Unexpected Dismounts

by Nancy Rue

  “I hope somebody can be.”

  “I’ve got some other news for you. It’s not that helpful either, but …”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  “I finally got to one of those officers who questioned the Sisters.”

  I straightened. “And?”

  “He’d had a few beers when we talked so I’m not sure how accurate it is, but he said they didn’t come up with the idea on their own. Somebody outside the department paid them.”

  “Let me guess. He wouldn’t tell you who.”

  Nicholas checked out his thumbnail.

  “Are you serious? He told you?”

  “He told me what he knew. He said they met with the guy at the Waffle House out on US 1. The guy tried to be all clandestine—hat pulled down over his face, sunglasses in the middle of the dang night. Sorry. I know you don’t like swearing.”

  “So was the guy young? Old? White?”

  “White guy. Probably in his late twenties, early thirties. Maybe older. He looked like he was in good shape, which can make a person look younger. The hands usually give it away, but he was wearing gloves.”

  “What about his voice?”

  “He said the guy mumbled.” Nicholas gave a disgusted grunt. “I think they were so interested in the money, they weren’t paying that much attention. It could’ve been a woman and they wouldn’t have noticed.”

  “Okay,” I said, “so, correct me if I’m wrong, but the only person who would pay cops to mess with a rape investigation would be the rapist himself. Right?”

  “Or somebody who didn’t want to see the rapist get caught, which is just as much of a crime in my opinion.”

  Yeah. I really liked this kid. I didn’t tell him this time because his face was already frustration-blotchy.

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  “I hate it that guys who call themselves officers of the law would get mixed up in something like this. Thing is, I can’t do anything about it. The officer I talked to said he’d deny it if I said anything, and even if I did, he told me when he was about wasted. IA would laugh in my face.”

  “Internal Affairs,” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  I had a few internal affairs of my own, and they weren’t laughing. They were squeezing the life out of me. I crossed my arms over my stomach and tried to rock unobtrusively.

  “You okay?” Nicholas said.

  A door opened down the hall and Kade came out and started toward us. Detective Kylie walked with him, one hand in his pocket, the other gesturing like he was describing a basketball game. There were no handcuffs in the mix.

  “Take him home and pour him a drink,” Kylie said to me. He clapped Kade on the shoulder. “Don’t lose any sleep over this. Just keep in mind what I told you.”

  “What did he tell you?” I said when both Kylie and Nicholas Kent were gone.

  Kade went for the door, and I had to practically run to keep up with him.

  “You don’t want to know what he told me.”

  “Was it along the lines of ‘she’s just a hooker and this will never stick’?”

  “Almost word for word.”

  Kade didn’t speak again until we were out on the steps. He seemed to take no notice of the drizzle that collected on his shoulders. “He actually apologized when he swabbed my cheek for DNA. I doubt the sample will ever make it to the lab.”

  “And if it does?” I said.

  I held my breath.

  “I don’t blame you for asking that,” he said. “You don’t even know me. I could be a serial rapist for all you know.”

  That hadn’t occurred to me, but I said, “You could be. I don’t sense that about you.”

  Kade searched my face, his usually clear blue eyes cloudy with a chance of imminent showers. My throat tightened.

  “What do you sense about me? I need to know.”

  I hugged my arms against the dampness. “You’re an honest person who’s searching for something he can’t name. Something you’re not even sure you really want. And sometimes when you get close to it, it scares you half to death so you run off to find something else.”

  His face was incredulous. “You can sense all that?”

  I laughed. “No. I recognize it. I was you until about seven years ago.”

  He turned away so sharply I thought he was going to take off. It took me a minute to realize that he was throwing up over the side of the porch. It was all I could do not to join him.

  “You okay?” I said.

  “Yeah. I feel like an idiot.”

  “I’m sure older and wiser people than you have tossed their cookies in front of the police station. I think the older and wiser you are, the more you recognize the need to puke.”

  “Do you still want me to represent you tomorrow?”

  “Yes,” I said, without hesitation, without considering how India was going to react or what I was going to say to Ophelia or whether Chief would approve. I never took any of that into consideration when I got the word from God. Why start now?

  Kade was still shaken when he dropped me off on Palm Row, but he didn’t want to come in. I decided it was probably better for me to face Chief alone anyway.

  But, alas, he wasn’t alone. Desmond was parked on Chief’s bed, and Chief was still in the chair.

  “What are you still doing up, Des?” I said.

  “We got somethin’ to show you.” He picked up a drawing from the bed without the usual flourish. It was the one he’d done of Kade.

  “Did you make some changes on it?” I said. I looked at Chief, Did you tell him? in my eyes.

  Didn’t have to, was in his.

  Of course. How could Desmond have missed Ophelia’s screaming? People in Jacksonville probably didn’t miss it.

  “I didn’t make no changes,” Desmond said. “Me and Mr. Chief was just comparin’ it to this one.”

  He held up the newspaper with his silhouette on the front page. My heart dove.

  “What did you guys decide?” I said.

  “We didn’t decide nothin’. Pichers don’t lie.”

