Love Mercy

by Earlene Fowler

  The man nodded. “Don’t want no trouble.”

  “Nor do we,” Hud said. “I’ll have my coffee here at the bar, and my friends are going to take that booth over there.” Hud nodded over at the booth where Mel and Patrick had sat only a half hour ago. He faced Mel and Patrick. “We’ll stay here as long as it takes for you two to come to some kind of compromise, and then I’ll give Mr. O’Reilly a lift back to his car, wherever that is. How’s that?”

  Mel was again shocked to see Patrick nod, without a peep of protest. They sat in the booth facing each other for a few minutes before he spoke.

  “There isn’t any money, is there?” he asked.

  She looked him straight in the eyes. “No, Patrick. I’m sorry. I think . . . I think he spent most of it. I really do. And I’ll be straight with you. If there had been, I would have turned it over to the department. I know there’s lots of people there who think I was in on it. No one wanted to believe that Sean would take graft. They would have liked it better if I had been the one on the take, that Sean had been covering for me. But he wasn’t. I didn’t know a thing. I left the department because I couldn’t stand people thinking I was crooked.” She swallowed, tasting salt and bile at the back of her throat. Her voice turned into a harsh whisper. “And I couldn’t stand being there without Sean.”

  Patrick hung his head down, and she stared at the part in his thick, dark hair. Even in the dim light of the bar, she could see streaks of silver, and for some reason that caused her eyes to burn. He was ten years older than Sean, and it was like she was seeing a snippet of what might have been.

  “Ma was never the same after he died,” Patrick said, his face studying the wooden table. He didn’t even look up when the bartender slipped two white mugs of coffee in front of them. The man didn’t offer milk and sugar, and she didn’t ask.

  “Were any of us?” she answered softly.

  “I’m so tired,” Patrick said. “I wish . . .” His voice dropped away.

  She had a good idea about what he wished. That Sean was still here. That he’d never taken the money. That he hadn’t killed himself. That life was easier. If wishes were horses, her mom used to tell her, we’d all be sitting on a Derby winner every darn day of the year.

  “He was mostly a good man, Patrick,” she said, resisting the temptation to touch his hand. “He made some mistakes, and the thing was, I guess he just couldn’t face up to it. I just wish I could have . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence. Loved him better? Helped him? Saved him? Frankly, she didn’t even know how to finish that sentence.

  She wouldn’t tell him the one thing that no one else knew, the one thing she’d never tell anyone. Sean, the day he killed himself, asked her to come to his apartment. He wanted to talk. He wanted to explain one last time. She knew she shouldn’t have gone. But she could never say no to him.

  They were sitting on his leather sofa when he asked her. He asked her to shoot him and then asked her to come with him.

  “We can be together forever,” he’d said, his voice so mesmerizing, so convincing. “You and me, baby. Drinking with the angels. Forever and ever, amen.”

  She’d stared at him in shock. “You’re crazy,” she’d whispered.

  He laughed. “Did you ever doubt that?”

  She left a few minutes later, feeling like he’d duped her one more time. She never thought he’d really do it. She thought that, in some insane and miraculous way, he’d beat the rap. He’d somehow walk, not go to prison. Sean was just not the kind of guy you could imagine locked up. Well, he did beat the prison rap. In a way, he did walk away.

  The question always haunted her. What if she’d told someone? What if she’d stayed? What if she’d taken his gun? What if, what if, what if?

  Patrick looked up, peering at her in the dim light with watery eyes, old man’s eyes. “I . . . wanted someone to blame. I’m sorry, you were . . . you were just easy. When I talked to the guys who worked with him, they just said you and him, you were so close. I couldn’t believe you’d be so close and . . .”

  “And not know about it?” She gave a harsh laugh. “Think of how I felt, Patrick. I thought I knew him. And I was a cop, for Pete’s sake. I should have known. I should have . . .” Her voice cracked. She pounded a fist on the table. Her eyes burned again, but she wouldn’t give in to tears. “I was an idiot. To be honest, I didn’t even know he was using, much less skimming off money. All I could see was I loved him. I did, Patrick. Despite everything, I loved him.”

