Second Chance Love (26 page)

Chapter Forty-Three

Elizabeth stared out the front window of
The Prints and the Pauper
, just as she had done for many thousands of content hours. She had spent most of them with a book in her hand. Since stumbling onto the news of her biological father, the contentment was gone, replaced by a disturbing sensation like a dog's first time in a boat.

And when Steve tried to help, I snapped at him. He was being kind; he just didn't understand how I was feeling, and didn't wait to let me get into it. Now there is this distance, and I hate it. And I created it. I got used to our intimacy. Now I feel lost. I know nothing about how to bring it back. In romance, I'm a functional child with no meaningful experience. The distance grows wider every day. Every day I hope for the moment that breaks the spell, and it doesn't come
.

Elizabeth sighed, nibbled at the edge of a fingernail, then sat up a bit straighter as she saw Steve’s Taurus pulling up to the front of the store. He came in too fast, braked and swerved at the last second, and jumped the front tire over the curb.

That is completely unlike him
. She hurried toward the door. Before she reached it, Steve stepped through. His hair was disheveled, and there were bloody streaks running down one cheek. “Steve! Honey, what happened? Was there an accident? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I mean, I’m not really fine, but it's nothing serious. We’ve got to get over to Mother’s.”

“We’re not going anywhere until you tell me what happened.” Elizabeth took his elbow and half-guided him to her chair, then carefully touched around his swollen eye and the claw marks. “Okay. Now tell me.”

He did. When he finished, Elizabeth said, “Sorry, but this doesn’t make any sense. She’s horrible, but she's never been violent, has she?”

As Steve shook his head, he felt the start of a monster headache. “I don’t get it either. I’ve never seen her like that. She was like a completely different person. She looked…insane.”

Elizabeth looked at him thoughtfully. “I think we need to call the police. Tell them you were assaulted by her. File a report.”

“I don’t know, Lizzie. Obviously there’s something wrong with her. I really don’t want to make it any more difficult for her than it already is.”

“Steve. Honey. She assaulted you! She might be dangerous to other people, maybe even to herself. I think we need to call the police now.”

Steve had to move his wrist over to his right eye's focus in order to read his watch. “Lizzie, it’s a quarter to one. Mother’s wedding is in fifteen minutes. I’ve got some sunglasses in the car. I’ll just wear them and make an excuse. After the ceremony, we can report it to the cops.”

She let go a doubtful sigh. “I don’t like it, at all, but I don’t want to disappoint your mother, either. This day is so important to her.” She looked carefully into Steve’s eyes, scrambling for memory of concussion symptoms from the novel she had read that summer about women's tackle football.

“I’m fine. Really. It just came as a shock. Let’s go get Mother married off, then we can deal with this.”

Steve accomplished the drive without incident. Ten minutes later, they walked into Margaret’s room. Inside were Margaret, Gordon, Gladys, and Pastor Rickman from Our Savior Lutheran Church, which Margaret had attended for many years. As soon as everyone got a look at Steve, the conversation died.

“Steven, what in the world happened to you?” Margaret said.

Steve’s fingers flew involuntarily to his face, but he moved them to adjust his sunglasses.

“No big deal, Mother. I’ll tell you all about it when we’re not about to have a wedding.” He walked to Margaret’s bedside, shook hands with Gordon, then hugged his mother and whispered, “I’m fine. It can wait.”

Margaret nodded, unconvinced.

Steve turned to Pastor Rickman, an older, grey-haired man dressed in a grey suit with a black shirt and clerical collar. “Hello, Pastor. Thank you for being here to get these kids off to a good start in life. I hope they understand the solemn responsibilities of marriage.”

The pastor smiled. “It’s my pleasure. I have performed wedding ceremonies in much odder places than this.”

Steve nodded toward Gladys, a tall, strong, sixtyish woman with iron grey hair and apple cheeks. “Hello, Gladys. Good to see you again. I understand you're going to help us get her house ready for our wedding. That gives me a lot of reassurance.”

“I’m glad to do it, Mr. Larson.”

“Steve, please. We both know who Mr. Larson was.”

Gladys smiled. "That we do."

“Shall we?" Pastor Rickman asked. He stood at the foot of the bed, with Gordon on Margaret’s right side holding her hand, and Gladys, Steve, and Elizabeth lined up on the other.

Margaret had put on one of her fall dresses for the occasion. Gordon wore new blue jeans, a white shirt, and a horsehead bolo tie.

A year ago, I could never have imagined this. It looked like Mom and I were both destined to be alone forever
. Steve took Elizabeth’s hand, glad to see a small smile. They would work their way through all of this—Chelsea, Jefferson Stanton—anything and everything that life wanted to throw at them.

“Dearly beloved,” Pastor Rickman intoned. “We are gathered here today to join together two people via the bonds of holy matrimony. I see no need to lecture either of you about what marriage means. You both have already loved well, and have each experienced strong marriages of faith and endurance, commitments upheld. Now that the Lord has called your previous spouses home to be with Him, He has blessed you with reunion, and you have found that your early bond of love and friendship still persists. Before I pronounce you husband and wife, is there anything you would like to say?”

Gordon cleared his throat. “Well, I’m not much for speeches, but I have something I want to say.” He turned to Margaret, small and frail. “Maggie, the first time I ever saw you, it was just the back of your head when you sat two pews in front of me at church. We were both sixteen, and I didn’t even know your name, but I loved you. Always have.”

For a man that isn’t much for speeches, that’s pretty good,
Steve thought.

Tears ran unchecked down Margaret's cheeks.

“Gord, I never thought I would be able to feel this way again. You are such a good man, and I am blessed to have you with me. I love you.”

