Mitigating Circumstances

by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg

  “Don’t look up,” he said. “They didn’t see us anyway, but…that was Judge Abrams that just walked by.”

  They quickly jumped into his car and left, Lily exclaiming loudly, “Carol, shit. Do you have any idea how many seconds before everyone—”

  Richard cut her off. “They’re going to know one day soon anyway. What’s the big deal? You should hear the rumors circulating about her.”

  Lily ignored him and continued. “Butler might not want us working together if he found out.” It was useless to argue with him about keeping their relationship under wraps. On this issue, they didn’t agree. Since he was almost divorced and she had been separated, he thought they had every right to see each other and had told her it was silly to be so uptight. “What about Carol?”

  “First, never call her Carol; she only wants to be addressed as Judge Abrams. I bet she has her husband call her that in bed. The funniest thing is that she can’t sit still for long—must be genuinely hyperactive—so she keeps calling recesses and it’s clogging up her calendar.”

  Should have been me, Lily thought, but instead said, “She’s a smart woman and a hard worker. She’ll work it out. Anyway, she can keep the black robe. All I want is the parking space.”

  They were a block from the restaurant, stopped at the light. She turned to Richard. “Take me back to get my car and I’ll follow you to your house. I don’t want to come back here and run into someone else from the office.”

  When they both pulled up in front of Richards house, only a few minutes away, Lily got out and he swept her up in his arms and carried her through the front door and straight to the bedroom. He dropped his clothes on the floor and crawled under the covers, motioning for Lily to join him. On clean, crisp sheets, with soft classical music and candlelight, she let him hold her and stroke her gently, but she refused to take off her clothes and he didn’t push. First they snuggled in the bed on their sides, Lily’s back against his front. The wine had warmed her and she felt locked in a tight cocoon, safe and protected.

  “This is called spooning, you know,” he whispered in her ear. “We fit together just like spoons. Ever heard that one?”

  “Somewhere,” Lily answered. His breath in her ear tickled and she began laughing. His arms tightened around her waist, pulling her even closer. Then he placed a hand on her shoulder and rolled her over onto her back. He moved on top of her, pressing his erection against her stomach, then her pubic region, rubbing against her genitals through her dress and hose. Suddenly, Lily felt trapped, unable to move. The lights were low and she could barely see his face. All she saw was this dark figure looming over her, pinning her to the bed. “Get off, Richard,” she said. He leaned down and kissed her neck with moist lips, ignoring her. “Let me up,” she said in a voice fringing on panic. “Let me up.”

  Richard rolled off her onto his back. “Shit,” he said, staring at the ceiling, refusing to look at her, his erection subsiding. “Shit,” he said again in frustration, and the words flew through the air and hit her, no different than a slap across her face. Lily sat up, straightening her clothes, her sense of well-being evaporating.

  “I told you it would never be the same. When you get on top of me like that, it reminds me of the rape. He held me down, held us both down.”

  Richard was silent. He didn’t reach for her or try to comfort her. The atmosphere inside the room was heavy with disappointment. Lily could feel it.

  “I think you should start dating other women, Richard. Go on with your life.”

  “Lily…“he said, finally turning to face her.

  “No, please listen to me. You’re not being realistic about this. Do you really want a relationship with someone with all these problems? I keep trying to tell you.”

  Rolling over onto his side, Richard touched her hand and then pulled away. “Do you really think I’m that shallow, Lily? Every human being has problems. I don’t exactly see life through the head of my dick.”

  Her eyes cut to him and quickly looked away. She had tried to end the evening at the restaurant, when everything had been right. He had been the one who had insisted. If sex was so unimportant to him, why did he keep pushing himself on her every time they were together?

  “Haven’t we already had this conversation? You’re blowing this all out of proportion now.” Annoyance was beginning to show in his voice as he swung his legs to the side of the bed.

