“But this one…gosh, this one is just weird, Mark, I just don’t get it.”
“So, are you going to tell me, or do I have to backtrack everywhere you’ve been the past few days? You know, I still have connections at the police station…I can easily get Barb or one of the guys to show me the police log.”
Grace rolled her eyes and took another sip of her wine.
“Well, it kind of involves someone you know.”
Mark jerked his neck back, his eyebrows scrunching together in confusion. “Damn it, I knew this day would come. I knew one day you’d find out…”
“Quit joking, this isn’t a laughing matter. You know how hard this is for me.”
“I know I know, I’m sorry. I had to. Who is it?”
“Well, do you know Miriam Haskell?”
“Doesn’t ring a bell. Should I?”
“No, not really, but you know her son. And you know him on a business level, which makes this more confusing and harder to deal with.”
“Grace… Okay, spit it out already.”
“Scott, the guy you were training… it’s his mother,” Grace coughed out the words, prepared for the inevitable haul of questions.
“Scott Caverly, my client?”
“Yes, also your high school girlfriend’s husband.”
The joke didn’t make it past Mark’s surprise, and he sat frozen, scrunched eyebrows transforming from confusion to surprise and boomeranging back to more confusion. Grace saw the process evolve in his head and make its way to his face.
“Wait, what? His mom has to be like, what, at least in her 60s, right?”
“You do remember Mackenzie Waterford was a 17-year-old teen perfectionist princess, right? Age does not discriminate against killers or those somehow involved in criminal activity.”
“Weird, Scott seems like such a nice guy, and nice guys usually come from nice families, don’t they?”
“Not always.”
“I wonder if Christie knows that her mother-in-law is crazy?”
“Stop worrying about Christie for a minute there, prom king.” Wheels started to spin in Grace’s head. “Wait, you were in school with Scott, weren’t you? Do you know anything about him?”
“He was a few years ahead of me and had graduated by the time I made it into high school. I don’t think we exchanged two words before he showed interest in my gym. I mean, I think I had seen him around town when I was younger, like playing sports and stuff. I think he was a good athlete.” It came out as more of a question than a statement, and Grace realized it was going to be harder than she thought to learn about Scott, if that was the route she’d take. “I do want to say he’s not from here though. I don’t know, I just got that from the way he talks. You know, he doesn’t walk around with all that pride that the lifers walk around with. He doesn’t have that Bridgeton label on his chest like others do.”
“Like you, you mean? Wait a minute, when I met him at your opening I remember him saying he moved here from the North End when he was a kid.”
“Well, that’s a start.”
“It was this guy, like some guy older than a kid, in the vision. How could Miriam Haskell have the strength to even hurt a guy much bigger than her, let alone kill him?”
“Maybe she didn’t actually kill him. And better yet, why is her last name Haskell and not Caverly? Who is Scott’s father?”
“And that is why I tell you these things. The father. We need to find out who Scott’s father is. Any way you can find this out? Somehow bring this up while you are making him do pushups or something,” Grace said, suddenly excited. She was so consumed about Miriam and Scott that she hadn’t even thought about Scott’s father.
“Mark, you’re a good gym guy, but you’ve still got that cop instinct.”
“Because I pointed out a very obvious fact. Weren’t you even slightly curious about the father? I mean, your vision pointed to an older guy. Do you think the mystery victim could be the right age for Scott’s father?”
“I know, I know, but when I have visions circulating in my head, I get distracted and I’m completely ruled by them. I can’t even think like a normal cop when all I see is dead bodies and bloodied victims. That is why this gift is a curse.”
Chapter Seven
Grace had mixed feelings about the last day of school. It brought back happy times from her childhood when she was filled with hope and excitement for an entire summer ahead of her, but as a cop she knew it would be the start to some kids falling into trouble. The extra time always led to mischievous kids seeking excitement that would sometimes lead them to trouble with the law, which could be the start to a life of being in and out of jail. It always started in the summer. Kids in Bridgeton were pretty good as long as they had a schedule packed with sports and activities.
Students were released at noon just as the sun peaked for the day. Grace crossed the street leading to the high school. Already students were emerging from the building. Starting as a slow trickle, hordes of students erupted from the glass doors as if the building could no longer contain them. A group of boys carrying baseball mitts and footballs settled into step on the sidewalk, bumping elbows and tossing balls to one another, while girls in shorts and skirts far too short stood in various circles on the walkway joining the street to the school. Grace could hear bits and pieces of their conversations, the where’s and what’s of their summer plans.
“Hi, Detective McKenna.” A girl whose name Grace couldn’t remember broke free from a conversation to greet her as she walked by.
“Hi…”
“It’s Lexie. You came to talk to my class a few weeks ago,” she said.
“Yes, Lexie… the safety course,” Grace said, tucking her hands in the pockets of her black pants while maintaining vigilance on the other goings-on around the building. She needed to start remembering these kids’ names better.
