by Pamela Crane
I could feel my impatience boiling, but I reeled my frustration in with a mental reminder that she had been through enough. Harping wouldn’t help.
But still …
“I’m starting to get sunburn we’ve been standing out here so long,” I whined. “I’m leaving if we don’t head in now.” Tough love it was.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m finished, let’s go,” she said, tossing the orange butt on the sidewalk and snuffing it out with a twist of her foot.
We headed up a sidewalk with a berth between us two cars wide, circling around an American flag flapping wildly in the brisk spring breeze. Tina expertly reapplied her cherry lipstick while maneuvering up the walkway, and I couldn’t help but be jealous. I couldn’t remember the last time I wore lipstick—or any makeup, for that matter. I had always been a plain canvas, but Tina—she was art. It was no wonder I was still single when unconventional beauties like Tina, comfortable in their own skin and blessed with je ne sais quoi, trolled the streets. I had no idea who Tina really was, what she was really like. I only knew that she had youth and vivacity going for her, and I envied the stable of studly friends with benefits presumably at her disposal. For those reasons, not to mention her perky rack and a fetching ass that was a perfect apple, she was altogether hate-worthy. Maybe she’d grow on me, but right now all I felt was a burning jealousy.
Oh God. I wanted to be pretty.
What was happening to me?
Two steps led up to the portico, then inside the double glass doors we went.
Sweat beaded on my forehead and each quickened breath grew a little more strained. Anxiety was poking me, toying with me, and I was losing it. Get a hold of your shit, Ari! It took me a few moments to regain my composure as I watched the parade of cops going about their daily grind in a sea of blue. Wiping at my face, I closed my eyes and counted to five, feeling the pressure slip away, then I stepped up to the front desk.
Before us sat a tuft of black-rooted blond curls with a plump woman underneath. Her fat jaws were busy smacking on a gray piece of gum that made a disgusting cameo appearance between her teeth when she mumbled a curt greeting, never once looking up. After asking her who we could talk to about a death investigation, she made a call—not once missing a beat with that incessant cud-chewing—and with a nod, directed us to Investigator Jordan Moody, whose messy office we finally found after navigating through a maze of look-alike blue cubicles.
A broad-shouldered man easily six-foot-two stomped toward us, his white mustache outlining a firm jaw. His buttoned suit and tie were stiff and no-nonsense, a good sign of good hands to be in. As he neared, his gait never slowing, I stepped forward to introduce myself … until he gruffly stalked past, oblivious to me. What the hell? Following his retreating form with my gaze, I didn’t notice the young gun behind me.
I felt a knobby bump at my side. “Ari,” Tina whispered.
I pivoted back to her and came face-first with a lanky, fresh-faced guy wearing a wrinkled button-down shirt untucked over jeans and a blue tie for good measure. At less than a buck fifty soaking wet, he barely filled out his clothes. I wondered if his mama tied his necktie for him.
He held his hand out, and as I shook it, it felt oddly feminine in mine. Like we could share gloves.
Surely this kid wasn’t who we were referred to?
“I’m Investigator Jordan Moody. I was told you wanted to speak to someone about a death?”
Tina looked at me, tossing the torch my way.
“Um, yeah,” I began, a little disappointed that, sure enough, we were at the right desk. “Mister—”
“Detective Moody,” he corrected pleasantly, as if he was used to people calling him the first generic title they could think of.
“Detective Moody, we wanted someone to look into her father’s death.” I placed my hand on Tina’s shoulder. “We suspect it wasn’t the suicide that police ruled it.”
He nodded, sat down in a cushioned beige swivel chair behind his stark metal desk, then gestured for us to do the same in the mismatched visitors’ chairs, apparently uncomfortable by design. “So I’ll need you to fill me in on the details and I’ll pull the report on file.”
Tina stared blankly, until I turned to her, nudging her along with my raised brow.
“Oh, sorry. Um, my father, Josef Alvarez, was found dead from a knife wound two days ago. But when I found him like that, it didn’t look like a suicide at all. I think he was murdered.”