  Even though she tried to stop it, she felt her anger rising. “Blowing it out of proportion. Jesus,” she said, jumping from the bed and standing there. “You don’t understand shit about what happened to me. You’re a fucking man, that’s why. No ones ever held you down and forced you to have sex with them. Just forget it. That’s what you all say. What’s the big deal anyway? Right? Just wash it out and go on to the next one.” She was pacing back and forth in front of the bed now, waving her arms in the air.

  Slowly standing and walking to her, he took her hands and pulled her to him. “You took it all wrong. What I meant was you’re blowing the sexual thing between us out of proportion, not the rape. Do you think for a minute that I don’t know what this has done to you? My God, I’ve been prosecuting rape cases for years. Rape is a devastating crime of violence, a loss of will. I might be a man, but believe me, I understand more than most men. I love you.” He put his arms around her and engulfed her. “When you love someone, you take the bad with the good. You hear me?” He lifted her chin to his face. “And, Lily, it’s going to be good. Have faith. Listen to me. It’s going to be great. Come on, let’s go sit by the fire in the living room. You just seemed so happy tonight, so much like your old self. I thought…I don’t know what I thought…that you wanted it as much as I did.”

  “Obviously, I don’t know what I want right now,” she said, following him down the hall. It was the truth.

  Classical music still filled the air, and Richard left Lily sitting by the fire while he went to the kitchen, returning with a big crystal bowl filled with strawberries. The fire was warming her back, crackling and popping. Sitting Indian-style in front of her, Richard started feeding her strawberries, but her taste buds were dead again and they were nothing more than mush in her mouth. Impulsively she pushed him over onto his back, the bowl of strawberries spilling out on the carpet. Then she pinned his arms down with her own and looked down in his face. “How do you like it?” she said, pushing down hard on his arms, feeling in control again.

  He looked her right in the eye and smiled. “I like it any way you like it.”

  Still holding his arms down, Lily bent down and kissed him tenderly on the mouth. She then let go and collapsed on top of his body. “I really do love you,” she whispered. “I never knew a man could be like you. I never thought I could feel so close to another person.”

  He put his hands in her long hair and she sat up. “It’s almost nine,” she said. “I have to go.”

  While Richard picked up the strawberries, Lily got her purse and opened her compact to put on some lipstick. “Sorry about the mess,” she said, leaning over to help him. When they finished, she began to brush the tangles out of her hair. Richard took the brush from her hand and started slowly pulling it through her hair, causing her scalp to tingle. “Do it like this,” she said, turning her head upside down while he continued. Then she tossed her head back and grabbed him, pressing her body against his.

  “You’ll have to beg,” he said, smiling. “That’s my new philosophy. If you want me from now on, you’ll have to beg.” They walked arm in arm to the door.

  “Beg, huh?” Lily said, arching her eyebrows. “And what happens if I don’t?”

  The smile fell from his face and he leaned against the door frame, remained there as she walked down the steps. When she reached the bottom, she looked back up to wave at him, but the door was closed and he was gone. She stood there staring at the door, hugging herself against the chill. The shrill sound of a siren rang out in the distance, and she could see flashing red lights streaking down the street f
ar below. If things didn’t change, she told herself, and soon, real soon, Richard’s door would be closed forever. She saw herself beating on it until her fists were bloody, pleading with him to let her in, while inside he was moving his body up and down on top of a faceless woman.

  CHAPTER 29

  “Bruce,” the voice called from somewhere faraway, and he saw his mother’s rosy cheeks and smelled her Ivory soap-scrubbed skin as she leaned down to tie his shoelaces. He was in the kitchen, warming his hands over the open furnace before heading out into the cold for school. “Ill make you some scrambled eggs and bacon, even if it is lunchtime, if you get up right now.” The voice belonged to his wife, Sharon, calling from the doorway of the small bedroom. He tried to shut it out, to return to the dream, wanted to go back until his mother had given him that big sloppy kiss she gave him every morning, but it was gone.

  He rolled over onto his back and opened his eyes to the ceiling. Somehow he had managed to sleep through the daily door slamming, toilet flushing, water running, and arguing that woke him every morning as his three kids prepared for school. Normally he would have gotten up and headed for the bathroom, trying to keep his eyes half closed, urinate, and then return to catch a few more hours of sleep once the front door shut and the house was quiet. Still in his white boxer shorts, he trudged toward the kitchen, down the narrow hall, toward the sound of bacon crackling in the skillet. The aroma made his mouth water. Sharon knew he’d go for the breakfast; there were few surprises after twenty years.

