by Reed, Zelda
“I was.”
“Is he alright?”
I think of Neal’s fingers tangled in mine, the layer of nervous sweat on his palm, his wavering grin.
“He’s going to be fine,” I say. “I’m going to figure out a way to help him.”
Ashleigh smiles. “Because you love him.”
A frown tugs at the corners of my mouth and I feel all of eight years old as I say, “No. Because I’m a decent human being.”
Ashleigh laughs. “Does this mean you’re not leaving on Friday?”
I sit up straighter. “I haven’t really thought about it.”
“Maybe you should start.”
Three
Ashleigh leaves for lunch with Chris and I call Alanis.
She picks up on the second ring, the noise of the city humming around her. “How did you get my number?”
“I sent myself a text message from your phone.”
I can almost see her grinning. “What do you want?”
“How long do you think this whole thing is going to take?”
“Give me a minute,” she says.
The noise around her grows smaller with every passing second. I imagine her weaving through the city, moving from the sidewalk to the lobby of a building, to a bathroom where she’s the only voice bouncing off the walls.
“Are you still there?”
“Yeah.”
A door opens and closes. “Lee doesn’t have much patience. The second his men got back from Neal’s house he probably sent out a search party. I say we have about forty-eight hours before he kidnaps you and hangs you off the side of a building.”
My chest tightens. I see a flash of myself, my blouse riding up my stomach, heavy hands wrapped around both ankles as two men hang me off the Willis Tower, the frigid air scratching against my exposed skin, blood rushing to my head and throat, deafening my screams.
“That’s not funny,” I say.
“I’m not trying to be funny.”
“Two days is cutting it close,” I say. “I’m leaving on Friday.”
Alanis sighs. “Do you know how difficult it is to get a meeting with Lee?”
“What if we have something he wants?”
“Everyone has something Lee wants. He’s going to make us wait because he doesn’t want to seem incapable. He wants to find Neal on his own and we’re going to be his last resort. I can’t even get us in until Thursday at the earliest, and that’s barring a miracle.”
“What if we find him?”
“We won’t get past his guards.”
“But what if we could?”
“What are you on about?”
“My father took me to a restaurant on the South Side once. He said they had the best Chinese food in the city. We get there and Lee and his men were having dinner. Afterwards I found out that’s where Lee holds most of his meetings.”
I don’t tell her my father dragged me along because he wanted to openly antagonize Lee and the other man would never do anything while I was by my father’s side.
Alanis hums in interest. “How long ago was that?”
“Six, seven years?”
Alanis spits out a laugh. “You’re kidding me, right? That place probably doesn’t exist anymore.”
“Maybe,” I say. “But it won’t hurt to try.”
She pauses. “Alright. What’s the name?”
______
My father’s condo is eerily quiet, the way it’s always been when he left me alone. I remember waking up to find no one was home. I would stand in the middle of the living room, calling out my name, Caitlin! bouncing off the walls and windows in a hollow echo.
With my feet kicked up on the couch, head resting on the arm, I try it again.
“Caitlin!” I say.
My name echoes through the room but it doesn’t have the same effect. I’m too jaded to appreciate the wonder of it.
Across the room my father’s urn haunts me from the bookshelf, the sun shimmering off the gold and black onyx. I can almost feel the ghost of his eyes on the back of my head, arms crossed as he stands with his feet hip-width apart. Get your feet off the goddamn couch.
I stand up and straighten Alanis’s dress. I should take it off but I don’t. Instead, my feet lead me from the living room to the opposite end of the condo, where my father’s bedroom door looms at the end of the hall.
The door’s cracked open, a sliver of sun peeking through, drawing thin orange and yellow lines on the wall. Ashleigh must’ve left it open on her way out. The floor creaks as I take a step forward, my eyes catching sight of the foot of my father’s bed. Covered in red sheets (Ashleigh’s idea) the old brown bedframe has been replaced with a black frame a good ten inches off the floor. Rows of heels are pushed underneath, next to messy piles of clothes discarded by a kick of the foot.
My hand hovers over the silver knob. All I have to do is push forward.
A stream of light catches on my arm. I’m reminded of the bloodstain on my father’s shirt. More red and less yellow but it takes me back all the same. A similar sliver of vomit crawls up my throat, my stomach twisting in fear and disgust.
I shut the door and jump back, rushing into the living room.
I’m not ready to enter my father’s room and I’m not sure I ever will be.
Four
I arrive at the police station an hour early for my appointment.
The officer behind the front desk can’t be more than nineteen, his brown hair shoved carefully to the side, his cheeks pink with youth. He stares up at me with the wide-eyed innocence of someone fresh out the academy, his uniform crisp and new, ironed along the seams, his badge glimmering beneath the poor light of the station.
He introduces himself as, “Officer Bradley,” and smiles a little wider when I tell him my name. “I knew your dad,” he says.
“Really? How so?”
“He donated a lot of money to our station. Threw a lot of fundraisers. Bought me my first beer.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You don’t look twenty-one.”
His blush deepens as he ducks his head. “That’s what everyone says.”
