Black and White by Dawn Lee McKenna

Author:Dawn Lee McKenna [McKenna, Dawn Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Sweet Tea Press
Published: 2019-08-25T16:00:00+00:00

Late that afternoon, everyone that was in the station was either packing up to leave, finishing up their work, or chatting with the incoming night shift. Anthony had already gone home, and Jennifer finished putting away their carbon copies of their arrest reports, then tossed her empty coffee cup into the trash can beside her desk.

She grabbed her keys, found the tiny brass key that went to her lap drawer, and locked it. Wednesday, Patterson or Whitney or one of the other guys had left an empty birth control compact in her desk. She had no idea where they’d gotten it, but she’d started locking her desk. She wasn’t afraid of the guys who were picking on her, or of what they might leave in her desk, but she hated the idea that they would invade her personal workspace that way.

She had to jimmy the key to get it out of the scratched-up old lock, and she was doing that when the hairs on her forearms went up and her eyes squinted of their own accord. She stared at the key in her hand, and at the lock on her drawer, waiting for one of them to explain themselves.

“Now what?” Daniel asked from beside her.

She jerked her head up. She hadn’t seen him coming. “Nothing.”

She looked back down at the lock, and then felt a warm swirling in her stomach. She saw her mother’s body, in black and white. Saw the inside of her car. Then she saw it all in color, like she’d been dropped right back into 1962.

“Jen.”

She looked back up at him. “Mom’s car door.”

“What?”

“The other night, when we were looking at the pictures, there was something, but then we were talking and I couldn’t figure out what it was. It was her passenger door. It was unlocked.”

“So?”

“She always locked it as soon as she got in the car. I can see her doing it. She’d lean over the passenger seat and push down the lock, or if I was in the car, she’d tell me to do it right away.”

Daniel frowned. “But there were cops all over that car,” he said. “I don’t doubt that one of them unlocked it from your Mom’s side to let another cop in.”

“Before the crime scene photos were taken?” Jennifer asked. “Would you do that?”

He blinked a couple of times. “No. But the picture you’re talking about could have been taken after they already had enough pictures of the scene as it was.” He held up a hand. “I know, I just thought the same thing; the keys were still in the ignition in those pictures. What cop would lean across a body to unlock the door?”

“I need to talk to Ray,” Jennifer said.

Jennifer headed for Ray’s office, and she heard Daniel follow. Ray’s door was open, and she knocked on the jamb. He looked up and waved her in, his face registering a moment’s surprise when he saw Daniel come in behind her.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Ray, were you at the scene—Mom’s scene—the night it happened?”

It took him a second to catch up.

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