I took a piece of paper from the printer and scribbled a note for Pezzani, walking it into the kitchen and leaving it by the coffee pot, which was still half-full from the day before. I left the house key where it was, grabbed my bag, and locked the door behind me. I boarded the Lincoln and sailed for the north end of town.
The impound lot was my first stop. I walked to the small office and spoke with the attendant. It would cost $79.48 to get the car out. I reasoned it was worth the cost. I paid the fee then accepted the keys. I parked the Lincoln two blocks down, then walked back and found my mother’s cherry-red Saab 93.
It didn’t take as long at the impound lot as it had in the past, so I stopped for coffee. I drove to Dazbog on Cherry, ordered a Brain Damage because it was shaping up to be that kind of day, then spoke briefly with one of the owners while I waited. Coffee in hand, I returned to the Saab and drove a few blocks south to the courthouse on Laporte.
I wasn’t the only one here for arraignment. Apparently it had been a busy weekend. The parking lot was full. I had to park on the street a block away.
I found an unoccupied six inches of bench space outside the courtroom and squeezed in, sipping my coffee. There were benches lining the hallway in both directions and all were full. Additional people stood or sat on the floor. It reminded me a lot of the airport: a bunch of people with other things to do standing around waiting for an unpleasant experience.
The courtroom doors were pushed open by a bailiff in a tan uniform, and we all filed in. I found a seat near the back and settled in for the long haul. The lucky ones would be seen in the first few minutes. The unlucky ones would be seen after lunch. I had no way of knowing which my mother would be.
My mother, in all fairness, had also been subjected to a rough and traumatic upbringing. I’m sure this accounts for her current condition, though there are different schools of thought on that subject. Her father had been abusive to her, which seemed to explain why she ultimately ended up marrying my father, the most abusive man I’ve ever even heard about. I think the reason I don’t have the same condition is because I internalize far less than she does. I’m sort of the angry-out-loud type, and that just isn’t her style. More the suffer-in-silence kind, she’d been diagnosed with Bipolar I Disorder in her late teens.
When she takes her medications as prescribed and visits her psychiatrist as scheduled, she does fairly well, with only minimal evidence of her condition noticeable. The problem with Bipolar people is the same as with schizophrenics, I’m told; when they feel good, they stop taking their meds like they should and slip right back into the throes of their diseases. For my mother, this means she alternates every few months between the highs and the lows.
When she’s in a high, or manic, state, she sleeps only a few hours every few days, cleans everything excessively, spends money exorbitantly, has sex unreservedly (with anyone who’s offering—man or woman), talks too loud, and drives too fast. When she’s manic, she’s the ultimate partier and all the rage among a certain group of friends, most of them half her age. When she’s low, or depressed, she sleeps an average of twenty hours a day and foregoes typical activities of daily living, like showering, brushing her teeth, and dressing in clean clothes. The chores around the house go undone unless I do them.
When she’s off her meds, it’s almost always a couple weeks into her first true depressive state that she starts taking them correctly again. She enjoys the ups, but not the downs. She just doesn’t seem to understand she can’t have one without the other, and she never gives up trying.
Because my mother was currently off her meds and as manic as I’d ever seen her, I hadn’t been surprised to get Ellmann’s call. I didn’t have all the details yet, but I’d been telling Ellmann the truth: this wasn’t her first arrest, and it wouldn’t be her last. Her arrests were almost always drug- or alcohol-related. My mother was a regular in the bars in Old Town, at college parties, and at raves. All of those things have high potential for drawing police attention.
The door behind the bench opened, and an older woman in a black robe climbed up and sat herself in front of the court. We were all instructed to rise while she did this, then permitted to sit when she was settled. At her nod, the bailiff went and opened a door on the left. A group of five men shuffled in. They were all wearing street clothes and handcuffs. They all appeared to have had a rough night. One by one, each case was called. The representative from the district attorney’s office stood and addressed the judge, making requests that largely had to do with bail. Those who had defense attorneys stood with them behind the opposite table. Each party made their requests, the judge made a ruling, and the next case was called.
