“I heard my mom screaming my name, but I couldn’t call back to her. I remember I kept thinking the sirens are coming, the sirens are coming. Not the firemen, just the sirens, and I remember thinking I wanted my mom to just please shut up so I could hear the sirens, and then I did hear them, that long, painful wail as they wound their way toward me, the smoke so thick I had to keep my eyes pinched shut.”
I paused for a moment to collect my thoughts. Sandy still held the helmet, but she’d turned it over where it now lay crown down in her lap, her hands caressing the age old sweat stains of the liner inside the hard shell. Tears were running down her cheeks and they dripped into the inside of the helmet with little plops that sounded like rain falling on top of snowpack at winter’s end. “And they pulled you out.” She said it softly, no louder than a whisper, her words thick and lonesome.
I was going to go on with my story, but Sandy spoke before I did, and what she said made me wonder about the workings of fate and the mystery of things we can never know, but only accept with astonishment and wonder. “It took two of them to get you out,” she said. “They always go in as a team. The debris was deep and heavy and they had to be careful when they were pulling it off so it didn’t collapse down and crush you. The other firemen were pouring water in to keep the flames back and when they finally got to you it was just before the rest of the garage collapsed, wasn’t it?”
I looked at her, my voice a shadow of itself. “Yes, but how—”
She laid her hand on my forearm to quiet me, then continued. “One of the firemen had to pick up a rafter that was directly over you. It landed just inches from your head. He picked it up, straining against its weight, the heat of the flames no longer being held back by the water. They were losing the fight, but you were almost free. And then, when he had the rafter up high enough, the other fireman picked you up and carried you out. It was only a dozen steps or so to safety. The one holding the rafter let it drop, but when he did it shifted and came down on top of him, crushing his legs. He couldn’t move and just seconds later there was a secondary explosion when the gas main went. But you and the other fireman made it out, isn’t that right?”
I couldn’t speak. When I tried to swallow I discovered my throat was as dry as scattered ash. When I opened my mouth to say something—I do not know what—my teeth clicked together like marbles being rattled around in a glass jar. I finally just nodded, letting her know she was right.
She took her hand from my arm and unsnapped the liner inside the helmet. Written in permanent marker on the inside of the hard shell was a name: S.C.A. Small. “S.C. stands for Station Chief,” she said. “The A. stands for Andrew. Station Chief Andy Small was my father, Jonesy. He died in that explosion while saving your life.”
She buried her head in my chest, her cries no less painful than the wail of the sirens I longed for on that fateful day so many years ago. I took the helmet from her lap and pulled her close, my arms tight around her shuddering body. There were no words to say in the moment so I just held her amidst the sound of the crackling fire as it threw off a heat unmatched by the shame and responsibility I felt. I had just made love to a woman whose father had given his life to save my own, and while I had lived, it was at the expense of Sandy’s life-long sorrow.
How do you reconcile that?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Sids. Up early. And grumpy. There was a schedule to keep, and now, it was time again.
This one would be coincidence. The Sids knew this. They had talked about it like everything else, tossed it around for a while like a game of Hot Potato. Junior thought it might be a problem, though by her own admission she couldn’t explain why, just that it might. Senior pointed out that wasn’t much of an argument, and even though it pissed her off, she knew he was right. “Besides,” he had said, “One way or another we’re going to do her. Might as well create a little misdirection while we’re at it.” Junior thought about it, and the more she did, the cooler the potato got. “Yeah, I can see that,” she finally said, and so for the Sids, the coincidence of another nurse was just that.
For Elle Richardson, third-shift nurse supervisor on the maternity ward at Methodist Hospital, it was anything but.
Elle Richardson thought she had about the best gosh-danged job in the entire hospital. No one really liked hospitals, she knew, but Elle (Ells to her husband Eugene and her close friends) thought they were about the best place on earth. Sure there were a lot of sick and dying, (nine gosh-danged floors of them if you were counting) but her floor was where life was delivered, where little bundles of hope and happiness slid out of the gate (Ells always giggled to herself when she thought of it that way) and were swaddled up in loving arms, the balance between life and death maintained for another day, or at least her eight hours of the ten-till-six. Like most of her clothing (including her mouse pad and coffee cups) Ells was reminded on a daily basis that Life is Good.
Her shift had been a busy one, that was for sure. Three singles and a double, (Ells sometimes thought her version of hospital speak sounded an awful lot like ordering at the drive-thru….either that or the scorecard of a little-league baseball game) all before her late morning break. But the rest of her shift remained quiet (all gates temporarily closed for business, ha, ha) and when the big hand was on the twelve and the little hand was on the six, Ells scrunched her shoulders at her co-workers, squinted her eyes, and gave them a tootle-do before she scooted down the hall and out to her car.
Gosh almighty, she felt happy. Her life was everything she had always hoped it would be, and more. Her husband, Eugene (Genes to her, Gene to his friends) was a police officer for the city of Indianapolis, and even though he was a cop and she was a nurse, Ells always thought she and Gene worked hand in hand to help bring goodness and life to the city where they lived. They were, Ells thought, a match made in heaven. It even said so on the matchbook covers at their wedding reception.
