Gun Shy

by Lori L. Lake

  Jaylynn ran the palm of her hand over the sturdy texture of the dark red seats. “Bet it’s great to have the extra cab. You’ve got lots of room for storage or extra riders.”

  “Mmhmm.”

  “I love the cranberry red color.”

  Dez drove directly to Jaylynn’s house and pulled up in front. Every light in the house was on.

  “Having a party?” Dez asked.

  “No. Ever since the—the attack, Sara has been leaving all the lights on until Tim or I get home. She’s stopped parking out back—see, her car’s out here.” Jaylynn sighed. “She’s still having a very tough time, mostly nightmares and panic attacks. Actually, we’re worried about her.”

  “What’ll she do if you and Tim move?”

  Jaylynn looked perplexed. “We’re not moving, not any time soon anyway.” She opened the door. “Want to come in?”

  “Nah. It’s nearly two. I better get home.”

  “Okay, see you tomorrow.” Jaylynn got out, shut the door, and trudged up the front walk feeling those icy blue eyes at her back. When she got the front door open, she looked back, and sure enough, the Ford truck hadn’t moved an inch. She gave a little wave and disappeared into the house.

  January in Minnesota is a cold, unforgiving time with dangerous wind chills and low temperatures. No squad car could keep out the cold enough for Jaylynn. She didn’t think it was any mistake that the North Pole explorer, Anne Bancroft, made her home in Minnesota. Jaylynn thought it might be possible that she herself could survive in the sub-zero North Pole weather after five years’ practice in Saint Paul. She hugged her arms tighter around the front of her and retracted her neck deeper into the turtleneck she wore under her vest and shirt.

  All night long her throat felt scratchy, and she knew she was fighting a cold, which she hoped to avoid. She’d taken extra doses of vitamin C and worn an additional layer of cotton long underwear over the silk long underwear she usually dressed in. Once shift was over, she planned to hunker down in front of the TV, swathed in blankets, and eat hot chicken soup and crackers. Then she wanted to sleep for about twelve hours. In the meantime, it was a matter of staying warm and dry. She looked over at Dez, marveling at how she never ever seemed to get cold. I need to find out how she does that, Jaylynn thought. I need the recipe for whatever heat elixir she’s using. She smiled silently and turned her attention to scanning the snowy streets around them.

  Dez stopped in front of a squalid-looking takeout restaurant called The Cutting Board. Despite the fact that the time was nearly ten p.m., Jaylynn saw a horde of customers through the giant plate-glass surrounding three sides of the building. Sitting near the front windows were four empty booths sporting bright yellow vinyl, cracked and split in jagged lines. The rest of the place was furnished in various shades of orange, gold, and olive. The whole effect was one of near-neon proportions. Jaylynn whacked Dez on the upper arm. “Kind of a Sixties throwback here, huh?”

  “Yeah, but it’s good,” Dez said in a cranky voice.

  They got out, and Jaylynn shivered in the winter wind as she walked swiftly toward the restaurant. She hastened to push open a heavy brown door and join the crowd milling around inside. Moist warm air circulated, soothing her throat for the first time all day. The aroma wafting from the kitchen was heavenly, a spicy smell of meats and sauces and hot oil. A black man with wild gray hair like Don King’s stood behind the counter shouting out orders and ringing things up. Through a window-sized aperture behind the cash register, Jaylynn saw at least four people hustling around in the kitchen. Periodically somebody hollered “Order up!” and an arm extended through the opening with a shopping bag stapled shut at the top.

  “What do you want?” Dez asked.

  “What have they got? Where’s the menu?”

  “They make anything: deli sandwiches, barbecue, fried chicken, everything with side stuff. Actually, you never know exactly what you’ll get. It changes every day. If you fight your way up to the front you can see the list on the counter of what’s served for today.”

  “What do you usually order?” She slipped off thermal mittens, and took a crinkled five-dollar bill out of her pocket.

  A deep baritone voice resonated, saying, “Good evening, Officer Reilly. Your usual?” Heads turned, and the crowd parted from the cash register all the way back to the officers.

  “Yes, Otis. And something for my partner here.” She looked at Jaylynn, one eyebrow arched.

