The 7th Victim

Vail felt the anger well up inside her. It was the same bullshit Deacon had pulled with her, in the last year of their marriage. The verbal abuse. The need to feel powerful by berating others. “That must’ve hurt.”

Jonathan’s gaze was down in his lap somewhere, as if trying to hide his emotions.

The milkshake machine stopped its whine, replaced by the taps and clinks of glass and metal scoops.

Vail scooted her chair over slightly and placed a hand on Jonathan’s. “I know what it’s like. Your father is . . . insensitive.” An asshole is what she wanted to say. Deacon wasn’t always like that— though he was never the empathetic type, he was always good to her, and he was there for her when she needed him—until his career fell apart, until he became bitter and jealous. The slide into anger and resentment came soon after, a deepening abyss from which he never escaped.

Vail eyed Jonathan and felt sorry she couldn’t have spared him the pain of a breakup, of having to leave him half-time with a bitter, downtrodden father. “But honey,” she said, “you know what he said isn’t true, right? You’re a talented, loving, bright young man. I’m very proud to have you as my son.”

Jonathan looked up and found his mother’s soft, hazel eyes. Then his face flushed and he began sobbing. She leaned closer and took her son by the back of the neck and brought him against her shoulder and held him there, letting him cry. She flashed on the memory of her six-year-old boy who’d fallen off his bicycle . . . his friends laughing at him and Jonathan bursting into tears, more out of embarrassment than from injury. She stroked his hair now as she’d done then and waited until he calmed himself.

The counter clerk put the shake on top of the ice cream case and nodded at Vail. She looked down at Jonathan, who pulled away, sniffling and swiping at his nose with the back of a hand. She grabbed a napkin from the dispenser and gave it to him.

“He gets drunk just about every night. He pushes me, grabs my shirt collar, and gets in my face.” He paused. “I don’t want to go back there, Mom. I don’t care if I never see him again.”

Vail completely understood his feelings, but at the same time, it disheartened her to think that her son couldn’t stand to be with his father. “He’s got joint custody. It’s not up to you, or even me.”

“You’ve got to do something, Mom. I’m not going back there.”

“I’ll call my attorney. You may have to talk to him, probably even someone from the court, too. The judge won’t listen to me. He needs to hear it from you.”

“Fine. Whatever.”

“In the meantime, you’re going to have to stay at your father’s. When he says those things to you, just ignore him. Hum a song in your head, or just think of me, telling you how terrific you are. I know it’s hard. I lived through it myself.”

“Yeah, but one day you decided you were leaving, and that was that.”

“It wasn’t that simple, Jonathan.”

“Doesn’t matter. You’re gone and I’m still there.”

His words were like arrows to her heart. It wasn’t that simple . . . but Jonathan was right: he was stuck there and she had escaped. They sat silently for a moment, memories rushing through her mind like a bullet train. A tear rolled down her cheek, lost its hold, then dropped to her lap.

Jonathan sat there, staring at the window, and did not say a thing. Vail dabbed at her eyes with a napkin, then took the shake from the counter, and placed it in front of her son. He didn’t move. Vail followed his gaze to a small droplet of water winding its way down the fogged window, leaving behind a trail of clear glass as it moved lower. She wondered if Jonathan was somehow relating to the path of the lone drop moving through a wall of murky fog. Then the image of Melanie Hoffman’s blood murals popped into her mind.

She shook her head and forced her thoughts back to Jonathan. But as so often was the case, her work had intruded on her personal space.

“Go ahead and drink your shake,” Vail said. She pulled out her phone. “I’ll call my attorney, see about getting you out of that house as soon as possible.” She punched the keys with a vicious anger. “Whatever it takes, Jonathan, I promise I’ll get you out of there.”

eight

After dropping Jonathan at Deacon’s house, Vail put in another call to her family law attorney and spent a nervous evening plotting out her strategy . . . making lists and organizing her thoughts to help the lawyer build a solid argument for revisiting the custody arrangement.

But with the dawning of the new morning, she had to push Jonathan’s problems aside and force her attention back to her job. Robby was waiting for her to pick him up en route to an interview with Melanie Hoffman’s parents. The Hoffmans lived in an older clapboard house on acreage buried in a wooded area of Bethesda. Built eighty or ninety years ago, by Vail’s estimation, it was well maintained and sported a collection of flowerpots and wreaths arranged on the front porch.

She and Robby stood at the door and waited for the Hoffmans to answer the knock. A detective had already delivered the news about their daughter’s death, so they were at least spared the task of having to tell parents their little girl had not only passed on, but that her death was a horrific one, one you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemies.

Footsteps clapped along behind the front door. Wood flooring, Vail figured, heavy steps. Mr. Hoffman, no doubt.

“Sounds like we got the man of the house,” Robby muttered to Vail.

The door swung open and revealed a man of around fifty, about thirty extra pounds piled on his midsection. Clear blue eyes, glazed over, with a head of receding dark brown hair. Delicate features. Melanie’s father, for sure.

“Roberto Hernandez, Vienna PD. We spoke on the phone.” Robby waited a beat, received a slight flicker in the man’s eyes as acknowledgment, then continued: “This is my partner, Karen Vail, with the FBI.”

The man nodded. “Howard Hoffman. Wife’s in the living room.” He held the door open for them, and they entered the modest home. Wood plank floors, as Vail surmised. What she hadn’t anticipated were the paintings hanging everywhere there was wall space. Paintings similar in style to those they had seen in Melanie’s house.

“Melanie was very talented,” Vail noted as they followed Howard into the living room.

“My wife,” he said, motioning with a hand. “Cynthia.”

“Ma’am,” Robby said, nodding at her. He and Vail stood there awkwardly, awaiting a response from the woman. But she simply stared ahead at the window at the far end of the room.

“Can I get you anything?” Howard asked.

“Just some answers,” Vail said, attempting a slight smile.

Howard sat on the couch beside Cynthia and motioned his guests to the opposing love seat.

“We’re sorry for your loss,” Robby said. “I can’t imagine—”

“She was a very special girl.”

The voice came from Cynthia, but it was so soft Vail wondered whether she had actually heard something. But Robby had heard it too, because he stopped in midsentence. They both looked at the woman. She was Howard’s age, but her posture and grief made her appear older. Shoulders rolled forward, hands curled around a tissue in her lap, eyes bloodshot, and wavy chestnut hair falling loosely around the sides of a haggard face.

Vail waited for elaboration, but Cynthia did not offer anything. Her gaze did not move.

“Mr. Hoffman,” Robby said softly, “we know Melanie had just started working for McGinty & Pollock. Where did she work before that?”

“A big firm in DC, I don’t remember the name. Began with a ‘P.’”

“Price Finnerton.” From Cynthia. They looked at her, and Vail made note of the name on her pad.

“Did she have any problems there? Did anyone give her a hard time, any conflicts with her boss?”

“Nothing.”

Vail and Robby waited for elaboration from Cynthia, but there was no reaction.

“Do you know why she left? Was she unhappy there?”

“She loved working there,” Howard said. “I told her she was worth more than they were paying her. I kept nagging her about it, and to put me off she called some company, I think they call them headhunters. Three weeks later, she got a job offer from McGinty for twenty thousand more than Price Finnerton was paying her.” He paused, his head bowing down. “Maybe if she’d stayed put this wouldn’t have happened. . . .”