He said, “You’re on,” and shut off the engine.
She scooped out two servings and warmed them while he fixed ice water and got forks from the drawer she pointed at. Unceremoniously she handed him a plate and a napkin, remarking as she sat down, “Don’t tell my mother how I served this.”
“What’s wrong with this?”
“No place mats, no table setting, letting you get your own water and fork, me in this disgusting shirt and thongs throwing you your plate. My mother would have a shit fit. She’s stuck on propriety. One doesn’t do the unexpected or the unconventional. Her favorite phrase is ‘What would people say?’ ”
“Shit fit?” He was wearing a smile. His face was shiny from the water and his hair had fallen neatly into place without apparent help from him. “You actually said ‘shit fit’?”
She stopped winding spaghetti to meet his amused eyes. “What? I can’t say that?”
“It doesn’t bother me, it’s just that I never heard you say anything like that before. I always thought of you as Mrs. Perfect. Perfect mother, perfect lady, perfect . . . you know what I mean.”
“Me?” Her eyes grew big and her mouth dropped open. “I’m far from perfect. What in the world makes you say a thing like that?”
“The way Greg talked about you. In his eyes you could do no wrong.”
“I cuss now and then. Does it bother you?”
“No, it makes you human, makes me more comfortable around you. Now what were you saying about your mother?”
“Oh, just that she lives according to Emily Post. Tables set properly, joining the right clubs, dressing properly for dinner, sending thank-you cards, playing Grieg at funerals, not Vince Gill.”
“I overheard her remark about that.”
“I’m sure. What did she say?”
His eyes grew mischievous. “If I remember right, she said, ‘What will people say?’ ”
Lee grinned and they dug into their spaghetti.
“So what about your mother?” she asked. “What’s she like?”
He stopped chewing, stopped winding spaghetti and took a drink of water before answering, “Nothing like yours, believe me.”
“You won’t tell me?”
He pondered awhile, his eyes leveled on her, before deciding to confide. “She’s an alcoholic. So is my father.”
“Were they always?”
“Always. She worked as a fry cook on the early morning shift at a truck stop; he didn’t work at all that I remember. Claimed he’d hurt his back somehow and couldn’t. Most days, by the time I got home from school they’d be down at this place I always called The Hole, pickling their gizzards. Not only didn’t she set tables properly, she never set them at all. Any cooking that was done was pretty much left up to me. And I’ll guarantee you she never sent a thank-you note in her life—I don’t know what the hell she’d have to thank anybody for. She didn’t have any friends except the drunks who hung out at that bar. So don’t be too hard on your mother. You could have done a lot worse.” He said it amiably and she accepted it.
“What about sisters and brothers?”
“One sister.”
“Older or younger?”
“Four years younger.”
“Where is she now?”
“Jeannie is somewhere on the west coast. She moves around.”
“Do you ever see her?”
“Not very often. She ran away when she was fifteen and has been married and divorced three times since then. Last time I saw her she weighed about two hundred fifty pounds and lived off the welfare system, just like our folks did. Jeannie and I don’t have a lot in common.”
“And your parents? Where are they?”
“They live over on the other side of town in a squalid apartment complex called Jackson Estates. They haven’t changed much except that they do their boozing at home now because it’s hard for them to get up and down the stairs.”
“I’ve upset you, asking about them.”
“No, not really. I gave up expecting them to change a long time ago.”
“They must be very proud of you.”
“You don’t understand. They’re not the kind of parents who get proud. To do that you have to get sober first. They haven’t been sober in thirty-five years.”
“I’m sorry, Christopher,” she said quietly.
They finished eating their spaghetti and meatballs. They had progressed through a day running a range of emotions, from low to high, now low again. What they had shared left them undeniably closer, so close, in fact, that he grew uncomfortable as they sat in her cozy kitchen, relaxed in their chairs and exchanging gazes that lasted longer and longer.
He got up and refilled his water glass.
“You want some more?” he asked.
