The Blue Religion

A Certain Recollection by John Buentello

He woke to the sound of sirens filling his ears. He called to his partner, Darby, who was not there, and then to his wife, who must have left for work as usual in the darkness of the early morning. Brenda worked at the bakery just down the street, three blocks from the house they had lived in for thirty years. Or had they been here longer? He fumbled out of the sheets, listening to the sirens, wishing Brenda was here to help shake him awake. He’d always been a heavy sleeper. Maybe that came from so many long hours driving to crime scenes and making out reports, sifting through all the evidence, interviewing witnesses and grilling suspects, looking for a clue to whatever case he and Darby had been assigned to.

The clock on the nightstand said it was three in the morning, and there was a chill in the air from the September winds that had been blowing through the city for days. He wondered why Brenda hadn’t turned on the heat before she left. Probably trying to save pennies again. They’d been saving for a vacation, three, no four, years now. So far they hadn’t saved much. Not enough to get away to – where was it she wanted to go again? She had wanted to relax a little. Someplace with water and a beach, he thought. The Cayman Islands?

He shook his head to clear it and reached for his trousers, which lay hanging over the chair by the door. Flipping on the light, he pulled a shirt from a hanger in the closet. It was wrinkled. He frowned as he slipped it on. Brenda usually didn’t miss things like that. It wouldn’t look professional to report for duty in a wrinkled shirt, even if it was early in the morning. He skipped the tie and grabbed a dark jacket from the back of the closet. It smelled of mothballs.

He turned to the nightstand, where he always put his badge and gun before going to sleep. He reached for the drawer and saw that there was no drawer to reach for. What was going on? Maybe Brenda had bought a new nightstand. He’d been working lots of overtime, at least it felt like it, and she’d had to run the household on her own this year. But then he always worked overtime. He searched around the edge of the bed on both sides. Maybe she had put his badge and gun in the lockbox they kept under the pile of old clothes in the closet. He looked, sifting through pairs of men’s shoes, stacks of shirts still in their wrappers, and behind a clutter of umbrellas. No lockbox. No pile of old clothes. Brenda must have been doing some cleaning.

A part of his memory suddenly recalled where he’d stashed his old badge: in the pocket of his overcoat. He slipped the coat on and fished around in the pockets. There it was. He stared at the badge, thinking it didn’t feel right that it was tucked away in a pocket way back in the closet. He should be carrying it with him always. But what about his new badge? The one they’d given him to replace the old one. Where was it now? He’d have to ask Brenda later what she did with it. Slipping on his shoes, he pushed the badge back into a side pocket and left the room. The sirens were fading now.

He followed the dying sounds out his front door. Sunlight was just beginning to mark the sky with bands of pink and purple and gold. He stood on his lawn, his shoes untied and wet from the morning dew, trying to track the sounds. Somewhere to the south. He reached into his pants pocket for his keys as he opened the door to the sedan parked by the curb. No keys. He searched his coat pockets. Nothing but the badge there. As he slid into the driver’s seat, he wondered where his keys had gone. Then he saw them stuck in the ignition. He shook his head and started the car, looking out at the beams of his headlights as they shined down the road. Which way had the sound come from again? South. He turned the car around and headed down the road toward the crime scene.

It took a bit of driving to find it. Finally, after circling back and forth down endless blocks, he saw the bubble lights of the police cruisers parked ahead of him. Lots of people were milling around. Many seemed to be just passersby, but a few were in their robes or pajamas. He hoped Darby had cordoned off the area. Lots of patrol cops trying to corral a crowd of onlookers and witnesses meant evidence was likely being tramped over or destroyed. They’d have to sift through what the crowd had left behind as well as any traces left by the criminal they were looking for. That was a sloppy way to investigate a crime scene.

He saw that one of the cops was questioning someone by the open back door of a patrol car. Probably a witness. Someone he would need to talk to as soon as possible.

