A dirty cop. Or two dirty cops, one who blew himself up like one of those Muslim terrorists in Iraq and another who was close enough to make sure to finish what the bomb started. Dirty cops are something Daddy has complained about often enough; it’s a big part of how Madame Crimson has evaded prosecution for this long.
“How can they do that?” Jessica asks. “How can they let her go after all of this?”
“There’s no evidence that she was involved, at least not yet. And without Heine, the DA doesn’t have much of a case.”
I shake my head. Madame Crimson’s going to walk again. Even if he survives, Daddy is going to be back at Square One with her. It’ll be worse because she’ll be more careful for a while to make it almost impossible to get anything on her. All those years Daddy put into this, wasted. It simply isn’t fair. But then if life were fair, Daddy wouldn’t be fighting for his life in surgery while Madame Crimson is back at her mansion sipping champagne.
***
Like with Mom, I’m asleep when it happens. The waiting room is too crowded, so a nice doctor let me curl up on a couch in the doctor’s lounge. I told myself I’d nap for a few minutes, to be fresh for later; I guess with all the excitement from today I dropped right off.
I wake up to a hand shaking me. “Robin, wake up,” Jessica says.
I know from the tears in her eyes that Daddy is gone. “No,” I whisper. “Not Daddy too.”
“I’m sorry,” Jessica says. She tries to hug me, but I shove her back. I get to my feet and then start for the door. “Where are you going?”
“I want to see him. I want to see Daddy!”
“You can’t. They’ve probably taken him to the morgue by now.”
“Then that’s where I’ll go.”
I throw open the lounge door and then stomp towards the elevator. From every movie and TV show I’ve seen, the morgue is always in the basement of the hospital. I figure that’s where I’ll start my search. If I need a pass I’ll take one from an employee or something—
A hand clamps down on my left bicep. I try to shake it free, but it’s too strong. “Robin, stop it,” Carol says. “I know you want to see him, but you can’t. Not now.”
“What happened? He was in surgery—”
“They tried everything they could, but he was too hurt.”
“No, not Daddy. He was too strong to let a stupid bomb kill him. I have to get down there. He needs me!”
Carol pulls me into a hug. I try to wriggle free, but she’s still too strong for me. “I’m sorry, Robin. Your father was a great man. I promise you we’re going to do everything we can to make sure he didn’t die in vain. We’re going to get Madame Crimson—”
“Then this time do it right. Go to her house and put a bullet in her brain.”
“Robin—”
“If you’re too scared, give me a gun. I’ll do it.”
“Robin—”
“She killed him and you’re letting her go free! Don’t you stand there and tell me that you’re going to make her pay. Go do it! Drag her out of there and blow her fucking head off!” I futilely try to break free of Carol again. When she still won’t let me go, I start to sob. She rubs my back gently without saying anything.
After a while she says, “If you really want to see him, I’ll take you.”
“You will?”
“If it will help you.”
The rational part of my brain tells me it won’t do any good, but at the moment that rational part is in the minority. “Let’s go.”
With the help of her badge, Carol convinces a doctor to take us down to the morgue. As you’d expect, it’s cold down there; I hug myself in a vain attempt to stay warm. “You really shouldn’t take a little girl down here,” the doctor says.
“I’m not a little girl. I’m fifteen,” I say.
“What you’re going to see isn’t very pretty,” the doctor says.
“I don’t care. He’s my dad. I want to see him.”
The doctor looks from me to Carol with her badge and gun in plain view. Then he sighs and opens a door to let us inside. My lunch starts to rise up in my throat to see a dead old woman on a metal table. From the look of her, she died of something nice and quiet, old age maybe.
The doctor has a whispered discussion with another doctor, who shows us to a gurney with a body covered by a blanket. My lunch rises up a little more while my stomach roils with dread. The doctor pulls back the blanket to let me see Daddy’s face. Despite that he wasn’t wearing a helmet, his face is mostly intact. There are a few minor cuts, but nothing serious—nothing fatal.
