“Leave my neighbors alone.”
“How are you, Olivia?” Tom asked, taking off his jacket. “Been a while.”
“I’m good.”
“You’re drunk.”
She raised one eyebrow. “Obviously.”
Through half-closed eyes, she stared at the doubling image of Tom. Sheriff Tom Garcia, friend and confidant. She smirked, recalling a few nights when the sheriff had extracted her from bars around town. She had gone down the bottom of whiskey bottles to kill the pain that tore through her like cancer, and to probably kill herself in the process.
Tom had been there to remind her that there was life after John Williams died.
She glanced around her place and thought, This is life after John Williams.
Tom had a life, a job, a wife. But she didn’t. She had her cat — John got him for her birthday last year — and whiskey.
Tom hadn’t been to see her for two months. She felt some resentment for that. She staggered over to the fridge by the kitchen door.
“What’s happening at the office?” she finally asked, reaching for a bottle of Jack Daniels.
Tom sighed. “There was a murder at the Baker Home last night.”
Her hand froze.
Tom Garcia told Olivia everything.
“Harald Kruger, his name. He was 97,” Tom ended.
“Any families?”
“None. At least, none have turned up in our search. No friends either.”
Olivia had done some columns in the past on the Baker Home, three years ago. It was a two-passport photo-sized editorial detailing the persistent problem of funds and understaffing. Olivia was especially mad about the graffiti-ridden walls. John Williams had taken the photos that she used. Olivia still kept those photos in her purse.
Her face tightened at the memory of it.
“Baker Home isn’t front page, I know, but I want you to check it out,” Tom was saying. His eyes were shot and there black dots of hair on his face.
“You know I can’t, Tom,” Olivia said tiredly. “I can’t have my desk back until, you know.” She spread her hands, gesturing at the environment of her place.
“And you should fix yourself, Olivia. It’s been long enough—”
“Don’t!” She raised a stiff forefinger.
Tom came to her. He shoved his hands down the pocket of his trousers and contemplated his long-time friend. There was a rumble in the kitchen. The cat, Smokey, whined.
Tom regarded Olivia with a drawn face, most of the vicarious empathy he felt was in that one gaze.
“It hurts to see you this way, Olivia. Now you have to get yourself together before you lose everything—”
“Everything,” she scoffed.
She reached for the bottle of whiskey. Tom intercepted her hands. He got a whiff of her breath and his stomach heaved.
Olivia slouched and closed her eyes. Tom shook his head slowly. Olivia looked like what anguish would look like if it were human.
“I really need you on this case. It’ll help you get out some more, get some air.”
Olivia kept her eyes shut. There was a silence in which she listened to herself breathe and to Smokey walk stealthily around the house. The sound of the door as it clicked shut. She opened her eyes and sighed. Her lips trembled.
Was it fair, hurting those who remained, just because she was hurt?
Smokey bounded onto the table. He curled across the chessboard and yawned. Olivia jumped and went to the window.
“Tom!” she called down to the street.
Sheriff Tom Garcia looked up. Now Olivia saw his bulging midriff. He looked funny, like a rook. She laughed, and oh how good it felt.
“Wait for me!”
The sheriff beamed.
3
“Where do we begin?” Tom asked Olivia as he put the car in gear. Olivia asked him what the earlier ruckus in the street was about.
“I should have slapped that guy a ticket,” Tom complained. “He was parked wrong.”
“You do that all the time, Tom,” Olivia said. She fished a bottle out of her jacket.
“Seriously? Olivia, it’s too early.”
“Never too early to live.”
She drank. She burped.
She caught Tom shaking his head in the periphery of her vision. She felt a prick, a movement, in that shelf of emotions people call conscience. Her face darkened in diffidence.
They stopped at a light. She was surprised that the sheriff did. Downtown Miami was getting rowdy with tourists. The whole of Fifth Avenue was colorful with bikinis and flower-spotted shorts, pale skin, and surfboards. The very last time she felt sand between her feet, she was walking on the beach and holding hands with John.
She tore her eyes off the street and took another sip.
“You know Olivia, maybe you should consider therapy or something,” Tom volunteered after a moment.
“Thanks. I’ll put that under consideration.”
They took a shortcut around Melrose and drove up the hills. The ocean now on the left, the sun on it, bright and warm. Tom’s body blocked most of the warmth.
They drove into the parking lot of the Baker Home, shortly after.
“We are here.”
But Olivia was already out of the car.
Olivia Newton’s keen eyes scanned the grounds and the surroundings. The horn of a truck drifted in from Highway 11. Spruce trees blocked the trailer park from where she stood. And the home blocked all else — three stories of depressing architecture and peeling paint. It used to be white, but it was now grey.
Tom joined her.
“What’d you think?”
Olivia shrugged. “The home needs a paint job. Badly.”
They found Sue in her usual place at her desk, caring for her nails.
“Morning, Sheriff. Morning, Olivia.” She smiled.
“Morning, Sue—”
Sue pointed her nail file at Olivia. “You don’t look right, Olivia. Now I know it ain’t been easy since John but you ought to put yourself together—”
Olivia leaned over the cluttered desk. “I’ll be alright, Sue. Put that tape from the night of the murder together will you? I want to watch it.”
Sue glanced at Tom Garcia. The sheriff nodded.
“Dreadful business, that was,” she said as she struggled out from behind her desk. “First of its kind here at the Baker Home.”
She took a bunch of keys off the rack on the pale wall behind her. Folds of flesh on her arm jiggled as she did.
“Come,” she invited.
They started towards an adjacent hallway. Here the floor was still wet from being mopped but the cleaner was out of sight. They passed open doors. Olivia noted the age ranges there. It was the men’s wing. Some of these men, she noted, looked as old as 90.
Tom started making small talk about the place with Sue.
Olivia counted the doors. Eight doors, eight rooms. She recalled from her research for the editorial that each room was occupied by two men. In two of the rooms they passed she had seen only one in each. One of the men waved at her with scrawny fingers. He had a big head, bearded face. He looked like a lion.
Up ahead, the hallway broke left. There was a man in a wheelchair all by himself. He wore brown khaki shorts and a Miami Beach shirt. Something about the way he avoided Olivia’s eyes caught her attention. He was bald, with big red ears and deep-set eyes the color of piss. He was reading a book.
Sue stopped at the door.
“And here we are.” She glanced at Olivia. “Have you been drinking, lady?”
Olivia almost told her to mind her fucking business.
“Last time you was here, you was dressed better. Now you look like one of them hobos sitting around the bandstand out on Dallas Mall,” Sue scoffed.