The Odds (35 page)

“Kind of you, too, to give me a ride.”

“It’s nothing.”

He follows the geezer, who shuffles to a large Chevy maybe thirty years old.

“See, we’re known as the Friendly City. Seen our billboard?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Well, we’re friendly. I don’t know that New Visions is open on a Sunday, though.”

“What is it?”

“It’s medical something or other. So how come—?”

“I’m meeting someone.”

“Oh, okay, then. How do you get yourself in a car?”

“Slide. Backseat. Support the leg.”

“Makes sense.”

The backseat has to be cleared of a gallon of windshield washer fluid and a couple of plastic bags and an empty cardboard box, but he succeeds at the new movement—sliding and supporting his leg. How visible he is … how memorable. He has to force himself not to think it, but instead to
feel
invisible. They drive the four blocks in almost silence.

“I was wrong. There’s people coming out of there,” the man says. “They are open.”

Nick struggles out of the car. “I have three dollars and a quarter,” he says.

“Get out.”

“Thank you, buddy.”

“It wasn’t any problem.”

He swings his crutches toward the door, where two women are stuck, talking. One is old and weathered. The other is young and strained, impatient looking. “Is it all over?” he asks.

“Except for the cleanup,” the young one grunts. “You’re new, right? You missed it. Try to hang on. There’s another tonight. Westmont.”

“How do I get there?”

“Car, bus?”

“Where’s your sense?” the old one says. She turns to Nick. “You need a meal, don’t you? You need a ride.”

“I could give you a ride up now,” the young one says. “I live up that way. Only you’d have to hang all day up there, waiting for the meeting.”

“You come with me,” the old one says. “We’ll get ourselves a meal and then we’ll work at the ride for later.”

Think, decide. He chooses the old lady. She’s his third old lady this morning, and they seem to be lucky for him. The young one takes her leave, shrugging them off, hurrying to her car. He looks longingly inside the building to where the meeting was, thinking he might have just missed a man with a truck and a reason to drive out of town. “So I’ll get you fixed up in the food department. We have to get to my car. Over there. The VW Jetta. You think you can get in?”

“I think.”

Friendly City.

   AT A BIT AFTER ELEVEN THIRTY, Colleen, Potocki, and Christie are able to walk out of Farber’s office, leaving Farber salivating. Colleen played the card she had, handing over Meg’s written pages, waving the name Costanzo in front of Farber; she insisted Meg knew what she was doing when she wrote all that stuff.

Farber didn’t believe it at first. “Had to be the mother wrote this,” he said.

But Christie backed Colleen up, telling Farber, “No. Detective Greer is right. It was the girl.”

“Tiger,” Potocki says, shaking his head admiringly. “You were a tiger.”

Christie’s expression is hard to read even now. When she asked for complete immunity for Nick Banks—should they find him, which she still hopes for, and assuming he cooperates—Christie set his jaw, but he didn’t cross her. “The evidence will show it was self-defense,” she told Farber. She doesn’t bother to repeat to Christie, who thinks she’s too easily charmed by Nick, that she sees something in him, and she’s not alone. The kids adore him.

“You played hard,” Christie says.

With luck, Costanzo will be everything Farber hopes for, the source he’s looking for. “He couldn’t wait to get us out of there,” Colleen says diffidently. “He wants to get started investigating the guy. We had that on our side.”

They look at her—is it worriedly?

She heaves a deep breath. “Those kids,” she says now.

“
That’s
the priority,” Christie tells them with enough of a pause afterwards to make sure it sinks in. “All three of us are going to see the kids are safe. We have to attend to their well-being, you understand? I could have called in family services, but I want to be on this myself. I’m back on chemo in a couple of days. I might not be able to do anything then. So, in the meantime, I’m going to try a few tricks I have. I need for you to find out what you can about the deadbeat mom.”

“Phone records,” Colleen says to Potocki.

“Phone records,” Christie assents. “We get her in here, we meet her. I got a place we can take them for today—the Pocusset Safe House. The kids don’t have any relatives, so after Pocusset, we have to move to foster care.”

“God, I hate to see them in foster care.”