  Patrick stared at her a moment, then gave one nod. “I believe you. I’m sorry if I made things harder. His partner said you found him?” His face twisted in agony.

  She nodded, feeling a drop of sweat inch down the middle of her breasts. Don’t make me tell you, she thought. Please, don’t make me. Sean’s face stained bright red, tiny bits of his brain sprayed across the hallway wall, stuck to the bucolic scene of sunflowers and wishing wells. When he moved in, they’d laughed until they cried at that wallpaper, both agreeing it was the tackiest they’d ever seen. The coppery sweet smell of his blood. She’d gone back to his place a few hours after that last talk. She’d tried his cell phone, and it kept kicking over to voice mail. In her gut, she knew he’d gone without her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry you had to experience that.”

  She nodded again, unable to talk, knowing if she said one word, she’d start sobbing and maybe never stop.

  “I’ll go now,” Patrick said, reaching over and patting her hand like she was a child.

  She slid out of the booth and stood up, not knowing what to say.

  He stood up, and they stared at each other for a moment. Finally, she held out a hand. “You take care, Patrick. Stay safe.” That customary cop admonition, a prayer of sorts, because they knew that being safe really wasn’t in their control.

  He shook her hand awkwardly, breaking contact before she did. “You too.” He went over to Hud, said a few words, then walked into the men’s room without looking back.

  Hud walked over to where Mel still stood next to the booth. “I’m going to take him back to his car in Morro Bay, then follow him back to his hotel. Will you be okay driving home?”

  She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. It was over. She’d never hear from Patrick again. Though it was a relief, she was also oddly bereft. Because then she’d have no one in her life who knew Sean, who knew how much he loved ranch-flavored Doritos, how he always talked about buying a houseboat, how that little cowlick in the back of his head drove him nuts, how his laugh was so infectious that even most of the people he arrested couldn’t resist laughing with him. Patrick would go back to his family and have people to talk to about Sean. She’d only have a small manila envelope of photos and a ruby pendant shaped like a daisy that he bought her the first Valentine’s Day they were together.

  “Mel?” Hud said.

  She jolted back to the present. A deep shudder ran through her, reminding her briefly of Red on cold days. She felt chilled to the bone.

  “Here,” Hud said, pulling off his denim jacket. Before she could protest, he slipped it around her shoulders.

  She could feel the warmth from the fleece lining seep into her wet flannel shirt. “I’m fine. I don’t—”

  “Ah, pipe down,” he said. “It’s just an excuse to see you again.”

  She stared at him a moment, feeling vulnerable. But also, she had to admit, relieved. That it was over. That she’d survived. That she maybe had a shot at having a life.

  “Thanks,” she said finally.

  “Go home, Melina Jane LeBlanc,” he replied. “Get in your pj’s and make yourself a cup of tea. Sometimes, as my own dear grand-mère used to say, that’s just all a body can do.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  On the drive back, she tried to put her thoughts on hold. There was just too much to comprehend, too much she’d have to think about later. Right now it seemed imperative that she do exactly as Hud said: go home, get in her pajamas and m
ake a cup of tea. Home. Yes, that’s what it was, what this place finally was: home. She knew she’d need to call Love, that Rett would have told her everything and that she was likely worried sick. Mel was already going over the conversation in her head, the explanation, the explanation of the explanation. It was time to tell Love everything. She should have done it long ago.

  The house was dark and cold when she walked in. She turned on the hall light and the heater, then walked into the living room. She sat down on the sofa that she’d bought for fifty bucks at the Salvation Army store in San Celina. Moonlight filtered through the blinds, shadowing the room. Her clothes were only damp now; the warmth of the car heater dried them as she drove home.

  She pulled the denim jacket closer around her, its warmth coming from her own body heat now. But the scent of Hud was still strong: a sharp, peppery male scent. A sob gripped her throat, trying to escape. It reminded her of all the men she’d ever worked with, the locker rooms where they stored their gear, the scent of their testosterone, their sweat, their fear and their joy. The scent of her old life, the one that would never exist again.

  But it had been replaced with the scents of leather and saddle soap, alfalfa and the salty-sweet smell of the sea. Not a bad trade. But she missed her old life. Oh, how she missed it.