  It seemed as though everyone in the restaurant was staring at her. Jaylynn felt a blush rise warming her face all the way to the roots of her blonde hair. But she smiled. “Fried chicken. I’ll try that.”

  Otis asked, “White or dark?”

  “Little of both please.”

  “Coming right up.” In a rich, booming voice, he blasted out the order over his shoulder. Jaylynn handed over the crumpled bill, and Dez strode forward through the gulf of customers and handed it to Otis along with two other bills.

  “No need, Officer. Always on the house for you,” he said with a smile on his face.

  She smiled back at him. “You’ll go broke at that rate. Your kid needs it for college, I’m sure.”

  “In that case . . .” The cash register went ching-ching, and he shoved the bills in and slammed the drawer shut. Dez strolled back toward the booths, and Jaylynn followed her. No sooner had they gotten settled than a man in a white apron scuttled out and delivered two oversized paper sacks. Dez lifted one bag, hefted its weight and passed it over to Jaylynn. She ripped the staples apart on the other smaller bag and took out one bundle wrapped in wax paper. Meanwhile, Jaylynn pulled out packages and opened them. She had a chicken breast, a thigh, coleslaw, a Styrofoam cup of mashed potatoes with melted butter, two pieces of Texas toast, and some plank-cut fries. Dez was half done with her sandwich before Jaylynn even got all the items unwrapped.

  “What have you got there?” Jaylynn asked.

  “Sandwich,” Dez said with her mouth full.

  “I can see that. What kind?”

  “Third-pound turkey, lettuce, tomato on wheat, no spread.”

  “Blech! Least they could have done is give you some mayo. You want some of my stuff here? I know I can’t eat all of this.”

  “Didn’t want mayo. I like it just like this.”

  “You and your bark-and-twig bread.” Jaylynn turned her nose up, shook her head a bit, and ripped into her chicken. “Oh, this is great!” She closed her eyes. “Nice flavor.” Chew, chew. “Really moist.” She opened her eyes and took another big bite. “This is delish.”

  Dez arched an eyebrow. “You can spare me the commentary. I’ve had it before, so I know how good it is.”

  “Then how can you resist it? It’s so—so—heavenly. And these fries!” She popped a plank in her mouth, chewed furiously, then gripped the plastic fork and took a taste of the mashed potatoes. “Wow! These aren’t fake spuds. And that’s real butter, too.”

  She dug into the potatoes as Dez watched her with amusement.

  “Are you aware that you eat food like most people have sex?”

  “Food is the next best thing to making love,” Jaylynn said, her mouth full. She looked up at Dez. “Don’t you think so?” She gave Dez her regular intent look and stopped fussing with the chicken to hear her answer.

  Dez laughed nervously. “I never thought of it that way. Maybe.” She rolled up the wax paper, stuffed it in the paper bag, and crunched that up into a tight ball. Jaylynn went back to scooping out mashed potatoes with a plastic spoon while Dez sat patiently and stared out the window into the dark night.

  On Martin Luther King Day, the skies were dark and cloudy, but it never snowed throughout any of the festivities taking place across the precinct. Despite the holiday, the police were out in full force making their presence known so that no hate crimes or crimes of stupidity were committed. Four years earlier on MLK Day, Dez remembered when pranksters burned a cross on a black family’s lawn. It took seventy-two hours to run down the jokers, a
nd for three days a very nice family of five existed in terror, worried that the KKK or some other white supremacy group had earmarked them. Fortunately, the stupid youths who committed the crime hadn’t fully understood the significance of the burnt cross—which eased the fear and panic for the family and for the neighborhood.

  Unfortunately, family troubles didn’t take a holiday, even on MLK Day. They spent almost ninety minutes out of the car taking four children, ages six, five, three, and two, to the juvenile authorities after another unit arrested the mother for driving while under the influence of drugs.

  When they got back in the car, Jaylynn said, “God, that’s a lot of kids to have at age twenty.”

  “I sure wouldn’t want four kids under age seven.”

