Wake Me When It's Over

by Cheryl A Head

  Through the peephole, Charlie saw a tousle-haired Mandy. Charlie lowered the gun, put it on the closet shelf, and released the deadbolt. Mandy eased through the door, and Charlie controlled its closing so it wouldn’t slam at the annoying hour of 4 a.m. When Charlie turned toward the room, Mandy moved into her, encircling her waist and sobbing onto her shoulder. They held each other in a tight embrace for several minutes— heart to heart, their chins nuzzled on the other’s shoulder. When Mandy’s tears subsided, Charlie pulled her over to the bed, and they perched on the edge, entwined.

  “It hit me all of a sudden that Josh is gone,” Mandy said. “I was overwhelmed. Just two days ago, I was on patrol with him, Charlie, and now he’s gone.”

  Charlie fell back onto the bed. “That’s it.” She opened her arms and Mandy nestled in the hollow of her shoulder. “It’s what’s been gnawing at me, too, but I was too tired to piece it together. When Don told me about Josh being killed, I was angry and stunned, but I wouldn’t allow myself to think about my grief. I made sure to get money for Josh’s family, but I haven’t shed one tear for him.”

  Mandy rolled tightly into Charlie’s body, rubbing her palm across responsive nipples and then gently kneading the fullness of her breasts. Charlie pulled away.

  “No, honey, not tonight. Too tired.”

  “Your nipples don’t seem to agree.”

  “They don’t know how exhausted I am.”

  “Well, how about a massage. It’ll help you relax.”

  “You know what your massages do to me.”

  “Shhh. Just shut off your brain for a while. Concentrate on my touch, how your skin feels,” Mandy whispered.

  Twenty minutes later, Charlie felt a convulsion begin at her center and glide simultaneously to her chest and her legs. Her toes spread and reached for the ceiling, and her right arm jerked involuntarily. Mandy still between her legs, Charlie remained open and perspiring. Her murmurs and after-shocks mingled together. She clasped Mandy’s hands, completing the circuitry of a love that grew stronger each time they were together. Finally, Charlie pulled Mandy up to lie on her shoulder, where she burrowed her face in auburn hair and wept a long time for Josh Simms.

  The activity level at Cobo had intensified threefold. Word had come that morning that Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez would visit the auto show on its opening day. Exhibitors were putting final touches on their stages— testing lights, animation and sound systems. Food and other vendors were assembling elaborate aluminum structures and erecting signage. Forklifts, bucket cranes, and equipment carts crisscrossed every corridor. Charlie had deputized, so to speak, a half-dozen Cobo staff: Elise Hillman, the outspoken director of food services, as well as the loading dock and engineering supervisors. They, along with Tyson and Cynthia, made up the Mack team’s internal eyes and ears.

  With the death of Josh Simms, the status of the investigation had changed from search and surveil to question and detain. There were also new protocols in place for the patrols. The teams had been increased to three men, or, in the case of the group Don led this morning, two men and a woman. He, Hoyt, and Mandy were parked in a golf cart overlooking the loading dock. Just below their position, two eighteen-wheelers filled with carpeting were being unloaded, and another thirty people were involved in various activities. A half-dozen trucks were parked in the bays, and another ten idled on the access road.

  “This is where the real vulnerability is,” Mandy said. “Look at all these people moving in and out of Cobo. We don’t know who they are, and we don’t have enough people to monitor their activities.”

  “We’ve vetted the three loading dock supervisors, and that gives us twenty-four-hour coverage down here,” Don offered.

  “That’s good, but there’s just too much going on to see everything,” Mandy said, then pointed. “For instance, see those six containers over there marked spotlights? They’re large enough for any kind of contraband. I bet you could move a camel through here without anyone taking much notice.”

  “Any suggestions?” Don asked.

  “We could put two of our people down here on twelve-hour shifts,” Hoyt said. “But, that means you and Gil would have to be added to the regular patrol rotation.”

  “We can do that,” Don said.

