by Tyler Dilts
The notes were almost complete when he heard Peter shuffling through the dining room toward the office. Ben got up and saw that he’d put his sunglasses back on. With the blinds closed and lights off, it was so dim that he was using his hand on the chair backs to guide himself past the table.
“Hey, Dad, what’s up?”
“Could I have another one?”
“Another one of what?”
“To drink?”
“Coffee?”
Peter nodded.
“Of course. I think maybe we should take these off, though.” Ben reached out and delicately slipped the old Ray-Bans off of his father’s face. His pupils were still three times their normal size and he squinted as his eyes found Ben’s own.
“Is it okay?”
“Does it seem too bright in here?”
“No.”
“Then it’s okay.”
Ben went into the kitchen and poured half a cup of coffee into his father’s mug. Reaching for the Boost to top it off, he realized there was only one empty bottle on the counter. There should have been two by now. Shit. His father would be low on calories for the day, and there wasn’t enough afternoon left to make up the deficit.
After dinner and their walk and their evening meds, Ben went over the notes again to prepare for the meeting with Zepeda and Jennifer in the morning. He was exhausted, but there was a sense of relief, too. Nothing was really resolved. Rob was dead. Grace was still missing. But talking to Jennifer had made him feel better. She still had his back. He would talk to her tomorrow and she’d take some of the weight off his shoulders. Maybe finding out about Kyle would be enough for Becerra to track down Grace. Or maybe she’d actually escaped and was far enough away from all this to find some real freedom. As much as he missed her and needed to know she was safe, he also understood that none of this was really about him. The old Ben Shepard was the hero in the heart of the action, but the new Ben was just a supporting player in someone else’s story.
He took the shield out of his pocket and put it away in the top drawer of the desk.
That night, there was no moon and the clouds had cleared out to make way for the next storm. Ben sat in the Adirondack chair and looked up at the sky. Even with all the light pollution, he could still see more stars than he had in a long time.
“Like eight or nine months,” you say.
“And it’s all just gone?” You’ve never seen Grace look as sad as she does now.
“It’s kind of like there’s me before, and then there’s just this giant empty hole, and then there’s me after and I’m someone else, someone broken and—” You stop yourself before lapsing completely into self-pity.
When it’s clear that you aren’t going to continue, she says, “That must be awful.”
“The worst part is what I lost before I got shot. There’s like six months that I can’t remember at all before it happened. People told me things, tried to fill in the lost time, but it’s still . . . I don’t know. I can’t really describe it.” You think of Kate, what she told you about those six months, but put it out of your head as quickly as you can. “It’s just gone.”
She looks away, across the yard, at your mother’s jasmine planted along the fence. “Sometimes I wish I could forget a few months.”
“What do you mean?” you say, thinking that maybe she’ll open up and share something about before she came to Long Beach.
But she doesn’t. She turns back to you, but she seems further away now. “Maybe forgetting isn’t like I imagine.”
EIGHTEEN
Ben called Jennifer early and told her he’d rather meet at the station. He left Peter with Bernie and Sriracha and drove the Volvo downtown. Something still didn’t feel quite right about parking in one of the spaces reserved for visitors. It had been two or three years since he’d been inside the building, and he hadn’t been upstairs to the Homicide Squad since he was still on the job.
Jennifer had told him to let her know when he arrived so she could come downstairs and meet him, but he wanted to spend a few minutes inside by himself before he did that. He wasn’t prepared for the odd sense of dissonance he felt as he checked in and picked up his visitor’s pass. At least the desk sergeant wasn’t anyone he knew. It was a bit like when he’d moved from the rehab center back into his father’s house and he realized it was possible to feel both comfort and discomfort at the same time. It was more intense here, though. He hadn’t lived at home since he’d been a teenager, but this was the place he most associated with his previous life. This was the place that made the old Ben Shepard who he had been. The place that had given him his identity.
“Hey, Ben,” she said.
He had been so lost in thought that he hadn’t noticed Jennifer come around the corner from the hallway. “I was just going to call you,” he said.
“The desk let me know you were here. You want to go upstairs?”
In the elevator, she said, “How’s your dad doing?”
Ben considered his answer. He’d promised himself he was going to be as honest as he could. “He seems to be doing pretty good, but when I get stressed about something, he knows and it gets him, too. I can’t hide as much from him as I think I can.” He could see she wasn’t expecting his frankness, but he continued. “And he can hide more from me than I think he can. It’s pulling him down, too, even if I can’t really see it.”
The door opened and she led him down the hallway to the conference room that the various squads of the Violent Crimes Division shared. Ben remembered the layout, but everything else had changed. New paint. New furniture. New aesthetic. If he didn’t know better, he could easily believe he was in a midlevel insurance company instead of a police station. Only a few years gone, and everything felt different.
Until Dave Zepeda came in and sat down. He was old school all the way. The burly old detective had already been crusty and grizzled when Ben graduated from the academy. He extended his leathery hand across the table. “How’s it going, Ben?”
