Spring Tide (35 page)

“He was twenty-seven,” Stef reported. “He was killed in the line of duty. He was a police officer.”

“Was he?” Mrs. Avila nodded approvingly. “Good for him! Made something of himself after all. I always thought that boy could do something with himself if he tried. No thanks to that slut of a mother.”

“That’s why I’m here, because of how you took an interest in him. He remembered the way you made sure he went to school. He and his brother. He used to tell me about it. He wanted to thank you, but he never got around to it.”

“So you want to thank me for him?”

“Right. And tell you it made a difference, what you did. He thought his life might have been wasted without your intervention.”

“I didn’t do much. Didn’t have the means. I didn’t have much myself in those days.”

“But you did make them go to school and that was the important thing.”

“That’s what I thought. They could get out of that place and be around other kids and teachers, have a normal day, make friends and learn a few things. That building was no place for kids. I know I owned the place, but it wasn’t for me to tell people how to live if they paid the rent. That place was a real dump.” She shook her head in dismay. “I was so glad to finally unload it.”

Stef nodded politely and glanced around, feeling anxious. She’d said what she came to say, but knew it would be rude to leave so quickly. Like most people, Stef assumed Mrs. Avila would find things of her own to talk about since she had a guest willing to listen.

“Were you his friend?” she asked.

Stef nodded.

“Girlfriend?”

“No. We worked together.”

“You a police officer too?”

Stef hesitated, then quickly decided she didn’t need to explain. “Yes.”

“So he turned out pretty good?”

“Yeah, he was a good guy. Good cop.”

“What happened to the little guy, his brother, Roberto?”

“He’s in prison.”

“Kill somebody, did he?”

“Yes.”

“Not surprised. That little shit had a mean look when he was just a tiny kid. He was just hard through and through. Not really his fault, I guess. Considering. Was he in a gang?”

“Uh-huh. Norteños.”

Mrs. Avila shook her head. “What about José?”

“He was Norteño too. He got out when he was twenty-one, when he decided to join the force.”

“He was lucky, then. Smart. Smarter than his little brother. Too bad José got killed. Gunned down by one of those Norteños maybe? They don’t like it when you change sides.”

Stef shifted self-consciously in her chair. “No. The suspects we were after weren’t gang members.”

Mrs. Avila observed her silently while Stef wondered how to politely excuse herself. She had expected Mrs. Avila to chatter at her about her cat or her garden or tell her old stories, but she was just asking questions about Molina. Uncomfortable questions.

“You’re not very talkative, are you?” Mrs. Avila noted. “You went to all this trouble to find me to tell me about José Molina, but you don’t have much to say.”

“I just wanted to tell you he was grateful to you. That’s all. Because he wanted to tell you himself.”

“If he had come, I guess I’d get to see for myself what kind of a man he turned into. I always liked him. That’s why I stuck my nose in. He was a little charmer. I bet he was a good-looking man.”

“Oh,” Stef said, realizing she could at least satisfy that bit of Mrs. Avila’s curiosity. “I can show you.” She took out her wallet and slipped out a photo of Molina in uniform.

Mrs. Avila smiled at the picture, holding it close to her face. “Yep, a regular lady-killer, that one.” She looked up to catch Stef’s eye. “You’re sure you and José weren’t—”

Stef shook her head. “No. Just friends.”

Mrs. Avila gazed steadily at her, her mouth shut tightly. “Why’d you come here?”

“I told you, to let you know he appreciated what you did.”

“Uh-huh.” She sounded skeptical. She had a direct and unnerving way about her. Stef had expected a pleasant, chatty old woman. Instead, she felt she was being probed, and she was starting to get irritated.

“Really,” Stef said coolly, “that’s it. And now that I’ve delivered the message.” She pushed herself up from the deep cushion of the chair, anxious to leave.

“But I mean, why you? You’re not a relative, not his girlfriend. You’re a colleague.”

“We were close. Close friends. He was like a brother to me.”

“Yes, yes.” Mrs. Avila nodded understandingly. “Brothers in arms. Like soldiers on a battlefield. What department was he with?”

“Oakland.”

She chuckled. “Now that’s a battlefield, for sure. You too, right? Oakland?”

“Right.” Stef stood awkwardly in front of the chair, wondering
if she was leaving or staying.

“Being his close friend, like a sister and all, you must have known him pretty well. What was he like?” She handed the photo back to Stef.

“What was he like?” Stef paused, wondering how to answer, thinking that was a hard question to answer about anybody, to try to give a sense of a person to someone who hadn’t known him. She sat back down and focused on the photo. “He was obviously a handsome man. And he knew it.”

Mrs. Avila laughed shortly. “Lady-killer, like I said.”

“He usually did have a girlfriend,” Stef confirmed. “But he hadn’t yet found anyone permanent. He always knew she was just around the corner, though. He wasn’t disillusioned or anything. Always optimistic. He had a wonderful sense of humor and laughed a lot. He had a relaxed, easy laugh, the kind of laugh that could make some really bad stuff seem not worth worrying about.”

Stef paused, wondering what sorts of things Mrs. Avila wanted to hear, but she offered no help. She merely waited for Stef to continue.

