Blunt Impact

by Lisa Black

  The officer began the three-block hike back to his patrol car, failing to keep ‘I should think so,’ completely under his breath.

  Frank turned to Angela, who of course still looked fantastic despite the fact that their lunch hour had also not arrived, and they had barely swilled a coffee, taken a potty break or sat down since the discovery of Kyle Cielac’s body. Her hair needed brushing and her skin had grown a bit shiny, but she glowed with the thrill of the hunt.

  ‘Shall we pay Mr Grisham a visit at his humble abode?’

  He grinned, getting into the spirit himself. ‘We shall.’

  They bypassed the building manager and went directly to the apartment. No sound until they knocked, then the steady thump of two feet and a dimming behind the peephole. Then a long pause while Todd Grisham debated his options: a) refuse to open the door, or b) pretend he wasn’t home.

  He opted for c). They heard a rattle of keys as he undid the bolt and opened up.

  Angela greeted him in her most calming voice and asked if they could talk about what had happened that morning. Todd, red-eyed, apparently debated a few more options before saying, ‘Sure,’ and held the door as far as it would go. The two detectives sidled past him, heading for the living room, grayly bright, ahead.

  And as soon as they entered that room, Todd Grisham pulled his key from the deadbolt, sped out the door and shut it behind him. As Frank touched the knob, he heard an unsettling click.

  Todd had locked the deadbolt from the outside – and it was keyed on both sides with no simple latch to turn. A cute tiled hook rack helpfully labeled ‘keys’ hung on the wall, empty. Todd had taken them all with him, efficiently imprisoning both detectives.

  Frank roared out a curse and banged on the door. Then he pulled out his gun.

  His partner shouted, ‘No! You don’t know who’s in the hall.’

  She was right, of course. With his luck he’d drill some toddler or a granny who chose that moment to stroll by.

  Once they cleared the apartment, the partners spent the next few frantic moments ripping apart every kitchen drawer until Angela found a rusty set behind the potato peelers. She muttered, ‘Pleasepleaseplease,’ in a whisper as she fit one in and turned.

  Frank thought, I should remember this moment, the closest he’d ever seen her to discombobulated. Of course he also found himself locked into a pleasant family dwelling like a squirrel in a Haveaheart trap so perhaps this would not be a memory worth keeping after all.

  Nothing. She slid in the other key and the tumblers moved.

  They spilled into the hallway, leaving the pleasant family dwelling ransacked and unsecured, and headed for the red glowing Exit sign. Todd would not have waited for the elevator, and as they entered the stairwell Frank could swear he heard the guy’s panicked footsteps clattering downward, too many floors below them. But he couldn’t be sure.

  It had been a number of years since he’d been in a foot race, and he hadn’t missed it a bit.

  Frank hadn’t passed any slowly closing doors to other levels, so they had to keep going and assume he would head for the ground floor, assume he would try to get outside. Frank reached level one with Angela on his heels. The stairs continued downward but, guessing that Todd didn’t have a car, Frank plunged through the exit door.

  It led to a small concrete landing overlooking an outdoor parking lot, through which Todd Grisham now sped. He dodged cars and their grassy medians, heading east. Frank and Angela went down opposite ends of the landing but reached the pavement at the same time, and pursued. Neither of them shouted Todd’s name, or told him he should stop, or that they were the police. He knew all that already. He obviously didn’t care.

  Todd exited the parking lot and sped across West Ninth Street, producing a screech of brakes and a shouted curse. Frank seconded the sentiment as his lungs began to ache. Todd continued up the branch of Lakeside in front of the Marshall apartments.

  Frank and his partner looked both ways before pursuing across West Ninth. Catching up to a guy when they knew where he lived was not worth getting creamed by a delivery truck.

  The humidity of the impending storm felt like a weight across his shoulders. Frank had already sweat through his shirt and his legs were getting heavy. But besides his dislike for them, what else had not changed about a foot race was the fact that catching the suspect remained secondary to beating your partner to him. That Frank happened to be attracted to his partner did not affect this dynamic in the slightest and only made it worse. Frank would sprawl across a sidewalk on Lakeside dead of a heart attack before he’d let Angela Sanchez pass him up.

