“They wouldn’t let him in,” said Ebbersole.
I could envision the scene without difficulty. “It was a tank,” I said. “Thing could probably withstand close air support.”
“He must have known that,” she said. I turned to her and waited for more. Again she pulled up short to let my need to know build into some kind of leverage for her.
“He went for the underbelly,” said Taggart. I jumped ahead of them and saw in my mind’s eye what Ebbersole found satisfaction in the slow rendering of. Taggart must have noted it, as well, which prompted his interjections. “Officer Seldeen dropped to the pavement with his weapon drawn, and unloaded the magazine into the gas tank.”
I imagined a battlefield-sized explosion. “There must have been collateral damage?” I said.
“You bet,” said Ebbersole. “Seldeen.”
I looked toward Taggart. “He had to have known he was going to go with it,” he said.
I couldn’t argue with that. “No bystanders?” I said. “Other vehicles? Pedestrians?”
“Thing shot straight up and came straight down,” she said. “Planning could not have contained it better.” In my mind’s eye, I saw the van slowly fall back to the pavement. “You were all but partners,” she said.
I said, “When did it happen?”
She said, “You keep sidestepping my questions.”
“That was a question?” I said.
“Approximately five hours ago,” said Taggart.
I said, “You came straight here to see my face when you unloaded the news?”
“That,” said Ebbersole, “plus official business. Officer Seldeen was staying at your loft.”
I said, “Yes.”
“Which is why,” she said, “we’re going to need to go over every square inch of the place.” This kind of victory was, no doubt, rare for her. I tried to look in to her. She continued, “Had Seldeen communicated anything to you about his intentions?”
“So,” I said, “what, you came to ask my permission to search my loft?”
“We always like to start with that,” said Taggart.
“Well, I’m not going anywhere,” I said. “I’ll be right here when you come back with that warrant.” He took no joy in looking across me toward Ebbersole. I followed his lead.
Ebbersole was holding a warrant. “There is no on-site management at the Hogg Palace,” she said.
I said, “You’ve already been there.”
“We could have broken the door down,” she said.
“It would be helpful,” said Taggart, “if we had a key.”
I gave it up. “My personal effects should be somewhere in this room,” I said. “Take what you need.” I remained flat on my back as they searched through my clothing in the closet. They must have found the keys right off; they left the room without delay, after which I kept looping the imagined explosion in my mind, along with the unflinching determination Seldeen no doubt displayed as he rolled underneath the van and brought about his own emollition. Had my thinking been more nimble, I should have asked about bodies that were recovered from the van.
Twenty-eight
After more than ten days in bed, and having been nourished on intravenous super antibiotics, Adrienne picked me up and took me home upon my discharge from the hospital. She had sold most of her household possessions and had given what was left to the people at Saint Vincent DePaul, not because of religious affiliation, but because they were willing to come pick the stuff up. The sale of her home was several days away from closing.
I had given her the use of my Chrysler since her Toyota Prius had been one of the first things to be sold. Her imminent leave-taking weighed on us both. Given the huge turn our relationship had taken meant that the once easy presence we had enjoyed with each other was now freighted with much that was not said. The drive up Montrose Boulevard and over to Louisiana Street was long and quiet.
The last couple of days in the hospital gave me ample time to sort through the march of conflicting feelings that occupied my mind. That she had not camped out in my hospital room was a function of her putting her affairs in order, as well as being significant of her choosing not to crowd me with the pall of what I presumed might be her own conflicted expectations regarding her leave-taking, an eleventh-hour commitment, or some sort of cumbersome promise of reconnecting once the dust settled.
While I had danced with every eventuality, the vagaries of my heart left me without a final resolve. I much preferred being decisive. Not the least of it involved my attachment to Grace, itself a crumbling of a former resolve that left me feeling more controlled than in control. I had, until she had come along, mastered what it took to keep that emotional door closed on a room I no longer cared to enter. I had erred in believing that it had been sufficiently locked and sealed against all eventuality. Part of my indecision was the comeuppance of having allowed vigilance in the matter to erode. “You could have made your get-away,” I said, “and executed the closing documents via express mail.”
“I couldn’t leave,” said Adrienne, “while there was any doubt about your recovery.”
I said, “Thank you.”
“Thank the antibiotics,” she said. “It was touch and go.”
“It felt like an ocean tide,” I said. “In, out, in.”
She said, “It didn’t feel like there was a choice in the matter for me.”
“There’s always choice,” I said.
“No,” she said, “what there always is is hindsight.”
“I stand corrected,” I said. “Grace before all else.”
“Reed assures me she’s fine,” she said.
I hoped that was not going to come back to ambush her as I said, “Has he shown you the color of his cards yet?”
“So far,” she said, “so good.”
“I’m impressed,” I said, “with your level of trust in the circumstance.”
She said, “We’ve all made some pretty drastic changes lately.”
I said, “You’re convinced he’s a different man?”
“I’m stronger now than when Allison was a baby,” said Adrienne. “I would execute a very different fight today than I was capable of then. He knows that.”
