Hello, Little Sparrow by Jordan Jones (ebook audio reader txt) 📗

yours. We have a resident in distress, but we have the psychologist on the phone now trying to get her assessed and calm.”

I nodded and made my way under the tape and onto the enclosed porch.

The door was ajar and I peered in to see LT Anderson and Harlow standing over one body on the floor right inside the door and another behind them about eight feet blasted with bullets.

“Woah, John!” LT Anderson halted me before I could step in. “Take a step back.”

“Where’s Abraham,” I said as calmly as I could. “Where’s DeAngelo Abraham, Sir?”

I could see past LT on the floor. The bloody scene was as chaotic as I’ve seen it, but I could tell the man lying down had an agency issued trench coat.

His hand was an African American hand…and Abraham was the only African American man working as a detective in several counties wide.

“Please…John. Take a breath.”

It couldn’t be…

The scene revolved in my mind over and over again, though I only saw a glimpse for a fraction of a second. My training allowed me to access parts of the crime scenes that were still unseen…but it was a curse.

“Is that — is that Abraham?” My voice started to shake. “Tell me, Lieutenant! Is that Abraham on the floor with all that blood?”

He placed his hands on my trembling shoulders and gave me a pathetic glance and an even more pathetic nod.

“Somebody do something!” I screamed from the porch. “Someone get in there and revive him! EMS, we need you. Get him loaded up and taken to St. John’s now!”

The emergency team stood helplessly on the front lawn next to what remained of Madison’s memorial, many of them trying to keep distracted.

“What are you all doing? Get inside and help this man out!”

“John — “ LT Anderson said from behind me. “We’re getting the coroner here to pronounce these deaths. He’s gone, John.”

Tears burst out of my eyes as I kept from trying to hold them back. My legs shook and my breathing became uncontrollable. The contents of my stomach almost found its way onto the Maise lawn when I fell to my knees. The rain felt cold against my skin, my fedora doing little to keep each droplet from invading.

An EMS worker came over to offer comfort, but it wouldn’t matter. Abraham’s body was visible from where I knelt, blood covered the floor all around him. There looked to be draglines from the blood all the way from the doorway to where he was.

I couldn’t stop being a detective.

The other male was undoubtedly Philip Maise who was to be released earlier today.

The Sparrow knew he would come back home, even though Kay told us she wanted nothing more to do with him.

The coroner showed no emotion as she ascended the steps and walked in the doorway. She had a quick conversation with Lieutenant and checked the pulses of both men. She wrote something down in a small notebook and handed it to her assistant. She then descended the stairs and back into the car from which she came.

LT Anderson approached me and looked away, trying not to draw any more attention to the situation.

“He was shot in the neck. He bled out.”

I nodded, still unable to keep from silently sobbing. The pain from my shoulder crept back without any foreshadowing, sending searing pain up and down my side.

“Kay said the killer tried to save his life — like he didn’t mean to shoot him or something.”

“He did, Sir. He shot him and now he’s dead.”

“I know. I know it. She said Abraham busted in the door while he had Philip tied up on the floor. Abraham didn’t have time to react before The Sparrow fired a shot. It spooked him into shooting.”

The Sparrow.

The Phoenix.

I couldn’t bring myself to label him anything other than ‘Monster.’

“Kay said The Sparrow freaked out and just unloaded his gun into Philip and ran.”

My throat was closed, so I tried my best to clear it before I could speak. “Did she mention what she was doing back at an active crime scene?”

“Not yet,” LT Anderson said. “Her husband died right before her eyes. I don’t think it’s the right time for that.”

“It was the right time for her to lead this killer back to her house that we were investigating, apparently,” I said, my voice raised. “She had to have known with the connection between her daughter and The Spar — this killer, that there’s no way she should have been here…let alone on the day Philip gets out of prison.”

“She wasn’t thinking, John.”

Neither was DeAngelo. He had rushed in the home Rambo-style and didn’t bother asking for backup. He had to of known it was The Sparrow inside the home, tying Philip up like a dog. Waving his gun around like a lunatic.

Then again, if I hadn’t been so persistent to keep the Maise case open, the trailer wouldn’t have been an active crime scene under surveillance.

It was hard not to place the blame on my own shoulders, but I wouldn’t vocalize it. I would keep it buried far beneath the surface, much like the constant depression and self-doubt.

“Can I at least see the crime scene?” I asked. “This is still my case. I need to investigate it.”

“John, I don’t think — “

“I need to,” I interrupted.

Without an answer I made my way back up the stairs and through the front door, the blood streak already drying on the carpet. I took out my voice recorder as the rest of the room went silent.

“Victim A was shot in the left side of his throat in the doorway and collapsed.” I choked up a little bit, and continued. “Perpetrator pulled him to the center of the room and