Free To Love and to Kill by M. William Phelps

followed.

CHAPTER 17
    THE MAJOR CRIMES division of the MCSO investigated homicides and felony assaults, in addition to other serious crimes and deaths considered suspicious or otherwise strange, until proven different: overdoses, suicides, the unexplained and so on. It was Major Crimes that got Heather’s case weeks ago when the information the MCSO was receiving told investigating officers that it was highly unlikely Heather had disappeared on her own.
    Detective Brian Spivey grew up in Ocala. It was baseball that landed him a scholarship at Santa Fe Community College in New Mexico. Yet, the athlete in him understood that baseball was a springboard for a degree, not a professional contract.
    â€œEvery athlete dreams of the pros, but realistically I knew that getting a degree,” Spivey said with a laugh, “was the best thing that could come out of my baseball career.”
    Upon returning to Florida after college and attending a local school to upgrade his education, Spivey went right into the police academy. Not because of a family obligation or some secret desire to chase bad guys, but because being a baseball player all those years and working with a team to accomplish a goal lit a fire within Spivey to carry that spirit into his vocational life.
    â€œWorking with a group of individuals to accomplish a goal,” Spivey told me, “law enforcement just seemed to be the next step.”
    His first job happened to be with the Marion County Sheriff’s Office. He started like everyone else, in patrol. From there, he worked his way up into Major Crimes as a detective. That was 2002. Spivey’s initiation into Major Crimes was a homicide involving a guy who had been stabbed seventy-eight times.
    â€œTwo guys put him in the trunk of a car and took him out into the woods after killing him and were in the process of burying him when a patrol car just happened to drive by and see the car. . . .” There was blood all over the vehicle, some even dripping down into the wheel wells and from the trunk. The officer called it in and they found the body soon after, along with the two guys hiding in the woods. It became Spivey’s first case.
    Now he was supervising Major Crimes.
    When Spivey and Buie arrived back at Major Crimes that night, Emilia was already sitting, waiting to be questioned. She had come in voluntarily and said she wanted to help any way she could. Spivey and Buie knew that Emilia possibly held the potential to open up this case. She knew Josh’s secrets. She had spent time with both Josh and Heather. Someone had even told the MCSO that Emilia had been Heather’s babysitter at various times.
    They asked Emilia how long she had known Josh.
    â€œTwo years ... we dated for four months last year when Josh and Heather split up,” Emilia said. “When they reunited in December, though, Josh and I parted ways.”
    Emilia came across as articulate and intelligent. Her voice was tethered to a Southern twang prone to those native Floridians more to the north of the state. Later it would be determined that she had an IQ of about 125. Emilia was no dumb street chick; she was a bright girl who knew exactly what she was doing.
    This relationship—Josh, Heather and Emilia—had a sordid, rather confusing history over just the past seven months. When Emilia was with Josh, she, of course, had words with Heather and they didn’t get along. On occasion, both women had even tossed vulgarities at each other, shouted insults and argued. Your typical back-and-forth scorned-lover bickering.
    â€œSo you dated Josh?” Buie asked Emilia.
    Emilia looked off to the side. She was a bit impervious in regard to sharing something—that much was obvious by the look on her face. Emilia had a secret. This much they knew to be true.
    â€œWhat is it?”
    Emilia looked down. She put her hand on her tummy.
    â€œWe parted ways, Josh and I, but I was already pregnant with his