Parts Per Million

by Julia Stoops

She laughed without smiling and turned the key in the ignition. “Why?”

  I didn’t say, I just have this feeling. “I’ll watch Adrian.”

  “Bless you. But the lobby’s horrible. I’ll get you a pass and get you into the staffroom. There’s a sofa in there, and coffee. I’ll need to feed him before I go in, though, or he’ll cry nonstop.”

  Adrian cried nonstop anyhow. And lacking the requisite soft parts, I apparently wasn’t much comfort. After ten minutes of incompetent rocking, I put him back in his stroller. I was stirring cream into my coffee when Kate returned to the staffroom.

  “Let’s go,” she said. Her face was blotchy. She swung the stroller around and marched out. Thinking I must have screwed up the childcare in a really big way, I tipped the coffee down the sink, rinsed the mug, put it upside down on the dish drainer. I caught up with her at the elevator. Eyes forward like strangers we descended to the lobby.

  “Look,” I said. “I wasn’t sure exactly what to do—”

  Kate marched out through the glass doors. I handed back my laminated pass with the big green V on it. Signed out. Joined Kate on the sidewalk. She had her arms folded. I lifted my eyes away from the extra cleavage it made in her robin’s-egg-blue fuzzy V-neck sweater.

  “Under tremendous pressure,” she said. She made air quotes, and her voice was singsongy with rage. “Jeopardizing relationships. Unpatriotic. Unprofessional. Bad timing.” Her eyes came down from the sky and clamped onto mine. “Swear to me, Irving Fetzer, there was not one word in what you gave me that wasn’t true.”

  Trying not to sound relieved it wasn’t about Adrian, I said, “Everything was exactly as we found it.”

  She hugged herself tighter and looked up at the building that housed her office, her career. “I pushed hard to get it published. He warned there’d be backlash. I said I’d take it. But I never said I’d write a follow-up whitewash.”

  Later that evening while Nelson was asleep on Kate’s sofa and Franky was out getting Thai food, me, Jen, and Kate sat in her kitchen. Jen poked around the internet, and we learned that Nate Junior, president of Nathan Dobrin’s department store, the Herald’s biggest advertiser, was also a Harry Lane alum and generous donor. His wife’s brother was a fellow at the Heritage Foundation. The Dobrin auditorium at Harry Lane had been donated by the late Nate Senior. Nate Junior was probably pissed off. Nate Junior had probably threatened to yank his advertising.

  But before that evening’s digging, and after I dropped Kate off at her place, I borrowed her car and went to the police bureau to file a missing-persons on Deirdre.

  What was my relationship with the person in question? Friend, housemate. Next of kin? Her husband. Where is he? Sick. Any reason I could think of why she might go missing? She’s pretty shaken up, I said. Our household was attacked yesterday.

  The officer said, “Southeast Twelfth and Novi? I heard about that, yeah.” Then he walked away. I didn’t know whether we were done or not. The paperwork wasn’t completed, so I figured I should stay. I was standing at a counter. There were no chairs. My feet hurt like hell. Could smell the anxiety coming off me. About five minutes later the officer came back with a detective I recognized from the day before. He was white, about my age, crew cut, gray mustache. “Oberlinder,” he said. The guy was nice to me. Didn’t exactly say sorry we made you sit in the drizzle for hours like you run a meth house. Instead he took me to a small room with hard chairs. Brought me coffee. Said he’s real sorry she’s run off. Said she looked pretty traumatized at the time, so it’s no surprise. Said he’ll take the case on personally. So, when he asked if I have any other concerns, my mouth articulated what I hadn’t shared with a soul up till then. “She’s been clean for the last nine months,” I said. “I’m pretty sure. But she has a—history of hard drug use. And she’s been drinking heavily lately.”

  And suddenly it turned into a debriefing. Oberlinder’s questions came like gunfire. Finally he got to the part about how it might turn out to be “a fatal.”

  “Oh, Christ,” I said, and swallowed.

  Oberlinder lifted one eyebrow. The light hummed overhead. It was way too bright. My eyes had gone wet.

  I said, “Up till now it’s just been this nebulous possibility.”