She nodded. That’s how it was getting to be between them, comfortable one moment, uncomfortable the next. A man filling a woman’s water glass because she was getting to look a little too good to him, and Emily Post and her mother would undoubtedly have a few choice remarks about that.
He drank his water standing up, then reached for their dirty plates. “Well, let’s clean this up so I can get out of your hair.”
“I’ll clean it up.”
“No way. I’ll help.”
They were both clearing the table when Janice came home from work. She walked into the kitchen and dropped her car keys on the table.
“Christopher, hi! What are you doing here?”
“Your mom fed me supper.”
A beat of awareness caught and held Janice, pulling the smile from her face. “You helped her move Greg’s things, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I saw them in the garage.” She turned to Lee. “Mom, I’m sorry I didn’t help.”
“It’s okay, sweetie.” She gave Janice a kiss on the cheek. “It’s all done now.”
“No, it’s not okay. I should have been there. I’m really sorry.”
“Christopher helped, so don’t say another word about it.”
Lee went on swishing a plate under the hot water while Janice studied her, then Chris, then Lee again.
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. You hungry?”
The question convinced Janice her transgression was minor. “Mmm . . . sorta.” She nosed along the cabinet to the bowl of cold spaghetti sauce, still in its Tupperware storage dish. With two long rose-colored fingernails she plucked out a meatball. “Boy, it’s sweltering out there.” She turned, taking a bite, resting her spine against the cabinet edge. “I was thinking about going somewhere for a swim. You interested in going along, Chris?”
He was dressed in his T-shirt again and his cutoffs were nearly dry.
“Actually, your mom and I already did that.”
Janice swallowed the last of her meatball with a slight gulp. “You did?” She glanced inquisitively between the two of them.
After an awkward beat of silence Lee offhandedly opened the dishwasher door and said, “It was hot dragging that furniture around. We just cooled off and then grabbed some supper. Do you want me to warm some for you?”
“Mom,” Janice said with an air of gentle chiding, “I’m twentythree years old. You don’t have to warm up my supper anymore.”
Lee smiled at her daughter, drying her hands on a towel. “Force of habit.”
Christopher pushed his chair under the table and said, “Well, I’d better go. I have to work tonight. Thanks for the supper, Mrs. Reston.”
“It was the least I could do. Thank you for everything you did today.”
He moved toward the door and Janice said, “I’ll walk you out.” Lee felt a peculiar spurt of resentment at Janice for blithely usurping her place with Christopher. The feeling struck suddenly, then retreated under duress as she told herself her place was not with him. Still, they’d been together all day, working on a decidedly dif.-cult task, and she felt abandoned, watching the two of them walk outside. They looked so young and perfect together.
By his
truck door Janice paused, preventing him from getting in. She was dressed in a simple pullover pink blouse and a short jeans skirt. Her tan, bare legs ended in unadorned white flats. She stood on the sides of her heels with her toes curled up off the blacktop, her head tipped to one side. “Thank you for helping her, Chris. I was really a rat not to do it, but I was bummed.”
He looked her straight in the eyes, holding his key ring over his index finger. “Sometimes we’ve got to do things whether we’re bummed or not. I didn’t mind doing it, but you’re right. You and Joey should have helped her today. She needed you.”
Janice stared at the chrome edging around his windshield, her mouth contracting.
“Hey, don’t cry,” he said, touching her chin.
She struggled not to but there was evidence of tears.
“Just be there for her a little more, okay? This is a rough time for her. She carries the brunt of it, taking care of all the details—funeral, cars, paperwork. You know that she wouldn’t criticize you in a million years, but she’s got feelings, too, yet she always puts your feelings first.”
“I know,” Janice whispered.
They stood awhile in the slanting sun. “You mad at me for saying what I think?”
She shook her head, still staring at the chrome molding.
“You got any objections to me coming around now and then to take her mind off things?”
She shook her head again.
“Okay then . . . see you on the Fourth of July?”
She nodded at the molding.
