by CJ Lyons
Then the boys turned and suddenly she was surrounded, on the other side of a semi-circle, her and Nate against five boys. Nate stepped between her and the two Homans, using his body as a shield.
“Get out of here, Em,” he told her in a low voice. “I’m fine.”
“Yeah,” the standing Homan, Billy, said as his brother, Jimmy, scrambled to his feet. “He’s fine. We’re just playing.”
“What’cha gonna do about it, anyway?” Jimmy said, grabbing a ball and taking aim, the other boys doing the same.
Be brave and strong, Daddy whispered. Emily stood tall despite the butterflies that filled her stomach trying to fly away and hide, wanting to take her with them.
Instead of retreating, Emily stepped forward, standing beside Nate, facing the boys. She’d let Daddy down and now he was gone forever. She wasn’t about to let her friend down. No matter what.
Twelve
As Luka drove from the Falconer to police headquarters, he tried unsuccessfully to stifle the feelings of frustration and irritation that Trudy Orly’s death had instilled in him. This wasn’t like him, not at all. Usually he enjoyed the start of a case, that sense of anticipation, where everyone’s story was important and anything was possible.
It was better than closing a case. Unlike in the movies or on TV, there was frequently a let-down when a case was solved. Either the solution was too easy—especially now that it was almost impossible to avoid some kind of video catching people in the act—or, all too often, they knew who the perpetrator was, but they didn’t have enough evidence to take it to trial.
He loved the feeling of calmness he felt when he entered the chaos of a fresh crime scene. He’d once dated a yoga instructor who’d told him that the Sanskrit word for that feeling was praśāntacārin or “walking tranquility.” The ability to control your emotions to better observe the world around you. Like all his relationships since Cherise, theirs hadn’t lasted very long. But what she’d said had reminded him of college: when he’d be working on a poem, that feeling that the rest of the universe flowed around him, leaving him untouched as he searched for the right words, completely at peace. Of course, those days were long gone. After Cherise, he had changed career paths, leaving poetry far behind.
Why did Trudy Orly’s death nag at him? Was it the thought that her husband might have killed her? Or the fact that Walt’s health condition might prevent him from being convicted? No, he’d arrived at the scene already frazzled. He never should have gone to the river…
Maybe it was the echoes from Cherise’s death that had created this sense of unease. He remembered that night. He’d been home, waiting for her to return from her study group. Washing dishes, staring out the kitchen window, watching the rain duel with the darkness, so lost in thought he’d let a coffee mug slip through his fingers, had cut himself. Blood swirling through the sudsy water… and then the doorbell rang. The police. Cherise, gone.
Death by misadventure, someone had told him that first night—he had no idea who, could barely hang on to any of the words hurled around. That was before they found the suicide poem she’d left, a message aimed to strike straight at Luka’s heart: his book, the poem he’d been fascinated by. Before they realized that she’d taken off her engagement ring and stopped her medication. There were tire tracks, gouged into the ground as she’d accelerated. No misadventure, no accident, now they were certain—so certain, beyond all reasonable doubt, beyond any argument Luka could make with the cops, the coroner, even Cherise’s parents.
Suicide.
Trudy’s death wasn’t suicide. And no accident, he was certain. Not with a missing cell phone but an intact wallet full of cash. Which left one possibility. Murder.
He pulled into the secure parking lot beside the anonymous yellow brick building that housed Cambria City’s police department. He despised the ugly cube of a building, and yet, somehow, in this unrelenting month of rain and gray, color had blossomed uninvited in the small corner of unattended mud beside the employee entrance. Yellow and purple miniature irises, immune even to the plummeting nighttime temperatures, had appeared first, followed by a clump of crocuses. And now what he’d thought were weeds had proven themselves to be flowers—his gran had had them in her garden as well, called them Lenten roses.
His first theory had been birds carrying seeds from residential gardens, but he’d worked in this building for over fifteen years and had never seen flowers before. It definitely was not the result of any municipal beautification project. Whatever or whoever was responsible, the mystery made him smile every time he came to work.
