Between Friends (30 page)

“Shot?” Drew asked, sliding off the bed and moving across the room to Ali more quickly than I could even make sense of what she was telling us. He tried to guide her to the chair, but she resisted him and stayed on her feet.

“No,” she said, pulling away, her eyes on my face. “I have to go back down. I just wanted to tell you. I thought . . . maybe, Drew, you could just take my car—”

“Wait a minute,” I said, hastily dropping the bed rail down and getting out of bed. I felt dizzy for a moment, and then it passed and I was beside her. “What happened?”

“I don’t know yet,” she said. “They don’t know yet, or say they don’t. He wasn’t on a call, he wasn’t even on duty yet.” Her brow creased, as if she were piecing some difficult equation together, and then her lips parted in surprise, as if she’d arrived at the answer and she fumbled her cell phone out and held her hand up to keep me from asking anything else. She dialed and walked out the door as she held the phone up to her ear.

Drew and I watched her go, both of us still stunned. As soon as the door closed I opened the little closet that held my belongings and began to dress.

“Hey, hey, what are you doing?” Drew asked. “Come on, you need to get back in bed.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “Benny’s been shot, for God’s sake. I need to help Ali and Letty. She didn’t even say anything about her,” I said, zipping my jeans, no easy feat with one hand. “Help me with my shirt.”

“No, I won’t help you with your shirt. Get back in bed, Cora.”

Drew and I had never held each other back from doing what we needed to do. With the exception of my return to Naples, we’d rarely even had a discussion about the individual decisions we made in our lives. If he needed to go to Los Angeles with just a few hours’ notice, he simply told me, and I kissed him good-bye. If I was needed at a contentious town hall meeting in upstate New York, I got tickets without even consulting him, and he got my suitcases out of the closet for me.

It had always been one of the defining—and best, as far as I was concerned—aspects of our relationship. My illness had changed that completely. He’d started hesitating when I had to travel, asking if I felt I was up to it, questioning my need to attend the event. I’d brushed off his protectiveness until I could take it no more; more proof that we were destined to be friends, not lovers.

But the fights we’d had over it, and the eventual breakup, had made me feel powerful again, in control of my life and how I was going to live it.

And now I felt more my old self than I had in a long time when I turned around to him.

“No, I won’t. Now, I didn’t ask you to come,” I said. “I’m glad you did, but if you’re going to be here, then I need you to be here to support
me
, not soothe your own concerns.”

His gaze didn’t waver, and he didn’t move to help me.

“I am here to help you, Cora,” he said. “But I can’t help you if all I do is blindly allow you to do whatever you want. You might not want to face it, but you’re sick. And I won’t stand by and watch while you stubbornly refuse to do what’s best for you.”

“Drew, I had a little tube put in my arm; I didn’t have open-heart surgery. Benny’s been
shot
, for God’s sake, and I’m not going to lie around in bed while my friend needs me.”

“I need you, too, you know,” he replied, looking hurt.

I sighed and struggled into my shirt one-handed. “You don’t. Not really. And besides, even if you did, it’s a matter of priority, Drew. You certainly
don’t
need me right this second. And Ali does.”

“What did I even come here for?” he asked.

“I assume you came to make sure I was okay,” I said, sitting down to slip my shoes on. “Which was lovely of you, and I appreciate it. But I am; I’m okay. Was there another reason?”

“Actually, yes, there is,” he said.

My fingers faltered at my laces and I looked up at him, straightening up slowly in the chair, feeling a dull throb in my arm.

“Let’s have it, then,” I said.

He took a deep breath and stuffed his hand in his pocket, pulling something out of one of them as he walked, trudged, really, as if the floor had turned to quicksand, to stand in front of me. I started to rise, unwilling to be put in the weaker position while he did this. But he placed a hand on my shoulder and said “Please,” before gingerly getting down on one knee.

I sank back down onto the chair.

“Cora, this wasn’t how I wanted to do this,” he said, cupping his hands in front of him before opening the glossy red ring box he held.

I’ve never been prone to hysterical laughter, preferring low-key stoicism, but the sight of the diamond ring in the box, a perfectly beautiful round diamond, set in platinum and larger than any academic should be able to afford, made me yelp. I clapped my hand over my mouth as he thrust the box at me, trying to rid himself of the thing as desperately as I was trying to avoid taking it.

“I love you,” he said, his clenched teeth nearly belying his words. “Will you marry me?”

I breathed through my fingers, feeling faint. “Drew? What—
why
are you doing this?”

“Well, it wasn’t supposed to be like
this
,” he said. “I had this whole . . . look, the thing is, it makes sense to get married. For one thing, once we’re married my insurance—”

His incredibly romantic approach to getting me down the aisle was interrupted by Ali coming back into the room. Drew stood immediately, both of his knees popping loudly in protest. Ali took in the scene, her face slack, unable, I imagined, to register anything after the day she’d already had, and was having still. I got to my feet.

She shook her head and waved me down. I remained standing.

“I have to go downstairs,” she said, her voice flat, nearly robotic. “There are detectives here.”

“We’re going with you,” I said immediately.

“No,” she said, looking to Drew for help. He spread his hands at her.

“I can’t make her do anything,” he said. “Maybe you can.”

“This isn’t about me,” I said, raising my voice as well as I could over my sore throat. “Now, where are we going?”

