Straw Men (17 page)

Christensen lifted his left hiking boot onto one of the stairs and pulled the laces tight. Brenna was locked in her office. Again. He was trying to keep things at home as normal as possible, but his patience was wearing just as thin as his daughter's. “It's only nine-thirty, Annie. The zoo doesn't even open until ten on Sundays.”

“Shrimpo's not even ready.” She shot a look at Taylor, who was pulling an oversized sweatshirt over his head. “Kelly said they were the first ones in line last Sunday, but they got there at nine.”

“We'll be there when they open the gate,” he said.

“But you promised—”

“Sweetheart, just stop,” he said. “Please. This has been a rough week on everybody, and I'm doing the best I can.”

“Why isn't Brenna going?”

“She's busy.”

“As usual,” Taylor said from somewhere deep in the sweatshirt. “How come she can't go?”

Christensen straightened the hood. “Your mom has a hearing tomorrow that's really, really important to her. She needs this weekend to make sure she's ready. So I told her we'd make ourselves scarce so she could concentrate.”

“She doesn't want us around?” Taylor asked.

“It's not that, buddy. It's just, some days she needs time by herself to do her work. I think we should try to help her, don't you?”

Taylor shrugged. “She's always busy.”

Christensen wanted to agree. It wasn't the first time he wanted to tell Brenna how badly her son needed her. Once, a few weeks back, the boy had found an old photo of himself as an infant. He was sitting in his high chair as Brenna fed him, and Brenna had been playing peek-a-boo with him from behind a Cheerios box. By his wide, toothless grin, you could tell he clearly delighted in his mother's attention. “We used to do things like that,” he'd said, tracing a finger across the faces in the picture. “Now she's just all, you know, working and stuff.”

Christensen hoped Taylor didn't notice him wince. Seven years ago, the boy had watched his parents' marriage collapse beneath the weight of Brenna's obsessive work habits. For the past week, he'd watched her turtling again into an intense, reclusive state in which her only words were commands and her focus entirely elsewhere. Christensen long ago had given up on changing her; the best he could do was soften the impact of her inattention on the kids. That was his role in the delicate balancing act of their relationship.

“And you sometimes feel like she's too busy for you?” Christensen asked.

Taylor looked at Annie. The boy looked as if he wanted to answer, but he hesitated. Finally, he shrugged.

“It doesn't mean she loves you any less,” Annie said, spreading her arms like a pint-sized preacher, mimicking Christensen's voice, parroting the words he often used to put uncertain young minds at ease.

Christensen reproached his daughter with a look, then refocused on Taylor. “Annie's right. Your mom's a busy person, and this is just one of those times.”

“I know.”

“And I'm sure she's just as upset as you that she's so busy right now. You know there's nothing more important in her life than you.”

The two kids exchanged a look that told Christensen they'd talked about all this before. Annie cleared her throat, apparently the designated spokesperson for the pair. She looked down the hall at Brenna's closed office door.

“We sort of think that's a load of crap,” Annie said, crossing her arms again.

Christensen started to scold her for her language, but stopped himself. He looked at Taylor, who defiantly crossed his arms even as he looked away. This was serious. Annie and Taylor were united on something for the first time Christensen could remember.

“OK,” he said, reeling. “I guess we all need to talk about this.”

“Stop telling him that's just the way she is, and that that's OK. It's not,” Annie said. “Sometimes it seems like she doesn't care, about Taylor or any of us. It's not fair.”

Taylor's lower lip wavered. Christensen felt his do the same. Annie was nine years old, and in an instant she'd defined a problem that, even with his Ph.D. and years of studying human behavior, he'd managed to articulate only in his most private moments: Loving Brenna was, more often than not, a one-way street. It didn't matter how many platitudes, interpretations or rationalizations he offered. Sometimes nothing he could do or say could bridge the emotional distance Brenna put between herself and the people who loved her. He'd had to tolerate that distance in his father, who for years retreated into a quiet haze of passive alcoholism. But living with Brenna was a choice. In his darkest moments, Christensen had actually refined the problem to a nagging question: Had that choice been a good one?

He knelt down and motioned the kids forward. “I know how you feel, and I know how hard it can be,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper. He put a hand on Taylor's shoulder. “There are reasons she's that way, I guess, but I know that doesn't help.”

“Like what reasons?” Taylor asked, bolder now.

Christensen shook his head. “Maybe you should ask her.”

“No way.”

“Why not?”

Just then, the office door opened. Brenna emerged into the hallway in full stride, a piece of paper in one hand and her coffee cup in the other. If she wondered why Christensen was kneeling in the front hall in quiet conversation with the two kids, she didn't ask. She just marched up to them, thrust the paper at Christensen and said, “Try to keep the fax line clear. I've got stuff coming in all day.”

