The Fifth Reflection

by Ellen Kirschman

  “Why wouldn’t she?”

  “Everybody involved with Chrissy seems to be lying about something.”

  “Lying about what? About hiring a meth addict to murder her own daughter? Jesus, Dot. Is there anybody you trust? You’re worse than a cop.”

  He fills two bowls with rice and ladles curry on top. Drops of red liquid splash the front of his shirt.

  “You don’t understand JJ, never have. You don’t like her photos, you don’t like her relationship to me, and you don’t like that I want to help her. That’s all I want to do—help her; not sleep with her, not run away with her. If I’ve given you the wrong impression, and I don’t think I have, I’m sorry.”

  I start to turn off the TV.

  “Go ahead. Leave it on. You know you want to watch it.”

  He begins to eat, head down, without waiting for me to start. “Delicious,” I say. He doesn’t respond.

  Pence steps to the podium. It’s barely two hours since I saw him last and he looks as though he’s had a total makeover. His hair, his clothes, all neat and pristine. Manny, wearing a sport jacket and rumpled shirt, looks like he hasn’t slept in days.

  “I have a brief announcement. The person of interest in custody is Bucky Stewart’s half brother.”

  “His name,” someone shouts.

  “He uses several aliases. I’ll let you know as soon as we determine his real name.”

  Another shout. “Why did he kill Chrissy?”

  Pence raises his hand. “We are at the very beginning of our investigation. I can’t confirm who killed Chrissy.”

  “Is he talking? Do you have a confession?”

  “No and no. What I do have is a written request for a lawyer.”

  Frank refills his bowl and sits down again. I turn off the TV. The only sound in the room is our spoons, scraping against the sides of our dishes.

  A cold, slick February rain is fouling traffic as I drive to headquarters the next day. I can hear the traffic team calling for backup on the scanner in my car. Directing traffic in the rain is more hazardous than chasing crooks. Nearly half of all police deaths involve vehicle accidents. I drive through an intersection. Two cars are mashed together, their snouts blunted by the impact, the drivers comfortably warm inside their vehicles, talking on their phones. A young cop, rain pouring off the plastic cover of his hat, redirects a line of growling drivers. Horns blare. The citizens of Kenilworth are on the move, getting to where they’re going far more important than the welfare of anyone other than themselves. The line creeps forward. I lower my window as I pass the officer.

  “Thanks. Tough duty. I appreciate it.”

  He doesn’t take his eyes off the road and the line of cars behind me.

  “Move ahead,” he says. “You’re blocking traffic.”

  I unlock the door to my office at headquarters, dripping water on the floor. I put my briefcase on the desk, hang up my raincoat, and mop my face with a wad of tissues.

  “Hey, Doc.” The young redheaded PIO stands in the doorway, careful not to step in my office and give anyone the impression that she needs my services. “Manny was looking for you. He’s got some screaming woman in the conference room. I think he needs your help before he 5150s her to the nuthouse.”

  I hear her yelling before I reach the closed door to the conference room. I let myself into the observation area. Pence and Manny are at the conference table, a uniformed officer stands at the door, another stands to the left of the one-way mirror. The woman at the table is the same woman Manny and I saw when we were watching Buzz’s house.

  “Buzz didn’t do anything. It’s not his fault.”

  “We’re not accusing you of anything, Miss . . . I’m sorry, your name again, please,” Pence says.

  “Finister, Brenda Finister. I’m twenty-seven years old and I live at 190 Old County Road with my common-law husband, Buzz Stewart, which is why you can’t make me testify against him. And I want my phone call. And coffee.”

  She spits out the words like a prisoner of war: name, rank, and serial number.

  “You are not under arrest, Ms. Finister. You came to us voluntarily.” Pence’s voice is tired. I don’t know how long they’ve been at this. “I’d be happy to get you coffee.”

  The officer in front of the mirror moves toward the door.

  “And a blueberry muffin. I’m hungry.”

  Her eyes flicker around the room.

