Too Far to Say Far Enough: A Novel (32 page)

Any other time I would have had to stifle a grin at the thought of Desmond being stressed out. This wasn’t any other time.

“Get dressed,” Chief said. “We’ll grab some breakfast on the way to school.”

Before Desmond even closed his door behind him I was out on the screen porch. It was the first morning since May that the heat didn’t hit me in the face like a pillow when I walked outside. I could have even used a light hoodie. But I just hugged my arms around me and went to the railing and fumed. Chief fumed right behind me.

“Well, are we going to give the boy what he wants?” I said.

“Which is?”

“Are we going to fix it?” I whirled to face Chief, who had his own arms folded so tight his hands were lost in his armpits. “This can’t go on any longer. Something besides my issues is keeping you from trusting me when it comes to Troy Irwin. Put it out there, Chief, because now it’s not only affecting you and me, it’s affecting Desmond.”

“I told you I’m working on it.”

“Not hard enough, evidently.”

“And how about you? This is going to blow up. Are you ready for that?”

The door creaked. Before Desmond could get the screen door open, Chief had turned away from me.

“I’ll get the bike started,” he said to Desmond, and strode off the porch.

Desmond looked at me. “You was just fixin’ it out here, right?”

“Yeah, Des,” I said.

He let his look linger and then loped off to meet Chief.

As I watched him go, and then watched them both go, on the Road King, riding off like one bonded-together hunk of love, the longing went so deep and so hard, I had to sink into the swing.

“It’s your longing for us, isn’t it?” I whispered.

Love another mile. Go. Go now.

I rocked the swing and waited for more and there was no more. Maybe I didn’t need any more. Maybe that was all I needed to know to go fix it.

As for love … it suddenly seemed harder than hate. But I had no choice.

I got Hank to come and stay with Flannery until it was late enough for her to go to Second Chances, where, according to Ophelia, they were waiting for more of her creativity. I went straight to the police station and was there a few minutes before nine. Detective Kylie looked up from his piles of envelopes and folders and sighed when Officer Bad Perm showed me into his cubicle. I bit back what I wanted to say, which was
You picked the wrong time to pull attitude with me,
and sat in the chair he neglected to offer me. I couldn’t get snarky if I was going to find out what I came for. If that was what was meant by
Love another mile
, I had to make sure I could do it.

“I think I can help,” I said.

“Well now, isn’t that nice?”

Really, God? Really?

“I don’t know about nice. Just honest. My neighbor flushed somebody out of my bushes last night just as I was getting home. You can check it out on the police report. He got away, but it sure looked like Marcus Rydell to me.”

Kylie straightened slightly in the chair, but his eyes remained mildly incredulous. “You saw his face?”

“Didn’t have to. If you’ll recall, my view of Mr. Rydell is usually his back as he runs away like the complete coward he is. I’m not thinking you sent him.”

“What the … why would I send him?”

“He’s working for you. I just thought if you didn’t send him, you’d want to know that he’s obviously got something else going on the side.” I leaned forward. “Like maybe working for Sultan again.”

Kylie grunted. “I think your imagination is getting the better of you, Miss Chamberlain.”

“No, if anything, it’s my fear. I don’t like the fact that Rydell is walking around free as it is, but if he
is
working for Sultan—”

“Look, even if he were, Sultan’s done.”

“What do you mean he’s done?”

The detective pinched the bridge of his nose like a father whose aggravation with his teenage daughter was giving him a migraine. “All right. Rydell told me that the only action Sultan has been able to get going recently is one small-time pimp who’s joined his new line.”

“So that’s it?” I said. “Because he’s only responsible for a
handful
of exploited women you don’t give a flip if you catch him now?” I took a breath. So far the love thing wasn’t working well. “I’m sorry. There’s no need for sarcasm.”

He looked a little stunned.

“Sultan may not have the influence he once did,” I said, “but we know from what he’s done in the past that he has absolutely no conscience and that he is a threat to Desmond and me.”

“Which is why I have Marcus Rydell working for me. Your words, not mine.”

“Then let me just tell you what I want.”

“There’s no stopping you. What?”

“I want protection for my son. I want police cruising Palm Row on a regular basis. I want to be able to call you and report anything that seems suspicious to me and have you take it seriously.” I spread my hands out on the desk, where I could find a place amid the piles that mimicked my own mental ones. “I’m on your side, detective. We both want the same thing. We want it for different reasons, and we seem to be going at it in entirely different ways, but really, we want the same thing.”

I sat back. Kylie waggled his head side to side. Grimaced. And finally said, “What is it that we want?”

“Justice,” I said. “Right?”

“Right,” he said.

But I’d already seen the cynical glint. That was what I’d gone there to find out, and it surged up in me until I had to grip the arms of the chair to keep from flying across his pile-filled desk. What I was feeling was definitely not love. I had to pull in air to keep my voice calm, no matter what I felt.

“No,” I said. “You aren’t about justice, sir. If you were, you would never have let Troy Irwin go. He’s going to be arrested today for embezzlement, and he’ll probably go to prison for that, but not for what he did to one of my Sisters. That’s not justice.” I prayed my hands together. “But you have a chance now with Jude Lowery. And I’m praying that you’ll take that chance—
not
just to get you out of this cubicle, but to protect my son and everyone else Sultan is threatening.”

