by G. M. Ford
“Do I still call you Sergeant?” she asked as he walked up.
“Yeah . . . like one of those Kentucky colonels.”
She waved a portable tape recorder in his face. “Would you like to make a statement, Sergeant?” she asked.
Mickey unlocked the car with the push of a button, opened the door and slipped into the driver’s seat. Natalie sidled her hip into the door jamb. She made a show of turning off the recorder and dropping it into her purse.
“And nobody’s going to mention the talk about Edwin Royster and those girls?”
Mickey looked up at her. “What talk is that?” he asked.
“You know what I’m talking about. The sexual abuse.”
“I did what I thought was the right thing,” Mickey said.
“What do you think now?” she asked.
And all of a sudden, in his mind’s eye, Mickey could see Vince Keenan’s face.
“I think that sometimes if you can do something, you have to do it.” He spread his hands in resignation. “’Cause there’s no way you could live with yourself, if you didn’t.”
“Nice thought,” she said.
“I also think you need to move your car, Natalie, so I can get the hell out of here,” he said with a small smile.
She met his gaze. Put a big, knuckley hand on his shoulder. “Good luck, Sergeant,” she said. She stepped aside, looked down at Mickey and shrugged. “I guess sometimes the truth doesn’t set you free.”
Mickey watched her move the car, then closed his door, dropped the car into drive and wheeled out of the lot. Once he got out onto the city streets, he turned right on Yonker Boulevard and just kept driving. Farther out that way than he’d been in years. Past the gypo car dealers, with their ragged pennants flapping, past the strip malls and last-chance groceries, drove it all the way to the end, out where the landscape was very much as the original hunter-gatherers must have found it. Way out in the tulles where it ran into Boundary Road. Framed by an ocean of swamp grass and bulrushes, a brand new billboard loomed dark against the afternoon sky. United Airlines. Vacations to Florida. Senior citizen couple looking like they’d just won the lottery.
The guy . . . something about the guy . . . And then Mickey Dolan realized how much the old man looked like his father. Right before he went into the hospital and never came out. He saw a brief flash of him brushing dust from his patrolman’s uniform before . . . And then things got blurry.
Mickey reached up and touched his face. Water seemed to be leaking from his eyes.
Mickey patted himself down, looking for a handkerchief, but it was no go. In the pocket of his pants, however, he found a white business card, with a phone number written on the back in pen. As he gazed down at those handwritten blue numbers, pictures began to run in his mind, so he closed his eyes and waited as the pictures took shape and he could begin to see the movie. Then he picked up his phone and dialed.
4
“You never take responsibility,” Grace said. “When things go wrong, you just sit there like a sphinx and make like you didn’t have a damn thing to do with it.”
Eve clamped her mouth shut, spun the chair in a half circle and rolled over to the window. Evespeak for she’d heard enough.
Grace went on anyway. “We had no business trying to relocate the Royster family. That’s not what we do.”
“Others wouldn’t have had the courage to try,” Eve said.
“Don’t you get it, Mom? We screwed up. Those little girls will be back with their father sometime on Thursday. Just thinking about it makes my skin crawl. Cassie Royster’s in the county jail on a contempt of court citation, which means they can keep her for as long as they want. A man who tried to help us is about to lose his job.” She threw her hands up in despair. “We couldn’t have botched this worse if we’d tried.”
“The Women’s Coalition is working on getting Cassie Royster released. They’re doing everything they can.” Before Grace could respond, Eve changed the subject. “Mr. Thurmond has been calling incessantly. Indra says he sounds frantic.”
“Of course he sounds frantic. I was supposed to see his wife last night. But, of course, I was in jail. Poor guy must be going crazy by now.”
“Surely he’ll understand.”
Grace took a deep breath. She needed to calm down.
“What if I told you he wasn’t a Hollywood mogul and doesn’t really have a million dollars.”
Must have been some sort of record for how slowly a wheelchair could be turned in a one-eighty. The cords in Eve’s neck stood out like bridge cables.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Just what I said. He made up all that Hollywood millionaire stuff just to get our attention. He’s just a kid with a wife in a coma. He’s broke and scared and probably about as far down as a person can get. He doesn’t have anything. I’m betting he spent everything he owns to get his wife this far.”
“Have you checked with Indra? I believe we have several other inquiries.”
“He’s probably got his wife stashed in some cheap clinic, and you think I should turn him down because he doesn’t have the bucks?”
“We can’t work with people who lie to us,” Eve said.
Grace laughed. “People lie to us all the time, just like they lie to themselves all the time. Self-denial is the national pastime,” she said. “How can people who are lying to themselves be expected to tell us the truth? They left the truth so far behind they don’t even remember doing it.”
“You can’t do this,” Eve said.
“I already spoke with him,” Grace said immediately. “I’m seeing her later today.”
“Just to spite me.”
“I know this is going to come as quite a shock, but this isn’t about you.”
“Or some sort of perverse expiation of guilt?”
