Sacrifice Fly (9 page)

The sound of kids filled the hallway. I walked her back to the door.

“It’s been a long year, Mr. Donne,” she said.

I thought about Frankie. “It’s been a long two days, Ms. Stiles.”

“Yeah. Let’s talk before you leave?”

“Absolutely.”

She turned and headed down the hallway as my students started to gather outside my
door. Elaine took Lisa by the elbow and led her away. Eric Simpkins had a big grin
on his face as he stopped in my doorway. He held out his hand to bump my fist.

I ignored the gesture.

“Take out your Lit books,” I said, ushering the kids into my room. “I want to see
the Whitman homework out on your desks. Now.”

*   *   *

The final bell of the day had rung, the kids were gone, and I was standing at my desk
going through Frankie’s notebook, page by page, when Elaine walked in.

“Lisa told me that she got the bruise when she was hanging around with a group of
neighborhood kids. They’re older, her parents don’t want her hanging around with them,
so she made up the volleyball story.”

“You believe her?”

“No,” she said. “I called her mom, you know, a kind of end-of-the-year, let’s-all-get-through-this-together
conversation. I mentioned the latenesses and the absences, asked how things were at
home, and she said fine.”

“So…”

“So if she’s right and things are fine, a phone call to Children’s Services will screw
with these people’s lives. The girls will be removed. You want to talk about gut feelings?”

“Go ahead.”

“It’s not perfect at the King house, but the family’s working. I don’t want to ruin
any progress they’ve made if we both have doubts that her father hit her.”

I sat down at my desk and turned a few more pages in Frankie’s notebook. “What if
we’re wrong?”

“I don’t think we are. We’re both kind of good at this sort of thing.”

“Yeah.”

I turned to the back of the notebook and looked at the picture of the house and the
real estate ads.

“Anita’s house,” Elaine said.

“You know it?”

“Frankie talks about it in our sessions. He loves that place.”

“So does his sister,” I said. “There was a drawing of it on the fridge at her dad’s
place. Looked just like the photo.”

“You know,” Elaine said after a few seconds of silence, “that’s come up in our talks.
Frankie said that house was the place he felt the safest.”

I pointed to the cut-outs from the newspaper. “He’s already planning to buy a house.”

Elaine smiled. Maybe for the first time that day.

“Hey,” she said, “the police would know about Anita, right? About the house? From
talking to his grandmother.”

“I don’t know.”

“We know about it.”

“We know Frankie better than the cops,” I reminded her.

She thought about that for a few seconds. “Shouldn’t we … bring it to their attention?”

“We?”

She smiled again. “You.”

“Detective Royce—the guy assigned to the case—said if I thought of anything that might
be of use, I should call him.” I reached into the back pocket of my bag and pulled
out his card. There were two numbers listed. One was the precinct, the other a cell
phone.

“You’ll call him?” Elaine asked.

“This is something.”

“It is.”

“The precinct’s kind of on my way home.” If I walked five blocks out of my way.

“You want a ride?”

“No. I’ll be fine.”

“Call me,” she said, “and let me know what happens.”

“Nothing’s going to happen, Elaine. I probably won’t even get to talk to him.”

“Call me anyway. Or we’ll talk tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I said as I stood up. “Let’s talk tomorrow.”

After she left, I carefully removed the tape from around the picture of Anita’s house
and put it in my book bag. It probably would be a wasted trip, I told myself. Royce
may not even be there, and what would I do then? “Hey, I’m Ray Donne? Used to work
here. Now I’m a schoolteacher, and I was wondering…”

Before I could talk myself out of going, I went to the back closet to get my jacket
and umbrella. I was glad to have the umbrella. No way I wanted to walk back into my
old house looking like a cripple.

And who knew? Maybe it would finally rain.

Chapter 8

I WAS STANDING ON THE OTHER
side of the avenue, outside the Korean deli across from the precinct, finishing up
a pint of water, wondering how you could possibly make a profit selling a dozen roses
for eight bucks. I made little circles with the bottle and watched as my last sip
went around and around. When that last sip was gone, I stood there, figuring out to
the nearest tenths place how much one orange would cost if five went for a buck nineteen.

