“Came to say hi and thanks and to get my gun back,” Behr said. “You’re not going to need it anymore.”
“So all is clear for real this time?” Mistretta asked, somehow surprised and not so all at once. Her hunger for the details hid behind the question, but they both knew he couldn’t satisfy it.
“Hell, I don’t know if all is clear, but I think you’re gonna be all right for now.”
“You know, we could talk about it,” she offered.
He weighed the offer. He knew he could tell her everything. That she’d lap up the particulars. He imagined the charged sex that would follow, how at first it would seem life affirming. The confession would create a bleak bond between them that could last for a long time, for years, for forever. But underneath that bond would be darkness and death. Maybe it wasn’t fair, since it was just her job, but he felt it had leeched into her, and that’s what she had become to him. It wasn’t what he wanted. Not now. He craved light and life. He wasn’t sure he was able to have that, or how to go about deserving it, but it wasn’t here for him. He made his decision.
“Probably not a good idea,” he said.
She smiled briefly. Her smile radiated affection and concern but mostly melancholy for what his words meant, and what they weren’t going to share together. She disappeared into the house for a moment and returned with the pistol, which he took from her.
“Glad you didn’t need it,” he said, “and to have met you, even though …”
“Yeah, despite the circumstances. I get that a lot.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” he said.
“Let’s not be, okay, Behr?” she said. “Let’s make this unique for our never being sorry.” He was surprised to see her eyes moisten.
“Good, let’s not.” He nodded. They embraced briefly. He felt her body pushing against him, but he pulled back. Then he turned and left.
It was several days later, when the lurid images that were playing in his head, when the quickened breath and the pounding heartbeat he knew to be symptoms of posttraumatic stress, started to relent a bit, that he finally knew it was time.
He got there early, before she’d be leaving for drop-off at day care and then heading on to work. He was so focused on her door, on what would happen after he knocked on it, on what he would say, that he missed the unmarked cruiser.
The plainclothes officer intercepted him when he was halfway across the street.
“Hold up,” the man said.
Behr’s heart sank as he pictured jail for the rest of his life, and his growing son’s face seen only through glass until he stopped coming to visit altogether. Behr turned to meet the figure, and then he saw it was Gary Breslau.
“Where’ve you been?” Breslau asked.
“I’ve been around. Laying low. Resting,” Behr said.
“Uh-huh,” Breslau said.
“How’s Quinn doing?” Behr asked.
“They’ll fit him for prosthetics soon. That’s the easy part. He’s still making about as much sense as a bowl of alphabet soup. Docs say there’s still some hope for improvement.”
Behr just nodded.
“And the Gibbons case?” Breslau asked.
“I’m done with it. Gotta start making some money.”
“I see,” Breslau said. “I noticed the billboard came down on 465. Family got tired of renting it?”
Behr shrugged.
“So you didn’t end up banking anything on the missing-girl job?” Breslau asked, giving Behr an interrogation-room stare.
“Not a dollar. Would’ve had to bring you a suspect to arrest for that.”
“Yet I’ve got this strange feeling I’m not going to have any more young blondes turning up cut to pieces anytime soon. Am I right about that, Frank?”
“Well … you know what happens, these guys get caught for other crimes. They get old and get sick and die. There are lots of reasons they stop …”
“What the fuck are you telling me?”
“Nothing. The chute got opened, I rode the thing the best I could. It dead-ended.”
“You forget I’ve got a picture of an unidentified guy that you sent me, one that I could go public with. Cops have a professional obligation to follow up on leads. We can’t be expected to chase ’em all down, but what if I pursued this one? Someone would come forward and identify him. What would I find if I did that?”
“A dead lead,” Behr said. “I don’t think you’d find much of anything at all.”
Breslau just stared at him for a long moment.
“Listen to me, Behr, one of these days you’re gonna get sucked down into this whirlpool of shit you create, and when you do, you’re going all the way down.”
Breslau grabbed a handful of Behr’s shirt. It wasn’t a threatening gesture this time, just an attention-getting one, so Behr allowed the hand to remain.
“And I’m not going to be anywhere near it. Steer clear of me from now on. No more favors. Don’t ask me for any, don’t do any. You roger that?” Breslau said, his voice nearly a snarl.
“Copy,” Behr said. “Are we done here?”
“Yeah,” Breslau said, releasing his grip. “You and me are done.” Then the lieutenant stalked off to his car and gunned it away.
Behr stood there alone in the street. He had nothing. No cases, no money, no family, and whatever passed for his soul buried by the shovelful on the edge of an Iowa field. Nothing, save for one thing—Susan was safe. His son was safe. Mistretta was safe. So was the rest of Indianapolis for just this morning or just this moment because he had done the one thing he was able to in the world, which was put monsters in the ground. And he had a door. One door to knock on, and maybe walk through.
She stood there dressed in her work clothes, without any makeup, her blond hair pulled back, looking young and fresh and beautiful. She was everything he wasn’t. The baby was playing on the living room floor behind her. Distrust and exasperation came to her eyes when she first saw him, but whatever she read on his face made it go away in an instant. There was only silence between them, the sound of a kid’s show on the television in the background.
“Oh, Frank,” she finally said, “you look like you’ve been through it.”
“I have,” he said. “Can I please come in?”
She gave him a sad, kind smile, and with a gesture that proved no act of mercy was a minor one, she opened the door and let him inside.