Finding The Way Back To Love (Lakeside Porches 3) (23 page)

Sam’s gaze was neutral, his tone earnest. “I watched you trip three of our own players in the past two Sneaks games. Are you aware of that?”

“You’re crazy.” Peter flushed.

Sam continued, “Werner first. When he had the wind knocked out of him last week, you had a smug smile on your face, and you didn’t bother to help him up, even though you were standing next to him. You tripped Johnson later the same game.”

“This is nuts. What did I supposedly do to Johnson?”

“You brought your right foot down at the edge of his path,” he said and pointed to the side of his own foot. “Not enough to injure him, just enough to throw him off.” He pretended to trip but righted himself and faced Peter.

The muscles in Peter’s face twitched.

“Then you did it again to him in the first ten minutes last night, and you got my brother the same way after the half.”

“No. I. Didn’t.” Peter glared. “Why are you accusing me this way?”

“I’m putting two and two together, friend.” He bounced the ball twice. “And I don’t like the way it’s adding up.” He bounced the ball again two times and tossed it to Peter.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Peter slammed the ball down and caught it with one hand on the way up.

“Maybe you don’t,” Sam allowed, “but I know what I’m seeing. I see you weasel out of dealing with DWIs week after week. And I watched your face when we were at Ralphs two weeks ago when Werner outed himself and Johnson and my brother, as being in AA. You looked like you smelled road kill.” He paused and saw a flicker of recognition in Peter’s eyes.
And maybe a little self-doubt
.

“And the very next game, I saw that self-satisfied smile on your face, like I said, when Werner went down, and I watched you trip Johnson. Same thing twice last night—Johnson and then Tony, like I said. Those are the facts, as I see them.”

Peter snarled and leaned closer. “And I say you’re making it up. I don’t know why. We’ve always been good partners. I don’t know why you’d trash me this way.”

Sam lifted his chin and kept his voice even. “It’s not trashing, partner. It’s confronting you with the facts. If you really aren’t aware of all this, then smarten up. Take the next three DWIs. Watch where you plant your feet on the court. And make sure you give a hand to a teammate who needs one.” He held Peter’s gaze a moment longer. “This thing you have against drunks is poison. I need you to take a look at it, if we’re going to stay partners.”

Peter stood in silence, his jaw set, his eyes snapping.

Sam walked off the court and reentered the station house. Alone.

Peter fired the ball at the backboard. The board vibrated while the ball sailed into the chain-link fence and died on the court.

Get it together, Shaughnessy.
It was mid-shift, and he couldn’t afford to spin out of control.

His chest heaved, and the rasping in his throat reminded him of those painful days after Cynthia’s betrayal, when he wasn’t yet fully recovered and couldn’t slam around the court to work off anger. All he could do then was shoot baskets in a disciplined workout, and he’d found that calmed him better than any rampage ever had.

Do it.

Peter dribbled, pivoted, and lofted the ball through the net. Again, he dribbled, feinted, took a stand and shot. And again. When he was nine for ten, he dribbled to the gate, tucked the ball under his left arm, and stopped with his hand on the latch.

Sam’s not a liar, and he doesn’t have it in for me.
That was all Peter knew for sure. He swung the gate open and shifted the ball under his right arm.
What if what Sam said is true?

Chapter 11

“We’ve got morale problems,” Tony groused to Sam at the Bagel Depot a week later. “You notice?”

Two weeks had gone by since Sam’s confrontation, and Peter had cleaned up his act with his teammates.

“Maybe.” Sam chewed his bagel sandwich. “What I see is you being cold to Peter, Peter being cold to Werner and Johnson, and them being cold right back. We’re winning, but nobody’s having fun.” He stared with work-weary eyes above the rim of his coffee mug. “Is that what you mean?”

“You think I’m being cold?’

Sam nodded.

“So if I get my mojo back, maybe everyone else will, too?”

“Worth a try,” Sam said with a shrug.

