Attachment Strings (15 page)

“Jeff, you’re emotionally involved. Of course you’re afraid something might happen to the kid. Normally you’d be removed from the case, and you know that.”

“The threat is real. I already suspected something more before we found out about….” I looked around and lowered my voice before I went on, “Alex’s involvement. I might not have 100 percent professional distance but I’m not making things up either.”

“I never said you’re making things up, but you’d do anything to spare the boy trouble. I saw you. He hits all your protective buttons at once even though you don’t know how you feel about the child.”

I pressed my lips together in a tight line to prevent myself from cursing Parker. I settled for a deep scowl, which didn’t faze him one single bit. He sipped at his coffee while he looked at me in silence. Eventually, he shook his head and grinned. “God, you’ve got it real bad.”

I huffed. “Look who’s talking.”

“Exactly. Now how about we check the remaining names on our list. Mr. Clark also gave us a list of names of the staff of St. Christopherus School, including the teachers, caretaker, secretary, bus drivers, and the cleaning crew.”

I groaned and pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes. I hated this, absolutely hated this. I knew we had to talk to all these people. We always had to be on high alert because we wouldn’t want to miss out on any important detail, but I still loathed those endless hours of asking questions. When I opened my eyes again, I grumbled, “Hand me the copy of the list. I’ll call the teachers.”

“All right. I’ll try sweet-talking some of the parents into meeting us today and you could make appointments with the teachers for tomorrow.”

We spent more than an hour on the phone and were more than grouchy after that. “How successful have you been?”

Parker quipped, “You’ll be happy to hear that you won’t be bored for the rest of the day.”

“Great, then you’ll be similarly thrilled that we won’t be bored tomorrow either. We still have to call the two bus companies tomorrow and the cleaning crew’s company. The caretaker and the secretary should be at school tomorrow anyway.”

“Thrilled? I’m beyond thrilled, I’m ecstatic,” Parker drawled.

My face cracked into an open grin. Chuckling, I got up and grabbed my jacket. “Who’s driving?”

“You. I’d be a danger on the street right now.”

Concerned, I turned around. I searched Parker’s face for a sign of how to interpret his statement. When I couldn’t find one, I asked, “And why’s that?”

Parker didn’t meet my eyes. Hell, he even blushed. Trailing after me he muttered, “It’s not important. Come on, you usually drive anyway.”

“That’s because I value my life.”

“Wuss.”

I was about to snarl when a sudden thought struck me. I stayed silent during our elevator ride to the garage. As we got in the car, I asked, “How is it to care about coming home unharmed? Makes quite the difference, huh?”

Parker punched my arm and slouched back into the seat. “Shut up.”

“Not a chance in the world of
that
going to happen!”

“Want to explain to me about why Alex snapped at you this morning?”

I sent a well-measured glare to Parker before I set my foot on the accelerator. “Asshole.”

“I thought so. We’ll be driving to Arkansas Avenue, please.” Parker hesitated shortly, then added, “If you’d be so kind, your lordship.”

“Oh geez, this is going to be a
really
long day.”

Parker laughed and I couldn’t help but smile myself.

B
Y
NOON
we had interviewed three more students’ parents, none of them pleased to meet us. Their children were even worse off than the ones we had seen previously. Not one of the children could communicate: two were blind, the third child was deaf, and all of them had incredibly deformed bodies. The parents weren’t as fiercely protective as Alex was of Sean; neither were they as loving as the Andersons had been. Resentment about being burdened with their children hung unspoken in the air. I actually felt pity for the children and wondered if they’d be better off permanently being in professional care.

We didn’t gather much relevant information. One of the fathers told us his family had received threatening calls a while ago but when he told the caller he’d be thankful for any help in getting rid of his child, he had received no more calls. Parker and I exchanged a worried glance. I scribbled on my pad that we should get Youth Welfare involved when the father said tiredly, “You don’t have to worry. I wouldn’t raise my hand against my girl. It’s just too much sometimes and I think she’d be better off dead. I mean, look at her. She can’t see, she can’t move on her own, she can barely swallow pureed food… that’s not living, that’s vegetating, and that’s what her whole life will be.”

He turned around to blow his nose noisily. Neither Parker nor I knew what to say. It took a great deal of courage to suggest, “Sir, you might want to talk to someone from Youth Welfare. I’m sure they could help. I understand they have a service that can schedule a reliable person to stay with your daughter for blocks of time on a regular basis, I think for several hours for two or three times per week.”

I received a cold look in exchange. “She’s at school most of the day. We’re her family; we’ll take care of her. If God wanted us to take on this burden, we will not shy away from it.”

We didn’t have anything more to add, so we left. I let out a long-drawn breath when we reached the safety of the car. Parker glanced over at me and proclaimed, “Well, I feel like crap now.”

“I don’t like this case,” I admitted. I gripped the steering wheel tightly while I pulled out into the street. For emphasis I repeated, “I really don’t like this case.”

Parker spoke so softly that I had to strain my ears to understand him. “Neither do I.”

W
E
TRUNDLED
back into the station late in the afternoon. Both of us were hot, irritable, and didn’t know much more than we had before. The parents became close-lipped as soon as we approached the subject of threatening calls or letters. Some of them admitted having received menacing calls; all of them denied having received a sinister letter. Our gut feelings told us a different story.

We tried gentle coaxing, we tried sending them on a guilt trip, but nothing worked. In retrospect it was a miracle that we had gotten the letter from Alex.

“Trenkins, Woods, a word please,” Williams called out for us as soon as we reached our desks.

Parker and I exchanged a suspicious glance. I heard Parker muttering, “I swear, if he’s going to bitch, I’ll lose my temper.”