As Luka climbed the stairs to the investigative division on the third floor, his phone rang. Pops. “Everything okay?” Luka said.
“About to ask you the same question,” his grandfather answered. “You left before sunrise and I know where you went. You may treat me like a doddering fool, but I can still read a calendar. How you doing, son?”
Not even Luka’s father had ever called him “son.” Only Pops. As if reminding Luka that even at thirty-seven, he was still a boy to the old man. “I’m fine. Caught a case on the way back. Will you tell Janine I might not be home until late?”
“What about Nate?”
“Leah’s mother is picking the kids up from school.” Given Luka’s new duties as a surrogate father to an eight-year-old, it was lucky for him that Leah had moved out to her great-aunt Nellie’s house, only a few miles down the road from Jericho Fields. The kids also saw the same trauma counselor—someone Leah had recommended. Luka had never dreamed that when he finally became a father it would require a crash course in psychology. It helped to have someone like Leah to talk to about Nate and what he was going through—she was experiencing the same rollercoaster with Emily.
“Leah’s mother? That Ruby woman.” Pops’ tone dripped with disdain. “Don’t like her, don’t trust her.”
“Her record’s clean—criminal and driving.” Luka didn’t mention that Leah didn’t entirely trust Ruby either, although Luka wasn’t sure why. She’d assured him that the kids were safe with Ruby, leaving him with the impression that her mother had betrayed Leah on some deep emotional level when she was a child. All he knew was that Ruby had left Leah in her great-aunt Nellie’s care when Leah was eleven—but he had no idea why.
“Yeah, but she isn’t family,” Pops continued. “That boy needs folks he can count on.”
Translation: Luka was already failing Nate. “And he has them,” Luka defended himself. “He has you and Janine, now that she’s living at the farm—” Janine was hired as a home health aide for Pops, but she’d been helping to look after Nate as well.
“Who’s gonna help him with his homework and such? I don’t know nothing about this new-fangled math they’re teaching.”
Luka reached the door leading into the detective’s bullpen. He blew out his breath. “Nate will be fine, Pops. And so will I. I’ll get home as soon as I can.”
“See that you do. Not like it does the dead any good, you running yourself ragged.” Always one for the last word, Pops hung up.
Luka opened the door, the cacophony of a dozen men and women working rolling over him like a wave. The investigative division included vice and drugs, domestic and sex crimes, as well as Luka’s own Violent Crimes Unit, which focused on homicides, serious assaults, and robberies.
He skirted the periphery of the collection of desks until he reached his tiny glass-fronted office that always made him feel as if he were on display like a department store mannequin. After carefully removing his parka so as not to dump water over the collection of files arranged on his desk, he grabbed the spare suit he kept hanging in the tiny closet and went to change. On his way back from the men’s room he grabbed coffee, wincing as he spilled some on his hand. He’d switched out his old mug—one that Cherise had bought and that now sat on his desk beside her photo—for a new travel mug, but it still didn’t feel right in his hand.
As he settled into his desk chair, he finally felt in control of
the day. He was just getting ready to dig into the intricate details of Huntington’s—Luka wanted to be able to understand the disease before he spoke with Leah about the particulars of Walt’s case—when he glanced at the clock on his computer and realized he had only twenty minutes before the sergeants’ meeting with Commander Ahearn. A meeting that McKinley would be at, no doubt trying to shift blame for this morning’s fiasco at the Falconer onto Luka’s team.
Krichek would have called him with any new info on the Orly case, so Luka quickly checked for updates on his other open cases. The first was a hit and skip, car versus bicyclist. Forensic results on the paint chips and broken headlight found on the victim’s body were still pending, the computerized traffic reconstruction was in his inbox, and there was nothing new from patrol after re-canvassing the area for potential witnesses. He glanced through the crime scene photos to choose which ones to print out for Ahearn, settling on one of the mangled orange bike rather than the one of its equally mangled deceased owner.
