BLUE BLOOD RUNS COLD (A Michael Ross Novel Book 1) (9 page)

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              At the very least, it was a blessing that her father had not shown up. She had gone out of the house as soon as she had graduated high school just to be away from her family. At the time, she had been so anxious to get away that she had jumped at the first offer she'd received. Staying within her home state allowed her to get tuition at a lower rate. When she boarded the bus headed for Shippensburg with her backpack and duffel bag full of supplies that her mother had packed, she could not resist smiling. Even the window from the backseat of the bus looked freer than anything she had ever experienced before. Ten miles of distance between herself and her father was all it had taken for her to finally unclench her jaw, to stop feeling on edge all the time.

              Her mother had come to visit more often than she would have preferred. Shannon knew that her mother was driven by guilt—guilt that she had failed as a mother, a wife, a person. At times, Shannon sympathized, for she knew only too well how difficult it was to see the truth inside a toxic, stultifying environment. Too much time had passed for Mrs. Moore to get out on her own. She had been a homemaker all her life; she had no other job skills, no experience, and no confidence. She remained where she was because she could not imagine herself doing anything better.

              While Shannon lay in the hospital bed, trying to stay awake through the babbling of the television in her room and the painkillers they had given her, she felt, for the first time, grateful that she had a mother who tried. At the TWOLHA group meetings, she'd heard too often stories about a young relative or sibling thinking about or attempting suicide while the whole world watched with numb disregard. That was what had always hurt her the most—people who had refused to see her for herself. Was it truly so difficult for human beings to understand one another?

              She'd heard the doctor speak of the humerus and the scapula. He had said she'd had a subcoracoid dislocation, which was the most common shoulder dislocation to have. He had spoken about nerve injury, though had done so in vague terms—she thought because he was fearful of malpractice suits. Her arm remained numb while she waited for the right specialist to come and take a look at her. She had been told that she would undergo a procedure would not be done until Sunday afternoon at the earliest. When she'd heard that, she found herself hating medical litigation which required so many facilities to put all their ducks in a row before they even did the smallest, simplest thing. They could not sneeze without making sure their noses were straight.

              For the present, her shoulder did not look as it should. Her shoulder joint stuck out. Her arm remained numb. She could not move it, no matter what she tried to do. Her entire arm up to her shoulder had been placed in an air cast designed to restrict its movement. She had gone through X-rays and radiographs, both of which took a tremendous amount of time to set up, for she had waited more than a half hour beyond her scheduled time for each one. She was set to do an MRI for nerve tissue damage. She found the whole process wearisome; she wished it would be over and done with.

              At some point, she suspected sooner rather than later, they would ask whether she had any insurance. She had been under her father's generous insurance plan four years ago. She suspected that the plan would not cover her now. She thought about what her options would be—go into debt for thousands and thousands of dollars? That would be added on to the student loans she had already taken out to afford college.
No way the university will pay for everything
, she thought. She had not, after all, become violent or said anything threatening. More than twenty-four hours after the fact, she could not understand just why the policeman had injured her.

              With lunch came more police officers. She had requested better food than what they had given her for breakfast, but if her request had been passed along to the cooks, they had ignored it. She was given a small container of cottage cheese, a turkey and cheese sandwich on wheat bread, apple slices in a sealed bag, and a small carton of milk. She had grown too accustomed to cooking food for herself out of the biweekly wages she earned as a part-time waitress. She wanted to tell the nurse that she had a very specific diet that excluded gluten and processed foods, but she didn't think the nurse or even the cooks would have any idea what she was talking about. She decided to bear with it for the present until they released her, which she hoped would be soon.

              The police officers who requested and were granted entrance into her room both looked like career officers. One of them was big, but aging, with crew-cut hair. He looked like a linebacker to whom the years had not been kind. He had a protruding gut and a second chin that became visible whenever he looked down at his notes. That man introduced himself as Detective McGee.

              The other man, shorter and younger, introduced himself as Detective Ross. He had short black hair which curled as it grew. He left it curly, despite the fact that it made him look like a caricature from the eighties. He wore a wristwatch, an item that only added to his aura of being anachronistic. He never looked at the watch, nor even touched it. He wore dress pants and dress shoes to go together with a black overcoat. He held in his hand a wool cop, and she understood at once that he had served in the military. Some people never lost the habit of taking their hats off indoors, then putting them back on indoors.

              Detective Ross said, “Good afternoon, Miss Moore. I wonder if you would mind having us ask you a few questions?”

              She resisted to jubilant urge that welled up inside her. She knew that police officers were not to be trusted; she had experienced a firsthand demonstration of why this was so. Just because they wanted to know her story, did not mean they would do anything with it. She said, “A few. I'm a little dopey. This pain medicine. I swear it's a narcotic.”

              The two detectives stepped into the room, closing the door behind them. They did not know about her mother, who had gone down to the gift shop looking for a stuffed animal. Though Shannon did not want to be treated like a little girl, she did not want to admit that she had trouble falling asleep without something fluffy or furry to cuddle up against. She had let her mother go, knowing that there was no use talking the woman.

              There were two large wooden chairs in the room. The detectives pulled up both chairs and sat down without asking her. She wanted to ask them what it was all about, why they had come. Yet she thought she knew why they had come, and if she was right, then she wanted to keep as quiet about it as possible until she could consult with a lawyer.

              Ross said, “Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to begin by asking you about Officer Kevin Bailey of the Shippensburg University Police.”

