Long Bright River: A Novel (11 page)

Truman walks me to the cruiser.

—Who on earth, I begin, but Truman shushes me until we’re inside.

—Drive, he says, and I pull away.

—He’s my father’s cousin, says Truman, after a beat.

I look at him, skeptical.

—He is?

—Yeah, says Truman.

—Your father’s cousin, good old Mr. Wright?

Truman laughs. We’re formal, he says.

—I never knew you had a cousin who runs a store on the Ave.

Truman shrugs. The implication is clear:
There’s a lot you don’t know about me.

We drive for a little longer. It begins to snow, and I turn the wipers on.

—What’s in the back of the store? I say finally, and Truman exhales.

—Between us? he says.

—Between us.

—He lets people shoot up back there.

I nod. There are certainly places like that in Kensington. I know about most of them. The only reason I don’t know about this one, most likely, is that Truman has been protecting it.

—He’s a good person, says Truman. He really is. He lost two sons to it. Now he keeps Narcan and clean needles behind the counter. He’s got
a camera up front that shows him what’s going on. He’s always hobbling into the back there and rescuing some poor fool or other. Does it for free. No one pays him.

It’s an improvised safe injection site. They’re not legal in Philly yet, though there’s talk that they will be soon. I wonder if Kacey herself has been to Mr. Wright’s.

Jarringly, a call comes through: two officers are needed for a simple domestic assault.

I answer.

—Would you like to ride along? I say, when I’ve finished, but Truman shakes his head.

—I’m on disability, remember? he says. Officially laid up. Can’t have anyone seeing me around here.

—What will you do now?

Truman points to a building ahead of us. I’ll jump out there by the library, he says. My car’s nearby. Call me, okay? Let me know how it goes.

I pause.

—You don’t want to come with me? To Mr. Wright’s store? I say.

I suppose, on some level, I’d been relying on the idea that he would.

Truman shakes his head. Better not, he says.

He must notice the look of disappointment on my face, because he says, Mickey. You might need me to do something for you down the line. And you might not want this guy to recognize me.

A fair point. I nod, and drop him at the library, as requested.

I watch him walk away. And I think of all the things I’ve missed about him, in his absence: his generous laugh, low and contagious, ending sometimes in an
s
; and his steady presence when responding to calls, which steadied me in turn; and his love for his children, his pride in them, and the way he advised me on parenting concerns I had; and his concern for Thomas, for whom he brought, from time to time, thoughtful gifts, mainly books; and his privacy, and discretion, and his respect for my own in turn; and his elevated—snobbish, I told him—taste in food and drink, the wild things he bought from health food stores,
kombucha, kefir, arame, goji berries; and the way he gently ribbed me about my own poor eating habits, and my stubbornness, and the way he called me ‘difficult’ and ‘strange’—two labels I wouldn’t appreciate hearing from anyone else. But from Truman I sensed an appreciation of these qualities in me; I felt understood by him in a way that, if I am being truthful, I hadn’t felt since Kacey and I were allies, in our youth.

I still can’t get used to seeing Truman out of uniform. In his hesitating walk now, the way he scans the Avenue to his right and left, I can suddenly see the shy child he once described to me when talking about his past. I was silent until I was about twenty years old, he said to me once.

And I said, So was I.

The other officer, Gloria Peters, has already arrived when I get to the house where the domestic assault has been reported. For the moment, things are calm. I let Gloria talk to the complainant outside while I go inside and stand in the kitchen with the perpetrator, a drunk-looking man, white, in his thirties. He glares at me.

—Would you like to tell me what happened here, sir? I ask him.

I am always very polite to the people I interview, even the worst of them. Truman modeled this behavior for me, and I have found that it works well.

But I can tell by looking at him, by the smirk on his face, that this gentleman will be intractable.

—Nope, he says.

He’s shirtless. His arms are folded over his middle. He, too, is probably addicted to one substance or another, though his drunkenness is making it difficult to sort out what kind of cocktail he’s on.

—You don’t want to make a statement? I say, but he just laughs lowly. He knows the system. Knows he shouldn’t talk.

He tries to put his hand down on the kitchen counter, wet from some earlier incident, but it slips, sending him off balance. He staggers a little, recovers.

Are there kids? I wonder. I listen. I hear the slightest sounds of movement upstairs.

—Do you have any children? I say, but he’s silent.

There are not many people who alarm me, not after this many years
on the job. But there is something about this person I don’t like. I avoid eye contact with him, the way I might with an aggressive dog. I don’t want him to feel cornered. I eye the drawers in the kitchen, wondering which of them contains knives that might be used as weapons. He’s drunk enough so that if he lunged, I could probably sidestep him, maybe even knock him down.

