What Have You Done Read online

  “Come in. Sit! Sit!”

  For a brief time after their father died, and on a more regular basis after their mother had been taken away, Liam and Sean had been enrolled in the mission’s after-school program. At that time, Father Brennan had still been fairly new to the parish, but his overwhelming sense of joy and ability to see the good in every situation had made him someone the boys had gravitated to and admired. As the years passed, despite living across the river with their grandparents, both brothers had become altar boys at Saint Agnes, and they still kept in touch through letters and an occasional visit. Liam hadn’t been back in years. It felt good to be there again.

  “So what brings you by?” Father Brennan asked as he sat back behind his desk, sliding one of the paper stacks to the side so he could face his visitor. “It’s been so long. You passing through the neighborhood?”

  “I guess you can say that, although truth be told, I pass by the neighborhood every day on my way into work. I guess I just decided to pop in this time. Sorry to come unannounced.”

  “Nonsense! You never have to be sorry about coming here. You’re always welcome. How’s Sean? And Vanessa? Tell me!”

  “Good. Everybody’s doing good.”

  Father Brennan took his glasses from the desk and put them on. He stared at Liam for a moment. “Well, now,” he said. “That’s a half-truth if I ever heard one. Something’s troubling you. I can see it. Just like I was able to see it when you were little. Nothing’s changed. Talk to me, boy. What’s on your mind? Consciously or not, you wouldn’t have stopped by unless you wanted to talk. You might’ve driven here, but trust me, God steered. Out with it.”

  Liam’s head sank. “You always could see right through me.”

  “A gift.”

  “I recently lost someone close to me. A friend. She was killed.”

  Father Brennan bowed his head for a moment. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “I’m completely torn up. I can’t sleep. Can’t think straight. When I close my eyes, all I see is her face. I have this void in my soul, this emptiness.”

  “It sounds like she meant a lot to you.”

  “She did.”

  “When did you hear the news?”

  “Couple days ago.”

  The priest shrugged. “Give it time. Don’t run from the memories you had with this person, but don’t let them cripple you either. You’ll mourn her the way you’re supposed to, but you can’t allow it to take over your life.”

  Liam closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. He could feel a headache coming on. “There’s so much violence in this world. So much death. The way she was killed got me thinking about my own life. Like, what drives people to commit these acts? This is the kind of stuff I investigate all the time. Homicide shouldn’t be something you build a career off of. You ever stop to think about the evil in this world?”

  Father Brennan chuckled. “Of course. The evil in this world can seem quite overwhelming sometimes, but we have a choice to give in to it or not. For example, you choose to see evil because you’re tasked with bringing murderers to justice. People who watch television see evil because that’s what sells, so that’s all the media shows them. Me, I choose to see life. I see the joy of a new mother holding her child for the first time. I hear the laughter of newlyweds as they walk down the church aisle together as husband and wife. I see the joy of a family getting together for the holidays. These are the things that give me hope. I’ve seen the dark side too. More times than I wish to count. But I balance it with the good. I suggest you do the same. Evil is part of this world, as it’s part of your job, and it will remain so until the end of days, I’m afraid. You need to counterbalance it with the good. Find the good.”

  Liam met the priest’s eyes. “You ever notice a violent side of me growing up? Like a darker side? A side that might’ve been affected by how my dad died or what happened with Mom? Anything like that?”

  “No. Never. Not once.”

  “What about Sean?”

  “No. Sean can be more serious, but his heart is pure. What I’ve seen from the both of you are caring, nurturing, mature young men who are still full of love. You’re a good person, Liam. Sean too. Always have been.”

  Liam checked his watch and rose from his chair. “I think that’s all I needed to hear, to be honest. I need to get to work.”

  “You and Vanessa okay?”

  Father Brennan didn’t know about the issues he and Vanessa had gone through. Liam was determined to keep it that way. “Yeah, we’re fine. I think I just needed to hear you say it was okay for me to mourn in my own way. I also needed to hear that I’m a good person. The stuff I see, it can throw you for a loop.”

