Catch Me (Detective D.D. Warren, #6)(33)

Ellen O frowned. “What’d the note say?”

“Everyone has to die sometime. Be brave.”

“Oh. Oh, oh oh. Hang on. Wait here.”

O dashed off. D.D. sat there, wondering what was up. Sixty seconds later, O was back with some crime scene photos. One showed the victim, Douglas Antiholde. Another showed a close-up of the contents of his pants pocket, including loose change, a paper clip, and a crumpled piece of torn yellow legal pad paper that had been smoothed out enough to read: Everyone has to die sometime. Be brave.

Writing was script, with a flattened bottom, every letter precisely shaped.

“I’ll be damned,” D.D. murmured.

“Serial shooter, targeting pedophiles,” Detective O declared triumphantly. “I’m in!”

“Are you ever,” said D.D. “And good luck with that. Good luck to us all.”





Chapter 9


I DREAMED OF MY MOTHER.

She stood at the counter in a tiny brown-and-gold kitchen, curtain of dark hair obscuring her pinched face as she crooned to herself. “Sugar and spice and everything nice, that’s what little girls are made of.”

In my dream, I was three years old, crammed into a high chair meant for a baby, my back plastered to the sticky vinyl seat, while a white plastic strap, splattered with dried eggs and fuzzy oatmeal, jammed into my tummy hard enough to hurt.

I wanted out. I whimpered, whined, fussed, and fidgeted. If I could just get my quick little hands on the buckles, I could escape. But I’d done that before. I had a memory of getting out, so she’d changed the straps, and now the buckles were in the back of the sticky seat and I was trapped and uncomfortable, and even though I was hungry, I didn’t want to be there anymore.

My mother had a lightbulb in her hand. She’d taken it from the chipped white lamp in the family room. Unscrewed it, while singing softly to herself.

“Sugar and spice and everything nice, that’s what little girls are made of.”

My mother placed the lightbulb in a blue plastic bowl, picked up a large metal spoon, and slammed down hard. A faint tinkling sound. The older me, the real me, and not the trapped three-year-old version of me, understood the sound was the lightbulb shattering.

The three-year-old trapped me simply watched with big blue eyes as my mother ground the lightbulb, all the while singing, singing, singing.

Then, she looked up at me and smiled.

Next to the bowl was a jar of peanut butter. Now my mother unscrewed the lid. Now she scooped out a big spoonful. Now she placed the peanut butter in the blue plastic bowl with the shattered lightbulb. And stirred.

“Sugar and spice and everything nice,” my mother declared. “That’s what little girls are made of.”

She crossed to the high chair. She placed the bowl on the too-tight white tray. Plopped it down on a piece of congealed egg. I could hear the squishy, popping sound of yolk smooshing against the bowl.

My mother was dressed up. She had gloss on her lips, color on her cheeks. Her brown hair was freshly washed. She’d taken the time to brush it until it fell long and shiny halfway down her back, a waterfall of shimmering brown-red silk.

I wanted to touch that hair. Hold it in my fist. Feel this softer, shinier version of my mother.

My mother looked pretty. It both fascinated and terrified me.

“Sugar and spice and everything nice,” my mother singsonged. “Oh, but Charlie honey, nice girls finish last. You don’t want to be last. The world wants brave little girls, tough little girls. Sugar and spice and broken glass, that’s what little girls should be made of.”

She scooped up the first spoonful of peanut butter. “Here comes the airplane. Come on, Charlie. Be a good girl for your mommy. Open up. Here comes the airplane, into the hangar, vroom, vroom, vroom…”


LATER I VOMITED BLOOD. We went to the emergency room. The nurses rushed me in, fussed all over me. I was poked, prodded, the doctor flashed a light in my eyes. I held my stomach and whimpered. But I didn’t cry. Good girls were brave. Good girls were tough.

Pain. Wracking cramps, eye-rolling diarrhea, my face bursting with sweat, but I promise, promise, promise, no tears rolling down my cheeks.

“I just don’t know what to do,” my pretty, shiny mommy was telling the doctor. “I turned my back for only a moment, and next thing I knew, she was eating a lightbulb. I mean, really, Doctor, what kind of child eats a lightbulb?”

Good girls are brave. Good girls are tough.

“It’s just so hard, sometimes, being a single mom. I mean, I’d just popped into the kitchen to make her favorite peanut butter sandwich, and well, I was doing laundry and trying to pick up all the toys in the family room and clean the bathroom. And yes, a lightbulb had burned out, so I’d gotten one down to replace it, but I never thought for a second, never imagined…I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to cry. I just haven’t slept in so long. You have no idea how active she is and impulsive and…And now this and we don’t have insurance and, and…I’m sorry, can I just sit down for a minute?”

Good girls are brave. Good girls are tough.

The doctor patted my mother’s shoulder. The doctor told my mother everything would be all right. The doctor told my mother she was doing the best she could and he understood completely.

I rolled over, held my stomach, and vomited more blood.