Chapter Eleven
I called Mike’s orthopedic surgeon first thing the next morning—I’d already dropped Mike off at the substation and heard all his protests that he was fine. But I thought he was limping more on the bad leg. Of course I was expecting and looking for the worst.
The receptionist said the doctor would see him when he began afternoon patient hours at two o’clock and please come a little early. I called Mike, told him I’d pick him up at 12:15 for lunch—his choice of places. He chose the Grill, and I wasn’t sorry. After all, it was meatloaf day.
“You’re making way too much of this, Kelly. I took a little fall. It could happen to anybody.”
“Anybody doesn’t have a broken leg. Besides, your regular appointment is next week—it’s been eight weeks. Maybe this will substitute for that.” I stared at him. “Mike, I’ll leave the room, but please be honest with the doctor. Don’t try to bluff your way through. Tell him if, when, and where it hurts.”
He hung his head, and I knew he’d been planning on bluffing.
I sat in the waiting room, trying to read emails on my iPhone but swinging one foot in impatience and checking my watch so often I was tempted to shake it to see if it was still working. After twenty minutes, a nurse stuck her head out the door and said, “Ms. O’Connell, the doctor would like you to join them.”
When I entered, Mike looked dejected. I shook hands with Dr. McAdams and took the chair he offered.
“He’s given himself a set-back,” the doctor said. “We’ll have to send him for x-rays to make sure the pins didn’t get out of place. I didn’t realize he was back at work full time, and I’m ordering him to cut back to half days—maybe mornings, so he can do his exercises, walk, and sleep in the afternoon.”
I glanced at Mike, who did not look in my direction.
“He also asked if he could drive, but the answer is not for a while. I think in general Mike has been pushing himself too hard. He tells me it’s difficult to get comfortable at night, and he admits that there isn’t a moment in the day or night that he’s not aware of his injury…and his limitations.”
I wanted to shout, “Good for you and your honesty, Mike,” but I kept quiet.
“I’m giving him a new regimen to follow,” Dr. McAdams said, handing Mike several sheets. “You both need to realize that it will be a year before we know for sure if this surgery was a success. Mike could end up with one leg an inch shorter than the other…”
I saw Mike shudder just a bit.
“…and he’s got to be careful and slow in this recovery.”
I nodded but said nothing. I wasn’t going to be put in the position of mothering him or giving him an opportunity to ask, “Want to say I told you so?” He did neither of those things but there was a great silent gulf between us on the way home. I dropped him off and went back to the office after making sure he was inside the house.
Late that night, when we were settled in bed, Mike reached for me and began to stroke my breasts, my stomach and on down. A sharp intake of breath and then, “Mike, are you sure it’s okay?”
“Yeah, it’s the one big thing I asked the doctor about and he said as long as we were careful.”
I crawled on top of him and began nibbling at his ear lobe. I was praying the girls didn’t wake up.
****
Halloween was a bust at our house but a great success at the YMCA from all reports. Keisha went over to Mom’s and gave out treats. Mike and I stayed home, and I answered the door while he, honest to gosh, sat with his service revolver tucked down in the chair next to him.
“If something happens,” he explained, “I can’t jump up to rescue you. This is the most practical solution.”
“Is it legal? Besides, Bella won’t come trick or treating. Not her style.”
There were a few young Hispanic boys that for all I remembered could be Bella’s younger brothers. But I doubted it.
Maggie had finally relented and repeated her costume of last year as a homeless person, with black paint smeared on her face to look like dirt and her hair deliberately soiled with actual dirt, hanging in strings around her face under an old beret. She was such a pretty child that I began to wish some year she’d choose a costume that showed off her prettiness. Em of course looked like an angel in her pink tutu.
Theresa brought them home around eight, knowing full well
Em’s
eight-thirty bedtime, and they were laughing and full of stories of all they’d done—bobbed for apples, eaten caramel apples, played pin the tail on the donkey, done a sack race. A big part of me was jealous not to be part of the fun, and once again in my mind I blamed Sonny Adams for his reckless driving and Bella Garza for stalking me. If none of that had happened, my life would be free and unfettered as it was before Mike’s accident.
