"It sounds like you're having quite a week," Elena said sympathetically.

Her silver hair had grown long enough to be put into a French braid that stopped in the middle of her back. Wearing a black pleated cardigan sweater over a white blouse, she, along with Estella and Hadji's girlfriend Melana, had prepared the evening main course: roasted chicken Marsala. Dad and Race had prepared the side dishes and dessert while Melissa brought wine and liquors to enjoy. Sitting in Dad's formal dining room at the extended rectangular birch table, I was situated in the center with my back facing the living room; Melissa was to my right while Hadji occupied my left. Across from me sat Elena flanked by Melana and Jessie. Estella sat at one end while Dad sat at the other. Race, under much objection from the group, was patrolling the grounds while we ate to ensure that nobody would try anything cute; "I'll eat after everyone else," he argued. "It'll be safer this way."

"Yeah," I replied to Elena with a slight hint of aggravation in my voice. "Do you know the whole story?"

"Your father and Race have tried to explain it to me the best they can… I understand it's quite complicated."

I glanced at Dad: he kept his eyes focused on his plate. I snuck a peek at Jessie who was beginning to raise her eyes. I gave her a "zip it" expression.

Either in an attempt to try and shift gears or out of morbid curiosity, Melana asked in a thick Grecian accent, "How long have you been a police officer?"

I took a sip of wine and answered, "Five years. I've been a detective for the past two."

"That is impressive," she said with a warm smile. "Do officers normally advance this quickly?"

"It depends. In my case, the county was desperately understaffed."

"I see."

"What's been your hardest case so far, prior to this mess?" Jessie chimed in.

Uh oh.

I finished the rest of my wine and asked for a double scotch on the rocks. Elena rose from the table and went to prepare my drink. When she returned, I took a large sip and nestled in my chair.

"Four months after I was promoted to detective, I was manning the night shift," I said, starting my tale.

I remembered that night because it was unusually warm even though we were in the middle of summer; I think it was July, but I could be mistaken. Night shift detectives usually listened for any calls from any city police departments that needed an investigator if none were available or if services were provided by the county. I was four hours into my shift—seven o'clock in the evening until seven o'clock the next morning—when my desk phone rang. The caller was Mike Frazier, the police chief for the town of Thomaston. Mike explained that a domestic dispute call had been reported but his only patrolman on duty at the time was tied up with a drunk driver on the other side of town heading towards Rockland. Thomaston was four miles southwest of the office and would only take eight minutes, four if I was responding code three, to respond.

"On my way," I told him.

I put on my suit jacket and grabbed a portable radio on the way out the door. I radioed dispatch and informed them that I was going to be 10-6—busy and to hold traffic unless urgent—until further notice. I got in the department car and floored it out of the parking lot, light bars and siren active. Domestic disputes were tricky situations that normally resulted in "he-said-she-said" matters; it was the ones that were more than that which worried me. I prayed that I wouldn't be arriving to the scene of a homicide.

The address I was given was a house off Thatcher Street which, in turn, was immediately off the highway into town. With tires squealing at my loud turn, I killed the siren but kept my light bars mounted inside the car active. Pulling into the driveway of the address, I could tell this was going to be bad. A solitary oak tree stood in the yard near the property line of the road while a large pile of refuse made its home in the back corner of the lot. The house couldn't be bigger than twelve-hundred square feet; it was a single-story, vinyl sided domicile that had obviously seen better days. The front door faced the road and was wide open except for the storm door. Light from the living room spilled out onto the front yard where two adults were standing not far from the creaky wooden steps leading up to the entrance.

I put the car in park and radioed dispatch to give an update. Chief Frazier came over the air and advised me that his officer was wrapping up his arrest and would be available for backup if needed. I acknowledged the request and got out of the car, flashlight in hand.

The male subject was about my height and probably a hundred pounds heavier. His warm brown hair donned a fade style which suited his boyish face well. The female had long layered black hair that was parted at her bangs. I identified myself before shining my flashlight upon them: both displayed signs of assault with markings, small cuts, and swelling.

