There’s something about this car that frightened Maisie, and I have to know what it is. Does this car belong to the bad man? I’d ruled the idea out already—Maisie’s suggestion that someone intentionally killed Nick—but now I wasn’t so sure.
My smartphone can’t zoom in closely enough to capture the license plate number, and so I draw Felix from me and burp him briefly before replacing him in the infant seat. He protests quietly, but soon he will be asleep. I have the wherewithal to grab an extra burp rag from the bag before springing from the car with Felix by my side, plonking his carrier back into a shopping cart and taking off across the parking lot for that black vehicle.
I try to be discreet about it but also wary, for whoever owns the car could be anywhere, watching me. Perhaps the owner was sitting at his own perch, watching as I fed Felix, as I snapped a photo of the car to give to the police. Watching as Maisie tore through the parking lot, zigzagging between cars. Watching as I hollered for her; watching as Maisie cried. Perhaps there was some sort of ecstasy in it, some sort of rapture or bliss. Perhaps he got off on our palpable fear, made apparent to everyone who viewed the scene, my screaming to accompany Maisie’s tireless no, no, no, no, no.
I edge across the parking lot, with my phone in hand. I warble quietly to Felix to make believe I’m just a mother with a child, off on a shopping expedition. That there is no ulterior motive here.
I silence my cell phone and move insidiously across the asphalt, snapping photos of the car on burst mode, capturing twenty pictures with a single click, in an effort to increase the odds that one will display the license plate number, proof for the police that this is the car that took my husband’s life.
I don’t look at the car but keep my eyes on Felix the entire time.
And that’s when I see a man making his way toward me.
He’s a middle-aged man, late forties or early fifties with hair everywhere—a mustache and beard, tufted eyebrows, unshorn sideburns, messy hair. Black curls slink through the neckline of a black T-shirt that sports a Harley-Davidson and a single word: Shovelhead. I have no idea what it means. His arms are thick, lined with muscle. There are sweat marks on the pits of the shirt. His eyes are a fierce blue.
The man carries a shopping bag in one hand, and in the other a case of beer. Budweiser. I have never been a beer drinker, but Nick always was. His Labatt Blues still line the refrigerator door. I haven’t had the strength to part with them; I wonder if I ever will.
The man looks at me and says, “Afternoon, ma’am,” and my legs turn to paste, hardly able to sustain my own weight.
Is this the man who’s taken my husband’s life?
The external portion of his hearing aid rests behind an ear as verification that this car, with its hearing impaired designation, is his car. On his arm is a tribal tattoo that runs the entire length of the skin, from his wrist to the sleeve of the black T-shirt, a tattoo with sinuous lines and intricate patterns, which I try to burn into memory so later I can discover what it means. I nod my head, but I don’t reply, as Felix and I pick up the pace, scurrying across the parking lot more quickly now, quite certain that as I run, the bad man’s penetrating eyes follow me.
I buy infant formula and baby bottles. I dart through the self-checkout line and pay cash. I don’t pay any attention to the kind of formula that I buy, nor the bottles.
Back inside the car I call Emily, letting her know that our one stop has now transformed into two. “The bananas,” I tell her, “were unripe. Too green. Maisie won’t eat the ones that are green,” and so we need to go to another store to find ripe bananas for Maisie to eat. “Do you mind?” I ask, but Emily says no, of course not, that I should take my time.
“Get some coffee, too,” she says, telling me how the kids are playing so well. She tells me about a new coffee shop that has just opened up in town. “You should try it,” she says. I thank her for the tip and assure her I’ll go.
Of course it’s not true. None of it is true. Maisie won’t eat bananas whether they’re yellow or green or something in between. Apples are the only fruit she’ll eat, diced up bits of Gala apples with the peel completely removed, though right now it doesn’t matter a thing about apples or bananas. I’m not going to another grocery store or the coffee shop. I’m going to the police.
The police station in town is new. Constructed just in the last few years, it’s a large redbrick building with an American flag that hangs outside at half-staff, tucked away on an industrial road beside an indoor sports facility and a bottling manufacturer that employs hundreds of people in town. There is also a fire station and the railroad track, one whose trains are constantly stopping on the tracks and interrupting the flow of traffic. It’s more than a headache for commuters but also a safety concern, those frequent times the locomotive splits the town in two, separating diabetics from the local hospital, the police from foul play.
I park in the lot and walk inside.
I stand before a large counter as if I’m at a doctor’s office or a bank, and when a quasi-receptionist in uniform asks how she can help me, I tell her I need to speak with a detective. She says that someone will be with me shortly. There are chairs to wait in, black padded chairs with a heavy-duty steel frame. They aren’t in the least bit comfortable.
I wait for nearly fifteen minutes for a Detective Kaufman to arrive, hearing the sound of his footsteps before he appears. By comparison, he’s a short man, five foot nine or five foot ten, enough that as I stand from the chair, I meet him eye to eye. His hair is raven, mottled with flecks of gray. Though the hair on his head is sheared quite short, there is a curl to it, an obdurate wave combed backward, away from the tan eyes. His mustache and beard are well groomed, trimmed and brushed, also flecked with gray. There is a swarthiness to his complexion and on his face, a sad, somber expression.
I’ve never seen this man before. There was no detective at the hospital when the officers in uniform informed me that my husband was dead, or dying, because there was nothing to investigate then. It was an open-and-shut case. Man drove too fast, flew off the road and into a tree. Case closed.
But now it might be something more.
Detective Kaufman leads me to a small room and invites me to sit down on a hard plastic chair. I follow behind as he leads the way, trailing the single squeak of a pair of leather shoes. The room reminds me of a workplace lunchroom, with a round table that seats four, and four hard plastic chairs. Blue. The walls, too, are painted blue, cinder block walls painted blue like lapis lazuli. Metal grids and drop tiles line the ceiling, interspersed every now and again with plastic light panels, which make the room artificially bright. There is no window. There is a counter lined with an unwashed Keurig machine, a microwave, a forgotten paper plate and, on the floor, a watercooler sans water. The bottle is bone-dry.