  “Is that one of those one-way mirrors? Is somebody watching me?” She half rises out of her seat. “Is it you, Buzz? I love you, baby.” She kisses the tips of her fingers and flicks them at the mirror. The black hoodie sweatshirt she’s wearing falls open and I can see her wasted torso under a baggy pink tank top. Her hair is matted and her once tiny nose flattened into a smudge.

  “No one’s looking at you, Ms. Finister. Please continue.” Manny hunches forward.

  “Is she behind that thing?”

  “Is who behind that thing?”

  “I want my coffee and my muffin.” Brenda crosses and uncrosses her legs. Her jeans ride up, revealing scrawny, scratched legs.

  The door opens and the officer returns with a paper cup of coffee and a muffin wrapped in plastic. He sets it in front of Brenda and digs in his pocket for a handful of sugar packets, three small capsules of fake milk, and some paper napkins. Finister empties four packets of sugar into her coffee and tries to unwrap the muffin with shaky hands.

  “May I?” Manny says. He unwraps the muffin and puts it in front of her on a paper napkin.

  “Buzz called her Mother Teresa. She worried about me and Buzz. Tried to get us to go to rehab.”

  “Who did he call Mother Teresa?” I can hear a wedge of irritation in Pence’s voice. Under the table, Brenda’s tiny feet are pedaling an invisible bicycle.

  “More coffee?” Manny says.

  “Later. Maybe.”

  “We appreciate your cooperation. Your willingness to help us identify the person who murdered Chrissy. It’s very helpful.” Brenda looks at Manny as though he’s speaking a foreign language. Praise is not something I imagine she has heard much of in her life. “This person you referred to as Mother Teresa . . .” He makes air quotes with his hands. “What’s her real name?”

  “I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.”

  Pence rolls his eyes. “I thought you want to get your boyfriend out of trouble. You’re not going to help him if you don’t give us a name.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend. He’s my common-law husband.”

  Pence comes at her like a barking dog.

  “Frankly, lady, I don’t care if you’re brother and sister. If you want to help him, you’re going to have to give us names.”

  Brenda jerks and raises her hands in front of her face as though she’s going to be hit. Manny leans in. “He’s not going to hurt you. He’s just asking you to give us some names.”

  Good cop, bad cop. I can’t tell if he and Manny planned this or if Pence is running out of patience.

  Brenda moves her chair closer to Manny. She cups one hand next to his ear and whispers loud enough for the rest of us to hear. “I’m not talking if he’s in the room. Only you.”

  Manny glances at Pence and flicks his eyes at the door. Pence stands.

  “I could use a break. I’ll be back in a while.”

  Manny cocks his head at the other two officers, and they follow. Brenda waits until all three men are out the door.

  “He’s mean. He makes me nervous.”

  “He makes a lot of people nervous.” Manny laughs. Brenda looks at him, checking his reaction to see if she should laugh, too. This is a woman who feels her way forward, never makes a move without first testing the waters. And even that doesn’t guarantee that a fist or a foot won’t fly out of nowhere.

  “Let’s change the subject. Tell me about Chrissy.”

  Brenda shrugs. “Can I have some more coffee first? I’m cold.”

  “Sure,” he says. “Maybe even a sandwich?”

 
“I’m not hungry. Just coffee.”

  The minute Manny leaves the room, Brenda starts pawing through the pockets of her sweatshirt. She throws back her head and swallows whatever she’s found. The effect is almost immediate. The muscles of her face loosen and she releases a long breath, as calm and content as the Mona Lisa.

  Pence comes into the observation room. He looks tired and frustrated.

  “Brenda just swallowed something when Manny left the room,” I say. “Probably a downer.”

  “Manny left the room? What in hell is he thinking about?” He sits heavily. “I’m bushed. Maybe I should ask Ms. Finister if I can borrow some of her uppers. She’s playing us. Playing Manny. She’s a hype. After something. They all are. She better catch on quick. This is a tit for tat game. We give her something, she gives us something back.”

  “Like a blueberry muffin in exchange for information that could send her and her husband to jail? Not a particularly appealing deal.”