  He placed the two drawings side by side on the bed. I sat on the edge and forced myself to look at them.

  “It’s hard to tell,” I said, “since one of them’s a profile and one’s almost head-on.”

  “That’s what we said, right, Mr. Chief?”

  The hope in his voice matched mine. But, then, there was the hair—spiky in both—and the nose, strong but proportioned. That described a lot of noses, didn’t it?

  “What do you think?” I said.

  “I think if Idda drew that one”—he pointed to the silhouette—“from a real person ’stead of from what Miss Ofeelins told me, we could tell if they was both Cappuccino.” He shrugged his bony shoulders. “’Course, if Idda drew that from a real person, we’d know who it was and he’d be in jail.”

  “That’s it,” Chief said. “You’re going to law school.”

  “Yeah, well, before that, you have to go to middle school.” I gave Desmond a gentle shove. “Get to bed so I don’t have to drag you out and throw you under a cold shower tomorrow.”

  Desmond went all too readily, as if he wanted to get away from this topic. I wished I could have avoided it that easily.

  “He came out on his own after you all left,” Chief said.

  “No doubt he heard the whole thing.”

  “So did Owen, by the way. He came over to check on us. Said he’d be there tomorrow.”

  I stood up and fluffed Chief’s pillows.

  “We need to talk about tomorrow,” he said.

  “I don’t want to go over all that again.”

  “Is Kade going to be there?”

  “Yes,” I said. The sheets nee
ded straightening too.

  “If the judge gets wind that Kade was even questioned, it might not bode well.”

  “It’ll be what it is, and please, I don’t want to talk about objective utterance and my lack of ability to utter it. I’m not changing my mind.”

  “Unless God changes it for you.”

  There was nothing scornful in his tone. It was the lack of it that made me stop fluffing and straightening and look at him. His face just waited for an answer, like an attorney assessing his client. And nothing else.

  “Let’s be clear,” I said. “I may lose the power of will to God when he asks me to. But I don’t lose the power of mind. I’m not crazy.”

  The eye lines tightened. “I never said that, Classic.”

  “You didn’t have to,” I said. “Come on, I’ll help you get in bed.”

  “I’m not ready yet,” he said. Stiffly. “If I doze off here I’ll be fine.”

  I took the stairs two at a time and barely made it to my room before I started to cry. I shouldn’t have said it. I should have tried to talk it out with him. But if we were going to come to the same impasse, what was the point? What was the point in prolonging the pain I could hardly bear for one minute?

  I curled into a fist on my bed, my back curled hard against the thoughts, against the loss. Against the rolling contractions that were never going to bring new life.

  The next morning I dug out the makeup I hadn’t used since … well, from the looks of it, since Mary Kay was a pup, and tried to disguise the dark circles under my eyes. I hoped the crying bags would shrink by the afternoon so I wouldn’t look hungover in front of the judge. I pushed aside the fear that it wouldn’t make any difference anyway.

  That put me behind in getting Desmond off to school, so I was simultaneously pouring Cheerios and making him a ham sandwich when Vickie Rodriguez called. For once I was glad for the interruption. The thought that this could be the last time I did any of this for Desmond was waving its ugly hand in my head.

  Vickie didn’t do much to help.

  “Allison?” she said. “Do you lie awake at night thinking of ways to sabotage this adoption?”

  “You’ve already heard,” I said. “Did it make the paper?”

  “Having your boyfriend move in with you is not media material. Mr. Quillon called me with that news.”

  I set down the mayonnaise jar. “I’m confused.”

  “Is Jack Ellington living with you right now?”

  “He’s convalescing here, yes.”

  “And the two of you never considered how this was going to look?”

  “No. For Pete’s sake, Vickie, he’s not my boyfriend. I brought him here so he wouldn’t have to go to a rehab facility.”

  “You know as well as I do Quillon isn’t going to present it that way.”

  “So what do you want me to do—set him up out on the street real quick before I come on over to the courthouse?”

  Her sigh sounded suspiciously like a laugh. Either that, or I was finally snapping.

  “We just need to meet before this afternoon, you and Mr. Capelli and myself, so we can figure out how he’s going to spin this.”

  Spin. Was there no end to this debate?

  Desmond pushed open the door to the dining room and stuck in his out-of-control head of hair. Dear God, why didn’t you remind me to get him another haircut before today? Next thing I knew Priscilla Sanborn was going to demand that he be checked for head lice.

  “Mr. Chief says take the phone in here,” Desmond said, gesturing toward the living room like he was bringing in a 747.

  “Allison?” Vickie said.

  “Just a minute. I think Chief … Hold on.”

  I pushed the phone against my chest and let Desmond haul me into the living room. Chief was, indeed, still in the chair, looking drawn and haggard except for the urgency in his eyes.

  “I’m talking to Vickie,” I whispered. “There’s a problem.”

  “I caught that. Let me talk to her.”

  I felt like a piece of lead as I handed him the phone. I tried to get ready for, Don’t worry about it. I was already halfway out of here already.

  “I can make other arrangements,” he was saying to her. “Yes, today.” He looked at me and then at Desmond.