“You better not. Not finding evidence even though our instincts tell us there’s something going on is bad enough. I really don’t need to work on this case with a new partner.”

Parker bestowed a look on me I couldn’t interpret. “Either you’re the most selfish bastard I’ve ever known or you just told me you like me.”

I shrugged and flashed him a grin. “That’s up to you.”

“Wow, Jeff, I never knew you had this playful streak. Guess the boy’s good for you, huh?”

Flinching, I glanced around. One of the other detectives frowned at me. A glare directed at him cured that quickly enough, though. He averted his eyes and I shoved past Parker. My voice barely registered as a hiss when I said, “Want me to tell the other guys about your
preferences
?”

“What? I didn’t tell anyone! Why are you so mad?” Parker asked, bafflement obvious in his voice.

I took in a deliberately deep breath before I turned back to face him. In a very quiet voice I answered, “You said, and here I quote you, ‘the
boy
’s good for you’.”

Parker blanched. In a nervous gesture, he rubbed the back of his neck. Quietly, he replied, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Woods! Trenkins! Anytime soon would be great!” Williams bellowed.

Parker touched my arm briefly as he passed me. I stared at him, simmering, then followed him. I had always been so careful, never giving a hint about my sexual orientation. Oh, I’m quite sure that some of my coworkers suspected me of being gay. Which wasn’t so hard to conclude since I’d never brought a woman to any event. Yet, it was different to be
really
out. I wasn’t ready for that, especially without having a partner to show off.

I blinked. Now where the hell did that come from?

I shook myself out of my weird thoughts and, after a nod from Williams, shut the door behind me. We all settled around the small round table Williams used in his office for briefings and waited.

“So, what did you find out?” Williams asked after he’d sat down and smoothed the crease in his left pant leg.

Usually, it would be up to me to rattle off the information we had gathered, but I figured Parker owed me for his slip a minute ago. I fixed him with a hard glare and he gave a long-suffering sigh. Williams eyed us curiously as he listened to Parker’s report. I let my mind wander partially.

I wondered how Alex had spent today and who’d be looking after him and Sean during the night. The ultimatum posed in the letter said the brothers should leave by the twelfth and we still didn’t have the slightest idea who was behind that message. Dread caused me to squirm in my chair. As much as Sean made me uncomfortable, I didn’t want anything bad happening to him or any of the other children. Although it would be so much easier to date Alex without Sean hanging around.

I froze. Swallowing hard against the bile rising up in my throat, I clutched the armrests of my chair. When had I become so cruel and selfish?

A hollow feeling settled in my stomach and from there spread out through the rest of my body. Everything was numbed; I couldn’t even feel the wood of the armrests under my palms anymore. Parker’s and Williams’s voices were too muffled to be understood. The shrill ringing of my phone loosened the clamps of shock my mind had been trapped in. I jumped up to retrieve my cell from my pocket, which gained me strangely bewildered looks from Parker and Williams.

I turned around and snarled, “Woods.”

Chandler’s cheerful voice greeted me. “Hey, Woods, who’s going to take over for me here? My shift’s almost over.”

“Uh,” I replied. A second later I had made a decision. Whether it would be a good one or not was yet to be seen. “I’ll be there as soon as possible. Hang on a second.”

Turning back to Williams, I said, “Sir, how long is this briefing going to take? Chandler’s shift is almost over and I’d like to take over for the night.”

Williams raised his eyebrows, whereas Parker’s face turned impassive. Neutrally, Williams asked, “It won’t be long. Weren’t you there last night already? Don’t you want to go home?”

“Yeah, I have. Sure, I’d like to go home,” I lied halfheartedly. “Do you have another detective to spare?”

Williams grimaced. No, he didn’t. I had counted on that. “No. You go ahead. Trenkins is going to take the next night. If it’s still necessary, that is.”

I nodded, told Chandler I’d be there in about an hour, and ended the call. The earlier numbness and coldness vanished, only to be replaced by anger and disgust with myself. Although unsure if I liked it better this way, I could at least function and participate in the briefing.

Williams told us the mayor, Miller, was driving him crazy. Parker muttered something that sounded like “Welcome to the club” before Williams went on. Miller wanted results and he wanted them
immediately
. He had arranged for two bodyguards to stay with the Andersons as the police obviously weren’t taking the threat seriously. Williams wasn’t pleased and wanted to hear our opinion on the case so far.

Parker and I shrugged a little helplessly. “We’re waiting on the results from forensics. Fisher gave us the threatening letter and they’re still examining it.”

“You mean, they don’t have time to do it right now because of the bus accident,” Williams intervened. “I’ll call them up and will strongly advise them to be fast with the letter.”

We gave him the rest of the information we had gathered, which still wasn’t much. We mostly relied on our gut feeling that the parents had hid something from us and that they stayed silent because they feared for the lives of their children. Williams grunted in acknowledgment when we ended our report. “There’s not much more to do today. You’ll continue the interviews tomorrow, right?”

Parker and I nodded. Williams stood and picked up the phone. He indicated we should leave his office with a curt wave of his hand. “Trenkins, you type up what you found out so far. Woods, you go and relieve Chandler.”

At our desks, Parker threw himself into his chair and grumbled, “Great, I get the fucking report and you can go,” he glanced around and lowered his voice before he went on, “and play lovey-dovey.”

“More like getting back into his good graces.”

I shouldered into my jacket, suddenly feeling weary and exhausted. What could I say? What
should
I say? How would Alex react to seeing me again? Would he demand that he be guarded by another detective? I couldn’t force him to accept my services, but I couldn’t leave Sean and Alex alone either. An uneasy feeling that something bad was about to happen nagged at me. I had learned to listen to my gut feelings, at least when they were work-related,
really
carefully.