Sapphic Voices Mystery

The Ross/Fletcher Case

Part Four

"Mom!" the little girl with blonde wisps screamed as she retreated from the screen door. The large, white, colonial style house swallowed her and spit out a woman in her mid thirties. She had matching blond hair, though hers was dyed. Her eyes were dull green. Her belly had the telltale roundness of a woman with child. She reached for the screen door on impulse, but stopped short when Agent Jefferson and I presented our badges and identified ourselves.

"Alyssa Bradshaw?" I asked.

"You're with the FBI?" She responded, swiveling her eyes back and forth between the two of us. She timidly crossed her arms, one over the other.

"Yes Ma'am." Agent Jefferson replied, "Could we come in and have a word with you?"

"No." She said, then looked genuinely surprised, as though the word had leapt from her mouth of its own accord. She loosened, then crossed her arms again. Each hand shielded a forearm from view. "I mean..." She tried to correct, "Why are you here? Who called you?"

"No one called us," I responded, "We'd like to speak to you about your deceased husband." I looked past her and into the dimly lit hallway. "May we come in?"

"What about him?" She asked, trying once again to cross her arms but deciding to clasp her hands behind her back instead.

"Please Ms. Bradshaw, may we come in and discuss a few things," Agent Jefferson prodded, "Preferably away from the sensitive ears of your children."

"No, I..." She began but trailed off when she turned to glance behind her.

"Or perhaps out here on your porch." I suggested.

"Am I under arrest?" The unexpectedly ferocious blonde asked, turning her gaze back to the intruding duo on her front porch. Her words no longer sprang forth from her mouth but seemed to emerge, premeditated, from beneath her dyed blonde hair or from behind her suddenly not so dull green eyes.

Agent Jefferson and I both took a breath at the same time. "We're investigating a murder Ms. Bradshaw." Agent Jefferson offered, "We think,,," He trailed off when a large man with greasy, dark hair stepped into our view behind the petite blonde.

"If you're not going to arrest anyone then get off my property." The shadowing man spat.

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"I don't like this." Sweetheart said as soon as the car doors were secured, "It's far too obvious they were hiding something." He paused to look back at the house. I did as well. The shadowing man now stood alone in the doorway. "I don't think they had anything to do with this, but she may be able to tell us about the hand."

"I agree." I stated flatly, twisting the key in the ignition, "She may know exactly what happened to the hand but she's not going to talk to us while her boyfriend is around." Sweetheart nodded. "Did you notice how she tried to hide her bruised arms from us?"

Sweetheart nodded again. "Yeah," He added, "And how defensive she became when the boyfriend approached."

It was my turn to nod. "We have to do something about that."

"Her not talking to us, or bruises on a pregnant woman?"

"Both"

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Her face seemed devoid of almost all emotion. Her dark eyes were bottomless. Her arms looked as if they were completely sinew. Blue blood vessels stood out on her forearms and the backs of her hands. Her biceps looked like rocks beneath her skin when she lifted her hand from the brown table and ran her fingers through her short, dark hair.

Ian could have been her polar opposite. The suit he wore did little to hide the fact that he was skin and bone. Though I knew better, he seemed utterly frail hobbling about the room on his cane. His face was flushed pink from exertion, rage, or both. His eyes were well hidden beneath his ever-present sunglasses.

"How long have they been in there?" I asked. Each of the three men in the observation booth of the interrogation room ignored the question. I took a deep breath and listened more carefully to the questioning relayed to us via microphone and speaker.

"But you admit harboring your uncle, though fully aware he was a wanted man." Ian's voice hammered, "Were you tempted at all by the reward?" The woman snorted, blinked, and shook her head slightly. "You must have been terribly upset by his execution." He continued, "Tell me, what were you doing the day he died?" The powerful woman narrowed her eyes, but only for a moment. She remained silent.

Ian stopped his broken pacing. He paused to gather his composure. He took a step toward the table and opened a file folder that had been resting there; revealing several photographs and pages of text. He placed the photos in a neat arrangement before the woman opposite him. With each snap of a photo against the tabletop her eyes seemed to grow more intense.

