FIGHT (3 page)

“Hello?  Is someone in here?”

An eerie quietness invited her in.

She called again, and there was still no response.

She took a cautious step inside, keeping the door open in case she needed a quick exit. 

Quickly and quietly, she surveyed the damage further.  Stepping over her belongings, she felt like a federal agent noting the path of a tornado. When she got over the shock of seeing her condo vandalized, she heard a furious noise coming from the kitchen and slowly advanced towards the sound.  Coming around a corner, her peripheral vision spied her sink running full blast with a towel clogging the drain, causing an onslaught of water to spill over the sink’s countertop.  She hurried across the flooded linoleum to end the downpour.  After she shut off the sink, she next heard the quieter sound of her microwave beeping behind her.  Turning away from the sink, she saw her microwave’s digital screen flashing “FINISHED.”  With a shaky hand, she opened the unit’s door and found her family photo album inside.  The album’s cover picture had been melted with wicked electric heat into a glob of distorted faces.  Horrified, she backed away from the microwave only to hear the crunching sound of glass.  Portions of her coffee maker’s carafe ground beneath her shoes, and she glanced down and spotted its nearby handle with shards of the former pot still attached.  She’d had enough of the kitchen. 

She stepped back into the living room, too stunned to notice that the wall behind her torn and gutted couch (with her entire screwdriver set stabbed in it like needles in an acupuncture patient) had reddish brown ALL CAPS letters reading, “Give August to the Hudsons,” written in dog blood.  She’d see that later.  And scream.

For now, she was curious about her bedroom.  The condo was quiet enough that she believed that no one else was here.  She stepped over her shoes, underwear, and makeup littering the space in front of her bedroom door, peeked inside, and saw the dog in her bed.  It was too much.  Its mouth open, its drooping tongue connected to the floor by a long trail of bloody spittle, its knotty guts and bits of half-digested bacon spilling out… she’d later realize that it was the source of the blood on her walls, as if someone had dipped a quill pen into an inkwell to send her a message, only this someone had taken a blade to a purebred and bled it for wall paint to make large, sloppy letters. 

She was so hopped up on adrenaline that she first mistook the dog’s corpse for a person’s.  That was when the first round of screaming began.  Channeling her inner 2-year-old, she thrust stiff arms and fists down to her waist and voiced a shrill alarm that she could never have purposefully made.  The screaming ended when she realized that, no, she wasn’t looking at a dead person, but, rather, a dead animal.  That brought a small element of relief.  Too disgusted to be within touching distance of the dog (or her bed ever, ever again), she backed out of her bedroom door and, turning, noticed the dog’s blood making words on the wall that once faced her (no longer) mounted television. 

“Give August to the Hudsons,” she read aloud, hardly breathing.  She panicked.  Someone knew she’d disqualified Bruce from being an adoptive father because of his poor health.  And someone was sending her a not-so-subtle message. 
That dog in your bed look cute to you?  You wanna get in bed and cuddle with it?  Maybe wrap its arms around you and nuzzle it?  You’ll get a chance to cuddle with that dog, if you don’t give that August kid to the Hudsons.  

She got the point.  She called the police.

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Bruce stood in line with his third six-pack of the week and, precisely, one pot pie.  The pot pie had been an excuse to drive to Stop and Run so he could buy more Guiness.  Outraged thoughts of Gabriel Adelaide’s acquittal ran through his mind, and he also thought about his curious encounter with Gabe earlier that day.  He couldn’t make heads or tails out of what Gabe had said to him.  What did it mean for someone to
get you your boy
?  And, then, standing in line waiting to checkout, he recalled the police having visited his home two weeks ago…

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It had been late in the evening, and, as usual, Bruce was sitting in his home’s office plugging away on his MacBook, writing an outline for the state’s presentation of the facts against Gabe.  In
The People of Massachusetts vs. Gabriel Adelaide,
the people sketched the following argument: 

I.  Store cameras show Gabriel Adelaide entering Arthur Mulberry’s dry cleaning on March 14
th
, walking behind the counter, opening the register, and emptying its contents into a briefcase.  Mulberry is also behind the counter and appears to be keeping a wary distance of him.  After Adelaide leaves, Mulberry remains behind the counter instead of calling the police, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.  He didn’t phone for help because Adelaide was collecting his weekly premium for mob protection.  If Mulberry had refused to pay the premium, his business would’ve suffered an “accident.” 

