Family Blessings (17 page)

Under the overpass! Into the curve! River water on the left! Huge green hill on the right! Roaring engines and cars inches apart, halfway into a lazy S-curve at ninety miles an hour. Chris's car got bumped. The world tipped and righted itself. On his far right the Ramsey squad lost ground in some loose gravel on the shoulder and fell behind. They hit the second curve and suddenly the suspect's car shot off to the right, into the ditch, up a rise, lost its back bumper and sideswiped a huge tree. The back bumper--a missile now--sailed straight on and wedged itself into the V of the tree's two huge trunks.

Hubcaps rolled and bounced. Grass, dirt, dust flew into the air as if a bomb had exploded. The Grand Prix landed on its wheels. The four squads converged on it, bumping over rough grass. Officers out and running. Doors left gaping. Radios clattering. Red lights everywhere.

Observers stopping on the shoulder above to stare at the spectacle in wonder.

Christopher ran to the driver's window, his adrenaline pumping like an uncapped gusher. The suspect was alive and cussing a blue streak, kicking the dash, hammering the steering wheel.

"Are you hurt?"

"Sonofabitch!"

Chris tried his door but it was jammed.

"Can you get out?"

"Goddamn it! Look what you did! Motherf--" He reached in and grabbed the driver's shirt. "Get out. Do it now!" The driver fought and slapped, refusing to follow orders. Chris and the Ramsey officer reached in and forcefully pulled him out through the window. The Elk River officer had drawn his gun and had it pointed in a two-hand grip at the suspect's head. The state trooper backed him up.

"On your face!" Chris shouted.

Down went the suspect and out came the cuffs.

"Goddamn sonsabitchin' pigs! Whorin' no-good suck-ass cops!" The driver lay facedown in the dirt, calling them every name in the book.

Christopher grabbed a handful of red shirt and yanked the jerk to his feet, then propelled him toward his squad car with plenty of upward pressure on the cuffs.

"In the car, asshole!" he shouted, letting off the first steam.

Anger carried him through the rest of his duties. Locking the suspect in the caged backseat. Thanking the assisting officers. Reporting to the dispatcher.

Killing his reds and maneuvering the car out of the ditch. Driving the nine miles back to Anoka and going through the booking procedure once he got there.

Forty-five minutes after it was over, the shakes began.

i He was on his way home when everything inside him started quivering like a tuning fork. His hand trembled like an old man's as he reached for the button to activate his garage door. Inside, when he'd parked and shut off the engine, his knees felt rubbery as he got out of the Explorer and went upstairs to his apartment. All the way up he felt as if he were falling apart, muscle by muscle. He had trouble getting the key into the lock. When he'd finally managed it, he had trouble getting it out again.

In his apartment he walked around aimlessly from room to room, stripping off his uniform and leaving it scattered. He washed his face in cold water, dried off, went to the refrigerator and opened the door to find he had no purpose in opening it. The walls seemed to press in on him.

He took a thirty-minute tun, showered, drank a glass of tomato juice and fried himself an egg sandwich, which he couldn't eat. He closed the blinds, stretched out on his back in the middle of the bed . . .

and stared at the ceiling.

The movies liked to glamorize high-speed chases, but he wondered how many movie directors had ever been involved in one. He could still feel the heat in his neck and face. His heart refused to slow down. A pain . had settled between his shoulder blades. He was horizontal, but instead of growing more relaxed, he felt like poured concrete as if he were "setting up."

He forced his thoughts to something else. Lee Reston working with her flowers in a good-smelling shop on Main Street. Judd Quincy and his plan for the Fourth of July. Lee Reston and the garden hose he'd intended to fix for her.

Janice Reston and the overt interest she was showing in him. Lee Reston cooling her face with the running water at his kitchen sink.

He checked the clock after forty minutes.

After an hour.

An hour and a half.

By ten-thirty he knew perfectly well he wasn't going to sleep. He felt as if he were on amphetamines.

