Unexpected Dismounts (29 page)

I had never seen a conversation shut down so fast. The look that came over his face was pure contempt. And yet I couldn’t stop.

“I have a personal relationship with the people you want to relocate. They have memories and hungers and regrets and smashed-up dreams. They’ve all but given up. I focus on the thread they still hang on to, and that thread isn’t the hope of being taken away to some rehab facility out in the swamp. It’s rebuilding their lives here, where they live. Where they have a right to live.”

Troy’s look was long and stony.

“There was a time when you would have been part of it,” I said.

“Part of what? Your little footwashing?”

He spat the words like they were phlegm in his throat.

“Go,” I said, “before I say the H-word to you.”

“Are you telling me to go to—”

“No, Troy,” I said. “I think that’s already taken care of. It’s me I’m worried about.”

His exit was punctuated with the squeal of BMW tires. Miz Vernell poked her head out of her screen door and glared him all the way to Artillery Lane. I just stood there, feeling homesick, wishing the man would remember the boy. Wishing I could stand up in some boardroom where this heartless shell of a person served and tell them who he used to be.

And then it stabbed me to the heart that nobody in a corporate boardroom would care about either one.

Although the good that God reminded me of showed itself in the next few days—India and Ophelia bonding like soul mates, Liz Doyle and Lewis both writing editorials about the rape case, Desmond ceasing having nightmares—I felt like I still had Troy Irwin on my skin, clinging like a cobweb. I couldn’t shake him off, so I carried his stuff on me along with everybody else’s as I moved on. There was a lot to move on to.

Nicholas Kent asked me to meet him at the Monk’s Vineyard Monday night when his shift was over. I didn’t inquire over the phone what kind of news he had. I could hear the bad in his voice.

For once George and Lewis were perceptive and left us alone in our corner of the porch after George served us a pair of Lewis’s reportedly new and improved lattes on the house. I barely sipped mine as Nicholas talked.

“I finally got a couple of guys to admit they know who went to see your women,” he said.

“Who?”

“They wouldn’t give me names. All these guys told me was that the officers went on their own, not under orders from the department.”

“Why would they do that?”

“You got me. I’m still working on it.”

“Working on it how?” I pushed the cup aside. “Look, I don’t want you getting into any trouble, Nick. I appreciate your help, but you’ve got to watch your own back too.”

He blushed to the roots of his wonderful red hair. It didn’t occur to me until then how much I really liked this kid.

“What I want to do is bring over a photo array and have your—what do you call them?”

“The Sisters.”

“Are they like nuns now?”

“Uh, no,” I said drily. “Just Sisters in Christ.”

He nodded. “Anyway, they could look at the pictures and identify the two guys. That’s our best shot.”

“Let me ask them,” I said. “I’ll get them on the phone right now.”

“Before you do that.” Nicholas dug into his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. “Do you know a Marcus Rydell?”

“No. Who is he?”

“He’s the guy who rented the car your Zelda crashed into the pole.”

“Wait. He rented a car and she stole it from him when she was blown out on cocaine?”

“That’s what it looks like. We traced the car to Hertz, and they said a Marcus Rydell rented it and then reported it stolen.”

“Where was it stolen from, did he say?”

“Nightclub out at the beach.”

“What?”

“Yeah, right? No way Zelda stole it from there. Not unless somebody else drove her out there.”

“It makes absolutely no sense.”

“Does she remember anything?”

I looked down at my now lukewarm coffee. “She’s not talking to me.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

He actually did look sorry. Before I could start bawling, I dialed the number for Sacrament House. Mercedes answered, and before I got my question about the photo array all the way out, she was giving me a no.

“I know that red-haired boy is on our side,” she whispered, as if he were listening in. “But when it come to police and courts, I just had it with all that.”

“Can you speak for everyone?”

I heard her click to speakerphone. I repeated the request.

“I’m sorry, Miss Angel,” Jasmine said, with tears not far behind.

Sherry was the most vehement. “Don’t ask me that again, Miss Angel, or I might have to move out. I’m serious.”

“No need to do that,” I said. “Subject closed.”

I didn’t even have to shake my head at Nicholas. He was already shaking his.

Bonner’s news was better.

Hank and I were having coffee Tuesday morning in my kitchen, listening to Chief bite back expletives in the dining room while the physical therapist put him through his paces. He was done with traction, but that apparently meant his workouts could be stepped up. Hank smothered a snort every time he broke out with “son of a biscuit eater.”

“Looks like he’s going to have a cheering section today,” she said.

The screen door opened and Bonner appeared with Liz Doyle.