“What about you? You look like hell, little brother.”

“My partner’s still not pulling his weight with the DWIs.”

“Didn’t you talk with the captain?”

“No, I was waiting to see if he’d get it together. I hoped if he got the message about the team, he’d realize it’s the same problem with the job. Guess not, so it’s time to put a bug in the captain’s ear.”

“It’s time.” Tony nodded and punched his brother in the arm. “You’ve got the data, right?” At Sam’s nod, he advised, “Tell the man what you know, and let him take it from there.”

“Yeah,” Sam said reluctantly. “I hate this.”

“Shaughnessy, you’re a good officer.” The captain’s tone was clipped. He studied Peter’s face as he continued, “But you’re not pulling your weight in one important area.” He held up his hand to stave off interruptions. “We both know there are differences between a large city and a small city environment, but it may not be clear to you that in Tompkins Falls every officer handles all types of violations.” He leveled his gaze at Peter. “Including DWIs.”

Peter flinched.

“I can see from the record,” the captain continued, with a glance at a printout on his desktop, “that you and Officer Pinelli bring in several DWIs every week, which is to be expected on the night shift. Why is it that, over the past four months, I see your name on two DWI bookings and Officer Pinelli’s name on every other?”

Peter’s gaze swept the room as if the answer lay outside himself.

The captain rose, then walked around his desk to stand two feet in front of Peter. He had the advantage in height and bulk. “I have no evidence that you’re letting drunks off the hook, which would be grounds for dismissal.”

“No, sir.” Peter’s heart raced, and his eyes flashed.

“I’ve spoken to your partner about this, and he is of the opinion you have a low tolerance for drunk drivers and a disdain for them as human beings. Perhaps not every DWI is an alcoholic, Shaughnessy, but this police force recognizes alcoholism as a disease.

“The drunk driver’s actions are contemptible and punishable by law, no question, but an alcoholic is a sick individual in need of training and treatment. Booking him on a DWI charge may be the first step toward his recovery. If you’d ever attended a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous you would have heard that in at least one member’s story at that meeting. It’s that common.”

Peter’s cheeks burned, and his fists clenched and unclenched at his side.

“I won’t write this up as a reprimand at this time, if you are willing to do the following.” He paused.

“Yes, sir.” Peter cleared his throat.

“You will attend the AA meeting here in town this Friday evening, before your shift. Your presence, from start to finish, will be noted and reported to me. And I need to see your name, legitimately, on two-thirds of the DWI bookings for your squad over the next three months. Any questions?”

Peter swallowed, croaked, and found his voice. “One, sir. How do I find the location and time of the AA meeting?”

The captain grimaced. “At the back of City Hall, two doors down from the station, you’ll see a door with a triangle inside a circle, labeled Central Office. I believe they’re open daily from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon. Walk in, introduce yourself, tell them what you need and they’ll see to it.” He folded his arms over his barrel chest.

“Thank you, sir.”

The captain fixed Peter with a stern eye. “I’d prefer not to lose you, Shaughnessy.”

“Yes, sir,” Peter said with a start. “I mean, no, sir.”

“That will be all.”

Peter did a smart about-face and exited. He charged down the hall with tight fists and hot exhalations. A secretary coming on duty stepped to the side and flattened her back against the wall.

At three o’clock Peter parked behind City Hall and locked the Jeep. He spotted the triangle in a circle and walked casually to the door. With cautious look around, he entered and removed his sunglasses. To his surprise, calm settled around him.

A tall man with a gentle smile, perched on the edge of a desk, waved and said, “Be right with you, sir.” The man’s attention was on the woman sitting at the next desk, with a phone in her hand. He offered advice, which the woman added to what she had already communicated to the person at the other end of the connection. When she hung up and turned, Peter saw her face.

It was Carol, the woman who had driven Bree back to Peter’s when she’d visited a few weeks ago. Startled, she gave him a big smile. “How’s your sister?” she asked cheerfully.

