“She’s just trying to look out for you,” Casey said. “She can’t undo what happened, but she can try to lessen the pain.” He could relate.
“I need something for the pain in my ass known as Motheritis.”
Casey remembered a run-in he and Leila had had with the town bully during Casey’s freshman year at Green Bay Southwest High School. “Do you remember when Bobbie Chintzy threw his football and hit you right on your glasses?”
“Who could forget stuff like that?” Leila said, staring up at the ceiling.
“I punched him, tackled him, and warned him never to go near you again, so Bobbie’s mom brought him over to show his shiner to Mother, who promptly called me over and whacked me upside the head with her Reader’s Digest.”
A smile burst below Leila’s blue bangs and between the long strands of her hair. “Ma with the subtlety. Wish I could have seen her give you that whuppin’.”
“The reason I survived is I told her Bobbie broke your glasses. That’s when she called you down from your room. Once she saw you with your bruised face…”
Leila perked, like a dog waiting for her owner to throw a tennis ball. She said, “Mother started whacking Bobbie upside his head with her magazine—chased him half-way to Hail Stadium.”
Casey chuckled. “I thought Bobbie would leap into the stadium stands to save his life.”
“Wouldn’t you, with Mother chasing?”
They laughed together, harder than at any time since childhood, until it ached in a way they didn’t mind, like muscle cramps after a satisfying workout.
Casey said, “The thing about Mother: she’s insufferable to her own children.”
“Like a baboon that eats its young,” Leila agreed.
“But give her credit,” he said. “If a leopard tries to attack a baby baboon, boy, does the mother baboon make the big kitty regret it.”
“I’m done letting Mother fight my battles.” Leila lay on the couch, staring at the ceiling. “Ever wonder what it would have been like if Dad had lived?”
“Of course,” he said. “They have these computer programs that project how people would look in forty years, or how a pro-football game is supposed to play out.”
“You try one with dad’s picture or something?”
“No. I don’t trust those computer simulations. In real life, predictions rarely materialize. So what if there’s a seventy-five percent chance of something? That means nothing unless it actually happens. That’s why you play the game, that’s why you live your life. There’s too much chance to consistently predict the future. So, you just experience it.”
“You think Dad died from chance?”
“Dad died of cancer.”
“What was it like, knowing?” Leila said.
“Knowing?”
“That he was dying.”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Yes. I do.”
Casey folded his arms, shifted his weight and stared at his sister. “You may think you want to know about Dad, but you don’t. Trust me.”
“But—”
“Well…since I know you won’t drop it…it wasn’t knowing he was dying that was hard. The cancer was easy to deny. The hard part was watching him starve to death because the nausea prevented him from keeping food or drink down. Ever see someone starve to death?”
“No.”
Casey remembered his father’s gaunt face, chapped lips, and cracked skin. Every time he thought of it, he had an urge to scrub his forehead, as if that of all things would erase those memories. “That scared me stiff.”
“Literally?” Leila said.
“Yeah, at times. Dad’s breath smelled metallic from all the medications. As he died, in his final moments, he gulped for air like a fish in a net.”
“You were right.” Leila placed her palms on her cheeks. “I didn’t want to know. Thanks a lot.”
“Sometimes, I wished I had been a baby like you.”
“Did Mother sugar-coat it?”
“You mean like, ‘Daddy went to sleep in Heaven’?”
“Yeah.”
“Hell no. You know Mother. She believes in Heaven, but wanted me to toughen up, so she said, ‘Your father’s dead and he’s never coming back.’”
Leila paused for a few seconds. “I grew up trying to envision him.”
“You’ve seen pictures.”
“But no video. No personality. He’s like imagining a song I’ve never heard. At least you were five at the time. You knew him.”
“I know, Lei. I wish you could have known him, too. He loved you so much, he’d rock you in his arms, hold you over his head, sing to you.”
“I’m sorry you had to watch Dad go through that, Case.”