  Unfortunately it might come to that.

  He had a comfortable three-foot lead when they followed Todd into an alley behind the Marshall that would come out by the Blind Pig sports bar – except that recent street renovations closed off the alley with a chain-link fence. And that Todd Grisham was already dropping himself down the other side of said fence.

  Frank had only enough breath to mutter, ‘Ridiculous,’ before charging the fence. But West Sixth had a spate of traffic along it and Todd also didn’t want to get creamed by a truck, delivery or otherwise. So as he perched on the curb, Angela took the opportunity to ask him just what the hell he thought he was doing, pleasing Frank by panting as she did so.

  ‘Where are you going, Todd? Why are you running away from us?’

  He ignored them.

  Frank gave it a shot – anything to keep from having to scale a chain-link fence. ‘We can protect you, Todd. We can keep you safe.’

  The young man turned with an eerily genuine smile. ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you?’

  Then he kept running.

  Frank threw himself at the chain links, scrabbling for a toehold.

  He took a moment to consider how Kyle’s death affected him. He certainly hadn’t meant for that to happen – he had thought only of Samantha – but after examining the incident from all angles he concluded that the concrete worker’s untimely demise did not change his focus on Sam and her angel/demon child. No one would connect him to Kyle’s murder. Theresa had just demonstrated an inability to connect anyone. He had accidentally stumbled on a perfect way to murder, and only felt sorry that he couldn’t tell anyone.

  Of course he couldn’t tell anyone. That would be silly.

  Besides, who would he tell? Who else would appreciate such an accomplishment? Other than himself. And maybe Theresa.

  But Theresa’s focus was catching people who killed, not encouraging them to do it.

  Yes, but she still might find the technique interesting, or fascinating. Those who have never picked up a brush still enjoy a great painting. And she had a professional interest, after all.

  And she’d obviously gotten attached to that angel/demon child . . . spinning the both of them right back to him.

  He decided not to worry about Kyle’s death. All that mattered now were the female satellites whirling around him – the dead Sam, her daughter Ghost, and Theresa.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Several blocks away, Frank’s cousin had also involved herself in a foot race.

  Theresa had burst out of the Tavern’s door and caught only the merest flicker of Ghost’s brown hair as she turned the corner into the alley known as Theresa’s Court. She pounded up the sidewalk, grateful that she worked in Reeboks instead of heels.

  Ghost did not slow but ran as if the shadow man himself were chasing her, through a parking lot and in between two huge buildings, heading for East Ninth. Theresa called her name, but if the child heard it she gave no sign.

  Theresa ran, her feet slapping against the concrete. In twenty steps she gained perhaps three feet of the gap between them and decided she needed to work out more. She didn’t know if Ian had followed and was not going to risk a look back to find out. She shouted again. Again, no response.

  The girl reached the end of the alley, turned to the right, and disappeared.

  Theresa piled on the speed, pricks of sweat beginning un
der her armpits and between her breasts, and avoided colliding with a nicely dressed black lady heading into the CVS store. Ghost passed St John’s Cathedral and approached Superior Avenue, thrusting herself into the intersection without pause. Theresa’s heart seized, choking off the breath she desperately needed.

  ‘Ghost! STOP!’

  What was wrong with the kid?

  But the light had been with her and she made it to the other side without mishap. It changed just as Theresa reached the intersection and she lost precious seconds looking both ways before crossing against it. She no longer wanted to know why Ghost had been questioning the Tavern bartender. She simply wanted to stop the kid before she got hit by a car.

  Happily for the sake of her cardiac health, Ghost suddenly darted to the right and disappeared between two buildings. Theresa followed, pounding up the four short steps and through the brick arch to the small, pretty Key Bank patio. Ghost had already passed up the tables and chairs available for summer use by the local office workers.

