Dead Calm

by Lindsay Longford

  “A couple of hours ago. Tommy Joe Dorgan’s at the station downtown. Tyree’s waiting for me. Thought I’d give you a ride home first, though.” His lips did that goofy little twitch again as she grabbed his arm. “You don’t want to go home. You want to see him, don’t you? You can’t stand not knowing what he’s like, can you?”

  “Gosh, how’d you figure that out, detective?” She couldn’t help the excitement ripping through her. “Can you make that happen?”

  “Depends.” He guided her through the crowd with another of those casual touches that seared her skin. “I could be bribed.”

  “An upright cop like you?” She patted her chest and fluttered her eyelashes. “I’m shocked. Speechless.”

  “Not yet, but give me a minute. Or two.”

  She giggled.

  “Where are you parked? We’ll see what we can make happen.”

  “Promises, promises.” Beeping the lock on her car, she almost missed the shadow that passed over his face. “What is it, Judah?”

  He held the car door for her. “I went to see Angel.”

  Half stooping to enter, she froze. “You did? But you don’t like kids.”

  “She’s a witness.” But he didn’t smile. “And a victim. I was already at Poinciana General. I don’t know, Sophie. It seemed the thing to do at the time. So I went. Make of it whatever you want to. But I promised her I’d find the scum who murdered her mother. I keep my promises.”

  Straightening, Sophie brushed his face. “You will, Judah. I have faith in you.”

  His eyes turned that stormy blue that she’d learned meant he’d walled himself off from her. From everyone.

  “More than you have in yourself, I think.”

  “Yeah? How nice of you. But I don’t want your faith, Sophie. Your body? That’s never been in question, has it?”

  “Don’t work the attitude quite so hard, detective. I know what you’re trying to do.” With that, she slid behind the wheel, clipped the seat belt, and pressed the release lever for the trunk. Resting her forehead on the wheel in spite of its heat, she gathered herself together before looking up at him. In the glare of the sun, he was a tall silhouette, his features unseeable, his heart perhaps unknowable. “You unsettle me, Judah. But you don’t scare me. There are things we need to talk about. We need to clear the air.”

  “Do we?” His question was silky-smooth and sharp as a stingray’s sticker. “Now?”

  “No. I’d still like to see the interview.”

  He placed her luggage in the trunk and then came back to her. “You know the way. I’ll leave a pass for you at the front desk.”

  “Thank you.”

  She’d rolled down the car window, and he rested his hand there, inches from her own. He didn’t touch her. He lifted one finger, pressed it against the hot metal of the window frame, left it there. “Sophie?”

  “Yes?”

  “I—”

  “You what, Judah? Apologize? Missed me? Is either of those so hard to say?”

  “I apologize. And I—missed you.” He took his hand away. “I told you, you’ve turned me inside out. You and this case. Lack of sleep. The timing. Pick any or all of the above.” The side of his finger skimmed her hand. “I swear I don’t even know who I am these days. Don’t even know what I think—or feel—half the time. Bear with me?”

  “I can do that.” She left her hand near his. “For a while.”

  “Sophie, lately I feel like I’m sliding down an ice mountain and hanging on with my fingernails.”

  She heard the thin edge of despair in his voice. “Judah, I’m a doctor, but I can’t fix that. I wish I could.”

  He shrugged. “You’re right that we have to clear the air. But later. See you at the station.”

  When she entered the interrogation area, Judah motioned her toward the one-way window. Behind it, Tyree and a wide-shouldered guy, a kid, really, not more than sixteen, sat at a metal table bolted to the floor. Arms folded over the back of his chair, Tyree faced the kid. Neither one was saying anything.

  “Stay here. This is unusual, but it’s my case, my call to let you watch.” Judah strode to the door, stood a moment, then opened it and walked easily into the room.

  She didn’t recognize this man who circled the kid, paced in back of him until she thought the kid’s head would corkscrew right off. Once he smacked the back of the kid’s head, a light, stinging slap. It was obvious that the slap didn’t hurt, but after that, every time Judah passed in back of the youth, the kid flinched.

