In Sickness And In Death Part 28

He gasped for breath. A moan followed.

I felt a chill run down my spine. He sounded like a wounded animal. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

"She laughed at me, Les. She laughed. She said, 'What's the big deal? Who cares? So what if your sister wants to ... to get ... to get ... her ... peter ... whacked off?'"

With a heartbroken wail, he crumpled to the ground at Leslie's feet.

Leslie knelt and gathered him in her arms.

As he sobbed into her chest, she smoothed his hair and murmured, "It's okay. It's okay. I'll stay with you. Don't worry, I'll be right here. You're my brother. I'll take care of you."

Then she lifted her gaze to mine and I knew what I had seen in her.

A little bit of me.

____.

Gumby, Ray, and Tony , another officer, showed up minutes later, lights flashing. They got out of their respective cars, guns drawn, and looked at Peter and Leslie huddled in the driveway. By this time, the two of them didn't look much like a threat. More like a meltdown.

Gumby took the precaution of kicking the pitchfork and shovel aside.

I dropped the Chinese cleaver, unlocked the door and stepped out.

Ray holstered his weapon as he strode over to me. "Are you all right?"

I nodded, more of a reflex than an actual response. I was alive. Numb, but alive.

He glanced at Leslie and her brother. "We're arresting Peter, right?"

"Yes. He killed Josie Montalvo. They had a relationship of some kind." Clearly, not the good kind. Not the healing kind.

Ray looked at the two brothers again. "Which one is Peter, for sure?"

I sighed. "The one in the blue shirt. The one without the veneers." Without the b.o.o.bs. Soon, without the brother.

Ray slid his cuffs off his belt. He walked over to Leslie and Peter. "We're going to have to take Peter in, Leslie. Can you step back, please?"

Leslie let go of Peter and stood. Ray slapped the cuffs on Peter, who didn't resist as Ray led him to Tony's patrol car and put him in the back. Tony holstered his gun. He listened to Ray for a moment then climbed into the car. He turned his lights off and backed down the driveway.

Gumby approached Leslie. "We're going to need a statement from you. Can you accompany me, please?"

Leslie glanced my way. She mouthed, "I'm so sorry." Then she followed Gumby to his car. He turned off his lights and backed out.

Ray met me at the base of the steps. "What happened?"

I shook my head. Tears started to flow.

I pressed my forehead against his chest.

Without another word, his arms encircled me and held on tight.

____.

Erica called at eight o'clock that night. I answered the phone, because Ray and Danny were in the middle of playing poker, a game I never understood. A flush, a straight. They sounded like plumbing issues. Ray and Danny were playing for M&Ms. Danny was winning. I'd have to cut off the game soon or the sugar and caffeine from the chocolate he was winning would keep him up all night.

"Can you pick me up tomorrow at eleven? Dr. Albert said he would be in to sign the release papers then."

Just like Erica. No greeting. No apology. Just demands. It was okay with me, though. I'd missed her. "Sure. Doesn't Maury want the honor?"

"He has to work. He has a new job, remember?"

"Oh, sure." In floral delivery. I stifled a giggle. It wasn't really funny that my sister had married a man who tried to woo every woman he met with roses. It certainly wouldn't be too funny when she found out about it.

I sure wasn't going to be the one to tell her.

"Can you help me clean out the apartment and move all our stuff to Wells Street?"

"Sure."

"Tomorrow?"

"Sure."

"Can I hang out with you the next couple days, until Maury has time off ?"

"Sure."

"Can I have five hundred bucks?"

"No!"

"Just checking." She hung up.

After we tucked Danny into bed, Ray led me into the bedroom. He closed the door and sat on the bed, patting the spot next to him.

I snuggled beside him. "What's up?"

"Danny's father is going to be released tomorrow. They're not going to charge him with anything."

"Does that mean Danny will be leaving us?" Leaving our home, leaving us, leaving me. I was so tired of everyone leaving me. My mom, my dad, Noelle, Erica, and now Danny. At least Erica would never leave me. She couldn't afford to.

Ray entwined his fingers with mine. "I spoke to Social Services. With the house in Newark and the aunt's cars, all Danny's father needs is a job and he can have custody of Danny. He can get in touch with Social Services, and they will ask us to give Danny to him as soon as Mr. Phillips gets his first paycheck."

I whispered, "I wasn't too happy about taking Danny at first, but I'm going to miss him."

"Me, too." Ray kissed the back of my hand.

I tried not to think about having to say goodbye to Danny. Instead, I remembered Leslie's face as she watched her brother taken away in handcuffs. It made me feel worse.

"What's going to happen to Peter Flynn?"

"Leslie got him a lawyer. I think the lawyer will plead not guilty by reason of temporary insanity."

"Do you think he'll get off ?"

"It depends on the psychiatric evaluations, his attorney's skill, the trial jury, and the alignment of the moon. I'm sure it doesn't hurt that Peter was already seeing a shrink. But he did try to kill you in addition to Josie Montalvo. He won't walk, but he might spend the rest of his days in a psychiatric facility."

Let's hope they didn't put him in the same one Erica frequented. I would not care to run into him again.

"Did he say why he was driving around with Jessica's arm in a cooler?"

"He found it in the back of the truck when he got home. It must have slid out of the bag, and he missed it in the dark. He planned to put it with the rest of her body after his psychiatrist appointment on Wednesday."

Imagine his surprise when he came out of his appointment and found it missing. "Did he take Danny's father's car from The Cat's Meow on purpose?"

