Final Breath

by Kevin O'Brien

  "All you did was put a big spotlight on the situation," Joe said. "Today, I had to hear from someone that you were sniffing around a Cicero bar, asking questions about Polly."

  "Who told you?" she asked, running a hand over her damp hair.

  "Never mind," he grumbled. He plopped down on the bed, rubbed his forehead, and sighed. "The point is, you're linking my name with his. You don't know how much damage you're doing, Syd."

  "What about the damage you've done, Joe?" she asked, pointedly. "I know about the money. I found it today in the garage--in that metal box you've hidden. It's your cut of that drug-bust swindle, isn't it?"

  His mouth open, Joe just stared at her.

  Sydney felt tears welling in her eyes. "The minute you took that money, Joe, you ruined our marriage. You ruined this family."

  "You don't know the circumstances."

  "Fine. Look me in the eye and tell me you've switched to Internal Affairs work and this is all some undercover thing. I'll believe you, Joe. I want to believe you. Tell me this money doesn't have blood on it. Tell me I'm wrong, and in a month or so all of this will be switched around and you're going to be my hero again--instead of some low-life corrupt cop on the take."

  He gave her a wounded look. "Is that what you think I am?"

  "What am I supposed to think? Every time I've asked you about this sordid business, you've been evasive or you've snapped at me, or you've lied to me. So what really happened, Joe? It can't be any worse than what I've imagined."

  He gazed down at the floor, then rubbed his eyes.

  "I'm thinking you and the three other cops killed those two guys," Sydney answered for him. "Then you set fire to their van to make it look like an accident--but not until you'd already unloaded the drugs. How much did you get for the cocaine? Did Polly demand a cut? Is that why he was killed?"

  "You're not very far off," he said quietly. "Sydney, I didn't know what the other guys were up to until it was too late. If I hadn't gone along with them, they would have shot me right there."

  She gazed at him. "Did you kill anybody?"

  He turned and looked her in the eye. "No, honey, I didn't."

  "How much did they steal?"

  "Over half a million's worth," he muttered.

  "And how much was your cut?"

  "Thirty-two thousand," he answered. "But I wasn't going to spend any of it. You can go look in that metal box again and count it if you want. It's all still there. I'm thinking of anonymously donating the whole wad to charity."

  "No, you aren't," she argued. "You might have convinced yourself of that on the surface. But I know you, Joe, and you don't spend money you don't have. We can't afford a big-screen, high-definition TV, but you bought one because you knew you had some money to fall back on in a pinch. You're spending it already, and you don't even know it." She shook her head at him. "Why didn't you just turn around and give the money to Len? He's your superior officer. You trust him. If you were really coerced into this swindle, why didn't you go to Len and explain it to him? Why not go public with this?"

  "Believe me, I couldn't," he said, exasperated. "It's too complicated to explain. Once I took that money, I was screwed. But if I hadn't taken it, they would have killed me. Would you rather have me dead right now?"

  Sydney just stared at him. He was being evasive again.

  He let out a cynical laugh. "Huh, of course you'd rather have me dead. Just think what that would do for your ratings if you were the widow of a murdered cop."

  His words stung. She continued to glare at him. "And just think of how fast my career would go down the toilet if news of your involvement in this heist ever got out. Think about Eli, and how this would devastate him." She moved to a stuffed chair in the corner of the room and sat down. Sydney nervously rubbed her leg. She felt her whole body tensing up. "Joe, I--I've been wondering what I should do--if all this was true. I'll keep your secret, but I can't stay with you. I'm sorry, but you crossed a line when you took that money and hid it. You crossed it when you lied to me and made me ashamed of you. This isn't some little scandal. I'd stand by you if it was something like that. But people were killed, Joe. And I--I can't pretend that didn't happen."

  He gazed down at the floor. "So what are you going to do? Where will you go?" He shook his head. "Because I'm not moving out of this house, that's for sure."

  She was surprised at the sudden anger in his tone. "School ends next week," she said steadily. "I'll take Eli, and we'll stay with my brother in Seattle for a while--at least until I figure out something more permanent."

