“What?”
“Why else would anyone want to be president?”
She laughed and then sat quietly, staring out into the parking lot as someone rode past, slowed, and then sped away.
“What happened with you two anyway?”
“I don’t know. It was so gradual I don’t think either of us noticed until it was too late. I know she didn’t like living on a community college professor’s salary. But there was more to it. At some point we stopped talking to each other. After that, we didn’t care if we talked or not. ” He rose and began walking up to his apartment. “I better hit the sack. Have a good one.”
“You too, hon.”
The apartment seemed cold though he checked the thermostat and it read 71 degrees. He placed his badge and wallet and keys on the kitchen table and saw his gun hanging from the holster on the chair. He lifted the holster without touching the gun and placed it in one of the cupboards.
He went to his bathroom and undressed. The bathroom was the place he least liked to be. While married he would spend a lot of time there; reading ebooks or newspapers or surfing the internet on his phone. He would hear Melissa outside, trying to gather the kids together long enough to serve breakfast and get them ready for the day. When Jon Junior was young he would pound on the door and yell, “Dada, dada!”
It made Stanton uncomfortable to think of these things here. There was one moment at the end where he closed his eyes and let the hot water run over his head and down his back. The splashing in his ears drown out the rest of the world and he could imagine he was in the ocean, being carried away on a current to some unknown place.
He put on fresh undergarments-the garments bought from the LDS Church for members that had been endowed-and took out a protein shake from the fridge before sitting on the couch in the living room.
He flipped on the tv and began going through the channels. There was nothing on except crime shows and reality television. One show was about the wives of criminals exploiting their husband’s notoriety for profit and he watched it a moment before changing the channel. There were over two hundred channels and he couldn’t remember why he had gotten that many since he was almost never home.
His cell phone buzzed and he answer it. The ID said San Diego Police.
“Hello?”
“Jon? It’s Jessica … Turner.”
“Oh, hey.”
“I just heard from Tommy that you went to visit our mutual friend. I just wanted to know how it went I guess. Or, just to call and check on you. I don’t know … I guess I don’t really know why I called.”
“It’s okay. I’m glad you called. I wanted to apologize for not getting together for dinner with you yet.”
“That’s okay. I was married to a cop once.”
“Really? I didn’t know that.”
“No, I don’t really like to talk about it. He wasn’t much of a guy. But I was eighteen and really wanted to get out of my house. At least he did that for me before I left.”
“How’s your case panning out?”
“Talked to at least ten people today. No one saw or heard anything and they refuse to cooperate with me. What the hell is wrong with these people?”
“There was a woman in New York once that was stabbed nearly forty times in daylight. There were over thirty witnesses watching from their windows, but not a single one called the police. A couple of psychologists interviewed all of them and it turned out they weren’t evil, they just all assumed someone else was calling the police. If there had only been one witness, he likely would have called.”
“You think that’s it? They think someone else will help me?”
“I don’t know, maybe. Mostly people just don’t want to get involved.”
“It’s funny though cause I don’t remember that when I was a kid. All the neighbors looked after all the kids so we could play at night. I went back through my old neighborhood once and I didn’t see any kids playing at night anymore.”
“No, I think parents would have to not care to let them out at night.”
She hesitated and then said, “Um, so do you want to get dinner tomorrow? I’m free.”
“Sure.”
“Sorry,” she said, chuckling to herself.
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s just, I just moved down here and I know it’s only like two hours from where I used to live but it feels like I moved to a new state.”
“I know. It’s okay. I would love to have dinner with you tomorrow.”
“Okay. You pick the place.”
“No problem.”
“Okay, good night.”
“Night.”
Stanton hung up. He turned the tv off and went and lay down in bed. He stayed up another hour before dozing off, an image of a young blond girl in a University of Iowa sweatshirt burned into his mind.
16
Stanton went into the office on Friday morning and found Chief Harlow sitting at his desk, quietly staring out the window. He was dressed in a polo shirt and blue jeans with Italian leather shoes that gleamed from a recent shine. The photos of Jon Junior and Mathew were turned slightly off center and Stanton knew that Harlow had been looking at them. A copy of the Herald was spread on the desk.
Harlow saw him and pushed the paper across the desk and said, “Read this.” Stanton picked it up. On page five was a caption that read:
NEW COLD CASE UNIT FILLED WITH TROUBLED PASTS
Next to the caption was a photo of Stanton. It had been taken after he was released from the hospital when Noah had shot him. Reporters were hounding him as he was being pushed to an awaiting taxi in a wheelchair. His face was contorted with anger and bits of spittle were visible on the edges of his mouth. His eyes had fury in them. Anger was not an emotion he felt often and he hadn’t realized until now how awful it suited him. He sat down in the chair and began to read:
The San Diego Police Department has made an effort in recent years to begin solving the county’s enormous backlog of unsolved homicides. Chief Harlow’s latest attempt is the formation of the Cold Case Unit. In conjunction with the FBI, NCIS, LAPD and the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office, the unit is assigned cases older than one year that have no active leads. The theory is that with nothing else on their plates, the detectives can focus their absolute attention to a single unsolved homicide and the likelihood of an arrest should increase. A noble goal, but with one problem: some of the detectives assigned to the unit should not be writing parking tickets, much less solving homicides ….
Stanton read the article in its entirety as Harlow waited. There was mention of Chin Ho having legal trouble with the IRS. Nathan Sell had had an affair with a superior officer at the San Diego PD and was demoted and transferred three years ago as a result. Philip Russell was responsible for a botched home entry by the FBI where two unarmed civilians were shot and killed, one of them sixteen years old. He was sent to San Diego afterward, the article claimed, as punishment. Jessica Turner had taken a leave of absence from the LAPD due to “familial stress” and issues with domestic violence. The article listed Zoloft and Prozac as medications she was currently taking. But Stanton got the lion’s share of the article.
It discussed the time he had spent in 5 North, the county’s psychiatric unit, after the shooting with Noah. It discussed his inability to see Noah for what he was and it leading to more deaths. It talked about the fact that he had left the police force to teach and was brought in on a whim by the Chief because none of the established detectives wanted the job. It talked about the fact that he didn’t carry his gun with him.
The article was written by Hunter Royal.
“What do you think?” Harlow asked.
“I think it’s an op/ed, but it’s not in the opinion section. Hunter must know some of the higher-ups at the paper.”