"He said not. He was drunk and agitated to see Josie talking with another man when he thought he was her one and only. He sat right next to Danny's father at the bar, and they had both laid their keys on it. He picked the wrong set up when he left the bar and was too far gone to notice."

"When did he kill her?"

"Sunday night, same day Danny's father took her Cadillac Escalade."

Her death was too horrific to think about. It was one reason I couldn't buy a temporary insanity plea. Peter Flynn had walked out of Jessica James apartment after choking her to death, grabbed the axe, and gone back inside to chop her up piece by piece and toss her remains into a garbage bag.

I pushed those images away and closed that mental drawer forever. "I wonder if Leslie will go ahead with her surgery."

"I don't know, Darlin'. If she truly thinks she'd be happier as a woman then she'll have to, won't she?"

I guessed so. But as much as I liked her, I wouldn't be visiting her at the farm again to find out. In fact, her farm might very well be the first and last I ever set foot on. I certainly didn't plan on ever eating corn again and I'd think twice about chicken, too.

Something else had been bothering me. "Did you notice the similarities between Leslie and her brother and Erica and me?"

Ray raised his eyebrow. "No. I don't see any."

I looked at him in shock. "You don't? Leslie's brother is mentally ill and causing trouble, my sister is mentally ill and causing trouble. Leslie's caring for her brother. I'm caring for my sister."

Ray squeezed my hand. "Leslie is an enabler. You're an enforcer."

"A what?"

"An enforcer. Erica would have been a lot worse off without you. I don't think we can say the same for Leslie and Peter. Leslie knew her brother had an alcohol problem. She knew her brother was driving without a license for years. She didn't report him. She didn't stop him."

"Yes, let's talk about that. How did all you big, bad deputy sheriffs miss him driving over the hills all these years?"

Ray grimaced. "Oh, sure, now it's my fault. Let's just say we missed it and leave it at that."

"I suppose you're right about Leslie. She even let him drive her truck around." When the sheriff's department returned to the farm with a search warrant, it hadn't taken them long to ascertain that the axe in the bed of Leslie's truck had been used to dismember Jessica James.

"But I don't think Leslie would have ignored the facts that he shot at me or killed Jessica James if she had known."

"She has been very cooperative ... and supportive to her brother. It's a fine line to walk."

I knew all about that line. Erica had pilfered from convenience stores, taken money from her co-workers' purses, and even driven the getaway car in a movie theater robbery. But that was before her medication got straightened out, before she grew up. Of course, she did "borrow" a car from my garage last year ...

I hugged Ray's arm and willed my worries away. "Yes, it is."

Two weeks later Ray and I stood on our front porch with Danny as his father carried Danny's new suitcase to the old gray Cavalier left to him by his aunt. The way the car bucked and snorted as it idled, I feared it might not make it back to Newark.

A foot of snow had blanketed the town last night. The air had chilled our cheeks red seconds after we stepped outside to say our final goodbyes.

I grabbed Danny's jacket lapels and pulled them tighter around his neck. "Call us once in awhile and let us know how you're doing. We want to hear from you."

Danny nodded but didn't meet my eyes.

I let go, thinking I was embarra.s.sing him.

Ray pulled Danny into a hug. "Be a good kid. Make good choices. Follow the rules." He let go of Danny and bent down to look him in the eye. "And know we're here for you, whenever you need us."

I gazed skyward, trying to contain the tears that threatened. As soon as Danny left, I planned to tell Ray in no uncertain terms, no more foster children. I couldn't take the heartache again. Problem was Ray might start in on me about having a child of our own again. Given the way everything had been going lately, that idea appealed to me less and less, not that it ever really had.

A few good things had occurred. Danny's father had gotten a job as a dishwasher. He'd also gotten a tutor from Literacy Volunteers. Two steps in the right direction.

He and Danny had already sold the Cadillac Escalade for thousands below sticker price. But the money would help.

Unfortunately, the house in Newark had come with a hefty mortgage and a home equity loan to be repaid. Danny's father had said they would have to sell it. He hinted that the house wouldn't sell for as much as the bank was owed. I couldn't quite figure out how such a thing had happened. It made no sense to me that Danny's aunt had borrowed more money than she could repay. It also made no sense to me that the bank had lent it to her. That sounded criminal. But then, lots of things don't always make sense to me.

It did make it all the more painful to let Danny go. His future didn't look as bright as we'd originally thought.

His father seemed cheerful enough. He came back to the porch and shook Ray's hand one more time.

I reached for Danny and hugged him tight. "You're welcome here anytime."

He hugged me back. Tight. It took him a few seconds to let go.

When he followed his father down the sidewalk, he looked back. I thought I saw tears in his eyes.

Of course, I might have been fooled by all the tears in mine.

____.

We had to make some adjustments to our Christmas plans, what with the addition of Maury to our family.

In the years when Ray and I had been separated, Erica and I had spent Christmas with my best friend Isabelle, her husband, and my G.o.dchild Ca.s.sidy. Last Christmas I'd spent with Noelle, the only Christmas I'd ever spend with her.

I would miss Danny, but I'd expected him to leave us all along. It was the unexpected departures of loved ones that I couldn't handle.

This year, Erica had invited us to dinner, and with some hesitation and an apology to Isabelle, I had accepted. Now the day had arrived and I dressed with some trepidation. Erica had never been known to cook anything more difficult than macaroni and cheese. She'd promised us prime rib and lasagna.

I wore green and made extra heavy hors d'oeuvres just in case. Ray and I drove to my old apartment with Christmas carols playing on the radio, including my favorite "I'll Be Home For Christmas."