Chapter Four

Talon

Iwake up the next morning refreshed and ready to face my problems. While I'm breaking down my tent, my mind drifts back to the woman I rescued yesterday. She was young, vulnerable, and scared. It worries me that there are so many people who go off hiking who have never heard of the buddy system and don't seem to be aware of common safety rules.

That young lady could have very well been attacked by a wild animal or succumbed to the elements if she'd been stranded overnight. She wasn't dressed for the low temperatures that are too prevalent this time of year and that ankle could have been broken. I didn't like that she was being stubborn about seeing a doctor.

On the other hand, it had been both hilarious and humbling that she apparently thought I was homeless. I toss the business card to the men's shelter she gave me into the glovebox along with the twenty-dollar bill, taking a minute to sniff my underarms to see if I smell homeless. I'm forced to admit that I don't smell the freshest after camping out overnight. It was lucky I'd been out hunting rabbits, if I hadn't been, then I hated to think of her being stranded on the mountainside all night.

I pack up my truck and head home. It's an overcast morning, just the kind of bad omen I need for having a blowout argument with my wife. I spend the whole way there thinking over the conversation I plan to have with my cheating other half. God knows I'm not perfect, but I have tried my very best to make our marriage work. If I had known she was cheating on me the whole time, I never would have married her. All I can say about my situation is that hindsight is twenty-twenty.

The traffic in my neighborhood is really backed up. It takes me fifteen minutes to get from the entrance to my house and I wonder what's going on. What I find when I get there freaks me the fuck out. There are three cop cars parked in front of my house, a crowd of onlookers craning their necks, hoping to get a glimpse of what's going on. Somehow, overnight my house has been turned into a crime scene and my breath catches.

I get out of my truck and go stomping up my sidewalk, angry but also terrified of what I'll find. A law enforcement officer steps in front of me when I try to walk onto the porch. "Can I help you, sir?"

"Yeah, if you don't mind, I'd like to get into my damn house and find out what's going on here."

"And who are you?"

"I'm the guy whose name is on the deed to this house. I live here."

A plain clothed detective walks over. He's wearing a lanyard around his neck with an ID on one side and a badge on the other and he looks to be filled with self-importance. He pulls me to the side.

"Are you Daniel Ellis, perchance?"

"I am. Do you mind if I ask what the hell is going on here?"

"Do you know where your wife was last night?"

"It so happens I do. She was out whoring around if her social media messages are accurate."

"That must have infuriated you."

"I was pretty mad when I read the messages. She made arrangements to go out last night. I was at the park, camping down by the river. That means that whoever the hell broke into our house and committed whatever crime you're investigating had nothing to do with either of us. If you'll kindly wrap this all up and get the hell off my property, I'd greatly appreciate it. Me and my wife have things to discuss."

He states coldly, "Your wife was found dead this morning."

Shock roils through my gut. "What? No! I just saw Sandra yesterday morning. She kissed me and acted like everything was fine. She can't be dead. What happened?" My mind is going in circles, she was young and healthy. She liked to party hard, which was another area in which we didn't see eye to eye. Had she overdosed or taken something she shouldn't have?

"This is a murder investigation," the detective responds.

I feel like the blood is draining out of me, murder? "Who in the hell would want to kill her? Every fucking person she knows loves the shit out of her."

At some point I realize that I'm babbling but I just can't seem to shut up.

"Calm down, Mr. Ellis."

I'm still grasping at straws. "How do you know it's her?"

"We believe it is your wife. Her sister is the one who found her and identified the body."

"Body," I screech. "She's not a fucking body. She's a person."

He reaches out to grab my arm and gives me a little shake. "You need to get yourself together."

I shove him away with one hand. "No. I don't fucking believe any of this. I want to see her with my own eyes." When I try to step around him, two officers come up on each side of me and hold me in place. I can't fucking believe this is happening. I pull out my cell phone to see if there are any messages from Silvia, but there's no missed calls or anything to suggest that anyone has tried to get in touch with me about my fucking murdered wife.

As I'm standing there in disbelief, a vehicle from the coroner's office pulls up. That's when the reality of my situation sets in. My wife is in fact dead. How, I don't know. When two officers walk out with a black body bag, I almost lose my shit.

This is not how this morning was supposed to go. I feel like I've fallen into an alternate reality where everything is similar but different.

The detective tells them to hold up for a minute. Then he bends down to unzip the bag enough for me to see her face. And I see it all right. It's definitely Sandra. It looks like the side of her head is caved in, like she hit her head on something hard. For some reason I reach out for her. The detective quickly pulls me back and the coroner's assistant zips the bag back up again.

I'm feeling conflicted. On the one hand I hate her for lying to me all these years and using me for my money. But on the other, I never wanted her dead. I hate to see her in a black body bag. It looks too much like a trash bag and makes it seem like they're treating her like so much garbage. It's not right. Some small part of my mind knows that I'm being irrational, but my emotions are spiraling right now.

The detective turns back to me. "I need to talk to you, ask some questions in order to get our investigation started. But in the meanwhile, is there someone I can call for you? You do not seem to be handling the situation very well."

I glare at him. "What part of my wife just died do you not understand?"

Suddenly, I hear Siege's voice yelling from the distance. "He's not answering any Goddamn questions without his attorney present."

I take a step out to meet my club president. "What the hell are you talking about, brother? I've got to help them figure out what happened to Sandra."

