Lonnie
He finally forced himself to step away from Kurt’s tombstone. Everyone else has already left the gravesite, but Lonnie couldn’t bear to walk away without at least spending a few more minutes talking to his partner. There was so much he wished he’d said to Kurt while he was alive. He wished he’d told him how much he admired him. How he’d been excited the moment he’d heard who his first partner would be. That he’d never met a harder working detective than Kurt Jamison. Instead, he’d spent the past several years giving Kurt a hard time and making fun of his age.
Lonnie walked across the brown and yellow grass with his overcoat pulled tightly around himself and his hands in his pockets. When he arrived at his cruiser, he slid into the front seat, slammed the door, and turned on the engine and the heat. He leaned his head back against the headrest and exhaled deeply. There was nothing Lonnie hated more than funerals, but in his line of work, they were practically unavoidable. He had known three officers to lose their lives in the line of duty since he started at the academy, but none of them had been shot and killed by a psychopath.
When the call had come over the wire about the shooting at the barn, Lonnie had been sitting at his desk in the precinct, trying like hell to figure out where Kurt had gone to in such a hurry. He was beyond frustrated with him for not bringing him along. Had Lonnie had a clue what Kurt was doing, he would have insisted on riding along. Perhaps then things wouldn’t have gone down the way they had, and Kurt would still be alive.
Since he was the last person to leave, aside from the gravediggers, he was able to quickly exit the cemetery and pull onto the main road. Traffic was heavy in downtown Lexington, as it always was around five o’clock on a weekday. It seemed wrong to Lonnie for life to be continuing as if nothing had happened. It felt like the world should stop, if only for a brief moment, and mourn the loss of a great cop. But that didn’t happen, and when he slunk into the building and toward his office, he kept his head down to avoid seeing all the empathetic stares and sorrowful glances from his colleagues. When the lieutenant tried to stop him and offer his condolences once again, Lonnie just held his hand up and kept walking.
When he made it into the small office he’d shared with Kurt, it somehow seemed bigger and emptier without him there. One glance over at Kurt’s desk was enough for tears to sting his eyes for the third time that day. Lonnie had promised Kurt’s sister he’d pack up his belongings for her, so he would somehow have to muddle through it for her sake.
He grabbed a box full of copy paper, dumped it out, and set it on top of Kurt’s desk. Lonnie smiled when he saw how disorderly Kurt’s area was. Kurt was one hell of a detective, but he was horrible at organization. Slowly, he picked up a framed photograph of Kurt’s sister and nephews and placed it in the box. Next, he placed his favorite coffee mug, the white one with blue letters that read BEST UNCLE EVER, and placed it beside the frame. One by one, he picked up all of Kurt’s personal belongings. Within five minutes, he was done. Kurt never brought many personal things to the office. He’d said he wanted to keep his two lives completely separate.
Lonnie dropped down into Kurt’s chair and chuckled softly when he recalled an argument they’d had over why Kurt’s chair was so much better than Lonnie’s. Kurt had explained that he’d had to buy it himself because the department wouldn’t spring for a chair that would better support his bad back. That didn’t stop Lonnie from ragging on Kurt for being a spoiled old man.
Something caught his attention as he looked around one last time, making sure he had everything. He bent over and picked up a book that had apparently fallen face down and was open in the middle. Where on earth had this come from? It was made of red leather and had long, thin red straps attached to the front and back. He laid it on Kurt’s desk and flipped it over onto its back. Lonnie could tell by the warning etched into the first page in large letters that the journal belonged to Mollie Cartwright.
Where did this come from?
The journal was open to a page near the middle. Lonnie looked down and read the pretty cursive script.
Dear Journal,
I’m having a particularly bad day today. It’s been three years since Dalton died…
Lonnie vaguely recalled Mollie’s best friend mentioning that her boyfriend had committed suicide near the end of their senior year. The poor girl had had it rough.
…and I still can’t believe no one knows the truth. I mean, how stupid are people? Do they really think he killed himself? The kid was an honor student, the starting quarterback, and had a full-ride scholarship lined up to UK. Nobody with that much going for them ever takes their own life. But I guess if you think about it, he was kind of stupid. He believed that I really did love him. And he believed I would never hurt him. I wouldn’t have…if he hadn’t cheated on me with that slut Rebecca. That’s why I had to shoot him in the head.
Lonnie’s eyes went wide as saucers. Had he really just read what he thought he’d read? It was like Jekyll and Hyde. One minute her journal had been nothing but typical ramblings of a teenage girl. The next minute, she’s confessing to murdering her boyfriend.