              Shannon had plenty she wanted to say on that subject. She waved her hand in a permissive gesture as if to say, go right ahead.

              Ross looked down at a notepad upon which were scribbled words that Shannon could not read. He said, “Let's start with your relationship with him. Before yesterday, did you have any contact with him at all? Of any sort?”

              She sat up straight in bed, putting her back against the fort of pillows the hospital staff had given her. She said, “I might have. I've been there four years. I don't know all the police officers by name. I just know, that one is Grubbly Face, or that one is Bushy Brows. That's what I call them, those kind of names.”

              “If I show you a picture of Officer Bailey, would you be able to identify him?”

              Shannon had trouble keeping the officer's gaze, though she saw that he had no trouble staring right at her. She knew then that the interrogation was an invasion of her privacy. She had not thought they would come so quickly, or at all. Yet there they were, trying to pry open locked doors with words. Behind those doors lay information they wished to know—at least, she hoped that was the case. She hoped that they had not stopped by to collect information on her for future use.

              She said, “Maybe. I guess I can try.”

              Ross pulled an eight-by-ten photograph from somewhere and held it up before him. She recognized the man as Beady Eyes. That had been her nickname for him, since he always went about with his eyes squinted, as though he needed glasses but chose not to wear them. She had not seen the man who had stood over her before he sprayed the chemicals into her face. Then she had not been able to see anything at all.

              She said, “Yeah, that's Beady Eyes. Not a friendly person. Are you saying that's the guy who tackled me? He's the reason why I'm here?”

              Ross and McGee shared a glance with each other, one that looked like they were sharing thoughts telepathically. McGee pulled a toothpick out of his pocket, pushed it through its clear plastic wrapper, and put it in his mouth. She found that he looked even more ridiculous than he had before. He said, “Yeah, that's the man. Kevin Bailey. If you had a nickname for him, does that mean you two met before?”

              She frowned, trying to think back. Her college career had at times flashed by her like lightning and at other times had dragged by at a snail's pace. Much of her sophomore year was lost in the haze of insomnia, bad dreams, and weekly counseling sessions. She had made it through, though she had been on academic probation by the end of her second year. The notice that she received in the mail—at her campus address—had been all the warning she had needed. If she flunked out of college, she would end up back at her father's house, the dark and weary place that she dreaded. She never returned there, even when school let out for its many breaks and holidays. She instead stayed with a friend, whose parents were more understanding than her own. She had desperately wanted to do something—anything—to avoid the fate of seeing her father once more against her will.

              That had led her to studying and studying, cramming sessions and tutor sessions, all of which ate into her social life. She felt miserable at not being able to see her friends as much as she was used to, but with the melatonin to put her to sleep every night, and a hot shower every morning, she had managed. She found herself with nothing but A's for the next four semesters. She expected that she would have gotten on the dean's list, if not for her injury.

              She said, “I think I met him once for a service learning project. He showed me how to change a tire.”

              Ross said, “Is there any reason why Officer Bailey would have had to hold a grudge against you?”

              “Not that I can see, why?”

              Ross hesitated, and she knew he was holding back information. That was the way of it with interrogations, she thought. Only side got to know as much of the story as could be known. She didn't want to think of detective work as ferreting out the truth; nothing about the two officers in front suggested that they were interested in that.

              Instead of answering her question, he said, “How long have you been at Shippensburg, Miss Moore?”

              “Three and a half years. The spring semester would have made it a full four.”

              “Would have? You mean, you're not staying to graduate?”

              “Of course not, why would I? After what they've done. Sure, they'll issue an apology. Maybe they'll force the president to resign. Maybe I'll get an out-of-court settlement. Maybe all that will happen, but nothing of any significance will change there. It's the system, not the people. You can plug in any different kind of person you want, you can interview applicants a dozen times to get the very best candidate, and still if the system is broken, you're going to get bad results. Like this.”

              She tried to shrug her injured shoulder upwards. A flare of pain greeted her. She winced, trying to breathe.

              Ross said, “I'm sorry for your injury. I know this must be a difficult time for you. If you'd only bear with us for a little longer, we'll leave you alone to recover.”

              At that moment, the door opened, revealing the diminutive form of Rachel Moore. She had purple hair that had resulted from an ill-conceived dyeing experiment, and square-rimmed glasses pushed up against the bridge of her nose. She wore a ski jacket and snow boots, both of which she had not taken off despite having spent the whole morning indoors with her daughter.

              Of the very few occasions that she dared to speak up, Rachel chose the moments when she believed that her daughter, her only child, needed her protection from anyone other than her husband. This pattern had persisted for so long that instead of thanking her mother for her kindness, Shannon instead felt indignant whenever she was treated like a child. She often felt that her mother would never see her as anything other than a young girl on her first day of kindergarten. She had cried then, on that breezy September day. Shannon recalled with distinct clarity not being bothered by the bus, or the smelly boy beside which she had to sit. She was able to leave the house; that was all that mattered.

              For Rachel, it had been quite different. She clung to her daughter as though afraid that she would one day disappear completely. She held on tight as often as she could, whenever she could. Though she never said a word to Shannon inside the house save for her usual remonstrance not to make anyone angry, she nevertheless behaved as though her whole life was contained in the beating heart of a person who had emerged from her own body. The result was a smothering that left Shannon feeling sorry for her mother and confined within the woman's emotions at the same time.