The Dime Box

by Karen Grose

  Officer Sanchez flipped on the lights and shoved her elbow forward. “Don’t say a word.”

  Greta collapsed into a metal chair. As Officer Sanchez spoke into the radio perched on the top of her shoulder, she stared at the freckling across her nose and forehead. How could this be the same woman she’d met at her apartment just twenty-four hours earlier?

  “Suspect secured,” she said, and then turned to her. “Wait here.”

  She didn’t move. Was there any other choice?

  “They’re on the way to do a fingerprint and search.”

  “For what?” All she could picture were the movies she’d watched the summer after her mother was murdered.

  Officer Sanchez smirked. “That’s the point.” She slammed the door and left.

  Half an hour later, two officers shuffled into the room and removed her handcuffs. Skin tender and raw, she massaged the red marks on her wrists. They emptied a large blue tub and scattered a camera, a file of loose-leaf paper, a white container, and a box of plastic gloves across the table. Her stomach churned. One of the two twisted a head in the direction of the wall.

  “Stand there, look forward,” she said, hands planted on ample hips.

  Greta gritted her teeth. After being photographed, fingerprinted and searched, her purse and phone taken away, two hours had somehow slipped by. She didn’t care. Dressed by the time Officer Sanchez reappeared, she had the one thing she wanted: her dime, tucked deep into the front pocket of her jeans, undetected.

  “You can make one call before we head downstairs,” she said. She pulled a phone from her front pocket and passed it over.

  “Thank you.”

  She squinted at the poster across the room stuck up on the wall with scotch tape between the cheap, framed photos of dogs and yellow bins for safe syringe disposal. Though she promised to connect with Latoya by the end of the day, she punched in a different number. After two rings, a man’s voice answered.

  “Legal Aid, Phil Robinson, Duty Counsel.”

  Her eyes watered. “I need help.”

  She explained who she was, where she was, and the situation she was in. “Bottom line,” she said, when she finished her recap, “it was all an accident. I did nothing and no one’s listening.” Over the course of the next few minutes, her shoulders dropped and her stomach relaxed a little as she answered his questions. “Why?” she asked, near the end of the call. She sat straight up. “The whole interview?” She paused. “Why would I stay silent?” She paused again. “I don’t care if it’s my right.” She clenched the phone to her cheek. “If I did that,” she shouted into it, “how can I tell my side of the story?” She listened again and scowled. “Fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Red-faced, she hung up.

  “Let’s go,” Officer Sanchez rapped the doorframe with her knuckles and turned away.

  Greta followed her out of the room. She grasped the railing to keep from stumbling as she followed Officer Sanchez in front of her down the concrete stairs. At the bottom, in a small glassed-in office, multiple screens showed every cell, each one a constant stream of activity. She pinched her eyes shut as the heavy bolt clunked and a gray door swung open.

  Calm down.

  She opened her eyes and inched inside. The corridor was thin, the light dim, and on either side sat what looked like a mile of metal bars. White hands, black hands, yellow hands, young and old and hairy rested outside. Laughter and an occasional shout drifted through the cells. Panic rose in her throat when the door clanged shut behind her.

  Breathe, breathe.

  With her eyes locked straight ahead, she moved forward, soles squeaking on the tiles, so tired she could barely walk in a straight line. Officer Sanchez stopped halfway down, swiped a card to the wall and a door slid open. She reached out to steady herself and stepped inside.

  The cement of the wall was cold on her hand and the floor sticky underfoot. The room was small—scarcely big enough to contain the single bed. A stainless steel toilet was bolted to the wall with no windows. From where she sat on the bed’s metal frame, she could see the other cells. She rubbed her eyes. Recently painted, the fumes burned her nose and the place reeked of sweat. How many unwashed bodies had sat where she was sitting?

  “Girlie,” a voice called out, interrupting her. “Yeah, you in the cage.”

  She looked over into the drunken eyes of a woman standing across the way. She eased herself off the bed, took three steps, and pressed her forehead to the bars.

