The Bullet

by Mary Louise Kelly

  “Not the moment, Tony.” Martin laid a supportive hand on my shoulder.

  “Burglar alarm wouldn’t stop somebody determined, anyway.” The detective twitched his rodent nose at me. “But what makes you think it was? What makes you think this was more than a run-of-the-mill burglary? I mean, I get that it was scary, being home alone and a woman and everything, but what makes you think he—let’s say it was a he—that he wanted to hurt you?”

  Was this guy an idiot? “He ran. At. The. Door.” My words punched out like angry fists. “Did you not see my bedroom door?” The wood had splintered around the lock; one of the hinges had been ripped loose from the frame. The sight had made my stomach heave; I had had to turn away.

  “Sure, I saw. Somebody tried to bust it open all right. Probably looking for your jewelry box.”

  “Oh, please. Last night was not about someone looking for gold brooches—”

  “Well, now, you keep saying that. And I’m just saying, what’s the evidence? He smashed a window downstairs, to reach in and flip your basement dead lock. And he bashed the lock on that cabinet there, where it looks like you keep your booze.” The detective pointed at a mirrored cabinet in the corner of the living room, where I did indeed store liquor, and where the lock had indeed been bashed in. “We don’t appear to be dealing with a master lockpicker here. We appear to be dealing with an unskilled guy who was in a hurry. He wanted your jewelry, and he wasn’t opposed to breaking a few things to get in, get out, get the job done.”

  “No. For starters, no normal burglar would charge the homeowner—”

  “Burglar off his head on crack would. Trust me. People on crack do crazy shi—” He caught himself. “Crazy stuff.”

  I scowled.

  “Look, I can’t rule anything out. We’ll investigate every possibility. But it might actually put your mind at ease to know there were two other burglaries reported in the neighborhood this week. Both here on the west side of Wisconsin Avenue. Both involving forced entry at the back or basement door. Windows broken. You see where I’m going? Same guy, on a roll. He wasn’t after you.”

  Martin looked at me. “Should you mention the . . . ?” He touched his neck. Martin was the only member of my family who knew that an Atlanta police officer had questioned me about the bullet. “Think it might be relevant?”

  I steeled myself.

  Yeah. I did.

  • • •

  I HAD BEEN dancing around this point, trying to avoid staring it in the eye. The idea that events of thirty-four years ago, however terrifying, had some bearing on my present safety seemed, frankly, ridiculous. I might never know for certain what motive someone had had, all those years ago, to turn a gun on Boone and Sadie Rawson. But whatever it was, I appeared to have been an accidental victim. Collateral damage. The killer hadn’t bothered to finish me off then, when it would have been easy. He had not considered me a threat. And then he’d gotten away with murder for more than thirty years. Why come after me now? Anyone who’d read a newspaper in the last week understood that I remembered nothing, could identify no one.

  I know, I know. The bullet. But Beamer Beasley had implied that it wouldn’t be of great use to investigators without some sample to match it against. And Beasley himself hadn’t seemed terribly concerned about my safety. So, yes, I grasped that the bullet posed a threat. But surely the most urgent threat it posed to my health and well-being was the damage it was currently wreaking inside my body.

  And yet.

  The DC homicide detective’s face betrayed both irritation—I was ruining his burglar-on-a-roll theory—and grudging interest, as I laid out the events of the last two weeks. My family’s facial expressions would more accurately be described as appalled.

  “Let me get this straight,” said Martin. “The Atlanta police are reopening a murder case because of evidence inside your neck.”

  “They want to interview me,” I agreed. “Old case, new physical evidence.”

  “Jesus frigging Christ,” roared Tony. “This is the ‘crazy stuff ’ you were hinting at? You’re at the center of an active homicide investigation? You didn’t think that was worth outright mentioning?”

  “Tony,” my dad warned.

