Martin Misunderstood (5 page)

But, not anymore. That all stopped the day
An walked out of the women's room and was
greeted by her colleagues as an equal. When had
it happened? When had Jill crossed over from
being a figment of An's imagination into a
living, breathing part of An's life? It had never
occurred to her as she cleaned out loose pieces
of paper and various pieces of fuzz from her
purse that Jill was taking on real physical
aspects in her mind.

Okay, well, An had to admit that she milked it
at first. She took some personal time, claiming
she wanted to sit with Jill during her treatments,
when really it was because she was having bad
cramps and there was a John Wayne marathon
on TBS. Then, there was the day she overslept
and missed an important meeting. Telling them
that Jill was sick from chemo and she'd had to
take her to the doctor was only a little white lie.
What was the point of those stupid meetings
anyway? They were cops. They didn't have to be
rounded up into a smelly conference room to be
told that they needed to catch the bad guys.

Of course, there was no way to get around the
fact that it was a whopper of a falsehood when
An had taken a week-long trip to Florida under
the guise of flying Jill to the Mayo Clinic to see a
world-renowned specialist. A handful of people
noted her suntan, which An explained away by
telling them she insisted on staying with Jill
during radiation treatments. Maybe it wasn't so
much of a lie, because by then An felt a real
connection to Jill. While the thought of lesbian
sex wasn't particularly appealing (or even
concrete in her mind, because what, exactly, did
two women do together?), An liked the idea of
the companionship, the connection with another
human being.

In short, she fell in love.

Over the ensuing months, the myth of Jill had
slowly evolved into a reality. An had worked on
the detective squad for three years, but no one
had ever bothered to talk to her before Jill had
appeared. Knowing that An had a sick lover had
somehow humanized her with these men. She
made friendships – lifelong relationships. A
couple of them had wives who'd had breast
cancer. They gave An literature on survivors.
Then, one day, they had all surrounded her desk
and handed her a sign-up sheet. Real tears had
welled into her eyes when she realized that the
entire squad had agreed to participate in the
Avon Breast Cancer Walk on behalf of Jill.

It was then that she knew that Jill had to die.
Too much water had passed under the bridge. An
was telling so many stories that she didn't know
how to keep up with them anymore. The worst
part was that people wanted to meet Jill. They
wanted to know this strong woman who had
stared death in the face. Oddly enough, the day
An called into work to tell her boss that Jill had
passed away (conveniently occurring on the same
day that Macy's was having its annual fifty per
cent off white sale), she had gotten so choked up
that she'd had to hang up the phone.

It hadn't stopped there, really. There were the
condolence cards to deal with. The flowers. Of
course they'd had an impromptu wake at the
same bar where the legend of Jill had been born.
They drank to her: the nurse, the friend, the
lover. They had sung sad songs and An had told
them about the time Jill had saved a homeless
man from a burning building and the way she
always put toothpaste on An's toothbrush, even
at the end when she was so sick she could barely
lift her head. She had thought about cheating on
Jill once – had she ever told them that? Nothing
had happened, but it had been a hard time for
them both, and, in the end, An felt like it made
them stronger.

The worst part was that An had chosen the
name Jill because she enjoyed watching Gillian
Anderson on
The X-Files
. Her thick, red hair, her
sharp chin and petite waist were all attributes An
would have loved for herself. She knew now that
basing Jill on a real person was a big mistake.
Sometimes, An would see Anderson, introducing a
PBS special or promoting one of her many causes,
and would get a lump in her throat, as if she was
seeing a ghost from a happier time in her life.

'Hey,' Bruce said. 'You in there?'

An nodded her head. They both stared at
Martin, who was mumbling to himself.

'Hard day for you, huh?'

An nodded again. Bruce's mother had died of
breast cancer when he was a child. He had
brought An flowers this morning, marking the
five-year anniversary of Jill's death.

'You had eight good years,' Bruce reminded
her. 'That's more than most people get.'

