Protector

by Laurel Dewey

  Emily read from the instruction booklet. “ ’The game of Think has no winners or losers.”

  “Oh, shit. When did the Communists start designing board games?”

  Emily continued to read. “’It is a way to in . . . inter . . . ’ ”

  Jane took the booklet from her and continued reading aloud. “ ’It is a way to interface with other players and gain insight into their lives.’ Oh, Christ! It’s not the Communists! It’s the American Psychiatric Association!”

  “Here’s the dice. You be green.”

  “Are you sure there’s not a little tiny therapist that comes with the game?”

  “No, everything’s out on the table,” Emily said seriously. “You go first. Roll the dice!” Jane took a deep drag on her cigarette and rolled the dice. Emily picked up a card. “Okay, the first question is . . .” Emily looked up, just in time to see a ribbon of cigarette smoke pour from Jane’s nose. “How do you make the smoke come out of your nose like that?”

  “That’s an easy question! Practice, practice, practice!” Jane took her green playing piece and started moving it across the board.

  Emily placed her hand on top of Jane’s hand, preventing her from moving to the next square. “That wasn’t the question on the card. Put that back on the first square.” Jane begrudgingly slid her playing piece to square number one. “Okay,” Emily said, reading the card. “ ‘What is your biggest regret and why?’ ”

  “My biggest regret was five minutes ago when I agreed to play this stupid game!” Jane once again started to move her playing piece.

  “Are you gonna play this game right?”

  “Wait! Wait! I’m not ready for question number two!” Jane said sarcastically.

  “You’re not playing fair!”

  “Okay!” Jane once again shoved her playing piece to the first square. “Give me another damn question!”

  Emily discarded the first question and pulled another card. “ ‘When were you the happiest recently?’ And be serious. ”

  Jane sat back, pondering the question. “Well, let’s see.” Her thoughts drifted off into the distance for a second. “Happy . . .” Jane tried her best to connect happy with anything in her life. “I don’t know,” she replied, temporarily lost in the moment.

  “Can’t you think of something?”

  “Apparently not,” Jane said, surprisingly annoyed at the sudden revelation. “Give me the deck.”

  Emily discarded the last card and handed the deck to Jane. Her eyes traced the top of the table. “You wanna know when I was the happiest most recently?”

  “When?” Jane said, shuffling the deck.

  “When I saw you walk in that little room at the police station where you work. The room with the funny mirror and green walls.” Jane stopped shuffling the cards and paid attention to Emily, who turned and met Jane eye-to-eye. “I asked to talk to you ’cause I knew . . .” Emily hesitated.

  “You knew what?”

  Emily stared at Jane. “I knew . . .” Again, she hesitated, not sure she wanted to reveal her true feelings. “I knew you were . . . special. But I didn’t know if you’d say ‘yes.’ So, when you walked in that little room, I was so happy.” Emily smiled at the memory.

  They sat in silence for several minutes.

  “What do you say we put this game back in the trunk and get you out of here?” Jane’s tone was subdued.

  “Can’t I stay here with you?” Jane was at a loss for words. “I don’t want to go back to the foster house. They don’t talk to me and they watch stupid TV shows,” Emily said in earnest. “I want to stay with you. Please?”

  “You don’t have pajamas or a toothbrush—”

  “Yes, I do. They’re upstairs.” Emily walked around the coffee table and placed her hand on Jane’s shoulder. “Please let me stay with you. I promise I’ll be good.” Emily smiled softly.

  Jane sized up Emily and let out a deep breath. “Alright,” she said, giving in.

  Emily threw her arms around Jane’s neck, hugging her tightly. “Thank you!”

  The gesture caught Jane off guard. She haltingly patted Emily on the back. “Okay, alright, that’s good. Why don’t you go change into your pajamas.”

  Emily walked across to the staircase. Jane pulled out another cigarette and lit up, her eyes resting once again on the liquor cabinet. “Jane?” Jane abruptly turned to Emily. The child was staring at the floor where the carpeting was cut away—the same spot where her parents met their death.

  “What is it?” Jane asked.