  “And as for these Georgia police bozos,” Tony roared on, “who’s running things down there? Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane? Has it not occurred to them that someone else might be interested in the new evidence? Someone with a personal stake in making sure that bullet never finds its way into police hands? Did it not occur—”

  “Stop it. Just stop it. The police officer I met with in Atlanta is a good guy. Not a bozo. His name’s Beasley. He was on the original team that investigated, back in ’79.”

  “Well, that’s a ringing endorsement,” snorted Tony. “Although I might be more impressed if they’d, say, solved the murders or caught the guy.”

  I ignored this. “I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to hype this into a bigger deal that it is. When they reopen an investigation, all it means is that a couple of people get assigned to comb over old files. There’s a Cold Case Squad—that’s what it’s actually called—that takes a look if fresh evidence comes to light. They’ve cautioned me not to expect much. And anyway,” I added, clinging to what Beasley had said, “whoever killed my birth parents may well be dead himself, after all these years.”

  “Unless he’s not,” muttered Tony.

  My dad and Martin nodded in apparent agreement.

  I turned to where the DC detective sat perched on my sofa, looking a bit stunned. “Atlanta police will verify everything I’ve just told you. It’s been all over the newspaper down there.”

  He sighed, as if this were the worst news yet. “You got a number for this Beasley that you can give me? I’ll check it out.”

  “You do that,” snapped Tony. “And when you’re done, you can turn your attention to sorting out some police protection for my sister. As should have been done several days ago. Which, if it had been done, might have prevented her from being scared shitless last night. Meanwhile”—he swiveled back to me—“meanwhile, I’m taking you to buy a gun.”

  “Tony! Will you stop being so dramatic?”

  “I’m not being dramatic. I’m being practical.”

  We sat glaring at each other.

  Martin flicked his gaze back and forth between us. A good thirty seconds passed. Then, under his breath, he muttered, “Nice Rosco Coltrane reference.”

  “Butt out,” Tony growled.

  “Sure. Seriously, though. Skillfully done.” Martin leaned back, drummed his fingers on a side table, whistling softly. I hadn’t heard the tune in a long time, “Good Ol’ Boys.”

  It took another half minute, but Tony cracked. A smile began to play around his lips. “Enos,” he whispered, in what sounded like an outrageous Southern accent. “Enos?”

  Martin’s shoulders began to shake.

  Tony, warming up now: “This is your superior officer, Sheriff Ros-cohhhhhhh P. Coltrane . . .”

  Dad studied his sons in bewilderment. “What the hell are they talking about?”

  “The Dukes of Hazzard,” I ventured. “That TV show they used to love. Wasn’t Roscoe the sidekick to, what’s his name, Boss Hogg?”

  “Breaker One, Breaker One,” Martin drawled. “I may be crazy, but I ain’t dumb!”

  I giggled. I couldn’t help it. Even Dad started to smile. The detective looked as if he wanted to flee.

  I had never loved my brothers so much in my life.

  Thirty

  * * *

  A decision was made that I should pack a bag and sleep at my parents’ house tonight. I didn’t resist. No way was I sleeping alone behind that broken bedroom door. My parents had a burglar alarm with motion detectors, and the beagle barked if a leaf so much as rustled in the yard. I would be safe.

  Dad waited while I threw a tooth
brush, makeup, and a change of clothes in a bag, then drove me up to Cleveland Park. Mom was standing on the front step. She folded me in her arms, kissed my hair, whispering, over and over, Sweet baby girl. She insisted that I follow her into the kitchen and take some soup. It was only nine in the morning, but I submitted. Hot lentil with lamb and cinnamon. Delicious.

  I excused myself and climbed to my old room on the top floor. I stripped and stood beneath a scalding shower, until my skin bloomed pink and my fingertips shriveled white and wrinkly. The ache in my wrist eased a little. The adrenaline that had carried me these last several hours was depleted. I needed sleep.

  Before I drew the curtains, I pulled out my phone and dialed Will. It went straight to voice mail. He might be with a patient, I mused. Or he might still be angry from our argument last night. Or punishing me for never answering my own phone.

  The phone beeped, indicating it was recording.