'Yeah.' An fought the sadness that came with
the false memories: Jill rubbing her feet; Jill fixing
her dinner; Jill running her a bath. (It must be
said that many of An's fantasies cast Jill in a
decidedly subservient role.)

'I'm here for you, babe.' Bruce patted her
shoulder. 'You know that, right?'

His touch was warm, and An flashed back to
that crazy night six years ago when she had for
some reason let herself fall for the limited charms
of Bruce Benedict. They were working hard on a
case, and the truth of the matter was that An
missed a man's touch. She missed the gruffness,
the warmness, the sense of being filled to the
brim with a man who knew what he was doing.
It had been a horrible, stupid mistake to think
that this man would be Bruce (and they had both
agreed never to tell Jill; it would've broken her
heart).

Bruce dropped his hand. 'I dunno, An, this
guy's just creepy. If he didn't do this, he did
something.'

She nodded a third time, glad that the focus
was back on Martin Reed. The pasty man knew
his way around the law. He had refused to talk to
them without a lawyer present and insisted that
he was not signing any statements unless they
were written in his own hand. What kind of game
was he playing?

Bruce said, 'You should probably take this. I
got no traction with him in the car.'

Possibly because Bruce had noted the fat
around Martin's wrists as he'd tightened the
handcuffs looked like dough squeezing out of the
donut maker at Krispy Kreme.

An chewed her cuticles. She thought about
Sandra Burke, the way her broken body had been
discarded in a drainage ditch. The car had nearly
pulverized the woman. Treadmarks crushed into
her brain, squirting gray matter on to the road.

The intercom buzzed behind them. Bruce
pressed the button, asking, 'Yeah?'

'Reed's lawyer is here.'

'Be right there.' Bruce opened the door to
leave, but An stopped him.

'Give me a couple of minutes with him,' she
said, indicating Martin with a tilt of her head.

'Sure.'

'Did you get the crime-scene photos back yet?'

'Should be here any minute.'

'Bring them in with the lawyer. I'm going to
see if I can get something out of him.'

Bruce nodded and left, letting the door swing
back. One of the downsides of being a pretend
lesbian was that men didn't open doors for her
anymore.

An pulled back her hair into a loose pony tail
as she walked toward the interrogation room.
There was a small sliver of glass in the door, and
she saw Martin still sitting at the table, still
clenching his fists. When she entered the room,
he stood up, as if they were in a Jane Austen
movie. She expected him to say something like,
'Forsooth', but he just stood there, hands
clenched, staring at her with his dark green eyes.

'Please sit down,' she told him, taking the chair
opposite. 'Your lawyer is on his way.'

'Does he have any experience?'

An was surprised by the question. 'I don't
know,' she admitted.

'Because a lot of times people get courtappointed
lawyers who aren't experienced,'
Martin told her. 'I've read about it – cases where
innocent people get lazy lawyers who are blind,
literally blind, as in they can't see. Some of them
are even alcoholics or have narcolepsy!'

'Is that so?'

'It's very troubling. There have been many
books written about this very thing.'

An had never been a fan of public defenders,
but she was a cop, so that was hardly an earthshattering
revelation. 'My experience with
public defenders is that you get what you pay
for.'

'Just as I suspected. I appreciate your honesty.'

'Is there anything you want to say to me, Mr
Reed?'

'Not until my lawyer gets here. I hope you
don't think I am being rude, but this is a very
serious situation. Do you realize I've never even
gotten a speeding ticket?' He shook his head. 'Of
course you do. You'll have already pulled my
record. Are you searching my house? Is that why
this is taking so long? You're trying to get a
search warrant?'

'What do you think we'll find in your house?'

He mumbled his answer, but she heard him
clearly enough: 'A very angry sixty-three-yearold
woman.'

An said, 'Your mother seems to think you're
an alcoholic.'

His lips sputtered, 'She wishes!'

An looked down at his hands, which were
clasped together on the table. Bruce had left on
the handcuffs, and An had to admit he was right
about the Krispy Kreme machine. 'Give me your
hands,' she said, taking out her keys. She tried
not to touch him as she took off the cuffs, but
there was no way to get around it. His skin was
clammy enough to make her flesh crawl.