I pulled Theresa aside to ask if she sighted Bella’s car but she shook her head.
Next morning, Keisha reported all was calm at Mom’s house and Mom had really enjoyed handing out treats. Keisha had gone by to get Otto Martin, and the three of them drank wine, ate Halloween candy, and laughed a lot.
A momentary sulk: everyone had such fun except me.
Can it, Kelly, you have Mike alive and almost whole. Be grateful.
****
Keisha and I were showing a house to one of Claire’s friends when Mike called my cell phone. I excused myself and left the client to Keisha’s care when I went out on the porch.
“Sonny Adams was killed last night,” he said without preamble.
“Bella,” I breathed. “So she
is
more dangerous than we thought.”
“Probably so. They can’t find her—doesn’t seem to be on the streets. You seen her today?”
“No. Not since Sunday when she started to follow Mom home.” I hesitated because I didn’t want to hear the answer to my next question. “Was he shot?” It was almost a hopeful question. Guns apparently weren’t Bella’s style, so if he was shot it wasn’t her. After all, Sonny Adams apparently had several shady connections. His death could be completely unrelated to Rosalinda Garza.
“Stabbed. In the belly, with a kitchen knife.”
More detail than I needed.
“Conroy got a search warrant for the Garza home, but I don’t expect he’ll find Bella. Watch out. There’s always the chance that she’s gone on a tear.”
I thought I might be sick for a moment. “Poor Mrs. Garza,” I finally muttered.
‘That’s one way to look at it. Poor Sonny is another way.”
“I have less sympathy for him.”
“It’s not a case of black and white, Kelly. Sonny was no credit to the human race, but Mrs. Garza has raised some kids who aren’t either. I’ll see you at noon for lunch. Be careful.” And he hung up.
I pulled myself together and returned to my client, who was listening to Keisha rattle on about the potential of this two-story brick house and making notes at the same time on a redo—the second story was already an add-on, and I too saw ways that it could be improved. “My contractor,” I said, “could walk through with you and make suggestions. He’s pretty good. I keep him busy, though, so he couldn’t do the work.” Okay, I’d just promoted Anthony, but I thought it sounded rather grand.
The client, Jerry Southerland, waved her hand. “Oh, we have a contractor. This will be the fourth house we’ve redone in ten years.”
Sounded like I’d made an easy sale.
As I drove her back to the office, I looked down every side street, kept checking the rearview mirror, and clenched the wheel so tightly, she asked, “Kelly, is everything all right?” Keisha had come in her own car and dashed back to the office a few minutes ahead of us to put on the coffeepot.
It would have been so easy to sob and fall apart and say, “No, it’s not. Everything’s a mess,” but I just mumbled, “Fine. I just like to be careful, especially with a client in the car…never know when someone will shoot out of one of these side streets.”
She didn’t look completely convinced, and I realized that was a dumb way to try to sell the neighborhood. When I pulled up next to her car, she turned to me and asked, “You’re sure this neighborhood is safe?”
I tried, probably unsuccessfully, to laugh it off. “Of course. I’m raising my children here. And ask Claire. The only problems we’ve had lately had nothing to do with the neighborhood itself.”
“Yes, I remember reading about that serial killer. You were involved, weren’t you?”
No sense saying, “I was almost a victim,” so I just said, “I tried to help with the case. My husband is a police officer.”
“No wonder you feel safe.”
“You really needn’t worry,” I said. Then impulsively I added, “There’s a neighborhood association meeting Thursday night to deal with a zoning issue. Why not come meet the people who make up the neighborhood?”
She considered for a moment. “I’ll see if my husband is free. That’s a great idea. Thanks.”
