Blood Passage (20 page)

Karen glanced at Hank. “Yes he did, as a matter of fact.”

Michael bit his lower lip and looked away. He leaned back and closed his eyes for a moment. Hank and Karen watched him struggle to maintain his composure. Finally he took a deep breath, opened his eyes and turned back to them.

“
When … Taylor says things like ‘my before daddy’ or ‘my other daddy,’ I feel as though I haven’t been a proper father to him, as though he has to invent some other father who was much better than I am. It kind of … rips me apart, know what I mean?”

“
Yeah,” Karen said.

“
My initial reaction, on the surface, is always that he’s just making these things up. He has an active imagination and like any kid, he hears stuff on television he’s not supposed to hear and then repeats it out of context. But when Taylor says these things my skin starts to crawl. I don’t quite know how to deal with it. And now you’re telling me that there really was a Tommy.” He paused and searched Karen’s face. “
Is
a Tommy?”

She nodded. “We’ve talked to him about Martin. He doesn’t have anything useful to say at this point.”

“
He won’t want to talk to Taylor, will he?” Panic crackled across his face. “Will he come around looking for Taylor? Will he hear about these things Taylor’s saying about him?”

“
Not from us, he won’t,” Karen said firmly. “Like I said to your wife the other day, we don’t consider Taylor a source of evidence in this case. If he can tell us something that’ll point us in the right direction, great, but the Assistant State’s Attorney’ll expect us to build our case with more, uh, traditional evidence as a foundation. We’ll do everything we can to insulate y’all from our investigation in every way possible.” She stood up. “It’d be great if we could see Taylor now.”

“
Of course.” Michael glanced at his watch. He stood up and grabbed his briefcase. “Are you parked in the lot downstairs?”

“
In front of this building, yeah.” Karen moved aside as Hank stood up and Michael bustled forward, fishing his keys from his pocket.

“
My car’s in the faculty lot behind. I’ll drive around to the front and you can follow me from there. The campus is a bit of a rabbit’s warren.”

“
I’m a State grad,” Karen said. “I remember my way around pretty well, although there wasn’t a daycare back then.”

“
Really? What was your major?”

“
Criminal justice.”

“
Of course. Well, the daycare is right at the back of C quad. Do you remember where that is?”

“
Yep.”

“
Fine, let’s go.”

They went out into the corridor and Michael locked his office door behind him. The man’s emotions were all over the place, no doubt because of the stress under which his son’s experiences were placing him. Is this what it’s like having a kid? Karen watched Michael’s shoulders hunch up involuntarily as they followed him down the hallway. It was a question she’d already asked herself a hundred times before in her career as she watched a parent trying to deal with crisis after crisis. She knew she’d been hard on her own father, but that had been nothing compared to what she’d seen since becoming a cop. She was hardnosed and tough, but she wasn’t sure if she was hardnosed and tough enough to be a parent.

Down in the car she started the engine and looked at Hank. “I reserve the right to change my opinion as more information comes to light, Lieutenant. That’s all I’m saying.”

Hank looked sideways at her. “What?”

“
I know what I said before, you know, about paranormal bullshit off of late night TV and all. I’m just saying it should be okay to be a little flexible here. You got a problem with that?”

Hank shook his head. “Nope.”

Michael pulled up behind them and tooted his horn. Karen shifted into reverse and, as Michael drove away, she swung out of the parking space and followed him.

The daycare center turned out to be on the other side of the campus from the building in which Michael Chan had his office. It was pick-up time for many of the parents and the parking lot was busy with cars pulling in and backing out. Karen started to pull into an empty space but stopped, finding it blocked by a mother who was putting her child into a car seat in the back of a blue hatchback. Hank glanced at Karen, expecting her to be gritting her teeth in frustration, and was surprised to see a benign smile on her face as she waited patiently for the mother to secure the child, close the rear door, wave apologetically at them and slip into the driver’s seat. Karen slid into the empty spot and killed the engine.

“
It’s possible the kid won’t have anything to say right now,” she said. “Apparently it’s something that can come and go with them.”

Hank unbuckled his seat belt. “We’ll take our chances, I guess.”

They followed Michael to the entrance of the daycare where he turned around and held up a hand.

“
I’ll go in and get him. You can talk to him out here.”

“
All right.”

They killed time for a few minutes outside the front door, watching the parents and children come and go.

“
Ever wish you had kids, Lou?”

“
Yes and no.”

Karen chuckled. “My sentiments exactly.”

“
Here we go,” Michael said, coming out the door.

Taylor walked slowly in front of him. He wore dark blue jeans with the cuffs turned up above his sneakers and a blue and green knitted sweater. There was a small knapsack on his back featuring television cartoon characters. He looked up at Hank, who was standing closest to the door. The boy’s eyes were wide and his mouth was slightly open.

“
Hello, Taylor,” Hank said.

“
These are the police officers I told you about, Taylor,” Michael said. “Let’s go over here and we can talk to them for a minute.” He led the way away from the front entrance across the paved courtyard to a spot that was free from the traffic of parents and children leaving the center.

Hank bent down so that his eyes were on a level with the boy’s. “My name’s Hank. Your name’s Taylor, right?”

Taylor pressed himself back against his father’s legs, staring at Hank.

“
We were talking to your daddy,” Hank went on, “and he said you wanted to talk to us about some things you remembered.”

The boy said nothing, staring at him, his eyes traveling from Hank’s frizzy brown hair to the white teeth in his smiling mouth.

“
About Martin Liu. Do you remember Martin Liu?”

The boy turned and buried his face into his father’s leg.

