The sergeant in charge of the range said, “You’re thinking too much, Pierce. You’re trying too hard.”
“Whatever,” she said, blowing him off with a wave of a hand. But she vowed to herself to return again in thirty days.
The next day, she went to her first therapy session. The focus was more on education – learning her limitations and the expectations of her rehab plan – and information – psychologist referrals, support groups and where to get special equipment to help her regain her independence.
She was relieved to discover there were other visual clues she could use to regain her depth perception. The therapist introduced her to some of the basic therapy tools. He handed Lucinda a stick and placed her near the Marsden Ball, a suspended rubber sphere covered with letters of the alphabet. Then he swung it toward her face as she called out the letters she could see as her eye struggled to track the complete arc of the ball’s movement. She didn’t spot many but she did get a few. She was an abject failure, though, at the second exercise of hitting the ball back to him. She ruefully recalled ridiculing the girls who always struck out when at bat in a softball game. They did another exercise with flashlights, and again Lucinda’s performance was miserable. The therapist, though, assured her, that with less time than she thought possible, the routines would become easy. “And routine,” he added with a laugh.
With close-up work like threading a needle, he told her, she was on her own. Her subconscious mind would make the adjustments. “With a little patience, you’ll soon be pouring a glass of water into a glass without giving it a thought.” She was skeptical but she tried hard to believe in the program and in herself.
Then he delivered the bad news about driving. “Nationwide, individuals with monocular vision have seven times more accidents than those with binocular vision.”
Negativity tried to kick her determination out of her reach but failed when the therapist handed her a sheet of paper with suppliers who carried the wide field mirrors she could install on both sides of her car to increase her range of visibility. “And I will train you in the head and eye movements you need to further enhance your field of vision scanning ability. I’ll put you on a driving simulator first and when you have the knack there, I’ll go out on the road with you and help you fine tune your new skills.”
When he offered to provide a referral to a psychologist and set her up to participate in a support group, Lucinda scowled. “I may be impaired but I’m not pathetic.” He tried to convince her that getting psychological help was not a sign of weakness. Lucinda agreed with him up to a point – it was good thing for other people, not her. She did not want or need the space or the encouragement to whine. “It’s counter-productive,” she insisted. She ignored his continued urging to take advantage of these services.
But Lucinda didn’t miss a single occupational therapy appointment. She worked with focused diligence on her exercise routine at home. She still stumbled over objects she didn’t see, ran into furniture and walls and kicked Chester on occasion, but every day seemed a little easier and the accidents further apart.
In a month, she was ready to return to the shooting range. To get there, she’d make her first solo drive in her newly equipped car. The day and the route were perfect for her first excursion – no rain in sight and no highways involved. Her fear and anxiety, though, made the three-mile drive feel like a long distance trek.
At the range, her shooting earned a clap on the back from the instructor. She wasn’t the proficient shot she used to be, but every bullet hit the target. She was determined to practice hard until she regained her nickname “Dead Eye Pierce”. She sneered at herself at the bitter realization that her moniker now had an added layer of significance.
On the personal front, her adaptation to normalcy missed the mark by a mile. Her girlfriends cajoled her back to the whirl of happy hour mixers and private parties. She entered the social fray mentally prepared for the stares and the heavy presence of unasked questions on the faces of those she met. She had not anticipated her biggest problem in group settings but it hit hard at a crowded cocktail party.
She chatted away as usual without a thought about the gestures of her arms that always moved to the rhythm of her words. She was not aware of the woman who approached her left side until she backhanded her in the face. Lucinda flushed and stammered out her apologies but got nothing in return but a grumble and a hard stare.
She vowed to break the habit of moving her hands when she spoke. It was harder than she thought it would be. Before she opened her mouth, she grabbed one hand with the other and held them both tight against her body. If she relaxed for a moment, though, her hands went into motion again. After smacking a few more people, she decided she needed to stop talking in public altogether.
She spent a few nights clutching her hands together and kept her lips sealed, responding to conversation with nods and shakes of her head. Her dulled interaction soon left her standing on the sidelines looking and feeling uncomfortable. If anyone did approach her, she was certain that they only did so out of pity. Soon she stopped mingling altogether – her social life was reduced to conversations with Chester.
For weeks, girlfriends called trying to urge her out of her shell and back into the world. She rebuffed them all, getting ruder with each refusal, and soon the phone stopped ringing. Her friendships with other women dried up and blew away like delicate rosebuds left unwatered in the midst of an unrelenting drought. Only one of her relationships seemed unchanged and unfettered by her injury – the one with her old high-school boyfriend, Ted.
Her interactions with him, though, were work-related and serendipitous. He had a wife and kids. She had Chester. Her life now consisted of her rehabilitation, her quiet time at home and regaining her job, a task she pursued with the dogged diligence of a newly recruited fanatic. Ambition and striving were her closest friends.
Her driving skills improved. Her shooting skills excelled. She ran an endless gauntlet of political hurdles to return to active duty in the field. Although there were no existing policies in her department prohibiting her from patrolling a beat with one eye, many administrators objected to the precedent it might set.
