Aja's Blues

We stood by somberly as the coffin that supposedly contained the remains of Antoinette Rodgers was exhumed...

It was a gruesome sight....We knew that we had the body of Antoinette Rodgers at the M.E.'s office...So our question now was...Who was in the casket that bore her name...IF ANYONE?  Had another crime been committed...Perhaps another murder???

That was what we were going to find out..

The casket was put on wheels and wheeled over to the medical examiner's van , waiting nearby...

A soft rain began to pour down...I put an umbrella over Monica to protect her hair..

"Why does it always rain when these things occur?" I asked.

Monica looked at me and smiled..

"You are so cute...You watched a lot of horror movies when you were a little boy didn't you?" she said laughing..

''Well..it is raining.." I said.

Monica hugged me and leaned her head on my chest...

"Awwww...Your Mo-Mo won't let anything happen to you boo." she said..

Just then a crackle of lightning followed and then some thunder that seemed to shake the earth!

''Okay...I don't like Thunder and lightning.."said Monica, who held on to me a little tighter..

It was my turn to laugh...

"Why Detective...I'm surprised at you.." I laughed..

Lt. Cotton stood stoically watching the entire thing...

My sister in law..Dr. Monique Talbert put her arms around him..

"You alright boo?" she asked..

"Yeah...I just want to finish this..." he said.

A dark shadowy figure appeared to be watching us from a distance.....It was Mark Rodgers...!!!!!

"Come on Bae...Let's get out of here.." said Monica to me...

"No argument there Mo-Mo." I said and kissed her forehead gently...

II-

 There was a body in the casket....A surprisingly well preserved African-American Female...She was about the same age and height  and build of Antoinette Rodgers...but she clearly wasn't Antoinette Rodgers...

Hours later, we all,Monica, Kylie ,Lt. Cotton and myself gathered at the M.E.'s office to hear Monique's report...

"Well, what we have here is a very well preserved African-American Female...about 32 or 33 at the time of death...She appears to have died of heart failure...No signs of any trauma or foul play..."said Monique...

"There was enough tissue left over that I got a partial fingerprint...I ran it through the system...Her name was Cora...Cora Samples....She had a couple of arrests for pandering and soliticitation...I even found her records..."said Monique..

"WHAT?" I said, amazed at how lucky we had gotten..

''She had records?"asked Monica..

"Yeah...She uh died August 29, 2030....A day before Robert Flynn and Antoinette Rodgers were last seen alive and she vanished from here on September 2, 2030...Just in time for the funeral and look who the body was claimed by..." she said..

"Pete Peterson, The snarky Private Investigator hired by Mark Rodgers to find out if his wife was cheating...Wellllllllllllllllllll.." I said.

''Want to bet Mark Rodgers told him to go and find a woman his wife's size and build that nobody wanted...That nobody would miss and claim it...?" said Lt. Cotton smashing his fist into the palm of his other hand..

"The dead woman had once had a broken ankle...Other than that...She appeared to be alright.."said Monique..

"Yeah and I saw Antoinette Rodger's file...She was in perfect shape..No broken bones..ever" said Detective Kylie White..

This caused everybody's head to spin...

"WHAT? YOU SAW ANTOINETTE RODGERS MEDICAL FILES?? THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!" I said.

"KYLIE...DR. HARVEY....He took her files and jumped in his car and took off remember?? When his car exploded....They were incinerated with him."said Monica...

"I don't know what files he had in his car with him...but they weren't Antoinette Rodgers files...I saw them!!!!..They're still in his office right now." said Kylie..

"Doesn't matter...Nate..Monica...PICK HIS ASS UP!!!" said Lt. Cotton.

III-

 Mark Rodgers sat quietly in the interrogation room....I offered him a tumbler of hot coffee...He was very appreciative...

"Thank you for your kindness detective.." he said as he gulped the coffee down...

I offered him a sandwich....He readily ate the sandwich...I could see he was very nervous...His hands trembled..

Monica walked in with an arm full of files..She sat down quietly across from him without saying a word...