Kylie’s face grew grave. “Who else is he threatening?”

“Have you read the police report on the vandalism at Choice Auto Repair last Wednesday, the twelfth?”

“What van—”

“Grisly portraits of me and three of my Sisters were drawn on the walls … in blood. One of them was portrayed with an eye patch. Did anybody bring that to your attention?”

“These were actual drawings?”

“Caricatures,” I said.

As soon as the word crossed my lips the vision was clear. Caricatures, good ones. Drawn with the same talent Desmond had.

“They were done by Sultan,” I said.

His eyes narrowed. “You can prove that?”

“That’s not my job. It’s yours.” I slid to the front edge of the chair. “Look at the crime-scene photos. Compare them to the copy of the drawing I showed you last spring that my son did. Sultan is Desmond’s biological father. The only decent thing he passed down to him was his artistic talent. And while you’re looking at those photos, notice that the drawings were all done low on the wall, where someone in a wheelchair could reach. You’re a smart guy, Detective Kylie. You’ll see it.” I stood up. “I’d like regular police presence on San Luis Street, too, and a foot patrolman keeping an eye on our building on St. George. Second Chances. Used to be the Monk’s Vineyard.”

The scoff was gone from Kylie’s mouth, though he did say, “Is there anything else you want?”

“I want you to care,” I said.

And then I left, before the tears in my throat could catch up to my eyes.

As I made my way, half-blind, down the hall, I tried to assure myself that not grabbing Detective Kylie by the throat and shaking him was about as much of a demonstration of love as God could expect me to show. I wanted to. I also wanted to pick up the next trash can I saw and smash it—

I cut off that thought and fell against a doorway. Or maybe I was pushed. I felt pushed—back from the undeniable urge to hurt someone, the way the people I loved had been hurt and still could be. When there was no justice, it was hard not to seek revenge. As the urge pulled me and God pushed back, I could see Kade caught in that same riptide.

When I could stop dragging my hands through my hair, I started to step out of the doorway, but a voice in the hall stopped me.

“I have a right to an attorney. I’m not saying anything until my lawyer gets here. Don’t try any of your big bad cop—”

The rest was profanity. I had never heard Troy Irwin swear like that before. I flattened myself against the recessed door.

“You have the right to remain silent too,” Nick Kent said. “I wish you’d take it.”

I expected a flock of attorneys to be scurrying around Troy already, but when they passed me, he was alone with Nick and a plainclothes guy whose open jacket unconcealed his concealed weapon. It was a far different scene from the one I’d witnessed last spring in this same hallway: Troy strolling confidently with his bevvy of advisors, arms swinging as if he were on his way to a three-martini lunch.

This time he was in handcuffs, and I was more frightened of him now than when he was walking free.

I waited until the double doors swung shut behind them before I emerged from the place God had pushed me to and hurried out of the building. So much for step two of my plan for fixing it. And I’d been so sure that
Love another mile
included
Go see Troy.
As opposed to my natural inclination as that was, I thought it
had
to come from God.

I was going to have to wait on that one. I paused when I got to my bike and sorted through one of the piles. Zelda was with Liz. Sherry … I couldn’t go there. Flannery was occupied for the moment.

I put on my helmet and headed for the hospital.

Owen, who surprisingly wasn’t there yet, would have had more than the usual three metaphors for Ms. Willa’s state when I got there, starting with “ready to blow a gasket.”

I didn’t even have to ask her what was wrong because she started in on me the minute she saw me walk in.

“You got me in here, Allison Chamberlain, and you’d better get me out!”

“Nice to see you, too, Ms. Willa.”

“Don’t you be smart with me. I told you people I was just having one of my spells. I would have been fine if you’d just left me alone.”

I pulled a chair close to the bed where she was hooked up to a heart monitor and several other machines I couldn’t identify. “Tell that to Flannery,” I said. “She’s the one who convinced you to come.”

The inevitable blue-veined finger came out from under the sheet. “Don’t you blame that girl. She was just doing what you told her to.”

I laughed. “And since when does Flannery do
anything
I tell her to? Or you either, which I think is why you like her so much.”

“She wouldn’t let them treat me the way they’re treating me in here.”

My smile faded. “You’re not getting good care?”

“Look at me. I’m a fright, and don’t tell me I’m not because I looked.” She flailed her hand at a small mirror on the rolling tray and then pulled fretfully at the defeated curls flattened to her head. There were tears in her eyes as she tried to push her dignity back into place.

“Do you want Flannery?” I said.

“Well, of course I want Flannery! Why didn’t you bring her with you?”

“I’ll get her here,” I said.

I took my cell phone to the waiting room down the hall and called Hank. She said she and Flannery were just leaving my house so she’d drop her off at the hospital instead of Second Chances. I was on my way back to Ms. Willa’s room when a graying nurse with still-bright eyes the color of blueberries stopped me.

“You’re Ms. Livengood’s visitor?” Her voice was the kind I’d want to wake me up in the morning, especially if I was in a hospital bed.

“I am,” I said.

“Family?”

I shook my head. “I’m not sure she has any.”

“No, there’s no one listed.” She bit her lip like she was trying to decide something. “I just think someone should be aware. I hate to see this all come down to a social worker.”