Making Mommy Feel Better
Calleigh sighed. It was one of those days that being six months pregnant was no fun. Starting next week she was on desk duty, no more ballistics lab. She was going to start maternity leave in a month. She was looking forward to that. Chloe still seemed to be adjusting to the idea of she was going to be a big sister soon. The first time she felt the baby underneath her hand she was amazed.
Today Chloe made her mommy feel better when she was having a bad day. Ryan and Tripp had arrested a couple who had beat the man's four-year-old son to death. The man seemed indifferent to his son's death and was supporting his wife, even though she openly admitted she killed the boy. Both were being charged with murder. The boy had still been alive when the father arrived home that day. Yet the man refused to the child to the E.R. even when the boy begged him to. The father, if you could stomach calling him that, Calleigh thought, was standing by his wife, defending her actions. Calleigh and Eric watched from outside the glass as Tripp conduct the interrogation. Eric had determined from the blood pattern that the boy had lived and moved around his room for some time before he succumbed to the injuries from the beating. Calleigh determined that the murder weapon was a souvenir aluminum baseball bat the father owned. The father thought he haw washed off all the blood but several tiny specks left on the bat gave him up.
The man, Harold Hobbs defended his wife, Caroline, by saying the boy who was named Colin, didn't fit in to the family now his wife and he had a six-month-old baby together. The boy was killed because he accidentally scratched his baby brother's face when he was a little rough when playing with him. The boy's natural mother, the man's late wife died when the boy was week old. The man had remarried when the boy was two years old. The boy looked like his biological mother, who was Chinese. So the boy "now stuck out" in a family were the two parents and new baby had blonde hair and blue eyes, Harold Hobbs said. After he and his wife had their baby he said started to love the boy less daily. He was like a fourth wheel. The boy was jealous of their new baby and acted out constantly, Harold alleged.
"I'm sorry he's dead. I guess," he said. "But when after Max came along, Colin was just a kid living in our house we were responsible for. He should have known better than to stretch our baby."
The child's stepmother said nothing beyond the fact she was "relieved" she no longer to act like a loving parent to a child she hated.
Watching this man and now his wife, both the couple had felt sick. Eric watched as his wife swallowed hard and rubbed her extended belly. He touched her shoulder, knowing all she could think about was her deep, unconditional love for Chloe. He wasn't at all surprised when she left the lab during her lunch break to visit Chloe. Mommy needed a hug, and from Chloe.
Chloe had just finished eating her lunch when she was told her mother was there to visit her.
"Hi mom!" She said, running to Calleigh when she saw her. "What are you doing here?"
Calleigh hugged her daughter tightly, inhaling the sweet scent of the child.
"Mommy's not having a good day. She needed a hug. You know mommy loves you," She said to Chloe.
"I know, Mommy," Chloe replied, like Calleigh just told her the sky was blue. Of course her mommy loved her. "You told me dat dis morning."
"Chloe make you feel better?" Eric asked his wife when she got back to the lab.
"As always," Calleigh smiled.