A Kind of Justice (28 page)

“There are some things I'm never going to have, Betsy.” I say this to her, but really to myself. “I'm never going to have children of my own. I'm never going to have a deep, passionate, long-lasting love. And no one will ever see me as an actual woman. Not even me.”

We sit in total silence for a long while. Betsy rustles in her chair. “Are you going to call him?” She nods toward the message.

“Yes.”

“Are you ever going to tell me what happened?”

“I need some time,” I tell her. That secret chapter of my life is becoming a wall that surrounds me and it's getting higher every day. With every fiber of my being I want to tell her everything right now, but I can't get past how dangerous it would be to us both.

*    *    *

T
HURSDAY
, D
ECEMBER
4

“I need to talk to Stephen.” Wilkins tries to say it nicely, but thirty-plus years on the force makes everything come out in the clipped staccato of a tough street cop. A man who fell into the role of the
“bad cop” because he looked the part and stayed there so long he was the part.

“I'll see if he wants to talk to you.” Her reply is just as clipped. She hates him. Crazy. The divorce was her idea. He didn't fight her on anything. Gave up everything he had, even his kids it turned out. They decided he was the bad guy. The only way to deny it was to say their mother was wrong, which he couldn't do.

“It's important,” he says. “I wouldn't bother you if it wasn't very, very important.”

“Hang on.” The phone clicks as she puts it on hold.

Several minutes later, the phone clicks and his son's adolescent voice comes over the airwaves. “Hello.” Flat and cold.

“Stephen!” He tries to greet his son with enthusiasm and energy. “Good to hear your voice, Son.” He waits a moment for Stephen to respond, gets a mumbled syllable.

“Something's come up and I need to see you, Stephen.”

“What about?”

“Well, I don't want to get into it over the phone. How about we go for a walk after school one day this week?”

“I don't know. I have things to do.” His son is mumbling, his words barely distinguishable.

“How about setting aside an hour, say, Thursday. I won't bother you again.”

The boy says he has to check with his mother. He puts a hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and has a short conversation. “Okay,” he says when he comes back.

Wilkins sets up the meet for Lincoln Square. Near the kid's school. Scenic neighborhoods. Nice cafés.

*    *    *

F
RIDAY
, D
ECEMBER
5

“Wilkins.” Even on the phone, when you can't see him, the guy sounds like a mean prick.

“What do you want?” I don't bother saying who's calling.

“Thanks for calling back, Logan.” I almost faint with surprise. A thank-you from a troll. And he used my name instead of calling me Cinderella or Queenie.

“I want to sit down and talk to you,” he says.

“How stupid do you think I am?”

“I don't think you're stupid. I want to talk to you about the case, what I've got. All off the record. We can meet anywhere you want.”

“Why? What's in it for me?”

“After you hear me out, I'm going to offer you a deal. If you like it, you take it to your attorney, and I'll take it to the DA. Maybe we can get this closed by Christmas.”

“If you think I'm a murderer you have to think I'm a liar, too, so what kind of deal are you offering me?”

“The best deal you're ever going to get.”

“Why? Why would you offer me a good deal? You think I'm vermin and I murder men because I hate them.”

“I have my reasons.”

“Give me one.”

“I've learned some things, okay?”

“I don't believe you. Give me another.”

“I want to close this case before Christmas.”

I laugh sarcastically. “Detective Wilkins, there is nothing attractive to me about you closing this case before Christmas.”

“You have nothing to lose. I won't tape the conversation, no bugs or listening devices, just you and me. Take it or leave it.”

“I'll leave it.”

“You can pick the place. I'll get your boyfriend to check me for wires before we sit down.”

“Phil? Detective, poor Phil isn't my boyfriend and he wants nothing to do with me.”

“He told me he'd do it.”

“When?”

“Today. I talked to him before I called you.”

We go back and forth for several minutes, like a tennis rally, on my safety, his promises. I ask if he'd be willing to put in writing his guarantee that nothing said between us is ever used in court. He is. He agrees to bring a signed statement to the meeting.

“Okay,” I say. “When?” We jockey back and forth and settle on a weekday evening. He asks where and I tell him to call me at the salon on the day of the meeting. I've read some spy books.

His call lingers in my mind like a bad dream. The end is near for me, I can feel it. He's going to give me a choice. I can wait to be indicted and go through $50,000 in legal bills and a year or two of litigation and having my reputation and the image of my salon shredded in the news media. Or I can plead guilty and get some kind of reduced sentence, something that would put me back on the street when Robbie is having babies and people are flying space ships instead of driving cars. I can see the faces of Betsy and Robbie as my failure leaves them abandoned in a failed economy, at sea in a country that equates personal financial failure with immorality and people hope you die badly as a result.

I can see Betsy never ever again trusting me for failing her now. Why would she? Could I start over? A transwoman in her sixties or seventies, alone, trying to make new friends? Trying to do hair? I can't bring myself to commit suicide, but it would be the best option. My life is essentially over. I got to be a woman for five years and an aunt for three. That's something, I guess.

S
ATURDAY
, D
ECEMBER
6

C
OLD WINDS LACED
with rain and sleet force a change in plans. Wilkins can no longer tolerate the cold. He arrives at the café a few minutes early, but Stephen is already there, sitting at a window table staring at his smartphone.

The teenager looks up as Wilkins approaches. His handsome face goes from recognition to an uncertain frown in a blink or two. Wilkins takes off his coat, drapes it on a chair, offers a handshake to his son. Stephen shakes hands without standing up. His eyes are frozen on his father, his face painted in shock and consternation.

“Are you okay, Dad?” he asks.

