Things You Won't Say (13 page)

Jamie rubbed his back like she did the kids’ when they were hurt or upset.

“I knew it the second I fired. Before I even got close to him and saw his eyes.” Mike shook his head, like he was trying to deny his own words. “He was a year older than Henry.”

“I know,” Jamie said. She kept rubbing Mike’s broad back because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“I play basketball around there sometimes. I might’ve played with him.”

Mike hadn’t done it in a few months, but on occasional weekend mornings when he was off duty he joined a pickup
game in the community he patrolled. It was a way of showing young men another side to the police. They sweated together, argued over fouls real and imagined, and walked off the courts slapping each other’s palms.

“You need to rest,” Jamie said. “Come inside.”

“Do the kids know?” Mike asked.

“Henry heard something about it from one of his friends,” Jamie said. “I told him we’d talk about it when you got home.”

Mike pulled away from her and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Yeah.”

“Lou’s here,” Jamie said. “Christie, too.”

Mike jerked back. “What’s she doing here?”

“She wants to help,” Jamie said. “But we can ask her to go if you want.”

Mike shook his head again. “I keep seeing him, lying there. You know how the kids like to make snow angels? That’s what he looked like. A snow angel bleeding out on a piece of asphalt.”

A tremor ran through Mike’s body, and Jamie could see his throat working convulsively.

“Honey,” Jamie said. “You didn’t start the fight. You didn’t put the gun in his hand. This wasn’t your fault, Mike! You were just doing your job.”

Mike nodded, but the expression on his face told Jamie her words hadn’t penetrated.

“They didn’t find a gun,” he said in a low voice.

Jamie felt herself go ice-cold as Mike’s words echoed in the space between them. “What do you mean?”

“The union rep came. He told me not to say anything, but that’s bullshit. I didn’t do anything wrong. I told them what I could tonight and I’m going in tomorrow for a formal statement.” Mike shook his head. “Jay told them he didn’t see a gun. He thought the guy was just drawing back his fist to punch the kid again. Jay couldn’t even look at me.”

“He was wrong!” Jamie cried. “He’s an idiot. You said so—”

Mike cut her off: “A few of the bangers were questioned, the ones they could round up, at least. They all said the same thing: No gun.”

Mike’s voice was a monotone now.

“There wasn’t a gun?” Jamie echoed, her throat closing around the words. “Did they look around? Maybe it fell out of his hand.”

“They looked,” Mike said. “
I
looked. I was the first one to reach the guy.”

“No,” Jamie said. She felt her insides collapse. “No, Mike.”

“I swear to you,” Mike said, staring at her, his eyes hard and intent. He gripped her shoulders, his fingers digging into her flesh. “I
saw
it, Jamie.”

“We have to think,” Jamie said. She was breathing hard now, her mind scrambling. “It was raining! It was hard to see! Anyone could’ve made that mistake! They can’t blame you!”

She felt hysteria rise within her. She saw Mike leading with his SIG Sauer as he walked through their shadowy house, imagining a threat that had never existed. Her eyes went instinctively to the holster on his hip. It was empty. They must’ve taken his gun as evidence.

Jamie turned to look at their house and the four innocent children who were depending on them. Then she spun back around at the sudden sound of an engine. A white news van was coming down their street.

Mike didn’t appear to notice the approaching van. He was in his own world now. He had been for quite some time. Why had she ever thought he needed to go back to work? He hadn’t been ready, not even close, and now a teenager was dead and his family was shattered and all of their lives were wrecked.

Jamie began to tremble. The news van stopped in front of their house.

This can’t be happening,
she thought.

Part Two

Chapter Seven

IT WAS THE FIRST
time Lou had taken a sick day since she’d begun working at the zoo. The flu, a broken toe (incurred when she’d been assisting with an examination of a hippo who changed his mind about cooperating), a lingering sinus infection . . . none of it could keep Lou from her beloved animals. Being around them felt healing.

She craved the elephants’ calming presence even more than usual today, because the scene at Jamie and Mike’s was so alarming. By now there were three news vans with big antennas crowding the street, and Lou had glimpsed a reporter she recognized from television standing in front of the house, talking as a cameraman filmed her.

