Eli said nothing.
'It was ninety-nine degrees here today,' his father said. 'Believe me, you're better off where you are. Listen, I should scram. You go make up with your mother now, okay?'
'Why can't
'It isn't as easy for adults,' his father muttered. 'And you and I have been over this before, sport. Now, I better go. I love you, Eli.'
'I love you, too, Dad.'
'G'night,' his father said. Then he hung up.
Eli clicked off the cell phone. Wiping his eyes, he wandered to his door. He opened it--just wide enough to put the cell phone down on the floor.
He closed the door again, then lay facedown on his bed. Eli buried his face in the pillow so she wouldn't hear him crying.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sipping pinot grigio from a Speed Racer jelly glass, Sydney sat in a patio chair by the kitchen door, which she'd propped open. There was a railing in front of her, and just beyond it, Lake Washington. She always felt as if she were on a ship's deck back here on this little stretch of concrete behind the town house. The lake was still. Moonlight revealed only a few silver ripples. She listened to the night swimmers on the beach next door, laughing and splashing. It made her feel so lonely, she wanted to cry. In the distance, she could see the headlights of cars on the 520 floating bridge.
She'd wrapped the dead robin in some paper towels, then put it in the garbage can on the other side of the kitchen door, just behind her. She'd found a can of Raid in the broom closet and sprayed in her bedroom, all the while thinking about ozone depletion. After vacuuming up the dead flies, she'd stripped off the pillow shams and quilt, then stuffed them in a big plastic bag. The bag would take up most of her closet floor--covering her sneakers, sandals, and slippers--until she hauled it to the dry cleaner on Monday.
Maybe by then, Eli would have decided to come out of his room and speak to her. She'd ordered a small cheese pizza for him around eight o'clock and left it outside his room, along with some napkins and a cold can of Mountain Dew. Then she'd knocked on the door. 'There's pizza here by your door, honey. Don't let it get cold. And don't starve yourself just because you're mad at me.'
She heard his portable TV going when she checked an hour later. The Jet City Pizza box was where she'd left it, but when she opened the box, only one piece remained. The Mountain Dew can was empty. At least he was eating.
She was the one self-starving. She'd thrown together a salad, but only had a few bites of it before reaching for a jelly glass and the bottle of pinot grigio, then heading outside.
This was her second glass.
Sydney wondered how that robin had gotten in her bedroom. She hadn't noticed any loose feathers while vacuuming up the flies, so it was highly unlikely the poor thing had flown in through the small opening in the window and then died on her bed somehow. And to land right in the center of her pillow like that? This hadn't been any freak accident.
If Eli hadn't put it there, who had? Was it her stalker? She'd already answered that question earlier while talking with Eli about his Monopoly token. If Mr. 59 had indeed followed them to Auburn this afternoon, when would he have had time to break in and plant that little avian surprise?
Sydney wondered if it was their ghost--or whatever it was haunting this apartment. Freakish, unexplainable things had been happening in there. Why not this bird death?
It was a silly notion, one Eli might fancy. He was too angry to talk with her right now. But once on speaking terms with her again, he'd probably come up with some pretty fantastic notions about ghosts and birds and Monopoly tokens. Then again, maybe he wouldn't say a thing to her. He could be very secretive at times.
It was a trait he'd inherited from her and his dad--but mostly her.
She remembered back in May, waiting until Kyle had left for Seattle before she'd checked the story on the Internet. She needed to confirm what Polly's friend, Aurora, had told her about that drug bust at Fort Jackson Point Pier. She remembered it must have been during the first part of March, because she'd been in Boston, covering a
Sydney used her computer in her basement office. The keywords
CHICAGO
The article confirmed everything Aurora had told her. Sydney stopped in the middle of the fifth paragraph. She felt an awful tightness in her chest as she saw something she'd hoped not to find. It was Joe's name, listed with the three other cops who had participated in the raid gone awry.
His name came up again a few paragraphs later:
'We had no choice but to return fire on the perpetrators,' said Detective McCloud, a 16-year Chicago Police veteran. 'My fellow officers acted responsibly and very professionally.'
According to the article, the $12,800 worth of cocaine recovered had been left behind in a backpack by one of the fleeing suspects. Both Ahmed Turner and Derrick Laskey had a long list of prior arrests.
Sydney googled both their names for any articles about a follow-up investigation into what had happened that night. But there were none.
She had to talk to Joe--even if he got testy. She had every right to ask her husband about something he did that was reported in the newspapers, for God's sake. The rest of the day went by without her finding the right time and opportunity to broach the subject.
She couldn't sleep worth a damn that evening. After an hour under the covers with Joe, she thought about getting up and reading in the family room for a while. Then she felt him nudge her, and his arm went over her. 'What's with you tonight, babe?' he mumbled, his face against the back of her neck as he spooned her. 'You've got the fidgets something fierce. I feel like I'm in bed with a whirling dervish.'
'I ran into Adele Curtis in the vegetable aisle at Dominick's today,' she lied. It was the 'casual' lead-in she'd been planning all day to use. 'She--um, asked how you were and said she read about you in some drug bust at Fort Jackson Point Pier a few weeks back. Adele said a couple of guys were killed. I felt stupid not knowing anything about it.'
Joe's arm slipped away as he turned on his other side. 'It happened while you were in Boston, covering that cancer survivor story,' he muttered. 'By the time you got back, it was old news. I didn't think it was worth going into.'
'Not worth going into?' she repeated. 'Honey, in the last thirteen years you've only fired your weapon--what, four times? Two guys were killed, and you didn't talk to me about it...'
'You were editing and scoring your cancer story,' he said. 'I knew you had to stay focused on that. I didn't want to distract you with
Sydney said nothing for a moment. Considering how often she went on the road to cover a story, leaving Joe to play bachelor-dad with Eli, he was usually pretty good about it. Only once in a while did he make her feel guilty, and this was one of those times. She rolled over toward him--only to stare at the back of his head. 'I'm sorry I wasn't there for you,' she whispered. 'Do you want to talk about it now?'
