Cop Town: A Novel

by Karin Slaughter

  “So, ladies.” Jacob started dealing three hands. “I heard Philip Van Zandt paid a visit to the house last night.”

  Kate slid her cards off the table. She had no idea what game they were playing, but felt certain her father was dealing her a shitty hand.

  “You know what they call him at the hospital?” Jacob tossed more cards Kate’s way. “Dr. Van Zipless.”

  Oma hooted with laughter. “How wonderful! I love it.”

  Kate felt her cheeks ignite. The Zipless Fuck. Erica Jong’s much-vaunted no-strings-attached sexual encounter. Kate didn’t know which was worse, that her father had intimated the word “fuck” in conversation or that he had read Fear of Flying.

  Jacob said, “I never tell you what to do, Kaitlin, but my advice would be to steer clear of such a man.”

  Kate looked down at her cards.

  Oma slid some of her pennies toward Kate. “Here, my darling. The game is no fun without risk.”

  Jacob noted, “Your double meanings are usually more skillful.”

  “Oh, my English, Jacob. I have no idea what you mean.” Oma pronounced his name the Dutch way, with a “y” sound at the beginning instead of a “j.” She pushed her sherry glass toward Kate. “Have my drink, dear.”

  Kate threw back the alcohol like a cowboy in a Western.

  Oma stood. “I found Dr. Van Zandt to be quite charming—much more so than his boring father. I never got to show him your stamp collection, Jacob.”

  Kate’s father concentrated on his cards. “I presume there’s no double meaning about showing him a stamp collection, Judith?”

  “Oh, my. If I were a few years younger.” She went into the pantry and returned with a bottle of scotch. “Young men are always so eager for instruction.”

  Kate searched desperately for a new topic. “Oma, wasn’t Audrey Hepburn born in Brussels?”

  “I believe she was born in Elsene.” Oma filled the sherry glass with scotch. She got another glass for herself. “A nice Flemish girl.”

  Kate smiled at the familiar words. And then she drank as much of the scotch as was possible without revealing the bottom of the glass.

  Jacob put down another card. “I always liked the Flemish.”

  “Bah.” Oma took his card and replaced it with one of her own. “Peasants.”

  Jacob frowned. He shuffled the cards in his hands. Two minutes in and he was already losing.

  Kate sipped the rest of her drink. Her father had worked for the State Department during the war. He’d been sent to Amsterdam after the liberation to do psychiatric triage on the survivors. He’d met Liesbeth during his service, but Kate had no idea in what capacity. The story was that they fell in love at the flower market. Had Liesbeth been a patient? Was she someone he’d simply met in the street?

  Unbidden, Kate thought about Terry’s words in the carport, the women who threw themselves at soldiers.

  “Well.” Oma refilled Kate’s glass and topped off her own. “I suppose the Flemish are not so bad. They tend their sheep and marry their cousins.”

  Kate laughed. She was feeling tipsy, but she couldn’t stop drinking. Maybe this was what being a police officer did to you. This time next week, she’d be passed out behind the wheel of an Impala.

  Jacob said, “There was a Flemish psychiatrist I worked with—brilliant man.” He laid down another card. Kate realized they had been playing without her. “His name was Walthere Deliege.”

  Oma frowned dramatically. “Dat is Waals, geen Vlaams.”

  “Oh, I beg your pardon. The gentleman was Walloon, not Flemish. Please excuse my American ignorance.” Jacob winked at Kate. Then he frowned when Oma took his discard.

  “How can …” Kate let her voice trail off. She hadn’t meant to say anything, but it was out now. “How can awful people be good?”

  They both stared at her.

  “This woman I work with …” Kate stopped herself again. Did she work with Gail? Would she ever work with her again?

  “This woman?” Oma prompted.

  “This woman,” Kate repeated, then stopped a third time because she didn’t know whether to go on. As before, she found she couldn’t stop. “She’s vulgar, racist, spiteful, critical, violent, mean.” Kate felt no guilt about saying these things, because she was certain Gail would take them all as a compliment. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like her. She’s just …”

  Again, her voice trailed off. Kate wondered why she kept talking. She usually held her liquor better. Maybe the stress of the day, the shock, the pain medication—all of it was conspiring to erode her usual defenses.

