by Laila Lalami
Jeremy
It’s hard for me to describe the weeks that followed. My heart was broken. What else is there to say? No one had told me that love could crack you open, make you bare your deepest self, then disappear and leave you defenseless. Years have passed since, and yet I haven’t forgotten that feeling. At the time, I tried to drink it away. My insomnia came back, worse than before. Some nights, I would spend hours looking for traces of Nora online, either on Facebook or on one of the music sites she visited, or else I’d scroll through my phone for the few pictures I had of us. My favorite was a selfie we’d taken at Willow Hole, our faces flushed from the long hike, our eyes squinting in the sunlight, our arms around each other. It was like looking through a forgotten history, trying to convince myself that it had really happened the way I remembered it. What we had built together was so frail that it had collapsed at the first sign of trouble. I tried to tell myself that maybe it was stronger, all she needed was a little time, but as the days passed I found it harder to believe this—she’d met all my attempts to talk to her with a tenacious silence.
The only thing that kept me going during those tough days was work. Vasco had unexpectedly lost two deputies, one to a police department in the San Diego area and the other to early retirement, and when he asked me to take on a few more shifts in August I’d gladly said yes. One morning, while I was nursing a hangover, I decided to drive down to the Starbucks in Yucca Valley for an iced coffee. It was ninety-five degrees in the shade that day, and the temperature was still expected to rise to one hundred and two. I forced myself to keep my eyes on the highway as I passed the Pantry—a realtor’s FOR SALE sign had appeared outside the restaurant some weeks earlier, and I was trying not to think about what this meant in the long run. So I didn’t see the red GMC truck trying to exit the parking lot from the side of the bowling alley, and I had to hit the brakes hard to make room for it. At the wheel was A.J.
The GMC was a late-model truck, with chrome door handles, gleaming paint, and high-performance tires, like those I’d been wanting to buy for my Jeep. On one side of the back window was a yellow decal that said SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, and on the other was a red, round sticker with the logo of the bowling alley. Still, for all the bells and whistles on his truck, A.J. didn’t take good care of it. Black smoke came out of the tailpipe, which meant the engine was probably burning too much fuel. A.J. must have spotted my cruiser in the rearview mirror because he had his hands at ten and two on the steering wheel and he drove just a couple of miles under the speed limit. After another quarter mile, he turned on his signal and changed into the right lane, but I didn’t pass. I changed lanes too, and continued to follow at a distance. I have to admit, I was enjoying making him sweat a little.
Of course, excessive muffler smoke was a minor offense, and besides, it was a job for the Highway Patrol, not the Sheriff’s Department. But why not practice a little interagency cooperation? I turned on my siren lights and pulled the GMC over. The license plate check returned only routine information. The truck was a 2012 model, registered to a Helen D. Baker. A.J.’s wife, presumably. Their address was on Sunnyslope Drive, the kind of neighborhood where homes had a circular drive ringed with trees and a stone path around the back that led to a deck and a hot tub. Everything always came up roses for this guy. Even back in high school, his performance on the wrestling team regularly earned him easy grades or reprieves from the punishment he should’ve received for his bullying. I stepped out of the cruiser, approached the truck from the passenger side, and knocked on the window.
It lowered with an angry hiss. “Is there a problem, Officer?”
“Morning. Your muffler’s letting out excessive smoke. I need your license, registration, and insurance.”
“It is?” A.J. glanced at his side-view mirror and unbuckled his seat belt.
My hand tightened on the weapon in my holster. “Stay in your seat.”
“Sorry, Officer. I’ll get that muffler fixed. I hadn’t noticed it was doing that.”
“License, registration, and insurance.”
A.J. locked eyes with me and suddenly I felt aware that I needed a haircut, my sunglasses were cheap knockoffs, I had sweat stains on my shirt. It was like looking at myself in the mirror of a gas-station bathroom: it picked up every fault, every blemish. A.J.’s gaze shifted to the name tag on my uniform, and a look of relief fell across his face. “Gorecki. Jeremy Gorecki? We went to high school together, man. Don’t you remember me? I’m A.J. Baker.”
