by Frank Zafiro
Another habit, that. Always carrying a gun, even off duty. That’s one I’ve shed since leaving the department. Of course, the fact that it technically isn’t legal for me to carry concealed helped break me of it.
A quick vision of the acne-riddled face from the alley just a few hours earlier flashed in my mind. I wondered if I’d have been better off if I’d been packing when that happened. It certainly would have made for a different ending, that’s for sure. I don’t know if it would’ve been better, though.
Anna sat down and adjusted her chair so she could see the door and most of the coffee house. I wondered if she did that unconsciously now. I suspected so.
“Did you order?”
I shook my head. “I was waiting for you.”
She got back up and headed toward the counter. I started to rise but she waved me away. I sat back down, and watched her while she ordered our coffee. Her shape was nice, and I liked it. But more than that, I admired the economy of motion she projected. There wasn’t a single wasted movement, gesture, or word. I don’t know why I found that so attractive, but I did. Maybe it was the discipline it took.
Before I could psychoanalyze myself any further, she came back with two cups of house drip. “This is the best coffee you’ll ever have,” she stated matter of factly.
“Is it Maxwell House?”
She gave me a quizzical look. “Not even close. Why?”
I shook my head. “A friend of mine, that’s his favorite.”
“Dirt and turpentine in comparison.” She motioned toward my cup. “You’ll see.”
I did. The blend was aromatic, strong, and smooth. I gave her an appreciative nod. “You’re right. What is it?”
“Their house blend. That’s all they’ll say.”
“Mysterious.”
A tiny hint of a smile curled up at the corners of her mouth. “So we’re back to that again.”
I smiled back. “I’m still there from last time.”
We were quiet for a few moments, sipping our coffee. It was an easy silence, and that surprised me.
“You look a little rattled,” she said over the rim of her cup. “And you’ve got bruises on your throat.”
“Rough day.”
“You’ve had a couple of them recently.”
I nodded. “True. But as long as I stay out of a certain bar, I should be okay.”
“I don’t get the impression you hang out in bars, anyway.”
“No. It was a…special occasion.”
“An Amy Dugger anniversary,” Anna said, and it wasn’t a question.
I stared at her, surprised. “Yes,” I said quietly. “How did you know that?”
“I told you. I did my homework on you.”
“Obviously.” I didn’t know how to react, so I asked, “What else do you know?”
She took another sip of her coffee. “I know everything,” she said simply.
“What does ‘everything’ mean?”
She put down her cup and arched an eyebrow. “Would you like a laundry list?”
“Indulge me.”
“All right. I know about Karl Winter, for starters.”
“That wasn’t my fault.”
“I know. He’d have died from those gunshots even if he’d fallen right onto a surgery table. That’s a fact.”
I knew that it was true but I’d never heard anyone except the emergency room doctor utter those words before. I remembered that hot August night, so many years ago. Karl Winter, a veteran cop, splayed out on the dark pavement under a raging moon, pools of his blood spreading outward from his body like black wings.
“That didn’t stop some people from blaming you anyway,” Anna said.
“People liked Karl,” I said. “They wanted someone to blame. And the guy that shot him wasn’t around to blame. I was.”
“For a while,” Anna said.
I hesitated, then nodded. “For a while,” I admitted.
“Until Amy Dugger.”
I didn’t answer.
“I know all about that, too,” she continued. “I know you made a terrible mistake, and I know that she died because of it. I know everyone blamed you.”
“They were right,” I whispered.
“Yes,” she agreed. “They were.”
I sat at the table, motionless, my finger hooked through the coffee cup handle, a little shell shocked. The entire conversation seemed at once surreal and perfectly natural. A dull anger and a sense of relief battled inside me, and I was unsure which feeling would come out on top.
“So you left the job,” Anna continued. “And seemed to disappear for about ten years, at least as far as most people were concerned. Then you start popping up working private, and had several run-ins with the police department.” She ticked off her fingers as she spoke. “The thing with the runaway girl and the pornographer, then the situation revolving around the councilman. The first one got you arrested and convicted. The second one only got you arrested.”
“Don’t forget the hockey player,” I said, a little sarcasm seeping into my tone. “That one got me punched in the mouth.”
“I read about that one, too,” she said. “Were there any others?”
I thought about Cassie, an old girlfriend, and my failed attempt to help her. That didn’t involve the police, but it easily could have. And while he could have gone up for blackmail, they could have had me for assault just as easily. Maybe more so.
“Nothing worth talking about,” I said.
She spread her hands open. “And now you’re on to something else. Something that got you picked up and brought in for questioning just yesterday.”
I stared at her, a horrible thought taking shape in my mind. “Why are you here?” I asked. My mouth turned dry and my voice was raspy and hoarse. “Are you working for Cole?”
Her brow furrowed. “Detective Cole? That macho jerk?” She shook her head. “Of course not.”
“Then why are you here?” I repeated. The dark cloud of all my past mistakes hung over the table, black and portentous. All of the easiness of our earlier silence seemed to be seeping away.