He parked his car behind the last cruiser on the scene and stepped out into the chilly air. The sky was beginning to brighten. Daybreak was coming. That was good. You lost too many things in the dark. Too many things you couldn’t get back. He glanced around and spied an irregular shape beneath a sheet farther up the hill from where the cars were parked. A couple of plainclothes policemen were standing over it. He could see that the ME had arrived and was taking preliminary measurements around the body. He couldn’t see Darby anywhere. Maybe his partner had missed the call. He’d have to tell one of the men standing around – what were they called? Officers, that was it. He’d have to have an officer call Darby at the precinct and get him over here. Or was Darby at home in bed now with his wife? Did Darby have a wife? He’d have made the call himself, but he saw that his radio was somehow missing from his car.

The officers were busy keeping the curious passersby away from the scene and talking to potential witnesses. One patrolman was laying flares across the road while another redirected traffic. The second officer watched him with a wary eye as he walked away from his car and tramped slowly up the hill toward the body and the two detectives. He waved and fished out his badge, flashing it in the patrolman’s direction. The officer nodded and went back to motioning to cars.

The detectives had stepped away from the body and were comparing notes at the top of the grassy hill. They stopped talking when they saw him approach. He stopped in front of the sheet and showed them his badge, then bent down with an effort and lifted the edge of the cloth. The girl who lay there on the wet grass couldn’t have been more than sixteen. She had long brown hair with red streaks in it, and her face was round and smooth and delicate, like a doll’s. He thought she looked a little like his daughter. Karen, no, it was Shannon, wasn’t it? Shannon had always reminded him of one of those porcelain dolls. Her skin was so clean and smooth, like glass. He’d been afraid to hold her when she first was handed to him in the hospital. Shannon, no, no, Karen, had looked at him with big round eyes. Blue, he thought when he stared back at her and smiled. They were blue. He stared down and wondered what color this girl’s eyes were.

“Excuse me, Detective?”

The girl had been stabbed in the stomach. There didn’t seem to be any other marks on her. There wasn’t much blood, but he figured it might have seeped into the soft ground beneath her. He looked around for bloody footprints but didn’t see any. There were no stains on the grass leading away from the body. Perhaps the perp had killed her somewhere else and dumped her body here. He doubted it. This little hill was a popular place for young lovers to meet. There was a park nearby, and plenty of trees to hide it from the main road. Maybe they had known each other. Well enough for the killer to get close enough to stab her without a struggle and run off before anyone could see him.

“Detective?”

He bent down further and saw a small piece of thread near her left arm. It was small, very small. He didn’t pick it up. He’d leave that for forensics, but noted that it was two-tone, red and blue together. It looked like the kind of thick thread that he pulled regularly from the sweaters that his wife – Brenda, was it? – always made for him. He could have used one of those sweaters now. He smelled something now too. Something lingering in the air. It was almost like cigarette smoke, but not quite. This was a bit heavier than cigarette smoke, even those high-tar brands some of the older men smoked. He thought maybe a cigar, one of those smelly little ones he’d seen the teenagers and twentysomethings smoking on the streets these days. Or was that back when he was just a young patrolman himself? No, they hadn’t been available back then, had they? He stared down at the girl again and sighed.

“Lieutenant, can I speak with you please?”

He stood up, expecting that they would give him all the information they had and let him and Darby get on with the job of finding the killer. He looked around, studying the grass, the sidewalk below, and the street. There were lots of people still hanging around. He wondered if one of them might be the killer. Sometimes they hung around to see what the police were able to figure out. They feared being caught by something they left behind. Sometimes their guilt prevented them from keeping away. There were no signs of a struggle. He was sure of it. If the girl was killed here, then she knew her attacker, probably a boyfriend. Had they argued? About what?