  She looked up. Both Oma and Jacob were paying close attention.

  Again, Oma prompted. “This woman is …?”

  “She’s awful,” Kate admitted. “And she’s also one of the nicest people I’ve ever met in my life.” That this was true came as a surprise to Kate. “I got upset today, and she was so nice to me. It doesn’t matter about why I was upset. But she was there, and she was kind.” Kate was aware that she was slurring her words almost as badly as Gail. “But honestly, she’s not kind. She’s always saying these things to me—these mean, brutal things—and then I think about them later and I realize that she’s taught me something. Not just something, but something useful. Something I need to know in order to do my job. Something that will keep me safe.” Kate picked up the sherry glass again. “And I think, ‘How can she be helping me when she’s so awful? How can it be that I’m starting to think of this vile woman as my friend?’ ”

  Jacob and Oma said nothing.

  Kate finished the drink. She might as well go all in.

  She said, “Then, there’s this terrible man. ‘Coarse’ isn’t the word for him. He’s an asshole.” She gave her father an apologetic look. There really was no other word that better suited Terry Lawson. Or his friends. They were all interchangeable as far as Kate was concerned. “Anyway, this asshole, he’s awful, too, just like the woman, but worse in so many ways because he’s so angry about it. He’s sexist and racist and ugly and crude. He’s the sort of man where you think that it’s only a matter of time before he does something violent.”

  Jacob put his cards down on the table.

  Oma refilled her glass.

  “Violence toward me?” Kate asked herself. “No, I don’t feel that way. I feel the threat, though. You know how when you’re around a mean dog and he’s on a leash, but you know if the leash was released …” Her voice trailed off yet again. “I feel like this asshole man is so angry that if I find myself alone with him, then I’d better be prepared to defend myself.”

  Again, Kate wasn’t just thinking about Terry. All of them gave off that same threatening vibe. The more they drank, the worse it got, and yet Gail had said that Chip Bixby had once saved her life. How could that be? The man was a repulsive misogynist, but he had risked his own safety to protect Gail.

  This was the world Kate lived in now. The old rules simply did not apply. You couldn’t judge someone based on their appearance or their accent or by what their father did for a living. Maybe Jett Elliott was really a gentleman. Or Bud Deacon was a God-fearing man. Or Cal Vick wasn’t a repulsive letch. Maybe the fault was Kate’s for looking at their words instead of their actions.

  She tried to explain the dichotomy. “I feel like if I’m threatened by someone else—a robber or a madman or a killer—that these assholes will be there to protect me. And I feel like I should protect them, too. Inasmuch as I can protect anybody.”

  Oma screwed the cap back onto the bottle of scotch.

  Kate continued, “So, I listened to this one particular violent asshole today, and he was disparaging President Kennedy, saying Bobby’s assassination was a godsend. Disparaging the mayor, blacks, women, me.” She laughed. Terry had certainly disparaged Kate. “And yet, he was in the war, too, Daddy. He helped liberate the camps. He freed people from enslavement, from death. He helped them in their darkest hour. In humanity’s darkest hour. And I have to assume that in
his capacity as a policeman, at some point, perhaps many points, during his day, he helps people then, too. He must do this, right?”

  Oma stared down her glass. She said nothing.

  Kate shook her head. She couldn’t keep track of the words coming out of her mouth. “How can they be so awful, yet they do these good things?”

  No one offered an answer. The silence hung over the table in a dark cloud.

  Finally, Jacob said, “It’s one of life’s great mysteries.”

  “Platitudes.” Kate sat back in her chair. Why had she expected them to understand? She didn’t understand herself. And she was tired and she was drunk and she should probably go home before she made even more of a fool of herself.

  Kate pulled herself together. She started to stand.

  “I once knew a Flemish girl,” Oma said.

  Kate smiled automatically, but her heart sank as she sat back in her chair. “Did she tend her sheep and marry her cousin?”

