Don't Be Afraid (4 page)

“Such a lie,” Sheila had declared once while she was sipping coffee from it. “I’m hardly the world’s greatest mom. Who is? They should make real ones like, ‘Hanging on to Sanity Mom,’ or ‘Only Screamed Once Today Mom.’ ”

Amy smiled, remembering, but tears filled her eyes. She sat down at Sheila’s desk and opened the center drawer, looking for an address book or anything that might have Trevor’s number.

There was nothing other than notes on Sheila’s listings and a record of conversations with possible clients. That was it, aside from a pack of breath mints, engraved stationery, pink paper clips and a small sheaf of thank-you notes from happy homeowners.

In the left-hand top drawer was a padded manila envelope hand addressed to Sheila. There was no return address. It had been opened but put back in the drawer. Amy pulled out a smaller, flat manila envelope she found inside, fastened only by a copper butterfly clip. Flipping it over in her hands, she recoiled from the single word written in red ink on the other side:
BITCH
.

Mark Juarez woke confused and hungover, stunned for a moment to find himself in his childhood bedroom, feeling as if he’d somehow gone back in time, until he remembered where he was and why.

The insistent
tap
,
tap
,
tap
of his father’s cane was what had woken him and he struggled out of bed and down the hall to the master bedroom. Oscar Juarez was lying against a few rumpled pillows, looking as large, strong and crotchety as ever, despite the stroke that had left him incapacitated.

“Hey, Dad, I’m up. Need to use the bathroom?”

His father opened his mouth to speak, but the sound that issued forth was garbled at best. The single nod was clear enough and Mark moved to his left side, the side that he couldn’t move, and helped to shift him to a sitting position. Then began the slow, agonizing step-drag that led to the bathroom. His father leaned on his cane with his good right arm and allowed his son to support him on the other side, taking one good step before dragging his useless left leg and foot into position with the other. He was sweating with the effort. Mark could feel it through the thin cotton of the pajamas, and see it in a sheen across his father’s unshaven face, but Oscar didn’t make a sound. Once a Marine always a Marine, Mark thought as he helped his father into the small bathroom, lifted the seat of the toilet and averted his eyes.

A faint blush spread across Oscar’s face while he fumbled to free himself and pee. He’d always been a proud man and having to rely on his youngest child and only son was hard.

When he was safely back on the side of the bed, Mark got together the shaving cream, basin of water, mirror and razor that his father needed and sat watching his father shave just like he had when Mark was a boy. Oscar’s right hand moved swiftly and surely over his face and Mark wondered if he found pleasure in still being able to perform that small task.

It was the sort of thing he didn’t talk about with his father, though, because Oscar wouldn’t discuss the stroke except in terms of his recovery. He didn’t discuss emotions, he didn’t discuss what having been forced to take early retirement from the police force felt like or the double humiliation of watching his wife pick up longer hours at her nursing job.

He had, however, scolded his son for leaving a good job with the NYPD to come home and take care of him. He’d written a terse note in the hospital ordering his son to return to Manhattan and his job, but Mark had politely ignored it. He’d made his decision and he’d severed his ties with the city. It was too late to return.

He brewed a strong pot of coffee while making his father breakfast and after bringing it to him, he took a cup with him into the bathroom. He gulped it down while he raced through his own shave and shower, hurrying so he could be at his desk by eight-fifteen. The deep gray circles under his eyes weren’t going away. Too many late nights in Steerforth bars. He hadn’t returned home last night until after one and then only to lie awake, trying not to think about exactly what he’d left behind in New York, while staring at the border of cowboys on horseback that circled his room.

His mother arrived home as he was knotting his tie.

“I’m here!” Elena Juarez called up the stairs, just as she did every morning, as if they couldn’t hear her unlocking the back door of the small house. She hurried up the stairs to see them, though Mark knew that she was tired from her long shift at the hospital.

She checked his father first. Mark heard the murmur of conversation before she appeared in the doorway. He was combing his hair in the mirror above the dresser, having to stoop a little to see the top of his head.

She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Did you have breakfast?”

“I’ll get something on the way in.”

She frowned and her hands moved to her hips. “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

Mark grinned. “Thank you, Surgeon General. Any other advice?”

“Fine, don’t listen to your mother,” she said, but she smiled, too. He leaned down to give her a hug.

