Through the Bookstore Window

by Bill Petrocelli

  Wilder’s words hung out there, seemingly untethered to anything at all.

  A few moments elapsed—just long enough to feel a sense of embarrassment for Susan Wilder, who had hardly moved from the doorway.

  “I don’t understand. Has someone harmed your daughter?”

  Wilder’s demeanor changed again as he worked his way back to the easy charm of the man who had earlier walked into the room.

  “No, no—nothing like that.”

  He gave a broad smile. He was now miles away from the sense of damnation that seemed to be in the forefront of his mind just moments before.

  “I’ll leave you two to chat a little bit.” He had gathered himself together, making clear that he was ready to leave.

  “Maybe you two can set up a meeting in the next day or so. In the meantime, I’ll be leading the congregation in prayer this morning on the role of families. They’re the most important part of God’s plan, Mr. Fallon. You might think that’s some sort of an old-fashioned idea, and I couldn’t fault you for that. But I believe in it fervently.”

  Wilder was in an almost playful mood, reaching out with one hand to grab him for a handshake, poking him lightly in the stomach with the other. As he did so, he pulled the open jacket, acting surprised to find a holster and pistol.

  “I see you’re carrying a gun this morning, Mr. Fallon.” He looked up and smiled. “That’s good. You never know when we might need you to shoot somebody.” He gave a little wink.

  “You know I’m a man of faith, so I don’t condone violence, but there are times when you need to defend yourself with a weapon.

  “Mrs. Wilder and I took target practice at a firing range a few months ago so that we’d know how to use a gun if we had to.” He gestured toward his wife. “The missus here is quite a good shot.”

  His big smile returned. “So if I were you Mr. Fallon, I’d be careful.”

  Wilder turned and left, seemingly amused at his own comments. The room seemed suddenly lighter.

  www

  Susan Wilder sat quietly for a few moments, clutching at the small purse in her lap as she stared at the door where her husband had just left. This was a sadder side of Susan Wilder. He’d only seen her in groups of people, mingling with visitors. Around the church, she was thought of as the informal greeter-in-chief, always wearing a big smile and giving a personal welcome to anyone who walked in the door.

  She wasn’t smiling now. She cried quietly to herself for a few moments until she opened up her purse and took out a tissue, giving her nose a polite blow. She dabbed her face slightly below each eye, looking for any lingering moisture. Finally, she seemed as composed as she could make herself.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Fallon. I don’t know why I started crying. Those things he said when you mentioned our daughter… It’s just so embarrassing.”

  “You don’t have to apologize… And, please, if you like, call me Davey.”

  “Thank you.”

  She had her head turned away slightly, looking inward again. Her hand grasped at her mouth.

  “I think my husband’s relationship with Alexi is hard on him right now.”

  She paused a second, stifling a tiny sob.

  “I remember right after we adopted her, Allen was so close to her. She was just a little girl, and he used to roll around on the floor with her, laughing and playing as he tickled her and nuzzled her. They were like a couple of kittens. You wouldn’t know that side of my husband, if you only saw him carrying around the burdens of our congregation. But it’s true.

  “I grew up as an orphan. I didn’t have that kind of relationship with anyone, so that kind of love within our little family is so very important to me. They are the two people I love the most, and it gave my heart such joy to see them so close.”

  She looked up, maybe trying to gauge his reaction.

  “She’s just at that age where she thinks anything Allen does is wrong. I know that, because I have to listen to her complaints. And I do listen—I really do. I love Alexi dearly. But sometimes it’s so hard when she goes off in directions where… I don’t know, but sometimes I think maybe her fantasies have gotten the best of her. Allen is very strict. He lives—really, we both live—by all of the Biblical injunctions. I think she may be rebelling against that.”

  She stared away for a moment.

  “He seems to think that maybe she’s being harassed by someone, but I don’t know. Sometimes I think he exaggerates just like she does.”

  “Well, you’re right to be cautious.”

  Why was she was telling him this? He liked Susan Wilder, but he wasn’t comfortable listening to her go back and forth over the same ground. One moment she was talking like her world was falling apart, and the next moment she was belittling the whole thing, apologizing for taking up his time. She finally got around to suggesting that maybe they could meet on Thursday at her house to talk about security. He said that would be fine.

  “Thank you for letting me babble on about my daughter.”

  He told her he didn’t mind listening. But as he said it, he knew he couldn’t be of much help to her. Of all the people in the world, he was probably the least qualified to deal with a father-daughter problem.

  www

  He called John Blaiseck’s office moments later.

  “Yeah, what do you need?”

  “Reverend Wilder was here a while ago and wants me to set up security for the reception at his house. Is that something you want me to do?”

  “Give him whatever he wants.”

  “Okay, I’ll arrange it. But let me ask you something else. I got the impression they’re having problems with their daughter. Is that anything I need to know about?”

  “There’s nothing to concern yourself about.”

  “But if she’s being threatened by someone…”

  “Look, if there’s anything you need to deal with, I’ll let you know.”