  “No.” Oma stared at the amber liquid in her glass. “She was from Antwerpen. She came to my school toward the end of what you would call my sixth year.”

  Kate held her breath. Her grandmother seldom mentioned her life before Atlanta.

  “Her name was Gilberte Soetaers, which would be very funny to you if you had studied your Dutch.” She smiled sadly at Kate. “Gilberte fit in immediately. The popular girls loved her on sight. And why not? She wore wonderful clothes, very fashionable. Her hair was brown and silky like the mane of a horse. She was exotic to us. Or to me, at least. Her father had rubber plantations in Congo. My father was an academic. She was privileged. I was not. She was a Calvinist. I was Jewish. I was like you, Kaitlin. My body developed before the rest of them. The girls turned into ice. But after Gilberte arrived, they were far worse. Even my little friend who used to take tea with me. They teased me about my clothes, my hair, my figure, my academics—” She shrugged like it made sense, and it did make sense, because that’s how girls were no matter where you lived.

  Oma continued, “You will be surprised to learn that the world continued to turn on its axis despite my woes. I graduated. I went to university. I married a wonderful man. He gave me beautiful children. I worked at the school. And then the war came. We were all moved into the Jodenbuurt. We weren’t allowed to leave, but—” She stroked her hair. “The Nazis were so stupid. They didn’t think a Jewish woman could have blonde hair.” She glanced at Jacob, and Kate got the feeling her father had heard this story before. “I would leave the quarter to get food for your opa and moeder. Voor oom—” She looked to Jacob again.

  “Uncle,” Jacob provided.

  “Yes. Your uncle, he was already away, living with a couple in Friesland who kindly agreed to take him in. Very nice people. They did what they could.” Oma continued to stare down at the glass. Kate knew the boy had been lost to the war.

  “So,” Oma said. “One day I am looking for food near the Nieuwmarktbuurt. This was a very dangerous area for me. They used the square as a collection point, and of course I could be sent away for not wearing the yellow jodenster.” She smiled at Kate, though there was none of the usual mirth in her eyes. “I was at a shop wondering if I can sneak a piece of cheese into my pocket while the grocer is not looking, and I turn around and there she is.” Oma raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Gilberte Soetaers, this girl who tortured me for years. And, worst of all, she is with a Nazi soldier.”

  Kate put her hand to her throat.

  “Gilberte recognizes me. I know this because I see it in her eyes. We are women, but we are still those girls who hated each other.” Oma paused. “ ‘Friedrich,’ Gilberte calls. I panic. This is not just a Nazi she is with. This is a German. I look for the door. I want to leave, but he is already standing in front of me. Gilberte says to him, ‘This is a girl I went to school with.’ And I am shaking like a leaf. I can’t believe it. I’m going to disappear. My family will never know what happened to me. My Liesbeth is already so thin. She can barely rise from the bed. They will die without me.”

  Oma took Kate’s hand and squeezed it very hard. “And like this, Gilberte grabs my hand, and I think, ‘She won’t let me go! She is going to turn me in!’ And she says to me, very sweetly, ‘Oh, how happy I am to see you, mijn zoeteke.’ ” Oma sat back, but she still held Kate’s hand. “Mijn zoeteke. My sweet, like candy. This is a Flemish phrase; I’ve told you they speak with flowers in their mouths.”

  Kate nodded quickly. She wanted Oma to finish the story.

  “I didn’t know what to make of it, her calling me this name.” Oma seemed still perplexed. “And then Gilberte Soetaers, this terrible beast who made me miserable for so many years, tells this Nazi, ‘Darling, you must give my friend some ration tickets. Look how thin she is.’ ” Even now, Oma sounded surprised. “So, he gave me many tickets. Too many. We agreed to have drinks soon. We kissed cheeks—all of us. And then I left.”

  Oma shrugged. That was it. Her story was finished.

  Kate wanted more. “The Nazi gave you ration tickets?”

  “Because of Gilberte Soetaers, we had bread, cheese, milk. It was a mitzvah. I made the tickets last three weeks.”

  Kate wondered how long it was after those three weeks before they were deported to the camps. “Did the Nazi know you were Jewish?”