  Theresa gained another few steps but mentally paused when Ghost made a sharp left. This kid knew downtown Cleveland better than a veteran cab driver. She might disappear into some cubbyhole at any moment and stay there until after dark, and Ghost wandering around here after dark was what Theresa feared the most. The winos might be harmless. The shadow man was not.

  ‘GHOST!’

  At least she had to slow up for two cars blocking the tiny alley that Theresa had never known was there, but once she’d darted around the compact vehicles the kid sped out on to Short Vincent. It might have an odd name but it was a real road with real cars, and Theresa almost shut her eyes as she saw a blue metallic object hurtle toward Ghost.

  But one blare of the horn later, the car had passed and the kid still stood there, shocked into a pause. By the time she jumped up on to the opposite sidewalk Theresa had nearly reached her. Two more feet and she could feel the heat from the child’s body with her outstretched hand.

  It took discipline not to grab her by the hair, but she summoned one more burst of speed from her tired legs and grabbed her T-shirt. ‘Ghost! Stop!’

  The girl struggled at first, clutching at Theresa’s hands, but finally halted, breathing too hard for any words. Theresa wasn’t ready to chat herself, and simply guided the child to the landscaped area behind the Huntington Building. There they collapsed on a low brick wall under a tree just as a streak of heat lightning lit the sky. She loosened her grip on the kid’s T-shirt and took a furtive look around. Two women having a smoke on Huntington’s patio were watching them with eagle eyes, waiting for a sign to intervene. A man pulled open the glass doors and went inside. People waiting at the light crossed East Ninth. Ian had not appeared. Provided no more dramatics ensued, they would not be disturbed.

  ‘Why did you run from me?’ Theresa panted.

  ‘Not you,’ Ghost said, her breathing already returned to normal. The kid was in decent shape, all right. ‘Him.’

  ‘Ian? Why?’

  Maddeningly, the little girl only shrugged. ‘I don’t know. He scared me.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Theresa wiped sweat from her forehead.

  ‘And,’ Ghost added, ‘I was afraid you’d make me go home again. I was trying to investigate.’

  Anger propelled Theresa to one knee in front of the kid, holding both of the thin shoulders in her hands. ‘Why did you leave your house without telling your grandmother? You scared her half to death, Ghost. You scared me.’

  Again, this seemed to genuinely surprise her. ‘I thought she’d think I went to school.’

  ‘School. Honey – your mother just died yesterday. No one expects you to go to school.’

  Ghost nodded judiciously. ‘I wasn’t really going to go, anyway.’

  ‘You cannot leave your house without telling anyone. Do you understand that? Never. Especially now.’ Stress took her voice into the upper octaves, reminding her that she really shouldn’t be berating a recently bereaved child and that she should hide her anxiety that Ghost herself might be in danger. The kid was traumatized enough without adding in fear for her own safety. Though fear for her own safety might be exactly what she needed. ‘And you can’t be walking around going into bars—’

  ‘Why not? Why can’t I?’ Now Ghost’s voice rose. ‘She was my mother!’

  ‘I understand that, and I understand that you want to do something. But it’s our job to find out what happened to her, not yours.’ Theresa cringed as the words came out in all their lameness. ‘I—’

  ‘Did you know about her phone calls? Did you look at her phone?’

  ‘Yes. She called the library, city hall, and her doctor’s office to make an appointment for her annual physical. We’ve identified all her incoming and outgoing phone calls during the past month except for two numbers. Frank is tracking them down right now.’

  That she had that information did not mollify the girl. ‘The bartender said she had been in there.’

  ‘Good. Let’s go see what else he can tell us, and then I’ll drive you home.’

  ‘No! I don’t want to go home! Why are you always trying to get rid of me?’ the girl shouted. Theresa had hoped she’d go for the idea of talking to the bartender, but Ghost was in full-blown meltdown, so agitated that she began to walk in circles. ‘I can come here if I want to.’

  ‘It isn’t really safe to—’

  ‘I have to!’

  Theresa sat down on the low brick wall, modulated her voice, did nothing sudden or threatening and hoped it would calm the child. In her softest voice she asked, ‘Why, Ghost?’

