When She Flew (26 page)

The view of Officer Villareal kept getting closer, her face now filling the screen, catching every blink of her eyes. Dots of moisture beaded on her top lip; her eyes looked as shiny as dark marbles.

“It was the decision of the responding officers last night that the girl be placed in protective custody.” Now she looked directly into the camera, right at me, right at everyone who was watching. “But I didn’t agree with that assessment, and it was my sole decision to redirect the girl not to the foster care system, as were my orders, but back to her father instead. They have now been reunited and relocated and wish to continue on with their lives in private. It’s my hope that by standing here and telling you the truth, well, that you will leave these people alone and move on.”

“Are you speaking on behalf of the Columbia Police?” a woman’s voice asked. The camera backed up finally, out of Officer Villareal’s face, and now I could see that everyone was clustered even more tightly around her. No wonder she was sweating.

“No,” she said, in the tone people use with small children. “I’m speaking for myself, and on behalf of the man and his daughter. The police department has chosen to place me on administrative leave for taking these actions, so I’m not speaking to you in any official capacity. Just . . .” She paused and wrapped her arms around herself. “Just as a human being, and, well, as a parent myself. I wouldn’t have done this if I’d thought the girl was in any jeopardy, any possible danger. Ask my daughter. I barely even let her go to sleepovers when she was younger.”

The people around her laughed.

“Will you be disciplined further, Jessica, or fired?” the woman asked.

Officer Villareal said something I couldn’t hear and turned away, and the spell was broken. People started yelling again and following her.

“Lindy!”

I turned and Pater stood in the doorway. His face was red; he was practically yelling, too.

“What are you doing? Turn that off!”

“I got bored, and, um . . .” I fumbled with the channel changer, first turning the volume so loud Pater put his hands over his ears. I finally got it turned off. My hands shook.

“You shouldn’t be watching that. And what are you eating? Where did you get that?”

My bread still lay on the table, three-quarters eaten, surrounded by crumbs.

“I got hungry, and it was in the refrigerator, and I—”

He walked past me, angry, but I didn’t know why. I didn’t think it was that bad to watch the television. He’d never minded before, whenever we had one. I knew I shouldn’t have eaten the bread, but it was only one piece.

He went into the kitchen, pulled open the refrigerator door, then closed it. He stood with his back to me, fingers still gripping the handle. “Where are our things?”

“In the bedroom, down the hall,” I said. “There’s only one bed.”

He was silent.

“Pater?”

“I’m going to lie down for a few minutes.”

He walked to the bedroom and closed the door. I had never known him to take a nap.

I sat holding the channel changer, wishing I could turn the television back on, wishing I’d never turned it on. Wishing I could see Officer Villareal again, hear her tell the whole world how smart I was, and what a good father Pater was. If only he’d seen that part, he wouldn’t have been so angry.

I hoped he’d be done with his nap by lunchtime. I hoped we wouldn’t have to leave this place. Not before I got to take a shower, and feed the baby goat again. Not before I figured out where the peacocks liked to hide.

The wind picked up again in the treetops outside, making that sound like something was coming from far, far away. It was one of my favorite sounds in the forest, but here, now, it made my skin prickle, my chest close in. I wanted to run from the sound, but all I could do was sit there, and wait.

And then I remembered the blue notebook that Officer Villareal gave me. I could keep myself busy by writing all of this down, everything that was happening.

Pater hadn’t quite closed the door all the way. He lay flat on his back, his arm over his eyes. I tried to slip in quietly, but he heard me unzip my backpack. He didn’t say anything. I could just tell.

“I’m getting my notebook to write in.”

He cleared his throat. “I know none of this is your fault, Lindy. I just need some rest.”

“It’s okay,” I said, feeling awkward, but the funny thing was, I was starting to believe that. All of this was too big for it to be something I could have started.

“I’ll be out in a while,” he said. “Close the door, please.”

I did as he asked and then tiptoed back out to the living room, notebook and pen in my hands. I clicked the pen once or twice, turned to a new page, and let thoughts fill my head.

Usually I only liked to write about Nature, about birds and plants and geography, but once Officer Villareal started asking me questions about my life, I’d started thinking more about me. What was I if I wasn’t Nature? I was as much beating heart as a hummingbird, as much instinct as a bobcat. I could be timid like a deer mouse and stealthy like a mink. I could run as fast downhill as the creek and forage as well as a raccoon. I was a part of everything in this world, of all that was happening, all around me. Wasn’t I worth writing about, too?

28

S
he should have worked out a better exit strategy, Jess realized when she’d finished. She had no car to walk to, no building to escape inside. She turned toward the street, thinking she might catch a bus, hail a cab, but cabs only came this far out when you called them. She didn’t know the bus schedule. There were stops along North Point, she knew, but had no idea what routes would take her all the way across town, and where the hell was she going to go, anyway? She couldn’t go home.

Almost all of the reporters and camera crews had peeled off to file their reports on air. A couple of stragglers continued to film her. Anything she did now they’d use against her, or against Ray and Lindy.

She headed toward the parking lot, as if she were going to pick up her cruiser.
Right,
she thought,
who am I fooling?
She pulled out her cell phone, trying to think: who could she call to come get her?

“Jess, over here,”a familiar voice said. Darryl polished the hood of one of the unmarked cars the detectives used. “Come here,” he said, then spoke loudly to the cameramen following her: “Leave the officer alone. Go on, get the hell out of here.”

They stood filming him now.