The waiting area is full. A line of prostitutes take up the chairs against the wall, their wrists linked together by silver handcuffs. A man I assume to be a pimp sits across from them, his legs spread wide, knees bumping into the thigh of a suburban mother clutching her purse in her lap. An older woman sits beside her, casually flipping through a book. She doesn’t flinch when the police drag a rough-neck man into the precinct and the tattooed man beside her, curls his lips into his teeth and growls.
“Why don’t we get you a room?” Officer Bradley says, his desk phone pressed against his ear.
On the second floor of the precinct Officer Bradley leads me into an interrogation room. There are no windows but a single mirror spanning the length of the north wall. The solid grey walls match the solid grey floor and the short grey table with matching grey chairs. He points me to the chair facing away from the door. It rocks unsteadily as I take a seat. One leg’s shorter than the other. On the table Officer Bradley places a paper cup full of cool water.
My arms wrap around myself. There’s a slight chill in the air. I wish I brought a jacket.
“Sorry about the room,” he says, a bashful smile tugging at his mouth. “I wish we had something better but.” He rubs his palms nervously.
What sort of woman does he think I am? I’ve changed out of Alanis’s dress and replaced the flowing fabric with fitted jeans and a t-shirt. My hair’s in a loose bun at the top of my head, casual but concerned, a swipe of lipstick covering my lips, two layers of mascara lengthening my eyelashes. I don’t look like the mother in the waiting area, with her bright yellow blazer and white shoes. The one he should be apologizing to for sticking her next to drug dealers and the men who sell women. I expect police stations to look like this. I watch too much television not to.
Officer Bradley leaves
and I’m left to my own devices for a full twenty minutes. I watch the clock tick behind me, hovering over the two-way mirror. How many officers and suspects are passing by, wondering what the hell I’ve done to land myself in a place like this.
I have a faint memory of this police station, thanks to Suzanne who spent the better part of our last summer together, in and out of it.
“You’re just going through a phase,” her mother used to tell her, the pair of us sweltering in the backseat of her car, Suzanne staring out the window with closed ears.
I was meant to be her partner in crime but I refused to stuff clothes in my purse and sneak bottles of wine beneath my dress. Unlike her purposefully ignorant parents, my father made it clear if he found me in county lockup, he would leave me to teach me a lesson.
“It’s the only way kids’ll learn,” he said, explaining himself to Gina or Darlene.
My mother told me that’s how his father raised him, burying him under the consequences of his actions, forcing him to drown.
“He thinks he’s better for it,” she said, rolling her eyes.
I can’t imagine Neal in a place like this but I bet he has a record. Men who’ve had to claw their way to the top always do.
The door opens and a female detective steps in the room. She glances at the clock. “You’re my two o clock aren’t you?”
It’s one-thirty. “I know I’m a little early but --”
She waves her hand. “Don’t apologize for being early.” She takes the seat across from me. Her chair doesn’t wobble. “I’m Detective McManus,” she says, slapping a manila folder on the table. “And you are…” She flips through the folder. “Caitlin Wheeler?”
I nod.
She sticks out her hand. “Driver’s license, birth certificate, social security card please?”
I pull the documents from my purse and hand them over. She glances at them before sliding them back to me.
Silence encompasses the pair of us as she flips through the file, eyes scanning over long sections, pulling some papers out, rearranging others. The sound of shuffled papers fills the room before she closes the folder and folds her hands atop it.
“What can we do for you, Miss Wheeler?” she says, though she already knows the answer.
“I wanted to know if I could take a look at my father’s autopsy report.”
Detective McManus smiles. “You sure can.”
She pulls a report from the file and slides it over to me.
The report is three pages long, held together with a staple at the corner. The pages are white and crisp, printed within the last few days, unhandled by hundreds of people – cops, detectives, and anyone else curious about my father’s death.
“If you have any questions,” she says, trailing off like my mother.
She resembles her. Detective McManus has the same copper colored hair and light brown eyes. Their faces hold a similar shape, though where my mother’s lips are short and thin, McManus’s are wide and thick, dominating her face, commanding your attention.
After a few minutes with the report, the pit of my stomach clenches. “He had cancer?”
She nods. “Was diagnosed six months before his death, I think it says?”
My throat tightens. “It does.”
“Poor thing.” She shakes her head. “Died in his sleep. His girlfriend found him, didn’t she?”
“You’re the detective. Shouldn’t you be telling me?”
A small laugh flows from her throat. “You got me there. What was her name? Alice or Amy…”
“Ashleigh.”
She snaps her fingers. “Ashleigh. That’s right. How’s she doing?”
I push the autopsy report towards her. “She’s doing fine.”
Detective McManus watches as my fingers uncomfortably lace together and drop into my lap. I cannot swallow the burning sensation in my throat, so it spreads to my chest and sets my ribs alight.
“Let me guess,” she says, leaning over the table. “Your father didn’t tell you he was sick.”
I clear my throat. “No. He didn’t.”
She shakes her head. “If it makes you feel any better, you’re not the only one. You don’t know how many men decide they’re going to suffer in silence.”