He rolled to the edge of the bed and sat up with both hands curled over the edge of the mattress. He roughed up his scalp, leaving the hair in furrows. He stared at the mopboard on his left, the nightstand on his right, rewinding the film that had been reeling through his mind for the past two hours: the chase . . . Lee Reston . . . the chase . .

Judd Quincy . . . Lee Reston . . . Lee Reston . . .

Lee Reston . . .

No question, he thought of her too much, and not always within the context of mutual grieving. Well, hell, it didn't take Freud to figure out he'd developed a mother complex over her. It was natural, the way she hugged him, rubbed his back, fed him leftovers and relied on him for a few of the difficult tasks as she would rely on a son.

Which is what brought the broken hose back to mind.

A distraction!

He bounded off the bed, brushed his teeth, put on a pair of jeans, a police department T-shirt, sneakers and a gold cap and went down to the garage to make sure his tool box was in the Explorer before heading over to Benton Street.

She wouldn't be home, that was good. He'd been hanging around there too much, but this was different. He'd just sneak in and sneak out and leave the hose repaired. Anything to work off this excess of energy.

He was right. She wasn't home. Neither was Janice. Both of their cars were gone, but the garage door was wide open again. Damn woman needed a week on the force to find out how many open garages get pilfered.

The front door of the house was open, too, and Christopher could see right in through the screen, so he figured maybe Joey was around.

He parked in the driveway, took a jackknife out of his pocket, cut off the end of the hose and went to a hardware store to buy a replacement.

Once again at her house, he sat on the front step in the partial shade to do the repair job. It was pleasant there. The concrete was cool.

Some ants were busy doing commerce in the cracks of the sidewalk.

About five kinds of birds were singing. The neighborhood always seemed populated by birds because it was older and had so many mature trees.

The red geraniums in the planter gave off their peculiar peppery smell.

He sat there whistling, working, failing to realize that the jumping nerves from the chase were finally beginning to calm. He went to his truck to look for a pair of pliers and discovered he'd left them in the apartment when he was taking Greg's bed apart.

So he went into the garage to look for a pair.

The workbench there was amply outfitted with tools. It looked as if l l l : . .

Bill Reston had been a tinkerer. Neat, too. There were banks of tiny plastic drawers stocked with fastidiously separated screws, bolts, washers and nails. On the wall above the bench every tool had its spot on a pegboard, though it was obvious that in the years since his death those that were used didn't always get replaced. Some were strewn on the bench itself, along with a ball of string, barbecue tools and a few gardening tools in a bucket.

The whole area had grown dusty.

He looked up at the pegboard again, finding himself fascinated by these telltale hints of the man Lee Reston had once been married to. Tin snips, glass cutters, wood clamps . . . ah, and a common pair of pliers.

He was sitting on the step clamping the new end on the hose when a voice behind him said, "Hey, Chris, what're you doing here?"

He swung around and found Joey standing in the screen door in gray sweat shorts with sleep-swollen eyes.

"Fixing your mother's hose. You just get up?"

"Yeah."

"Everybody else gone to work?"

"Yeah."

Chris returned to his task and said, "This yard could use some mowing."

"You just mowed it."

"That was more than a week ago. Think you better do it today. You got gas?"

"I don't know."

"Well, go check, will you?"

"I just got up."

"Doesn't matter. Go check anyway."

Joey came outside, barefoot, and went off to the garage. In a minute he returned and said, "Not much."

"I'll go get you some, give you a little time to wake up. Then when I get back you'll mow for your mother, right?"

Joey mumbled, "Yeah, I guess so."

The hose was all fixed. "Okay. See you in a bit."

He got the gas can from the garage, filled it at the Standard Station on the corner of Main and Ferry, then returned to the house. The front door was still open, but Joey was nowhere in sight.

He leaned on the door frame and called inside, "Hey, Joe?"

Momentarily the boy appeared, looking unenthusiastic about the whole deal. Instead of combing his hair he'd put on a baseball cap.

However, he was wearing socks and grungy Adidas and eating the first of six slices of peanut-butter-and-jelly toast he had piled on his hand.

"Got that gas," Chris told him. "And I filled the mower."

"Grmm . .." Joey stepped outside. His mouth was too full to talk.

