The Lesson of Her Death (15 page)

In his dream he sobbed and then he woke.

Now, lying in his damp pajamas, listening to the tick of Diane’s breath, he feels the slam of his heart. He supposes the dream itself lasted no more than five or ten seconds. Yet he thinks he will carry with him for the rest of his life the memory of those dream tears he cried for his lost child—and for himself, because half his joy all these long years with his family has been false.

The burgundy Cadillac Eldorado pulled into the parking lot and eased into a slot painted in black letters:
Mr. Gebben
.

The driver of the car looked at the sign for a moment and thought of the parking space he had just left—one at the Stolokowski Funeral Home up the road. The sign there, which read
Families and Guests
, had been painted not in black but in bright blue. Richard Gebben thought there was sad irony in this; the blue of the sign at the funeral home was the exact shade of his company’s corporate logo.

He climbed out of the car and, slouching, walked into the low pebble-walled building. An airliner’s roar filled the sky for a moment and a jumbo jet began its takeoff roll at nearby Lambert Field. As the thick glass door swung shut behind him, the sound diminished to a whisper. “Oh,” the receptionist said, and looked at him with a surprised stare. Neither spoke as he walked past.

In his outer office Gebben accepted the hug of his tearful secretary.

“You didn’t …” she began. “I mean you didn’t need to come in today, Mr. Gebben.”

He said softly, “Yes I did.” And then escaped into his own sanctum. He sat in a swivel chair and looked out over a weedy lot surrounded by razor-wire-topped chain link and an abandoned siding.

Gebben—this stocky bull of a man, a Midwesterner with a pocked face, founder from scratch of Gebben Pre-Formed Inc., a simple man able to make whip-crack decisions
—today felt paralyzed. He needed help, he had prayed for it.

He now spun slowly in his chair and watched the man who was going to provide that help walk up to his office door. A man who was cautious and respectful but unafraid, a man who had an immense physical presence even among big men. This man stood in Gebben’s doorway, patient, his own huge shoulders slumped. This was the only man in the world Gebben would leave his daughter’s wake to meet. The man entered the office and, when invited to, sat in an old upholstered chair across the desk.

“I’m very sorry, Mr. Gebben.”

Though Gebben did not doubt the sincerity of these words they fell leaden from the man’s chapped lips.

“Thank you, Charlie.”

Charles Mahoney, forty-one years old, was six three and he weighed two hundred and eighty pounds. He had been a Chicago policeman for thirteen years. Five years ago a handcuffed felony-murder suspect in Mahoney’s custody had died when two of the man’s ribs broke and pierced his lung. A perfect imprint of the butt of a police service revolver had been found on the suspect’s chest. Mahoney couldn’t offer any suggestions as to how this freak accident occurred and he chose to resign from the force rather than risk letting a Cook County grand jury arrive at one very reasonable explanation.

Mahoney was now head of Gebben Pre-Formed’s Security Department. He liked this job better than being a cop. When people were found inside the chain link or in the warehouse or in the parking lot and they got impressions put on their chests and their ribs broken, nobody gave a shit. Except the people with the broken ribs and Mahoney could tell them point blank to shut up and be happy that their ribs were the only things broken. They were rarely happy. But they did shut up.

Richard Gebben, who by fluke of age had missed military service, knew the Chicago story about Mahoney because the security chief was Gebben’s surrogate platoon
buddy. They drank together on occasion and told war stories and travel stories, though most of them involved Mahoney talking and Gebben saying, “It must’ve been a fucking great time,” or, “I’ve really gotta do that.” Gebben always picked up the check.

Gebben now held Mahoney’s eyes for a moment. “I’m going to ask you to do something for me, Charlie.”

“Sure, I’d—”

“Let me finish, Charlie.”

Mahoney’s eyes were on a toy truck that Gebben’s Human Resources Department passed out at Christmas. On the side of the trailer was the blue company logo. Mahoney didn’t have any kids so he’d never been given a truck. This irked him in a minor way.

“If you agree to help me I’ll pay you ten thousand dollars cash. Provided—”

“Ten thousand?”

“Provided that what I’m about to tell you never leaves this room.”

S
he put the words one right after another in her mind. She said them aloud. “‘As virtuous men pass mildly away / And whisper to their souls to go …’”

The girl lay in the single bed, on top of a university-issue yellow blanket, under a comforter her mother had bought at Neiman-Marcus. The room lamps were out and light filtered through the curtains, light blue like the oil smoke of truck exhaust. Tears escaped from her eyes, saliva dripped onto the blanket beneath her head.

She remembered the last thing Jennie Gebben had said to her.
“Ah, kiddo. See you soon.”

Emily Rossiter spoke in a frantic whisper, “‘Whilst some of their sad friends do say, / The breath goes now and some say no.’”

They weren’t working. The words were powerless. She rested the book on her forehead for a moment then dropped it on the floor. Emily, who was twenty years old
and intensely beautiful, had a large mass of curly dark hair, which she now twined compulsively around her fingers. She recited the poem again.

At the knock on the door she inhaled in shock.

“Emily Rossiter?” A man’s voice was speaking. The doors were thin. She felt the knocking resonate upon her heart. “It’s Deputy Miller? I was by before? We were wondering if you could come in and speak to Detective Corde for a bit? He’s pretty anxious to see you.”

A woman’s voice, that of the housemother, asked, “Emily? Are you there? This gentleman wants to talk with you.”

“I’ll drive you over.”

She heard their voices speaking to one another. She couldn’t make out the words. She—

Oh no
. The key! The housemother has a key. Emily flipped off the covers. She scooted off the bed and stood in the middle of the room like a child, knees together, panicked. Another knock.

