Bang (5 page)

Jack looks up into her face, searching for evidence. “Look, can we talk about this? Not now,” he amends, when he sees her dark eyes widen in what can only be called terror. “Not right this minute. This weekend, okay? Come over and we'll order from Rizzuto's and just like, talk about shit and how we're going to handle work, I don't know.” He shakes his head. “I miss you.”

Mari sighs and leans back against the staircase, thinking about it. “I miss you too,” she says at last. “I miss you all the time.” Then, “Saturday, maybe. Andre has Sonya.”

“Okay.” Jackson rubs at his neck. His gut aches kneeling in this position, each individual bullet hole as sharp and distinct as when he first got them. “Well. Let me know.”

Jackson takes off pretty much the second they leave the basement, scarfing down a coconut square before sticking his face under the faucet. Marisol blushes when she realizes why.

“You wanna take the pan?” she asks. “I can wrap it.” She used to send Jackson home with leftovers all the time, this dumb Boricuan-mama stereotype only he brings out in her. Whenever he had a girlfriend she found herself doing it every other week, humiliatingly transparent. She likes watching him eat.

All his past girlfriends have been white. Mari tries not to think about what that means one way or the other.

He shakes his head. “I should go,” he says, forking up the last bit of coconut. “Tell your mom goodbye for me, okay?”

“I—yeah.” Mari rubs her arms, chilly. It's real fall now, all the last bits of Indian summer wrung out, Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas coming fast down the highway. She swallowed her pill while he was eating, fast and dry so they could both pretend it wasn't happening. “Sure, of course.”

“Okay.” Jackson nods and puts his plate in the basin. He's wearing a hoodie she recognizes as one he's had for years, this washed-soft gray thing with a tiny hole near the wrist. Mari wants to zip herself inside. “See you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Mari walks him over to the back door, both of them standing there awkwardly for a minute like ninth-graders at the end of a first date. It's perverse that he'll go down on her in her fucking basement but they don't know how to say goodbye like two normal humans. She knows he's thinking it too. Finally Jack reaches out and brushes her fingertips with his, gentle. Mari feels a rush of heat all up her arm.

I love you
, she wants to tell him. “Saturday,” she says instead.

Before shift the next day Leo chews them out again for the screwup at the motel, this time with witnesses, then offers them a choice between call-center duty or participating in the second round of school talks. “I want a decision in the next ten seconds,” he finishes, shuffling a stack of papers. “And then I want you out of my office.”

He's pissed, more than Marisol would have guessed. It's not the end of the world, their screwup—the motel isn't going anywhere, they can always try again—and she wonders if he's under pressure from Internal Investigations Division for letting Jackson back on active duty so soon. Normally when an officer goes on leave with an injury at GB, it's because they threw their back out fixing something in the garage. No one seems to know what the protocol should be with gunshots.

“High school children wait for no one,” Leo says.

Mari looks at Jack, the new, sharper cut of his jaw. She remembers the emergency room, the terrifying relief when the nurse finally announced he was stable. The deep shame when she snuck out less than an hour later. “Call center,” she says firmly.

They're pulling into the parking lot before Jackson finally speaks up. Mari has no idea if he regrets coming over to her house yesterday, or what. “Thanks,” he mutters. “We should have brought cards, huh?”

Mari laughs. “Maybe.” Great Barrington's 911 dispatch center went fully civilian some ten years ago, but the brass likes to keep at least one sworn officer on duty at all times, just in case. It's a mind-numbing assignment. Normally it goes to a rookie straight out of the academy, or one of the old guard counting down the days until his pension. Jack and Mari's first year as partners, they wound up working first watch there at least once a week. They would split a pack of Twizzlers from the vending machine and play Xs and Os. Mari used to like it, but ever since her father died of a heart attack five years ago, the routine my-husband's-chest-hurts calls make her a little nauseous.

“Well damn,” crows Lucy Gibbs when the two of them walk in together, taking off her headset and pulling herself up out of her rolling chair with some considerable effort. “I've got you two troublemakers today?”

“Hey, Lucy,” Mari says, but—predictably—Lucy's only got eyes for Jack.