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  The parking lot cameras were bringing in all kinds of data, as cars crowded into the lot with people heading for the Sunday services. He knew that the videos could be sorted out later on, if necessary, by license-plate number, date, or any other way. Surveillance in the church followed the same pattern. Hidden cameras recorded everything the congregants did while they were in the anteroom and sanctuary. Whenever he thought about it, he realized he hated what he was doing. The heavy surveillance was Blaiseck’s idea. He and Wilder had been spooked a few months earlier when some pro-choice demonstrators sprung up out of nowhere right at the doors to the sanctuary. But the whole surveillance thing seemed excessive. The people milling around in the anteroom seemed to be in a happy mood. He couldn’t see what they got out of being there—if he had, he might have envied them. But they were there for some sort of spiritual reasons, and he felt funny about spying on them like they were criminals.

  The video images from the anteroom didn’t show anything out of the ordinary. Mostly, it was just the regular congregants. Susan was in the middle of them, smiling and talking. She had apparently put aside—for the moment, at least—the things that had bothered her a little while earlier. She was talking to a somewhat tall, thin woman he’d never seen before. The woman had an air about her that was different from the people who usually showed up at these services, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. Susan seemed to be introducing her to some of the other congregants, which was the kind of thing she always did at the Sunday services. Then something caught his eye, as he looked at the corner of the screen, Alexi suddenly emerged from one of the side doors and started walking quickly in the direction of her mother. Was she really as angry as she looked?

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  He knew more than he wanted to know about a daughter’s anger—his own daughter, Mandy, hadn’t spoken to him in more than eight years. In his battles with her mother, Jennifer, leading up to their divorce, Mandy had a
front-row seat. She’d never gotten over it. His role had been shameful, but he’d only realized his mistakes too late to do anyone any good. One fight blended into another. Mostly, it was a lot of yelling and name-calling, but a couple of times he grabbed his wife to make her stop. He didn’t think he had really hit her, but the investigator decided that’s what it was. Whatever you called it, he wasn’t proud of what happened. He knew at the time that it was wrong, even when he was trying to rationalize it.

  He was forced to go to a men’s counseling group. The judge didn’t give him much choice—it was either do that or spend time in jail on a spousal-battery charge. He sat through the meetings, listening to the tales of the other men—all ex-batterers in one stage or another of recovery. After a few meetings, it was time for him to tell his own story in front of the group. He was more nervous than he thought he would be, standing in front of those hardened faces. He began repeating the story he had been telling himself about how he wanted to make everything work in their marriage. He had tried to work things out, but Jennifer had fought him. And then it got to a point…

  But at that moment a young man with rolled-up sleeves and tattoos up both arms burst in on his carefully prepared speech. “That’s a bunch of shit—tell us what you really felt when you hit her.”

  He tried to protest, but the other guy was having none of it.

  “I don’t care if you’re a cop or not. You went through the same thing as the rest of us, but you’re afraid to admit it. You think you’re the only one that’s happened to? Everyone tells you that you should be boss in your family. So there you are—trying to be King Shit in your own little world—and something happens to piss you off and the bottom drops out of everything. You suddenly realize you’re nothing. You’re dead inside. And that’s when you hit her. So why don’t you just say it?”

  Dead inside—the phrase had stuck with him, and it was hard to shake. He tried to come to terms with Jennifer later on, exchanging letters with her a few months before she died of cancer. But Mandy was a different matter. He called her a few times, but she didn’t call back. He finally wrote to her after her mother died, but he got only a cool response. He’d learned a few months ago that Mandy was pregnant. He thought he should write again, but he didn’t know what to say. Mandy, he realized, could be suffering from the same thing as he was. She’d found herself on the front lines of a war, and it had wormed its way inside her.

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  The day was impossibly long. When he finally got home, there was a message on the phone from Robin, apologizing for everything that happened the night before. He called her back and left his own long apology on her answering machine. This was the story of their old relationship—always talking past each other, always trying to make the other feel better, and always failing at it.

  He grabbed a few leftovers out of the refrigerator and set them down on a plate next to his computer so that he could munch on them later. He didn’t have much of an appetite. He unbuckled his shoulder holster and set it down on the other side of the desk. The wooden butt of his Smith & Wesson stuck out of the leather pouch, inviting him to give it a little squeeze. It was a short-barreled weapon—nothing fancy about it. He knew some guys who spent a lot of time at gun shows, and they were always pushing him to get one of the newer models. He considered most of that just bullshit, and he told them so. His Model 27 had been with him since his days as a cop, and he’d be lost without it. He used it only a couple of times while he was on the force—once as a warning shot and another time to wound a fleeing suspect in the leg. But shooting someone wasn’t the point. His pistol was really just an extension of himself. He’d had it with him for years, cradled quietly under his arm, waiting for the moment it might be needed.

  He had only one thing planned for the evening. It was something he did every year, but he had to gear himself up emotionally. This was the day when he always wrote to Carolyn to talk about her brother. Jimmy had died forty-five years ago—forty-five years to the day, exactly, in a miserable ditch right next to him. He knew she’d be waiting for the message. Often their string of emails would get so intense that one or the other would pick up the phone to put a voice to their shared memories. The conversations weren’t always heavy or sad, but sometimes the emotional context could turn on a dime.

