by Renee James
Of course, who am I to think about honor? I’m a felon. And if I do the honorable thing, many of the people I hold dearest will suffer. Betsy and Robbie. The L’Elégance staff. Roger. Cecelia won’t cry herself to sleep nights, but there will be a hole in her life.
It’s the perfect mind fuck: a real-life problem with no right answer.
22
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 23
WILKINS STARES AT three packages on his kitchen table. One is for his daughter, Anita, at her college address. Along with his mother’s jewelry, it contains the gifts he got her for Christmas and a letter explaining his illness, how much he regrets the distance between them after the divorce, how much he loves her. How, if there’s an afterlife, he’ll spend his looking after her and her brother and her mom.
Another box is addressed to his son, Stephen. It contains Christmas gifts, along with his mementos and his journals. Medals, citations, newspaper clippings from some of his big cases. The half dozen journals he kept off and on over the years. The last journal has a lot of soul searching about his cancer and how it feels to see death standing in the doorway.
He stares at the third package, the one containing the murder book for the Strand investigation. It is complete, right down to the identity of the person who finished off Strand after Logan left. It took him an intense day and night to figure it out, but it’s there. His last case is done.
He can deliver it to the DA, something he has put off for days because he felt weak and tired and wasn’t sure he had the energy to deal with one of the snot-nose assistant DAs. Truth be told, he also had misgivings about fucking up Logan’s life. She’s a decent person who just got trapped between a rock and hard place. She was right about some things. None of this would have happened if they had investigated the transwoman’s murder right.
And she was right about Andive. If that wretched piece of shit had raped his daughter or his wife, they’d be digging up his body parts for the next thousand years.
And now there’s another life at stake. The murderer. Who wasn’t a murderer, but more a lifesaver. Someone who wanted to make sure Logan survived. Someone who knew Strand would add her to his line of victims as soon as he could. Two more lives ruined because the department couldn’t bring Strand to justice. A bad exchange.
He tries to change his line of thought. Even when you see that justice won’t be served by following the law, there won’t be justice for anyone if cops start making the calls themselves.
His mind wanders. This is his last act as a detective. A legacy in its own right. It’s all about how you handle yourself when you’re at the end of the line. Do you stay disciplined and professional or drown in self-pity and go through the motions? Allan Wilkins would be a role model for his son. Stephen would be facing all kinds of challenges in his adult life. Allan Wilkins might not be there with him, but he could leave a legacy that the boy could draw on.
Which got him thinking. What would Stephen think? Would he be proud if his old man stayed true to the oath and put away someone he didn’t want to put away? Or would he see Logan as someone who got screwed by a system that wouldn’t protect her from a killer but will prosecute her for defending herself?
Wilkins sighs. In twenty-four hours, give or take, he’ll be a monster, wishing he were dead, afraid to show his face in public, a prisoner in this miserable apartment.
* * *
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 24
Wilkins finishes writing the letter, folds the pages, slides them in the envelope. He doesn’t seal the envelope, just pushes the flap inside the V.
It’s lunchtime, but he doesn’t eat anymore. Even the liquid crap they give him hurts to swallow. Now there’s no point in putting himself through that pain. He stands, puts on his coat, slides the letter in one pocket, his meds in another, and grabs a water bottle from the refrigerator on his way out.
An elderly couple shares the elevator with him on his way down. He’s seen them before. They say nothing when he gets on, just look at the floor. That’s how most people react now, and he hasn’t even had the surgery. He can see them standing in a puddle of their own pee if he got on wearing that monster face . . .
At the ground floor he strides out to the street and walks half a block to his car. The effort exhausts him.
It’s cold. Chicago cold. Noon on Christmas Eve day and it feels like maybe twenty degrees, enough wind to chill you to the bone. He’s shivering and his hand shakes a little as he unlocks the car. It’s a department vehicle, unmarked. The captain pulled strings to let him use it, at least until his surgery.
