by Liz Moore
—But I don’t know if he did, I say. And a few days after I told him what I’d heard, I got a call from Internal Affairs, asking to meet. When I went in, they said I was under investigation. Put me on suspension.
Saying it aloud for the first time, all at once like this, I am suddenly jolted by the injustice of it all.
DiPaolo’s face is still blank. I have no idea how much of this he knew in advance. He’s good at his job.
—Okay, he says finally.
I wait.
—What I’m saying is, I say, it may be someone on the force who’s killing these women. Simon’s on the force. And I just saw him in a neighborhood he’s always told me he hates.
DiPaolo waits. It seems like a leap to him. I can tell.
—Anything else? he says.
—He likes young girls, I say. And he’s not—ethical. When it comes to his relationships.
DiPaolo keeps his face still.
It hits me, suddenly, how insane it all sounds. The facts don’t favor me. I’m operating, I know, on a hunch, a suspicion, a gut feeling that doesn’t translate to the outside world. And yet, saying it aloud, my conviction grows stronger.
I’m looking down at the table, but in my peripheral vision I see DiPaolo looking at Truman. Trying, again, to gauge what he thinks. DiPaolo clears his throat. I know what this looks like. Here I am, on suspension for unclear reasons, coming in with some pretty serious accusations against someone I used to date, with very little evidence. He must think I’m a crazy woman. A crazy ex-girlfriend.
—I’m not crazy, I say, though I know it’s futile. I look at Truman. Tell him I’m not crazy, I say.
I suddenly realize I’m getting drunk. I’m at the bottom of my second beer.
—No one’s saying that, Mick, says Truman. Now he shakes his head at me, just as subtly. Stop talking.
DiPaolo puts his hands on the table.
—Look, Mickey, he says. I hear you, okay? But you need to let this go, all right?
Against my will, I let out a sound that isn’t very polite. Hah, I say.
DiPaolo looks at me levelly.
—You’re out of your depth here, he says.
—In what sense, I say.
—I’m not at liberty to tell you. Just trust me.
He stands. Prepares to leave.
—I’ll go to the press, I say, suddenly. I have a friend who’s a journalist for a local radio station. She’d be very interested in a story about police corruption in Kensington.
I think of Lauren Spright. Imagine her expression if she heard me calling her a friend. She’d probably laugh at me.
DiPaolo keeps his face straight. Under the table, Truman puts his hand on my knee and squeezes, just once. Stop.
—Really, says DiPaolo.
—Really, I say, at the same time that Truman says, Mick.
—Go ahead, then, says DiPaolo. Do it. You know what she’ll tell you?
I’m silent.
—She’ll tell you we’ve got our man, says DiPaolo. Because as of 4:35 p.m. today, we do. And as of—he checks his watch—ten minutes ago, he continues, a press release went out to local and national media outlets, saying as much.
I feel my mouth open.
—But if you want to talk to her about police corruption, DiPaolo says, go ahead. You might want to start by telling her what you were suspended for.
He takes a final swig of his Jameson. This time, he does make a face.
I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of asking. But I can’t help myself.
—Who is it, I say.
—Robert Mulvey, Jr., says DiPaolo. I think you’re acquainted, actually.
As soon as DiPaolo leaves, I get on my phone. I can’t look at Truman. He says nothing either. He is embarrassed, no doubt, by my behavior.
I navigate to the website of one local news station after another. Over and over again, I refresh them.
Within minutes, the story pops up.
Suspect Arrested in Connection with Kensington Homicides, reads the headline.
Robert Mulvey, Jr., looks out at me from my phone, his mug shot nearly as menacing as his expression the last time I saw him, in court.
Mulvey, the article says, was arrested today in connection with the murders after an anonymous tip placed him at the scene of the first crime. Video footage from a nearby business confirmed his presence there. And a state police DNA database linked him to the second and third victim, as well.
I look up quickly.
—That’s how, I say.
—How what, says Truman.
The first words he’s spoken in a long time.
—I recognized him, I say. I knew I recognized him. I saw him on the Gurney Street tracks when we discovered the first victim’s body. I said to him, You’re not supposed to be down here. He ignored me.
I remember him. Ghostly and defiant, a strange expression on his face, receding into the brush.
I look at Truman, finally. His expression is serious.
—What’s wrong with me? I say. What have I done?
At last, Truman exhales. Aw, Mick, he says. I get it. Believe me, I do. You’re missing your sister. You’re worried. It’s hard to think straight.
—She’s probably laughing at me, I say. Kacey. She’s probably off with some new boyfriend. She’s probably laughing at me right now. Thinking about me searching for her and laughing.
I’m shaking my head. I am perhaps more disappointed in myself than I’ve ever been. For not making the connection to Mulvey myself. For not recognizing him when he recognized me, when he was practically taunting me to my face. For letting my emotions get in the way of hard evidence.
I’ve always thought I’d make a good detective. I think the last several weeks have proved to me, definitively, that on this point I’ve been deluded.