Darryl walked toward Jess and took her hand with his thick, callused one, pulling her toward his maintenance shed. His “garage,” he liked to call it, but it was just a Tuff Shed, tricked out with a space heater and shelves filled with tools and supplies, a portable hydraulic jack in the middle of the asphalt floor. Inside, it was dark with no windows, a sliver of light coming from the top and bottom of the door after Darryl closed it. Jess breathed in the smell of motor oil, gas fumes, that weird-smelling hand cleaner for getting grease off. She heard a click and a rectangular fluorescent fixture blinked on.

“Thank you,” she said, taking a seat on a low stool. She hadn’t realized how badly she was shaking. “But you’re going to get yourself in trouble. I’m not one of the good guys anymore.”

He took a seat on a taller stool opposite her, folded his beefy arms over his stomach. “The hell you’re not,” he said.

They listened. All was quiet.

“I can’t believe all this,” she said. “How am I going to get out of here?”

“One step at a time. I was about to have lunch. Want a ham sandwich? Wife always makes me two, even though she says I need to lose weight.” He reached behind him to pull a small blue cooler off the shelf. “And if we’re lucky, there might be some cole slaw left over from last night.”

“Your wife’s the lucky one,” Jess said. “I’m glad she feeds you well.”

He shrugged and handed her a sandwich. She was starving. She hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before. She took a bite of soft bread and too much mayonnaise and good smoky ham, then pulled out her phone.

“You know the number for Metro Taxi?” she asked.

Darryl pulled out his own phone and hit SPEED DIAL, then ordered her a cab. “VIP treatment,” he said to the dispatcher, winking at Jess.

Soon it would be twelve o’clock. The chief would give his press conference. Her deadline would be up. Her ass would officially be grass, and even if the press now left Ray and Lindy alone (which they wouldn’t, who was she trying to kid?), they’d no doubt show up at her court dates. Would they treat her like friend or foe, victim or perpetrator? Only time and the whims of a ratings-hungry media would tell.

She took another bite, tried to concentrate on only the food in her mouth. She wished Darryl’s wife would have thought of mustard.

“You’re on early, Darryl. You really like your job, huh?”

He nodded.

“You ever do anything else for a living?”

“Oh, hell, yeah.” He finished chewing his bite before continuing. “This is just my semiretirement career. I ran my dad’s hardware store in Klamath Falls for twenty-seven years. I always liked tinkering with cars, though. Washing them, waxing them. I don’t know. Weird, I guess.”

She shook her head. “Not really. It’s good to be doing what you love.”

He chuckled. “You’ve never been anything but a cop, huh?”

“Never wanted to be anything else.” Her chin trembled and she clenched her jaw against it, the way she had her entire life against anything too sad or unfathomable.

At five past twelve, Darryl cracked open the shed door. All but one straggler had moved on to the press conference. He was probably a freelancer for those stupid tabloid shows, trying to get footage of Jess emerging like a celebrity from rehab. Darryl strode over to him, motioning for Jess to stay inside. She watched as he argued with him at first, then slipped him some bills. A cab idled at the curb.

“Keep track of the bribes, there, big fella,” Jess whispered as she reached to hug him. “I’ll pay you back.”

“When you’re back on the payroll.”

“Thank you,” she said, then trotted to the taxi and ducked inside.

“What’s going on? Was there a shooting or something?” The driver, an older woman in a Sierra Club cap, looked in the rearview mirror at Jess.

“It wasn’t a shooting. Just a good old-fashioned lynching.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” the woman said.

“I take it you don’t watch TV.”

The driver shook her head. “Only the political stuff on Sunday morning.
Meet the Press
,
Face the Nation
. I miss that Tim Russert. Only honest guy on TV.” She turned to look at Jess. “So, where to?”

Home,
Jess thought. “8774 Southwest Formosa. Just take the South Columbia exit off 319, then—”

“Yep,” the driver said, turning forward, putting the car in drive. “You got it.”

Jess sat back, taking a long last look at the station house, turning in her seat to watch it fade. She loved that building, its old brick exterior, the green tile roof and arched leaded windows, almost like church windows. Would she ever walk inside again as an employee? Would she get back her badge and weapon? She didn’t care about the gun so much, but she felt naked without the badge in her purse, without the credentials that certified who she was, who she’d always wanted to be.

She turned around, pulled out her cell phone, and dialed her mother.

“Ma, hi,” she said, bracing herself. She should have called her hours ago.

“Oh, Jessica, I just saw you on TV and you were just so . . .” Clara sniffled, blew her nose. She’d been crying. “What you said was so good. How on earth can you be in trouble for that?”

“I . . . I don’t know. That’s the way the world works, I guess. I just couldn’t follow orders this time.” Her eyebrows drew together; she swallowed back emotion. “I think it’ll be okay, though. The worst that can happen is I get fired.” She wouldn’t yet mention being investigated or prosecuted, possible jail time if they wanted to make an example of her.

“Are you still in that shed?”

Jess snorted. “Wha—? No, Ma. Don’t believe everything you see on TV.” That would probably be the image that marked her for life: the disgraced police officer hiding out in a Tuff Shed. “Are they still showing my house on TV?”

“Not in a while. And they quit using that awful police photo of you, once they filmed you at the police station. What happened to your hair, Jessica? Maybe I should send them some better photos of you.”

“Yeah.” Jess closed her eyes. “You do that.”

“You know I’m proud of you, don’t you, honey?” her mother asked, and suddenly Clara was the adult again, and Jess the child, needing this praise more than anything. The transformation was so quick, so absolute, even if temporary, that Jess felt needy enough to ask the question that had been lurking in the back of her mind.

“Mom, what do you think Dad would have done, if it were him instead of me?” She glanced up at the rearview mirror, self-conscious that the driver could hear, but the woman stared only at the road.