  “Sean,” she whispered, pulling the jacket closer around her, turning her nose into the fleece collar, inhaling the scent of a man she barely knew, remembering another man she thought she’d known, but who had really been a stranger.

  “Sean,” she cried, louder this time. Her voice sounded harsh in the empty room. The third time she wailed his name. “Seaaan.” She sank to the floor where she rocked back and forth, the stranger’s jacket pulled tight around her shoulders. She rocked and rocked, not crying, not thinking, just pretending the jacket was her lover’s arms. She sat on the cold, cold floor, rocking and pretending, rocking and pretending, until long after the shivering stopped.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Love Mercy

  Mel, I’m still worried. Call me.”

  It was the sixth voice message Love had left on her friend’s cell phone since she’d picked Rett up at the feed store five hours ago. It was past ten p.m., and the only thing that kept Love from calling the police was that Rett told her that Hud said he knew where Mel was going by the clue she left written on the counter. Besides, what could Love actually report? That a woman, a former cop, no less, had left under her own volition with some man that Love’s granddaughter thought looked kind of creepy. Oh, and that Mel seemed a little nervous, even though the man didn’t utter one threatening word. Love could almost hear the police dispatcher’s annoyed response: And what, ma’am, do you exactly want the police to do?

  Mel finally called her at ten thirty.

  “I’ve been worried sick,” Love said, trying to keep her voice neutral. She wished Mel was her daughter so she could really let go and give her what for. But that was something a person could only get away with if there was shared blood or, at the very least, a more intimate relationship than what they had.

  “I would have called you earlier, but . . .” Mel’s voice faded away, sounding as tired as if she’d run a marathon.

  “You should have,” Love snapped, deciding, what the heck, Mel was like her daughter. All this drama was starting to get on her nerves. “You shouldn’t do things like that, take off with whoever this flaky guy was, and not let someone know where you’re going to be. People care about you. I care about you. You could have been hurt . . . or . . .” Her voice faltered.

  “I’m sorry,” Mel said. “Hud caught up with me. I wasn’t alone. Rett did the right thing by showing him what I’d written on the counter. Tell her thanks. Everything’s fine.”

  Love swallowed hard, trying to dislodge an imaginary meat chunk stuck in her throat. “What was this all about? Who was this man? Rett said he looked like a hit man.”

  Mel’s laugh sounded forced. “He’s a cop. The older brother of a . . . a friend of mine. I have some stuff to tell you. It’s about . . . my life before I came here. Can we talk tomorrow?”

  Still irritated, Love almost demanded the whole story right then, but she’d learned from experience that difficult subjects really were best discussed when everyone was rested. It was late. Tomorrow would come soon enough.

  “Of course,” she said, her voice short. “Call me tomorrow. We can meet at Cy’s bench.”

  Mel’s relieved sigh was audible over the phone. “That would be good. I go there sometimes when I need to . . . think and stuff.”

  Love’s anger subsided. “Me too.”

  “Is Rett okay?”

  Love looked over at her granddaughter, who was giving Ace a neck massage. His dark eyes were slits of pleasure. “Yes. She and the boy have come to an agreement. She’s giving him his banjo back tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, she told me. I told her the sooner she did that, the quicker she could get on with her life.”

  “I agree. Sleep well.”

  Mel paused, as if she was considering Love’s words. “You know, I think I will.”

  “What’s the four-one-one on the mafia hit man?” Rett asked when Love hung up.

  “Don’t know yet.” Love leaned against the refrigerator, her arms crossed over her chest. “Mel will fill me in tomorrow.”

  Rett stood up and grabbed Ace’s leash from the hook. “I’ll take the Flying Ace Ball for his last walk.”

  “Thanks,” Love said, her mind trying not to dwell on what Mel would reveal tomorrow. Had she been a drug addict? An alcoholic? Had she killed someone? Was that why she was no longer a police officer? There were so many things it could be. An undercurrent of tragedy had always hovered around Mel. Magnolia and Love had pondered it many times.

  “I bet she’s got herself some kind of sad story,” Magnolia said once.

