Protector. Part 1

Protector.

by Laurel Dewey.

To my parents, who encouraged me to pursue a writing career . . .

To Granny, who continues to provide me with support, guidance & love . . .

And to David-my best friend, lover & husband . . . With you, I am calm. With you, I am home. With you, I am finally free.

Acknowledgments.

My grat.i.tude goes out to the many patrol officers, Sergeants and Sheriff's Homicide Detectives throughout Colorado who helped with the research and development of the story. A special thanks to Lieutenant Wayne Weyler of the Mesa County Sheriff 's Department in Grand Junction, Colorado.

Kudos to Carol Craven for the photo.

Thanks to Peter Miller for believing in this book, Many thanks to Lou Aronica for his insight and unwavering support throughout this project.

We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.

-Herman Melville

Chapter 1.

The stars were not particularly bright on that May evening. Emily Lawrence craned her neck as she looked outside her open upstairs bedroom window, hoping she could see a pinpoint glimmer of Pluto in the stark night sky. Unfortunately, the large sycamore tree just outside the window prevented a clear view. Discouraged, she pulled herself back into the house and slid down onto the ever-so-pink carpeting that almost matched her nightgown.

Emily took another look at the star chart that plotted the constellations and diagramed the location of her favorite stellar objects. Satisfied, she flicked off the bedroom light and clicked on the overhead Starlight Starbright projector she received on her ninth birthday, six months before. It was the only gift she wanted and once it was hers, it became her constant companion. She would lie on her bed at night after the house was quiet, her shoulder-length brown hair curled around her pillow, and stare in wonder at the myriad twinkling stars and constellations that projected across her bedroom ceiling and walls. By turning one k.n.o.b, the constellations slowly moved clockwise around the room, melting into the carpeting and resurfacing on the opposite wall. With the turn of another k.n.o.b, the room filled with the hushed sounds of soft wind and the distant euphony of Puccini's "Nessun Dorma." She stared transfixed by this celestial ballet, engulfed in its embrace, and felt safe.

Outside, a sothing whisper of wind rustled the sycamore leaves. Emily felt herself drifting off to sleep when she was jolted awake by the sound of her mother's angry voice downstairs. Her body tightened as she tried to ignore the escalating volume. Her parents' arguments had grown in intensity over the past few weeks. What began as a disagreement in the kitchen would spread into the living room and then the hallway where the nearby staircase led a straight path to Emily's bedroom door. The only respite Emily had from her parents' constant discord was a peaceful nine-day camping trip in Moab, Utah with her mother. They'd returned the night before, but it didn't take long for her parents to resume their loud disputes. However, on this night, the combative sounds from downstairs were the worst ever. The anger in her mother's voice was now etched with fear. Emily resisted, then gave in and walked toward her bedroom door. She turned the k.n.o.b, inching the door open.

The upstairs hallway was dark, as was the downstairs entry hall near the front door. Emily and her mother's sleeping bags from their camping trip were still stacked at the bottom of the stairs. The child peeked through the opening of her bedroom door and watched as her mother, Patricia, paced back and forth. Out of Emily's view, her father, David, sat on the living room couch, his hand cupped tightly against his forehead. His terrified eyes focused intently on the circular patterns of the living room carpeting. Patricia clutched a sheet of notepaper. She looked at it, silently read it and then flared into another tirade.

"Exactly when were you going to tell me about this, David?" Patricia Lawrence screamed at her husband, jerking the paper toward him.

"I . . . I didn't know how to tell you," David responded, his voice shaking.

"Look at me!" She moved her slender body close to David.

David buried his face in both hands. "I'm sorry," he uttered.

"The h.e.l.l you're sorry!" Patricia yelled. "How could you keep this letter from me? G.o.dd.a.m.nit, didn't you think I would eventually find out? All those nights . . . all those G.o.dd.a.m.n nights of you calling me and telling me you had to work late . . ."

"I was working," David weakly interjected.

"I don't think they call it 'work' after the second or third c.o.c.ktail!"

