A Bitch Called Hope

by Lily Gardner

  Her cell went off again. She drew it out of her pocket and looked at the screen. Her mother. She pocketed it.

  “A client?” Ham blew his nose, then dealt the last card up.

  “A boyfriend,” Jerry said.

  “Aurora,” Lennox said. She peeked. Triple sweet. Her third four. “Raise ten.”

  Fish lined up his tower of chips, his third deuce on the table. He had as much chance of looking casual as a werewolf trying to pass as a choirboy. He doubled her raise. If she could beat him, it would be worth the cracked ribs.

  Everyone folded except Fish and Jerry and her. The way she figured it, even if Fish had a pair in the hole, she’d still beat him with her kings over fours. She tossed in her twenty and called.

  “Four of a kind.” Fish fanned his cards.

  The odds for drawing a four of a kind were five hundred ninety-four to one. Anyone else and she’d be happily cussing them out, but Fish? Goddamn, it hurt.

  Replenishing her poker fund: add that to the list of bills.

  Fish stretched his arms wide across the table and raked in his chips. All those little clay discs snicked against each other. The sound of luck.

  Jerry ran his fingers through his hair and drained his beer.

  Her cell phone buzzed. Aurora would press the redial every three minutes until Lennox called her back. Not like her mother didn’t know that Fridays were sacrosanct. Lennox pressed the off button on her phone and dropped it into her handbag.

  Mothers need defined limits. Routines need to be established and maintained.

  “You’re not going to call her back?” Sarge said. His watery blue eyes looked surprised.

  “She’s at a Christmas party. She probably wants to tell me about a single man who’d be perfect for me.”

  “Isn’t she like seventy?” Fulin said. “What if she had a heart attack?”

  “My mother broke her hip last year when I was in Maui,” Jerry said. “She laid there for hours.”

  “It’s probably nothing,” Ham said. And there it was. Her choice: she could either call her mother or see the reproach in their eyes, dutiful sons, every last one of them. Ham sneezed.

  “Fine,” she said and stood up. “But if it’s a report from the party, Jerry goes out with the guy Aurora lined out for me.”

  She might as well call her mother; she had nothing left to gamble with. She opened the door to beer-soaked laughter, the smell of fried fish heavy in the air. Force of habit, she checked out the cops by the front door. One of them swiveled on his bar stool and looked to where she was standing.

  Tommy Pavlik.

  He slid off his stool. Her feet seemed to have sunk roots into the planked floor. She’d dreaded this moment. Who was she kidding? She’d rehearsed this moment in her imagination since they broke up. Almost a year now and still sometimes she’d think about Tommy like a dog digging up an old bone hoping that some shred of meat or marrow made it worthwhile.

  Tommy walked towards her, eyes wide, smile big. Still the same beautiful teeth and a dimple she’d never seen. He’d shaved his beard. When had he done that? His chin was long and knobby-looking, cute the way his nose was cute, long and hooked at the end. He came close enough to shake hands.

  “Dish,” he said. “You look great.”

  She nodded dumbly, her tongue thick in her mouth. She was afraid if she tried to move her feet, she’d topple.

  “How have you been?” he said.

  “Good,” she said. What could she say? Something bigger. Something calculated to make him regret having dumped her. Four years they’d worked homicide together; almost three years they’d been lovers. She watched him shift from foot to foot. The silence between them took on mass.

  “Yeah,” he said. “You look good.”

  “Well,” she said. She groped for her phone. “I’ve got to make a call.”

  He took a step closer. “I came here tonight to see you.”

  He reached for her hand.

  “Don’t,” she said.

  “Okay. I deserve that, I guess.” But the look on his face said he didn’t.

  Someone laughed at the bar, the same low guttural laugh.

  “I got to go,” she said.

  Seven steps to the bathroom. She didn’t look back. When the door to the ladies’ closed behind her, she sagged. The nerves in her arms and legs began to tingle and pop.

  The door opened.

  Tommy stepped inside and the door swung closed. “Three hundred and fourteen days,” he said. “It’s been fucking killing me.”