Gene worked the third shift as well, except his went ninety minutes longer than hers, but the good news was (and there’s always good news if people would just take their gosh-dang time and look for it) today marked the beginning of Gene’s weekend. Plus, now that Elle was a shift supervisor, she could make her own schedule so she and Hubby had the same two days off each week. Could life be any better? Ells thought not.
Problem was, Ells was wrong. She just didn’t know it yet.
* * *
The Sids in their van. Junior had the driver’s seat, Senior in the back, on his back and out of sight. They had the fucking thing planned nine ways from Sunday, but it didn’t take long for Senior to realize they’d forgotten at least one thing—something for him to lay on. The floor of the van was like any other, ribbed, or corrugated, or what-the-fuck-ever, and it was pressing into his spine like nobody’s business. “How much longer?” he grumbled.
Junior looked at her watch. “How the hell should I know? Just give it a few more minutes.”
“Few more minutes my ass. If I lay here any longer I’m gonna be paralyzed. I’m sitting up.”
“Better not. Don’t want to be seen.”
“Fuck that. I’m getting up. Besides, the windows are tinted. No one saw me last time, did they? So no one is going to see me now. We need a pad or some pillows or something back here to lay on. What the fuck are you laughing at?”
“I was just thinking that after this, they’ll probably change the name of this place.” Before Senior could say anything, Junior stopped laughing and started the van. “Here she comes. Get ready.”
* * *
Elle pulled into the Safeway Grocery and parked her car between a rust colored pickemup (that’s what daddy always called them, pickemup trucks…gosh she missed him, fifteen years gone now if you could believe that) and a cute little lime green VW Beetle-bug, (dang, she wanted one of those sooo bad) one of the newer models that came with a flower holder that stuck out of the column. She forced herself to look away from the Bug when she walked by. She wanted to stop and look, but time
was short. Genes would be home soon and she wanted her shopping out of the way so she could sit with her hubby and tell him all about her shift. The prospect of regaling Genes of the fine work she did this day (three singles and a double!) made her feel so good it caused her to put a little extra scoot in her step. She even grabbed a stray cart that had rolled away from the corral and gave it a shove back where it belonged. A good deed for a good day. Jake and Rocket were right. Life is Good. So very, very gosh-danged good.
* * *
Senior looked out the window. “Aw, we’re gonna have to move. I don’t have an angle.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure, god damn it. Move over a few rows. We’ll get her on the way out.”
Junior backed out of their spot and moved the van a couple of rows over. “Take a quick peek. This should be better.”
Senior did, and it was. Elle caught a break.
A short one, anyway.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, now seriously behind schedule, Elle pushed her cart toward her car. The Bug was gone, (thank gosh for small favors—she might have spent a few extra minutes looking it over—minutes she didn’t have) but the rust colored pickemup was still there. Somebody taking their sweet ol’, she thought. That was another thing Daddy always used to say. He had all kinds of words and sayings. They were his isms. Elle sighed. Love you, Daddy.
* * *
Senior watched through the scope as the woman loaded the groceries into her trunk. They were parked four rows over and one spot further away from the store, close for the scope’s powerful optics. He clicked off the safety and kept the crosshairs centered on the space between her eyes. From Senior’s perspective it looked like she was about a half an inch away. He could make out every feature, every flaw on her face.
Bitch needed to tweeze.
* * *
Elle put the last sack in the trunk and shut the lid. She stood still for a moment—something was bothering her, but she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what it was. Genes had always told her to listen to her gut. That, and situational awareness. Good gosh he was big on situational awareness. He had practically drilled it into her over the years.
And that was the last thought Elle ever had in her ‘Life is Good’ life. The bullet caught her in the center of her brow, right where she needed to tweeze. It snapped her head backwards and blew out the back of her skull just like it did to JFK on the day she was born. The force of the bullet knocked her backwards, her arms pin-wheeling merrily along after her. When her legs realized they were no longer receiving signals from her brain they collapsed under her and what was left of the back of her head made contact with the basket section of an empty shopping cart. The cart flipped forward and came down on top of her and wouldn’t you know it, the next person out of the store, the one who found her lying under the cart like a discarded doll and stroller in someone’s back yard was just some guy taking his sweet ol’ back to his pickemup. When he saw Elle’s body he dropped his bags and spun around, twice. A white van turned a corner at the edge of the lot and was lost to the early morning traffic. Mr. Pickemup never saw it.
* * *
When my cell phone rang I tried to slide away from Sandy, but when I did she held tight to my arm. I listened to the ringing, four, five, six times, then a little half ring, cut down by the voice mail feature. A minute or so later, I heard the familiar chime that told me I had a message. I stirred a bit, moved my arm just so—it was starting to fall asleep—and then brushed the hair from the side of Sandy’s face. Her breathing was rhythmic, slow, like she was asleep, though she was not. Thirty seconds later, the phone rang again.
