Twisted and Tied

by Mary Calmes

  “Huh,” I said, ending that discussion.

  “Huh?”

  “Yeah. That’s all interesting, but I wanna be done talking about that because there’s more important stuff I need to know.”

  “More—what?”

  I rounded on him before we went in. “So what the hell?” I snapped.

  His glare came fast as he crossed his arms. “Why’re you yelling at me?”

  “That is so not yelling.”

  “What’s with—”

  “Speak.”

  “I have no idea what you’re—”

  “Don’t be stupid. Where’s your partner?”

  “I haven’t been assigned one yet.”

  I crossed my arms, mirroring him, and waited, hoping he saw the irritation on my face.

  He groaned loudly, showing me his annoyance. “He’s in Vegas.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why.”

  “If I did, I wouldn’t be asking.”

  He winced. “We had words.”

  “And then you ran away.”

  “I did not run away,” he said much too defensively.

  “Listen, I’m not trying to get in your business,” I lied to his face. “I’ve just seen your dynamic up close, and it works. He’s careful, and you’re kind of a cowboy.”

  His glare was back. “When did he tell you that I grew up on a ranch in Wyoming?”

  Pivoting, I ignored him and went into Custodial’s office, and six pairs of eyes were on me as Prescott came out of what was, in fact, now my office.

  “Are you okay to be here?” she asked me solemnly, and I saw the worry in her gaze. Unlike with Kelson, I could read emotions in her eyes. “I would be curled up in a ball in the corner of a room.”

  I gave her a game smile. “I’ve had Craig Hartley in my life longer than some people have been married. It’s no big deal.”

  She gaped as she stared at me.

  “And even if it was, being scared doesn’t help anything.”

  “True,” she granted. “But are you sure you want to start in with all of this today? I mean, Jones, you’ve had one hell of a morning.”

  “Compared to being kidnapped and tortured by the man, it was a walk in the park.”

  Sometimes I forgot being honest could be dicey. Now and again people got freaked out by how normally I treated things that were not so easy for others to deal with, like, for instance, serial killers. But truly it wasn’t that I was so used to the idea of a nightmare of Chicago’s past being a part of my life. It was that on a day-to-day basis, I didn’t think about him. I didn’t worry I was being stalked; I let go of that fear years ago. I never thought Hartley was the type to walk up behind me in a crowd, pull the trigger, and blow my brains out. If he was going to kill me, he’d make me squirm first like a worm on the end of a hook. I knew that firsthand.

  “I… don’t—I can’t even begin to imagine what—”

  “We really need to get out and see the kids,” I told her. “We need to get interviews started today, and I want to meet my team.”

  She was staring at me, trying to figure me out, searching for the correct response. But there wasn’t one, and I saw her pull herself together.

  “May I please meet everyone?” I asked to give her something to think about besides Hartley.

  “Of course,” she agreed as people got up from their desks.

  I ORDERED the entire office into the field to get the home visits done as quickly as possible because I was more than worried about the kids who’d been in former Director Cullen’s care. In theory, six people in three teams of two, along with me and Redeker, could make a serious dent in the home visits even on the first day. Maureen insisted I call her by her given name and that she could do visits as well, but someone needed to man the desk in the department, and she still had Cullen’s paperwork to sort through. She finally agreed that since she knew what red flags to look for, she was the logical choice to remain.

  “I’ve assigned you one of the top social workers I know, and she’ll join you at the first home. I emailed her over your schedule for the day.”

  “Thank you,” I told her.

  “No, thank you, Marshal. Already—just in the care you’re showing, in your zeal to get started and not waste any time—you’re a vast improvement over Sebreta Cullen.”

  Anyone would have been a step up from mediocrity. I just wanted to make a difference in the lives of the children as quickly as possible.

  “Why Custodial?” Redeker asked as he drove us toward the Fuller Park neighborhood on the South Side. “Don’t you want to move up?”

  “I want to help take care of kids,” I told him, watching the world go by outside the Ford Expedition delegated for the use of the director of Custodial WITSEC. It had government plates and was painted metallic gray instead of black. I was excited, and Redeker was confused until I explained about the first-come, first-serve way the marshals’ office found cars at our disposal. He was horrified when I told him about Ian and me in a carnation-pink Cabriolet.

  “Maybe you should be a foster parent,” Redeker suggested after a few minutes of silence.

  “What?”

  “Being a foster parent would let you get out all those feelings of wanting to take care of people, and you could still work your job.”

  But making sure that a lot of kids were in good places, not just me nurturing one, seemed like a better fit for me. I wasn’t sure I could be anyone’s father because while I knew I was a caretaker, could tell from how I wanted to shield Josue, Cabot, and Drake and direct their lives, put my two cents in even when it wasn’t asked for, I also knew just because I could didn’t mean I had to.