Gary Wagner was a thirty-one-year-old customer service worker training for a triathlon. He’d left behind a pregnant wife and a two-year-old. From the reconstruction, the truck or SUV that had hit him hadn’t braked until a quarter a mile past the point of impact. And they’d found boot prints suggesting that someone had returned and left again, abandoning the bicyclist to his fate.
That’s the part that made Luka so intent on finding the driver—Gary Wagner had still been alive when he’d been found by a farmhand on his way to work hours later. He’d died en route to Good Sam. All that time, lying alone in the dark and rain, suffering, no way to call for help, his phone shattered not by the impact, but by a man wearing boots. That act, taking the time to return to the scene of the impact but deciding not to render aid, but to rather allow the victim to die; that made it pre-meditated murder, which made the case Luka’s.
Luka called the state forensic lab. “Anything on the Wagner case?”
“We’re narrowing down the vehicle’s make and model from the paint, but it’s going to take time.”
“What about the headlight fragments? Can you use them to narrow it down?”
“Nope. It’s a generic replacement, could’ve bought it anywhere. Oh, but the bike shows evidence of transfer. Your vehicle will have a significant amount of Tangerine Daze-glow ruining its paint job. It’s a proprietary color, so easy to confirm the match once you find the vehicle.”
“If it’s not already scrapped and scattered over the tri-state area.” Luka hung up and turned to his next case, an armed robbery at a pharmacy. The suspect seen on video from security cameras in the store and on the street fleeing the scene now had a confirmed ID, patrol was searching for him, and the DA had approved an arrest warrant.
And last, a LOL mugging. Their little old lady was still in a coma but was now breathing on her own, not that that helped Luka find the actor behind her attack, but it was a nice bit of good news given that the trauma surgeons at Good Sam had been fitting her for a body bag when she first came in.
He made a note to follow up with her when he went over to Good Sam for the Orly autopsy after lunch—if he had time for lunch.
A rap came at his door as he was closing down his computer and gathering his notes for his meeting. Krichek had returned from the Orly crime scene.
“Anything?” Luka asked, although he knew the answer. Krichek would have called if he’d found anything.
“Nope. But wanted you to have our reports and timelines before your meeting with Ahearn. Harper texted hers from Good Sam.” He handed a sheaf of forms to Luka. “I printed them all out. I know Ahearn likes his paper trail.”
Luka glanced over the timelines. They made it clear that the uniforms had called in ERT and escalated the situation prior to his team’s arrival. “Good.” All he needed now was Risa Saliba’s witness statement confirming everything. “Keep working neighborhood CCTV and retracing Trudy Orly’s steps. Did Harper say when we can interview the husband?”
“Yeah. His doctor said maybe in an hour or two—whatever drug they gave him to calm him down also put him right to sleep.”
Luka made a note to pass the info onto Leah. “You know where to find me if you need me.”
Krichek flashed a “better you than me” grin, knowing how much Luka hated the twice weekly meetings—it wasn’t as if he didn’t also keep Ahearn briefed via daily emails and phone conversations. But Ahearn was old school, enjoyed the power trip of face-to-face confrontations.
“Don’t worry, boss. Any excuse to get you out of there—”
“Don’t hesitate to use it.” Luka sighed, grabbed his coffee—he’d need the reinforcement—and his files and left.
He’d only made it as far as the stairwell when his phone rang. It was Nate’s school. “Mr. Jericho? It’s Robin Driscoll, the vice principal. I wanted to alert you to an incident.”
His face went cold as the blood drained, but he managed to keep his voice steady. “Is Nate all right? What happened?”
“Nate’s fine. But I’m afraid we need to address some behavioral issues. Can you come in for a discussion today?”
“Today? What did he do?”
“We’re still sorting things through, but apparently Nate bullied some classmates. From what I can tell, nothing serious, but we do have a zero-tolerance policy, so he’ll be spending the day in ISS.”
