Rising Darkness Read Free Page B

crucial in helping us find out who murdered your wife. Even though some of the things we are asking you to recall may seem arbitrary under the circumstances, we often find that the clues needed to solve a crime are usually found in the most minute and mundane things. So, please calm yourself down and bear with us.”
    Detective Andrews voice was very calm and steady, but not in a rehearsed way. It was as if he should have become a hypnotherapist instead of a cop. There was something in his voice that was hypnotic and otherworldly. It made you want to just fall asleep and let him probe around inside your brain for a bit.
    Joe felt like he needed a strong drink. His heart was still flying in his chest and every time he tried to put his mind on something that might be useful in helping them solve this crime he immediately felt the emotion rolling through his body at the realization that his beloved Tracy was dead. She wasn’t just dead; she had been savagely brutalized. He had never seen anything like that since…He didn’t want to remember Tori.
    But given the circumstances it was not possible to forget. He had found his first wife Tori dead in a similar fashion, but that had eventually been ruled a suicide. Although, at first the community and even members of his own family had believed him to be the murderer. As if he ever could have hurt his sweet wife. He had loved Tori deeply. She was a wonderful woman, who understood him like no one ever had up to that point and she was an excellent mother.
    He had come home from work and had found her floating in the pool. Her lifeless body had been there for a few hours at that point. Her skin had started to turn wrinkled and a bit grey, as if it was falling off of the bone. It was the most disgusting thing he had ever seen, until now. The pain was the same. It was sharp and stabbing in his chest but the rest of his body felt numb. It hurt to breathe because the pressure amplified the sharp stabbing that throbbed in his rapid flying heart.
    He felt nauseous as if he might barf at any moment. He wondered if he should just go ahead and let it fly; that would erase him as a suspect, right? He doubted even that would do the trick. He was both appalled and confused by the hint that he had killed his wife. He had been when he discovered Tori and he was now with Tracy’s murder. None of it made any sense. How could two of his wives die under mysterious circumstances?
    Tori’s death had eventually been ruled as a suicide or even an accidental drowning by the medical examiner. He had found a bunch of sleeping pills in her system, enough to OD on. And then she had decided to go for a swim. Tory was a wonderful swimmer and she spent at least an hour a day in the pool, which was why he had thought to look for her there first. But nothing could have prepared him for what he had found.
    Now he was in the same boat, but this time it was obvious that Tracy had not killed herself or died accidentally. She had been savagely murdered. The idea that the amount of blood that was splattered everywhere was inside the human body was mind boggling to Joe.
    “I’m sorry, I’m just very upset. And answering any questions right now is just too much, but I know it has to be done. So please continue,” Joe said. He didn’t want to get a reputation as being uncooperative. That was not going to help his case at all, if he was eventually charged or investigated for this crime.
    “Ok, have you had anybody who might want to get back at you recently?” Andrews asked.
    “Me? Not any more than usual,” Joe replied.
    “What do you mean by that?”
    “Well, Detective in my line of work you are bound to make some enemies. There are people who feel you are taking their deals away and there are others who feel that you don’t deserve to be more successful than them. It happens. But no one that I think would want to murder my wife to get back at me.”
    “Ok. You can never rule out what might set off a disturbed