The Nightmare Girl

by Jonathan Janz

  Michelle passed a trembling hand over her eyes. “I know you didn’t. I just don’t want to go through that again.”

  The memory was plain in her face, and Joe could see she didn’t want to go down that road any more than he did. Not a day had gone by when he hadn’t thought of their boy, of Ben Crawford, the child who’d never even gotten the chance to live. Who should have been outside playing with his friends today rather than sitting on a shelf in some fucking columbarium.

  “I’m sorry, honey.”

  She forced a smile. “It’s not your fault. It just…” She inhaled shuddering breath, looked away. “…it just sneaks up on me, you know?”

  And he did know. Or he knew to a degree. Then again, how the hell could he fathom the pain Michelle must’ve felt that day, the pain she still must be feeling? To feel that child growing in her womb, to talk to Ben and sing him songs and stroke her belly and dream of holding him…to go through all of that only to have him stolen from her only six weeks before his birth. Michelle was a strong woman, but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel as deeply as the average person. On the contrary, he’d always thought his wife felt things more deeply than just about anyone else he knew. Which was one of the things he loved most about her.

  He put his arms around her waist. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” he said.

  She looked up at him. “What about adoption?”

  “Doesn’t that process take a long time?”

  “Even if we know the child?”

  Joe frowned at her a moment before cottoning to her meaning. “You’re talking about Little Stevie.”

  Michelle looked at him. “Why not?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “That seems pretty complicated. I mean, the Morrisons—”

  “Are only temporary foster parents, you said that yourself.”

  “That’s true,” he allowed. “But—”

  “Has a permanent home been found yet?”

  Joe hesitated. In truth, he’d stopped by the Morrisons the day before to check in on Stevie. And while the boy seemed healthy and happy stumbling around in the Morrisons’ fenced-in backyard, Louise told Joe she was worried that if the CPS didn’t find a family soon, the boy might miss out on crucial bonding time with whatever parents eventually adopted him. Joe had asked what would happen if no one else came forward to claim Stevie. Louise hadn’t answered for a long while, and just when he thought she’d ignore the question altogether, she said, “I’ll be sixty soon, Mr. Crawford. It’s not fair to me or my husband—or to Stevie here—for us to adopt him.”

  Stevie had been on Joe’s mind all through the month, and though he himself had toyed with the notion of broaching adoption with his wife, now that he was faced with the reality of it—the possibility that Michelle would actually want to raise the child of Angie Waltz—he felt very little excitement and more than a little terror.

  “Joe?” she said. “Stop brooding and talk to me.”

  “I would if I knew what to say.”

  “Kiss break!” Lily yelled.

  Joe bent to kiss his daughter.

  “Tickle me, Daddy!”

  Joe tickled her. But he could feel Michelle’s stare on his back. Eventually, he straightened and turned to his wife. “I’ll tell you how I feel, but you have to promise not to get mad at me.”

  “How can I promise that? What if you say something offensive?”

  “I might,” he said evenly. “I don’t even know how I feel yet.”

  “Why do you always have to complicate things?”

  “Because it’s complicated. If this were just another kid, I’d be all for it. But Stevie isn’t. He’s the son of a woman who cremated herself because of something I did.”

  Michelle shook her head. “It wasn’t because of—”

  “But that’s how it feels, okay? You’re always telling me it can’t be wrong if it’s how you feel. Why’s this any different?”

  “Fine. What else?”

  “I’m not saying it if you’re gonna get aggravated.”

  “But that’s how I feel.”

  “Exactly!” he said. “And how I feel is guilty. I feel responsible, Michelle, for the fact that that poor kid doesn’t have a mommy.”

  “He’s better off without her.”

  “You’re probably right about that.”

  “Damn right I am.”

  “But I still feel responsible.”

  Michelle spread her arms. “So be responsible for him. It’ll take away your guilt and give the child a loving home. It’ll be more stable than the Waltzes’ ever would’ve been.”

  “Yeah, and what about Sharon? Are we gonna let her see Little Stevie? Give her visitation rights?”