She didn’t mention that she’d looked into the possibility of legal action – she held that last card close. She didn’t want to use it if it wasn’t necessary. When she heard “no” one time too many, she knew it was time to show her hand. She logged on to the Internet and printed out a copy of the American Disabilities Act and related monocular vision decisions from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and marched down the street to the office of the city attorney.
She entered his office, slapped the documents on his desk, sat down and stared without uttering a word. The attorney looked at the papers in front of him, looked at Lucinda and squirmed. He rifled through the pages while he thought about the predicament and its legal ramifications. “I need to make a few calls. Can you come back in an hour?”
“Yes sir,” she said and walked back down the block to the cubicle where she pounded out statistical analysis for the department. She was good at numbers and had no problem supplying a constant stream of reports. But it bored her to tears. She could not imagine a lifetime of dreary days behind a desk where the lives and deaths of victims became nothing more than input for a new bar graph or pie chart.
When it was time to return to the city attorney’s office, it felt more like walking a tightrope across a pit of agitated alligators than the short stroll it was. She had to consciously regulate her breathing to keep it even as she approached his doorway.
“Pierce, do you have any personal items in your workspace?”
“Yes, sir.” What does that question mean?
“Take them with you when you leave the office today.”
Omigod. They’re firing me. I threatened them. And they’re firing me. She struggled to suppress the intense nausea that rocked her gut and rose in her throat.
“Tomorrow morning at 0700, you’ll report t
o Commander Bullock for reassignment to patrol.”
For a moment she’d stood still fearing what she heard were not his words but just the product of her own wishful thinking.
“Did you hear me, Pierce?”
“No. Yes. Of course. My job. I get it back?”
“Yes. Commander Bullock. 0700.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Congratulations, Pierce. But don’t celebrate overlong. You’ll need to stay on top of every situation, every day. You screw up once and they’ll drag you down like wounded prey.”
Nine
In the same week that Lucinda returned to active duty, Ellen and Ted learned that their third child was on the way. They were delighted with the news. From the beginning, they wanted four children and now they were more than halfway there.
This pregnancy was more difficult than the first two for Ellen. From the start, her morning sickness was more intense and often lasted all day. Her mood swings kept her and everyone around her off-balance and on edge.
Jealousy etched like acid in her gut every time Ted mentioned an encounter with Lucinda. In logical moments, she told herself her hormones were mucking up her thinking. If Ted had anything to hide, she thought, he wouldn’t ever mention Lucinda’s name.
At other times, her emotions trumped all logic and she snapped at Ted when he updated her on Lucinda’s recovery or praised her in any way. Soon, Ted got the message and stopped speaking about Lucinda altogether.
That fueled Ellen’s paranoia even more. She spent hours in rage-filled wonder, worrying about what he was hiding, what they were doing, when Ted would leave her. Then, logic would reassert itself and she’d smile in recognition of Ted’s continued affection and unflagging show of consideration. By the final month of her pregnancy, she settled into an even and serene keel. She relaxed in gestational contentment and basked in Ted’s love.
The couple went to the doctor’s office together for Ellen’s prenatal examination at eight-and-a-half months. Ted held her hand as she lay on the table, her bulging belly hiding the doctor from her view until he stood up and placed a stethoscope on her stomach. As he moved the instrument across her skin, his brow furrowed and the creases deepened. Apprehensive, Ellen turned to Ted, her lips tight, her brow wrinkled. Ted squeezed her hand and smiled. She relaxed her face, took a deep breath and beamed back at him until the doctor raised his head.
He looked back and forth at the couple, cleared his throat and said, “We have a problem. I can’t find the baby’s heartbeat.”
The rest of the day was a blur. At the end of all the procedures, prayers and physical exertion, only tears and heartache remained. Their baby was dead.
Ted and Ellen stumbled in numb lockstep through the next few days as friends and family helped plan the funeral, order the tiny white coffin and take care of the other two children. Ted pulled out of his stupor first and reached out to comfort Ellen. She resisted, afraid to believe he still loved her after the loss of his child. He persisted in his efforts, melting the barriers and regaining her trust. They sobbed in each other’s arms, day after day as they talked through the pain. Ellen didn’t believe her hurt would ever go away, but with Ted by her side, she thought it just might be bearable.
About a month after the baby’s death, she noticed Ted staring into his top dresser drawer. Odd, she thought. I’ve seen him doing that quite often lately. “Looking for something?” she asked.
Ted started and jumped. “Oh no,” he said, shuffling inside the drawer before shoving it closed.
“Is something wrong, Ted?”
“Oh, no. No. Just lost in thought. Well, I’ve got to get to work.” He kissed her on the forehand and headed for the door.
When Ellen heard his car pull way, she opened the drawer that had him so entranced. At first, she saw only balled-up socks and folded boxer shorts. How could underwear and footwear captivate his attention so thoroughly? she wondered.
Idly, she shifted around the contents of his drawer and then she saw it. A charge of static-like electricity sparked in the tip of her finger, raced up her arm and nestled on the top of her head. A snapshot of Lucinda – the one he used to carry in his wallet – lay in the bottom of the drawer. Beneath it, a newspaper clipping with her photo in a news article.