Inside, things were just as disorienting. After Mike had come home last night, he’d changed into shorts and a T-shirt, then slumped on the couch, staring at a Disney movie with the kids. Jamie had stationed herself in the kitchen, making spaghetti and a huge salad and garlic bread and, of all things, an apple pie. An apple pie! As if Jamie had time to be coring and slicing fruit. And the last thing they needed was for the oven to be on, adding a few more degrees of heat to the sweltering house.

“What are you doing?” Lou had asked. “Don’t you think you should be with Mike?”

But Jamie’s lips had trembled. “It’s Mike’s favorite.”

Lou had understood then: Her sister was trying to find a way to give her husband some small measure of comfort. So Lou had picked up a knife and begun slicing Granny Smiths, too. No one had seemed to notice as the clock ticked later, so at around 9:00
P.M.
, Lou had cajoled the kids to bed with the promise of a special contest—whoever could pee the longest would win a lollipop.

Lou had realized belatedly that none of the kids had brushed their teeth, and she was pretty sure she’d forgotten at least one other part of Jamie’s nighttime routine, but at least they were asleep. She’d finally done one small thing to help her sister, something concrete. Jamie had asked her to spend the night, so she’d borrowed the minivan and hurried home to grab a quick shower and pack up her toothbrush and a nightshirt and change of clothes. Luckily no reporters had followed her. The relief on Donny’s and Mary Alice’s faces when she told them she’d be gone for a day or two had reminded her that she needed to move out soon, on top of everything else. When she’d returned, Jamie and Mike were talking quietly in the living room, so Lou had gone upstairs to lie down on their bed. Somehow she’d fallen asleep, still wearing her shoes. She’d forgotten to brush her teeth, too.

Lou figured she’d check in after work to see if Jamie needed her to run to the store or something, given that Jamie had used up just about everything in her pantry last night cooking a meal that easily could’ve served twelve. But this morning, when she’d crept downstairs in the grainy, gray light of dawn, she’d seen Jamie and Mike sitting side by side on the couch, in the same position as the night before. They weren’t talking. Lou wondered if they’d even slept. She felt dazed and muddy; it must’ve been eighty-five degrees in there. It was hard to breathe, let alone think.

“Hi, Lou,” Jamie said without turning around, and Lou started. She thought she’d been quiet, but Jamie seemed to have developed supersonic hearing since having children.

“Hi,” Lou whispered. She didn’t want to interrupt the intimate moment—it seemed like that was all she was doing lately—but Jamie motioned for her to join them. Lou brushed some Legos off a chair and sat down. She looked at her sister and brother-in-law carefully. Jamie was still wearing the same outfit as yesterday, and she was twirling her hair into knots again. Mike hadn’t shaved, and his eyes were bleary. They both looked wilted, like flowers whose source of water had run out days earlier.

“Are you going into work today?” Lou asked Mike. She wondered if the question was too blunt, but Mike didn’t seem to mind.

He shook his head. “They told me to stay home for now. Administrative leave.”

He put his feet up on the coffee table and crossed his arms. When animals felt threatened, they usually tried to take up more space—puffing up their hair or extending their limbs, Lou thought. Mike was doing the opposite. Did that mean he was accepting defeat?

They sat together in silence, then Lou caught sight of the clock across the room and stood up. “I should probably get going,” she said.

Jamie looked at Mike, then back at Lou. “Actually,” she said, “would you mind staying today?”

“Yeah, sure,” Lou said. She could get someone else to take over her duties at the zoo. She certainly had enough vacation time coming.

“Maybe you could take the kids to a movie,” Jamie said. “I don’t have any camps or anything lined up this week.”

“Sounds good,” Lou said.

“Tell her the rest,” Mike said. There was a white line around his mouth.

It was only then that Lou noticed the morning’s paper spread out on the coffee table under Mike’s feet. She looked up to see Jamie’s lips trembling. “The press found out about Mike’s nickname.”

Lou furrowed her brow. She wasn’t aware that Mike had one.

“It’s Rambo,” Jamie said. “Because he’s got dark hair and muscles! But the press is turning it into something else . . .”

“How did they find out?” Lou asked.

“Does it matter?” Jamie asked. Tears slid down her cheeks. Mike put his arm around her, and Jamie pressed her face into his chest, her shoulders shaking.

“Mommy?”

They all turned at the sound of Eloise’s voice.