“Not bad.”
“Been a long time. Five years?”
“A little longer.” Ben felt like he had the first time he came to work in the new suit he bought as soon as he found out he made detective. Like he was in over his head and convinced he’d made a terrible mistake.
Becerra came in then, with a file folder and laptop sleeve under his arm, and joined them at the table with a nod and smile. That made Ben feel a little better. He knew the younger detective was thorough and competent, but his relative inexperience balanced out Zepeda’s seemingly all-knowing gaze. He thought about the shield in the desk drawer at home, then looked at Jennifer and took a deep breath.
Becerra opened up the laptop and Zepeda said, “Why don’t we get started?”
Zepeda eyed him warily. “So you just left him there on the floor?”
Ben swiped through the photos on his phone and when he found the one he was looking for, he held it up so Zepeda could see the stranger’s face.
“Looks like you rang his bell pretty good.”
“He didn’t say anything, didn’t identify himself, just went for his weapon. What would you have done?”
The old cop thought about it. “In your shoes, probably the same thing.”
Becerra opened a pocket on the laptop sleeve, took out a USB cable, and said, “We need copies of all those. Do you mind if I download them?”
Ben hesitated, wondering if there was anything on his phone he wouldn’t want them to see. He hadn’t specifically mentioned his Lucite-encased badge to Bernie in any of his text messages, he was sure of that. He had only asked for a favor.
“I won’t look at anything else,” Becerra said, as if he knew exactly what Ben was thinking.
“No, it’s okay.” He stopped himself from adding that he didn’t have anything to hide. He remembered being on the other side of the table. People who said they didn’t have anything to hide almost always did. He slid the phone across the table to him.
Zepeda tapped his
fingers on the notepad in front of him. “Let’s keep going.”
As Ben nodded, he realized there was one other thing he hadn’t mentioned.
The Glock.
Two and a half hours after he rode up in the elevator with Jennifer, they were riding back down. “Think Becerra will be able to do anything with Kyle?” he asked.
“Did you see the way his eyes lit up? He certainly thinks he can.”
“Is he usually right about stuff like that?”
“Yeah, he is.” The elevator doors opened and she walked him out to the Volvo. There was supposed to be more rain later in the day, but just now the clouds were letting a little bit of sunlight through and it felt warm.
Ben was relieved and maybe just slightly hopeful. He should have gone to Jennifer earlier. That much was clear. “Thank you,” he said as she gave him a hug and said goodbye.
Something smelled odd, almost like burning rubber. At first he thought it might be Jennifer, but the smell got stronger as he watched her walk back into the building. He took a look around, but didn’t see anything unusual, so he got in behind the wheel and put the key in the ignition. The music surprised him. Was it the radio? He double-checked to make sure he hadn’t already started the car. What was happening?
Then it felt like someone stabbed an ice pick into the back of his head and he was gone.
NINETEEN
There was a pattering noise coming from somewhere above him. Ben couldn’t figure out what it was. His head hurt and he felt like he might vomit. He turned to look around and everything was spinning, so he closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the rest.
Rain, he thought. That’s what the sound was. Rain. On the roof of the car.
The last thing he remembered was Jennifer saying goodbye, the odd smell, the glow of the sun.
He thought about the day he went into the studio after Grace had disappeared. How long it had been, he couldn’t say. A week? A month? It couldn’t have been longer than that, could it? He’d been afraid of what he felt that day. Just like he was afraid right now.
And this time he couldn’t pretend it wasn’t really a seizure.
Ben wished he had noticed what time it was when Jennifer walked him to the car, so he could figure out how long he’d been sitting here. Then, maybe, he’d be able to estimate how long the seizure had lasted. He knew he had arrived at a few minutes before ten this morning and it was almost two now. It felt like he had known how long the meeting lasted, but he couldn’t seem to recall it anymore.
The ground had been dry. It hadn’t started raining yet. Now it was coming down steadily. Not too hard. Any softer and he probably wouldn’t be able to hear it on the roof. The windows were fogged, so he wiped a circle clear on the driver’s side with the cuff of his shirt. There were puddles forming on the asphalt of the parking lot. He watched the rain hit the ground for a few more minutes. Between half an hour and an hour, he decided.
He took his phone out of his pocket and saw that Bernie had texted him forty minutes earlier. everything ok?
Yes. Sorry, he replied. Took longer than I thought, but wrapping up now. Be on the way soon.
no worries
Ben read that last message and started to giggle, then that grew into full-bellied laughter that went on and on and on. He couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t stop. When it finally began to wane, his chest aching and his throat sore, he caught a glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror and realized he hadn’t been laughing at all. He had been crying. And he still was.
It’s going to be a bad day. You know it as soon as you realize you’re awake. The pulsing in your head is already at full tempo and the weight of the day to come is pressing down on you, pinning you prone.
But it’s morning.
It’s likely your father tapped on the door a few minutes ago and whispered your name, then snuck away when he realized you weren’t yet conscious. You think you remember that. But it doesn’t really matter whether you remember or not. It’s time.
