Sight Lines

by Michelle DiCeglio

  T.J. reached behind her and took a pack of cigarettes out of the backpack hanging off the side of the camping chair. She didn’t notice the small balloon that fell out of her backpack and onto the ground. It was the kind of balloon used for dealing heroin. But I purposely didn’t bring attention to it. Not just yet. I could only imagine all the hiding places she had, not only in her immediate surroundings but throughout the entire Villa. She slowly placed a half-smoked cigarette in her mouth and lit the end of it with a lighter she pulled from the front pocket of her filth-laden jeans.

  “I told you the truth,” she said calmly as she exhaled a puff of smoke. “I don’t make the rules, dearie. Don’t be mad at me.” She took another hit from her cigarette. “Let’s say you wanted a hundred-dollar steak dinner at some fancy restaurant—but you only had ten dollars. Would you be mad at the chef because you went home hungry?” I knew she was referring to what little cash I had on me yesterday.

  “I think today you’re going to cook for free.”

  “Oh yeah? And why’s that?” Her arrogance smelled worse than she did.

  “Because I know what you have hidden in those cans,” I said and gestured toward the shopping cart in her tent. “And when we have each can fingerprinted, it will pull up your prints and the prints of every other Villager who lives here. How many charges of intent to distribute do you think are in there? Each can’s a separate offense.” I paused. I could hear T.J. swallow hard. She kept her composure, but I could see an air of cockiness leave her body. “What do you think will happen to your little family here when they’re all charged too? Prison isn’t a nice place for scrawny little boys.”

  It was more than the summer heat making her sweat at this point. She slowly nodded and took one last drag of her smoke. I could almost feel her weighing the pros and cons of cooperation. She suddenly flicked the butt in my direction, stood up swiftly, and stomped on it with her left heel, twisting it deep into the ground. If she was trying to intimidate me with her aggression toward the cigarette, it wasn’t going to work.

  “What do you want?” she asked again. “I’ve done told you all I know about these woods. And that’s the truth.” She sat back down and began picking at the frayed fabric of her camping chair, pulling the loose threads between her fingers. She went in and out of eye contact with me as I stared her down. “But that’s not what you want to know, is it?” She looked right at me and scoffed. “You wanna ask me about that other girl.”

  “You know her name.” Unintentionally, I confirmed her accusation.

  “Seems she forgot my name when dear old daddy bailed her outta jail.”

  “What kind of person are you?” I asked under my breath, already knowing the answer.

  “She’s dead, honey. Ain’t no information I tell you now gonna bring her back.” T.J. shrugged and lit another cigarette. “And it ain’t gonna stop the person who did it neither.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re so high and mighty with your cop knowledge, you figure it out. Go ahead and you get your warrants, and you make all the arrests you want.” She scoffed again, coughing a little as she exhaled. “But filling up a jail with junkies ain’t gonna solve shit. And you know it.”

  As much as I wanted to argue with her and arrest her on the spot, I knew she was right.

  “Tell you what. I’m gonna give you a friendly warning: Next time you come up here, with your little threats and your ten-dollar bills, you best be prepared to pull that trigger. Because I’m done playin’ nice. You think we don’t know when someone’s comin’ up here?” She began to laugh.

  “Are you threatening an officer?” I asked.

  “No ma’am.” She shook her head slowly. “But with all these unsolved murders happenin’ right here in my backyard…how’s that old saying go again? ‘Shoot first, ask questions later’?”

  I could feel my blood start to boil under my skin. I began to wonder why whoever was committing these murders didn’t go after the Villagers. It would be weeks, if not longer, before anyone even noticed they were gone, and it was unlikely their murders would receive the same type of media attention that the current victims’ did. And then I realized that maybe the killer wanted to get caught.

  Disgust and anger were the only feelings I had toward T.J. and the rest of the Villagers. I started to see them as the same worthless pile of trash the rest of the town saw them as. It was the way Bishop felt about them, and I was beginning to understand why.