“What’s the plan?” I asked.
She said, “We should talk about that.”
“I thought we were,” I said.
“Face-to-face,” she said, “not avoiding each other side-by-side in a moving vehicle.”
I said, “Got it.”
Nothing more was said, though what remained to be said was everything.
It was clear my loft had been disturbed. Some might say tossed. Others would go for violated. The first thing I checked was the closet I’d long ago had fortified as a strong room for weapons. Most items had been handled, but everything was there; all on the up and up; permits on record for the entire inventory.
Why did they feel it necessary to turn down my bed? Frozen food wrapped in freezer paper had been unwrapped and then re-wrapped in cursory fashion. I decided then and there not to eat any of it. It would have to be thrown out.
My laptop was gone, along with my telephone answering machine. There was nothing I knew of that Seldeen or I had tried to hide; yet, I had to laugh when I saw that the drains to the kitchen and bathroom sinks, in addition to the shower had been disassembled and left to be re-assembled by the plumber I would have to call.
Clothes closets and bureau drawers rifled through were expected. The medicine cabinet was completely out of order; its contents had migrated to an efficient organization over the many years I had lived there. I wasn’t sure I could reconstruct it to its previous state of clarified perfection; it had not been a conscious design. Had they taken note of where things had gravitated to seemingly of their own volition, a detailed narrative of my personal grooming habits could have been assembled. Peevish perhaps, but this was one of the most grievous violations, more so, even, than the examination of the linens on my bed.
I was sure there was m
ore to discover, but these pointed intrusions had worn me out. I barely made it out to the living room and onto the leather sofa.
“Doesn’t look too bad,” said Adrienne.
“Interesting,” I said, “that it would appear that way to someone else.”
She said, “Do you want help getting into bed?”
I said, “I wouldn’t mind some fresh sheets.”
She said, “Where do you keep them?”
I said, “Armoire in the bathroom.”
She made short order of remaking the bed. She rolled the sheets she took off into a ball and pushed them into the hamper, also in the bathroom. I had lightly dozed during the few minutes of her industry. I think the cessation of her movement brought me back. Adrienne was seated across from me on the ottoman of the leather chair.
“I was bathed at the hospital,” I said. “I’d better get out of these clothes and into bed while you’re still here.”
“Are you going to be all right here on your own?” she asked.
I said, “Yes.”
She added, “I could stay.”
I said, “I’ve kept you from what you have to do long enough.”
“I’m not leaving until the contract on the house closes,” she said. “I want nothing sent back and forth through the mail after I leave town.”
She took my arm as I stood and walked with me slowly into the bedroom behind the curved wall of glass brick that separated it from the rest of the loft. I slipped out of my shirt and trousers and got into the freshly turned-down bed, at which moment it finally sank in that I was actually home. The new bed felt like a new bed. I tried not to think about why it had been a necessity. Adrienne aligned the creases in my slacks and draped them over the Mission Oak chair; she dressed the chair-back with my shirt as if it were a free-standing clothes valet. I was not in pain, but I was without even the energy to sit upright. She arrayed my prescriptions across the top of the bureau and slid the photocopied instructions under the lamp so it would not go anywhere. And then she slowly and pointedly turned around to face me. I had watched her every move. She had made something of a production out of the activity, I sensed, to gain delay. “Now?” I asked.
She said, “Now.”
“Would you like me to go first,” I said, “or do you want to?”
There was a moment’s hesitation for us both. “I’m in love with you,” she said.
I hadn’t expected that. The muscles that girded my spine at my core constricted without promise that they would release any time soon. “When did that happen?” I said.
She did not hesitate. “Dinner at the Four Seasons the night my mother and Reed arrived.”
It took a moment for me to assess what I might have done that evening to have brought about her breach of our No Man’s Land. “All I did,” I said, “was to leave you and your family to discuss family matters out from under the ear shot of an outsider.”
She said, “It was precisely at that moment you stopped being an outsider.”
I guess I didn’t need to know more about the physics of the thing beyond racking it up to its having been a female-thing. “I’m sure I love you,” I said.” I don’t think I’m in love with you.”
She said, “You’re not sure.”
“At the moment,” I said, “I am sure of nothing.”
“And if it turns out that you are?” she said.
“I will cherish the experience of it,” I said.
She asked, “But what will you do about it?”
I took a moment before saying, “Nothing.”
“She repeated, “Nothing.”
“I’ll be in love with you from here,” I said.
She absorbed that with a slight change of color. “Why nothing?” she said.
“Because,” I said,” I’m through with that kind of love.”
A mildly snorted chuckle escaped her as she said, “Sounds like a country/western song.”
I shared a brief near-laugh. “I’ve been in love before,” I said. “It never did me any good.”
“Sounds like another way of saying it didn’t work out,” she said.
“I have no reason to believe,” I said, “that romantic love and I would ever work out.”
“I know that song,” she said. “By heart.”