“Sir. License, registration, insurance.”
“You were on the baseball team. You guys won regionals one year.”
“For the last time, license, registration, insurance.”
He leaned across the passenger side to reach into the glove compartment. His arm had a tattoo of intertwined roses and on his ring finger he wore a patterned gold band. “I’m pretty sure we had some classes together,” he said, pulling out his registration and insurance. “Biology, I think it was. Or maybe algebra.”
I took the paper slips from him. “I need your license, too.”
“Like I said, man. I’ll get that muffler looked at right away.”
“License.”
“I don’t have it on me right now.”
“What’s your date of birth?”
A.J. leaned back in his seat and stared at the road. He said something between his teeth that I didn’t catch. A complaint or a curse. The jolt of satisfaction I’d gotten after pulling him over had already vanished, and all I could feel now was the pounding on my temples and along my brows. I wanted to write him a ticket as quickly as possible so I could go get my coffee. “What was that?” I asked.
“March 8, 1985.”
“All right. Wait here,” I said. I went back to the cruiser, cranked up the air conditioning, and drank from the lukewarm water bottle that was wedged in the cup holder. A.J. was smoking a cigarette, which made me crave one, too, but I’d left my pack in my locker at work. I propped the registration and insurance against my laptop monitor and typed in the birth date A.J. had given me. No records. My hangover had dulled my thinking, and it took me a minute to realize that I’d entered his nickname into the computer system. But A.J.’s legal name was Anderson. I typed that instead and the license immediately came up. SUSPENDED. Nine months ago. DUI. It had to have been a major accident or a second offense for the suspension to be as long as it was. Did he have a substance abuse problem? I wouldn’t have guessed it. He always seemed like he had his act together. Or maybe he just managed to avoid getting caught. Well, not this time. I picked up the water bottle again, but found it empty. My tongue felt as dry and heavy as a brick. I stepped out of the cruiser into the blazing heat. Far ahead, the midday sun had turned the horizon into a liquid haze. I tried to follow protocol—I reminded A.J. why he’d been pulled over, told him what the license check revealed, why he was now under arrest—but from the first, A.J. had to make things difficult. “Come on, man,” he said. “It’s just a muffler.”
“Step out of the vehicle. Move slowly. Keep your hands where I can see them.”
“I can get it fixed today. Come on.”
“Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”
“My suspension is up in two weeks. Two weeks, Gorecki.”
I read him his rights and cuffed him. “Spread your legs, I have to pat you down.”
“How am I going to tell my wife about this? She’s been waiting for me to get my license back, and now this. It’s not fair, Gorecki.”
“Do you have anything in your truck I should know about? Drugs? Weapons?”
“No. Why are you doing this to me?”
“I’m just doing my job.”
“Fuck off, Jabba—”
I yanked on his cuffs so hard that the word dissolved into a cry of pain, then dragged him to the cruiser and shoved him into the backseat. A car slowed as it drove past, the driv
er craning his neck for a good look. At the tire shop down the road, an inflatable sky dancer waved his orange arms maniacally. I took a deep breath. Don’t let him get to you, I told myself. Stay calm. I got into the driver’s seat and called my dispatcher to ask for a tow truck. The cruiser had been idling a while, and now it reeked of sweat and whatever the hell the officer who’d driven it the day before had been eating. I shifted in my seat, tried to find a comfortable position, but the weight of my bulletproof vest and the angle of my belt made it impossible. My head was pounding.
By the time we got to the jail, A.J. had calmed down, though he still wasn’t cooperative. Three times he asked for his phone call, and Sergeant Lomeli told him they’d get to it as soon as they were done. “You can’t get bailed until you get booked, and you can’t get booked until we finish here, understand?”
A.J. sniffed.
“Are you on any medications?” I asked.
“I need my inhaler. I got one in the glove compartment, but you towed my truck.”
“We’ll get you an inhaler,” I said. “Any other tats beside the one on your arm?”
“Got one on my back and one on my right shoulder.”
