“Bye, Mick.” I hauled ass home, where I stayed for a week. No pills. No booze. I shook, I paced. I lay in bed, steeped in my own sweat, my breath coming in gulps. The days blended together, my body feeling like I’d just run fifty miles. My knees and ankles ached and popped when I walked to the bathroom.
Mick pounded on Evelyn’s door, his deep voice filling the apartment, first worried, then desperate, then angry. Furiously angry. He came back every day.
When the worst of it passed, I checked my phone. Missed calls from the coroner’s office and three voicemails. I eyed the half-full manila envelope on my dresser as I listened to weeks-old messages. Knowing I’d missed the deadline was more manageable without confirmation. His voice rattled in my ear. They had to make decisions without me. I knew what that meant. A state-funded cremation and a common burial. Funny how they make it sound so nice. All it meant was Evelyn’s ashes would be buried with any other “unclaimed body.” Other lowlifes who couldn’t afford funerals: druggies and drunks. I didn’t even call him back.
I didn’t know how much a person could hate herself until that moment. I couldn’t get the image of Evelyn, lying in a mass grave, surrounded by other decaying corpses, out of my mind. Even though she was cremated. Even though the coroner had explained it wasn’t like that, that it was more humane than that.
I had voicemails from friends at school, mostly Molly, wondering where I was, if I was okay. Would I please call someone back?
I couldn’t get Rosie out of my mind. The fear on her face, the hopelessness in her eyes. That backseat full of Rosies, their long, skinny legs layered like pretzel sticks.
Days later, I found myself at the Richmond police department, filling out an incident report. I couldn’t fit all my observations in the lines provided.
“I just want to talk to someone. Please.” My nose wouldn’t stop running and the receptionist just stared at me in disgust. Hadn’t she ever seen a sick person? She worked in a police station for God’s sake.
They led me to an interview room and a young, twentysomething officer set a cup of water on the table. He sat across from me with a legal pad and a digital recorder.
I told him everything. I gave him Mick’s name, Jared’s name, I told him what I did, the pills I sold and where, what I saw, about Rosie and the car full of girls. How young they looked. I didn’t care if I went to prison, I had nothing to lose anyway. I gave them the license plate number and a description of the man at the door, tall, broad, greasy dark hair, thick beard.
I asked if I would go to jail.
The officer clicked the stop button on the recorder. “You sold drugs at a playground.”
“Not to kids.” I stuck my chin out, defiant, like this made it better.
“You’re going to be under arrest.” He was trying to be kind.
“I have bail money.” Evelyn’s funeral money. The proverbial nail in the coffin lid.
I wasn’t allowed to leave. I was processed, strip-searched, and placed in a holding cell for two days, charged with sale of an illegal substance. But in the end, the playground moms wouldn’t admit to buying anything from me. All they had was my “confession” of selling them. No evidence. I was led to a conference room, and the same young cop met me. I’d swear he had a crush.
“We’ve got bigger things to worry about,” he said gravely. His hair stood straight up and he looked like he hadn’t slept in two days. “Those names you gave me? That car? Those girls? You got mixed up in sex trafficking. There’s a San Francisco PD task force for this, all the Bay Area PDs work with them. They’ve been tracking this guy for a long time. Your testimony, combined with the evidence they have, could bring it down. You told us something we didn’t know. The brand.”
“I can’t testify.” Mick was a dangerous dude, but the guy who picked up Rosie? Downright terrifying.
“You don’t exactly have a choice.” He reached out and touched my hand. His clean, square-cut fingernails against my dirty ragged ones. He smelled nice, like soap and aftershave. He wore a wedding ring. I wondered if his wife was as young as him. Perhaps pregnant with their first child, round and glowing, her days filled with baby “sprinkles” and pedicures. He probably rubbed her tired feet at night, massaged cocoa butter into her belly. She surely had many pairs of jeans that fit her and that she washed in a machine, swirling fresh with Tide and fabric softener. She’d surely never done heroin. Or sold drugs in the presence of children.
I pulled my hand away. I’d taken the right steps not to be scum. I had to finish the job.