Christensen looked at the unfamiliar page of type, then at Brenna. “Sure you don't want to take a break?”

She sipped her coffee, vaguely noticing their outdoor wear. “Going somewhere?”

“Jim's taking us to the zoo,” Taylor said. “I told you this morning.”

Brenna pretended to slap her forehead. “That's great, Tay. Just be careful.”

“Yeah, Tay, be careful,” Annie said. “I heard they just let the tigers run loose now.”

The sarcasm was lost on Brenna, who just nodded to the paper in Christensen's hand. “You expecting anything else?”

Christensen looked again at the type on the page. His eyes fell briefly on the name Teresa, but other than that nothing looked familiar. “I wasn't expecting
this.
Sure it's not yours?”

Brenna took it back and scanned it. She saw Teresa's name, too, prompting her to read it more carefully. But in the end she just shrugged. “Nothing I need.”

“No cover page?”

Brenna shook her head. Christensen examined the page's top edge, looking for the phone number of the fax from which it was sent. He found nothing, and that seemed odd. He looked up, intending to ask Brenna about it. She already was halfway down the hall.

“Thanks,” he said, waving the paper. He folded it once and slid it into one of his jacket pockets.

Brenna closed the door again, and Annie rolled her eyes. “See?”

He faced the two kids. “OK. So what do we do?”

“Your call. I'm no shrink,” Annie said. “Can we go?”

Christensen checked his watch. “Yep. We'll be there when they open the gate. Ready?”

“Like, duh,” she said.

Christensen tied Taylor's shoes and herded him and Annie out the front door. “Be out in a sec,” he called as he watched them vault down the front steps toward the Explorer at the curb.

He turned toward the office door, feeling as if he'd crossed some invisible line. For years now, he'd accepted whatever love Brenna could give him. He'd learned to live with the distance, and to play the buffer between Brenna and people—including her own son—who didn't understand. But things seemed suddenly different. If they were going to exist as a family, with or without the benefit of a marriage certificate, Brenna was going to have to deal with her problem. Otherwise—

Hell. Otherwise what?

Christensen knocked firmly and pushed through the office door. Brenna was on the phone. She shot him an irritated look, then excused herself from the conversation. She hit the Hold button harder than necessary.

“What?” she said. “Terry's helping me track something down.”

Terry Flaherty, her law partner. He apparently had given up his Sunday to help her prepare for the DellaVecchio hearing.

“When we get back, you and I need to talk,” Christensen said.

“About?”

“About everything, Bren. Just … everything.”

“Everything,” she repeated, shaking her head. “That's great, Jim. I've got all the fucking time in the world today.”

“It's important, Bren. It's Taylor. He needs you. Save me some time, if not today, then after the hearing tomorrow. I'll explain what's going on, but right now I know you're busy.”

“Busy?” Brenna gestured to the half-dozen cardboard file boxes on the floor, her portable DellaVecchio archive. She swept her arm over a desk littered with manila file folders, each containing some vital piece of the complex legal case she'd been assembling for eight years. Finally, with a dramatic flourish, she checked her wristwatch. “Hey, I've got twenty-three hours before I have to be in court. Maybe we could work in a vacation this afternoon, too.”

“It can't wait long, Bren.”

“Well, Jim, it has to.” She turned her chair around so her back was facing him, and from that angle the gauzy bandage peeked through Brenna's hair. Christensen was about to ask Brenna if she minded being alone when she poked the Hold button.

“Terry? Sorry,” she said. “Give me that citation again.”

On his way out, Christensen made sure the house was secure. He closed the blinds at the front, set the alarm, and locked the deadbolts on the doors. The precautions gave him only the illusion of control, but sometimes that was better than nothing.

He'd wanted to start over after the prolonged agony of Molly's coma and death, the sooner the better, because life as a single parent frightened him beyond words. Melissa was thirteen at the time, and bitter about everything; Annie was just three. They needed a mother. He needed … what? Stability. A sense of family, whole and complete.

Brenna needed someone, too, but their needs were never the same. Taylor still had a father, and their relationship was sound. What had Brenna needed? A lover? A partner? A nanny? Sometimes he wondered. He understood his own feelings, looking back. She'd helped save him from criminal charges after he disconnected Molly's respirator; by the time that ordeal was over he was in love.

He pushed it; he was pushing it still. He wanted to be together. He wanted his daughters and her son to have at least a facsimile of a family, a sheltered place where love was unconditional and the relationships were reasonably healthy. But still, after six years together, Brenna, the emotional porcupine, had never really committed. A half-dozen times he'd suggested that they marry, and each time she curled inward and raised her spines. Each time she forced his retreat, he felt the distance between them grow.