II. Store cameras show Gabriel Adelaide entering Charles Bronston’s Chinese carryout on March 15
th
and repeating the events at Mulberry’s.  Bronston also stood idly by without muttering a peep in protest and for the same reasons.  Bronston didn’t want his establishment to burn to the ground because one of his employees “accidentally” left an oven on, anymore than he wanted to be dumped in the Atlantic with cinderblocks tied to his ankles and tightly wound stretch wrap preventing him from screaming as he drowned.

III.  Persons of interest currently in witness protection, who shall remain anonymous due to a court order, have submitted sworn affidavits that they drove, escorted, and protected Adelaide as his associates during these weekly pickups of protection premiums. 

IV.  Fingerprints and DNA samples link Adelaide to…

That was when a knock on his front door interrupted Bruce’s work.  Knowing that Martha had turned in for the evening, he rose from his late night shift at his desk and went to answer the door.

“Hey, Bruce, sorry to bother you at this hour, but we need to ask you some questions.  Can we come in?”

Bruce was surprised to see his longtime colleague, Detective Richard Dorsey, and an officer (who he didn’t recognize) standing in his doorway.  Bruce and Richard had collaborated on gathering evidence against the Adelaides for several years, and Bruce hoped Richard was stopping by to bring new information to combat Boston’s crime syndicate.  Richard, who was around Bruce’s age, had a penchant for overeating, showed his age with gray and thinning hair, and pushed his weight around Boston’s cops to get the evidence he needed for compiling charges.  Bruce was excited to see Richard, wanting Richard’s help with his outline.

“Of course, Richard. Come in.  What’s going on?”

“I don’t quite know how to tell you this, ask you this really, but I’m sure the name Sara Madison rings a bell,” he said, hiking up his belt as he made himself at home.

“Yeah, I know her.  She’s the social worker for this boy that Martha and I are trying to adopt.”

“Well, she says that you broke into her condo today.  So, I’m obligated to ask you, even though I’d rather not.  Did you do it?”

“What are you talking about?  I’ve never been inside her condo.  Hell, I didn’t even know that she lived in a condo.  I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

Richard, without bothering to introduce his nameless coworker, helped himself to a bowl of candy on the Hudsons’ coffee table and went on to describe the scene that Sara had discovered earlier that evening.  Bruce listened, stunned beyond words.  He was especially shocked to learn that his last name appeared at the scene of the crime.  After listening to Richard’s recap, there was a lengthy period of contemplative silence.

Bruce finally worked up the nerve to ask, “Are you sure that’s what the message read?”

“No doubt about it.  I went over to investigate, and I saw it myself.  Her wall clearly reads, ‘Give August to the Hudsons,’ and the department has to assume that you’re connected to this crap somehow.”

“So I’m your suspect, huh?”

“It’s either you or Martha, and you’re the one with the famous temper.”

Bruce couldn’t argue with Richard’s assessment of him, because his many appearances in court had inspired several write-ups about how quick tempered he was. He knew that if one of them was going to take the fall for this it would be him.  The idea of being convicted for something he hadn’t done aggravated him.  He saw the state’s outline against him coming together to form a terrifying picture of an indictment and a prison sentence.  I: He’d been pissed about not being able to adopt.  II: Sara was the person who wouldn’t allow him to adopt.  III: His name was on her wall at the crime scene.  That might be all the proof any jury would need.  Bruce suddenly faced a new possibility.  He and Richard might not throw Gabe in prison after all.  Richard might be throwing him in prison, if he didn’t figure out what the hell was going on ASAP.

“Look, Richard, you know that I didn’t do this,” Bruce said for the benefit of Richard’s silent partner.