“I know it, Greer. That’s why I didn’t pull Family or CYS in yet. I have some ideas—one idea, anyway. I have to call in about ten favors.”

“What’s the idea?” Potocki asks. “Any way I can help?”

Christie lets out a deep breath. “There’s a couple in Squirrel Hill I put a girl with once. Didn’t quite work, but they might be persuaded to take a chance again. It’s a long shot.” He shrugs. “You two keep checking with me,” he says. He looks at his watch. “About time to eat something,” he says vaguely. Then he goes down the hall to his office.

“I ordered both of us takeout,” Potocki says.

“When did you do that?”

“On the way into the meeting. It’ll be here soon. Let’s eat where we can talk a bit.”

“Okay.”

“My cubicle or yours?”

“Yours. What did you order?”

“Chicken wraps. Safe choice. Guac on one.” He moves toward his desk. “It ought to be here in fifteen, twenty minutes. I’ll start on the order for the phone records in the meantime.”

She goes to her own cubicle, but too restless, she paces the hall. Christie comes up alongside her and paces right with her. “What is it?” he asks.

“Wanting to do everything right.”

“By the kids?”

“And by Nick Banks. I feel … nervous.”

“Sure. He’s a question mark. But … you feel you connected with the guy.” Condemnation has crept into his tone.

“So did the kids.”

“Whatever you do, make sure you’re thinking of what the kids need. They need somebody to take care of them. Not the other way around.”

She thinks about this, fitting it this way and that. “I was thinking about their feelings.”

“I know. Speaking of feelings here. Is it my imagination or are you and Potocki, you know?”

“Not really.”

“Well, it happens I’m juggling assignments right now. I was thinking of scrambling things anyway. He’s fantastic on computer. I’ll be in and out with the chemo. He and I could both be independent for a while. You’d work … very well with Dolan. You could learn as much from Dolan as from me. I’m just thinking ahead say for about a year here. I thought I caught … you know, vibrations … between you and Potocki.”

“Well, we got a little mixed up once.”

For a brief moment, he laughs, saying, “Mixed up.” Then he stops walking and asks more seriously, “You feel mixed up?”

“Yes.”

“Does anybody else know?”

“No.”

He smiles, thoughtful. “Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”

“Hey.” She makes a mock frown.

They start walking again. “But, let’s be serious here. It’s a problem. You know that; I know that. He can’t be your partner under the circumstances.”

“It was nothing.” She’s sorry she broke her vow of silence, but somehow people always end up telling Christie things; they just do.

“You might get mixed up again… .”

“Look, I know it’s against the rules.”

“Rules don’t work. You never did like rules anyway, Greer. You’re allergic to rules.”

The oddest silence comes up between them with a communication made of frowns, even a little rippling laughter.

“Does it ruin my chances with you?” she ends up saying. Her comment just bounces there between them for a moment as they walk, and it’s at least as surprising to her as to him.

He laughs a little. “If you’re lucky. I’m no prize package.”

“I thought you were.”

“Nah.”

They keep walking and end up near enough to her desk that it’s clear the little hallway talk is over as far as he’s concerned.

“You have chemo again on Wednesday?”

He scrunches up his face. “You know it.”

   “WHAT DO YOU DRINK? COFFEE?” Meg asked Janet Littlefield.

“Oh, no, that’s all right. I ordered soft drinks for everybody, including me. And Chinese takeout. I hope you like Chinese.”

“I think so,” Joel answered.

“Let’s give it a try. If you don’t like it, we’ll start from scratch.”

“But who’s paying for it?” Meg asked.

“Oh, we’ll cover this one from the police funds.”

“Wow,” Laurie said.

“This is just a start. We intend to get you some food in the house.”

Meg said, “I was just about to go shopping. You don’t need to worry about us.”

Janet Littlefield smiled at her with the kindest smile. “We want to worry a little. We want to help.”

When the food arrived, Detective Littlefield got them all to the table, where first she opened two cartons, one large, one smaller. “White rice,” she said, pointing. “And fried rice.” The other containers were round foil cake-pan sizes with paper lids fitted in. The detective opened four of them. She pointed, “Okay, we have chicken, beef and broccoli, shrimp, and pork. The only one I got spicy was the pork. I hope somebody besides me likes spicy.”

