The Flats

by Kate Birdsall

  “Yeah. Call me tomorrow and give me an update, okay?”

  “You coming in tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, but I’m guessing I’ll be at a desk for a while.”

  We say our goodbyes and hang up. I go to the kitchen for my last beer. Miller’s not copping to the murder. I thought for sure he would. And although I would love to think he’s just holding out on us, I can’t make myself believe it. Something is off. Things aren’t lining up in my brain the way they should. But I know better than to say this out loud.

  There’s one thing that’s going to make me sleep easier tonight, though: my brother is going to be okay. I decide it’s time to give him a call, but he doesn’t answer.

  “Hey, it’s me,” I say to his voicemail. “I’m sorry about everything. It’s gonna be okay. Call me.” After a beat, I add, “I love you, little brother.”

  I wonder where he is. Maybe he’s at Mom’s. I can’t remember the last time she’s been sober for this long, and I hope it lasts. I have to admit that it would be nice to have her back after all these years. I also know that hope is a dangerous thing.

  Back in the early ’90s, my dad was under investigation for my little sister’s rape and murder. That was back in the days before Cleveland did much with DNA. Even though other states were starting to catch on by then—I think Florida put a guy away using DNA evidence in ’87 or something—Ohio was a little slow. Blood typing, which is much less detailed, said it could have been Dad. That shitty little shred of evidence looked good enough to those cold cops. Dad was never arrested because his alibi checked out, but they didn’t let up. They harassed him for two years. He never complained about it, though. He wasn’t a complainer.

  They never found out who did it. They never even had any good leads. I’ve looked at the files again and again, but I couldn’t find anything solid, either. Usually those kinds of assholes, once they get a taste, do it over and over until we get them, but I couldn’t even find any other linked crimes. Maybe the guy moved out of town. Maybe he died. Maybe he’s in prison for something else. I’ll never know.

  Anyway, after my dad died, Mom got really into pills. It started with a couple of Vicodins here and there, then she moved on to oxycodone. I suspect methadone was added to that list later. She would spend entire weeks blissed out in her bedroom while I took care of Christopher and did my best to keep the house. After about four years, she stopped paying the mortgage altogether, so we lost the house and had to move. I did the same thing at our Willoughby apartment. That went on until I was eighteen and moved out. By then, Christopher could take care of himself, or so I told myself.

  The death of a child often tears families apart. I don’t know which one of Kevin Whittle’s family members will come undone, but when it happens, it won’t be pretty.

  Showers at the gym never really make me feel clean enough, so I head to the bathroom for a long, hot shower. Something happens in there: I start to cry. And then I let myself cry. I put both hands on the tile wall, the water beating down on my body, and I weep for several minutes.

  Finally, all cried out, I get out and throw on some sweats. While I’m ordering takeout, Ivan creeps along the edge of the area rug then curls up next to me on the couch.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I wake up early, but I lie still, contemplating my dream. In it, I was in a cemetery that looked like a huge, old library, one of those with a sliding ladder and big leather-bound books, but it was outside. Dark-red bricks lined the sides of where I stood and the wall opposite the books, but they were made out of grass and formed a patchwork tapestry. A woman stood a few feet in front of me. I’ve heard that when we dream, we never see a face we’ve never seen before, so I’m trying to place her. She explained that each of the grass bricks represented an experience that a person had worked through, that the experience could become a brick only if the person had dealt with it. She walked over to a bunch of what looked like old vaudeville steamer trunks in the far corner and tugged one over to me.

  We put a bunch of stuff in it: a diary filled with pages scribbled in my handwriting, a ragged doll, some bits of fabric, some old books, a couple of vinyl records, and a lock of dark hair tied with a red ribbon. We scooped up some dirt and sprinkled it all over the contents before closing the lid. Then she pointed up at the wall of books-slash-bricks and told me to put the trunk away. In that surreal way of dreams, I was able to get the trunk up the ladder and into a space that perfectly fit it. The wall sealed around the trunk, as if it had been waiting for that day. All the books turned into other trunks, then they all became grass bricks. After I climbed down, the ladder disappeared, and the woman was gone.

  I was all alone in this huge space with the weird grass bricks. I sat on the ground and wondered where my trunk had gone, but I was okay with it disappearing like that. Then I wake up.

  I sit up and look around my bedroom. It feels good to wake up in my bed again. On my way to the kitchen for coffee, my phone beeps, reminding me that I have an appointment with Shue this morning. My first instinct is to cancel, but then I remember Goran’s face yesterday, how dejected he looked when I didn’t tell him what was happening with my brother. If we add defying my boss’s explicit orders and flashing back to my screwed-up adolescence and coming unglued in the shower to the list, it’s probably good that I’m seeing her today. Maybe this crap could actually help me. At least give it a try, I tell myself. Maybe it’s not all bad. Maybe you can fix it.

  After I’ve eaten a bowl of cereal and gotten dressed, I shoot Goran a text telling him that I’ll be late. I don’t tell him what the appointment is. Ten-four, he replies as I’m starting the car.

