We're All Broken

by O. L. Gregory

  Then I laughed at myself as I finished adjusting. I’d still had my shoes on, so it hadn’t hurt, yet the sound of the impact had caused an automatic yelp, because my brain had thought it should hurt.

  I carried the towels to the laundry room, thinking a more intelligent person would have come in here to get a laundry basket, before trying to gather the towels.

  I started the load, shook my head at forgetting the water was still shut off, and made a mental note to remember to come back and start it after the plumber was done, then retrieved my tablet from my purse and started working at the kitchen table.

  When the plumber came back, we went up to the bathroom, and he swapped out the toilets, making fairly quick work of it. He stood back, after clearing out his mess, and asked, “What do you think?”

  I looked it over, taking notice to how shiny this one was, denoting its newness. “I think it looks fine.”

  He looked over the bathroom as a whole. “I think it blends in well. I—” His face scrunched and he bent over to touch the toe kick under the sink cabinetry. “Did I knock this loose? I don’t remember it being displaced like that.” He knelt down, looking at it.

  “I stubbed my toe, gathering the towels after you left. I probably knocked it—”

  He’d pulled on the board and a whole drawer opened. “Wow,” the plumber said. “I’ve seen secret drawers like this before, but I can’t say as though I’ve seen anyone keep their guns in the bathroom before.”

  I squatted down, looking at the four guns laying inside. “Yeah, I can’t say that I’ve seen it, either.”

  “Luckily, you didn’t do any damage, see?” he said, pushing the drawer closed. “Yeah, you kick it to pop it open, then just slide it back under and the magnets keep it closed.”

  I nodded. “Good to know I didn’t make the problems worse.”

  “Yep.” He picked up his tools. “I’m going to go turn the water back on. Then I’ll start patching the ceiling in the kitchen.”

  “Sounds good.”

  He moved around me and left the room. I waited for him to leave the bedroom before I kicked the drawer open again, taking inventory of the guns inside.

  See, my father was on parole for attempted murder, making it completely illegal for him to have firearms. I stood there, taking a mental inventory of the contents, remembering in the attempted murder file that Dad had testified to getting the gun from his father. A gun that he’d kept for protection.

  That gun had been confiscated, and he’d said he didn’t have any others. Now, Dad could have lied for any number of reasons, but could the real reason be because the others he’d gotten from his father had been used in other crimes?

  I closed the drawer and went downstairs.

  While the plumber patched the ceiling, I sat at the table and brought up the files for the serial killer and the double-homicide, reading up on the details of bullets and possibilities for guns used.

  By the time the plumber had declared his job done and collected his check, I was shaking with doubt.

  I’d approved of his work, and walked him to the door, seeing him out. Then I took a deep breath, went into the kitchen and grabbed some baggies, turned toward the stairs, and went back up to the master bathroom.

  I stared down at the board, willing myself to forget about its existence. But by the mere virtue of my being back up here, I knew I couldn’t. I was always going to wonder. If I took them and dumped them, there was always the possibility of them being found and tested. I could just confiscate them, but if I turned them in, they would be tested. I could take them and try to slip them in with a batch of guns to be destroyed… Hey, that might work… I’d still always wonder, though. Plus, if I got caught, they’d test the guns that were in my possession, bringing me into the whole mess.

  I let out a sigh, there was really only one way this could go.

  I pulled a pair of gloves out of my pocket, then grabbed a towel and lifted a gun out, wiping the fingerprints off, before placing it in a bag and sealing it. I repeated the actions for each of the next three guns, cursing my grandfather the entire time.

  See, I couldn’t just leave them there when I know he’s not legally allowed to have them. And while it was possible that they belonged to Kelly, judging from the apparent age of the weapons, it wasn’t likely. So, I picked them up, and carried them out to my car before going back in to collect my tablet and purse. I removed my gloves before heading to the basement, to let Max know the plumber was done and I was leaving.

  I drove back over to the station, carrying the bagged guns inside with me.

  “Plumbing problem solved?” Dale asked, looking up and seeing me pass by.

  “Yep. Fortunately, it’s all taken care of.”

  Dale did a double-take. “What’cha got there?”

  “Anonymous surrender.”

  “From the plumber?”

  I smiled. “No. I wear my badge on my hip all the time. Someone must have paired me with my car. They were on the pavement, just under the edge of my driver’s side door.”

  “I don’t suppose you caught their name or saw their face?”

  I grunted, “Nope.”

  “Well, here, I’ll run them down. I have to talk to Miranda anyway.”

  I didn’t even blink before handing them over. “I finished two of those reports while I was waiting for the plumber to finish the job.”

  “Good. I’m glad the morning wasn’t a complete loss.”

  “And I was thinking about the missing child case from Monday.”

  “What about it?”

  “The student teacher did a short one-on-one session with her, in the back of the classroom, earlier in the day.”

  “You think it was the student teacher?”

  “No, but the student teacher’s professor was there to observe her, and would have paid close attention to the child. Why haven’t we interviewed the professor?”

  “You’re either very good, or you’re grasping.”

