The Price of Blind Trust and Cruel Coldness Chapter 05
Thomas froze. “Homicide? What homicide?”
The officer ignored his question. His gaze fell on Mom crumpled on the living room floor, and his expression shifted sharply. “This woman needs help.”
He pushed past Thomas and rushed into the room, kneeling beside Mom.
He checked for a pulse, then called over his shoulder to his partner. “Get an ambulance, stat!”
The wail of ambulance sirens tore through the quiet morning. Two paramedics burst through the doorway carrying a stretcher.
“What’s the patient’s condition?”
“No pulse! Get the AED, now!”
The paramedic tore open my mother’s blouse. Each electric jolt from the defibrillator sent her body jerking violently against the floor.
My spirit hovered near the ceiling, reaching uselessly for her hand. “Mom, hold on.”
Thomas stood several feet away, brushing imaginary dust off his trousers with disgust. “Don’t waste your time. She’s putting on an act. Jennifer sent her over to harass me.”
The younger officer stood abruptly and grabbed Thomas by the collar of his shirt. “The woman is going into cardiac arrest, and you claim this is a performance?”
Thomas choked and coughed, trying to pry the officer’s hand off him. “The police shouldn’t meddle in family fights! Jennifer is a master of these tricks. She pretended to die inside the magic crate yesterday, remember?”
Willa hurried over, eyes glistening, clinging tightly to Thomas’s arm. “Sir, please understand. This isn’t Thomas’s fault. Jennifer ruined my magic show yesterday. Now her mother came here to argue, and we’re all frustrated.”
She squeezed out two fake tears and leaned into Thomas’s chest.
Antony ran down the stairs and pointed at my mom on the floor, shouting, “Grandma is bad! Take her away! Don’t let her bully Willa!”
I trembled violently as I stared at the son I’d labored to bring into the world. A hollow, searing pain tore through my chest.
The paramedics worked furiously performing CPR on my mom. “We’ve got a pulse! Move her to the stretcher!”
They rushed her out toward the ambulance.
The young officer released Thomas and pulled his handcuffs from his belt. “Mr. Black, you are required to come to the station for questioning now.”
Thomas rubbed his neck and sneered. “Questioning? About Jennifer disturbing the peace?”
The officer held up a crime-scene photograph directly in front of Thomas’s face. “Last night, at the South Suburb Waste Treatment Plant. Workers found a discarded magic crate. It contained large quantities of human blood and partial human remains.”
Thomas’s eyes widened in shock. He stared fixedly on the photo, but he quickly recovered and scoffed. “So what? That’s all fake stage blood. The remains are probably pork discarded by a butcher.”
Willa jumped in to back him up. “The crate broke, so I told staff to throw it away. That’s not against any law, right?”
The officer stared at them coldly. “Forensic testing confirmed it is human blood.”
Thomas’s face finally paled. “That can’t be right. The lab must have made a mistake! Jennifer would pull a stunt like this just to frame Willa.”
The officer wasted no further words.
A sharp metallic click echoed as handcuffs snapped shut around Thomas’s wrists. “We’ll sort out whether the lab made an error back at the precinct.”
As the police cruiser raced toward headquarters, Thomas was led into a dim interrogation room. Blinding overhead lights shone directly onto his face. He squinted, irritable.
Detective Chandler pulled out a chair and sat down. He slammed a case file hard onto the table. “Thomas Black. At three p.m. yesterday afternoon, you participated in a magic performance at Starlight Theater.”
Thomas twisted uncomfortably in his seat. “Yeah, so what? Since when is helping a friend with her act a crime?”
Detective Chandler turned on the projector mounted on the wall. An image appeared on the white screen: the crumpled metal crate crushed beneath the landfill compactor, dark dried blood filling every crack.
Thomas frowned at the photograph. “What does this prove? I told you, it’s fake prop blood.”
Detective Chandler pressed a button on his remote. The image shifted to a slab in the morgue.
A mangled arm, deformed by the trash compactor, lay on the examination table. An old platinum wedding band encircled its ring finger.
Thomas’s breath caught in his throat.