Outside Leila’s apartment window, a bare tree branch wagged in the winter gust. His father had died in the living room, lying in a hospice bed. A few hours later, two big men from the funeral parlor came into their house, didn’t even knock, just came in like drones programmed to cart away the dead. Casey would never forget sitting on the kitchen floor, hearing the zipper on the body bag. Crazy as it might have seemed, he had hoped his dad would recover, even from stage-four cancer. The hope he had back then was about making more memories, holding on for one more. “That zipper on the body bag. I heard it coming. Then it just…stopped.”
Leila slouched back into her couch, again staring at the ceiling. She appeared uninterested but Casey knew better.
“That’s why all my clothes were button-down until high school,” he said.
“You’ve got issues, Casey.”
“Thanks for calling me black, Dr. Pot.”
Leila turned her head toward her brother. “I’m a little teapot, short and stout. Here are my neuroses, here is my spout. Maybe you should see Dr. Step-dad-ski.”
He sat cross-legged on her floor, resting his chin on his fists. “Stepnowski. When they wheeled Dad’s body out of our house, I couldn’t feel God. I just felt alone.”
“So you don’t believe in God.”
“Maybe the real question isn’t whether God does or doesn’t exist. Maybe the real question is, how do we act? If we all act like God doesn’t exist—being selfish and vicious to each other—then for all intents and purposes God doesn’t exist, or might as well not. But if we act like God does exist, then in essence, She does. Does it matter whether God created the earth and all life, or the other way around? Either way, the waves you send out bounce back to you from all directions.”
“You’re such a dork. Go back to finding Elena.”
“You haven’t heard anything about where she is, have you?”
“Why would I know anything?”
“People talk. You work at a coffee house.”
“I haven’t heard a word.”
Casey walked over to her.
She looked up at him. “What?”
He took off a silver necklace and handed it out to her.
She sat up. “What is this?”
“They’re Dad’s dog tags.”
“From Vietnam?”
Casey nodded. “He was there early on, in the 60’s, when LBJ escalated the war.”
“Don’t you want them?”
“Of course I do. I remember him wearing them on Veteran’s Day and the Fourth of July. But I know you didn’t get the chance to see that. So I want you to have them, so you feel a part of Dad close to your heart. His last words before he died were, ‘Breathe. Your most important breath is your next one.’ Maybe he can protect you better than I can.”
Leila put the necklace over her head, pulled her hair out the back and kissed the dog tags bearing her father’s name. She held them close to her heart and hugged her brother.
12
SATURDAY, JANUARY 22
The Green Bay Hail players took the field for pre-game warm-ups before a playoff game at Hail Stadium against St. Louis.
Meanwhile, in the press box high above the field, Casey grabbed a weenie on a toothpick, popped it in his mouth, and st
rolled across the room to his seat. He opened his laptop, logged on to the website of the Green Bay Times, and read an article about the disappearance of Elena Ortega, 24, a Hail Pro Shop employee, written by Mai Tao. She quoted Hail CEO Dan Stone, who said: “The Hail are doing everything we can to assist the police in their search.” Casey continued reading.
Authorities traced a signal from Ortega’s cell phone to a grassy patch at Heritage Hill in Green Bay, the 48-acre state park famous for its old log cabins and annual Civil War reenactments. Twenty officers and five canines combed the park, located the Ortega’s phone, called the most recent phone numbers saved in the call history and ran prints. Detectives learned that the person who had placed the recent calls had found the phone outside the gas station near the stadium shortly after Ortega disappeared Friday night. A police spokesman said, “We know who found it. His story checks out.”
Police secured a search warrant for Ortega’s apartment, based on evidence that her disappearance was coerced. The department, however, did not release any details on what evidence they may have found.
Casey took the elevator from the press box down to the field level and used his media pass to get on the sidelines. He missed the smell of the spring turf, but even in the winter the field looked lush. The heating coils underneath the surface kept the hybrid grass-turf alive, and lamps helped it to grow.
