“Jazzy.”
At Lang’s voice, I inhale a deep breath and turn as he jogs into a spot in front of me. “You turned in your badge.”
“Yes. I’m done.”
“Our story is good. I’ve got your back.”
“That’s just it, Lang. I don’t want you to have my back if it means lying. And I’ve come to discover that this job is one big lie.”
“I’ll come over tonight and we’ll talk.”
“I won’t be home.” I turn and walk to my car. I get in and start the engine.
Once I’m idling at a stoplight, I do what I haven’t done in far too long. I call my mother before she calls me. “Honey, how are you?” she says.
“How about that lunch, Mom?”
She laughs. “How about dinner? It is after five.”
“Dinner it is.” I hang up and I have no idea what my future holds besides dinner with my mother, but dinner’s a good start. No one is my master but me now.
Chapter 89
The dinner with my mother is the best dinner I’ve had with my mother in years. I meet her at a little Mexican spot near the hospital where she works, and we chat for hours about my future. She tries to hide her relief at my departure from the police department, but she fails. And I’m okay with that. There are times when I’m angry with her over her rose-colored glasses where my father was concerned, but it’s time I get beyond that. She loved him. And now he’s gone, which has left her afraid that I will be, too.
After dinner, we sneak by the nursing home to find my grandfather sleeping. My mother steps out to speak to the nurse while I creep to his bedside and give him a kiss, disappointed when he doesn’t stir. Mom and I are leaving when I spy the poetry book and box of Frosted Flakes by the window. There are two bowls sitting there as well, both floating with leftover milk. I’m sad that someone here has replaced me and vow to remember to visit. I pick up the poetry book and read the title.
There is a pad of paper with my grandfather’s writing, and I sit down in front of it and read his still quite perfect script: The Annotated Waste Land with Eliot’s Contemporary Prose: Second Edition. T. S. Eliot is not only a Nobel Prize winner and one of the most distinguished poets of his time and beyond, he has always been a poet my grandfather favored. “The Waste Land” is a deeply emotional, post-World War I piece broken into five parts.
1. “The Burial of the Dead”
2. “A Game of Chess”
3. “The Fire Sermon”
4. “Death by Water”
5. “What the Thunder Said”
The quote on the paper is from “What the Thunder Said.” Ironically, considering The Poet’s theme of judgment, this section concludes the work with an image of judgment.
In this decayed hole among the mountains
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves
The words hit a nerve and a shiver runs down my spine, stirring something dark inside me that I quickly visualize. An image of Dave naked and bound to the chair has me launching myself to my feet. A foreboding feeling settles deep in my belly, and I know that while Newman Smith is dead, The Poet will live on in my nightmares.
Chapter 90
Wade calls right before I fall asleep that first night without a badge. “I’m not surprised you resigned.”
“Even I’m surprised I resigned.”
“It’s been in the air since your father died and you wanted to go to Internal Affairs. You’re ready for a change.”
“Is this the FBI recruitment talk?”
“It’s not. You took off your mother’s rose-colored glasses and once you did, you changed.”
He’s referencing many a talk we’ve had over the months. “Is that bad?”
“It’s necessary. It’s a part of what we do and how we survive. It also makes us better at what we do. We become wider thinkers and more diverse.”
“I don’t know what that means for me.”
“You’ll figure it out. Rest. You’re a free woman, and there’s one less killer in the world.”
We hang up and I replay the conversation, drifting into sleep without apprehension. In an unexpected and welcome twist, I wake up my first day without a badge also without memories of a nightmare.
Refreshed, I start my day with a run, frustrated that something about Newman and his suicide nags at me, but I resist a path to the school. I crank up a Garth Brooks song and force The Poet from my mind. I end my run at the coffee shop, suddenly aware that I haven’t heard from Lang or the chief. Lang I understand, but the chief? Well, I thought a godfather would care that I resigned, but I guess I didn’t go to him first, either.
Once I have my coffee cup in hand, I step out onto the street. The man with the neon shoes runs by me again, and I inhale with the memories he stirs of an evil that had felt too familiar and close. I’m sure he’s just a neighbor. I see many of the same people all the time, but I call Chuck and ask him to do a scan for the “Neon Shoe Guy” on our various films. By afternoon, Chuck finds him, on feeds that go weeks back. He seems to be just a runner.
Shortly after Chuck’s call, perhaps because of his call, I’ve smashed such thoughts and met with a realtor, placing my apartment on the market. With the profits from selling, I’ll be able to buy another place and carry myself over until I decide what the next chapter of my life will become. That evening, I return to the karate studio I’ve neglected for one-on-one lessons with Hitman McCoy. He’s a big, country cowboy of a man, who explains the nickname as he’s good with his hands.
Day two, there are viewings of my apartment already, and I meet my mother at the hospital for lunch, leaving her delighted. I then drive out to the nursing home to find my grandfather awake and playing checkers with another man. He doesn’t know who I am. It’s one of those days, the ones that gut me. “You’re such a pretty young woman,” he says, his eyes a pale blue that are as striking as ever, and it’s hard to explain, but the intelligence is still there, just not the clarity.
“And you, sir, are a handsome devil. I think I’ll stay and watch you two play.”
I leave with tears in my eyes and a promise from the nurse that he has moments when he’s himself and he will remember me. “He talks about you often,” she’d said.
I spend most of my afternoon at the firing range, thinking about all the years my career kept me away from family. Years in which I lost my grandfather, and yet I crave a purpose I no longer have. My evening is spent sipping wine, thinking about dinner I don’t order, while watching the show everyone else has already watched: The Witcher with Henry Cavill. It’s good, but a bit confusing, which suits me fine. I need a puzzle to unravel or I might just unravel myself.