Emily stepped into her closet and sat on the floor, which was strewn with fallen hangers and dust balls and tissue from the dry cleaner’s. She quietly pulled several of her winter coats off the hooks above her and covered herself entirely.

“Emily?”

Breathe slowly, breathe slowly. They can’t get you here.… You’re safe with me, kiddo
.

But there were no keys in the door. After a moment she heard footsteps walking away, the jangle of the awful police equipment receding. It would be safe to climb out but there was something so comforting about lying under satin and cashmere so hidden that she was compelled to stay. “‘Such wilt thou be to me, who must / Like the other fool obliquely run.…’”

She wrapped the coats tighter about her.

They took Jennie away.

They took her letters away.

And now they want me too
.…

Ah, kiddo
.… Emily lay her head on the thick hump of a suede jacket.

“‘Thy firmness makes my circle just, / And makes me end where I begun.’”

The green Schwinn bicycle sat in the garage, standing upright. Twined around and around the small bike were little lights, a string of Christmas lights from the indoor tree. Wound around the handlebars, the fenders, the training wheels. The lights were on and the bike glowed like a city seen from an airplane landing.

They glowed too in reflection on the surface of the puddle of water on the garage floor.

Sarah stood in the doorway and looked at the spectacle in awe. It made her think of the movie
E.T
., which she’d seen five times, the scene where the creature makes the bikes fly through the sky.

She walked around it, studying the lights with fascination. This bicycle had terrified her when she’d received it two years ago. At her mother’s insistence she had tried riding it several times without the training wheels and nearly fell headlong onto the concrete of the driveway. She’d leapt off and run into the house screaming in panic. Even with the wheels on she avoided riding it when other children or Jamie, who rode his tall fifteen-speed so fast, might see her.

But what she was looking at now didn’t scare her. It was a bike but it was also something else. Something more. Something pretty and something mysterious. With the cord plugged into the wall socket to light the bulbs she couldn’t ride it of course. But she could sit on it and pretend she was pedaling—riding through the sky.

She could fly to the Sunshine Man’s cottage and thank him.…

She could be the queen of the sky, as if the dots of yellow lights were the stars in her own constellation.…

Stepping forward into the puddle of still water, she reached for the handlebar.

“Sarrie, like what
are
you doing?”

Jamie stood in the doorway, pulling on his brown leather biking gloves. He slipped off his Styrofoam helmet and set it on a shelf. He stood with his hands on his hips for a moment then walked toward her bike.

“Nothing.” She stepped away, looking down.

“Did you do that?”

She didn’t answer.

“That’s like totally stupid.”

“I’m not stupid,” she said meekly.

He walked to the outlet and yanked the plug out of the wall then began unwinding the lights.

“No, don’t!”

He shouted, “Look! Look at this!” He held up a portion of wire that had been wound around the frame of the bike. The plastic insulation was missing and several inches of copper wire were exposed and wrapped around the foot pedal. He pointed at the floor beneath the bike. “And there’s water spilled there.”

“Don’t yell at me!”

“If you do stupid things you’re gonna get yelled at.”

“Stop it! Stop it!”

“Don’t lay one of your effing tantrums on me! It won’t work,” he shot back.

He wound electrician’s tape around the exposed wire, then carefully rolled the wire into a circle and replaced it in the box marked
X-mas Lights
.

She muttered ominously, “You shouldn’t’ve done that.”

Diane appeared in the doorway.
“What
is going on out here? I heard you all the way in the bedroom.”

Jamie said, “Sarah was playing with the Christmas lights.”

“Sarah, were you?”

The little girl puckered her lips into an angry pout. “He called me stupid.”

Diane turned on him. “Jamie?”

“Well, she was
being
stupid. She could’ve like electrocuted herself or something.”

“It was pretty and he
ruined
it.”

“Mom,” he said, utterly exasperated.

Diane turned to her daughter. “You know to leave the decorations alone. If you broke any it’ll come out of your allowance.”

“I didn’t do anything!” Sarah shrieked then stormed out of the garage.

Jamie pulled his bike off the pegs stuck in the garage wall and lifted it down. Diane walked over to him and spoke in a menacing whisper, “How many times have I told you not to call her stupid.”

“She was playing with—”

“I don’t care what she was doing. It’s the worst thing in the world for her. Don’t do it.”

“Mom.”

“Just don’t do it.”

“You don’t under—”

“Did you hear me?”

His strong hands squeezed the brake levers on his bike. Diane repeated her question. “Yes,” he grumbled formally.

Diane’s voice softened. “If you see her doing something like that again come tell me. Your sister’s going through a very tough time right now. Little things are really hard on her.”

“I said all right.”

He angrily wheeled his bicycle back and forth.

Diane wiped her hands on her skirt. “I’m sorry I lost my temper.”

“Okay,” he muttered. “No problem.”

“You have the match tonight, right?”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll be there.”

“You and Sarah.”

“Your father’s going to be working. It’s a very important case.”

He leapt on the high bike and rolled down the driveway.

“I wish you’d let the deputy take you to school. Your father doesn’t want you two going places alone.”

He shrugged.

“Jamie,” she shouted, looking on the shelf beside the door. “Wait! Your helmet …”

But the boy seemed not to hear and leaned sharply into the turn as he sped out of the driveway and into the road.

He thought it was a skull but he couldn’t be sure.

“You Watkins?”

“That I am.”

Naw couldn’t be
. Jim Slocum walked into a small, windowless office in the State Building in Higgins. He introduced himself. He wasn’t impressed; his own office in the New Lebanon Sheriff’s Department was bigger and had a window to boot. This room smelled of onions and was filled with books and telexes and photocopies of memos. He glanced at some and thought how boring they must be.
Justice Department Monthly Homicide Demographics Report. Intrafamily Violence Review
—
Midwest Edition
.