Bite the Moon (6 page)

That statement pretty much summed up why Schultze was a commander—diplomatic, savvy, a constant projection of fairness. But would he peddle it this softly if I were a male officer? Maybe. Maybe not. Rumors had it that he had aspirations to be Chief of Police, either here or in a jurisdiction nearby. A reputation for having a good rapport with women and minorities improved his chance for success.

Schultze donned his fatherly mask that exuded an air of infinite patience. But I could tell his patience was running thin. A tiny tic just below the corner of his right eye gave him away.

I jumped to my feet and pulled out my badge and my gun. The fear that skittered in his darting eyes told me old Schultze had been out of the field a little too long for comfort. When I laid the badge and the weapon on the desk in front of him, he tried to hide his sigh of relief, but it slipped through under his faked cough.

“
You don’t need an explanation from me, Commander. I’m sure Lieutenant Hawkins gave you an honest appraisal of the situation. What you need from me is a resignation, and you’ve got it.”

“
Thank you, Mullet,” Schultze said. And that was it.

I spun around and left the room, hot patches burning like coals on my cheeks. I went to his office to quit. And I quit. Not much fuss. Not much bother. It was done. So why did I feel so humiliated? Why did I want him to make at least a lame attempt to change my mind? Stupid pride. Now, damaged pride. Fine, Molly, take that sting and use its energy to do something constructive for Bobby Wiggins.

When I reached home, I clicked on the Internet and found the phone number for Dale Travis, Bobby’s hotshot Houston attorney. I was not put through to the great man, of course. Instead I left a message with a snotty-voiced woman. I kept it simple, asking him to call me about the Bobby Wiggins case and leaving my home phone number.

I called Thelma Wiggins next. “Hello, Mrs. Wiggins. This is Molly Mullet.” I heard a clunk. “Mrs. Wiggins? Mrs. Wiggins?” Damn. She hung up on me. I disconnected and hit the redial button. “Please don’t hang up, Mrs. Wiggins. I’ve resigned . . .” Clunk.

Call me tenacious. Or call me pig-headed. Either one will fit. I pressed redial again. This time, the phone rang and rang—ten times, eleven times, twelve. I hung up.

I clattered around the house like a lone rusty nut in an old coffee tin. I tried to read a book, a magazine article, Dear Abby in the newspaper. But it was no use. I could not concentrate. I attempted to take care of a few household chores. But the desire to do something concrete for Bobby distracted me. I left a dozen projects in a half-started state scattered around the house. I rubbed the skin red around that ugly little cow-pie on my arm. All day I stared at the phone willing Dale Travis to call until I saw double. I fantasized that a cheerful Thelma Wiggins would ring me up and apologize for being rude.

The phone did ring twice. The first time it was a vinyl-siding salesperson. I was not polite. The next time it rang, I heard, “I’m not trying to sell you anything today . . .” before I hung up. I went to bed that night tired but too agitated to sleep well.

When I woke the next morning, my mood was as foul as my breath. If I still had a dog, I might have kicked it. That made my train of thought even darker. I had still not gotten over losing Chase so soon after I lost my husband. I should have moved on by now. I should have gotten a new dog. But the pain of losing yet another companion was still stronger than my willingness to risk the joy of it.

I downed three cups of coffee in quick succession. Then I brushed my teeth. I began to feel human again. I placed another call to the offices of Dale Travis. Once again, I spoke to the snotty-sounding woman and left my cell phone number.

I called Thelma. “Mrs. Wiggins?” Clunk. Sigh.

At the other end of the line, Thelma Wiggins sighed, too. She could no longer remember the days when life was a carefree adventure. The dust of old memories sometimes stirred but never coalesced into a solid enough form to offer solace.

The day that altered her existence rolled over her like thunder. She and Stuart drove up to Austin and met Dale Travis and his wife, Cici, at a second floor bar off of Sixth Street. The original itinerary called for a drink there, followed by dinner at a new restaurant that was all the buzz and then finished up with some barhopping up and down the street.

Somehow, they never managed to leave that first stop. They spent the night nibbling on bar food, dancing to the jukebox and laughing hard at easy jokes. Pregnancy had made Thelma fatigued for the last few weeks but tonight was an exception and she took advantage of her unexpected energy—dancing with the carefree abandon of a cheerleader in the wake of victory on the football field.

