by Jay Allisan
“Well, you could’ve fooled me. You quit your meds, you skip therapy, you do everything you can to put yourself on edge, and then you go and listen to Carl’s goddamn defense? What the hell did you think was gonna happen?”
“I had to be there.”
“No, you didn’t. You knew it was going to fuck with your head, but I bet that’s exactly what you wanted. Am I wrong?”
I don’t answer. His expression hardens.
“You are crazy. You’re stupid and selfish and self-destructive, and I’ve reached my limit with that bullshit. I watched Kris die, and I watched Max die, and I’ve done every goddamn thing I can think of to get you straightened out, but none of it takes, does it? Fine, then. I give up. Go ahead and put an end to your misery. You’ll be putting me out of mine.”
“What’s that supposed to—”
“You know exactly what it means, Shirley, and I’m not kidding. I can’t take this shit anymore. You got nothing worth living for? Fine! Then put your gun in your mouth already and spare me the wait!”
He stares at me silently, demanding a response. Finally I mutter, “Dixon took my gun away.”
Paddy backhands me across the face and I fall out of my chair. The door bursts open and two officers run in, each grabbing one of Paddy’s massive arms. He doesn’t fight them, but he doesn’t move, either. He just looks at me, his face red, his eyes dark and hooded.
“Fine,” he says thickly. “If that’s how you’re gonna be, fine. But I’m not gonna stick around to watch anymore. I’m done. We’re done. Have a nice fucking life.”
He rips his arms free and walks out the door.
DIXON DRIVES me to the arraignment. I sit in the back, my hands cuffed in front of me, and stare at my shoes the whole way. Dixon doesn’t say anything about the welt across my cheek. He doesn’t say anything to me at all.
The crowd in front of the courthouse is bigger than ever. Twelve officers form a guard around me as Dixon leads me into the building. Some people scream death threats. Some people applaud. Cameras and microphones reach toward me over the barricades, and when I glance up I see Benny Afternoon in the crowd. He gives me a sad smile.
The courthouse is a ghost town, and my footsteps ring loud. Dixon walks me to the waiting room and stops me before I go in.
“Plead no contest,” he says. “And try to look sorry.”
“Dixon—”
“Just try to look sorry.”
Two charges of third degree assault are read against me, and I do as Dixon says. The judge waives jail time but fines me twenty grand, and then the restraints are taken off my wrists and I’m heading back to the car with Dixon. I sit in the back again and he drives toward Old Town without comment.
He pulls into the parking garage and turns the ignition off. He looks at me in the rearview mirror.
“You know what’s going to happen,” he says.
I nod.
He opens his door. “All right, then. Up we go.”
WE CLIMB to the eighth floor and turn left. The door to the captain’s office stands open. Dixon knocks anyway. Without looking up Shapiro says, “Come in.”
She’s decked out in layers of gold jewelry, her hair smoothed back in a sophisticated twist. She pretends to be deeply engrossed in her paperwork until Dixon and I sit down. Only then do her lips purse like I’m something distasteful.
She puts on a pair of reading glasses and skims more papers, glancing up at me now and then. She takes her time, and when she’s finally ready to get down to business I feel like I’m going to be sick.
“Shirley,” she begins, “your behavior is unacceptable. You’ve deliberately neglected both your prescribed therapy and your medication, in spite of multiple warnings as to the consequences of doing so. You have shown repeated errors in judgement and humiliated not only yourself, but your supervisors and this precinct. Over the past three months your recklessness has escalated, and now we’ve reached the point of no return. I wish I could say I was surprised, but I think we all knew this was coming.”
I stare down at her floor, spotlessly clean. I can feel her glare like the point of a lance.
Shapiro folds her arms across her desk. “I’ve made considerable allowances for you since the death of your husband, but I have nothing more to give. You are a danger to yourself, your colleagues, and to anyone who gets in the way of your personal vendetta, and I won’t put up with it any longer. You were warned another incident would be grounds for termination. You’ve had every chance to set things right. I’m sorry to see you were unable to rise above your flaws.”
She takes off her reading glasses and sets them aside. “Is there anything you’d like to say for yourself?”
“No,” I whisper.
Shapiro looks at Dixon. “Anything you’d like to say on her behalf, one last time?”
He shakes his head. I swallow hard and fight back tears.
“Then all that’s left is this,” Shapiro says. “You’re fired, Shirley. Turn in your badge and go.”
I look up at the roof, blinking rapidly. “Booking took—”
Dixon withdraws my badge from his pocket and lays it flat on the desk in front of me. I get one last fleeting look before it disappears into Shapiro’s desk drawer. She settles back in her chair and picks up a pen, regarding me coolly.
“You may go. There’s a box on your desk for your things.”
I stand, nod once, and walk out of her office a civilian. I make it to the seventh floor landing before I break down and cry.
I WALK the forty minutes from the precinct back home. I don’t have my car, I don’t have my wallet, and I didn’t have the guts to look at Whale when he offered me a ride. The box I carry is so sparsely filled it’s hardly a burden.