  “Of course Gilberte did, but she could not tell him after the fact. He would have murdered her. Or worse, sent her away.” She finished the dregs of her scotch. “So, that is how horrible people can be good.”

  Kate shook her head. “I don’t understand. That was an example, not an explanation.”

  “Exactly.” Oma rose from her chair. “There is no explanation, Kaitlin. Evil people can do good. Good people can do evil. Why does this happen sometimes? Because it’s Tuesday.” She looked at the clock. “Ach. Wednesday. Much past my bedtime. Good night, my dears.”

  She pressed her hand to Kate’s shoulder as she walked toward the door. Kate wanted to stop her, but Oma left without another word.

  “Well.” Jacob collected the cards on the table.

  Kate could feel her heart pounding in her chest. She asked her father, “You’ve heard that story before?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve nothing to add?”

  “About your question?” He shrugged. “People stink. But then sometimes they don’t.”

  “All those degrees and I get a fortune cookie.”

  He stacked the cards together. “That policewoman you were with will never see out of her eye again. She was very lucky.” He touched his ear. “As were you.”

  Kate looked away.

  “You’ve nothing to add? Not even a fortune cookie?”

  “I didn’t want you to worry about me.”

  “I’m only worried because you’re not telling the truth.”

  Kate stared longingly at the bottle of scotch.

  Her father stacked the card deck neatly in the center of the table. He took off his glasses. When Kate was little, he’d taught her how to play gin rummy. He beat her all the time until Kate figured out that she could see the reflection of his cards in his eyeglasses. Kate had never told him her trick. Obviously, Oma had never told him, either. She liked winning too much. For Jacob’s part, she imagined he liked letting them win.

  Kate asked, “Should I tell you the truth, Daddy?”

  “You should tell yourself the truth. I don’t matter so much now. You’re a grown woman. I can’t send you to your room.”

  Kate seldom sought his advice, but she really wanted it now. “What would you have me do?”

  He leaned his elbows on the table. He smiled at Kate. “You are more precious to me than rubies. Do you know that?”

  She nodded. If there was one thing of which she was certain, it was her family’s love.

  “There is no such thing as one city.” He sat back in his chair again. “You’ve seen that for yourself these last two days.”

  Kate thought he was addressing her earlier question. “Are you saying
people are like cities?”

  “I’m saying that your life is very different from the lives that other people live—the girls you went to school with, your fellow officers, the people you help, the people you arrest. For each of them, Atlanta is a different thing. Yet they all take pride in ownership. They all feel that this city belongs to them, and that their idea of the city is what the city should be. And, further, they feel the need to defend it. To protect it.” His smile indicated he knew he was being obtuse, but that Kate should bear with him. “Your violent asshole, I assume he thinks Atlanta belongs to the violent assholes. Your horrible woman—maybe she thinks it belongs to horrible women. They both feel very strongly, I’m sure. But which Atlanta is the real Atlanta? Is it ours? Is it the one Patrick knew? Does it belong to the blacks now? Did it ever belong to anybody?”

  “Daddy, I’m sorry. I still don’t understand.”

  “Even with my volunteer work at Grady, I will never see the Atlanta that you are seeing. I will never know the people you know. I will never see the places you will see.”

  Kate finally got it. Her father was articulating the thoughts she had been having since she first walked into the station house. “I’m no longer in my insulated world.”

  “Yes,” he answered, and she detected an unfamiliar sadness in his tone. “I will never understand humanity the way you will if you continue to work this job.”

  “If?” Kate asked.

  “You know my grandfather fought for the Confederacy?”

  Kate nodded.

  “And my father and I marched in a rally for Dr. King.”

  She nodded again.

  “I remember when we returned home after the rally. We had a drink. Such progress! We toasted each other. We patted ourselves on the backs. We did that all right here.” He meant this house, this mansion on a tree-lined street with its chauffeured cars and maids and gardeners. “Did we know what it was like for Dr. King to return to his home on the other side of town? Did we know what his life was like living in this city, in his Atlanta, which was our Atlanta, too?”