Bouquets and arrangements of every shape and size were arrayed around Lou Potter’s hospital room. One of the arrangements had a teddy bear vase, and three helium balloons floating over it.
The man lying in the bed did not seem to be cheered by the floral tributes. He lay facing the window, his face pasty, his eyes dull and sad.
Tyrell did not want to startle the chief. He cleared his throat as he entered the room, and Lou turned to look at his visitor. Tyrell gave the older man’s shoulder an affectionate squeeze, and then folded himself into the visitor’s chair at the foot of the bed. ‘Good to see you off that machine,’ he said. ‘How you feeling?’
An oxygen tube ran out of Lou’s nose. He shrugged. ‘Not worth a damn. But, at least I’m still here. They’re going to ambulance me up to Philly this week for bypass surgery.’
‘That’s what Kim said. You ought to feel better after that,’ Tyrell said.
‘I hope so,’ he said. ‘Thanks for helping Kim out. She told me you took Jeff to the ball game yesterday.’
Tyrell waved off his gratitude. ‘I took him and my brother, Cletus. We had a good time.’ Thinking of Cletus, Tyrell had to smile. He had been, to Tyrell’s surprise, supportive after the suspension. He seemed almost relieved that the problem was in Tyrell’s court for a change. It was funny how roles could shift sometimes.
‘Well, it was a help to Kim,’ said Lou. ‘Bernie’s working all hours trying to finish up that construction job, and she’s got her hands full because of me.’
‘I was glad to do it. I got time on my hands these days.’
Lou frowned. ‘I guess that’s my fault,’ he said.
‘Ah, you know Van Brunt. We don’t see eye to eye.’
‘It’s my fault, for telling you not to file that report on Brian,’ Lou admitted.
‘If it wasn’t that, it would have been something else. I needed the vacation.’ It was a lie and they both knew it, but Tyrell had come to cheer his old boss up, not to lay his problems on him.
Lou seemed determined to shoulder the blame. ‘You heard they fired me, right?’
‘I … heard something about early retirement …’ Tyrell dissembled.
‘It was the letters,’ said Lou. ‘When they found out about the letters.’
‘Look, Chief, you don’t owe me any explanations. I could have filed that report and I didn’t. It wasn’t your fault.’
‘Yes, it was,’ he said. He turned his head and looked out the window again. Tyrell wasn’t sure whether to stay or go. ‘You tired?’ he said.
Lou shook his head slightly. ‘You’re probably wondering …’ he said.
‘No, Chief, it’s OK. You don’t have to …’
Lou continued as if he hadn’t heard him. ‘I just hate it that Kimmy has to know. And the kids. But, everybody’s gonna know, sooner or later.’
‘You had your reasons, Chief. That’s good enough for me.’
‘He’s my son, Tyrell.’
‘Who is?’ Tyrell asked, confused.
‘Brian. He’s my son.’
Tyrell shook his head, not understanding.
‘His father … Matt and I were the best of friends. When he brought his new wife home, Hattie and I gave them both a party. I had no idea. When I met her, when I met Janine, it was like … I don’t know. It wasn’t love. It was a … passion. I’d never felt that way before. I resisted it for a long time and then, I gave in … Matt couldn’t have children. When she got pregnant, obviously he knew she’d been unfaithful. She never told him who … I think he always took it out on Brian. Even though I was to blame. And I was too much of a coward to admit it. Then Janine left him. Left all of us. She wasn’t a good woman. Anyway, Matt never knew it was me. Brian, either.’
‘Well, you tried to make it up to them,’ said Tyrell. He felt uneasy to have the chief confessing to him. They had never been close in that way.
‘Yeah,’ said Lou. ‘It was a royal fuck-up. My Hattie figured it out. Women know things sometimes that men have no idea of. She forgave me. Took a while, but she did. I was the lucky one.’
‘I’m sure you were a good husband,’ said Tyrell loyally. ‘Everybody makes mistakes.’
Lou turned his head and looked at him. ‘Yeah, but my mistakes ended up ruining people’s lives. That’s why I never filed those reports. It’s not Brian’s fault that he’s the way he is. I felt like I had to do it for him. Even though he didn’t know the real reason why. It wasn’t so much that I loved him, although I guess I do, as that I had fucked his life up good and well. I owed him, you know. And now, I owe you. It’s my fault you were suspended.’
‘Not the same thing at all,’ said Tyrell. ‘No big deal. Besides, this will all blow over. Van Brunt will always give me a hard time. But I can take it. To tell you the truth, I guess I deserved it a little bit. I knew what the right thing was, and I didn’t do it.’
Lou turned his head back to the window. An uneasy silence fell over the two men. Tyrell thought about leaving, wished he could leave, and get away from the chief’s sorry revelations, but there was no way. They were like two people up a tree. They couldn’t jump down. They’d have to ease back down to solid ground.