  “Let’s get him interviewed and see if he squirms.”

  Dale nodded as he stood. “Get on it.”

  I walked back to my desk, sat down, and watched Dale disappear into the stairwell with the guns.

  I’d either just saved my father from the possibility of ever getting caught with firearms, or I’d just sealed his fate in the worst way possible.

  Nothing was said to me about the surrendered guns the next day, or the day after. In fact, the rest of the week passed by without mention of them. So, they’d either simply been destroyed, or they’d been tested and didn’t match up with anything, then sent for destruction.

  I picked up Dad and Kelly from the airport and took them home, a relaxed and genuine smile on my face as they talked about their Alaskan ventures.

  “So, it went well for them?” Logan asked, once I got home from dropping them off.

  “It did. I’m glad I could get his parole officer to agree.”

  “And did you tell him about the guns?”

  My face fell. “No. I chickened out.”

  “Penny, honey, you stole his property.”

  “I confiscated illegal weapons.”

  “Without a search warrant. That’s stealing.”

  “Oh, what’s he going to do, call the cops on me? If he does that, they’ll take him in for having them in the first place. And now, this way, he doesn’t have to worry about keeping them hidden anymore.”

  “What if they were Kelly’s?”

  “You think she’s the type that someone would pass their guns on to? These weren’t valuable pieces. They were common handguns from back in our grandparents’ day.”

  “But if they were hers, then it’s stealing, no matter how you reason it out.”

  “Well, they must not have been registered to her. Besides, once one of them notices, they’ll ask about the plumber and who was with him, and one of them might say something to me. But, come on, they were Dad’s, they had to be. Is he really going to question me? He’ll know why I su
rrendered them.”

  “I just don’t want to see you wreck your relationship with him, that’s all. And I don’t want to see it harm your relationship with your sisters, either.”

  “Would you rather I turned him in?”

  “No. I’d rather you would’ve shut the drawer and forgot about it.”

  “I can’t do that. I’m an officer. It’s bad enough that I lied about how I got them in the first place.” I took the bowl of ice cream out of his hands and put it on the coffee table, next to mine.

  “I was eating that.”

  I turned and climbed onto his lap, facing him. I looked him in the eye as I started unbuttoning his dress shirt.

  “You’re trying to distract me.”

  I finished undoing his already loosened tie and held onto the ends as I kissed my way down his chest.

  “I’m trying to have a serious conversation, here.”

  I kissed my way back up his chest, pausing to flick my tongue over a nipple, before lifting away to meet his gaze.

  He let out a sigh, put his hands on my hips, and drew me closer. “Well, don’t stop now.”

  I smiled and tightened my grip on the ends of his tie and used them to draw his head closer to mine, capturing his mouth in a kiss meant to shut him up.

  His shoulders relaxed and his arms wrapped around me, a groan coming from his throat as my breasts pressed against his him. He shifted and I gasped in surprise as I ended up on my back, with him looming above me. “Shame on you for trying to using sex to interfere with our intellectual bond.”

  I wrapped my legs around his hips. “Our conversation had come to a stalemate, and I don’t want it ruining our evening, so you can stop using your freshmen-level psychology on me.”

  He ground his hips against mine, then leaned his side against the back of the couch as he lifted a hand to toy with the edge of my blouse. “Point taken. I just want you to know that I’m choosing to let you distract me.”

  “Oh, is that right?” I reached for his belt buckle, working to undo it.

  “Yeah.” His hand drifted south and lifted the bottom edge of my shirt, his hand disappearing beneath the fabric, roaming up and over my bra, to cup a breast and rub his thumb over the tip. “Is this the lace bra?”

  I smiled as I felt him harden and lengthen against me. I tilted my hips and bucked against him. “Yes. After all, us Hayes girls do have our high sex drives to think about keeping satisfied.”

  He burst with laughter. “Well, if that’s the way we’re playing this tonight,” he said, sitting up and shrugging out of his shirt and pulling off the tie, “I’d better get to work.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Old Bones Rattle

  To Dad’s credit, he acted as though he didn’t even know the guns were gone. He and Kelly typically had us over once a week for dinner, and with the exception of a couple extra-long stares, he made no indication of anything being amiss.

  As for me, I’d held his gaze long enough for him to know that I was waiting for him to say something, but that I wouldn’t be starting the conversation. And that, right there, was how I knew that he knew.

  And why wouldn’t he? I mean, if you got home and found out there had been a leak in the same room that you were hiding illegal arms, and that some strange plumber had been in there, along with your cop of a daughter, you’d run right up there and make sure your hidden objects where still where they were supposed to be, right?

  I could only imagine the feeling of blind panic coming over him when he’d discovered they were gone.

  I had to wonder what he thought I had done with them. Did he think I’d dumped them somewhere, or that I was now hiding them? And to what end?

  For me, there was no end. I’d wanted to know that the guns were gone. Let’s face some facts, here. My father was still the prime suspect in over twenty murders, most performed more than fifteen years ago, and two performed ten years ago. There hasn’t been any indication of him having done anything illegal in the last decade.