Well, he’s already an hour late for the surgery. The phone has been ringing for the past half hour. Some rich surgeon is missing a payday on the last day before Christmas. Poor guy. Wilkins has problems of his own.
He settles into the seat behind the steering wheel, fires up the engine, dials up his favorite music station on the radio. He reclines the seat back to an easy-chair angle, then fishes the meds out of his pocket. He takes a sleeping pill first, just one. It usually knocks him out in about five minutes. He checks his watch, then lays back and enjoys an old Aretha Franklin song on the radio. He gazes out the windshield at the trees, the gray sky, a lamppost draped with holiday decorations. He closes his eyes and rests. He opens them and looks at the headliner of the car, feels the comfort of the seat, thinks how nice it was of the captain to let him use the car. Which is why he’s going to do this with pills, not his Glock, which is the way a cop should go out. The more he thought about it, the more he could see the captain getting burned for breaking the rules and the department ending up with a blood-spattered car that they’d have to write off.
Wilkins sighs. He opens the other bottle, a concoction of sleeping pills and pain pills. He starts downing them, four or five at a time. It hurts to swallow. He wants to get it done as fast as he can. If he ends up having a lot of pain in his gut, he’ll just have to deal with it, but not for long. Hopefully, the first sleeping pill will knock him out, and he won’t feel the rest.
He hopes his wife and daughter forgive him for all his failures. He hopes Stephen finds something to love about his memory. He hopes someday there won’t be so many people robbing and killing other people.
Johnny Hartman sings slow and sad about an affair that was almost like a song, but much too sad to write.
Amen, Johnny, Wilkins thinks. Saddest song he ever heard. In a movie about white people in Iowa, for goodness’ sake. The blues is for everyone.
It is the last conscious thought of his life.
* * *
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 24
This is insane, but no one can refuse Cecelia when she gets like this, not even Betsy, not even when we all know what she’s doing is completely and totally insane.
Which is why Betsy, Robbie, Cecelia, and I are spreading a blanket on North Avenue Beach at one o’clock in the afternoon on Christmas Eve day, even though the air temperature is somewhere south of twenty degrees. There’s a steady wind blowing, but mercifully, Cecelia has put us in a protected spot. She acts like she just invented Florida.
“Look, we’re completely out of the wind, Bobbi. Stop whining,” she says to me. Big smile on her face, as much as I can see of it with the furry hood of her arctic parka snugged around her face leaving only her nose and parts of her mouth and eyes exposed to the raw air.
“Oh this is nice,” I say. “I’ll just get out of these awful clothes and get some sun.” I try to effect the sarcastic voice of a latter-day Valley Girl. I’m pretty close.
Robbie thinks this is the greatest adventure ever. She is puffed up like a snowman in a white snowsuit and white boots. She’s wearing enough layers of insulation to herd arctic caribou and she has the pent-up energy to run them to exhaustion. She dashes off, an unleashed spirit free at last of the bottle she had been living in. She looks like a powdered donut rolling across the beach. I trot after her hoping to get warm, worried that icicles are forming in my lungs.
Cecelia calls us in a few minute
s later, sits us in a circle on the blanket, and distributes goodies from her bag. Sandwiches, chips, cookies, and cups of hot chocolate. No need to blow on the hot chocolate to cool it off.
It’s really cold.
“You’re probably wondering why I’ve called this meeting,” says Cecelia as we finish eating.
Betsy nods her head and smiles with blue lips. I mutter an obscenity under my breath, but smile.
“One, just to get out and shake off the cabin fever,” says Cecelia.
“We could have done that at a nice warm café,” I object.
“But it wouldn’t have felt as good when we went home,” she counters. Point taken, assuming we survive to make it home.
“Second, we can’t let the cold weather own us. We have to get out in it and have fun. This is very European, you know. You go to Copenhagen, Stockholm, Munich, anywhere in northern Europe and you see people having picnics in nice public places, even in the winter, even now.”
“That’s old Europe.” More sarcasm, echoing the words once used by an American politician trying to dismiss European leaders in an international debate. Cecelia smiles and ignores me.