“Dad’s had his breakfast,” he said as she walked him to the door. He put on his holster and slipped his jacket over it. “You get some rest, too, okay?”

“Sure, sure,” she said, waving him off. “Be careful.”

 

 

Detective Black was already at his desk, wearing his usual cheap suit and loud tie, looking as rumpled as if he’d slept there, though Mark knew that he had a wife and two kids he went home to every night. He grunted at Mark in greeting and said, “Crane called. Confirmed cause of death.”

“Nail gun?”

“Rapid discharge, fired at close range. Apparently it punctured the brain stem.”

“Well, there’s a first.”

“That’s why so little blood, too. Crane says the nail acts as a dike, holding back the blood. That’s what’s saved some construction guys who’ve shot themselves by accident.”

“This wasn’t an accident.”

“No shit, Sherlock. Just saying that she might have lived if he’d fired even slightly to the left. According to the genius, that is. But the perp fired more than once and he was determined to kill her. I don’t think she had a chance.”

Black picked up a slip of paper from his desk and waved it at Mark, his smile wider. “Oh, and your lady friend called.”

Mark felt his face flush with color. “What lady friend?”

“Victim’s friend. Pretty chick with the dark hair. She called and asked for you. Specifically.”

“What does she want?”

Black shrugged. “Call her and find out. Probably a date. She goes for that Latino charm.” He faked a Spanish accent and a few of the other cops milling about laughed.

Mark gave him the finger and dialed the number, turning his back on Black and the room. He stared out the windows at the parking lot, watching the chief pulling up in his Jaguar.

The voice that answered was nervous, but determined. “Is this Detective Juarez?”

“Yes, ma’am. What can I do for you?”

“Service me, please,” Black hissed in a falsetto behind him. Mark resisted the urge to deck him and waited for Amy Moran to get to the point.

“I found something. In Sheila’s desk. I think you need to see it.”

 

 

The word BITCH on the envelope had stunned her, but it was nothing compared to the shock Amy felt when she saw the photos inside.

They were all of Sheila, six black-and-white shots ascending from partial to full nudity. It wasn’t clear if she knew she was being photographed, but how could she not have known? They were taken in her bedroom. Amy recognized the bed, the dresser.

Were these taken by some disgruntled lover? By Trevor? There was a coldness to the photos, a starkness that made the hair on Amy’s neck prickle.

She checked the envelope, but there was no letter or note, no explanation of any kind beyond that one awful word in red.

She shuffled through the photos a second, then a third time, forcing herself to look with a dispassionate eye, trying to figure out who had taken them and why.

At first she thought that they’d all been taken at one time. Looking closer, she realized that Sheila’s clothes and hair were different in the two where she was partially dressed and that the nude shots had been taken from different angles.

“I think whoever took them was in her house,” Amy told Detective Juarez when he laid the photos out on a table at the police station. She’d brought both envelopes in at his request, telling only the receptionist at Braxton that she was leaving, and not specifying where. She didn’t want to reveal the photos to anyone else. It seemed like a violation of Sheila to have them displayed at all.

The detective didn’t seem disturbed by them. He’d ushered her into a room that had only a plain industrial table and chairs as furnishing. It was a sharp contrast to the room at the realty office where she’d carried the photos after taking a quick glance at them. She didn’t want anyone else to see them and she’d locked herself in one of the conference rooms. It was designed to give clients an impression of wealth and luxury, with a mahogany table and chairs, plush carpet and some nouveau impressionist paintings in gilt frames on the wall. It was quite a contrast to this room, where there was nothing on the walls except a large industrial clock, which ticked the seconds loudly as the detective silently examined both envelopes before carefully laying the photos out.

He’d donned latex gloves before accepting the envelope from her and Amy realized belatedly that she’d touched all of the pictures without thinking of them as evidence.

“It’s okay, we’ll just take your prints to eliminate them,” the detective said. “Why do you think the photographer was in her house? Couldn’t these have been taken with a telephoto lens?”

Amy let go of the strand of hair she was nervously twisting and leaned across the table. “These, yes,” she said, pointing to the two shots where Sheila was partially clothed. In one, she was obviously about to unhook her bra, and in the other she was free of a bra and pulling down her panties. “These could probably have been taken outside a window. But not these.” She indicated the other photos, where Sheila was lying on a bed, doing some sort of exercise or stretching. In all of these she was naked. “I think these are in her bedroom and I think they were taken there.”

