08-A Thousand Bones, page 29
Then he came into the living room, holding a dish towel. “There’s a Captain Kellerman on the phone. He says—”
Joe threw off the blanket and was on her feet before Brad could stop her. She went to the kitchen, holding her side, Brad following.
Brad said, “I told him you needed—”
Joe ignored him, grabbing the receiver. “Yes, Captain?”
She listened, nodding a few times, then hung up. Brad stood there, waiting.
“I have to go to Traverse City tomorrow,” she said.
“What for?”
“I have to give a statement.”
“A statement? I thought you already did that.”
She met Brad’s eyes, not wanting to see what she saw there. “This is different. This is to the shoot team investigator. They need me to give an official statement, tell them exactly what happened.”
Brad just stared at her.
“Will you drive me?”
“I don’t think you should do this,” he said.
“I have to, Brad,” she said. “It’s my job, and I have to go do this. I need to do this. Will you drive me or not?”
Brad wiped a hand over his sweating brow, his eyes going past Joe to Florence. “I’m going to go walk the dog,” he said quietly.
He left the kitchen, grabbing his coat and Chips’s leash off the hook. Chips saw the leash and trotted after him. The door closed with a dull thud behind them.
Joe felt the burn of tears in her eyes and blinked them back as she hurried to the door and thrust her bare feet into a pair of Brad’s boots. She grabbed a parka from the hook.
“Joe?”
“I’ll be back in a minute, Ma. Watch the turkey.”
She went outside, holding the parka over her nightgown. Brad was sitting in a chair on the far end of the porch. She went over to him. “Brad, we have to talk about this,” she said.
He shut his eyes for a moment, then opened them. But he wouldn’t look up at her.
“Why do you have to go back and relive it all over again?” he asked. “Why do they keep putting you through this? Why can’t they let you put it behind you and let us get back to…”
“Normal?” she asked.
He sighed, shaking his head. She pulled up a chair and sat down directly in front of him, taking his hands in hers. “I can’t put it behind me when he’s still out there,” she said. “And it’s my job to help others catch him. I can’t get by any of this without talking about it. Without you talking about it.”
When he looked at her she was shocked to see tears in his eyes. “You’re the one who won’t talk, Joe,” he said.
“Me? I’ve tried to tell you—”
“No,” he interrupted. “You haven’t told me, Joe. You haven’t really told me anything. Yeah, you told me what happened out there, you told me what he did to you. You told me the same things I could hear on TV or read in the paper.”
She was too stunned to speak.
He pulled his hands away, shaking his head. “But it’s not like you really talking,” he said. “It’s like…I don’t know, like you’re telling it in some damn police report or something, Joe.” He wiped a hand at his eyes. “It’s like you…you can’t…you don’t…”
She sat back slightly. “Don’t what?”
He shook his head.
“Don’t what, Brad? Don’t break down, don’t cry? Is that what you want?”
“No, it’s like I can’t help you. I can’t protect you. It’s like you don’t need me anymore.”
The words had been said softly enough, but the sting was there. Brad held her eyes for a moment, then looked away. Joe heard Chips barking somewhere nearby.
“I need you, Brad,” she said softly. “Just like I always have. This thing hasn’t changed me, Brad. I am still me.”
When he finally looked back at her, his eyes were dry, but there was sadness there, and Joe felt something break inside her, as if a bone that had been bruised long ago had finally given way. And she suddenly heard the hollowness in her own words. I am still me.
“Brad,” she said softly, “maybe you should go home for a few days.”
“You’re pushing me away, Joe.”
“I’m not,” she said. “I just…maybe we just need a little break, a little air.”
“I can’t leave you alone right now.”
“I won’t be alone.”
Chips started to bark again, and they both looked toward the trees. She was suddenly aware of the cold wind swirling around the hem of her nightgown. She started to shiver.
“You’d better go inside,” Brad said. He rose slowly and stepped off the porch. He walked toward the trees, whistling for Chips.
Joe watched him for a moment, then went back into the cottage. Her mother came out from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel.
“Baby, you okay?”
Joe eased out of the parka and hung it back on its hook on the door.
“Joe, where’s Brad?”
“He’s…” She looked at her mother. “I have to go give that statement tomorrow.”
“I’ll drive you,” Florence said.
42
She gave her statement in a small room with dirt-veiled windows. The shadows were soft, the faces of the officers expressionless. She spoke first into a tape recorder, then answered questions from the investigators, who, no matter how many times she gave her story, seemed to feel the need to make her tell it again.
Then they played Ken Snider’s interview for her, asking her again what logic was behind the decision to take Snider to the waterfall. They took another photo of her abdominal laceration, slipping it into a folder she knew held all of the photos taken at the hospital.
They showed her a photo of Roland Trader. Asked her to make an official positive ID. Then, while someone typed her statement, she waited in another room she suspected was used to interrogate suspects. An hour later, a woman wearing a state police uniform and a look of pity brought her the typed pages to sign. It occurred to Joe, as she scribbled her name on each page, how bizarre it was that such a horrible event could be reduced to twenty-three simple pages.
