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Before he Kills
CHAPTER FIVE
Mackenzie was surprised as she entered Hailey Lizbrook’s apartment; it was not what she had expected. It was neat and tidy, the furniture nicely centered and dusted. The décor was very much that of a domesticated woman, right down to the coffee mugs with cute sayings and the pot holders hanging from ornate hooks by the stove. It was evident that she had run a tight ship, right down to the haircuts and pajamas on her sons.
It was very much like the family and home she always dreamed of having herself.
Mackenzie recalled from the files that the boys were nine and fifteen; the oldest was Kevin and the youngest was Dalton. It was clear as she met him that Dalton had been crying a lot, his blue eyes rimmed with puffy red splotches.
Kevin, on the other hand, looked angry more than anything else. As they settled in and Porter took the lead, it showed perfectly clear when Porter tried speaking to them in a tone that was somewhere between condescending and a preschool teacher trying too hard. Mackenzie winced inside as Porter spoke.
“Now I need to know if your mother had any men friends,” Porter said.
He stood in the center of the room while the boys sat on the living room couch. Hailey’s sister, Jennifer, was standing in the adjoining kitchen, smoking a cigarette by the stove with the exhaust fan running.
“You mean like a boyfriend?” Dalton asked.
“Sure, that could be a male friend,” Porter said. “But I don’t even mean like that. Any man that she might have spoken to more than once. Even someone like a mailman or someone at the grocery store.”
Both of the boys were looking at Porter as if they were expecting him to perform a magic trick or maybe even spontaneously combust. Mackenzie was doing the same. She had never heard him use such a soft tone. It was almost funny to hear such a soothing tone come out of his mouth.
“No, I don’t think so,” Dalton said.
“No,” Kevin agreed. “And she didn’t have a boyfriend, either. Not that I know of.”
Mackenzie and Porter looked to Jennifer over by the stove for an answer. All they got in response was a shrug. Mackenzie was pretty sure Jennifer was in some sort of shock. It made her wonder if there might be another family member that could take care of these boys for a while, since Jennifer certainly didn’t seem like a fit guardian at the moment.
“Well, how about people that you and your mom didn’t get along with?” Porter asked. “Did you ever hear her arguing with anyone?”
Dalton only shook his head. Mackenzie was pretty sure the kid was on the brink of tears again. As for Kevin, he rolled his eyes while looking directly at Porter.
“No,” he said. “We’re not stupid. We know what you’re trying to ask us. You want to know if we can think of anyone that might have killed our mom. Right?”
Porter looked as if he had been punched in the gut. He glanced nervously over to Mackenzie but managed to get his composure back fairly quickly.
“Well, yes,” he said. “That’s what I’m getting at. But it seems clear that you don’t have any information.”
“You think?” Kevin said.
There was a tense moment where Mackenzie was certain that Porter was going to get harsh with the kid. Kevin was looking at Porter with pain in his expression, almost daring Porter to keep at him.
“Well,” Porter said, “I think I’ve bothered you boys enough. Thanks for your time.”
“Hold on,” Mackenzie said, the objection coming out of her mouth before she was able to think about stopping it.
Porter gave her a look that could have melted wax. It was clear that he felt they were wasting their time talking to these two grief-stricken sons – especially a fifteen-year-old that clearly had issues with authority. Mackenzie shrugged his expression off and knelt down to Dalton’s eye level.
“Listen, do you think you could go hang out in the kitchen with your aunt for a second?”
“Yeah,” Dalton said, his voice ragged and soft.
“Detective Porter, why don’t you go with him?”
Again, Porter’s gaze toward her was filled with hate. Mackenzie stared right back at him, unflinching. She set her face until it felt like stone and was determined to stand her ground on this one. If he wanted to argue, she’d take it outside. But it was clear that even in a situation with two kids and a nearly catatonic woman, he didn’t want to be embarrassed.
“Of course,” he finally said through gritted teeth.
Mackenzie waited a moment as Porter and Dalton walked into the kitchen.
Mackenzie stood back up. She knew that around the age of twelve or so, the tactic of getting down at eye level with kids stopped working.