  But Tara wasn’t a Villager. She was never this cold and callous. And then it hit me: She didn’t have to be cold or callous because she never had to live in the Villa. She was a visitor, not a resident.

  I thought about T.J.’s warning and knew I was completely defenseless. Every officer in town knew the Villagers had hiding spots all along these trails. And the Villagers knew when any officer or park ranger was patrolling the area. They would send a signal whenever any type of law enforcement was getting too close—and I knew that if I had to draw my weapon and fire it at T.J., there would be countless other Villagers ready to take me down. Even with the probability of a first-degree-murder charge, they’d never let the death of their Mother Hen go unpunished.

  Reaching into my back pocket, I pulled out my cell phone, unlocked it, and pressed the “one” button on the screen. I didn’t take my eyes off T.J. as I speed-dialed the station.

  “This is Detective Mills,” I said when the dispatcher picked up. “I have a five-oh-seven here, with a probable nine-six-six in progress. Vantage Woods. I’m with the suspect now.” I waited for the dispatcher to confirm the code and the location, and I stayed on the line until I heard the approaching sirens.

  T.J. cocked her head at me, and I glanced under chair where the balloon still lay. T.J. looked down at the ground—and when she saw the balloon, she glared at me and clicked her tongue along the inner side of what teeth she still had. With more patrol cars than usual stationed in the surrounding area, I wasn’t surprised by the quick response time. T.J. seemed to be, however, and as she eyed me up and down, probably asking herself whether she had enough strength to take me down, I kept my hand on my gun as a friendly reminder to her that I was armed.

  I took a step back when the responding officers ran into the Villa. They stopped behind me and formed a half-circle around us in an attempt to block any potential exit routes, in case she decided to make a run for it. Judging by the looks on the officers’ faces, they were probably surprised to see a live body in Vantage Woods.

  It wasn’t until the K-9 unit arrived that they began searching her property.

  “Does this tent belong to you?” an officer asked her. He stood next to the opening of the tent; his buzz-cut blond hair was flat against his scalp from the summer heat.

  “Answer him,” I told her after a few seconds of silence.

  “Yeah, it’s mine,” she snapped. She remained seated and clenched her jaw as she heard the officer go inside her tent and pull out the shopping cart.

  “Anything sharp or pointy in here?” the officer asked her.

  “Needles,” she answered, locking her eyes with mine.

  “Any weapons?” the officer asked her as he carefully lifted the blankets out of the shopping cart. The pop cans fell against one another, and T.J. rolled her eyes as they clanged and banged against one another.

  “No,” she snapped again. I broke from our staring contest and watched the officer pick up the cans and shake them gently. A soft ringing sound echoed from the opening of what should have been an empty can as its contents circled the interior of the aluminum. The officer held out his latex-gloved hand and slowly tipped the can to its side, catching the contents as they fell out.

  Two deflated yellow balloons, tied in a knot at the openings, fell onto his hand. Each was no larger than a nickel. The K-9 officer walked his German Shepard toward the shopping cart and let the dog sniff the cans. The dog began inhaling and exhaling faster and faster as it circled the perimeter of the cart. The dog s
tood on its hind legs and began barking during a second pass around the cart. The K-9 officer nodded at the officer holding the balloons in his hand and told him to untie them. Doing as he was told, the officer broke open the balloons and a light brown powder came tumbling onto his hand.

  Aside from learning what that substance was from on-the-job training, I remembered seeing it several times when I was with Tara. Heroin in its purest form was a white powder. T.J. had cut hers with another substance, diluting the potency. It was still heroin though—and if each can contained at least two balloons, with a gram per balloon, she was looking at a very long jail sentence.

  “Cuff her,” the K-9 officer directed when he saw it was heroin. Even one gram was enough to bring her in, so there was no need to check every can while she was still here.

