Testing Love

by Hannah McLester

The last traces of night clung to the cold air. Nothing but dark windows looked out on the center of the small square. The moon had bleached away most of the color in the neighborhood’s quaint houses, except for the center of the square, where there stood a single streetlight, casting a weak, orange glow over the plush, almost violently green, grass occupying the center of the square. On this patch of grass there lived a single white stone bench off to one side. Tonight, however, the beautiful white bench was not so white. One corner was smeared with a dark, bone-chilling red, a red that matched the large pool on the grass next to the bench. There lay the body of a young girl in a white dress and black pea coat, soon to be discovered by a horrified paper boy on his morning route.

***

Mark was making breakfast when he heard a knock on the front door. It was a strong and urgent knock, the knock of someone brought to his door for a serious reason. Mark turned off the burner under the sizzling pan of bacon and hurried to answer the door before they woke up his wife. It was Sara’s turn to sleep in and he was hoping to surprise her with some breakfast in bed. This idea was stunted however when Mark opened the door to find none other than two police officers standing behind a man in black pants and an old tweed jacket. There was a yellow stain on the lapel of the tweed jacket, mustard maybe.

“Hello, Mark Weston? I’m Detective Rees. I was wondering if I might ask you a few questions regarding a case I’m working on,” asked the detective, not waiting for a response before stepping though the doorway.

“What exactly is this about?” Mark managed to ask though his stunned state of confusion.

“There was a murder last night, or actually this morning, just a couple blocks from here,” supplied the detective, though he did not look at Mark while he said it. He was busy looking at everything else around the small apartment. “May I?” he asked pointing to a large chair facing the couch.

“Hum?” Snapping out of his shocked haze Mark quickly replied, “Oh, yes, of course, please.” He then slowly took a seat on the couch across from the detective. The police officers that had entered with detective Rees said nothing, and either stood and looked around or slowly made their way around the room scrupulously scouring the apartment for… who knows what. “Excuse me but what do I have to do with your murder case? Who was killed?”

“It was a girl by the name of Jamie Bradford. Twenty seven years of age, brown hair, green eyes, and your ex-girlfriend,” Detective Rees read from the file, except for the last part when he looked up right into Marks fully stunned looking face.

“Oh God, Jamie, I um… Jesus. Umm how did she…?”

“She was stabbed in the heart,” the detective replied bluntly.

“That’s…awful. But why did you come to me. We broke up over two years ago, and I haven’t heard from her since. It wasn’t exactly the cleanest of breakups,” Mark cringed at the memory, the way that relationship ended still affected him all these years later. However he didn’t want it to seem like he had anything to hide from the detective, so he had decided to be as candid as possible.

“Yes, we know. We have already talked to the girl’s parents, they implied that something had happened. That’s why we are here. But you really haven’t had any contact with her since you broke up? None at all?” Detective Rees reached inside his jacket, and produced a pad and pen.

“No not since it ended.” The pen and paper made Mark nervous so he stared down at his hands.

“All right and where were you last night between the hours of three and four this morning?” Inquired the detective, his pen poised above the pad.

“Hold on, you can’t really believe that I had anything to do with Jamie’s death. I haven’t even seen her in years. Why would I want to kill her now?” Marks stomach was in his throat, though he tried to retain his composure.

Mark was so flustered by the sudden accusation that he had not heard the pad pad of Sara’s feet coming down the hallway.

“Honey?” Sara inquired. Mark turned to look into the face of his extremely confused wife. “What is it? What’s going on?”

“Ah, you must be Sara Weston,” Rees deduced after consulting his notes. “Congratulations on your resent nuptials by the way. I am afraid you may want to sit down. Your husband has some bad news. Also we would like to ask you some questions.”

Everyone in the room remained quite as Mark explained to Sara what had happened, and why the police had come to talk to them. Sara had known Jamie also. In fact Sara had met Mark though Jamie, back when they were still together. They had all just finished their final year in college and Mark’s brother, Jeremy, was throwing a graduation party. By the end of the party Mark and Jamie were broken up, Mark and his brother were no longer talking, and Mark was giving Sara a ride home.

