The Fifth Reflection

by Ellen Kirschman

  A voice sings from the back. “If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife, so from my personal point of view, get an ugly girl to marry you.”

  “Never know what turns a guy on. Maybe she has other talents.” One of the reserve officers makes an obscene gesture with his tongue. The cop next to him spots me and jabs his friend hard in the ribs.

  “Hey, Doc,” he says. “C’mon in. We got questions about these parents. You got the PhD. Help us out.” I step into the room. “The mother keeps saying she’s not angry. What’s that all about? Some guy touches our kid, my wife would hang his balls on the Christmas tree. Pardon my French.”

  “I don’t even let my wife take pictures of our kid in the bathtub and send them to her mother,” someone else chimes in. “That woman’s pictures are pornographic. I’ve seen them. What did she expect would happen to her kid when she put them on the Internet? In my humble opinion, she asked for it. What do you think, Doc?”

  They look at me as though my degree equips me to speculate on JJ’s motives like those TV shrinks, including my ex, who jump at every chance to offer their uninformed but pathologically certain opinions to the public. Mark would know if JJ asked for it. He’d have an opinion about whether or not she was a good mother even though he never met her and has no specialized training in assessing parental competency. Are JJ’s photos of Chrissy pornographic? He’d have an opinion about that, too. I’d make a lousy pundit. If the Supreme Court’s threshold test for obscenity and pornography is “I know it when I see it,” how am I supposed to figure it out?

  There’s a message on my phone from Frank. His voice is reedy.

  “JJ’s staying at my house for a few days to avoid reporters. Can you come by tonight? Maybe bring us some dinner? I’m too bushed to cook. Miss you.”

  JJ staying at his—almost our—house for two days? Why didn’t Frank ask me first? I go to the bathroom. I need to wash my face and calm down. I look in the mirror, staring at my reflection like the Wicked Queen in Snow White. Here I am worrying about who’s the fairest in the land when JJ’s world is falling apart. And God knows what’s happening to Chrissy. There is nothing more horrible than losing a child. Nothing. It leaves a hole in your heart that can never be fixed. The only thing that could make it worse would be knowing that you were the one responsible for putting your precious child in harm’s way.

  JJ looks worse than she did on TV. Her eyes are sunken and rimmed with purplish circles. Her lips are chapped and the skin around her mouth is a raw red. She stands when I walk into the living room, thanks me for my support, telling me how much it meant to have someone on her side at the police station. I start to tell her it wasn’t my idea and stop.

  “I know they all think this is my fault. How could they not? It is my fault.” She tears up and sits on the couch next to a neatly folded pile of sofa-sized blankets and sheets. I feel relieved. Also, small-minded and mean-spirited. “Somebody once said that fame is a prize that burns the winner. They were right. Chrissy, my nieces and my nephews did whatever I asked them to do. If somebody took Chrissy because he thought she was sexy, it’s because I posed her that way. Asked her to look directly into the camera. I made her look sultry. The second before and the second after I took that shot, she was giggling, like any ordinary child.”

  She grits her teeth, biting back tears. “What have I done?” she asks no one in particular, except herself.

  Frank takes my grocery bags into the kitchen, puts them down, and gives me a long hug that I wish was even longer. We unpack the groceries. Bread, salad fixings, cheese and eggs for an omelet, my one reliable culinary achievement beyond popcorn.

  “Can you help her?”

  “Nothing’s going to help her until Chrissy comes home. If she comes home.”

  JJ walks into the kitchen, touching her long fingers to the wall and the doorway for support. She appears to have lost ten pounds in three days.

  “Did you just come from the police station? Is there any news?”

  I shake my head. “Someone will call you the minute they hear anything.”

  She looks at the food spread out on the counter.

  “I’m afraid I’m not hungry. Sorry to disappoint after you’ve gone to all this trouble.”

  “No trouble at all. I’ll cook. Maybe you’ll be hungry in a little while.”

  “I won’t be hungry ever. Not until Chrissy comes home.”