“One sec,” he stopped her, raising his palm, then dashing his fingers along the keyboard. “So you’re the one who found him dead, and I can assume you’re also the one who reported it?”
“Yeah.”
“What?” I hadn’t meant to say it out loud—and with such force.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Ari, but it was just so horrible … I really couldn’t stomach talking about it. But I went to visit him—first time seeing him in years—and when I got there, the door was unlocked. I went in and found him on his sofa covered in blood with a knife in his hands. But I knew something about the scene wasn’t right. I just couldn’t figure out what.”
Suddenly I felt a connection surge through me, a sisterly bond through loss. We had both witnessed firsthand the gruesome face of death taking a loved one. “Tina, I’m so sorry you had to see that.”
In this moment of weakness my eyes watered for her, for the ever-punishing anguish she must be feeling. If ever I was determined to help someone get answers, it was her—now.
With an interruptive cough, Moody brusquely reentered the conversation, but his words showed a touch of empathy. “I’m sorry for your loss, Ms. Alvarez, but we’ll do what we can to get answers for you.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it,” she replied.
“What I have here,” he said, eyeballs darting down his computer screen while his thoughts caught up, “is that Mr. Josef Alvarez suffered from two wounds—a puncture to his abdomen and a cut down his wrist. Generally a cut straight down the wrist is more in line with a suicide attempt, not a defensive wound. As for the abdominal wound, well, he might have done it to himself to bleed out faster, end it quicker.” He looked back and forth at Tina and me and sheepishly added, “Sorry, didn’t mean that to sound so callous.”
Bleed out faster, end it quicker.
That did it.
My phobia of cops and cop stations hit me like a sock in the gut. I stared blankly at a cubicle where one cop was bent over the desk of his partner. They were looking at a report, grim-faced. Suddenly they started braying like jackasses. A gallows humor thing, I guessed—their coping mechanism for dealing with lurid crimes. They looked my way; our eyes locked. They seemed to rush toward me while everything in the background receded, like that scene in Jaws when Roy Scheider is sitting on the beach and witnesses the shark attack, and the camera warps his perspective. I screamed a silent scream just as I felt something grabbing my arm.
“Earth to Ari. Earth to Ari.”
It was Tina. I looked at her, tugging on my elbow, and blinked myself back to reality.
“Uh, is that a normal way people kill themselves?” I asked, composing myself. “Jabbing themselves in the gut? Seems, uh, unusual.”
“People attempt suicide more ways than you can imagine. And there’s something else. There was a suicide note at the scene.”
As much as I relished belittling conspiracy theorists, I had to agree with Tina. Something about it sounded too neat and tidy to be legit. There had to be more to this.
“Hm,” Tina uttered pensively. “It just doesn’t … feel right.”
Teen Cop leaned forward, elbows supporting him, and picked up a pen and tablet. His chicken scratch on the canary paper looked like hieroglyphics. “What exactly doesn’t feel right? Any details you can provide helps.”
“Well, for starters he was always drunk but never depressed. At least not that he ever showed. The only reason I could see my dad killing himself was to deny the pleasure from someone else, and even then only as a las
t resort. But a knife to the gut … it just seems too … simple. Too easy.”
“Well, you just stated that you hadn’t seen him in years. So how certain are you that he wasn’t depressed?”
Interesting catch. Maybe Teen Cop wasn’t as clueless as I thought.
“Because I know him. Some people don’t change. He was one of those people.”
“Assuming you’re right, do you know anyone who might have been after him? And what about the suicide note?”
“That could have been forged,” Tina said, shrugging off its pertinence. “Did you make sure it was his handwriting?”
The detective rolled his eyes. “Have you seen the size of our town? We don’t have handwriting analysts at our beck and call.”
“Well, anyways,” Tina continued, “I know he gambled a lot. Could be related to that.”