She sipped nothing stronger than 7-Up all night, but she felt as giddy as if she had—a contact high from the high spirits of her mildly intoxicated companions. When last call reverberated across the room, the two couples grabbed purses, paid the bar tab and headed out the door.

At the top of the stairs, Thelma tripped on something—or on nothing—she never knew what. Her arm flew toward Stuart but was too short to even brush his shirt. Her body lurched forward. There was only one person below her on the stairs—Dale Travis. If he had moved in her path to break her fall, her life journey would have taken another course. But he did not. Instinct made him flinch away when he heard the noise. Thelma tumbled past him in a flurry of arms and legs.

She hit bottom on her face—bits of grit embedding into her cheeks as they rested on the unforgiving concrete. She was afraid to move. The others raced to the bottom of the steps. She heard Stuart call her name again and again. She heard Stuart race back up the stairs to call for an ambulance. And that was all she heard, all she knew, for hours.

At the hospital, Stuart hovered over her like an angel of mercy bringing sips of water, little pecks on the forehead, little murmurs of love. Cici sat as still as death and held Thelma’s hand. Dale paced back and forth, kneading his hands, muttering apologies and regrets.

It was touch and go for days, but, at last, Thelma’s condition stabilized—she would not lose the baby. Her doctor, a nurse and Stuart gathered at the side of her bed with the bad news. He was concerned that the fetus was damaged. The baby would survive to full term, he said, but it would not be normal. He wanted to know if she wanted to continue her pregnancy.

Thelma felt her face distort in a kaleidoscope of expressions—from confusion to anger. She focused on her husband. “Stuart, what is he saying? Does he want me to have an abortion?”

“
That is one option . . .” the doctor began.

“
Hush,” Thelma ordered. “Stuart, talk to me.”

“
Yes, Thelma. That is what he suggested,” Stuart whispered.

“
After days of struggling not to lose the baby and now they want me to dispose of it? After all of this?”

“
Yes, Thelma.”

“
Do you think they’re right? Do you think that’s what I should do?”

“
This is not my decision, Thelma.”

“
Not your decision. But Stuart, this is your baby, too.”

Stuart took her hand between both of his. He closed his eyes and inhaled a deep breath. He blew it out and looked into Thelma’s eyes. “You are the one carrying this child. This is happening inside your body. I have only a glimmer of what that means. I can only imagine how that feels. I promise you, Thelma, I will support you one hundred percent, no matter what you decide. Every day. I will never waver. But I am not a woman. I am not carrying this baby. I have no right to impose my opinion on you.”

Thelma did not want to think. She did not want to decide. But Stuart was right. If he told her what he thought she should do, she would feel an unintended but powerful coercion to do what he wished—and this disempowerment would haunt her forever. “I want to go home, Stuart. I want to go home now.”

Bobby was born in a moment of joy tinged with fear. Soon, that fear was justified. As an infant, Bobby’s eyes did not track a moving object well. He hardly ever cried, prompting friends to say she was lucky—and then quickly turn away. Bobby’s physical skills developed at a slow pace, his verbal skills even more slowly.

But Stuart kept his promise to Thelma. No matter how slow Bobby’s progress, no matter how much it pained him, Stuart offered words of encouragement every day. Until the final day when he went to the shed and never returned.

My next move was a visit to Bobby. As I pulled into the parking lot of the Comal County Jail, it hit me—I’m not a police office anymore. Seeing Bobby today was not going to be that easy.

I walked inside and hope was reborn. Monica Salazar was behind the front desk. She had never been in any of my classes but I saw her often. Three days a week, she stood outside my classroom waiting for her boyfriend, Ronnie White, to emerge. Every day, her tummy got a little larger and the bald yearning in her eyes got a bit more forlorn. Over the semester, we developed a smiling relationship. Then one day, she was gone.

I’d seen her around since she joined the Sheriff’s Department a few months back, but we had never spoken. She looked less vulnerable with her uniform, badge and gun than she had standing alone in the hall in her oversized shirt. But I still saw the naked yearning in her eyes.

“
Officer Mullet?”