David pulled his hands from his flushed face. "Patty, please! We've got to talk about this rationally."

"Rationally? Oh, that's rich! Suddenly you want to be rational? Why wasn't that thought going through your head when the relations.h.i.+p became clear? Why didn't you just walk away?"

"I don't know-"

"You don't know?" Patricia's voice was quickly becoming hysterical. "You know what your problem is? You're weak! Ever since you were young, you always wanted to play with the big boys, but you never fit in."

"No. That's not true," David responded unconvincingly.

"It is true! You fantasized about what it would feel like to be accepted by people who lived on the edge. You got off on that fantasy. And then, that fantasy became real."

David covered his face again. "Maybe. Maybe I did."

"Well, you picked a h.e.l.luva time to live out your fantasy!" Patricia lunged toward her husband, leaned down and forcefully pulled his hands away from his face. "When the connection was made," she continued with a slow, angry cadence, "between the two of you and they saw the kind of close relations.h.i.+p you had, did you ever once consider the implications of what could happen? How it would affect us? Or Emily?" At the sound of her name, Emily crawled onto the stairway landing, staying in the darkness so her parents could not see her. Patricia spoke quietly, but there was a penetrating punctuation to each syllable. "The minute you found out what was going on, you should have walked away."

"I know . . ." David replied in a weak voice. "But, I couldn't."

"Jesus!" Patricia pulled away from her husband. "How f.u.c.ked up were you?"

"Oh, s.h.i.+t, Patty!" David's voice raised several octaves as he nervously got up and walked across the room. "I may have been a little drunk, but I wasn't f.u.c.ked up!" David brushed back his thick brown hair with his hand. It was then that he realized his hand was shaking. His eyes fell to the floor and he spoke in a hushed voice, holding back tears. "Things were said and the more we talked, the more the trust began to build between the two of us. And then . . . I just wanted to help."

"David, how could you throw everything away that you know is right and true and decent for a relations.h.i.+p that could destroy us?"

"I would never consciously do anything to hurt you or Emily!"

"You don't think you hurt us when drink a fifth and have to stay in bed all day because you can't cope? Because you can't be the man you're supposed to be?"

"That's a low blow, Patty."

"No, David. That's the truth," Patricia said tersely.

David searched for the right words. "We're going to be okay-"

"Are you crazy?" Patricia exploded. "Didn't you read this?" She shoved the letter in David's face.

David slid away toward the staircase. "I don't want to read it again!"

"No, you don't want to see what you've done to us! Let's pretend it doesn't exist and maybe it'll go away! Well, this is not going to go away! But I am and I'm taking Emily with me!"

Emily's throat tightened. She watched her mother angrily shove the letter into an open wooden slot that protruded from the rear of the hallway desk. Patricia slammed the slot shut, leaving a slim corner of the notepaper exposed.

"Oh, Jesus, Patty," David begged. "Don't do this."

"No more, David! Emily and I should have never come back from Moab! I should have kept driving and put as much distance between us as possible! I will not put my daughter through h.e.l.l because you wanted your fifteen minutes of fame! I'm packing our bags and taking Emily to my sister in Cheyenne."

"You can't take her away from me! She's my daughter, too! I love her!"

"Maybe you should have thought about that months ago."

"For G.o.d's sake-" David stopped in his tracks as he looked up the staircase and saw Emily hiding in the shadows. "Oh, G.o.d, sweetheart. Go back to bed."

Emily stepped from the shadows. "Why are we going away again, Mommy?"

Patricia moved toward the staircase. "Emily, go back to your bedroom." Her tone was precise and laced with agitation. "I'll be up to talk to you."

Emily started to turn when she stopped and looked down at her parents. "I love you, Mommy."

"I love you, too. Go on!" Patricia said.

Emily looked at her father's eyes; they were sad and pitiful. It was the same look she saw when he drank himself into a stupor and stared into nothingness. A sense of helplessness welled up inside the child. "I love you, Daddy," she whispered.