There wasn’t much in the way of farewells. Josie hugged me wordlessly, her shoulders hitching in a quiet sob, and Scarlett had studiously avoided me. Paddy wasn’t there. Dixon didn’t return. I just packed my little box and left.
The wind’s torn the last of the tears from my eyes by the time I reach the cathedral, but when I see my car parked in the street I choke up again. Presley. Thank God for Presley. I run for the door, for home.
But relief bleeds away as soon as I’m inside, leaving a hollow pit of fear. The lights are off. The shades are drawn. The cathedral is as lifeless as a tomb.
I set down my box and walk slowly through the darkened church. The couches sit squat and vacant in the living room, the kitchen clean but abandoned. I lean heavily on the railing as I climb the stairs to the loft.
The bed is made, the sheets smelling of fresh detergent. The floor’s been swept and the furniture dusted. I open the wardrobe. It’s empty.
I go to my room and finally turn on a light. The coat and bag I left at the courthouse are on my bed, a folded piece of paper on top. I sit down and stare at it for a while before I get the courage to read it.
The note is short, less than half a page even in Presley’s looping script. He says he’s sorry, that this isn’t what he wanted, but it’s what he had to do. He tells me to look after myself, and then he says goodbye.
They’re gone.
I fold up the note and drop it on the floor. I think about what Paddy said to me. I think of the revolver lying beneath my bed, and I want it.
But I stand slowly and walk woodenly, putting distance and then a door between me and my respite. I go to the living room, and in the bitter twilight of everything I’ve ever loved, I take up my place at the organ and let the music out.
9
TIME SLIPS away. Light comes and goes outside the cathedral, but inside it’s always dark. I play the organ, firing notes up pipes that gleam like the barrels of a gun. I turn my phone off. I drink the liquor cabinet dry.
When the doorbell rings I don’t answer it. Most of me thinks I imagined it. When it rings again I stumble to the entrance, turning the knob without checking who it is.
It’s Benny Afternoon. I shut the door.
The buzzer goes again before
I can take a single step, and I fling the door wide with murder in my eyes.
“Go the hell away.”
“No thanks,” Benny says, ducking smoothly under my arm into the foyer. He looks around. “Nice place you’ve got here.”
“Get out.”
“Do you know how long it took me to find you?”
“Get out.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll kick your ass.”
He looks me up and down, his nose wrinkling. “Yeah, I don’t think so. It’s been at least three days since you washed your hair, and I can smell the alcohol on your breath from here. I don’t think you’ve got the aggression to chase me out, much less the energy. You look like you haven’t eaten in a week.”
He’s right on all counts. My head feels woozy just from standing, and the trembling in my legs warns I won’t stay vertical for long. I slump down to the tiles. “What do you want, Benny?”
He sits cross-legged in front of me. “Same thing I’ve always wanted. To talk.”
“I don’t want to talk.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
“You should talk to someone, and it looks like you’re a little short of shoulders to cry on.” He bumps his glasses up his nose and gives me a smile. “I know we’re not friends or anything, and I do have kind of an ulterior motive here, but if you want to talk I’ll listen. I’m a good listener.”
“No you’re not. I keep telling you to go away and you keep coming back.”
Benny tilts his head thoughtfully. “That’s true, I guess. What I meant was I’m a good listener when it comes to the important stuff.”
He gets to his feet and offers me a hand, moving me away from the door. He opens it and steps out. “I’m going to go pick up some food. I’ll be back in half an hour. If you’re ready, I’d really like to hear your story. If not, at least you won’t be starved to death when I come bother you tomorrow. See you in a bit.”
He pulls the door shut behind him and I sit down again. I stare at the ceiling for a long time. Then I get my feet under me and head for the shower. I leave the door unlocked, just in case.
WE SIT on the floor in the living room and eat pad thai. Benny slurps noodles off flimsy wooden chopsticks like he hasn’t eaten for days, either. He’s got the build of someone in a loving relationship with food, and he dresses like he’s stepped out of the past. Suspenders, rolled sleeves, wing-tip shoes. Pretty dapper for such a babyface.
I spear a beansprout with my chopstick. “How old are you?”
Benny answers with his mouth full. “Twenty-nine.”
“Bullshit. I’m twenty-nine.”
He swallows. “Really? I thought you were older. Are you actually twenty-nine, or are you that perpetual twenty-nine that women cling to like—”
“I’m twenty-nine.”
“Okay, okay, I believe you.” He takes a long drink of soda and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m just about twenty-one. I graduated early. Asian parents, you know. Born and bred to be an overachiever. Not that a journalism degree was what they had in mind, but hey, you can’t please everyone.”
Benny helps himself to seconds and then thirds, but all too soon he trades his chopsticks for a notebook and pen. I watch him root around in his bag for something, and suddenly I’m having second thoughts.
“I don’t think I can do this,” I say.
Benny tosses me a bag of M&Ms. “Here. Everybody thinks better on chocolate. These ones even have peanut butter in them.” He pauses. “You’re not allergic to peanuts, are you?”
“No.”
“Oh, good. Then you’ll be fine.”
He fiddles with his phone for a minute before setting it on the table. A red light blinks beneath the image of an old fashioned microphone on the screen. Benny glances at me. “Uh, what do I call you? Now that you’re not—”
“Mordecai. Just Mordecai.”
