Artistic License

by Julie Hyzy

  The tech whose name, Belinda, hung from a tag on a long woven strap around her neck, stopped them at the point where the corridor widened and the room began. She gestured above her head as she looked down at the clipboard in her hand. “That’s the closed-circuit television. We can send the picture by camera, so you don’t have to see him in person, if you want?” She ended her statement as a question.

  Annie shook her head, confused.

  The tech continued, this time looking directly at them, “What we try to do here, is we try to take it easy on you folks having to see your loved one dead and all. So, like, if it’s on a TV, it’s kinda like easier to take.” She shrugged, her explanation complete. “Do you want me to tell the guys to set up the video?”

  Annie glanced at Uncle Lou, then up at the monitor attached to the ceiling and wall. “I . . . don’t think I want to use the television. I think I need to see him in person.”

  “Suit yourself,” Belinda said, moving into the room beyond them. “But it isn’t really in person. It’s still behind some glass. That’s the best we can do, okay?”

  Annie nodded. She wanted to be anywhere else but here.

  As they arranged themselves in front of the center of three large Plexiglas windows that lined one wall, the tech spoke into a walkie-talkie. Moments later, a gurney rolled into view, pushed by a young Oriental guy who maintained a lively conversation over his shoulder with someone out of view. As though in pantomime behind the thick glass, his silent laughter and animated body language were, absurdly, normal. The ugly walls, the musty smell, and the zoo-like feeling of watching from behind safety bars were what seemed strange. Annie wanted to be part of a life that could share the joke, to feel the lightheartedness, instead of the fear and ache that pinched in her gut.

  With a shake of his shiny dark head, the tech returned his attention to the black bag in front of him, and arranged his face into solemn neutrality. The gurney stood between him and the Plexiglas wall, and, keeping his eyes on his task, he moved to unzip the bag from right to left. Midway through, he glanced sideways and Annie watched his studious look lighten for a second, before regaining control. She noticed that he bit the insides of his cheeks and didn’t look up again, as his face pinked up.

  She could imagine his friend, off to the side, making some comment or movement, trying to get him to laugh. As the young man moved the plastic bag away, Annie shut her eyes for just a moment. One moment before it all became true.

  For a second, maybe two, she didn’t know it was him. All she saw was the brown-encrusted blood. It seemed to cover most of his forehead, and the entire right side of his head. But it was Gary. His eyes and mouth were open in a still, frozen reaction to the shot that had killed him.

  Annie leaned her forehead against the glass, staring ahead, believing, not believing. Hot tears of frustration worked their way up, and she let them fall, quietly. Not like this. No one should die like this.

  Her breath made tiny puffs of condensation against the window. Still, she stared, wondering everything and nothing at once.

  “Is this your husband, ma’am?” Annie caught Belinda’s movement in periphery. The woman had pulled a pen from her pocket and held it poised over her clipboard. Annie wondered why the rush. It wasn’t as though a line of people stood outside, holding numbers for their turn.

  Annie said, “Yes,” but it came out quiet, almost breathless. She cleared her throat. “Yes. This is my husband.”

  “Can you state his name for the record, please?”

  “Gary Benjamin Randall.”

  Her job done, she clicked the pen closed and began to leave the room. Turning at the door, she said, “You can stay as long as you like. Just wave to Hiroshi to let him know when you’re done. ‘Kay?”

  Uncle Lou, silent till now, moved forward and stood next to Annie. “I’m sorry honey,” he said. “I just don’t have any words . . .”

  Turning to her right, she saw the tears well up in her uncle’s eyes as he pulled out his crinkled handkerchief to wipe his nose. She reached over to put her arm around him and they stood there a long moment.

  With a sigh, Annie signaled to Hiroshi

  .

  * * * * *

  “Mrs. Randall?”

  Startled, Annie sat up fast in her wobbly chair, causing a few drops of water to splash over the side of her cup. Reliving the morning at the morgue, she’d lost track of the fact that she was sitting in the middle of a police station, waiting for them to tell her what to do next.