She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she looked down at her coffee cup, turning it slowly.
After about thirty seconds, I pushed my chair back to leave.
“I had a sister,” Anna said quietly, still not looking up.
I hesitated, watching her.
“She was a year and a half older than me.” Her eyes came up to meet mine. “She died when I was eleven.”
“I’m sorry,” I said reflexively.
“Do you want to know how she died?”
I nodded slowly.
Anna looked away for a moment, then met my gaze again. “It happened while we still lived in San Francisco. I was eleven but June hadn’t turned thirteen yet. We were at Lake Chabot, on a private beach. It was early in the summer, and someone my father knew let him use their lake cabin. We fished off the dock and had a fire on the beach that first night. It was fun.” Her eyes were distant with memory. “If things had turned out differently, it might have been the best weekend of my childhood.”
I slowly pulled my chair closer to the table, and leaned forward to listen.
She didn’t seem to notice. “The second day, my parents went for a walk in the woods, and left June and me alone. We were swimming off the dock. It was hot, but the water was like ice. We didn’t care, though.” She glanced up at me. “Right before my parents went on their walk, my father told us both the same thing he always did when they left us alone. ‘You two watch out for each other,’ he always said, and he said it that day, too.”
A lump of anticipation rose slowly in my throat. “What happened?” I asked quietly.
“There was a buoy about a hundred yards out from the beach. June bet me she could swim to it. I told her she couldn’t. With June, that was all it took to make her do anything – someone telling her she couldn’t. Before I could say a word, she dove in and struck out toward the buoy. I yelled after her b
ut she ignored me. I thought about going after her, but she was a much stronger swimmer than I was. In the end, I just stood on that wooden dock, dripping wet and shivering, and I watched her stroke out toward the buoy.”
Anna fell silent, her eyes lost in reverie. I sat perfectly still, and waited.
“She made it,” Anna whispered. “She reached the buoy and grabbed onto it. Then she called back to me.
“‘I did it!’ she yelled. Then, after a moment, she added, ‘I told you!’
“Her voice was exuberant, but she also sounded winded. I should have told her she did a great job. But instead of congratulating her, I just yelled back, ‘Only half way!’
“That was all it took. Without even resting, she pushed away from the buoy and started toward the dock. About a third of the way, she started having trouble. That’s when she should have gone back to the buoy, and rested. Or waited at the buoy for someone to come out and get her. Our parents would be home before long, or someone might pass in a boat or even a jet ski. But that would never occur to June. Forward was all she knew, even at twelve. So she pushed on.”
Anna gave her head a small shake, and turned her gaze to me. “By the time she was halfway to the dock, she started going under. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to scream for help, but there was nobody around. I tried to think of what you’re supposed to do in that situation, and I remembered our swimming lessons from years ago. They taught us to float, and we both learned how to do it in the pool at the YMCA. So I yelled to her to just turn on her back and float, but by then, she’d begun to panic. Her arms were flailing and splashing in the water. She went under twice more, then exploded up out of the water, thrashing.”
She stopped, swallowed once, then continued. “She called out my name, and that was when I jumped into the water. I swam toward her as hard as I could. She stopped thrashing then, and got really quiet. Every couple of strokes, I could see her ahead of me. But when I finally got there…” She shook her head and looked away. “She was gone.”
“Jesus,” I muttered. “I’m sorry.”
“I dove underwater, looking for her, but by then I’d lost my bearings. I didn’t know if I was close to where she’d been or not. I kept diving, looking in the murky water for her. I don’t know if I could have done anything if I’d found her, but I knew I had to keep looking.
“After a while, I started to get tired. My dives weren’t as deep, and I came up for air sooner. I started to panic, too, and then I started to cry. That’s how my father found me. Treading water and weeping less than halfway to the buoy. He dove in and swam out to me, then pulled me to the dock. I managed to sputter out what happened, and he dove back in, looking for June.” She looked up at me. “I mentioned the water was cold, didn’t I?”
I nodded slowly. “You did.”
“I thought so.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “The cold water that pulled her down held onto her. My father couldn’t find her. My mother called 9-1-1 and water rescue showed up. They used snorkels at first, and then someone went in with scuba gear, and they found her.
“Nothing was the same after that. My father blamed me for June’s death, and I suppose my mother did, too, because she never said otherwise. They were broken for a long time afterward, and every day I was around only reminded them of that.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” I told her. “How could they blame you?”
She smiled slowly. Ruefully. “Oh, Stef. Haven’t you figured out yet that those two things are hardly ever related?”
I thought about it for a moment, then nodded. She was right.
“Reason doesn’t matter sometimes,” she said. “I was almost two years younger than my sister. I wasn’t a strong swimmer. We were alone, swimming without adult supervision. I couldn’t have stopped her from trying to swim to that buoy and back. And I couldn’t have saved her. But it was my fault all the same. My father only said so once, on the day of her funeral, but it went unspoken very loudly every single day until I moved out.” She thought about it for a moment, then added, “It’s still there, actually.”
