An Unacceptable Death - Barbara Seranella (6 page)

When she got home that day, she didn't wash the
wounds and wore short sleeves to school the next morning. No one
asked about the lines of scabs crisscrossing her wrists. Her
invisibility continued, as did her survival/destruction instincts.

When Flower George stepped up to be Munch's dad, she
was open to suggestion. The same had been true when she started
using. Strange as she knew it might sound, drugs had saved her or at
least given her a greater purpose. Then the booze and narcotics had
joined the pantheon of her life's love/hate relationships. Her life
was full of yins and yangs, and never short of extreme.

Even now, twenty years later, Munch had to remind
herself that suicide wasn't an option, not if she was buying into the
theory that there was a Higher Power with a plan. Some days it was
harder than others.

"
What are you thinking about?" Ellen asked.

"
My mom. I wish you could have met her."

"
Me, too," Ellen said as they pulled into
the gas station to wait for the school bus. "How are you going
to tell Asia about this?"

"
I thought we'd go to a park, maybe that one on
Alla Road, near the Marina Freeway."

They watched the traffic go by. Munch wondered where
everyone was going and who would make it.

"
Who told you when your mom died?" Ellen
asked.

"
I was in school when it happened. Miss Hyde's
class, fourth grade." Munch remembered Miss Hyde vividly. She
wore her black hair in a beehive, painted her unsmiling lips with
dark red lipstick, wore her dresses mid-calf, and encased her feet in
sheer stockings and black patent leather pumps. Miss Hyde was the
polar opposite of Munch's beatnik, free-spirited mother Gloria.

Mama wore her hair long and free, didn't believe
there was such a thing as too much black eyeliner, and wouldn't be
caught in a skirt and heels if her life depended on it.

The mother Munch remembered (and those memories grew
more intangible with each passing year) dressed in flowing gypsy
clothes, smoked like a diesel truck, and didn't believe in bras, war,
or marriage. She also loved her drugs and died on a stranger's couch,
choking on her own vomit with her shirt on inside out. If she had
been wearing panties, they never surfaced.

Flower George was not above using those small horrid
details of her mother's passing to his advantage. Say, for instance,
if he needed her unbridled tears to perpetrate one of his scams. That
device stopped working after the first few times. Then Munch was
immune to his words and he had to figure other ways for her to earn
her keep. Munch stared out the window, replaying the moment she had
learned she was a motherless child. "Miss Hyde told me the
principal wanted to see me, but she wouldn't say why. She called me
honey and put her hand on my shoulder. I should have known then
something was up. She was never nice to anyone."

Ellen nodded. "Yeah, that's always a big
giveaway, when people are suddenly too friendly."

"
I went to see the principal. She was a big,
bosomy woman. Old.

Old to us then, like she could be someone's grandma.
She was probably in her forties. Mrs. Adams. The secretary led me
into Mrs. Adams"s private office, then closed the door behind
her, leaving just the two of us alone. Mrs. Adams was standing by her
desk. 'Mi—randa,' she said, ‘I have some sad news."

"
Sad news?" Ellen slammed her palm to her
forehead. "She actually said that?"

"
Well, she was right. It was pretty fucking sad.
What should she have done? Line up all the kids at assembly and
announce, ‘Everyone with a living mother take a step forward. Not
so fast, Miranda.' "

Ellen laughed, a privilege of being a member of the
dead mothers club.

"
She just came right out with it and said, 'Your
mother has died. I'm sorry.' Then she held her arms out to me and I
realized I was supposed to let her hug me, so I ran into her big
chest and buried my face there."

"
You think it made her feel better?" Ellen
asked.

"
Probably. I was ten. I sure didn't get what
death meant. How final it was. I had to take my cues from the
grown-ups around me."

"
I feel like I'm still doing that," Ellen
said.

"
I hear you."

"
The more you know, the more you know you don't
know."

"
You got that right, babycakes." Munch
looked into the near future, the next hour. That was as far as she
cared to go for the moment. "Yep, that's best. That's how I'll
do it. just come right out with it."

"
Hug her first."

"
I don't know about that. I don't want her
scared of my hugs."

Ellen nodded. "Like they're harbingers of bad
news."

Munch sputtered a surprised laugh and looked at her
friend as if she had just begun speaking in tongues.

"
What?" Ellen said. "I read more than
the National Enquirer."

"
Of course." No doubt during one of her
stays at the University of Corrections.

Asia's bus pulled up, a moment later she skipped off.
When she saw her mom and Aunt Ellen, she smiled and waved. Munch
would have given the world not to have to ruin this day.

They stopped at Baskin-Robbins and got ice cream
cones. Asia had vanilla with sprinkles. Munch got a scoop of pralines
and cream. Ellen had rocky road. Munch waited until they were all
seated on a bench overlooking the sandbox.

Munch's ice cream had pretty much melted down her
hand. Asia and Ellen were taking the last bites out of their cones.
Ellen looked at Munch, probably wondering when Munch would feel the
time was right.

Munch threw away her cone, took a sip of cold water
from the drinking fountain and rinsed her hand. She allowed herself
to be captivated momentarily by the water swirling down the drain.
Sometimes life was best experienced one freeze frame at a time.

The nuns at Asia's school would tell her that the
angels had taken Rico home. Or that her deceased loved one was
looking at the face of God. Munch couldn't choke those words out.
Those sentiments required acceptance, a reconciliation with laws of
fate, surrender. She wasn't anywhere near that state of grace, more
like a state of astonishment that something like this had happened.
That, with all her clean living and good deeds and correct moral
choices, Whoever was in charge had allowed this shit.

