by Mary McBride
"Yeah. Yeah. Okay," Sonny muttered.
"That could be you in a year or so, partner, if Mel gets what she wants."
Sonny took a last harsh drag on his cigarette, then flicked it out the window before he said sourly, "Mel doesn't know what the hell she wants."
* * *
"I want a stage, Dieter. I want a real, working stage with a fancy proscenium arch and rich blue-velvet curtains that really open and close. The whole deal. And I don't care how much it costs." Melanie gave a shrug and then softened her tone a bit. "Well … you know … within reason."
Dieter Weist had shown up unexpectedly this morning at the tail end of Melanie's crying jag. One look at her red-rimmed, swollen eyes and he'd apologized profusely, offering to come back some other time to give her an estimate on construction in the playroom. But she'd insisted he come in. Maybe she was falling apart, but she'd be damned if all her plans would, too. And the more Sonny didn't want a baby, dammit, the more she did.
The beefy German nodded solemnly now and proceeded to pace off the east wall of the third-floor playroom, carefully planting one sturdy brown shoe in front of the other.
"Twenty feet all together," he said when he reached the southern end. "We could construct a platform sixteen feet wide and leave a twenty-four-inch access on each side. What depth were you imagining, liebchen? Maybe six feet? Eight?"
Melanie frowned. She hadn't even considered the depth of the stage, and it irritated her that she'd overlooked something so important. "What do you think?" she asked the architect. "Six feet doesn't sound like enough."
She tried to picture children in costumes—pirates with plywood swords, fairy godmothers waving glittering magic wands, and angels with big cardboard wings.
He paced off six feet from the east wall. "Here," he said, and then he took two more steps and spread his arms wide. "Or here. This is eight feet."
"There," she said. "That's good. Right where you are now."
Looking from where Dieter stood toward the rest of the playroom, she decided the stage wouldn't encroach too much on the rest of the space. There would still be ample room for all the wonderful things she'd put on her playroom list, for the toy chests and the easels and a play kitchen and a little make-believe grocery store.
"Zehr gut. Well, let me make a few little notes here and a preliminary sketch." He pulled a small black notebook from his pocket and began to write.
"Would you like a cup of coffee, Dieter?"
"Ja. That would be nice, Melanie. Don't go to any trouble, though, for me."
"No trouble at all," she said, heading downstairs to the nearly full pot of the strong brew she'd made for Sonny a few hours before.
Let's see. One wasted pot of coffee today. One way-overcooked pot of red sauce yesterday. As far as she could see, things were pretty much back to normal as far as she and Sonny were concerned. The status was pretty quo. Chaos reigned once more.
In the kitchen it occurred to her, as she reached for a mug in an overhead cabinet, that she wasn't doing a very good job of bending the way she'd told Sonny she would do. But then, as she filled the mug with the hot dark liquid, Melanie decided that wasn't exactly true.
She didn't care about the wasted coffee or the ruined red sauce. They didn't really matter at all. What mattered was that she was thirty-one years old and ready, eager, determined to start a family, and that Sonny, the man she loved with all her heart, was not. It was as simple and as devastating as that.
"We'll talk about it later," he had said.
What was the use?
Dieter called down from the third floor. "Come up here, Melanie. I have a wonderful idea for a storage area underneath the stage."
Good. She carried Dieter's coffee up the stairs. If this storage area turned out to be big enough, maybe that's where she'd put all her useless plans and dreams about having Sonny's baby.
* * *
Chapter 13
« ^ »
Sonny sat at his desk in the big squad room of the precinct, feeling useless and frustrated and mad as hell. It had been almost two weeks since he'd been on vacation, long enough for somebody to mess up his Rolodex, break his stapler, and completely rearrange his personal stuff on the desktop.
Melanie's picture in its little silver frame—the one he'd taken of her outside city hall on their wedding day—had been shoved behind a stack of files and phone books. He pulled it out, ran his thumb gently over her pretty face, then stowed it carefully in a side drawer. Right now he wasn't sure if that photograph wasn't all he'd have of her for the next half century.