‘You’re a good boy, Tyrell,’ said Lou. And Tyrell knew the older man didn’t mean it in the racist, pejorative sense. ‘I’ll bet Van Brunt wishes he had you now.’
Tyrell was skeptical. ‘Oh yeah.’
‘Really. He’s shorthanded and he’s got another murder on his hands. Kenny stopped by to tell me this morning.’
‘The floater?’ Tyrell asked. Both men were relieved to have the conversation turn away from the personal, however necessary, and back to police business. Tyrell had read the paper while he was eating breakfast at the Main Diner. His grandmother had offered to cook for him, but he didn’t want to hang around the house all day. Being suspended was depressing enough. ‘I thought she drowned?’
Lou looked around, just to make sure there was no one in the doorway before he confided in Tyrell. He knew Tyrell would be interested. Being suspended didn’t make him any less a cop. ‘The trunk of her car was all wet, so they figured she’d been transported. Then they got the ME’s report this morning.’ Lou’s pallor was relieved by a faint color in his cheeks at the news he had to impart.
‘What? She didn’t drown?’
‘Oh, she drowned all right,’ said Lou.
‘So, what’s the deal?’
‘She didn’t drown in the canal. She drowned in tap water.’
‘Like a bathtub? And then they moved her?’
Lou nodded. ‘Guess what they found in her lungs?’
‘You said, tap water.’
Lou shook his head. ‘Something was in the tap water. Shampoo.’
‘She drowned while she was washing her hair?’
‘Not her hair. Her hair had traces of dandruff shampoo. The water in her lungs contained baby shampoo.’
‘Jesus,’ Tyrell yelped, and squirmed in the chair. ‘I don’t even want to think about how that happened. Has Van Brunt got a line on the perp?’
Lou shook his head and sipped from the straw in his water glass. ‘They’re not even sure why the lady was in town. She used to live here – someplace over on Bigelow Street. But nobody around here had seen her since she moved to Riverside.’
‘Bigelow Street,’ said Tyrell, instantly alert. ‘Where on Bigelow Street?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Lou. ‘Why? You know somebody on Bigelow Street?’
Tyrell thought of Dena Russell, and her little second-floor apartment on Bigelow Street. He’d been tempted to stop by, to make sure she was all right, but then he thought it might seem strange, since he was suspended … It was just that since they’d let Riley go, he found himself worrying about her. Wondering if she was OK.
It’s not your concern, he reminded himself. Your duties are suspended. Stop thinking about her.
‘I used to,’ he said.
‘Gin!’ cried the child, carefully setting down her last fan of cards. ‘I beat you again. You aren’t very good at this game.’
‘I know it,’ said Dena absently, staring at Megan, who huddled in the chair, rocking herself and sucking her thumb, once in a while letting out with a gusty sob.
‘I’m really good at it,’ Tory announced. ‘I win every time I play.’
‘Yes, you are good,’ Dena agreed.
‘Your deal,’ said Tory, pushing the cards across the table at her.
Dena gathered up the cards and shuffled them in a desultory manner, her thoughts far away from the card game. Why did Peter lie about Brenda Kelly? Why did he pretend not to know who she was?
‘You’re taking a long time to shuffle,’ Tory observed.
‘Sorry,’ Dena murmured, and began to deal the cards. Why did he snap the TV off when the story of Brenda Kelly’s drowning came on? He didn’t like the TV. She knew that. But even the most adamant opponent of television would surely make an exception to hear about the death of someone they knew well. Someone who had lived in the same house. Cared for your children. Could there be some mistake? Did she have the name wrong?
‘Tory,’ she asked casually as the child studied her cards, ‘you know Mrs Kelly who taught you gin?’
Megan’s rocking and moaning instantly ceased. The child froze, still and alert, on the edge of her chair.
‘Of course I know her,’ said Tory.
‘Have you seen her lately?’
‘Nope,’ said the child. She set down a run on the table.
‘What was … what’s her first name?’
‘I don’t know,’ the child said. ‘Ask Dad.’
‘Was her first name Brenda?’ Dena asked.
‘I go first,’ said Tory. She discarded a ten of clubs.
‘Was it Brenda?’ Dena persisted.
Tory frowned at her hand. ‘Yeah. That was it. Brenda. Your turn.’
‘How do you know?’ Dena asked, suspicious that she was being placated in the interests of the game.
‘It was printed on the front of her Bible,’ the child replied. Then she looked up at Dena. ‘Sometimes she read me stories from the Bible. But don’t tell Dad, OK?’
‘OK,’ said Dena faintly. She picked up the ten and slowly discarded a seven of hearts.
Tory hurried to grab it up, and threw down a queen, looking at Dena exultantly. ‘I needed that one,’ she said.
Dena was too distracted to react. She stared, unseeing, into her cards, thinking. She felt someone watching her and she looked over at the child on the chair.
Megan was looking at her, her eyes wide and fearful. ‘Miss Kay,’ the child whispered.