Peter glared at her, and her smile changed to a puzzled frown.

The man stepped closer to Peter and rose to his full height. “How can I help you today, sir?” he asked, his tone all business.

“I need the place and time for an AA meeting this Friday evening in Tompkins Falls.”

“That would be seven at the Presbyterian Church. Isn’t that right?” He glanced at Carol.

She nodded once, her eyes warily on Peter.

The man added, “Feel free to take a meeting list, sir.”

“That’s all I needed.” Peter stepped back and walked out of the tranquility of the office into harsh sunlight.

When he saw a man wearing a navy CUSE sweatshirt enter the meeting room for the Friday night AA group, Joel’s hand jumped and coffee sloshed over the rim of his mug. As the man’s angry green gaze swept closer to him, he said a silent prayer, put on a welcoming smile, and moved forward to greet him. Lifting his mug to the new arrival, he said, “Peter, glad you could join us tonight.” He held out his hand and added “Joel Cushman,” in case the officer had forgotten his name.

Peter edged closer. “You always come here?” He didn’t offer his hand.

“Every Friday unless I’m out of town. How about some coffee?”

“Sure.”

“Help yourself. The mugs go through the dishwasher, so they’re clean.”

Peter chose a mug from the tray, lifted the nearest pot and poured. He replaced the pot, and his gaze lifted. Tony, Werner, and Johnson stared at him from across the crowded church hall. Peter glared back.

“I can introduce you to them,” Joel offered when he saw the stare-down.

“I already know them. They’re my teammates.”

Needing to get off his feet, Joel spotted a row with two empty chairs on the end, halfway back from the podium. “The Sneaks?” he said as he led Peter toward the chairs. “I heard you’re having a winning season.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

Joel motioned for Peter to go ahead of him to the second chair.
Got him trapped.
“I was glad to meet your partner, Sam Pinelli, at the dinner for Chief Barker. I knew Tony had a brother on the force. Seems like a good guy.”

“He is. Real solid. Look, are you in this thing?” Peter demanded.

“Do you mean, am I a recovering alcoholic?”

Peter grunted.

“Yes, I’ve been sober coming up on fifteen years. Chief Barker threw me in jail when I was a badass teenager, after my family was killed, and I was fortunate that the people in my life gave me a lot of tough love. I’d be dead without that and without AA.”

Peter’s forehead creased with a frown. “You’re my age, and you’ve been sober fourteen years?”

Joel nodded without comment and sipped coffee.

“Does your wife know?”

Joel’s coffee sloshed over the rim again.
Do not laugh
. He held the mug out so the drips landed on the carpet instead of his chinos. “Yes, Manda knows.” He refrained from adding that his wife was also “in this thing.”

A gavel cracked at the front of the hall, and fifty people took seats in the rows of chairs. As the room settled, Joel confided to Peter, “That’s my sponsor, Phil, speaking tonight. He’s Gwen’s neighbor on the lake. He and I take meetings into the prison down county.”

Peter’s cheeks filled and he blew out disbelief.

Joel gave him a sideways glance, which Peter acknowledged with a raised eyebrow.
Got his attention
.

If he hadn’t mentioned taking meetings into a prison and told him Phil was Gwen’s neighbor, Joel doubted Peter would have paid attention to the old guy with the gravelly voice at the podium. Phil was eighty. He'd been sober thirty years. He told the group he “finally threw in the towel” when he woke up in a strange woman’s bed while his wife was home calling hospitals, hunting for his body. “Mrs. Philips didn’t raise her little boy to cheat on his wife,” Phil said. “That was a flashing neon sign that I couldn’t ignore. Booze had stopped working for me a couple years before that, but I had kept on doing the same damn thing, thinking I could find my way back to happy, carefree drinking.” Phil shook his head and peered out at the audience.