She was still standing in the driveway holding onto one elbow with the opposite hand when he waved farewell and drove away.
6
SERIOUS crime was the exception rather than the rule in the city of Anoka. There were relatively few times when its police officers felt their lives threatened. Now and then a robber was apprehended, or the SWAT team was called out on a drug bust, but for the most part, Christopher Lallek and his fellow officers took their duties in stride. At 6:20 A.M. on a hazy, hot morning in the first week of July, Christopher was sitting in his squad car yawning. He checked his watch—forty minutes to go—and shifted his stiff rump on the car seat. Glancing up at the movement of vehicles rolling by on Highway 10, he noticed a ’78 Grand Prix weaving in and out of traffic.
Immediately he came alert, switched on his reds and pulled out into the westbound lane. He could tell the moment the driver saw the flashing reds because he increased speed and made a reckless lane switch. The inbound lane held more traffic than this one, but the westbound flow was heavy enough to put starch into Christopher’s spine and tighten his grip on the wheel.
He caught up with the Grand Prix and followed close on his tail, watching for the driver to look into his rearview mirror.
The driver ignored him.
He gave the siren a short hit and got ignored some more.
He turned on the siren full blast and felt his ire mount as the driver continued pretending the black-and-white wasn’t there. He picked up the radio, reported his position and the Grand Prix’s plate number and, finally, after a good half mile saw the smart aleck respond, pulling to a stop on the right shoulder.
Sizzling with temper, Christopher got out of his squad and approached the rusted red vehicle.
The driver had his window down and was slumped slightly toward the wheel. He was perhaps twenty-eight or thirty years old, needed a shave and a haircut, and looked as if he’d been on an allnight bender.
Chris glanced into the car, looking for open bottles, and asked, “Could I see your license, please?”
“Whaffor?” His breath could have cured leather.
“Just show it to me, please.”
“If you wanna see my license, tell me what I done wrong.”
“Do you have a license?”
The guy shrugged and turned a baggy-eyed expression of disdain Chris’s way.
“The license, sir.”
“ ’S been revoked,” the guy mumbled.
Christopher put a hand on his shoulder and said, “Get out of the car, please.”
The driver sneered, “Screw you, prick,” and tromped on the gas. The edge of the back window glass struck Christopher’s arm and carried him six feet down the highway. Even as the pain shot through him he was spun free and found himself running to his squad.
Door slamming! Heart pumping! Siren squealing! The blackand-white fishtailed and sprayed gravel and weeds twenty feet behind him. He grabbed the radio and forced his voice to remain calm. “Two Bravo Thirty-seven. He took off on me, westbound on ten! I’m in pursuit!”
The dispatcher acknowledged and verified the time. “Two B Thirty-seven. Copy WB on ten: oh-six-two-five.”
The speed of his pulse seemed to increase with the speed of the car. Fifty, sixty, seventy miles an hour. He focused his senses and suppressed all natural alarm.
On the radio, a voice: “Three union thirty-one, I’m eastbound on ten, approaching Ramsey Boulevard. Will intercept there.” That was a Ramsey car, coming to assist.
Eighty miles an hour, ninety, adrenaline pumping. Up ahead the Ramsey squad, its cherry light flashing, pulled into the left lane. The Grand Prix roared past it with colossal disdain. Christopher pinned his eyes on the road while the Ramsey squad—off his fender at ten o’clock—rocketed down the highway with him. Sweat popped out on his forehead, trailed down his trunk, sealed his body armor against his skin. His palms turned slick. It was work to control the force on the wheel.
He spoke at intervals into the radio, reporting his progress.
“Crossing westbound ten and Armstrong . . . Westbound ten, passing the weigh scale . . .” Familiar landmarks turned into a blur behind him.
A new radio voice said, “Elk River thirty-six thirteen, in position at Highway 169 turnoff westbound on ten, along with SP Unit 403.”
