Discombobulate

Chapter Forty

"I didn't mean for this to happen." Denise sunk into her chair. "I shouldn't have left for the book tour. I shouldn't have written the story; look where it got me."

"You didn't expect your family to be murdered. We'll figure out what happened. Where did you find this?" Detective Mullen scanned through Jennifer's journal. A large yellow notepad sat next to him. Every few seconds, he wrote something on it.

"I was cleaning my car. I found it stashed underneath a seat in the back."

"And you don't know who this Grant is?"

Denise shook her head, "I have no clue. I wasn't aware my mom was talking to anyone. I don't understand why he did it. He slaughtered them like animals."

Detective Mullen pressed his lips together. "Mm...maybe. We don't know if he's the murderer or not. We won't know anything until we talk to him."

"How could someone do such a cruel thing? He stabbed them multiple times and let them suffer! Why would anyone want to do that?"

Detective Mullen dropped his pen. His eyes met hers. "If our killer happens to be this Grant guy, there's a high chance he did it out of anger. Your mom bruised his ego."

"You can bounce back from a bruised ego! You can't return to a normal life after a felony. You can't vote, you can't get a passport, you can't own a gun." Denise ran her hand through her hair. "I've never been mad enough to kill someone."

"Sometimes people see red. They react before they realize what they're doing. It only takes a few seconds to do something stupid. When we find the killer, you can talk to them yourself."

The wooden door to Detective Mullen's office flew open. Sheriff Winston stumbled inside. The white cockatoo on his shoulder was falling. He huffed and puffed as he shut the door. "What did I miss?"

"Did you see Denise's car outside?" Detective Mullen asked.

"Yeah, I saw the back of it. What happened?" Winston flung his hat onto the table and ripped his eye patch off his face. "Did you get into a car accident?"

"Someone tried to kill me!" Denise blurted out.

"What?" Winston put his hands on his knees. He struggled to breathe. He parked the sheriff's car behind the station and ran inside.

"Do you happen to know anyone by the name of Grant?" Mullen changed the topic. He closed the journal and slid it over to Winston.

"I met the wife of someone named Grant at the fire station. I don't personally know anyone named Grant. Why? What does this have to do with anything? What about the car?"

"Denise came here to give me that. On the way inside, some guy with a red pickup truck tried to squash her between his bumper and her car. She dived out of the way just in time."

"The book is Jennifer's journal," Denise added. "I found it in my car yesterday. I realized it might be helpful after you said they found male DNA under Jennifer's nails. There's a guy named Grant mentioned in it."

Winston grabbed the journal and started glancing through it. Mullen jotted something else on his notepad. Two brisk knocks came from the door again.

Deputy Falcon shoved her head inside. Before they came to Detective Mullen's office, Deputy Falcon took Denise's statement. She spoke to Denise in a different room. The two spent twenty minutes together before they departed.

"I'm sorry to interrupt. Cody, do you remember that pizza man crash last night?" She stepped inside the door.

Detective Mullen glanced up from his chair. "What about it?"