The doctor pulls back the blanket a little more so I can see Daddy’s chest. With his diet of mostly coffee and cigarettes his chest doesn’t have a paunch like a lot of middle-aged guys. Thanks to the bulletproof vest there isn’t much damage. There are cuts and a few burn marks on his arms.
The real damage is below the waist. I gasp and then turn away to bury my head in Carol’s chest. “Oh God,” I mumble.
“I’m afraid that some of the shrapnel from the blast severed arteries in your father’s legs. He had lost a lot of blood by the time we could get him on the table. We did the best we could, but as you can see, there was a lot of damage.”
“I think she’s seen enough,” Carol says. “Thank you, Doctor.”
She starts to walk me away, but I slip out of her grasp. The doctor has thankfully pulled the blanket back up so that only Daddy’s face is visible. I bend down to kiss him on the lips like I used to do when I was a little girl, except now those lips are ice cold.
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” I whisper. If I had warned him a little sooner about that cop I saw in the mirror, he might have been able to stop the guy, or at least to get himself and Heine to safety. I didn’t warn him in time and now he’s gone.
There’s only one thing I can think to do to make it up to him, to make his death worth something. “I’m going to get her,” I say. “For you.”
Chapter 3
I didn’t go to my mother’s funeral. Daddy wasn’t the type to believe in “closure,” especially not for a five-year-old. Carol took me out to the toy store and movie theater to watch The Incredibles. I knew all of this special attention was a distraction; I just didn’t understand why until later. By the time I got home, Jessica had cleaned up any signs of the funeral luncheon and we never mentioned it, not until they took me to the cemetery three years later, when they thought I was old enough to understand.
I’d much rather go to the toy store and movie theater than sit in St. Michael’s Cathedral and listen to strangers talk about what a great man Daddy was. As a high-ranking cop who died in a high-profile way, Daddy gets a eulogy from the mayor, a city councilman, and the police commissioner.
The only speaker who really knew Daddy is Carol. It’s weird to see her in a skirt instead of slacks or jeans; she’s even wearing high heels for the occasion. “When I first made detective, Captain Howe took me under his wing. He was more than a partner. He was a mentor, a father. I didn’t have a family, so he welcomed me into his. His daughters have become like my own daughters.
“There are not enough words to express what a good man Captain Howe was. He was the bravest, most honorable cop I knew. This city is a much poorer place without him to watch over us.”
She manages to say all this without crying or even sniffling. There is a hitch in her step as she descends the altar steps to return to the front pew. Jessica pats her on the back to let her know she did a good job. They asked if Jessica or I wanted to speak, but we both turned them down. I don’t think I could have stood up there facing all those dignitaries, so many of them on Madame Crimson’s payroll, without launching into a fire-and-brimstone sermon. How many of the people in this cathedral saying nice things about Daddy took Madame Crimson’s money or favors in exchange for looking the other way?
After the service is over, Jessica and I get into a limo to take us to the cemetery. The city is paying for the limo along with everything else since D
addy died in the line of duty. There’s a minibar in the limo; one of the beers in there would really hit the spot right about now. I can’t do that with Jessica and Carol sitting next to me; as far as they know I’ve never touched a drop except a little wine at New Year’s.
“How you holding up, kid?” Carol asks.
“I’m all right,” I say. I knead the little black purse in my hands. As soon as we get home I want to burn this purse, black dress, and black stockings I bought for today. I don’t want any reminders of this awful day.
Cops on motorcycles and horses clear the way across the Fitzgerald Bridge. Suburban cops take up keeping the roads clear all the way to Johnsonville. A city cop would usually be buried in Memorial Cemetery in the city, but Daddy wanted to be buried next to Mom. She was buried in her hometown of Johnsonville, so we have to ride twenty miles out of town, to the posh suburbs we could never afford to live in.