Moody sighed heavily and leaned back, his tie flopping to the side. “Look, it sounds like you’re fishing. I know you don’t want to believe your father would take his own life, and maybe he didn’t, but without more to go on than his gambling debt, I don’t know if we can reopen an investigation into this. I want to help you, Tina, I really do. But right now you’re telling me to use our sparse resources to look for a murderer where there might be none.”
So easily shot down and defeated, Tina huffed and bolted from her chair. “Fine, let’s go, Ari.”
“Wait,” I said, an idea brewing. “Mister—?”
“Detective Moody,” he corrected not quite so pleasantly. Clearly it was a point of pride for him. My bad.
I never could remember names.
“Detective Moody,” I emphasized, “could we get a copy of the case file? Like, the police report and stuff?”
“Sure, I just need Tina to fill out this form, since I can only provide the redacted document.”
“Huh?”
“Redacted—where we remove any confidential personal information. Though, Tina’s the only witness, and her father is the victim, so this should be easy. You are an adult, correct, Tina?”
“Uh, yeah,” Tina huffed. “Just turned eighteen.”
“Sorry. Had to ask.”
After opening a screechy metal drawer, he laid a paper in front of Tina. It only took her a handful of minutes to fill out the single page of basic personal info while he retrieved the file.
“I’ve made photocopies of everything for you. If you think of anything else, my card’s in there.”
“Thanks,” we chorused.
“And Ms. Alvarez—” he added as we turned to leave, “I hope you find peace.” Sincerity warmed his words.
As we left the precinct, I exhaled relief that it was over. I couldn’t have stood another five minutes of the suffocating atmosphere.
“You okay?” Tina asked. “You scared the shit out of me when you zoned out.”
I should have been the one asking her, not the other way around.
“Yep,” I chirped. Maybe she wouldn’t notice I was lying.
“Not buying it. What’s wrong?”
I hadn’t realized how readable I was. I had unknowingly tipped my hand. For the first time I felt like maybe with her my secrets weren’t meant to stay hidden.
“The whole police scene reminds me of losing my sister. I had been interrogated and still today remember the room, the smell, the feeling like it was yesterday. Hard to stomach the memories sometimes. But it’s nothing some fresh air can’t cure.”
“Or maybe you need to stop blaming yourself.”
“Who says I’m blaming myself?”
Clearly I was an open book that Tina was flipping through.
“I can just tell.”
“Can’t really put the blame on anyone else but me. I’m the one who was responsible.”
“No, the driver of the car that hit her was responsible. A ten-year-old kid can’t be responsible for anything, especially another person. Kids that age can’t even take care of themselves. So get comfortable with your past, because you can’t let it haunt you, torturing you like this, or it’ll strip away any life left in you.”
From the mouth of babes … Yet her words were impassioned, wise beyond her years. And they came from a fluency in painful living. She now knew me, for I had shared my darkest secret with her, and she had shared at least part of hers; I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something told me she hadn’t given me the whole truth about her father kicking her out. Our mutual agonies trekked along a parallel path as our youths were corrupted, two lives forever tarnished. And yet somehow Tina had been able to overcome hers and move on, be normal, feel ordinary. So why couldn’t I? Why did my pulse still race and my stomach clench when I entered the police station? Why couldn’t I get comfortable with my past, as she put it?
Because the reality was that there was nothing comfortable about being a murderer in a den of cops.
That’s what I was—no matter how much Tina came to my defense.
Chapter 6
Ari
April 8, 2002
I don’t know how to save a life, only lose one. I’m only ten. But as my little sister lies motionless in the grass, curls splayed around her like she’s under water, red tendrils darkening as they soak in a spreading pool of blood that the earth just as quickly drinks up, I know I’m as helpless as she is.
Tires squalling, the car speeds away, leaving a smoke cloud stinking of roasted engine oil in its wake. Before me, paralyzed in the vibrant spring-green grass, is my sister. Eight years young with a kid’s built-in invincibility against childhood traumas, but as her eyes remain closed far too long now, I realize this may have broken her.