“So, what do you do all summer, Detective?” Lexie tossed her blonde hair over one shoulder and surveyed Grace from head to toe as if she was plotting a makeover for her. Her brown eyes were two perfect circles on her face, accentuated by pink, shimmery eye shadow and black eyeliner that fanned out in what looked like an attempt at a cat-eye. Her short jean shorts gave way to meaty thighs marked with a few random bruises. Grace wondered how she got away with wearing such revealing shorts but knew that teachers tended to let things slide this time of year, slowly giving up on all the rules they so firmly pressed at the start of the school year.
“Look after you kids, of course,” Grace half-joked. There was something that made her nervous around female teenagers, as if she could feel the judgment oozing from them. In some weird way Grace wanted to impress them. As a teen, she never ran with the cool crowd. Instead she spent time with her one friend, Matt, a science geek by nature. The two spent countless hours catching reptiles and small rodents, building habitats for them well into their teen years. When the other girls ogled over boys and talked on the phone on Saturday nights, Grace could be found with Matt, watching the latest documentary on grasshoppers or frogs.
“Hey, girls, you have fun this summer and behave.” Grace’s eyes diverted from Lexie and settled on Miriam standing at the intersection that abutted the school. She was holding a stop sign and directing students across the street. The girls settled back into their conversation about summer plans, not missing a beat, as Grace squeezed her way through the crowds of students, weaving and ducking her way through like an obstacle course contestant. As she approached the intersection where Miriam was, she prepared herself for what she’d see. She waited for her to return to the sidewalk when she was in the middle of a friendly conversation with a teenage boy. As soon as Grace approached, the boy dropped his skateboard on the ground in front of him and sped off. Some students feared Grace, as if she was a bad guy because she carried a badge.
“Hey, Miriam, how are you doing?” Grace approached the woman’s back, greeted by her protruding shoulder blades covered by a pale pink shirt. Miriam nearly jumped at t
he sound of Grace’s voice, then turned slowly. As she set her blue eyes on Grace, a flash of the man with the speckled green eyes hit Grace hard. Instead of ocean water passing over his face this time, his head rested on a muddied, white floor, rocking gently side to side. Instead of struggling, his eyes look stunned, as if he was in a state of shock, unmoving and free of expression. Blood trickled out the side of his slightly parted lips.
“I’m fine,” Miriam said, the words failing to give any more than a simple response.
“So, you volunteer here too?”
“Yes, just when the weather is warm, of course.” Miriam suddenly darted out to the middle of the street like a trained athlete. She raised the stop sign with purpose and motioned for a cluster of baseball uniform-clad teens to cross. Her hand waved them on rapidly, clearly serious about her role as crossing guard.
“How long have you been doing this?”
“Ever since my grand-daughter started at the preschool.”
“Do you like it?”
“Like what?” Miriam kept her eyes on the road, ready to jump into action when needed.
“Do you like volunteering as a crossing guard?”
“Anything to help out around here.” Her tone came out clipped, free of emotion.
“You sure do a lot around here, volunteering for the parade and helping out with the schools.” Grace pressed for more but was stumped by how she’d get it from this tight-lipped lady with a past.
“Like I said, anything I can do to help out around here.”
“Are you a townie—born and raised?”
Miriam paused and turned her head to Grace as if she knew Grace was on the hunt for some answers.
“Nope, can’t say I am. Although, my son is considered more of a townie than I ever will be.”
“Really? How so?” Grace was well aware they’d moved here from the North End when Scott was a kid, but she wanted to see whether Miriam stumbled when asked about her past.
“I’m not from here. I spent most of my life living in Boston, or what the folks here call the ‘big city.’”
“I’m still learning my way around the city. Whereabouts did you live?”
“Oh, mostly the North End.”
“Really? So how on earth did you end up in little old Bridgeton?”
There was a longstanding joke that people didn’t just happen upon Bridgeton. It was a place you came to for a specific reason, and there weren’t a whole lot of specific reasons why someone would come to such a place unless they craved time on a mid-level beach or at one of the three restaurants that managed to make an appearance in the Boston Globe over the years.
Miriam hesitated slightly, but she had no choice but to answer the question, since the streets were now almost free from stragglers trying to cross and most of the traffic had eased up. She dropped her sign to her side, letting the top of the red octagon hit the pavement on the sidewalk. “Just wanted to get my boy out of the city and give him a little breathing space.” Miriam looked at Grace for a quick second, and for a moment Grace thought the woman was warming up to her. Then Grace was hit with a barrage of images. The slow decline of the man’s attentiveness as his eyes blinked a few times fast before slowing to an absent stare. A flash of the giant tank again with a sea turtle gliding back and forth amongst colorful plants and rocks. Then a slow and eerie trickling of water, coming out in steady drops before landing on a white floor one by one, with a brief pause between each one.
“All these questions about me… What about you?” Miriam turned the attention to Grace.