  Joe got to his feet. "You know, this didn't have to happen," he grumbled. "If only you'd kept your fucking mouth shut and believed in me. You never gave a crap about my work until this. And now, thanks to your snooping around, they're breathing down my neck. These guys have it out for me. But go ahead, desert me, sweetheart. Hell, I'm used to it. Maybe if you were home for a change while all this shit was going down, I might have had some support. Maybe I wouldn't be in this bind right now."

  Sydney stood up. "Don't try to blame this on me--"

  "Why wait until next week to leave?" he yelled. He flung open her closet door, then yanked her two suitcases off the shelf. "Why don't you find yourself a nice hotel tonight, huh?" He flung her suitcases on the bed. "Start packing. I don't want to see any of your shit in here tonight. Anything you leave behind I'll throw in the fucking garbage. And don't worry about Eli. You never did before. I'll call the McKennas and ask them to put him up for the night. Then he can stay with you tomorrow, and he'll see what it's like to be on the road with his mom for a change."

  She moved toward him. "Joe, stop being this way. Don't you think--"

  But she didn't finish. He hauled back his fist and hit her across the face.

  The blow sent Sydney flying back, and she slammed into the dresser. She landed in a heap on the floor. Stunned, she couldn't see anything for a few moments. A high-pitched ringing filled her ears. Her head felt like it was going to explode, and then the side of her face started throbbing.

  Sydney caught her breath and blinked a few times until he came into focus.

  Joe stood over her, his hand still clenched in a fist. But he had such a tormented look on his face, she thought he might start crying. Tears welled in his eyes, and he shook visibly. "Just get out," he whispered.

  Then he turned and stomped out of the bedroom.

  Sydney did what Joe told her to do. She packed two suitcases and two boxes and spent the night at a Holiday Inn. She phoned Kyle and asked if she and Eli could stay with him the following week. Kyle kept saying she sounded terrible, and Sydney admitted that Joe had hit her. She didn't tell him anything else.

  She refilled her ice bucket twice--for the homemade cold compresses she applied to her face most of the night. Not surprisingly, she didn't sleep well. She was worried about Eli and how his parents separating would destroy the poor kid. He wouldn't want to leave Joe. They were so close.

  At one point in the evening, Sydney finally got out of bed and wandered to the window. She pushed the curtain aside a bit and peered outside at her car, parked just a few feet away. Three spaces down from that was Joe's Honda Civic. Sydney wasn't sure why he was there. Did he plan to kick down her door and beat her up some more? He'd never hurt her before tonight. It was like he was a different man. She didn't know what he might do.

  The light from the green Holiday Inn sign illuminated the front seat of his Civic. He sat at the wheel, looking miserable and staring off in another direction. Even in the distance, she could tell he was crying.

  He wasn't there when she woke up in the morning. But his older sister, Helen, was. A stocky brunette with a pretty face, Helen was divorced, and lived in Evanston with her twin seventeen-year-old sons. Sydney liked Helen, despite her habit of telling everyone what to do. "You and Eli are staying with me and the boys until you work this thing out with Joe," she announced in the doorway of Sydney's hotel room.

  "Oh, Helen, I don't think Joe and I h
ave much chance of working things out," she admitted. Her hair a mess and her face badly bruised, Sydney was still in her robe. "How did you know where to find me?"

  "Joe told me. He isn't a detective for nothing. So you'll stay with us until you come up with Plan B, whatever that is. I won't take no for an answer. Eli should be with you right now, but not here in some hotel. He should be with family. The boys will keep him entertained and distracted. If you're moving out of the house, I'll help you find some movers who aren't going to rip you off."

  Sydney squinted at her. "Why are you doing this?"

  "Because you and Eli are family," Helen answered matter-of-factly. "And my kid brother is acting like a dickhead--if I can borrow a term my boys overuse. I hope you slugged him back."

  The temporary living arrangement with Joe's sister and her teenage sons should have been awkward, but it was oddly ideal for everyone. Eli had his cool older cousins to help buffer the blow of his parents' impending separation. They'd been through it before when Helen had thrown their dad out of the house for the final time three years before. Eli asked his mother about her bruised left cheek, which makeup didn't quite conceal. She told her son that she'd run into a door, and he believed her.