  “Don’t doubt yourself. You’re a fine lad, and you’ll find peace in your friend’s memory.”

  “Thanks for always being there for me. For me and Sean.”

  “I serve the Lord,” Father Brennan replied with a beaming smile plastered upon his pink face. “Anything you need for as long as I’m on his planet, I’m here.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And don’t forget to find the good. That’s the key to everything.”

  Liam’s phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and stared at the screen. It was Sean.

  “I gotta take this,” he said.

  Father Brennan waved him away. “Go. Do what you need to do. Bring justice to the world.”

  Liam walked out of the priest’s office and answered on the third ring. “Yeah, I’m here.”

  “Where are you?” Sean asked.

  “South Street Mission.”

  “What the hell are you doing there?”

  “To be honest, I’m not sure.”

  “You get the phone records?”

  “Yeah, I got ’em.” Liam pushed through the metal door out onto the street. “I’ll download them when I get into the office. It’s still too early for me to go in. It’ll look weird if I show up now.”

  “Meet me at the Liberty Diner in ten minutes. I got us an appointment to talk to Marisol and her nurse. You wanna know if Don really did go see his mother Saturday night?”

  Liam climbed into his car and started the engine. “Yes.”

  “Good. We’re going to go there and ask her. You and me.”

  Liam put the car in gear and pulled out into traffic. “Liberty Diner, ten minutes. I’m on my way.”

  24

  Tender Cares Adult Living Facility looked like a typical condo complex from the outside, uniform and plain with beige siding on all the structures and black shutters on all the windows. Each door was red, and every front yard had a flagstone walkway that cut through the grass to the sidewalk. The roads were fresh blacktop, and the trees were all still in their infancy. The place had been built only three years prior and hadn’t begun to show the wear and tear of seasons gone by. Everything was still so sterile.

  Liam pulled around the man-made lake and noticed a cluster of geese floating atop the glassy surface. The scene looked peaceful with the backdrop of budding cherry trees stretching out into a small forest. He made a left onto the first street and stopped in front of 1432, a corner unit that was two stories and adjacent to the community pool area.

  Sean got out of the car without saying a word. They hadn’t spoken much since Liam picked him up at the diner. The ride to Doylestown had been long and awkward with only superficial questions being bandied about to dot the otherwise endless landscape of quiet.

  Marisol Carpenter, Don’s mother, was standing at the front door, arms outstretched, waiting to embrace her boys. Her hair was a cluster of white curls, grown down past her ears but not quite touching her shoulders. She was old-age slender, her skin hanging in places it hadn’t when she was younger. Her lips were thin, and the way her cheekbones poked out from under her glasses made her face seem longer than it really was. She looked fragile, but at the moment, she seemed very much alive.

  “My boys are here!” she cried as she scooped Sean into a mighty hug. “It’s so go
od to see you! Been too long. Too long!”

  Sean hugged her back and rubbed her shoulders. “It’s good to see you, Marisol. You’re right. It’s been way too long.”

  “And my Liam is here. Hello! Come give Mama a hug and a kiss.”

  Liam did as he was told, and she pulled him close. “How’s Vanessa?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “I’m so glad to see you.”

  “Me too, Marisol.”

  She grabbed Liam by the hand and pulled him inside. Sean followed and shut the door behind them.

  The inside of the condo looked as if it was still in the process of being moved into, despite Don having moved his mother from her home in Cherry Hill over a year ago. It had the essentials—seats to sit in, a table to eat on, utensils to cook with, and pots and pans to cook in—but for the most part, the place was bare. Aside from an oversized picture collage of Marisol’s family hanging above a gas fireplace, the walls were empty. A love seat, two wingback chairs, and a round coffee table took up the small living room. A kitchen table and an antique secretary’s desk she’d taken from her home filled the dining area. Other than that, there was nothing.

  “Can I get you boys something to drink? You hungry?”

  “We’re fine,” Liam replied.