  “Hi. Call me.” I couldn’t think what else to say, couldn’t think where to begin an accounting of what had happened in the hours since we’d parted.

  I fanned my still-dripping hair across the pillow, drew up the covers, and sank into dreamless sleep.

  • • •

  WHEN I WOKE, the clock read four o’clock.

  My phone showed three messages. The first was from Madame Aubuchon, a stiffly formal message inquiring as to my health and adding that she had changed her mind, she wanted her soup pot back. Next came messages from Beasley and from the surgeon Marshall Gellert. These were both short, stating only their names and asking me to call back at my earliest convenience.

  I called Beasley first. Washington Metropolitan Police had already been in touch and filled him in on last night’s drama, but he made me retell what had happened, in painful detail.

  “I surely am sorry you had to go through that,” he said after I finished. “You’re the last person on earth I would wish it on. And I’m sorry to make you relive it again right now. But I needed to hear the details firsthand from you, make sure nothing important got left out.”

  “Of course.”

  “I don’t know—I’m being honest with you—I don’t know whether what happened last night has anything to do with what happened back in ’79. But say somebody does want to get his hands on that bullet. Coming after you, when you were home alone at night, would make sense.”

  I shivered.

  “Tonight you’re staying with your parents, correct? They’ll be with you the whole time? You’re not going out?”

  I glanced at my reflection in the mirror on the bedroom wall. My hair had dried in a weird cowlick while I slept, my eyes were ringed by dark circles, and I was wearing saggy sweatpants and a Duke basketball T-shirt filched from an ex-boyfriend. “If you could see me, you’d know I’m not fit to be seen in public.”

  “Good. If they haven’t been already, local police will be in touch. They’re arranging a cruiser to drive by your house throughout the night. But they can’t watch you every second, so it’s best if you stay inside and keep people around you.”

  “You really think I’m in danger, then.”

  “I think I would never forgive myself if anything else were to happen to you.” Beasley was quiet for a moment. “In better news, I can tell you that last night has lit a fire under people here. I’ve been pushing all week for your family’s files. Kept getting told they couldn’t find them. Then, lunchtime today? Not three hours after Washington MPD got on the horn asking about you? Two big, fat boxes appear on my desk. They must have finally sent somebody with a brain out to off-site storage.”

  “What’s in the boxes?”

  “Stuff. I’m going through it. That’s about all I can say at the moment.”

  “Because you’re not allowed to say or because you need time to—”

  Beasley acted as if he hadn’t heard me. “Your formal interview. I’d prefer to do it in person. But in the interest of time, let me see if I can schedule a slot in one of Washington MPD’s interview rooms. We’ll send a car for you.”

  “Can’t we just do it by phone?”

  “No, we need it videotaped. Let’s aim for first thing tomorrow.”

  I chewed my lip, weighed what to say next, decided what the hell. “My brother wants to buy me a gun. For self-defense.”

  “You know how to shoot?”

  “No.” I didn’t add that I’ve never handled a firearm in my life. “I’d have to get some instruction.”

  Beasley made a doubtful noise. “You’re talking a handgun, I assume. Takes a while to get comfortable with one, feel like you know what you’re doing. My advice, my official advice, would be to leave the guns to the cops. Local police will do fine looking out for your security.”

  “Hmm. You said that’s your official advice. What about unofficially?”

  He hesitated, then sighed. “Off the record . . . speaking as a ­father . . . I’d say something small, maybe a nine-millimeter Baby Glock, might not be a terrible idea.”

  • • •

  “I HEAR YOU’RE agitating to move up the surgery by a few days.”

  “Am I? Where did you hear that?”

  Marshall Gellert and I had played phone tag the better part of the afternoon. He finally caught me as I was setting my mother’s table for dinner.

  “Oh,” he said, taken aback. “I thought—I assumed—I got a call at lunchtime from a police detective down in Georgia. Saying that bullet in your neck is relevant to an investigation, and they want to examine it sooner rather than later. He wouldn’t give me details, but I assume that isn’t news to you? I thought you must know he was calling.”

