Long Bright River: A Novel (10 page)

Truman’s new house is in Mount Airy. I’ve never been. I make several wrong turns along the way, which adds to my nerves.

I didn’t go frequently to his last place, in East Falls—with few exceptions, my relationship with Truman took place at work—but I knew it, at least; I dropped him off and picked him up there, over the years, and once or twice attended gatherings there. His daughters’ high school graduation parties; his wife’s birthday. That sort of thing. But two years ago, he announced, with forced casualness, that he was getting a divorce from Sheila, after more than two decades of marriage, and that he would be moving out. The girls were in college now, he said, and there was no point pretending any longer that he and Sheila had anything in common. If I had pressed him, I believe he would have acknowledged that the divorce was her idea, not his—a particular sadness, an unusual flatness to his affect, convinced me of this, along with the many years he had spent before that lighting up whenever he spoke of her—but I did not ever press Truman for personal details he didn’t volunteer, and he returned the favor to me. (This was, I believe, one of the main reasons that we always got along so well.)

Mount Airy represents a section of the city I’m not familiar with. When I was growing up, the Northwest might as well have been in a different state from the Northeast. The Northwest does have its own problems, a few high-crime pockets, but it also contains within its borders great stone mansions with long stone walls and rolling lawns, the sorts of homes Philadelphia was known for back when a mention of the
city’s name conjured Katharine Hepburn rather than crime statistics. Most of what I know about the history of the Northwest Ms. Powell taught me: it began as a settlement for twenty German settler families and was called, appropriately, Germantown.

At last, I find Truman’s street. I turn onto it.

From the outside, the house looks charming: detached from its neighbors, just barely, a tiny stretch of grass on either side. It’s narrow across the front but appears to be deep, with a short front lawn that slopes steeply down to the sidewalk, a front porch with a swing on it, and a driveway running up the side. Truman’s car is parked there. There would be enough room for my car, too, but I hesitate and then park on the street.

Truman opens the door while I’m still walking up the front steps. He ran cross-country in college and ran marathons after that. His father, he has told me, was an internationally competitive track star in Jamaica before emigrating to the United States, hanging up his cleats, earning his master’s in education, and then, sadly, dying too young. Before he did, though, he passed on what he knew about speed and endurance to Truman, and in Truman one can still see the vestiges of his own athletic career: he’s tall and thin and ropy. He’s always walked on his toes, as if ready to spring. On the many occasions I saw him take off after some perpetrator, I almost felt bad for the runner. Truman had them on the ground before they took five steps. Today he’s wearing a brace on his right leg, outside his jeans. I wonder if he’ll ever run again.

He doesn’t greet me with anything aside from a nod.

It’s calm inside the house, pale walls, neat to the point of absurdity. His last place was neat, too, but still contained within it the trappings of family life—shin guards in the foyer, scribbled notes on a bulletin board. Here, an old radiator coated in thick white paint occupies a space near an interior wall. One lamp lights up a corner of the room, which is
otherwise dim. The house is shady, the front of it overhung by the ceiling of the porch, the sides devoid of windows. As if he, too, has suddenly noticed this, Truman walks to a corner and turns on the switch to an overhead light. There are built-in bookshelves everywhere, which is perfect for Truman. A major topic of conversation between us was always what we were reading. Truman, unlike me, was raised in a functional and affectionate home; but he was a shy only child, and a speech impediment that he’s since outgrown made it difficult for him to speak up without getting teased. Books, therefore, were great friends to him. Today, one is open on the coffee table in the living room:
The Art of War.
Sun Tzu. A year ago I might have teased him lightly about this, asked him whom he was planning on fighting. Now the silence between us feels syrupy, tangible.

—How have you been? I ask him.

—Pretty good, he says.

He makes no move to take a seat, nor does he offer me one.

I’m still wearing the uniform I put on earlier, in the locker room, and I wish, now, that I hadn’t left my duty belt in the car. Without it, my hands don’t know what to do. I scratch my forehead.

