then two police officers burst into the room.
“Yay, the pigs are here,” the man snickers.
“Oh look, the criminal has been caught,” one of the tall and buff police officers says, then grabs his arm and unlocks the cuff from the post. He then puts both hands behind his back. “Let’s go.” He stops in front of me. “Are you OK, ma’am?” He has kind brown eyes that match his hair, and his square jaw is prominent.
“Yes, thank you.” He nods, and Officer Lopez pulls me away from the man as they lead him out of the room. I put my hand to my chest. “I can’t do this anymore. In less than a week, I’ve had two men break into my home, I got smoke poisoning at the police station and could have died. We’ve been followed, and now my nephew has also been poisoning me.” I then decide to tell her the secret I’ve held for over two months. “I have to tell you something.”
Officer Lopez tells me to follow her downstairs and into the kitchen. One of the police officers stops me to ask questions, but Officer Lopez shuts him down. "Not right now."
I feel numb, tears streaming down my face. I have to tell her.
In the kitchen, she grabs a glass from the cupboard and presses it under the filtered water on the refrigerator door. I sit down, and she places the glass in front of me and sits down in front of me. “Go ahead.”
I take a long drink, place the glass down, and place my hands on the table.
“I know who killed Troy.” Simple, but Officer Lopez cocks her head, her eyebrows scrunched in.
“Okay …”
“My nephew.” I then recall everything that happened in the last two months: the death, placing Deanna’s necklace on his chest before dumping his body, the threats to my family, the lost ring, the payout, and my supposed dementia. It's a lot to confess, and I feel a huge weight drop from my shoulders.
Officer Lopez sits back and folds her arms. Her eyebrows pull up as she says, “Wow. I’m so sorry you had to keep that secret. Your nephew is quite the jackass. But you do know we need to go to the Chief about this, right?”
I knew that was the next step. “Yes. But I worry because my nephew has connections. There were five in this plot, and they could have planned something in case someone got caught. And now that at least one person has come looking for the money, who says someone else won’t break in and look for it?”
Officer Lopez scratches her head, and I can tell she is trying to figure out what to say. “Look, I can’t promise you that won’t happen, but if we arrest your nephew – again – maybe we can get him to tell us who was involved, especially since at least two that we know of have tried to steal his $20,000 for killing Troy. If he knows they turned on him, he may throw them under the bus, so to speak. It took a lot of courage for you to tell me. But now, we must get to the police station and tell Chief.”
I nod. It’s only afternoon, but suddenly I feel exhausted. I yawn and then get up.
“I’ll let you have a few minutes to prepare yourself. I’ll be here when you’re ready.” Officer Lopez gets up and follows me out to the living room.
I go back upstairs but am scared to go by his room. I gather my courage, go in, quickly close the window, lock it, and then cringe, forgetting that I shouldn’t disturb a crime scene. I then notice marks on the edge and start to run my finger over it but then stop. I do notice it was pried open, but with what? I figure the investigative team will be here sometime to document everything.
After brushing my hair and splashing cold water on my face, I gasp in the mirror when I see purplish puffiness under my eyes. It looks like I aged ten years in just a few days. My gray hair looks dry and lifeless, and my face has small red blotches dotted on my cheeks. When I get stressed, my face breaks out, so this isn’t new, but I hate it. I open the medicine cabinet and grab the prescription cream my doctor gave me to help reduce the inflammation. I apply a small amount on my face and rub it in.
Back downstairs, I grab my purse. “Okay, I’m ready.” Officer Lopez has her laptop open, and she's typing.
She looks up. “Okay, let me finish these notes.” I wait for her to finish, and then she closes her laptop, places it in her bag, and drapes it over her shoulder. She opens the front door, peers out, and then motions me to follow her. It’s clear and hot as the sun beats down on my face. I squint and wish I had some sunglasses.
We get to the police station, park, and walk in. This is the 3rd time I have been in this station in a week. We go straight to Chief Errington’s office.
“Chief, we need to talk.”
He looks up from his computer and motions for us to sit down. I clutch my purse in my lap, suddenly nervous to tell him what I told Officer Lopez.
“First, are you both OK?”
I nod. Officer Lopez says, “Yes, but she’s a little shaken up and ..." She looks to me for confirmation, and I nod, "has something she needs to tell you.”
He turns to me, his arms folded. I feel my heartbeat thumping hard, but tell him the same thing I said to Officer Lopez. After I finish, I lower my head, cover my eyes, and shake my head. ”I’m sorry I didn’t say anything.” he grabs the phone and punches in a number.
“Hey, Judge Ralston, it’s about Troy Carmicheal’s murder.” He looks at me.
“We have a witness.”
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