I’m the oldest, five years older than my brother, who was actually an accident. I think it’s for this reason my mother feels about him the way she does. He’s her miracle, the baby that shouldn’t have been. My father had wanted a boy and had been more than a little pissed off when I’d turned out to be something else, something he’d punished me for regularly. He had made it clear to my mother they would continue trying until he got the little boy he wanted and deserved. Even in my mother’s broken mind, she’d known having more children with that man would be a mistake. So, in an uncharacteristic moment of clear and selfless thought, she had the delivery doctor tie her tubes, unbeknownst to her husband. Knowing this had happened, it made the existence of my brother just that much more precious.
The reason my father had wanted a baby boy was because domestic violence (perhaps the worst on record, according to local police), hadn’t been his only bag. He’d had another dirty little secret: unspeakable acts against little boys.
Now, when I was nine, ten, eleven, I couldn’t even pretend to be worldly or wise, but I had recognized the way my father had began to look at my brother was wrong; it had scared me. I hadn’t understood at the time what depraved thoughts had been running through his sick head, but I’d known they were bad. After the baby had been born, I’d made a point of standing between him and my father, the way my mother wouldn’t, the way she hadn’t ever stood between my father and me. There had been very few occasions when the man had laid an angry, hurtful hand on Zach.
Every time I’m called to pick my mother up from jail, the police station, or court, I’m reminded of a night thirteen years ago. I’d gone to pick my brother up from his afterschool class and learned my mother had collected him an hour earlier. By this time, I’d made it a point never to leave Zach unattended with my father. He couldn’t even look at Zach without frightening me anymore. I’d bummed a ride home and found the house dark, my mother gone. I’d known something was wrong.
After running through the house, I saw a bar of light under my brother’s closed bedroom door. It had been the only light on in the house. Never before or since have I experienced panic like I’d felt at that moment. Without much clear thought, I’d barreled through the door. My fear had been confirmed.
My father had been sitting beside my brother on the bed, dressed in only his underwear. Zach’s shirt was gone. Operating on instinct fueled by pure terror, I’d grabbed up a wooden baseball bat lying on the floor and charged my father swinging. He’d raised his arms to defend himself, but the bat glanced off his head. The blow had knocked him back and momentarily stunned him.
Horrified at what I’d done, I’d dropped the bat. I’d grabbed Zach and dragged him out of the room. We’d sprinted down the hall to the office where the crawl space was. For years, the crawl space had been Zach’s safe place, the place I’d sent him to keep him out of reach of my father, to make sure he never had to witness what my father was capable of. Zach had been hysterical, confused, and beyond scared. He’d been feeling everything I had felt. I’d wanted to stop and cry, too. But neither of us could have afforded that.
While Zach had locked himself in the crawl space, I’d run to the desk and groped around for the phone in the dark. I’d been able to hear my father shouting from beyond the office door. He’d been increasingly irritated with me
by this time because I’d refused to leave Zach alone with him. He hadn’t liked me much anyway, but this had just made it worse. Hitting him had been the final straw. He’d sworn to kill me. I can still remember what it felt like to hear him scream those words and have absolutely no doubt in my young mind he truly meant them.
When he’d started breaking through the office door with the bat, I’d forgotten about the phone and run to the gun cabinet. Even though I wasn’t a boy, like he’d wanted, when he was in one of his good moods, he had taken me to do boy things. He’d thought guns were a boy thing. From an early age, I’d learned to handle, shoot, and care for them.
My hands had been trembling so badly I’d been unable to get the tiny key in the lock on the cabinet. I’d grabbed the paperweight from the corner of the desk and chucked it at the door. The glass had shattered. He had nearly made it through the office door by the time I put my hands on a gun. His intentions had been clear, and I had understood perfectly that it was either going to be me or him. The thought of leaving him alone with my brother forever made me decide it had to be me.
