Amanda's Blue Marine

by Doreen Owens Malek

  Mandy saw him hit the "Off" button on the phone before he put it back in his pocket.

  Apparently he didn't want to chance any further calls from Detective Grady or anyone else.

  Mandy closed her eyes, trying not to entertain the image of him climbing out of Janet Grady's sweaty sheets to deal with the hysterical summons of Amanda Redfield, Helpless Victim and Dimwit Deadweight. How did her frantic phone call compare with the supreme competence and dark sexual allure of fearless Detective Janet? Mandy's face burned with humiliation. How could this get any worse? He had interrupted his hot date with Grady, his dinner companion at Pirro's and at the MD fundraiser, to listen to Mandy whimper about her latest crisis.

  She felt like a fool.

  "What is it?" he said when he returned, reading her forlorn expression.

  "I shouldn't have called you here," Mandy said. "You wanted the squad car cops outside to handle it and I insisted that you come here personally on your day off. I'm sorry."

  He took her hands and led her to sit on the sofa. "Listen to me," he said. "You did exactly the right thing. I told you to call me if there was any kind of a problem and this," he pointed to his pocket, "is a problem. I would have come here anyway. I just thought that the squad car was close and they'd get up here faster."

  "My mess is taking over your life," Mandy said miserably. "And I am handling everything so badly."

  "What do you mean?" he said. "Anyone would be upset by this wacko haunting them. No one expects you to be calm and collected in this situation. Why are you handling everything badly?"

  She shook her head. He didn't know that she was jealous of his colleague Grady. He didn't know that Mandy wanted his attention devoted only to her.

  She put her hands over her face and then began to shake, the tremors increasing until she wrapped her arms around her torso in an attempt to stop them.

  "I feel cold," she whispered.

  He nodded. "That's adrenaline," he said. "You were all geared up for a fight after you found that little surprise. You need to calm down."

  He looked around quickly and then pulled his heavy sweater over his head, holding it out to her.

  "Put this on," he said.

  “You’re always giving me your clothes,” she said, gesturing helplessly. Her inability to dress herself properly had to be a metaphor for something, but what? She couldn’t cope with life, deal with reality, handle her changing world?

  “You’re always shivering, Amanda,” he replied simply.

  Mandy accepted the sweater gratefully, snuggling into the wool which was warm from his body and inhaling his scent deeply. He went into the next room and came back with a lap blanket and one of the pillows from her bed.

  "Stretch out and relax," he said, helping her to settle on the pillow and drawing the quilt over her legs. "Nothing bad is going to happen now. He has to make it past me to get to you and I'm not going anywhere." He went to the living room wall and turned down the air conditioning, saying, “You don’t need this.” He looked toward the kitchen area and asked, "Do you have any liquor?"

  She shrugged. "There's some in the cabinet there." She gestured toward the credenza which separated the two rooms. He crouched in front of it and she heard glass tinkling as he shifted items around on the shelves.

  "You've got a pretty spare stash here, Amanda," he finally said in an amused tone. "Not much for lapping up the sauce, are you? Some of these sticky bottles are actually dusty."

  "Tom keeps a few more in that box," Mandy said, pointing. "It has a lock."

  Kelly turned the key and the door swung open. "What's he expecting?" Kelly asked. "The return of Prohibition?"

  "That thing is climate controlled or something. He says the scotch evaporates otherwise."

  "Not in my house," Kelly said dryly. He pulled out a bottle and poured several fingers of amber liquid into a kitchen tumbler. He brought it over to her and said, "For you."

  She shook her head. "I can't drink. I'm a freak. I can't handle it at all and get drunk immediately."

  "That's good news, because Uncle Brendan's prescription is for you to go to sleep. A flyweight like you will be in dreamland very quickly. When did you have dinner?”

  She shook her head. “Didn’t,” she said.

  “Good. It works faster on an empty stomach."

  "I can't."

  "Yes, you can, because tonight I'm going to do the worrying for you. Are you taking any medications?"

  Mandy shook her head.

  "Then drink up, Zelda." He handed her the glass.

  Mandy took a small sip. "Gah," she said.

  "Yes, I know, tastes bad until it feels good. Are you still cold?"

  "A little."

  "I also know what to do about that," he said. He turned and looked at the fireplace. "Does this thing work?"

  "Yes, but I haven’t used it during the summer."

  "Is the flue open?"

  She nodded.

  "Good. Just keep sipping on that and I'll have a fire going in no time."

  The liquor spread warmth through Mandy's belly as he piled wrapped, prefab logs from the storage bin into the fireplace and used scraps of paper and kindling to get a blaze going. He had been wearing only a T shirt under the sweater he gave her and now the shirt rode up and bunched and gathered as he bent and crouched at his task. She enjoyed the view as she drank. She watched him through slitted eyes, admiring the play of muscles across his back and in his upper arms as the shirt writhed across his torso like a snake.

  Why doesn't he just take it off? she wondered drowsily. Just take it all off, the jeans and everything else. And then she thought, I must be drunk already.

  "There", he said, rising and dusting his hands. He turned to look at her. "Asleep yet?"

