by April Smith
“The husband?”
“Right.”
“But you were protecting her.”
“Right.”
“How could that have happened?”
“Jealousy is a powerful motivator. Maybe the most powerful of all.”
“Tell me one thing. Was the husband in the photographs or not?”
Allen has gone back to the screen.
“I really want to know.”
He doesn’t answer.
Cassidy sighs and digs into a bowl of Shredded Wheat, the big fat bales, soaked in half-and-half. She has been under protective custody ten days. Another ten minutes and she’ll be sucking zwieback.
9:15 p.m. The refrigerator hums.
“What are you doing?”
“E-mail.”
“Writing a report?”
“Writing to my son.”
“How old’s your son?”
“Eleven.”
“Plays ball?”
“Infield.”
“Good bat?”
“He got hit by the ball, now he’s shy of it.”
“Needs to work on his confidence. I can show you some drills.”
“Cool.”
9:20 p.m.
“How do you feel about oral sex?”
“I just got him a BMX bike,” Allen answers without missing a beat.
Cassidy gets up from the stool.
“I apologize. When I’m bored, pissed off and going out of my mind, I revert to jock behavior.”
Morose, she washes the bowl. The kitchen has never been neater.
“—Now he wants an electric guitar. My ex-wife is not pleased. I don’t know what the hell she thinks. He’s not going to be a concert pianist.”
The keys go tap tap.
Then, “Do me a favor?” without looking up, “Don’t screw with the tape recorder.”
Cassidy fumbles the bowl.
“What makes you think I’d do something like that?”
“Your face is red as an apple.”
“It’s hot in here.”
He stares from the sofa.
“Who called?”
She doesn’t answer.
“I asked you a question.”
“Raymond Woods.”
“Why did you erase the tape?”
“He was relieving me of my duties. It was embarrassing.”
“You have relinquished your privacy. You have signed it away. You are not above the law. You’re a witness. That’s all you are.”
Cassidy puts the bowl in the drainer and dries her hands on a dish towel over and over.
“I hear you.”
“The problem is, when you do something blatantly uncooperative like that, it makes people wonder if you’re conspiring with Mr. Galinis to destroy evidence.”
“Think what you want.”
“Frankly, I think Travis is a dickhead, too.”
She turns, gripping the towel.
“You know what was on the tape, even though I erased it?”
“There’s a van parked outside monitoring everything we say.”
Cassidy steals a look around her kitchen.
“You better be making that up.”
Detective Allen’s face gives nothing.
“Aren’t you hard.”
“Aren’t you?” he replies. “I’m just wondering what’s behind the mask.”
“The Mask. That’s funny. That’s what my brother and I used to call my mother.”
“Tough lady?”
“None of your business.”
“I’ll tell you this.” Allen’s body has become immobile as if bolted to the floor. He shakes a finger: “Call your gynecologist.”
“What?”
“You’ve already canceled four appointments.”
“You shit!” She snaps his bare arm with the wet towel. “How dare you listen to my private calls?”
“My mom died of breast cancer. I have a thing about it.”
He goes into the living room.
“They can catch it early now,” he adds, not looking back.
7:05 a.m.
A cab pulls up in front of the cottage. A man carrying a gym bag gets out. The morning light is enchanted, you could weave a chain of gold from this light. The sprinklers are on, lopsided, dousing the walk instead of the ivy and maybe that is why—the sprinklers and the light—the man is distracted and does not see two other men get out of a sedan and trot across the street.
“Sir?”
He turns. White, six foot two, a hundred eighty pounds of hard-crafted muscle wearing two-hundred-dollar warm-ups. Does not fit the description of a scrawny Dominican criminal but merits caution.
“Laguna Beach police.”
They come toward him, an older guy and a young one, wearing suits, holding up badges.
“What’s the problem?”
“Please put the bag down, sir.”
“I’m not about to rob the place.”
“Put the bag down.”
He holds the bag at arm’s length, then lets it drop to the wet sidewalk. The young cop flinches.
“Can we see some identification, please?”
“This is ridiculous.”
“What are you doing here, sir?”
“Visiting my girlfriend.”
Older cop: “Where’re you from?”
“Sydney, Australia.”
Young cop: “She must be hot.”
“In actual fact, I just got off a plane from Vancouver, just a little fried because it was ball-bustingly early, and I’ve been working three weeks, day and night, on a movie set with a bunch of pathological actors—”
“I get it. The guy is Crocodile Dundee.”
“That’s right, and you can kiss my autograph. Bugger off.”
The police report claims, “Suspect threatened great bodily harm,” but actually it is a provocative protrusion of the buttocks that triggers an autonomic response from the officers resulting in the suspect spread-eagled, hands against the wall, as Cassidy pops the top half of the Dutch door open, leans out and laughs.
“What a little milkmaid,” Marshall grunts, pushing through the door when the officers finally let him pass.
Cassidy’s hair is tousled, knots lifting on the dry air like brittle clumps of hay. She is wearing what she slept in—flannel shirt and boxer shorts—holding Edith in her arms.