He reaches out and jerks me closer, lowering his voice. "Our police contact called me this morning. Your wife has been murdered. You gotta know that you're going to be suspect number one."

"Suspect?" I'm clearly still in shock because my brain has not been functioning correctly since I got here. I'm a suspect?

Turning to the officer, I ask, "Am I under arrest?"

The detective looks at me for a long hard moment before saying, "No, but you're a person of interest and I do need to take a statement from you."

"I've already given you one," I tell him. "Remember? I told you that to my knowledge neither myself nor my wife were at home last night, and I don't know anything about how she wound up dead."

"You also said she had been cheating on you."

Something clicks in my brain. Of course, he wants to know more information about this because it could be considered motivation. "If her social media account is open you have my permission to read to your heart's content. Then you'll know exactly what I do"

"If you don't show up at the Las Salinas PD headquarters today with your attorney, I'll have to get an arrest warrant."

"In order to get that," Siege states, "You'll need probable cause. We both know you don't have any, and my best guess is you won't end up with any because my club brother is innocent."

"Look, I'm not trying to railroad your friend. I only go where the evidence takes me."

"That's great. I sincerely hope you find the asshole that killed my wife. Sandra might not have been a great wife, but she doesn't fucking deserve to be dead either."

The detective takes a step closer and hands me a business card. "If you can think of anything else that might help us find your wife's killer, please give me a call. Don't be surprised if we have to pick you up for questioning later today."

I take the card from him and shove it into my pocket. "If I were you, I would start your investigation with the man she made arrangements to meet last night. He would have been the last person to see her alive."

Siege grabs my shoulder, turns me around and gets me moving towards my truck. When he opens the driver's side door and starts to climb in, I look around, noticing that his bike is nowhere to be found. "Where's your bike? I'm sure you don't want to leave it parked along the side of the road just so you can chauffeur me around."

"I had Cleo drop me off. I knew you would be in no condition to drive."

I climb into the passenger seat and look over at my club president. "I can't believe that I'm this messed up over a woman I was planning to divorce. It makes no sense."

"I'm sure Rigs would have some fancy explanation for that, but I just think it's a shock when someone we know suffers a traumatic death, regardless of how close we were to them."

"If I'd gone home instead of taking a cooling off period, Sandra would have gotten yelled at instead of killed. You realize that, don't you?"

Siege glanced at me from the driver's seat. "Yeah, that's the shitty thing about life, everyone has twenty-twenty hindsight but none of us can see the future. The advice we gave you to cool your jets was the right thing to do. You took our advice to heart because you didn't want to scream at her like a madman. My conscience is clean and yours should be too. Besides that, if you'd gone home, you might have discovered the body or gotten yourself killed too, we don't know what went down."

I don't reply because of course our club president is right. But it doesn't stop me feeling guilty, this whole situation feels surreal. I can't believe anyone would want to kill Sandra. She might have had her faults, but she didn't have an enemy in the entire world. Like I told the officer. Everyone loves her.

I stare out the window as my mind wanders over my relationship with Sandra. Part of me thinks I really loved her in the beginning. Another part of me thinks that perhaps I don't really know what love is. All I know is that we dated all the way through high school and then when all of her friends started getting married, suddenly Sandra wanted to as well. I bought the ring and went through the motions of asking her to marry me because I thought it was what I was supposed to do. I'm forced to admit to myself that our relationship was riddled with problems and things were never right. Even in the beginning, there was always some kind of chaos going on. I think that's what kept me distracted and unable to realize she was cheating all these years. Thank goodness we never had children.

"You're getting quiet there, Talon. Don't crawl into your own mind and stay there. You've got people willing to support you, no matter how this all goes down. Your club brothers will always be here for you."

I rub one hand down my face in exasperation. "I know what you're saying is true. I just can't believe this happened, that Sandra is actually dead. It seems so surreal."

"That's how I felt when my old man died. But as time wears on, you learn to cope."

"I guess I'll be staying at the clubhouse for a few weeks. I don't know how long it's going to take them to clear the crime scene, and I will have to get a biohazard team in there to clean up. Even then, I'm not sure I'd want to live there again." I cringe at my own words. Those clearly should have been inner thoughts, instead of being spoken out loud.

"Yes. You need to stay at the club until this whole thing blows over. You can stay in Rigs' old suite. I asked Smoke to meet us there so we can talk about your case."

"Case? I don't have a fucking case."

"Alright Talon, there are some hard truths that you need to face up to early in this situation. One is that when a man's wife turns up dead, he's always gonna be the prime suspect until he gets eliminated. Thinking that those cops haven't opened a case and pinned you right at the top of the suspect list is naive. Especially, since you were nice enough to tell them all about how your wife was cheating on you. Cops are not the people you want to share that kind of information with."

This is all starting to finally sink in. I can see that my club president is trying to protect me. What he's saying makes sense. "Okay. So, the first step is sitting down with Smoke and working on a plan to eliminate myself as a suspect. Is that what I'm hearing you say?"

"Hell yes," Siege states with more enthusiasm. "Just stop talking to law enforcement full stop. Let Smoke take the lead on this. Do what he says, and he'll get you clear of this whole mess."

"Alright, boss. I hear what you're laying down about this. The last thing I want is to end up in jail for a crime I didn't commit."