trouble. Or run from it, either. If he did wrong, he’d take his punishment like a man.”
Mitch leaned forward in his rocker now, studying her. “You don’t believe he committed suicide either. You think someone shot him and made it look like a suicide.”
Sheila Enman didn’t respond to this. Just let it slide on by, rocking back and forth on her porch in front of the waterfall.
“Mrs. Enman, Tuck Weems was already dead and gone when Tal Bliss shot himself. If it wasn’t suicide, if Tal was murdered, then that means a third person was in on it with them. Someone who’s still walking around. Who, Mrs. Enman?”
She didn’t seem to be hearing Mitch anymore. She was lost in her grief.
“Mrs. Enman?!”
“Mercy,” she finally said in a reedy, faraway voice. “Who will shovel my driveway for me now?”
CHAPTER 16
“TAL BLISS WAS MY first,” Des announced as they rocketed down Rimmon Road in Bella’s Jeep Wrangler, empty pet cages rattling around in back. It was dusk-dinner hour at the A amp; P Dumpsters on Amity Road. “I never killed someone before.”
“You didn’t kill this one,” insisted Bella, her round double chin practically resting on top of the steering wheel as she drove. “It was his own doing.”
“If I hadn’t gone to see that man, he’d still be alive today.”
“You don’t know that, Desiree.”
“Yes, I do,” Des said somberly. “I do know that.”
“Sweetheart, you must not hold yourself responsible for what he did,” Bella said scoldingly. “You’ll make yourself meshugah.”
“What’s meshugah mean?”
“Crazy.”
“I heard that.” Des nodded to herself. “Yes, indeed-in Dolby Sound.”
She had spent an entire day and night in the Internal Affairs building next door to Major Crimes being grilled by a lieutenant from Hartford who she did not know. The man was not hostile. The man was not sympathetic. The man simply wanted the facts. He had already spoken with Soave who, in spite of the unwritten code, had made virtually no attempt to help cover Des’s bootay. Not that she had expected him to. Not after the way he’d sold her out once already… “Why did you keep your sergeant out of the loop?” the I.A. lieutenant wanted to know. “There was time pressure,” she replied, leaving it at that. She was not going to whine to I.A. that she didn’t trust him. “These things happen in the heat of an investigation.” But the man clearly did not feel right about this. Nor did he like that she had failed to go through I.A. channels before looking into the personal medical history of a fellow officer. “But I didn’t search his medical file,” Des objected. “And I didn’t know before the fact that I’d find his name on that pharmacist’s list. How could I know that? I simply asked him about it, that’s all. I asked him about a lot of things. How was I supposed to know he’d blow his brains out? Man, I was just doing my damned job.”
Except they were not going to let her do that job anymore. Not for a while, anyway. She was on the shelf, pending the findings of an official Department of Public Safety review panel. Or at least that was the formal way of putting it. Here was how the Deacon put it when he gave her the news, his voice low and solemn: “This case has generated too much heat, Desiree. The superintendent doesn’t want you within ten miles of it until it’s good and cooled down.”
Translation: They were paying her to go away.
Soave could not quite manage to look her in the eye when she came back to the Jungle to gather up her things. No one could. Not big brother Angelo, not Captain Polito, not Gianfrido, Polito’s hand-picked boy from Waterbury. No one had a comforting or encouraging word to say to her. No one had a thing to say to her. It was as if she had ceased to exist.
The last thing Des did before she cleared out was take down the CATGIRL FROM HELL sign from her cubicle.
There had been television reporters waiting outside her house. She had brushed past them without a word, locked her door, closed her shutters. Thwarted, they had tried interviewing her neighbors. A huge mistake, because Bella had been only too glad to hold forth for them: “Why don’t you goddamned vultures cover the news for a change?” she demanded at the top of her lungs. “Our public schools are crumbling. Affordable health care is a fantasy. And all you’re interested in is destroying decent people’s lives!”
They cleared out right after that.
God, Des wished she had that woman’s chutzpah.
She had spent this, her first full day of forced leave, getting physical. She ran three miles. Did two circuits with twenty-pound dumbbells on the pressing bench in her guest room. Mowed the lawn, pruned bushes, weeded beds, raked. She vacuumed the entire house. Cat hair, mostly. She got down on her hands and knees and scrubbed the kitchen floor. But it was no use-she remained profoundly shaken. Counseling had been offered to her. She had declined it. She had her own form of therapy.
“What did your father have to say about all of this?” Bella honked at the slow-going Toyota in front of them. The traffic on Rimmon was sluggish, folks heading out for the evening.
“Almost nothing.”
“You don’t sound surprised.”
“Only because I’m not.” In the world according to the Deacon, no special allowances were made for family. He would not intercede. He would not play favorites. “All he wanted to know was whether I went by the book.”
“Did you?”
“Bella, they can spin it any damned way they want. They have the benefit of twenty-twenty rearview vision.” She would get her job back, she felt sure. They couldn’t fire her over this. But from now on, there would be an asterisk next to her name. The fast track would be muddy. She was tainted now. Damaged goods.
“Screw ’em,” Bella fumed. “If I were you, I’d quit.”
“And do what?”
“Whatever makes you happy. You’re young, you’re bright, you’re gorgeous-what do you need those bastards for?”
“And do what?” Des repeated, even though she knew perfectly well what. Except that it was simply not in her nature to walk away from a fight. She was not a quitter. Never had been. “Do you know what I’m saying?”
“No, dear, I do not.”
“If everyone did exactly what they wanted, then the fabric that holds our society together would completely unravel and the whole world would go straight to…” Des broke off, aghast. “Damn, now I’m sounding just like the Deacon.”
“You’re not your father, Desiree. Or anyone else. You’re you.”
Des gazed over at her fondly. “I’d pay good money to see you go twelve rounds with him, know that?”
“Not a chance,” Bella scoffed. “He wouldn’t stay on his feet more than seven rounds.” She pulled bumpety- bump into the A amp; P parking lot and began easing the Jeep around back to the Dumpsters. “So did he call you?”
“Did who call me?”
“Mitch Berger. As if you didn’t know who I meant.”
She shook her head. “Wouldn’t expect him to.”
“Really? I would. Maybe he’s shy. Is he shy?”
“Not so I’ve noticed. And, for your information, it’s not like that-him and me, I’m saying.”
Bella let out a whoop. “Tie that bull outside, as we used to say on Nostrand Avenue.”
“And just exactly what does it mean?”
“It means, my dear, that you are full of you-know-what,” Bella replied as she pulled up and killed the engine.