Goddamn it, it wasn't fair.

Fair. Listen to her. Munch knew better than to expect
fair. But she was not going to explain to her daughter why it made
any kind of sense. Because it didn't. It just didn't.

She rejoined Asia and Ellen by the swing set. She
brushed back Asia's brown curls from her eyes and sat down beside
her. "Honey, I have some sad news."

Asia was more quizzical than apprehensive.

Munch looked at Ellen, then back at her daughter.
"Some really, really terrible news."

She had Asia's full attention.

"
You know how Mace St. John came over real early
this morning?"

Asia poked a small finger up her nose, nodding as she
itched or picked or whatever she'd suddenly gotten so intent on
doing. "He found out that something happened to Rico and wanted
to tell me in person. I don't know how and I don't know why yet, but
Rico got killed. He's dead."

"
No he's not," Asia said.

Munch nodded slowly. She didn't want to keep saying
the words. Terror flashed unmistakably before the tears burbled from
Asia's brown eyes. She looked to her mother for . . . what? For
something. Munch knew she was supposed to supply more to the moment,
but she had nothing. She was screwing this up.

"
He loved you both very much," Ellen said.

"
Then why did he have to die?" Asia asked.
"Is this going to happen every time now?"

Munch couldn't speak. Her whole body ached and she
felt tired, the act of keeping her eyes open taxed her. How nice it
would be to curl up and sleep.

Asia folded her arms across her chest. "I wish
he was here."

Munch unwrapped her daughter's arms and fit them
around her neck. She hugged her daughter to her as if she were
drowning. "Me, too, kiddo. Me, too."

As Asia sobbed into her
chest, Munch realized that this was going to be like kicking an
addiction. Unable to take comfort in the only thing that could give
her comfort. If Rico weren't dead, he would be the person she would
call about this. It was his shoulder she yearned to cry on. But that
wasn't going to happen, was it? They would have to make do with what
was left.

* * *

The first night . . .

Munch moved to what had been Rico's side of her bed;
his scent was on the pillow. A poor substitute. She got up, stripped
the bed, and washed the sheets and pillowcases with extra bleach. He
no longer had a side. He was gone and she needed to get used to that.

Sometime in the middle of the night, Asia climbed in
bed with Munch. Munch pretended she was asleep. Jasper groaned once,
then settled his head on Munch's leg. Asia's little hand reached over
to pat Munch's back. Munch waited until they were both snoring, then
let her tears fall silently into the pillowcase. She drew a deep
breath and felt it shudder her chest on exhale, as if everything
inside were hanging in tatters. She'd never felt so fragile before
and she didn't like it. She had to be strong for all of them.
 
 

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE DAY AFTER . . .

At the IA officer's request, Munch went to see
Bayless. They made an appointment to meet at his Parker Center office
in downtown Los Angeles at ten that morning.

She gave her name at the desk and then waited by the
potted palms.

Two minutes later, Bayless stepped off one of the
elevators. The cop at the front desk gave her a visitor's badge to
pin to her shirt. Bayless escorted her upstairs. It was her first
time on the sixth floor. He offered her coffee. She declined. He
poured himself a cup from the Mr. Coffee machine on top of his filing
cabinet.

She noticed the thick gold wedding band on his
finger. "How long have you been married?"

"
Three years."

"
Not your first, I take it."

"
No, no, no." He chuckled as he spoke, as
if she had stumbled on a source of amusement for him.

"
I've never been married," Munch said.

"
What about your daughter's father?"

She looked at him a moment, surprised that he knew
she had a daughter. Maybe it was to her advantage. "He's dead,
so's Asia's birth mom. It's been her and me since she was a little
baby."

Bayless nodded, taking it in. Munch knew full well
why she was telling him all this. To make herself more real to him.
So he wouldn't be able to brush her or her questions aside so easily.
She looked at the backs of the picture frames on his desk. He kept
the faces of his loved ones pointed toward him. She wondered about
that. Not on a shelf for the world's benefit, proof that he had
people, but private and only for him. She wasn't sure if she liked
that or not.

"
You got kids?"

"
Oh, yeah."

"
How many?"

He looked up and to his left. Munch wondered if he
needed a moment to count them all. "Two boys. Two girls. And a
girl."

"
So three girls." Munch wondered if the guy
was stupid, pretending to be stupid, or if the third daughter had
arrived much later. Maybe he'd been used to having two daughters for
more years and with a previous wife. She noticed a pair of tiny
bronzed shoes weighing down a stack of closed files. "How old is
the baby?"

"
Almost four." He took a sip of his coffee,
then placed the mug carefully on an envelope, nearly positioning it
perfectly inside a previous ringed brown stain. "You're not here
to talk about me."

She watched the steam rise from the windowsill. It
had been cold and wet that morning, but now the sun was breaking
through. She wondered if, four years down the road, if someone asked
her if she had ever been married, would she need to pause a moment
and think about it? Would she look vaguely skyward and say something
like, I was engaged once, briefly.

"
Ms. Mancini?"

"
What?"

"
What do you think happened to Detective
Chacón?"

"
I sent him to his death."

He folded his hands in front of him. "How did
you do that?"

"
I was hoping you could help me figure that
out."

"
If you're serious, there are ways you can
help."

"
Whatever it takes."

"
Fine," he said. "Tell me what you
know."

So this was to be another variation of the old
let's-share-everything game. You go first. According to the rules
she'd been raised with, players never shared everything they had on
the first round. True players never gave away everything.