  ‘I have to find him!’

  ‘The shadow man?’

  In strangled tones, she spit out: ‘No, not him – my dad. I have to find my dad!’

  Then Theresa stood, still moving slowly, and put her arms around the girl as she burst into hopeless sobbing, spasms racking the tiny body. Theresa rubbed her back, feeling every bone, smoothed her hair and let her cry it out.

  Ghost didn’t roam the streets looking for her mother. She knew where her mother was. Operating on a single cryptic comment by a hard-drinking Sam about ‘losing him downtown’, Ghost went out at night looking for her father.

  Theresa didn’t even consider telling the girl that she was right about her mother and grandmother lying to her but not in the way she thought, that the man she thought was her dad couldn’t have been. That was not her secret to reveal, and she couldn’t see what good it would do anyone if she did.

  Then, as the tears began to slow and the breath returned, she set the girl back down and wiped her cheeks with her bare hands, not having a handkerchief or tissues or anything other than her car keys. Like Scarlett O’Hara, Theresa never had a handkerchief when she needed one.

  Ghost slumped, saying nothing. After a moment she pulled the second photo out of her pocket, the one of her mother and a boy at the school dance, and stared at it.

  ‘Ghost,’ Theresa said, ‘I know it isn’t the same, but when I was just a little older than you, my father died.’

  The girl looked up at her, listening with caution, extending the benefit of the doubt only part way.

  Theresa told how she had come home from school with nothing more on her mind than an algebra test and found her mother sobbing as if her heart had been shredded, as indeed it had. He had suffered a brain aneurysm while at work at the steel plant. There had been no period of emergency, no need for her mother to speed to the hospital, too late to do anything but send his supervisor to the house to tell her in person. The next couple of days had passed in a fog interrupted only by moments of piercing agony that radiated throughout her body until Theresa thought she would die herself.

  Funny how sharing pain seems to lessen it, and yet it always works. The girl stopped crying, contemplating her photo. ‘Who took care of you then?’

  ‘My mother. And my Grandpa Joe. He was a police officer. Mom says that’s why Frank and I both wound up doing this f
or a living, trying to take after Grandpa Joe.’ Theresa smiled and rubbed the girl’s back again. ‘He tried to help me get through the months and years, but it was hard. That’s why I know it’s very hard for you. Sometimes the hardest thing of all was to let him help me. But that’s what you need to do here, is let us help you find out what happened to your mother.’

  Ghost looked up at her, calmer, a glint of determination back in her eye. ‘And when you do, will you tell me?’

  ‘Yes.’ Any other answer would not be acceptable, and they both knew it. ‘But I’ll tell you something else that helped me – I started trying to do what my dad would have wanted me to do. You need to do what your mother would have wanted you to, and she would have wanted you to be safe. She didn’t want you going places by yourself, did she?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘She would want you to be considerate of your grandmother, wouldn’t she?’

  Guilty sigh. ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK, then. Let’s get back before it starts to rain.’ She stood up then, as if that settled the matter, and hoped wildly that it had.

  They returned to the Tavern, Ghost expertly navigating their path, Theresa making phone calls on the way. Ian Bauer waited at the bar, Ghost’s photo and Theresa’s purse on the counter next to him.

  ‘I started to follow you, then remembered your purse. By the time I realized you weren’t coming right back I’d totally lost you.’

  ‘No problem. Thanks for guarding it. This is Anna Zebrowski, Ghost to her friends.’ She indicated the girl she now wore as a belt, since Ghost had her arms wrapped around Theresa’s waist and her face buried in the woman’s back. ‘She’s apparently feeling a little shy right now.’

  ‘That’s all right. As I said, I have that effect. Our barkeep Michael says Sam was here often and he is sure she came in the night before last, but is very fuzzy on how long she stayed. She drank mostly with a few other women who frequent the place, maybe one or two guys, but he really can’t be sure he isn’t confusing it with some other night. The women will probably be back on Friday if not sooner, and he will call Frank when they return or if he has any more concrete recollections in the meantime.’