He looked at her...

"You're a very pretty woman Detective Nellis...I won't waste your time...I know why I'm here...I confess...I did it...I killed my wife and her lover....I was supposed to be fishing..... I came home early...and I caught them in our bedroom...Naked..kissing and fondling each other, sweating and moaning and totally oblivious that I was even there....I-I didn't know whether to laugh or cry...I called out to them and they turned...Startled.....I ran downstairs  to the basement..I was like a wild man..I came back with my .45 and I shot and killed them both!  I loved her,I was obsessed with her...I couldn't bare losing her and losing her to that swinging playboy...I killed them...I killed them both...and had Pete discard of the bodies." he said quietly...His hands shaking...

I passed him a tablet and he wrote his confession... I read him his rights and two police officers walked him away....

He looked at Lt. Cotton

"You Happy now DETECTIVE? You got me....You still couldn't have her!" he snarled...

Monica looked at me...

"He's lying...He didn't kill her..." she said...She had scanned his mind the entire time he was talking..

"You didn't have to tell me that...I didn't believe his story one bit after I heard it." I said.

Lt. Cotton walked over to us..He hadn 't heard our conversation but what he said was surprising...

"Cut him loose...He was lying.."he said.

Monica smiled..

"HOW DO YOU TWO GUYS KNOW THAT?" she asked..

She knew and I knew how she knew...What she wanted to know was how WE knew!

''Mo...I'm a guy...If I'm caught in the bed with a married woman...I'm not going to stick around and wait for him to go get his gun...I'm going to be out of there with a quickness...His story doesn't play...A hot shot like Richard Flynn just kept on kissing the woman and waited for her husband to come back and shoot them both? Nahhhh that wouldn't have happened?" I said.

"I uh talked to his brother and to a friend..They were on that fishing trip...He wasn't there when the murders took place...They alibied him...I wanted him to be guilty so bad that I overlooked the obvious." said Lt. Cotton...

"You think it was Peterson?  He's dead.." I asked..

"No..it wasn't Pete Peterson...He just covered it up...I know who it is...Before we cut Rodgers loose...Let's take a ride guys..."said Monica.

IV-

The house was dark and the front door was surprisingly open as we pulled up in two cars...

Monica pulled her glock and motioned to the two uniformed officers to ring the door bell...

I had the warrant...I motioned for the uniformed officer with me to walk around the back of the house...

Lt. Cotton called out-

"Aja ...Aja!!! We need to talk to you honey....It's the Police!"he said... "We have a warrant!!!"

The house was eerily quiet....

The officer I had with me and I entered from the back door...We met Monica and her two officers in the living room..

''She's in here somewhere...I can feel it."said Monica.

"Stay here...I'm going upstairs."said Lt. Cotton...

He quietly began walking up the stairs...A shadowy figure emerged from the shadows...It was Aja and she had a gun...

"DON'T YOU HURT MY MOTHER MISTER FLYNN" SHE SHOUTED.. Her smile was gone...Her eyes were glazed.....

"MISTER FLYNN...TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF MY MOTHER!" she shouted again...oblivious that her home was flooded with cops..

"Aja...baby...it's alright...I know everything....I know everything..It's alright...We've come to get you some help..."said Lt. Cotton..

"DON'T YOU HURT MY DADDY MR. FLYNN, TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF OF MY MOTHER!!"
she yelled..

"Aja...I know what happened...They usually put you to sleep....but you didn't always stay asleep...You heard them sometimes..laughing,moaning...in your parents bedroom...You heard them and you didn't drink your milk this time...The milk laced with a sedative...You-You-You hid in the closet..the linen closet....You saw the two of them...

You saw Mr. Flynn and your mother together didn't you?" asked Lt. Cotton...

"Yes...I saw them...He had his arms around her...They were kissing...They didn't have any clothes on...

"She put her hands on his big thing and rubbed it...He smiled and moaned and kissed my mother... and then she got down on her knees and put his big thing in her mouth....Mommy was smiling and her head was going back and forth and Mr. Flynn was laughing and moaning and he cradled Mommy's head...