“Well, I’ve been working in Bridgeton for a few years now. I have a very large dog…”
“And why did you want to be a police officer?” Miriam cut her off.
“Detective. I always wanted to be a detective.”
“So, why did you want to be a detective?” Grace had trouble telling if Miriam was being sincere or if she was simply trying to escape talking about herself. The woman was hard to figure out, especially since she was tangled in a web of incoherent images.
“Um, I guess I just always loved crime shows and I got hooked on wanting to solve cases,” Grace said, aware of the lies seamlessly spilling out of her. She couldn’t tell Miriam that her mother had been raped when she was young, and Grace was the product of the violent act. She couldn’t tell her she’d decided to dedicate her life to hunting down criminals because her biological father was one. Instead she used the cliché excuse of the little girl who wanted to be like the superhero woman she grew up watching solve case after case.
“And where are your parents?”
“My mom is well…probably at my house right now eating all the food I have in my cabinet,” Grace tried to joke, hoping to veer away from the topic of her dad.
“And your dad?” Miriam asked the question as if she knew how to push Grace’s buttons. Even though the traffic had dimmed and the streets were now free of students, Miriam kept her eyes focused on the road, standing guard like a soldier at his post.
“Not sure.” Grace couldn’t think of anything else to say, so instead she pressed her lips together and gave a clenched smile, prepared to change the subject before Miriam could press the question. “Well, I better get back to the station…duty calls.” Just like that, she turned on a foot and made her way toward the police station, beating herself up the entire way there. She had it coming. She shouldn’t have expected the woman to not ask her questions about her own life when she was prying so deeply into hers. Whether Miriam felt guilty, there was no way to prove her offense when Grace still had nothing to go by. She left Miriam on the sidewalk, surely confused by the random questions and the quick departure.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Grace chanted to herself on a shortcut through the cemetery to the station. The trees blew gently, welcoming Grace along the cement path that split the cemetery. A few bouquets of red, white and blue flowers wilted on some of the older plots, left over from Memorial Day. For the first time since she’d begun taking this shortcut, Grace saw a woman kneeling before a grave, the hunch in her back creating a perfect mound as she leaned forward to stick a flag in the grass. Not noticing Grace walk by, she went about watering little flower pots that circled the grave, tidying the area as if she were getting her house presentable for a visitor. How lonely this woman must be, and Grace couldn’t help but wonder if she had children to look after her, since her husband had died. The woman stood up slowly and placed a hand on her lower back as she looked at the grave one last time before walking away.
Naturally curious, Grace approached the grave after the woman was out of sight. Carved in the headstone was the name Salvador “Sal” Rizzo, bookmarked by United States Marine Corps and the dates of his life: 1985-2005. The numbers hit Grace in the gut and she found herself doing a double-take, recalculating the dates. Sadness pierced her heart and she felt the start of tears as they penetrated the back of her eyes, making their way to the surface. Few things could make Grace cry, and a fallen soldier was one of those; a mother losing a child was another. She took a deep breath and stood silently, staring at the headstone, allowing the flood of tears to run freely down her face and onto the grass.
By the time Grace made it to the police station, her tears had dried. She wiped away any remnants of emotion on her face before she swung open the door and was greeted by the usual beeps and crackles of the radio.
“Princess, there you are.” As if she simply sensed her presence, Barb didn’t miss a beat when Grace walked through the door. She held several files, which she evened out on the surface of the desk. She didn’t look up, but simply held a file out to Grace as she passed by.
“What’s this?”
“Michael, the drunk guy. You opened the case, you gotta close it. Princess, they don’t pay me good enough to do every single thing around here.” Barb held out the file and looked up when Grace took it. “Well, either you been squeezing lemon juice on your hair or you finally took a trip to the salon.”
“Yes, I went to
the salon and I got some highlights. It’s not a big deal,” Grace opened the file and saw a photo of a red-faced Michael staring back at her, his eyes slightly crossed, his mouth closed and turned into a smirk.
“That Marky has certainly got you whipped, girlfriend… first the bracelet, now the highlights.” Barb shook her head, and the chain of her glasses bounced back and forth, tapping her sagging cheeks. “I’ve known you for years and I’ve never seen you wear more than a little mascara and blush, maybe eyeliner on a good day. But this guy comes into the picture and suddenly you’re wearing lipstick and getting highlights…it’s great seeing you in love like this, Princess.”
“Enough!” Grace started to turn on a heel, then remembered the file. “So, what happened with Michael?” Last she knew, he had come in to the drunk tank, but she never checked back because she was so consumed with Miriam.
“Well, he went home like all drunks do, and I’m guessing he hit the bottle the next day, so there is a good chance you will see him around these parts again.”
“You guys talking about Michael?” Joe came to life from the control room.
“Yeah, any updates on him?”
“Got him to commit to treatment for 30 days. He’s gotta attend meetings and check in with a therapist, and stuff like that. If he does, then he’ll have an easier time fighting that DUI.”
Buried Secrets Page 7