  “Whatcha in for?” the thin woman asked through a spit lip. She stretched out her arms.

  Greta held hers stiff at her sides. “It’s all a mistake.”

  The woman cackled. “Fish.” She batted a hand in the air. “It’s what y’all say.”

  Greta opened her mouth and shut it again.

  “Who’d ya got in the box?” Like a dirty rag, the woman’s sour breath wafted across the space.

  She stared at her for a moment.

  The drunk woman clarified. “The cops? Tomorrow?”

  “Detective Sergeant…”

  “Perez? That old geezer’s still around? Lady, you’re screwed.”

  Tightness wrapped across her back and around her chest. “Why do you say that?”

  “Don’t blame no one for not listenin’, but I been around the block. A few times, you know? That one? She’s all changed.” She muttered something under her breath.

  Greta shifted her weight against the bars. “How do you mean?”

  “Not like when she was undercover. Playing hard and fast with the rules. Did what she wanted, they told me.”

  Greta thought back to the conversation they’d had earlier in her office about regrets in life. Was there something more to what she’d told her? “What do you mean?”

  “Ugly things. Made shit up? Used the product? Got cozy with the boss? Now that’s all gossip, ya hear, but gossip’s always got a grain a truth. Whatever it was don’t matter now. Heard she lost her job. Her husband. Her family.”

  “She has a job. She’s been grilling me all day.”

  “A different one. She’s chi-chi now. Pushing paper. Has to dot her i’s and cross her t’s, ya know. But it don’t mean nothing. She’s still all balls and ambition.” She turned away, muttering, her words almost indistinguishable. “Hope for a bullet, but you’ll get all day. Good luck to ya.”

  The drunk woman withdrew to the back of her cell, and Greta did the same. She sat down on the bed and drew her knees to her chest. She found the pillow at one end of the metal frame and pulled the thin blanket up over her head. It scratched at her face and she couldn’t breathe. The knot in her chest, every noise coming from outside the bars, every story the prisoners tossed out, set her heart racing. Longing for home, she wanted to scream, but instead she choked back any sounds. Soaked in sweat, she shivered, her teeth chattering. She searched for a prayer, but couldn’t remember the words, so instead she turned her face into the pillow and sobbed.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  G reta shifted out of the metal bed. It was just after 6:00 AM. Eyes unfocused, her back ached, her head pounded, memories of the last time she woke up in a strange place.

  A shadow fell over her cell. “Breakfast.” An officer opened the door and passed her a discoloured tray. “Probably not what you’re used to.”

  She took it from his hands and stared at the clump of lumpy oatmeal smeared into a paper cup. Like most people she met, the officer had no idea of the irony of what he’d said. She poked at the raisins on top. Black and shriveled, they reminded her of the meals she’d been forced to make when Ian passed out at the cabin or forgot to buy groceries. After her mother died, the soups she’d made from the berries and plants scavenged in the bush behind the cabin were the best, and though she’d never told him, Mr. K. would’ve been impressed with how she’d mixed in bugs to add protein to the broth.

  She picked up the plastic spoon on the edge of the tray and gulped down the lukewarm mess, followed by a waxy apple and a carton of milk, and then, back to
the wall, she sat on her bed and waited. At seven-thirty, the officer reappeared at the bars.

  “Your legal’s here.” He unlocked the door. “Better get moving.”

  She flattened the wrinkles from her clothes, stepped out of the cell, and followed him upstairs. When he opened the door to a room halfway down the hall, a tall man with ebony skin sat reading at a table.

  “Greta,” he said as she walked in, “I’m Phil Robinson.”

  Sinewy and lean, a wide, full mouth, he stood and gestured to a chair. Dark jeans belted around his hips, she knew instantly he was a runner. He sat back down and passed her a white paper bag. “Bet you’re hungry.”

  She opened it and sucked in the smell. An egg and peameal bacon sandwich… She unwrapped the waxed paper as quickly as she could and stuffed it in her mouth. Sweet smoke and salt danced across her tongue. She’d never tasted a sandwich so damn good. She’d never been more grateful.