“Third,” she starts. I’m listening closely now. Cecelia’s third things always knock you on your backside. “Third, we’re gathered here because it’s Christmas Eve day and even though my beloved Bobbi is an atheist”—she mocks indignation—“this is a special day and tonight will be a special night, and it’s my Christmas wish that the two of you sit right here and think about how special it is that you have each other. I want you to be able to hug someone you love tonight and tomorrow. Take it from someone who has no one, I know how special that is.”
“Why don’t you spend the night with us, and we’ll hug you instead of each other,” I say to Cecelia. It just slips out. A look of shock flares on Betsy’s face until she realizes I was just trying to be funny.
Cecelia laughs merrily. “I’ll let the two of you have a frank and open discussion while Robbie and I go beachcombing.” She engages Robbie in the idea of looking for princess tiaras and other treasures on the frozen tundra of the Lake Michigan shore.
As they trundle off, Betsy looks at me with a blank face. “What does she think we should be talking about?”
I shrug. “I have no idea.” My attempt at speech is muted by chattering teeth and numb lips. Betsy’s lips are as blue as mine. I scoot over to sit beside her and pull the blanket over us. We giggle like kids in the darkness.
“Bobbi,” she says when we settle down. “I don’t know how I’ll cope if they take you away.”
“You’ll be fine,” I say, rubbing her back with one hand. “You’re smart and tough. You’re ready to go out in the world. I’m the one who’ll have to find a way to cope.”
“I’m not worried about making a living, Bobbi. It’s losing you again.”
I tell her I’m flattered, but she’ll be moving on with her love life soon. There will be a new Mr. Right.
“That’s not what I mean,” she answers. Her voice catches. She’s having an emotional moment. “Bobbi, you’re my greatest love, whether you’re a man or a woman. I love you like I love Robbie . . . forever, no matter what. We won’t always live together, but we’ll always see each other. But it would be more fun if we could meet at a restaurant or shopping mall rather than at some jail.” She starts the sentence in a somber voice, but something about it strikes her funny bone and mine at the same time. We snicker and the snickers turn to laughs.
“Maybe you could bring a male prostitute to brighten my spirits and clean out my plumbing, as Cecelia would say.” Betsy doubles over with laughter, her voice rising higher. I laugh so hard I can’t breathe.
She tilts her head up so her face is inches from mine. I can feel her breath on my face and see the redness of her cheeks and the fullness of her beautiful smile. She’s grinning like a child on Christmas morning. “I love you,” she says. She throws her arms around my neck and pulls us together in a cheek-to-cheek hug. It is warm and perfect.
I try to breathe in every molecule of air Betsy exhales, I memorize everything, her scent, the angle of the sun on her face, the warmth of our bodies crushed together, my arms around her, her hooded cheek against mine, Robbie’s excited footsteps as she jumps on Betsy, making us both grunt. Cecelia kneeling beside us and putting her arms around us all.
This is a movie that will play in my mind for all the years I have a mind. It will bring light and sound wherever I am, whether it’s a prison cell or a beauty salon.
23
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 24
ROBBIE IS SLEEPING and our fingers are finally warm enough to wrap presents. Lighthearted banter fills the room.
Cecelia stops wrapping and stares at me. “You’re in an awfully good mood. What’s going on?”
“Lots of things.” I talk about feeling good about the salon, and the outlook for Betsy and Robbie, and the joy of the Christmas season. “And also,” I add, “my soul is free. I confessed to Wilkins.”
Cecelia and Betsy gasp. Betsy’s face is stricken with fear, Cecelia couldn’t be more flabbergasted if the FBI were bashing in the door.
“What?” says Cecelia.
“But you told me you didn’t do it,” wails Betsy. “You murdered that man?”
“I didn’t murder him, but I abducted him, and I confessed to that. Someone else did the murder.”
“You confessed to Detective Wilkins?” Betsy exclaims. “Why didn’t he arrest you?”
“It was off the record,” I explain. “When he turns in his report, the DA will send people to take my statement.”