  “Also, Spectrum has cameras on the dock. Let’s ask Cynthia what she suggests about improving the monitoring down here,” Mandy suggested.

  “Okay, let’s get to the office and figure out who we want to move down here,” Don said, backing up and turning the golf cart. “Someone who can spot an out-of-place desert mammal.”

  Tyson sat across from Elise Hillman at her amazingly neat desk. He’d arrived in response to her call, and she closed the door behind him.

  “Ty, I wanted to speak with you first, because maybe this is nothing.”

  “What is it Mrs. Hillman?”

  “I think something’s going on with Garry.”

  “Garry Jones?”

  “Uh huh. In all the years I’ve known him, I can only remember him taking two days off. That was right after his wife died. Well, I was looking through vacation requests, and last month he requested time off for next week, but I told him he couldn’t be off during the show. He knows that. All hands on deck during the big show.”

  “Right. He inspects the food vendors, doesn’t he?”

  “Not exactly. He’s a compliance officer. He makes sure everyone is doing what they said they’d do in their applications. He’s a good worker; he’s been here as long as I have.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “He called in sick yesterday. I didn’t think too much of it. A few people have taken a day or two off to nurse colds and flu. But today I got a call from a woman who claimed to be from his doctor’s office. She said Garry had been in an accident and had a fracture. She said he would be out of work for a week. When I asked for documentation, this is the fax I received.”

  Elise handed Ty a sheet of paper. The letterhead had the name and address of a clinic on Detroit’s northwest side. Several doctors with African surnames were listed under the address. The body of the fax listed Garry’s ailments with several obvious misspellings.

  “When I called the number on the letter, I got an answering machine. When I tried to reach Garry at home, the phone rang with no answer and no option to leave a message. The whole thing feels wrong to me.”

  “I agree. I’ll get this to Ms. Mack.”

  She paused to put Garry’s folder in the pile of neatly stacked folders in her outbox. She peered at Ty a couple of times, and he knew this meant she had more to say. He sat patiently with his hands folded in his lap.

  “I have to tell you, folks are starting to feel a little edgy. I’m not a nervous woman, but this thing with Garry has me rattled. This is just the kind of thing you all told us to look for. Are we in trouble? Tell me the truth, son. I need to know.”

  Elise Hillman had known Tyson since he was a baby. She was friends with his parents, and they all attended the same church. Her son had been one of Ty’s classmates in high school. He looked at her with an unflinching stare. He would not lie to this woman.

  “Yes ma’am. The trouble is real. But, the people who are working on this are smart. I trust them. They’re doing more than the police can do, and they’re working around the clock.”

  “Well, you know me. I’m not gonna be running scared. Even if I am scared.”

  “I know that.”

  “But this terrorism stuff is different.” Elise interlaced her fingers as if she were about to pray. “I don’t pretend to understand why someone would hate this country so much that they would kill innocent people. But I’m glad that Mack woman is in charge of this. Because in America, I know black people have way more experience with terrorism than white people.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “When do we come clean with Charlene Mack and her partners?” Tony Canterra paced Routledge’s office, making a crisscross on the rug’s Homeland Security insignia.


  “Why? Has something changed?” James Routledge asked, moving papers around his desk.

  “No, but do we want to wait until somebody else is killed?”

  “You know as well as I do, Tony, the Secretary isn’t going to jeopardize diplomatic relations with the Chinese without an imminent threat. We’ll just have to continue along the path we’re on.”

  “We only have forty-eight hours before we have to call a no-go on the Washington VIP visit.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.” Routledge stood, leaned on the side of his desk, and watched the agitated pacing of one of his most experienced agents. “What was in the surveillance report this morning?”

  “An intercepted communication between the Chinese Consulate in Chicago and Kwong. They’re watching Heinrich too.”

  Routledge considered the information. “That’s not so unusual. The Chinese don’t trust anyone, let alone a German national.”

  “I can’t help but think this cyber-espionage business might be a red herring.”