  “She’s pulling his leg. Two hours. Not a minute longer. If he hasn’t got something we can use in two hours, I’m going to pull more than his leg.”

  The door to the observation room opens. Manny sticks his head in and gives us the thumbs-up.

  Pence gives him a thumbs-down. “This is going nowhere. She’s wasting our time. When you left the room, she downed a handful of drugs. She’s getting ready to nod off. She won’t open up. She’s loaded.”

  Manny’s eyes move from me to Pence and back again. He presses his fingernails into the palms of his hands. It’s stifling in this tiny room. And rank with the stink of anger.

  “She needs more time,” Manny says.

  “We haven’t got more time,” Pence hisses between clenched teeth.

  I hiss back. “Brenda is an abused woman. Probably been abused all her life. She won’t talk until she trusts. And trust doesn’t come easy to a woman like this. Don’t try to force her.” I turn to the mirror. Brenda is asleep, her arms folded on the table and her head resting on her arms like a schoolchild during nap time. “I don’t know what she swallowed. Maybe a downer, maybe an aspirin. Whatever it is, she feels safe enough, at least for the moment, to take a nap. I suggest you both do the same. Take a break. Do something to clear your heads and calm your minds. Anything but drink coffee.”

  Brenda is still sleeping when Manny gets back to the conference room, her battered face in repose. He sets the coffee on the table. She stirs, sits up, and looks around. It takes her a minute to remember where she is. Manny smiles. He looks relaxed. The stage is set, just two old friends talking over coffee. Nothing threatening. Nothing to be worried about. He takes a sip. Brenda follows.

  “Sorry I fell asleep.”

  “You’re tired. It’s okay. I got a little shut-eye myself. My mother used to call it a catnap.” He’s enticing her with small personal tidbits in the hopes that she’ll respond with revelations of her own. He takes a second sip of coffee. Brenda watches him like a hawk. This kind of friendly exchange with a police officer is new territory. “Before you fell asleep, you were starting to tell me about Chrissy. I’d like to know more about her.”

  “Not much to say. We couldn’t get near her. Bucky didn’t want anything to do with us. Treated us like dirt. Never wanted us around.”

  “Are you saying you never met Chrissy?”

  “I didn’t say I never met her.” She tears up and pinches at the mouth. “Are you going to question everything I say? I can’t always say stuff right.”

  “Not a problem. We can come back to this later. No rush.”

  She pouts and shoves her hands deep in her pockets. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  Manny watches her hands. “We’re almost through here. You can go in a minute.”

  “I’m going to pee my pants.”

  “Who broke your nose? I know it’s broken, I can see it. Nothing to be ashamed about. And it’s not your fault. I know he hits you. I saw him when I was watching your house.”

  She stiffens.

  “I shouldn’t tell you this, but I will because I know you’re being up front with me. The reason I was watching your house is because we’re pretty sure Buzz is involved in Chrissy’s murder.” She backs up in her chair. “Let me be perfectly clear. I’m talking about Buzz. Not you. I don’t think you had anything to do with it. Or if you did, I bet Buzz forced you to get involved. I can help you. If you’re afraid of him, I’ll take you to a safe place.”

  “I need to go to the bathroom.” Brenda stands, stumbles, and sits down again. “I can’t go to the bathroom?”

  Manny shakes his head as though it pains him to refuse her request. “Sorry,” he says. “When we’re finished talking.”

  And now the tantrum she was working on comes to fruition. She knots her hands. Bangs on the arms of her chair. Her bottom jaw juts forward. She kicks at the table leg and then folds forward, her back quivering with sobs. I can see her hands fumbling at her pants pockets. She appears to be talking to herself.

  “I can’t hear you.” Manny taps her gently on the shoulder.

  She sits up. Her eyes are dry. “All we had to do was watch Chrissy for a few days because bad things were happening to her.”

  “What kind of bad things?”

  “They were doing things to her and taking pictures while they did it. Sex things. I wasn’t going to let that happen. She’s only a baby.”

  “Who was doing bad things to her?”

  Brenda flings her arms wide, knocking hot coffee into Manny’s lap. He howls and starts frantically pawing at his groin. The minute his back is turned, Brenda swallows a handful of pills.

