“Who would have? You?”
I smiled and shrugged, remembering the conversation Commander Walker and I had when he tried to ease my disappointment for not getting a job that I didn’t want in the first place. “Let’s hold off telling Briggs anything until I either get a confession from Orton or I talk to Walker.”
“Not a problem. What’s one more day on the dark side?”
I tipped my beer in her direction and took another pull.
Over Niki’s shoulder, a young couple at a stand-up table caught my attention. They looked to be in their midtwenties. He wore a Vikings cap over a closely shaved head, and his coat fit snug across his broad shoulders. What drew my attention was the anger in his face when he talked to—or rather talked at—his female companion. I could not hear his words over the din, but he pointed his finger in her face when he spoke, his other hand resting on the table in a tight fist.
For her part, she didn’t look up until after his outburst ended. When she talked back, she’d only get a few words out before he would interrupt her again. They each had a beer and a shot in front of them. He downed his shot and pointed at the shot in front of the girl. She shook her head no, and he went back to berating her.
“Max?”
Niki had been talking, but I lost track of the conversation. “I’m sorry, what were you saying?”
“I was saying that I’m going to start wearing pinwheels in my hair, so maybe I can keep your attention for more than a few seconds at a time.”
“That’d be a good look for you. I’m in favor.”
“You really can zone out sometimes, you know that?”
“I was going for aloof and mysterious?”
“Keep practicing—but you have obsessed down pat.”
“Ouch.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. That word can be so loaded, but in your case, it fits.”
“How so?”
“Your thoughts are dominated by one thing. They have been ever since I came on board here. Sure, it ebbs and flows. Some days are better than others. But your wife’s death is always there, just below the surface. It makes sense that you live, eat, and breathe that obsession now that there’s been a break.”
The man at the table behind Niki pounded his fist to make some point. The girl curled into herself, her hair falling to hide her face.
“Max, when it comes to solving a murder, you are the most observant man I’ve ever met. But you live in a tunnel. You have your job and you have your memories. Beyond that, there’s no room.”
Rusty’s had filled up pretty good. I looked at the door. No bouncer. Behind the bar, one female bartender on the far end served up beer as fast as she could. On the near side, an older guy, maybe early sixties, stood behind the bar chatting with another old-timer. Not much for backup.
“And no one can build a wall like you, Max Rupert,” Niki continued. “But sometimes I wonder what it would be like if we were friends, you know, off the job. It sounds weird when I say it out loud, so—”
The man grabbed the girl by the face, digging his fingers into her cheeks to raise her head up. He spit some more words at her and when she pulled away, he slapped her.
I jumped up from my booth and lunged at the man. I was on him in two steps. He wore a down coat, unzipped in the front. I turned him toward me and in a single motion, punched him as hard as I could in the stomach and yanked the collar of his coat over his head. I grabbed the back of his belt with one hand and the back of his coat with the other.
Now doubled-over, he faced the door. I gave him a shove to get him moving in the right direction and ran him toward the exit. Just before we got there, he started swinging. He was blind with his coat over his head, but he managed to land a pretty hard punch to my side. The crowd parted, clearing a path to the door, and I used the man’s head to open it.
He fell to the sidewalk and immediately started to get up. Both his hands were balled into fists. I lifted my coat to show him the badge on my hip. “I’m a cop, asshole! Just walk away!”
I could see that he was contemplating doing something stupid. We stood there for a few seconds before his girlfriend came bounding out the door, with Niki right behind her. The girlfriend looked at my badge, then at her boyfriend.
“Come on, Dave,” she said. “Let’s go.”
Dave wadded his face into a scowl and said a final “Fuck you” to me. Then he turned and walked away, his girlfriend following a few steps behind. This would not be the end of it for them—for her. I wondered if I had only made things worse.
“You want to tell me what the hell that was all about?” Niki said.
I unclipped my badge from my belt and walked back into Rusty’s, my badge held up so that the old-guy bartender could see it. He was on the phone, probably to 911. When he saw my badge, he hung up.
“He slapped his girlfriend,” I said to Niki. “It kind of pissed me off.”
“You want to give me a heads-up, next time?”
We sat back down in our booth and both took a drink from our beers. “You were saying something about my living in a tunnel?” I said with a grin.
“Really? I open up to you, and you’re going to give me shit?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know I get fixated on Jenni. I can’t help it. Sometimes I feel like that part of my life just froze. I don’t know how to explain it, exactly.”
“You can’t move on until you resolve it. I understand.”
“There’s more to it than that.” I took another drink of my beer and then drained it, holding the empty bottle in both my hands in the middle of the table. I didn’t look at her as I put the words together. When I was ready, I said, “Jenni was pregnant when she was killed.”
I squeezed my eyes shut to try and block out the images that I knew were coming: Jenni lying naked in the guest room, the bracelet on her wrist, the Christmas trees with room for so many more presents, the blood on the floor of the parking garage.
At first Niki didn’t say a word. She just sat there looking shocked, then sad. Then she said, “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
“Neither did I. I mean, I didn’t know until I learned about it from Dr. Hightower, after the autopsy.”
“So Jenni . . . she didn’t know?”
“No. I mean . . . I don’t think so. She didn’t say anything. She wasn’t acting any different than normal. No morning sickness. Nothing like that. The day she died was ordinary. I not only lost my wife that day, but I lost a child. . . . They took everything from me. They killed my family. I can’t let this go.”
“Nor should you,” Niki said. “I meant what I said today, Max. I’m in for the full ride.”
“I know you are, Niki. But . . .”
“But the wall is still there.”
“Nobody knows what I’ve just told you. You’re the only person I trust right now. But there are places I need to go and you can’t follow. I can’t tell you any more than that.”