  Good cop, bad cop. She knew the routine. Anyone who watched television or went to the movies did. Seeing it in action, though, was a whole other ball game. This Judah would have scared her had she been sitting in the kid’s chair. There was something implacable, inexorable about Judah as he strolled casually around the room, not touching the kid again, but drifting close to him, leaning in until Sophie realized that the kid’s eyes now never left Judah. As Judah nodded, the kid’s head began to mirror Judah’s movement.

  Tyree left, came out into the room where she was, nodded to her. “Nice to see you, Dr. Brennan. This won’t take much longer.” He ambled out, headed down the hall.

  Behind the glass, Judah sat on the edge of the table, one leg braced on the floor, his other swinging idly back and forth. Each time he leaned forward, almost in the kid’s face, the boy tried to lean back.

  Tyree returned and carried a couple of colas into the room. Judah must have toggled a switch in the room because she could hear what they were saying.

  “Yeah, I was hanging around the church. So what, man?” the kid blustered. “Maybe I was getting religion, you know?”

  “Could be.” Judah nodded agreeably. “Don’t think so, though. You, Detective Jones? You think Tommy Joe was getting religion?”

  “Not at my church, he wasn’t.” Tyree handed the boy a cola. “Getting thirsty, Tommy Joe?” He watched as Dorgan sipped from the can. “Thought you might be. Gonna be a long night in here. A long, thirsty night.” He stretched and sat back down in his chair. “You know, Tommy Joe, you look like a kid who’s got a chance to do the right thing for himself. You look like a guy who’s smart enough to see that.”

  “Not this guy.” Judah swung his leg hypnotically. “He thinks he’s being smart by not telling us what he knows about a lot of things. Like the graffiti around town, the bag of burning crap left at the A.M.E. Church. About the attack on the Vietnamese woman, for instance.”

  Cola dribbled down the boy’s chin.

  “That’s not smart, Detective Jones. That’s plain stupid.”

  “I think he’s scared, not stupid. That right, Tommy Joe? Somebody got you so scared you can’t see what’s right in front of your nose?”

  “That he’s the one left taking the fall?” Judah patted Tommy Joe on the head and ignored the way the boy pulled into himself. “Fine with me. I don’t care who goes off to prison. No skin off my nose. All those years in prison. How about you, Tommy Joe? It’s going to be the skin off your nose, though, isn’t it?” He touched the boy’s nose, and the kid fell forward, sobbing, his hands over his head.

  “I never meant anything bad to happen. Solo and those other dudes thought it would be fun to scare her! She’s not one of us! I thought we were going to egg her house, maybe chuck a stone at her window. I didn’t know they were going to break in! I didn’t! I didn’t! I saw how scared she was, and when I heard the baby, I got so scared I peed in my pants and Solo laughed. He laughed! I grabbed that baby and ran and ran.”

  Sophie covered her mouth with both hands to keep from crying out.

  Judah’s shoulders drooped for a minute. Then, so softly Sophie had to lean forward to hear, he asked, “That how it went down? Were you there when they beat the woman to death, Tommy Joe?”

  “No!” The boy’s whole body shook with his sobs. “I heard about that the next day.”

  Sophie could see the raw edges of his fingernails.

  “I ran with the baby, that’s all. She was
so little. So quiet. And there was all that noise. I didn’t want her to make more noise. I thought she would be safe at the church.”

  “And that no one would know you were involved, right?”

  “I didn’t want Solo and Ace to find her. I was scared Solo was going to do something awful to her, and then when I ran out, I knew he would kill me if he found me. Because I’d been there. Because I knew.”

  As he lay with his face cradled in his arms, Sophie felt immense sorrow. For the woman she’d treated, for Angel. For this kid who’d tried to do the right thing but not soon enough. She felt sorrow for Judah, too, for the look in his face, a look that said so clearly what he was thinking: Tommy Joe Dorgan was one more proof of mankind’s ugliness.

  Suddenly Judah kicked the leg of the table and left the interrogation. Through the open door of her room, Sophie watched as he leaned against the wall outside.

  Eventually Tyree and the boy walked out. Tyree crooked a finger at a uniformed cop who came over, cuffed the kid, and walked him away.

