Page 17 of Red Snow
“How’d everything go this morning?” Detective Chavis asks, glaring at me with those dark, beady little eyes. “You guys get all the help you needed?”
I glare right back at Brandon with pure malice in my face. “Everything went fine. We don’t need any help. Thanks, though.” I’m sure he can sense the resentment dripping from my words.
“Well, you probablywillneed help, so when that time comes, just let us know. We’d be glad to assist you with this one.” Brandon flashes the fakest smile in Anchorage before sitting down at his desk that’s entirely too close to mine. I think to say something back, but Marcus catches my attention before I can.
“Hey, that was Krista,” Marcus says as he hangs up the phone and jots something down on his notepad—always the meticulous note-taker. “We’ve got a positive ID on Brenda Cox—forty-five years old, first grade teacher at Creekside Park Elementary, married to Patrick Cox for the past twenty-five years with two kids in college at UAA.”
“Great,” I reply, taking a seat at my desk that’s parked directly in front of Marcus’s. “Anything on time of death?”
“Yeah, Krista said by the time her body was found, she’d been dead five or six hours already. So, that makes her time of death between eleven last night and midnight this morning.”
“Eleven last night,” I say as a statement, thinking out loud. “I wonder if the husband called us, worried about where his wife was.”
“Already checked it,” Marcus says, looking at more notes on his pad. “No calls to the department from him, however, we don’t know anything about when she left her house last night. If it hadn’t been twenty-four hours, we wouldn’t have done anything anyway. We won’t know anything until we go talk to him.”
“Then I guess we better get on it,” I answer. “I’ll get his address from the clerk and we’ll go see if we can talk to him. Does he even know she’s been killed?”
“I don’t know. The guy’s been a ghost so far,” Marcus says, giving me that look he gets when he’s suspicious of something. “They cancelled school for the day, so you know the whole school knows about Brenda’s death. There’s no way he doesn’t know about it by now, yet he hasn’t tried to contact us about any information we have. He hasn’t asked about how or why his wife is dead. That’s not normal.”
“Nah, it’s not. It’s suspicious as fuck, that’s what it is. Let’s go see him.”
Marcus and I decide to take a cruiser over to the address given to us by the APD clerk. I let Marcus drive because it gives me time to think instead of focusing on the road. While he drives, I don’t look forward, I look to the side—out the window towards the snowcapped mountains surrounding my beautiful city. It’s a gorgeous place, and it makes me wonder how anyone surrounded by so much beauty could do something so ugly, like cut a woman’s head off her shoulders. Life is fucked up. One minute you’re a teacher, instilling knowledge to first graders, the next minute you’re being decapitated and put on display in front of the same school you used to teach at. It’s terrible, and it’s on me and Marcus to right this wrong.
“You good over there?” Marcus asks, noticing how quiet I am.
“Yeah, I just can’t get the image out of my head,” I reply. “We’ll know if it’s the husband as soon as we see him. The fact that he hasn’t tried to contact us already has me suspicious of him.”
“Well don’t go in there convinced he’s guilty,” Marcus tells me as he makes a right onto Patrick Cox’s street. “We have to keep in mind that we need evidence. If he did it, we’ll catch him slipping in his story. Don’t push it though, okay?”
“Sure.”
We park out front, and I see a dirty black truck in the driveway, which I assume is Patrick’s. He’s home, and I feel a mix of poise and suspense flow through me as we exit the cruiser and walk up the snow-covered path to the front door. Marcus knocks with authority and it doesn’t take long for us to hear the tell-tale sound of locks being undone on the other side of the white door.
When I see Patrick Cox, the first thing I think is that he’s tall—at least six-two. Then again, I’m only five-nine, so a lot of people are tall to me. He’s a little on the skinny side, with a buzzed head and bags under his eyes. He looks like he hasn’t slept in a while, even though his wife was found only this morning. Is that because he’s grieving and miserable, or is it because he’s been up all night cutting his wife’s head off?
“Good evening, Mr. Cox. My name is Detective Marcus Phillips from the Anchorage Police Department, Homicide Unit,” Marcus begins, falling right into his role of the good cop. “This is my partner, Detective Jarrod Granger. Do you mind if we come in? There’s a lot we have to talk about, sir.”
“This is about Brenda,” Patrick states, staring at us blankly. He seems to stare off into space for a second, before finally turning on his heel and walking away from the door, leaving it open for us to follow him in.
He doesn’t say anything else as he leads us through the neat house. The place is definitely well-kept, with lots of little knick-knacks on multiple bookshelves in each room we walk past. Once we’re in the living room, Patrick sits down on a dark blue recliner and interlocks his fingers in his lap. He doesn’t even look at us once he’s seated. Marcus and I look at each other, wondering what the hell is up with this guy, and we eventually decide to take it upon ourselves to sit down on the sofa that matches the recliner. Marcus pulls out his notepad and clicks his pen, ready to do his thing, but Patrick doesn’t say a word, so Marcus starts the conversation after clearing his throat.
“First of all, we appreciate you giving us the opportunity to speak with you tonight, Mr. Cox,” he begins, although Patrick still stares blankly. “At the door, you mentioned that we’re here about Brenda, your wife. Are you aware of what happened to her, Mr. Cox?”
Patrick sits silently, blinking faster than a normal person would as tears fill his eyes. He looks completely dejected, and I can’t read him at all. But we do need him to talk, so I speak up for the first time.
“Mr. Cox,” I snap, finally grabbing his attention. “As much as we appreciate you letting us in, it’s pretty pointless if you don’t actually talk to us. So, could please answer the question?”
“I’ll ask it again,” Marcus chimes in, trying to keep things calm. “Are you aware of what happened to your wife?”
After more weird blinking, the teary-eyed, messy-haired man finally speaks in a low tone that sounds like he just woke up from a long, deep sleep.
“Yes,” he mumbles. “I heard.”
“Okay,” Marcus says, looking down at his notepad, although he doesn’t write anything. “How did you find out about it?”
“I got a call from Anita.”
“Anita Akers? The school counselor who found the body? She called you and told you?” Marcus sounds shocked. When we spoke to Anita this morning, she acted like she didn’t really know Patrick almost at all. But she knew him enough to have his number? I don’t say anything, but my suspicion heightens.