  Carolyn sometimes made a point of singing some of the songs that Jimmy had loved to sing and play in his folk-singing days, her voice resonating with an eerie resemblance to that of her brother. Jimmy was a fanatic about folk music. It was strange—and more than a little endearing—that they were so engrossed in that type of music just at the time when other musicians were picking up amplified guitars and plunging into rock and roll. He never did find a guitar in Vietnam. Instead, he’d just sit in the dark, singing his favorite ballads, as he moved his long fingers along an imaginary keyboard, trying to keep his muscle memory alive for the day when he would once again be able to play.

  The name of LouAnn, Jimmy’s girlfriend, often came up in the conversation. He knew Carolyn had kept in touch with her, so he usually asked how she was and how she was getting along. He’d never met LouAnn, but he felt close to her because of the common bond they had with Jimmy. He always wondered what her life was like after his death.

  Carolyn at one point sent him a copy of a picture that Jimmy had sent her from Vietnam. He had written across the front of it, “Me and my best buddy.” It was sitting now in a silver frame on his shelf. The day that picture was taken was one that had stuck in his mind. The two of them were standing in front of a run-down building, arms around each other’s shoulders and laughing at the camera. They were both flashing peace signs.

  It was a happy memory wedged in between a lot of sad ones. They had a couple days’ leave in Saigon, and he and Jimmy had peeled themselves away from the others. The two of them seemed to hit it off better than either of them did with the rest of the squad. The building where the picture had been taken was a brothel. They had both been drinking for most of the afternoon before they made the decision to pay the girls a visit. He remembered laughing about it as they worked their way down the street, with him kidding Jimmy about where they were headed.

  “What’s LouAnn going to say if she finds out?” The cheap beer was making him a little silly.

  “Oh, shit…” Jimmy drawled, “Lou wouldn’t mind if…” And then he broke out in laughter.

  By the time they entered the brothel, they were both in full hysterics. They took a look at the girls, and then they looked at each other. They decided then and there that they didn’t really want to spend any time with that sad group of teenagers lined up along the wall. They retreated outside, handed a passerby the camera and a dollar bill, and asked him to take their picture.

  His conversations with Carolyn were an odd kind of ritual—even he had to admit that. Was it a symptom of PTSD? He didn’t really know. As far as he could tell, post-traumatic stress disorder wasn’t even diagnosed prior to the Vietnam War, so maybe vets like him were moving through life, discovering new pieces of it as they went along. His annual exchange of memories with Carolyn had gone on far longer than he ever thought it would. One time he hinted that maybe they should stop doing it every year, but she broke down crying. Then he started crying with her. He knew what she was thinking: if they ever stopped talking about Jimmy, then he would truly be forever dead.

  Gina

  I had to do something.

  The day after she showed me the investigator’s report, Sylvia sat me down again—she even dragged out the term “tough love” to make her point. She listed the consequences of my doing anything foolhardy, starting with emotional heartache and ending with lawsuits, criminal prosecution, and probable deportation. She made her point. I was vulnerable.

  But as much as I loved Sylvia, I don’t think she understood the emotional tug that this news had on me. Jelena—now Alexi—was the only link to my past. She might be my best hope for the future. The th
ought that she was alive and that she was somewhere where I might see her had a strong grip on me. I didn’t want to try to get rid of the feeling. I just wanted to get a look at her—if only for one time.

  “Alexi”—thanks to Sylvia’s investigation, I now had a name for the person she had become. I loved the sound of it. Her original Bosnian name, Jelena, conjured up images of the moon, and I hoped the strength of that name was still running through her. But it was a name she probably didn’t even know, and I had no intention of telling her about it. I might never get to meet her to tell her anything—at least, not in the foreseeable future. Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I found myself rolling her old name and her new name over my tongue to get the feel of them together.

  The couple that adopted Alexi had moved to Indiana. The Reverend Allen Wilder’s picture showed up in several places on the website of the Church of the Kindly Shepherd—blonde hair combed straight back, a square jaw, lots of teeth, and a smile that stared off somewhere to the left of the camera. I suppose he looked kindly enough, if you approached things in the right frame of mind. The church had lots of community outreach programs to aid the shut-ins and elderly people in the congregation. The website said that the reverend’s wife, Susan, was the head volunteer for those programs, but there was no picture of her. Most of the website was devoted to pages and pages of the reverend’s scriptural ideas, which were very heavy on fundamentalism. There were a couple of photos of the children in the congregation, including a group of teenage girls. Most of them were smiling, but one of them was more solemn-faced. It wasn’t a clear photo, but it looked like it could be Alexi. I compared it with the grainy picture that had been included with Sylvia’s report, and I realized that Alexi was unsmiling in that picture as well. That left me unsettled. I had hoped she was happy, but I wondered what would cause the sadness in her eyes. The more I looked at the photos, the more I realized I had to see her—even if it only at a distance.