Page 91 of Den of Iniquity

“What happens in the jail isn’t your problem.”

“But it was my arrest,” she argued. “I’m the one who initiated having my department take him into custody.”

“Which, considering what he’d done, you were duty bound to do.”

“What Pritchard did to his students was abhorrent,” Mel continued as though I hadn’t said a word. “He was charged with a crime, yes, but he hadn’t been convicted. And the crimes he was accused of didn’t add up to death penalty cases. What can I possibly say to his wife and kids?”

In all the years we’d been together, I had never seen Mel Soames so completely shattered, but once again I knew that any expression of sympathy from me would only make things worse.

“What you do,” I said after a pause, “is put on your big girl panties and your dress uniform. Then you go to the family’s home, knock on their door, and tell them how very sorry you are for their loss. Because the truth is, you are. They have lost a husband and father, and not just once, either. They’ve lost him in the flesh because he’s dead, but they’ve also lost the person they always believed him to be. I’m not sure which of those two losses is worse.”

Mel isn’t one of those women who turns on the waterworks at the drop of a hat, but this time the floodgates opened. She leaned into my chest and sobbed as though her heart was broken and she’d never be able to stop. I was glad it was just the two of us there at the time and that she was at home instead of at work. If she’d had that kind of breakdown at the department, she never would have lived it down. All of the hard-earned respect she has won over the years would have evaporated.

At last, getting a grip on herself, Mel pulled away, wiped her eyes, and abruptly changed the subject. “I already talked to the insurance adjuster.”

“What did he have to say?”

“She,” Mel corrected. “She said that repairing the damage on the Mercedes will cost more than the car is worth. They’re totaling it and sending over a rental for you to use until you can buy a replacement.”

Following her lead, I left the Pritchard family’s awful situation alone for the time being and focused on vehicular issues.

“So now I’m in the market for a new car?” I asked.

“Evidently,” she said.

“But a new S 550 will cost a fortune,” I objected.

“Then find a used one,” Mel suggested. “That’s what you did the last time.”

For the next two hours I told her everything that had happened the day before, including the welcome fact that Scott and Cherisse were expecting a baby. During that time I heard intermittent email alerts coming in on my phone, but I ignored them. What Mel needed to do right then was talk about something that wasn’t George Pritchard. And you’d better believe that when I told the story, I somehow failed to mention that I hadn’t been wearing my bulletproof vest when all hell had broken loose.

Finally at three o’clock in the afternoon, Mel stood up. “All right,” she said. “I think I’m ready. I’m going to go take a shower, get dressed, and go pay my respects to Alana Pritchard.”

“Would you like me to come along?”

“Please,” she said.

“Then I’d better get dressed, too.”

While doing so, I couldn’t help thinking about the similarity between what Caroline Richards had done to Kyle’s friend Gabe and what George Pritchard had done to an unknown number of female victims. Both of them had committed sexual assaults. As far as I knew, Caroline had been a first-time offender while Pritchard was a habitual one. She was getting a second chance. Pritchard was dead.

We went in Mel’s Interceptor. I rode shotgun, and Mel drove. At the Pritchard residence I sat in the living room with her and withPritchard’s widow and sons as Mel said her piece. I wish some of the Doubting Thomas members of Mel’s department had seen how she conducted herself that afternoon. The way she handled Alana Pritchard and her two shell-shocked kids was nothing short of masterful.

Alana and her boys were victims of her husband’s wrongdoing every bit as much as the high school girls he had sexually assaulted, but that didn’t mean they weren’t shattered by his unexpected death. By the time we left the house forty-five minutes after our arrival, Alana had agreed that she would welcome a visit from one of Bellingham PD’s victim advocates.

“Good work,” I told Mel as we headed back to the house. “I think she really appreciated your visit.”

“Thank you,” Mel said. “And thank you for encouraging me to do it. I don’t think I would have managed on my own.”

“Yes, you would have,” I assured her. “You’re the one person I know who always does the right thing.”

When we got back to the house, Kyle was home from what was likely his last day of in-person high school education. To my dismay, he looked almost as upset as Mel had been earlier.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“It’s my dad,” he said. “I just got off the phone with him. He was bawling like a baby. He told me that Caroline has left him, and he begged me to come home so he won’t be there all alone. I’m worried about him, Gramps. I’ve never heard him like that. He sounded desperate.”

Gramps wasn’t the one who delivered the comfort that time around. Mel did.

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