  For the next hour, Phil led them through a thick file and they discussed her case. He answered her questions, she answered his, and when the knock at the door came to let them know Detective Perez had arrived, for the first time in two days, Greta felt more hopeful. Phil pushed his chair back, collected the papers, and put them in the folder.

  “Time to go.” He jerked his head in the direction of the door. “We’re in Number Two.”

  The box.

  Greta stood, shoulders tense, her stomach now unsettled. She took a deep breath, pushed her hair from her forehead, and followed him down the hallway. Before she stepped into Number Two, she felt him set his hand gently on her shoulder.

  Her eyes skirted the room. A scratched, rectangular table, a mirrored window, a camera high on the wall. She pulled out a plastic chair that looked like it was from high school. The room was stuffy and there was no air, yet it had a sharp smell. Rotten fruit? The urinal pucks in the park bathrooms from her running days? Antiseptic at the dentist’s office? Three glasses and a pitcher of sweaty water had been placed in the centre of the table.

  A tap on the door came. Face solemn, Detective Perez strode into the room. “Good morning.”

  “Astra.” Phil pushed back his chair back and extended his hand across the table.

  “We ready?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “Greta?”

  She kept her mouth shut but nodded too.

  Detective Perez read out the date and time, stated the reason for the interview, and declared the people present in the room. “Now, let’s get started. I’ve read this over twice,” she informed them, tapping a thick file of papers in front of her. “And let’s just say: there are gaps.”

  Greta shifted uncomfortably. The detective wasn’t the only one who’d read it. In preparation for the interview, she and Phil had reviewed it, too. They’d studied it, discussed and dissected every document. Besides her fingerprint, the doctor’s report was the most problematic. While he confirmed her father was dying, it was his word choice that landed them all there. He’d used the term close to death.

  Detective Perez opened the file and flicked through it. “You were with your father the evening he died?”

  Despite the detective’s inflection, Greta knew she wasn’t asking a question. They’d been through it all the day before and this morning she’d seen the surveillance tape. The camera had caught her coming through the hospital’s revolving front doors at 8:02 PM and then running out again an hour later.

  “I needed answers,” she said.

  “About what?”

  “You know. My mother. He killed her.”

  The detective peered over from across the top of red plastic reading glasses. She nodded slowly. “Right. When I spoke to Officer Pappas last night, he shared your thoughts with me.”

  Her face reddened. Thoughts? Was that how Officer Pappas described them? They weren’t thoughts. Was that what the detective now believed?

  “It’s the truth,” she said.

  “Which is what we’re here to get to the bottom of.”

  The truth was all she’d thought about the last nine years. Hopeful, she edged forward.

  “So, did you see the autopsy report? Her broken bones? Old fractures?”

  “I’m not here to get to the bottom of your mother’s truth, Greta. I discussed that for quite some time last night with Officer Pappas.”

  “And?”

  “There are spots in his notes that differ from your early recollections.”

  “Yeah? Like what?”

  “For starters, the day your mother died. He found baking sheets in the sink and there were crumbs all over the floor.”

  Greta looked at her. Some days her memories surfaced, other days they didn’t. There were times, trapped by walls of darkness, that they refused to surface at all; on those days, they simply vanished. “That means nothing. I probably didn’t see them. Who wouldn’t expect a mess from a fight?”

  “His recollection of your conversation at the cabin after your mother’s death and then again three years later with the child advocate are different.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “Greta.” Phil turned to face her.

  She didn’t look at him.

  “And despite you insisting it wasn’t, the investigation surrounding your mother’s death was re-opened. These discrepancies are alarming Greta; however, that’s not why we’re here today.”

  “You said you wanted the truth.”

  “I do. But as I just explained, I’m here for your father’s truth.”

  Greta barked a bitter laugh. Her father’s death from cancer was still more suspicious than her mother getting brained on the kitchen table and her father conveniently forgetting to call for help? The unfairness of the whole situation made her want to weep.