“So she was posing?”

“I don’t think so. These don’t look posed to me.”

“Really?” The detective tapped the one where Sheila looked like she was posturing in front of a mirror. “What about this one?”

“Well, she was posing in that, but I don’t think she knew her picture was being taken. If she was posing for someone, she wouldn’t have sat like this.” Amy pointed to the one where Sheila was lying on the bed. “Or done this stretch.” She indicated another one where Sheila’s legs were spread at an unflattering angle. “This isn’t the way people pose, not even for erotica.”

Amy looked up to find the detective appraising her. “How do you know so much about this?” he said.

“I’m a photographer,” she said, then realized he knew her only as an agent. “I mean, that’s my real career. Not that real estate isn’t a real career.” She stopped talking, feeling idiotic.

Juarez nodded. “It’s what you do to pay the bills.”

“Exactly.”

“I have friends who do that. Musicians and actors, but they take dozens of other jobs—waiter, file clerk, telemarketer.”

“Yeah, that’s it exactly. It’s hard to make a living in the arts.” She was surprised and then embarrassed that she’d assumed that a police officer wouldn’t be cultured. “Are your friends working in Steerforth?”

“No, Manhattan.” He turned abruptly back to the photos. “Any idea when these were taken?”

Amy shook her head.

They were interrupted by a knock on the door. The other detective who had been there yesterday stuck his head around the door.

“Crane wants to see us.”

“Can you handle it? Tell him I’m with a witness?”

“I’m not your errand boy, Juarez.” The other man cackled, flashing his teeth at both Juarez and Amy in what could be construed as a smile, though it looked more like a sneer.

Detective Juarez’s jaw twitched, but he said nothing, gathering up the photos quickly but carefully and sliding them back into the envelope. “Thank you for bringing these in,” he said to Amy, forcing a smile and she understood that she was being dismissed.

He handed her over to an older, burly cop at the front desk who looked like he could crush her, but whose pudgy hands gently cradled hers as he took her fingerprints.

When Amy left the station, she hesitated before driving back to the Braxton office and instead took a detour.

The noon Mass was almost over at St. Andrew’s Church and Amy slipped into a pew in the back. She wasn’t Catholic, hadn’t been to a church service in years, but she knew this building well, at least its basement, and the small, white-haired priest who was leading his congregation in prayer.

She closed her eyes and let the words and the music rush over her, thinking of Sheila and of what she’d suffered. It wasn’t fair. She’d worked so hard to get beyond her past, to become more than just another single mom, just another victim of domestic violence. Sheila didn’t like labels or pity. She used humor to block emotion, sure, but she’d also used it as a defense against the very real temptation of self-pity.

Amy felt her throat tighten and tears gathering behind her eyelids. At that moment she would have given almost anything to hear Sheila’s big, brassy laugh. What was she going to do without her? It was strange that there could be people you knew for such a short time who could have such a tremendous impact on your life. She’d known Sheila for less than a year, but meeting her had been like meeting a long-lost friend or relative, someone you’d always had with you.

Suddenly the church felt too close. Amy had to get away. She slipped out a side door and into sunshine, tilting her head back to feel the warmth on her face as she blinked back fresh tears. An accented voice called her name and she turned to see Father Michael pulling away from the small crowd of people filing out of the building.

“I heard about Sheila,” he said when he reached her, breathing heavily from his hurry. His vestments billowed about from the wind and his cheeks were ruddy. He looked like central casting’s version of the Irish parish priest and had a good sense of humor about this. There wasn’t a hint of humor in his voice when he said, “May she rest in peace. She was a good woman.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t call and tell you myself. I was too upset yesterday to phone everybody.”

He waved her apology aside. “Of course you were. It’s quite a shock. I’m so sad for her boys.”

“Yes. Did she ever talk to you about their father?”

“Her ex-husband?” He sounded surprised.

Amy nodded and Father Michael pondered this for a moment. “Not that I recall. No more than she ever said about him at meetings. I know about the domestic violence, of course. I think she was open with everybody about that, wasn’t she? But I never counseled her about her dealings with him. Except, maybe once—”