by A. R. Moler
Dinner was slated to be a crockpot version of pot roast. He’d never really thought of himself as the type to use one of those things but Alicia had convinced him to buy one. It fell in the category of things he’d ordered online in the first couple of weeks of the stir craziness of the lock down. He set out plates and silverware while he waited for Tristan to come up.
It was another twenty minutes before Tristan appeared.
“You okay?” Brian reached out and curled his hand against Tristan’s neck.
Tristan held up his hands in a “wait” gesture. He paced across the kitchen toward the back door and then returned, drawing a deep breath before he spoke. “My mother is apparently in the hospital. Jason called to tell me.”
“COVID?”
“I would assume so. I only got partial information from him, in between pissed off demands that I arrange for our father to be allowed into the hospital to be with her.”
“I thought the hospitals were denying…” Brian began.
“They are. I couldn’t arrange anything for him even if I tried.”
“How sick is she?”
“I don’t really know. Sick enough they called an ambulance. And I should be worried, but mostly I’m just pissed. It was obvious from the phone call last week that she wasn’t taking any precautions at all.”
Brian wrapped Tristan in a hug. “I suppose you didn’t hear anything from your dad?”
“I texted him. No response yet. I guess he could be busy freaking out, well as close to that as he’s ever likely to get, but truthfully I don’t know if I’ll get a text back at all.”
“You could call the hospital and ask for an update. Or do you even know where they took her?”
“Jason said Sinai.”
“Okay, that’s a start. The worst the people who answer phones can do is simply say they can’t release any information.”
Tristan muttered an “Okay, but I think I need to eat first.”
* * * *
Dog tired but not tired enough to sleep. That was the story of the past month and a half. Tristan sat at the roll top desk that his grandfather had used, laptop open, surfing between news websites and Twitter. His attempt at finding out anything from Mount Sinai Hospital had met with “Althea Blake’s in the database as having entered the Emergency Room with potential for admission. I’m afraid that’s all the information I have at the moment.”
It wasn’t like he was going to find out more by cruising through the web, but gleaning a little additional information about the horrific state of the overwhelmed health care system did make him feel like he had been truthful to Jason.
Brian set down a mug of hot chocolate on the desk. “I put a shot of amaretto in it. I thought it might help you unwind.”
“Thank you.”
Tristan’s phone buzzed with an incoming text. He picked it up and saw the one-word text. Yes. It was from his father. He picked it up and sent back a reply. How bad?
“That was from your Dad?” Brian asked.
“Yeah. She’s in ICU. I don’t know if he’ll tell me more, or if he even knows more.”
“You could call him. If he sends you straight to voicemail…” Brian said with a shrug.
Tristan shook his head. He could almost hear the scathing diatribe of accusation and cold fury he was likely to get. “Maybe tomorrow.”
* * * *
Zoom, Skype, WebEx, and Google Duo had become the new view of friendship. Today it was Zoom. Brian sat at the kitchen table with his laptop open, hands around a coffee cup, Alicia’s face on the screen.
“How long’s she been in ICU now?” Alicia asked.
“Four days.”
“Is she improving?”
“No,” Brian said flatly. “She’s on a ventilator and I haven’t heard anything to imply she’s likely to get off of it anytime soon. She and I never got along in the slightest, but this is a pretty brutal thing to watch happen. Watch being metaphoric, since not even her husband or Tristan or Jason have been allowed in the hospital.”
“Is Tristan falling apart?”
“No, not really. You were around when Tris and I got married. She had her chauffer drive her all the way out there just so she could rip Tristan a new one. He hasn’t had a whole lot to say.”
“I don’t really blame him. She might have given birth to him, but it doesn’t sound like she’s ever been much of a mother. Speaking of mothers, the good ones, how’s yours?” Alicia asked.
“Fine. A little stir crazy. She wants Dad to teach her how to use a nail gun so she can help him build a pergola,” Brian said.
“Sounds more interesting than my mad crazy bread baking.”
“How’s the knitting going?”
“Meh. I think I rip out half of everything I do, mostly because I discover I’ve dropped a stitch, or fucked it up in twelve other ways.”
Brian laughed. “Guess I’m not going to be getting a sweater from you for Christmas.”
“Unlikely.”
* * * *
A phone call wasn’t supposed to make you flinch, was it? Or then again, maybe it was. Tristan leaned against the wall outside an apartment building where he’d gone to investigate a shooting. Two, drunk as hell roommates, had reached the last straw in being stuck in the apartment together and resorted to guns. Tristan was waiting on the coroner’s office to send someone, which, given the state of the city, could be quite a while. He pulled out his phone. The call was from Jason.
“I’m at work.”
“You’re always fucking at work. I just figured you might want to know she’s dead. Dad called me half an hour ago.”
“How are you handling it?” Tristan asked, trying to find a shred of kindness for his brother.
“The doctors said her chances were slim, but I thought she’d…She’s not supposed to be dead. I’m not out of my twenties. Parents are supposed to become grandparents and be around to harass you to eat healthier and buy you clothes you hate. The hospital claims they may have to put her in some cold storage container thing until a funeral home can get her. And it might be days.”