  “There used to be a big piece of carpet there.”

  “Uh-huh,” was all Jane could manage.

  Emily stared at the floor, her face expressionless. “Is that where they died?”

  Jane realized she was holding her breath and let it out slowly. “Yes.”

  “You know what?”

  “What?” Jane asked, expecting the worst.

  “My mommy never liked that carpet.” Emily turned to Jane, her face still devoid of emotion. “Would you please go upstairs with me?”

  Jane stuck the cigarette in the corner of her mouth and stood up. “Sure.” As she approached Emily, the child held out her hand. Jane grasped it and proceeded up the stairs. They stopped at the top of the stairs on the landing in front of Emily’s bedroom. The door was shut.

  “Let’s get some light here,” Jane said, flicking on the switch and illuminating the landing.

  Emily stared at her bedroom door, not moving an inch. “I need to go to the bathroom,” Emily said, her eyes pinned on the door. Jane led her several feet to the left and opened the bathroom door that sat adjacent to Emily’s bedroom. She flipped on the light and released the child’s hand.

  Emily quickly grabbed Jane’s hand. “Could you come in with me, please?”

  “I’ll wait out here. Nothing’s going to happen.”

  Emily surveyed the bathroom from where she stood. “Please?”

  The thought of ‘This is not in my job description’ flashed across Jane’s mind for a millisecond. “Okay.”

  They walked into the cramped, black-and-white tiled room, Emily still holding tightly onto Jane’s hand. “Keep the door open!” Emily said in a nervous tenor.

  “You need to let go of my hand so you can do your business.”

  Emily reluctantly let go and pulled up her denim jumper. Jane turned to face the sink. Scanning the small space, she was reminded of a case she had worked years ago where a father hid his drug stash in the medicine cabinet of his child’s bathroom. The SOB figured that the cops would never look in his kid’s bathroom. He was right. The cops didn’t look in there. But Jane looked and found the father’s secret cache of cocaine, which blew the case wide open. If Emily’s father really did die because of a drug deal gone bad—a theory Jane wasn’t willing to accept—there had to be pockets in the house where he stored his coke. It was a pattern of drug users. But the longer she stayed in the Lawrence house, the more Jane felt that Emily’s father wouldn’t go to any great lengths to hide drugs—if, indeed, there were any drugs to be found. Sweet Jesus, Jane thought, the man played a game called “Think.” Was that the MO of an intrepid drug addict?

  Nonchalantly, Jane uncovered the hamper lid and looked inside. Nothing. Not even a lonely sock. She popped open the medicine cabinet and found Emily’s toothbrush, toothpaste and a bottle of children’s aspirin. Emily flushed the toilet and crossed to the sink to wash her hands. “Brush your teeth,” Jane instructed, handing Emily the toothpaste and toothbrush. Emily brushed her teeth as Jane turned to look out the small diamond shaped window that overlooked the backyard and alleyway. She watched as the appointed patrol car crept slowly down the alley, its lights radiating fifty feet forward. “See you in another half an hour,” Jane said under her breath toward the patrol car. Emily turned to Jane, dribbling toothpaste down the front of her jumper.

  Jane grabbed a hand towel. “Hey, watch what you’re doing. Rinse your mouth.” Emily complied. Jane knelt down so she was ey
e-to-eye with Emily and wiped the toothpaste off her jumper. Emily’s attention was instantly drawn to Jane’s scar on her right temple. She pulled Jane’s hair away from her forehead. “What are you doing?”

  Emily examined the scar, brushing her finger across the surface. “That really hurt, didn’t it?” Emily said quietly.

  Their eyes locked for only a second, but to Jane, it felt longer. It seemed that the stronger she built her comfortable wall, the more Emily was able to break it down. “Get your pajamas on.”

  Emily took hold of Jane’s hand and walked back on to the narrow landing with her. Jane opened Emily’s bedroom door and started to turn on the light switch when she turned to the child. “There’s some carpet in there that’s missing. I just wanted you to know that before you walked in there.” Emily nodded apprehensively. Jane turned on the light. The ever-so-pink colors of the room felt startling to Jane. It also felt tainted. A cold-blooded killer stood in this room with a knife, dripping the blood of Emily’s parents all over the plush, pink carpeting.