“You look good,” she tells him, peering at him appraisingly through her sizeable glasses. She's wearing a pin on her flowered T-shirt that has a picture of all four of her grandkids. She smells strongly of Marlboro Lights.

“I feel good,” Jack says, which might or might not be true. “Thanks for the plant, by the way.”

Christ, even Lucy from the call center sent him flowers in the hospital? Mari frowns. “I'm getting coffee,” she announces and shuffles over to the machine. Her uniform chafes.

It's a boring morning for the most part, an elderly guy who tripped on his front steps, a fender-bender on Route 7. There's a stretch of over an hour when the phone never rings at all. That happened for an entire watch once, nobody calling, the switchboard resolutely dark and silent; it made Mari real uneasy, actually, like the whole world was holding its breath without knowing it. Waiting for whatever emergency was next.

“Slow news day,” Jack remarks, legs planted wide in his rolling chair. “You wanna get lunch, or should I?”

“I'll go.” Mari stands up, stretching out her back. “Whatcha want? Sandwich?”

Jackson shrugs. “Burgers,” he says. “If we're gonna be on our asses.”

“Sure thing.” Their usual place takes forever to fill orders, so they only get burgers on really slow days. Mari wonders if Jack remembers that this place gives her the yips.

She drives the cruiser over to Staax, a chicken sandy for her and a build-your-own double for him, mustard, mayo and bacon, extra cheese. On second thought, she gets him a shake too. She still can't get over the new shape of him, the familiar-unfamiliar lines. He was a skinny-ass kid when they first met, hollow and stretched like a teenager on a growth spurt. He had a white-boy sock tan. He and his brother Terry ran cross country in college, both of them with that rangy look. Jack's almost, but not quite, the same shape again now.

“Here,” she says, plunking the bag in Jack's lap when she gets back. “Eat up.”

Jackson smirks at the extra order. “Gee, thanks, de la Espada.” The look on his face makes her warm.

Mari doesn't have the chance to sass back, though, because just then Lucy waves them over. “Think you guys should take this one,” she says. “There's a shotgun involved.”

Mari blinks. There are never calls involving guns here—there are never
guns
here, period. It's why Jack and Mari are probably the only cops out of GB station right now who have even seen one while on duty, let alone been fired at. “Where is it?” she asks, as Jack picks up the extra headset.

Lucy ignores her, already typing the address into the system, pressing the button that'll send it on to the precinct switchboard. Armed robbery in progress, Mari reads over her shoulder. Just the words make her palms sweat. She wonders if it's the same guy who shot Jack in the parking garage, armed robbery morphing into a foot chase morphing into Mari's worst nightmare. It has to be, right? There can only be so many shotguns in GB.

Jackson settles into the chair. “Ma'am, I'm Officer Ford, and I'm here to talk you through this. Can you tell me where you are?” Mari tilts her head close to listen in. Lucy is listening through her own headset, typing out the words as they come.

The voice on the other end is a staticky whisper. Mari can't even tell if it's a man or a woman, though Lucy's sheet says female. “I'm on the floor, he told us to all get on the floor. I'm—the back.”

“You're in the back?” Jackson asks. God, Mari barely remembers dispatch protocol for armed robbery. She's only ever had to use it in training. “Good, stay there. Don't move, don't talk if you think it's going to put you in any danger. Can you confirm for me the robber has a shotgun?” A quiet
yes
. “And is that the only gun you've seen?”

Before the caller can answer there's a loud bang, followed by screams. Jackson starts violently, clawing the headphones off his ears like a reflex. He swears when he realizes what he's done, scrambling for the mouth piece.

“I got it,” Marisol says, taking them from him. “It's okay, I got it.” Then, louder, “Ma'am, are you all right? Is everyone all right?” She has to lean right over Jack to speak, his shoulder pressed against her chest. His breathing is so, so fast.

“He shot the ceiling,” the voice stutters. “I think—he shot the ceiling. He's leaving. He's going out the door.”

“Good, stay on the floor for a few more minutes,” Mari instructs. “Don't stand up. You're going to be just fine, help is on the way.”