  Sophie stayed where she was.

  As Tyree and Judah came toward her, Tyree grabbed Judah’s shoulder, stopping him, and said, “Look, Judah, he is stupid. Ignorant at the very least.”

  “You’re defending him?”

  “I’m saying what I see. He was in over his head, not smart enough to know how to handle the situation, but he saved that baby. You know he did. And you know what would have happened if he hadn’t taken her out of there. He’s just a mutt, just a kid.”

  “Mutts are dangerous—” Judah shook off Tyree’s grip “—even when they don’t mean to be. You know that.”

  “Yes. But this kid isn’t evil. He made a mistake. Mean, stupid, dangerous. He’ll have to pay for that mistake. But at the last minute, when push came to the proverbial shove, some goodness in him made him save that little girl.”

  “Not that I can see. Let it go, Tyree.” Judah walked away.

  When he returned, his face was still closed off and fierce.

  “All right, Sophie, I wanted you to see that. I wanted you to be face to face with what I deal with every day. I deal with scuzzy people. You know how the saying goes, ‘lie down with pigs, get up smelling like one’? This is my life, Sophie. I’m not a nice guy.”

  “I never said you were.”

  “That’s right. You haven’t.” His bark of laughter held no humor. He leaned against the wall of the empty room as if he needed it to hold him upright. “Shocked now?”

  “No.”

  “Ready to go clear the air then?”

  Before she could answer, he swore and reached for his cell phone, listened, clicked it shut. “A patrol car spotted two guys who fit the description of those sterling gentlemen, Solo and Ace. Hell, why do you suppose mopes always go for names like that?” He glanced at her, away. Hesitant. “Afterwards?”

  “Yes.” She took a shivery breath. “Yes. But not at my house. On the beach near the pier.”

  He narrowed his eyes, understanding immediately. “That’s how it’s going to be? Neutral territory?”

  She nodded. “Call first. I don’t care how late it is. I’ll meet you there.” Trembling inside, she turned and left the room.

  She had been shocked, upset by the violence. Nothing had been done to the boy. It was the violence in the atmosphere, what that emotional violence had done to Judah that left her shaking. Rooted as he was by his family and his faith, Tyree was fortified against the brutality and ugliness. Judah didn’t have those resources. She’d had a glimpse of the way Judah tapped into himself, drew from whatever was there, and soldiered on.

  Every battle killed something in him, wounded him.

  Soon there would be one case too many, and then the wound would be a mortal one. She suspected this case might be the one. The soul could only take so much.

  He’d said earlier he felt as if he were hanging on by his fingernails. He was. She understood now.

  Days passed. Judah didn’t call. She couldn’t believe how much she missed him, how shockingly lonely she felt without his teasing, without him.

  She wondered, too, how far down his icy mountain he’d slid. But she didn’t call him. She would give him time. Space.

  But it was killing her.

  But Jeannette called. She’d kept her word. Sophie had been approved as Angel’s foster parent. The paperwork for the adoption had been started. It would, as all bureaucratic processes do, take time, Jeannette reminded her. “But, Sophie, I think by spring you can make her officially yours. For good.”

  It was for good, too. The sounds of Angel during the night, her soft cooing in the morning—all were miracles to Sophie, filling her with such happiness that she felt guilty.

  Every morning as the sun touched the beach, she tucked Angel into a soft carrier in front and ran with her down the hard-packed sand, singing any song that came into her head. And Sophie talked to Angel constantly. An unending stream of words and stories. She told Angel over and over what a wonderful baby she was and how much she was loved.

  Sophie talked to her, too, about Judah.

  Whatever opinions Angel had about Judah, she kept to herself, quiet as usual, merely watching Sophie’s face as she talked and wept and raged while Judah kept his distance.

  On a reduced schedule from the ER, Sophie found she had time to read the paper, to discover that Henry “Solo” Moynes and Albert “Ace” Hershey had been arrested based on evidence from an unnamed witness and were awaiting trial. They had been found breaking into a trailer at The Palms. Bail had been denied. As the papers continued to be filled with more details about Le Duc Nhu’s murder and the abandoned baby, Poinciana grew quiet with a sense of profound shame and something else that permeated the town, curdling it.

