FIVE

I went to Records, signed out a bunch of case files, brought them back and set up in the room with them. I tried occasionally to make some chitchat with Lt. Gooch, to bring up something I’d found in a case file, to ask him a question, whatever, but it was a waste of time. He never once spoke to me, just looked at me with the those lynch-mob eyes, then looked back down at whatever he was reading.

By about noon I was ready to scream. I am not a sit-around-and-read person. I’m a get-out-there-and-mix-it-up person. But I was damned if Gooch was going to get under my skin. So I just sat there and read, dawn till dark, coming in earlier each successive day and leaving later each successive night—though I never seemed to get there as early as Gooch, or leave as late. He remained planted in that chair, motionless as a rock. It was torture.

And the whole time I kept thinking about that little girl out there. Jenny Dial. I didn’t want to be working these moldy old cases. I wanted to be doing something that had some relevance, that would help somebody in the here-and-now. But what could I do? So I just sat there every day, reading and reading, taking notes, reading, going back to the Records office occasionally to check out more old case files.

I am not the crying type. But on Thursday I cried all the way home. I cried when I looked around my bare, miserable little apartment. I cried when I looked in the refrigerator and there was nothing inside but some bologna and some two-week-old milk. And when it had built up to the point where the only thing I could think of that would put things on an even keel was a trip down the street to the liquor store, I went into my room and turned on my computer to do some e-mail.

When I was done going through my messages, I reached out to turn off the computer. But my hand just hung there for a while.

I had promised myself that I wouldn’t do the thing that I wanted to do next. I kept saying to myself that it was only going to make me feel worse. But finally I gave in and did it anyway. Because the only other thing I could think of involved driving over to the seedy liquor store around the corner. So finally I typed in a Web address that I’d memorized, and after a couple seconds a bunch of pictures came up on the screen.

At the top of the screen, it said, “Here’s our beautiful new son, Kevin!!!”

Then the pictures: a little brown-skinned boy with soft curly black hair and full lips that looked a lot like mine. The boy on the screen lay on his stomach, looking up at the camera. Oh, and, yes, sweet Jesus, he was a beautiful boy, with huge brown eyes, almost pretty enough to be a girl.

Another picture of him sitting on a carpet, an expensive Oriental rug, a litter of toys and dolls lying around him. He was smiling at the camera, toothless still at six months, looking proud as hell of himself for being able to sit up.

A third picture of the brown-skinned boy, a close-up of his face. He was nestled in a woman’s arms—though you couldn’t see her face, only her hand.

Which was pale as straw.

 

 

For supper I ate slightly gamey bologna without bread, and warm ice tea. I went to bed as soon as the sun went down, 8:30, so I could get up and go to work early, beat that man in to the office, show him who he was up against. Mechelle Deakes was not some shirker looking for a government paycheck. Whatever my flaws, you bet your ass that wasn’t one of them.