She looked at Kevin and saw that the defiance he had showed Porter was still there. Mackenzie had nothing against teenagers, but she did know that they were often difficult to work with – especially in the midst of tragic circumstances. But she’d seen how Kevin had responded to Porter and thought she might know how to get through to him.
“Level with me, Kevin,” she said. “Do you feel like we showed up too soon? Do you think we’re being inconsiderate by asking questions so soon after you received the news about your mom?”
“Sort of,” he said.
“Do you just not feel like talking right now?”
“No, I’m fine with talking,” Kevin said. “But that guy is a dick.”
Mackenzie knew this was her chance. She could take a professional, formal approach, as she normally would – or she could use this opportunity to establish a rapport with an angry teenage boy. Teenagers, she knew, above all, cherished honesty. They could see through anything when driven by emotion.
“You’re right,” she said. “He is a dick.”
Kevin stared back at her, wide-eyed. She had stunned him; clearly, he had not expected that response.
“But that doesn’t change the fact that I have to work with him,” she added, her voice layered with sympathy and understanding. “It also doesn’t change the fact that we’re here to help you. We want to find whoever did this to your mother. Don’t you?”
He was silent for a long time; then, finally, he nodded back.
“Do you think you could talk to me, then?” Mackenzie asked. “Just a few quick questions and then we’ll get out of here.”
“And who comes after that?” Kevin asked, guarded.
“Honestly?”
Kevin nodded and she saw that he was close to tears. She wondered if he’d been holding them back this entire time, trying to be strong for his brother and his aunt.
“Well, after we leave, we’ll call in any information we can get and then social services will come to make sure your aunt Jennifer is suitable to care for you while final arrangements are made for your mom.”
“She’s cool most of the time,” Kevin said, looking over to Jennifer. “But her and Mom were really tight. Like best friends.”
“Sisters can be like that,” Mackenzie said, having no idea if it was true or not. “But for now, I need to see if you can focus on my questions. Can you do that?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Now, I hate to ask you this, but it’s sort of necessary. Do you know what your mom did for work?”
Kevin nodded as his eyes dropped to the floor.
“Yeah,” he said. “And I don’t know how, but kids at school know about it, too. Someone’s horny dad probably went to the club and saw her and recognized her from a school function or something. It sucks. I got ribbed about it all the time.”
Mackenzie couldn’t imagine that kind of torment but it also made her respect Hailey Lizbrook a hell of a lot more. Sure, she stripped for money at night but during the day she was apparently a mother who was involved with her kids.
“Okay,” Mackenzie said. “So, knowing about her job, you can imagine the kind of men that go to those places, right?”
Kevin nodded, and Mackenzie saw the first tear slide down his left cheek. She almost reached out and took his hand as a sign of comfort but she didn’t want to antagonize him.
“I need you to think about whether or not your mom ever came home really upset or mad about something. I need you to also think about any men that might have…well, any men that might have come home with her.”
“No one ever came home with her,” he said. “And I hardly ever saw Mom angry or upset about anything. The only time I ever saw her mad was when she was dealing with the lawyers last year.”
“Lawyers?” Mackenzie asked. “Do you know why she was speaking with lawyers?”
“Sort of. I know that something happened at work one night and it made her end up talking to some lawyers. I heard bits and pieces of it when she was on the phone. I’m pretty sure she was talking to them about a restraining order.”
“And you think this was in regards to where she worked?”
“I don’t know for sure,” Kevin said. He seemed to have brightened a bit once it seemed that he had said something that might be of assistance. “But I think so.”
“That’s a huge help, Kevin,” Mackenzie said. “Is there anything else you can think of?”
He shook his head slowly and then looked into Mackenzie’s eyes. He was trying to remain strong but there was so much sadness in the boy’s eyes that Mackenzie had no idea how he hadn’t broken down yet.
“Mom was ashamed of it, you know?” Kevin said. “She worked from home some during the day. She was this sort of technical writer, doing websites and stuff. But I don’t think she was making much money. She did the other thing to make more money because our dad…well, he split a long time ago. He never sends money anymore. So Mom…she had to take this other job. She did it for me and Dalton and…”
“I know,” Mackenzie said, and this time she did reach out to him. She placed her hand on his shoulder and he seemed to be grateful. She could also tell that he wanted to cry quite badly but probably wasn’t going to allow himself to do it in front of strangers.