  “No, that’d be a handful. Just my two little sisters were a stretch for my mom. And I feel like I half raised both of them. I was fourteen when Amanda was born and then almost sixteen for Erin. After diapers and feeding and babysitting for them, I’m all mothered out. Maybe I’ll change later on, but I don’t know. How ’bout you? Ever want kids?”

  “Me? Nah. I’m sure not interested in giving birth.”

  “Me neither. Pain is not my friend.”

  Dez snorted, “Mine either.”

  “You ever think about settling down, getting married?”

  “Not much. I don’t see myself marrying.”

  “No hot prospects on the horizon for me either. My mother would love to rush me to the altar, but it’s not happening any time soon.” Jaylynn sighed and looked away. Not unless they make a law where I can marry a woman, she thought as she winced out a smile.

  “What are you smiling about?”

  “Nothing. Just considering something.” She paused to think. “I grew up all my life wanting to find someone special who’d stick with me through thick and thin. Somebody I wouldn’t need to be married to because the commitment would be obvious to anyone who looked.”

  “And?”

  “I guess I’ve never found anyone that faithful.” She thought of Sandi in high school with whom she’d been madly, hopelessly, and platonically in love. Sandi, who was now married to the best middleweight wrestler on their high school team. Then Dana, her first lover in college who’d gone off and slept with a good-looking drunken basketball player on the women’s team—and she hadn’t been the slightest bit penitent. And Theresa: she was a whole other story. Theresa didn’t want anybody to know about their relationship, not even have the slightest suspicion, and she’d insisted on dating men, “for appearances.” When Jaylynn learned she was sleeping with one of the guys in the other dorm, she’d flipped out, and that was the end of that. Since then, she’d avoided dating, preferring to focus on her studies and hoping she’d find “the real deal” sometime, somewhere.

  Dez looked over at Jaylynn who had abruptly lost her sunny disposition. “There are people who are that faithful.” Not in her own personal experience, but she knew what Ryan and Julie had. And Crystal and Shayna. Luella and her late husband. In her own bizarre way, even her mother was faithful to Dez’s father all these years. Maybe it wasn’t healthy, not the way her mother had held off kind and caring suitors, but maybe there was something to be said about being so in love with one person that no one else ever measured up. Could two people commit to one another so wholly and totally that nothing and no one would ever come between them? Dez thought she herself could. The other people were who caused the problems.

  Jaylynn said, “I sure as hell hope you’re right.”

  “If it’s true and you ever find that, better grab on and hold tight. Somehow I don’t think it happens very often.”

  Jaylynn didn’t argue with her.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Early as usual, Dez sat at a round table for eight. The other thirty or so tables sprinkled around her were not yet occupied, though she saw several of her colleagues out in the foyer. She’d chosen a spot in the center but toward the back of the hall, seating herself immediately upon arriving and not trusting her nerves if she were standing out front with her peers.

  The Fraternal Order of Police sponsored two major gatherings each year: a barbecue in the summer and a February banquet. Each event was a chance to honor retirees, celebrate family connections, and see the brass let their hair down. This year, however, it would also serve as a eulogy of sorts for Ryan Michaelson. The thought of that caused a block of cold ice to expand in Dez’s chest, making her short of breath. She honestly didn’t know how she would make it through the evening, but she’d promised Ryan’s wife, Julie, she would be there for Jill and Jeremy. Attendance was her duty, so she sat on the hard chair and waited, trying to remember to breathe and wishing she had worn something cooler than the black wool blend jacket and slacks and the long-sleeved silk blouse.

  Officers she ordinarily saw in uniform trickled in wearing suits or sports jackets. She nodded at Belton as he, his wife, and their two sons seated themselves at a table nearby. She watched Lieutenant Malcolm as he spoke respectfully to Commander Paar near the rear door. One of the commander’s children, a girl of about four, held onto her father’s big white mitt with both of her hands and swung lazily from side to side, her head tossed back and brown hair dangling. She wore a black and white plaid jumper and white leotards with shiny patent leather shoes. Dez remembered wearing exactly the same sort of outfit when she was that age. The sight of the little girl and her dad made her wistful for her own father.