  After I fill Shue in on what’s going on with work, I tell her about the dream. She’s thrilled that I remember it and that it wasn’t a nightmare. She asks what I think the dream means.

  I think about that for a minute. “On the way here, I listened to a CD Josh made for me.”

  “Josh is your best friend, right?”

  “Yeah. And there were two songs on it that made sense.”

  “Had you heard them before?”

  “One of them, yeah. The other one, no. Anyway, there’s this line in the one I hadn’t heard before. It’s by a singer named Gillian Welch. Do you know her?”

  She nods. “Yes, I like her very much.” She knows I usually listen to heavy, angry stuff, so she’s probably happy to discover that I have a heart.

  I like a lot of music. Someone I cared about once told me that I have a musical brain. I might have been devoutly punk rock in my misguided youth, but I like anything that sounds good and has some semblance of emotional honesty to it. “Okay, so it’s the line in ‘Look at Miss Ohio’ about wanting to do right, maybe sometime later. Not now. And the whole song, you know, it’s slower and draggier than what I usually listen to, but it’s about this Miss Ohio character who just does whatever she wants. Even though her mom wants all this shit for her, she gets in a convertible and drives away.” I run my hands through my hair. “You know the song.”

  She smiles as if I’ve uncovered some big secret about something. “What’s the other song?”

  “It’s called ‘Bottle Up and Explode.’ I never liked it before. I thought it was some sappy sad-sack emo crap, but now I think I understand it.”

  “What do you think it means now?”

  I shrug, about to blow her off and invent a meaning. But then I think about how screwed up the Christopher business is and how screwed up I am, and reconsider. “It’s about not hiding feelings anymore.”

  She just stares at me.

  “What?” I ask.

  “You tell me.”

  I gesture at her notebook. “You haven’t written on your pad in over two minutes.”

  “Good observation.”

  “I’ve been thinking about Cora a lot again.” I almost tell her about the psychedelic autopsy dream and the impulse to make
that phone call last night, but I decide against it. I want this to work, but I can’t make myself spill my guts about everything.

  She nods. “Did you ever stop thinking about her?”

  I shake my head. “Not really.”

  “Liz, we both know that circumstances in your life—not just your childhood but your entire career and many of your adult experiences—have made you wary of people, unwilling to trust even those with good intentions.”

  I blink at her. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, right?

  “Wondering—and this applies to most people—if a potential friend or lover wants to harm you or how she could harm you will, at least subconsciously, mean that you will not allow her to get close to you. Forgive me for saying this because I think I can predict your reaction, but I have something I want you to think about.”

  “What?”

  “‘The universe will reward you for taking risks on its behalf.’” She goes all Zen with her eyes half closed and wearing a little half smile.

  “Who says shit like that?” I chuckle.

  She grins. “Well, it’s from a personal-development expert with New Age tendencies.”

  “Yeah, I’m not surprised. Seriously. I can’t imagine ever saying anything like that.” My impulse is to tell her to go to hell with her taking-risks crap, but then I remember the deal I made with myself this morning.

  “Pooh-pooh it if you want, but you need friends, Liz. You’re right when you say that.”

  “I will pooh-pooh it.” I stare at a spot on my jeans, wondering what it is. “I want to be a nice person. Normal.” I pick at the spot with a fingernail. It looks like red wine. Maybe blood. “I’m kind of afraid I’m losing it,” I say with some finality as I look up from the stain.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m not controlling myself very well. I’m still doing things I shouldn’t be doing. I’m on the desk again because I went a little nuts yesterday. And the night we caught this case, I went off on a rookie, scared the shit out of her. My partner thinks I’m losing it.”

  “Why does it bother you that you scared the other officer?”

  I blurt, “Because that rookie is a lot like I once was.” I stop in surprise. I didn’t even realize that was the reason for my irritation until I said it out loud. “At least I think she is.”

  “Is this significant, do you think?”

  “Back then, I didn’t have anybody to stop me from fucking up. So with her, I was just trying, you know, to get my message through. It seemed like maybe it worked.”

  She writes something on her pad. “Do you think you could have gotten your message through without intimidating her?”

  “No, not if she’s a lot like I once was.”

  “What I’m hearing is that you’re conflicted. Your outward behavior doesn’t seem to align with your feelings. Is that accurate?”

  “I don’t even know what the hell that means.” When she just stares at me, I sigh. “Okay, fine. My outward behavior doesn’t align with my feelings. Except it does. I think I do a lot of these things to try to help people I care about, or people who remind me of me, but then I come unhinged.” I fiddle with my watch clasp then catch her watching me and stop. “When I come unhinged, I say and do things I regret, which partially explains why Cora and I broke up.” I chuckle, trying to lighten the mood. “And even sitting here and saying this shit right now, I’m pretty sure I’ll regret it later.”

  She gives me a soft smile. “Why will you regret it later?”

  “Because it goes against everything I believe. This woo-woo shit”—I wave my hands around—“it’s not my thing.”

  “What is your thing, then?”

  “Well, I have a list of things I’m not going to do anymore. Does that count?”