“He was very confident in his abilities. He never considered failure. And he was super competitive. On the gun range, he always had to get the best score. Or if we were playing a trivia game, which we did sometimes to pass the time, he’d get so frustrated if he didn’t win. One time, we had this hot chile challenge. Just a spur-of-the-moment thing.” Stef laughed. “We both nearly killed ourselves. He took every challenge seriously. But he didn’t get mad if he lost. He didn’t have a temper. He was a good sport. He played soccer. He loved the game. Played in a city league. He’d come in on Mondays sometimes during the soccer season with bruises all over him. He played hard. He coached a girls’ team too. I went to a couple of games. He’d get so excited when they made a goal. He’d jump around and pump the air with his fist, run in place and hoot. It was so entertaining that after every goal the whole team, and even the opposing team, watched him dance before they got into position.” She laughed and looked up to see a smile on Mrs. Avila’s lips. “Those girls adored him, every last one of them. They all came to his funeral, in their soccer uniforms, and gave him a really nice tribute.” 

Stef waited to hear if Mrs. Avila had any comment, but she was immobile except for the blinking of her eyes, small and indistinct through the lenses of her glasses.

Stef noticed a shelf of dusty glass figurines on the wall behind her. All birds. A green and blue hummingbird. A red cardinal. Yellow canary. A clear, graceful stork or crane, wings outstretched, framing a long, undulating neck.

She swallowed, noting how dry her throat had become. She quit looking at Mrs. Avila and looked down instead at the photo between her fingers. “He had a strong sense of responsibility,” she continued. “A good thing for a cop. He wanted to protect people. The slogan,
to serve and to protect
, was always up front with him. He was very compassionate, equally toward everyone. He had a hard time keeping his heart out of his work. We busted this guy one time for running a meth lab in his apartment. The guy had a son about fourteen. The whole time we were there, arresting the guy, securing the scene, this boy was sobbing until Child Protective Services came and took him away.” Stef shook her head, remembering. “Molina was really worried about that boy. He followed up on him, found out he was turned over to an aunt. Then he went and signed up with Big Brothers just so he could be that kid’s big brother and help him out. He stayed in Big Brothers even after that. He was good with kids. So patient. They liked him. They respected him too. He knew how to talk to kids.” Stef felt a lump in her throat. “I always told him he was going to be the most fantastic father.”

She heard her voice falter and realized she could no longer speak. Her eyes stung as the image in her hand began to blur. She fought to force down the emotion.

“Oh, honey,” Mrs. Avila said, pushing down her footrest.

Stef put a hand to her face, unable to stop her tears from falling. Mrs. Avila rose from her chair and came to hug Stef in her ample arms, which was embarrassing and comforting at the same time, but also liberating in that it encouraged her to cry more freely.

“I’m sorry,” she managed. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Here,” Mrs. Avila said, pushing a box of tissues toward her. “What’s wrong with you is you miss your friend, that’s what.”

Stef put the picture of Molina on the table, took a tissue and wiped her eyes, but she couldn’t stop sobbing.

“You go ahead and have a cry,” Mrs. Avila said, patting her on the back. “I’ll go get you a glass of water. How about some tea? Would you like that?”

Stef nodded without looking up.

“Okay. We’ll have tea. You get it all out now. Then we’ll have a nice long talk.”

Stef took advantage of the older woman’s absence to allow herself something she almost never did allow, unrestrained tears. As she sat by herself in the dim, dusty room, she knew that when Mrs. Avila returned with the tea, she would tell her everything. She would tell her how Molina died and how her life had been shattered as a result. She’d tell her about how Roberto had accused her of murdering his brother and how right that had sounded to her. She’d tell her about the nightmares and her sense of helpless despair, of her flattened spirit and the feeling that there was no place for her in the world anymore. She might even tell her about Jackie, a woman who wanted nothing more than to give her perfect love, but how incapable of accepting it she felt, how her own imperfect and damaged heart was unfit to receive a gift so pure.

She could tell she was about to do that, reveal all of her buried pain to this stranger she had nothing in common with, whom she’d never see again, this stranger who no doubt had problems of her own, losses and regrets of her own. But Stef didn’t care about any of that. And she knew Mrs. Avila wouldn’t bring any of it up. Somehow she just knew that. She would listen with unselfish, objective compassion. She would listen, but she would offer no judgment and no advice, for which Stef would be grateful.

She wiped her eyes and tried to compose herself as she heard the shrill whistle of a teakettle from the kitchen.

She could hear a siren somewhere in the distance.

As she turned the corner into an alley between brick apartment buildings, she saw Needham running up ahead. Molina fired again, aiming low, grazing Needham’s leg. He went down with a cry of pain, and Molina was on him fast, slamming him facedown in the street, a knee in his back. Stef stood back covering him as Molina pulled out his cuffs.

Out of nowhere, somebody jumped her, knocking her sideways. She lost her balance, falling to the ground. Her attacker fell on top of her. She pushed his face back as hard as she could with her left hand while her right held fast to her gun. His hand clamped around her right wrist, then his fingers grabbed hers, trying to pry them off her gun as she managed to get her index finger on the trigger, struggling to aim the gun at him before he could tear it from her grasp.

She looked to the side to see if Molina was coming to her aid. He was running toward her. He fired his gun, startling the assailant just long enough for Stef to turn her gun toward his chest. His grip on her wrist retightened and he slammed her arm down hard on the ground just as she squeezed the trigger. The gun went off like a thunderclap, deafening her. Complete silence followed.

She watched the bullet coursing toward Molina, floating straight and slow, so slow she could have picked it out of the air if she’d been standing beside it. Molina didn’t see it. She tried to yell at him, but her tongue was like stone. The bullet sailed into his forehead. He looked confused, reeling backward. Blood ran down his face, into his eyes, dripping from the end of his nose. His gun fell from his hand, hitting the ground noiselessly. He fell to his knees.