  She saluted him with the almost empty glass. "Not yet," she murmured.

  He smiled. "Just like Kate's four year old. Never sleeps when you want him to and never stops talking."

  "How fattering," she said. "I mean, flattering."

  He came to her side and took the glass out of her hand. He put it on her coffee table and then sat on the floor next to the couch. She stared at the back of his head in the silence and then reached out to touch it.

  "You have such nice hair," she said.

  "Thanks," he said shortly. They both listened as the fire crackled and gathered momentum.

  "Wavy and silky. Just curly enough, but not frizzy. Who in your family has hair like this?" She was stroking it as she talked.

  He moved a few inches out of her range.

  "My father," he said. "I look just like him." It was clear from his tone that he did not cherish the resemblance.

  "I hope you don't go bald," Mandy said suddenly.

  "I hope not too," he replied, and she could hear the laughter in his voice.

  "What's so funny?" she demanded groggily.

  "You, Red. Just you." He turned to look at her and even in her state of reduced comprehension she could see the tenderness in his gaze.

  "You care about me, don't you?" she blurted, as if the revelation had just come to her.

  He didn't answer.

  "You wanted this job babysitting me for career enhancement...advancement... whatever." She stopped and regrouped, determined to get her point across to him. "You took it on at the last minute to kiss Manning's butt and get ahead and you figured you'd endure whatever you had to endure to make it work. Even when you found out the target was a woman rather than a guy, it didn't bother you, it was all in a day's work." She stopped again. This was long speech for a drunken woman who was half asleep. She took a breath and added, "You just didn't think you would care about me, but you do."

  He nodded slowly, his throat working. "Yes, I do." She won't remember this, he thought. She's bombed and she won't remember it.

  "I’m glad," she said. She leaned forward abruptly and slipped her hand inside the stretched out neck of his old T shirt. "You have a ring of sunburn right there. I can see it. Can I touch it?"

&
nbsp; “No.”

  She ignored him and ran her hand down his neck to his collarbone and then inside the shirt to his shoulder. “Your skin is soft. The muscle under it is hard but your skin feels just like velvet.”

  He willed himself not to respond and rose quickly. He dropped into the armchair next to the fireplace, putting a safe distance between them.

  "You're tanked, Amanda. I am begging you to go to sleep." He closed his eyes and sighed deeply. He was tired too.

  When he looked back at her again he realized that she had obeyed him.

  * * * * *

  Kelly sat in the chair for the rest of the night, drifting off several times but never really relaxing. He thought about going into the bedroom to lay down on the bed but he wanted to be where he could see Amanda. Near dawn he woke to find a dying fire and gray light seeping in at the windows of her living room. He lit a cigarette and looked at her sleeping on the couch, bundled up in the sweater his grandmother had knit in a cottage in the Aran Islands. Her long hair was splayed out on the pillow and her lips were parted as if she were about to speak.

  Where the hell was this crackpot terrorizing her? They had to find him soon. She wouldn't be able to take much more of this. Her previous princess life had not prepared her to deal with the harsh reality of a crazed stalker.

  Her expression was wiped free of care as she slept a few feet away from him. It reflected the innocence that he found irresistible. He had come to realize it was part of her detachment from the realities driving most people, the need to work hard and earn money and live within restrictions. Everything had been done for her since childhood and so she lacked experience in dealing with the real world. Kelly had seen it before with the rich people he met on his job. They might be billionaires but they were unable to write a check or get the car washed or withdraw fifty dollars from an ATM. Mandy was somewhat more connected because she had a career and dealt with the public daily, but she didn't NEED to do any of it and that made all the difference. If she had decided to stay home and play solitaire she would still have had everything she wanted without lifting a finger, just like she had this luxurious apartment which she had received as a gift and the sports car which she rarely even bothered to drive.

  He drew on the cigarette and then blew a stream of smoke into the sir.

  He started as Amanda sat up suddenly. He crushed out his cigarette and moved to kneel next to the couch. She touched his arm.

  "Kelly?" she said, looking at him in confusion.

  "Yep, it's me."

  "What are you doing here?" She gazed around the room and he saw her face change as her memory returned. She winced and put her hand to her temple.

  "My head hurts," she said.

  "I'm sure it does."

  She smiled slowly. "Do I have a hangover?" she asked.

  "Sounds like it."

  "But I got a night's sleep."

  "That was the plan.”

  Her expression became alarmed suddenly and she said to him, "Did I....do anything?"

  "Anything?" he repeated innocently.

  "You know, did I ...say anything... wrong?"

  She was looking really worried and he relented. "Well, you told me I was going bald."

  "I did not!" she replied crisply. "I said that I hoped you wouldn't go bald."

  Kelly burst out laughing and pointed his finger at her. "Gotcha! I want you to know that I was very offended by that comment."

  She started giggling and then grabbed her head again. "God. I always knew there was a reason I didn't drink."

  "Let that be a lesson to you, as my grandmother used to say," Kelly recited piously. He pulled out his cell phone and looked at the stack of messages he'd received overnight. "She made that woolen sweater you're wearing," he added, nodding toward her.

