Attachment Strings (9 page)

“Stop sulking or you can stop eating what I cooked for you.”

Parker pulled his plate closer to him and shoveled another forkful into his mouth. “Jerk.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Tsk. I should talk to your David about that potty mouth of yours.”

Parker lifted his fork and pointed it at me. “You keep your mouth shut or I’ll dig deeper into what happened with you and Alex yesterday. I swear the kid was smitten with you—
smitten
, I tell you. Are you sure there wasn’t a misunderstanding?”

“Neither of us was smitten with the other one,” I replied acidly.

“Oh, come on, Jeff. Are you kidding?”

“No, I’m not, and there was no misunderstanding. We’re
not
going to talk about this subject anymore. We’re having way too many of those heart-to-heart talks lately.”

Parker laughed. “All right, let’s be done with those talks.”

G
ORDON
C
LARK
looked how I imagined a headmaster would: middle-aged, his brown hair interwoven with silver streaks, and silvery-framed glasses sitting on his long nose. He wore a beard and a paunch and spoke to us as if he were addressing a class. Parker’s foot tapped on the floor during the lengthy time it took for Mr. Clark to hand us the sheets with the list of promised names. The headmaster glanced at Parker disapprovingly, but of course, Parker ignored the look. I had to turn my back to Parker to keep my face straight and my voice even.

Eventually, I talked Mr. Clark into giving us the list and promised to be polite and cautious when talking to the parents. We assured him we didn’t want to spook the parents, but insisted on talking to them. We left Mr. Clark in an unhappy state.

He wasn’t the only one who was unhappy. The first parents we visited were downright hostile. They declined to talk to us, especially on a Saturday. The mother even asked us if we didn’t have something better to do than interrogate respectable citizens. She also told us we wouldn’t be disturbing her family’s weekend if their child wasn’t handicapped. Neither Parker nor I could follow that logic and quickly excused ourselves.

The rest of the afternoon didn’t get much better. Overall, the parents reacted warily and were not very forthcoming. Some of them had reactions similar to those of the first mother, which left Parker and me with a foul taste in our mouths. Around 5:30 pm, we headed to the car and Parker said, “Wow, those people have a few chips sitting on their shoulders, huh?”

“They are easily offended, I’ll give you that.”

“Easily offended? Come on, Jeff. They practically accused us of police arbitrariness. We just asked if their children are all right and whether they think that whatever accident their kids were involved in was really an accident in their opinion.”

Dryly, I replied, “Maybe it didn’t sit well with them to think about a killer on the loose, out to murder their helpless children.”

“But shouldn’t they be happy about the police looking into it?”

“Maybe they are afraid? The Hanson mother seemed to be nervous. I can’t shake the feeling she wanted to say something but couldn’t pluck up enough courage with her husband towering over her,” I mused.

“More threatening calls? Why wouldn’t she tell us about them if it’s about her son’s safety?”

“Maybe the husband doesn’t believe it’s serious? Maybe she doesn’t believe it’s a real threat? Maybe she thinks she’s protecting her child by not telling us about those calls?” Frustrated, I raked my fingers through my hair. “I don’t know. There are a million probable reasons why she seemed to be nervous. We don’t even know for sure whether she withheld anything.”

“This whole thing sucks,” Parker stated in a low growl.

We climbed into the car and simultaneously slammed the doors shut. We turned to each other, a sheepish grimace on our faces before we erupted in laughter. “We should get going. Don’t want to give people the impression of the police laughing their heads off.”

“No, that wouldn’t be good for our reputation,” I agreed.

“Especially not for mine.”

I pulled the car into traffic. “You don’t have a reputation.”

“Of course I have one. I’m the bad guy, remember?”

“You’re not the bad guy. You’re the nutty detective.” I glanced over at Parker, who seemed to enjoy our banter as much as I did.

“Whatever. You want to call it a night or talk to one more?”

“Don’t you have a date tonight?”