I stepped out of the closet...I had my daddy's gun!"said Aja...

"Baby, you were eight years old...You didn't know what you were looking at."said Lt. Cotton..

"They were doing something nasty......"DON'T YOU HURT MY MOTHER MISTER FLYNN...MISTER FLYNN...TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF MY MOTHER...I said and I shot both of them!!!!...I shot them both in the head...."screamed Aja and she fired a shot that tore through Lt. Cotton's shoulder... He fell to the ground..

"Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.." he moaned in pain...

Monica  and I and the three uniformed officers rushed up the stairs....our glocks pulled...but Lt. Cotton
cautioned us...

"No...No...Hold your fire!!!!!...Don't shoot!!!!!..Nobody shoot!!!!!" he said...

Aja, now 18 years old cried.....

"Oh My God...I killed my mother....Oh My God...What did I doooooooooooooooooo?.I killed my mother..I killed my mother...What did I doooooooooooooooooo?Oh My God.." she wept...

Monica stepped over Lt. Cotton...and walked toward Aja...

"It's okay baby....Give me that gun..It's alright...Give me that gun baby~!" she said softly....

Aja slowly handed the gun to Monica.....who nodded..

I handcuffed her.....

By now Lt. Cotton had got to his feet...

"Officer...call an ambulance.." He said... He looked at me and Monica..

"Case Closed!" he said and held his shoulder and slowly walked down the steps..

EPILOUGE-

 Lt. Cotton fully recovered from his wound and met with Mark Rodgers at the Port Bar for drinks...a week later.

"Thank you for coming Mr. Rodgers..I didn't think you would.."said Lt. Cotton..

"I guess I should thank you for dropping all of the charges against me..."he said dryly as he drank his beers.

"Your only crime was one of concealment....Your daughter blocked that whole thing out of her mind..I hear she's been able to do that her entire life...That wasn't your wife's medical records that Dr. Harvey took...That was your daughter's Psychological records...that burned up with him...And all this talk about finding bones brought all these memories back." said Lt. Cotton..

"I tried to protect her...I lost my wife...She was all I had."said Mark Rodgers..

"I understand.... Believe me I understand....I've put myself in your place a thousand times these past few weeks..How is Aja doing? "asked Lt. Cotton..

"The facility she is in is very nice, very clean...and she is getting around the clock therapy..Thank you for not filing any criminal charges against her Lieutenant.."said Mark Rodgers..

"She was eight years old...She was traumatized....This was just a terrible,terrible tragedy that's all."said Lt. Cotton...

Mark Rodgers sat back...

"I came home the next day from my fishing trip and I found the bodies....My poor little daughter was in the linen closet crying her eyes out..I called Pete Peterson , paid him to cover it up, find a body in the morgue of a transient woman...somebody nobody would claim or miss and we cooked up a cover story...He and I removed the bodies and bleached the place down....I told him to discard the bodies..I didn't want to know where...I didn't know how sick Pete was..He died suddenly himself ,just a week or two later...That was a bad time...." he mused..

"No doubt...Get away from here Mr. Rodgers..take a vacation....You deserve a break from all of this.."said Lt. Cotton...

"I'm surprised with what I've told you ,you're not arresting me for conspiracy or accessory to the fact."he mused..

"You've suffered enough....As far as I'm concerned...I didn't hear any of what you just told me...Consider this matter closed."said Lt. Cotton..

"Thank You...Thank You Lieutenant." he said...

Monica and I sat down the pier....Kissing each other passionately...

"This has to go down as one of our more stranger cases huh ?" I said..

"I'll say...I'm going to have nightmares about those bones and that house for weeks..."said Monica in between more kisses...

"I of course could help you get over that.."I said slyly...

"How do you plan to do that?" said Monica...smiling seductively...

"Ohhhh some sensuous lovemaking until you're too tired to think about it..."I said slyly...

Monica smiled and we continued kissing...

"Mmmmmmm that might be just what the doctor ordered..." she laughed ,in between more kisses.