Long Bright River(34)

A fair point. I nod, and drop him at the library, as requested.

I watch him walk away. And I think of all the things I’ve missed about him, in his absence: his generous laugh, low and contagious, ending sometimes in an s; and his steady presence when responding to calls, which steadied me in turn; and his love for his children, his pride in them, and the way he advised me on parenting concerns I had; and his concern for Thomas, for whom he brought, from time to time, thoughtful gifts, mainly books; and his privacy, and discretion, and his respect for my own in turn; and his elevated—snobbish, I told him—taste in food and drink, the wild things he bought from health food stores, kombucha, kefir, arame, goji berries; and the way he gently ribbed me about my own poor eating habits, and my stubbornness, and the way he called me ‘difficult’ and ‘strange’—two labels I wouldn’t appreciate hearing from anyone else. But from Truman I sensed an appreciation of these qualities in me; I felt understood by him in a way that, if I am being truthful, I hadn’t felt since Kacey and I were allies, in our youth.

I still can’t get used to seeing Truman out of uniform. In his hesitating walk now, the way he scans the Avenue to his right and left, I can suddenly see the shy child he once described to me when talking about his past. I was silent until I was about twenty years old, he said to me once.

And I said, So was I.





The other officer, Gloria Peters, has already arrived when I get to the house where the domestic assault has been reported. For the moment, things are calm. I let Gloria talk to the complainant outside while I go inside and stand in the kitchen with the perpetrator, a drunk-looking man, white, in his thirties. He glares at me.

—Would you like to tell me what happened here, sir? I ask him.

I am always very polite to the people I interview, even the worst of them. Truman modeled this behavior for me, and I have found that it works well.

But I can tell by looking at him, by the smirk on his face, that this gentleman will be intractable.

—Nope, he says.

He’s shirtless. His arms are folded over his middle. He, too, is probably addicted to one substance or another, though his drunkenness is making it difficult to sort out what kind of cocktail he’s on.

—You don’t want to make a statement? I say, but he just laughs lowly. He knows the system. Knows he shouldn’t talk.

He tries to put his hand down on the kitchen counter, wet from some earlier incident, but it slips, sending him off balance. He staggers a little, recovers.

Are there kids? I wonder. I listen. I hear the slightest sounds of movement upstairs.

—Do you have any children? I say, but he’s silent.

There are not many people who alarm me, not after this many years on the job. But there is something about this person I don’t like. I avoid eye contact with him, the way I might with an aggressive dog. I don’t want him to feel cornered. I eye the drawers in the kitchen, wondering which of them contains knives that might be used as weapons. He’s drunk enough so that if he lunged, I could probably sidestep him, maybe even knock him down.

It occurs to me, suddenly, that he looks familiar. I narrow my eyes at him, trying to remember.

—Do I know you? I ask him.

—I don’t know, he says. Do you?

An odd response.

It could just be that I’ve seen him around the neighborhood; that happens frequently. In fact, the majority of faces I see on a given shift look familiar to me.

Gloria Peters comes back into the room, eventually, and shakes her head at me subtly. The complainant, it seems, has changed her mind, and no longer wants her husband arrested.

—Stay there, I say to him.

I’ve already scouted the house: there’s no back door, so he’ll have to walk past us if he tries to escape. We go into the little living room and speak quietly.

—Anything on her face? I ask, and Gloria says, I think so. Looks red. Too early to tell. I think she’ll have some nasty bruises tomorrow, though.

—We could take him down anyway, I say.

But without physical evidence, and without a statement from the victim, there’s only so much we can do.

In the end, a child tiptoes quietly down the stairs and then, seeing us, scurries away again. He’s not much older than Thomas. This is enough for us: we’ll book him. I volunteer to do it; Officer Peters can stay behind that way, make sure the child or children are taken care of, maybe get someone from Social Services to come out and conduct an interview.

As the husband gets into my vehicle, he never shifts his gaze. He looks up at me directly, a terrible blank stare that gives me the shivers.

All the way to the station, he’s silent. I’m used to this: usually it’s only the newcomers who talk, or rant, or cry, or bemoan the injustice of what is happening to them. Veterans of the criminal justice system know enough to shut up. What’s different about this one is the feeling of being watched, of eyes on the back of my head.

Against my will, I glance at him, once, in the rearview mirror, trying again to figure out how I know him. And I see that he’s smiling at me. Goose bumps light up my arms and neck.



* * *



—

I have to wait with him in a holding cell until he’s processed. I look at my phone and don’t speak to him. The whole time, he never averts his gaze.

Finally, as he’s led from the cell, he speaks.