The Perfect Solution-A Suspense of Choices (2 page)

Examining the tips of his manicured nails and then the tips of his well shined shoes, he waited for the detective to stop the tuneless humming and speak. When the humming stopped, Austin thought he was about to learn the reason for his summons and he sat up straight, but he was mistaken. He watched the detective with a burning anger as the man tossed the useless pencil, pushed back his chair and moved away from the table, crossing the room to the coffee maker.

"Would you like a cup of coffee, Doctor Sanchez?"

"Why not, I guess I have nothing to lose by taking a cup." Deciding to get the show on the road, he employed sarcasm as his tool. "Maybe after that, you will tell me why you requested my company. Unless you called me here because you were lonely."

"No." The detective returned to the table and placed one of the cups he was carrying, in front of Austin. "Loneliness doesn’t happen to be one of my problems. As a matter of fact, my problem is really your problem." He took a sip from his cup.

Copying the detective's moves, Austin irritably took a drink from his coffee. The damned little detective was working on his last nerve. Having to sit at the beck and call of a White man made him want to return to his belligerent, defiant, and ignorant days in the Hood. The gulp of scalding coffee brought his control into focus and he coughed in annoyance. Slamming the cup on the table and spilling a few drops in the process, he then mimicked the detective's rocking movements.

"Doctor Sanchez where is your son?"

"What?"Austin let the chair's legs fall back to the floor with a bang. "I don't have a son. If you called me in here to badger me about some unknown child, then I'm afraid you called in the wrong person." Austin stood to leave.

"Do you know a Catrine Nechelle Teddi?"

"Yes," Austin answered hesitantly before he turned and gazed doubtfully on the detective. "I haven't seen her for a few years, though."

Pointing to the empty chair with an ink pen, a sure sign they were now getting to work the detective resumed his interrogation.

"When was the last time you saw your son?"

"I have never seen my 'son', because I don’t have one." Austin getting more irritated as the moments passed emphasized his response angrily as he ran his fingers through his hair.

"From what Ms. Teddi has told us, you do. The child is three and a half." He picked up the sheet of paper. "He was born on the twentieth of September."

"What?" He resumed his seat slowly, staring at detective in astonishment. "You mean you're telling me that Catrine had my child and she didn't let me know?"

"Is that what you’re telling me?"

"Yes."Austin covered his mouth in shocked disbelief. "How could she do such a thing? Isn't there a law against that or something? How can a woman keep the knowledge of a child from its father and there not be a law against it? Wouldn't that be like kidnapping or something?" He stared at the detective, but did not really see him. His mind, desperately trying to assimilate what it had heard, refused to take in anything else.

"Have you and Ms. Teddi had an argument lately?"

"I just finished telling you that I haven’t seen her in a few years. I'm talking about over four years, here."

"Four years," The detective repeated the words in disbelief. “So you're trying to tell me you don't know where the boy is."

"He's missing? You brought me here, tell me about a child I have never seen and then you tell me that he is missing. Am I going to be considered a suspect? Wait a minute; I am a suspect, right" Austin stood in agitation and paced the room. “Do you think that I took him?"

"Sit down, Sanchez." The detective stood and put his hand on his hip. His solid stance and the hand nearest the gun in his holster intimidating as hell and Austin sat."The mother reported the child missing and we always check with family members, first. You are not the only one we will question."

"I just can't believe this." Austin shook his head in stupefaction. “Catrine had my child and didn’t let me know. Do you have a picture of my son?" He looked across the room at the detective.

"No, an officer is on the way to meet Ms. Teddi now to get one." He sat back down. "I won't be able to keep you too long, but I do have a few questions that I want to ask you. I want to ask you a few questions about your activities throughout today. So sit back and calm down."

Taking a deep breath and picking up the cup of coffee so his hands would be occupied, he had spent the better part of the past two hours sitting in that hard bottomed slate backed chair, repeatedly answering the same questions until he thought he would burst with anger and frustration.

"Listen, I don’t know how differently I can answer you. I have never seen him. I have already told you the same thing repeatedly I have no ideas about an abduction. For all I know the child is not even my son."

He had stressed the statement. Losing all patience, but to no avail. The questions continued. Do you know Catrine Teddi? Where does she live? When was the last time you had any contact with her? How long have you known her? Do you think she would harm her own child? The same questions, the same answers except for the one that he had no answer for. Why had Catrine kept the boy a secret?

Angrily striding through the parking garage without a glance to his surroundings, Austin walked past his car and huffed irritably when he had to turn and retrace his steps. Pushing the button that activated the engine of his car, he cursed extensively when the car protested with an irritating grinding squeal as it was thrown into the wrong gear.

"When I get to my apartment and take a shower, I'm going to call Catrine," he promised himself aloud as he restarted the car. "I should just pop up at her house. I still remember her address. Hell, I should. It took me damned near a year to stop driving past there. This time, I will be damned if I just pass by."

Fifteen minutes later, Austin was parking his hunter green Chevrolet Crossfire near the door of his apartment when he noticed a police car sitting across the street and cursed again as he slammed the car's door.

"When I get close to Catrine it will be nothing nice," he muttered aloud. "First, I get the humiliating visit with the police and now I have a police car sitting outside of my apartment, watching me as if I’m some common criminal."

Running up the stairs and opening his apartment door, Austin immediately went over to the telephone and punched out Catrine's number with the tip of his middle finger, cracking the nail with the force of his anger.

"Same number," he grumbled when he heard her voice on the machine. "I bet the girl is still driving that dangerous little sporty Jaguar, and with my son in it, no less."