  She was wearing an aqua sweat suit, one of four identical sweat suits she kept in a little bin in the closet, allowing her to dress in there with the door shut and not wake him each morning. He had not worked the day shift for at least a year, and although he seldom saw the kids, except when he stopped by the house for dinner and on his days off, his wife didn’t object. From the old school, long married to a cop, she didn’t look to him for much in the way of parenting other than acting as a disciplinarian. On those occasions, mere threats of their father’s wrath was sufficient to do the job.

  The bacon was out of the pan now, the eggs in, and she placed a steaming mug of black coffee in front of him before returning to the stove. The sweat suits were so unflattering, he thought, worse now that she’d gained weight again. Her backside was as broad as it had been when their last son was born. But as she set the plate of eggs and bacon in front of him, with two pieces of wheat toast buttered just right, he looked at her soft brown eyes and lovely face without regret. Given the chance, he’d marry her again, broad ass and all.

  She took a seat in the cane-backed chair across the breakfast table from him. “Tommy needs money for the yearbook by tomorrow. I told him he could buy it because it’s his senior year. The insurance on the car is due, probably overdue, and yesterday the orthodontist said they couldn’t continue treating Kelly if we don’t make the last three payments. I have three hundred and seven dollars in the checkbook and it’s eight days till payday.”

  Cunningham spoke with a mouthful of eggs. “You got any good news?”

  “I’m pregnant,” she said, looking him square in the eye.

  “No, you’re not,” he said, almost choking on a piece of bacon.

  “Yes, I am,” she said, and not a muscle twitched in her full face.

  Cunningham dropped his fork on the table and tried to recall the last time they had had sex. He didn’t remember. He knew it had been a long time because the need was getting real bad. He’d been tempted to wake her the other night at two o’clock when he’d finally got off work. He smiled and shoved the empty plate away, downing what was left of his coffee.

  Placing his fingers inside his boxer shorts, he sucked in his stomach and tried to make the muscles that were left in his biceps bulge. “Follow me,” he said, shaking his butt from side to side like a girl. “I have something to show you in the bedroom.”

  Her aqua sweat suit on the floor, his shorts under the covers at the foot of the bed, he pulled her to him and felt her warm, soft breasts against his chest. He nuzzled his nose deep into her neck and said in her ear, “You’re not really pregnant, are you?”

  “Nah,” she said, “but it worked, didn’t it?”

  “I’ll show you what really works,” he said, taking her hand and putting it between his legs. “Works every time.” At least that was one thing about his body that functioned as well as it had twenty years ago, he thought. This was one of the reasons she liked the night shifts.

  Before he left, he told her, “Be sure and have the kids watch the local news tonight. Might see a face they recognize.”

  Cunningham strode past the records department en route to the investigation bureau, knowing he must stop at the captain’s office briefly to go over everything again before he met the Channel 4 News team due at the station in an hour. He saw Melissa head down at the desk, the ever present cigarette smoldering in the ashtray. “I’m going for chicken-fried steak with cream gravy in a few minutes,” he lied. “Want to go?”

  She looked up, took a pull on the cigarette, and blew the smoke out with the words: “You’re such an asshole, Cunningham.” She then bent back down to her work.

  Her hair was slicked back, her face carefully made up, and from this range she looked dramatic and pretty, almost like a ballerina. He stopped and slapped his hands on the countertop. “Got anything for me, gorgeous?”

  “I’ve got herpes. Want some?” she said without smiling, still head down.

  After a few moments she removed a stack of computer printouts and walked to the counter. She was wearing a mid-calf black rayon dress, belted around her tiny waist with a wide patent-leather belt. Through the sheer fabric her hipbones protruded on either side of her concave and nonexistent stomach. Cunningham thought of his wife’s abundant sponge-rubber flesh, how good she’d felt beneath him that morning, and wondered if Melissa was even able to engage in sex. Her body looked as though it would snap like a dry twig.