It's out of their hands after that. Sirens start wailing in the background and their caller hangs up, safe and sound with the patrol officers. Jackson stands, stalking off to God knows where. Lucy takes another call. Mari sits where she is and thinks.

“Transcript says he was speaking the whole time,” Lucy announces during the next lull. “Calm and speaking. That's what the transcript says, and that's what I heard.”

Mari breathes. “Thank you,” she says. “I—Lucy, thank you.” She reaches back to fuss with her hair, reflexive, except her fucking hair isn't there anymore because she's an idiot who hacked it off to spite herself. To spite the whole world. God, Mari hates the world in this moment. She hates whoever the hell shot her partner.

Most of all, she hates herself.

She rubs her naked neck for a minute, and then she stands up. “I'm going to—” she begins, but Lucy waves her off.

“I'll be here,” Lucy says, eyes on her computer screen. “Take your time.”

She finds Jackson out back behind the call center near the dumpsters, sitting on the concrete steps and smoking a cigarette. That surprises her—neither of them have smoked in years, or at least Mari didn't think they had. She wonders what else she doesn't know about him. She can see the hunched line of his backbone right through his uniform shirt.

“Gonna share that with me?” she asks as the door thuds shut behind her.

Jack hands it up without looking at her, staring at the parking lot like something really interesting is happening out there. “I don't want to talk about it,” he says.

“Okay.” Mari takes a puff and sits down next to him, shivering in guilty pleasure as the burn of it fills her lungs. “There isn't going to be a report, though,” she adds, flicking away some ash. “Just so you know.”

Jackson opens his mouth to ask the obvious question, then closes it again. “Okay,” is all he says.

Mari hands the cigarette back silently. The concrete is chilly under her ass, the shade of the building and the turning weather. Soon it'll be time to make the switch back to winter uniforms, long sleeves and clip-on ties. Jackson has been wearing his own every day since he got back, buttoned up.

“How long until you know?” he asks suddenly. “If the pills, like…”

Oh. “This weekend, I guess,” Mari stutters. “Is when I'm supposed to start my—” Jesus. She can feel her face getting hot. All their years of knowing each other, and she has never once spoken to Jack about her period. It's not like she's shy, either. God knows she had no problem with Andre, or any of her other boyfriends. It's just—it's Jack.

“Okay.” He sucks on the cigarette again, pretty cheeks gone hollow. He still isn't looking at her. “Well. Keep me posted.”

That makes Mari laugh, this dumb little huff of air and her head dropping down, reaching back again to play with hair that isn't there. “You'll be the first to know, how about.”

“Good.” Jack tosses the cigarette onto the blacktop, and both of them watch it roll and burn out. “I'm fine to work,” he says.

“I know you are.” Mari nods. “You'd tell me if you weren't.” They still aren't looking at each other. A fat squirrel skitters across the top of the Dumpster, oddly deft. “When you had your psych eval,” she begins softly, her heart ticking like a bomb at the back of her mouth. “Did you—?”

“I said, I didn't want to talk about it, Mari.” Jackson sighs an irritated sigh. Then, a long beat of taut silence later: “I don't sleep anymore, for one thing.”

Mari bites her tongue so hard she tastes copper. “No, huh?” she asks, feeling vaguely like the cigarette is lodged in her throat. They aren't touching at all but she can feel the heat radiating off him anyway, the fine hair on her arms standing up.

Jack shakes his head. “I wake up, I don't know. I dream.”

“About what?” Mari asks. Jack doesn't answer. Mari breathes. Then, because she hasn't seen him smile in a long time and she misses it, “Bet I could tire you out.”

Jackson laughs out loud then, a real laugh, so deep it almost bellows. For the first time since she came out here, he looks her full in the face. “Are you
flirting
with me?” he asks. He says it like it's the most absurd thing in the world.

“You wish,” Mari says, shaking her head and smirking a little. “Give me another cigarette.”

“I do wish,” Jack says, reaching into his shirt pocket to pull out the pack. “I do.”

Chapter Four

Jackson decides the best thing to do is pretend the thing at the call center never happened.

