by Tracy Clark
Her cell phone buzzed. She drew it out of her bag, answered it, and her face lost all its color. “What? When?” Listening to the other end, she grew paler by the second. “Is Vonda okay? Yes, I’m coming.” She ended the call, a desolate look on her face. “Linda Sewell’s been killed. Shot, like Hewitt.” She panicked. “My God, what’s going on!”
Chapter 15
They’d found Linda Sewell’s body lying next to her car around ten thirty in the morning. She’d parked some distance from the security cameras mounted near the elevator. Her purse was missing; so were her watch and jewelry. It looked like a mugging. I received all of this information on the q.t. from a detective I knew, as she exited the crime scene. Marcus and Tanaka weren’t about to share even a crumb of information. I stood behind the cordon, persona non grata, where I’d been for at least an hour. Marcus and Tanaka had barely given me a glance when they’d rushed past me.
What would happen to Sewell’s young son? I wondered. I hated this, all of it. The wanton taking of a life, the cavalier way some people decided who got to stay and who went. I hated it for me; I hated it for others. I just plain hated it. It made me angry and sick and anxious, like I was trying to clear a heap of steaming trash one bag at a time, one hand tied behind my back. I’d never get it all; there’d always be more trash; and whatever I did, it would never be enough.
I was still standing by the riot horse when Tanaka and Marcus came back out. These couldn’t be random deaths, not two in as many days, not two with a direct connection to Allen. Would there be more? Could Allen be next? At what point would she realize she was in over her head? I glanced over at her office windows, high above the hectic street clogged with rabid onlookers. She was likely up there now, ensconced in her throne room, not shedding a single tear for Sewell, feigning ignorance as bodies, lives, fell at her feet. Chandler would be there, too. She’d rushed from my office as though racing to a fire. Would she decide to finally confront Allen? Get her to come clean? I hoped so. Hewitt, now Sewell. What was happening?
I looked over to see Marcus watching me. He was playing it wrong. I knew it. He knew I knew it. But this wasn’t my show, not this time. I had to drop it here. Ben and I were out. When he turned his back to me, I strode back to my car and caught sight of a dark, late-model Buick with tinted windows idling across the street. Likely a crime-scene junkie, drawn to the scene by a police scanner, mesmerized by the drama of someone else’s tragic death. It was a thing. Disturbing, ghoulish, but a thing. I stopped and watched as the car pulled away from the curb and slowly drove away.
* * *
I went out early the next morning for bagels, eggs, and juice, my breakfast with my father swinging over my head like an executioner’s ax. I regretted suggesting the thing now, in retrospect, but I was stuck with it and had to see it through. He rang the bell right at 9:00 AM, and I buzzed him up, then opened the door to him holding a bunch of yellow roses, my mother’s favorite. He’d dressed nicely in a suit and tie. He looked like he was on his way to a job interview or church or his own funeral. I took the flowers, and we stood there at the door awkwardly.
“Those are going to need a vase,” he finally said.
“Right. Kitchen’s this way.” He followed me down the long hall.
“I whip up a pretty mean omelet,” he said, making conversation. “Matter of fact, I’m known as the omelet king in my house. You up for one?”
“Sure.” Passing the pantry, I snagged a clean apron off a hook and handed it back to him. “Things could get messy. The kitchen’s not exactly my room.”
He chuckled. “Wasn’t your mother’s, either, if you remember. She had other strengths—intelligence, compassion, a lot of patience, especially with me.”
I cocked a head toward the fridge. “Everything’s in there. Coffee beans, too.”
“I’m going with tea.” He winked. “I hear it’s good for you.”
He was making an effort; he knew I preferred tea to coffee. I placed the kettle on the burner, turned on the heat, and then plucked a paring knife from a drawer and laid it on the table for him.
“Eggs, butter, cheese, green onion, and bacon,” he said, turning from the refrigerator, his arms laden down with stuff. “If bacon don’t get your motor runnin’, nothin’ will, right?”
I thought of Ben and his fake hospital bacon and smiled. I looked over to see my father watching me.
“I remember that smile.”