It occurs to me, suddenly, that he looks familiar. I narrow my eyes at him, trying to remember.

—Do I know you? I ask him.

—I don’t know, he says. Do you?

An odd response.

It could just be that I’ve seen him around the neighborhood; that happens frequently. In fact, the majority of faces I see on a given shift look familiar to me.

Gloria Peters comes back into the room, eventually, and shakes her head at me subtly. The complainant, it seems, has changed her mind, and no longer wants her husband arrested.

—Stay there, I say to him.

I’ve already scouted the house: there’s no back door, so he’ll have to walk past us if he tries to escape. We go into the little living room and speak quietly.

—Anything on her face? I ask, and Gloria says, I think so. Looks red. Too early to tell. I think she’ll have some nasty bruises tomorrow, though.

—We could take him down anyway, I say.

But without physical evidence, and without a statement from the victim, there’s only so much we can do.

In the end, a child tiptoes quietly down the stairs and then, seeing us, scurries away again. He’s not much older than Thomas. This is enough for us: we’ll book him. I volunteer to do it; Officer Peters can stay behind that way, make sure the child or children are taken care of, maybe get someone from Social Services to come out and conduct an interview.

As the husband gets into my vehicle, he never shifts his gaze. He looks up at me directly, a terrible blank stare that gives me the shivers.

All the way to the station, he’s silent. I’m used to this: usually it’s only
the newcomers who talk, or rant, or cry, or bemoan the injustice of what is happening to them. Veterans of the criminal justice system know enough to shut up. What’s different about this one is the feeling of being watched, of eyes on the back of my head.

Against my will, I glance at him, once, in the rearview mirror, trying again to figure out how I know him. And I see that he’s smiling at me. Goose bumps light up my arms and neck.

I have to wait with him in a holding cell until he’s processed. I look at my phone and don’t speak to him. The whole time, he never averts his gaze.

Finally, as he’s led from the cell, he speaks.

—You know, he says, I think I do know you.

—Do you, I say.

—Yes, he says. I think I do.

The officer leading him looks at me questioningly, wondering if he should yank this idiot down the hall and away from me.

—Give me a hint, I say. I try to include in my voice a certain sardonic inflection, but I am afraid it comes out quite differently.

The man smiles again. His name is Robert Mulvey, Jr. Earlier, he had refused to produce an ID. Officer Peters learned his name from his wife.

For a long while, he says nothing.

Then he says, I don’t feel like it.

Before he’s finished speaking, the officer at his elbow jerks him violently away.

A good officer never allows her emotions to rule. She should strive to be as impartial as a judge, as withholding as a priest. I am disappointed, therefore, when I find it hard to shake the sense of unease that settles onto me after my encounter with Robert Mulvey, Jr. I picture his face, his very light eyes, his smile, for the rest of my shift, which is busier than I thought it would be when I saw the weather forecast.

Normally, when it’s this cold outside, people stay home.

After escorting Mulvey to the station, I respond to a call about a hit-and-run on Spring Garden, and there I find a wounded cyclist on the ground, a small crowd gathered around him.

The day goes on like this. An hour before I’m due to be back at Mr. Wright’s, I intentionally slow my response to calls.

At 2:15, I park on the street near Alonzo’s, a few blocks from Mr. Wright’s store.

Don’t wear your uniform
: Mr. Wright’s only instructions to me. But this is easier said than done. I can’t exactly go back to the station and change into my civilian attire in the middle of a shift.

I decide, instead, to buy something to wear in the dollar store down the block.

Before I get out of the car, I contemplate my radio and my weapon. If I bring them, what’s the point of changing into civilian clothes? If I leave the radio in the car, I’ll risk missing something important, a priority call, which could get me in serious trouble. I have never, in all my years on the force, been separated from my radio during a shift.

In the end, I decide to leave it. For no particularly logical reason, I put it in the trunk. It just feels safer there, out of sight.

I scan the racks in the dollar store for anything at all to buy. One aisle has giant black T-shirts hanging next to men’s black sweatpants. I’ll be swimming in them, but I buy them anyway, and walk down the block toward Alonzo’s, and ask to use the bathroom.

—No problem, he says, as always. When I emerge from it, dressed in my dollar-store purchases, my uniform now in the bag they came in, he looks at me twice.

—Alonzo, I say, I’m so sorry to trouble you, but I was wondering if I could ask you for a favor. Is there any chance I could leave this bag here briefly?