  Oberlinder looked away and I mentally thanked him for the privacy. “More coffee?” he asked.

  “No. Thanks. Thing is, he doesn’t know.”

  “Who doesn’t know what?”

  “Her husband. He doesn’t know about her history.”

  Oberlinder scanned the first page of the form. “Mr. Nelson? You said he’s sick right now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We need to deal with next of kin.”

  “Please,” I said. My hands face up on the desk. The cut on my palm swelling red. For the first time I understood what I might be losing. “Please. She’s become like a daughter to me. If you learn anything, talk to me first.”

  “How sick is he? Is he incapacitated?”

  “He’s . . . he’s sedated right now.”

  Oberlinder put down his pen and touched his fingers to the edges of the form. “You folks had a rough time yesterday. This can’t be helping.”

  I had to swallow, and swallow again.

  “She have any relatives?”

  “She’s Irish. She . . . her mom’s apparently dead. Didn’t know her dad.”

  Oberlinder nods for a while. “If I call, and he’s still sedated, I’ll ask for you.”

  I wanted to tell him how much that meant to me. “Thank you,” is all I said.

  “He’s not going to stay stoned much longer,” said Kate.

  “And we can’t stay here much longer,” I said. “We’ll head home tomorrow.”

  We looked down at Nelson lying on Kate’s poufy sofa. His face was soft with sleep. I wanted him to stay that way until Dee turned up and then he’d smile again.

  Adrian threw a red plastic fish and shrieked. Franky was in the kitchen helping Jen return the pile of calls and emails.

  Kate shrugged. “I’m on probation. I’ll come by tomorrow and help you clean up.”

  On the TV news behind us, the anchor said that since Saddam hadn’t surrendered, the beginning of a seventy-two-hour window for invasion had begun.

  65: JEN

  “Listen to this,” I say. It’s just a crappy Dell laptop Franky got me, and it’s on the one basement desk we’ve cleared the debris off, but with a wireless card it’s our connection to the world. Because the goons never found the router. Because it’s mounted high on the wall, suckers! “Email from Isobel. This is so fucking rad!”

  Fetz looks at me with tired eyes.

  “They want to do a fundraiser for us!”

  Fetzer blinks. “That’s good.”

  “Good? Do you know how many calls and emails we’ve gotten?” I unpin the envelope off the wall and wave it at him. “And look, checks! Four unsolicited checks! From people who love us! It’s only, like, a hundred and ninety dollars, but already people are helping out. And even more have pledged money, right, Frank?”

  Franky says, “Yep.” The guy doesn’t have the best grip on political complexities, but he’s damn good on the phone.

  “It’s awesome how much people care,” he says, then he draws in a shaky sigh before he dials the next number.

  “Dude. She’ll roll home in another cab,” I say.

  Franky says, “Hi,” in a perky voice. Even puts on a smile. “This is Franky Moore from Omnia Mundi, and I’m returning Ms. Jensen’s call.”

  Good thing operators are standing by.

  “And check it out,” I say. “Brian brought another casserole.” I lift the lid and inside is curried rice and lentils and it smells amazing. “He is being so damn cool.”

  The phone rings, but it’s our landline, upstairs. Which for some reason the fuckers also left alone. We both head for the stairs but Fetzer pushes in front. “You’re eager,” I say, but he just motions me to follow.

  He catches it right when the
answering machine clicks on.

  “Omnia Mundi,” he says, then, nearly whispering, “He’s not well enough to come to the phone right now.”

  Nelson? He’s well enough. Maybe not. Poor fucker’s lying on my bed ’cause his is still damp. Are any of us well? Nowhere to sit down. The floor’s still sticky even though we cleaned up the food. All the dead furniture in a stack by the door. Just a big empty space like the day we moved in, except for the trash. And the boarded up windows. It sucks not being able to see outside.

  Fetzer rests his forehead against the wall. His voice is so soft I can barely hear his “Thank you.” He puts down the phone. Presses his hand to the wall. Starts to slide. Jesus, he’s going to fall over.

  I grab his arm. He grips me tight.

  “There’s a Jane Doe in the county morgue,” he says. He holds up a scrap of paper that he’s scrawled an address on. “Pink leather coat.”

  No way.

