Chapter 56
J OHN AND I MET that night for a little light sparring at the Roxy Gym after my last therapy session. The practice was building steadily, and my days there made me happy and satisfied for the first time in a few years.
The quaint idea of normality was in my head a lot now, though I’m not sure what the word really meant.
“Get your elbows in,” Sampson said, “before I knock your damn head off.”
I pulled them in. It didn’t help much, though.
The big man caught me with a good right jab that stung like only a solid punch can. I swung and connected solidly with his open side, which seemed to hurt my hand more than it hurt him.
It went on like that for a while, but my mind never really got into the ring. After less than twenty minutes, I held up my gloves, feeling an ache in both shoulders.
“TKO,” I said through my mouthpiece. “Let’s go get a drink.”
Our “drink” turned out to be bottles of red Gatorade on the sidewalk in front of the Roxy. Not what I’d had in mind, but it was just fine.
“So,” Sampson said, “either I’m getting a whole lot better in there or you were out of it tonight. Which is it?”
“You aren’t getting better,” I deadpanned.
“Still thinking about yesterday? What? Talk to me.”
We both had felt lousy about the tough interview with Lisa Brandt. It’s one thing to push a witness like that and get somewhere; it’s another to probe hard and get nothing out of it.
I nodded. “Yesterday, yeah.”
Sampson slid down the wall to sit next to me on the sidewalk. “Alex, you’ve got to get off the worry train.”
“Nice bumper sticker,” I told him.
“I thought things were going pretty good for you,” he said. “Lately anyway.”
“They are,” I said. “The work is good, even better than I thought it would be.”
“So what’s the problem then? Too much of a good thing? What ails you, man?”
In my mind, there was the long answer and the short answer. I went for the short answer. “Maria.”
He knew what I meant, knew why too. “Yesterday reminded you of her?”
“Yeah. In a weird way, it did,” I said. “I was thinking. You remember back around the time when she was killed? There was a serial rape going on then, too. Remember that?”
Sampson squinted into the air. “Right, now that you mention it.”
I rubbed my sore knuckles together. “Anyway, that’s what I mean. It’s all like two degrees of separation these days. Everything I think about reminds me of Maria. Everything I do brings me back to her murder case. I kind of feel like I’m living in purgatory, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that.”
Sampson waited for me to finish. He usually knows when his point has been made and when to shut up. He had nothing more to say at the moment. Finally, I took a deep breath, and we rose and started up the sidewalk.
“What do you hear about Maria’s killer? Anything new?” I asked him. “Or was Giametti just playing with us?”
“Alex, why don’t you move on?”
“John, if I could move on, I would. Okay? Maybe this is how I do it.”
He stared at his shoes for half a block. When he finally answered, it was begrudgingly. “If I find out something about her killer, you’ll be the first to know.”