  Emily carefully moved into the room, still holding onto Jane’s hand. Her eyes followed the missing trail of pink carpeting that ran from the door to the closet. She stared at the closed white closet door and noted the residue left behind from where detectives dusted for prints. “Why’s it all dirty?” Emily asked.

  “That’s not dirt. That’s just something the cops did.”

  “People were in my room?” Emily said, her voice raising an octave. “Why?”

  Jane promised herself she wouldn’t take Emily down that rocky emotional road. She had no intention of making the kid remember anything about the crime, no matter how much Chris or Weyler persuaded her. Screw ’em. Screw the media. For that matter, screw the city. She walked into this assignment completely against her will and she was not going to cooperate and drag Emily through hell. So when the kid asked why the cops were in her room, Jane did what she hardly ever did. She lied. “Just procedure,” Jane said, avoiding eye contact with her.

  “How come you’re lying to me?”

  Jane turned to Emily. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re lying. I can tell. When I ask my mommy a question and she doesn’t want to tell me the truth, she looks up in the air or she turns away.”

  “I—”

  “I thought you didn’t lie! That’s why I picked you.”

  Jane’s head started to pound. Her forced sobriety was beginning to hurt. The general numbness she had come to embrace over the years was quickly wearing off, leaving raw, exposed nerves. She wanted out of that little pink room, out of that house, out of that neighborhood and to fall back into a comfortable state of intoxication. The answer was going to call for tact and tact wasn’t her forte. But she also knew her typical response of “fuck off” wasn’t the way to go with the kid. “Okay,” Jane said, “You really want the truth?”

  “Yes,” Emily said with an uneasy edge to her voice.

  “Do you remember where you were when the policeman found you last Monday morning?”

  “In my closet,” Emily said, pointing to the door.

  “Right.” Jane struggled with putting her words together. “And that’s the last thing you remember?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you see, the police believe—and I’m not saying this is true—but they believe that possibly some person came up here. So that’s why they had to come in and check out the room.”

  “Who was in here?” Emily’s eyes widened.

  “We’re not sure. Just someone who didn’t belong here.”

  “Well . . .” Emily looked at the carpet, trying to process everything. “Who was it?” Jane turned away and let out a deep breath. “Jane?” Emily said, her eyes still wide with concern. “Who was in my room?”

  Jane turned back to Emily. “The person . . . or persons who . . . killed your parents.”

  Emily moved closer to Jane, still gripping her hand. “They were here?”

  “I don’t—”

  “Is that why my carpet pieces are cut out?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why just that part of the carpet?” Emily asked, pointing to the floor.

  “Because they had to test that part of the carpet.”

  “Test it?”

  “Footprints,” Jane said without flinching. There was no way she was mentioning blood. “They have to match footprints.”

  “Footprints? Match them from where?”

  “The stairs that lead up here. They took some carpet from there, too. They want to see if the footprints they found there are the same as what was in here.”

  Emily considered the idea and figured it seemed logical. She glanced toward the closet door. “So, they were standing here when I was in there?”

  “That’s what the cops think.”

  Emily buried her head in Jane’s stomach. “I don’t remember anything.”

  “I told you before, you don’t have to remember a thing. How about if we get out of here? What do you say we go downstairs and you flick that little flashlight you’ve got out the window and see how fast Martha can get her ass in this house?”

  Emily threw her arms tightly around Jane’s body. “I want to stay with you.”

  Jane steadied herself as Emily leaned into her body. “Okay. Fine. We’ll stay here. Where are your pajamas?”

  Emily stayed glued to Jane’s body. “In the top drawer over there.”

  Jane gently peeled Emily off her and motioned to the bed. “Sit there.”

  Emily sat on the bed as Jane shuffled through the bureau drawer. Upon finding the pajamas, she returned to Emily’s side and helped her undress. There was stone silence between the two of them as Jane pulled off Emily’s jumper and shirt and dressed her in a matching set of white pajamas, decorated with hundreds of blue and pink stars. When Jane finished, Emily looked up at her. “What if I can’t remember ever?”