—No problem, he says again.

I hesitate, and then leave a ten-dollar bill on the counter for him.

He tries to push it back to me, but I don’t pick it up.

—A tip, I say.

It’s eighteen degrees out. In any other neighborhood I would look ridiculous running the several blocks to Mr. Wright’s store in a T-shirt. Here, no one blinks.

When I arrive at Mr. Wright’s at 2:40, I open the door, grateful for the warmth inside. A little bell rings. No one seems to be there.

I stand there silently for a while, until I hear the soft closing of a door from the rear of the store.

Mr. Wright eventually emerges from an aisle, ducking around a stack of hula-hoops to do so.

He looks at me but says nothing, and for a moment I wonder whether he even recognizes me, whether he remembers me from this morning.

He takes his time returning to his place behind the register, lowers himself painfully onto a high stool.

Finally, he speaks. Not here yet, is what he says.

—Dock isn’t? I say.

He says, Now who do you
think
I’m talking about?

—All right, I say. I’m not certain, now, how to proceed.

I look at my watch. It’s 2:50 now. I’m risking my job, I believe, to be here, out of uniform, apart from my radio. I wonder if I can blame it on a malfunction if it comes to that.

—May I ask you something? I say to Mr. Wright.

—You can ask me anything you want to, says Mr. Wright. I might not answer.

But for the first time there is a twinkle in his eye.

—Does this person come in every day? How certain are you that—

The door opens then, and Mr. Wright raises his eyebrows and tilts his chin, very subtly, toward the man who comes through it.

I turn.

The man is my height, maybe, and skinny. I recognize him from the picture I saw on Facebook. He wears a bright orange jacket, zipped tight, and jeans. His hair is chin length now, and so unwashed that it’s difficult to ascertain its natural color. Light brown, most likely. He’s very handsome. Heroin does a lot of things to a body, but one thing it can do is streamline it, knock off weight, make the features stand out sharply in the absence of flesh. Bright eyes, wet eyes, a rush of blood to the face that alters its color.

The man says nothing, but eyes me sideways as he walks over to Mr. Wright at the counter.

Then he turns around.

—Were you waiting, he says. He doesn’t know me. He wants me to leave the store before making the arrangement he’s here to make.

I wait to see if Mr. Wright will introduce us, but he stays out of it.

—No, I wasn’t waiting, I say. And then, Any chance your name is Dock?

—No, says the man.

—No? I say again.

I’m usually better at this.

—Nope.

The man stares at me. He crosses his arms around his middle. Taps his toe a few times on the ground, making it clear that he’s waiting.

—Okay, I say. It’s just that you look like him in a picture I saw once.

Dock shifts. What picture? he says.

He glances every so often at Mr. Wright. At the moment, I am the one standing between him and the key that will grant him a fix. Clearly, he needs one badly. He begins to shift his weight from foot to foot.

I try a different tactic. Listen, I say. I’m looking for Kacey Fitzpatrick.

Dock pauses, finally, and puts his hand on the counter.

—Ohhhhh, he says, softly. Oh. You her sister?

I have a sudden memory of all the times I fished Kacey out of houses she shouldn’t have been in, when we were younger. All the men who eyed me while asking that question. And I ask myself if the decision I have made, to do it all over again, is correct.

—I am, I say.

There’s no hiding it. Despite other physical differences, Kacey and I have nearly the same face. When we were younger, people used to comment on it frequently.

—Mickey? says Dock.

—Yeah.

Mr. Wright keeps his eyes down.

—She always talked about you, he says, and my body flashes cold for a moment.
Talked
sounds like someone who’s dead.

—Do you know where she is? I ask him abruptly.

He shakes his head. Nah, he says. She left me a couple months ago. Haven’t heard from her since.

—So you were—I say.

He looks at me like I’m an idiot.

—You were together? I ask.

—Yeah, he says. Then: I have some business to attend to here. Let me know if you hear anything from Kacey.

—Can I have your number? I ask him.

—Sure, he says. And he gives it to me.

To make sure he gave me the right one, I call him right away. From
inside his pocket comes his cell phone ring: the sound of a song I vaguely recognize, something popular when I was a child. I didn’t know the name of it then, and I don’t now.

—All right, I say. Thanks.

On my way out, Dock says, Hey.

—You’re a cop, right? he says to me.

I hesitate. Yes, I say.

He says nothing. Mr. Wright says nothing.

—Anything else? I ask.

—Nah, says Dock.

He keeps his eyes on me until I leave the store.