Wilkins savors the moment his son calls him “dad.” It doesn't happen much anymore, only when the kid forgets himself, forgets he's supposed to hate his dad for divorcing his mother. That moment of happiness is blotted out by the greater realization that he looks like shit, even to his son. Especially to his son. Jesus Christ, imagine how the kid would have felt if he walked in here with a monster face and feeding tubes sticking out of his body.

Wilkins takes a deep breathe to regain his composure.

“I have some health problems, Stephen. That's why I wanted to talk.”

“What kind of health problems?”

“I have oral cancer. I need surgery. It's risky. No guarantees. So I want to talk to you about a few things in case I don't make it.”

Stephen leans forward, his arms on the table, his head dropping. “Damn,” he says. He breathes deeply. He looks up again.

“I've written down some things for you,” Wilkins says, pushing an envelope across the table. “You can look at them later. It's a rehash of what I'm going to say.

“First off, you need to know this cancer is my own fault. I've always been scared to death of dentists. So I haven't seen one in many years. I'm telling you this in case you inherited my fear. If you did, go anyway. Think about what I look like as an incentive.”

“But you're going to get better.” The kid says it, but it's a question, a statement of hope that he wants to have confirmed.

“Not really. I can extend my life, but I won't ever look any better. I'll never be able to eat solid food again. I will lose body mass and strength. I'll have a lot of other problems, too. That doesn't matter. The important thing is, you take care of yourself. Don't make the mistakes I did. Will you promise me that?”

Stephen nods.

“Good. Now, your mom thinks I betrayed her and you and your sister. She has every right to feel that way. I was a piss-poor husband and father. But not because I was unfaithful or anything like that. It was because I put the job first and I wasn't there enough for her or my kids. I want you to know it wasn't because I didn't love you, or her, or your sister. I just didn't know how to be a husband or a father. I did what my father did. I just worked. Don't do what I did. Take classes or read books or do whatever you have to do, but don't do what I did. Do you understand what I'm saying?”

Stephen nods, his face frozen in sadness and shock. A waitress stops
and takes their beverage orders. When she is gone, Wilkins shifts his gaze from his son's face to the table and nods a few times, as if agreeing with himself.

“Okay. I want you to know that if I don't make it, you guys will still be okay financially. Your mom has money in the bank, and she'll get my pension benefits. I have some savings, too. Everything will go to your mother, and she'll make sure you both get through college, get a good start. It's all in my will. If I don't make it, my attorney will contact your mom and get things going. The main thing is, you and your sister and your mother will be just fine. Okay?”

Two tears trickle down Stephen's face. “It sounds like you're going to die, Dad.”

“The odds aren't good, Stephen.”

Stephen covers his face with his hands for a moment, then wipes the tears from his cheeks. “What can I do? Can I do something?”

Wilkins smiles and nods. “Yes, Stephen. There are two more things you can do for me.”

“Okay. What are they?”

“First, tell your sister I didn't have this conversation with her, too, because she's away at school, not because I love her less.”

Stephen nods.

“Second, in your envelope there is a card with my address on it and a key taped below. If you get word that I died, I want you to go to the apartment and take care of clearing it out. Take your mom with you. You can have anything you want in the place and throw out the rest.

“I'm going to mail you a package. I want you to open it some place private. You can share it with anyone you want after you've been through it.”

“What is it? Mom won't let me have your gun.”

“I wouldn't give you a gun. I'm selling mine to another cop. I never used it anyway.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

His son is surprised. Even his family thought of him as a mean cop. Another mistake. “I became a cop to protect people from violence, not to be violent,” says Wilkins.

The boy nods his head up and down for a moment, absorbing this new knowledge. “What's in the package, Dad?”

“My legacy.”

“What do I do with it?”

“You'll figure it out.”

Wilkins fends off Stephen's attempts to learn more about the mystery package and eventually steers the conversation to how Stephen is doing in school, how his sister is doing in college, what they want for Christmas. Forty minutes later they stand, shake hands and hug, Wilkins thinking his son must really love him to do that, to have physical contact with his emaciated father. Wouldn't it be sweet to have that every day for another twenty years? See his kids grown up, be successful. Maybe get their mom to talk to him again, invite him for Christmas dinner?

He watches his son walk tall and strong out into the storm, and a reality as bleak as the winter sky descends on Wilkins. There will be no magic moments with his kids, no reconciliation with his wife. He will never get better than this. He will only get worse.

He sits down at the table again and dials Logan's number. One more thing to do today.

*    *    *

S
ATURDAY
, D
ECEMBER
6

Officer Phil walks in just as I'm just finishing my last client. He comes to the reception desk, nods at me, looks to Samantha. She escorts him to my office. We exchange glances and I smile at him. He smiles back.
For the first time in years I receive his attention without any emotional fluttering. Whatever feelings I had for him are diluted in a sea of tension about this meeting with Wilkins. My sleep has been even more tormented than usual these last two nights as I play through various ways tonight's scenario might play out.

All of the scripts in my dreams end badly, with me losing everything, Betsy hating me, the salon boarded up, me never seeing Robbie again.

There have been a half dozen times at least where I was on the verge of calling Wilkins and cancelling. I can see no possible benefit for me and all kinds of risks. On the other hand, I keep thinking that what makes MBAs so stupid is they only believe in things they can measure. Their knowledge becomes a fence around their intellect. They can't grow beyond it because they think that's the edge of the earth, there is no more. So we will meet. Wilkins will talk. I might learn something I didn't know before. It might help me deal with his unrelenting pressure.

Wilkins enters minutes after Phil. Samantha escorts him to my office. I finish my client and Barbara is just finishing the only other client in the place. In a few minutes, everyone will be gone. Wilkins and I will have our meeting right here, the one place I know he couldn't bug beforehand. I know that's ridiculous, but we can laugh about my cloak and dagger foolishness later.