“You want nickel back for that?” I turned to see the owner of the place. Back when
I used to come here five days a week, he’d be behind the cash register at seven when
I got my morning coffee and then again at six when I’d grab a paper to take home.
If he recognized me now, five years later, he didn’t let on. Funny how that is in
this city. You see people every day, on the street, at the deli, and never know their
names. Then you fall thirty feet, and your whole life changes.

“Excuse me?”

“You redeem.” He pointed to the empty bottle. “Five cents.”

“No,” I said. “Here.”

I handed it to him. As he took it, he kept his eyes on mine.

“How come,” he finally said, “you not work here no more?”

“You remember me?”

“Oh, sure.” Big smile now. “Large coffee, three sugars, very little half-and-half.”

“Wow,” I said. “I’m a teacher now.”

“Ah,” he answered, as if that explained it all. “Good job.”

“Yeah.”

We looked at each other for a few seconds, and when neither one of us could think
of anything else, he said, “You take care.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You, too.”

After he went back inside, I faced the building I was afraid to enter. Still the same
dull, grayish green bricks, the same smog-frosted windows on the second floor. I remember
being able to see out but never being able to see in.

The front door opened and shut every thirty seconds or so. Strangers in uniform going
in; strangers in civilian clothes coming out. I wondered what my chances were of Royce
coming out, saving me from going in. Having already waited for twenty minutes, I knew
the answer. I crossed the avenue.

The closer I got to the front door, the more I began to question the visit. What did
I have? A photo of a house a hundred miles north of here. That should be enough to
keep a dialogue going for a whole five seconds. Then what? Cops are territorial by
nature, and that’s with their own kind. I was a schoolteacher now. Royce was not going
to discuss the case with me because he liked me. Shit. Maybe he didn’t even like me.

“Hey,” someone said from behind me. “You going in or what?”

Before I could turn, a guy in jeans and a T-shirt and with a bag slung over his shoulder
reached around me and opened the door. As it was closing, I stepped forward and held
it so it wouldn’t shut. I took a deep breath and walked through.

Everything seemed smaller, like the first—and only—time I returned to my old high
school. I moved aside as two young Hispanic officers breezed past me, two kids who
couldn’t wait to hit the streets. A familiar smell hung in the air as the door shut
behind them. I took a few more steps in to get away from the activity of the front
door area. The uniformed officer working the front desk was so engrossed in his paperwork
that I could have just walked past unquestioned: left to the lockers, right to the
administrative offices, or a buttonhook upstairs to the detective squad. I chose to
check in.

The cop at the desk was busy, but not with official business. He was tapping a pen
against his folded copy of the
Times,
opened to the crossword. He had a phone cradled between his neck and shoulder. I
had the feeling he might have forgotten it was there. After a half minute of me standing
there holding my umbrella in front of me, he acknowledged my presence.

“Help ya?” he asked without looking up.

“I’m here to see one of your detectives,” I said.

“Nature of complaint?”

I went for humorous. “It’s too damned hot.”

Now he looked up. “Nature of complaint.”

“I don’t have one. I’m here to speak with Detective Royce about a case we … regarding
a case he’s working on.”

“You working?”

“Not as a cop,” I said. “No.”

“Okay. Didn’t mean to offend you. Sir.” He slid a clipboard in front of me and spun
it around. “Sign in.”

I took the pen that was attached to the clipboard by a string and put down my name,
time, and destination. When I finished, I turned it around.

“Okay if I go on up?”

“I have to let the detective know you’re here.” He punched a button on the phone in
front of him. “Might take a few.” He looked back down at his puzzle. I did the same.
Reading upside down was just one of the skills I had picked up in the classroom.

“Ten across,” I said.

“What about it?” His eyes were still on the puzzle.

“You’ve written ‘aviary.’”

“Yeah?”

“Should be apiary,” I said.

“The difference being…”

“Birds are kept in aviaries. Bees are housed in apiaries.”

He considered that for a while and said, “Guess that works.” With the phone still
between his ear and shoulder, he changed the
v
to a
p
. “That’d make eleven down pine and not vine.” He decided to look up at me again.
“Whatta you? One of them upside-down-reading nature lovers?”