  Another officer put his gun back in his holster and reached for his handcuffs. Walking toward her, he asked her to stand and put her hands behind her back. She stood and took two steps toward me so that we were almost nose-to-nose. The stench of her breath smelled worse than any decaying body I had ever been near. It filled my nose and lungs, and I had to take a step back to keep myself from choking. I began coughing and turned my head so that I could breathe in fresh air. My throat burned as if I had been set on fire.

  The arresting officer began reading T.J. her Miranda rights as he placed her under arrest. Two officers escorted her back to the patrol cars while the remaining three officers continued searching her property with caution. There was no telling where her needles were and whether they were clean.

  “We’ll need you back at the station to write a report,” the K-9 officer said. He was now in charge of the arrest because it fell under his division.

  “Of course,” I answered and walked back to my car. I tried to hide my smirk as I watched Tiffany Jones take a seat in the back of a patrol car. But the triumphant feeling was too overwhelming not to crack a smile.

  Chapter Eleven

  By the time I sat down at my desk, Bishop—and everyone else at the station—had heard that I was involved in an arrest of more than forty-five grams of heroin, with a street value of roughly five thousand dollars. It would be difficult for a superior not to acknowledge that kind of bust, despite any lingering hostilities.

  Almost immediately, Bishop called me into his office. We hadn’t spoken since he told me to stay away from the Villa—for reasons I’m still uncertain about—so I wasn’t sure if he wanted to congratulate me or reprimand me.

  It turned out to be a little of both, along with a reassurance that our dinner with Ali was still on for tonight. Part of me had hoped he would change his mind.

  Ali met me at my place around 8:00PM and we headed toward Bishop’s. After polite hellos on his front porch, Bishop led us into the dining room. Ali and I sat on opposite sides from one another, and Bishop sat at the head of the table. The once-white lace tablecloth looked dingy and out of place underneath the crisp white dishes Bishop had set out.

  To say there was an awkward silence across the table would be an understatement. If it wasn’t for the din of forks and knives across the plates, we would have been in complete silence—until Bishop decided to break the ice.

  “So, Mills tells me you teach computers,” he said, his voice booming in the silent room.

  “Mills?” She looked at me and smiled. “I manage a team of graphic designers,” she said. And then more silence.

  “What else do you do?” Bishop asked.

  “I paint,” Ali said, then looked at me for assistance. But I had none to give.

  “I was never a painter,” Bishop said. “The house, sure, when it needed a fresh coat. But trees and people were never my forte.” He reached for another piece of bread from the basket on the table. “What do you paint?”

  “Abstract and nature mostly,” Ali replied. “What about you? Any hobbies?”

  “Not like I used to.” He wiped his mouth with his napkin. “I had an RV that I would take on camping trips with my wife and kids,” he said as he opened another bottle of wine. Hopefully that would help the conversation.

  “Do you get to go camping much these days?” she asked.

  “Not really.” He sighed. “My job keeps me pretty busy. And after the girls went off to college, they didn’t have time for their dear old dad.” Bishop forced a smile. “I assume Mills told you about my youngest daughter?”

  “She did,” Ali said and looked at me. “I’m very sorry that happened. I hope they catch whoever’s responsible.”

  “Me too,” he said and took a drink from his glass. “So tell me more about yourself— other than the computers,” he said, trying to change the subject.

  “There isn’t much to tell,” she answered as she raised her empty wineglass. I watched as Bishop filled her glass half full, and I accepted a refill myself when he turned the bottle toward me. I listened as Ali told Bishop about her family. It was the same thing she had told me on the night we unexpectedly met at Denim, almost as if she had rehearsed on the drive over here. She gave only necessary information and didn’t go into too much detail.

  As Bishop listened to Ali, he leaned in to give her his full attention. Looking across the dining room, I could see into the living room where Bishop kept his china cabinet. Instead of glasses and expensive dishes, the cabinet served as a time capsule for the awards and plaques he had earned throughout his forty years on the job. The bottom shelf was reserved for his daughters’ achievements.