When Ted returned home that evening, he didn’t understand the hostility that rose from Ellen like waves of heat from a summer road. He asked her about it, but she would not explain. When he reached out to her, she rebuffed his touch. At night, she turned her back to him and clung to the edge of the bed.
Ellen was non-responsive but she was alert. She watched Ted intently, looking for signs that he was about to leave, to toss her aside and run to Lucinda the Invincible. Even now, with her face disfigured and hideous, Ted wants Lucinda more than he wants me.
She imagined the worst – a torrid affair. She was convinced everyone in the department knew and they were all laughing at her behind her back. Even worse, she imagined Ted laughing at her while he nestled in Lucinda’s naked arms. Ellen’s resentment toward her husband and his old girlfriend festered and grew.
Ten
Lucinda took the city attorney’s advice to heart. She strove harder, worked longer hours, some of it off the clock. Every report filed was precise. Every regulation followed. Every policy obeyed. No short cuts. Ever.
She studied hard and took the lieutenant’s test, earning her gold shield and a transfer into Homicide. The rest of her life was dead, but she was born again in the investigation of death.
When the young boy died at Lucinda’s hand, Internal Affairs took her work away. The captain assigned all her cases to other investigators. The bureaucrats chained her to her desk. Night after night, she returned from another fruitless day and poured out her pain, her frustration, her emptiness to Chester. She sat for hours, patting his head, scratching his chin, stroking the length of his soft gray back and white belly. As she poured out the contents of her fevered soul into his ears, he purred. He purred through all three months of her exile in the seventh circle of hell.
He didn’t even mind when she hugged him tight as the memory of that dreadful day ran through her mind again. Dawn was just breaking in the post-Second World War housing boom neighborhood of old brick terraced houses on that sultry summer morning. A lone jogger pounded her way down the pavement. The air was already thick with humidity. The day promised to be unbearable once the sun rose high in the sky.
The neighborhood was quiet, its hush broken only by the echoing slaps of the runner’s feet on the sidewalk. From a distance, she spotted large shapes on the lawn of the end house on the corner lot. They looked out of place. As she got closer, her strides shortened, her pace slowed. Then she came to a complete stop. The shapes were bodies – the bodies of a woman and a young girl. She stepped on to the grass, knelt by the adult and pressed her fingers to the woman’s throat.
The coldness of the skin repulsed her. She found no pulse. She saw no sign of life. She looked over at the little girl but could not bear the thought of touching a child in death. She slipped her cellphone out of her pocket and punched 9-1-1.
Black-and-whites and two fire and rescue emergency vehicles swarmed the block, then the assistant coroner arrived in her marked white panel truck. She knelt by the body of the child and turned her face up to speak to Lucinda when suddenly the first shot rang out from the window by the front door. The bullet hit the assistant coroner right above her left ear. Lucinda hit the ground and drew her gun. She wrapped an arm around the injured woman and crawled on one elbow dragging them both toward the house and under the cover of a scruffy line of boxwoods.
Lucinda saw the two bodies on the lawn jump from impact as more shots rang out. She checked the assistant coroner’s pulse – nothing. Silence slapped the street. Then the muffled voices and electronic squawks of radio communication peppered the air.
“Lieutenant?”
Lucinda raised her head and saw Sergeant Ted Branson across the lawn on the side of the stree
t.
“Yes,” she responded.
“Were you hit?”
“No. But the coroner’s down. I think she’s gone. Who’s the shooter?”
The first responding officer stood up from his crouched position behind his car. “We thought the house was empty, Loot. We knocked, rang the doorbell, no response.”
A loud shattering of glass broke off their conversation. The first responder didn’t take cover fast enough. A bullet passed through his shoulder and knocked him to the ground. A flurry of fire followed. The rear window of one patrol car shattered. The tire of another vehicle blew out with a bang. Bullets pinged into the sides of several cars and thunked into the trunks of trees.
On the opposite corner a bevy of neighbors gathered, too far away for the shooter’s aim but close enough to get hit by a stray or ricocheted bullet. Lucinda waved them back but no one there paid any attention to her.
She crawled to the corner of the house and looked down the side. She saw the tip of a weapon sticking out of a basement level window. She rolled, sprung to her feet, rose to a crouched shooter’s stance. The early morning sun glared on the remains of the window. She could not see the person with the weapon. She just aimed down the barrel of the shooter’s rifle and pulled the trigger. The thunderclap of the discharged bullet filled the air. She dropped and rolled back to the cover of the front of the house.
As she moved, she heard a thud. Got him, she thought. She closed her eye to focus her ears on any sounds in the house. She heard nothing.
Once again, Ted shouted out. “Are you okay, Lieutenant?”
“Yes.”
“Were you hit?”
“No. But I think the shooter was.”
“Sit tight, Lieutenant. SWAT’s on the way.”
Lucinda’s head jerked. She heard something. Footsteps. Ascending footsteps. The slam of the door. “He’s out of the basement,” she shouted to Ted.
She strained to hear any other sounds of movement. For a few moments, the house was quiet. Then she heard muffled treads again.
The Trophy Exchange (A Lucinda Pierce Mystery) Page 5