“I’m…sorry,” I said. My own words seemed incredibly inadequate but I couldn’t think of anything better to say at that moment.
She looked at me again, fixing me with a long stare, letting that silence return and surround us. Finally, she said, “I know it wasn’t my fault. That’s the truth, right? But the real truth?” She shook her head. “It was all my fault. I should have stopped her. I should have told her to rest at the buoy. I should have remembered the floating lesson before she panicked. I should have swam to her and I should have rescued her. But I didn’t, and because I didn’t, she died.”
She looked down at her coffee cup. The finality of her words hung in the air. We fell quiet again. The sounds of clattering dishes and the low buzz of conversation played out against the quiet soundtrack of folk rock.
Several minutes passed before she spoke again. “I dream of her sometimes. Not happy memories, though. I dream that I’m in that cold lake again, trying to find her. I dive and dive, and there’s nothing but dim green water. Then I see her, just out of my reach, drifting downward in the murky water. I try to reach for her, but I never can.”
She looked into my eyes. It seemed to me that there was less of a veil there, and I could see the pain behind them. “Do you dream about Amy, Stef?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but my throat was too dry. Instead, I nodded.
She nodded back. “I thought so.”
We sat in silence for a long while after that, drinking the best coffee in the world, each of us keeping our own demons at bay. At some point, I reached out and took her hand, and gave it a squeeze.
She squeezed mine back.
35
The next morning, the drive to the Brassart’s home went quickly. It’s a strange phenomenon I’ve noticed. Driving an unfamiliar route seems to take longer than one you know. I’m sure it’s a trick of perception for the most part, but it’s there all the same.
I didn’t slow when I passed the place where Henry Brassart was struck from behind by a car going at least forty-nine miles per hour. Instead, I zipped up the street, pulled into the driveway and drove all the way up to the garage.
When I got out of my car, I could feel the eyes of Cole and his team on me. I wondered for a moment if they’d break cover and stop me before I made it to the front door. Or were they silently high-fiving each other, certain now that I was in on whatever conspiracy they believed was going on?
Before I walked around to the front door, I peered at the car inside the garage through the narrow window in the garage door. I half-expected Marie Brassart’s Lexus to be sitting inside, looking just like I imagined it would when I read Katie MacLeod’s anorexic probable cause affidavit. But then I realized it was likely still in police evidence impound.
Instead, inside was a silver Mercedes.
A little thrill of surprise shot through me. I hadn’t counted on this, but I was glad for the turn of events. In the same moment, I wished I’d brought along my gun.
Just in case.
I went to the front porch and knocked on the door. There was no reply. I knocked louder, and more insistently, hearkening back to the days on the job when I had to waken drunk people or make it clear I wasn’t going away.
My graveyard knock worked. Marie Brassart’s face appeared in the window of the front door. A moment later, the deadbolt snicked open, and she pulled the door wide. She wore a casual pair of Capri pants and a loose white blouse. Her expression was one of surprise, and some wariness.
“Good morning,” I said. “We need to talk.”
36
Marie Brassart stared at me with her deep, soulful eyes. After a moment, recognition registered in her expression, but even then, she didn’t move aside to invite me inside.
“Now…isn’t a good time,” she finally said, haltingly.
“I get that,” I assured her. “But the thing is, with everything that’s going o
n, I don’t think there’s ever going to be a good time.”
She didn’t answer right away, only watched me carefully, as if weighing my intent. I stood easily, letting her look all she wanted. My purpose was clear, and if she had any strength of perception at all, she’d pick up on that. Besides, I was poor but clean.
Eventually, she stepped out onto the porch and pulled the door closed behind her. “We can talk here,” she said, motioning to a pair of wicker chairs a few feet away.
I resisted the urge to give her a knowing smile. Instead, I didn’t let on that I knew she was hiding Walter inside and merely followed her to the chairs. We sat. She pulled her legs up and curled them underneath. “It was Steve, wasn’t it?”
“Stef.”
“Why are you here, Stef?”
“The same reason I came to see you at jail. I’m trying to help you.”
She watched me while I spoke, reminding me again of a deer in the middle of a field, head cocked, gauging the danger. “How are you trying to do that?” she asked.
“You want Joel Harrity to represent you?”
“Of course.”
“He’s asked for my recommendation on whether to take the case.”
She furrowed her brow slightly. “He asked for your recommendation? Who are you, exactly?”
“Someone whose judgment he trusts,” I said.
Her questioning gaze didn’t change, but she didn’t pursue the line of inquiry any further. Instead, she asked, “What do you intend to tell him?”
“That depends on this conversation,” I said.
“So this is a test, then?”
I shook my head. “Not really. At least, not of anything other than your honesty.”
She held up her hands in an open gesture. “I have been very honest with you. There are just some things that my lawyer has advised me not to—”
“Taking advice from a lawyer you’re trying to fire?” I frowned. “That doesn’t make much sense to me.”
“Perhaps not. But it only has to make sense to me.”