  She turned and faced him. The bathroom light buzzed overhead, made him look even more gaunt than he was. He was too skinny. His beauty was his energy, a face made for laughing, blue eyes throwing off sparks, white teeth flashing, but now he was serious, those eyes pinning hers.

  “All this time I missed you so bad, but you know Linda. She could run the CIA. She told me if I got even in the same room with you she’d move back to Wisconsin, take the kids with her.”

  He shook his head. Poor Tommy and his poor lost kids.

  Eleven months since she’d seen him, and he wanted her to think of the children? Fuck the children. “You’re the reason I lost everything,” she said.

  He took her arm, backed her against the wall. This close, his breath on her face, her body remembered how his mouth tasted. She couldn’t take her eyes from his.

  “I know,” he said. “Christ, I know. You saved my life.” His voice was low and insistent. “What can I do to make it up to you?”

  “Can you get my job back?” she said.

  He didn’t even try to lie.

  Lennox shook his hand off her arm. “You shouldn’t be in here, Tommy,” she said. “Go home to your wife.”

  He put his hands up. “Don’t think I’m giving up on us. I’ll prove to you I’m serious.”

  He left. And she turned and braced her hands on either side of the sink. Sipped the fake pine-scented air through parted lips. All those daydreams she’d had about Tommy, what she didn’t take into account was how she’d have to forgive him.

  She peed. She washed her hands. She put on lipstick. Then she called her mother.

  “Thank God,” Aurora said. Her mother’s voice, but different, not bossy or exasperated or histrionic. She sounded old.

  Lennox pressed the cell tighter against her ear. “Are you all right?”

  “It’s Bill,” Aurora said. “Bill Pike. I found him.” Her mother’s voice cracked.

  “What are you saying?” Lennox said.

  “I found his body. The police want to question me.”

  Chapter 3

  Portland’s proletariat lives on the valley floor hemmed in by the Cascade and Coast Ranges. Over the neighbors’ rooflines or through the branches of the thirty-foot fir trees, you can see a thin strip of sky. The people with money climb up off the floor and get themselves a view. And the highest, best view in the city is at the top of an extinct lava cone called Council Crest. The Pike home was one of several old houses strung out like a necklace along the cliffs.

  The last time Lennox had been to the Pikes’ house she was still a kid sitting in the back seat of her folks’ Pontiac. She had wanted to marry the older Pike boy, Dan, since she was in second grade. Dan must have noticed how she followed him around, her face all moony in love, but he never once made fun of her. Eventually, he went off to college. She was fourteen at the time and never saw him again except in the occasional photo. It was all a very long time ago, more than twenty years.

  A row of cars was parked in both directions on either side of the road. She found a spot a half-block away. The rain lightened to mist as her boots crunched down the Pikes’ long driveway. She counted the police cars—excessive even for the folks at the top of the hill.

  The house was just the way she remembered it from all those years ago. It stood two stories high, clad in stucco with a steep tiled roof lined in white fairy lights. The landscape lights threw a lacework of shadows against the walls of the house up t
o the second floor. A thin whiff of wood smoke drifted down from the chimney and mixed with the smell of rain.

  In the red and blue strobe from the cop cars, Lennox spotted Officer Hyatt standing beneath the garage eaves talking to two guys in valet uniforms: white shirts, black trousers, and windbreakers. The bigger of the two valets shifted from foot to foot, his hands jammed under his armpits. The man’s size and the way he shifted his weight reminded her of someone, and when she drew closer she realized who he was. John Resnik, once the terror of every Safeway in East County, was parking cars at the Pikes’. Who was responsible for that hiring decision?

  “How’s it going?” she asked Officer Hyatt. Hyatt was a small man, his hair gone gray. He was a decent cop who’d always treated her like one of the guys.

  He nodded at her and told the valets to stay put. He and Lennox walked along the driveway out of earshot of John and the other one.

  “What are you doing here?” Hyatt said, his voice big for his body.

  “My mother’s here,” she said. “We’re old family friends of the Pikes.”

