October 1, 2018
“Ortiz is back in town,” Preach said. “Didn’t I tell you, Ralphie? He just wanted to shake you up a little.” There was a crackle and buzz over the speaker. Preach must’ve been on his cell, in an area with shit reception. “Wanted to see if you’d break down and admit to anything. There’s a new suspect in the case, so you’re outta the hot seat.”
Loren closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair. Outside his open office door he could see the bustle of Homicide, gearing up for a busy fall. The temps had dropped and the overcast sky seemed to be threatening snow instead of rain.
“That’s why I called,” Loren said. “Ortiz left me a note before he skipped town, taped to my door. Said he knew what he knew, but I’d somehow managed to pull a fast one on him.” Loren paused. “But I didn’t do shit, Preach. Do you know what happened?”
Preach sighed.
“It’s been taken care of, Ralphie. That’s all you need to know.”
Loren closed his eyes.
“What’d you do?”
There was a long pause.
“Turns out old evidence resurfaced connecting Gallo to a drug ring up in Philly,” he said. “Looks like he was making some extra cash by working with some dealers, but he crossed the wrong guys and ended up with a bullet in his head. A guy out in Terre Haute already confessed to killing Gallo.”
“Preach—”
“This particular guy didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of walking free even before this confession, so it doesn’t much matter one way or the other,” Preach said. He sounded almost cheerful. “Another life sentence added on top of the five he already has—a dead man walking can’t get any more dead. You know what I mean, Ralphie?”
“Yeah. I guess I do.” It was more of the same, Loren thought. Good ol’ boys pulling together to protect their own. It wouldn’t have taken much to convince a man serving life at Terre Haute to confess to one more thing. Some cold hard cash, maybe, or a little something for the family he had outside. And it took care of everything. Case closed, because that’s all anyone wanted. To close a case, put it behind. Easy to follow, easy to swallow, like old Detective Reid said. “But listen, I’ve gotta tell you what happened—”
“Ralphie, let it go,” Preach said sharply. “I don’t know where this sudden spurt of honesty is coming from, but channel it in a different way. People say sharing is caring, but that’s the biggest pile of donkey shit I ever heard. Why don’t you pay your taxes on time, or start tipping your waiters a decent amount instead. Use that warm feeling you’re suddenly having to spread some good in the world.”
“Fuck you. I’m a great tipper.”
“Not from what I remember.”
“You don’t remember shit.”
“Maybe not.” Preach laughed. “But I’m serious, Ralph. You coming forward and getting shit off your chest is nothing but trouble. Better to let it go, that’s what I think. Keep your trap shut.”
“But—”
“Listen, I go down to Cincinnati sometimes,” Preach said, and Loren lapsed into silence. “There’s a nice lady down there, makes a helluva pot roast. She always asks about you.”
Loren had left Ohio thirty years before without a word and he’d never looked back, not even to check on Connie once. It’d bothered him for a long time, that he’d dropped and run, but it was what he did. He either got mad, or he got gone.
“She’s alive?” he asked.
“And doing real well,” Preach said. “She reached out about a year after you left. She was looking for you, and fed me some half-baked story about how Gallo had upped and run off with some stripper, left her with the baby. She’s got a couple kids, a half-dozen grandbabies. I had a little free time after you called, so I drove down there. Told her what was going on with you. She went pale, had to sit down. I thought she might’ve had a heart attack, but it was just shock. Then she brewed a pot of coffee and told me everything. She confessed.”
“No.”
“Yeah, I think she’s still carrying a flame for you, although I don’t understand how anyone could love a man with a face that resembles an ugly dog’s ass end.”
“Fuck you.”
“I think I’ll pass on that offer, Ralphie,” Preach said easily. “Anyway, she asked me to help keep you outta trouble. Made me promise I’d help, and you know me. I never could say no to a pretty face. And the only reason Connie got to keep her face pretty is because of what she did.”
It was easy to start over in those days, and Connie had done it. Janice Evans had done it, too.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Then keep your mouth shut. Lucas Gallo was a piece of human sewage,” Preach said. “We all knew it and we dealt with it because he was one of us. Maybe we shouldn’t have. He’d been thumping that wife of his hard, and you were the only one who ever stepped in and said something. Maybe that makes us all shitheads. You always were the best of us, Loren. Not the best looking, but you know what I mean.”
“Fuck you, Cocksmoke.”
“But whatever Gallo got in the end, whoever gave it to him—he deserved it. And it really doesn’t matter how he ended up in that hole. It just matters that he got there, sooner rather than later.”
Loren grabbed a tissue from the box on his desk and blew his nose.
“You crying, hoss?” Preach said. “Is all my talk making your eyes well up, maybe giving you a little wood?”
“You remember that time you pissed on that electric fence? I bet that’s the most action you’ve seen in years. Your dick’s probably still smoldering.”
Preach snorted.
“Same old Loren,” he said. “See you soon, maybe?”
“Not unless you go to your mom’s house for dinner this weekend. That’s when I’m busy banging her.”
“Fuck you, numbnuts,” Preach said, but he was laughing. “My mom’s been dead for ten years, unless you’re into that necrophilia shit. One more piece of advice, Ralphie?”
“What’s that?”
“Quit whining and just take what life gives you. People are nice because you’re so damn ugly, and if sympathy kindness is all you’re getting you should be thankful.”
They hung up, and Loren blew his nose again. Would he ever go home, back to Springfield? Maybe a weekend trip to Cincinnati? Probably not. Too much bad shit had gone down out there, and he’d didn’t need that in his life anymore. And he’d keep his mouth shut, like Preach had suggested.
He sat up, shoved his feet into his shoes. He took them off when he sat at his desk because they’d been swelling lately, but it was a part of getting old. The Sunday edition of the Post had been on his lap and wafted to the floor, fell so he could see the front page. It was a photo of Matt and Marie Evans, and a short article about the events of the last month. Not that any news outlet had the whole story—hell, he wasn’t sure anyone knew exactly what had gone down between the Evanses, except that it was fucked up. But that’s how marriages were—like a private room for two, where no one else could see inside. And even if you could, you might not want to.
Looking at Marie’s picture on the front page, he realized she didn’t remind him of Connie so much anymore. Not at all, really, and he wondered why he thought it in the first place. He’d tried to see a connection, but there hadn’t been one.
Life isn’t a circle, he thought. Life is a diamond, with all the facets and points and corners reflecting the light back and forth so quickly that you can’t ever begin to figure out where it all actually started, or where it’s going to end.