“If I was working from guilt, I’d be trying to do something for Sergeant Dolan. He’s the guy ended up getting the worst of it. All he was trying to do was keep those girls out of their father’s hands, and he ended up losing everything. He’s probably sitting around his apartment, right now, trying to figure out what he’s going to do with the rest of his life.”
“You’ve been dewy over him since first sight.”
“And look what it got him.”
“He seemed like a rather resourceful man to me,” Eve said.
The door at the far end of the room opened and Indra walked in holding a cell phone. “We got a call on the Transitional Center line,” she said.
“Mr. Thurmond again?” Eve asked.
“No,” Indra said. “There’s been an incident down at the jail. Mrs. Royster has sustained some sort of injury.”
Mickey Dolan pulled the brim of the Cincinnati Reds baseball cap low over his eyes and then settled the black hoodie over the hat, urban monk style. He checked his reflection in the window, made a couple of adjustments, and then started up the hall toward the Child Protective Services office. He had no illusions. The hat, the hood, the sunglasses, and the three acres of shorts weren’t much of a disguise. He told himself that knowing where the cameras were located evened the odds a bit, and all he had to do was to avoid looking directly at any of them on the way in. If he got in clean, he’d look like just another baggy-pants homeboy fallen victim to the system.
As he pulled open the CPS office door and stepped inside, the old Roman-numeral clock on the back wall read 12:25. A dozen or so people were milling around the office. All eyes were on a guy with a big, red face who was yelling at the young woman behind the front counter.
“This is my life,” he was yelling. “You’re talking about my life here lady.”
“I’m sorry sir,” was all he heard the girl say before the guy started yelling again.
The hostility had attracted the attention of the security guard, who was now inching toward the counter
, in case the yeller got any more out of hand.
That’s when the recorded message started rolling out of the overhead speakers. “Ladies and gentlemen, by order of the mayor and the City Council, this office closes every day between 12:30 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. . . .” Everybody in the room simultaneously looked at the clock.
Mickey kept his face averted as he slid along the back wall, down the short corridor, and ducked into the men’s room, where he walked down to the last booth, climbed up on the toilet so his feet wouldn’t show under the partition, and leaned his shoulders against the white tile wall.
He waited. The guy at the counter was still yelling, but the words were no longer intelligible. He tried to ignore how uncomfortable he was, while he listened to the shuffle of feet and the disjointed calliope of voices as the crowd was ushered out into the hall.
Several minutes passed before the security guard kicked open the men’s room door, checked the floor for feet, and then presumably headed off for the comfort of his furlough chair in the hallway. Mickey stifled a groan as the swinging door creaked and closed. He felt like a paraplegic, but leaned back and waited some more. Waited until he was engulfed by silence and his hips had grown completely numb, then carefully put one sneakered foot on the floor. Then the other. His knees were shaky, his back in a knot. He leaned his shoulder against the wall, giving his extremities a chance to regain some feeling, then pulled a pair of latex gloves from one coat pocket and a dark blue ski mask from the other.
He took his time putting them on. Shook out his legs and took several deep breaths before stashing the Reds cap and shades in his pocket and poking his head out into the silent hallway.
This was the part he hadn’t been able to envision. What in hell he was going to say if he got caught creeping around a locked city office, wearing this outfit, latex gloves, and a ski mask. Hard as he’d tried, he’d been unable to come up with an excuse that sounded even remotely plausible. Way he saw it, once you’ve been fired, the realms of possibility just naturally get a whole lot wider.
He stepped out into the hall and tiptoed into the main room. The place was empty and still. He checked high up the corners. The green lights of the CC cameras peered unblinkingly down on the room. The old clock clicked the passing of another minute as he walked quietly to the far end of the service counter and sidled past the Employees Only sign into the office area.
He walked directly to the nearest desk and pulled open the center drawer. He’d been expecting to find a file cabinet key. He found six, cursed under his breath, and scooped all of them up.
He was in the process of trying the fourth key when his peripheral vision caught a flicker of change. He checked the corners of the ceiling again.
Green lights out.
Cameras off.
He was still trying to wrap his head around this change when the front door clicked open. He dove for the nearest desk, crawled under it and rested his back against the modesty panel. He held his breath and waited.
A woman giggled.
Two pairs of legs walked through his field of vision, close enough to touch. One male. One female. The male was wearing pants with a shiny stripe down the pant leg. Uniform pants. Had to be the security guard.
The female sounded breathless. “We shouldn’t be doing this. If Mrs. Robertson . . .”
“Don’t worry, baby. Ain’t nobody gonna find out. Cain’t nobody get in here less I let ’em in. I got the only key.”
A faint rustle of fabric reached his ears. “Got somethin’ here for you baby,” he whispered. Fevered rustlings ensued.
“Ooooooooooooooh,” she cooed. “Yes . . . yes . . .”
Mickey crawled out from under the desk and peeked around the corner of the desk. The woman had her skirt hiked up to armpit level. A pair of lavender panties lay crumpled on the desktop beside her. She was bent over the desk at the far end of the room. The security guard was hunched up behind her with his pants around his ankles, slipping it to her for all he was worth. His butt cheeks seemed to have a life of their own, bouncing this way and that, as he thrust into her again and again.