“I should probably get that,” I said. “Could be something happening.”
Sandy untangled herself, sat up and then leaned forward, her forearms resting on her thighs. She turned her head and looked back over her shoulder at me. “Could be something happening here, Jonesy.” A little edge in her voice.
I stood, looked toward the kitchen where my cell phone lay, and then back at Sandy. I took a step toward the other room, but when the ringing stopped, so did I. Something was happening. But Sandy was right. It was here. I sat down on the bed next to her. “Whatever it is, it can wait.”
“I’m not talking about the sex, you know,” she said.
“Hey, give a guy a little credit, will you?” I took a deep breath in through my nose and puffed my cheeks as I let it out. Then I said the only thing I knew how to say on the heels of the most complex discovery I have ever made. “I’m sorry.”
We sat there for a few minutes with that, and when Sandy raised her head and looked at me, I opened my mouth to say something else but instead I ended up repeating myself. “I’m sorry, Sandy. I’m so very sorry”
“You don’t have to apologize, Jonesy. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Wasn’t it?”
“No. It wasn’t. You were a victim of something that happened a long time ago, just like I was. In a different way, but a victim just the same. I accept your apology, but know this: I don’t ever want to hear you say those words again with regard to the fire. I can’t build the rest of my life on an apology.”
“What did you just say?”
“Tell me you don’t feel it. Tell me we don’t belong together. Tell me you have some logical, even mystical explanation as to how we came together thirty years later as friends, co-workers, and now as lovers.” She reached out and took my hands in her own. “What I’m asking you, Virgil, is to tell me it means something. Tell me I’ve found what I’ve been looking for since I was five years old. Tell me you haven’t been searching for something all these years without really knowing what it is, either. Tell me that what we did last night, what we just had isn’t the reason I lost my childhood, it’s the reward. Tell me that the part of me I thought I lost didn’t die in that fire with my father, but has been waiting for this one single moment where it’s safe to say that this is who I am, that this is where I’m supposed to be, that this is my life, right here, right now, with you. Tell me that my father not only gave you the gift of saving your life, but in some mysterious way that gift belongs to me too. Tell me I’m wrong, Virgil.”
“I can’t.”
“Tell me.”
“I can’t.”
Sandy leaned forward and kissed me lightly on the mouth. “Tell me.”
When I looked at her face I felt something inside myself let go in a way I had never experienced in all my years. It was then I said the words that for the first time in my life I knew to be true. “I love you.”
When Sandy crawled into my lap and wrapped her arms around me she sounded childlike, but her words were those of a woman and a lover undivided, freed from something by a gift I knew no one could give her, save me. “Tell me.”
“I love you.”
“Tell me…”
* * *
“I was there you know,” I said, the ringing of my phone forgotten. We were back on the couch, her feet on my lap. “At your dad’s funeral. Me and my mom. My dad didn’t go. He said he was sick, but I don’t think he was. It wasn’t a happy time for us. It feels sort of ridiculous to say that now—it was just a fucking house—but I’ll tell you, we lost something that day—as a family—and we never got it back.
“But I remember the funeral. The sea of red trucks that stretched for block after block from the cemetery. All the firemen in their dress uniforms. The flag over your dad’s coffin. The way they folded the damn thing and handed it to your mom like, like—”
“Like it was some sort of substitute,” Sandy said. “Like that flag would somehow put food on the table, or keep my mom safe, or tuck me in bed at night. I wasn’t very old, but I remember thinking it was a joke. I remember thinking it might make everyone else feel good, except for the ones who really mattered.”
“We don’t have to talk about this right now, you know. It’s sort of a lot to process.”
“It’ll always be with us. It’s part of who we are.
”
I took her feet in my hands, my thumbs kneading the area just below her toes. “I want to say I remember seeing you there, and I think maybe I do, but it might just be wishful thinking, you know, like when you want to remember something so bad you end up making part of it up and then that becomes the reality. I remember the line of trucks, I remember your mom, and I remember the sadness. I remember thinking for the longest time how I wished it had been me that died that day. I remember thinking about how there wouldn’t be all those fire trucks there at the cemetery, how there wouldn’t be as many people, how there wouldn’t be a flag over my coffin.
“I’ve got to tell you, I didn’t want to go. But my mom made me. She didn’t say it, but she made it clear that your dad had died trying to save me, and it was our duty to go.”
“Oh, Virgil, that’s terrible.”
“You know, it wasn’t really,” I said. “She didn’t put the weight on me. She didn’t have to. She just helped me see that it was the right thing to do. Boy, I can remember her and my dad fighting about it. They fought for weeks after that. Not about me going, but the fact that he didn’t.”
“Why do you think he didn’t go?”
“He never told me. He was drinking pretty bad back then, but I think the real reason was that he felt responsible for your father’s death.”
Voodoo Daddy (A Virgil Jones Mystery) Page 12