I’d just reached into the drawer where the magazines and ammunition were kept when the last of the office door had splintered away. He’d run in and taken a swing at me. I’d dropped to the floor as I forced my shaking hands to put the loaded mag in the gun. He’d swung again when I fired the first shot. It had struck him center mass but hadn’t stopped him. Anger and hatred had seemed to drive him forward. I’d rolled out of the path of the bat and fired three more shots, my small forearms burning from the exertion of hefting the gun, pulling the trigger, and fighting the recoil. Four black dots had spotted his chest, and blood poured out of them. For a moment he’d stood completely still, frozen. Then he’d collapsed to the floor.
The police had arrived then; a neighbor had called 911 to report the racket. I collected my brother and got him out of the house. The police had taken us to the hospital for evaluation, followed by the police station for questioning. It had taken the police nearly six hours to locate my mother and another three for her to show up. When she had arrived, she’d stormed into the room where I’d been sitting with the detective.
“How could you, you little brat?” she’d shouted. “How could you do this? He was my husband! He was your father! You brat!”
She’d been shrieking, her voice shrill and abrasive. I hadn’t responded. I’d been numb then, from what I’d just experienced. But I was also long accustomed to tuning out her ranting, as even then it was nothing new. The detective had gotten up to intervene, but she’d ducked around him, racing up to me and slapping me. After the detective had thrown her out, she’d collected my brother and left. Just like she’d left me at school on a regular basis, she’d left me at the police station on the worst day of my life.
Inevitably, my mind flashes back to that night when I’m called to pick her up. I always want to leave her, the way she’d left me. It’s always a struggle not to. Leaving her wouldn’t accomplish anything. My mother doesn’t learn that way. And I don’t think it would make me feel any better, either. Still, it was this that filled my head while I waited for her case to be called. By the time I heard her name, I’d pretty much put it all behind me again, where it would wait to be dragged out again next time.
The case was heard quickly; my mother’s lawyer was present.
13
Bridget Grey was dressed in a black miniskirt that barely covered her derriere and a black halter-top covered in rhinestones and sequins. I easily imagined how the top would have glinted and sparkled under the lights of whatever club she’d been in last night. In the sunlight, I noticed her skin had been brushed with glitter, which drew attention to her perfect shoulders and ample breasts. Her heavy makeup was smeared, and it thickly ringed her bloodshot eyes. Her normally prefect blonde hair was matted and gross, sticking up in various places. She only had one shoe, carried in her purse, which she’d managed to hang on to somehow.
Even in her post-party state, she still easily drew the attention of almost every male within her immediate vicinity. And they weren’t seeing a woman too old to be dressed as she was, or a woman who had partied too hard. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes as the idiots practically drooled over her.
While her lawyer walked her out, the pair discussing something or other, I hiked back to the Saab. When I pulled up in front of the courthouse, my mother and Kenneth Weitz, her very expensive attorney, were standing in the morning sun, waiting. I switched on the flashers and barely had time to get out of the car before my mother slid in behind the wheel.
“What took you so long?” she snapped before slamming the door.
The flashers winked off, the engine roared, and the tires spun, leaving twin streaks of black rubber on the asphalt. An angry horn bleated as my mother jerked the Saab into traffic, cutting off another car.
“You’re welcome!” I called to her bumper.
I returned to the sidewalk, where I now spotted Ellmann. As he walked casually over to me, I wondered how long he’d been there. What was he doing at the courthouse at all?
“At least you brought her car this time,” the lawyer said.
“Next time, I’ll tell the cop who calls me to pick her up to go fly a kite, and then you can bring her home, Ken. How’s that sound?”
Weitz smiled a sick, lawyery smile, and I felt my gut roll.
