Blood Justice

One

Blood Justice

By

David Burton

Justine Kroft died for the first time at 11:26 p.m. on a Tuesday night. There was no physical reason for her to die at that time. She didn’t fall down the stairs or off a ladder. The radio didn’t tumble into the bathtub with her. She didn’t eat anything poisonous, walk through a plate glass window or get hit by a stray bullet. Yet she felt death settle over her as surely as if the Reaper wrapped her in his dark cloak.

She had the first uneasy sense of death at about 8:30 p.m. that evening. Her heart raced for a moment. Nothing in an article about picking colors for a bedroom would cause her heart to race. Two gallons of periwinkle blue had already been ordered. Just a brief thumpthumpthumpthump and back to normal. Only a faint feeling of unease remained.

At 9:00 p.m. she began to wonder why her daughter Brittany wasn’t home from the library. Probably talking to Nick Cressman. Those two sixteen-year-olds could talk for hours about nothing. Brittany was a good kid, though punctuality was not a strong point. Justine decided to give Brittany fifteen more minutes before calling.

At 9:10 p.m, Justine’s toothbrush slipped from her hand and clattered into the sink. Dread gripped her gut and twisted. She ran to the bedroom and dialed her daughter’s cell phone. The ringing stopped after five rings, but there was no voice mail announcement. She pressed the phone hard to her ear, desperate to hear Brittany say, “Hi Mom.” All she heard was an empty silence – no laughing, no voices, no breathing.

“Brittany? Where are you? Are you all right?”

She heard a scream, then nothing. Connection broken.

“Oh, God. Brit, what’s happening? Brit?”

She dialed again. Voice mail. Again. Voice mail.

She called Nick’s parents, Patty’s parents, Claire’s, Robin’s, Jeff’s. Brittany had left the library at about 8:30. Nobody had seen her since.

911.

“Something’s happened to my daughter. She left the library at eight-thirty. It’s less than ten minutes away. She’s not home yet. I called her cell. Somebody answered but didn’t say anything. I heard a scream in the background then nothing. It was Brittany screaming. I know it.”

Justine paced the length of her bedroom as her face tightened. “Yes, I know it’s only nine-thirty… I know kids will be kids… I know, four hours…. I heard her scream. A real scream.”

Stopped in the middle of the floor, Justine’s body vibrated with frustration. “And you expect me to wait until you get around to sending somebody? I’m going to look for her, whether you do or not.”

Within a minute of slamming down the phone she was in her Lexus SUV speeding to the library. The building was dark, save for a single light illuminating the entrance. At the far end of the parking lot, Brittany’s ten year old Ranger pickup waited like a lonely white smudge. They’d bought the truck from a friend for five hundred dollars the weekend after Brittany received her driver’s license. Faded white, scratched and battered, stick shift, Brittany had fallen for it, love at first sight. “It has character,” she said.

Justine wasn’t interested in its character when she screeched to a stop beside it. She only wanted to look inside and see her daughter asleep, exhausted from end-of-school-year studying and activities.

“Brit! Brit!” Justine stared through the window. The seat was in shadow. Was that Brittany lying down? She pounded on the roof. “Brittany! Wake up!”

Nothing moved. Justine fumbled with her key ring for the spare truck key and yanked the door open. “Brit?”

Nothing. No pretty young woman excited for the end of tenth grade, excited to go surfing with her friends, excited to start a poorly paid summer job helping a school friend’s brother make a documentary on San Diego shoreline wildlife. Nothing but a crumpled jacket and a gym bag.

“God damn it!”

Justine’s knees gave way and she dropped onto the seat’s edge. The jacket she gripped held Brittany’s scent. They had shopped for it together only a few weeks ago. The memory did nothing to soothe the desolation growing in her chest. Several minutes passed as she sat frozen. This was a crisis. Justine was good in a crisis, able to think and act fast when unexpected problems arose. That’s why she was so successful. Yet, her mind was blank. There had to be a hundred actions she could take. She couldn’t think of one.

The thunk of a nearby car door broke through her despair. A San Diego County Sheriff’s Deputy approached.

“Are you all right, Ma’am?” His hand rested casually on the butt of his firearm as he peered into the truck cab from a wary distance.

“I am, but my daughter isn’t.”

“You must be the woman who called about her missing daughter.”

“Yes. Yes. Something has happened to her. I know it.” Her fist pounded her chest. “I know it, in here.”

She explained the situation. Deputy David Axel rubbed his close cropped head for some long seconds. “I have a fifteen year old daughter,” he finally said. “My wife swears she gets the same type of feelings with her. She knew the instant Toni broke her arm falling off her bike. So I don’t dismiss your instincts.”

“But?”

“No buts. When a young woman goes missing these days, we take it seriously. But there are procedures, things we have to do first.”

“But my daughter needs help now.”

“Ma’am, I can imagine how you feel. I’d be tearing up the town if it was Toni who was missing. But really, the best thing you can do is go home and wait for her to come home or call. We need a photograph, a description, a list of friends. Is there a husband or boyfriend who might have–”

“No. I want to look for her.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know, damn it.”

Deputy Axel took firm hold of her shoulders.

“I promise we’ll do whatever it takes to find her. I’ll do whatever I can. I hate to say it, but it could easily be my daughter missing.”

Justine relished her self reliance, yet, was thankful for Deputy Axel’s grip. It kept her from totally losing control. Bad for her image, but when it came to Brittany, she didn’t give a damn. His grip on her shoulders lightened as she relaxed. She had no doubt of his sincerity. Through his hands, she felt his understanding and support. The passion in his voice spoke of his love for his daughter.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll follow you home and get the information we need. She may be home already, wondering where you are.”