I hadn’t meant to get angry with her, but it’s too late. It was just a stupid game.
“Carli?” I ask, sprinting with wide strides to where she lay. “You okay?” I ask it with a motherly tone, as if she just scraped her knee and needs a kiss on her boo-boo.
No response. No movement.
It’s serious, I know.
I shriek with an eagle’s intensity. “Mom! Dad! Help!” The words come out broken amid my sobs of panic. Below me there’s a flutter of eyelids at the sound of my voice, but she’s not fully awake. Again I scream for my parents, this time with more urgency.
I’m at Carli’s side now, holding her hand in an unspoken plea not to leave me. I’m afraid to touch her for fear of making it worse.
“Carli, you’re gonna be okay,” I promise emptily. I don’t know that. I only know I’m supposed to say it. But I can only assume it’s true because scary things like death don’t happen to kids. Again I yell, turning my voice toward the house to avoid startling my sister. “Mom, Dad, help! Carli’s hurt!”
“Ari?” Her voice is weak but at least she’s alive—barely. As she speaks, her assortment of baby and adult teeth are tinged with Radio Flyer wagon red. Is that … blood?
My stomach churns a warning that I’m about to lose my breakfast.
Her eyelids drift shut, hiding flecks of yellow and green, then they slide open drunkenly. A smile lifts her lips. “Sorry I cut your Barbie’s hair,” she says. “You can’t be mad at me for it anymore, promise?” She laughs like her death is a joke, and all I can do is laugh with her, like we’re playing doctor. I can’t let on that I know something she doesn’t—that she might not make it.
“Promise.” Hooking my pinkie in hers, I make the sisterly oath of all oaths. “Pinkie swear.”
“Now you can have your own room, Sissy,” she mumbles.
But it’s too real, what she’s saying: good-bye.
It’s taking Mom and Dad too long. “Mom!” I scream again.
A moment later I hear a screen door twang shut behind me—Mom standing on the porch.
“Ari, what’s all your yelling about? Stop acting like a redneck for the whole neighborhood to hear.”
“Mom, help!” And that’s when she sees me, sees Carli. Mom recognizes the tears and fear on my face and knows this isn’t a childish prank.
Rushing from the stoop, Mom barrels tow
ard us, calling back for Dad. “Burt, get out here! Carli’s hurt!” She pushes me aside, inserting herself between us, then cradles her baby girl—her favorite. I watch her sweep hands and lips all over Carli’s flesh, searching for the wounds while kissing away the pain. I burn with envy that Mom’s never attended me so fervently.
“Sweetie, stay with me. Don’t close your eyes,” she mumbles frantically into Carli’s sweater. “Don’t you leave me, honey.”
Another twang from the porch. Dad, fresh from the john, is standing in the half-opened screen door, fumbling with his belt.
“Call an ambulance, Burt!” Mom orders, wedged between us sisters, aptly symbolic of our family dynamic. “What did you do to her?” Mom demands, turning her ferocity on me.
“I—I don’t know,” I stutter.
“What did you do?” Her words are fierce. I blink at the spittle showering my face.
“I think … I think a car hit her. We were playing in the yard and I pushed her … and then a car drove up and hit her. Then it left.” But Mom knows—she knows.
“Don’t lie to me, Ari. Did you let your sister play in the street?”
“No, I swear.”
But she’s too distracted tending to Carli to hear my answer. She cranes her neck, looking down the empty street for hope. “Why is the ambulance taking so long? And where’s your father?”
Mom’s murmuring in Carli’s ear as if words will draw her away from death’s beckoning light. I’m afraid to ask the question we don’t want the answer to. “Is she gonna be okay?”
“I don’t know. But this is your fault. You should have been watching out for her.”
“Mom, I didn’t—”
“Just shut up, Ari,” she cuts in.
By now I see Dad running toward us with an awkward gait, then drops gravely by Carli’s side. “The ambulance is coming. What the hell happened?”