“I have, but it’s at eight, so how about it?”

“Is there someone on the list who’s on our way?

Parker rustled the sheets. His index finger moved over the paper until it came to a halt on the end of the first page. “Samuel Fisher, six years old. Lives with his legal guardian, his brother Alexander Fisher. They stay on Florida Avenue.”

I gripped the wheel so tightly my knuckles stood out white. There had to be more than one person named Alex living in Atlantic City. Maybe “Alex” wasn’t even a nickname of Alexander Fisher. I told myself to quit obsessing and drove us safely to Florida Avenue.

I caught Parker’s worried glance when we got out of the car. Ignoring it, I strode forward at a brisk pace, which left Parker running after me. By the time I pressed the bell, he had caught up with me. My jaw was tightly clenched. In fact, it was clenched so tightly my teeth began to hurt. It cost me great effort to loosen up.

No one reacted to the bell. Impatiently, I pressed the bell twice in rapid succession. Parker opened his mouth but shut it when I bestowed a menacing glare on him. Someone yelled from the inside, though it sounded muffled to us. “I’m coming, I’m coming! Just a second!”

Did the voice sound familiar? Or was it just wishful thinking? Did I even wish it to be him? Last night I had dissed him without any further thought and without giving him a chance to explain. Not that he needed to explain himself to me. What with the no-strings-attached agreement.

We heard a chain rattling from the inside; then the door unlocked. The man that opened up showed us his back at first while he shifted the weight of a child in his arms. I cataloged everything I could see of the young man: the blond tousled locks and the slender back straining under the weight of his bundle.

It shouldn’t have, but it still came as a surprise when the young man turned to us with an apologetic smile on his face.

“Alex,” I greeted.

“J-J
EFF
,”
Alex stuttered before he caught himself and went on more self-assured, “What are you doing here? Changed your mind?”

My left eyelid started twitching. How could one person be
that
arrogant? “Excuse me?”

A bit more hesitantly, he said, “Did you change your mind about giving me a chance to explain? How did you find out my address?”

Unbelievable
. Fucking unbelievable. “I didn’t even know your last name, and I’m not here for personal reasons.”

“You’re not?”

Alex’s self-confident posture crumbled in record time as soon as I explained, “This is a duty call, not a bootie call. We’re investigating something and have some questions for you.”

Alex blushed as I stepped aside to show Parker standing behind me. He nodded at Alex. “Hey there, boy. How’re you doing?”

Irritated, I glanced at my partner. Why the hell did he call him boy? Parker caught my glance and shrugged. I heard Alex saying, “I’d shake your hand, but I’ve got my hands full. This is Sean, by the way.”

I turned toward him. “This is Sean?”

A shrill, piercing whistle startled both Parker and me. Alex appeared to be the only one unperturbed. He smiled at the child in his arms and asked, “You wanna stand and say hello?”

Another piercing whistle answered. This time Parker and I merely winced. We exchanged a worried glance when Alex shifted the weight of his bundle until the child stood on his feet.

“Should he, uh, even try to stand?” Parker asked cautiously.

“I’m holding him and he loves to stand and walk.” Alex wound his arms around the child’s torso and together, they maneuvered him around until he faced us. The boy’s movements were spastic and I hastily took a step backward, barely evading getting hit by his flailing limbs.

The boy was as blond as Alex, but he bore not even a trace of Alex’s beauty. The skin on his face was stretched taut and saliva trickled from the corner of his mouth in a steady stream. The bandana he wore functioned probably as some kind of bib; it just looked more stylish. I wrinkled my nose. The sight of this kid was not pretty. Most definitely not.

Alex’s smile faltered and he hunched his shoulders. I watched him take in a jerky breath and when he looked at me, I discovered a sheen of wetness in his eyes. Astonished, I deduced him to be close to tears. I just didn’t know
why
.