  “Doesn’t everyone?” Love had answered, her mind drifting to the question, How would a person reveal someone’s life story in a single portrait? The best photographers—like Judith Joy Ross—could reveal a person’s backstory and also give a hint about what might come to be in her subject’s life. Her portraits of the Hazelton public school kids were breathtaking in their simplicity and vulnerability. Every time Love looked at them, she felt she could see the future of each child. She’d always wondered if she would be able to discern Mel’s backstory if she took her portrait. She had not yet had the nerve to ask her to pose.

  Love had always suspected that Cy knew much more than she did about Mel’s life before Morro Bay, but even he admitted to Love once that Mel had a shell like a Brazil nut: thick, jagged and hard to crack. Even as he neared the end of his life, he never revealed whatever he knew about Mel to Love, something she admired in him even as it frustrated her. Cy’s word was something he’d always taken very seriously.

  She walked into the living room to wait for Rett so she could lock the door behind her. The battered banjo case sat propped against the sofa. Rett had brought it back with her when Love picked her up at the feed store. Love hesitated, then laid the case flat and undid the clasps. The banjo that had started this whole adventure lay nestled inside its gray fuzzy cocoon, not one bit aware of the trouble it had caused.

  She touched the strings gently. When she pulled her hand back, the slight give from her fingers caused a tiny hum. What did Rett sound like playing this instrument? Did she have talent or only wished she did? The occasional episodes of reality talent shows that Love had seen taught her that a person didn’t always recognize the difference between wanting a talent and having a talent. The thing that wrenched Love’s heart watching those shows was how surprised the untalented people where when they were told by the judges to do the world a favor and find another way to express themselves. It was obvious on the contestants’ faces that they truly didn’t realize that they didn’t have something extraordinary to share. And, she wondered, what if, by pursing a talent they didn’t have, they were neglecting one they did possess? How many aspiring singers might
actually be extraordinary painters or dog trainers or gardeners or children’s game inventors, but they’d never know it, because they continued seeking something they thought they wanted? Honestly, wasn’t the invention of Monopoly as important a gift to the world as the songs of Elton John or Willie Nelson? A lot of families would never even talk to each other if it hadn’t been for Monopoly.

  Love always wondered what happened to those disappointed people who didn’t have a chance at making the final fifty or ten or first in those talent shows. What did they go home to? What were their stories? Those were the photos she wanted to take.

  She picked up her Nikon. She had ten shots left on this roll of black-and-white film. Holding her breath, she carefully lifted the banjo from the case and set it on the sofa. She took shots of it from all angles, capturing its glossy wood and the shadows the yellow lamplight made on its round body. Banjos were such funny-looking instruments, like a pear-shaped figure gone horribly wrong. She knew enough about music to understand that they were rarely the center of attention in a band, almost always were there to support the other instruments and the main event, the singer. Still, she’d heard some banjo solos in her life that amazed her. She smiled to herself. And they certainly got more respect than a bass fiddle.

  There was a full moon tonight, and she would have liked to take it outside and photograph it in that interesting light, but she didn’t want to risk harming something so valuable. Maybe before Rett returned it to Dale, she could get a few shots of it outside. For now, these inside shots would have to do.

  Love knew Rett would be sad tomorrow. But what her granddaughter didn’t know was that it would likely be one of the easier sad moments of her life. It would feel huge while it was happening, she would think her heart was breaking, but time would give her perspective. Maybe Love would give her one of these banjo photos then, and maybe Rett would laugh, recalling how important she thought this shallow young man was.

  Love placed the instrument back in the case and sat down on the sofa. She leaned her head back, so weary she felt like she could sleep for days. Sometimes it overwhelmed her, all this sadness, when she studied photos from places around the world where poverty and war and the cruelty that humans manage to perpetrate upon each other is revealed, photos of tornadoes and tsunamis and floods. The wreckage of so many lives. She wondered where the God her mother trusted so faithfully was in all this. At times, Love despised herself for doubting. Other times, she just felt tired and wished God would give the world a break and erase all doubt. Just write across a big chalkboard in the sky who he was and what he wanted everyone to do. She smiled to herself. She should share that with Rocky. He loved stuff like that. He’d get a whole month of Sunday sermons out of that image.