She smiles at me and I drop my head, avoiding the soft corners of her eyes, the small frown ever present in her mouth. She truly reminds me of my mother now.
A fountain of disappointment drips in my stomach. How terrible am I? To be disappointed that my father died from an illness instead of (and this is where you learn to hate me again) being murdered.
On my way to the station I entertained fantasies of flipping through his autopsy report and finding knife wounds on his stomach or rope burns on his wrists, anything indicative of someone inflicting death onto him. In the train’s window I studied my reflection, practicing my horrified look – wide eyes, parted lips, a single hand reaching to grab at my hair. I was planning to cry, I felt like crying, but for all the wrong reasons.
Detective McManus pulls a packet of tissues and hands them to me. I take one and dab the corners of my eyes, soaking up the tears threatening to fall.
“I’m sorry,” I say, plastering on a smile. “I’m not usually like this.” Emotional, willing to break down in front of strangers.
She raises her hands. “Never apologize for something like this. I know how hard losing someone is.”
Detective McManus patiently waits for me to gather myself. I swallow the lump in my throat, bite back any more tears, and bury the pain beneath my ribcage. I wonder how many women she’s had to sit with during something like this – the reapplying of make-up, the nervous chuckle to reassure her that we’re never really like this. We: the women who are always so put together.
I stand and she follows my lead, tucking the file beneath her arm.
“You know what?” she says, glancing at the clock. “It’s my lunch break. How about I walk you out?”
The waiting area is less crowded now, the prostitutes and their pimp gone away. The suburban mother’s at the front desk, her purse clutched at her side as her son, eyes wet, stands beside her. We pass Officer Bradley at the front desk – still fresh faced and red cheeked. He gives me a smile and waves.
Outside, I relish the warm summer air, my skin soaking in the heat. Detective McManus tilts her head back.
“Sometimes I forget what the sun looks like,” she says. “It’s so goddamn dark in there.”
I smile and nod. “Thank you,” I say, sticking out my hand. “For being so helpful.”
“You’re welcome,” she says, shaking my hand. “I’m heading to a little café about two blocks from here. They’ve got the best coffee you’ve ever tasted.”
Her fingers tighten around mine, eyebrows raising as if to say, I have something more to tell you.
“I could use a cup of coffee,” I say.
Down the block and across the street Detective McManus pulls a cigarette from her pocket and steps into a wide alley. The two of us lean against a brick wall as she sticks the cigarette in her mouth.
“I knew your father,” she says, digging her lighter from her pocket. “He gave a lot of money to the retired officer’s fund and,” she pulls the cigarette from her mouth, sticks her bottom lip between her teeth. A small blush creeps up her cheeks. “He was a very handsome man.”
My stomach lurches in my throat as she ducks her head. Her skin glows with the same light Ashleigh, Gina, Darlene and my mother wear when they think about the “good times” with my father.
She slept with him.
“I didn’t tell you this,” she says, smoke curling from the corner of her mouth, “but that autopsy report is incomplete.”
“What do you mean? They haven’t finished writing it?”
“The autopsy report is finished it’s just.” She glances out at the throngs of people bustling up and down the sidewalk, tourists and locals alike, pushing and shoving to g
et to their destination. No one’s paying us an ounce of attention. “The department decided to leave some things out.”
The lump in my throat appears again. “Like what?”
She takes a long drag, ashes dripping to the ground. “Your dad’s cancer was caused by nearly a year of mercury poisoning.”
My eyebrows furrow. “How did he get mercury poisoning?”
She shrugs. “Don’t know because they won’t let us investigate. Boss said we don’t have a case and whatever he says…”
His name pops up on my tongue before I have a chance to think about it. “Do you think Lee Geon had something to do with this?”
Her gaze snaps to me. “I don’t know. Maybe. Julian always used to say,” she stops herself, her tongue sliding between her teeth. Oops.
“It’s alright,” I say. “I know what my father was like.”
Another blush crawls up the back of her neck. “He used to say that his rivalry with Lee was getting out of hand. At first it was a friendly competition, you know, boys will be boys. But I think he was afraid of him and what he might do. Then again,” she says, inhaling more smoke. “He was seeing this doctor. Louis Romero?”
I shrug. “I’ve never heard of him.”
“You should look him up. He was who your father went to when he was first diagnosed. Any doctor worth his salt would’ve seen the mercury poisoning a mile away.”
A tight smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. “I will.”
Detective McManus finishes her cigarette and drops it on the ground, the tip of her shoe stomping it out. From her pocket she fishes out her card. “If you hear anything, give me a call? I’d love to put this guy away.”
I stick the card in my pocket.
She smiles at me, patting me on the shoulder as she steps out of the alley.
“I didn’t feel good about sleeping with your father,” she says. “I mean, I would’ve if…Ashleigh wasn’t in the picture.”
If I was the daughter my father wanted me to be, I would’ve asked if she was still fucking him around the time he died. I would’ve asked if she thought she was going to be wife number three before alerting her of her slim odds. But I didn’t care. She was another other-woman.