  “Sorry,” she mumbles. “Are you okay?” Her head is turned to the wall. She is so thin I can see the muscles in her neck distend as she swallows whatever is still in her hand.

  Manny’s face is the color of old plums. He grits his teeth.

  “I’m fine. Would you turn around, please?”

  Brenda turns. Her face a frozen grimace. The pupils of her eyes glinting like glass marbles.

  Manny gestures for her to sit and lowers himself gently into his chair.

  “Let’s continue.”

  “At first it went perfect. But when I tried to feed her, she wouldn’t eat and she started to cry.”

  “Who took her from her bed? Was it you? Was it Buzz?”

  “Buzz didn’t want to at first, but when she offered money for rehab, he changed his mind. Said we could start over.”

  “Who offered money?”

  “She just kept crying, and I couldn’t make her stop. We tried everything. We let her crawl around the house, go anywhere she wanted, but she wouldn’t stop crying. So we put her in a room and locked the door. For safety. In the morning, when I got up, I went into her room first thing because I knew she’d be hungry. She didn’t move. Her little hands and feet were cold and her face was a funny color.” Brenda waves her hands in the air as though trying to bat away the terrible raw memory. “Buzz said we shouldn’t tell anyone because it wasn’t our fault. And we needed to go to rehab. I said she wouldn’t pay because Chrissy was dead, and Buzz said she would if we helped her get rid of Chrissy and not tell anyone she was involved.”

  “Please, Brenda. Who wouldn’t pay?”

  “She loved Chrissy more than anything.”

  Manny’s body inflates as if he’s going to explode. He looks toward us, through the mirror, like a tympanist waiting for the conductor to signal that now, this moment and not any other, is the time to bring down his mallets. Pence scoots to the front of his seat, his hands against the mirror. I hold my breath.

  Manny takes Brenda by the hands. “I’m going to ask once more. Tell me who you’re talking about. If you don’t or can’t, I’m going to leave the room. You’ll never see me again. You’ll see plenty of cops. You’ll see Chief Pence, but you won’t see me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the chief is going to fire me if I can’t get you to tell me who you’re talking about. I have a baby daughter. Abou
t the same age as Chrissy. I need this job.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  NO ONE REALLY knows why an abused woman fiercely protects her abuser. Why she confuses enduring pain with commitment. Self-sacrifice with love. How desperately hungry, yet so coiled with a sense of unworthiness, she must be to fall for the delusion that a cruel relationship is better than none.

  “I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.”

  “You’re a kind person. I get that.”

  “I don’t want to get you fired.”

  “I’ll make sure everyone knows how you helped me.”

  “You won’t tell that I told on her?”

  Manny slices his finger across his lips. “Zippo lippo.”

  Brenda sways. Her eyes wander aimlessly around the room. She grasps the edge of the table to steady herself and inhales deeply.

  “She’s the only one in the family that ever treated us nice. Like we were her kids. She never had her own, you know.”

  “Who is the only one that treated you nicely?”

  “Kathryn.” Manny’s body buckles, just slightly. “You won’t tell her I told. I had to help. What Kathryn said was happening to Chrissy was horrible.”

  Manny draws a deep breath and forces himself up in his chair.

  “Of course, you did.”

  “Me and Buzz. We had to.”

  “Kathryn put you in a very bad situation.”

  “We had to do something. Kathryn can’t climb a fire escape.”

  Brenda pushes her chair back from the table.

  “How much did Kathryn pay you and Buzz to take Chrissy?”

  Brenda swings into high dudgeon. “I didn’t do it for money. I did it for Chrissy. And to go to rehab.”

  “Why did you give Chrissy meth?”

  Her eyes go wide. She starts to panic at the familiar smell of betrayal in her nostrils.

  “I never . . . I wouldn’t give a baby meth.”

  “There was meth in her system when she died. If you didn’t give it to her, who did?”

  She starts to hyperventilate, sucking air in great noisy gulps.

  “Is that how you tried to stop her crying? By giving her meth?”