That killed it. I gave him some distance, watching appraisingly as he set the food down on the table, perched himself on a barstool, and began to chop and dice, glancing up at me periodically. There were things I remembered, the way he held his head, the way his hands looked, snatches of mannerisms and such buried somewhere in my brain. Nothing flooded back in a great big wave of recollection; it was just the snatches. I set about lining up the bacon in the skillet, monitoring his movements out of the corner of my eye.
“I wanted to talk to you first, before dinner, to . . .” The speed of his chopping increased, and I turned around to see. The knife was working overtime. His face was creased in concentration, and sweat beaded across his forehead. I eased back. “Earl Grey or Irish Breakfast?”
“Oh, doesn’t matter to me. No, ma’am. I’ll drink anything.” Chop, chop, chop. He was chopping enough for at least a dozen omelets. “I went to see your mother yesterday.” His voice was light, conversational, as if the visit had taken place anywhere else besides the cemetery. “She’s in a beautiful spot. I’d forgotten how beautiful. Do you visit?”
I fingered my mother’s wedding ring, which I wore on a chain around my neck. I believed it brought me luck. Rubbing the soft gold and the smooth cluster of diamonds always made me feel as if at least some part of her was still with me, was still mine. No, I didn’t visit. She wasn’t there in that hole in the ground. She was with me; Pop too. So were all the people I’d loved and lost before I was ready to let them go.
I had slept with the ring under my pillow for months after she died, hoping that by some divine miracle or puff of sorcery—I’d have sold my soul for either—when I woke up, the ring would be gone and she would be back. But every morning there was just the ring there and a feeling of desolation, of brokenness I couldn’t shake. It was my grandmother who had given me the chain to carry it on, and it was Pop who had blessed them both for me. It had taken years for the small band of gold to signify anything other than sorrow. Only now did it give me peace.
“Cassandra, the bacon’s burning.”
I jolted, pulled my hand away from the chain, and slid the skillet off the burner.
“I asked if you ever went to visit your mother.”
“I don’t. No.” I hadn’t visited Pop, either, or my grandparents. I didn’t need to stare at a slab of remembrance to make the loss real. My eyes met his. “I don’t trust you. I don’t know if I ever will.”
The knife stilled. Many moments passed. “You got good reason not to. I hurt you.”
“You changed me. I’m a different person than the one you left. I’m not sure I want to make room for you in my life, but I’ve opened the door . . . for now. That’s what I wanted to tell you in private, before dinner with your family. That’s what I needed you to hear from me.”
He set the knife down and looked squarely at me. “Honesty.” He sighed. “I said this was a visit, but that’s not the whole truth. I explained in the letters, but . . . we found a place in Rogers Park. A nice house on a quiet street, with a yard and a driveway that I’ll have to shovel. Good schools close by. There’s still the back-and-forth to go through, but we hope to be in there and settled before Christmas. We talked the whole thing over—Sylvia, Whitford, and me. They understand why I need to be here. They know what I did. This doesn’t have to go fast. It doesn’t even have to go easy. But, however it goes, I’ll be here.”
I turned back to the stove, my heart racing, my palms sweating. The cutting started again.
He said, “I’m ready with these vegetables. Where’s
your omelet pan?”
I handed it to him, but I didn’t let go of my end. We stood there for a time, looking into each other’s eyes. “I won’t let you in easily. I’ll protect myself.” It was both a warning and a declaration.
“I promise you won’t have to.”
I let go of the pan. “No more promises.”
Chapter 16
Ben’s bed was empty when I walked into his hospital room, the smell of Italian beef, extra peppers, wafting out of the greasy bag in my hand. I stood for a moment, confused, having expected to see him sitting up, dressed and ready to go.
“You’re here for Detective Mickerson?” I turned to find Ben’s nurse, the one I’d seen the day before with the med tray, standing behind me.
“Yeah. Has he already been discharged?”
She placed a hand on my arm, steered me farther into the room. “They had to take him back to surgery about an hour ago. He was bleeding internally, having trouble breathing. Yours was the only number we had, but there was no answer. We didn’t know who else to call.”
