“Well, good night and I love you too. It’s just that I know how much you want a decent relationship with him.
Wouldn’t this be the perfect time to reach out?”
I told her I guessed it was, and then we did the good night and I love you business again because I’d been on with her for almost five minutes and wanted to get back.
After we hung up, I lay down on the gray-carpeted floor and closed my eyes for about ten seconds, probably my total rest for the next forty-eight hours. I know it was sentimental—and probably inaccurate—to say Lynne had saved me, but I really felt she had. Sure, I’d been staying sober with AA. And since getting back into Homicide I was working better than I ever had before.
But by the time I met her, I was feeling scared. I MAGIC HOUR / 49
was standing all alone, no crutches. No booze. No drugs at all. Two months after I got out of South Oaks, I got the flu.
I sweated out a hundred-and-four-degree fever rather than risk becoming a Tylenol junkie. Hardly any women either: I had lost almost all desire. In the old days, almost anything that produced estrogen could get me going if I was in the mood to get going, but most of the time now I couldn’t seem to find anybody who made me want to unbuckle my belt.
And yeah, there was football—the Giants, who I liked a lot.
But no Yankees: it was January. I was running at least five miles a day to stay in shape and get that chemical going in the brain; I forget the name of it, but at South Oaks they told us it was the body’s natural narcotic and was okay. Running ten, twelve, sometimes fifteen miles on my days off, to get that high—and to exhaust myself because I was nervous about what I’d do with too much time and energy.
See, at the funny farm the shrink talked to me about what deep down I always knew—or, if I didn’t know, sensed. That the drinking and the drugs and the womanizing were all pretty much the same thing, part of what he called my self-destructive pattern. Sure, I had been going for the high, but (a big but) the high hadn’t been my real goal. What I’d really been searching for all that time was to feel nothing. Oblivion.
So there I was, finally, trying to turn my back on oblivion, to face the world, to take one day at a time.
But all that summer and fall, after those first heady years of sobriety, I started having nightmares: I was drinking again.
I’d wake up from a dream about taking a bottle of icy, syrupy vodka out of the freezer, pouring it—almost against my will—and taking a deep, desperate sip. I’d feel panicked, sick to my stomach with despair. Because I knew how fragile my stability was. And I also knew I wasn’t a resilient 50 / SUSAN ISAACS
kid anymore. If I lost my grip again, I could fall into a bot-tomless pit, and I wouldn’t have the strength or the courage to try and climb back out. I would be lost for good. I would die. Talk about oblivion.
And suddenly there was Lynne, standing by the trunk of her car, assembling the jack. She was cautious as I pulled over, but she looked me right in the eye and said, “Thanks.
I can handle it.” I showed her my shield and told her that was fine with me; I’d hang around and watch. I liked watching women change tires.
She handed me the jack, and when I finished I took her out for a hamburger. All of a sudden, I found I was having a genuine, normal conversation. Not just talking to a woman to prove I wasn’t only out to screw her. Real discussion.
About the emotional problems kids with dyslexia can get.
About whether a person’s body language can make them more or less likely to be the victim of a crime. About public schools versus Catholic schools. And about how I was an alcoholic.
And two weeks later, we went to bed. I lay there afterwards and thought: Oh my God! I’m having a relationship.
C H A P T E R T H R E E
Bonnie Spencer’s dog barked with joy: Hiya, hiya, wonderful to see ya! Its tail made giant circles of jubilation: Whoopee! We got company! It was a huge, happy thing, like a fat, black English sheepdog.
“Steve Brady,” I called out, and flipped open my ID.
Her dog interrupted its woofing only long enough to lick my hand and my shield: Hiya! Love ya! But Bonnie Spencer stood silent and motionless in her front doorway—and gaped. It was seven forty-five, the morning after her ex-husband had been murdered. She obviously hadn’t been expecting condolence calls; she was wearing turquoise second-skin biking shorts, a huge, shapeless faded pink cotton T-shirt and sweat socks. A pair of sneakers dangled from her hand, as if she’d been about to put them on for a run.
“I’m a detective with Suffolk County Homicide,” I added.
Her lips rounded as if she was going to say Oh!, but she didn’t. She didn’t do anything, not even glance at my ID.
She simply gawked. “Bonnie Spencer?” The 51
52 / SUSAN ISAACS
dog poked her leg with its snout, as if to say: Come on, talk to the guy. But she didn’t.
I put my ID away, stuck my hands into my pockets. Even though it was a warm, end-of-summer morning, the moist, leafy smell of fall was in the air. Bonnie Spencer didn’t seem to want to look at me; instead, she seemed mesmerized by my car in her driveway. Listen, the ’63 XKE is a truly great car, but when there’s a detective from Homicide on your doorstep first thing in the morning, that should be the attention-grabber. “Are you Bonnie Spencer?” I repeated.
She