Let me know how you want to ease into it
, Sarge had said when he was first reinstated.
We're gonna do this thing at your pace.
And when Jackson's pace had turned out to be faster than Internal Investigations Division would have liked, Leo had gone to bat for him. Jack owes him a smooth ride.

It's under control, he tells himself in the days afterwards. He just got back. He's allowed to have a few kinks in his system.

It's a lucky weekend that week, cop-talk for when your off days line up perfectly with Saturday and Sunday, which makes it hard to worry about much of anything. Patrol officers at GB work six on, two off, so actual weekends don't happen a lot. Neither do holidays. Right now Jack and Mari are on second watch, eight a.m. to four thirty, the closest you can get to a normal nine-to-five workday. It's their first pick every year in the shift lottery.

“Think Sarge'll let us back on second watch this year?” Mari asks as they're clocking out on Friday. Jack knows she worked nights when he was in the hospital. He's guessing she's probably not anxious to do it again.

He shrugs. Leo isn't exactly thrilled with the pair of them at the moment. “Maybe. Been three years in a row, though.” The last time they switched was when Gordy Punch broke his leg and they got shuffled to third watch, the bitch shift. Mari complained and complained but Jack secretly loved it, the quiet early morning hours, watching the sun come up on his drive home. He had Mari to himself on their off-days too, when sticking to their busted sleep schedules meant they were the only ones in the world awake. They used to watch late-night TV together over the phone sometimes, hers on mute so the baby and Andre could sleep, Jack supplying the dialogue. Infomercials, mostly. Jack owns a slap-chop now. Mari has a George Foreman Grill and a Thigh Master.

“Our number might finally be up,” he tells her now, heading into the locker room. Mari harrumphs.

Back in his street clothes, Jack stalls in the doorway of the locker room a moment, debating. He knows Mari's driving straight home to Sone tonight. They said their goodbyes in the hallway.

“You coming?” Zales asks him, jerking his thumb toward the parking lot.

Jack makes a decision. “Nah,” he says. “Forgot my phone.” He turns away and heads back up the long skinny hallway toward the bullpen, past the kitchen and the roll room and the row of computer monitors he and Mari and the other patrol cops use for paperwork, then out the other side to the corral of offices. He stops in front of Joe Bushur's door.

“Have a sec?” he asks, when Joe answers his rap with
It's open!

Joe glances up from the mess of files in front of him, looking harassed. He and Robyn Birk are the only two detectives at GB and their caseload is always double the maximum the regs suggest. When he sees Jack, his face changes. “Hey, Ford. Yeah, come on in.”

Jackson does, closing the door behind him. Joe has a look on his face like he knows what's coming, but Jack asks anyway. “You caught my case, right? You and Birk?”

“I mean, after Internal finished with it, yeah.” Joe frowns. “We have no new leads though, man, if that's what you're wondering. I would have told you.”

Jack shoves his hands inside his pockets. “I know. I just want to look at the file.”

Joe's eyebrows jump. “Why? It's just forensics on the slugs and a bunch of pictures of blood.”

Jackson shrugs. He's been putting off this encounter every day since he got back. Now, thinking about Leo and getting reinstated and all the ways his jumpy-ass broken body might fail his Sergeant—or anyone else—he needs to get it done. “Just to look.”

Joe sighs. He leans down and yanks open his file drawer, flipping through until he gets to the right folder. He drops it in front of Jackson with a thunk. “You have five minutes. Don't mess that shit up.”

Jack takes the file to one of the unused interview rooms. It feels light in his hands, insubstantial. Not like a case that's anywhere near being solved. His name is written on the tab in block letters,
JACKSON FORD
. Someone added a
PRIORITY
sticker and drew three stars next to it. Jack wonders if it was Joe or Birk.

He flips the file open and sure enough, there are the pictures Joe mentioned, sticky pools of blood gleaming under the flash, evidence markers littered across the cement floor. There are a couple stills of the bullets too, the clean ones retrieved from the garage floor and the mangled bent ones the docs pulled out during surgery. Jackson flips past those and a description of his wounds until he finds what he's looking for.

De la Espada:
I don't know, white, brown hair? I didn't see the guy's face, he had a mask on until the very end. I just—I wasn't looking.