Barely able to restrain himself from voicing his anger and frustration, he left a brief message on her answering machine; he let out an utterance of irritation which sounded more like a growl before slamming down the receiver and began to strip for a shower. Standing rigid under the water and hoping that the soothing drops would calm him, he closed his eyes and turned his face to the stinging hot spray. As the water ran down his cheeks he let himself remember the last night they had spent together.

Over the years that they had been apart, he had dared himself to even bring her name to memory. It had hurt him deeply when their relationship ended and his male pride refused to let him go crawling back. Until the day Catrine had thrown him out of her life, he had not realized just how much she had meant to him. He’d felt as if he would die and had spent many days on the verge of tears. For a man of his years that had been a new experience. He had walked around his apartment with barely enough energy to move. He couldn't concentrate. A terrible thing when you are a surgeon. Finally, he had run to his mother like a wimpy little woman and cried on her shoulders. He told her how clinging Catrine had become. How much the girl wanted him in her life and how much the idea of living with someone frightened him.

"Tin," his mother sat on the sofa looking up at him in barely disguised amusement. She patted the palm of her hand on the cushion next to her

"Honey, sit. You’re hurting my neck. What with me looking up at the ceiling and swinging my head to follow you as you wear out the carpet with your incessant pacing; I may never be able to use my neck again." She laughed and patted the spot again when he scowled. "Honey, if you cared that much for this girl, why in the world did you break up with her? She sounded like a dream to me."

"What are you talking about, Mom? Didn't you hear what I said? This woman believed that she owned me. Every time I turned around, she was there."

"You mean she stalked you," his mother stated, tongue-in-cheek, almost laughing when he threw his hands in the air.

"No." He stood back up. "No, I mean it was like we were never apart. She was just always there. When I got off work, I went to her apartment or she came to mine. When we could, we ate lunch together. She was just always there, washing dishes, clothes, cleaning the apartment, cooking, relaxing...Mom. Mom, stop laughing this isn’t funny. I just felt… I don't know."

"Loved? Wanted?"

"No, trapped." he sighed in disgust. "Mom you think this is funny but it isn't. No matter what I did she never trusted me. She was always thinking that I am messing around with someone else."

"Was she seeing anyone else?"

"No. As a matter of fact I'm the only one she ever...why am I having this conversation with you? I'm going to Dallas' house. He and Houston are watching the game on television."

"Yeah, you do that. Your brothers could probably help you a lot better than I can. I think that sometimes you forget that I am a woman. And as such I can understand how this girl feels. If I caught your drift, you're the only person this girl has ever slept with, right?" She continued when he put his head down and studied the circle he was making with the toe of his shoe and didn't answer. "Just that fact would make the girl very emotional. She.... Uhm, what's her name?" His mother stopped in mid sentence.

"It doesn't matter. I won't be seeing her again."

"Right," She scoffed in disbelief. "If it doesn't matter, tell me her name. Would I like her? How old is she? Where does she live? How long have you been seeing her? Who are her parents? And she doesn't sleep around, huh? She sounds like a winner to me."

Austin looked at his mother dubiously.

"Mom, don't worry about it. I'll be fine."

"If you answer a few of the questions I would be able to give you an answer.”

"That's okay Mom. Let it pass. I'll be back." He walked backwards to the door.

"Fine, go talk to your brothers. Just don't let those chauvinistic macho older brothers make you feel or do something you'll regret later in life. Let them make you wimp out of your true feelings. Make you believe you are whipped or anything. I know how men get when they’re together. You know I always tell you guys you can tell me anything. This time I think you may have to do this on your own. Maybe even think with your heart and not your head."

He opened the screen and stepped onto the porch. "Yes, Ma’me I will." He turned and almost ran to his car. Laughing to himself as he got behind the wheel.

Old habits die hard. His could mother always make him admit more than he wanted. Just by sitting and listening. She had never made judgment on them for whatever they had done. She had let them do it to themselves. Using subtle questions, knowing smiles, and well-placed remarks, they had always known how she felt about an incident and what their responsibilities were.

During the many more conversations he and his mother had while he was visiting, he never told her how much he missed seeing Catrine's smile and hearing her tell the corniest jokes. Nor did he tell her how he missed the conversations he and Catrine would have after making love.

And she, as his mother, never dug too deep. She just fed him delicious home cooked meals and sat near him when he was at his lowest. For the two weeks he lived in her house, moped around, and welcomed her comforting words until she had booted him out and ordered him to go back to work with the promise that his heart would heal and he would live. Austin hadn't believed his mother's words just like he hadn't believed that the last night with Catrine would really be the last.

Three days before that final confrontation they'd had an argument and he had slammed out of her apartment vowing never to return. A vow he had stated many times previously, but had never kept. He had always returned. For some reason they had begun to argue frequently. Especially during the last two months together.

On this particular night, Catrine called him and invited him over for what she called a 'last get together'. She said she wanted to end the relationship on good terms and so he had gone. The candlelight meal had been delicious as was their 'get together'. He had been lying next to her with his eye closed, enjoying the fragrance of her perfume, wishing they didn't really have to break-up, and basking in her closeness and the way she was slowly caressing his chest when her words abruptly scattered the mist of self-satisfaction clouding his brain.

"Austin, don't you think it would be nice if we could be like this every night?" she asked softly.

"Oh, Damn."

Jumping from the bed, he grabbed his clothes from the floor and virtually ran from the room. Standing before the sofa in the living room, he made two futile attempts at pulling on his pants before succeeding.