“You playing hooky?” I said to her.

She shook her head, blinked, and dumped her armload of stuff onto the floor. Bonner stopped to help her, but he got caught in the crossfire between a hairbrush and the purse she was trying to toss it back into. He came up rubbing a rapidly rising bump on his forehead.

“Let me,” Hank said to him. “Sit. Have a biscotti. Have two.”

“Tell her the
good
news,” Liz said from the floor.

“We just came from court,” he said. “The judge is releasing Zelda to us for a probationary period. If she stays clean, he’ll consider it time served.”

“Where is she now?”

“Being processed.”

“Don’t you love the terminology?” Hank said, putting a mug into Bonner’s hand. “They make it sound like we’re ordering something on Amazon.”

“
How
is she?” I said. I searched Bonner’s face.

“She’s not spitting at God, Allison,” he said.

“So what do you think?”

“I think we have to go with that.”

I let out a slow breath of air. It had been so long since I’d felt relief, I barely recognized it.

Liz stood up, purse under her arm, hands full of cosmetics. “Zelda’s scared. Which she probably should be. She has a lot of work to do.”

“Wait,” I said. “How is it that you know all this, Liz?”

“I’ve been spending some time with her.” She shoved a compact into a purse pocket and looked at Bonner. I was so used to seeing her blink like a strobe light it took me a moment to realize she was doing battle with tears.

“What’s going on?” I said.

“I want to work for you.”

“You mean at Sacrament House?”

She nodded so hard, my heart dove.

“I wish we could
afford
to hire you,” I said. “I’d take you away from FIP in a heartbeat if we had the funds. As it is—” I looked at Bonner with what I knew bordered on helplessness. “I still don’t know how we’re going to take care of Zelda.”

Liz raised the hand that was holding a lipstick and a Sharpie.

“Idea?” I said.

“Plan,” she said. “I want Zelda to come stay with me.”

“Oh, Liz. Really? I mean, think about it.”

“I already have. We can go to Sacrament House for meetings and all, but at my place she’ll have her own room and my full attention until you get the second house.”

“But we can’t help you financially.”

“I have some savings.” Liz hugged the restuffed handbag to her chest. “Please, Allison, I want to do this. I have to.”

I looked at Bonner again, just in time to catch him gazing at Liz with tender eyes.

Well, go figure. I really
had
been out of the loop.

“We’ll give you all the help you need,” I said. “Bless your heart—this is—”

“God,” Liz said. “It’s God.”

Everyone was gone when Chief finished up his PT session. I was convinced they timed their exit so they wouldn’t catch the backlash of the mood he would have to be in after an hour of whatever kind of torture went on in there.

But he looked rather pleased with himself when he pushed open the swinging door and rolled into the kitchen in a wheelchair, leg sticking out like a cannon in front of him.

“Look at you!” I said.

“I needed some wheels under me,” he said.

“Wait till Desmond sees you. You know he’s going to want to put pipes on that thing.”

“Probably give it a nickname.”

“Ya think? Anybody who spends five minutes with him gets one. He’s started calling Kade Cappuccino.”

“That’s our boy.”

“Yeah,” I said.

A funny silence fell. I collided with myself rushing to break it.

“Should we celebrate? There’s still a ton of food. Or do you just want coffee? Tea? How about tea? Tea would be better.”

“Classic.”

“Tea, then?”

“Thank you.”

“For what?” I laughed like a fifteen-year-old. “I haven’t given you anything yet.”

Chief held out his hand to me. When I took it, he pulled me close to the wheelchair and looked up at me. Even then, he seemed larger than my life.

“You’ve given me everything,” he said.

“Yes. My special burnt toast. A twelve-year-old so you won’t be bored.”

“Like I said—everything.”

He tugged at my hand and let it go.

“So, tea?” I said.

And Hank thought
Chief
was romantically challenged.

Yet things had already taken on a rhythm. I felt something just as good as romance, something I couldn’t name, but it was there. When I was preparing mac and cheese out of a box for him or adjusting the blinds while he napped so the sun wouldn’t wake him. The word for it didn’t come to me until late that afternoon when Desmond decided they were going for a HOG ride, broken leg or no broken leg. I sat at the bistro table, “bustin’ a gut” as Desmond himself put it, while he pushed Chief through the house, both of them clad in helmets, making engine sounds that rivaled any bike down at the HD dealership.

“Imma pop a wheelie,” Desmond called from the dining room.

“Try it and you’re dog chow,” I called back.

“Busted,” Chief said.

That was the moment I gave the feeling a name.

It was home.