Chapter 3 - Chapter 3 - "Didn't She Tell You the Murderer's Name?"

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— UmU

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Chapter 3 - "Didn't She Tell You the Murderer's Name?"

Bernie and Theodore didn't leave. Instead, they arrested Brian for child abuse.

Brian screamed at them not to set foot in his house, demanding they release him immediately. The commotion was loud enough to draw neighbors from their windows and front porches.

Within minutes, someone recognized Bernie as a Homicide detective, and whispers began spreading through the small crowd.

"That's the house where the woman was murdered..."

"They're arresting the husband..."

"I always knew something wasn't right about that family..."

The rumors moved faster than wildfire. By the time Theodore and Bernie had loaded Brian into their car, half the neighborhood was convinced they'd just witnessed the arrest of a wife-killer.

Brian cursed nonstop during the entire drive back to the station, his voice growing hoarse with rage and indignation.

Finally, Bernie had heard enough. He twisted around in the driver's seat and fixed Brian with a stare that could freeze blood.

"Shut your mouth! Right now! If I hear one more word out of you before I give you permission to speak, I'll make sure you spend the night in a real prison cell instead of our holding tank."

The threat carried weight. Police had the authority to hold suspects for twenty-four hours without charges, usually in the station's detention cells.

But when those cells were full, suspects got shipped to the county prison for temporary custody.

And prison guards weren't always careful about which section they assigned police detainees to—mistakes happened, and sometimes suspects found themselves bunked with violent felons instead of other minor offenders.

Brian's mouth snapped shut.

Back at the Felton Police Department, Brian's second arrest within two days caught the attention of several team members.

Bernie grabbed the nearest officer and told him to escort Brian to an interrogation room, then practically dragged Theodore into Supervisor Wenner's office, barely containing his excitement.

"Boss!" Bernie launched into the story, his words tumbling over each other as he explained what they'd discovered.

He pointed toward the interrogation room. "He's right in there! That bastard sat in our office crying crocodile tears, begging us to catch his wife's killer!"

Bernie's account was accurate, and he didn't try to claim credit he didn't deserve. Wenner listened intently, his gaze moving between the two men.

When Bernie finished, Wenner smiled—the first genuine smile Theodore had seen from him. "This is the best news I've heard all week. Since you two are working so well together, why don't you both take joint responsibility for this case?"

Bernie immediately protested, insisting he hadn't contributed enough to deserve shared credit. Theodore, however, had no objections to the arrangement.

"Alright, enough debate," Wenner interrupted, pointing at Theodore with obvious approval. "Get in there and break that son of a bitch. Looks like what you told me yesterday is about to come true."

Outside the office, Bernie could barely contain his enthusiasm. "We can't just charge in there unprepared."

He whispered urgently. "We might only get one shot at this—we absolutely cannot waste it. Theodore, grab that case file. Let's see what ammunition we have."

Theodore looked at Bernie's excitement and felt his stomach sink. He wasn't nearly as optimistic about their chances.

The autopsy had found no signs of repeated domestic violence on Mrs. Brian—no old fractures that had healed badly, no scarring consistent with ongoing physical abuse.

This suggested she'd been an effective mediator, successfully keeping Brian's controlling tendencies at the level of verbal intimidation rather than physical violence.

Today's confrontation had shown the potential for escalation, but it hadn't crossed that line yet.

And there was a significant distance between slapping your children around and committing murder—or hiring someone else to do it.

In this era, domestic violence was still viewed as a private family matter, a minor issue that didn't warrant professional attention.

But Theodore understood the psychology of abusers intimately, and he knew every step in their typical escalation patterns.

All of Brian's behavior—the shouting, the resistance to arrest, the constant cursing—was designed to maintain his authority and demonstrate control over the situation. It had nothing to do with murder.

Events unfolded exactly as Theodore had predicted.

After four grueling hours of interrogation, their only significant discovery was learning where Anna had been during the murder: locked in the basement as punishment.

It was nearly ten o'clock at night, and the Homicide Team office remained brightly lit, thick with cigarette smoke and tension. Bernie was in rough shape—stress had given him mouth sores that made him wince every time he spoke.

He'd unbuttoned his collar and was breathing heavily, his bloodshot eyes fixed on Brian with predatory intensity.

Brian looked terrified. Sweat covered his forehead, his face had gone ashen, and his lips trembled uncontrollably. He clearly suspected that without Theodore's moderating presence, the bear-like detective might tear him apart with his bare hands.

Bernie used what remained of his rational mind to end the interrogation. He had Brian booked for child abuse and stormed out of the station.

The feeling of having the solution within reach only to watch it slip away was driving Bernie to the edge of madness.

Theodore watched him leave, his emotions complicated. You couldn't call Bernie irresponsible—his excitement over new case developments was genuine.

But despite uncovering such a significant family secret, Bernie had investigated for a month and found nothing. Theodore realized that Bernie truly wanted to solve cases, but he genuinely didn't want to use his brain to do it.