I wasn’t sure everyone would believe my story about Dalton committing suicide, but I guess I got lucky. But with today being the anniversary of his death, I have to pretend to be sad and mope around like I’m totally depressed. Mom even offered to buy me a puppy to make me feel better. She said maybe I wouldn’t feel so lonely, and it might even distract me from thinking about Dalton so much. Does she not realize how much I hate animals? You’d think she would have gotten the clue when I killed every single pet she ever got me. But she just assumed they ran away or got sick or something. She can be so dense sometimes.
Lonnie rubbed his brow then covered his open mouth with his hand. His stomach clenched as he forced himself to read on.
Take Pops, for example. She knows he’s different and that he hides things from her, but she chooses to stick her head in the sand like an ostrich. I, on the other hand, wasn’t surprised when the kids at school told me the truth about Pops. He’s supposedly the biggest crime lord in Kentucky, which is pretty cool when you think about it. He’s, like, the John Gotti of the Bluegrass. I don’t think he kills people, but I don’t know. Maybe he does. He does spend a lot of time at Granny’s horse farm. I’ve followed him there before, and he’s there a lot when I’m visiting her. Maybe he’s hiding bodies out there! It’s where he goes when he doesn’t want to be found, I know that much. If I ever need to hide a body, I know where to go!
So, this was how Kurt had found Frankie. He’d read Mollie’s journal, and besides realizing she was a sociopath who’d murdered her boyfriend, he’d read about the horse farm in his ex-wife’s name. Lonnie silently cursed himself for not even thinking about properties that weren’t legally in his name when he was searching. If he’d found the farm himself, they’d have gone together, and maybe Kurt would still be alive.
I’d better get to work. My shift starts in half an hour. I have to pretend I’m some normal girl, but it gets exhausting sometimes. I wish I could show someone about the real me. Let them see me for who I really am. Then I wouldn’t have to pretend anymore. I wouldn’t have to wear the mask of a perfect girl with a perfect family and a perfect life. I could just be me.
Bile rose in the back of Lonnie’s throat when it all came together like pieces of a complicated puzzle finally falling into place. Now everything that had been strange to him started to make sense. Lonnie had trouble believing Frankie had been the one to shoot Kurt, even though he confessed immediately. Lonnie knew about the history between the two men, and the thought of Frankie killing his former best friend and childhood playmate didn’t sit right with him. But he’d had no choice but to arrest Franklin Cartwright for the murder of Detective Kurt Jamison. Not to mention Collin McAllister.
Now Frankie would spend the rest of his life in prison in order to cover for his granddaughter.
Lonnie could almost visualize what had gone down at the horse farm as if he’d been an eyewitness to the whole charade. Kurt had realized he needed to check the horse farm, thanks to what he’d read in Mollie’s twisted journal entry. When he’d arrived, he’d likely found Frankie right after he’d killed Collin McAllister, whose body was found tied to a table, with a stab wound to his right shoulder. The two men probably struggled, as there had been unexplained scuff marks in the dirt and hay, and Mollie had retrieved the gun and shot Kurt before he could arrest Frankie.
She was trying to protect her grandfather, but now Frankie would spend the rest of his life protecting the granddaughter he may or may not have known was a sociopath. It explained why Frankie had called the police about the shooting and then confessed so quickly and freely when they arrived at the farm.
Lonnie shut the journal and stood from Kurt’s desk. He debated briefly over what to do with the journal. As it was technically evidence, he should turn it over to his lieutenant and have it officially admitted. If he did that, Mollie Cartwright would be arrested not only for Kurt’s murder but for the murder of her former boyfriend. It was what she deserved. She should pay for taking at least two lives that Lonnie knew about.
But then a thought came to Lonnie’s mind. Frankie actually wanted to take the fall for his granddaughter. And once upon a time, Frankie and Kurt had been like brothers. Lonnie knew if Kurt were still alive, he’d have tried to protect Frankie, but if that failed, he would have at least honored Frankie’s final wish and let him take the fall.
His mind made up, Lonnie taped up the box of Kurt’s belongings and carried it out to his cruiser. After placing the cardboard box in the back seat, he walked over to the large green dumpsters behind the precinct and tossed the journal over the top. As he walked back to his cruiser, he told himself he’d done the right thing. Maybe not the legal thing, but he’d honored his partner and his partner’s friendship with Frankie. It may not have been the right ending to a forty-year-old nightmare, but it was the ending Kurt would have wanted.
THE END