When Joe set the pen down, the woman asked her to follow her down a hall filled with blue uniforms and radio noise. At the end of it, she opened a door and ushered her into a small office.
A man sat behind a desk. Slender, thinning, straw-like hair and small, round glasses that bugged his eyes. He rose slowly.
“Please come in, Deputy Frye,” he said.
Joe glanced behind her, but the female officer was gone, the door closed. Her eyes went back to the man. He was smiling, a bland kind of smile that was meant to put her at ease.
“My name is Dr. Littleton,” he said, motioning to the chair in front of his desk. “Please sit down.”
“I didn’t ask to see a doctor,” she said.
“I know,” he said. “But Captain Kellerman has requested that you speak with me. I’m a psychologist.”
Joe didn’t move.
“Please,” he said.
Joe walked slowly to the chair and sat down. The blinds on the window behind the desk were closed, giving the room a beige hue and putting Littleton in subtle shadows.
“Would you like to talk about what happened?” he asked.
“Do I have to?”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Littleton said.
“Is this something I have to do to keep my job?”
“No,” he said. “But Captain Kellerman feels you’re not coping well with your trauma. He asked me if I would speak with you. That’s why you’re here.”
Joe shifted in the chair, bristling at the thought that Kellerman hadn’t even asked her if she wanted to speak with someone. He had just gone ahead and arranged it.
“I’ll be okay,” she said. “And if I’m not, I’ll get some help in the future. But thank you for your time.” She reached down to get her purse.
“Deputy,” Littleman said.
The calm authority of his voice made her stop and sit back in the chair.
“It’s important you talk to someone now,” he said. “I’ve spoken with many police officers who have experienced trauma similar to yours, and I can help.”
Joe tuned him out, first focusing on the blinds behind him, then dropping her eyes to her lap. A small shiver rippled across her shoulders.
“I’m really doing okay,” she said. “I’m in mourning for my fellow officers, but I’m a police officer, and I understood the risk before I ever took the job.”
“What risk?”
“Of being killed on the job,” she said.
Littleton was quiet, the kind of pause she knew was intended to make her look up, and she did. “I’m okay with what happened to me, too,” she added. “Or I will be. I just need some time.”
He studied her for a moment and leaned back in his chair. “Can you be more specific about what you mean by ‘what happened to me’?” he asked.
She stared, not understanding the question. Then she realized he wanted her to say it out loud, as if hearing her own voice was a way of facing it head-on. She could do that. She’d said it and written it a dozen times since it happened.
“I was raped,” she said.
Littleton held her eyes for a moment, then glanced down at a folder on his desk. “You have a fiancé…Brad Schaffer?”
She wondered how he had gotten that information. She nodded slowly, thinking about how quiet Brad had been that morning before he left for work.
“How is he taking this?”
“Taking this?”
Littleton held up a hand. “Let me rephrase that. Have you been able to talk to him about this?”
It took Joe a moment to meet Littleton’s eyes. Then she shook her head slowly. “He says I’m pushing him away,” she said.
“Are you?”
“I don’t know,” she said quickly. “Maybe I am. It’s just—”
Littleton was waiting for her to finish. Joe blew out a long breath. “He doesn’t understand,” she said finally.
“Understand what, exactly?”
Joe stared at the man, a slow simmer of anger building, but she couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. She sat forward in her chair. “He doesn’t understand that I am not—”
She stopped, shaking her head. There was a pressing feeling deep in her chest, as if something were trying to push its way out. Littleton was watching her from behind his steepled hands.
“This job,” she said, “what I do, it was okay before, because I don’t think Brad thought it was real.” She looked up at him. “I don’t think he ever thought I was real in it.”
She looked away.
“Go on, please,” Littleton said softly.
“But this thing,” she said, “this ugly, horrible thing that happened, this made it very real, and Brad can’t deal with that. He wants to protect me, just like he always has.” She shook her head slowly. “But he can’t protect me, because it’s not his job. If I let him protect me the way he needs to, I can’t do my job. I will be just…just a…”
She shook her head.
“Just what?”
She looked up, directly at Littleton. “A victim. And if I let myself be nothing but a victim, I won’t survive this.”
Littleton was saying something, but she didn’t really hear it. The pressure in her chest was still there, and she pulled in a hard breath to ease it. When she looked back at Littleton, he seemed to be disappearing into the shadows. The room felt suddenly hot and cramped, and she needed to get out.
She stood up, interrupting the doctor in mid-sentence. “I have to go,” she said.
“Deputy Frye, please—” He picked up a business card. “Take my card, at least.”
She hesitated, then took the card. “Thank you for your time, Doctor,” she said.
Joe walked back into the cold air, stopping outside the door of the state police headquarters to look for her mother. The smell of cigarette smoke drew her attention to the left. Florence was sitting on a concrete railing, a Salem in her hand, a white shopping bag next to her hip.
Florence slipped to her feet, tossing down the cigarette and grabbing the bag. “You all right? You look—”
“I’m fine,” Joe said quickly.