We came out here a couple of times to visit Grandma and Grandpa White, Mom’s parents. They were never too welcoming; they didn’t like Mom marrying a city cop. After Mom died, there was always tension between Grandma and Grandpa and Daddy, as if he had caused Mom’s death by making us live in the city instead of out here in the gated communities.
It’s no surprise they aren’t at the cemetery to greet us. Jessica called to invite them, but they turned her down. At least they didn’t put up a fuss about burying Daddy next to Mom.
The procession winds along the cemetery paths until we come to a stop about twenty yards from the fresh hole next to a big granite tombstone with “Howe” written at the top. Mom’s name is carved on the lower left of the stone. Daddy’s name and birth date are already carved on the opposite side; they just have to carve the date he died. Even more morbid than this is to think there are two plots reserved for me and Jessica.
There are folding chairs lined up around the grave so we can sit around to listen to more speeches and prayers. This time there’s a twenty-one gun salute; each time the guns go off, I flinch, remembering the sound of the shot that didn’t manage to stop the cop with the bomb before he could detonate it. Jessica puts an arm around my shoulders, probably thinking I’m scared by the noise or something.
The honor guard folds up the flag draped on Daddy’s coffin to present it to Jessica as the oldest living member of the family. It’s my turn to comfort her as she takes the flag and then presses it to her chest. I stare at the glossy black casket with Daddy inside. Like in the hospital morgue I remember those seconds before the explosion, when I couldn’t warn him in time. I remember too my promise to get Madame Crimson for him; I just wish I knew how to do it.
***
The luncheon is held in the restaurant of the Marriott in the city since an ordinary cop’s house filled with people would be a security nightmare for the mayor and city council. That’s just as well to me as it means we don’t have strangers roaming around our house, pawing through our stuff. Again I wish I could go out to a movie instead of having to sit here in this ugly dress, watching people chat like this is a cocktail party.
I jump a little in my seat when Dylan puts a hand on my shoulder. “Hi,” he says.
“Hi. I don’t remember seeing you at the funeral.”
“I wasn’t there,” he admits. “Can I sit down?”
“Knock yourself out.”
He sits on an empty seat next to me. He tries to take my hand, but I shake it away. “Robin, I’m sorry—”
“Yeah, you really showed how sorry you were with that frowny face emoji.”
“I couldn’t think of anything to say—”
“I can think of a few things. Most of them are four letters.”
“Robin—”
“Didn’t you ever think that after my father died I might need my boyfriend to be there to comfort me and stuff?”
His face turns red. He clears his throat and then says, “We weren’t really boyfriend and girlfriend, you know?”
“What?”
“I mean we were friends and we went on a couple of dates and stuff, but we weren’t really that serious, you know?”
“Did you come here to break up with me?”
“What? No! I was just saying that I didn’t think it was my place—”
“It wasn’t your place? You stupid son of a bitch!” I start to smack him on the head with my purse. It’s too bad my purse isn’t bigger and I didn’t put in a couple of lead weights. “Of all the stupid, insensitive things to say!”
“Robin, stop it! I’m sorry!”
“You’re damned right you’re sorry!” I whack him a few more times with the purse, until Carol wrestles it away from me. Dylan seizes the opportunity to make a break for it. “You better keep running!”
“Come on, Robin, calm down,” Carol says. She twists me around so I can cry into the medals on her uniform jacket. They buried Daddy in a similar jacket with even more medals. He was a hero, unlike that jerk Dylan, who couldn’t even get through a little crowd around the courthouse or make a phone call to comfort his sorta-girlfriend.
Carol takes me into the ladies room to let me cry myself out in private. The bathroom is the fancy kind with a little couch we can sit on while I let everything out. Carol strokes my hair and coos to me like I’m still a little kid. “It’s all right, sweetie. It’s all right.”
When I’m finally down to an occasional sniffle, Carol pats my hand. “You OK now?”
“I guess. I can’t believe that asshole. He practically broke up with me at my dad’s funeral lunch, you know?”