  Resnick stood ten feet from them, an ugly expression on his face. Whatever he was telling the second valet wasn’t good news. The second man shot an evil look in her direction and spat on the pavement.

  She grinned and waved at both of them.

  Hyatt nodded his head in Resnik’s direction. “What’s the story?”

  “The big one’s name is John Resnik. He was convicted of his second armed robbery five years ago,” she said. “My collar. Has a record long as your arm. I haven’t been following his career since he got out of the state pen. What’s he doing up here?”

  “Parking cars is what they say,” Hyatt said.

  Lennox walked over to the two men. “Hey, John,” she said. “Long time no see.”

  “Is that supposed to be funny?” Resnick said.

  “Did Mr. Pike know he’d hired a felon to park his friends’ Mercedes?”

  “Sure he knew. I’ve been working for him since I got out.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Whatever the man wants. See that hedge over there?” He pointed to a low wall of boxwoods that ran along the fence line. “I’m the one keeps this place neat and tidy.”

  “The uniform suits you. I like the white shirt. I didn’t want to say anything at the time, but orange was not your color.”

  Resnick scowled.

  “Cooper.” Hyatt steered her away from Resnick and his buddy. “You’d better put a move on. I don’t want Sloane giving me shit about why I let you talk to the witnesses.”

  “Sloane?” She hoped her voice hadn’t cracked.

  Tommy and Sloane were partners. Which meant Tommy probably took the call about Bill Pike just after she did. How was it going to look to the other cops to see her anywhere near Tommy during an investigation? Christ on a crutch, what would Tommy think? Twenty minutes ago she was pushing him out of the loo.

  Meantime she’d made it to the front door and the officer wouldn’t let her pass. She tried to explain. Showed him her identification.

  “Then you know the drill.” He pulled his chin in and looked stern. “Until the manner of death is established, this area is treated as a crime scene.”

  A black Crown Vic pulled up and triple-parked alongside the front squad car. Tommy wore a tweed jacket and a puzzled expression. The jacket she recognized was the same one he kept on a hanger in the cruiser when they’d gone out after shift. He brushed next to Lennox, his sleeve touching hers. He smelled minty fresh like he’d taken a bath in mouthwash. Nobody would guess he’d been swilling beer a half hour ago.

  “Change your mind?” he said to her in a low voice. As if they’d agreed to rendezvous at the Pike house. He turned to the officer. “The techs here yet?”

  If the officer had the wispiest of clues about her and Tommy, he didn’t let on. “Just called, sir. Probably ten minutes at the most.”

  “The body?”

  “Still upstairs. They’re waiting for your go-ahead. Detective Sloane is interviewing witnesses.”

  “My mother found the body,” Lennox said. “I’m here to bring her home.”

  “Your mother?” Tommy turned to Lennox as if it had never occurred to him that she would have a mother. Then he recovered.

  “Go ahead,” he said.

  The officer looked like he wanted to object but caught himself.

  “Show me the body,” Tommy told him.

  Lennox followed them through the open front door.

  Through the foyer into the Pikes’ enormous living room. Big enough so the fifty guests, give or take, could stay out of the way of the cops and EMTs. And judging by the way the guests pressed themselves against the walls and sofa cushions, that looked to be exactly what they were trying to do. Pumpkin-colored walls, russet upholstery, the room looked like it was slowly oxidizing, but in a tasteful way. A twelve-foot Christmas tree stood in the corner. Someone had unplugged the twinkle lights.

  Detective Sloane looked up from a witness and gave Lennox the stink-eye as she crossed the room to where her mother was sitting all by herself on the loveseat beneath the north windows. Aurora looked even smaller than she actually was. Her garnet-colored hair stood up like she’d been pulling on it. She was shivering.

  Lennox draped her leather jacket over her mother’s shoulders and sat down next to her so that their bodies touched, thigh to knee. Aurora was so tiny, the two of them cozied down on half a loveseat. Her mother smelled the way she always did: a braid of Coco Chanel, Listerine and Parliament 100’s.