“No,” I said. “Just know the difference between the birds and the bees.”

He pressed another button, or the same one, and, getting no response, he took the
phone and hung it up. His head was still cocked to the side. Maybe that’s why he was
at a desk and had to live that way for the rest of his life.

“You know where ya going?” he asked.

“I’ve been here before,” I said. “A long time ago.”

“Then by all means.” He gestured toward the stairs like a bored game-show host. “Go
right on up.”

“Thanks.”

“Thank you,” he said, and went back to his puzzle.

I turned to go upstairs and watched as two uniforms escorted a very unhappy man with
his hands cuffed behind him down the stairs. Besides the cuffs, what caught my attention—and
the other reason the man may have been unhappy—was the recent black eye he was sporting.
He mumbled something about “fucking cops” and “my fucking eye.” The officer on his
right jerked the man’s arm.

“Keep fucking yapping, Julio,” the officer said. “Could be a rough ride to the courthouse.”

Shit. I turned back to the desk to avoid eye contact.

“Holy fucking shit,” Jack Knight said. “Raymond Fucking Donne.”

“Jack,” I said calmly, turning to face the voice from the past.

Jack looked me up and down and smirked, like I’d failed inspection. He let go of Julio’s
arm and took a step toward me.

“What the fuck brings you down to the old house? Registering a citizen’s complaint?”
He turned to his partner. “This here’s Raymond Donne, Hector. We used to work the
same streets. Back when we all spoke English.”

I looked at Hector and gave him a sympathetic nod.

“I speak English, Jack,” he said, as if this weren’t the first time.

“Yeah,” Jack said. “But not as a first language. Whyn’t you take Julio out to the
car, Hector. I’m gonna catch up with my old bud here for a few minutes.”

Hector led Julio out the main door, and Jack turned back to me. “Tell me your uncle
didn’t pull some strings and you’re not fucking coming back to the job, Ray. Please.”

“No, Jack. I just swung by to see if
fucking
was still your favorite adjective.”

Jack shook his head. “Still the fuck—still the wise guy. Heard you was teaching now.”

“You heard right,” I said.

“That figures. Always trying to help people. Never did quite have the fucking balls
for this job, did ya, Raymond?”

“Whatever,” I said. For Jack, helping people and being a cop were mutually exclusive.
I motioned with my head at the door Hector and Julio had just gone through. “I see
you’ve still got that gentle touch with suspects, huh?”

Again, Jack smiled. “Julio’s not exactly the most coordinated of civilians. He banged
his head while being escorted back to the precinct.”

“Good to see you, Jack,” I lied. “Try to stay out of trouble.” I got a few steps toward
the stairs before Jack grabbed my arm.

“You still got that judging look on your face, Ray. You got no fucking idea what it’s
like these days on the streets. I don’t think you ever did.”

I looked Jack in the eyes and then down at where he was squeezing my arm. “You might
want to let go of me now, Jack. Unlike Julio, I will make a complaint.”

“Fucking pussy.” He threw my arm back at me. “I’m this close to getting my shield,
Ray. Bet you never thought you’d see that happen. And I’m getting it on my own, not
because of who my uncle is.” He made a point of looking all around the room we were
in. “I’m one of the few white guys left around this house, and I’ll be damned if I
let them take it all.”

It was always “us” and “them” with Jack. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

“See ya, Jack.” I made my way up the stairs without looking back. If Jack had anything
else to say, I didn’t hear it.

The walk up left me winded, and I had to lean against the wooden railing at the top
of the steps to catch my breath. Everywhere I went these days, I was reminded of how
out of shape I was. It cut deep to have it happen here, too. I swung open the gate
and stepped into the detective squad. I saw Royce right away, sitting behind his desk,
sipping from a huge water bottle while talking on the phone.

“Can I help you, sir?”

The question came from my left, from the police adminstrative assistant who sat behind
a desk. PAAs are basically the doormen to the squad room, inquiring as to the reason
for your visit, making sure the person you’re hoping to see wants to see you, answering
phones, and doing other civilian stuff.