  Amanda looked down at herself and could feel the color coming up in her cheeks. "I shouldn't have taken this from you," she murmured. “ I think the AC in here is broken, set too high. It makes this room like a tundra. You must have been cold."

  "I was fine." He held up the phone and said to her, "I have to call in and you have to get dressed. The forensics team will be arriving in about ten minutes and they are always on time and the experience is not pleasant. Just put up with it while they turn everything over and remind yourself that they are here to help you."

  Mandy stood up and pulled his sweater over her head. "And I have to get to work to tie up some loose ends. Not that they really need me. They just ask me questions to fill in the blanks it would take a little longer to fill in themselves. And all the juniors are chomping at the bit to take advantage of the opportunity my absence provides."

  He waited, listening.

  Mandy sighed. "Rhinegold has extended my compassionate leave but he doesn't like having this circus dragged into his office. He wants the story and me and my problem to go away."

  "Maybe you should just accept that," Kelly said reasonably. "Taking the longer leave, I mean."

  Mandy nodded. "I know, but that's like giving up, isn't it? Telling Cameron that he's won? He's succeeded in hurting me, in changing my life. I hate that." She folded the sweater and held it out to him mutely.

  "Keep it," he said.

  Mandy hugged the garment to her chest, her face reflecting that she was touched by the gesture. "Thanks," she said softly.

  "And now that we've solved that problem, I think we should work on my baldness cure."

  Mandy started laughing and couldn't stop. She went on giggling, feeling like the overstressed people who vault over the ropes at crime scenes or behave badly at funerals. Kelly was grinning down at her, enjoying her hilarity, when there was a knock-knock rap on the door to the hall and it was opened by Lieutenant Manning.

  He took in the scene at a glance and said tartly, "I can see that Kelly has everything under control here."

  Kelly looked annoyed and Mandy felt as if she had been chastised.

  "Your phone is off," Manning announced to Kelly. "Apparently Miss Redfield's house phone is also off. I haven't tried her cell phone but the odds are very good that it's off too." He took a large sip from the paper cup of coffee he was holding and glared at them.

  Mandy looked at Kelly once and then headed for her bedroom to change.

  "What's going on, Kel?" Manning asked bluntly, without preliminary, when she was gone.

  "Nothing. Miss Redfield is okay. She slept through the night and I stayed here to make sure nothing else happened after she found that last …gift. I have the evidence for the team."

  "You stayed here on your day off?" Manning asked.

  "Yeah. She was …. frightened."

  "What about the two cops downstairs in the squad car, the two cops I am paying overtime to make sure she is never alone?" Manning demanded.

  "She didn’t want them involved. I can spend my time how I like on my day off," Kelly said testily.

  "She didn’t want them involved! What am I running here, a dating service?”

  “Nobody’s on a date,” Kelly said evenly.

  “Really? You could have fooled me,” Manning said angrily. “And I would advise you not to get snarky with me, boyo. I am THIS close to putting in my papers over this case, the biggest pain in the ass of my entire career. I've got Commissioner Foster on my back. I've got her father, who owns half of Metro, on my back. She's a wreck and screwing up Rhinegold's office over a past case his people never supervised correctly. He wants her to move to Botswana and take her problem with her. Her fiancé the Congressman calls me every day from wherever the hell he is on the globe, I've got a psycho who likes to send young ladies hate notes running amok in my precinct, and when I deploy my best new detective to stop him that detective starts playing footsie with the target. Are you banging this girl, Brendan?"

  "No, sir," Kelly rapped out smartly in his best Camp Lejeune voice.

  “But you want to. Real bad. Is that it?”

  Kelly was silent, his mouth a straight line that said he wasn’t going to admit anything but he w
ouldn’t lie either.

  “I should take you off this case right now, you know that,” Manning said grimly.

  Kelly still didn’t answer, too good a soldier to protest a superior’s orders.

  “But if I do that you won’t be in charge of helping her and that’s the problem, right?”

  Kelly opened his mouth but then reconsidered and no sound emerged.

  “Say it,” Manning barked.

  “She can’t help herself in this situation, Lieutenant. She’s real smart, a lawyer. But that’s books…you know, school stuff and the sheltered life her parents gave her. You know them, you know what I mean. The closest she has ever gotten to scum like Cameron is standing across from him in court. It will be bad news if he ever corners her.”

  Manning was silent, listening.

  “She’s getting dead animals now, not just letters, and you know that’s an escalation from Cameron’s previous behavior. The next step is people, and you’ve read all the same cases that I have. The ones who send notes are sometimes just letting off steam, but the dead dogs and cats and rodents mean the perp is getting ready to strike.”

  Manning nodded slowly.

  “I figured you were just humoring her father when you put me on the case after she got those first notes, but that’s changed now. She senses it too. She’s trying to be brave about all this but I can tell that she’s terrified.”

  Manning digested that, taken aback by the speech, which was a miniseries coming from the usually taciturn Kelly.

  “I see,” Manning finally said. “So I assume if I remove you that you’ll be watching and second guessing the unfortunate sub who takes over for you, and of course you’ll be no good to me elsewhere. Is that about the size of it?”