“How’d it go in there?”
“Routine stuff.” Joe was looking out at the street, and finally she came back to her mother’s face and let out a long sigh. “They made me talk to a shrink.”
Florence’s eyes got bigger behind the pink glasses. “What’d you talk about?”
“Nothing. Come on, let’s go home.”
Florence fell into step with Joe, and they headed back to the car. They walked for several blocks until Joe finally broke the silence.
“Ma, did Dad understand your job? I mean, why you wanted to do it?”
Florence took a moment to answer. “He knew I wanted to do something to help people, and he understood it because it was the same thing for him being a fireman.”
Joe nodded slowly. “When I was in with that shrink, I was thinking about Brad and how he always wants me to come to bed when he does. When I stay up, I get the feeling he’s a little upset at me for it, like if we don’t go to sleep at the same time, something is wrong.”
She stopped and turned to look at Florence. “I never figured out why that always bothered me. But when that shrink was asking me about my job, it hit me. Some of us are meant to stay awake so everyone else can sleep.”
Florence was staring at her.
“Does that make any sense to you?” Joe asked her.
Florence nodded. Then she held up the white bag she had been carrying.
“What’s that?” Joe asked.
“I got you some medicine,” Florence said.
“I have my antibiotics,” Joe said.
Florence reached into the bag and pulled out a small box. “Remember these?”
“Chocolate cherries?”
“Just like you used to get.”
Joe opened the box and took out one of the chocolate-covered cherries. When she bit into it, the memories flooded back. Every Christmas, a box of the drugstore candies under the tree for her mother, the only thing Joe could afford on her dollar allowance.
They finished the cherries on the drive home to Echo Bay. Joe felt drugged from the sugar, but maybe that was okay. She was exhausted, and she thought maybe tonight, for the first time, she might sleep through the night.
In town, Joe saw two vans from Detroit TV stations, and she suspected the reporters were hanging around to film the police funeral. The parking lots of the motels seemed emptier, and Joe wondered if the mothers had gone home.
As they pulled up to the cottage, Joe noticed Brad’s truck wasn’t there. She went into the cottage first, stopping near the door. Something felt different, and she took a long look around, trying to see what it was, but she saw nothing.
“Honey, what is it?” Florence asked, coming in behind her.
Joe walked away from her, drawn to the bedroom and to the closet. Brad’s duffle wasn’t in its usual place on the top shelf. She spotted a single piece of cream-colored paper on the bed and read the note he had left.
Dear Joe,
I have gone home to stay with my parents for a few days. I think you are right that we need a little time away from each other right now and I know you will be okay with your mother there. Call me if you want to talk. Don’t worry about anything. I paid the utilities and the rent.
I love you, Brad.
Joe folded the paper and walked to the living room, toward the fireplace. She folded the note a second time and set it gently on the logs.
“Joe? What it is?”
She ignored her mother, lighting the fire. The paper caught and blazed, the pieces floating up the flue like black feathers.
43
The morning broke crisp and clear, the sky cloudless and the colors—cobalt-blue sky, ice-white sun, barren brown trees—vivid and solid.
The funeral procession began at the small Methodist church in town and made its way toward Beechwood Cemetery on the edge of Lake Leelanau. It was led by two cocoa-colored horses drawing a caisson with two white flag-draped caskets. The horses were reined by a trooper dressed in his ceremonial blues. The five remaining Leelanau County deputies walked behind the caisson.
Behind them came two riderless horses, symbolizing the missing officers. Finishing the cortege was a six-man state honor guard that would fire the graveside salute. And beyond them, stretching for the next half-mile, ribbons of blue and brown uniforms. Hundreds of officers, the swing of their white-gloved hands and the snap of their steps synchronized, their faces a shared mask of solemnity.
For a long time, Joe kept her eyes on the shoulder of the trooper atop the caisson, watching the play of the sun off his gold braids, trying not to think about anything but thinking about everything. The note Brad left on the bed. The look on the investigators’ faces in Traverse City. Rafsky lying in the hospital bed. The stiff feel of her uniform shirt this morning when she pulled it up her arms. The look on Holt’s face when he stood at her front door yesterday, a small bag in his hand.
Your collar pins, name tag, and badge, Joe. They found them in the woods. Kellerman says you can have them back now.
She lowered her gaze to the ground and listened to the steady clop of the horses’ hooves behind her.
As they made a turn, a church bell tolled. It was soft and respectful, and it moved through her, bringing an unexpected memory.
Mama, why are they ringing bells?
It’s a fireman’s bell, Joe. They’re ringing it for Daddy.
Joe lifted her head, her eyes tearing from the wind and the thickening emptiness inside her. The procession made its way slowly past brown lawns pillowed with snow. Past porches huddled with people offering bowed heads. Past the school and its half-mast flag snapping in the wind.
They made another turn onto North Manitou Trail. Up ahead at an intersection, Joe could see where the troopers had blocked traffic. A few people had gotten out of their cars and were watching. One man in a flannel shirt offered a two-finger salute up to his John Deere cap.