You’re needed elsewhere.
The air feels so thick that it takes both arms just to sit yourself upright in bed. Your feet are concrete blocks hanging off the ends of broomsticks. The first attempt to stand fails and you collapse back down onto the tangled blankets. The second is barely an improvement. With the third, you find a fragile balance and, with some effort, lift your arm and plant your hand on the wall.
Eventually, you feel like you might be able to move. Slowly, you work your way into the bathroom, sit down on the toilet. You don’t realize you’re sleeping again until you start to fall off. Your hand finds the edge of the countertop just in time to prevent you from planting your face on the bath mat.
You clean yourself, struggle to your feet again, and work your way over to the sink, where you Listerine the sticky crud out of your mouth and splash some water in your face. There aren’t any more of the little plastic bathroom cups, so you try to hold enough water in your cupped palm to wash down three Advil. It feels like dry-swallowing a peach pit.
At least you’re up and semimobile. Ten minutes, you tell yourself, ten minutes to fix your father’s breakfast, and you can be back in bed for a few more hours. You can do ten minutes. You’ve done it before and you’ll do it again.
You shuffle toward the kitchen. Notice something odd. The music is already playing. Peter never starts the music himself anymore.
Then you turn into the dining room and see. It’s confusing for a moment. Even disconcerting.
Grace is making your father’s breakfast.
You stand and watch. Her back is to you, but you can see she’s just adding the sugar to his coffee and Boost. He’s already got his oatmeal.
“Ben,” he says softly, with a worried smile on his face.
Grace turns when she hears him. You see her biting her lip, an apology in her eyes.
“He was out on the patio by himself,” she says. “I hope it’s okay.”
You nod, say, “Thank you,” but your voice is so soft, you barely hear it yourself.
“You’re welcome,” she says.
You manage to make it back into bed without needing a hand on the wall to steady yourself.
After the slow and careful drive home, Ben went inside and found his father standing by the door, wringing his hands.
“I’m sorry,” he said, eyebrows raised and lower lip trembling. “I did something bad.”
Bernie called out from the kitchen. “No, you didn’t, Pete!”
Following the sound of his voice, Ben found him in the kitchen on his hands and knees, wiping muddy paw prints up from the floor. Sriracha was next to him, soaking wet and wagging her tail.
“Your dad found her scratching at the door and he let her outside. No biggie. I’ll have it cleaned up in just a minute.”
Ben stood there in the kitchen, watching Bernie with the towel, knowing he should say something, but not sure what. There was a paw print next to Bernie’s ankle. Ben stared at it, wondering if it had been missed on the first pass. What if he was the only one who saw it? He might need to clean it up himself. His hand reached for the notebook in his shirt pocket. It wasn’t there. Where was the notebook? What would happen if he couldn’t find it and make a note about the paw print? His head was hurting again. Was it again? Had it stopped hurting? He tried to focus on the spot on the floor, because if he looked away without writing it down he would forget and it wouldn’t ever get wiped up and if it didn’t ever get wiped up then it would—
“You okay, Ben?” Bernie was standing in front of him, looking in his eyes.
“Yeah?” He felt light-headed, off balance, so he steadied himself with a hand on the counter.
“Maybe you should sit down.”
Ben looked down at the floor and wasn’t sure if sitting there was a good idea. Then he felt a hand on his elbow and he was walking into the living room. The couch. It was a good idea to sit on the couch.
“Let me get you some water.”
Bernie handed him a
plastic bottle and he drank. Hadn’t realized he was so thirsty. It was good.
After half an hour and another bottle of water, Ben seemed to be feeling all right. At least he could answer Bernie’s questions with a reasonable amount of clarity. “I didn’t eat anything all day, so I think my blood sugar was just off or something. On top of not sleeping and all the stress. It just caught up to me.”
Bernie didn’t look like he was buying it. “You think you’re going to be okay?”
“I am. Thank you, Bernie. I owe you big for this.”
“I just hope everything gets worked out.”
“After talking to Jennifer and the other detectives today, I think it will.”
“You sure you don’t want me to stay and help with dinner?”
“No, we’re good. You’ve already done way too much.”
Bernie tilted his head and studied Ben for a moment. “You remember when Angie died?” Angie was his first wife. Ben was still in high school when she got sick. “Your mom and dad, they practically lived with us for months. No way would I have made it without them.”
Ben wasn’t sure why Bernie was bringing that up now.
The question in his expression must have been obvious. “There’s no such thing as too much. You understand?”
It took a while for the aftereffects of the seizure to wane enough that Ben felt relatively normal. He was glad it was still raining so he didn’t have to tell Peter that he wasn’t up to going for their walk.
He knew it had been a rough day for his father. Bernie told him that everything went smoothly until Sriracha got out in the rain, but Peter seemed more tired than usual, and it was clear he had been worried both about how long Ben had been gone and about his behavior after he got home. They did the Jeopardy!-and-medicine routine earlier than usual.