  Routledge trusted Canterra’s gut. He’d been recruited from the CIA after he uncovered a terrorist sleeper cell operating in Seattle, and he’d been assigned for a year at Guantanamo. He wasn’t an alarmist or a cowboy.

  Routledge pointed to the conference table. “Okay, Tony. Stop your pacing and lay it out for me.”

  “I need backup,” Charlie said into the car’s phone system.

  “Oh, really. Is that what they’re calling it, these days?”

  “No. Really. I need to check out a couple of addresses, and I don’t want to go solo.”

  “Where’s Don?” Mandy asked.

  “He and Gil are on patrol. Judy just called with information on a Cobo food inspector, and I have to check it out.”

  “Okay. I guess I got my two hours of sleep for the day. Pick me up in ten minutes in front of the hotel.”

  Charlie spotted Mandy, dressed in skinny jeans and a peacoat, as she turned onto West Larned Street. Mandy’s jeans were tucked into black leather boots, and a navy knit cap was pulled over her hair with only a splay of red bangs showing. She was a stylish pirate. Mandy slipped one long leg into the Vette and pulled in the other— then leaned over and pressed her lips briefly onto Charlie’s mouth. Charlie looked around in panic, shifted into first gear and gunned the Vette.

  “You should see your face.” Mandy laughed. “I didn’t know black people could turn that red.”

  They arrived at the first address on Charlie’s list, the one printed on Garry Jones’s makeshift doctor’s note. The storefront clinic on Hamilton Street near Highland Park stood amid a half-dozen blighted buildings.

  “I think I’ll put the Club on the Vette,” Charlie said, pulling into a strip mall parking lot adjacent to the clinic.

  Those tightly gathered inside the waiting room paused in their activities to look at Charlie and Mandy as they entered the door. Both women looked out of place, but particularly Mandy. Used to being stared at, Mandy just smiled at the men, women, and children who eyed her from their places of repose.

  Charlie joined two people who were hovering over the office counter and staring down at the beleaguered receptionist. She hadn’t looked up in five minutes.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” Charlie said to the young woman, who was sorting through insurance papers.

  The woman didn’t acknowledge her, but the couple at the counter gave her a side glance that said “Wait your turn.” Charlie smiled at the pair, who looked away. She decided to skip over the subtleties and go to what was usually a last resort tactic. She planted her forearms on the counter and spoke directly to the receptionist in her “authority” voice.

  “I’m a private investigator, and I need to talk to the doctor about this.” Charlie placed her license and the shady medical report on the desktop in front of the girl.

  The young woman stared for a moment at Charlie’s likeness on the ID card, and then up at Charlie. The old couple looked at Charlie again and shifted over to give her more room. Those within earshot, which was everybody, stopped talking, fidgeting, texting, looking at magazines, and providing child care to stare at Charlie’s back and again at Mandy who leaned casually against a magazine rack near the front door.

  “What?” the receptionist asked, as if she hadn’t understood Charlie’s words.

  “I need to ask the doctor a couple of questions. It’ll only take a few minutes, and it’s very important,” Charlie stated.

  “You’re a private investigator?” The woman repeated, looking again at the license.

  “Yes. And I need to speak with someone about the patient listed on that fax,” Charlie said, pointing at the letter.

  For the first time, the girl looked at the letter. She handed Charlie her license and stood up with a wobble. She exchanged a hapless look with the elderly couple and glanced at the wall clock.

  “Okay, just a minute. I’ll need to see if the doctor is available.”

  “Thank you,” Charlie responded.

  The girl reached under the counter, pulled a backpack over her shoulder, and walked, paper in hand, to a curtain that led to the examination rooms. After five minutes, Mandy joined Charlie and the couple at the counter.

  “Where’d she go?” Mandy asked.

  “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out. Hello . . .” Charlie shouted over the counter. “I need a little help here,” she said in a louder voice.

