Close Encounters (13 page)

“I’m fine. My ex-husband is here with me for a few days.”

“Your ex-husband? You mean you didn’t kill him when you divorced?”

Carol smiled. “He’s a good man in his own way. We just couldn’t make it together. We’re like apples and oranges.”

“Well, it sounds very civilized. Look, I’m going to keep checking in on you, just in case, and don’t hesitate to call on me if you need anything.”

“Actually I need something to do. It’s not like I’m in bed sick. I just have to move slowly, not lift anything heavy, and try not to laugh. Do you think you can get my students to turn in some of their class work and send it to me to review? I want to feel useful again.”

“Sure, I can do that. Anything else?”

“No, that’s it.”

Carol had no sooner gotten off the phone than her doorbell rang. She took her time walking through the apartment to the door. She still had a tendency to hold her left arm close to her body when she was in motion because it cut down on the jostling of her wound.

“I’m coming,” she called out.

She reached the door and opened it to a tiny woman no more than five feet tall. Her white hair was gathered into a messy knot on top of her small head. Her pale face was wrinkled and lined, her white skin even paler against the slash of red lipstick boldly applied to her thin lips. Her glasses, one arm held on by tape, magnified her gray eyes so that she looked perpetually surprised.

“Here, take this,” Gladys Edelman croaked, shoving a round foil-covered dish at Carol.

Carol carefully took the offering, balancing the weight of the Pyrex dish in her right hand. “Hi, Gladys. What is it?”

“Just a little something. I made some extra for you so you’d eat. You’re too skinny, you know. Men don’t like skinny women. No point in letting good food go to waste.”

“That’s sweet of you, Gladys,” Carol murmured, peeling back the foil to peek underneath. It smelled good, but she couldn’t tell what it was. “Want to come in for a visit?”

“No, no.” Gladys waved her gnarled hand. “My stories are coming on. You wouldn’t believe what happened yesterday! You know Kevin is trying to win Melissa back now that she had his brother’s baby, and Derrick doesn’t want to give her up. And that Kathy, the one that tried to steal Kevin in the first place, is plotting and scheming. Things are heating up. How are you feeling, dear?”

“Doing well, thanks to wonderful people like you.” Carol looked at her feet and wiggled her toes. “I love my slippers. Everyone has been so kind.”

“Well, of course. You’re a lovely girl. But you know you should get married. If you’d had a good man in bed with you that night, you’d
never
have been out in the streets to get shot, for heaven’s sake. You’d have been too busy doing the other thing.” She cackled at her own racy observation. “Well, dear, I gotta run.” She shuffled back to her apartment and slammed the door.

Carol sighed in relief as she headed to the kitchen with the covered dish. It was somewhat galling that Gladys, who was eighty if she was a day, was so spry while Carol herself could be knocked over with a feather. After placing the dish in the refrigerator, she wandered back to the living room.

It was a mess. Matt’s things were all over the place. The sofa bed had been put back together, but the sheets and blankets were piled in a corner. His duffel bag was open on the coffee table, a shirt hanging out. A clothes bag hung just inside the closet near the front door. Carol wasn’t sure if the help Matt provided was worth the trouble of picking up after him.

Feeling not exactly blue but definitely nostalgic, Carol chose a CD of a group with whom Matt had once played. The music was haunting and soulful. Matt’s saxophone blew hot with melodies about loss, love, and sadness, like wails from the heart. Jazz had always spoken to her.

Carol didn’t pay attention to the buzzer that sounded an hour later. It was the middle of the afternoon, and sometimes friends of the teens living in her building would randomly ring bells to see if someone would let them in. When the buzzer sounded a second time, she got up and spoke through the intercom.

“Who is it?”

“Carol Taggart?”

“Yes, this is Carol.”

“It’s Lieutenant Grafton. I introduced myself at the hospital several days ago.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Do you mind if I come up for a moment?”

“Well, I…” She hesitated.

“I won’t stay long.”

“Okay. Come on up,” Carol instructed him, pushing the button to release the lobby door. She remained standing by the door, then realized she was beginning to feel slightly nauseous. She hadn’t eaten anything all day, and even getting dressed had taken a lot out of her. The bell rang and she opened the door.