I told her it would be seven o’clock in the Hemphill Presbyterian Church—that caused her a moment’s hesitation, since Hemphill didn’t enjoy the best reputation of any street on the South Side, but she only skipped a beat. “We’ll be there…and if Jake can’t go with me, I’ll see if Claire will.”
“I’m sure she’s going,” I said, making a mental note to call Claire that afternoon.
As soon as Jerry was out of the car, I sped off to the elementary school, my heart in my throat. I cruised slowly, all around—the parking lot, the street in front of the school and the playground. No green Nova, no brown Mustang. Bella must be hiding out.
Relieved, I went to get Mike and take him home for lunch.
We were both sort of silent beyond the usual, “How was your day?” but then Mike said, “Kelly, promise me something.”
“What?” I could hardly eat my tuna fish sandwich.
“You won’t go rushing up to the Garza house.”
That was an easy one. “No, I won’t. I know I’m the last person they want to see, and now I really am afraid of Bella.”
“Good girl.”
I left, with Mike’s promise that he would nap and then exercise. “Don’t you need a nap too?” His look was an outright leer.
“If I napped with you, I wouldn’t get any sleep and neither would you.”
“But exercise?” he persisted.
“Nope. I have things to do at the office.”
“Okay.” He was resigned. “When Maggie’s home, I’ll go with her to walk Gus around the block—yes, ma’am, with my walker.”
“Will that be safe?”
“I have my revolver, remember? And a whistle. I doubt Bella will mess with a cop, even a disabled one. Besides I think she’s hiding out.”
I kissed him and fled.
Back at the office, I called Joe Mendez on his cell phone. He hadn’t left yet for the YMCA. When I told him the news, he said, “I’ll go up there tomorrow. Miss Kelly, you stay away.”
I told him I’d already promised Mike that.
“I didn’t tell you, but I got the two younger boys into alternative school the end of last week. I’ll see if they’re still going after this. And I may buy Bella a beer, if she’s there.”
“I haven’t seen her since Sunday night, but that doesn’t mean much. Mike thinks she’s gone into hiding.”
“Nah, it doesn’t mean nothing. I’ll see if that oldest boy will talk to me. I’ll call tomorrow night.”
Keisha gave me a curious look, so I told her the whole story, to which she replied, “Live dangerous, die young. That’s why Joe’s lucky you did what you did for him.”
“Getting kind of hard-hearted, aren’t you?”
“José’s rubbing off on me. I think officers see so much of this stuff. It surprises you and me, but they know more about the dark side of people than we ever will—or want to.”
Keisha, the philosopher. It seemed to me these days that I was surrounded by threats and crime and, well, as she said, the dark side of people. But we were probably only seeing the tip of that old iceberg. I almost rushed back to take up a vigil outside the school.
When I took the girls home, I told Maggie that Mike would walk with her, but she might have to walk slow. He was back on his walker for an indefinite period of time.
“Is it okay for him to walk around the block?”
“Doctor says exercise is good for him.” She would never understand my secret smile.
****
The morning paper the next day had a small article that the stabbing victim found off Northeast Twenty-Eighth Street had been identified as Sonny Adams. Police were looking for a “person of interest” but there wasn’t much else. I called Mike.
“Beat me to it. I was going to call you. A team went through the Garza house thoroughly, found a butcher knife with bloodstains and fingerprints. They printed the only family member home, the mom, which is an insult to her and stupid on their part. Now they’ve still got to find Bella and print her, plus print all the brothers. The two younger ones were in school, so they’ll get them this afternoon. No telling where the older boy is.”
I hung up wishing some wonderfully bright idea would come to me, but none did.
Joe called a little later with essentially the same report, but with more humanity in it. Mrs. Garza, he said, was frantic with worry about her two older children, hadn’t seen them in days. Michael and Alex, the two younger boys, were staying in school and had started going to the Boys and Girls Club after school. They claimed they had no homework, but Joe told her not to believe that. She blessed him, said the younger boys were the hope of her life, and sent him away with homemade tamales that he was saving to share with Theresa.