“What a grump.”
“I fully intend to sue the bastards. Have you got coffee?”
“No,” says Cassidy, although the coffeemaker is dripping and the aroma profound.
“That’s a joke?”
“No, it’s not.”
Detective Allen comes out of the bathroom, freshly shaved, tucking a clean shirt into his slacks.
“Who is this?”
“He’s a cop.”
Marshall plants both feet like he’s about to do karate.
“What the hell is going on?”
Cassidy is suddenly quite frazzled.
“Look,” she says impulsively, “things have changed. You can’t just come here any hour of the day and night anymore.”
Marshall scratches his head.
“You needed a team of trained assassins to tell me that?”
Detective Allen introduces himself and extends a hand.
“I take it you know Ms. Sanderson?”
“Well, yes, as you can see she’s a bit of a spunk. We’ve been fucking for years.”
Cassidy turns her back. “I refuse to deal with this.”
“The baseball team has been receiving threats,” Detective Allen says smoothly.
“What kind of threats?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary. The officers are here as a precaution.”
“Darling, why didn’t you tell me?” Marshall exclaims, implying an intimacy that has in fact never existed.
“You were in Vancouver,” blurts Cassidy, as if she needs to be defensive.
“They have telephones now in Canada.”
Detective A
llen: “I’m going out for breakfast.”
“Don’t feel you have to leave—” Cassidy suddenly realizes she is still holding on to the dog.
Marshall, “Hell, no.”
Allen hesitates.
Marshall puts both hands on Cassidy’s shoulders, Edith looking up between them.
“From time to time we go away from each other, but we always come back.”
He rubs her bare calf with a running shoe.
“To a place that is always … fantastic.”
Allen: “The officers are outside if you need them.”
Marshall tips his head toward the detective.
“You have something going with this wanker?”
“Grow up.”
“Don’t trust the police.”
Detective Allen picks up his denim jacket.
“Maybe it’s my military training,” Marshall’s going on, “but I’ve discovered law enforcement organizations in general to be based on secrecy and a particular brand of sadism. Anybody not in their club is fair game. They’re cold motherfuckers. They use people. I’d take good care.”
“Marshall, that is completely paranoid.”
“Well, gorgeous,” picking up the gym bag, “it’s been a paranoid kind of morning.”
3:10 a.m.
The phone rings.
Cassidy’s first awareness is of rapid heartbeat, then the weight of the receiver in her palm. Her body has reacted faster than her mind, still lost in a dream instantly cut into jagged slices.
“Whatzup?”
“Monroe?”
“How’s the weather?”
“Hot. What about you?”
“Stoked.”
Her head clears. She sees the red light.
“Where are you?”
“For all I know your phone is bugged.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“You ready to take care of things?”
“That’s right.”
“You gonna pay?”
“Yes.”
“The price went up. You got the money?”
“Not right now, it’s three in the morning—or maybe not where you are.”
“I’m with you, bitch. I’m closer to you than you want to know about.”
“Like you were in Vero Beach?”
“Hey, how’s the hand? I only did the one so you’d still be able to jerk off the team.”
By now she is downstairs where Detective Allen, wearing old blue sweats, is standing in the kitchen in the glow of a night light, headphones on, the blanket and pillow she had given him rumpled up on the couch where he slept.
He signals with a finger, Keep it going, round and round.
“I’m talking about the 7-Eleven,” Cassidy responds. “Where that kid was killed.”
“Yeah? Something happened?”
Allen nods, encouraging.
“You know what, Monroe? You are really starting to piss me off.”
Monroe laughs.
“I’ll see what I can do about the money. Then I want you out of my life.”
“I want you to suck my cock—but we can negotiate. Somebody here to say hello.”
Shuffling, like a chair being dragged. A soft “Umph,” muffled words, close breathing into the phone.
“Cassidy? It’s Joe.”
Panicked, Cassidy stares at Allen. He signals with the finger, calmly, Stay with it, round and round.
“Joe, are you all right?”
“Get the money.”
The red light goes out.
Allen: “Where do you keep the hard stuff?”
She indicates. He pours them each a hit of tequila.
“He’s okay, he’s alive.”
The glass is bumping against her teeth.
“You really did not know where he was.”
She shakes her head.
“I apologize. I was wrong. I thought you might have planned it with him.”
She shakes her head again.
“I wasn’t,” Allen adds, “being completely objective.”
“You don’t like Joe.”
“My concern is not Joe.”
In the silence she can hear the blood beating in her ears.
Detective Allen: “Need a hug?”
She nods obediently. He opens his arms just wide enough for her to step into, compresses her torso briefly like a mechanical toy, then quickly backs away.
Brusque, “You must have a yellow pages.”
Cassidy finds it in a drawer.
“What are we going to do?”
“Monroe will call back. It could be soon. He’s hooked.”
Detective Allen riffles through the phone book.