  Sophie had thought that since the murder was solved and the attacks on the religious houses had stopped, life would return to normal.

  But it didn’t.

  The crimes, with the hatred and intolerance that lay behind them, had left people stunned. No one seemed to know how to handle this horror that had tainted their lives. No one wanted to talk about the cause of the crimes because the underlying fear was that if you were different in Poinciana, you didn’t know who to trust anymore.

  There was still that ugliness simmering beneath the surface.

  It was as if the murder and attacks had stripped away the pretext of civility. Shame, anger, and resentment made themselves at home in Poinciana, mocking its holiday decorations and symbols of love and peace on earth.

  At the hospital and in town, Sophie watched as the people she knew and cared about treated each other with suspicion. Even Cammie seemed less open, less friendly with some of the other staff. Billy Ray, however, beamed at everyone through his stringy hair and mopped with a vengeance. He was the hero of the hour. Because he and Tommy Joe had lived in the same trailer park, The Palms, Billy Ray had been there the night the distraught boy had come running to the abandoned trailer Tommy called home. The Coast Herald reported that it was Billy Ray who’d told Tommy to call 911 and give the baby’s location.

  After Tommy Joe had made the call, Billy Ray figured he was responsible for Angel’s safety and followed Judah whenever he was at the hospital, thinking in his confused way that Judah would take the baby away again.

  A week after the arrests, the ministers from the A.M.E. Church and the Second Baptist met with the rabbi from Beth Israel and other religious and community leaders in Poinciana.

  Something had to be done or there would be more violence. If not this week, this year, then the next. Hatred and suspicion and intolerance always, always resulted in violence—sooner or later. History and their own faiths had taught them that. Their religions, different in their specific tenets, shaped these men and women to believe that love could vanquish hate, that understanding could conquer intolerance.

  As meetings were scheduled and committees formed, Sophie recognized some of the names that began to appear in the paper. Yvonna. Mr. Dai, the translator Judah and Tyree
had used. Lolly, the nurse from the pediatric ward. People of optimism and hope, pushing back the darkness.

  Just as she did, in her own way.

  Judah called three days after the arrests. She’d given up expecting him to call and had tried with all her strength to cut him out of her heart. She’d understood too well why he’d allowed her to be present at the interrogation. He’d wanted her to see him as he saw himself. And then he’d regretted his decision and avoided her. She knew his patterns. Staying away was his choice. But in spite of her joy with Angel, Sophie found that Judah’s absence was a constant ache.

  But, as she’d promised, she met him at the beach near the pier after she’d taken Angel to the baby-care center at the hospital.

  Long before she’d ever dreamed about Angel, Sophie had been the gadfly stinging the hospital administration into establishing the center. She’d finally sold them on the idea when she’d shown them statistics proving that in the long run it would be a cost-saving move. At the time she’d never expected to benefit from the idea. Now, with Angel, she could make it all work.

  Judah was waiting when she drove up.

  She wanted to slap herself for the jitters that ran under her skin as she walked toward him. She wanted to slap him for making her walk toward him.

  “I’m surprised you came.” He straightened from his slouch against the picnic table.

  “I told you I would. Like you, I keep my promises.” She wrapped her arms around her waist to keep from reaching out to him. “By the way, congratulations on solving several cases all at once. A real coup for you and Tyree. You know how grateful I am that Solo and Ace are behind bars. I have concerns about the boy, Tommy Joe, though.”

  “I heard you posted bail for him.”

  “I’m a fool, right? But Billy Ray told me about that boy, and I wanted to give him a second chance.”

  “You did what you had to do.”

  His stance and voice were so distant that Sophie wondered why he’d bothered to call. But she knew why she’d come to meet him, here in daylight where there was no possibility of succumbing to the pull of the chemistry between them. She walked straight up to him, unfolded her arms and took his terrifyingly distant, unbelievably dear face between her palms and bet the whole pot on the next few minutes. “We have to talk about George.”