  Detective Perez reached into the file, shuffled through the documents, and held up a black and white photo. She pointed to the date stamp. “So you were with him—”

  Three days ago. She stared at Ian’s image; his every inch ravaged by cancer. On his back, hands gnarled into fists at his sides, his chest and face so pale they bled into the sheets. His neck extended, she could see the sinews tight in the straight. His open eyes stared up at the ceiling and his mouth gaped.

  She swallowed her smile. “To confront him,” she said firmly after she pulled her eyes away, “about my mom’s murder.”

  Detective Perez looked at her coldly. “It’s highly unusual a conversation ends up with someone dead.”

  She paused to consider what the detective said. She knew about the other documents in the file. The coroner’s report. The nurse’s affidavit. The recording of his 911 call. It still echoed through her head.

  911, what’s your emergency?

  A man just died on my ward.

  That can’t be that unusual, sir.

  Well, this one is. His estranged daughter was with him before he passed. They were alone, and then she just tore out of here, like a bat out of hell. No tears. A big smile on her face. It was crazy.

  She grimaced. “Wouldn’t you want to do the same? Get answers before he croaked?”

  Detective Perez was silent with disapproval.

  She glared at her. “He messed my whole life up.”

  When Phil laid his hand on her forearm, she jerked it away again. “You know I left Bracebridge three years ago to get away from him. I needed to know.”

  “Know what?” the detective asked.

  “Everything. How he got away with it. How he could live with himself. After Grade Nine, I couldn’t live with him anymore, either.”

  Detective Perez said nothing. She opened her notebook on the table.

  “I couldn’t take his abuse,” Greta continued. “There was no nasty incident. No ugly drama. I just shut down.”

  “So, you ran away, is what you’re saying?” the detective asked.

  Greta shrunk. Escape was what she’d done. Avoided her own death was even more likely. She took a deep breath and tried to calm her nerves. “No, I dropped out of school. I
read somewhere—I don’t know where now—that Steve Jobs dropped out, too. I thought that, if he’d done it and still made it big, it wasn’t impossible for me to make something of myself… You know, live a better life.”

  “In what area did you think you’d do that?” The detective asked with a sour look. “He dropped out of college, not high school. Did you talk through this decision with any adults before you made it?”

  “Like who? My dad? The man who couldn’t have cared less?”

  “So that’s a no then?”

  She sighed. “It’s not what I said. When Mr. and Mrs. Xiangzi found out, they didn’t say anything.”

  “Really?”

  “They didn’t need to. I could see the disappointment in their eyes.”

  “Then you didn’t talk to them before you decided?”

  She blushed deep red. “After I decided was when I talked to them. Mrs. Xiangzi worked hard with me each night on my homework, so I knew she’d be mad and want to try to stop me.”

  It had been almost four years, and she still felt guilty about the grief she’d caused them. She looked down at the floor, ashamed. “I wasn’t their child but they treated me like a daughter.”

  The detective nodded. “You’re lucky you still have them in your life.”

  She made a mental note to call them as soon as they’d finished. She hoped it wouldn’t be much longer. Not like yesterday. It wouldn’t be. It couldn’t be.

  “I am. And they were clear. If I wasn’t in school, I had to be in the restaurant. All day. Every day. On time.”

  Greta worked at New Haven for the next six months of the long, cold Ontario winter. While the days were flat and never seemed to brighten, the half-year passed quickly. They were a little family because, by that time, her father had all but disappeared. He only used the apartment as a place to crash between the women and the forty-ounce bottles that had taken over his life. Although there were days Greta wished it, she knew he wouldn’t take off forever. He was never able to sell the cabin, so the nest egg he’d sunk into it was stuck there. The thing that weighed most heavily on her mind was all the times he had driven back to visit in the dead of night, navigating the dark windy country roads, with his good friend Jack Daniels open on his lap. Happy if he died in an accident, she didn’t want him killing someone else.