  “You don’t have to remember, Emily. Some things in life are better left forgotten. Believe me, kid. That’s the God’s truth.”

  “But I’m already forgetting what Mommy and Daddy look like.”

  “That’s easy to fix. You’ve got photos of them. There’s that photo downstairs on the refrigerator of the three of you. Remember?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Emily leaned over to the side table next to her bed and pulled out the overstuffed drawer. “Where’s my pack of photos?” Emily said, clearly upset.

  “Is that where you left them?”

  “Yeah,” Emily said, growing more annoyed.

  “Well,” Jane said, wedging her hand way back in the drawer. “Sometimes when a drawer is overfilled, items on the top can get caught in the back.” After a few moments of pulling and readjusting the drawer, Jane withdrew the crumpled photo pack. “Is that what you’re looking for?”

  “Yes!” Emily exclaimed, holding the packet to her chest. She slid the photos out of the envelope and looked at the top picture. “There they are.”

  Jane glanced down at the photo. It looked like the same one on the refrigerator. “Keep those pictures with you and you’ll never forget them.”

  Emily stared at the photo, becoming lost in it. “That was a fun day.”

  “How about if you put that top one right here by your bedside so you can see it when you wake up.” Jane started to take the photo off the stack when Emily quickly placed her hand over Jane’s hand.

  “I can’t sleep up here!” Emily said, her voice filled with fear.

  “Nothing is going to happen to you. I’ll be downstairs.”

  “Then I want to be downstairs. I want to be with you.” Emily grabbed on to Jane’s sleeve as if she were drowning and Jane was her life preserver.

  “Well, I’m not—”

  “Please let me be with you.”

  Jane realized that Emily was genuinely scared and that the child was not taking “no” for an answer.

  Downstairs, Jane fashioned the couch into a bed using sheets and blankets from the hallway closet.

  “Hey,�
�� Emily said, safely securing the pack of photographs inside the vinyl case that held her Starlight Starbright projector. “It’s dark enough to show you my Starlight Starbright. Turn off the lights!” Emily grabbed the case and skipped over to the couch.

  Jane went around the room turning off the various table lamps. When she reached the final lamp that sat next to the couch, her eye glimpsed something against the metal side of the lamp’s center post. At first Jane thought it was a large black fly. She squinted through the blinding light. It was a bug, alright, but not the insect kind. Jane carefully removed it and recognized it as the kind of apparatus that the police use for surveillance. She handled it very discreetly as she walked across to the front window. Jane could make out Chris sitting in his unmarked car with the interior light on. He was drinking coffee with one hand and holding his earpiece with the other. Jane purposely ran her finger over the bug and watched Chris readjust his earpiece.

  A flash of hot anger surged through Jane’s system. She turned to Emily and spoke in as calm a voice as she could muster. “I’ll be right back.”

  Emily watched as Jane crept to the front door, opened it quietly and walked outside leaving the door slightly ajar. Emily slunk off the couch the second Jane was out of sight and crossed to the front door, peering outside into the darkness. Jane walked across the lawn, safely hidden in the dark shadows. She brought the tiny microphone bug to her mouth and spoke into it as though she were having a covert conversation. “Okay, Emily, I’m back. Now, I want you to listen to me very carefully. What you just told me upstairs about how you know who killed your mommy and daddy . . .” Jane stopped walking and watched as Chris immediately held his earpiece closer to his head. “I want you to know that’s going to be our little secret. No one ever has to know a thing. Especially not my fucking partner who’s sitting across the street and getting a hard-on listening to what we’re saying!”

  Chris jerked forward and turned toward the house just in time to see Jane bolt across the street and head right to his car.

  “Roll down your fucking window!” Jane screamed. Martha turned around in the other car to see who was yelling. Chris rolled down his car window. “You got a lot of fucking nerve, cowboy!” Jane screamed at Chris who looked as though he’d been caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar.