Long Bright River(96)

—We just want to make certain you’re both accounted for.

—He’s fine, I say. He’s sleeping.

But suddenly I feel the need to know this for myself. As I speak to DiPaolo, I walk swiftly to Thomas’s room and open the door.

There he is.

He has bunched all the blankets into a nest at the center of his bed. He’s hugging them tightly. His jaw is tense. Softly, I close the door again.

—Okay, says DiPaolo.

—What’s going on? I say. Is Mulvey still in custody?

DiPaolo breathes for a bit.

—He was, he says. Until today.

—What happened? I say.

—He has an alibi, he says at last. He’s got a sober friend says he was with Mulvey for two days straight around the time the Walker girl was killed, and Mulvey’s claiming that the reason his DNA was on two of the girls who died was that he was a client of theirs. Nothing more. Both of them, Mulvey and his friend, they swear he didn’t kill them. He lawyered up. We had to let him go.

—What time was he released? I say. Was he in custody at the time of today’s homicide?

I don’t know what I want the answer to be.

—He was, says DiPaolo.

In his voice, I hear there’s something more he has to say.

—Listen, says DiPaolo, I’m sending a patrol car your way. Rookie from the 9th District. He’ll be parked in your driveway tonight, okay? Don’t be surprised when you see him there.

—Why? I say.

DiPaolo pauses. In the background, I hear a siren go by. He coughs once, twice.

—Why, Mike? I say.

—It’s just a precaution, he says. Probably an overreaction. But the name you gave me when we met at Duke’s—the woman you said made an accusation to you against someone in the PPD?

—Paula, I say. Paula Mulroney.

DiPaolo’s silent. Waiting for me to connect the dots.

—She was the victim today, he says finally.





I tell Mrs. Mahon to sleep in my bed for the night. I’ll sleep on the couch, in the room closest to the front door, where anyone entering would encounter me first.

I want us all under the same roof.

All I tell Mrs. Mahon about the cruiser that inches quietly up our snowy driveway and parks there is that my colleagues are being extra cautious because of some information I was able to give them.

—It’s nothing to worry about, I say, and Mrs. Mahon says, Do I look like I worry about much?

But I know she’s only putting on a brave face, just as I am. And while Mrs. Mahon is using the bathroom, I sneak quietly down the hall and take down, from the lockbox, my weapon.



* * *



—

Now I can’t sleep. I’m thinking about the cruiser in the driveway, wondering why, if DiPaolo is afraid that Paula was killed to silence her, it’s a PPD officer who’s been assigned to guard us. I would feel safer with a member of the state police, an outsider. It’s true: DiPaolo took pains to tell me that he was assigning a rookie to the watch, someone from a different district—and therefore someone, presumably, without many ties to the 24th. Still, I lie awake on the sofa until four a.m., watching the second hand of the wall clock tick in the dim light from the outdoor lamp. Shadows segment it, cast by the slatted blinds. I’d climb into bed with Thomas if I weren’t worried this would wake him up. I want to be close to him, to know I am protecting him, to know he’s right next to me in the world.

Another feeling begins slowly to take over, joining forces with my worry: it’s sadness, terrible sadness for Paula, whom I can still picture clearly as an eighteen-year-old with a sharp tongue and a quick laugh. Someone who always stood up for Kacey, just as Kacey always stood up for me. I suppose I always liked knowing Paula was out there, watching over my sister, watching over all the women of Kensington.

Last, and worst, comes guilt. If the person we’re looking for is in the PPD; and if I am the one who first spoke Paula Mulroney’s name—to Ahearn, and then to Chambers, and then to DiPaolo—then, yes. It is possible that I am the one responsible, indirectly, for her death.

I close my eyes. I put my hands to my head.

Off the record? I said to Ahearn.

Off the record, he said to me.





By the next morning, the PPD still hasn’t released Paula’s name to the news.

I spend a little while searching for information about her online. Quickly, I come across a Facebook page, set up by friends in her memory.

On it, I find information about a mass for her. It will be at Holy Redeemer this Thursday.

There’s no viewing. The implications of this settle queasily onto me.

I intend to go.



* * *



—

All day, I wait for more information about the circumstances of her death. I want to watch the news, to see whether they’ve apprehended anybody, but I don’t want to frighten Thomas. Instead, I listen to local radio, using my cell phone and an old pair of headphones that I find in a box in the closet. I wear them around the apartment, doing laundry, organizing, while Thomas builds his wooden train tracks into an elaborate maze.

—What are you listening to? he says several times.

—The news, I reply.

The cruiser in the driveway has departed, but a new one comes by our house every so often, driving slowly down the street. I can see it from my bedroom window. Sometimes, I find it comforting; others, I find it threatening, foreboding, predatory. I try to keep Thomas away, but he’s quite observant, and he knows something is afoot.