He’d have to interview her parents eventually, break the bad news to them about the loss of their daughter. He always hated that part of the job. He’d ask about her dating habits, find out if they knew of any jealous or possessive boyfriends. Boys, men, could be like that. He remembered not letting his daughter, whatever her name was, date until she was seventeen. At least not the kind of dating that amounted to anything serious. There had been plenty of arguments on that subject. He recalled fighting with both his daughter and his wife over it. Or had it been over something else? Did he and Brenda ever really fight over anything? His daughter and he had. Hadn’t they? No, their relationship had been good. She had married and done all right, hadn’t she? He stood there on the grass and tried to recall if she had ever married at all.

“Lieutenant, can you tell me what precinct you’re with?” One of the detectives took him by the arm and pulled him away from the body. The edge of the sheet fluttered from his fingers and settled back over the girl. The ME probably wanted to take a look at her. Collect whatever evidence he could before taking her down to the morgue. He should tell them about the thread and the cigar smell he’d noticed.

“Can I see your badge again?” the other detective asked him.

He handed his badge over, scanning the area to see if Darby had arrived yet. Hadn’t one of the patrolmen called Darby? He’d given them the order to ring his partner, hadn’t he? He looked around for Brenda – no, not his wife, not her this time, for his partner. He looked at the faces of the milling crowd. People shifted on the street, craning to get a look, whispering to one another and pointing up the hill. Something caught his attention. Was it Darby? He searched the faces of the crowd more earnestly now. No, it was something else. Not Darby. Darby was back at the house, or at the station, wasn’t he? He examined eyes, expressions, arms and legs moving in the crowd. He wasn’t sure what he was looking at, but he knew it was important.

“This badge belong to you?” one of the detectives asked him. The other was walking down the hill toward one of the patrol cars. He watched the detective reach in through the front window and speak into the radio. Maybe he was talking to Darby, telling him his partner was already on the crime scene.

“Are you supposed to be here?” the other detective asked him.

He didn’t answer. He looked back at the crowd. More eyes, faces, legs, bodies, floating in the darkness before him. Something was out there, just beyond his vision, just at the nearest edge of his memory. He looked back at the body of the girl beneath the sheet. The end of the sheet hadn’t covered her outstretched hand when it came out of his grasp, and he stood and stared at the tiny, delicately thin fingers splayed out on the grass. God, was that his daughter under there? Shannon, dead? He felt his chest tighten. Something cold crawled into the center of his stomach. Had Karen been killed by that boy who always came around the house? What was his name? Roger? No, that was her husband’s name. Had he been the one who kept coming around? Why would Roger have wanted to kill his daughter? They’d had cookouts together once a month, long ago, hadn’t they? Was it so long ago? He took a step toward the body, but the detective took hold of his arm and didn’t let go.

“That’s a retired badge,” the other detective said, jogging back up the hill from the patrol car. He stopped next to his partner and leaned close to whisper. “Don’t be too hard on the guy,” he told the other detective. “He ain’t right.”

“He’s a detective?”

The other man nodded. “Was. Retired twelve years ago.”

There was no time to retire. A criminal was getting away with murder. He pulled his arm from the detective and stood staring into the faces of the crowd. Eyes and mouths flashed at him in the dark. He thought he saw his wife’s face, Brenda, or Karen, or something. He knew her face. At least parts of it. He stood and tried to pull the pieces of her together in his mind. And where was his daughter? She had to be somewhere below, didn’t she, with her husband, Larry, or Roger. Had she married twice? Then he saw someone he recognized. A face in the crowd with the right arms, the right clothes. That was Darby, wasn’t it? His partner was the one moving slowly through the crowd. No, not Darby, but someone else he was looking for.

“It’s not his fault,” the detective who’d been speaking to Darby on the radio said. “Dispatch says he was retired because he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.”

“Alzheimer’s? How did he get here?”

“He’s been pulled in before for showing up at disturbances, especially late at night. The sirens seem to be a trigger for it. He doesn’t know any better. Dispatch said his daughter is aware of the problem. She thinks he needs to be in a nursing home, or something like that.”

“Well, one thing I know is he doesn’t belong at a murder scene,” the other man replied. “Get him out of here, make sure he gets home. Tell his daughter to come get him. Tell her that she needs to bring her father home.”