“I wet.”

That was what she’d forgotten last night—to put a Pull-Up on Eloise, Lou suddenly remembered. Eloise had managed to take off her pajamas, and she was holding a blanket.

“It’s okay, baby.” Jamie pushed away her tears with her hands and stood up. “I’ll clean you up and get you some dry PJs. Do you want to go sleep in my bed?”

Eloise just shook her head and walked around the couch and climbed into her dad’s lap. Mike wrapped the blanket more securely around his daughter and rested his cheek against the top of her head. Lou swallowed hard as she watched them.

“I’ll go change her sheets,” Jamie said. Lou followed her out of the room and up the stairs.

“I can’t stand this,” Jamie whispered. Part of her hair was sticking up and her forehead was creased. “Do you think Mike will go to jail?”

Lou shook her head, even though she had no idea. “It’s not like he just shot someone in cold blood.”

“But I feel partly responsible,” Jamie said. “I knew he wasn’t himself.”

Jamie began stripping the sheets off Eloise’s toddler bed as
she spoke, bundling them into the laundry hamper in a corner of the room. “He was just a boy, Lou.” She dropped her face into her hands and her shoulders shook a few times, then she lifted her head and resumed moving.

“You don’t realize how close you are to disaster until it happens,” Jamie said, her voice growing shrill. “Do you know what happens to cops in jail? It’s worse than you can imagine. And the kids”—her voice broke, but she managed to steady it—“they’ll lose their dad if Mike is charged with a crime. Even if they don’t charge him, if he ends up losing his job we’ll lose the house; we can barely afford the mortgage as it is. I’ll go back to work—God, who would even hire me now?—and Christie will probably still try to demand child support. Can you believe Mike pays her five hundred bucks a month? We take care of Henry most of the time!”

“You can’t think about this stuff now,” Lou blurted. Jamie had a little spittle in the corner of her mouth and her eyes looked as crazy as her hair. The cornerstone in Lou’s life was self-destructing.

“I
have
to think about it,” Jamie said. “I know you said not to watch the news, but I need to know what we’re up against.”

Jamie walked over to Eloise’s window and pulled back the curtain. She jabbed her finger toward the photographers and news vans staked out in front of the house. “Look at this! Should I just keep the kids in all day? What if a reporter says something to one of them?”

“Um, maybe they should go out, like you said,” Lou said. “I can take them to the movie. Keep things normal.” Routines were important—at the zoo, animals depended upon them.

“I also think you should take a shower,” Lou said. Jamie looked a little surprised, and Lou wondered if she’d hurt her sister’s feelings. She tried to soften her words with a joke: “I’m the one people usually say that to.”

“I’ve got to start breakfast—” Jamie began, but Lou cut her off.

“Do you know that by this time I’ve fed forty thousand pounds of mammal? I think I can handle making some toast.”

She’d said the right thing for once. Jamie actually smiled, but a moment later, her lips were curving down again. “I don’t know how to do this, Lou. I don’t think I can do it. Oh my God . . . that poor boy. His poor mother . . .”

“It’s going to be okay,” Lou said, and she gently pushed Jamie toward the shower so her sister wouldn’t read the lie in her eyes.

•••

Christie pulled her red Miata into the salon’s parking lot and chose the most convenient spot. Employees weren’t supposed to do that—they’d been instructed to leave their cars in the back, so customers could nab the prime spaces—but it was Christie’s last day of work. She’d also begged the best stylist to give her a free cut in between customers. Who cared if the salon’s owner objected to any of it? She wasn’t ever coming back to this place.

Tonight Christie had her first paid undercover job. The freckle-faced man’s wife had given them her husband’s daily schedule: what time he usually got to work, what time he left the office, where he routinely ate lunch. Elroy had read through it before crafting a plan. He suggested the wife text her husband and ask him to stop at the Safeway on his way home to pick up diapers and milk. Christie would be in the store, her purse slipping off her shoulder, doing her best to cross paths with the guy. Her outfit was waiting on the passenger’s seat: a black minidress with straps that crisscrossed over her back, and red high heels. If everything went as expected, she’d arrange to meet the mark at a hotel in the next day or two. Freckle-face wouldn’t know what hit him until he heard the echo of the hotel room door slamming behind her.