Precinct 11 - 01 - The Brotherhood (10 page)

“Now see,” Ambrose said, “there’s one reason you should delay your decision about your house. By then it will likely be made livable, and—”

“End of story, Dad.”

“Boone,” his father said, “this is hard on all of us. There’s no need to be testy.”

“Well, forgive me if I’m not in a good mood. There’s no need to try to talk me out of decisions I’ve already made.”

“Do stay with us for a week, though, Son.”

“Dad, I appreciate the thought, but I prefer to be alone. Jack is going to be on duty during the day, so . . .”

Lucy said, “This is the worst time to be alone. You need someone to talk to, someone who understands, someone who loves you and will pray with you and support you. . . .”

“Let’s move on.” Ambrose checked his list. “I know this is not something you want to think about right now, but I’m assuming you had insurance policies on your family, I mean besides the little starter thing we bought for Josh.”

Boone nodded. “I don’t remember all the details, but yeah, something was in place. The policies are new, so they won’t be worth much. Maybe pay for the funeral.”

“You might be surprised,” his father said. “If you’re insistent on leaving your home, perhaps the policies and the homeowners insurance will allow you to, you know . . .”

“Yeah, I know.” Boone was grateful his father had finally seemed to surrender to his decision about the house. But the idea of somehow benefiting financially from all this was repugnant.

Lucy had clearly disengaged from the conversation. She had her purse in her lap, had turned away from Boone, and sat staring out the door. He’d known her long enough to know what was on her mind. Plainly he wasn’t taking much counsel, making all his own decisions. Their advice and offers of help and companionship were being rejected, so she had nothing else to say or do. Her pouting was fine with Boone. It took the pressure off. He was an adult, and he would decide how to muddle his way through this. He wanted to tell her she ought to be grateful that the only thing keeping him from eating his gun was that he didn’t want to inflict even more pain on them.

His father spoke again. “Just know that we are here, standing by, willing to help in any way you want or need. If you’d like us, or me, to meet with the funeral home people or your pastor, just say the word. Otherwise, we will appreciate knowing when and where the funeral will be.”

“Thanks, Dad.” Boone told him the McNickles were in town and wrote down their phone numbers. “Guess we can all get together for dinner this evening.”

“And can I at least pray for you one more time?” Lucy said.

“I’d really rather you not,” Boone said, rising. “In private, do what you want, but for now, no.”

She sighed and shook her head, but she also rose and approached him, arms wide. He let her hug him. “I know this isn’t you, Boone, and I understand. It’s the devil attacking you.”

“He attacked me yesterday,” Boone said. “And he wins. I surrender.”

Boone felt it only right to see his parents out to their car. His mother was still crying and his father looked stony. “If you change your mind,” Ambrose said, “here’s where we’re staying.” He handed Boone a piece of notepaper from the hotel that had the address printed on top.

Jack met Boone when he reentered headquarters. “I gotta get on the street,” he said, “but you oughta know you’ve had dozens of calls. Most of ’em, I think, have taken me up on the offer of leaving their messages with me. I’ll save them for ya. Mostly just condolences. But your pastor has called several times and really needs to get together with you. He says he’ll meet you anywhere. You wanna call him or you want me to get back to him?”

“Yeah, tell him I’ll come to the church after lunch.”

Boone was partly proud of himself that he had stood up to his parents and put into action his new resolve to be brutally honest. On the other hand, what had been the point of hurting people who loved him and cared about him and who had indeed suffered losses themselves? Would he ever again be in his right mind? He couldn’t imagine.

His car had been in the district headquarters lot since he had arrived for duty the day before. He drove to an ATM, withdrew several hundred dollars, and found a sunglasses place. If there was one thing he hated, it was people gazing into his eyes, trying to detect something. Did they want to know if he had been crying? Were they trying to determine what was going on in his mind?

Boone asked to see the largest and best wraparound sunglasses, and a girl who appeared to be fresh out of high school showed him the top-of-the-line Maui Jims. He immediately slapped down the cash and rejected all her offers of warranties, cleaning cloths, and other accessories. He had them on before he left the shop.

Boone drove through a fast-food place for lunch, again seeing the food as only fuel, eating less than he was used to, and surprising himself by realizing that he was not out of emotion. As he sat eating, he was reminded that Josh had come to love the kiddie meals and the toys and sharing fries with him, and the tears came afresh. He removed the big sunglasses and wiped his eyes before finally heading for the church.

Boone kept his shades on even in the huge, dark sanctuary, and when he was greeted tentatively and sadly by staff, he responded to their expressions of sympathy with mere nods. He followed the long hallway behind the baptistery to the pastor’s office, where Francisco Sosa’s secretary told him Pastor was in a meeting but had asked to be interrupted.

“Not a problem. I’ll wait.”

“No, he insisted.”

“It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

“Just one second. They’re finishing up right now.”

Boone stood when the door opened and Pastor Sosa ushered out a young couple. He introduced them to Boone and said they were there for premarital counseling. It was obvious they knew who he was, as they both immediately sobered and told him how sorry they were. It stabbed him to see them so young and in love.

Sosa asked his secretary to get Boone a Coke, and they settled in his office. The pastor asked him how he was doing, whether he had slept, how the meeting went with HR and his parents. Boone admitted he was doing poorly, had not slept well, and asked how Sosa knew about the meeting with the benefits people.

“Your partner has been very good about keeping me informed. Seems like a good guy. You ought to invite him to church. Well, I suppose you already have.”

That had never crossed Boone’s mind.

Sosa picked up a phone message pad and said, “Actually, I’ve already heard from a Ms. Wells. She says you authorized her to work with us on some Chicago PD involvement in the service and at the gravesite.”