“I’m thinking next time he calls you arrange a meet in a motel. We’ll be watching and listening in the next room—”
Edith, thinking it must be dawn, presents herself for a run.
“—You bring the money, he brings Joe. You’ll be wired and wearing a bulletproof vest. And you’ll have this little doohickey, on loan from LAPD.”
He opens the briefcase and removes a small flat black box on a silver ring.
“Where are your keys?”
She digs them out of her backpack.
“This is a transmitting device. Same principle as the Lo-Jack on your car. See that switch? It activates a global positioning system. Works off six satellites.”
She watches with a sense of increasing unreality as he works the silver ring onto the clip that holds her keys.
“You press the button, they get a fix in twenty-four seconds, accurate to one hundred meters.”
“I thought I was going to be cozy in the motel.”
“The situation could change. We have to be fluid. I promise you, if it goes bad in any way, shape or form, Monroe will not get out of the parking lot.”
His glasses reflect the dim light.
“If, when the time comes, you don’t feel one hundred percent confident, we bag it. This has to be your choice. Think about it first. We’re not talking high school drag races.”
Detective Allen hands back the keys, heavy with the unfamiliar weight of the tracking device. She sets them on the table. Just that small jog is enough to cause the black plastic box to split open at the seams. A tiny circuit board and battery spill out.
It is unfunny.
“That won’t happen,” Detective Allen says.
He reconnects the wires and resets an LED display and snaps the cover.
Cassidy watches in silence.
He picks up the phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling my colleague at the FBI.”
“I’m going to bed.”
“Good night.”
She hesitates. “I’m sorry about your mom. I didn’t want you to think that I—”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I do get checkups. Why am I telling you this? Because I’m so tired I can’t see straight. It’s just that I don’t like doctors, I avoid them whenever possible.”
“Not good enough.”
“I’ve had a lot of bad experiences. My brother died from CF.”
“My ex-wife had a cousin who died from that.”
“Really?” It is rare when someone knows about CF; rarer still to be so matter-of-fact.
“Neat kid.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me, too. About your brother.”
“Thanks. Good night.”
Cassidy is lying in bed with the light on trying not to imagine what they must have done to Joe to get him to plead for his life.
The minutes pass.
She turns her head on the pillow. Detective Allen is standing in the doorway, in his pilled blue sweats, holding something out to her.
A mug of tea.
It is one of her two white mugs with the blue stripe around the lip, ample and hefty and a good fit in the hand; she’s had those mugs maybe ten years. A red tea tag clings to the side, fragile and wet. It is after 4 a.m. and cold in the room. You c
an see the steam in energetic whirls.
Tears fill her eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
“You brought me tea.”
“It’s not a big deal.” He sets the mug on the nightstand. “People do it all the time.”
She pulls up her knees, wiping her cheek on the comforter.
Detective Allen sits on a chair.
“My ex-wife’s cousin, the one who died of CF, her name was Laurie. She was about twenty-five. She was a spitfire. Nothing kept her down. You know, she was a swimmer, so she had this oxygen tank on wheels with a real long fifty-foot tube so she could do laps. She had a lung transplant, put up a fight—”
Cassidy nods. For a moment both are silent.
“Knowing her changed my life.”
“That’s what people said about my brother.”
“Same thing?”
“Oh yeah, people were always saying, Gregg Sanderson, he changed my life. Kids on the team. Kids in the hospital … On the cancer ward. He’d visit the little kids on the cancer ward. You know, the bald kids, dragging their own IVs? I couldn’t look.”
“Hard for even a grown-up to see that.”
Cassidy cradles the warm cup.
“My father had to drag me to the hospital, I never wanted to go to visit Gregg, which of course I also felt guilty about. I was twelve, but I’d freak, he’d have to physically drag me through the lobby. It was the seventies. He used to grab my arm and say, ‘You’re not sick so don’t act sick!’ He was an ex-ballplayer, he was strong.”
“I believe it.”
“God, I remember everything in that hospital smelled like wax beans. And those awful elevators. You never knew what was getting off or on. One time when we got to Gregg’s room, there were three or four doctors standing around, along with my mom. Gregg was sitting up in bed wearing no shirt as usual, just a pair of red Grizzly sweatpants—that was our school team—and this macramé choker with one good-luck bead. His hair was dirty, sticking up all over—he was pissed. By then he’d probably lost twenty pounds, you could see the bones in his shoulders. He was a grotty teenager, you know, but maybe from being inside all the time, being sick, his skin was smooth and silky and pale like a little boy’s. He was screaming, ‘Get out of my room!’ ”
Allen smiles. “Get out of my room?”
“Yeah, ‘Stop badgering me and get out of my room!’ Usually you could hardly hear him because his voice got weird because of the inhalants, but you could hear him then. The doctors were doing their doctor number—‘We have to talk about this—’ ‘They miscommunicated to you—’ and my father’s saying, ‘What’s the problem?’ and my mother takes him outside and tells him they just told Gregg he developed diabetes, which can be a complication of CF.