"You've kept quite a collection of material pertaining to your uncle." Ian said, smoothly, standing upright with the help of his cane, "A good prosecutor could easily sell this to a jury as a shrine, don't you think?" The woman's brown burned holes through Ian's sly grin.

"Uncle Ruben was like a father to me," She raged, "Of course I kept a few scrapbooks of his trial."

"Yeah," Ian sniped, "And OJ was innocent." The woman rolled her dark eyes. "How is it that you have original newspaper clippings of all his publicized killings, even before we knew he was responsible?" Ian questioned, "You knew..." He stopped after a sudden banging at the door.

Both heads swiveled to stare as an angry face filled the door's small, reinforced window. "You can't question my client without me present!" The face was screaming, "I demand you stop this illegal interrogation at once." Several loud bangs resonated from the door. "Let me in there!" The face shouted.

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"We can't hold her now Doctor Worth," Deputy Director Shelby hissed from behind his desk, "Her lawyer is going directly to the papers with this. Do you know what kind of damage that will do to this branch?"

"Don't you mean, to your career Eric?" Ian spat in reply, "That's all you've ever been concerned with, climbing your way to the top. Besides, she didn't ask for a lawyer."

"How dare you!" The Deputy Director screamed, "Do you know who you're talking to?"

"That woman has something to do with this." Ian said, ignoring the question, "I know it in my bones. She was starting to crack. All it would have taken was a few more minutes but your boys let her lawyer through. Lawyers aren't allowed in federal facilities without an escort. He had none. He was allowed to waltz into an interrogation. What kind of stunt is that?"

Deputy Director Shelby's only reply was a severe grimace. "And how did he know his client was here in the first place?" Ian continued, "She didn't call him! Someone had to tip him off."

"Mind your tongue agent." Shelby said, while calming himself, "I've had enough insubordination from you." He turned in my direction. "And as for you," He sneered, "What's this I hear of you harassing a pregnant woman?"

"What? Sir, I Agent Jefferson and IŠ" I began to explain, but was cut off.

"Why are you on this case agent?" Shelby asked, "If it were up to me you would be assigned to nothing more important that security at a shopping mall."

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"I'm thinking that I don't like that guy." Sweetheart said, stepping out of the car, "I'll bet he pulled the wings off flies and burned ants with a magnifying glass as a kid."

I smiled a bit. "Is that your professional opinion doctor?"

"No, I'm more inclined to believe he desperately needs to revisit a childhood where he was dropped on his head repeatedly." He chuckled.

"I'll volunteer to play Mommy in that scenario." I said through my grin. He nodded knowingly and walked me to the door of my room. We bade each other a good night's sleep.

I woke before sunrise, sweating. The room was intolerably hot. I kicked off the sheets and walked to the window mounted heater/ air conditioner. I turned the thermostat to the coldest setting, hoping to activate the air conditioner. It didn't. I unplugged the unit and retreated to the bathroom where I splashed water on my face. It didn't seem cold enough. I thought for a moment and decided to run outside for a Pepsi.

The cool, enveloping evening air felt fantastic. The cold concrete walkway beneath my bare feet felt even better as I made my way to the vending machine three doors down. It consumed my dollar bill with an electronic whir in exchange for drink kept cold deep in its bowels. As I leaned over to grab the bottle from the slot I heard a scraping metal sound. I didn't bother to look over my shoulder right away. I was hot, still sleepy, and didn't want to expend the energy.

My state of mind changed quickly. I heard a muffled noise and felt a sharp pain in my thigh. I glanced behind me in time to see a hooded figure step from a van. My vision blurred as I turned to run and soon felt the cold of the concrete walkway supporting my limp body. Two pounding boots approached. A thought occurred to me as darkness began to seep across my mind. The room wasn't hot, nor was the heater running, when I went to bed.

If you have enjoyed Tara Chen's "The Ross/Fletcher Case, Chapter Four", then please be certain to e-mail her at  tara[at]dementedkitty.com  and thank her for posting this Story.

Click here to continue on to "The Ross/Fletcher Case, Chapter Five"

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