  Between Joe's visiting Eli at Helen's house, and Sydney's trips back and forth as she finished all the packing at North Spaulding Avenue, running into each other was unavoidable. Other people were usually around, so Sydney and Joe were civil to each other. But every time she saw him, he looked so forlorn.

  "Let him suffer," her sister-in-law advised her.

  Sydney didn't tell Helen the reason she'd decided to leave Joe. She had a hunch that perhaps her sister-in-law already knew. It didn't really matter. Sydney was grateful to Helen for helping her survive that miserable week in limbo.

  Sydney had moved all of her things out of the North Spaulding house--along with everything that originally belonged to her family. Eli had taken about forty percent of his stuff, mostly things he would need over the summer. Unlike her, Eli would be coming back for visits--court appointed, once they'd started divorce proceedings.

  "We haven't discussed divorce yet," Joe had written in that awful letter she'd received today. "And I hope we can keep the situation status quo for a few more weeks. I need this break from you and Eli..."

  Sydney took another sip of pinot grigio from the Speed Racer jelly glass. She stared at the headlights of cars on the 520 floating bridge in the distance. A cool wind came off the lake. She touched the side of her face that had been black and blue for several days back in May. For a while, she'd thought it would never stop hurting.

  That damn letter. Eli obviously knew where she'd stashed it. She'd caught him prying into that breakfront drawer earlier tonight. It was what had started this latest fracas.

  Getting to her feet, Sydney carried her glass of wine inside, then closed and double-locked the kitchen door. She stepped into her office and switched on her computer. It always took a moment to warm up; so she headed into the dining room. She dug Joe's letter from the built-in breakfront's bottom drawer, then returned to her little office and sat down in front of the computer. Her new e-mail messages popped up: a bunch of spam from Macy's, AOL, Amazon.com, and others, and what looked like a fan e-mail: "Thank You" from prettylizg@gilfordcorp.com.

  She deleted the spam e-mail, then glanced at Joe's letter again. She could understand him not wanting to see her, but why brush off poor Eli, who adored him?

  Sydney ripped up the letter. She was about to toss the torn pieces away in the trash can by her desk, but hesitated. She imagined Eli going through her trash later, finding the scraps and taping them back together again--only to discover that his beloved dad needed a break from him.

  Leaving the scraps of Joe's letter on the corner of her desk, she decided to toss them in the garbage outside after she checked her e-mail. She clicked her mouse to open up the thank-you message:

  Dear Sydney,

  It was so thoughtful of you to send those beautiful flowers. I m still in shock over Angela's death. It hasn't sunk in yet that my sweet older sister is gone. I got the terrible news late Tuesday night, and your flowers arrived the very next afternoon, before anyone else's condolences. The roses were perfect. They were Angie s favorite flower. Thank you for your kindness.

  Yours Very Truly,

  Elizabeth Gannon Grogen

  PS: I found your business card among Angie s things, and it only had your e-mail. Please forgive the e-mail Thank You, but I didn't have your regular address.

  Baffled, Sydney had no idea who Elizabeth Grogen was. It took her a moment to connect her to Angela Gannon, the paralegal who had talked that suicidal man in from the fourteenth-story ledge of her office building in Chicago.

  "Angela's dead?" She reread her sister's e-mail, but there was no mention of how Angela had passed away.

  It had happened again--another one of her Movers & Shakers people had died suddenly, and someone had sent flowers to a surviving family member, signing her name on the card.

  When she'd read that note from the Dvoraks, thanking her for a flower arrangement she didn't send, Sydney had assumed they were confused. But no, obviously someone with the network must have been sending these flowers for her. It was strange they hadn't notified her about what they were doing on her behalf.

  Sydney's fingers worked furiously over the keyboard. She went to Google, and typed in the keywords Angela Gannon Chicago death. Several articles appeared. "Oh, God, no," she whispered, covering her mouth as she read the first search result:

  The Chicago Tribune - Front Page News

  Woman Plunges to Death from...Victim Had Intervened...Chicago: Dominique...The victim was Angela Gannon, 31, a paralegal at a law firm on the 14th floor...www.chicagotribune.co/news/womanplunges/070908-14k

  She clicked on the search engine, and anxiously read the article. The date was July 8th, last Wednesday, the same afternoon her flowers were delivered to Elizabeth Gannon Grogen's front door.