  She frowns, but almost immediately, she makes her expression neutral again. “What will that help you accomplish?”

  “It’ll help me get my shit straight. If I have a list of things I’m not doing, then I won’t do them.”

  She gets up and goes to her desk. “I want to remind you again that this is a process.” She rummages through a drawer and pulls out a notebook with a black-and-white marbled cover like the ones I used in school. “I’d rather see you make a list of things you are going to do instead of ones you’re not.” She hands me the notebook before sitting back in her chair.

  I just stare at her, holding the notebook as if it’s covered in blood.

  “That will transfer strength to you,” she says, “rather than just offering the outward appearance of toughness.” She searches my face. “Think of it as being like the other to-do lists you like to make.”

  A light comes on in my head. I get it. After all this time, I think I get it. I tuck the notebook between my leg and the arm of the chair.

  “This takes time,” she says. “All of these things take time. Let’s work on trying to see gray areas instead of black and white ones.”

  I laugh, but it’s forced. “At least you aren’t asking me to make a collage again.” She wanted me to do that once, and I have to draw the line somewhere. I pull the notebook out and look at it. “The cover is black and white.” I grin. “I don’t see any gray areas.”

  She chuckles. “Just try it,” she says. “You can write your list of ‘don’ts’ in here if you want. But think about turning them into positive statements. They’ll have more meaning that way.” She glances at the clock. “See you next week?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  I hustle out of there. Jogging down the stairs, I check my voicemail. I’m surprised to find a message from Elaine Whittle. She must have retrieved my business card from her purse and remembered something I might want to know, as the detective of record on the case. All she says is that she wants to talk to me. Her voice is sad and weak and bedraggled.

  I know what Fishner would say: “Stay on the desk. Tell them someone else will be by to talk. Send Goran.” But the woman called me. I slip back out to my car and send Fishner a text telling her that I’ll be back in two hours. I say a little prayer that this won’t get me shipped back to one of the districts.

  It doesn’t take long to get to their house. When I pull up in their driveway, I see a blond woman in the neighboring yard. She has a dog, a boxer mix, on a long leash. I figure she’s the blonde in Kevin’s picture, so I get out and trot over to talk to her.

  “Hi there. I’m Detective Elizabeth Boyle, CDP.” I hold out my badge.

  “Oh, hi,” she replies. “Um… I’m not sure what to say. I’ve never talked to a detective before. Is this about Kevin?”

  I nod.

  She waves at her dog. “This is Rufus. I’m Caroline. I’m happy to help in any way that I can.”

  I pet Rufus, who drools and gives me a friendly enough canine gaze. “Last Thursday night, do you remember anything about your neighbors’ activities?”

  She purses her lips. “Yeah, actually, because I was going on a late-ish run with Rufus. Graham was outside checking the mailbox.”

  “What time was this?”

  “Probably a little before eight.” She makes a hand motion in front of the dog’s face. “Sit, Rufus.”

  “Okay, thanks. Do you remember any strange vehicles in the vicinity? That day or any other time?”

  She knits her eyebrows and scratches Rufus behind the ears. “Not really. I mean, I don’t really pay attention, you know?”

  I pull out a business card. “If you think of anything, will you give me a call?”

  She grins. She’s the type to smile at anything and make it look effortless. “Sure, of course.”

  “Thanks for your time, Caroline.”

  “If I think of anything, I’ll call you,” she says, turning away. She calls for Rufus to follow her, and he seems thrilled to get to move again.

  I go back to the Whittles’ house
and ring the doorbell. Their house is nice. It’s not a huge suburban mansion, which I expected, but a remodeled city property.

  When Graham opens the door, he looks haggard and unshaven. “Detective Boyle,” he says with no hesitation, “come in.” Either he has a terrific memory, or he was expecting me.

  I step into the foyer. Elaine comes from another room and stands behind Graham. She looks at her husband then back at me and shakes her head.

  I take the hint and focus on Graham. I pull Sean Miller’s photo up on my phone and hold it out for him to see. “Do you recognize this man?”

  He squints at it for several seconds then shakes his head. “No. I’ve never seen him before.”

  “Okay. Does Kevin have a room here?”

  He nods.

  “You mind if I take a look?”

  “No. That’s fine. It’s upstairs, the first door on the left. I’ll show you.”

  I was hoping that he would stay downstairs and Elaine would come up and talk to me, but that’s not how it’s working out. Graham stands outside the door while I look around Kevin’s bedroom. It looks a lot like the one at his parents’ house. Crime Scene was just here yesterday, so I don’t expect to find anything, and it turns out I’m not wrong with that expectation. The window is shut and locked. I see no signs of any kind of foul play, at least other than the fingerprint powder all over everything, but I do take note of the absence of stuffed animals on the bed. A couple are on a shelf in the corner but none on the bed. More little-kid drawings hang on the wall, and I’m surprised by how many include the neighbor with yellow hair. I didn’t get the impression they were that close.

  My cell rings, and Goran’s name appears on the screen. I move to the far corner of the room and try to keep my voice quiet so Graham can’t hear. “Boyle.”