The Girl in the Motel

by Chris Culver

  I did none of that, though. I couldn’t move. My tears stained my shirt as I fell backwards onto my couch. Alone, I sat in the dark and cried until I couldn’t cry anymore.

  40

  My phone rang and rang. I ignored it. Then my cell phone rang. I ignored that, too. Then my cell beeped as people texted. I ignored those, too, but they kept coming for almost twenty minutes. I got up to find out who wanted to get in touch with me.

  I had messages from half a dozen colleagues, including Travis, my boss. Julia had called three times. Dad had called twice from his cell. I disconnected my landline from the wall and called Julia back. She was breathless.

  “Sweetheart,” she said. “I’m sorry. I saw the news. That reporter had no business digging into your life like that.”

  “I’ll never get rid of him, will I?” I asked, blinking. “He’s dead. I shot him, and I can’t get away from him.”

  Julia said nothing. I looked at the TV. The news was off now, and one of the late shows was on. As the camera swept over the audience, people waved and smiled as if they didn’t have a care in the world. It seemed unfair, so I stood up and shut it off.

  “He’s a part of your life,” she said. “I wish he weren’t, but he is.”

  It was an honest answer, at least. I paced the hallway that connected the front and rear of my house.

  “Did you know about my psych eval?”

  She said nothing at first, so I sighed.

  “Did you know I failed the psych evaluation before I became a police officer?”

  “It was a long time ago,” she said. “You’re not that same person.”

  She might as well have stabbed me in the heart. Cold waves spread from my hips to my chest and down my legs. I plopped onto a chair in the kitchen and thought about the bottle of vodka I had in the freezer. I had nowhere to go and very few reasons not to tear that bottle open and have a drink. For some reason, though, I hesitated, and I didn’t know why.

  “So you knew,” I said.

  She started to say something, but then she caught herself.

  “Yeah. I knew.”

  I rubbed my eyes, feeling a weight press down on me.

  “You should have told me,” I said, my voice low. “For my entire adult life, this was who I was. I was a cop. I didn’t have a boyfriend, I didn’t have a family, I didn’t have many friends, but I was a cop. That was all I wanted to be. I wanted to help people.”

  “You’re an excellent police officer, Joe,” she said. “I’ve been in law enforcement for almost thirty years, and I’ve evaluated a lot of detectives. You’re one of the best I’ve ever seen.”

  “I’m a goddamn fraud, Julia,” I said. “They shouldn’t have even given me a badge. I’m the youngest detective in my department’s history. Did I earn that, or did you and Travis nudge the scales there, too?”

  “That was all you,” she said.

  I shook my head and felt tears come to my eyes anew. “Even if I earned a promotion, it doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have been in the building in the first place, and now everybody knows it.”

  “I’m sorry, Joe.”

  “Me, too,” I said. “I’ve got to go.”

  I hung up but didn’t move from my chair at the breakfast table. I thought about changing into some sweats and going for a run. Then I thought about going for a drive or sitting and listening to music. I thought about a lot of things, but I didn’t come to any conclusion. After a few minutes, I didn’t want to think anymore, so I grabbed my vodka from the freezer and poured it into a glass.

  I didn’t have many certainties in my life, but at least I had booze. Even when nothing else in the world had gone right, it made me feel better. I took three shots and then went to bed with my head swimming. I couldn’t believe I had felt good a few hours ago. Just a few hours ago, my future had been certain. I had known where I was going and who I was. Now, I had lost everything. Not even a bottle of vodka could make me feel better about that.

  I slept, but it was fitful. I ended up waking up hung over and even more tired than I had been when I went to bed. It didn’t matter, though. During the night, my unconscious mind had decided for me. I had no business wearing a badge. That was the final lesson Christopher Hughes had taught me. Even from his grave, that motherfucker insisted on ruining me.

  I hand wrote my resignation letter, showered, dressed, and headed toward the office at seven in the morning. Trisha worked the day shift, so she wasn’t in yet. That was why I had gone in so early. I nodded hello to the night shift’s dispatcher and walked toward Travis’s office on the second floor. The door was open, but he wasn’t around.

  I waited in the hallway and caught sight of him carrying a mug of steaming coffee a few moments after I arrived. He nodded.

  “Morning, Joe,” he said. “I thought you’d be by. Come on in.”

  We walked into the office. Travis’s office was cozy and neat. He had filing cabinets against the walls and a big window that overlooked the courthouse lawn. Tucked away from the front lobby, it was quiet. He walked around his desk and gestured toward a seat in front.

  “Have a seat. We’ll talk. You want coffee?”

  I shook my head and put my letter on the desk.

  “Thank you, but no. I won’t stay long,” I said. I nodded toward the letter. “That should be everything you need. I signed it this morning. I’ll clean out my desk before the day shift comes on.”

  Travis didn’t pick the letter up, but he nodded.

  “I thought you’d try to quit on me,” he said. “You can’t. It’ll leave me short-handed.”

  “You’ll be fine,” I said. “The Megan and Emily Young cases will probably close soon now that Christopher Hughes and his lawyer are dead. Harry, Delgado, and Martin are here. If you need another detective, promote Trisha. She won’t appreciate the promotion, but she can do the work.”