He closed his eyes a moment and clenched his teeth, trying to drive away the painful doubt.
Dammit. He needed to work.
But the captain had made it clear—mostly by hammering his fist on his blotter—that Sonny was still on personal leave and therefore forbidden to investigate Lovey's death in any official capacity whatsoever. He'd used the word "whatsoever" about a hundred times, trying to get his point across.
"Look, Randle," Captain Callahan had said between whatsoevers and beats of his big fist on his desktop. "We all know it was Kinnison, okay? We're on it. I've got four people out there right now, looking to tie him to that Lovey woman, as well as the arson in Channing Square
. I know you think this is some kind of personal vendetta with Kinnison, and I appreciate that. It very well may be. Hell, it probably is. But you are not to get involved with this in any way whatsoever. Not until you're back from leave. Do I make myself clear?"
Callahan went on to remind Sonny that the police board would be convening next week to review the shooting incident at the meth lab, and it would be extremely unfortunate, a damned shame in fact, if a certain vice lieutenant's personnel file contained a fresh reprimand from his immediate superior.
Reprimand me for this, Sonny thought as he opened the center drawer of the desk and bashed it closed as loud and with as much force as he could, not once, but twice. Blam. Blam. A stack of files fell over onto the floor, but not a single person in the squad room even turned around to look. Outbreaks of violent temper involving kicked desks, ripped papers, shouted curses and slammed-down phones were a pretty normal occurrence around here on both sides of the law.
A few minutes later Mike signaled to him from across the room.
"What's going on?" Sonny asked, joining his partner in the hallway.
"Sorry I brought you in for nothing, Son. I really thought Callahan would make an exception in this case."
"Yeah. Well, no such luck." Sonny tried not to grumble and gripe too much. It wasn't Mikey's fault, after all. "Hey, it's okay. Really. What's one more week? Hell, I can use all the leave time I can get to work on that wreck of a house." And the wreck of a relationship, he added to himself.
"You need a ride home?"
"That'd be great, Mikey. Thanks."
Together, they started down the hallway toward the elevator. They had only taken a few steps when Stan Heilig came out of an interrogation room. As the lanky, blond detective approached them, Sonny's first instinct was to offer a sarcastic, teeth-bared thanks for all of his help with Lovey.
But when he heard Mike mutter, "Take it easy, Son," he found himself thinking about what Mike had said earlier about Heilig's new baby in an incubator in the hospital, and suddenly—feeling a kind of empathy with the guy—Sonny heard himself saying almost pleasantly, "Hey, Heilig. How's it going? How's the kid?"
Stan Heilig blinked as he grasped Sonny's extended hand. There was more than a little wariness in his expression. In fact, he seemed to be tensing in anticipation of a blow. "Hey, Randle. She's better. Thanks. I just got off the phone with my wife. She's bringing the baby home today."
"Great news," Mike said, giving the young man a thumbs-up.
"Glad to hear it," Sonny said.
The tall detective still seemed on his guard. "Are you, uh, are you back on the active roster now? I thought…"
"Next week," Sonny told him. "See you then."
"Right. Okay. I'll see
you. Take care, Sonny."
Heilig proceeded down the hallway toward the squad room, glancing over his shoulder as if to reassure himself he wasn't being stalked.
"That wasn't so bad, was it?" Mike grinned as he punched the elevator button.
"Must be tough," Sonny said quietly, "having to spend so much time with scumbags when all you want is to be watching over your sick kid."
After they stepped into the empty elevator, Mike pressed the button for the first floor, then said, "So this reunion with Melanie… Is it going to happen?"
Sonny stared at the procession of lit numbers on the control panel in front of him. He'd managed to forget about his ex-wife for about six minutes. Now her tearful face reappeared before him and his doubts came back. He shrugged helplessly.
"I don't know, Mikey. I'm beginning to think this isn't going to work. Mel just wants a baby. She's obsessed with the idea. She doesn't really want me."
