Deep Signs and Deep Secrets

By no means of any stretch of the imagination was Alfred J. Jones a good man, good husband or good father. Now his lifeless body was lying on his living room floor in a pool of his own blood. He was only wearing bright red socks and matching boxer shorts. He was as dead as a door nail. 

Detective Marion Clarke took a slow sip of her lukewarm coffee as she observed the crime scene. The room was in dismay as if a struggle had taken place. But the body was strangely peaceful. His arms were crossed over his chest but his palms were outstretched upwards almost like some form of surrender. The blood had already begun to dry in crimson pools around his head and torso. The first officer on the scene, Detective Alan Fisher told her what he had found out about the victim. “Jones had a record a mile long. Domestic abuse towards his wife and kids, accusations of fraud, and even some warrants for not appearing in court. Neighbors say that he was a loud-mouth, foul-mouth man who was always yelling at his wife and kids and usually drunk on the weekends. He was very successful despite that though, the owner of a used car business on 4th Street. And he did pretty well on the stock market too. None of them said that they heard or saw anything and none of them seem to care that he’s dead. I had the rookie dig up his file at the station. Here you go.” 

Marion flipped through the file pages. “Any suspects?” 

Fisher furrowed his brow. “Wife’s missing. Kids are grown and out of the house. One lives in Utah, a son who’s 28, married with kids, works as a doctor in General Hospital there, the other a daughter, 30 who’s married no kids, lives about 30 miles away, works as a real estate agent, husband works in marketing, has his own internet company, and the youngest son, Daniel, 18, is just starting college in California. He’s the one who called 911.”

Marion glanced over to the young man sitting on the couch. He was wrapped in a police issued grey blanket sipping on a cup of lukewarm coffee. He looked numb. The kind of numb Marion was very familiar with and had seen many times over the almost two decades she had worked for the department. This was the kind of numbness which said that you can’t not see what you just saw no matter how much you tried it was going to be etched in your brain forever. 

“Daniel, I am so very sorry for your loss. Can you tell me what happened?” 

Daniels' eyes flickered as he looked at her face. His voice was flat, no expression. “I came home to get the rest of my stuff. I am starting college next month and I am moving into the dorms. I got here a little later than I expected. And when I got here he was already…He gestured towards his dad’s dead body on the floor without looking. “ I didn’t touch anything. I just called 911.” 

Marion looked closely at Daniel’s face. His dark curly hair was tousled  and his upper lip was slightly swollen. 

“You have a bruise on your cheek. How did you get it?” Marion asked.

Daniel hesitated before he answered. “Yesterday, I was at the gym and I was in the ring with my friend, Rafe, doing some sparring and he accidentally hit me a little too hard and that’s how I got the bruise and the fat lip. But, what difference does that make now?” 

“Did your dad really do that to you? Are you covering for him?” 

“No, I told you what happened.” Daniel said angrily.

Marion’s stomach twisted; she felt that he was probably lying but she had to continue with the investigation. 

“Do you know where your mom is?” 

“No, I don’t. I talked to her last night and she told me that she was leaving my dad. She said she could not take it anymore and now that we were all out of the house she could leave.” 

“Do you know where she went?” 

“No, she didn’t tell me. Is that all? After all I just found my dad’s dead body and really need to process that and I need to call my siblings. Can I go now?” Daniel asked as he stood up from the couch, took the police issued blanket and held it out to Marion. 

“Yes, we’re finished for now.” Marion said. 

Fisher returned from the kitchen holding a small knife in a plastic evidence bag. 

“Found this behind the fridge. Looks like someone tossed it in a hurry. It has been wiped clean. Possibly washed.” 

Marion exhaled. “We need to find Mrs. Jones.” 

The search for Helen S. Jones took three days. She was found at a cheap motel under a different name. She looked dazed and confused after she opened the door and let Marion and her partner inside. She barely spoke. Marion looked around the room. Something was off. If she had killed him she was surely not that hard to find. She only ran two miles from home and it looked like she was in a hurry to leave the house. She had only one small bag packed lying on the hotel bed and her purse next to it. 

“Mrs. Jones. I am here to tell you that your husband is dead. I am so sorry.” Marion said.

“I’m not.” Mrs. Jones said.

“Why not?”

“He was horrible to me and the kids. How did he die?”

“Looks like he was murdered. Do you know anything about that?” 

“No.”

“Mrs. Jones, where were you on the afternoon of the 8th?” 

“I was here. You can ask the desk clerk and I am sure they have cameras showing that I checked in on the 7th and never left the room since I got here. Not even to get food.” Mrs. Jones said.

“Thank you. If we have any more questions we’ll reach out.” Marion said as she closed the motel door and walked out with her partner.

The next day the autopsy report came. 

Jones had been stabbed once through the heart. No defense wounds.The killer knew exactly where to strike. It was precise.

Marion returned to the crime scene, walking though it again. She pictured everything , a violent man, alone in his own house. No sign of forced entry. No struggle except for the mess left behind. Most likely from a drunken rage. He had to have known his killer and the killer had to be someone he trusted. And then she saw something so small, so insignificant, she almost missed it. A smudge on the floor. Not blood. Something lighter. She touched it with her gloved hand. It was chalk. Marion’s stomach dropped. “Alan got Daniel back to the station.”

Daniel sat in the interrogation room, his fingers fidgeting with the edge of his sleeve. He wasn’t scared. He wasn’t nervous. He was just waiting.  Marion sat across from him. “Daniel, I have a question for you.”

Daniel tilted his head to one side. “Okay.”

She slid a photograph from the crime scene across the table. His father’s bare chest. A symbol, drawn in chalk. Almost wiped away by the blood. 

Daniel’s fingers stopped fidgeting. “What’s that?”

“You tell me. You drew it right?” Marion said.

Silence. Then a slow nod. Marion leaned forward.

“Where did you learn this symbol?” 

Daniel looked at her. For the first time she felt something beyond the numbness in his eyes. She felt it was different. Something ancient. Something knowing. 

“From my mother.”

The room seemed to get smaller. “Did you kill your father?” 

His head tilted to one side again as if he was considering his answer to the question. Then he smiled, a slow eerie smile. 

“I freed my mother.” 

The words sent a chill down Marion’s spine. This was not a crime of passion. This was not a crime of self-defense. This was a ritual between mother and son. 

“Daniel, what do you mean by that?” 

Daniel leaned forward and kept smiling his eerie smile. “He was cursed. He hurt us. He hurt a lot of people. The symbol…it was not a drawing, it was a seal.”

“A seal?” 

Daniel nodded. “ To make sure he doesn’t come back.”

Fisher entered the room abruptly, a file in his hand. He whispered into Marion’s ear.

“You need to see this. Look at his father’s background. I don’t know how we missed this. Alfred J. Jones wasn’t just an abuser. He was far darker. He had been accused in other states of murders with strange symbols found at the scenes.” 

Marion exhaled. She turned around and looked back at the room Daniel was in. 

Maybe, just maybe, the real horror was not what Daniel had done but what Alfred might have continued to do if he was not stopped.