* * *
—
I order another Corona. And then, remembering DiPaolo’s, I order a shot of Jameson, and then another, and then a third.
—Want one? I say to Truman, but he declines.
—Slow down, Mickey, says Truman, but I don’t want to slow down. I want to speed up, to speed past this moment in my life and out to the other side.
—All right, I say, chastened. I can feel my tongue growing heavy in my mouth. I drove here, but I know I shouldn’t drive myself home. I want to put my head on the table and go to sleep.
He hesitates for a while.
—It’s my fault, he says at last. I’m the one who put that idea in your head. I’ve never liked the guy. And there are enough rumors about him that I just thought . . .
He trails off.
—It’s easy to get carried away, you know? says Truman. After what he did to you. I never liked him, he says again.
Both of us are silent for a while.
—It still doesn’t explain what he was doing there, I say, finally.
He shrugs. Maybe he was undercover, he says. This thing has become a high-profile case. It’s all hands on deck. Maybe they’re sending in guys they think will be new faces in the neighborhood.
I shake my head. He’s a detective, I say. He’s not on Vice.
—Who knows, says Truman. Neither you nor I is exactly in the loop right now.
I look at him in the stark light of the lamp hanging on a chain above our booth. It’s a Tiffany lamp. Louis Comfort Tiffany, interestingly, spent some time here in Pennsylvania when he attended the military academy in West Chester. The lamp above us, though, does not look well made. It looks like an interrogation light in an old detective movie. And it occurs to me then that my job has taken over my life completely, that everything I do and think and see is filtered through the lens of my work. My work, which I might not have anymore, when DiPaolo sends word back to IA about what I’ve been doing. I start laughing.
Truman doesn’t seem to know what I’m talking about. He’s looking at me, concerned. In fact, he looks almost tender. Like he might reach out and put a hand on the side of my face.
—Are you gonna be okay, Mickey? he says. I’m worried about you.
—I’m gonna be great, I say.
I keep laughing, a little frantically now.
Truman says, Come on. I’m giving you a ride home.
I stumble just a little on my way out the door. Truman catches me around the waist and keeps his arm there as we walk down the sidewalk toward the car. I am aware of his strength, of his hand on my side. I tense the muscles there. I am aware of the very faint scent of what I imagine to be his laundry detergent. This is the closest I’ve ever been to Truman, and it’s not unpleasant. In fact, it’s nice. Very nice to have another person holding me up. I put my arm around him, too, and I lean my head against his.
He’s parked on the street, a block away from Duke’s. He brings me around to the passenger’s side and I stand in front of the passenger-side door, facing him as he double-clicks a button on his key. The car beeps twice. The noise echoes through the quiet street.
He leans past me to squeeze the door handle. I don’t move.
—Mick, he says, I’m gonna open that door for you.
I look at his face. And suddenly I understand something new about the world, and about Truman and me. It seems so obvious in this moment that I laugh, just briefly: he’s been here this whole time, right next to me for nearly a decade. How have I never noticed? Truman is breathing in time with my breath. Quickly now. Both of us.
I kiss him on the cheek.
—Mick, says Truman. He puts a hand on my shoulder.
I put a hand on his face, as I imagined him, earlier, doing to me.
—Hey, says Truman. But he doesn’t move away.
I kiss him on the mouth. He stays there, just for a moment. Responsive. But then he pulls back.
—No, says Truman. Mickey, that’s not right.
He takes a couple of steps backward, puts some space between us.
—That’s not right, Mick, he says again.
—It is, I say. It is right.
He sets his jaw. Look, he says. I’m seeing somebody.
—Who? I say, without thinking.
But I know the answer before he says it. I think of the portrait on Truman’s end table, a happy family. His beautiful girls. His beautiful wife. I think of Truman’s mother, skeptical when she opened the door for me. Protective, Truman said.
Truman hesitates.
—It’s Sheila, Mickey, he says at last. We’re getting back together. We’re trying to make it work.
* * *
—
On the ride home, we’re both silent. I say nothing, even when I get out of the car.
* * *
—
Bethany watches me as I enter the apartment, her eyes appraising. I try very hard not to get too close to her, but I’m certain, when I pay her, that she can smell what’s on my breath.
I wake up feeling more ashamed than I’ve ever been in my life. Memories return to me, first slowly and then quickly. I put my hands over my face.
—No, I say. No, no, no, no, no.
Thomas, who has apparently crept into my room in the night, wakes up at the foot of the bed. What, Mom? he says.
I look down at him.
—I forgot something, I say.
* * *
—
Bethany, as usual, is late. While I wait for her, I allow myself to indulge in a particularly delicious fantasy: Maybe I’ll fire her on the spot when she walks in the door. I’m on suspension now, anyway, and therefore not actually in need of her services at the moment. But two things prevent me from acting on this impulse: The first is that I have to go retrieve my car in Juniata today, and I’d rather not explain to Thomas how it got there in the first place. The second is that, presuming I get my job back, I’ll need childcare—and finding a second person, quickly, with Bethany’s flexible schedule sounds daunting, if not impossible.