The boy made another attempt at speaking, but only gurgling noises came forth. I stared at him and his flailing arms. He certainly tried to communicate with me. I just had no clue how to react to his attempts. Parker let out an exasperated sigh and clasped one of the boy’s hands in his own. “Nice to meet you, Sean, I’m Detective Trenkins.”

Sean’s head bobbed up and down so fast I feared it would fall off. It didn’t, though. “The name Mr. Clark gave us was Samuel Fisher, not Sean Fisher.”

“His full name is Samuel Sean Fisher. Everyone always calls him Sean.”

“Wouldn’t it have made more sense to name him Sean Samuel Fisher?” The venom in my voice surprised even me. Parker cleared his throat loudly, while Alex looked at me dumbfounded.

The dumbfounded expression didn’t hold for long. With equal acidity, he replied, “That’s none of your business, is it? What do you want from us? And why did you talk with Mr. Clark? Sean is doing well in school and we’ve got everything arranged. Don’t you usually bring someone from welfare with you?”

Confused, I blinked. “Welfare? We’re running an investigation, or more precisely, we’re investigating if an investigation should be started.”

“That doesn’t make any sense at all to me. Get to the point.”

“The point is that we need to ask you a few questions. I take it that you’re Alexander Fisher, Samuel Fisher’s legal guardian?”

“Yes,” Alex ground out.

He swept his little brother up into his arms so briskly it set off all my alarm bells. If that wasn’t a protective gesture born out of pure fright, I didn’t know what it was. I almost didn’t get his next words. “I need to feed Sean. If you’ve got any questions, come in or come again another day. What is it going to be?”

Alex’s eyes displayed his fright and anger. At the same time, his stance showed him ready to fight and protect. A rather disconcerting sight in my book. He shouldn’t be afraid of us. We were supposed to be the good guys.

I doubted I had come across as a good guy during the last few minutes. I didn’t even try thinking about yesterday evening where I hadn’t given him a chance to explain about the phone call and Sean.

“We’re coming in.” I kept my voice steady and confident. It had nothing to do with how I felt at that moment.

Alex turned on his heels, one hand pressed against the back of Sean’s head, cradling it securely from flailing back and forth. Did the boy have any control over his body at all? At least he had been able to stand with support.

Parker and I followed Alex into the house. Sean’s head rested on Alex’s shoulder and he made no secret of scrutinizing us. His eyes were the same color as Alex’s, a very deep brown, almost black. They seemed like bottomless pits, challenging me. I did my best not to show my unease too openly. I wasn’t very successful.

We walked through a short hallway and entered a small kitchen. Alex placed Sean in a wheelchair, fixed belts on his feet and waist, and tied a big bib around his neck. He pointed to the chairs standing opposite Sean’s wheelchair. “Have a seat.”

The table had already been set for two people. It was awkward sitting at the table, watching Alex prepare a sandwich for his brother. Sean
told
him what he wanted, though I didn’t get how Alex understood one single word. Still, he chattered on with his brother, even encouraged him to place a slice of salami on his bread. Horrified, I watched Sean crumple the salami in his hand, then smash it onto the bread.

I glanced at Parker, who stared at the scene in front of him in fascination. He didn’t show any sign of disgust, though, which bothered me. Since when was he so open-minded? Did he remember scenes from his childhood? How could Alex praise Sean for his effort when the end result was truly, uh, interesting to look at?

I jumped when Alex asked curtly, “What did you want to ask?”

After cutting the sandwich in neat little cubes, he gently pressed a fork into Sean’s left hand. He waited until Sean held it securely in his fist. Only then did he let it go. The fork crashed down on the plate forcefully, eliciting a loud clinking sound of metal against porcelain.

“Wouldn’t it be, uh, safer to use plastic cutlery?” I asked.

“That’s your question?” Alex retorted mockingly. He didn’t try to conceal his anger. I didn’t blame him. I was angry with myself. Though we probably had different reasons. I didn’t like making a fool of myself.