“I’m afraid that’s probably true.”
“Dad said the will and trust paperwork claims she…claims she wants to be cremated.”
“Okay, that makes sense. I remember her saying something about it when Grandfather died.”
“That’s freaking morbid. Why do you even remember that?” Jason asked.
“Because it was a practical choice and I was surprised.”
“Fuck you.”
The call ended abruptly. Tristan stood there gazing at the street.
* * * *
Hearing Tristan come into the house several hours early stabbed a moment of fear through Brian. Was he sick? He hadn’t come in through the basement either, he’d come in through the back door into the kitchen. Brian hurried in that direction. Tristan was stripping off his tie.
“Are you sick?” Brian asked.
“Huh? Oh, no. I…I begged off early. My mother died a couple of hours ago.”
Brian took Tristan’s hands in his own. “I’m so sorry.”
Tristan raised an eyebrow. “We are talking about the woman who tried to brow beat me out of marrying you.”
“True,” Brian said with a sigh.
“And after days on a ventilator, the chances of her recovering were pretty poor.”
“I know.”
“I never did tell you what she said when she called with the brunch demand that day did I?” Tristan asked.
“That she and your father weren’t doing anything to avoid catching COVID. That they were too busy being rich and blasé.”
“Yeah, but when I suggested that I…if I were to come, I would bring you. She told me that annulments were simple and surely I had had you sign a pre-nup.”
Brian winced. “Ouch.”
“That was her in a nutshell. Entitled and self-centered. She was my mother. I should grieve and somehow, I’m not sure I really care that much. I guess I’m goin
g to hell over this.”
“Maybe guilt feelings have to be processed first?”
“Maybe.” Tristan pulled Brian against his body. “You are my family. You are my world. You are the one I love unconditionally.” He placed a kiss on Brian’s mouth.
Chapter 3
Spring felt like a minor miracle. Brian sat on the back steps of the brownstone, hands wrapped around a cup of coffee. The scraggly grass that grew in the backyard was beginning to green. It was a little chilly but he was determined to enjoy the fresh air. Being outside felt like something of a luxury after the past few months.
He saw the back door on the house next door open and the older woman come out. “Good morning, Mrs. Reinhart.”
She walked a few steps toward the end of her porch nearest him. “I see you acquired a couple of flower pots.
“One for the sage and basil, and I’m not sure what I should put in the other one yet.” Mrs. Reinhart had convinced him he should have some useful plants on his own porch.
“I’ll leave some marigold seedlings by my front door in a bit. You can come get them later,” she said.
“Trying to get rid of my brown thumb?” Brian teased. He’d never been much of a plant person, but being at home for days on end had left him willing to try his hand at almost anything. Mrs. Reinhart’s backyard looked like it should be a centerfold in Fine Gardening.
“This is a good time to learn new skills.”
Brian grinned. “Because I haven’t got anything better to do?”
“Are you finished with the third-floor remodel?”
“Everything but the bathroom. My plumbing skills are minimal, so we hired someone, but it’s going to be another month before he can do it.”
“Then you need a new project,” she said.
“I take it that you have suggestions?”
“Putting a raised bed along the fence would be a start. If you can get the wood for it. I’ve heard that supplies at the lumberyards are hit or miss.”
“Because we’re all trying not to lose our minds stuck at home with no end in sight,” Brian replied.
“I do miss having coffee with my friends.”
Brian lifted up his cup. “It’s probably too risky to suggest I get close enough to hand you a cup, but you have nice chairs out here on your own porch. We could have a date out here tomorrow morning. You on your porch and me on mine.”
“I think you’re a bit too young to qualify as a date for me, and your husband might mind,” she teased.
“We could invite him. Have a nice threesome.”
Mrs. Reinhart made a fanning motion with her hands. “Aren’t you the naughty one?”
“Only with people I know.”
She smiled, and heaved a sigh. “I should get on with checking to see how many of my daffodil bulbs got eaten by the squirrels.” She walked down the steps into her backyard.
* * * *
Warrant serving always carried an element of risk that day to day case investigations didn’t often have. Tristan yanked the crooked as hell Velcro seam of his tactical vest loose and reseated it to be straight.
“Blake, I assume you have the paperwork?”
Tristan turned from the open trunk of his car to face Mitch Robertson, one of his homicide detective colleagues. “Right here.” He picked up the sheaf of pages that had been folded and inserted into a plastic sleeve. The morning was a little on the chilly side. He also grabbed his windbreaker with NYPD emblazoned across the back and put it on.
“Stolen car parts, a couple of dead bodies, connections to the Hop Leong tong, this ought to be a fun event,” Robertson said.
“I’m just hoping we can snag Kao Li. My main witness is useless unless we have the shooter in custody.”
“Suspected shooter,” Robertson teased.
Tristan rolled his eyes. “Okay, suspected shooter, because Caroline Hardesty seeing him pull the trigger hasn’t been proved in court yet.”
“Gotta keep our facts straight.”
Tristan shut the trunk and adjusted his mask. One of these days maybe they’d all go back to worrying just about flying bullets and not potentially lethal, microscopic viruses.
