Play dead

FIFTY-THREE

Jessica sat on her porch. behind her, every light in the house was blazing. The stereo inside blasted the Go-Gos.

"Hey, partner!" she yelled.

Oh, hoy, Byrne thought. She's hammered. The Go-Gos proved it. "Hey."

"You got my text message? That is so cool. God, I love technology."

"You okay?"

Jessica butterflied a hand. "Pain-free."

"I can see that. Family okay?"

"Vincent and Sophie are up at Vincent's father's house. I talked to them earlier. They went swimming. Sophie went off the low diving board. Her first time." Jessica's eyes misted. "I missed it."

There was a pint bottle of bourbon between her feet. It was two- thirds full. Byrne knew she hadn't gotten this plastered on two drinks.

"There's got to be another casualty around here somewhere," he said.

Jessica hesitated for a moment, then pointed at the hedges to the left of the porch. A glint of moonlight shimmered off an empty bottle of Wild Turkey. Byrne plucked it from the shadows, stood it on the porch.

"You know… you know how people say 'life sucks,' and how someone always says, right after that, 'No one ever said life is supposed to be fair'?"

"Yeah," Byrne said. "I think I've heard that one."

"Well it's fucking bullshit."

Byrne agreed, but he had to ask. "What do you mean?"

"What I mean is, people say life is fair all the time. Right? When you're a kid they tell you that you can be anything you want to be. They tell you that if you work hard, the world is your oyster. You can overcome anything. Buckle down! Hang in there! Stay with it!"

Byrne didn't have much of an argument for this. "Well, yeah. They do say that."

Jessica went south, her mind veering into some new area. She took another slow sip. "What did these girls do to deserve this, Kevin?"

"I don't know." Byrne wasn't used to this dynamic. He was the melancholy drunk. She was the sane one. More than once-actually, more times than he could count-Jessica had listened to his inebriated ramblings, standing on some freezing street corner, standing on the banks of the river, standing in some steaming parking lot in Northern Liberties. He owed her. In many more ways than this. He listened.

"I mean, they ran away from home? Is that what this is all about? That was their crime? Shit, I ran away once."

Byrne was shocked. Little Jessica Giovanni had run away from home? Strict Catholic, straight-A student, daughter of one of the most decorated cops in PPD history Jessica? "You did?"

"Oh you bet I did, buddy. You fucking het I did." She took another dramatic, Days of Wine and Roses swig from the bottle, wiped off her mouth with her wrist. "I only got as far as Tenth and Washington," she added. "But I did it."

She offered the pint to Byrne. He took it. For two reasons. One was that he didn't mind having a drink. Two, it was probably a good idea to get the bottle away from Jessica. They fell silent for a while.

"Why the hell do we do this?" Jessica finally asked, loud and clear.

And there it was, Byrne thought. The question. Every homicide cop on the face of the earth asked it at one time or another. Some asked every day.

"I don't know," Byrne said. "I guess it's because we're no good for anything else."

"Okay. Okay. Okay. I'll buy that. But how do you know when it's time to quit? That's what I want to know. Huh? Is that in the handbook?"

Byrne looked off into the night. He took a healthy quaff. He needed it for what he was about to say. "Last story of the night. Okay?"

Jessica sat up straight, mimicking a five-year-old. A story.

"Do you know a cop named Tommy Delgado?" Byrne asked.

Jessica shook her head. "Never met him. I've heard the name, though. Vincent has brought him up a few times. Homicide?"

Byrne nodded. "In the blood. One of the best ever. Remember the Manny Utrillo case?"

"Oh yeah."

"Tommy cracked it. Walked into the unit one day with the piece of shit killer in irons. Walked him in like a prom date. Eight detectives were working the phones, tracking down leads on the case, Tommy Delgado walks the fucker in. Brought Danish for everyone in the other hand."

Byrne hit the Wild Turkey again, capped it.

"So, anyway, we get called to a scene in Frankford. We weren't the primaries, we were there to back up Tommy and his partner Mitch Driscoll. I was working with Jimmy then. I was in the unit for maybe three years. Still wet. I was still calling the scumbags 'sir.' "

Jessica laughed. She had only given up that practice recently. "Okay."

"This place was ugly. Job was even worse. The victim was an eighteen-month-old baby. Her so-called father had strangled her with a lamp cord."

"Jesus."

"Jesus wasn't there that day, partner." Byrne sat down next to Jessica. "Two hours in we're wrapping it up. I mean, the guy copped to it on the scene. Not too much intrigue. Now, Jimmy and I are keeping a close eye on Tommy, because he's looking a little shaky, right? Like he's going to burn down the whole block, like he's going to cap the first addict he sees on the street, just for drawing air. We're standing on the porch, and I see Tommy staring at something on the ground. Mesmerized. I look down and I see what he's looking at. Know what it was?"

Jessica tried to imagine. Based on what Byrne had told her about the job, it couldn't be a crucial piece of evidence-a shell casing, a bloody footprint. "What?"

"A Cheerio."

At first Jessica thought she hadn't heard him right, then soon realized she had. She nodded. She knew what he meant, knew where this was going. Cheerios were the universal toddler pacifiers. Cheerios were baby crack.

"One Cheerio was sitting on this shitty, Astroturf porch, and Tommy Delgado can't take his eyes off it. Now, keep in mind, here was a man who had seen it all. Two tours in Nam, twenty-five plus on the job. A few minutes later he walks to the back of the building, crying his eyes out. I checked on him, just to make sure he didn't have his piece out, but there he was, just sitting on this bench, sobbing. Broke my heart, but I didn't approach him.

"That one thing snapped him in half, Jess. One Cheerio. He was never the same after that."

"Do you know what happened to him?"

Byrne took a few moments, shrugged. "He worked another few years, took his thirty. But he was just sleepwalking the job, you know? Bringing up the rear, hauling water."

They fell silent for a full minute.

"When did it all go to crap, Kevin?"

Byrne had his ideas on this. "I think it was when boxes of pasta went from sixteen ounces to twelve ounces and nobody told us."

Jessica looked fallen. "They did?"

Byrne nodded.

"Son of a hitch. No wonder I'm always hungry."

Byrne glanced at his watch. "Want to get some breakfast?"

Jessica looked at the black, star-dotted sky. "At night?"

"Coffee first." He helped Jessica to her feet, and marched her into the kitchen.