Mari's statement.

It's by far the longest document in the whole file, question after question as Piper and then the detectives tried to extract everything Mari knew or could have known. Which, Jackson notes, skimming the statement, wasn't much. And he knew that, he'd been told by the IAB detective who finally took his own statement, but it's different to see it written out.

De la Espada:
That's right, I ran up the south staircase when I heard the gunshots. Three shots, all in a row.

De la Espada:
Yes, Officer Ford was on the ground when I arrived on the scene.

De la Espada:
No, I didn't—I didn't pursue.

Jackson slams the folder shut.

He heads home that night with a sixer of beer and the intention to clean his place and not think about anything at all. He's still in the same condo he's lived in since he and Mari were rookies, two bedrooms and a mortgage he started paying back when everybody else was still blowing through their take-home on nachos and pitchers of beer. Even then he liked the idea of having a place that was his, no landlord to answer to or rent hikes to worry about. He likes things that are permanent, Jack does. He always has.

He's wiping down his kitchen counters when his phone rings in his pocket,
HOME
displayed in all caps accompanied by the world's cheesiest '90s picture of him and his siblings in colorful sweaters for a Christmas shoot at Sears. It makes Mari laugh every time she sees it. “Hi, Mom,” Jackson says as he picks up.

“Hi, baby.” Jack can hear a dog barking in the background, Rocko, the newest yellow lab in the string of yellow labs his parents have had ever since he and Terry and Meredith were kids. “I'm just calling to see what time you thought you might come over tomorrow.”

Fuck.

Tomorrow, as in the nineteenth. As in, his dad's birthday.

“Uh.” Jack stalls, feeling like a piece of shit for forgetting. Birthdays are a big deal in the Ford house, your favorite dinner and a surplus of off-key singing. Meredith has been in the hospital for two of hers but Jack's mom never let that stop them, the whole family parading through the corridors of the eating disorder clinic with an enormous chocolate-layer cake. “Could get to you around four, maybe?” Then, although he has no fucking idea if this is going to play or not, “Was thinking maybe I'd bring Mari.”

“Oh?” There's a clatter, and Rocko woofing again. “Of course, we'd love to have her.”

Jack tries to read her tone for something beyond mild surprise, but can't. “Yeah.” He scratches at a piece of stuck-on grime beside the sink with a thumbnail. Then, like he and Mari have already discussed this, “She's just gotta make sure someone can take Sone.” He's good at lying about Mari now. All through his hospital stay he made up bullshit stories about why she wasn't at his bedside, lied to his parents and his brother and sister and any other cops that happened to show up. He kept figuring she'd make an honest man out of him eventually, show up with apologies and explanations.

Obviously that didn't happen.

His mom shushes the dog. “Well, we've still got the baby seats from Aunt Krissy's twins kicking around somewhere, plus the high chair. Tell Mari we'd love to have her daughter visit again.”

Again, as in only once before. The last time Mari got down to Jack's parents' place was right after the baby was born, a double date with her and Andre and whoever Jack's girlfriend was at the time, a blonde named Susie. Jack remembers Susie thought it was weird. “Sonya's too big for that chair now, Mom,” he says. Then, “Sure, I'll pass it along.” Back when they were rookies, Mari used to come all the time. Once the Fords even threw her a birthday party. Then Andre happened, and Sonya. Jack guesses at some point he stopped extending invites.

He chats with his mom for another five minutes, Rocko's new fear of the step-ladder and how his dad is convinced this is the year for the Bruins. Then his dad comes on to discuss his convictions himself. Meredith grabs the phone away for a second to whisper noisily that she can include Jackson on her card if he needs. Jack tells her to go screw.

“Just get the beer he likes,” Mer says, lowering her voice for real. “Easy.” Jack huffs.

After everyone hangs up, he puts the phone back in his pocket and stands staring at his half-cleaned kitchen, the wine he'd planned to serve Mari tomorrow. Then he grabs his keys. On the way out the door he shoots a text to Terry,
why the hell didn't you remind me it was dad's birthday?

So you'd fuck up and make me look good
, is the reply. Jackson rolls his eyes.

