A Measure of Blood (7 page)

“The real stairs?”

“Why not?”

Matt leads them down the dark back stairs to the door with a crash bar that opens on the backyard.

“Here.”

Christie says, “Now, you knew what number to call. Had you ever called before?”

“No.”

“But you knew what to do. Good. Then?”

Matt's face collapses into a frown. “I … I could tell they weren't going to come. So I went back up.”

“Show me?”

Christie makes him show them everything. He keeps checking his watch. “Did you pause? Did you wait before going up?”

“A little bit.”

“Good. Smart. Show me how long?”

Matt pauses and then begins to move. Three seconds. Five. Ten.

“Was there a reason you went around front?”

“I thought I might find somebody who could help. A person walking in or out.”

“Ah, makes sense. Did you see anybody?”

“Nobody was around, so I just went back up.”

“Show us your movements.”

Matt opens a gate and they all go around to the front.

“Did you see the man again?”

“No.”

“How do you think he got away?”

“I guess the back stairs after I left. Or maybe the front before I went around. I don't know.”

“Makes sense,” Christie murmurs again. “I'm sorry to ask you all this but it could help. Could you tell me anything you saw when you went back up?”

“The door was partways open.”

“About how much?”

“Only a little bit.”

Christie nods. He doesn't ask anything for a while.

Finally the boy says, “I had to slide in because she was on the floor.”

“Tell me, if you want to, what you were thinking then.”

“I tried to make her talk. I had the phone so I called 911 again. I told them they had to come.”

“Very good.”

“Yeah. But then I ran next door to see if Dr. Panikkar was home.”

“Because he's a doctor.”

“Because … because … I was afraid to do that thing where you push the chest to make a person breathe.”

“Did you know how to do it?”

“Kind of. From TV.” Matt is breathing raggedly.

“That's a hard job. Almost impossible when there's an injury.”

“I thought I would make it worse.”

“That was correct. You didn't do anything wrong.”

“I didn't?”

“Not a thing. You were great.”

Colleen lets out a big breath of relief. This was hard, very hard, watching a kid wound tight, falling apart.

“Tell me, when you were outside, did you notice a car that was unfamiliar or anything like that?”

“No, I wasn't looking anywhere. I was thinking: should I go back up the stairs or just wait.”

“You did fine,” Christie says evenly.

When Matt gets ahead of them, Colleen asks, “Boss? Why did you make him go through it again?”

“Because Chief had the same idea as McGranahan.
Liked
the idea of a bad seed. I swore I'd check the kid out for consistency. I swore I'd have an expert witness it. You witnessed it. You've got the creds.”

“Me?” she says with some surprise. She does have a master's in counseling, though she hasn't practiced formally for a few years.

Christie takes out a handkerchief and touches it to his face. He is shaking. “So I did it. What did you think?”

“I thought he was truthful and that he's been harboring some guilt about not doing even more.”

“Right.”

Matt turns on his heel and comes back to them. “I forgot to say last night that I know what kind of car the man had.”

“I'm not sure what you mean,” Christie says.

“When I was out last night, I looked for one like it. It was a Toyota.”

“Are you sure?”

“Corolla.”

“You saw the exact car, the man's car?”

“No, one like it.”

“What clued you in?”

“Like the shapes. The way the lights go.”

Corolla.

MATT LOOKS OUT
THE WINDOWS
of the detective's car from the backseat where he is riding with Oopale sitting next to him. She told him she took a day off work, a sick day. Nothing is normal today. People are quiet when they talk into their phones and he's not supposed to hear.

He told everything about not pumping her chest, and they didn't say he was to blame. He only shook her because he thought she might move, but she didn't. She shouldn't have let herself die. She should have fought it. He would have. He won't ever let himself die.

Today, later, he gets to see Jade for a play date.

The police are taking him to some place where they match up parents and children. But he doesn't want any of that. Jade or Grady, that would be okay.

Last night he thought she moved, but she didn't. They said she didn't.

Everybody lies. Grown-ups lie. Maybe the man was his father even if his mother said he wasn't.

“What do you think you'll do with Jade later today?” the woman detective asks him.

“Wii. Watch a movie. Play
Grand Theft Auto
.”

“You like video games, right?”

“I'm good at them.”

“You must have quick eyes.”

“Yeah.”

“He amazes me,” Oopale says.

Quick eyes. Quick ears. “I remembered something else. When my mother yelled at the man in the parking lot, she used a name.” The car pulls over to the curb and both detectives turn around to face the backseat. “It was something like Dol. Or Dal.”

“Dol or Dal. Anything more?”

“No.”

“What did she say exactly?”

“Something like, ‘What are you doing here, Dal?' and he said, ‘I live here now.' ”

“Dal?”

“I think. Something like that.”

WHEN HE FIRST
MET HER,
it was at a coffee shop and they only gave first names. She was pretty. Older than he was, and that threw him for a while, but mostly she was pretty. She said, “I can't date you. You're too young.” He told her he was old in his soul.

Maggie smiled at him and told him she was a bit late in the game but that she wanted a family, at least one child.

He said, “I want that, too. I do.”

She laughed. “Don't even think it.”

He said, “We could go to Puerto Rico where I come from. Now that's a place to raise a kid. Kids are happy there.”

“It's poor there.”

“You don't need much there. It's poor but kids are happy.”

“No, you're … too young.”

“Let's go to a movie. Let's go get a hamburger.”

“No foie gras with you.”

“What's that? Food. Yeah, I heard of it. You're making fun of me because I said about living in Puerto Rico.”

She looked dashed. “No, that's not true. We don't even know each other.”