So when she arrives, at last, I pretend to be leaving for work. And she actually apologizes, for the first time in our acquaintance, for her tardiness. She hasn’t done her makeup today, for once, and she looks very young without it.
I am caught off guard by her sincerity.
—Well, I say. That’s all right. Don’t worry.
—Thomas can watch one show today, I add. You can decide when.
* * *
—
It turns out that a taxi from my apartment in Bensalem to Juniata costs $38.02, not including tip. A fact I never needed to know.
After the taxi drops me off, I get into my car and drive.
The day is mine, I realize, to do with what I wish. It’s been a very long time since I’ve had this luxury. It’s been a very long time since I felt so aimless, no work, no child to watch, no self-assigned mission.
I cruise through Kensington, through the 24th. Off duty, I can afford to notice things about it that I never do at work: the way certain small and empty lots have been converted by neighbors into improvised playgrounds, old donated slides rusting in a corner, haphazard basketball hoops mounted to chain-link fences. The secondhand appliance stores that set their wares out on the sidewalk, dented and dismayed-looking washing machines and refrigerators, upright soldiers in a line.
I’m not in my cruiser, for once, and the women I pass don’t even glance at me. A young boy on a three-wheeler pulls up next to me, at a light, and then eclipses me when it turns.
I have the sudden urge to see my old house in Port Richmond, and I drive toward it. It belongs, now, to a preppy young man in his twenties (or, more accurately, to his parents, according to the paperwork I signed). Then I drive toward Fishtown, where I drive past Gee’s house, the house I grew up in. Today, it looks uninhabited. Dark inside.
* * *
—
It’s time to head home. But, driving past Bomber Coffee, I decide impulsively to stop in. I’m out of uniform today, and when I walk in, no one blinks. Briefly, I let myself imagine a different life for me and Thomas: coming here on the weekends to read the newspaper. Having the time to teach him everything he’s curious about, to give him a light and peaceful existence, to serve him a fat five-dollar muffin from the glass case in front of me, or the fresh fruit and yogurt in a blue ceramic bowl that the boy at the counter is now handing to a customer. I imagine being friendly with this boy, with all the people who work here. I imagine going to other restaurants, too, on my days off, lots of them, sitting for hours at them. Bringing a sketchbook, maybe, and sketching my surroundings. I used to like to draw.
I’m standing in line, formulating my order, when someone calls my name from behind.
—Mickey? someone says. A woman. Is that you?
Immediately, I tense. I do not like the feeling of being caught unaware. Being watched when I’m unprepared to be looked at.
Turning in place, I see that the voice has come from Lila’s mother, Lauren Spright. Today she’s wearing a loose knit cap and a sweatshirt with stars all over it.
—Hey! says Lauren. It’s so good to see you. I’ve been wondering how you were, since.
She pauses, thinking of how to phrase it. Since the party, she says.
—Oh, I say. I shift my weight back and forth. Put my hands into the pockets of my pants. Yes, I’m sorry about that, I say. It was a scene.
—How’s Thomas doing? Lauren says.
—He’s fine, I say, too quickly. None of your business, I want to say. But I sense in Lauren something genuine: hers is not a superficial or prurient concern.
—I’m glad, says Lauren. Meaning it.
—Hey, she says. Do you guys want to come over to our place sometime? Lil
a talks about Thomas every day. It would be nice to get them together again.
—Help you? says the boy behind the counter, impatiently. I did not realize I had reached the front of the line.
—All right, I say to Lauren. Yes. That would be great.
Lauren is retreating, letting me order. I’ll call you, she says.
* * *
—
Coffee in hand, I drive south on Frankford, and then north on Delaware Ave. Then, surprising myself, I turn into the parking lot that borders the pier that Simon and I used to go to. The waterfront has changed since those days: SugarHouse Casino now looms to the south. New parking lots have sprung up nearby, and new condo buildings look out on the river.
But our pier is unchanged: still decrepit, trash-strewn, largely abandoned. The same stand of trees, bared by the winter, still obscures the water from view.
I park and get out of my car. I walk between leafless trees, push aside branches, step over weeds. On the wooden pier, I put my hands on my hips. I think of Simon. I think of myself, sitting here, eighteen years old, half a lifetime ago. I think about what kind of man, what kind of person, would work so hard to win the affections of a child. Because that’s what I was, in the end.
By one p.m., I’m tired, and probably hungover, and starting to feel sick. I’ll let Bethany go early. Give her the afternoon off. I pull out of the parking lot, merge onto 95, and drive north.
* * *
—
When I open the door to the apartment, it’s quiet. Thomas still, occasionally, takes an afternoon nap around this time of day, though that’s rarer and rarer.
I take off my jacket and hang it on a hook. I eye the kitchen as I pass it. It’s littered with dishes from breakfast and lunch, and Bethany is nowhere to be found. I take a deep breath. Let it out. This is another conversation I’ve been meaning to have with her: If you could tidy up throughout the day . . .
Then I tell myself, Choose your battles.