Marital Privilege

by Greg Sisk

  Indeed, she reprimanded herself, it’s really not Minnesota. It was the foolish, stupid, asinine, insane decision they’d made to accept her father’s invitation to take Bill into the family construction business.

  It was more Bill’s decision than hers at the time. And they both had thought it would be an interim step in his career. But she should have realized it was a recipe for familial disaster.

  Candace found herself staring at her own image in the full-length mirror hanging next to the dresser. She looked tired, she thought. She looked sad. She wasn’t so drawn or forlorn in appearance that anyone else would notice, but she could see weariness on her face and melancholy in her eyes.

  Collecting herself and banishing depressing thoughts with an exercise of sheer will, she found the strength to go through the bedroom door and walk to the stairway.

  When Candace came downstairs, Bill glanced up briefly from the newspaper and TV. “Good morning, Candy.”

  No one called her “Candy.” Not even her own father. Only Bill.

  When Bill adopted that nickname shortly after they started dating during college at the University of Wisconsin some fifteen years ago, it had been endearing. Now she found it irritating, like when a casual acquaintance affects an improper intimacy. Of course that reaction made no sense when the person in question was her own husband. The problem undoubtedly was hers, not Bill’s.

  She hadn’t said anything to him about her discomfort with being called “Candy.” But it grated on her again this morning.

  “Hello, Bill.”

  He nodded as he returned to his reading and watching.

  That annoyed her as well. Had they become that comfortable or distracted? Couldn’t they at least acknowledge each other with more than a gesture in the morning? Why did every interaction with Bill have to be so awkward?

  • • •

  Three years ago, the family had been ensconced in Chicago and assumed they would remain there always. When she had embarked on a search for a position as a law professor after several years in law practice and two years as a teaching fellow at the University of Chicago, Candace had assumed she would take a position with one of the many law schools in the Chicago area.

  That had been “The Plan.” It had always been understood between them. Although they had never explored it in any depth, both of them had assumed she would lock in a full-time law teaching job at a Chicago area law school. Their Chicago-centered life would sail forward on an even keel, at a safe speed, and in familiar waters.

  And she had been invited to join the faculty at two law schools in Chicago.

  But the place that most intrigued her during interviews was a new Catholic law school that recently had been founded in Minnesota at the University of St. Thomas. The school had a faith-based mission and emphasized professional formation. The faculty envisioned the practice of law as not just an occupation for personal success but as a vocation for the common good. And the faculty was committed to scholarly prominence, intending to build the new law school into a national institution. It would be a chance to get in on the ground floor of something big.

  Candace came away from her visit to the St. Thomas law school in Minneapolis with heightened enthusiasm about law teaching and with a stronger belief that she could make a real difference with a new generation of law students. No other school had touched her in the same way.

  She had made up her mind to approach Bill and earnestly make the case for taking the chance and moving the family to Minnesota, where both she and Bill had grown up. She had planned her whole argument out, point by point, just as she had diligently prepared a legal argument to a judge during her years in practice in Chicago. Fearing that Bill would be resistant to leaving his established position with an engineering firm and upsetting their settled life in Chicago, she rehearsed and revised and re-rehearsed the argument again and again. As a finale, she was going to remind Bill that she had arranged her professional life around his engineering career at times in their shared lives and straightforwardly submit that it was his turn to make a sacrifice for her.

  As it turned out, she didn’t get very far into her appeal to Bill when it became apparent, to her pleasant surprise, that Bill needed less persuading than she anticipated. As soon as she opened the door to a move, Bill had looked at her with a smile and allowed that maybe it was time for a change of setting. Indeed, he was relieved that she had raised the subject. He’d been holding back in recent weeks. He hadn’t shared with her just how frustrating his work at the engineering firm had become in recent months.

  They had talked through the night, weighing the advantages, as well as the risks, of making the move. They shared their hopes and dreams for their family life and their careers. Candace and Bill confessed their hidden fears to each other and openly acknowledged their previously suppressed anxieties. In so doing, they saw those worries fade away in the incandescent light of a newly discovered optimism.

  In that moment, Candace had felt like they were more than a married couple. They were partners in building their own future. They were fully committed to each other in every way. They would take this big step together.

  Candace had tried to convey how excited she was about the prospect of joining the new law school in Minneapolis, about how her faith and her idealism had been captivated by the mission of the University of St. Thomas. Bill seemed genuinely intrigued by her story and expressed unreserved support for her desire to undertake this new challenge.

  In turn, Bill had revealed that things had been going downhill at work, beginning with the economic downturn. The state government in Illinois had been on a spending binge for more than a decade. When the recession hit and raising taxes was no longer a viable political or pragmatic answer to everything, it looked more and more likely that the state would fall into insolvency.