“She lives in another state, according to dispatch,” the detective said.

“Well then, call a nursing home and have him carted away. And keep that badge away from him. He flashes that in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he’s going to get himself or somebody else killed.”

The first detective put a gentle hand on his arm as he was still searching the crowd. He turned and looked at the man. He wasn’t the one. He wasn’t wearing a sweater. He was in a coat and tie. White shirt, black coat. No cigar smell on him. He pulled himself free and pointed down at the crowd below.

“He’s down there, just to the left at the end of the block, standing by the hedge.”

“Come on, now,” the detective told him, trying to take hold of him again. “We have to get you home. Your wife must be worried.”

“Dead,” he told the man, not taking his eyes from the crowd, from the man at the edge of the block. “She’s dead.”

Who was dead? Brenda? How could she be dead? Hadn’t he just left her back at home in bed? No, she had already been off to work. She was off to work overtime every day, trying to save, like he was, trying to save until the overtime became too much to take. No, not Brenda, not dead, not now. That was years ago. Long ago and buried. The girl on the hill under the sheet with the doll-like face just like his daughter’s was dead, now, tonight, and he had a job to do. Even without Darby there to help him. Even without Brenda to live somewhere there in the back of his brain.

“Is there anyone we can call for you?” the detective asked, holding him.

He used his free hand to point into the crowd. “There, see the teenager moving along the sidewalk at the edge of the block? The one in the blue-and-red sweater?”

“Come along, now.”

“He’s smoking a cigar, a little thin one. Can’t you see the ember burning at the edge of his mouth? Can’t you smell the smoke around the body? Cigar smoke, like those smelly things the kids like. There’s a thread by her right arm there, no, her left. Can’t you see him down there?”

“God, he’s right.” The other detective, who had bent down to examine the body again, held a small piece of thread in his gloved fingers. He looked at it in the beam of a flashlight and then stared at his partner. “Is there a guy down there like that?”

The other detective pulled his walkie-talkie from his belt and spoke into it. Two patrolmen looked up. They spoke back to the detective and sighted in on the teenager moving faster down the street. They moved away from the hill and started toward him. The young man bolted then, churning his legs and arms to get away, but the patrolmen drew their guns and ordered the suspect to stop. The kid skidded to a stop. His breath came out in frosty chokes. They were on him in a heartbeat. He watched them lie him down, cuff him, and drag him to his feet. The patrolmen took him to one of the cars by the curb.

The detective who’d been bending over the body took off down the hill. The young man was crying and shouting by the time he got to him. “I didn’t mean to do it!” he cried as he was stuffed into the back of the patrol car. The detective got in the passenger seat in front of him.

He watched as the car drove off. Turning back to the body, he wondered if Brenda would be here soon to help take care of Shannon. He didn’t think he could do it on his own. How could he possibly bury his own wife? No, his daughter, wasn’t it? Then he remembered that it wasn’t Shannon, or Karen, underneath the sheet. She was away at college, wasn’t she? Or was she married now? Who was this dead girl, then?

The other detective came over to him and handed back his badge. He took it and looked at the bright shield nestled in its black case. He was glad the other detective had found it. Had he accidentally dropped it while he was examining the crime scene?

“You did a pretty good job here tonight,” the detective told him.

He nodded. “That’s the job we’re supposed to do.”

The detective smiled. “I guess you’re right. Hey, would you like a ride home?”

He looked down to where he had parked his car. He could drive home all right. He’d gotten here, hadn’t he? He’d solved the case too. They’d found the killer. The girl’s parents could at least have that. Darby was with the killer now, probably getting a full confession from him. No, he could drive all right. But as he stood there staring at his car, thinking he should get home before Brenda worried about him and called the station, he thought he could use some help from the detective after all.

“I’ll be all right driving,” he told the other man. “But could you tell me where it is exactly that I live?” He stared at the badge in his hand again. It was bright and heavy and felt as if it belonged there. “For the life of me, I can’t seem to remember.”