  Michelle’s face hardened. “Not a chance in hell.”

  “Language. But you see how complicated it is already, right? We’d not only have to go through adoption proceedings, but we’d have to get a judge to declare Sharon doesn’t have any legal right to see Stevie.”

  “Maybe she won’t want to see him.”

  Joe grunted. “The woman’s profession is being a pain in the ass. Of course she’s gonna want to see him.”

  Michelle flailed her hands in exasperation. “Isn’t she… I don’t know, in trouble or something for having all those drugs?”

  “Copeland said she claims they were all her daughter’s, that she had no idea Angie had a drug problem.”

  “Nice mom.”

  “She might be the worst person I’ve ever met,” Joe said. “But I don’t see any way to keep her from Stevie forever. Hell, I’m surprised she hasn’t tried to get custody of him already.”

  “Maybe she has. Maybe they’ve already turned her down.”

  Joe sighed, started pushing the stroller again. “Maybe.”

  Michelle’s eyes were large with hope. “Will you ask Copeland? Maybe that’s already been settled. If it has, it’ll make everything easier, won’t it?”

  “It would,” Joe said, “for whoever adopts Stevie.”

  Michelle stopped. “Why can’t it be us, Joe?”

  He turned and regarded Michelle, who was standing a few feet downhill from him and Lily. Framed that way, with the dark asphalt and the high angle, Michelle looked very small, very vulnerable. She looked like something easily broken.

  He sighed. “I’ll talk to Copeland. I can’t make any promises, but I’ll check it out. Okay?”

  She smiled, and at sight of it, Joe’s heart hurt a little.

  “Come on,” he said, turning the stroller around. “Lily’s sippy cup is empty, and she’s gonna be parched from all those goldfish.”

  They walked home in silence, Michelle smiling quietly to herself, Joe pausing every fifty feet or so to give his daughter kisses.

  “You want to do what?”

  Joe didn’t turn away from the radiator pipe he was shearing with the Sawzall. He lay on his side, concentrating on his task. Fitting the blade into the cut he’d started, Joe said, “You heard me, Darrell, I don’t need to repeat myself.”

  “Aw, listen to you, callin’ me by my first name. Almost makes me feel like we’re buddies now. Next thing you know, we’re gonna be going on fishing trips, sitting around a campfire sipping Old Milwaukee.”

  Smiling, Joe sawed through the stout iron pipe. He knew he should be wearing safety goggles, but the Hodge twins each needed a pair, and Joe hadn’t gotten around to buying more since he expanded his crew to five. As the jagged teeth pumped up and down, shredding through rusty iron and scattering dust and brownish flecks all over the place, Joe squinted his eyes to make the smallest possible targets for errant debris. The last thing he needed was a visit to the emergency room to extract a sliver of rust from one of his corneas.

  The cut finished, Joe set the Sawzall on the floor and passed his fingertips over the severed pipe. It was good, f
lush with the floor and easily covered over with caulking and wood putty. Once they’d refinished the floors, no one would ever know there’d been a radiator here.

  Copeland leaned over. “Say, you’re not too bad with that thing. How about you come over to my house and help me finish my basement?”

  “Sure,” Joe said, climbing to his feet. “I’ll even give you a ten percent discount if you take care of cleaning up at the end of the day.”

  Copeland looked aghast. “Ten percent? That’s the only deal you’d give me? Guy who’s a dear friend, who’s gotten you out of more trouble than anybody else?”

  Joe crossed to the southern wall of the master suite, where his glass of ice water sat bleeding on an old newspaper. “‘Dear friend’ is stretching things a bit. And Michelle’s the one who keeps me out of trouble.” Joe took a long drag from the glass and then regretted it when he got a painful brain freeze. He grimaced. “I told Michelle not to put so much ice in it. I like cool water better than cold.”

  “That’s a character flaw,” Copeland said. “So’s taking a friend for granted.”

  Joe took a smaller swig this time. Swallowing, he said, “Fine, I’ll give you fifteen percent, and I’ll help you clean up. But I’m not gonna give you piggyback rides up and down the basement steps.”