  Funding for public construction projects had already collapsed. It was doubtful that Illinois would be able to generate much revenue or find willing lenders to finance new projects. Bill’s own engineering firm worked on few government-funded projects. But as public projects disappeared, competing construction and engineering firms were chasing fewer and fewer private building initiatives.

  Moreover, Bill had just gone through one of the most disappointing and discouraging episodes of his career. For several months he had been preparing plans for renovation of an historical warehouse building in south Chicago, converting it into a neighborhood grocery store. Every historical building renovation presented unique challenges in negotiating the line between creating a usable space for a viable modern business and protecting the historically significant features of a building constructed for another purpose in another time.

  On this occasion, however, the city historical landmark commission had become dominated by a purist clique. They had no ­practical appreciation for the situation—or maybe they just didn’t care. The commission insisted that no alterations be made to the edifice of the building. Then its members declared that no changes could be made to the interior that could be observed from outside. Such restrictions made no sense for a grocery store, which had to provide some marketing of its nature on the outside and inside of the structure. This was especially true on an arterial street with a high speed limit where possible customers would have only seconds to recognize that they were driving by a grocery store. Eventually the historical commission’s enduring intransigence caused the client to lose the financing necessary to continue the project.

  So a neighborhood would be left without a grocery store. Badly needed jobs in a difficult economy and in a depressed urban area would not be created. An historical building would be left vacant, likely leading to further deterioration, vandalism, and perhaps occupation by squatters.

  Everyone was a loser. Including Bill.

  He hadn’t lost his job, but he had lost his spirit for historical building renovation work . . . at least for
now. Yes, he had enough seniority at the engineering firm and was sufficiently valued that he almost surely could weather the economic storm. Yes, “The Plan” would still work. Yes, “The Plan” was still the safest path to take. But, Bill said, he was ready professionally and emotionally to set out on a new course.

  By the time Candace and Bill had talked all the way through to a mutual decision, the sun was rising. When then-five-year-old J.D. woke up, they walked down the street to a local café for breakfast. They talked animatedly about what it would mean to leave Chicago and how they could build a new life in Minneapolis.

  Everything looked bright. They were in it together. They held nothing back. The words flowed easily between them.

  • • •

  Why now, complained Candace to herself, was every conversation so flat? And did Bill feel the same way, or was this just a phase she was going through? God knows, she really did love him. Right?

  It had been months now since she’d felt even a little passion for Bill. She knew marriage was a commitment between two people through good and bad, not an ecstatic passage of unending marital bliss. Still, how long could a dry spell last before you couldn’t deny to yourself any longer that something was wrong, really wrong?

  • • •

  J.D. ran down the stairs and leaped into a seat at the breakfast nook next to his father. That little boy may be slow to get started and leave his bed in the morning. Once he was up, though, Candace marveled, he opened the throttle all the way.

  Candace poured him a bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice. “It’s almost 7:30, kiddo,” she said, “so eat up quickly. The bus will be here in just ten minutes.”

  J.D. scarfed down his cereal, put the bowl in the sink, gave Candace a hug (she was delighted that he was still willing to do that), said goodbye to his father, and ran out the door to catch the bus to school.

  • • •

  “Hey,” said Bill, as Candace picked up her briefcase and moved toward the door leading to the garage. “Take my car today, and let me take your mini-van.”

  That brought Candace up short. Her husband Bill’s car was, well, his. He didn’t like anyone else, including Candace, driving it. When he’d purchased the car two years ago—a fire-engine red, two-door coupe, with a “moon-roof” and optional “rear wing spoiler”—she’d jokingly called it his “mid-life crisis car.”

  She still called it that. But she wasn’t joking any more. (She rarely joked with Bill any more.)

  It wasn’t really a sports car, nor anything expensive. It was a Honda Accord coupe. But it looked sporty, especially with the accessories and the shocking red color.

  In any event, Bill was quite possessive of his red coupe. If she ever drove it, even on a short errand, he complained that she’d moved the position of the seat, or adjusted the mirror wrong, or changed the station on the radio. If she were keeping score—and she realized just by thinking about Bill’s past reactions that she apparently was keeping score (not a good sign)—this possessive and obsessive behavior about a stupid car was getting on her nerves as well.

  “What?” she asked, startled by his suggestion.

  “I need to stop off at the furniture store today and pick up those new dining room chairs. I need your mini-van to haul everything home.”

  “Okay,” Candace replied, shrugging. Even though she rarely drove Bill’s car, she did keep a copy of the key to the coupe on her key-chain.

  Walking into the garage attached to their suburban Minnesota house, she hit the button on the electric garage-door opener. She got into the driver’s seat of the Honda Accord.

  Whether Bill liked it or not, she had to move the seat forward if she were to reach the pedals, and she had to adjust the rear and side mirrors. She could always move them back when she got home. If she remembered. If she wanted to remember.