  Some people were made to be parents. For others, it grew out of their love for their partner, the desire to share more with them. Some people who were parents shouldn’t have been, some too selfish, while others simply wanted to heed the call of the open road or the sea, to travel, to be free, to lead, to create change, or a million other pursuits that did not include parenthood. Being a father wouldn’t complete me. It wouldn’t make me whole; I already was. My dream was to be the best man I could be, the best friend, colleague, uncle, and most of all, husband. Loving Ian took all the parts inside that had been cold and dreary and made them happy and warm and light. But it was hard to explain. How did I say to Redeker that, for me, the natural progression of my marriage was not to a child because already my heart was content? I had Ian, I had the girls, I even had the boys. I was full up. People could look at me and say, “You would make a good father,” but that didn’t mean that was what I wanted.

  “Do I have to be a father?”

  “What?”

  “I mean, am I broken if I don’t want to?”

  He glanced at me. “What’re you talking about?”

  “People ask women who don’t have kids all the time, when are you going to have a baby? This happens to my friend Catherine on an almost daily basis. She’s a doctor, and her husband’s a composer, and they’re both at the top of their game, you know, but still it’s like they’re judged because they don’t have kids yet, and her most of all.”

  “Which is a shitty double standard,” he advised me.

  “It is because it’s like she’s less of a woman because she’s not a mother.”

  He grunted.

  “That’s crap.”

  “Agreed.”

  “But it’s the same for me because if I’m never a father, does that make me less?”

  “I think people are a billion times more judgmental of a woman not having kids than if a man doesn’t.”

  “No, I know, but still, people look at Eriq—that’s my friend Catherine’s husband—and whenever he plays with a kid or holds a baby, people say, oh, what a good father he’d be, he should have kids.”

  He nodded. “I’ve heard that too.”

  “Right? But see, maybe that ten or twenty minutes is all the nurturing any of us has in him.”

  “Very possible,” he sai
d. “Is that how it is for you?”

  “I dunno, but I am certainly not ready to be anyone’s father. I can’t even fathom that level of responsibility.

  “Yeah, join the club.”

  We were both silent for a bit as we passed gutted, rotting buildings with broken windows and piles of garbage, small crowds of men clustered on stoops and in doorways, and the husks of abandoned cars and the ubiquitous graffiti.

  “So, is that a yes on the foster parent thing? I mean, that’s helping, right? You don’t have to adopt the kids, just give them a secure place to be for a certain amount of time.”

  I cleared my throat. “I was a ward of the state myself, so I’m not sure I’d make a great parent, foster or otherwise.”

  “Why not?”

  I shrugged. “I think maybe certain people are made to be parents, and other people aren’t.”

  “I get that.”

  I turned to him. “Do you wanna be a dad?”

  He thought a moment. “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Huh.”

  “Why huh?”

  “No, nothing, I just thought, with how you are, that being a parent wouldn’t be on your list.”

  “‘With how I am’? The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  I gestured at him. “When I met you in Vegas, there was some hard living you were doing, according to your partner.”

  He grunted.

  “You’re saying that was a lie?”

  “I’m saying that people change.”

  It was true. Ian and I certainly had.

  “Don’t you find that in life?” Redeker asked.

  “I do.”

  “So then I’m telling you things are different for me now.”

  “And what brought on this epiphany?”

  He shook his head.

  “I’m guessing something to do with Callahan?”

  He exhaled sharply. “I needed a fresh start. I can’t be what anyone needs unless I get my shit together.”

  I was starting to get an idea of what had happened. “You ran away from him.”

  “I’ve never run from anything in my life.”

  Uh-huh. “So you thought, what, I don’t want to fuck up his life, so I’ll just go?”

  “Is there going to be a social worker going with us on these visits, or are we doing them alone?” Redeker asked, completely ignoring the question I’d put to him.

  “That won’t work.”

  “Whatzat?”

  “Changing the subject.”

  He ran a hand through his thick hair. “I don’t—this isn’t for you to fix, Jones, or for you to make me examine and do whatever. This is my deal with… it’s my life, yeah?”

  It was, but I’d been where he was and lost so much time not diving into the deep end with Ian. I could see things so much clearer than he could, and if he’d only hear me out, then he wouldn’t be haunted like he looked now. He was missing his other half, but he was too bullheaded to know it. But was it my place to make him think about Callahan or what he was missing or… what…?

  The ring caught my eye.

  He was still yanking on his hair with his left hand, which bore a silver ring that was somehow familiar. It was shaped like the tentacle of an octopus, wide and tapering, both masculine and delicate at the same time. Then it hit me: the last time I’d seen Callahan, the same ring had been on his hand. But now it was with Redeker, entwined around his middle finger, and it was doubtful he was even aware of it. Instead, he wore it naturally, just as he did the love of his partner, without any awareness at all.

  So he had Bodhi Callahan’s ring on his left hand. I needed to shut the hell up because one thing I did know was that everything happened for a reason, and even if he had no idea what was going on, I suspected his partner most certainly did.

  “I just—”

  “No, you’re right,” I amended, smiling for his benefit. “I’ll shut up.”

  He checked my face, trying, I was sure, to get a read on me.

  “And just so you know, there will be several different social workers,” I informed him.

  “Okay, good,” he rumbled as he pulled up in front of an apartment building and parked.

  “You’re getting around pretty well already,” I praised him.