  She picks at her food. A mouthful of egg, a forkful of salad. She refuses wine for fear of losing her ability to concentrate and stay alert. I want to tell her that sleep deprivation is the cognitive equivalent of being drunk and urge her to take a nap, but she refuses. Someone may call with news or a ransom demand. I clear the dishes, leaving her a chunk of bread and butter. Just in case. Frank follows me into the kitchen.

  “I’ll clean up. See if you can get her to talk. Woman to woman. When she’s with me, she just sits and stares.”

  I take my wine and head into the living room. JJ is sitting on the couch, cell phone in hand, her long legs curled beneath her.

  “Don’t you want to take a shower? Change your clothes?”

  “I don’t want to miss the telephone.”

  “We can answer it.”

  “What if it’s not the police? What if it’s the man who took her and he’ll only talk to me?”

  “What man? Any particular man?”

  “The police asked me that. No. No one in particular.”

  “Tell me about yourself,” I say. Mostly as a distraction. Partly out of curiosity.

  “What’s to say? Normal happy childhood. Nothing out of the ordinary until Chrissy came along. She changed my life.”

  “Were you and Bucky ever married? He and Kathryn seem like they’ve been together forever. Just an impression.”

  She laughs. “Married. Me and Bucky? Heavens no.” She untangles her legs and shifts to face me. “We met in Hawaii. Bucky was on a business trip without Kathryn. I was on a photography assignment. We met in the hotel bar. He seemed nice. I was lonely. So was he. We had an affair and I got pregnant. Simple as that.”

  “Nothing is that simple,” I say.

  “We stayed in touch after we got back to California. That’s how he knew I was pregnant. He’s an honorable man. I don’t think he’s cheated on Kathryn a lot. But he was at a low point in his marriage, bored I guess. Looking for a little excitement. I was younger, pretty. I didn’t have a lot of money and he did. So, I got to go to nice places. But it was never anything more than a fling for me.”

  I wonder if infidelity is inevitable for men. No doubt there is a biological imperative that drives men to spread their endless supply of sperm to as many females as possible in order to propagate the species, while we females zealously guard our spare allotment of eggs. That was true for Mark who now has a baby, maybe more than one, with his young wife when he never wanted one with me.

  “Kathryn is apparently unable to have children. So when I got pregnant, Bucky was thrilled. He wanted to leave her and marry me. I wanted to be pregnant, but I have no interest in marriage. Or money, although everyone I knew thought I’d hit the jackpot. Money changes you. It makes you care more about material things than people or the planet.”

  “He doesn’t give you child support?”

  “He does. He’s very generous. But I only agreed to accept enough money to pay for Chrissy’s schooling, cover our living expenses, and buy art supplies.”

  “And Kathryn?”

  “She’s been wonderful. Loves Chrissy like her own child. I’m grateful for her support. She’s a forgiving person. Not many women would have the generosity of heart that she has.”

  I certainly wouldn’t. Look at me. Relieved to see JJ’s linens folded on the couch, at the same time I wonder if Frank put them there to fool me into thinking he and JJ weren’t sleeping together. I can’t imagine how Kathryn manages to stay calm and collected watching her husband and his ex-lover orbit around their love child, still
a presence in each other’s lives. Frank’s never given me a reason to distrust him. But then again, neither did Mark. Yet there he was, having an affair with Melinda, literally under my nose, while I was too dumb, too besotted, too I don’t-know-what, to notice. I’m not proud of that, nor do I take any pride in the fact that I seem to have turned into a suspicious female whose guiding mantra about life and men is, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  TWO DAYS LATER, the radio alarm wakes me at 6:00 a.m. I was at my office late last night writing reports. Frank was out photographing workers at a night-time road repair project so I went home, poured myself a glass of wine, made a bowl of popcorn, and collapsed in front of the TV watching a stupid cop show where an implausibly beautiful detective in stiletto heels kicks in a door by herself, shoots two suspects before the first commercial, and winds up having vigorous sex with her implausibly beautiful cop boyfriend. I don’t know what I’ll do to de-stress when Frank and I are living together.