  Before she could start the car, Candace saw a small hunched shape trudging back up the long driveway. It was James Daniel.

  She rolled down the car window, and said, “What are you doing here, honey?”

  “I missed the bus, Mom.”

  “Didn’t I tell you you were staying up too late? You’ve got to be able to get up and get going on time in the morning. Starting tonight, J.D., you’re getting to bed on time.”

  “Well, get in the car,” she sighed. “St. Gregory’s isn’t too far off my route to the law school. And, anyway, we’ve got to get you to school. If we start off right now, we might even beat your bus to the school.”

  J.D. opened the door, folded the front seat back, and climbed into the back seat of the two-door coupe.

  “Why are you driving Dad’s car? Does he know?” Even J.D. understood that his father didn’t like others driving his car.

  “I guess your father needs the mini-van to haul some furniture home, today. So he made an exception to his rule that only he gets to drive this car.”

  She turned on the ignition, pulled out of the garage, shut the garage door by the remote, backed up to the side of the driveway, turned the front of the car around, and started to coast down the long curving driveway.

  “Darn it,” she said aloud. “I’ve got my briefcase here on the front seat. But where’s my purse? Do you see it there in the back seat, J.D.”

  “No, Mom.”

  “Well, I’ll have to go back in the house. If I pop in quickly and get it, we can still get you to school on time.”

  She backed up a little, parked the car about twenty yards from the house, and stepped out.

  Walking toward the front door, she pulled her house key out. Now, she thought, where did I leave that pur—

  • • •

  She was lying face down on something hard, something rough.

  Her face hurt. Her back hurt. Her knees hurt.

  It felt like that time, way back in middle school, when she’d been pushed down hard from behind on the playground by a bully.

  Something wet was running down her cheek.

  Where am I, she thought? What am I doing here?

  And everything was so quiet. Well, not quiet exactly. There was a painful ringing in her ears. No other sound.

  She scrabbled up to her knees, wincing at the pain. Her knees were badly scraped through her now-torn jeans.

  She touched the wet spot on her face and looked down at her fingers. Red. Blood.

  She saw a few blood drops down on the asphalt in front of her, where she had been lying. Her blood.

  Looking up, she saw the front of her house.

  The big picture windows along the living room were gone. She saw broken glass sparkling in the morning sun.

  She sat back on the blacktop. What’s going on? she wondered. How did I get here?

  An acrid smell assaulted her nose.

  Smoke stung her eyes.

  And then she looked behind her.

  Black smoke and orange flames enveloped a deformed object in the driveway.

  What is that? The car?

  THE CAR! OH MY GOD! J.D.!

  The front door of the house flew open, and Bill ran out. “Are you all right?” he yelled. To Candace’s injured ears, it sounded like he was talking underwater. “What the hell is going on?” he shouted, as he stared wide-eyed at the burning car in the drive.

  “J.D.!” she screamed. “Oh, dear God! J.D.!”

  “It’s all right,” Bill said. “It’s all right. J.D. is already off to school on the bus. It’s all right.”

  But it wasn’t all right. It would never be all right again.

  “No,” she sobbed, “no, no, no. He missed the bus. He was in the car. He was in the car.”

  “What?” cried Bill, horror now creasing his face. “J.D. was supposed to be on the bus. He was supposed to be on the bus.”

  Chapter 2

  [THIRT
Y MINUTES AFTER THE TRAGEDY]

  Lieutenant Ed Burton stood on the front porch of the Tudor-style house, surveying the scene at 3732 Dunnell Drive.

  He was in his late forties, with a full head of dark-brown hair. He liked to think of himself as medium build, and he did work out (on occasion), but his belly was starting to hang over his belt. If he wasn’t careful, he had told himself many times, he was going to get fat.

  After confirming that Candace Klein had not suffered any serious injuries beyond a possible mild concussion and seeing her off in the ambulance, Burton had asked Bill Klein to remain behind in the house for a short while to answer some immediate questions. Klein had asked for a few minutes alone to compose himself. So Burton had stepped out on to the front porch.

  The patrol officers who had initially responded to the emergency calls walked over to Burton. They reported that they had made a quick canvas of the area, careful not to disturb the immediate car bomb scene itself, looking for anything out of the ordinary. The only thing they’d found, which wasn’t really out of the ordinary in this suburb, was that the small side door to the Kleins’ garage had been left unlocked. Not surprisingly, theft from unlocked garages was one of the most common crimes in Eden Prairie.

  Burton had been with the City of Eden Prairie Police Department for a quarter of a century. Even in this usually sedate suburban setting, homicide was not unknown. But a car bomb was something very different. And Burton knew that meant the case likely would be taken away from him very shortly. Federal jurisdiction almost surely would be asserted, probably before he left the crime scene this morning.

  Many cops are the sons and daughters—and even the grandsons and granddaughters—of cops.