—How’s the knee? I ask.

—Okay, he says. He looks down at it. Straightens it.

I gesture weakly around at the room, the house.

—I like it, I say.

—Thanks.

—What are you doing these days? I ask him.

—This and that, he says. I’ve got my garden going in the back. I read. I do the Co-op now.

I don’t know what this is. I don’t ask.

—It’s a cooperative grocery store, says Truman, reading my mind. It’s one of the things he used to rib me about: my reluctance, at times, to admit to deficits in my body of knowledge.

—The girls are good? I say. There’s a small family portrait standing upright on an end table, something taken when his daughters were young.

I notice that the portrait includes his ex-wife, Sheila. Something about this embarrasses me. It feels undignified. He’s been lonely, perhaps. Missing her. I don’t like thinking about it.

—They are, says Truman, and I don’t know what to say after that.

—Tea? Truman asks, finally.

I follow him into the kitchen: newer than the rest of the house, something he’s had redone. Perhaps, I imagine, something he redid himself. He’s always been handy. Regularly, he teaches himself to do new things. Just prior to his injury, he bought and restored an old Nikon camera.

I stand and watch the back of him as he works, taking a small empty tea bag from a box, portioning loose tea leaves into it.

Without his gaze directly on me, I find it easier to think.

I clear my throat.

—What’s up, Mickey, says Truman, not turning.

—I owe you an apology, I say. The words are too loud for the room. Too formal. I often misjudge these things.

Truman pauses, just for a moment, and then continues, pouring steaming water into a teapot.

—For what? he says.

—I should have had him, I say.

—I didn’t act fast enough, I say. I flinched.

But Truman is shaking his head.

—No, Mickey, he says.

—No?

—Wrong apology, he says. He turns around, facing me. I can barely meet his gaze.

I wait.

—He got away, says Truman. It happens. It’s happened to me more times than I can count.

He looks at me, then at the steeping tea.

—You should have come around sooner, he says. There. That’s your apology.

—But I backed down, I say.

—I’m glad you did, says Truman. No point getting shot. I survived.

I’m silent for a moment.

—I should have come around sooner, I say.

—I’m sorry, I say.

Truman nods. The air in the room changes. Truman pours the tea.

—Are you coming back? I say.

The question sounds needy.

Truman is fifty-two years old. He looks about forty. He has the kind of unharried, calm demeanor that has somehow crystallized his youthfulness, preserved it. I only found out his age a couple of years ago, at a fiftieth-birthday party that some officers threw him. Because of his age, if he wanted to retire now, he could. Already, he’d get a pension.

But he only shrugs.

—Maybe I will, he says. Maybe I won’t. I’ve got some things to think over. The world is weird.

He turns around, finally, and looks hard at me for a while.

—I know you didn’t come just to apologize, he says.

I don’t protest. I look down.

—Why else are you here? he asks me.

When I have finished speaking, Truman walks to the door off the kitchen. He looks out at his garden, asleep for the winter.

—How long has it been since anyone’s heard from her? he asks.

—Paula Mulroney said it’s been a month. But I’m not sure whether she has a particularly good handle on time.

—Okay, says Truman. He has a look on his face I’ve seen before: the one that used to come over him before he sprang into action, pounding after a runner. A coiled look.

—Do you know anything else at this point? he asks.

—I know she was last active on Facebook on October 2, I tell him. Also, she might be dating a person named Dock. D-O-C-K. I saw someone on her Facebook page with that name.

Truman looks skeptical. Dock, he says.

—I know, I say. Know anyone with that nickname in Kensington?

Truman thinks. Then shakes his head.

—What about Connor Famisall? I say. I think that’s his actual name.

—How do you spell that? asks Truman. And I hear something silly entering his voice. A smile.

I spell it for him, reluctantly. I dislike being on the outside of others’ jokes. A leftover from my childhood.