  “I didn’t, but I’d welcome getting the surgery over with.” So Beamer Beasley wasn’t messing around. “When, then?”

  “I’m closing in on next Monday. Instead of next Wednesday. Would that fit your schedule?”

  What schedule? My current “schedule” consisted of hiding out at my parents’ house, being force-fed lamb-and-lentil stew, and being ignored by my boyfriend. If that was what you could call Will Zartman.

  “As it happens,” Gellert continued, “bumping it up is preferable from a medical point of view as well. Every day might be critical if the foreign object, meaning the bullet, really is shifting. Monday’s the earliest I can get the hospital facilities booked at Sibley. And the cameraman is on board for then, too.”

  “Did you say the cameraman?”

  “Ah.” Gellert had the decency to sound embarrassed. “I did explain already, it’s quite unusual that someone with your specific injury would survive—nay, thrive—into adulthood. A few of my peers started blogging about you last week, when the Journal-Constitution article went live. You haven’t seen the posts?”

  No, I had not.

  “Everyone’s hoping you’ll consent to having the operation filmed. For teaching purposes. You’re something of a celebrity in neurology circles.”

  “I’m ‘something of a celebrity in neurology circles.’ ” Into my head popped an unpleasant image, a circle of erasable-pen-wielding geeks, thick spectacles sliding down slickly pimpled noses, salivating to watch my neck being sliced open.

  “For what it’s worth, Dr. Zartman is in agreement. Both that we should film the surgery, and that we should proceed as soon as possible.”

  My breath caught. “When did you speak with Dr. Zartman?”

  “This morning. We conferred before I called you.”

  So Will was alive and well and conferring about my surgical options. Just not taking my calls.

  “I’ll have my nurse follow up with you. She can explain the pre-op protocol. In a nutshell, we can give you Vicodin if you’re in pain. But no food, no Advil, no other anti-inflammatories after six p.m. on Sunday. I’m writing you a prescription right now.”

  “Thanks. And, um, did you ever find my chart? Did they find that guy who broke in?”
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  “Negative. Don’t worry, we’ve reconstructed your chart. Everything’s in order. And I can’t figure out what that intruder business was all about. Guy didn’t seem to take a damn thing.”

  For several minutes after we hung up I sat still, imagining those impossibly blue eyes boring down on the clean, white prescription pad. Then his hands, the hyperactive fingers, darting across the paper, twirling, weaving like spiders. A lot about my present circumstances frightened me. But for some reason I felt safe in those hands.

  Thirty-one

  * * *

  FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2013

  Calling me the worst shot ever to pull a trigger at the Chantilly Rifle and Revolver Range is an exaggeration, but I was probably the worst shot they’d seen in a very long time.

  The gun range was half an hour’s drive straight west. You took the Key Bridge across the Potomac River into northern Virginia, got on I-66, and kept going. The building was ugly, its low-slung, yellow stucco facade set across a busy road from a strip mall. Plastic letters stuck to the glass doors spelled out OPEN TO THE PUBLIC and NO LOADED GUNS! Inside it was clean and quiet. Guns of every shape and size were laid out in glass display cases. On the walls hung framed posters. One showed a middle-aged man aiming a pistol at the camera, beneath an invitation: Stop by for a few SHOTS after work—bring your friends along for a different kind of happy hour! Or, my personal favorite: Anger management issues? Relationship problems? Try our therapeutic solution. This was accompanied by a photo of a woman firing at a human silhouette. She had ignored the red target marked on the chest, but fifteen bullet holes were pierced clean through the crotch.

  Learning to shoot was surprisingly cheap. Ten dollars per person, per lane, per hour. Paper targets cost a dollar, same again to rent the mandatory ear and eye protection. You could try out as many handguns as you wanted for $10. Hell, you could rent an AK-47 for $19 for the entire day.

  Tony marched up to the counter, explained that I was a beginner and that I wanted to learn to use a handgun.