  She caught a flash of white hair and blanched upon seeing a tall, regal-looking man bearing down on her table. Taking a deep breath, she steeled herself and rose, trying to calm seriously frayed nerves. She met the man’s gray eyes with a level gaze. “Hello, Mac.”

  He came to a stop at her table, his double-breasted gray suit crisp and handsome, the silver buttons shiny in the fluorescent light. Standing before her, hands clasped in front of him, was Xavier Aloysius MacArthur, “Mac” to his friends and fellow officers. Mac had been one of the finest watch commanders the Saint Paul Police Department had ever known. He’d also been her father’s very best friend, and Dez’s former mentor. The burden of the history they shared weighed heavily upon her. She wished she felt pleased to see him, but she didn’t.

  “Dez,” he said kindly. “How are you?”

  She nodded slowly. “Fine, Mac. Just fine.” She didn’t know what else to say to him and knew he felt the same toward her. The strain between them had lasted since she was age twenty-two. He had been so proud of her when she joined the force, had taken her under his wing. He drilled her, offered reams of advice, and gave her assignments no woman usually got. She blossomed under his tutelage. She knew she was his favorite and that it rankled some of her peers, but he was like a father to her and she refused to apologize for it.

  And then when she began dating Karin, her mother had, as Colette Reilly said, “spilled the beans.” Dez never understood why her mother found it necessary to tell Mac she was gay, and things had never been the same since. Mac, an old-fashioned Irishman who’d attended twelve years of Catholic school, couldn’t reconcile the sexuality issue with the young woman he very nearly raised as his own after his best friend, Michael Reilly, died. He became formal, proper, withdrawn from her. In some ways the estrangement was more painful than going through the death of her father when she was younger. She missed her father, that was true; but sometimes she ached to talk to Mac again the way they used to. But it was not to be. Despite the rift, he still had the grace and dignity to always greet her respectfully.

  “I’ve thought about you often lately, Dez,” Mac said, fumbling for words. “I remember how it felt when we lost your dad.” He paused, looking over the top of her head as though searching for a TelePrompter. Tucking his hands in his pants pockets, he said softly, “I’m sorry about Ryan.”

  The lump in her throat was so large that she didn’t know how she did it, but she choked out, “I know, Mac. Thanks.”

  He stood a moment longer, then removed both hands from his pockets and patted he
r gently on the shoulder. “See you around, kid.” Turning on his heel, he strode toward Commander Paar. Dez watched him reach out and shake the other man’s hand. He squatted down to see eye to eye with the little girl clutching her father’s leg. At that point, if Julie and the kids hadn’t appeared in the doorway, she would have fled the banquet and never looked back. But before she could escape, Jeremy caught sight of her and wormed his way through the people and past the white-draped tables to launch himself into her arms. Grinning gleefully, he wrapped his legs around her waist and his arms around her neck. She held the squirmy body, taking in his clean, little boy smell, and feeling an ache in her heart that would not leave.

  “Dez,” he said, cradling her face in his hands. He stared intently, his eyes twinkling. “You missed Valentine’s Day.”

  “No I didn’t, sport. I sent you a present.”

  “But you didn’t see the humongous heart I made for Mom.”

  “I’ll have to come by soon and see it, huh?” He nodded at her, his face ruddy red and happy. She looked into the bright blue eyes of the kindergartner, eyes so like his father’s. She felt the tears well up and willed them to go away. Glancing past Jeremy, she saw Julie and Jill, hand in hand, arriving at the table. Julie was also struggling with tears. Setting Jeremy down, she forced a smile and reached a hand over to cup her daughter’s pale face. “Hey, Jill. How are ya?”

  “I’m good,” Jill said in a solemn voice. She looked up at her mother, a worried expression on her face, and Dez searched out Julie’s eyes. The slender woman let go of her daughter’s hand and enfolded Dez in a fierce hug.

  “Hey,” Dez said, “we’ll get through this, okay?”

  Julie nodded against Dez’s shoulder. In a choked voice, she said, “I’m glad you came. I didn’t want to either, but the kids, the kids need to stay connected.” She stepped back and smiled, blinking back tears. “All right. Let’s sit.” She gestured toward the table.