—Mick, Truman says. Did you get that off Facebook?

I nod.

Truman is laughing now. Fam is all, Mickey, he says. Fam is all.

Something about the way he says it—kind smile, kind eyes—loosens
what’s tight in my sternum. As if a knob were being turned there, just so. And suddenly I am laughing too.

—All right, Truman, I say. All right, you’re smarter than I am, I get it.

Then Truman turns serious.

—Have you reported her missing yet? says Truman.

—No, I say.

—Why not?

I hesitate. The truth is, I’m embarrassed. I don’t want everyone knowing my business.

—They’ll take a look at her record and put it on the bottom of the stack, I say.

—Make the report, Mick, he says. You want me to tell Mike DiPaolo?

DiPaolo is a friend of his in the East Detectives, someone he grew up with in Juniata. Unlike me, Truman has friends in the department, allies. It’s always been Truman who pulls me into things, shows me how to get what I need.

But I shake my head.

—Then tell Ahearn, says Truman.

I frown. The thought of telling Sergeant Ahearn anything about my personal life makes me stubborn. Especially after my episode from earlier. The last thing I want is for him to imagine, falsely, that I’m having some sort of breakdown.

—Truman, I say. If I can’t find her, who can?

And it’s true: patrol officers are the eyes. More than detectives, certainly more than sergeants or corporals or lieutenants. On the streets of Kensington, patrol officers are the ones families ask to find their missing children. We’re the ones children ask to find their missing mothers.

Truman shrugs. I know, Mick, he says. But just tell him. Can’t hurt.

—Fine, I say.

I might be lying. I’m not sure.

—You’re lying, says Truman.

I smile.

Truman looks at the floor.

—I’ve got someone I think I can ask about this Dock character, he says.

—Who? I say.

—Never mind. Let me make sure I’m right. It’s a place we can start, anyway, says Truman.

—We? I say.

—I’ve got time at the moment, he says, gazing down at his brace.

But I know he has another reason, too.

Like me, Truman loves a good case.

I try to follow Truman’s advice. I do.

Ahearn doesn’t like to be bothered before roll call, but I get to work early the next morning and tap softly on his doorframe anyway.

He looks up, annoyed at first. His face changes just slightly when he sees me. He actually smiles.

—Officer Fitzpatrick, he says. How you feeling?

—Great, I say. All better. I’m not sure what happened yesterday. I think I was dehydrated.

—What’d you do, go out partying the night before?

—Something like that, I say. I want to add,
Just me and my four-year-old.
But it wouldn’t surprise me if Sergeant Ahearn has forgotten I even have a son.

—You scared me, he says. That ever happen to you before?

—Never, I say, lying only slightly.

—Okay, he says. He looks down at his paperwork. Then looks up again. Anything else? he says.

—I was wondering if I could speak with you briefly, I say.

—Real quick, he says. Roll call in five. I still have to put out a dozen fires.

—All right, I say. The thing is.

Suddenly I am tongue-tied. I have never known how to tell the story of Kacey—let alone quickly.

—You know what? I’ll just send you an e-mail, I say.

Sergeant Ahearn looks at me impassively. Whatever you like, he says. Relieved.

Walking out of his office, I know I never will.

All morning, I’m agitated. My brain keeps sending signals to my body:
Something’s wrong. Something’s wrong. Something’s wrong.
Subconsciously, I am expecting Dispatch to come through with a call about another body. And on some level, I am expecting that body to be Kacey. It is difficult, in fact,
not
to picture Kacey dead, when I think of her: I’ve seen her close to death so many times.

I jump, therefore, every time a crackle comes over the radio. I turn it down slightly.

The good news: it’s freezing outside today, and that means less activity. I stop and get a coffee from Alonzo at the corner store. I scan the
Inquirer
on a stand, procrastinating, but I see no sign of either Kacey or Paula.