  Fetzer’s fingers burn into my arm.

  “So someone stole the coat,” I say.

  Fetzer lets go. He walks off. Only thing to do is follow him down the stairs.

  “Running an errand,” he says to Franky. “Take your car?”

  Franky puts a hand over the mouthpiece and nods at his keys by the door. I follow Fetz out into the light rain.

  In the car I say, “Dude, it’s probably not her.” Morning commuters clog the roads. He drives like I’m not here. After a while he says, “I miss the GPS.”

  “No kidding.” All that effort we put into the Toro. Don’t even want to think about it.

  “Turn on the radio?” he says.

  But there’s just ridiculously happy Latin music on our station, so I go to NPR. Another retired general pontificating about the necessity of invading Iraq. “Fucking collaborators,” I say. “You ever hear them interview anyone from the peace movement?”

  Fetzer shakes his head. “Not without redbaiting them.”

  I turn it off.

  Someone definitely stole the coat. In fact, she probably gave it away.

  The traffic in front of us slows. I turn the radio back on. Some paleontologist doing CAT scans on fossils.

  Couple miles later, Fetzer pulls left, goes a few blocks, and stops. He turns off the car and the radio dies.

  “So,” he says. He looks across at a white building with columns. “This is it.”

  A sparrow hops along the sidewalk, pecking at invisible specks. Fir trees sway in the wind. Can’t check email in this car.

  Fetzer’s door clicks open. The car rocks from him getting out. The door whumps closed. His footsteps fade. The building swallows him right when I look up.

  Should’ve gone in with him.

  Should’ve kept searching. Franky wanted to. Nelson wanted to. Fetz and Kate and I outvoted them. The look on Nelson’s face, even through his daze. Betrayed.

  Fuck it, too many lies. I even lied to him the day after they got married. Going out for better coffee, want some? Knowing he wouldn’t say yes.

  She was happy at city hall. And I’m thinking, cool, she’s back to normal. But next morning, no Deirdre, and Nelson’s working on the newsletter. Fetzer says something about not even one day off for a honeymoon? “She’s gone to church,” says Nelson. Normal as can be.

  “Going out for better coffee,” I say to him. When I should have said, “Dude, there is something seriously wrong with this picture.”

  The door to the building opens and my heart goes ka-bang. But a young guy comes out, scans the scene, opens an umbrella. Wuss.

  Should’ve gone in with Fetzer. Should’ve gone in. I’m going to get out of the car and go in there. I’m going to do it.

  Wind in the fir trees, bending the branches.

  Maybe I should’ve knelt and prayed with her. Maybe I would’ve felt better, like she said. Maybe she would’ve felt better.

  Would it have hurt to do one little thing to make her feel better?

  It has to not be her. Please. It’s some other chick who stole the coat. Deirdre’s coming home. She’ll sleep it off. Wake up tomorrow. Take more photos. Nelse’ll be happy. We’ll put all our shit back together. Dee’ll get that book published. Maybe we can make it be a fundraiser, too. A percentage of the proceeds.

  Holy cow, we haven’t even started anything for next week’s show. We have to put everything back together; we’ve got a show to produce.

  The door to the building opens and my heart goes ka-bang again. A woman in a long brown coat steps out. Fetzer comes out behind her. Who’s the woman? But she walks in another direction and Fetz comes toward the car.

  He’s a weird color.

  Please, God, or whatever you are, I have never asked you for much.

  Fetz opens the door, sinks into the seat. Drapes his pudgy hands over the bottom of the steering wheel.

  “It’s her,” he says. A sound like a flock of bats rises up, screeching pins into my shoulders, my brain, beating me down.

  His arm rests across my back. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “That is a totally insane thing to say. It is never ever going to be okay.”

  He rubs my shoulders. The bats subside enough that I can sit up, but it’s like pins are being driven through my muscles, making me twitch.

  Please. Just don’t let her be raped.

  “How?” I say.

  “They haven’t done the autopsy yet. But she was pulled out of the river.”

  “Drowned?”

  That weird shit from Peter Pan she was talking about. The tide is rising, or something.

  Fetz shakes his head. “They’re not going to say till the autopsy.”