The lieutenant looked the same as when she’d last seen him, tall and unsmiling, staring at her intently. But unlike the officers who’d come to interview her at the hospital, Lee Grafton’s gaze was not distant or suspicious.

To Lee, Carol in her own environment looked taller than he recalled from his hospital visits. In a sweatshirt and leggings, she also appeared younger than the thirty-two years listed on her hospital records. Her hair surrounded her head in a loose halo, softening the angles of her face. Lee had no doubt that men found her attractive and were drawn to her. He was trying not to be.

“Come in,” Carol invited him, then turned away to let him follow her inside. “Will you please close the door? I … I have to sit down.”

Lee did as he was told, holding in one hand a large envelope that had been folded in half. “Are you okay?” he asked, entering the living room behind her and watching as she carefully seated herself in a club chair. She held her bowed head in her hands.

He noticed the duck-shaped bedroom slippers she wore, and was both surprised and charmed. The sight of them made him relax and feel a little less tense.

“I just got a little dizzy. I’m fine,” Carol whispered.

“Do you need anything? A glass of water or something?” Lee absentmindedly placed the envelope on a chair.

Eyes closed, Carol tilted her head back against the cushion. “No… I…” She heard his retreating footsteps and glimpsed his back as he disappeared into the kitchen. She sighed, trusting whatever he was doing. He returned and leaned over her, touching her shoulder lightly.

“Here,” he said.

Carol was annoyed at the slight trembling of her hand as she took the glass. She drank the cold water gratefully and immediately felt better.

Lee removed the duffel from the coffee table and sat on the end, leaning toward her.

“Thanks,” she whispered, lowering her gaze in embarrassment.

“You probably moved too fast, got light-headed.” He looked around. “You here alone?”

“For the moment,” Carol said. “Matt… my ex-husband… is staying with me for a few days. He’s out right now. He works nights and rehearses during the day.”

“Then he should have gotten someone else to cover for him. What if you’d fainted?”

Carol smiled in surprise at his concern. “I can’t blame him for not thinking of that. I didn’t either.”

Lee unzipped his winter coat. “What does he do?”

“He’s a musician. Saxophone. He played on the CD you hear.” She finished the rest of the water.

Lee listened closely for a moment, while he let his gaze wander. He had time to really see her surroundings, to note the abundance of framed art on the walls, wood carvings and baskets and ceramic pots on bookshelves and the floor. On one wall were a few framed pencil studies of children. Lee noted the similarities in style and execution between these portraits and the sketches he’d seen Carol working on in the hospital. She had an incredible eye for detail. The apartment was filled with interesting objets d’art, while not seeming cluttered or crowded. He would have liked to look at everything.

“This is Crossover,” he suddenly observed.

“That’s right,” she said in some surprise.

“Great group. I have this on cassette. Their second one, too. This was probably their best work. I don’t like some of the newer stuff. They should have stayed with the original band members. They were all fantastic.” He turned his attention to her again. “Your ex-husband played with Crossover? What’s his name?”

“Matt Norman. He’s not with the group anymore.”

Lee nodded.

Carol looked at his hands. They were strong, with hair on the back of the knuckles. She raised her attention to Lee’s face, feeling suddenly as if she knew him. He had a handsome face, hard and alert. Very masculine. Lived in. He caught her staring, and they openly appraised each other without a hint of self-consciousness.

“You wanted to see me, Lieutenant?”

Facing her once more, he put his hands into the pockets of his coat. The way she had worded her question had caught him off guard, and he found he didn’t know how to begin.

“What is it?” Carol prompted, when he didn’t immediately respond.

He was stalling, he realized, because, suddenly, what Carol believed mattered. And the outcome of this visit could be ugly. He felt like he had the first time he’d found himself in her hospital room. He could admit to himself now what he hadn’t been willing to admit then. He was scared.

Lee cleared his throat.

“The department is not very good about following up on civilians who’ve gotten hurt because of some sort of police action,” he said. “I guess I wanted to see how you’re doing. I found out yesterday that you’d been released from the hospital. Is there anything I can do?”