Mike did his own version of a shrug while he stared at their blurred reflections in the polished doors.
"Why can't she want both?"
The elevator bell dinged to announce their arrival on the first floor. The door slid open, and Sonny, frowning, followed his partner out.
"What did you say, Mike?" Whatever it had been, the words had caused something to click in Sonny's brain.
"I said there's no law I know of that says Melanie can't want both of you. You and a kid. It's not a mutually exclusive deal, you know."
"Right," Sonny murmured.
He considered his friend's words as he followed Mike along the corridor to the back door and out to the parking lot. Maybe he had been thinking about this all wrong. Maybe Mel wanted him for more than a warm alternative to artificial insemination. Maybe he was just as important to her as a kid. Maybe this time she wouldn't pick up her ball and go home.
"Hey, Lieutenant!"
Sonny turned to see Patrolman Tim Moore loping up behind him. The kid was in street clothes and he looked as though he needed some sleep. Even so, he wore a kind of goofy grin on his face.
"Just getting off duty, Moore?" he asked.
"Yeah. Finally. I always really look forward to walking out the door and catching my first glimpse of the mean machine." He pointed far across the parking lot where the sleek and shiny black Corvette was parked, far away from other vehicles.
"Not taking any chances on dings and dents, are you, kid?" Mike said with a laugh.
"No way," the young man exclaimed, grinning and jingling a set of keys as he picked up his pace and walked past them. "Hey, I don't even like anybody breathing on her."
"Sonny was always the same way," Mike said. "At least until he joined the minivan set."
The patrolman stopped and shook his head as if he couldn't comprehend how any sane man could even be tempted to give up a vintage Corvette in favor of a suburban special. "Do you miss her, Lieutenant?" he asked.
"Her?"
"Well, I call it 'her,'" Moore said almost sheepishly. "My wife's not too crazy about that."
"I guess not," Mike murmured.
"So, any regrets, Lieutenant? Do you miss her?"
"Nah."
As soon as the word came out of his mouth, Sonny realized just how much he meant it. He gazed across the lot at the car, fully appreciating its sleek lines and air of imminent danger, but failing to experience even a tiny pang of regret. He didn't miss the Corvette a bit. Melanie was all he missed, and he couldn't wait to get home to tell her so.
If he'd had any lingering doubts at all about his intentions, they were all gone now. This wasn't an act. The house. The mortgage. The minivan. He was playing for keeps.
"I don't miss her a bit," Sonny called out. "Take good care of her, Moore."
The patrolman waved over his shoulder as he continued to the far end of the lot.
Giving Sonny a little shot with his elbow, Mike said, "I'd say the kid's almost as crazy about that car as you are."
"As I was," Sonny said, correcting him.
"Oh, yeah. Sorry. I forgot."
They walked the last few yards to Mike's unmarked car. It had rained while they were inside, but now the sun was trying to break through the gray clouds overhead. Sonny took that as a hopeful sign that Melanie's wet weather had changed, too. They'd take a walk in the sunshine in Channing Park later. They'd talk this all out, and then get on with their life together. They'd make a baby, maybe even today, and the kid would simply cement the bond that already existed between them.
Really anxious to get back to Channing Square
now, Sonny walked around to the passenger side of Mike's car, but just as he reached for the handle, a huge explosion ripped through the air, slamming him hard against the door as glass and metal and bits of leather rained down from above.
With his ears still ringing from the explosion, he barely heard Mike exclaim, "My God, Sonny. Oh, my God. That was the Corvette. That was meant for you."
* * *
After Dieter left, Melanie was sorely tempted to sink back into the funk she'd been in earlier, but she decided that would only be surrendering to Sonny's effect on her and his ability to swing her moods wildly from one direction to another. She'd choose her own mood, thank you very much, and—dammit—she was going to resume her own cautious and carefully plotted course.
Sonny may have thrown her for a loop with all his talk of how he'd changed, but she was back on track now. For a little while she had thought she could have it all—both Sonny and a baby. But it was pretty clear that her ex-husband didn't want a child any more now than he had when they were married. Fine. Okay. She'd just get on with her own itinerary.