“Well, you could give me a chance. We could do something.”

“Okay. A movie. A movie won't hurt anything.”

They met the next time at a movie theatre. He didn't have a car. And didn't want her to know he had hitchhiked three hours to see her. He didn't have anything, hardly a penny, and she wanted that foie gras kind of life. He reached for her hand in the movie. She wouldn't hold hands at first and then she did. She had beautiful eyes and full curly hair. There was a little bit of gray coming into it, but he didn't care. She was very American.

“I'm so messed up,” she said when they left the movie theatre, walking. “I got old without noticing. And I still want a baby.”

He didn't understand why she didn't have one if she wanted one. He wasn't sure what to say to her.

“I have no savings. I live in an efficiency,” she said. “I'm ridiculous. That's going to change. I'm working next year in the schools. At least I can get a bigger apartment.”

He wanted to say he was ridiculous too. He didn't tell her
he
only had a cell of a room in his mother's house—or what was really his father's house, way up in State College. His childhood was in Puerto Rico, his high school in Florida where the stud guys pushed him around and where anybody was lucky to get home from school without being stabbed. And after that, everything was even worse when they moved up to State College so his mother could take care of his father, who was sick and dying.

He attended college halfheartedly. His father, a professor, got tuition benefits and couldn't see not using them. Nadal didn't mind learning, but papers, exams, teachers had stressed him almost to the breaking point.

“Let me see your apartment,” he said to Maggie.

When they got to her building on Hobart Street and she fumbled with her key, he stood behind her, looking at the mailbox. What he saw blew his mind. It made him ecstatic. Her last name. Same as his. Same as the one he got from the professor. Brown.

“You don't know a Professor Arnett Brown, do you?” he asked, feeling giddy.

“No,” she said. “Why?”

“Just checking. He's a prof I had. Same name as yours.”

“And hundreds of others. It's a common name.”

He smiled. “And mine. My name.”

“You're kidding.”

“You see! This was meant to be.”

“I don't think so.” But she laughed.

They kissed a little. She said, “For me, relationships keep not working out. It must be something about me. But what do I do about wanting a baby? I dream about being a mother. I really want to be a mother.”

“That's a good feeling.”

“What do you know about it?”

“Well, I want to be a father.”

“Really? Most men don't want to.”

He could only remember the strutting boys from his high school, counting off their conquests, their offspring. “It makes you a man,” he said. “It makes you somebody.”

“Oh, Lord.”

“What?”

“Different worlds. I mean, I knew you were young, but … Thanks for the movie, Mr. Brown.”

He kissed her. At first she didn't kiss back. Then she did. They started to mess around. She said, “We shouldn't be doing this. I can't get into a relationship.”

“You said you wanted that.”

“Sure, with the right person.”

She looked right through him. They kept messing around. They even ended up on her bed. She made him stop short of intercourse, but he knew that one little drop could make its way up the river and end up getting her pregnant. He hoped it did.

When he got up to leave, Maggie's hair was wild. She looked very beautiful. “I'm sorry,” she said.

“For what?”

“I don't want to lead you on.”

“Didn't we have a good time?”

He waited to call her because he knew he was supposed to make her want him. He also had work at the Kinko's in Bellefonte and he had classes—all of which he hated. And then it rained for weeks and hitchhiking in the rain was a bummer.

Finally he did call her. He said, “We could just go for a hamburger.” At that point he was in his fourth year and she had started teaching.

“I could use the company,” she said.

He got himself to Pittsburgh and to her apartment with half a minute to spare. They walked up the street to the Squirrel Hill Cafe where burgers were cheap. She ordered a beer, so he did, too. He had to show a card, because the waiter didn't believe he was of age. She rolled her eyes. “See?” she said.

It turned out she wanted to talk about her work—how scared she was about being a good teacher. She also said she was still painting whenever she could get to it, but finding studio space and affording supplies was hard. She had a line on a studio she could share.

“What kind of paintings?”

“Oil. Text driven.” He didn't know what that meant, but he nodded. “It's probably hopeless. For everyone who wants to be an artist, maybe one in a thousand, if that, can actually get a gallery show. So why I try, I don't know.”

He wondered if she was the kind of person who smoked weed a lot. She seemed very dreamy. Her hair was tied up and knotted. He didn't like it that way. He reached across the table and untied it.

“Ouch,” she cried.

“Sorry.”

“What are you doing?”

“I like it when it—” He made wild curls with his fingers.

“And chauvinistic, too!”

He just kept smiling at her.

That time, they ended up in bed again. They did the whole number. Then again at two in the morning. She said, “You have to go. Back to your own place.”

“Ah, no.”

“I mean it.”

He felt angry, but he got up. He didn't want to tell her his place was three hours away. When he went online for the dating service, he had lied and put down Pittsburgh because he liked the idea of a different life, a new life, somewhere away from his mother and the professor.

He went outside from her little place. It wasn't raining, but it was damp. He walked. He couldn't even find
people
. Finally he found a guy to ask, “What bus do I take to the Greyhound station? Are buses still running?”

“Hop in,” the guy said.

He took a look at the guy and said, “Never mind.” For two hours he huddled in a doorway. Then he walked to Oakland, to the university area where there was a modicum of activity. Finally a city bus came by.

He eventually got himself to the Greyhound station and went back to State College.

He had one more date with Maggie. This time, they didn't even go out. She made him dinner. They made love after dinner and she told him again that he had to go.

He said, “Why are you off and on?”

“I'm not very on. It's my fault. You shouldn't come anymore.”

“Is it because I'm a foreigner?”

“No.”

“Because I'm part Puerto Rican. You know we're Catalan, my family.”