Jesus. That made four units. Five counting the suspect . . . at a hundred and ten miles an hour. He shut down his mind to a single track and drove while the damned idiot in the Grand Prix threatened the lives of all the motorists on the highway pretending he was Mario Andretti. For nine miles Christopher drove, anticipating the sharp left curve at the base of the power plant in Elk River. The river itself was on their left. Ahead lay the underpass with its deadly concrete pilings where 169 crossed above 10.
Up ahead he saw the maroon state patrol car and the navy blue Elk River vehicle with its golden elk emblem on the door. There were more flashing reds. Cars scuttled out of the way, left and right.
He reported his position and hung up the radio to lock both hands on the wheel.
The five vehicles converged. Sirens screamed like jet blasts. Red lights flashed everywhere and speeding cop cars filled Christopher’s peripheral vision. And somehow as they approached the big curve the four squads had the Grand Prix in a box!
Under the overpass! Into the curve! River water on the left! Huge green hill on the right! Roaring engines and cars inches apart, halfway into a lazy S-curve at ninety miles an hour. Chris’s car got bumped. The world tipped and righted itself. On his far right the Ramsey squad lost ground in some loose gravel on the shoulder and fell behind. They hit the second curve and suddenly the suspect’s car shot off to the right, into the ditch, up a rise, lost its back bumper and sideswiped a huge tree. The back bumper—a missile now— sailed straight on and wedged itself into the V of the tree’s two huge trunks. Hubcaps rolled and bounced. Grass, dirt, dust flew into the air as if a bomb had exploded. The Grand Prix landed on its wheels. The four squads converged on it, bumping over rough grass. Officers out and running. Doors left gaping. Radios clattering. Red lights everywhere. Observers stopping on the shoulder above to stare at the spectacle in wonder.
Christopher ran to the driver’s window, his adrenaline pumping like an uncapped gusher. The suspect was alive and cussing a blue streak, kicking the dash, hammering the steering wheel.
“Are you hurt?”
“Sonofabitch!”
Chris tried his door but it
was jammed.
“Can you get out?”
“Goddamn it! Look what you did! Motherf—”
He reached in and grabbed the driver’s shirt. “Get out. Do it now!”
The driver fought and slapped, refusing to follow orders. Chris and the Ramsey officer reached in and forcefully pulled him out through the window. The Elk River officer had drawn his gun and had it pointed in a two-hand grip at the suspect’s head. The state trooper backed him up.
“On your face!” Chris shouted.
Down went the suspect and out came the cuffs.
“Goddamn sonsabitchin’ pigs! Whorin’ no-good suck-ass cops!” The driver lay facedown in the dirt, calling them every name in the book. Christopher grabbed a handful of red shirt and yanked the jerk to his feet, then propelled him toward his squad car with plenty of upward pressure on the cuffs.
“In the car, asshole!” he shouted, letting off the first steam.
Anger carried him through the rest of his duties. Locking the suspect in the caged backseat. Thanking the assisting officers.
Reporting to the dispatcher. Killing his reds and maneuvering the car out of the ditch. Driving the nine miles back to Anoka and going through the booking procedure once he got there.
Forty-five minutes after it was over, the shakes began.
He was on his way home when everything inside him started quivering like a tuning fork. His hand trembled like an old man’s as he reached for the button to activate his garage door. Inside, when he’d parked and shut off the engine, his knees felt rubbery as he got out of the Explorer and went upstairs to his apartment. All the way up he felt as if he were falling apart, muscle by muscle. He had trouble getting the key into the lock. When he’d finally managed it, he had trouble getting it out again.
In his apartment he walked around aimlessly from room to room, stripping off his uniform and leaving it scattered. He washed his face in cold water, dried off, went to the refrigerator and opened the door to find he had no purpose in opening it. The walls seemed to press in on him.
He took a thirty-minute run, showered, drank a glass of tomato juice and fried himself an egg sandwich, which he couldn’t eat. He closed the blinds, stretched out on his back in the middle of the bed . . . and stared at the ceiling.
Family Blessings Page 13