Day One (41 page)

Then she sees me.

The EMTs heave me onto a gurney. I want to scream, hold it back. They’re prepping me for transport. Straps and tubes, blood pressure cuff on my arm. I hear a sound, beeping, and wonder about Mitch. Somewhere inside I know there’s little time to waste. I tell them I need to talk to Susan. “Sir, there’s no time. We need to get you moving.” Susan steps forward, promises to make it quick. One of them argues but I cut him short. “If I die en route to the hospital, I’ll be really pissed if you didn’t let me talk to the lieutenant.” I think they’ve given me something for the pain, or maybe Susan is surrounded by some locus of lucidity.

“Take too long and you will die.”

I believe him. My legs are cold and my hands tingling. I don’t care. “Susan, you need to understand something. Luellen was only thinking about Danny. Okay? It was all about making sure Danny was safe.”

“I don’t even know what that means.” Her voice is cold and far away.

“Just believe her when you talk to her, okay?”

“Believe
her
? What about you? You’re Batman now? What the hell were you thinking?”

The beep continues, all in one ear. Blue and red light flashes to my right. Alcohol vapor stings my nostrils. I don’t have time, or energy, to explain about finding Danny in the yard, about Big Ed’s appearance. “It all went sideways. I did my best.”

She’s pressing her lips tight against her teeth. Her hair is damp with rain. “We found Eager.”

“Is he—?”

“Yes.” She shakes her head. “Jesus, Skin.”

“I would have called you if I could. Check my back deck. You’ll find my phone, smashed. Big Ed’s doing.”

“What would I find if I had Justin Marcille check you for gunshot residue?”

There’s no good answer for a question like that. The fact she’s asking at all tells me she knows exactly what she’d find. “A lot of
crazy shit was going down. I guess you’ll find what you find.”

“How about the gun? Will I ever find that?”

Not something I’d want to bet on, either way. If the man with the hole in his head gets away, maybe not. But someone in his condition? Maybe a uniform will come across him, or his body, halfway down the hill or halfway across the state, gun in hand, roaming eye rolling.

She retrieves a pack of Marlboros from her coat pocket. Sometime during the day she crossed a line. Will the cigarettes make it home with her, or will she do what I did for months before I finally quit—buy a pack, smoke one, toss the rest with a pledge to never buy another? Expensive. She throws a sour, defensive look my way as she lights up and jets smoke upward like she wants to obscure the sky. “What are the chances I’ll ever find out what happened up here?”

“A young woman recovered her child, unharmed, from a would-be kidnapper. A psychotic tweaker and a couple of brutal thugs are dead. Fuck it. It’s a win all around for the good guys.”

She’s not happy. In her shoes I wouldn’t be either. The way things developed today, everything that could go wrong for her has. Just as well I’m one foot in the grave. It’s no matter to me enough confusion was wrought even Mitch Bronstein—a man who drew down on a street full of cops—may walk without ever being charged. To the extent justice has been served here atop Mount Tabor, it’s vigilante justice—something no good cop ever wants. A bunch of bad guys are dead and a mother and child are safe, and that’s all well and good, but the whole situation stinks from Susan’s perspective. And me in the middle of it. Former cop, former partner. Batman indeed. I’m supposed to know better than to get hip deep in the shit. But even Susan had to admit sometimes you take what you can get, be it verdict reached at trial or fondue fork in the eye.

I hear her sigh. The energy required for thought is suddenly more than I have. I close my eyes, against my will. I feel myself moving.
“Susan?” I turn my head and blink, but she isn’t there. I look from side to side, see only grim-faced paramedics. Hear the tip-tap of the rain. And Charm. Charm Gillespie. Hutchison. Whatever her name is. There she is, rising up out of the darkness into the red and blue light of the patrol cars and the ambulances. When did I speak to her husband? Six hours earlier? She must have driven like her ass was on fire to get here in that time.

She heads right toward me, indifferent to the tubes in my arms and the blood on my shirt. “Where’s my son?”

One of the paramedics tries to front her. I lift my head, the weight of a stone.