“Detective Porter,” Mackenzie said, and he emerged from the other room, glaring at her. “Did you have any further questions?” She shook her head subtly as she asked this, hoping he’d pick up on it.
“No, I think we’re good here,” Porter said.
“Okay,” Mackenzie said. “Again, guys, thank you so much for your time.”
“Yes, thanks,” Porter said, joining Mackenzie in the living room. “Jennifer, you have my number so if you can think of anything that might help us, don’t hesitate to call. Even the smallest detail could prove helpful.”
Jennifer nodded and let out a croaky, “Thanks.”
Mackenzie and Porter made their exit, walking down a set of wooden steps and into the apartment complex parking lot. When they were a safe distance away from the apartment, Mackenzie closed the distance between them. She could feel the immense anger coming off of him like heat but ignored it.
“I got a lead,” she said. “Kevin says that his mother was working toward filing a restraining order against someone at work last year. He said it was the only time he had ever seen her visibly mad or upset about something.”
“Good,” Porter said. “That means that something good came out of you undermining me.”
“I didn’t undermine you,” Mackenzie said. “I simply saw a situation falling apart between you and the oldest son, so I stepped in to resolve it.”
“Bullshit,” Porter said. “You made me look weak and inferior in front of those kids and their aunt.”
“That’s not true,” Mackenzie said. “And even if it was true, what does it matter? You were talking to those kids like they were idiots that could barely comprehend the English language.”
“Your actions were a clear sign of disrespect,” Porter said. “Let me remind you that I’ve been at this job for longer than you’ve been alive. If I need you to step in to help me, I’ll damn well tell you.”
“You ended it, Porter,” she replied. “It was over, remember? There was nothing left to undermine. You were out the door. That was your call. And it was the wrong call.”
They had reached the car now and as Porter unlocked it, he looked over the roof, his eyes blazing into Mackenzie.
“When we get back to the station, I’m going to Nelson and put in a request to be reassigned. I’m done with this disrespect.”
“Disrespect,” Mackenzie said, shaking her head. “You don’t even know what that word means. Why don’t you start by taking a close look at how you treat me.”
Porter let out a shaky sigh and got in the car, not saying anything else. Deciding not to let Porter’s tense mood get the best of her, Mackenzie also got in. She looked back to the apartment and wondered if Kevin had allowed himself to cry yet. In the grand scheme of things, the beef that existed between her and Porter really didn’t seem all that significant.
“You wanna call it in?” Porter asked, clearly pissed that he had been overstepped.
“Yeah,” she said, taking out her phone. As she pulled up Nelson’s number, she couldn’t deny the slow satisfaction that was building inside of her. A restraining order placed a year ago and now Hailey Lizbrook was dead.
We got the bastard, she thought.
But at the same time, she also couldn’t help but wonder if wrapping this thing up would really be this easy.
CHAPTER SIX
Mackenzie finally arrived home at 10:45, exhausted. The day had been long and draining but she knew that she would not be able to sleep for quite a while. Her mind was too focused on the lead that Kevin Lizbrook had supplied. She’d called the information in to Nelson and he assured her that he’d have someone call the strip club and whatever law firm Hailey Lizbrook had been working with to get her restraining order.
With her mind firing off in hundreds of directions, Mackenzie put on some music, grabbed a beer from the refrigerator, and ran herself a bath. She was typically not fond of baths, but tonight every muscle in her body was wound entirely too tight. As the tub filled with water, she walked through the house and tidied up from where Zack had apparently waited until the last minute to go to work again.
She and Zack had moved in together a little over a year ago, trying to take every possible step they could in their relationship that might prevent marriage for as long as possible. Mackenzie felt that she was ready to get married, but Zack seemed terrified of it. They’d been together for three years now and while the first two of those years had been great, the latter part of their relationship had been based on monotony and Zack’s fear of being alone and getting married. If he could stay somewhere in between those, with Mackenzie as his buffer, he’d be happy.
Yet as she picked up two dirty plates from the coffee table and stepped over an Xbox disc on the floor, Mackenzie wondered if maybe she was done being a buffer. More than that, she wasn’t even sure she’d marry Zack if he asked her tomorrow. She knew him too well; she had seen a picture of what being married to him would be like and, quite frankly, it wasn’t too promising.