“All I have to do is threaten to call your precious baby brother, and you’ll come running, Zoe darling. Who are we kidding?”
Turning on an expensive, no-doubt handmade leather shoe, the attorney waltzed away, probably planning what to buy with the haul he’d just taken for defending my mother in court this morning. Really, the two of them were perfect for one another. Both sleazy, selfish people who lived almost entirely in worlds of their own making.
Ellmann stopped beside me, his hands in his pockets. He was staring at the little lawyer strutting away. I could see something a bit stronger than dislike on his face.
“Bridget was in quite a hurry to get out of here,” he said. “The excitement of freedom, or embarrassment?”
I scoffed. “Neither. She wants to get to work. Despite everything, she takes her work pretty seriously, and she’s actually good at it.”
“At the accounting firm.”
“BGW and Associates. She’s the G. Because of her condition, they didn’t want to put her name on the building. At first they would only agree to her as a silent partner. But she negotiated the G. It also helps that she’s better at their jobs than they are; they need her. Which is why they put up with all her shit. Now, nice to see you, but I need to go.”
I turned and started walking. Ellmann fell in stride beside me.
“What do they do at BGW and Associates? Do you know?”
“You looked them up. I’m sure you saw the ‘Accounting and Investment Services’ part after their name.”
“Yeah. But I hoped you knew more.”
“Sorry. You know as much as I do. What are you doing here, anyway? Did you come here to interrogate me?” It sounded a bit harsher than I’d intended. Ellmann wasn’t the enemy. Actually, from everything I’d gathered so far, he seemed like a pretty decent guy. And I was starting to like him.
“A couple last-minute things to file,” he said. “Spotted your mom in the hallway with her snake-oil salesman. You were right about her attorney. Weitz isn’t a very nice guy.”
“No shit.” I hiked my bag up on my shoulder. “Listen, I don’t mean to be rude, but don’t you have work to do? Like maybe finding whoever put Stacy in the hospital? Or finding Tyler Jay?”
I reached the corner and hit the button for the crosswalk. Ellmann easily kept pace, his legs several inches longer than mine.
“I get it,” he said. “You’re having a shitty day. I won’t take any of this personally. In fact, let me give you a ride.”
“What makes you think I need a ride?”
It irritated me that Ellmann always seemed to know what I wasn’t saying. Norm
ally, I’m not this easy for people to figure out. Actually, I’m never this easy for people to figure out. Amy’s pretty good at it, but she’s been doing it her whole life. After five years of friendship, Sadie’d told me she felt like she still didn’t know me. So what was the deal with Ellmann? I didn’t know. And maybe I didn’t want to know.
“You obviously drove your mom’s car here, which was at the impound lot. So, where else would your car be? Come on, the lot’s like four or five miles from here; let me give you a ride. I’m over here.” He pointed and rounded the corner, walking toward the other side of the courthouse.
The light changed and the crosswalk signal winked on. Glancing at the light, I sighed and fell in behind Ellmann. The truth was, I was exhausted. I just didn’t want to walk that far.
Ellmann had snagged a primo place, one reserved for those who bleed blue. We climbed in, then he cruised away from the courthouse and over to the impound lot. He was about to ask me where I’d parked, until the sun gleamed off the unmistakable copper paint of the enormous barge.
“Never mind,” he said, making a left and stopping behind the Lincoln. “When do you get your truck back?”
I shrugged. I had no idea. The mechanic was on my list of people to call today. But who knew; it might be a week.
Suddenly an image of the truck flashed into my mind. It was stalled on the railroad tracks, a steam engine barreling toward it. I could hear the ear-piercing shriek of the train’s horn. Then the train smashed into the truck, shattering it to a million tiny pieces that exploded and rained down like confetti at a party.
“Hey, Earth to Zoe.”
Ellmann’s voice penetrated the thought, and I shook my head. I had no idea how long he’d been talking to me.
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m just a little tired.”
The Trouble With Murder Page 16