Boone nodded.

“I need to know from you what you want in the program, and then I’ll be happy to work with them.”

“You know what?” Boone said. “I can’t even think about the program. You knew Nikki. You know how special she was. Whatever you want to say is fine with me.”

“Did she have a favorite song?”

Boone thought a moment. “You know, she did have two hymns she really liked, but I don’t know if we’ve ever sung them here. In fact, I’m pretty sure we haven’t.”

“Sorry, our demographic is not big on hymns, but we can sure work them into a funeral service.”

“I know ’em because our church sang all the old hymns when I was growing up. ‘I Will Sing the Wondrous Story’ and ‘My Jesus, I Love Thee.’”

Sosa suddenly covered his mouth and shook his head. He pulled his hand away and his eyes filled. “Wow. Didn’t expect that to hit me that way. You know, those are two songs we ought to sing around here, quaint language and all.”

“Yeah?”

“Whoo. You bet. I’ll find someone to sing those. That’ll be really special. Anything else you want included, read, said, anything?”

Boone shook his head. “I just want to get through it.”

“You want it to be right, though.”

Boone didn’t want it at all, right or not. This ordeal got worse by the minute, and a funeral service would be the hardest part yet. “You understand I need to leave all the details up to you. I can’t deal with it.”

“Sure. But I’ll keep you posted so there are no surprises, and if anything comes to mind that you want included, let me know.”

Boone told the pastor everything about the meeting with his parents.

“I suppose they’re just trying to be as helpful as they can, Boone. At some point down the road, you’re going to want to make that right with them. Besides their own loss, you can imagine how they feel for you. No one wants to see their child in such pain.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Sorry.”

Boone shrugged.

Sosa gave him the contact information for the parishioner who owned a funeral home. “He also has contacts with cemeteries, unless you already had—”

“No, I need that.”

“I’ll get with the funeral home and the cemetery,” Sosa said, “but only you can pick out the caskets.”

“I hadn’t even thought about that. Is it too much to ask to have you do that too?”

“Boone, I’m at your disposal, but no, that is something you really must do yourself. I’d be happy to come along, but—”

“Please at least do that. You know I’m off duty for a while, so just tell me where to be and when.”

Sosa made some notes. “And I assume you want to take a break from the junior boys.”

“Yeah, I don’t know about getting back to that at all.”

“No?”

“Well, every one of ’em is going to remind me of Josh and what might have been.”

Sosa nodded, looking dubious. “Gives you a chance to have positive impact. But that’s not something you need to decide now. I understand it’ll be a while anyway.” They sat in silence for a moment. “I’ll want to pray for you before you go.”

Boone was afraid of that. “There is something I need to talk to you about,” he said.

“Anything.”

“I lied to Nikki just before she died.”

“You lied to her? You mean you kept from her the truth about Josh?”

“Worse. She asked about him and I told her he was fine, that she had saved him.”

“Hmm.”

“It was a flat-out lie; what can I say?”

Sosa looked genuinely puzzled, and Boone appreciated that. He was so tired of snap judgments, especially by Christians. “I’m not a big proponent of situational ethics,” the pastor said, “though this is a classic case. Surely nothing would have been gained by telling her the truth. You could have said he was fine without saying it was because he was waiting for her in heaven. The lie was in saying she had saved him.”

“Yeah, so what do I do with that?”

“You feel as if you have sinned?”

“I know it’s wrong to lie. I lied to the most important person in the world to me.”

“She already knows and understands. And there are no tears in heaven, so it’s not like she’s holding a grudge. But this is what’s so great about God. You can take this to him. He understands, and he also forgives. There aren’t many people who would hold you accountable for keeping such awful news from a mother on her deathbed. But if you need to deal with it to restore your relationship with God, you know what to do.”

Boone hung his head. “It’s going to take a lot more than that to restore that relationship.”

“Really? You want to talk about it?”

“Maybe someday. Not today.”

8

The Ordeal

Boone didn’t realize until deep into the afternoon that he had made a mistake by going back to Jack Keller’s apartment. He wasn’t getting together with his parents and his in-laws until dinner, and he didn’t want to see anyone until then.

The problem was, there was nothing to do at the apartment but obsess, and Boone was restless. He was getting a picture of what depression was about. For years he had heard of people who suffered from something much worse than the blues or a little melancholy. He knew of people unable to get out of bed in the morning, people to whom absolutely nothing in life appealed. They had no appetite, seemed to forget what gave them pleasure, and lost interest in things that used to entertain them.

Boone had turned his phone to vibrate and checked it infrequently. The calls kept coming, but he would only take the ones from Jack. TV was of zero interest. Boone wasn’t hungry. He knew he had to busy himself somehow, but all that was on the horizon was the list of things he and Pastor Sosa had to accomplish before the funeral. Was he expected to be eager about choosing caskets?

He dreaded the dinner, but there was no way out of it. He couldn’t begrudge his parents and in-laws their bereavement, but what shape would that macabre meeting take? Would they all just sit there in tears? Maybe there was something to the tradition some cultures had of loudly wailing away their grief.

Boone’s mind raced as it had the night before. And while his sleep had been alcohol-induced and hardly effective, he felt exhausted but strangely not drowsy. He desperately needed a nap, but there would be no sleep without wine, and he didn’t dare drink before dinner. On the other hand, he was going to need help sleeping that night, so that gave him something to do—an errand.

Finding it hard to believe it had been only twenty-four hours since the horror, Boone tried to refocus. Jack had been good. He wasn’t the kind of person Boone would have chosen as a friend, and if it were up to his mother, he would not be allowed to even associate with the man. Jack didn’t have the morals Boone had been raised with, but then he didn’t claim to be a man of faith, either.