  Lennox looked over at Sloane who smiled reassuringly at the next witness and motioned her to the chair facing him. The witness hesitated, probably scared to death of Sloane with his horse face and long yellow teeth. Lennox should be the one interviewing these people, and it was killing her to sit here on the sidelines with all the taxpayers.

  How she ended up losing her badge was a story Lennox had told over and over again to the Independent Police Review Authority, to Internal Affairs, and to the Police Board who eventually discharged her ass. Lennox and her partner, John Doran, were the first responders on a level-three assist, officers taking fire at 5260 North Russell. They had heard shots coming from the back of the residence as they pulled up. Lennox sprinted across side yards and vaulted a cyclone fence to reach the neighbor closest to the residence. As she peeked around the corner of the house she saw a man in a black tee shirt lying face down in the packed dirt. He wasn’t moving. Blood, patches of scrub grass, broken glass and a derelict sofa twenty feet from the back porch made up the yard. Two more men sprawled by the sofa, one in uniform, the other in jeans and a leather jacket. Both of them looked to be breathing. One of them groaned. The last officer standing was pinned behind the sofa.

  The shooter on the back porch popped up from a chest freezer long enough to take a shot at the sofa. Lennox sighted her gun from the edge of the house next door. Which is when she recognized Tommy as one of the downed men, the one in the leather jacket. He was collapsed on the ground curled around his wound, blood seeping into the ground from his body.

  What Lennox was supposed to do: wait for the cavalry so as not to endanger herself or her fellow officers. What she did: ran in a feint: left, right, trying to get to Tommy.

  Doran, her partner, shouted. Stepped out from cover, guns blazing, doing his best to draw fire away from her.

  The shooter hit him in the side of the head with a forty-four.

  Before they fired her, Lennox got one month paid leave. And a good man and his widow on her conscience for the rest of her life.

  Aurora squeezed Lennox’s fingers until her rings bit into the flesh of Lennox’s hand. “They think I killed him,” she said in a low voice.

  “Don’t be silly.”

  Lennox followed Aurora’s sight line catty-corner across the room to Bill’s wife, Delia. She looked very pale and thin sitting on the sofa wedged between two men, one dark, one fair. Dan and Scott Pike. Dan all grown up. More than grow
n-up, her thirty-eight years plus four made him forty-two. It looked good on him. The blond one must be Scott. Scott had been beneath notice, a year younger than Lennox and a big baby. Now look at him nursing a large glass of scotch.

  Lennox heard noise coming from the direction of the kitchen. Trouble. A big cop marched into the room with a backpack, a crying woman trailing, her hand still clinging to one of the backpack straps. She was young and dressed in a caterer’s uniform. Just by entering the room she sucked up all the attention; she was that breathtakingly gorgeous.

  “It’s not what you think,” she told the cop. Over and over.

  A redheaded waiter hovered nearby. The way he watched the girl, Lennox pegged him for the boyfriend.

  “What’s going on?” Aurora half-lifted from her seat to get a better look.

  Lennox pulled her back and shushed her.

  The cop set the backpack on the interview table. “Sir, you need to look at this,” he said to Sloane.

  Sloane dumped out the contents. He fished out a banded stack of bills from under a rolled-up pair of jeans and held the bills in front of the girl.

  “Bill gave it to me,” the girl said in a voice loud enough that people within twenty feet of the table could hear.

  “Poor Delia,” Aurora said in a voice that wasn’t altogether surprised.

  Lennox had thought Bill was a nice dad just like her nice dad. Another childhood illusion shot to hell.

  All the color drained from the boyfriend’s face. His freckles stood out in big blotches.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong,” the girl said.

  “Then you’ve got nothing to worry about,” Sloane told the girl. The cop who’d discovered the backpack led the girl past all the guests out the front door. The room went completely silent, but Lennox could feel the buzz. The girl and the money: everyone in that room telling a story to themselves about what it meant. Speculation: it’s what we humans do.

  Lennox heard a car engine come to life. The crunch of gravel on the drive as the cop drove away to headquarters with the girl.

  One of the guests, stick thin and elderly, left his chair and went over to Delia.