Complicated

Chapter Forty Four: Jail Bait

It's criminal
There ought to be a law
Criminal
There ought to be a whole lot more
You get a nothin' for nothin'

AC/DC – If You Want Blood

Don was nervous. Grace could tell from the tension set deep within his shoulders as he stood in front of the mirror winding his lucky sky blue tie around his neck. His forehead was crinkled with irritation as he frowned at the offending piece of material in his hands. Usually he could fix a tie with his eyes closed but this morning he was preoccupied.

Grace noted the presence of his power suit as she lingered in the doorway a peach coloured satin robe tied tightly around her naked body. She had raked her hair back into a messy bun when she had gotten up to make him coffee whilst he was in the shower this morning. She understood his need to feel invincible today. Everyday she marvelled at the strength and perseverance her husband displayed in their face of their job and she thanked God for bringing him back home safety to her. Yet the justice system wasn't perfect and upholding the law most certainly took it's toll in circumstances like this.

Don scowled as he unwound the tie for a third time to start over again. On a regular day when he chose to wear a suit this would be a simple, almost automatic action but today it felt stiff and unpractised. His mind was wandering elsewhere, filling in details and blanks about the case that was dogging him this morning. He would never forget Laura Mathews, he still kept the pamphlet from her funeral in the drawer where he kept all of his important documents.

"Here let me help." Grace said softly, placing his NYPD coffee mug down on the bedside table.

She stepped up in front of him, taking the tie from his hands as he turned his collar up allowing her to loop the material around his throat. Don tipped his cleanly shaven chin up to give her space to work.

"Just do your best, you never know we might get lucky." Grace murmured as she draw the knot up to the top button of his shirt, fixing it straight.

"I don't see how." Don remarked drily, using his fingers to fold his collar down. "Laura Mathews is probably turning over in her grave right now over this mess."

Since Craig Hansan's demise, the DA's office had been combing through his cases over the past three years searching for any related incidents of evidence tampering. Aside from the Riaz case there had been one other case-file that Hansan had used to search for signs of his wife's infidelity and that had been the Laura Mathews case. Don would never forget that case as long as he lived.

Seeing the kind of damage Dale Maplin had inflicted on that girl's body haunted his nightmares. He had adducted Laura Mathews from their shared apartment building and proceeded to torture the girl within an inch of her life. He would never forget the familiar churning in his stomach nor the acid that burned in the back of his throat as he reviewed the evidence that was etched into young red head's flesh.

The catalogue seemed endless. Burns on her back from a curling iron, thick neat lines where Maplin had experimented trying to work out how to inflict the maximum amount of pain with the blade without damaging the muscle. The bruises upon her face from the beating he had given her after raping the woman's mind and body, worst of all was what wasn't in the pictures. The hours of psychological torture she had endured listening to the sick fuck torment her.

Even after Maplin had been incarcerated it hadn't been enough, those words still echoed in Laura's mind, the scars still evident on her face and body. She was made to look at the atrocities that sadist had committed day in and day out and there was no release from that. In the end she'd escaped the only way she knew how, she'd swallowed a bottle of sleeping tablets and .