  If he was innocent of everything, then he really had no need to keep hold of them. He’d had one incident, with one drunk driver, and lost five years of his life. He was still paying the price of parole. Why hold onto something that had wrecked your life?

  And if he was guilty, then why keep holding onto the temptation? Did he want to hold onto them in case tragedy struck again and he lost his marbles one more time as a result?

  The way I figured it; he was keeping them as a sort of security blanket. He wanted them around, just in case. Either that, or it was like an alcoholic keeping a bottle of liquor in the house, just to prove to himself that even in his weakest moments, he was stronger than that bottle.

  Either way, they were illegal. I found them, I confiscated them. If he wanted to be mad at me over it, so be it. He seemed to be choosing to let it go. I just hoped he wasn’t holding his breath, waiting to be dragged back to prison. I hoped he knew that wasn’t my plan or desire.

  We’d been at that dinner table, just last night, for the third time since their return. When Dad had walked us to the door, I turned and gave him a smile. He winked at me, in turn, and I was instantly transported back to my early childhood. Whenever I thought Dad was upset with me over something I’d done, a wink from him had always been my sign that he was calm and that we were okay again.

  I walked straight to him and gave him a hug. He put his arms around me and whispered that he loved me in my ear, and I echoed it back. I then turned to Kelly and hugged her for good measure before Logan and I left.

  And that was it. I knew that it was settled in Dad’s eyes and that he’d never mention it again.

  Another two weeks passed by, and that Wednesday morning found me sitting at my desk at work, no less than five windows open across two monitors, with me staring at records of testimony given. I was trying to process the minutia of word choice and what information might be gained from ‘reading between the lines’.

  About ninety minutes into my investigation, I heard people coming down the hall, before feeling the presence of two individuals standing three feet away from my desk. I looked up to find two officers from internal affairs staring down at me.

  I rose out of my chair, leveling the field, “Can I help the two of you?”

  “Detective Hayes, we’d like you to come with us.”

  “Sure.” I reached over and pocketed my phone, then closed my laptop and pushed the power button of my external monitor off, so no passersby would see pictures and documents that they shouldn’t, and then moved to follow behind them.

  They led me to an interrogation room. They opened the door and I followed them in, immediately spotting my father.

  “We’ll be back,” one of the internal affairs guys said, just before they exited the room.

  I looked at Dad, who had no emotion on his face, yet he winked at me.

  We said nothing as I sighed and took a seat, each of us knowing that we were being both watched and listened to.

  They let us sit for twenty minutes.

  Dale finally walked in through the door, someone deciding that sending in my direct supervisor would make me feel safe. Because, I knew what they were doing. They were working through a series of steps, designed to figure out exactly what we would be willing to tell different people.

  Dale pulled out a chair, turning it away from us, then sat in it backwards, looking at me, his arms propped on top of the back of the chair. “You got anything you want to tell me?”

  “Well, gee, Dale. I’ve already told you everything that I want to tell you.”

  His eyes lit up, always one to appreciate my moments of feistiness. “You got anything you probably should tell me about?”

  “I’ve been here for three years. There are lots of things you don’t know about, around here. You gotta tell me what you’re looking for.”

  “Penelope.”

  “Seriously, you have to clue me in. I don’t know who left the spoon in the bowl of soup and turned on the microwave, la
st year. But I can tell you why cigarettes keep disappearing from your desk.”

  That shut him up for a hot second. “I’m guessing my wife has something to do with that one.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe someone operating on her behalf.”

  “Penny, why is it, do you think, that we’ve hauled you in here with your father?”

  I glanced at Dad, then back to Dale. “I took every step necessary to get him cleared to go to Alaska.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “I was careful to pick a cruise that had zero stops in Canada.”

  “I know.”

  “Is there a problem because of the area of water he was in? Were they Canadian waters?”

  Dale shook his head.

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “Tell me about the guns, Penelope.”

  “What guns?”

  Dale shot me a look.

  “Don’t look exasperated with me. I’m a cop, I see a lot of guns. My service revolver is on my hip, wanna see it?”

  “Yeah, I do, and maybe your badge along with it.”

  I lifted my chin. “Spell it out, Dale.”

  “Five weeks ago, you brought in four guns, in Ziploc bags, and turned them in.”

  “The anonymous surrender.”

  “Yes, the anonymous surrender.”

  “The anonymous surrender that I told you about, when I walked into the station with them.”

  “Yes.”

  “The same anonymous surrender of four guns that you took from me, to turn in yourself.”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. I’m with you.”

  “Where did they come from?”

  “From an anonymous person.”

  “Did they come from your father?”

  I gestured to Dad, “He was in Alaska at the time.”

  “Penelope, look at me.”

  I looked him head on.

  “Do you want to go down for this?” he asked.

  “Go down for what? I received a gun surrender, I brought them in. It’s not the first time. What is the problem?”

  “The problem is that your building didn’t have a plumbing crisis five weeks ago.”

  “I never said the crisis was in my apartment.”