Brittany wasn’t home. There was no message. Justine made more phone calls to no effect. Her sense of dread grew like a cancer in her chest. At 11:20, pain ripped through her body from crotch to chin. Terror squeezed her lungs. She fought for every breath.

At 11:22 breathing did not seem important anymore. The pain vanished. Emptiness replaced dread. Grief replaced hope. Justine gasped once and dropped to her knees. There, with the patience of the dead, she waited for confirmation of what she already knew.

* * *

Justine had been a struggling, self-reliant single mom for six years since her husband left her for a more pliable woman. He and the woman died in a car crash the next day and Justine, taking that as justified karmic payback, had not told Brittany that her father abandoned her. For the past three years Justine had been financially independent as a successful Southern California commercial real estate agent, and to the world at large, content. As long as Brittany was a happy, successful student, that was all that mattered to her.

But Justine Kroft was a fraud. Her reputation as a “tough lady in a tough business,” was based on her need to provide the childhood for her daughter that she hadn’t had. It was all a façade. She’d known it all along, since her husband died and she had to support Brittany. Desperate and scared every step of the way, she gave up her life to provide for her child. From office manager in a commercial real estate firm she did what she had to do to become their top earner through sheer tenacity and fear of failure. Some nights while Brittany slept, Justine continued to read or study, though tears blurred the words. This wasn’t her, what she wanted to be. Her husband’s betrayal had sucked the substance and purpose from her. After his death, Brittany had given her emptiness meaning, a reason to struggle, a reason to succeed.

That all changed the day of the funeral. Until then she had maintained her stoic “tough lady” exterior. When the Sheriff’s Deputies had come to inform her of her daughter’s death, her face, as well as her heart, turned to stone. When she had to identify Brittany and only her daughter’s face was revealed, she didn’t shed a tear. Justine had known in her gut that her beloved child was dead. To have it confirmed hardened her all the more, because otherwise her shell would crack and never be whole again.

In the days before the funeral, Teresa Diaz, her office manager and friend, checked on Justine in the morning, stayed with her in the evenings, forced her to eat and helped with arrangements.

The unconscious effort to hold herself together sometimes left Justine disoriented and confused. As they left the funeral parlor, Teresa said, “It will be a lovely service.”

“It will?” Justine said.

“Yes, it will.”

At the car Justine asked, “Who died?”

Speechless, Teresa opened her mouth to answer, but couldn’t bring herself to say the words.

Riding home in silence, Justine rested her forehead against the window and stared out, something Brittany often did.

The morning of the funeral her stoic veneer held intact. None of the emotions roiling inside her showed through. She did what she needed to do – shower, dress, eat, breathe – to prepare herself for an experience she never dreamed she would have to endure.

Teresa wasn’t fooled. Not so long ago she had suffered a similar ordeal. She knew what was coming.

The non-denominational service was well attended by Brittany’s friends and Justine’s co-workers and acquaintances. No relatives attended. Justine and Brittany were a family of two. Many attended the actual burial, and though her legs wanted to buckle, Justine refused to let them. She even managed to acknowledge the tearful condolences.

The sad affair over, the attendees departed to their lives, sure that happiness would soon erase the sadness that for most of them, was temporary. After all, they had loved ones to console them and remind them that their lives had a future purpose.

Leaving the graveside, Teresa put her arm around Justine’s shoulders as they walked toward the car. As she had so many times before to give or take strength and comfort, Justine reached out for Brittany. But instead of her child’s solid warmth she felt the chill of empty air. Brittany wasn’t there. Her strength wasn’t there to hold Justine’s shell together, and it cracked wide open. She dropped to her knees and tears brought out all the feelings of sadness, anger, frustration, emptiness, uselessness, despair, loneliness and fear that had boiled within her since death had taken both of their lives.

Justine lay in her bed and cried for almost three days. She only cried half the time for two more. Teresa finally made her eat, drink and clean herself, then went home to her family. That night Justine sipped coffee in her back yard. The cool air refreshed her face flushed from days of weeping. A crescent moon accompanied by its companion, Venus, shone bright enough that she could see the rest of the moon’s dark circle.

That’s me, she thought. A slim bright sliver of light on the edge, the rest an empty shadow of what she might have been. She had faked her way through a job that months before Brittany’s death had come to feel like a slightly obscene and unfulfilling way to make a lucrative living. She had no family, no real friends, save Teresa, no cause she championed. She did have looks and money, enough for most people, but she was used to having a purpose. Brittany had been taken away, raped and murdered. What else did she have to live for?

She uttered a single cry of anguish, “Oh, my girl,” and sobbed, once. She wanted to cry, to sink back into grief and misery and just…vanish. She was dead, after all, part of a double homicide ten days ago. She just hadn’t lain down for good yet.

But she had no more tears. She had used up her grief, as well as any other associated misery. Except anger.

When Teresa returned in the morning, she found Justine in the backyard, dressed in martial arts clothes, running through a Kung Fu sword form.

“You look like you know what you’re doing,” Teresa said, uncertain.

Justine wiped sweat from her face. “I had a black belt in Kung Fu when I was twenty. I thought it was time to return to it.” She absently spun the sword. “You never know when weapons training will come in handy.”

* * *

Three weeks later Justine thought about that time of mourning as she waited in the Vista station of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department to see Detective Harry Frazer. She knew who she was now. Though she was dead inside, her living body was filled with purpose. She had worked with a new Sifu to regain her black belt skills and weapons proficiency. This was part of fulfilling her new purpose in life: to find and kill those responsible for her daughter’s death.