“Mrs. Gillespie—”

An arm appears and slows Charm’s advance. “Susan ...” I can’t remember why I should feel grateful she would try to protect me. But Susan isn’t interested in me. I don’t even know if she can see me. “Mrs. Gillespie, you need to understand—”

Charm throws off Susan’s arm. “Damn it, bitch, I know he’s dead. I don’t need any soft focus bullshit out of you. Just take me to him.”

Susan’s shoulders drop, a capitulation built of weariness. I’m sorry for my part in it. She gestures toward the trees rising on the north slope. Charm diverts mid-stride, Susan beside her. Before either take more than a few steps, I croak Charm’s name, try to wave with my IV-stabbed arm. The EMTs are pissed, but I croak again and Charm turns and looks at me.

“Charm.”

Her expression is the familiar sneer she’s worn as long as I’ve known her. “You gonna die too, Detective?”

Probably. It hurts too much to shrug. “How’d you know to come here?”

She just shakes her head like I’m a fucking idiot. “Where the hell else would he be?”

Not Quite Three Years Earlier

I
t was the kind of unexpected warm, sunny day that sometimes crops up in late February, a cruel tease before a long, damp spring. The clear air reminded her of the air that blew across her father’s barley in June, and for a moment a cloud seemed to pass in front of the sun. She brushed a loose hair off her face and drew a breath.

I can do this.

She stood on the porch of the new house.
Our house,
she thought, though the idea seemed foreign to her still. Being part of an
our
. Mitch claimed the porch would need paint, probably the whole house, and he’d complained about a squeaky board. She walked the porch from end to end, pausing to look through the broad front window into the still empty living room, but all she heard was her own soft footfalls and the high breeze through the trees behind the house across the street. She went to the rail, brushed the cool wood with her fingertips.
Our porch rail.
Then she felt a presence at her back, and before she could turn, heard Mitch’s voice. “You’re singing again.”

As soon as he spoke, she heard the music in the back of her throat, the song Luellen had hummed over Danny’s stroller that day under Harvey Scott’s dour gaze. She flushed and looked at her hands.

“What are you thinking about, sweets?”

“Nothing.”

“Sure you are. You always sing like that when you think.”

“I had no idea.”

But she did. She’d caught herself humming the tune over Danny’s crib at night, and as he fussed in his stroller when she was first learning his habits. Eager noticed it too.

“Well, does this belong to you?”

She turned. Mitch stood in the wide front doorway, a wiggling Danny in his arms.

“I’m not sure. Does he have a name tag?”

“No, but he keeps saying Da. Could that be a name?”

“He might just be agreeable. Where did you find him?”

“Crawling through the kitchen cupboards.”

She held out her arms and Danny reached for her as if she’d always been his. She took him from Mitch and hugged him tight. “You’re so big. Do you belong to me?”

“Da.”

“I think I’ll keep you then.”

Mitch crossed the porch and planted his hands on the rail next to her. It creaked under his weight.

“See?”

“It’s fine.”

“The porch is fine, maybe, but of the ten thousand houses we looked at, why’d you have to pick the one with a dump across the street?”

She hitched Danny onto her hip. The house across the street wasn’t much to look at. Grey siding overdue for paint, a slight slouch
to the porch. No doubt the boards squeaked underfoot. The houses on either side were much nicer, with crisp-edged landscaping, clearer colors, sharper lines. Clean windows, hanging baskets. She knew she didn’t have to explain herself. Mitch understood the situation. She was doing her part, looking after his son, holding the family together, meeting his needs from basement to bedroom. His part was simple enough, and Lord knew he was no Stuart.

She looked back to the grey house. In the dirt below the slumping porch, she saw a purple flash, spring’s first crocuses at least a month earlier than she ever saw them back in Givern Valley.

“It’s not that bad. Eager says the man who lives there is a police officer, a good man.”

“Thank god we relied of the broad experience of Eager Gillespie Realty.”

