My vision started to swim. I put a hand out on the wall, caught myself, tried to remember to breathe. The alcohol and puke smell was stronger. Something cracked, vibrating in my body, through my chest. Like I was the wishbone at somebody’s dinner party, like I was the losing end.
I heard myself moaning, though whether that was in my head or out of my mouth, I’m not sure. The wind outside got louder.
And again, it started to rain.
CHAPTER 15
Somehow I kept it together long enough to make it home, but I was fighting panic when I came through the door, and I nearly forgot to turn the alarm off before it started screaming. I shucked out of my jacket and went into the kitchen, and I cracked the seal on a new bottle of Jack and drank from it standing there, pulling again and again until the burn was too much and I had to stop for air.
I didn’t even bother with a chair, just slumped to the floor, bottle in my hand, feeling eleven again, feeling the world spinning out of control once more.
Not again, I thought. Not again, please not again.
I was in the backyard, face up to the falling rain, a new bottle in my hand, when the cops arrived. I’d been out there for an hour or so, singing to myself, and when I heard the car stop and the doors slam, I knew it was them, and decided to be a model citizen and go around front to meet them.
At the side of the house I leaned, turning my head so I could peek around the corner. The car was one of the Portland PD unmarked ones, white but glowing a little orange in the light from the street. It had a radio antenna mounted on the center of the trunk.
There were two of them at the door, up on my porch, a man and a woman. Both of them were white, and I couldn’t tell their age. The man was saying, “. . . know who she is, right?”
“I don’t fucking care who she is,” the woman said.
The man grunted and leaned on my doorbell again.
I said, “Over here.”
They turned and looked at me, doing a good job of not acting like I’d surprised them. Objectively, I must have looked like a drowned rat, my T-shirt and jeans soaked, my hair stuck to my skull. The woman came off the porch first, reaching into an inside pocket, the man following her.
“Miriam Bracca?”
“You found her,” I said, and pulled at the bottle again.
The woman hid annoyance by flashing her badge. “My name’s Hoffman. This is Detective Marcus.”
“Sure,” I said. “So, did you find him?”
Marcus glanced at Hoffman, but Hoffman didn’t take her eyes off me. “Find who?”
“Tommy.”
“Tommy?”
“My. Dad.”
“Why would we want to find your dad?” I thought Marcus was trying to sound very casual, but that it didn’t work, and that he sounded cagey instead.
“ ‘Cause he killed my brother,” I said. “Killed my mother, too, but that was a long time ago. Mikel, that was new. I think he did that today.”
They watched me, so I took another drink from the bottle.
“Maybe you’d better come with us,” Hoffman said, and she came forward to help, but I backed up and waved her off.
“Why? I haven’t done anything.”
“How did you know Mikel Bracca was dead?”
The woman had to be an utter fucking moron. “Because I saw him. I went over there this afternoon to talk, well, not talk, to yell at him, but he didn’t answer the door and it was open, so I went in and he was there and he was dead.”
“Okay, yeah,” Hoffman said. “You’re going to come with us.”
“I’m not,” I said, indignant.
“Yeah, you are,” she said, like she really wasn’t very interested, and she took handcuffs out from beneath her jacket and her partner was now at my side and taking the bottle out of my hand, and when I protested, he didn’t care, and when I tried to back away farther, he tried to grab my arms. I flailed and fell back with a splash, and the bottle fell and didn’t break. Then they were both helping me up, and my hands were behind my back and I couldn’t move them and that hurt.
“I want my lawyer,” I said.
“I’ll just bet you do,” Marcus said, and he led me to their car.
CHAPTER 16
They made me kiss the Breathalyzer, and ran a wet cotton swab over the backs of my hands before putting me in a cell to sober up. I passed out, only to be roused by an officer who dragged me to an interrogation room upstairs. It was cold, and even though my clothes had mostly dried, I sat there shivering. The drunk had gone, leaving me with a thickness in my head.
Marcus came in first, carrying two paper cups of coffee, one in each hand, and a legal pad clamped beneath his arm. Now that I could make him out, he looked parked in his late thirties, not unattractively so. He was maybe five foot ten or eleven, not as big as Tommy or Mikel, but with the kind of broad shoulders that Van went nuts for on a guy. The suit he was wearing was dark, charcoal and black, with a black tie and a white shirt, and even after what was probably a long night, he looked neat and pressed.
Marcus gave me a grin as he reached the table, offering me one of the cups. I decided to thank him.
“Sure. You want an aspirin?”
“Aspirin would be great.”
“I’ll see if we can find you some,” he said, and he went out again, leaving the pad and a pen behind on the table along with his coffee.
I waited and drank coffee and waited some more, and it seemed another long time before he returned. He had a paper cup of water this time, and aspirin, and Hoffman, too. She’d brought a file with her, and held it with one hand as she took a position leaning against the wall, where she could keep an eye on both of us. Marcus took the seat opposite me, and slid over the water and the aspirin.
I took them both, draining the cup, then thanked him again.
“Not what you’re used to, I’d guess, huh?”
“What?”
He indicated the empty water cup. “Tap water.”
“No, it’s . . . it’s great,” I said.
He smiled and leaned back.
“Am I under arrest?” I asked.
“Do you want to be?”
“No.”
“Well, let’s see if you can help us out here, and then you won’t have to worry about that.”
“It’s just that I have a lawyer,” I said. “I’m thinking I should probably call him.”
“If you want to, sure, but it seems like a waste of his time and your money to me. We’ve just got a couple questions.”
I looked over at Hoffman, idly tapping the end of her file against the cinder block wall. The look she returned