Pastor Rickman said, “Gordon Arthur Bishop, do you take Margaret Larson to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

“I do.”

“And do you, Margaret Louise Larson, take Gordon Bishop to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

“I do.”

“Let no man put asunder what God has joined together. I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

Steve, Elizabeth, and Gladys applauded. Gordon bent down and kissed Margaret, taking his time. Gladys pulled out a bottle of champagne.

At that moment, three hard knocks sounded on the door. Elizabeth, who was closest, opened it. In walked two men in overcoats, one tall and one short. The shorter man looked around. “Steven Larson?”

Steve stepped forward. “Yes, I’m Steve Larson. What can I do for you?”

The smaller man pulled out a gold badge. “I’m Detective Fitzgerald. This is my partner, Detective Anderson.” The larger man brandished his own badge. “Mr. Larson, we have some questions relating to an assault on a Ms. Stanton. We need you to come with us.”

Chapter Forty-Four

Steve Larson sat alone in a small, dull room, furnished only with a utilitarian table and two straight-backed chairs. A one-way window covered much of one wall. It felt as though he'd been sitting there for hours, though he had no way to tell. The detectives had confiscated his phone.

He had seen enough episodes of
Nightline
to know what was going on. They were letting him think about his many sins and wrongs, and worry about the consequences of failure to confess. The only missing element was an actual wrongdoing.

Finally, just when he was thinking of taking a nap, Detective Fitzgerald walked in. He was in rolled-up shirt sleeves. He narrowed his eyes at Steve, laid a tablet computer on the table, then turned the chair backward and sat down.

“Should I call you Steve, or Mr. Larson?”

“Steve is fine.”

“Okay, great. Now, Steve, I’ve got some pretty incriminating evidence here,” Fitzgerald said, tapping the tablet. “Before we talk about that, though, I'm interested in hearing your side of things. I understand how situations can get out of control. What happened at Ms. Stanton’s place of business this morning?”

“I have no idea how you could have anything incriminating in there, because I haven’t done anything. The only thing that happened is that I was attacked by Chelsea Stanton.” Steve pointed to the still-fresh wound on his left cheek and puffy eye. “The only assault on her is if you consider her hand to have been assaulted by my blood when she hit me. I would never have hit her, and didn't even think about hitting her back. If there's an assault, I'm the victim.”

Detective Fitzgerald nodded, as if playing along with fiction. “But you were at her place of business this morning? What were you doing there?”

“She asked me to come by. She said she had a wedding present for me.”

“And how long would you say you were there?”

“No more than five minutes. I walked in, she gave me the present, and I walked out. I was heading to my car when she rushed up from behind me and did this,” pointing again to the fresh wound on his face.

“That looks more like something you would get from someone facing you, rather than coming at you from behind.”

“Right. Well, yes. I heard her coming, turned around, then she hit me.”

“So you are saying that Ms. Stanton, with no provocation whatsoever, rushed you, you turned around, and she hit you. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”
And when I hear him repeat it back like that, it does sound like bull
.

Detective Fitzgerald was nodding. “I see. That being the case,” he said, tapping the tablet, “how would you explain these photos I took of Ms. Stanton just a few minutes ago?” The detective showed Steve an enlarged picture of a woman’s swollen, bruised arm. Next, a woman’s leg, scraped and bleeding. Then came a picture of Chelsea Stanton’s face, the left side horribly bruised, her left eye blackened shut.

Steve’s mouth fell open. He moved his lips, but no sound came out. Finally, he managed to say, “I will have no further statement to make. I want to see my lawyer.”

Detective Fitzgerald nodded, smiled a little
now you see that I’ve got you, don’t you?
smile, then stood and left the room.

What in the hell is she playing at?

Steve sat alone for another half hour before a police officer came and escorted him to a holding cell. “You’re about to be booked into the city jail," the young Latino officer explained. "You’ll be held in a community cell. Before we put you in there, we’re going to have you change into this jumpsuit. We’ll check your clothes in with the rest of your belongings. Once you strip down, I’ll need you to go into the decontamination room. We have to spray you down for lice and other bugs.”

Steve knitted his eyebrows, and said, “Seriously?”

“Procedure. Only way to keep the tank clean is to spray everyone down, rich or poor.”

This is a lot more humiliating than walking into a bank branch and having to actually apply for a damn loan
.

He stripped down and stepped into the decontamination room. Vents in the walls covered every inch of his body in a powdery spray. He emerged with gray-looking hair and smelling like something a janitor might spray into a trash can. “Charming,” Steve said, running a hand through his thinning hair and knocking off most of the powder. “Why do I have a hunch I’m going to be finding that powder in new locations for weeks to come?”

The holding cell was a large room, 20’ by 30’, with solid brick walls on two sides and white steel bars on the other two. An elevated TV in one corner showed a distinguished-looking man leaning over to a rather dumb-looking young man, confiding, “You are
not
the father.” At this piece of apparent good news, Young Dummy leaped to his feet and screamed something at an equally dumb-looking young woman, probably coating her and much of the audience's front row in spittle. Half his speech was bleeped out, but he was definitely having a strong emotional reaction.

In one corner of the room, four men were playing what looked like Texas Hold ‘em.
I'm a fair poker player, but they'll play it without me. I'd bet that winning is a bigger danger than losing
. The room had a dozen bunk beds, with four of them occupied by sleeping men. No one in the cell seemed to have any interest in Steve, and that suited him. He sat down to think.

Why did she make this crap up?

Why did she hit me to begin with?

What was behind that nutty look in her eyes?

What the hell do I do now?

No answers came.