Murder Came Second by Jessica Thomas Read Free Book Online Page B

pal.’”
    The woman took a drink of water. “He set Petey down in our yard, patted his bottom and said, ‘Now get along home, Cowboy, before you get hurt.’ I ran down and got Petey and thanked Jeff. I had Petey in my arms and he leaned over and gave Jeff a kiss on the cheek. Jeff tousled his head and left. I called out an apology and he turned and laughed again. ‘All kids get loose sometimes, no matter how hard you watch. I guess they have guardian angels.’”
    She sniffed. “That was the last time I saw him alive. He was the one that needed an angel . Then later, Virginia tried to say Jeff was abusing Petey! Right there on the street with me watching. Poor woman was crazed, of course.”
    Fargo and I were doing pretty well. I was watching the screen and eating pizza and salad, with the occasional sip of beer. Fargo was eating the crusts and counting the pieces left in the box. The drama returned after brief commercials—about six minutes worth.
    Our next guest was a retired woman police officer who had worked on the case. “Worst damn case I ever got assigned to,” she began. “I had nightmares for years to come. When my partner and I got there, a man from a nearby house was already standing at the end of the driveway, stopping neighbors from going into the Leonards’ backyard. When the kids had started yelling, he had come over and helped the neighbor woman herd them into her car again, and then he had run to the back of the Leonards’ house to see what was wrong. What he saw was Mrs. Leonard with a butcher knife and a hatchet, dismembering her husband on the picnic table and feeding the smaller parts into a woodchopper.”
    The ex-cop made an automatic gesture toward her shirt pocket for cigarettes, remembered where she was and settled for water. “When Virginia Leonard saw the neighbor, she screamed something like, ‘Go away! I must save the children from this monster!’ The man saw the knife and hatchet and didn’t argue. He ran back out front, hollering for someone to call 911, and waving people off . . . and barfing all over the place.” That earned her a sour look from the commentator.
    The ex-officer continued, with a faraway look, as if she were seeing it all again. “We were the first police car there. We talked her into turning off the chopper and telling us what was going on . . . as if we couldn’t see. She told us very calmly that her husband had often sexually abused their son and daughter. That he had admitted it and agreed to seek help. Then, just minutes before, she had seen him openly abuse the little two-year-old across the street and laugh about it with the mother, who must be abusive also.”
    “That had apparently put Mrs. Leonard over the top,” the cop continued. “When her husband came into the kitchen his wife stabbed him six times with a butcher knife and dragged him into the backyard.”
    A social services worker appeared next. “It took us till the next day to calm the children sufficiently even to talk to them. And to this day, I’m not sure what part of that whole sad story is true. The daughter Elaine said that the mother was always ‘nervous’ and wanted to know where they were and what they were doing every minute. Elaine added that up until the last few months, things had been a lot more fun when Daddy was home. He helped with homework, took the kids to baseball games, swimming, hiking, etc. Sometimes all four would go to a movie or, occasionally a theme park.” The woman stopped, put on her glasses and consulted some notes.
    “Lately, things had been a mess, Elaine said, and blamed her brother Bobby. He didn’t want to go anywhere without Daddy, or didn’t want Mom and Sis to go along at all. He complained that Elaine and Mom didn’t want Daddy to love him anymore. Then he told her that Daddy loved him best, man-to-man, now that Elaine was getting big and grown-up like Mom. Well, you can imagine what a can of worms that opened up, especially when