  He followed Marisol into the living room and thought about bringing her up some things to decorate with next time he visited. A few picture frames. Some art for the walls. Curtains. Something.

  A younger woman sitting in one of the wingback chairs stood when they entered. She looked to be in her late thirties and had olive skin, black hair that hung to the midway point of her back, and brown eyes. She was wearing green scrubs with a white lab coat over them.

  “This is my nurse,” Marisol said, pointing to the young woman. “Adena Khan. She takes very good care of me.”

  Adena extended her hand, and Liam shook it.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” she said.

  Liam smiled. “We appreciate you meeting with us.”

  He sat down on the love seat, and Sean sat next to him after also shaking the young woman’s hand. Marisol plopped into the other wingback chair, and Adena returned to hers.

  “How have you been, Marisol?” Sean asked.

  The old woman shrugged. “Good, I guess. I can’t complain. I mean I could, but no one would pay me no mind.”

  “They treating you okay here?”

  “It’s an assisted living facility. I call them when I need them. They assist. It’s fine.” She reached over and patted Adena on the knee. “And my nurse has been wonderful. The things she puts up with. An angel!”

  Sean leaned forward in his seat, resting his arms on his knees. “Marisol, we need to ask you a few questions about this past Saturday night, and I’m hoping you can remember. Because of the HIPAA laws and patient confidentiality, I couldn’t get any information over the phone. We’re not family.”

  “Nonsense,” Marisol replied. “You’re family as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Not blood. But that’s okay. I just need to ask you these questions, and if you give your permission, I can ask Ms. Khan a few as well.”

  “You know you can ask me anything you want. Go.”

  Sean cleared his throat. “I want you to tell me about the episode you had on Saturday night. You woke up confused? Had to call Don?”

  Marisol looked away from Sean for a moment. An expression of determination overcame her as if she was willing the memory to come, forcing it back into her mind. She looked back at the brothers. “I think I remember. Yes, I’m pretty sure my Don had come to see me.”

  “So Don came up?”

  “Yes, I think so.” She turned to Adena. “Did my son come up Saturday night?”

  The nurse opened a file that was sitting on her lap. “It looks like your son checked in on Saturday night at 11:16 and checked out at 1:34.”

  “So he was here a few hours,” Marisol said.

  “Yes,” Adena replied. “He helped get you back into bed and then stayed to make sure you weren’t waking up again.”

  “I had an episode?”

  “You woke up and were confused where you were. You were scared and rang your call button, but you wouldn’t let the night nurses help you. You kept asking for Don, so we called him.”

  Marisol shook her head. “I’m so embarrassed. I make such a fool of myself sometimes. I cause these good people too much trouble.”

  “Nothing to be embarrassed about,” Sean replied.

  “I guess one of the perks of Alzheimer’s is you can’t remember every time you act like an ass.”

  “I think we’re good here,” Sean said. “We just needed to double-check where Don was that night.”

  “Why?” Marisol asked. “He in trouble?”

  “No. We got a case that morning and just have to verify his whereabouts. Standard procedure.”

  “All this way just for a few questions?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Stay for coffee.”

  “I’m sorry, but we can’t. We have to get back to the city. This case can’t wait.”

  The two brothers got up from the love seat and made their way to the door. Marisol followed them out, gave them their hugs and kisses, and walked them all the way to their car. When they were driving back past the pond to leave the complex, Sean spoke.

  “So I guess that rules Don out.”

  Liam shrugged. “Yes and no.”

  “How do you figure? We just confirmed his whereabouts.”

  “His visit still is within the general time frame of Kerri’s time of death. Plus you said he was late to your crime scene that Sunday morning.”

  “It’s a long drive.”

  “Maybe.”

  Sean shook his head. “Look, Don’s clean. There’s no way he killed Kerri. Why would he? Think about it. He has no motive for any of this.”

  “Okay, but we don’t have many suspects who know what we know about Mom and what she did to us and my affair with Kerri.”

  “We need to find motive. Who has motive to kill Kerri and do all this?”