“That is pretty crass.”
“Totally. I mean, I didn’t think he was ‘the One’ or anything, but I thought we were at least boyfriend-girlfriend.”
“Men can be real idiots sometimes.”
“No kidding.” I get unsteadily to my feet and then toddle over to one of the sinks. I empty out my purse to rummage through the makeup I brought. After that crying jag, I need some new mascara and eyeliner. My hands are shaking too much to keep the brush steady, so Carol takes it from me. I close my eyes to let her work. “Thank you.”
“It’s all right. You have every right to be upset.”
“I meant about what you said at the funeral. About Daddy. It was good to have someone who really knew him talk, you know?”
“I meant every word of it. Your father did a lot for me. I don’t think I can ever repay him.” She finishes with my makeup and then puts an arm around my shoulders. “You ever need anything, you let me know. Anything.”
“OK. Thanks, Aunt Carol.”
“Now, you think you’re ready to go back out there?”
“Not really.”
“Me either, but I suppose we have to anyway.”
I nod to her. She leads me out of the bathroom, back to our table. Jessica is there, still holding the flag they gave to her like it’s a security blanket. “Are you all right?” she asks me.
“I’m fine now.”
She nods slightly to me. Once I’ve sat down, she takes one hand off the flag to reach for mine. “I have to go see the lawyer tomorrow morning about the will. It should give me custody of you. We’re going to keep the house and you can keep going to school like normal, OK? Money might be a little tight until all the legal stuff is done, but we’re going to get through this.”
“What about your school?”
“I’m going to take a leave of absence for a little while. Until everything is squared away. There’s nothing for you to worry about. You’re not going to end up in an orphanage or anything.”
I never expected to end up in an orphanage or foster home. I always figured if anything did happen to Daddy I’d end up living with Carol, or Jessica once she turned eighteen. Once or twice I thought about going to live with Grandma and Grandpa White, but that’d be worse than a foster home; it’d be like going to finishing school.
“Thanks, sis,” I say with a slight grin.
“You’re welcome.”
Our private moment is ruined by the mayor coming over to tell
us again how sorry he is about all of this. I keep my grin affixed to my face, though I’d like to hit him over the head with my purse a few times too. Like Carol he says, “If you need anything, you let my office know.” Unlike Carol, I doubt he means it.
He makes sure the photographers get a couple of pictures of him comforting the grieving family and then he slips out along with his entourage. I lean back on my chair and sigh. Another good thing about having the luncheon here is we don’t have to clean up. “I think I’m going to get some air,” I say.
“Just don’t go too far,” Jessica says.
“I won’t.”
I sit on a bench out front to watch people in business clothes walk by on the sidewalk and cars slowly roll by on the street. Daddy is gone, but the city goes on as it always does. Somewhere out there, Madame Crimson’s people are up to their old tricks. Nothing ever changes, not even when a good man dies.
Chapter 4
Jessica gives me permission to take a few days off from school. Any other time I wouldn’t hesitate, but now the last thing I want is to hang around the house by myself. I’d rather go back to school to have something else to occupy my brain.
When I walk through the front doors, I can already sense people looking at me. I assume it’s because of what happened to Daddy, though everyone is about as sensitive as Dylan in terms of trying to comfort me. I get to my locker to find Stacey Chang at the locker next to mine. Stacey is the class president, class suck-up, and probably will be the class valedictorian in a few years.
As I dial my locker combination, she gives me one of her fake smiles. “Hi, Robin. I’m so sorry about what happened.”
“Thanks.”
“I hope you’re not too mad.”
“No, not really.”
“Good. I thought after what happened you might get really mad at me.”
“What? Why would I be mad at you?”
She looks at me like I’m a special ed kid. “Because of Dylan, sweetie.” When I still don’t understand, she giggles. “You haven’t heard, have you?”
“No. What about Dylan?”
Justice for All (The Outcast Book #1) Page 2