And there were a dozen more detectives just like Bernie in the Homicide Team, thousands more in the Felton Police Department, and tens of thousands more across the entire country.

Men who distrusted technology, refused to think analytically, never learned from experience—just working harder instead of smarter, achieving a fraction of the results they could have with proper methods.

Regardless of his frustration, Theodore knew he had to produce results quickly to establish himself as a credible voice. Even if he could only introduce small improvements in investigative techniques, it would be worth the effort to crack through these muscle-bound skulls.

His mind drifted as exhaustion set in, and he fell asleep almost immediately after arriving home.

The next morning, Bernie and Theodore had their first major disagreement. Bernie wanted to continue wearing Brian down through prolonged interrogation, but Theodore insisted on returning to the crime scene.

Bernie remained convinced that Brian was the murderer—that he'd hired someone to kill his wife. Theodore was equally certain the killer was someone else entirely, and Brian was just a controlling bastard.

Theodore pointed toward the interrogation room where Brian sat slumped in defeat. "Brian was spoiled as a child—always got whatever he wanted. As he grew older and encountered the outside world, he discovered he couldn't control everything the way he could at home. This disrupted his psychological balance, so he compensates by demanding absolute control over his family."

"However much control he loses in the outside world, he tries to reclaim it from his wife and children."

"To maintain this control, he has to project absolute authority within his household. But once he leaves that environment, he becomes passive, timid, and highly compliant. That's why he resisted when we arrested him yesterday, but became cooperative once we got him to the station."

"You could interrogate him for another hundred hours and get nothing new. Everything he's told us is the truth. If you want him to confess to hiring a killer, just threaten to transfer him to the maximum-security wing of the prison."

What Theodore had just delivered was essentially a psychological profile of Brian. He offered Bernie a way to verify his analysis: "Go ask him one question. Did he lose a significant family member during his childhood?"

Bernie hesitated, then entered the interrogation room. A moment later, he emerged with a bewildered expression, grabbed the car keys without a word, and headed for the exit.

At the crime scene, Theodore got out of the car with the case photographs and began walking slowly around the front lawn.

He stopped periodically, muttering to himself, then tossed the photos aside and stood motionless at the spot where Mrs. Brian had died.

Just as Bernie was about to call out to him, Theodore began moving again. He started walking toward the center of the lawn from different angles, gesturing as he moved, looking to Bernie's eyes like a man who'd lost his mind.

Finally, Theodore approached Bernie, barely able to contain his excitement. "She fought with the killer."

Bernie waited expectantly.

Theodore continued, "The killer is a woman, lives in this neighborhood, white. Her physical condition isn't good—similar to the victim's build."

"The killer knew Mrs. Brian. She was invited inside, and they had an argument. The argument moved from inside to outside, escalating from words to pushing to an actual physical struggle."

"They fought from the edge of the yard all the way to the center of the lawn. The killer used something she was carrying to strike Mrs. Brian in the head, and the victim collapsed right here."

"The killer panicked. Fortunately, no one witnessed the actual attack. She grabbed her weapon and fled."

Bernie asked the obvious question: "So who is she?"

Theodore looked at him in confusion.

Bernie pressed on: "Didn't she tell you who killed her? Didn't she give you the killer's name?"

"What?"

"Weren't you communicating with the victim's spirit?"

Theodore stared at him, speechless.

Bernie looked genuinely puzzled. "Then how did you know Brian's parents died in a car accident when he was young? Didn't their ghosts tell you? And all these details about the murder—if the spirits didn't reveal them to you, did you actually witness it yourself? How else could you know so much?"

Theodore opened his mouth, but no words came out.

Bernie's questions reminded him that this was an era when psychology was still classified under religious studies, mentioned only in secret government psychokinesis research projects.

"You just need to appreciate the results," Theodore finally managed, changing the subject with a mutter. "I need a female partner, not some insensitive guy who believes in ghosts."

Bernie shrugged. "Women? Hmph, you'll need to stock up on paper bags in your car—they throw up constantly at crime scenes."

Theodore rolled his eyes as he gathered the photographs. "Come on, let's go talk to Anna. She should know who the killer is."

Bernie looked surprised. "She knows? How?"

Theodore rang the Brian family's doorbell and explained. "The victim and killer struggled from inside the house all the way to the center of the lawn, where Mrs. Brian was killed."

To prevent Bernie from again attributing his insights to supernatural communication, Theodore added an explanation: "If Mrs. Brian had entered the lawn from any other angle, her final position wouldn't make sense. The basement is right by the front door, so if the killer made any significant noise during the struggle, Anna would have heard it. And it's very likely the killer was invited inside."

The door opened, and Sitt appeared. When he saw the two detectives, he visibly shivered and turned to shout into the house: "Anna! Sullivan and Dickson are here!"

Crash!

The sound of shattering crockery echoed from the kitchen.

Theodore and Bernie exchanged meaningful glances. Even Bernie, for all his obliviousness, was a detective and could tell something was very wrong.

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