David put his fingers to his lips, kissed them and blew the kiss toward Emily. "I love you too, sweet pea."

Emily paused, freezing the moment in her memory, then walked back into her bedroom, closing the door behind her. The sound of her parents' voices were m.u.f.fled, but still peppered with rage. Her head was filled with the dreaded thought of leaving the only home she had ever known. She nervously paced around her room as the Starlight Starbright projector light cast celestial shapes across her face and body. Emily wanted desperately to feel safe from the world and all the awful possibilities. She quickly grabbed the projector along with the navy blue vinyl carrying case and toted it into her tiny bedroom closet. Closing the door, she situated herself on the floor of the closet, partially covered by the hanging clothes. She tried to get comfortable, and then remembered the ma.s.s of oversized pillows on her bed. Wriggling out from under the clothing, she opened the door and made her way in the semi-darkness. Emily dragged two large pillows off the bed and started back when she heard the front 10:00 p.m. in bright red neon. Pressing her ear to her bedroom door, she heard the sound of another male voice-a voice she didn't recognize.

Although she couldn't make out any specific words, the tone sounded like a friendly conversation between her mother and father and the unknown voice. Emily thought she heard the word "accident," coming from the mysterious guest. She hadn't heard any crash of metal echoing from Franklin Street. But then again, her parents' fervent voices could have drowned out the collision.

For a brief second, she wondered if it was A.J.'s dad. Ten long days ago, A.J. had suddenly moved away with her parents with no warning. The only explanation her mother offered was that A.J.'s father got a job offer in California and had to leave quickly or he would lose the opportunity. As her mother told her this story, Emily could tell it was a lie and wondered to herself why A.J. didn't want to be her friend anymore. It seemed odd to her; less than one month before, the two families enjoyed a Sunday picnic in Was.h.i.+ngton Park. One of the photos from that day of Emily and her parents was proudly propped up against her clock. It was a beaming portrait of family bliss that belied the truth.

The conversation downstairs sputtered out as Emily plotted the sound of single footsteps walking across the living room floor, heading toward the kitchen. She heard the kitchen door close-a familiar reverberation that always echoed up into her bedroom. She waited, hugging the two large pillows close to her chest. Less than a minute later, Emily heard the sound of the kitchen door opening and an abrupt raised pitch of voices. If that was A.J.'s father, he suddenly didn't sound very happy. Emily pulled away from the door. She figured that whatever was happening downstairs was better left to her parents and that her mother would tell her a dressed up version of the truth the next morning.

She plopped the oversized pillows on the closet floor, closed the door and buried her body under the cus.h.i.+oned ma.s.s. It was like a soft coc.o.o.n that cradled and hid her from the outside world. She turned on the Starlight Starbright projector and the glimmering stars began their orbital ballet. Every crevice of her closet was painted with twinkling lights and murky galaxies. Emily peered out from between the pillows, captivated by the celestial dance. With another flick of a switch, the soft, melodic tones of "Nessun Dorma," interwoven with the sounds of cras.h.i.+ng waves and a gentle wind, drifted into the air.

The voices downstairs became louder. But Emily stayed focused on the brilliant constellations that rotated across the closet walls and ceiling. She could feel her heart pounding harder and harder.

That's the last thing Emily remembered.

Chapter 2.

Detective Jane Perry woke up with a start. For a second, she had no idea where she was. Her breathing was fast and labored, as though she'd just run a marathon. Jane closed her eyes and let out a loud grunt. Catching her breath, she stared at the ceiling in a slight daze. "f.u.c.k," was all she could utter in a raspy whisper.