"What's going on here tonight?" I asked.

The male started to explain in a rather heated tone: "This stupid cunt's fucking—"

He was immediately interrupted by the female. She began to accuse him of a severe case of utter bullshit and threatened to throw what little belongings he had acquired in life out the back door into the garbage pile. I yelled at them both to shut up and listen to me.

"Now that I have your attention," I said. "We're going to do this one at a time. If I get interrupted one more time, I'm going to haul both of you to jail because I don't have time to deal with this tonight. Let's start with you. Ma'am, go stand over there please until I'm done."

"Fine…" the woman muttered before storming off to the edge of the property. Satisfied, I turned back to the man and began to gather personal information about him to file my report. He handed over his license which I radioed in: he was clean. With that detail out of the way I decided to get down to brass tacks.

"My wife over there has an eleven year-old son that lives with us," he explained. "We have a daughter together who's four years younger. Stephen—her son—has been showing his ass now that he's become a teenager and is doing stupid shit like yelling at Karen and stealing her lunch money. I try to punish the little asshole and she…"

The man turned and pointed to his wife.

"…claims that it's a shitload of fuck and that I'm making all of this up."

"I noticed you don't refer to Stephen as your stepson; do you not like the boy?" I asked.

"If I can be honest, Detective, I wish the little cum stain would live with his grandparents."

"There's no father?"

He shook his head, saying, "No. I tried my best to take care of them both but he's been like this as long as I can remember. I don't know what the hell I ever did to him."

"I don't know either, sir," I said. "So what happened tonight that was different? Who made the call?"

The man took a deep breath and explained: "Stephen and I got into a shouting match and I slapped him. Then she comes in and starts busting my balls, yelling and screaming how I'm never to touch her son like that ever again and whatnot, before attacking me. I guess he took the opportunity to call 911."

"Okay, that's all I need from you for now. I'm going to speak to your wife now."

The subject stepped aside while I looked up for my next interviewee: she was nowhere to be found.

"Can you please go in and ask your wife to come back out?" I asked.

The man agreed and walked up the steps and into the house. Roughly three seconds after that the door opens but, instead of a fully-grown adult woman, an eleven year-old boy came out. Dressed in shirt depicting the local high school football team and gym shorts, he approached me quickly.

"Are you a police officer?" he asked in a hushed tone.

"Yes, I am," I answered. "You must be Stephen."

I shined my flashlight onto the boy. He strongly favored his mother—a trait that I shared with my own—and looked to be small enough to be lifted up over my head with ease. One startling detail that immediately caught my attention was the black eye surrounding his left optic nerve. The swelling on his face indicated that wasn't the only punch he received.

"Who did this to you?" I asked firmly.

"You've got to help me," he pleaded, tears welling up in his eyes. "He's… he's touching my sister."

"Is that who did this to you? Your stepfather?"

"Please…!"

Stephen's stepfather opened the storm door so hard it nearly came off its hinges. He screamed at the boy who immediately sought refuge behind me. I radioed for backup, code three. I immediately took out my gun and took a defensive stance. Upon seeing my firearm, the suspect turned heel and ran deeper into the house. I ran after him, tearing through the front door. I chased him through a narrow hallway before he tried to slam the master bedroom door on me. With a hard shoulder thrust, the flimsy wooden barricade came down, knocking the man into a chest of drawers. I flipped him over and handcuffed him, informing him of his rights on our way to my cruiser. The mother was sitting in the living room with her two children crying. As my prisoner and I walked down the steps, Thomaston police officer Joel Osteen arrived on the scene. I asked Joel to radio an ambulance and counselor; I would take care of the slap-happy stepfather.

Once I secured the prisoner for transport, I dropped into the driver seat.

"I'm going to kill that motherfucker," the man said with a growl from the backseat.

I turned around in my seat and looked at him, almost unsure of how serious I should gauge his thread, and asked, "You sure about that?"