“Mitch, please.” She didn’t want to argue with him. It wasn’t something she was used to, not yet. The whole pose, wife and mother.
Our fight.

“I suppose if there’s one thing Eager knows, it’s cops.”

“He’s been through a lot more than you realize.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know.” Mitch looked at the house again. “Whatever. Maybe we won’t get robbed, at least.”

She closed her eyes and counted backwards, five to one. It used to be more. Ten to one, twenty to one. A hundred. She was learning.

“Oy. I know that look. Hey, babe, we’re moving in, right?”

“Thank you, Mitch.” She turned and leaned into him, kissed him lightly on the cheek. He smelled faintly of shaving cream and hazelnuts. “You know I appreciate it.”

“One of these days you gotta explain—” He stopped, pursed his lips briefly. He was learning too.

Across the street, the front door opened. The man who emerged was no one to inspire confidence. He was of medium height, lumpy, with shaggy grey hair and a wrinkled brown suit jacket over
tan pants. She wasn’t sure what she expected, but this wasn’t it. He grabbed his newspaper and went back inside without appearing to notice he was being observed.

This is who you sent me to?

She took a breath and turned to Mitch. “I’m going over to say hello.”

“To the cop?”

“Yes.”

“What about the rest of the neighbors? The ones who’ve painted their houses some time in the last decade.”

“You need to be nicer to me.”

“Okay, okay.” He rolled his eyes. “Take Danny with you. The movers will be here any minute, and I’m trying to get Jase off his ass in the remote hope we’ll be ready for them.”

“I know there’s a lot to do. I won’t be long.”

Mitch headed into the house. She counted his steps until they faded away, then bounced Danny on her hip. “Ready to go meet Eager’s friend?”

Danny squirmed in response. There was a big empty house behind them. He wanted down, wanted to go explore.

“You can climb all over the place and get filthy later.”

“Da.”

She crossed the street and went up the front walk, Danny bouncing on her hip. But as she climbed the stoop and stepped onto the porch—
squeak
—her courage failed her. An image of Eager in Common Grounds Coffee House flashed through her mind.

“When he says his name is Skin and sticks his neck out at you, roll with it. He’s just trying to freak you out.”

“Do you really think this is a good idea?”

“Don’t worry. He’s all right. He’s not fucking afraid of Big Ed, that’s for sure.”

She thought of her father’s inability to stand up to her mother,
how he never took her on the hunting trips through the marsh, how he wouldn’t stand up for her when she wanted to cancel the wedding to Stuart. He only found his courage when it was almost too late. She remembered talking to him on the phone that first time after she made her way back to Luellen’s little apartment, guided by an electric bill she found in Danny’s diaper bag. Her father described how Hiram showed up at the house suggesting that for all anyone knew she might be dead on a faraway hilltop. She lay on the floor next to Danny’s crib afterwards, crying for Pastor Sanders, for her fucked-up brothers, even for Myra. And Luellen. Especially for Luellen. She tried to imagine a different Ellie, one who drowned in the creek, or one who floated downstream for miles and days from creek to river, river to shore. Maybe a different Ellie floated out to the deep sea where no one would ever be harmed by her passage again. But that wasn’t the Ellie who stood here now, who’d crawled off that hilltop. Who found a way to be mother to Stuart’s child, because it was Luellen’s child too. She owed Luellen that much.

Some choices, once made, never stop being who you are.

The door opened and he appeared. The cop. Skin. He must have heard her on the porch. Maybe having squeaky boards wasn’t such a bad thing. Or maybe he heard her humming Luellen’s lullaby.

“Help you?” His voice was rough and smoky. He stood with one shoulder back so the red patch on his neck was mostly hidden.

She found a smile somewhere inside. “Hi, we’re moving in across the street and I came to introduce myself.”

“Oh.” He looked across at the house. Their house. It was as if he was seeing it for the first time. “I remember the For Sale sign going up, but I didn’t realize anyone had bought it.” He looked back at her, and at Danny on her hip. The little fellow met his gaze, his round Stuart eyes clear and unwavering beneath his shaggy bangs.