  “Was she, like, beat up or anything?”

  Fetzer keeps shaking his head. “No immediate evidence.”

  “Meaning, what?”

  “Meaning they haven’t done an autopsy, but there’s no immediate evidence she was assaulted.”

  Oh, thank god.

  Fetzer stares out the window. I should offer to drive.

  My whole body’s gone twitchy. Like hell I can drive right now.

  “Sorry I didn’t go in.” It comes out in a whisper.

  He looks at his hands. “Wish you had.”

  “I should’ve.”

  Fetzer turns over his hands and there’s a gash in his palm, all swollen and nasty looking.

  “You need to do something about that,” I say.

  “I guess,” he says. Like it’s some random thing that doesn’t belong to him.

  “What—what’d she look like?”

  “Asleep. Grayish.” He turns to me and his eyes are watery. His mouth turns down and he shrugs. “Peaceful.”

  It is never going to be okay, and it is never going to be peaceful.

  “Fetzer,” I say.

  His eyes on me, watery.

  “Fetzer,” I say. His eyes on me, red rimmed, the folds of skin uneven. He’s seen way more dead people than I ever have. Breath falls out of me, rainy day car air fills my lungs. “I need to ask you something.”

  “Sure,” he says. His face sad and kind and patient.

  And the fucking phone buzzes in his pocket.

  His eyes pull away like he doesn’t know what the noise is. The phone buzzes like an angry bee.

  “You going to get that?” I say, and reach for it but he flips it open.

  “Franky?”

  Only barks of excitement make it through the rain on the car.

  “Okay,” says Fetz, and his palm pats air. “Okay. Calm down. You’re where?”

  Ka-bang goes my heart. They found her?

  Fetzer’s eyes close. His fingertips touch his forehead. Rain pebbles the roof of the car, sheets the window. “We’re fifteen, twenty minutes away, be home as soon as we can.”

  They found her?

  “Nelson took the Toro,” says Fetzer. He snaps the phone closed. “Probably went looking for her.” The car hums into gear. Wipers slice away the rain, and the road appears, and buildings, sky, telephone wires. Everything is gray. “F
ranky's got a bad feeling. He tried to follow him on your bike.” The road moves, comes toward us, wipers sweep away fresh rain. “Didn’t get far in this weather.”

  Out of the corner of my eye Fetz is looking at me. “You’re shivering,” he says. He punches a finger at the heater controls. Freezing-cold air blows onto my ankles, my face. By the time we’re on MLK, it’s too hot.

  The moss on the path.

  Fetzer stops and turns. “For crying out loud, whatcha doing down there?”

  It’s so goddamn unbelievably green. And all the tiny stalks sticking up, with the tiny cups on the ends. A colony.

  Shit, I’m crushing it. Sorry, moss.

  “Don’t stand on it!” I yell, and Fetzer steps back.

  The tiny cups bend under my finger, transfer droplets to my fingertip.

  Fetzer crouches beside me. “Lose something?”

  “The moss.” My knees in a puddle, rain trickling down my collar. “We’re all so full of shit. All of us. Me, you, our stupid shows. Stupid fucking rallies, stupid politics. Stupid war, stupid killing. Stupid—”

  Fetzer’s hand a warm patch on my back.

  “And this moss. It’s just growing.”

  Fetzer reaches forward, touches his fingertips to the moss cups. “Come inside,” he says. But the only thing to do is put my arms around him. Like I never did right with Dee. And Fetz is holding on tight, my chin hooked over his shoulder, huge sighs going in and out of me, huge noisy sighs, crazy noisy breathing I can’t stop.

  66: FETZER

  Again we had to piece things together. In a fit of urgency Nelson had stormed out to look for Deirdre near the river. He ran a stop sign, got clipped by a truck, and smacked the Toro into one of the old concrete supports under the Hawthorne Bridge. Smashed two fingers, cracked a rib, and he still gets tinnitus from when his head hit the side window.

  The truck was fine. The Toro got towed. Nelson got a citation for reckless driving.

  Detective Oberlinder called me himself. Seems our troubles were becoming known down at the station. “Melodrama du jour,” he said. But he was sorry, he said. “Hope it’s the last of it.”