  “Shit, you’re not man enough to lug my ass around. We’d both be in traction, you tried to do that.”

  Joe replaced the glass on the sodden circle of newspaper. “So you don’t think it’s a good idea, huh?”

  “What, adopting Stevie Waltz?”

  Joe’s arm muscles tensed. “That’s not his name.”

  “It’s gonna be his name until someone legally changes it. And if you think you’re gonna be the one to do it, you’ve been inhaling too much asbestos.”

  “How’d you know this house had asbestos?”

  “How many houses this old don’t?”

  “Good point.”

  “Gentry pressed charges against you this morning.”

  Joe’s mouth fell open.

  Copeland grinned. “Now that’s a priceless expression. Hold on while I get my phone out. I gotta get a picture of that. You look like a big ol’ lake trout.”

  “What kind of charges?”

  “Assault. Wrongful termination of employment.”

  “Wrongful termin—is that even a real crime?”

  “Gentry thought it was. Of course Gentry thought it was legal to diddle himself on a job site too.”

  “Am I gonna be in any trouble?”

  Copeland scowled at him. “Hell no, you’re not in trouble. Don’t you have any faith in me?”

  “But—”

  “Gentry came by when I was off-duty. You know, thinkin’ he could get one of my people to arrest you when I wasn’t around?”

  Joe listened, his butt cheeks slowly unclenching.

  “But I happened to drop by the station just a couple minutes after Gentry showed up. It was total happenstance—I forgot the book I was reading on my desk the night before—but when I came in, I saw him sitting with Alyssa.”

  “Who’s Alyssa?”

  “Alyssa Jakes. One of my officers. You’ve never met her. Anyway, Gentry’s in there with his back to me, not even noticing I’ve come in. I can tell from the look on Alyssa’s face that she’s not buyin’ anything he’s selling. I hear him saying things like, ‘And then he fires me without giving a good reason, doesn’t even give me two weeks’ notice.’ Stuff like that.”

  “Employees who masturbate to their bosses’ wives forfeit their right to two weeks’ notice.”

  Copeland held up a palm. “Hold on. I’m comin’ to that.”

  Joe listened. In the background he heard the Hodge twins sawing through pipes.

  “Alyssa, she doesn’t look up at me even though I know she sees me standin’ there in the doorway. I’m about five feet behind Gentry, but the guy’s got no clue I’m there. Alyssa, she says, her expression totally deadpan, ‘Why didn’t you bring this to the attention of Chief Copeland?’

  “Gentry, he makes this scoffing sound, like Alyssa’s just suggested he should slather himself in honey and roll around on some anthills. He says, ‘Copeland and Crawford are bosom buddies.’”

  “I used to watch that show,” Joe said. “I knew Tom Hanks would be a star even back then.”

  Copeland went on as though Joe hadn’t spoken. “Alyssa, I can tell she’s enjoyin’ herself, but if you didn’t know her as well as I do, you’d think she was just doing her job. She says, ‘Are you implying Chief Copeland wouldn’t give your complaint the proper attention?’”

  “Gentry, he makes that sour scoffing sound again, like I’m some corrupt small town cop on the take. He says, ‘Copeland’s too busy bein’ drinking buddies with Joe to arrest him.’”

  “See,” Joe said, “I told you word of our affair would get around.”

  “Alyssa, she looks at Gentry with that same expression, but I know her well enough to see the impish gleam in her eyes.”

  Joe smiled. “She’s setting him up.”

  “Like an FBI sting. Alyssa says, ‘Chief Copeland always has been like that.’” Copeland grinned. “Gentry, I can tell he’s really interested now. He leans forward, says, ‘Like what?’

  “‘Drinking on the job,’ Alyssa says. ‘Associating with undesirables.’”

  “What the hell?” Joe said. “Now I’m an undesirable?”

  “That’s the one part she got right. Anyhow, Gentry’s gettin’ into it. Like he’s some kind of muckraking investigative reporter or something. He says to Alyssa, all conspiratorial-like, ‘Have you thought of bringing this to the attention of Copeland’s supervisors?’