“Thank goodness,” says Cecelia. Her relief is palpable.
“I’m going to tell them what I told Wilkins,” I say.
Cecelia explodes. “No! Are you crazy? Refer them to your attorney, that’s why you have her. You don’t have to give self-incriminating testimony. It’s in all the television shows.”
“Please listen to Cecelia,” says Betsy.
“You were right, Betsy. Back when you said I have too many secrets. Some of my secrets were just lies I hadn’t told yet, things about myself I don’t want other people to know. I can’t do that anymore. I lived with a secret about myself for most of my life because I was ashamed to admit I was a woman. When I finally came out, it was like being born. It was horrible and wonderful at the same time, but even in the darkest moments, I was finally me. It was wonderful. Almost perfect. Except for the Strand murder.
“I’m not living with that secret anymore. I kidnapped him because he was going to kill me, and no one could protect me. I didn’t kill him, but I kidnapped him with that intention. I’m going to tell my truth to the DA and let the chips fall where they may.”
Cecelia glowers at me. “You’re having an attack of suicidal insanity. Let it pass.”
Betsy takes my hand. “Let’s think about it for a few days. I’m sure nothing will happen until after Christmas.”
“Amen to that,” says Cecelia. “Bobbi, jail is cold and gray and mean. What would a softie like you do in a place like that?”
“At least I’d go as a woman,” I answer. “And I’d still be able to do hair. Wherever there are women, there are women who want their hair done.”
We wrap gifts in a funereal silence. Betsy and Cecelia both pause now and then to dab away tears. I feel awful for casting such a pall on the party.
The buzz of the doorbell jolts us all. Officer Phil is standing at the threshold, a box in his hands. I open the door and invite him in.
“Hi, everyone.” He waves. Betsy and Cecelia manage welcoming smiles. He hands me the box. “This was at your door.”
I offer him a libation and Santa cookies, but he has a serious expression on his face.
“Bobbi,” he says, “I have some news about Wilkins. Can we talk privately?”
“We’ve just been talking about him,” I say. “You can share your news with everyone.”
Phil is uncharacteristically flustered at my response. Incredi
ble. A guy who talks to the media every day gets tongue tied with an audience of three? “Okay,” he says. He pauses, like he’s working up his courage. I feel like the Chicago PD riot squad is going to come barging in any moment.
“Wilkins is dead,” says Phil. “He killed himself this morning.”
I feel like I’ve been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer. “Oh that poor man.” Tears come streaming down my face. I keep seeing the distorted faces of the oral cancer survivors. “Suicide?” My voice squeaks. Phil puts a hand on my arm. I bury my face against his shoulder, and he hugs me while I cry.
“My goodness,” says Betsy. “Oh my goodness.”
When I stop crying and look up, Cecelia locks eyes with me. “It’s a sign,” she says.
“What kind of sign?”
“A shut-up sign!” Cecelia is emphatic. “The investigation might die with him.”
“That’s what I came to say,” says Phil. “I’m not sure what happened to his evidence book. It wasn’t at the station and it wasn’t in his apartment. Just sit tight and let’s see what happens.”
“Thanks for your concern,” I say to Phil. “But, I have my own ideas about these things.”
He smiles a little. “If you ever took my word for anything I’d have to arrest you for impersonating Bobbi Logan. But Bobbi, remember, if you come forward, you could affect the lives of other people who might have been involved in that case.”
“Like who? What do you know you’re not telling me?”
He asks Betsy and Cecelia if he can have a private moment with me. I take him to the kitchen.
“Maybe Wilkins told me more than one person was involved in the crime,” he says.
Phil is being too coy. “Maybe?” I echo. “Did he or didn’t he?”
“Just think about it,” he whispers. “It’s not just about you. If the case dies with him, maybe you should let it.”
I gape at him. It’s one thing for Cecelia to counsel silence, it’s quite another when a cop does. I wonder who he’s protecting. When words finally come to me, they aren’t profound. “Well, thanks for thinking of me,” I say.