  “Well, you know, GPS, it’s a thing, but I’ve been here a week already, so some things are starting to make a little more sense. Though some of the streets I’ve been on—there are potholes that you could lose an axle in, and I swear I was driving down Milwaukee Avenue, and I’m pretty sure it turned into, like, two different streets or something, and some of the intersections here… I pray to God I’m never first because I would have no idea where to turn.”

  I chuckled. “You’re used to living in a city on a grid.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Yeah, no,” I teased before getting out of the car.

  We were there to check on Ernesto Ramirez. He was placed in witness protection after he saw his father, an elementary school science teacher, killed in Tucson, Arizona. The reason Ernesto was taken into WITSEC and not simply foster care was who pulled the trigger. Troy Littlefield was a hedge fund manager supposedly lost at sea two years prior after an accident on his yacht. Ernesto’s father, Manuel, knew—everyone did—that the story had been splashed all over the internet, so when he recognized Littlefield, he snapped a picture and ran. Unfortunately Littlefield was not alone. His men caught Manuel, and Littlefield shot him, only realizing the little boy was there when Ernesto gasped. But it wasn’t as easy for the men to catch a speedy, skinny eleven-year-old, and Ernesto got away by running straight to the police. That was a year ago, and the trial was still being scheduled, so Ernesto was in our system.

  As I stood with Redeker outside the door, I took a quick breath, terrified of what we were going to see.

  “Good morning,” a woman greeted me cheerfully through the opening the chain would allow. “May I help you?”

  We both lifted our credentials so she could see them, along with the stars hanging from chains around our necks.

  “I’m Deputy US Marshal Miro Jones, and this is Deputy US Marshal Josiah Redeker. Are you Monalisa Verone?”

  “I am,” she said sweetly, closing the door to take the chain off and then opening the door wide.

  The aroma tumbled out of the hall as she stood in her doorway, and I whined. I tried to stop it, but whatever it was smelled incredible. My stomach growled at the same time. It must have sounded pitiful.

  Redeker looked at me like I’d grown another head.

  She chuckled. “Come in and have some empanadas, Marshal, before you pass out.”

  She introduced her mother, Conchita, who was cooking and appeared very pleased to see us. The only person happier to see us was Ernesto. He shook our hands as I sat beside him at the small kitchen table.

  “That woman was so mean to me, Miro,” he said, using my name as I directed him to. “And she never paid Mrs. Verone, and it’s really hard for her to get all of us stuff for school if she only uses what—”

  “Wait,” I stopped him. “Go back to the not paying Mrs. Verone.”

  He nodded quickly. “She always said that the paperwork was lost and needed to be refiled.”

  “Ma’am,” I said, “are you receiving the appropriate subsidy payments for Ernesto being here?”

  Monalisa waved her hand. “Don’t worry about it, Marshal, I—”

  “I’m worried about it,” I told her. “You’re supposed to be compen—”

  She grabbed my hand so fast it startled me, and she squeezed it. “Mrs. Cullen told me that if I pushed about the money, she would remove Ernesto from our home, and I—”

  “No,” I assured her. “I won’t move him, and I will get you what’s owed, and whatever is back-owed. Do you have paperwork for me?”

  Monalisa’s mouth fell open.

  “Mija,” Conchita snapped. “Go get the nice man the paperwork that you filled out over and over so he can get you some money and some h
ealth insurance.”

  Oh shit. “Not that either?” I asked Conchita.

  “Not yet,” she said, pinning me with a pointed stare.

  Redeker snorted. “Tell me who to call, Jones.”

  When Tori Macin from DCFS got to the apartment, the harried-looking social worker was stunned to find I had already scanned and sent paperwork out to her office.

  “So you—you just took it upon yourself to do that?”

  I squinted at her as Conchita passed her an empanada.

  “Thank you so much,” Macin said quickly before turning back to me.

  “Have you worked with the marshals service before?”

  “I have,” she told me, “but only with Sebreta Cullen,” she amended. “And I will say that that was only in her office. She never came out in the field.”

  I grunted.

  “So you’re saying that this is how fast this is supposed to work?”

  “The marshals are a government agency,” I reminded her. “And so we’re at the mercy of the same bureaucratic red tape bullcrap that you are, but these are federal witnesses as well as children, so they go to the top of the list.”

  She glanced over the paperwork I submitted. “How are you getting health care for the entire family?”

  “It’s considered an environmental standard,” I explained. I’d been doing WITSEC intake paperwork for years. I knew how to work the system and in fact knew a few loopholes the others didn’t. I couldn’t count the times I’d been asked how to do something where benefits were concerned. I was especially vigilant about allowances for kids. “You cannot place a single witness into an environment where anything is out of the ordinary for said witness. So if he has full insurance, then the rest of the family must as well.”

  “Wow” was all Macin could manage.

  “If you put him in a home where everyone had to get around by car because the distance to school was too great, then we’d get him a car. Ernesto cannot stand out to anyone for any reason. Do you understand?”

  “I do now,” she said, the awe clear in her voice and on her face as she stared at me. “It’s amazing what can get done when you have the right people in position.”