“You understand that you’re being recorded, Mordecai? And you give your permission for this interview to be used in part or whole for publication?”
I don’t answer. Benny pauses the recording. “Mordecai?”
I shake my head. Tears are biting at my eyes, my breath’s rattling in my lungs, and I don’t know what I’m doing. Benny stuffs a napkin in my hand.
“It’s okay,” he says. “This’ll help you. Trust me, I know.”
“You have no idea,” I whisper.
Benny smiles, and there’s a familiarity in the way it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I know about loss, Mordecai. And I know what you’ve lost. But I also know there’s a lot more to the story, and I want to hear it. I want to help you. You could really use a friend in the press right now.”
I manage a weak laugh. “No offence, Benny, but you’re not exactly a heavy-hitter.”
“Not yet,” he says plaintively, “but my audience is growing, plus I’m one of the few in the business who don’t think you’re crazy. Also, I bought you dinner. I mean, I ate most of it, but you had enough, right? And I brought you M&Ms. That’s gotta count for something.”
I look down at the napkin crumpled in my hand. “The press really hates me, huh?”
“Oh, they’re crucifying you. Saying you set the precedent for someone like Carl to become a police officer in the first place, blaming you for Max’s depression, saying you don’t like kids…” He clears his throat. “But, ah, maybe you don’t want to hear that.” He waves his hand dismissively. “I wouldn’t worry about that stuff. They’re just trying to sell papers. And they’re bitter you won’t do interviews. And some of them just don’t like you. The point is, there’s not much going out right now that makes you look good. The consensus is you’ve snapped.”
“Maybe I did.”
“Nah, I don’t believe that. I’ve done my research on you, and I know you’re not crazy.”
I glance up. “If you’ve done your research on me you’ll know that’s not true. I was crazy long before Carl Winters came along.”
“You were a good cop,” Benny says. “You had to work harder than everyone else to prove yourself, and you did.”
“And look where that got me.”
“It got you into one of the most prestigious units in the city,” Benny says. “It helped you solve the Garrison case before you’d even graduated. And it introduced you to your husband.”
“I didn’t solve the Garrison case,” I say. “I wasn’t even on it. And I didn’t meet Max through the job. We met…”
Benny scrambles for his phone, and I throw the napkin at him. “Screw you, Afternoon. You can’t get me that easy.”
He activates the recording. “Uh-huh. You met?”
I lean against the couch and fold my arms. Benny blinks at me. “I’m going to take the chocolate back.”
For a moment I’m tempted to throw the M&Ms at him too, but instead I move them out of his reach. I tear the top off the bag and stuff a handful in my mouth. Benny smiles.
I eat another handful of chocolate, my eyes jumping between Benny and his phone. “This isn’t tabloid fodder,” I say quietly. “I’m not some celebrity who got abducted by aliens. This is my life.”
Benny motions to the M&Ms and I pass them to him. He takes a handful, then sets the bag on the floor between us.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.
My vision blurs and I reach for another napkin. “Yeah,” I whisper. “I think I do.”
Benny restarts the recording and we go through the spiel about permission and publication. He settles beside me, his notebook and pen balanced on his knee. We take turns dipping into the chocolate.
“I didn’t meet Max through the job,” I say at last. “Or at least not through the police department. We met at my part-time job, just a couple days after I was accepted into the police academy.”
I’m surprised to find a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. I run my thumb over Max’s wedding band, warmth rushing up and enveloping me
like an embrace. I can’t think about Max without missing him, without hurting and hating and wishing I’d done things differently. It’s been a long time since I remembered him like this. It’s been a long time since the thought of him made me happy.
I draw my knees up to my chest. “I was your age when we met. Max was a year older. I knew from the first time I saw him that he was something special…”
10
2004
June
I DIDN’T know how badly I wanted to be a cop until the day I was hired. I’d spent months on applications, interviews, and background checks, holding my breath and pretending that it wasn’t such a big deal. That it was just a job. But denial didn’t stop me from checking the mail obsessively, and when my acceptance letter finally came, it sure didn’t stop me from screaming myself silly and then getting blackout drunk.
I’d been working days in construction and nights at a hardware store, and I gave my notice at both in preparation for the academy. Since my construction crew had just finished a contract, my foreman let me go right away. The hardware store kept me for one last week.
Evenings were quiet at the little store, and I was the lone keeper of the late shift. I hadn’t seen a customer in half an hour and had less than that left on the clock, so it was with great surprise and equal dismay that I found myself running toward a tremendous clatter from the lumber aisle.
I swore under my breath as I came into view of the disaster. The bottom support of the lumber display had collapsed, pitching the entire stock of uncut wood onto the floor. The few boards that remained upright teetered dangerously before conceding to gravity.
In the middle of the pile stood a man about my age, a two-by-four held above his head and his eyes scrunched shut. I watched as the last board came crashing down, eliciting a full-body wince as it bounced off his defense, then another as it thudded to the floor. Hesitantly, he opened his eyes and took in the scene. His gaze froze when it reached me.