  Mandy turned the knob on the door separating the waiting room from the doctor’s area, but the door was locked, and her banging didn’t elicit a response. By this time, a few patients were standing up and getting vocal about their own long wait. Charlie lifted herself onto the counter and climbed over. She unlocked the waiting room door for Mandy and then pushed aside the curtain to the back rooms. Mandy on her heels, Charlie passed through a narrow hallway lit by the daylight pouring in from three vacant examination rooms and the open backdoor. They stepped out into a garbage-strewn alley, which led to the parking lot. The car spaces reserved for the doctors were empty, and the receptionist nowhere to be seen. After a quick search of the parking lot and the nearby gas station, and a return to the clinic where the waiting room was in chaos, they determined the receptionist and any medical personnel at the clinic had beat a quick retreat.

  “Well, I deduce the doctor’s note for Garry Jones was fake,” Charlie said, securing her seatbelt and starting the engine.

  “Good thinking, Sherlock. Where to next?”

  “To Garry’s home. Ty says the man has worked at Cobo for twenty years and in that time has taken only two sick days.”

  “Maybe he’s had a midlife crisis and is off to the islands with a twenty-year-old pole dancer he met at a strip club,” Mandy mused.

  “Or maybe he took a bribe to look the other way on a vendor application, and he feels guilty,” Charlie added. “He could also really be sick. But I further deduce he wouldn’t jeopardize what’s left of his health by going to that clinic.”

  “True.”

  Charlie sighed. “If it turns out Jones is our weak link at Cobo, it means we’ll have to recheck all the food vendors with a microscope.”

  They drove north on Hamilton to Six Mile Road, which was actually West McNichols Road, but nobody really called it that. It had begun to rain. In Charlie’s opinion, it was a toss-up whether January or February was the ugliest month in Detroit. Day after day, the endless gray covered the streets and sky, and only the occasional fresh snow seemed to brighten an otherwise dreary landscape.

  “God, I’ll be glad when it’s Valentine’s Day,” Mandy said.

  “Why? You want me to buy you a box of chocolates?” Charlie said, batting her eyes.

  “No, it’s just this damned, gloomy weather. I need to see some pink and red.”

  “I was just thinking,” Charlie said, staring ahead. “This will be the first Valentine’s Day in a long time that I can say I’m in love.”

  Mandy stared at Charlie’s profile and smiled. Their relationship
wasn’t easy, but Charlie’s strength, her pragmatism, even her veiled vulnerability had been just what Mandy needed to feel hopeful again, after years of depression. She’d grown up in a tight-knit family with a stay-at-home mother and an accountant father who had encouraged her and her older brother to be their best selves. Her parents had supported all her explorations, applauded her accomplishments, and put up with her rebelliousness. When, in her freshman year in college, her brother brought a girl home to meet their parents, Mandy did also. Other Irish-Catholic families might have freaked out about their budding lesbian daughter, but her declaration of same-sex orientation had been accepted with love.

  Her brother had been working as a financial analyst in the South Tower of the World Trade Center when the second plane hit on 9/11. For hours the Porter family waited for his call. For weeks they waited for the discovery of his remains. And for months her parents postponed the burial of their firstborn until their daughter could face life again.

  “I think we should do something special for Valentine’s Day,” Mandy said.

  “Maybe a trip?” Charlie suggested.

  “Maybe. If we’re still alive by the end of the week, let’s start making some plans.”

  Charlie looked at Mandy, who tried to hold her earnest look as long as she could. Then they both giggled as if it were already April.

  Garry Jones’s modest house was bordered by four-foot hedges. Christmas decorations were still attached to the front porch railing, and long grass peeked through patches of dirty snow. A week’s worth of papers lay on the porch, and envelopes and magazines bulged from the mailbox. As soon as Charlie stepped to the door, she was assailed by the telltale scent of death. She gave Mandy a questioning look, and Mandy nodded.

  “You smell that?” The question came from behind them.

  They turned to see the mail carrier. He was coming from across the street and stopped at the stairs of the Jones house.

  “When did you first notice it?” Charlie asked.