  Standing over her, the man who’d spoken didn’t look like a policeman at all. He was gray. Thin, with an unhealthy pallor, wearing lightly patterned gray suit pants, a dress shirt, and loosened tie, he motioned for her to follow him. The movement of his arm caused a waft of air that made it clear he’d just finished a cigarette. She followed him down the hall, cup in one hand, backpack swinging against her hip. His wrinkled shirt, with its white sleeves rolled up mid-forearm, was threadbare at the elbows. Late forties, with military-short dark gray-flecked hair and a hint of beard stubble, even at mid-day, he moved almost silently as he shut the door behind them. Annie looked around, noting the faint smell of stale smoke and the pattern of smudges and fingerprints on the shiny painted walls, most of them at about waist level.

  Annie sat in the chair he pulled out for her, laying her backpack on the table beside her.

  “Mrs. Randall, I’m Detective George Lulinski.”

  Annie, resigned, closed her eyes. Mrs. Randall.

  Dropping into the chair across from her, he stopped when he saw her face. “Is there a problem?”

  Annie shook her head, “No.”

  Detective Lulinski picked up a manila file folder from the table and leafed through a few papers. “Hmmm. You were in the process of a divorce?”

  “Yes. That’s right.” Annie didn’t know why every word that came out of her mouth sounded stilted, but it did.

  “Says here you use the name Callaghan. That your maiden name?”

  “Yes,” she said, nodding, trying to feel casual. Failing. “Callaghan. I’ve been using it again now for about a year, I guess.” Her eyes wandered about the room. Small, it had two doors, the one they entered through from the hall to her right, and one behind Detective Lulinski that remained closed. Next to it was a large window with mirrored glass. Annie thought it odd-looking and then saw a flash from behind it. As though someone had lit a cigarette . . . A cigarette? It was no mirror; it was one-way glass. And there were people on the other side watching her. Suddenly, she found it hard not to feel like a criminal.

  “You identified your husband at the morgue this morning, is that right?”

  Annie tried to block thoughts of the visit from her head. She nodded, looking away for a moment.

  Scratches in the wood tabletop beneath her folded hands made her wonder about other people who’d sat here before. Behind her, a low bench ran along the back wall. Metal rings were attached to either end. She imagined handcuffed prisoners attached to them.

  “I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Rand—, Ms. Callaghan.” The detective’s eyebrows furrowed over his dark eyes. “Sorry. Which do you prefer?”

  Annie’s hands fluttered in front of her. “No matter. I’ll answer to either one, I guess.” She tried to give a smile, but knew it fell flat. She dropped her hands to the table, one on top of the other. The detective spent a few more moments reading over the papers in front of him and she uncrossed her hands, recrossing them the opposite way. She felt like a disobedient fourth grader, waiting for chastisement.

  Her hands were cold, from nervousness perhaps, and she felt her fingertips begin to tingle.

  “So, Ms. Callaghan,” Detective Lulinski pulled out a blank sheet of paper before closing the file. He pulled a pen from his shirt pocket and clicked it twice, poised to write. He looked completely at ease. “When did you last see your husband?”

  A long question mark-shaped stretch of inkstain decorated the area over the detective’s pocket and Annie
’s eyes were drawn to it as she spoke. “Well,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ears and using the moment to relocate her hands to her lap. “It was yesterday. We went to a restaurant, called Donagan’s, for lunch.”

  Slow nodding on the detective’s part made Annie feel as though she should keep talking. “We, um, were there to talk about the divorce.”

  “How did that go?”

  “Not too good.” Annie cringed at having to bring it up.

  “Where were you last night, around seven o’clock?”

  Annie’s mind raced. She fidgeted in her seat, aware of the man’s intense scrutiny. Except for a fan that hummed in the ceiling above her, its motor making a metallic click every so often, the room was utterly silent. It felt wrong to tell him that she’d stayed the night at Sam’s. There was no way to explain that and have it come out right. And yet she couldn’t lie.

