The conversation jogged and flowed everywhere — except to the subject of why Dad would be staying home for a while. Children are ever curious and fiercely perceptive. Much of their life was their soccer teams, their virtual worlds, their hanging with friends, their texting — but they also had news feeds and forums and they were as conversant on the topic of their father’s suspension as anyone. Probably more than ninety percent of NYPD personnel.
And so, when the eating dwindled and plates were clean, Ron decided it was time.
“All right. Family meeting.”
A concept not regularly exercised in this household. His own father had convened get-togethers once or twice a year, and Ron and Tony, his twin brother, would sit down on the carpeted floor while their mother took her rocker and Dad would talk about downsizing and what a move to Queens from Brooklyn would mean or that Grandad Bill had passed or that the doctor had found something and he needed to be in the hospital for a while...
So Ron had understandably come to associate the idea of an official family conference with unhappiness and had never convened one.
Until now.
They moved to the living room.
He took an armchair so that Jenny couldn’t sit beside him, which, for some reason, he felt would magnify the gravity and upset the children more.
“You know a little about what’s going on. But I’m going to tell you everything.”
He explained to them about the crash, how he was going to be ticketed and maybe even charged for running a red light and hurting somebody. The person he’d hit was going to live. Because of the police department rules he had to take some time off.
He and their mother would make sure they’d be fine. This was just a temporary thing. Their lives would hardly change at all.
And there was no way to hide or buff it:
The drugs.
About which the children were, sadly, conversant, given the school’s health curriculum.
He’d explained about the sticky, potent nature of fentanyl. How he and their mother had never done anything recreationally except a little pot (tell them everything, just not too much of everything).
That part was a mistake. That part would get straightened out.
They nodded that they understood.
But did they wholly?
And, for that matter, how convincing could he be when he wasn’t sure that it would get straightened out?
The one part of everything that did not make it into the final version: that he might be arrested and go to jail.
A bridge to be crossed later, if required.
He asked if they had any questions.
Brad asked: “Are we going to have to move?”
“No. Absolutely not.”
Martine wanted to ask something, but didn’t. Ron — like all parents, a psychic — said, “There’s no talk of me losing my job. And if I did, I’d get a new one. Easy-peasey.”
Relief flowed into the girl’s face.
A sensation that her father absolutely did not feel.
At the thought of leaving the only job he had ever wanted, or keeping the badge but being desked, Ron’s gut tightened, his heart stuttered. He controlled the urge to cry. Barely.
Brad, the more reserved of the two, said, “Maybe we should, like, stay home.”
Ron reached out and gripped the boy’s forearm. “No, we go on with our life. We live it normally. We don’t let things like this affect us. We rise above it. You ever hear that expression?”
They nodded.
“Now, are you okay with this?”
They said, “Sure” and “Okay.”
But the words were flimsy. They were confused and shaken and, possibly, afraid.
This broke Ron Pulaski’s heart.
But he fired up a smoke screen of his own: “Clear the table, finish your homework. Then Monopoly with dessert.”
Their smiles were genuine. Their favorite version of the game was Dog-opoly. Which would give them the chance to resume the ongoing discussion of adding a canine to the household.
“Homework?” Ron asked again.
Martine, in grade school, didn’t have any.
“Mine’s done,” Brad said.
But he said it in a way that Ron had heard gangbangers on the street say, “Ain’t got nothing on me.”
“All of it?” Ron asked.
“Kinda.”
“Kinda?” He laughed. “Either the light’s on or it isn’t.”
Lincoln Rhyme, when hearing a phrase like “most unique” would say, “Either it’s unique or it isn’t. Like being pregnant.” Ron thought the table lamp metaphor more appropriate.
“Maybe this paper. But it’s almost finished.”
“Well, maybe you can finish it later. Go get the game.”
The boy’s face brightened.
The children readied the table in the rec room and brought their ringers — Auggie and Daisy — with them. Ron and Jenny walked into the kitchen to finish the cleanup. Wiping the counter, Jenny said, “How does this affect what you told me yesterday? Your talk with Lon?”
About taking over for Lincoln Rhyme.
If he got fired, nothing would stop him from being a consultant for the NYPD like Lincoln. Except his credibility as an expert witness would be destroyed. And that meant he’d never be hired.
Indicted and convicted... Well, that was something else.
“Depends on the findings.”
“They’d be idiots to let you go. Look what you did at that scene yesterday. Getting that lead on the bomber. The task force must’ve been in heaven.”
Over the moon...
“There’s politics, there’s optics.”
“How did the interview go?”
A shrug. “The IA cop, he was decent. Didn’t go half as bad as I thought it would.”
Thinking back to the half hour with Garner.
And staring out the window.
She walked close and put her arms around him, her head against his chest. “Whatever happens, we’ll get through it.”
Ron resisted the gravitational tug to look toward the mantel above the fireplace.
“We’re ready.” Brad’s voice.
“Daddy, what do you want to be? I’m the cat and Brad’s the mailman.”
He called, “I’ll be the fire hydrant.”
“That’s gross.”
Nobody wanted to be the hydrant in Dog-opoly, but Ron couldn’t think of the other pieces.
And then he paused, looking out the window once again.
“What is it?” Jenny was looking at his focused eyes.
He kissed her forehead. “I’ll be right in. Have to make a call.”
As Jenny took a half gallon of ice cream from the freezer, Ron stepped outside onto the back porch.
Pulling out his phone, he looked up a contact number and placed a call.
“Hey, Ron,” Lyle Spencer said. “How’re you doing? I heard. Man, I’m sorry about what happened.”
“I’m okay. Thanks. Listen, can you spare a few minutes now?”
“For you, absolutely.”
46
Amelia Sachs handed his ID back.
The man in the homeless garb was indeed Willis Tamblyn.
Now that she could look past the costume and smudged face, it was clear that he was the man in the DMV picture Rhyme had sent.
Tamblyn was worth, she recalled, about $29 billion — though that was according to a Google search anyway, so who really knew? He had been a real estate developer in New York City and New Jersey all his professional life. He’d been born poor. In the press about him, the word “bootstrap” appeared frequently. And once or twice the phrase “with a conscience” in such a way that the reporter penning the story seemed surprised to be including it in the same sentence with “real estate developer.”