“I do,” Joel said.

So Meg put out plates and got some serving spoons. Detective Littlefield made sure everyone got something they wanted. She portioned out generous helpings and even put a fortune cookie beside each plate. Susannah turned her fortune cookie over and over, trying to dislodge the fortune without breaking the cookie, but the strip of paper wouldn’t budge.

Meg was wondering when the quizzing would start again, and then after she had her first bite of the chicken-and-rice combination, it did.

Detective Littlefield said, “We’re hoping you’ll tell us how long you’ve been staying alone.”

“Not long. A couple of days,” Meg said. “I thought we answered all that.”

Littlefield smiled. “Maybe. It’s a drag, isn’t it? We’re going to need an actual count.”

Meg studied the crisp yellow shirt and navy blue pants the detective wore. Earrings, a yellow-and-blue combination. It all looked nice. Decent as all the detectives seemed, they were going to question her family until they wore them down, and then they were going to put them someplace awful. All the while she ate, Meg tried to think of what she could say that would get them off the hook. She was ready to say her stepmother called all the time. Would that be enough?

They were each shoveling in their third or fourth bites of food when they heard a key in the front door lock. Meg froze, then dropped her paper napkin and got up recklessly. Nick, she thought. Nick. She had to help him not to panic. She tumbled over herself to get to the door. She could feel Janet Littlefield moving behind her. But even before the door opened, Meg understood suddenly who would be standing there. Her memory coughed up the identity of the car she’d just heard without exactly knowing she’d heard it.

And she was right.

Alison stood there dumbly with two suitcases in hand. Meg said, “Alison!” and hugged her. “Here, let me.” She took one of the suitcases from her stepmother and put it near the base of the stairs. Alison dropped the other suitcase at the door.

The other children gathered in the passage to the living room.

“You see, I told you,” Meg said weakly. “This is Alison, our mum. She was on a job interview.”

“Um, hello. And you are—?” Alison asked Littlefield, all the while watching Meg, hoping for a cue as to what she should say next.

“Detective Littlefield. We were just having some lunch. You are just who I need to talk to.”

“What’s this about?”

“We’ll talk,” Littlefield said easily.

“Do you have identification?”

“Sure do. I’ll get it for you. Then you and I can sit in here while the children finish up eating.”

Alison didn’t look bad—no bruises. She didn’t look particularly good either. “You must have started out early,” Meg said.

“Five o’clock. Why?”

“I’m just guessing the timing.” She took Alison’s hand and led her toward the sofa, trying to squeeze a message into it.
Hang on. Listen. Think
.

Detective Littlefield went to her handbag sitting on the end table to pull out her ID. “Detective Littlefield,” she repeated, handing it over.

“I told her you had a job interview,” Meg said.

Alison’s eyes darted around as she tried to catch up to the situation.

“Can we sit?” the detective asked.

Alison sat down.

“All of you are going to have to leave us for a little bit.”

“You want us to bring your food in?” Laurie asked.

“No. I’ll get it later. The main thing is you eat.”

Meg thought miserably, they were so close to safe, so close, and Alison was going to say something wrong.

“Please,” Littlefield said. She looked straight at Meg. “I’m trying to do right by you, so you have to trust me.”

From the other room, Meg could hear the detective calling someone on her cell phone and announcing that there was a new person to question. “Right, right,” Littlefield was saying. “Yes. Yes.”

Off the phone, she announced, “We have various other people coming over to talk to you. Meanwhile, just three little questions and you can have some lunch while we wait for my colleagues.”

Meg wouldn’t let them eat—no noise. No forks on plates or scraping of cardboard containers. They listened intently from the kitchen.

“Tell me how you know Nick.”

“Nick? I don’t know who you mean.”

Laurie collapsed so that her chair creaked and her arms hit the table. Meg shot her a look.

Detective Littlefield was saying, “Okay. That was easy. How long have you been gone on this interview.”

“I don’t remember exactly.”

“Try.”

“Almost a week, I think.”

“Could it be longer than that?”

“Maybe.”

“And how did you account for the care of the kids while you were gone?”

“Meg. Meg is the most adult person I know.”