  She cleared her throat.

  Just then, Officer Schlosser poked his head in, requesting a moment of the detective’s time, out of the room. She couldn’t make out the low conversation beyond the open door. From the cadence of the voices, however, she gathered that whatever Officer Schlosser was saying was of some interest to the detective.

  Annie pulled her shoulder blades together in a small stretch. How could she tell them that she’d spent the night at Sam’s house? It sounded so meretricious.

  Detective Lulinski eased back into the room with a paper in his hand, speaking a few more moments out the door before closing it and resuming his seat, the chair emitting a plastic squawk of protest as he settled himself.

  “Sorry for the interruption, Ms. Callaghan. I have another question for you.” He shifted papers around on the table, not looking at her. Took his time shuffling. Then looked up at her with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Where was your husband living?”

  Annie’s hand came up from her lap to tuck her hair behind her right ear again, even though it didn’t need tucking. “He moved back in with me. Last week.” She waited for him to write, but he watched her instead. Unsettled, her words rushed out. “He and another guy, whose name is Pete—they both moved in. I didn’t want them to, but Gary said that he could get in trouble with the court because of his burglary charge if he didn’t have somewhere to live.” The detective nodding again made Annie want to scream.

  “Weren’t you concerned when he didn’t come home last night?”

  “No.” Annie bit her lip to stop herself from explaining further.

  “Why not?”

  “I didn’t know he hadn’t come home.”

  “Because he wasn’t living with you. He had an apartment.” The detective asked, but it came out as a statement.

  “No. He was living with me. Since . . . since . . .” Annie was so flushed with heat that it felt like her face was pounding as she tried to remember what day it had been that Gary met her at the door. Tiny beads of sweat popped out on her forehead, and over her lip. She still had her cup of water and she took a sip, to give herself a moment to gather her thoughts. Before she could speak, he continued.

  “This is the address we have in our computers.” He passed a printout across the table. “He didn’t have a driver’s license on his person, so we looked it up.” His chin lifted her direction. “That correct?”

  Annie pulled the paper closer and scanned it. “That’s where he was living, yes. But they got evicted. Last week.”

  He pointed to the information, causing the paper to crinkle. “This apartment got broken into last night. We haven’t had a chance to talk with the owners of the building yet, just the neighbors. Nobody mentioned an eviction. Estimated time of your husband’s death is between seven and nine P.M. yesterday. Police were called to a disturbance at this apartment just after midnight.”

  Annie shook her head, not understanding.

  “While it’s possible that the two incidents are not related, it’s also likely that they are,” he said, continuing. “The place was ransacked. Tossed. And yet all the high-priced items were left untouched. We find that curious.”

  “But,” Annie said, shaking her head again, looking down at the table and trying to make sense of his words, “they were evicted.” She could hear the desperation in her voice, as though saying it could somehow make it true. But tiny pieces of a puzzle niggled in her brain. Annie remembered warning Gary not to even try to bring the big-screen television into the house and he’d grinned at her, telling her that they were renting the TV and a few other things to another friend, for cash. Could they have sublet the apartment, and then lied to her about it? Her shoulders slumped. She’d been conned.

  “Do you have any proof that your husband was living with you?”

  “His stuff is at my house.” Annie could hear the high pitch in her voice as she ended the statement like a question; she knew that could hardly be considered proof of anything.

  The detective wrinkled up half his face in a “that ain’t gonna cut it” look. He clicked his pen, then clicked it again. “Now, Ms. Callaghan, why don’t we start from the beginning. Where were you at approximately seven o’clock last night?”

  Annie tried to quell a shudder as she brought her hands back up to the tabletop again. All she wanted to do was go home now, and sleep. Maybe she’d wake up to find this had all been a dream. “I . . .” she said, clearing her throat again, “I spent the night at a friend’s house.”