  WOMAN PLUNGES TO HER DEATH FROM 14TH FLOOR OF MICHIGAN AVE. OFFICE BUILDING

  Victim Had Intervened with a Suicidal Coworker at the Same Window 9 Months Ago

  CHICAGO : Dominique Chandler, 26, was talking with a friend, Zackary Ross, 24, outside the Dexter Building on Michigan Avenue at 10:20 Tuesday night when they heard a scream from above. "We both looked up and saw this thing hurtling down at us," said Chandler. "It took me a moment to realize I was looking at a human being, a woman. It was as if the poor thing just fell out of the sky. Then her body hit the sidewalk curb with an awful thud. It was terrible."

  The victim was Angela Gannon, 31, a paralegal at Gaines, McCourt and Weymiller, a law firm on the 14th floor of the building. Investigators on the scene discovered Gannon's purse beside an open window in the law office. No suicide note was found.

  Just eight months ago, on November 14, Gannon had intervened when a disgruntled coworker had attempted to jump from a ledge outside that same 14th floor window. She managed to talk the man into climbing back inside, a feat that won her brief national attention when the story was profiled in a "Movers & Shakers" segment for the primetime TV newsmagazine, "On the Edge."

  "I worked alongside Angela all day on Tuesday, and she was in a great mood," said Margarita Donovan, a coworker and friend. "I have a difficult time believing only hours later, she took her own life." Police are questioning another friend, Kent Blazenvich, 36, who had drinks with Gannon in the bar at a nearby Houlihan's Restaurant. Gannon left the bar alone at 9:40. Blazenvich remained there until approximately 11:30...

  Sydney read the article, hoping to find something more conclusive about Angela's bizarre death. Obviously, at press time, the police hadn't yet determined if it was a murder or suicide. They'd discovered Angela's car in the Dexter Building's underground parking garage, and it had been vandalized. Sydney wondered if this business with the car might have somehow triggered Angela's suicide. Sydney had sunk into horrible moods over less; sometimes one little thing could push a person
over the edge, and a vandalized car was a pretty big deal.

  Sydney had interviewed Angela back in November but hadn't corresponded with her since then. Still, she'd liked Angela's sense of humor. She had a lot of panache--and probably a lot of boyfriends, too. Had one of them been angry enough about her date that night with Kent Blazenvich that he'd vandalized Angela's car, dragged her up to the fourteenth floor of the Dexter Building, and hurled her out a window?

  Clicking back a page on the Internet, Sydney tried to find another article on Angela's death that would give more information or an update of some kind. But none of the other articles offered anything new. Each story carried that same quote from the woman who had seen Angela's body plummet: "It was as if the poor thing just fell out of the sky."

  Sydney rubbed her forehead, then switched off the computer. It was strange--first Leah and Jared, and now Angela Gannon. They'd died--violently--only four days apart. And their deaths, as far as she knew, were still unsolved.

  Sighing, Sydney got to her feet and collected Joe's torn-up letter from her desktop. With the scraps of paper clutched in her fist, she wandered to the back door and unlocked it. She was thinking about Angela and Jared and Leah. Those kind of tragedies always happened in threes. Was that already three, or would someone else die?

  A light breeze came off the lake as she stepped outside. The lid to the garbage can was stuck, and she had to jostle it a bit before she could open it.

  "Oh, shit," Sydney whispered, startled. She'd forgotten about the dead robin in there. It must have rolled out of the paper towels when she'd moved the garbage can lid. Now the poor dead thing lay there in the moonlight.

  Sydney still wondered how the dead bird had ended up on her pillow. She tossed the scraps of Joe's letter into the garbage. Then she very gingerly picked out a sheet of the paper towel and covered up the frail little feathered corpse again.

  "Poor thing," she said to herself.

  Then she thought of Angela, and a chill raced through her.

  "It was as if the poor thing just fell out of the sky."