At the news of Jamie’s death, Sara had been stunned into silence. She didn’t stutter or splutter. She simply sat there quite as a tomb, a stoic look on her face. After pausing for a reaction from Sara, a reaction that did not come, detective Rees moved on.

“Sara, I understand that you and Jamie were roommates in college.”

“Yes, we shared a dorm room freshman year and got an apartment together sophomore year. But I spent my junior year abroad in Spain. She got a new roommate and we started to drift apart.”

“I see,” Rees said vaguely. “And have you been in contact lately?”

“No I haven’t heard from her since… since we graduated.” Sara looked down at her hands folded in her lap.

“Really,” Inquired Rees. “Then would ether one of you like to explain this, for me?” Detective Rees produced from his jacket a small black book in a clear plastic evidence bag. He opened the bag and removed the small book, flipping it open to a tagged page. Rees then held it open so Mark and Sara could see the writing on the page. It was a day planner, each page was a different day, and at the very top of today’s agenda it said, Meet with WESTON 3:00a.m. “We found it in her bedroom, she recently had fallen on hard times and moved back home.”

Neither one of the Westons said anything as they stared at the black writing. Then Mark closed his eyes, leaned back, and took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes again Sara was looking back at him with understanding in her eyes. And Mark smiled at her.

“We would like to refrain from answering any further questions until our lawyer is present.” Sara said finally breaching the silence.

Rees thought this over for a minute. But he knew he didn’t have enough evidence to hold ether one of them yet. “I understand, we will continue this investigation at the precinct, does 4 p.m. work?” he didn’t want their guards to go up so he kept it sounding casual.

“Yes that would be fine,” Mark agreed, hoping that it would indeed give them the time they needed.

After seeing Detective Rees and the officers to the door, Mark immediately went to his room, found his cell phone and called his brother.

Four hours later Mark and Sara turned onto the drive leading to Jeremy’s house. The house was large and ostentatious. It stuck out in contrast to the arts n’ craft style houses around it. As they pulled up to park next to the grand double door entrance, Mark began to wonder if this was such a good idea. He had come to his brother hopping that he could give them some legal counsel and the name of a good lawyer. However the more he thought about it the more he started to realize that it probably would have been better to do this over the phone.

Mark and Jeremy had, more or less, patched things up since the party five years ago. When Mark caught Jeremy with Jamie he couldn’t believe his eyes, after it finally sunk in, Mark broke up with Jamie and told his brother to go to hell. A couple years later Jeremy called Mark saying that he was sorry and that it was a onetime thing and it would never happen again. A little while after that Mark begrudgingly forgave Jeremy, though they remained distant. Now Jeremy was quite wealthy thanks to some risky investments that had paid off, and was now trying to launch himself into the political scene.

The door was answered by a woman in a stiff starched uniform who led them into Jeremy’s study. It was old fashioned looking, a couch faced the grand fireplace and two overstuffed chairs sat on each end of the couch. Hundreds of books sat along the dark wood walls, as well as odd items like old tools, or weapons, and some art. In one corner there was an extremely cluttered wood desk with an uncomfortable looking matching chair.

“Well hello,” Jeremy said gliding into the room, smile flashing. “I’m so glad to see you again Mark, and Sara you look lovely.”

“Thank you Jeremy, it’s nice to see you too. But unfortunately we come here with some very sad news.” Sara admitted as she went to take a seat on the edge of the desk.

“Jamie was killed last night. She was stabbed,” Mark divulged as he lowered himself onto the couch.

“That’s terrible. Do the police know who did it?”

“Well that is kind of why we are here,” Mark said glancing at Sara. “They think it was one of us.”

“Well that’s ridicules. You would never do such a thing. The press doesn’t know about this do they? The last thing I need is the press talking about my brother the murderer,” Jeremy glanced out the window as if he was expecting to see a man with a camera hiding in the bushes.