Her voice sounded like it was coming from so far away. I stared at her, half hearing her. I heard surgery, bleeding internally. I drew my phone out of my pocket, saw the flashing light. I had silenced it during my breakfast with my father and had forgotten to unmute it. I’d missed the call. I swallowed hard. “Is he going to be okay?”
“They’re doing everything they can.” Keen, sympathetic eyes held mine. “Should we call someone else? A family member?”
I backed away from her, set the high-smelling bag down on the tray table. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It didn’t make sense. “No,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
The nurse nodded and then eased out of the room to give me some privacy. I fell back into a chair, my entire body numb, cold. When I could hold my phone steady, I punched in the numbers for Ben’s sister, Carole.
* * *
We sat anxiously in the surgical waiting room. His color restored, Ben had looked good when I saw him yesterday. He’d been joking around about bacon and peppers. I glanced over at Carole and at their mother, Ida. Both tense and worn practically to nothing by worry. The Mickersons had also assembled a few cousins and an elderly aunt. We’d all been here for hours already without any word on Ben’s condition. Cops, friends of Ben’s, had cycled in and out, as had Eli, Barb, and even Whip, who’d left work to make sure I was okay, but I’d sent them all home. There was no sense in all of us being here, and I couldn’t leave. It was up to me to take care of Ben’s family.
I stood. “Anyone need anything? Coffee? Food?” I turned to Ben’s mother, lowered my voice to a soothing whisper. “Mrs. Mickerson?”
The weak, sweet smile she gave me almost broke my heart. It was weird thinking of big, burly Ben as this small, silent woman’s baby, but that was what he was to her. I couldn’t begin to fully grasp what she was feeling, but I could see the agony on her face. She shook her head, said nothing, but reached over and squeezed my hand gently, a silent thank-you.
Carole stood, as weary, as fearful as I was. “I need to stretch my legs. I’ll come with you.”
We walked down the hall, rounded the corner, stopped at an alcove of vending machines—bad coffee, snacks, bottles of overpriced water in toxic bottles. Depressing. Carole and I stood blinking at the display, neither of us, apparently, willing to make the first move.
“Off duty and knifed in a bookstore,” she finally said, rummaging for change in her oversize bag. “God, I hate the job you two do. Always have. He was fine. He called me yesterday. I chewed him out for not telling us right away he got hurt. Know what he said? ‘No big deal.’ He said it matter-of-factly. No big deal. I called him a selfish prick.” Her hand stilled. “That’s the last thing I said to him. ‘You selfish prick.’ ” She went back to diving for change, violently, as though she were trying to punch a hole in the bottom of her bag. “What’s wrong with me?”
I reached into my bag and pulled out a handful of loose change, kept there in case of emergency. I fed several coins into a slot, but neither of us made a selection. Instead, we stood there staring at the processed poison neither of us really wanted.
“These greedy assholes actually have the nerve to charge one-fifty for sixteen ounces of Pepsi?” Carole rolled her eyes. She looked a lot like Ben—same nose, same eyes—but she was two years younger, slight. “At least when they rob you on the street, you can half respect it.”
I punched the button for the pop and watched as the machine thrust it forward off the shelf and it landed with a thud in the tray at the bottom. I handed it to Carole.
She went on. “You two deal with the worst people. Why? What’s in it for you? You work yourselves to death, all hours, no time for family, no time for a life. For this? You were shot, for God’s sake, and nearly died. Now he’s lying in there with his stomach sliced open by some maniac. I don’t understand what makes you keep going back for more.”
I turned my back to the machine after getting a glimpse of my reflection in the glass, the haunted look on my face. “It’s just what we’re good at.”
“It’s tempting fate, and I hate it. How many times do we have to end up here? How many more chances will you or he get before your number comes up? Don’t you worry about that?”
I didn’t. I couldn’t, could I? If I did, I couldn’t do what I did for the people I did it for. Those who couldn’t stand for themselves, fight for themselves, those who had lived their entire lives under the heel of some fat cat’s boot. I hated bullies. I hated unfairness. I couldn’t abide needless suffering. Ben understood. I knew he felt the same.