She was stuck in a dead-end relationship, with a partner who didn’t appreciate her. In the same way, she realized, she was stuck in a job with colleagues who didn’t appreciate her. Her entire life felt stuck. She knew changes needed to be made, but they felt too daunting to her. And given her level of exhaustion, she just didn’t have the energy.
Mackenzie retired to the bathroom and cut off the water. Waves of steam rolled from the top of the water, as though inviting her in. She undressed, looking at herself in the mirror and becoming even more aware that she had wasted eight years of her life with a man who had no real desire to commit his life to her. She felt that she was attractive in a simple sort of way. Her face was pretty (maybe a bit more so when she wore her hair in a ponytail) and she had a solid figure, if a bit thin and muscular. Her stomach was flat and hard – so much so that Zack sometimes joked that her abs were a bit intimidating.
She slipped into the tub, the beer resting on the small towel table beside her. She let out a deep exhale and let the hot water do its work. She closed her eyes and relaxed as best as she could, but the image of Kevin Lizbrook’s eyes returned to her on a constant loop. The amount of sadness in them had been almost unbearable, speaking of a pain that Mackenzie herself had once known but had managed to push far back into her heart.
She closed her eyes and dozed, the image haunting her the entire time. She felt a palpable presence, as if Hailey Lizbrook were in the room with her now, urging her to solve her murder.
*
Zack came home an hour later, fresh off a twelve-hour shift at a local textile plant. Every time Mackenzie smelled the scents of dirt, sweat, and grease on him, it reminded her of how little ambition Zack had. Mackenzie had no issue with the job in and of itself; it was a respectable job made for men that were built for hard work and dedication. But Zack had a bachelor’s degree that he had intended to use to land a spot in a master’s program to become a teacher. That plan had ended five years ago and he had been stuck in the role of shift manager at the textile plant ever since.
Mackenzie was on her second beer by the time he came in, sitting in bed and reading a book. She figured she’d try to fall asleep around three or so, getting a solid five hours before heading in to work at nine the next morning. She’d never cared much for sleep and had discovered that on nights she got more than six hours, she found herself lethargic and out of sorts the next day.
Zack came into the room in his dingy work clothes. He kicked his shoes off by the side of the bed as he looked her over. She was wearing a tank top and a pair of high-riding bicycle shorts.
“Hey, babe,” he said, his eyes taking her all in. “So, this is nice to come home to.”
“How was your day?” she asked, barely looking up from her book.
“It was okay,” he said. “Then I came home and saw you like this and it got a lot better.” With that, he crawled onto the bed and directly toward her. His hand went to the side of her face as he angled in for a kiss.
She dropped her book and pulled away at once. “Zack, have you lost your mind?” she asked.
“What?” he said, clearly confused.
“You’re absolutely filthy. And not only have I taken a bath, but you’re getting dirt and grease and God only knows what else on the sheets.”
“Ah, God,” Zack said, annoyed. He rolled off of the bed, purposefully covering as much of the sheets as he could. “Why are you such a tight-ass?”
“I’m not a tight-ass,” she said. “I just prefer to not live in a pig sty. By the way, thanks for cleaning up after yourself before you left for work.”
“Oh, it’s so nice to be home,” Zack sneered, walking into the bathroom and shutting the door behind him.
Mackenzie sighed and chugged down the rest of her beer. She then looked across the room where Zack’s dirty work boots were still on the floor – where they would stay until he put them on tomorrow. She also knew that when she got up in the morning and went into the bathroom to get ready, she’d find his dirty clothes in a pile in the floor.
To hell with it, she thought, returning to her book. She read only a few pages while she listened to the water from Zack’s shower in the bathroom. She then set the book aside and walked back into the living room. She picked up her briefcase, carried it into the bedroom, and pulled out the most up-to-date files on the Lizbrook murder she had retrieved from the station before coming home. As much as she wanted to rest, even for a few hours, it would not let her.
She looked through the files, digging for any detail that they might have overlooked. When she was certain that everything had been covered, she once again saw Kevin’s tear-filled eyes and it pushed her to look again.
Mackenzie was so enamored with the files that she didn’t notice Zack coming into the room. He smelled much better now and, with only a towel around his waist, looked much better, too.