“ISS?”
“In-school suspension. We find it’s better than immediately sending a child home. This way they can keep up with their academics and we can address any counseling needs during the school day.” She paused. “But I’ll need to meet with you before we can allow him back into class.”
Luka frowned. Nate was already being held back—something Nate viewed as a punishment, one more strike against Luka—making him older and bigger than the other kids in his class. Luka wasn’t sure if he felt more angry or disappointed that Nate was taking advantage of his size. But part of him also felt sad and wanted to give Nate the benefit of the doubt. During Luka’s sister’s years as an addict, she’d lost custody of Nate and he’d bounced around between foster homes growing up. It’d only been during the past year and half that he and his mother had lived together, giving Nate his first taste of stability, all ripped away when Tanya overdosed last month.
“What time do you leave for the day?” he asked.
“Four o’clock.”
“I’ll be there by then.” He had no idea how—he still had the Orly autopsy, which could take hours, plus interviewing Walt, once the doctors cleared him. Leah had texted that she was emailing him a copy of her recorded interview with Risa Saliba, but he still wanted a chance to speak with Risa himself. It would be good to compare anything she told Leah with what she told him. Not that he needed to double-check Leah’s work—he appreciated her help this morning, he really did. But sometimes he didn’t know the right questions to ask himself, not until face to face with a witness, watching them tell their story. The Falconer was only a few blocks from the school; maybe he could somehow squeeze it all in and still be there by four.
He climbed the steps to the administrative offices on the fifth floor, wondering how other single, working parents did it. If Nate had been his biological son, his from infancy, would he somehow have already mastered the art of being in two places at once? Was there some magic formula, a secret he should know?
Luka stared at the door, then at the useless waste of paper that were the files he held. There’d be hell to pay from Ahearn, but if Luka was ever going to be the parent Nate needed, then he had to step up. Now. Not when it was convenient.
He turned and headed back down the steps, hitting redial on his phone. He’d send Krichek to take his place with Ahearn—good training for the detective, learning how to sit through interminable meetings when you’d rather be working a case. “Ms. Driscoll? I’m on my way.”
Thirteen
Emily squirmed in her plastic chair, one of four lined up against the wall in the reception area outside Vice Pr
incipal Driscoll’s office. The room was large, with a reception desk guarding the offices behind it, dividing the grownup area from the kids’ area. The office ladies on the other side of the desk occasionally glanced over at her, giving her an encouraging smile or nod. Emily liked most of the office ladies, but she didn’t like Vice Principal Driscoll, who always patted her on the head and called her “cute” while never listening to what Emily said. As if just because she was a first grader, nothing she said could make a difference.
Nate was on one side of Emily, sitting rigidly as if he was afraid to breathe, while the two Homans boys sat on her other side, heads together, getting their story straight before their dad came for them. Emily wished it was her dad coming to intercede on her behalf. Daddy always listened to her and he always made sure the other adults—even Ms. Driscoll—did as well.
Luka appeared in the doorway and Emily felt Nate stiffen even more, like he was trying to shrink into the pale green paint on the wall behind him. Nate always seemed scared around Luka. Not scared of him, just extra tense, like he was waiting for something bad to happen. She didn’t get why—she loved Luka. He listened to her almost as carefully as Daddy and he always asked very, very good questions. Plus, he was a policeman—the same policeman who’d caught the bad people who hurt her daddy. Making him her policeman. And one of the few grownups who made her feel safe now that Daddy wasn’t here anymore.
Heedless of her teacher’s admonition to sit still and stay put, Emily hopped down from her chair and raced to greet Luka. He looked particularly smart in his suit and tie, the perfect grownup to make their case.
“Thanks for coming,” Emily told him, taking his hand to lead him to the chairs where Nate waited. “We could use a good detective.”
“Really?” His grin wrinkled his eyes but then vanished when he saw Nate. “What seems to be the problem?”