'Thank you,' he said, rubbing his wrists to get
the blood back into them. 'Albada – is that
German?'

'Dutch.'

He affected a very bad accent. '
Pardonnemoi
.'

'That's French.'

'
Oui
.'

'French again.'

He blinked several times.

An sighed. 'Do you want to tell me where you
were last night?'

'I told you that I took my mother to get her
trowel.'

'Are you aware that your mother has a
restraining order filed against her by the Peony
Club of Lawrenceville?'

His throat moved as he swallowed. 'It was just
a misunderstanding.'

'And what about the Ladies' Hospital
Auxiliary?'

His wet lips parted in shock. 'They filed a
complaint, too?'

'Did your mother not tell you that?'

He shook his head, obviously agitated.

'They seem to think she's a violent person.'

'She's not violent. She's just . . . intimidating.'

An intimidating mother. That was interesting.
'Has she ever hit you?'

'She threw her shoe at me once, but I think that
was more because I was listening to the TV with
my headphones on. You know, the wireless
kind?' An nodded. 'They were interfering with
her hearing aid somehow.'

'So, she threw her shoe at you?'

'Only to get my attention.' He spoke as if this
was completely logical. 'What does my mother
have to do with any of this?'

'I'm a detective, Mr Reed. I put together clues.
What I see in front of me is a man who comes
from a violent family. I see someone who drives
a car with blood on it – blood that belongs to a
dead woman.

'Well, okay, that – I'll admit – does not look
good.'

'No, it doesn't.'

'I suppose I fit the profile, don't I?' He started
nodding, agreeing with himself. 'A loner who
lives with his mother. Over-educated, underemployed.'

Well, he'd lost her on those last two.

'I hope you don't think I am a disorganized
killer. I am a very tidy man. Ask my colleague,
Unique Jones. She's often commented on my
retentiveness.'

An would have liked nothing more than to talk
to Unique Jones. The woman had a warrant out
on her for shoplifting. The home address she had
given Southern Toilet Supply was a vacant lot.
'Are you a killer, Mr Reed?'

'No, of course not!' He seemed offended again.
'I told you what happened to my car this
morning, how I cut my hands. I am the victim
here. Someone is setting me up.'

'Why would someone set you up?'

'Exactly!' he retorted, driving his index finger
into the table as if she had made his point for
him.

'Where were you last night, Mr Reed?'

He stared at his hands. The red marks from the
cuffs were still visible. She saw a strange-looking
purple ridge down the side of his thumb. She had
noticed it during booking, and he'd mumbled
something about an industrial accident.

Martin asked, 'Is "Anther" Dutch, too?'

'It's the part of a flower where pollen is produced.'
She sat back, feeling overwhelmingly
tired. 'My father was a botanist. He was hoping
for a boy.'

Martin blinked, not understanding.

Well, it wasn't her best joke, but she didn't
think it was as bad as his reaction implied. Then
again, the man was sitting in a police interrogation
room being questioned about his
involvement in a brutal murder, so perhaps she
was expecting too much.

One of the reasons Charlie, her dead
husband, had gotten so mad at An was that he
didn't quite get her sense of humor. He would
admonish her for her smart mouth, accuse her
of lording her education over him (as if a
bachelor's degree in art history was anything to
write home about). He would start off low, like
one of those sirens you crank by hand, and the
more things would spin out of control, the
louder he would get, until he was on top of her,
screaming, his fists pounding into her body –
but never her face.

It was embarrassing, really, to be a 23-year-old
woman who put on a uniform and gun every day
to keep the peace, only to have the pulp beaten
out of her almost every night. She never fought
back, though surely Charlie deserved it. What
was it about An's nature that made her seem like
a victim? She saw domestic violence so much at
work that it seemed almost commonplace. Those
early years on the force, half of her calls were
because some man had gotten drunk and taken it
out on a woman. Her eyes would glaze over at
their stories of love, the excuses they made. And
then she would go home and Charlie would beat
her.