Apparently, the young woman was big on affirmations. “Yes . . . yes . . . yes . . .” she hissed over and over again as he rhythmically pummeled her from behind. “Oh yes . . .”
Mickey ducked back under the desk and waited. The audio part of the program was moist and hard to listen to, but all he could do was try to tune it out and wait some more. The old wall clock clicked eight more times before a long, wavering crescendo finally faded to labored breathing.
He heard the tinkle of the guy’s belt as he pulled his pants up. Another minute passed before their legs wobbled by his vantage point again. At the door, they shared a moment of . . . what? Tenderness? Lust? Guilt? He couldn’t decide, nor did he particularly care. Then the door closed, and he was once again alone in the room.
He counted to fifty and then crawled out from under the desk. He had to stifle a groan as he stretched and rolled his neck. This time he got lucky. Found the right key on the second try. The drawer rolled out. The green lights came back on.
He picked his way through the alphabet to R and pulled out the folder labeled Royster. The file was sealed inside a blue plastic envelope. “Sealed by Order of the Court.” The day, the time, the court, and the presiding judge were all listed on the label. Right next to a list of citations and penalties for the unauthorized opening or otherwise tampering with the contents.
Voices suddenly could be heard in the hall. In a burst of nervous energy, Mickey slipped the file under his arm, rolled the drawer closed, locked the cabinet, and then slipped over to the desk, where he returned the keys to their former home in the center drawer. Two voices now. Something banged against the office door hard enough to rattle the frosted glass.
He’d just made it back to the customer side of the counter, with the Royster file still tucked under his arm, when the voices again reached his ears. Louder this time. Combative. Mickey thought it might be the guy who’d been yelling earlier, maybe come back to make his point again, but he didn’t stick around to find out.
Instead, he hotfooted it down the hallway, slid back the bolt on the frosted glass door opposite the men’s room, and pulled it open a crack. In a single deft movement, he snatched the ski mask from his head and replaced it with the Reds cap, put the shades on and then covered it all up with the hoodie. A second later, he stepped out into the empty hallway and hurried off.
Cassie Royster had a world-class shiner. Started over by her ear and ran all the way to her nose, which at this point was stuffed with bloody cotton.
Jennifer McCade and Teresa Hollander perched on the edges of their chairs, leaning toward the scuffed-up piece of reinforced plastic that separated them from her. All professionally concerned and sisterly, and of exactly no help whatsoever.
Grace, who’d arrived last, stood behind them, leaning against the wall. She hadn’t seen Jen or Teresa since they’d been taken into custody together. “Detained” was what the state cops had called it. They were being detained for everyone’s safety, until the legalities got sorted out. Not arrested, mind you. Merely detained.
They’d been trying to sort out what to do with Gus. On one hand, he had a criminal record from here to Poughkeepsie, and, not coincidentally, had spent major portions of his adult life as a guest of the state. Not only that, but, to make matters worse, he was presently out on parole. The Relentless Technology mouthpiece claimed that Gus had wantonly attacked his duly appointed agents and should be held pending further charges.
On the other hand, the attorney who’d shown up to represent Gus and Grace had not only proclaimed his client’s innocence, but produced a dozen local citizens, all of whom had been present at Northhaven Mall at the time of the fisticuffs, and all of whom swore up and down that Gus had been the victim of the attacks rather than the instigator. In the end, local color won out. They’d decid
ed to keep the Relentless employees locked up and to let Gus and the women go.
Cassie Royster was an emotional wreck. She’d spent the past fifteen minutes trying to relate the story of how she’d come by the shiner. The story arrived piecemeal, between sniffles, shredded tissues, and intermittent bursts of tears. Seems a couple of other inmates had simply walked up and taken her breakfast tray. When she’d protested their lack of manners, they’d beaten her down. Pulling her off the bench by the hair, and kicking and punching her repeatedly, as both the guards and other inmates stood by and did nothing.
“They saw what was happening,” she bawled. “They just stood there.”
“We’re filing a complaint with the city,” Teresa said.
“No,” Grace said, bumping herself off the wall. “That’ll just make things worse. Filing a complaint will make her a snitch, and, as far as these people are concerned, snitches get stitches.”
Jennifer and Teresa looked at Grace as if she were speaking in tongues.
“Excuse me?” Jennifer McCade said.
Grace stepped forward, looked down at Jennifer. “Would you mind?” she asked. “I’d like to have a few words with Cassie.”
Took Jennifer a full five seconds to figure out that Grace wanted the chair. She seemed amazed. Apparently, Teresa agreed.
“Oh.” She shot Teresa a sideways glance and pushed herself to her feet. “Of course.”
Grace plopped down onto the worn seat beside Teresa and then leaned as far forward as possible, resting her forehead against the scuffed plastic separating them. She made eye contact with Cassie Royster. “Listen to me now,” she said. “There’s three kinds of people in jail. There’s predators, there’s victims, and there’s people just doing their time. Nobody’s going to take your side until they find out which one you are.”