Ali looked at me hard, then nodded, and had we spoken, it couldn’t have been more clear: We were, always had been, always would be, in this—whatever
this
happened to be that day, that year—together.

“This is Tim Weinman,” Ali said, introducing the uniformed officer who met us at the door to a small waiting room. Drew and I introduced ourselves and stepped inside behind Ali.

Another man, this one in a suit, his shirt limp from humidity, his tie hanging to the side like the end of a noose, stood.

“Detective Alan Hudson,” he said.

“Nice to . . .” Ali started before she trailed off and seemed to sag, bending slightly at the waist as if she had cramps.

Tim immediately had an arm around her and guided her to a chair. I sat to her left and put my good arm around her shoulder.

“What’s happening?” I asked as Drew took the chair next to me. “How’s Benny?”

Detective Hudson said, “He’s still in surgery. We’re trying to piece together what exactly happened.”

Ali twitched under my arm as if coughing silently. “Ali?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

She shook her head. “I’ve been better.”

She glanced at Detective Hudson, and Tim glowered at everyone, looking for someone to direct his frustration at.

“Just help me keep everything straight, okay?” she whispered to me.

“Of course,” I said.

“And are you a member of the family?” the detective asked me.

“Yes,” Ali said, “she is.”

He took my name and turned to Drew, who didn’t even let him ask the question before he was on his feet.

“Should I, uh, go?” Drew asked, his face aflame in embarrassment.

“Maybe you could get me some tea?” I asked, just as Ali began to speak. She quieted immediately. Drew bit his lip, tucking his hands in his pockets. I thought about the tips of his fingers encountering the ring box, and smiled sadly at him.

We both knew my answer would be no, but I still wished that we’d had the time to finish—or start—his proposal the right way.

I would have liked that memory, no matter how it turned out.

When he left the room, Ali took a deep breath.

“Mrs. Gutierrez, Officer Weinman said your husband talked to you about helping a friend of your daughter’s?”

“Yes. Letty—”

“That’s your daughter?” Detective Hudson asked, writing without looking at his notebook.

“Yes. She’s had a boyfriend, Seth, for a while, we don’t know how long, really, we just found out about him this past week. Anyway, she went to Venice with him, and he got picked up for something, we don’t know what. Letty asked Benny to check on him, to see if there was something we could do to help him out. I guess his home life isn’t very stable; she said he had been living with his father, but that he’d been on his own for the last couple of weeks, staying with friends.”

The detective was writing quickly, nodding.

“When I called Letty to tell her about Benny, she asked if he’d gone to Seth’s father’s house. He’d gone to talk to her at school today, to find out some more information about Seth, to see what he could do to help, and I guess he told her he would go talk to his father. I didn’t talk to him after he’d spoken with Letty, so I don’t know if that’s where he was or not, but I know Seth lived pretty far out in the Estates. That’s really all I know.”

“Do you know his last name? Or his father’s name? Address?”

“Caple,” she said softly. “There are three Caples in the Estates, but I don’t know which address it is, or if any of them are even the right address. I didn’t know about Seth long enough to know any of that yet.”

“Could we talk to your daughter?”

“I—is that necessary?” Ali sat up straight in her chair, as if suddenly realizing something. “Look, what happened?” she asked. “What
do
you know? Nobody’s told me anything. Do you even know who shot my husband?”

Tim squeezed her shoulder. “Ali, yeah, we know. Don’t worry about that.”

“Don’t worry about that? Who was it? You’ve arrested him?”

Tim and the detective exchanged quick looks, but it was the detective who answered.

“He’s dead.”

Ali put her hand flat in the center of her chest and seemed to deflate around it, as though she’d taken a bullet herself.

“We don’t have a positive ID on him yet.”

“Did Benny shoot him?” Ali asked. Her hand moved from her chest up to cover her mouth once the question was out.

Tim, his mouth a tight line as if he were holding himself back from saying something, turned away.

“Right now we’re not sure exactly what happened,” the detective said, his words carefully spoken. “When officers arrived on scene, the suspect was dead of gunshot wounds and Officer Gutierrez was unconscious in his car. That’s really all we know at this point. I know this is incredibly difficult for you right now, but the sooner we speak with your daughter, the better.”

Ali nodded. “Okay.” She glanced at me, then dropped her gaze to my arm. I tried to look alert and competent.

“What do you need?” I asked her, ignoring the cops in the room. “Where is she? Should I go get her? Drew can drive.”

She looked relieved. “Could you?” she asked.

“Mrs. Gutierrez,” the detective said, “we’d be happy to pick her up.”

Ali looked aghast. “No. She knows Cora.”

The detective seemed to realize he’d overstepped and fell silent, watching me intently.

“Where is she?” I asked. Ali wrote out the directions to Emily’s house on the hospital notepad and said she’d call so they knew I was on my way. I got to my feet, concentrating on not swaying or giving any indication of weakness. When I bent down to hug her around her shoulders, she gripped me tightly.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” she whispered in my ear.

I nodded.

“Call me when you have her,” she said. “I’ll tell you where I’m at.”

“Okay. Good luck,” I said, for want of anything better in front of these men I did not know.

When I opened the door, Drew was waiting, his hand clenched around what I could only assume was the ring box.

It was going to be an interesting car ride.