She'd had the same b.l.o.o.d.y nightmare again. But it was different this time. There was something else; something incongruous to the usual pattern of violence. But that something else was ominously intangible to Jane. It was as though she could d.a.m.n near taste it and smell the scent of danger but her rational mind couldn't define it. Whatever this was, it felt patently real, as if it had already happened. She'd always accepted her sixth sense-gut intuitiveness that some cops coined "The Blue Sense." But that only came into play after exhaustive logical reasoning. Now it appeared that her intuitive mind was morphing into a chaotic, precognitive monster that hid between the shadows of her conscious mind. Jane tried to chalk up this tender sense of doom to her five-day booze binge. But she'd hit the bottle hard many times and never felt the queasy uneasiness that was beginning to take on a life of its own. The thought crossed her mind that she was finally losing it. After 35 years of barely holding it together, she feared she might be unraveling. That fear alone jolted her back to her senses as she lay alone in her bed staring into the void.

Jane coughed deeply-the kind of gut cough that comes from over 20 years of chain smoking. She reached over to the bedside table feeling for a pack of cigarettes. The table, just like the rest of the house, was a mess-the tactile consequence of her binge. A dozen empty cigarette packs, three drained bottles of Jack Daniels and a thick coating of ashes from the overturned ashtray littered the small table. Coming up empty-handed, she leaned over to the other side of the bed where another table sat askew from the wall. Opening the drawer, Jane found a full pack of Marlboros and a lighter. Her gut-wrenching cough continued as she peeled off the wrapping, jerked a cigarette out of the pack and lit up. She sucked the nicotine into her lungs like a seasoned pro. As the smoke peeled out of her mouth, she examined her bandaged left hand.

The emergency room doctor said the burn could have been worse and told her to apply the silver ointment twice a day to speed the healing. That was ten days ago and she'd plastered her hand with four coatings of the stuff before she gave up on it. Jane would be hard pressed to find the ointment underneath the debris that cluttered her bedroom. Dirty clothes intertwined with empty take-out cartons. A neat stack of beer stained yellow legal pads covered with writing sat on a pile of The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News newspapers. In the ten days since "the incident," as it became known at Denver Headquarters, she and her partner, Detective Chris Crawley, made the front page of both papers seven times. One photo of her in the Rocky was the same mug on her ID badge. There she was with that sullen, p.i.s.sed off expression. In contrast, Chris' adjacent front-page photo with his sweep of blond hair and narrow, ruddy cheeks, made him look like an altar boy. Subsequent stories on the pair featured a large photo from the disastrous press conference that left more questions unanswered about the explosion. It also left the public wondering if Denver Homicide was as inept as the media portrayed them.

To say the incident haunted Jane Perry was putting it mildly. It was one thing for her to replay the whole thing in her mind second by second and ask herself what she could have done differently. But it was quite another to relive the disjointed images over and over again every night in her dreams. Sitting in the patrol car with Chris. Checking her watch. Chris calling the undercover cops on his cell phone and getting Stover's ETA. Seeing the Range Rover coming down the street. Observing Bill Stover, his wife Yvonne and their ten-year-old daughter Amy wave toward Jane as they pulled into their driveway. Feeling that instant between the silence and the chaos. Seeing the hood of the SUV explode in a burst of flames amidst the yellow smoke of the C-4 explosive. And then racing toward the burning car and finding Bill and Yvonne slumped across the dashboard and Amy with her hands pressed against the gla.s.s, screaming. Trying to open the back door and finding it locked. Then punching her fist against the gla.s.s to try and break it as the flames shot around the SUV from the hood. Feeling the icy burn across her left hand as Chris held her back from the car and smelling the melting paint and metal and flesh. Then staring at Amy's fixated eyes as the life drained out of them. It was that last moment that always shot Jane out of the nightmare and back into her life of h.e.l.l. And it was just another reason to get loaded.

Jane took a long drag on her cigarette and coughed hard enough to pop a lung. She reached for the empty Jack Daniels bottle in hopes of finding a trickle of liquid relief. No luck. She tossed the bottle across the room and looked at the clock. 8:15. "s.h.i.+t!" Jane exclaimed as she threw back the covers and struggled to her feet. Clenching the cigarette between her lips, she pressed the palm of her good hand to her forehead in hopes of pus.h.i.+ng back the pounding pressure. A h.e.l.luva way to start her first day back. She had 45 minutes to get dressed, collect her paperwork, fight the morning traffic to DH and be seated in Sergeant Weyler's office.