He liked to see the players up close before the game, remember their true stature, and gauge their intensity and focus. The thirty-five-degree temperature was balmy for a January game in Green Bay. The crowd was jubilant, drunk on the high of alcohol, grilled meat, national media attention, and the promise of what their team could accomplish for posterity.
Casey found Skeeto walking off the field near the end zone. “Skeet, I got some leads on how to find Elena.”
“For real?”
“She hopped a cab.”
Skeeto raised his brows and laughed. “Come on, man.”
Casey would have argued the point, but he noticed a security guard named Big Mikey leading two men in suits along the sideline, heading in their direction. Big Mikey pointed at Casey.
Casey’s adrenaline spiked and he leaned toward Skeeto. “What the—”
Skeeto raised a hand. “Let me handle it.” Skeeto gave Big Mikey a half “high-five,” half-handshake.
About ten yards away, Narziss jogged to warm up for the game. He glared at Casey.
Casey fell into sleep paralysis standing up; his shoulders and head slouched into partial cataplexy. Stress had taken its toll.
Narziss saw that, grinned, grabbed a football from the ground and hurled it as hard as he could at Casey’s chest. The ball bounced off his pectoral, knocking him off-balance enough so that he fell to the ground. Narziss shook his head, laughing along with a couple of offensive linemen. A coach blew his whistle and called the players into a warm-up drill.
LOCAL NARCOLEPTIC MAN BECOMES TACKLING DUMMY
The next thing he knew, Big Mikey, Skeeto, and the two men in suits stood over him.
“You okay?” Skeeto said.
Casey wanted to respond but couldn’t.
“Come on, Mr. Thread, get up,” one of the men said. As Casey peered at the men huddled over him, he felt as if he had fallen down a mine shaft and the rescuers had no way to reach him. “I’m Detective Meyer,” the tall man said, flashing his badge. He waved toward his shorter counterpart. “This is my partner, Detective Tony Gioli.”
“Get up,” Gioli said. “We need to talk.”
Casey didn’t move.
“I said get up.”
“Come on Casey,” Big Mikey said. “This ain’t funny.”
Casey hoped Skeeto would explain that it was the narcolepsy. No such luck.
Detective Meyer reached down and pulled back Casey’s eyelids. He poked Casey under the ribs. Gioli leaned over and pinched Casey’s wrist to excruciation. Still, Casey couldn’t react.
Meyer seemed genuinely surprised, and he glanced at Skeeto. “What’s your friend’s problem?”
“He falls asleep a lot,” Skeeto said, grabbing Casey’s shoulder and shaking it until Casey finally snapped out of it. For Casey, it was the constant shaking—not pain—that brought him out of an episode. He sat up and peered at Skeeto.
“I’ll handle it,” Casey murmured incredulously.
“Mr. Thread,” Gioli said, flipping open a notebook. “You okay?”
“Yeah, happens all the time. I have narcolepsy.”
Gioli said, “So you won’t mind a few questions?”
Casey stood and dusted himself. “What about?” His head hurt from the fall.
“You were the last to see Elena Ortega the night before she disappeared, correct?”
“Where’d you hear that?” Casey said, glaring at Skeeto, who flared his eyes and shrugged like he knew nothing about it.
“We have our sources,” Meyer said.
“I did see her the night before she disappeared,” Casey admitted.
Gioli smirked. “Oh, really?”
“Yeah, at Skeeto’s party at the White House. But I wasn’t the last to see Elena that night.”
“How do you know?” Gioli rocked from heels to toes.
“Because I had a sleep attack, went home the next morning, and haven’t seen her since.”
“Did Ms. Ortega say anything that seemed strange?” Gioli said.
“She bragged about sleeping with Todd Narziss.” Now that qualified for strange.
Gioli looked up from his notepad. “The Todd Narziss?”
“Right there.” Casey thumbed toward the player wearing the number “83.”
Gioli shook his pen to get ink flowing and took more notes.
“You and Ms. Ortega argue?” Meyer said.
“No,” Casey said. “Why would we?”