  The traffic report screeches to a stop with the announcement of breaking news heralded by a blast of terrible music and a reminder that this is the station informed listeners rely on for the latest updates in their world. I roll over to hit the snooze button.

  “The body of a small child has been found in a dumpster in East Kenilworth. It is presumed to be the body of Chrissy Stewart who was kidnapped from her bed less than a week ago. The police are not revealing any information until the child’s identity is confirmed and they notify the family. Updates every five minutes.” It’s Chrissy, who else could it be? I feel like throwing up. This beautiful child, all promise and potential, destined for the best life has to offer, tossed in a dumpster like a piece of garbage. Her parents doomed to a life disfigured by never-ending grief and unanswered questions. Longing for the past a constant ache. I call Frank. He’s already heard the news and is rushing over to JJ’s. He promises to call me later.

  I take a shower, dress for the office, and eat breakfast. It seems wrong to be doing these ordinary things. I wonder what JJ and Bucky are doing. Are they in shock, sedated, suicidal? Screaming, crying, blaming? Humans are meaning-making mammals. We can’t abide randomness. In the absence of facts to help us make sense of chaos, we are driven to search for explanations, villains, something or someone to blame. When we find nothing, we blame ourselves. This is a monstrous crime. There’s little I can do to help JJ, but there are things I can do to help the cops. A short defusing to acknowledge the impact that crimes against children have on an officer’s psyche. Some tips on self-care. Later on, an extended debriefing. After the case is solved. If it ever is.

  There are always one or two cops who grumble about defusings and debriefings being too touchy-feely. Eddie Rimbauer is one of them. Left to his own devices, before he stopped drinking, he’d opt for choir practice, boozing it up in the parking lot with his buddies. Now he’s delivering coffee and cookies and giving me advice.

  “Don’t put out Kleenex. That’ll shut them down. If they need to wipe their noses, they can use napkins. I left extra. And don’t ask nothing about their childhoods.”

  “I never do, you know that. This is not therapy. It’s a time to talk about what’s happened, what to expect, psychologically and physically, and how to take care of yourself and your family.”

  “You were plenty interested in my childhood.”

  “You’re a special case. Now, if you’re finished telling me how to do my job, you can leave. Thank Fran for the goodies and thank you for bringing them.”

  The door to the conference room opens. A dozen patrol officers and a dispatcher file in. They look exhausted and very grim.

  “Don’t keep ’em too long. They need sleep. Don’t let the chief in here and don’t forget to remind them about confidentiality.”

  “Thank you, Eddie,” I say, shoving him from behind.

  “The doc is okay.” He waves to the group. “Listen to what she has to say, otherwise you’ll wind up like me, pushing a coffee cart instead of driving a patrol car.”

  There’s a certain formality to defusings and debriefings that lends some structure to the conversation. Cops like structure: they want to know what to expect next. The unknown is what gets them hurt. I go over the ground rules—what’s said in this room stays in the room, speak for yourself not anyone else, don’t sit on your feelings—we’ve been through this before, most of them know the drill.

  I start with the dispatcher as Manny rushes in the door and grabs a seat. Her name is Linda. She took the call from the person who found Chrissy. Young and relatively new with small children of her own, she’s not yet carrying the extra pounds many dispatchers accumulate from sitting for hours attached to a console by a cable that reaches no further than the nearest tray of cupcakes. Cops can run, jump, and yell to spill their stress. A dispatcher is forced to stay calm no matter what she’s hearing on the other end of a 911 call.

  “The call came in about four thirty a.m. from a janitor. He was emptying garbage into the dumpster behind the building he cleans. He thought she was a doll wrapped in a blanket. He was very upset. When he turned her over, she . . .” Linda releases a long sigh that whistles through the room. “She was made up like a woman—lipstick, eye shadow, and false eyelashes. He said it was grotesque.”