The good news was she had plenty to clean and tidy up what with Sonny's presence in the house lately. She started with the bedroom where the sheets and blanket bore witness to who had slept on which side of the bed the night before. The covers on her side were neatly peeled back, giving her just enough room to exit, while those on Sonny's side were completely untucked and frightfully scrambled, as if a tornado had spent the night on that half of the mattress.
Melanie rolled her eyes and made a disdainful little cluck with her tongue, but at the same time she could feel her throat thickening and moisture building in her eyes. Ah, God. She'd taken a huge step forward this past year only to have Lieutenant Flummox send her reeling three or four steps back.
All she wanted to do right now was to sit on the bed and weep, but she fought down the urge with a vengeance, kicking strewn pillows out of her way and then ripping the covers from the mattress as if she meant to tear them all into shreds. Then, while she was pulling fresh sheets and pillowcases from the linen closet in the hallway, she thought she heard a car door slam at the curb out front.
If that was Sonny, she was ready for him and for their postponed talk. She was going to tell him that their separate visions of a future together were far too different to allow either one of them to be happy. It didn't matter that they loved each other if they couldn't agree on having a family. It was over. Period. It was time for them to stop pretending that there was any hope at all.
As she trotted down the stairs, the doorbell began to ring rather insistently.
"I'm coming," she called.
He wouldn't be in such a damned hurry, she thought, if he knew the bad news awaiting him once she opened the door. When she did open it, however, it wasn't Sonny standing there with a sexy grin on his face but Sam Venneman, who was wearing such a somber, almost-funereal expression that his normally tanned face appeared nearly white. Melanie could only gasp.
"Oh, my God, Sam! What's wrong?"
"There's been an explosion, Melanie. A car bomb, they tell me, in the Third Precinct parking lot."
"Oh, my God!"
Her knees began to liquefy and questions started ricocheting inside her head. Had Mike and Sonny gone to the precinct? How long ago was that? Or had they gone someplace else entirely? Why was Sam here telling her this?
"What…?" She could barely make her lips move. "Who…?"
/>
"It was Sonny's car," Sam said, reaching out to grasp her arm. "I'm so very sorry, Melanie."
"No." The word came out calmly enough, although it sounded hollow and empty of emotion. It held no shock. No pain. Nothing at all. To Melanie, the sound seemed to come from someone else, someone far away.
She had gone completely numb from her head to her feet. Sam's face registered a sympathy she refused to accept. He'd just told her… What? Something that didn't make sense somehow, but she couldn't process it or get the information to fit with other scattered bits of knowledge in her brain.
"No," she said again. She sounded like a zombie, but she couldn't help it.
This was all wrong. Sam was standing there all tense and on the verge of tears as if he'd just relayed the news that Sonny was dead. But that was impossible. The sun was shining now. The park across the street looked beautiful in its spring colors. Melanie herself was breathing. None of which could possibly be happening if Sonny, the love of her life, were dead.
"Where is he?" she asked, not quite so calmly now.
"At the precinct," Sam said. "Let's go in and sit for a minute, shall we? Maybe you should…"
"No. Take me there, Sam." She stepped forward, forcing the mayor to take a step back, pulling her front door closed behind her. "Take me there right now."
"Do you want to get your handbag first? Your keys? You really ought to lock up."
"It doesn't matter." The whole place could burn down or disintegrate behind her for all she cared just then. Nothing mattered but Sonny. "Take me there right now."
She started walking toward the mayor's long black limousine that was waiting at the curb. All of a sudden a squad car came roaring around the corner of Kassing Avenue
and slid to a stop in front of the limo. The car's flashing lights made Melanie dizzy, and her vision kept narrowing, as if she were going to faint.
"Get in, Melanie," the mayor said. "I'm going to see what these officers want."
She sat in the back seat of the limo, staring blankly out the tinted window. Something just didn't fit. It was something about the car. It was something about Sonny's car, but she couldn't get it straight.