“Take off your shirt.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think? I have to check, motherfucker.”
A.J. took off his shirt. In high school, he had been a gangly kid, but now his shoulders were broad, his biceps defined, and his waist as narrow as a swimmer’s, a look I couldn’t have achieved no matter how much I worked out. Not that I worked out much these days, anyway. On A.J.’s back was an elaborate vine, a full-color tat that must have taken several sessions under the needle to complete, but it was the simpler design on the shoulder that made me pause. “What’s this?”
“It’s a cross.”
“Not just any cross. It’s Celtic. Why’d you get it?”
“Because I’m a Christian, asshole. Or is that against the law now?”
“Guess what?” Lomeli said from behind the counter. “Phone lines just went down.”
Never get on Lomeli’s bad side was a lesson that meth heads, prostitutes, petty thieves, and other regulars at the jail knew by heart. It was time for A.J. to learn it, too. Now he’d have to wait until the end of the day to place his call.
I signed off on the paperwork and left, walking across the lot to the police station to get some Tylenol from my desk. Cheerful voices rose from the common area. Fran, my favorite dispatcher, was about to retire and someone had put together a party for her. When I came forward to say hello, my voice was weak, as though it came from somewhere far away. I drank two glasses of lemonade before moving to the buffet, where I piled my plate with lasagna and grilled zucchini and breaded cheese sticks. That first plate I ate standing, barely listening to the chatter around me. After I filled a second plate, I looked around the room and noticed Murphy talking to Coleman, leaning very close to her, as if he were sharing juicy office gossip or confiding a secret. Coleman saw me watching, sat up straighter, and waved me over.
Coleman
Two reckless drivers in one family. What were the odds of that? Pretty good, my husband might say. A chip off the old block. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Like father, like son. But I didn’t put much stock in Ray’s folk wisdom, and I didn’t like that Gorecki was A.J.’s arresting officer. His involvement could give the appearance of police vindictiveness against the Baker family, maybe even create problems for the prosecution of the hit-and-run. So I took the short walk from the station to the jail and asked Lomeli for the arrest paperwork. He set aside the romance novel he was reading and laid out the forms on the counter, Gorecki hovering nervously over my shoulder the entire time. “What’s wrong?” he asked me.
“You got him for excessive muffler smoke? That’s a fix-it ticket.”
“And I was going to give him a ticket, then I found out about his suspended license.”
“You’re telling me this has nothing to do with your girlfriend?”
“It doesn’t. And that’s over now, anyway.”
“Uh-huh.” I was about to give Lomeli the paperwork back when I noticed that A.J.’s address was listed as 8500 Sunnyslope Drive. That was his parents’ address, too. I remembered suddenly that when I’d met with them, their daughter-in-law was in the living room, watching Days of Our Lives, her feet propped up on the ottoman. It was possible to trace from these details the outline of a different story. Maybe the Bakers were getting older, and A.J. had moved in to help them out, take them to their doctors’ appointments or keep track of their medications. Or it could be that A.J. had fallen on hard times himself, and that was why he’d moved in with them until he could get back on his feet. What had that been like? It couldn’t have been easy, living with your folks when you were already married and pushing thirty. Had it led to his drinking and, later, to his DUI? Or was the DUI the reason he had moved back home in the first place? “Where is he now?” I asked.
“B-8,” Lomeli said, and pressed a button to unlock the door.
I went down the hallway, with Gorecki still following behind me. Light from the cell windows fell in sharp lines across the concrete floors, and a faint smell of bleach hung in the air. Hearing our footsteps, A.J. sat up on his cot. I noticed the surprise in his eyes when he saw me, without a uniform but with a detective’s badge tucked into my belt. His gaze traveled to Gorecki, as if to blame him for this new turn of events, and then he lay back on the cot and stared at the ceiling. “Hello, A.J.,” I said. “Is it all right if I call you A.J.?”
He didn’t reply. Down the hall, a door closed in a clatter of metal.