He gave me a look people with nothing left to lose give. Being accused of child molestation carries a very large stigma with it, especially in the prison population. Given that this guy wasn't trying to proclaim innocence meant that there was evidence that would speak for itself.

And speak for itself it did.

Upon further inspection of the house, I uncovered numerous shoeboxes of pedophilic material. Entire DVDs of underage sex of both homo-and-heterosexual nature were found. Some of the videos featured the stepfather. Chat logs pulled from his computer revealed online encounters with minors involving inappropriate content and meetups. The wife broke down and admitted she knew about this but was unable to report it for fear of her children's wellbeing. The night of the call she discovered that their own daughter was now being used sexually after Stephen inadvertently walked in on the act, confirming his suspicions. Even at eleven years old, the child was far from stupid.

A trial date was set. Evidence and testimony was gathered. Everything seemed open-and-shut.

Eight months passed. The trial date was approaching fast.

It was a Friday evening when I got a call from Chief Frazier. This was highly unusual so I immediately knew no good was going to come from it.

"Jonny, it's Mike Frazier," he said when I came on the line. "We've got a big problem."

"What is it?" I asked.

Chief Frazier explained that the stepfather had been taken to Pen Bay Medical Center. There, he managed to slip out and hop a ride with a getaway driver. It had been ten minutes since his escape; an all-points bulletin—APB for short—had been issued. I asked where the mother and children were living at. Chief Frazier said they had relocated to the outskirts of town near the Mill River into a small two-bedroom house. He gave me the address and requested that I do a welfare check to make sure everyone was still in one piece as it was unknown whether the stepfather knew of their new residence.

As before, I raced to their new address. Thankfully, everyone was home and very much alive. The mother had obtained a concealed-carry permit and was now an experienced shooter. I gave her my business card and instructed her to report anything suspicious as well as keep her guard up.

Three days passed and the dragnet continued. The getaway car was located abandoned near Chickawaukie Pond. This gave me hope that the suspect was conducting his search away from where his intended targets lived. Reviewing hospital surveillance footage of the outside, it was discovered that the brother of the suspect was the driver. Unfortunately, his whereabouts were also unknown. Early Tuesday morning at about two o'clock I received a phone call at home.

"He found them," was all Chief Frazier said before hanging up.

I got dressed and drove to the address. Wade was standing on the front porch talking to a uniformed deputy when I approached. He put his hand out and held me back for a moment.

"Jonny, I don't—"

"Let me through, Wade," I said firmly.

He took his hand off me and stepped aside. I walked into the crime scene amidst a thick odor of blood and gunshot residue. The front door had been kicked in. I turned around and counted three bloody bullet holes in the wall: return fire from the victim, who was lying face-up on the living room floor. Below the holes on the floor behind the recliner was the stepfather. I turned back to the wife and noticed a gaping hole in her abdomen right below her diaphragm.

Wade must've noticed my curious look.

"He used slug shot," he said from the porch. "Twelve-gauge."

I took a few steps forward and around the body. In the corner of the room at the intersection of the kitchen and hallway, slumped over to one side, was eleven year-old Stephen. In his right hand was a black and gray FN FNP-9 forty-caliber semiautomatic handgun. I knelt down on one knee and closed his eye on what skull was left.

I stood up and walked back out onto the porch.

"Where's the girl?" I asked.

"EMT took her," Wade said. "She was the one who called. She saw the whole thing… my God…"

"Why didn't he kill her?"

"Probably because he still loved his daughter. That, or her brother died protecting her."

I left the front porch, the cold morning air, the tragedy that was laid out before me, and returned to my father's dining room. Everyone was stone silent.

"That truly is a tough case, Son," Dad finally said.

I nodded, "Yeah…"

"Whatever happened to the little girl and her uncle?" Jessie asked.

"The uncle hung himself," I said. "As far as the girl… I really couldn't tell you. I hope she's okay wherever she is."

Everyone nodded in agreement.

"So… what's for dessert? If these fuckers intend on killing me, they're going to have to wait until I get something sweet."

"I'll get you a plate," Estella said with a sly smile.