  “‘Of course I’ve thought of it,’ Alyssa says, and gives a little shiver. ‘But Copeland’s a scary guy. Last officer tried to bust him for his lawlessness, he disappeared and was never seen again.’”

  Joe started to chuckle. “She really use that word? Lawlessness?”

  “She said it.”

  “Sounds like a good actress.”

  Copeland was laughing too. “Goddamn Oscar winner is what she is. I couldn’t believe it. But Gentry, he’s sittin’ on the very edge of his chair, just eatin’ that shit up. Like he’s gonna bust my syndicate of corruption wide open.”

  “So what happens?”

  “Gentry says, ‘If you put yourself out there, I’ll protect you. I’ll see to it neither Darrell Copeland nor Joe Crawford lays a finger on you.’”

  “He didn’t say that.”

  “Swear to God. And then Alyssa—I mention she’s sort of gorgeous?”

  “Of course she is,” Joe said. “Why else would Kevin want to protect her?”

  “Bingo. Alyssa put on her best damsel-in-distress look, says to Gentry, ‘I’m frightened of him, Kevin. I don’t want him to hurt me.’”

  “No!”

  “‘Yes. As God as my witness.’ Gentry says, ‘I’ll kick his black ass before he can look at you crossways.’”

  “Bet you liked that.”

  “I’ll be honest, Joe. I thought it was all pretty funny until he said that. But once he brought my black ass into it, he crossed some kind of unspoken line.”

  “Never talk about a man’s ass.”

  “Exactly. So I decided to speak up. In my biggest voice, I said, ‘You threatening me, boy?’

  “Gentry, he jumps so high off that chair, I thought he’d been zapped in the nether regions with an invisible cattle prod. He cranes his head around at me and I swear to God whatever pigment he had in his skin had disappeared. The bastard was whiter than fresh snow.

  “Gentry says, ‘How long you been standing there?’

  “I said, ‘Long enough to know you talked about assaulting a police officer.’

  “Gentry, his mouth opens and shuts so many times without
making a sound I thought I might’ve taken away his power of speech permanently. You know, like Jonathan Harker’s hair turning white in Dracula? Only this was a loss of speech.’”

  “I understood the analogy.”

  “Way you stared at me, I wasn’t sure. Anyway, after about an hour of that voiceless mouth movement, he’s able to say, ‘Joe hasn’t been fair to me, Chief Copeland.’”

  “Real respectful now, huh?”

  Copeland nodded. “Like I was the Pope. I said, ‘You’ve been jerkin’ your little carrot too hard, Gentry. I think you jarred that little pea brain of yours loose.’”

  Joe resisted an urge to hug Copeland. “What’d he say?”

  “He got some of that pigment back, only this time it was all red. Like he became a full-blooded Navaho or something. He said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.’

  “That pissed me off somethin’ fierce, him callin’ me a liar. So I bent down, got right in his face and said, ‘We corrupt alcoholic cops still have video cameras in our cruisers, you know? I decided to turn mine on you while you were whackin’ off to Crawford’s wife.’

  “That got rid of his pigment again. I see over Gentry’s shoulder that Alyssa’s coverin’ her mouth to stifle laughter. I had to block her out so I wouldn’t laugh too.”

  “What then?”

  “Then I said, ‘If you say another word about me, about Joe, or even drive by his house again, I’ll post that clip of you flogging your bishop all over YouTube.’”

  “You didn’t.”

  “Hell if I didn’t. Gentry, he’s looking at me with more horror than I thought a human face could contain. It was sort of cruel of me, but the dipshit had me so irate, I couldn’t help myself. I drove it in further. ‘What’ll your wife say when she sees you’ve gotten a hundred thousand hits for choking your chicken in broad daylight?’”

  “You’ve got a lot of euphemisms for masturbation, you know that?”

  “One of my many talents.”

  “So what happened after that?”

  Copeland shrugged. “We talked for a while. Nothing much of interest was said. I think he was too terrified to form a coherent sentence.”