As Jane made her way across the bedroom to the bathroom, she tripped over the answering machine with its flas.h.i.+ng message light flickering like a warning beacon. Kicking it aside, she peeled off her sweat-soaked unders.h.i.+rt and panties and started the water in the shower. She plopped down on the toilet seat and caught her reflection in the bathroom mirror. The term "rode hard and put away wet," crossed her mind. There she was, cigarette dangling precipitously from her mouth, her brown, shoulder length hair falling across her sallow face and those bloodshot, brown eyes staring back with dark circles and bags underneath them. "What would Weyler think?" she wondered.

A million thoughts raced through her head as she showered and toweled off. She may have taken medical leave for five days but that didn't mean she hadn't organized a few scenarios that could have led to the car bombing. Sure, some of them were pretty wild and the result of a fifth of Jack but Jane still thought they were worth pitching to Weyler. That was the crazy thing about Jane-she could have the biggest load on and still pitch a rational series of probabilities for a crime that would prompt further investigation. Her fellow homicide detectives might call her a "rebel," "an outsider" or a "b.i.t.c.h," but no one could deny her intelligence, diligence and that palpable intuition that played a role in solving many of Denver's most baffling homicides.

Jane settled on a pair of brown slacks and a plain light blue oxford cloth s.h.i.+rt. She found one rough out western boot and uncovered its mate after overturning several discarded pizza cartons. 8:35. She was cutting it close as she walked down the dimly lit hallway and into the kitchen. After adjusting her shoulder holster and securing her Glock pistol, Jane lit a new cigarette on the dying ember of the last one before tossing the b.u.t.t into the sink, amidst more discarded bottles of Jack Daniels, Corona and dirty dishes. Checking around the corner into the living room, she found the TV on with the sound muted. The bedding was still tucked into the couch where her brother, Mike, had slept the night before. No sign of him. Jane turned to the kitchen counter and found a note stuffed into the mouth of an empty Corona bottle. It read: "Tried to wake you up but you wouldn't buge." Jane's eyes lingered on Mike's version of the word "budge," wondering when he was going to learn to spell. "Gotta work the early s.h.i.+ft today. See you at his house tonight. 6 o'clock, right? Good luck at work! Mike." At the bottom of the page, there was one more sentence, written in caps. "DON'T FORGIT THE BEER!"

Jane opened the refrigerator. A quick check resulted in the discovery of five-day-old milk, expired bacon and an a.s.sortment of decaying fruit-a get-well gift Mike delivered a couple days after the incident. Slamming the refrigerator door shut, Jane spun around and poured what was left in the coffee maker into a mug. She knocked back the cold, black liquid. The caffeine cut through her foggy head as an unexpected scene flashed in front of her. There was a little girl and the brief swath of navy blue. There was a gun-a Glock outstretched and the blitz of reflected light that blinded.

And there was unmitigated terror-the kind that chokes and paralyzes.

The images lasted only a second but burned like lye into Jane's head. She felt as if she'd already experienced what she saw but there was no link to reality. There was a sense of merging . . . yes, fusion into another reality . . . or someone else's reality. Jane leaned across the sink as a disturbing disconnection took hold. If this was what it felt like to go insane, she wasn't up for it today. Gathering every last bit of mental reserve, Jane forced herself back into her body. "Not today," she whispered, more as an order. Once settled, she collected several legal pads and sc.r.a.ps of paper. Stuffing them into her worn leather satchel, she grabbed her keys, opened her front door and faced the world.

Half a dozen plastic wrapped newspapers sat in a heap outside her doorway. She had given up on them after reading too many stories about the car bombing. The pathway that led from the front door of her drab, dirty brick house to her car was about 30 feet-a distance that should ensure an uneventful journey. However, Hazel Owens, her 65-year-old next-door neighbor on Milwaukee Street was perched on her front porch, dressed in a chenille robe and sipping juice.