  Right. Get the kid out.

  Before I turned, hand on Desmond’s head, Chief motioned that he was tossing me his cell.

  “Get Kade on the phone,” he whispered.

  “Go brush your teeth,” I said to Desmond.

  “You know Imma hear every word y’all are sayin’.”

  “Brush loud,” I said.

  I tapped Kade’s name on the screen and held up my palm to Chief.

  “It’s a matter of one phone call,” he said to Vickie.

  “Hey, Chief, what’s up?” Kade said.

  “It’s me,” I said.

  “Chief okay?”

  No, he’s losing his mind. Right now he was scribbling something on a piece of paper, which he shoved toward me.

  “‘Move in with Chief,’” I read out loud. “‘This morning.’”

  “What the—”

  “I get it,” I said.

  “I don’t! What’s going on over there?”

  I locked eyes with Chief. He nodded as I talked.

  “Okay, short version: Quillon’s going to try to use Chief staying here to make it look like we’re shacking up, so he wants you to move into his place this morning, and then he’s going to have somebody transfer him over there. But we have to do it before the trial starts or we’ll be committing perjury if we say this all went down when it didn’t.”

  I gave Chief a questioning thumbs-up. He nodded and smiled.

  Curse the man. Just—curse him.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” Chief said to Vickie. “I’ll get you an affidavit, signed and notarized … Do I sound like I’m kidding? … Because I don’t want to be the reason Desmond isn’t adopted by Allison.” His eyes came back to mine. “I love the kid too much.”

  Hearing that from halfway down the stairs was the only reason Desmond agreed to “let” Chief go. It wasn’t as easy for me. He didn’t love me too much.

  Hank came over to help with the move, she and Stan, who was the only HOG who was off work. She left him packing up Chief’s stuff, yet again, to join me in the kitchen where I was just getting off the phone with the PT people.

  “They aren’t happy with us,” I said.

  “They don’t have to be,” she said. “Have you eaten today?”

  “I couldn’t eat if you stuffed it down my throat.”

  “Don’t tempt me. Sit down. I’ll fix you some toast.”

  I basically needed a crane to hoist me into the bistro chair. I hadn’t even been able to drag myself to the van to take Desmond to school. Owen took him, and promised he’d have him at the courthouse by twelve forty-five.

  “I wish Desmond didn’t have to be subjected to all this,” I said.

  “He’s not going to sit in the courtroom while they give you the third degree, is he?”

  “No. He has to wait outside until it’s his turn. I don’t know why they can’t just ask him what he wants and be done with it. Shoot, Hank, I’m going to cry again. All I do is cry.”

  “Cry and writhe in pain.”

  I looked up at her sharply.

  “You think I don’t see you bracing yourself like you’re in labor?”

  My gasp brought her up from the cheese drawer. She closed the fridge and climbed into the other chair.

  “Then I’m right,” she said.

  “It’s exactly that, Hank. It feels just like it did—”

  “When you gave birth.”

  I groped through my memories of conversations w
ith Hank across coffee shop tables. “Did I tell you?”

  “That you didn’t have that abortion? No. Until just now.”

  I smothered my whole head in my hands. “I can’t think about that today, Hank, or I’ll die. I swear I’ll die. I feel it, physically, all of it—Desmond—Ophelia—Zelda—Kade—”

  “Chief.”

  I felt my face crumple as I looked at the kitchen door.

  “That might be the worst of it,” she said. “You loving a man who doesn’t get God.”

  “I thought he was getting it. What’s the point in even talking about this? I have to focus on Desmond.”

  “This from the woman who can’t put herself in little compartments.”

  I gave her another look.

  “Chief talked to me about it,” Hank said. “Not in detail. Just his frustration and his fear that this adoption isn’t going to work out the way you’re approaching it.”

  “Great. So I get to feel everybody’s pain, all the time. This helps how?”

  “Is it their pain you’re feeling?” Hank said.

  “It’s more than mine. Who else’s pain could it be?”

  “I think once you figure that out, you’ll have your answer.”

  “My answer to what?”

  She folded her remarkable hands on the table. “To how you can help God get what God wants. That’s what you’re here for, my precious prophet.”

  I folded myself over the ache in my womb. “What about what I want?”

  Hank didn’t answer until I raised my head. “What makes you think they aren’t the same thing?” she said.

  She slid from the chair and left me in the kitchen alone. With God. Whose waiting pulsed across the room like the heart line, the one I’d watched in Chief’s room, hour after hour racing and slowing and jerking with things I couldn’t know.

  I felt my hands on my lips before I knew I had put them there.

  “Is it yours?” I whispered. “Is it your pain?”

  Speak through it, Allison, said the throbbing in my forehead and the burning in my throat and the stabbing in my chest. Speak through it. And you will give birth.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  It didn’t dawn on me until I was a block from the courthouse that Kade had actually sounded upbeat on the phone that morning. It must have been his version of compartmentalizing. I hoped he was still doing it, after packing up all his belongings from his hotel, dumping them in Chief’s garage, and rustling up a notary public, all in the span of four hours.