She was staring calmly at him. It was disconcerting. Lee couldn’t help feeling that she was seeing inside his mind, and that at any moment, in a fit of rage and recognition, she was going to accuse him.

“Why?”

“Excuse me?” Lee asked, confused.

“Why do you feel you should do something? Why do you care?”

“Well… would you rather I didn’t? Or that the department ignored you?”

“I would have preferred not to have been shot. But since that’s out of my hands, I guess I’m just surprised. Sorry, but your concern doesn’t seem very… policelike. I guess I should be… pleased,” Carol said tentatively.

Lee felt very hot. In need of water. Cold air.

“Maybe you won’t think so when I’m finished,” he said.

Carol immediately noticed the change in his voice and the stark uncertainty in his eyes. It was not the first time she’d seen confusion reflected there.

“What?” Carol asked, encouraging him to continue.

“Do you remember anything about what happened that night?”

She shook her head. “I’ve already told the other officers that…”

“No,” Lee interrupted, his voice quiet but firm. “I’m asking you to tell
me
what you remember.”

She resisted. She didn’t want to remember any more of that night. The mere mention of it was enough to start a peculiar tightening of her muscles. She clasped her hands together.

“It… everything happened so fast.”

“I know.”

Again Carol shook her head after a long moment. “I can’t. I’m sorry. There’s just not enough coming back clearly. I remember Max barking because of the two men. One of them shot him. Then… and… and then gunshots…” She looked at Lee with regret. “I’m sorry.”

Lee nodded, disappointed but not surprised. It might still be too early for her memories of that morning to return. She’d never lost consciousness after she went down, and the details might eventually come back. “Don’t worry about it.”

He forced himself to continue. “I’ve seen the preliminary ballistics report on the bullets and casings recovered that morning. The lab is pretty sure they’ve found the bullet that struck you down. And I believe… it could have been fired from my gun.”

Carol stared at him, unblinking, for a very long moment. Her stomach muscles cramped tightly with the implication of Lee’s confession. Her first thoughts were of the possible headlines if this information became known. She wanted to be enraged. But she already knew too much about Lee Grafton to have such a knee-jerk reaction.

“I… thought so,” she said quietly, even though Lee’s announcement hit her nerve ends.

She waited for indignation to grip her for what he had done to her, but she simply didn’t feel it. Instead, she felt a burden settle on her, the injured party. Would her knowledge of Lee Grafton’s role that night somehow make her an accomplice? Should she get angry at him?

What would be the point?

“How did you know?” Lee asked.

She shrugged. “The first time you came to the hospital I took your visit at face value. To me you were just another cop checking me out. The second time was too much of a coincidence. Look, you’re a white cop who took the time to see a black woman who was shot. Were you afraid that I’d think what happened was a racist police action?”

“Did you?”

“You already know the answer to that. You knew it before you took a chance on coming to see me. You knew it when my parents arrived at the hospital and you saw that we weren’t your ordinary garden-variety family. You
did
notice, right?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Good. I hate it when people pretend to be color-blind. Anyway, I figured you had to have been there that morning. It was the only explanation that made sense.”

Her calm acceptance threw him off. Then again, nothing of what he had seen of her had been predictable. He was thinking that there were probably a few other reasons why he’d gone to see her. And they had nothing to do with Carol Taggart being black or being a victim.

“Why didn’t you say anything to me? Ask me flat out?” he asked.

“Maybe I didn’t want to know,” Carol said smoothly. “What could I say that you didn’t already know? You made a big mistake that morning. Anyway, I had a lot to think about myself, and none of it had to do with you.”

“Mind if I ask… like what?”

Her gaze drifted away from him. “Like… being very grateful that I wasn’t killed. Maybe it wasn’t my time. Maybe it was luck. Maybe you’re a bad shot.”

Lee felt his insides churn.
Thank God I wasn’t a better one that morning.

“This is going to sound crazy, Lieutenant…”

“Lee,” he interrupted. “Call me Lee.”

“All right. Lee. But I think that what I went through might have been a blessing in disguise.”