“
Jesus, Lou,” Karen muttered. Standing behind Hank, she unclipped her holster and reattached it to her belt behind her back, under her jacket, where the boy wouldn’t see it. She tapped Hank on the shoulder. “Come on, back off. Leave this to me.”

Hank stood up and looked at her.

“
You’re just too big and scary looking,” Karen said. “Stand aside.”

Hank moved out of the way.

“
Just take a walk back to the car, will you? You’re spooking the shit out of him.”

Hank began to walk back toward the parking lot.

“
Hey there, Taylor, my name’s Karen. Do you have a nickname, like Tay, or Tikki or something, or do you like to be called Taylor?”

Taylor took his face out of his father’s pant leg. “Just Taylor.”

“
Well, that’s fine. My nickname’s Tex, on account I’m from Texas. You can call me Tex if you like, or just Karen.”

“
Karen’s better,” Taylor said quietly. “Tex is a boy’s name.”

“
Yeah, sometimes, I guess. Hey, are those swings over there?” She pointed at the play area not far from where they were standing.

“
Yeah.”

“
You think they’d let me go on the swings for a minute? I love to swing.”

Taylor looked at her. “You’re not too big. I think it’s okay.”

“
Great. Wanna swing with me? If your daddy says it’s okay?”

“
Go ahead, Taylor, if you want to,” Michael said.

“
Okay.”

She took him by the hand and led him off toward the swings. “Do you have one that’s your favorite?”

“
No.”

Michael started to follow them, hesitated, slowed down, and then drifted back toward Hank, who had reached the edge of the parking lot.

“
The kids are all going home now,” Karen said, “so we can have whatever swing we want.” She sat down in the middle swing and pushed back and forth experimentally while Taylor watched her. “Come on,” she said, “don’t just stand there.” She pushed at the swing next to her. “This one’s calling your name. It’s saying, ‘Taaay-lor, swing on me, man.’”

Taylor rolled his eyes. “No, it’s not.” He sat down on the swing.

“
Can you swing high?” She began to swing back and forth, looking at him. “Come on, swing!”

She began to put a little effort into it, swinging higher and higher. “Come on!”

Taylor began to swing. In a few moments he was grinning at Karen when they passed each other in their individual arcs. Finally Karen began to slow down, lightly scuffing her shoes on the dirt each time she reached the bottom of an arc until she was barely moving back and forth. Taylor soon realized that she was stopping and he did the same. When they were motionless he looked into her eyes.

“
Are you really a cop?”

“
Yep.” Karen unclipped her gold shield and handed it to him. “Check it out.”

He took it and examined it closely, running his fingertips across its surface. “Wow.”

“
I say the same thing every morning when I put it on, Taylor. It’s pretty cool.”

“
Yeah.”

Karen took her shield back. “There was something you wanted to talk to me about.”

Taylor glanced over his shoulder, looking for his father.

Karen pointed. “He’s over there with Lieutenant Donaghue.”

Taylor searched, found his father standing next to Hank, arms folded, trying not to watch them. “He doesn’t like Uncle Peter.”

“
Yeah, that’s what he said. Do you like Uncle Peter, Taylor?”

“
Yeah. He brings me presents and he teaches me Chinese words.”

“
That’s cool,” Karen said.

“
Yeah.”

There was silence for several moments. Karen waited patiently.

“
My friend Tommy’s scared of Uncle Peter.”

“
How come?”

“’
Cause he did something Uncle Peter doesn’t like. He was friends with other men and shared his money with them. Not Chinese men.”

“
You mean somebody stole Tommy’s money?”

“
No, he shared it with them. It was like a game. Tommy took people’s money and he shared it with a
gwailo
instead of his daddy. If Uncle Peter found out, he’d hurt Tommy.”

“
What kind of word was that, Taylor?”

“
Gwailo
. It means a white man. Not Chinese. Uncle Peter taught me that when I was Martin.”

“
Did you like Uncle Peter when you were Martin?”

“
Yeah, I always like Uncle Peter.”

“
Did he ever hurt you when you were Martin?”

“
No!” Taylor looked at her sharply. “He never hurt me! I don’t know why Daddy, my now Daddy, doesn’t like him. He’s really nice to me.”

“
That’s all right, Taylor. I understand. But Shawn and Gary hurt you, did they?”

Taylor shut his mouth tightly and looked away.

“
I know it’s scary,” Karen said. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

Taylor said nothing.

“
Did you like Josh? The man who came to your house to talk to you about when you were Martin?”

Taylor nodded his head.

“
Yeah, he seems nice,” Karen said. “He told me he likes you, too.”

Taylor said nothing, watching a bird fly across the yard.

“
Josh told me that you said Shawn looked like him. Like Josh, I mean.”

Taylor shook his head. “He looked different, but he had dark black skin like him.”

“
Shawn looked different.”

“
Yeah.”

“
How did he look different, Taylor?”

Taylor said nothing.

“
Was he bigger than Josh?”

Taylor nodded.

Karen waited.

“
He had a bald head and a picture on the side of his neck,” Taylor said quietly.

“
A picture? You mean a tattoo?”

Taylor nodded. “Uncle Peter has pictures too. I watch them on TV do them.”

“
Oh, sure, I’ve seen that show too.
Miami Ink
. Cool stuff.” Karen paused. “What tat did Shawn have on his neck, Taylor? What’d it look like?”

Taylor shrugged. “It looked like writing on a wall.”

“
You mean graffiti?”

“
I think it was an R.”

“
An R? You know your letters already?”

“
Sure, I learned them already.”