  His face remained impassive, even as his hand moved across the paper, writing. “Go on,” he said.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Annie’s eyes flicked over to the front seat. Sam drove slowly, following the long black hearse, one hand draped over the steering wheel, his left elbow propped against the driver’s side door. She’d preferred the back seat, and had insisted on it, despite Uncle Lou’s suggestion that he take the back and she sit up front with Sam. Really, she just wanted to be alone, to sort out everything that had happened over the past few days.

  A one-car funeral. People made jokes about them, but Annie wasn’t surprised. She’d been afraid to face having a wake and funeral with dozens of mourners, all wanting to know how it happened, where it happened, and what was she feeling? Both to her relief, and yet to her sorrow for Gary’s sake, few people had turned out.

  Sam glanced back at her, checking on her, probably, and he gave a small smile. She couldn’t have asked for a better friend. At the police station the other day, she’d suddenly realized that Sam would have no idea where she’d gone. She’d written the number for Millie’s on a scrap of paper, pressed it into Uncle Lou’s hand, and asked him to call there. Still, it had surprised her to see Sam when she’d come out of interrogation.

  Fatigued from the incessant questions, the closeness of the closet-sized area, and the constant repetition, she’d left the room feeling hot and dingy. The cool of the hallway air had been like heaven, and when she looked down the hall, she’d seen Sam. Waiting for her.

  Sitting there, his large frame looking uncomfortable on the same small wobbly chair that Annie had sat in earlier, he’d been leaning forward, his elbows propped up by his knees. She could tell even in profile that he was tense, with his folded hands pressed hard together and his jaw set. He stared across the small corridor at nothing but the brown brick wall. But he was there.

  All the emotion that she’d kept down in order to get through the initial shock and then the ordeal of being questioned, bubbled up when she saw him, and her voice cracked. “Sam?”

  As he stood, the look on his face told her even more than his being there did. A combination of concern, relief, and something else—she couldn’t tell whatcommingled on his features, sending a warm rush of release through Annie’s weary body. Tears burnt a path to her eyes and she moved forward to be enveloped by Sam’s strong arms, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  As Annie regained control, she stepped back a bit, putting some space between them, self-conscious as Detective Lulinski appeared to her right. “And would this be the friend whose house
you stayed at last night?” he asked.

  “Sam Morgan,” Sam said, stepping forward, allowing his arm to drop from around Annie’s waist. “And you are?”

  The two men shook hands, though Annie felt a tremor of animosity between them. “The detective working this homicide. George Lulinski.”

  To Annie, Sam asked, “Are you okay to go?”

  Annie wiped at her eyes, wanting nothing more than to leave immediately. She turned to the detective, “Am I done?”

  He leaned up against the brick wall, scrutinizing them. Dropping one hand into his pants pocket, he came up with a small metallic container. He flipped it open and pulled out a business card. “Yeah,” he said, making slow, deliberate movements, “but here’s my card. If there’s anything else you think of, Mrs. Randall,” he said her name with emphasis, “be sure to call.” He crinkled up half his face in a way that could have been a wink, had it been friendly. Leaving them, he walked back down the hall to his office, stopping about halfway there, to turn. “And, of course, if there’s anything you want to talk about . . . you know . . . get off your chest, you can call me. Anytime.”

  The low rumble in Sam’s throat would have been inaudible if Annie hadn’t been standing so close. “Let’s get you home,” he said.

  Once there, Sam had settled Annie onto her sofa. “Can I get you something?”

  “No,” she smiled, “I’m fine. Really.”

  Sam sat next to her. “Why don’t you tell me what happened.”

  As she’d talked, Annie had felt some of the tension leave her body. She’d watched Sam’s face as she described her trip to the morgue and the subsequent visit to the police station. More than once he said, “You should have called me,” and Annie realized that he meant it. She had wanted to call him. Wanted his strength when she went to the morgue. She’d wanted to be with him just because she knew everything was better when he was near. But she’d stopped herself from calling, afraid to burden him. It hit her with a suddenness that nearly took her breath away; he wanted to be part of her life and was hurt that she hadn’t called. It was as if she hadn’t trusted him enough.