The team of officers participating in the raid spread out around the auto repair shop. Robertson was higher up the food chain than Tristan, despite the fact it was Tristan’s case. Robertson was the one in charge for the raid.
“Anyone not in position yet?” Robertson’s voice asked over the radio channel. Thirty seconds of silence ticked by. “Entry in five, four, three, two, one, go.”
Tristan and two more officers charged in through the open left hand garage door. “Police! Everyone freeze. We have a warrant.”
The two people in plain sight, working under the hood of a car obeyed. Movement further back in the large room indicated two more people were making a run for it. Tristan gave chase, weaving in between two more cars inside the shop and several pieces of heavy machinery. He made a split second choice and followed the one that resembled his main suspect, leaving his colleagues to grab the one darting to the left.
Around the corner of the neighboring building, up a connecting alley, and through a slit in a chain link fence, Tristan sprinted after the man. The man slipped between a couple of parked semis and around a dumpster with Tristan still a few yards behind. Down another alley, past another handful of dumpsters and…where the fuck had he gone? Tristan stopped, scanning the area. He back tracked a few steps and saw a narrow walkway gap between buildings.
Gun at the ready, he crept down that path and found…no sign of the man in the dead end opening at the back. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He yanked on the handles of the two doors back there. They were locked. Still breathing hard, he looked around the space. There was a fire escape leading upward but the ladder portion was still folded up, out of Tristan’s reach, even if he jumped. He must’ve guessed wrong. Who knew where the hell the guy had gotten away to?
Tristan reached up a hand to tap his radio and paused. An unfamiliar sound caught his attention. It was sort of a bleating, crying noise. Cat? It seemed to be coming from a pile of garbage bags near a dumpster. Could the guy have dived under the garbage to hide? Then why the sound? Tristan walked cautiously toward the pile. A large piece of corrugated cardboard was laying on the top. He grabbed it by the corner and dragged it hastily off, expecting a cat or in this city, a rat, to jump out.
On the top of a partially open trash bag, there was a baby, a little bloody, coated in spots with that white sticky stuff, inches of an umbilical cord still attached. It flailed slightly, crying. Tristan froze, stunned.
Newborn. Abandoned. Still alive. He wrenched off his jacket and laid it on the ground. Carefully, he scooped the baby up, trying to remember every detail he’d heard about how to hold an infant. He set the baby on the inside of his coat, folded the fabric around the baby for warmth, and picked it up. Her. It wasn’t an it, he chastised himself. The baby was a girl.
The baby continued to cry. That was good, wasn’t it? In that it meant the baby was strong enough to cry. He walked out of the dead-end space. He needed to find out which street he was closest to, so he could radio for help.
He walked to the end of the alley and looked for a sign on the street that crossed. He changed back to the main channel on his radio. “Dispatch, this is Four-Seven-Seven. I need an ambulance sent to Caravello, near the 400th block. I have an abandoned newborn.”
“Four-Seven-Seven acknowledged. EMS is being sent.”
Tristan leaned against the building behind him, looking down at the baby. He rocked her gently. Every fire station in the city had a safe surrender spot, not to mention there were clinics and hospitals. A desperate mother could have left her someplace…safe, where she’d be taken care of. Instead, she had been chucked in a trash heap and left to die. Chances were the mother was a drug addict, a prostitute or had mental health issues, or a combination of the above.
The baby wasn’t crying quite so hard now. He hoped that was because she was warmer a
nd he was holding her, and not a sign she was dying. He pulled off his mask with a finger, wondering if his lack of visible facial features played any part in her crying. If he remembered correctly, babies only had decent vision for a few feet soon after birth. Her crying seemed like it decreased a little more. Maybe it was coincidence, or maybe not. He hugged her a little tighter to his chest.
His phone buzzed on his hip, and he shifted his grip on the baby to answer it. It was Robertson.
“Blake.”
“Where the hell are you? I saw you take off after one of the perps in the auto shop and then nothing.”
“Sorry. I lost him.”
“Okay, not thrilling but it happens. Are you on your way back?”
“Not yet. I’m waiting on an ambulance. I found a newborn baby in a trash heap. She’s still alive.”
“Uh…wow. Okay, head back as soon as you can. We’re processing the shop.”
“Will do.” Tristan tucked his phone back in his pocket. In the distance, he could hear a siren. “Someone with better resources than me is coming to help you, little one.”
* * * *
Three hours past the end of his shift and Tristan was standing in the hallway outside the NICU of Mount Sinai West. A nurse came toward him. “I was told you were inquiring about the abandoned newborn transported here this afternoon?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry. I know you must be busy but I was the one that found her. I was hoping for some information. Did she survive?”
“Yes, she’s alive. The paramedics said she was naked in a pile of garbage. That’s just awful, but I’ve seen things like that before.”
“I don’t know exactly how HIPPA works for this, but since technically she’s my case, maybe you could tell me a little more,” Tristan said.
“Our best guess was that she was three-four hours old when you found her. She was somewhat dehydrated and running a little hypothermic. Because of the situation she was found in, a tox screen was done.”