My turn for a snorted chuckle. “You surprised me,” I said, “by being so passionate and exciting a sexual partner.”
She said, “Why would that surprise you?”
“Okay,” I said, “answering that is going to get me nowhere.”
She allowed a humorous shake of her head. Then she said, “I am never going to give up wanting sex with women.”
I said, “So much for my inflated ego.”
“It’s just that, now,” she said, “there’s also a man I want. Very much.”
“I am more than flattered,” I said.
She said, “You knocked it out of the park, slugger.”
“Not necessary,” I said, “but thanks.”
“Repeatedly,” she said.
I said, “Help, she’s doing me!”
Silence fell. It gathered on itself. She said, “Marry me, P.I. Help me raise Grace.”
That brought the universe to a dead stop. “Are we joking now,” I said, “or being serious?”
“Dead serious,” she said.
“I am not going to marry you, Adrienne.” She looked down and nodded slightly. Her expression said, well, that’s that then. I added, “I don’t ever again intend to marry anyone.”
“Forget marriage,” she said. “Just come with me.”
“I have seriously considered that,” I said.
“And?”
“I can’t.”
“Do I get to know why?” she asked.
“I have made the decision to live life alone,” I said.
She added, “The world that bad?”
“Actually,” I said, “I’ve begun to think of it’s being that good.”
“So,” she said, “it’s not that you can’t, but that you won’t?”
I said, “Yes.” It felt like fresh laceration to say it, as it looked to have been for her to hear it. We held on each other for a silent moment, though not an empty one.
“And you’re certain,” she said, “you would not change your mind?”
“I told you,” I said, “I’m not certain of anything.”
“Let’s not leave any doubt,” she said. “When Grace and I end up wherever it is we’re going to end up, should I get word to you somehow about where that is?”
I took my time before answering. “No,” I said.
No reaction. Not what I had anticipated. But, then, Adrienne was not given to display. “Got it,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Sorry for what,” she said, “choosing the life you want?”
“No,” I said, “for not being available for the one you want.”
A nod from her. A shake of the head from me. She said, “I’m going to say goodbye here. Now.”
“Can’t I get you to the airport,” I said, “whenever?”
“How I leave town will be my business,” she said. “I’m not saying I’m not flying. But I’m not saying I am either.”
“Have you considered,” I said, “that perhaps the threat has been neutralized?”
“You mean,” she said, “do I believe that the ever-expanding tentacles of the organization Reznikov fronted are now benign?”
“I’m sure they know where Grace is,” I said, “and with whom.”
“I am going to trust their hesitation to act,” she said, “just a little while longer, and then Grace and I are going to disappear.”
I said, “Like Reznikov?”
“He’s dead,” she said. “I’m okay with thinking he is anyway. I intend for Grace to have a good life.”
Reznikov’s alleged death at the hands of Seldeen was not without misgiving on my part, which I kept to myself. I was thinking more of Rain’s assurances about Grace. But I f
eared she was the one who was dead, not Reznikov. “I’m sure I could be better at good-bye,” I said, “in a day or two, maybe once the contract closes?”
Adrienne said, “What would be the point?”
“To see each other one last time,” I said.
Were it not that her eyes closed, I might have missed the slight shake of her head this time. She said, “You’re a good man, Ted. You restored my faith in men.” A scent arose of the charred embers of what felt like a bridge now burnt and gone behind me, its span no longer connecting kindred paths on either side of life’s deep ravine. A slow and generous lungful of air from her as she gathered herself to full height; whereas, I believe I had stopped breathing for the while. “And, so,” she said, “good-bye.”
Our eyes locked on each other’s. “Be well,” I said.
She walked without dispatch past the bed and me, and out of the loft, and out of my life.
I lay awake for a long time, staring at the duct work in the ceiling which never failed to fascinate, a labyrinth of designed and controlled air flow, unlike the pattern of my breathing. Was I going to regret this?
No telling.
Twenty-nine
The sixth floor cubicle that had been home to the Mulcahy-Seldeen homicide partnership had new tenants. They were not there as I passed it on my way to see Ebbersole and Taggart, but it was clear there had been a change of residents. Orientation of desk phones, New Plexiglas caddies affixed to the sound-absorbing half-wall panels. Name plates, desk chairs, positioning of trash cans. I was relieved that it had not been assigned to Ebbersole and Taggart who were farther away from the elevator station in the center of the building. They were more or less tucked away behind a square structural column; and there was something dim and second-string about their pedigree on the floor. A large chunk of that was inference, but so what?
I had been informed that I could pick up my laptop computer and my telephone equipment if I wanted to come get them. Their cubicle had a partners’ station where they sat facing each other on opposite sides of a large work table. Rolling drawer cabinets nestled underneath, and there were lateral file cabinets behind them that served as credenzas. I could never work in a space of such close proximity to anyone else, I don’t care how well I might know them, or liked them, or not.
Spare Parts: A Ted Mitchell Detective Novel (Ted Mitchell Detective Novels Book 4) Page 21