A cold shaft of fear shot up my spine. “Can we talk about something else?” I needed something, and I didn’t know what. Damned certain whatever it was couldn’t be found in a vending machine, no matter how many coins I slid into the slot. It was an awful feeling.
* * *
Dr. Alton entered the waiting room hours later and called out Ben’s name. I stood back as his family crowded around for the update, but Mrs. Mickerson pulled me forward to stand with the rest. Ben was out of surgery, in recovery, she said, then off to the ICU. He’d blown a fairly substantial clot, which she thought they were able to fix, but he was now on a respirator, unconscious. I held on to Ben’s mother, my hands surprisingly steady, yet the old woman stood far steadier than I felt. We’d have to wait and see, the doctor said. Then she was gone.
I found a quiet spot outside the hospital and stood with my face tilted up to the night sky. It was late, nearly eleven. Everything beyond where I stood felt a million miles away, unreachable. Ben was holding his own, but no one knew how it’d go. We were in an uncertain state, limbo, waiting for the fates and medical science to decide.
Carole eased in beside me. “You just can’t sit still, can you?”
I breathed in deep. “Just needed some air.”
She gazed up at the sky, breathed in deep. “Same as him. He’s always got to be doing something.”
I smiled. “Eating mostly.”
“True.” She turned to face me. “Do you know he has feelings for you? I’ve always wanted to ask you that. Never had the nerve before.”
“What?”
“He’d never admit it, but I know my brother. He doesn’t take to a lot of people, certainly not to his first wife. I tried to tell him before the wedding, but he wouldn’t listen. Bullheaded. You and he are different, though. I thought you should know, in case he doesn’t get to tell you himself.”
I shook my head, felt my face flush. “It’s not like that.”
“Yeah it is. I see you two together. You couldn’t be more different, but you’re like the same person in a way.” She read my face. “You really missed it, didn’t you? That’s wild. You two have got to be the smartest dumb people I know.” She gave my arm an affectionate squeeze. “I’ll shut up now. I’m taking Mom home, and then I’ll be back.”
Shaken, I stood there, not sure what to say. What had I missed? When had I missed it? I an
swered Carole absently. “I’ll be here.”
She moved to stand in front of me. “No you won’t. That’s what I also wanted to say. We’ve got this part covered. We—the family, that is—want you looking for the guy who did this.”
“That’s being handled,” I said, my voice rising, adamant. “I’m staying here.”
“Why? What can you do besides worry like the rest of us?”
“I can take care of his family. I can be here to do that.”
“We don’t need it. We want you to do what you’re good at.” She exhaled, wiped her tired eyes. “He did the same for you, you know. Things weren’t looking good. I was here, too, with Father Ray and Mrs. Vincent. They were so nice, so worried about you. We looked up at one point, and Ben was gone. We didn’t know where. The nurses found his star on the table next to your bed in the ICU. He’d gone looking for Farraday, we found out later. Thank God he was able to stop himself before he did anything stupid.” She smiled weakly. “See? Feelings. Smart dumb, the both of you. You want to take care of the family, then do this for us. Find him. Bring him in. Say yes.”
I had no words. I had no idea about Ben going looking for Farraday. He’d never said a thing about it. All I was able to manage was a nod.
Chapter 17
I crawled into bed but didn’t sleep. There was too much to think about, none of which I could make sense of. When the sun came up, I was still lying there staring at the ceiling, my head as heavy as lead. My place was at the hospital, but Ben’s family didn’t need me there. They wanted me out on the street, looking for Ben’s attacker. That meant butting heads again with Tanaka and Marcus, which I had no desire to do. Ben had never told me he’d left his badge and gone after Farraday. I had had no idea about his feelings, either. I hoped Carole had read him wrong. I considered Ben a part of my family, the one I’d cobbled together when the real one collapsed beneath me. If he felt differently, wouldn’t he have said so? I think he would have. We’ve never had a problem communicating, but feelings were different, weren’t they? Feelings were messy, always delicate. They could mean anything, everything or nothing. I needed to talk to Ben.