  “Did he describe the blanket?” Manny says.

  “Pink with green butterflies.”

  Something shifts in Manny’s face. His eyes, his skin color, in this light, I can’t tell which.

  “Got an address for this dumpster? I just got in, went home to get a little sleep.”

  “Manny,” I say. “I need to remind you and everyone else that this is a psychological, not a tactical, debriefing.”

  He turns his head and stings me with his eyes. “And I need to remind you, Doc, that we have a dead baby and we don’t know who killed her. Once again,” he says to Linda, “where was the dumpster?”

  She hesitates and looks at me. “Okay to say?”

  It never works for a civilian to argue with a cop in front of his buddies. Even if the cops hate each other, they’ll team up and turn on the outsider.

  “Sure,” I say. “It’s not a secret.”

  She takes a deep breath. “In East Kenilworth. Outside some artist’s commune.”

  Before I can react, there is a commotion in the hall, loud voices, the sound of someone throwing something against a wall. Everyone goes on alert, our bodies stiff with adrenaline.

  Manny steps to the side of the door, his hand on his weapon. The other cops scatter. Someone tells Linda and me to get under the table. The door flies open while I’m still on my feet. Bucky Stewart, his face florid, eyes popping from their sockets, screams into the room.

  “Where is she? Where is her body?”

  Pence is right behind him and behind Pence is a line of cops.

  Bucky turns around, nose-to-nose with Pence. Pence pushes him into the room, gently but firmly, until he is up against the table. Three cops follow.

  “You need to calm down and listen. I have no options here. The law requires me to have the medical examiner do an autopsy in any circumstance when someone, including a child, has died in a violent or suspicious manner or when we don’t have a clear cause of death. The medical examiner will work as quickly as possible to release Chrissy’s body for a funeral. Do you understand?”

  Bucky leans against the table. He’s breathing hard, staring as though Pence is talking in Chinese.

  “How long?”

  “How long what?”

  “How long will you keep her?”

  “I don’t keep her, she’s at the medical examiner’s office.”

  Bucky slams his fist against the table.

  “I know that, you just told me. How long will the medical examiner keep her?”

  “I don’t know. I will ask him and get back to you. He will want to perform a number of tests. This can take a while.” He speaks slowly, sweat dripping off his nose and chin. “It
may not be necessary to keep Chrissy’s body until the test results are available. But again, I would have to ask the medical examiner.” He reaches his hand out to touch Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky throws it off and moves out of reach. “I will ask about the waiting list. We have one medical examiner. Sometimes there’s a queue.”

  “The fuck there is.” Bucky’s face goes florid again and he pushes against the table so hard it screeches across the floor. “My daughter is not waiting in line. I’ll hire my own medical examiner before that happens.”

  “Before anything happens, Mr. Stewart, the medical examiner needs an identification. To make sure this is your daughter.”

  “Who else’s daughter could it be? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. What a bunch of fucking Keystone cops.” Bucky pushes Pence with two hands, sending him backward, and races out the door.

  “Want me to go after him?” someone asks.

  Pence shakes his head. “No harm done. Let him go. The poor guy’s hurting way worse than I could ever imagine.”

  Frank and JJ are sitting side by side on hard wooden chairs staring at an arrangement of landscape paintings. Decorating a room that is barely ten feet away from a half-dozen dead bodies places limits on the kind of art being displayed. Anatomical drawings of the human form, however close to the medical examiner’s essential mission, would hardly be appropriate.

  JJ reaches out to me with a bony hand; her touch is light as a sparrow.

  “Thank you for coming.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “At least it’s over. I know where she is and she’s not suffering.”

  “We don’t yet know if it’s Chrissy.” Frank is pale as a ghost.

  “It’s Chrissy,” JJ says. “I can feel her.”

  The door to the waiting room bangs open. Bucky charges into the room. Kathryn following behind.

  “Where is she?” Bucky’s voice splinters the unnatural stillness.

  “They haven’t called us yet,” JJ says.