He spotted Joel and looked hard at Peter with a fleeting scowl, probably wondering who he was. “I got into rehab, and they directed me to AA. We lived in Rochester, where I worked for Kodak. Edie had grown up on Chestnut Lake, so, when I retired some years later, we moved to the old house on the lakeshore. I have a closed Big Book meeting there on Wednesdays. Now that Edie’s gone, I sponsor men in this program, take meetings into jails and prisons and generally provide an ear or a chair on the porch for anyone who’s sincere about their sobriety and having a hard time of it.

“I’m eighty and I still need to be useful,” he told them. “These twelve steps show me how to be of maximum service every day, and seeing a newcomer grab onto the hope in these rooms and the tools of our AA program brings me joy.

“After we break for the seventh tradition, the meeting is yours. Someone come up with a topic or a question for us.”

Empty baskets appeared at various points around the room, and the place buzzed with conversation. “What’s the seventh tradition?” Peter asked Joel.

“We support ourselves. People put a dollar or two in the basket to help pay the rent and buy the coffee. You don’t need to put in anything. Care to share your thoughts about what you’ve heard and seen so far?”

Peter examined the contents of his mug and swirled the cold coffee. “I was wondering what my life would have been like if my father had gotten sober. I don’t remember hearing my father laugh or talk about being useful or about joy. Everything at our house was grim and tense and negative. I like what he said about being useful and being of service. My whole life I wanted to serve and protect.”

“And now you do that for our city, Tompkins Falls,” Joel said. “Thank you for your service.”

Peter seemed antsy, but he listened to the thirty minutes of discussion that followed. The meeting concluded with everyone standing and saying the Serenity Prayer.

“Any thoughts or questions?” Joel asked Peter casually as they strolled toward the door.

“How did you meet that old guy Phil?”

Joel’s face came alive with a grin. “Walk out with me and I’ll tell you.”

They shouldered through groups engaged in noisy conversation, and stepped into the quiet of the church parking lot. “When I moved back to Tompkins Falls a while back,” Joel said, “I didn’t know many people at meetings. Phil got in my face one day and said, ‘You gonna join us or sit back there with a smug smile on your face every meeting?’ So I took that suggestion and a few others, reluctantly at first. He’s made a better man of me.”

Peter glanced back toward the church.

“Did you forget something?”

“No, but I think I was supposed to check in with someone. The captain didn’t tell me who.”

“That was me,” Joel said with an easy smile. “Glad you came tonight, Peter. I live downstairs from you, you know. Manda and I moved in a couple of weeks ago. If you ever want to talk, I’m there most evenings after six. Manda and I would be glad to have you join us for supper.” He gave Peter a friendly wave and walked toward his Passat.

Gwen kept her arm around Haley’s shoulders as they breezed into the women’s meeting at Clifton Springs the same Friday evening. “Good, Manda’s here ahead of us,” she noted. She pointed out a vivacious brunette talking with two other women at the coffee pot. Gwen lifted a hand to get Manda’s attention. Manda separated from the group and came toward them.

“Manda, meet Haley,” Gwen announced. “I’ll let you two discover what you have in common, and I’ll save seats for you both,” she promised.

Haley watched her disappear into the crowd. With a gulp, she turned doubtful eyes on the pretty woman with the sparkling, deep-blue eyes, who said, “Hi, Haley, I’m Manda. Welcome.”

“Hi, Manda. This is my first time at a meeting.”

“I hope you’ll hear something you need. I’ve been sober about a year and a half now, and my life’s way better sober.”

“Um, Gwen, my aunt, said I should talk to you.” Haley blurted out, “I’m not sure if I’m an alcoholic, but I know I can’t drink without awful things happening.” She giggled nervously and surveyed the meeting room. “I’m surprised there are so many girls around my age here.” She saw women of all ages, colors, shapes, and sizes.

“We’re the lucky ones, I think,” Manda told her with an easy smile, “getting sober while we’ve got our whole lives ahead of us.”