  She fixed him with her soulful eyes, lined in black eyeliner. “I’ve narrowed it down to about fifty red compact cars. I’m waiting for D.M.V. and records checks on the owners.” She took a sheet off the top of the printouts, with the license plate given by the neighbor printed at the top in her cramped handwriting, and lines and lines of number and letter combinations listed below with slashes drawn through them. Turning the paper so he could see it, she said, “See, what I’m doing now is trying look-alikes. Some people have learning disabilities or they just can’t see as well as they think.” She showed him an example by drawing a number three on a piece of paper and then making it into an eight. “Also, the letter B can be mistaken for an eight.”

  “Melissa, doll,” he said, “how many times do I have to tell you that you’re the best? If you would just gain some weight, I bet you could pass the next exam. You’d make a damn fine officer.”

  Her eyes drifted down and she suddenly started coughing, a deep, hacking cough that shook her frail body and caused her eyes to tear. Once the spasm had passed, she said, “I’ll let you know when I have something interesting.”

  As he passed the end of the counter, he saw her back at her desk, lighting a fresh cigarette with her lighter held between her callused fingers, sitting on her cushion, spreading her elbows out and leaning close to the work in front of her.

  He called the officer tailing Manny Hernandez on his cellular phone, but Manny had been in all day, showing his face only once to get into his car and drive to the local market at about one in the afternoon, returning with what looked like groceries. Manny’s prints hadn’t been found on the purse, or he would already be in custody instead of lounging around his house, probably high on drugs. He wasn’t even aware that his brother had been made on the homicide, but by tonight he would know, and the heat inside that house should rise about fifty degrees, Cunningham thought. Hot enough to make him want to get out, to make him possibly do something rash.

  After clearing his press release with the captain, Cunningham leaned back in his chair
, feet on his desk, with the composite drawing made from statements made by Manny in his lap, waiting for reception to call him when the news team arrived. He glanced down at the drawing, leaned back, and looked at the water spots on the ceiling, then glanced back at the drawing again. These drawings never looked that realistic, but this one took the prize. It reminded him of those sketches made from people who said they were abducted by space aliens, like something from a dream that was distorted.

  Hell, he thought, sitting up and slamming his feet on the floor, the little fucker could have made the whole thing up. Maybe he knew the shooter and planned retaliation on his own after things blew over. He tossed the paper on his desk and hurried to the men’s room to check his hair and tie before the news team came. He was wearing a brown jacket that he reserved only for court appearances and turned his head, trying to see which side looked better today. Thank God, he thought, they only filmed from the waist up, and his shoes would be out of camera range. He hadn’t even been able to wear the brown ones. Sharon had thrown them away last week.

  Back at his desk, he removed the best picture of the three given to him by the victim’s sister, one taken at least four years ago with one of her little girls. This was the one that made her look pretty, with her cheek pressed to her daughter’s and both of them smiling. She must have been fifty pounds lighter then, he thought. He had promised her sister that her record of prostitution would not be released to the press; it was the least they could do for her, for the kids.

  The filming with the press went well. Cunningham didn’t stumble over his words and felt he came off looking good for the department. Once they filled in the spot, they could bring up the fact that the murder would not have happened if Bobby Hernandez had been arrested immediately following the offense, which didn’t make the department look so great but was just how the wheels of justice turned any way you wanted to look at it. At least the wheels turned, Cunningham thought, thinking bitterly of Ethel Owen. There was also that little ironic twist to the story that the reporter liked a lot, that the murderer had himself been murdered. Cunningham kind of liked that part himself. Made it all neat and tidy, at least on the Barnes case. The only problem was that it was still his job to find the person responsible for Hernandez’s death, and he was swimming upstream on that one. Back at his desk, he opened the gray metal filing cabinet and counted the open homicides, some so cold that he would soon have to place them in inactive status. There were twelve. Just then the phone rang and he grabbed it. It was Sharon.