The liquor store is yet another place in GB where everyone knows his face, both because he's a frequent customer and because he and Mari get called out here a lot, homeless guys trying to pocket loose beer cans. Jackson buys the faintly girly craft stuff his dad can't get enough of and does a round of hellos. Everyone asks about the shooting—how it felt, how he's healing, if they've caught the guy yet. The kid from the stockroom even asks to see the scars.

“You wanna see my dick too?” Jackson asks, handing over a twenty. By the time he hits the parking lot, he's dying for a cigarette.

He lights up outside the SUV, not wanting to ruin the interior. He keeps telling himself he hasn't really started smoking again, is just sneaking one or two as a pick-me-up, but so far he's averaged three packs a week since he's been back on active duty. It takes him about a half-dozen drags before he's calm enough to call Mari. Her statement is still swimming around his head. He was banking on having a night to forget about it before he had to talk to her.

“I'm sorry to blow off our thing,” he tells her once he's explained about his father. “I just—didn't think.”

“You're just also a really shitty son,” Mari supplies. She agreed to tag along the second he suggested it, which was unexpected. Jackson guesses the choice to stop hanging out with his family hadn't really been hers. “It's cool, I understand.”

“Fuck off.” Jackson laughs. He pushes her witness statement out of his mind.

When he swings by to pick her up the next afternoon, though, she's the one who looks like she could use a nicotine fix, or possibly a stiff drink and a Klonopin. “I baked,” she informs him, holding up a Tupperware filled with wafer-thin chocolate cookies as she opens the car door. “Or that's a lie, my mother baked, but.”

“Still counts,” Jackson assures her, hooking a hand around her headrest as he backs out of the driveway. He feels himself softening toward her all of a sudden. With not a little self-loathing, he realizes he expected her to be too ashamed to come.

She takes a long time to get settled, fidgeting around like she can't quite get comfortable, setting the cookies on the floor and then her lap and then the floor again. She reaches down to adjust the passenger seat, something he's never seen her do in his car before—probably, he realizes, because she used to be the one who sat in it most.

It's an hour and a half to his folks' house in Worcester, and Jack explicitly promised himself he wouldn't let them spend the whole goddamn trip in silence. “Mer's excited to see you,” he says.

“Oh yeah?” Mari asks. She looks pretty as all hell today, her short hair blown out so it's thick and shiny, these dark dark jeans that follow her every curve. He knows she's self-conscious about it since the baby but Jack loves her body, her heavy breasts and her round hips and ass and belly. There's a deep V to the neckline of her slouchy, stripey sweater. “Mer, not Ter?”

“Didn't talk to Ter about it,” Jackson says carefully, pulling onto the highway. “Doubt if he's even excited to see me.”

“Liar,” Mari accuses. “You're his favorite.” She reaches over and turns on the radio, hunting around through the presets before finally settling on the shitty easy listening station she always picks. Jackson likes having her back in his car.

Mari picks the Tupperware up off the floor again, looking agitated. “Does anyone know that you and I, like—” She makes a helpless motion with her hands. “You know?”

Jackson turns full sideways in his seat to look at her. “Does anyone know we—” He laughs harshly. “Yeah, Mari, I called my parents right after I pulled out, they were thrilled.”

Mari shrugs, drumming her nails on the Tupperware. “Not your parents, Jack, I mean like Mer or Ter. I want to know what I'm walking into.” She's doing that thing with her voice, I'm-reasonable-and-you're-the-asshole. Jackson grits his teeth.

“No one knows anything,” he promises her. “Not a single thing.”

Mari sets the wafers back on the floor and runs both hands through her hair. “Okay. Okay.” She looks tired, Jack thinks. She looks beaten down. “I got my period today,” she adds out of the blue. “I was trying to figure out if I should text you or not.”

“I—” Jack swallows. “Okay.” Now's not the time to parse how he feels about that too closely, he doesn't think, if he's relieved or a little disappointed, or maybe a mixture of both. The summer she was pregnant with Sonya he caught himself staring at her constantly, to the point where he was almost glad when she had to switch over to desk duty five months in. “Okay,” he repeats.