“Sorry about the sheets,” Zack said almost absently as he dropped the towel and slid into a pair of boxers. “I’m…I don’t know…I just can’t remember the last time you actually paid any attention to me.”
“You mean sex?” she asked. Surprisingly, she found that she was actually up for sex. It might be just what she needed to finally unwind and get to sleep.
“Not just sex,” Zack said. “I mean any kind of attention. I get home and you’re either already asleep or looking through casework.”
“Well, that’s after I’ve picked up your crap from the day,” she said. “You live like a boy that’s waiting for mommy to clean up after him. So yeah, sometimes I jump back into work to forget about how frustrating you can be.”
“So it’s back to this again?” he asked.
“Back to what?”
“Back to you using work as a way to ignore me.”
“I don’t use it as a way to ignore you, Zack. Right now I’m more concerned with finding out who brutally killed a mother of two boys than making sure you get the attention you need.”
“That right there,” Zack said, “is why I’m in no hurry to get married. You’re already married to your work.”
There were about a thousand remarks she could have spat back at him, but Mackenzie knew there was no point. She knew that he was, in a way, right. Most every night, she found the caseloads she brought home more interesting than Zack. She still loved him, without a doubt, but there was nothing new to him – nothing challenging.
“Good night,” he said bitterly as he crawled into bed.
She looked at his bare back and wondered if it was, in some way, her responsibility to give him attention. Would that make her a good girlfriend? Would that make her a better investment for a man that was terrified of marriage?
With the idea of sex now a forgotten impulse, Mackenzie simply shrugged and looked back to the case files.
If her personal life had to melt into the background, then so be it. This life, the life inside the case, felt more real to her anyway.
*
Mackenzie walked into her parents’ bedroom, and before she made it through the doorframe, she smelled something that made her seven-year-old stomach buckle. It was a tangy sort of smell, reminding her of the inside of her piggy bank – a smell like the copper of pennies.
She stepped into the room and saw the foot of the bed, a bed that her mother had not slept in for a year or so – a bed that looked far too big for just her father.
She saw him there, legs dangling over the side of the bed, arms splayed out as if he were trying to fly. There was blood everywhere: on the bed, on the wall, even some on the ceiling. His head was turned to the right, as if he were looking away from her.
She knew he was dead right away.
She stepped toward him, her bare feet padding down in a splatter of blood, not wanting to get closer but needing to.
“Daddy,” she whispered, already crying.
She reached out, terrified, but drawn in like a magnet.
Suddenly, he turned and stared at her, still dead.
Mackenzie screamed.
Mackenzie opened her eyes and looked around the room in a glare of confusion. The case files were in her lap, spread out. Zack was sleeping beside her, his back still to her. She took a deep breath, wiping the sweat from her brow. It was just a dream.
And then she heard the creak.
Mackenzie froze. She looked toward the bedroom door and slowly got out of bed. She’d heard the weak floorboard in the living room creaking, a sound that she had only ever heard when someone was walking in the living room. Sure, she had been asleep and in the midst of a nightmare, but she had heard it.
Hadn’t she?
She got out of bed and grabbed her service pistol from the top of her dresser where it sat by her badge and small purse. She quietly angled herself around the doorframe and walked out into the hallway. The ambient glow of streetlights filtered in through the living room blinds, revealing an empty room.
She stepped into the room, the gun held in an offensive position. Every gut instinct told her that there was no one there, but she still felt shaken. She knew she’d heard the floorboards creaking. She walked to that area of the living room, just in front of the coffee table, and heard it creak.
Out of nowhere, the image of Hailey Lizbrook crossed her mind. She saw the lashes on the woman’s back and the prints in the dirt. She shuddered. She looked dumbly down to the gun in her hands and tried to remember the last time a case had ever gotten to her this badly. What the hell had she been thinking? That the killer had been here in her living room, sneaking up on her?
Irritated, Mackenzie headed back to the bedroom. She quietly placed the gun back on top of the dresser and went to her side of the bed.
Still feeling slightly spooked and with the remnants of her dream still floating in her head, Mackenzie lay back down. She closed her eyes and tried to find sleep again.
But she knew it would be a hard time coming. She was plagued, she knew, by the living and the dead.