“You had a romantic relationship with Ms. Ortega,” Gioli shrugged a shoulder. “But you argued. I understand—I quarrel with my wife from time to time.”
“Who said I argued?”
“Answer the question,” Meyer said.
“I kissed her once. That’s it. We went out a few times.” He stuck his hands in his black wool coat and hopped to stay warm. “I really should be getting up to the press box. My fingers are numb and I’m supposed to be using them to cover Narziss for Sports Scene.”
Gioli pursed his lips and raised his brows. “Well, well, the kid’s a big shot, Meyer.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Meyer said, acting like he was impressed. “Wait until I tell the wife.”
“Problem is,” Gioli said, “we need to take you downtown.”
“Downtown?” Casey said.
Meyer and Gioli nodded. They looked like a hot dog and hamburger standing together. “We found a syringe in your wrecked car, Mr. Thread,” said Meyer, the hot dog.
“Wrecked car?” Skeeto said.
“I had a little accident,” Casey said.
Meyer nodded. “It’s at the body shop. The needle contains hydrocyanic acid, the same substance found in trace amounts in the bodies of female statues recovered on college campuses across the Midwest.”
“That’s impossible,” Casey said. “I’ve never owned a syringe in my life. Right, Skeeto?”
“Uh, right,” Skeeto said, not convincing in the least.
Gioli leaned in to Casey. “So tell me, Mr. Thread, how is it that a car is supposedly empty at the time of the accident, yet at the body shop it has a syringe with a highly lethal substance at a time when your recent flame disappeared?”
“I have no idea,” Casey said. “Somebody must have planted it in the car.”
“Who would do that?” Meyer said.
“Someone who wants me out of the way,” Casey said.
“Do you have any enemies?” Gioli said.
“Other than Narziss?”
“We need you to come with us,” Meyer said.
“Why?” Casey said.
“We can do this casually if you cooperate,” Meyer said. “Or seventy-thousand spectat
ors can watch us drag you out.”
“I told you—someone planted it.”
“Right,” Gioli said. “Santa’s elves. Come with us.”
“Am I under arrest?” Casey asked.
“No,” Meyer said. “We’re just curious about a few things. We want to be sure we have an understanding.”
“Skeeto,” Casey said over his shoulder as the cops led him out of the stadium. “Please tell Nell I’m downtown.”
Skeeto pointed toward Casey. “You got it.”
The detectives led Casey up the ramp, where a rabid fan known as Hail Mary stood in her usual spot near the tunnel. Her garb made her look like a cross between the Virgin Mother and a typical football fan. The cops led him through the concourse and out the stadium. They arrived at the detectives’ unmarked car. Meyer directed Casey into the back seat and shut the door.
At the station, they deposited Casey in Interrogation Room 3. Gioli sat across the table from him while Meyer paced behind his partner. “You know about Ms. Ortega’s condition, right?”
Casey frowned. “Condition?”
“She’s pregnant,” Gioli said.
Casey wondered how they knew that. Maybe they had spoken to Prime Time. “Yes, actually. I knew that. Why?”
Both detectives frowned and shared another glance.
“We know you slept with her,” Meyer said.
“Who told you that?”
“Lots of witnesses from the party at the so-called White House,” Gioli said. “They saw you go into a bedroom with Ms. Ortega, and they said that it ended prematurely and you weren’t happy about it.”
“Elena and I went up there to make out and it ended there. I fell asleep kissing her. It was the narcolepsy.”
“Okay, that’s a new one,” Gioli admitted, glancing at his partner. “It was the narcolepsy.”
The detectives laughed.
Casey said, “So, yeah, I was frustrated, but not with her. Embarrassed, actually.”
Gioli said, “Where were you last Friday?”
“I have fifty people who saw me in the Hail locker room, and an editor who can corroborate that I’m working on a freelance assignment for him.”
“Who?” Gioli asked.
Casey gave him the editor’s information.
Sleep When You're Dead Page 7