“Yeah, I know, but it doesn’t look good.  The press is going to find out, and this is a bad time for shit to hit the fan.  We can’t have a tainted D.A. prosecuting the mob.  You might have to excuse yourself from this case.  We’ve both worked too hard to blow our public support over some setup.” 

“But that’s exactly what these guys want! Whoever did this, either Adelaide or one of his lackeys, obviously knows a lot about me and had a reason to sling mud on my good name.  This has to be the Mafia, and if I resign today then you’ll be resigning tomorrow.  You think the Adelaides will stop with me?  No way!  You’re next, Richard.  If they can intimidate me with some trumped-up bullshit charges, then they’ll sure as hell do the same to you.  We’ve got to fight this.  I’ve got to be publicly exonerated.  Take fingerprints from the crime scene.  You won’t find my prints there.  Look for any sort of clues the intruders may have left.  A dropped glove, a hair follicle, anything.  There’s got to be something that we can use to catch the real perps.”

“You’re grasping at straws, Bruce.  The mob doesn’t drop gloves, and they’ve worn hairnets under their masks for years.  We aren’t dealing with amateurs.”

“At least sweep the place for prints.  At minimum, I want it made known that my prints weren’t found there.”

------------------------------------------------

As he remembered the night Richard had stopped by to investigate, Bruce had an eerie epiphany at Stop and Go.  Was there a connection between the message found on Sara’s wall and Gabe’s threat to
get him his boy?

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As Richard had suspected, Bruce’s fingerprints weren’t found at Sara’s condo.  Nothing, other than his last name, linked Bruce to the break-in and the dead dog.  For her part, Sara became even more adamant against Bruce adopting August.  Two days after her home was ransacked and twelve days before Bruce would lose in court, she’d paid the Hudsons an unofficial visit.        

“So, you think being a D.A. makes you immune to prosecution?  Is that it, you son of a bitch?” Sara stated more than she asked.  Standing in the Hudsons’ open doorway and refusing to come inside and stop yelling, she continued: 
  

“You can forget about adoption.  You can also forget about becoming a foster parent.  In fact, asshole, I wouldn’t even try out for Big Brothers and Big Sisters if I were you.  I’ve alerted every case worker in this city, and you’ll never get within a hundred yards of a child.  I don’t know what your deal is or who you think you are, but you aren’t going to scare me into going along to get along.  I don’t play that way.”

Bruce had been expecting this visit, ever since he’d learned that his name was spelled out on her wall with dog blood.  He remained calm and quiet, allowing Sara to process her anger.  Trying to reason with a person this angry would only make matters worse.  There was no stopping this: she was too heated.  Like a hapless coastal resident waiting out a hurricane, he braced himself for more.

“And what kind of sick perv kills an animal to get revenge?   I can’t imagine how cold-hearted you’d have to be to do something that chilling.”  The thought of Bruce doing something that chilling suddenly gave her pause. 
Perhaps
, she quickly thought,
he’s a psychopath, and it’s dangerous to yell at him.
  She clenched her eyes and shook an accusatory finger at him, trying to erase the dog’s image.

“I understand that you’re upset,” was all he could offer before she began again.

“You’re damn right I’m upset!” she shouted, concluding that, even if he was a psychopath, she should stand her ground.  “So why don’t I break into your place and scatter your shit everywhere, since that seems to be way we’re supposed to handle things when we’re upset.”

“Leave!” Martha demanded.

“Oh, so now I’m just supposed to…”

“I said leave and I meant it.  I’ve had enough of you harassing my husband.  You won’t listen to his side, you keep interrupting, and you’ve used quite enough foul language, thank you very much.  Leave, or I’ll call the cops.”

Sara glared.  She knew she was bested.  If the cops were called, she’d have a hard time explaining her behavior to her supervisor.  She wasn’t on the clock, but social workers were routinely let go for problems in their private lives… drinking problems, gambling problems, whatever.  Having “issues” did nothing for a social worker’s reputation. Having a cop called on you because you took matters into your own hands wouldn’t sit well at the office.