  Liam turned onto the main road that would lead them back to the turnpike. “So far, the only person I can see who has motive to kill Kerri is me. That’s the scary part. She breaks it off. I want her back. She won’t take me, so I kill her. Or she tells me she’s pregnant, and I kill her to keep it from Vanessa.”

  Sean leaned his head back on the seat. “You just recited the two oldest motives in the book.”

  25

  Liam dropped Sean back at the Liberty Diner and went to the station house. Don was on the far end of the Homicide Division, next to the wall of file cabinets. Liam made his way through the floor and tapped his friend on his back.

  “You got a minute?”

  Don turned around and closed the drawer he’d been flipping through. “Yeah, what’s up?”

  “I wanted you to hear this from me or Sean, and since Sean’s on mandatory leave, I’m here.”

  “Okay. What is it?”

  “I know you’ve been in on this Kerri thing, and I appreciate you helping us out.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “I’m not sure how much Sean told you about what’s happening, but it looks like someone is trying to frame me for her murder. I don’t know how, but they have my prints at the scene and my blood type in Kerri’s nails. We’re trying to find out who could know about our past with my mother and why they’re trying to tie Kerri’s murder to me. So far, I’m coming up empty.”

  “So you need my help?”

  Liam shook his head. “No. You’re one of my suspects.”

  “What?”

  “There aren’t many people who know about what happened with my mom and that I was having an affair with Kerri. Whoever killed Kerri keeps leaving clues that tell us they know everything. You’re one of those people.”

  Don fell against the file cabinet. “Hold on. After all we’ve been through, you think I could kill someone in cold blood and
then try and pin it on you? Why would I do something like that? I hardly knew Kerri.”

  “I don’t know why, but only you, me, Sean, and Kerri knew everything. Kerri’s dead, and I’m the one being framed. Sean’s working his ass off to get me out of this jam. That leaves you.”

  “That’s the biggest crock of bull I’ve ever heard.”

  “Me and Sean went to see your mother this morning. We confirmed you went to see her Saturday night, but the time you were there and left makes you available in Kerri’s TOD window.”

  “You went to see my mother?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you even listening to yourself?” Don asked. “I’m the one helping Sean make this all go away. If I killed her and wanted to expose you, I could’ve done it with all the stuff I took from her apartment. You’re not making any sense.”

  “Why were you late to the Cutter Washington homicide Sunday morning?”

  “I got home from my mother’s and fell asleep.”

  Liam said nothing.

  Don leaned in and lowered his voice. “Listen, you son of a bitch, I’m helping you and Sean make this go away. For you. Whether you really are being framed or you had some kind of massive break and killed Kerri, I’m helping to make this go away so you don’t become a suspect in your girlfriend’s murder. Isn’t that enough? What more loyalty do I need to prove? And why would I kill her? What do I have to gain from it? You were the one having an affair. You’re trying to rebuild your marriage with Vanessa. Kerri tells you she’s pregnant. Now she’s dead. That’s motive, Liam. Textbook.”

  “I know, I—”

  “Get away from me.”

  Don pushed off the cabinet and walked back to his desk without saying anything further.

  Liam watched him go. There was nothing more to say. Everyone he loved was trying to help him, but he wasn’t sure whom he could truly trust.

  26

  The computer screen was the only light on in Liam’s office. He’d drawn the shade over his window and turned off the overhead fluorescents. His door was shut. He needed to be alone and give the illusion that the office was empty. The screen showed Kerri’s phone records. His cell must’ve been on there more than twenty times, and her outgoing calls and texts also included his information, with the most recent being the night of her murder. He went through each line, deleting his number and any trace that he knew the victim of his own murder investigation. When he was done, he’d pass the records to Heckle and Keenan and have them investigate whatever else was on there. It would appear as if everything was moving status quo with the case. In a matter of weeks, if not days, they would find nothing and close the case unsolved, putting this all behind them. Sean was right. Better to be done with it and move on quietly so they could investigate on their own and find whoever was doing this.