"Hey, listen . .." Christopher scratched his head and tilted the bill of his cap way down. The two stood side by side with their toes hanging off the top step, Chris studying the house across the street and the glimpse of river in its backyard while the smell of peanut butter floated around their heads. "I know your mother always made all you kids do your share around the place, and I know it's hard with Greg gone, but nothing's changed. You've still got to help her . . . maybe even more. Give her a little break sometimes. Don't make her ask."

He glanced at Joey from the corner of his eye. "Okay?"

Joey considered a moment, consulting the concrete sidewalk below them where the hose had left a wet spot shaped like a dotted J.

"Yeah, okay," he said, when his mouth was empty.

"Great," Chris said. "And when you're done with the mowing, will you put the sprinklers on?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Thanks, Joey." He clapped him between the shoulder blades and left him to get the work done.

Lee called that afternoon and woke him shortly after five.

"Don't tell me I've done it again," she opened when he'd mumbled hello.

"Mrs. Reston . . . that you?"

"Who else consistently ruins your sleep by ringing your phone?"

He stretched. "Rrrr . .." After a chesty waking-up growl he asked, "What time is it?"

"Ten after five. You told me you sleep till two when you're on the night shift."

"Couldn't get to sleep this morning. I had a high-speed chase."

"Oh, no. Not one of them." Obviously, Greg had talked to her about how hairy high-speed chases were, and how they affected nearly every cop who'd ever donned a uniform. "Did you catch him?"

"Not before he drove in the ditch and got his back bumper stuck four feet up in the air in a tree."

She chuckled.

"Of course, he blamed us."

"Was he drunk?"

"What else? They're the worst ones."

"Well, I'm sorry you had to start your day like that."

"The adrenaline's worn off now that I've slept. Hey, what can I do for you?"

A beat of silence passed before she said, "Thanks for fixing the hose."

"You're welcome."

"And for getting the gas."

"You're welcome."

"And for lighting a fire under Joey. I've no doubt you're the one who's responsible."

"Well, I might have made a remark or two."

"Subtle."

- "Well, I can be subtle, you know."

"You must have talked to Janice, too. I've noticed a change in her."

"They're both good kids. They just got a little too wrapped up in themselves and sort of forgot how hard it's been for you."

"What can I do to repay you?"

"You really want to know?"

He sensed her surprise before she answered, "Yes."

"Would you mind if I brought a guest with me to your Fourth of July picnic?"

"Not at all."

"It's Judd Quincy. The kid I told you about?"

"The one from the bad home?"

"Yeah. It struck me this morning when I was lying here wide awake thinking about everything in the world but sleep--Judd's probably never even seen a functional family, much less been among them for a holiday.

A kid's got to see how it can work before he can believe it's possible.

He's going to grow up just like his parents unless somebody shows him there's a better way. I can't think of a family in America that'd be a better role model than yours."

"Why, thank you, Christopher. Of course . . . bring him." Her voice had grown warm with understanding.

"And it's okay if he gets Greg's rib eye?"

"Absolutely."

"But listen--let's get this straight before we get there. Judd's on my volleyball team."

"Now, wait a minute. You're getting mighty pushy here."

"Well, the kid's built like a used bar stool. All legs and spokes and about as loose in the joints as they come.

You don't think I'm gonna let him play on somebody else's team, do you?"

"Well, I think the hostess should get a handicap. We'll have to discuss it more after I've seen him."

"Okay, it's a deal." Chris lay on his pillow smiling at the ceiling, his wrist cocked above the receiver. "Well . .." she said. Then nothing.

"Yeah, I'd better get up."

"And I'd better throw together some sandwiches. Joey's playing ball tonight and I've got to go watch." After a pause, she asked uncertainly, "Want to come?"

"Can't. Got a game of my own."

"Oh, that's right. The police team."

"Yeah."

"First base, right?"

"Right."

"Who's playing center field now?" That had been Greg's position.

"Lundgren, I think. This is my first time back since . .." After a pause, she filled in the blank. "Since Greg died."

"I'm sorry."