“It’s part of the job,” I said.
“No,” Cicero said, shaking his head like a teacher hearing an unacceptable excuse for incomplete homework. “I know enough about police work to know the things you’re doing are not typical.”
“Who wants to be typical?” I said lightly.
“Sometimes,” Cicero said, “when people consistently get themselves injured or hurt, there’s a reason. Sometimes they’re trying to draw attention to something else that’s hurting them, something they can’t show people directly.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Sarah,” he said carefully, “when you and your husband were living together, did he ever hit you?”
“God, no,” I said. “ Shiloh was a cop, too.”
“That doesn’t disqualify him,” Cicero said. “It’s a very physical profession, and it draws aggressive people who-”
“I know all that,” I said. “But Shiloh never hit me.”
“I just get the feeling,” Cicero said, “that someone hurt you.” He paused cautiously. “Was it sex?”
Blame it on the late hour, blame it on the head injury… I was about to deny it, and instead I heard myself say, “It was a long time ago.”
“Your father?” Cicero ’s dark eyes were very intent on mine.
“Brother,” I said. Then, “I never tell anyone that. I never even told Shiloh.”
“I’m sorry,” Cicero said.
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“Okay.”
“I mean ever.”
“All right.”
“Do you feel sorry for me?”
“No.”
“Okay. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
I realized I was holding a wet rag with nothing in it anymore. Taking it away from the back of my head, I unfolded it and saw a tooth-size chip of ice inside, all that was left of a cube.
“The thing is,” I said, “if I do extreme things on the job, it’s just because I want… I want to…”
I started over. “I met this kid recently, a paramedic.” In my mind’s eye, I saw Nate Shigawa. “I envied him,” I went on. “In his job, he gets to stop the bleeding. My job is different. By the time I’m there, the bleeding is over. Sometimes long over.”
I was thinking of the real Aidan Hennessy, so young when he died, and of his mother, pulled from the waters of the lake.
“Just because the bleeding’s stopped doesn’t mean the pain is gone,” Cicero said. “I expect you help with that.”
“When people let me,” I said. “Sometimes- more often than you’d think- people say they want help, but really they don’t.”
The day that had started outside Kilander’s office had finally caught up with me. I felt tired in ways that were more than physical. I didn’t know how Marlinchen was. I didn’t even know where she and her brothers were. I thought I should find out, make sure they were all right, that someone was with them. But I just couldn’t do any more. Not tonight.
“What time is it?” I said, and turned to look at the clock. It was 1:58 A.M.
“God, I’m sorry,” I said, sliding off the table. “You need to be in bed. I’ll leave.”
Cicero started to speak, but I didn’t let him. “I feel fine, I’m okay to drive-” I stopped, realizing something. “I didn’t drive here, did I?”
Cicero shook his head. “You don’t remember?”
I closed my eyes, accessed dim mental images, but nothing would come into focus. Then I was struck by an impossible idea. “You brought me?”
“Yes,” he said.
“But-”
“I told you I can do the elevator when I have no other choice,” he said. “I’m not so much surprised that I went down that damn elevator as I am that my van started.”
I must have looked very surprised, because Cicero was watching me with amusement.
“You called me from a pay phone near the ER. You were a little fuzzy on the details, but apparently you’d just bolted from the waiting room. I told you to stay where you were. I was going to take you back to the hospital, if need be, but you were ambulatory and not seriously injured, so I respected your wishes and brought you here.”
He went outside to find me. I wanted to say that I was proud of him, but realized immediately how much it would diminish him, like a pat on the head. “I owe you,” I said.
“You owe me $120, to be exact,” Cicero said. “Eighty for the doctoring, and forty for making me go down in that damn elevator.”
I almost smiled, relieved at the deft way he brought us back down to earth. “You know what?” I said.
“You don’t have that much on you,” Cicero finished for me.
“I’ll bring it tomorrow,” I promised.
“No hurry,” Cicero said. “Just try to be more careful out there, all right? There are limits to what even I can fix.”
35
At home, I slept for five hours and woke to the ringing of my cell phone; I was needed to come in and help with the matter of Hugh Hennessy’s untimely death by fire. I went downtown and gave a lengthy statement, explaining my involvement with the Hennessys and describing the events of the night before.
I learned a few details, too. What Colm had told me last night had been correct, if sketchy: Donal had been smoking in the basement. Under sensitive questioning by a veteran fire investigator, the youngest Hennessy explained that he couldn’t sleep and had gotten up in the night to sneak one of his oldest brother’s cigarettes. He had seen Aidan smoking when upset about Colm’s blowup at the dinner table, and thought that cigarettes must help in times of stress. While hidden in the basement, Donal heard movement upstairs and thought someone was looking for him. In his haste, he threw his half-finished cigarette into a trash can and slipped back upstairs. He hadn’t realized the danger of what he’d done, nor that the basement was filled with flammable materials: old furniture, a foam mattress. The fire investigator told me that he was only surprised the old wooden house hadn’t gone up faster than it did.
After giving my statement, I ran into Marlinchen, who hugged me like a long-lost sister in the hallway. Campion was there as well, having heard the news on WCCO. Later that evening, one of the fire department officials let me ride with him out to the Hennessy property. There I found my car covered in soot, but otherwise driveable. I hosed it down as an interim measure, and drove it directly to a car wash.
It was only as I was falling asleep that night that I realized I’d forgotten to bring Cicero the money I owed him.
The next day, around noon, I drove to the towers. On the 26th floor, I stepped out of the elevator and into a scene I’d been a part of too often.
Soleil was standing in the hall, leaning against the wall, her face a mask of grief. She was crying openly outside Cicero ’s apartment. Nearby, at the door to Cicero ’s apartment, a young uniformed officer was standing guard, trying to look impervious to the shock and dismay around him. From inside the apartment, a radio crackled. And I felt a fine tremor begin in my legs. The last time I’d felt that sensation was in the county morgue, where I’d gone to view a body a forensic assistant told me might be my husband.
I wished I didn’t know the things I knew, wished that like a civilian I could kid myself that a scene like this could signal a burglary or a simple assault. But it didn’t. It didn’t mean anything less than a homicide. I could have turned around and walked away, gone someplace private to internalize it. But I didn’t.
No one questioned my presence there. The neighbors knew me as Cicero ’s girlfriend; and the cops on the scene knew me as a Sheriff’s detective. The uniformed officer outside the open door had me sign in on the scene log, and then I went inside.
It seemed wrong for there to be so much activity in Cicero’s apartment, which I’d associated with ambient light, quiet, order, and Cicero’s form, low to the ground but kinetic in its stillness. Now, every light in the place blazed, and able-bodied people moved around, looking out of proportion to the surroundings, their movements too quick, seeming random.