“Wait, what happened to, that’s ridicules, we came here because we were hoping that you could help us,” Sara was already mad she didn’t like the fact that they had to be here. She huffed and placed her hands on the desk leaning back.

“Look I would love to help you guys but I can’t afford to be involved in a scandal, even if you are innocent,” Jeremy countered, sighing.

Sara rolled her eyes and got up to leave, she had had enough of Jeremy for one day. But when she hopped down she knocked a couple papers to the floor. Sara quickly bent down to pick them up as Mark calmly argue with his brother. She picked up the papers, placing them randomly back on the desk, when she noticed she had missed an item. But it wasn’t a typed paper like the others, it was a photo. Once she realized what it was a picture of she slipped it onto her pocket. Nether brother noticed as they were still busy fighting.

“Alright Jeremy I understand, wouldn’t want to mess up your reputation,” Mark sneered.

“Mark really, I’m sorry, I wish I could help. But this is not just about my reputation it’s about my career,” For once Jeremy sounded sincere.

“I think it’s about time that we go,” Sara said drawing both their attention.

“Yes, I guess you’re right.” Mark agreed

“I’ll walk you to that door.”

As they drove down the gravel road and out onto the streets, Sara stared at Mark.

“Mark, I think there is something you should see.” Sara reached into her purse and pulled out the photo. Mark took a deep breath before finally responding.

“Well, I guess we are going to have that talk with Detective Rees sooner than we thought,” Mark turned the car starting towards the police station.

“Are we?”

“Yes, you know we have too.” Mark risked a glance at her and she reached out to grab his hand.

Twenty minutes later they were sitting in an interrogation room waiting for Rees. The light overhead made a faint buzzing sound and the metal table was sticky with something, Mark was afraid to think what. Every few minutes he wished he hadn’t come and contemplated getting up and just walking out. But then he would look at Sara and know he was doing the right thing.

“So, they tell me you have something you would like to share with me,” Rees said as he entered the room, wasting no time.

“Yes we um, have some information we believe can shed some light on your case.” Mark reveled as he stared at his hands. “See before when we talked about me and Jamie braking up, no one told you why we broke up, did they?”

“No, nobody knew exactly why you had broken up, only that it was very sudden.” Rees resigned raising one eyebrow.

“I caught him selling drugs to her. Something they had both told me they would never do again. That’s how my brother got a lot of his money that he used in his investment ventures. I promised him that I would never say anything if he stopped selling. So I kept his secret. Then when you came to our house and showed us Jamie’s planer I was almost certain he was somehow involved in her death. So I went to see him. I asked him for help hoping that he would confide something in me that we could use to get Sara and me off the hook, but he didn’t. Then, after we left Sara showed me this photo which she found on Jeremy’s desk.” Mark slid the photo over to the detective who picked it up and examined it. In the foreground was Jamie doing a line off a mirror on a coffee table, in the background was Jeremy obviously giving a scruffy looking guy drugs with one hand as he took money from the guy with the other. In one corner there was a tiny spot of blood.

“So you’re saying that your brother killed Jamie because…”

“Because she was going to black mail him, or had been black mailing him. You said she had fallen on hard times and my brother can’t afford to have something like this exposed, even if it was just allegations. I would crush his political aspirations,” Mark looked at Rees a deep sadness filling his eyes. “Also Jeremy likes to collect things, I’d bet that the weapon Jamie was stabbed with was something from one of Jeremy’s displays.”

“You realize what this means for your brother, right?” Rees cautioned.

“Yes, but I also know that I had to do this. He can’t get away with this, even if he is my brother.” Mark was hunched over, talking into his lap.

“Well then, I guess this is another case closed. If you will excuse me, there is someone I have to go arrest,” Rees stood and walked quickly to the door. “Your feel to go.” As Rees left Mark turned to Sara.

“I would really like for us to go home now.” Mark said defeated.

“Alright, let’s go home.” Sara replied taking his hand.