“Do you need anything? A sandwich or some coffee?” He was still ignoring me, and I realized that Gorecki’s presence wasn’t helping. “We have that buffet upstairs today, don’t we? Can you go get him a plate?”
“I’m not his fucking maid. They’ll bring him something tonight.”
I didn’t need to ask if Gorecki knew the guy—everything about his bad attitude suggested it. He stood next to me with his hands on his hips, waiting to see what I was going to do next. The summer sun had darkened his skin, but there were gray hollows under his eyes. “That’s a long time from now,” I said. “I’m sure he could use a snack.”
“You’re wasting your time,” A.J. said. “I’m not talking.”
“Well, we’re not talking,” I said. “We’re just saying hello.”
“You can say hello to my lawyer. When I get my call.”
Gorecki turned to me. See? his eyes said. An asshole, like I told you. But that only made me more curious about the story I was starting to piece together.
“Go get A.J. something to eat,” I said, my tone making it clear that this was an order. I waited until after he’d walked off, then turned back to the cell. “All right, it’s just the two of us now. Maybe we can straighten this whole thing out quickly, get you back home to your family. You’re living with them, right?”
A.J. sucked on his teeth. It could’ve meant What’s it to you, lady? or Yeah, I live with them, and it fucking sucks or something else altogether.
“Listen,” I said. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. These things happen. My uncle is a Baptist preacher—straightest guy you’ve ever met. One time at Christmas, my aunt forgot to get glaze for the ham and he decided to make a quick run to the store, even though he’d had a drink while he was waiting for dinner. Ended up with a DUI. It happens. And a suspended license, that’s just rough, man. You have to get from place to place and you can never find a ride. It’s just bad luck. I get it.”
A grunt. “You don’t get it.”
“What don’t I get? Your license was suspended, right? Like I said, that’s tough. Especially for nine months. Now you have to ask people for rides or borrow your mom’s car just to get around.”
“You’re wasting your time,” he said, and shifted to his side, f
acing the wall. He was a tall guy, like his father, and his feet dangled over the cot. “Anyway, I’m not talking to a nigger.”
He’d said the word under his breath, but I heard it all the same. Down the hallway, the metal door clattered as it closed behind Gorecki. I was alone. And I was nine years old again. Or eleven. Or fourteen. It didn’t matter, it hurt the same every time. The only thing different was who said it, and what I did. Ran away from the playground in tears. Reported it to the teacher. Got into a fistfight on the stairwell and ended up with three stitches on my eyebrow. And always, always, trying to remove the sting of the insult, but feeling like it was too late, it had already poisoned me. My thoughts flitted to my son; that morning, he’d ridden his bicycle to school with Brandon, and waved me off when I said to be careful when he crossed Yucca Trail. “Don’t worry, Mom!” But I worried about him all the time. That was what being a mom was all about.
With both hands, I grabbed the metal bars of the cell. “What did you just say to me?”
Silence. He was waiting for me to leave.
“Hey. I’m talking to you.”
When he sensed that I was still standing at the cell door, he shifted on his cot again and sat up to face me. He spoke slowly and clearly, enunciating each word. “I said—I’m not talking to a fucking nigger. Did you hear me this time?”
My hands tightened on the bars. I thought about what Nora Guerraoui had told me, and what I had said in return: that what happened to her in high school many years ago wasn’t relevant to the hit-and-run case. But I’d been wrong. The present could never be untethered from the past, you couldn’t understand one without the other. “I heard,” I said, and turned around and left. At the front office, I asked Lomeli to give me a little time, because I needed to look into something.
Twenty minutes later, when I pulled up to the house on Sunnyslope Drive, I found Helen Baker outside, pulling up the red flag on her mailbox. She was a tall woman, with thin lips untouched by makeup and graying hair that she wore in a high ponytail, like a gym teacher. With her hand, she shielded her eyes from the sun as she watched me step out of the cruiser and walk up to her. Her dogs, a pair of collies, stood at her feet, panting heavily in the heat. “Afternoon, Mrs. Baker,” I said. I put out my hand, and right away the two collies came to smell it. “Such handsome dogs. What are their names?”