  “Is that why you’re doing this?” he asked, leaning back and crossing his arms. “You think you’ve let me down?”

  “I think I’ve opened this town to a major lawsuit just by being here,” I said. “Don’t argue with me. I won’t listen to you try to persuade me to stay. It’s done. I don’t want this job anymore.”

  “Whether you believe it or not, you’ve earned your right to be here,” said Travis. “I’m not going to read your resignation letter, but I’ll hold on to it. If you still feel the same way in a week, I’ll start the paperwork. Until then, you’re on vacation.”

  “I won’t change my mind,” I said.

  “I know,” said Travis, nodding. “You’re as stubborn as your mother.”

  “My mother was a junkie who barely knew my name.”

  Travis leaned forward and raised an eyebrow. His voice was sharper than I expected.

  “Your mother is a captain in the St. Louis County Police Department. She’s a friend of mine, and she loves you very much. She’s sacrificed a lot for you. Maybe you should talk to her instead of me about this.”

  Julia loved me. I knew that. The rebuke stung more than it should have, but I didn’t know why.

  “Is that it, sir?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll talk to you later, Joe.”

  I turned to leave, but then I stopped myself near the door.

  “Travis, who had access to my personnel file?”

  He crossed his arms. “If you’re asking whether I know who leaked this information, I don’t. I’ll look into it, though. If this reporter’s source came from this department, there will be repercussions.”

  “I know you’ll look into this,” I said, nodding and blinking, “but I’m asking you a simple question. Who had access to my file?”

  “Me, the detectives investigating your shooting into Christopher Hughes, your former instructors at the Central Missouri Police Academy. A fair number of people.”

  I looked down. “Would a union representative have access to it?”

  Travis hesitated and then nodded. “Yeah. Your rep would get your file to help facilitate your
defense.”

  My back stiffened as a cold, black feeling washed over me. My entire body trembled with anger.

  “A detective from St. Louis filed a complaint against me a couple of days ago,” I said. “Delgado told me. That means he had access to my file.”

  Travis looked down at his desk.

  “I know there’s bad blood between you and George, but I don’t think—”

  “Just stop,” I said, holding up a hand. “Please don’t defend him in front of me. He’s a bully, and he has no business being a police officer, let alone a detective. Worse than that, he’s my union rep. He’s harassed me at every opportunity he’s had, and I had no one to complain to but you. And you didn’t do shit.”

  He closed his eyes. “I talked to him.”

  “Lot of good it did. We’re done, Travis. I don’t care that you were Julia’s partner. I don’t care that I’ve known you for a decade. You fucked up, and I paid the price.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

  “I’m sorry it is that way,” I said.

  Travis looked away rather than fight, and I went downstairs to clear out my desk. Where many of my colleagues had family pictures and houseplants, I kept my desk neat and businesslike. If a stranger walked past, he’d think it was unassigned. I liked it like that. Maybe a part of me even knew I’d leave like this one day and didn’t want to become attached to the space. As I was cleaning out my drawers, I heard someone clear his throat to my right. Even without looking at his face, I recognized the sound.

  Detective Delgado.

  I glanced at him and then focused on the grocery sack I had borrowed from the front desk.

  “What do you want?”

  “Saw you on the news last night,” he said.

  I looked at him and felt some of my composure dissolve. Black, venomous hate bubbled to the surface.

  “You disgust me,” I said. “I don’t care who you are or how much you dislike somebody, you don’t release somebody’s personal information to the media. Those were my secrets. You had no right to share them.”

  “I’ve read your personnel file. You don’t think your colleagues deserved to know they were working beside a ticking time bomb?”

  I wanted to scream and throw things at him. I wanted to make him hurt the way I did, but he wanted that. He wanted me to scream and lose control; it would prove everything he thought of me. Instead, I focused the pain inward and felt my gut twist and tighten. Tears sprang to my eyes, but I tried to blink them away before anyone could see them.

  “I’m not a time bomb. Somebody hurt me years ago. It took a long time to get over that pain, but I’m stronger for it now. I’m no longer that little girl. I don’t care what you think of me, but I deserved privacy. Those were my secrets. They weren’t yours to share. You’re a horrible, pathetic, and weak human being with the intellect of an empty lunch sack. I wish I had never met you. Now please leave me alone. I have nothing else to say to you, and even if I did, it would go over your stupid little head.”

  I turned back to my bag so I wouldn’t have to look at Detective Delgado again. Somehow, my back felt stronger, and the pit in my stomach felt looser. I may not have been a cop anymore, but I knew I’d survive. I was stronger than him. I was stronger than Christopher Hughes. A man more animal than human had hurt me years ago, but I had survived and grown. I was so much more than the victim Delgado saw me as. If he was too stupid to see that, it was his loss.

  “You should be careful about where you direct that vitriol, young lady.”

  It was a new voice, but one I recognized. I glanced to the right to see Detective Jasper Martin walking toward my desk. He was older than Delgado, but he wasn’t soft. He had a graying mustache, a thin face, and pitted, craggy skin. His voice reminded me of stones rubbing against one another. I had never worked with him, so I didn’t have an opinion of him except that he was a solid detective.

