“Runnels seems capable.”
“I think he is.”
“If you don’t know he is, get another lawyer.”
“I think he is, Donna, or I wouldn’t goddamned hire him, now would I?”
“I’m sorry. Settle down.”
“Settling down is not possible.”
“I know that... um... hey, I put some beer in the freezer.”
“Let’s quickly crack a couple.”
She put the mustaches inside the cap and set the cap on the kitchen counter. She put my fast food in the oven and my tequila in the refrigerator. I looked out the window while she got the beer. I was still looking out it when she handed me a bottle.
“I didn’t do it.”
“I know you didn’t.”
“I absolutely did not do it. I know I sound like fucking O. J., but I didn’t. I didn’t do anything they say I did. The FBI will prove it. I’m getting my own examiner.”
She said nothing for a moment, but she let her eyes walk my face and pry my soul.
“I want you to know,” she said, “that if you feel a deep need to reassure me that you’re not a child molester then I’ll walk out of this apartment and out of your life, forever. I believe you and I’m in this with you. We have to get that part straight right now.”
I pondered this. “I needed to say it to you.”
“Said. Closed. Done.”
I felt a river of gratitude and love rush from my heart and charge into the channels of my body. I was shaking and there was a high-pitched whine arcing inside my head from ear to ear.
“Sit down, Terry. Drink your beer.”
I sat.
I turned on the TV and watched the local news. There was a brief report about me — no pictures except a personnel shot that I’m sure Ishmael leaked — and a video shot by Channel 4 that showed my transport bus. I watched it like it was a story about another human, wholly unconnected to myself. My heart raced and my head got light.
So I switched to the Angels’ Baseball Warmup Show. Jim Edmonds talked about how he played the outfield, how if you weren’t willing to sacrifice your body out there, you’d never be a good fielder. He said he didn’t think about it, really, it was just part of his personality. They showed some clips of him picking fly balls off of wall tops, snatching hard line drives midrun, tumbling forever across a green field to finally rise with his arm stretched skyward and a white ball in his glove. He was so beautiful I wanted to cry. In fact, I did.
I was aware of Donna looking at me, then going into the bedroom. I heard the bathwater running. Then she came back past me and into the kitchen and shuffled in a drawer and walked past me again — past my riveted, teary-eyed adoration of Jim Edmonds making a perfect peg from center field to the plate — and into the bedroom once more.
A few minutes later she came out, took my hand and helped me up. I was boneless. I wiped my face and looked at her briefly, then down.
“Come with me, Terry.”
She took my hand and I followed her into the bedroom. There I stopped, startled. The bed was moved away from the far wall and in its place was a stool. The painting that hung above the bed was removed, as was the hook that held it. To my left was a tall tripod topped by a heavy-duty, commercial video camera that was pointing toward the stool. Next to the tripod was a big light setup that was aimed at the now blank wall.
“What?” I managed. “What?”
“You know what,” she said very gently, almost sweetly. “I was going to explain it first, but there’s something we need to do. Please, come with me, Terry.”
She led me into the bathroom and shut the door. It was dark, but there was a warm orange light around us. The tub was full. A layer of suds floated a few inches from the top and steam wafted up through the suds. There was a candle in the soap dish and another two floating down in the bubbles. I started crying harder then, with the big chest shakes and that distorted mask of woe we all wear from time to time. I must have looked beyond pathetic. But just the fact that Donna had gone to this trouble for me — for me — made the tears pour out faster. She must really believe me. She helped me out of my clothes and into the water. I sat there like a kid at first, feeling the hot liquid under the feathery suds. She rubbed my neck and shoulders with her strong hands. I melted down through the bubbles to my chin and looked blearily across the downy white plain to the orange nest of light bobbing down by my upraised knees. It looked like a town at the foot of steep mountains, a hundred miles away. I listened to the break of tiny bubbles. I could see the outline of Donna’s shoulders and head just beyond.
“Something need saying, Terry?”
“I love you.”
“Umm.”
Pleased but not satisfied, this was Donna Mason’s polite way of both accepting and rejecting.
“When this is all over...”
But I never finished. I just watched the light of the distant village under the big peaks and wondered what the tiny people who lived there were doing. Did they know that one shift of the giant’s thighs would send their whole stinking civilization down to the bottom? So I was careful when I got out a long while later, careful not to sink them. Donna helped me dry off, then she took me into the bedroom/soundstage and guided me past the camera and lights to our bed, now pushed against the far wall under a window from which you could see the bean field and the freeway. We lay down together. She turned me on my front and smoothed some sweet-smelling oil over me, working it in with her palms and fingers: neck, shoulders, arms and hands, back, butt, thighs and calves, ankles and feet, then back up to the butt again. I was gorged with desire by then — the desire of desperation — and I felt myself working against the mattress in a slow circular motion. She turned me over and I looked down to watch her head moving slowly up and down on me. On me. Sometime later she was above, with a fragrant arm resting on either side of my head. Then she straightened and looked up to the ceiling while we found a rhythm and kept it. She smoothed her hands over my face and combed her fingernails through my damp hair and brushed my eyelids closed with her fingertips.
After a short nap I woke up to find myself bundled safely in Donna’s arms. Her breasts smelled like perfume and warm skin. I said it was time for a large amount of Herradura over ice.
“I’d wait,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Why?”
“Because you’ve got to get dressed real sharp and comb your hair back. I’d shave, too, if I were you. I’d also use the eyedrops in the cabinet in there. Then you’re going on air, Terry Naughton. And you’re going to answer my questions. And you’re going to tell our CNB viewers what you did and didn’t do. I’d think about your answers to the cave question while you get ready. It’s an odd thing, if a grown man sleeps in a cave some summer nights, when he’s got a soft bed less than a mile away. You need to tell it and I need to hear it. Truth first. Tequila later.”
“Don’t ask me about Matt.”
She stared at me a long moment. “Agreed.”
I will never forget that interview.
Donna: Your name and occupation?
Me: Terry Naughton. I’m unemployed. I was a sergeant with the Orange County Sheriff.
Donna: What area of law enforcement did you work in?
Me: CAY. That’s Crimes Against Youth. I’m — I was — head of the unit.
Donna: What happened?
Me: They’ve charged me with a crime I didn’t commit. More than one crime. So, currently I’m on unpaid leave until the matter is resolved.
Donna: What are the crimes?