  As Ali finished telling Bishop about her family and he began to tell her stories from his glory days, I quietly excused myself from the table and walked into the living room. I stood in front of the cabinet. Pictures of Tara and her older sister were set in silver frames and placed in chronological order. A picture of Tara when she was five, holding the first fish she ever caught; a picture of Tara in college, playing basketball; a picture of Tara in her cap and gown, her college diploma next to it. And that was the end of Tara’s achievements. Soon after graduation, things started to go south. She thought she had kicked her habit by the time we met, but I knew she had relapsed several times while we were together—no matter how hard she tried to hide it.

  Turning my attention back to Ali and Bishop, I could hear laughter coming from the dining room. The merlot must have kicked in. Returning to my seat, I drank the rest of my second glass and watched Bishop and Ali talking as if they were old friends. They had a lot of similar interests that I was unaware of. Despite knowing better, I felt like this was the type of evening I would have spent with Tara and her dad had things turned out differently.

  “Did you hear about Mills’s arrest today?” Bishop asked Ali as if he couldn’t be prouder of me. It was a complete one-eighty from yesterday.

  “No, she didn’t tell me.” Ali looked at me from across the table.

  “It was up in the Villa—you do know where that is?” he asked before continuing.

  “I do,” Ali answered.

  “Good, good—over forty grams of heroin. The department heads are quite impressed.” Bishop smiled at me and took another drink from his glass. It seemed he wasn’t going to let our work relationship interfere with our personal one.

  “It really isn’t a big deal,” I said, trying to downplay the arrest. I didn’t want the real reason I was in the Villa to come up. I already had to be less than forthcoming on the arrest report as to my reason for being there in the first place, and I didn’t want it to continue into a full-blown lie.

  “It is a big deal,” Bishop said to Ali, as if I couldn’t hear him. But Ali must have picked up on my reluctance to talk about it. She smiled at me as she took a sip of wine then changed the subject.

  After an hour’s worth of Bishop’s best tales, Ali was just as engaged as she was when he first started talking. With a long sigh, indicating he had run out of his favorite stories, Bishop stood from the table and began clearing the plates. I looked at Ali from across the table and smiled. I didn’t know how to tell her how much I appreciated her being here, and
I could only imagine how incredibly awkward it must be for her. But she did a great job pretending to enjoy Bishop’s company as much as he was enjoying ours.

  “Here, let me,” Ali said as she stood and took the plates from Bishop’s hands. “You cooked. The least I can do is clean up.” Before Bishop had a chance to protest, Ali had already made her way to the kitchen.

  “I see why you like her,” Bishop said to me as he sat back down. “She’s very polite,” he said.

  “She is.”

  “And very pretty,” he added.

  “She is.” I laughed.

  “It’s good to see you with someone again.” I looked at him, trying to see exactly how drunk he was, but he didn’t seem to be too intoxicated. So I didn’t comment. “What happened to Tara wasn’t your fault,” he said. “She made her choice.”

  Before I could reply, Ali came back into the room.

  “Well, I’m sure you ladies need to get going,” he said.

  “We don’t have anything else planned tonight,” Ali quickly replied.

  “I’m sure you have better things to do than listen to an old man tell stories,” Bishop said and laughed at himself. “I have plenty of television shows I need to catch up on, so don’t feel like you have to stick around for my sake.”

  “Thank you for having us over,” Ali said. “Dinner was wonderful.”

  “You girls are welcome here any time,” he replied. “Mills, I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” He walked us to the front door, which was adjacent to the china cabinet.

  “Are these your daughters?” Ali asked when she saw me eyeing the photographs.

  “They are,” Bishop said. “That’s Casey, and this here is Tara.” He pointed to each of his daughters.

  “Does your daughter get to visit often?” Ali asked. It was clear she was trying to keep the focus on Bishop’s other daughter—the one who was still alive.