Even the kids could see it now. Why hadn't he?

The lioness lay, paws up, on the other side of the window. Annie and Taylor were transfixed, chatting with a zoo volunteer. Christensen huddled on his bench, grateful for the time alone. He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and hit paper. The strange, anonymous fax. He'd forgotten about it during that tense standoff at home. Now he pulled it out and unfolded it.

The single page had no real beginning or end. Its layout looked like a page from a transcript of some sort, with exchanges between two people represented by the initials RB and DH. The questions seemed to come from RB, the answers from DH. He spotted the reference to Teresa and thought,
DH, David Harnett.
Maybe. It began in mid-sentence:

may have. There were so many cases like it they all run together after a while.

RB: And nothing about that [unintelligible] stands out?

DH: No sir.

RB: Let's move on then. You said before that you were home that night.

DH: Which night are you talking now?

RB: New Year's Eve, 1991. You said you were home.

DH: That's correct. [unintelligible] both had the night off, which is pretty rare.

RB: So you weren't alone?

DH: Just me and my wife.

RB: Teresa.

DH: Correct.

RB: It was New Year's Eve. Most people go out and celebrate. But you stayed home?

DH: That's correct, sir.

RB: How come?

DH: It's amateur night, sir. All the drunks on the road. We stayed home. A lot of people do.

RB: Because of the drunks on the road?

DH: Mostly. We'd also had a disagreement [unintelligible] before, I think. Neither one of us was in the mood to go out and party.

RB: Do anything unusual? Open a bottle of champagne? Toast the New Year? Anything like that?

DH: Champagne gives my wife headaches. We may have had a beer or something. Mostly we just talked.

RB: Remember what you talked about?

DH: Nothing particular. Relationship stuff, I think.

RB: Anyone come over that night?

DH: No sir.

RB: Did either of you go out? Run to the store for anything?

DH: No sir.

RB: So you and your wife were at your house there on Morningside Avenue the whole eve­ning of Dec. 31, 1991?

DH: Yes sir.

RB: What about during the day? Home all day?

DH: No sir. Because of the disagreement I mentioned, I'd been staying elsewhere for a few days. But I came home probably midafternoon Dec. 31.

RB: To work things out?

The page ended there, with an unanswered question. Christensen was sure the DH referred to David Harnett. Much of what DH said fit neatly with things Teresa had mentioned. He looked again at the answers, the stiff formality of his language. No sir. Yes sir. That's correct, sir. The language of a man in deference to some superior force.

Christensen flashed back to a conversation with Teresa, the one they had in her car the morning before. He remembered her astonished “Oh my God” as a memory came clear, the memory involving her husband, a drug dealer, and the police department's Internal Affairs Di­vision. What had she said? The investigative panel had called David twice.

Christensen looked again at the paper in his hand. It had to be a transcript of one of Harnett's appearances before the IAD. But Kiger had told him those files were closed. Who would have access? And why would they fax him
this
page, which seemed inconsequential, even trivial. Odder still, why would someone fax it to his home and make sure that the fax was untraceable?

Christensen folded the paper again and put it away. He'd been so careful not to lead Teresa as she struggled into her past, but the memories she was unearthing all seemed to relate to her husband. Now this, and Christensen suddenly felt that someone was trying to lead him. But who?

“The lady over there said the one without a mane is really a boy,” Annie said. “But they call him Sheeba anyway.”

How long had his daughter been standing there?

Christensen stared a long time before saying, “I don't understand.”

Annie rolled her eyes and pointed back through the enclosure window. “That lion. Somebody cut his nuts off.”

“Annie!” Christensen said, conscious of the stares from other zoo patrons. “Watch your language.” He looked at Taylor, who nodded and gestured subtly at his own crotch. “It's true,” he said. “All his hair fell out when they castrated him. Sheeba's really a he, but he looks like a lioness. You can see his thing if you look close.”

“Sheeba's a he,” Christensen said, catching up.

“Heeba!” Annie said.

This cracked Taylor up, and off they went to tell the zoo guide.

Christensen checked his watch. Nearly noon. They'd seen everything in the zoo, some things twice, and still they'd given Brenna only half the day to herself. If they went to lunch and hit a movie, they could stay out of her hair for a couple more hours. But who was he kidding? He wasn't just trying to give Brenna time to get ready for the DellaVecchio hearing tomorrow morning. He was avoiding her. Going home meant finally dealing with what had become a corrosive problem. It meant tension and confrontation. It meant facing down the reality of a relationship in serious trouble, and Christensen wasn't at all sure he was ready for the consequences.