"Mornin', Detective!" Hazel exclaimed in her over-the-top chirpy voice. "Happy first day back!" Jane stole a quick glance in Hazel's direction, her dangling cigarette dropping ashes on her s.h.i.+rtsleeve. Hazel held up the front section of The Denver Post and pointed her arthritic finger toward the story featured above the fold. "You find the awful people who did this to that poor little child!"

Jane had no idea what the old woman was talking about. Sometimes she would respond to Hazel's regular morning send-offs with a simple "Uh-huh" or "Yeah." But the only acknowledgment the old broad would get this morning was a slight raise of the head and a quick turn as Jane tossed her satchel into her '66 ice blue Mustang. If she drove like a demon, she might be able to make the two-mile trip to Headquarters in Denver rush hour traffic in less than ten minutes.

Jane peeled away from the curb as if the flag had been dropped at the Indy 500. Barreling down Milwaukee Street, past the neat rows of two-story brick houses, she shoved Bob Seger's Against the Wind CD into the player and turned up the volume on "Betty Lou's Gettin' Out Tonight." She sped up to 13th Street and turned left onto the one-way, four lane thoroughfare. From there, it was a straight shot to the corner of 13th and Cherokee where the six-story, barrack-like structure, better known as Denver Headquarters, stood. After weaving in and out of traffic like a skilled racecar driver, she squealed into the underground parking garage. Seger sung the chorus of "Fire Lake" as she swung into a spot near the elevator. She downed another swig of cold coffee, grabbed her satchel, slammed the door shut and raced toward the elevator.

8:58. Jane slapped the b.u.t.ton and shoved the heel of her boot into the closed elevator doors. "Come on, G.o.dd.a.m.nit!" she shouted. The elevator doors opened, as if in response to her barking order. Jane lunged in, punching the third floor b.u.t.ton with her fist.

The elevator stopped on the main floor and a young Mexican woman in her late twenties got on, hand in hand with a terrified looking child who Jane figured was around eight years old. A front desk officer accompanied them. Without looking at the b.u.t.tons, the woman quietly said "Third floor," in broken English. Jane gave the b.u.t.ton another hard whack. The doors closed and the officer stole a glance at Jane and her cigarette, tapping his finger on the "No smoking" emblem. Jane threw the cigarette on the elevator floor, crus.h.i.+ng it with the toe of her boot.

The officer looked straight ahead. "You can't leave that b.u.t.t in here."

Jane would have ripped him a new one if the woman and kid hadn't been there. Instead, she picked up the crushed cigarette and threw it in her satchel.

The little girl turned her body to face her mother, burying her face in her mother's stomach. "Tengo miedo," the little girl muttered.

"Is okay," the mother said, patting her daughter's head and leaning down to kiss her. "Momma gonna make it okay."

Jane suddenly felt that same disjointed sense of reality hit again. She tried to quash the mounting tension that bled across her shoulder blades but it was no use. "Tengo miedo," meant "I'm frightened." Those were two words Jane heard on a daily basis from children when she did her four-year stint in a.s.sault during the late 1980s and early 1990s. She hated every second of it but she made it through by maintaining emotional distance with the children and never getting close to the victims. She figured if she busted her a.s.s and nailed some of Denver's worst violators of women and children, she'd have a better chance of getting into homicide-the top of the heap, as far as she was concerned. Tengo miedo. So why was the little girl frightened? Jane noticed that the slim woman was a bundle of nerves. Her facial muscles twitched and she continually licked her lips as she fixed her eyes on the elevator door. A lifelong student of human behavior, Jane concluded that if this woman wasn't a criminal, she was certainly planning to become one.

The elevator doors opened onto the third floor. The woman and child got off with the officer as he motioned to the left, "a.s.sault's this way, ma'am," he said. Jane stopped for a second and watched how the kid clung to her mother. If Jane weren't already late to Weyler's office, she would have followed them down to a.s.sault to get the skinny on the story. But instead, she took a sharp right and another left into the homicide department.