For some reason, Alonzo has the music off, and for a moment I let myself be lulled by the calm interior of the store: the buzzing of a fluorescent light, the hum of refrigerators, the yowling of Romero the cat.

It’s so quiet in here that when my cell phone rings, I jump.

I look at the caller ID before answering. It’s Truman.

—You working? he asks me.

—Yes.

—Listen, he says. I’m at K and A. I’m with someone who says he knows Dock.

I tell him I’ll be there in ten, and pray nothing comes through over Dispatch.

When I arrive at Kensington and Allegheny, Truman is standing on the sidewalk with a coffee, looking very casual. For just a moment, I watch him. The women who pass him stop to speak to him—making him an
offer, no doubt. Truman is a handsome man, and I know that people often tease him about being well liked by women—a subject he assiduously avoids speaking about—but his looks have never concerned me. I have always seen him mainly as my respected teacher. And I have always been very careful to avoid any suggestion that Truman and I were anything more than work partners. Still, anytime a male and female officer are partnered, it is inevitable that one or two sophomoric rumors will be spread about them, and I regret to say that it has been no different for the two of us, despite the fact that, for years, Truman was married. In fact, on at least one occasion, I have overheard a joke made at our expense. But largely, I believe that our professionalism has put to rest any ridiculous notions about what I will term ‘extracurricular activities.’

I exit my vehicle and approach him. He holds up a hand in greeting. Then, wordlessly, he tilts his head toward a doorway a few storefronts down, and I follow him.

There is no sign out front. It’s a sort of a catchall shop: everything from kitchenware to dolls to rolls of wallpaper in its front window. A little dusty placard rests askew in front of these objects.
Supplies,
it says, as if that explains everything. I must have passed it thousands of times, but somehow I’ve never noticed it.

Inside the store, it’s warm. I stamp my feet on a dingy mat, ridding my shoes of the wet that has accumulated on them. The shelves in this store are so crowded with merchandise that the aisles are barely visible. At the front, behind a counter, an old man in a winter hat is reading a book. He doesn’t look up.

—Here she is, says Truman.

The old man slowly puts down his book. His eyes are wet and ancient. His hands shake slightly. He says nothing.

—Kacey’s sister, says Truman. Mickey.

The old man looks at me for a while, until I realize that it’s my uniform he’s staring at.

—I don’t talk to the police, says the old man. He could be ninety. His voice has the faintest trace of an accent: Jamaican, maybe. Truman’s father was Jamaican. I squint at Truman.

—Ah, come on, Mr. Wright, says Truman, cajoling. Now, you know I’m a police officer too.

Mr. Wright gazes at Truman. But you’re different, he says, at last, to Truman.

—Mr. Wright knows this guy Dock, Truman says to me. He knows everyone in the neighborhood.

—Isn’t that right, Mr. Wright? says Truman, louder. The old man doesn’t look persuaded.

I walk toward him and he sits up, defensive. I very much dislike this part: the discomfort on people’s faces as I approach.

—Mr. Wright, I say, I wish I could have changed before I met you. I’m asking you for a personal favor, something that has nothing to do with my work. Do you know where I can find this person? Dock?

Mr. Wright considers this for a moment.

—Please, I say. Any information would be helpful.

—You don’t want to find him, says Mr. Wright. He’s not a good person.

A shiver runs down me. I don’t like the sound of that, but it doesn’t surprise me. Kacey has never exactly picked choirboys to date.

My radio crackles suddenly and Mr. Wright tenses. I turn it down completely, praying that a priority call doesn’t come over the air.

—Mr. Wright, I’m looking for my sister, I say. The most recent information I have is that she was dating this person. So, unfortunately, I do want to find him.

—All right, he says. All right. He glances left and then right, as if to make sure no one is eavesdropping. Then he leans forward. Come back around two-thirty, he says. He’s usually in the back around then. Comes in to get warm.

—In the back? I say. But Truman is already thanking Mr. Wright and dragging me out.

—And don’t wear your uniform, says Mr. Wright.