  “This is a private conversation, Detective Martin,” I said, picking up my bag and starting toward the door. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going home.”

  “George didn’t leak your file,” said Martin. “That was me.”

  I stopped in my tracks a few feet from the older man and turned.

  “You?” I asked. He nodded. I opened my mouth to say something but found I didn’t have words. Then I shook my head, dumbfounded. “I don’t even know you, Detective. In fact, this is the most I’ve ever spoken to you in one conversation. What reason could you have for trying to hurt me?”

  He blinked and shifted his weight forward, adopting an aggressive posture, the way he might have when talking to a hostile suspect. I matched it.

  “I’ve put forty years and two marriages into this department. It was my life’s work. I love this department and the people in it. You’re unstable, Ms. Court. That’s not your fault, but that doesn’t change the facts. You have no business being here. You may think you’re strong, but you’re not. When you break, you’ll take out everyone around you. If my last action as a detective is to force you out of a department I love before you hurt my friends, I’d say it was a career well spent.”

  The resolve I had felt earlier slipped.

  “Fuck you,” I said. “Just fuck you, old man.”

  I grabbed my grocery bag and walked again. As I did, I found Trisha and Travis a few feet behind Detective Martin. Trisha walked toward me and tried to put an arm around me, but I shrugged her off and kept walking. As I reached the hallway that led to the front of the station, I heard Travis speak again.

  “Detective Martin, you’re fired. Pack up your desk. You’ve got an hour to get out of my station.”

  It was a symbolic move more than it was an actual punishment. Martin would still leave with full retirement benefits and a pension.

  I left the building and drove home. For the first time in a long time, I had nowhere to be. I didn’t keep a lot of food in the house, but I had bought ingredients for corn muffins when Dad visited. I cracked two eggs into a skillet and then scrambled them in butter. That was the extent of my cooking knowledge, but the eggs tasted good.

  Afterwards, I did the dishes and wondered what the hell I would do with my life now that I was no longer a cop. Then I thought smaller and planned my day. I had projects all over the house and yard, but I didn’t want to do any of them. I had one thing alone on my mind. It was just a little after eight in the morning, but I grabbed a beer from my fridge, cracked it open, and sat on the porch to watch the world wake up.

  I stayed out there for about an hour before I caught movement to my left. I hid my bottle and sat a little straighter. Susanne smiled and waved from near the road. She wore a sundress and tennis shoes. A wooden clip held her hair back from her weathered face. As she got closer, I could hear her breathing hard.

  “Hey, Susanne,” I said, standing and reaching out my hand to help her up the stairs. “You should have called. I would have gone to meet you.”

  “That’s all right, dear,” she said, taking my hand and squeezing before grabbing the railing. “I needed the walk, and this looks like a fine morning. How’s Roger?”

  I walked to my seat. Susanne sat in the wooden chair next to mine.

  “The vet says he’ll be okay,” I said. “I visited him yesterday, but he was asleep. He’s alive. That’s the big thing.”

  “I’m glad. He’s a sweet boy and a hero, from what I hear. I’m glad you two have each other.”

  “Me, too,” I said. “Would you like coffee? I can make coffee.”

  “No, I had enough coffee this morning,” she said. “I came to chat and make sure my friend was all right.”

  “Thank you,” I said, forcing myself to smile. “I am okay.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that, but it’s bullshit, and we both know it. It’s a little early for a beer.”

  I grimaced. “You saw that, huh?”

  “That, and I can smell your breath,” she said. “So tell me, dear, are you all right?”

  I thought for a moment
and then nodded. “I will be. I’ve got to figure out what to do with the rest of my life, but I’ve got time.”

  “You have a long time to figure out your life. Work helps, too. I was a teacher, you know. Whenever I felt down, I could always count on my kids to make me feel better.”

  “That’s one thing I need to figure out. Maybe I could become a teacher.”

  “No,” said Susanne. “You’re a police officer. You’re a good one, too, from what I hear.”

  “I quit this morning.”

  Susanne said nothing, but she looked over the yard for a moment and then stood up.

  “Everything okay?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Everything’s fine. I’ll make coffee. You need it. Stay on your porch.”

  “You don’t need to make me coffee,” I said, following her inside. “It’s okay.”

  We went to the kitchen, where she pulled my coffee maker out from the wall. She was serious about this, so I went to my cabinet with coffee and filters.

  “I saw the news report last night,” she said. “On channel three. Was it true?”

  I put my coffee on the counter beside her and blinked before taking a deep breath.

  “It lacked context.”

  “Did the man that you shot in the woods hurt you when you were a little girl?” she asked. I nodded, and she took a step closer. She put a hand on my elbow. “I’m glad you put the bastard down, then.”

  I wiped a tear away from the corner of my eye. I didn’t even realize it had formed until I rubbed it away.

  “I don’t think you’re supposed to say that.”

  “I’m too old to care what I’m supposed to say,” she said, filling my carafe with water at the sink. “He hurt my friend. I’m glad he can’t hurt anyone else.”

  “Me, too,” I said. “Thank you.”

  She turned to the coffee pot.