Dena held her gaze. ‘Have you seen Miss Kay?’ she asked.
Megan’s eyes swam with tears. ‘No,’ she cried. ‘I didn’t. I didn’t.’
Tory lowered her cards in exasperation. ‘You’re not playing,’ she complained.
‘Right,’ said Dena. ‘Let’s just finish this game.’
She forced herself to hurriedly play her cards, and congratulated Tory on another win. Then, she got up from her chair and walked over to the window, her arms around her belly. The rain was stopping but the sky still rumbled and remained a gloomy gray.
There had to be some explanation, she thought. There had to be some reason why Peter had lied about Brenda Kelly. Maybe he didn’t want the children to know, to be upset. But the children were already in bed when she turned on the TV. He could have discussed it with her. Or was he just treating her like a child again, not trusting her to keep the information to herself? That would be just like him. That explanation was annoying, but, for the moment, reassuring somehow.
And yet she knew, even as she thought it, that her worry went deeper. He had not been curious. He had not seemed surprised. When the news of Brenda Kelly’s death was broadcast on TV, he had simply pretended not to know her.
She tried to remember what the woman had said when she came to the door.
Going over it in her mind, she had to admit that it was nothing special. The woman, Mrs Kelly, she told herself firmly, had asked to see Peter. She had inquired about the children. That was all. Dena looked around the cabin, the girls peacefully playing. Then she looked back out at the wide spot in front of the cabin that served as a parking space and wondered anxiously when Peter would be returning with the car.
The new car. Now, suddenly, that seemed strange to her too. Why did they leave so abruptly that he couldn’t trade the car in Monroe? Why was he trading it now?
Stop it, she thought. Just stop. You’re getting yourself into a state over nothing. She forced herself to exhale, to relax her tensed muscles. She bent her head against the windowpane and, as she did, she felt the cold glass soothing her knotted forehead. There was probably some simple explanation. There had to be. She was in a fragile state, so she was exaggerating everything out of proportion. There was some reason why he had denied his relationship with Brenda Kelly, and if she questioned him tactfully, and persistently, he might eventually tell her what it was.
He had some problem. She was sure of that. Maybe he had an argument with Brenda Kelly. Maybe she jumped into that canal over Peter. Dena tried to picture strait-laced Peter and that middle-aged lady in some sort of tempestuous entanglement.
The thought was rather fascinating. She wished she knew. Then, she realized the answer might be close at hand. Surely, she thought, they’ll have something more about it on the TV. They were always having local news on. Or news bulletins. She could just check.
Dena walked over to the little stand where the TV sat and picked up the remote control. She pressed the button and the TV switched on, but this time there was no reception, not on any channel.
‘Uh uh,’ Tory chided her from across the room. ‘No TV.’
‘Oh, Tory, shush,’ Dena said. She ran the channels again but there was nothing but station after station of static.
‘You’re not going to get anything,’ said Tory.
‘How do you know?’ Dena said irritably.
‘Cause Dad took that thing on the top. The bunny ears? He took it with him. He didn’t want us watching just because he wasn’t here.’
Dena switched off the set and turned to look at the child. The antennae, the rabbit ears, had brought in what little reception they could get. ‘He took it?’ she said incredulously.
Tory nodded. ‘He said you would turn it on. He was right.’
Dena felt a hot flush spread through her.
‘Are you mad?’ Tory asked worriedly.
Dena’s breath got short and suddenly she felt wobbly. She sat down in one of the cushioned chairs. Don’t get crazy, she told herself. This could just be Peter being the universal parent again. She wondered, for a second, why she had admired his style of fathering so much. He was unbelievably overbearing.
But that’s all, she told herself. It had nothing to do with the news. Him not wanting you to watch. But no matter how much she said it, she couldn’t convince herself. What is going on here, she wondered?
‘Dena, are you mad?’ Tory asked.
‘No, no, it’s all right,’ Dena said, trying to think what to do. All right. The first thing you have to do is find out. For a moment she felt panicky, wondering how, and then it came to her. It was so simple. So blessedly simple. Her phone.
‘You girls play,’ she said, getting up from the chair. ‘I’ll be right back.’
She smiled at them, so they wouldn’t worry, and then she went into the bedroom.
Her purse was lying on the bed, where Tory had rifled it for the cards. With a sigh of relief she went over to it, not even sure, at that moment, whom she was going to call. She could call the television station or the newspaper. Just to find out. There was no need to go any farther than that. She thought, for a second, of Sergeant Watkins, but he was not, she reminded herself, going to be at the police station. He was, for some unknown reason, suspended. And she didn’t want to involve the police anyway. Surely it wasn’t necessary.
All the time she thought these things she was searching. Pushing things from side to side in her bag with no luck until, in frustration, she dumped the entire contents on the bed. She gazed at the jumble of her things – makeup case, brush, address book, pencils.
Everything she had put into the bag was there. Everything but her phone. The phone was gone.