“
Yes.” I should have corrected her. I could have claimed I responded out of habit. But I knew better. I knew what I was doing. I was impersonating an officer. I was breaking the law. “Monica. Or should I say Deputy Salazar? How have you been?”

“
For you, it’s still Monica. You were so kind to me,” she said.

“
I only smiled.”

“
That’s more than . . . more than . . .” she looked down at her desk and fiddled with her files. She looked up composed. “What can I do for you today, Officer Mullet?”

“
I’m here to see an inmate. Bobby Wiggins.”

“
Wait right here. I need to check and see if you need an escort.”

Before I could stall her, she was gone. Maybe I should be gone, too. Then again, maybe I’d get lucky.

Brow furrowed, mouth pursed, she came back into view. “You are no longer a police officer.” The blackness in her eyes accused me of every wrong ever done from the Lindberg kidnapping to the hanging chads in Florida. She leaned toward me over the counter, her voice barely above a whisper. “You try this again, Ms. Mullet, and I’ll have to report you.” A cloud of indecision passed across her face. “But I could get in trouble if I don’t report you now.”

“
Monica, how is your baby?”

To my great relief, her face lit up like a tree at Christmas. “Oh, Cesar is not a baby anymore. He is in preschool. He is so handsome. He will break many hearts one day. Ah, let me show you.” She pulled a frame off the top of her desk and pressed it into my hand.

A darling dark-haired boy beamed up at me. The photographer had captured that twinkle in his eye that foretold of much adolescent angst for the girls in his future. “Oh, Monica, if I was thirty years younger, I’d be falling in love right now.”

She bent her head down and, in a whisper I had to strain to hear, said, “You know, I never married Ronnie.”

“
No, Monica. I didn’t know.”

“
His family.” She shrugged as if the flexing of her shoulders explained and excused the shadow racism had cast across her life.

Not exactly an upbeat morning. I’d failed in my mission. I’d tiptoed on someone’s heartache. And I still had done nothing to help Bobby.

*

Back at home, I rattled around in the tin can again. Somebody had to listen to me. If I couldn’t tell anyone what I wanted to do, I couldn’t do it. I pulled out a piece of paper and wrote a letter to Bobby. If he put me on his visitors’ list, then I could visit him just like any friend. I slapped a stamp on the envelope and slipped it into the mailbox just as the mail truck turned onto my street.

Now what? Bobby might be able to convince his mother to talk to me, but I doubted he could sway Dale Travis. The telephone wasn’t the answer either. It was too easy for Travis to avoid my calls. Tomorrow, I’d drive down to Houston. I’d sit in the lobby of his office all day if need be. I wouldn’t leave until he talked to me.

With a plan in place, I slept well that night and woke up on my own before the sun raised its head. As soon as my eyes opened, I was charged up and ready to go. But if I left now, I’d hit Houston in the middle of rush-hour traffic, and driving in the Bayou City is difficult enough without complicating it more.

The morning sun was awake and glowing by the time I brewed up a pot of coffee. I grabbed a cup and a yellow pad and pencil on my way to the backyard. It was late February, but in South Texas that meant spring had sprung. The temperature had dipped into the upper forties overnight, but the first rays of the sun had already warmed the air up to sixty degrees.

I settled into a green Adirondack chair and reveled in the peaceful moment. The air filled with bird song. Green shoots of perennials and weeds pushed up from the ground. Bud stalks thrust up from the evergreen bed of columbine. Soon that patch would be a riot of yellow and red with hummingbirds swooping in to squabble over the nectar.

I pulled my eyes back to my blank pad of paper and started a suspect list. Of course, the first culprits on my list were the members of the band. At the top was Trenton Wolfe. Did I put him there because he was the most likely perpetrator or because he was the least likeable person? I’d think about my motivations later. Now I needed to figure out his motive. He struck me as an angry young man. Buried rage echoed from many of his lyrics. Did he write those words or just deliver them? As leader of the group, he’d be in a strong position to clash with the manager. Over money? Over scheduling? Over marketing? Or was it personal? I made a note to check on any possible overlap between spouses and girlfriends of Faver and the boys in the band. For that matter, I’d better look for boyfriends, too—a threat of revealed secrets often invited violent reactions.