Alas, Captain Happy turned out to be a grumpy, middle-aged man, who, after a bumpy ride across Lake St. Clair with two men wearing sidearms giving me the cold stare, unceremoniously deposited me with the St. Clair Shores police. Apparently emergency calls regarding an abundance of dark smoke on Captain Happy’s lake didn’t inspire a warm, fuzzy feeling in the Coast Guard official. No cocoa, and he never even let me steer the ship. Good thing I hadn’t brought the girls along.
The cops escorted me to an ambulance that took me to a hospital, where, after a blatantly cursory inspection, doctors determined I was fine. They didn’t even give me the ‘twenty-four-hour observation’ demand.
The cops then escorted me back to the station where all kinds of phone calls were made, some in my presence, most occurring, I’m guessing, while I waited in a conference room. A couple of St. Clair Shores cops took my statement. Then they re-took it. And then, to qualify for the hat trick, they took it again. I kept it not pretty much the same, but exactly the same.
After they left, I took stock of my situation. The hospital had given me some doctor’s scrubs, and my wet clothes were in a paper bag that was now soggy. I had a blanket around my shoulders and was trying to stay warm. I was also trying not to think about Nevada Hornsby, the sight of him lashed to the bottom of the log, his dead eyes staring up at me—
The door banged open and my sister walked in.
She took a moment to look at me. Not a glance. A slow, thorough assessment. When she was done, she turned back toward the door.
“Let’s go,” she said.
•
I’d found it a pretty good idea when dealing with my sister that if you were not sure what to say, keep it zipped. So I sat in the front passenger seat of her cruiser, looking out the window as we left the hospital parking lot, heading back, I assumed, to my house.
“Listen, I can explain,” I said, ignoring my cardinal rule. Why do I even bother to make them up when I so rarely follow them?
“No, you can’t,” Ellen said.
See what I mean? I cursed myself for ignoring myself.
“I told you what I was doing,” I said. Another mistake. Don’t defend yourself. Just curl up and let the grizzly bat you around a little bit—eventually she’ll get bored and move on.
“You told me you were going to be involved in a double homicide while investigating the homicide I’m working on?” she said. Boy, her voice could sound nasty. It was hard to believe we were related. I guess I got all the sugar, she got all the vinegar. I’d have to get confirmation on that from Mom.
“Do I look like Dionne Warwick?” I said.
She shot me a confused glance.
“Psychic Network?” I said.
This got me an eye roll. Eye rolls aren’t bad. In fact, they’re quite good. It usually means the anger-bordering-on-violence has passed, replaced with a mere case of irritation. A mild nuisance.
Ellen turned onto Kercheval, headed back toward the Park. It was early evening by now, and traffic was light.
“Where was the call to let me know you were going to question Hornsby?”
“Again,” I said, “how was I supposed to know anything would come of it—”
“You’re going to back off of this case,” she said. I knew where that expression “iron in her voice” came from. She practically had a crowbar between her teeth.
I didn’t answer, suddenly terribly interested in the architecture of the houses we passed. After a couple more blocks, Ellen turned onto my street.
“Aren’t you, John?” she said.
“Aren’t I what?”
“Going to back off this case this minute.”
I didn’t want to answer. I’d made enough mistakes. I wasn’t about to make the granddaddy mistake of all by lying to her. Because I had no intention of backing off this case. In fact, my intention was just the opposite.
“Right?” Ellen asked, not letting me off the hook as we pulled into my driveway.
I imagined a newborn baby, the very picture of innocence. “Right,” I said. What the hell, three mistakes in a row. Pulled a hat trick myself.
•
Before I got out of the cruiser, I glanced in the little mirror attached to the back of the sun visor. I looked okay, considering what I’d been through. Pale, water-logged, and truth be told, a tad frightened.
“Does she know?” I said, nodding toward the house. My cell phone was on the bottom of Lake St. Clair, and I hadn’t called from the hospital, preferring to tell my wife about my unique day in person.
“I didn’t tell her,” my sister said.
“Good. Your tact typically leaves quite a bit to be desired.”
“Quit stalling,” Ellen said. “Go on, take it like the man you aren’t.”
I got out, slammed the door shut as a response, and walked around the house to the back door. In my mind, I ran through a series of explanations, deciding that I’d already lied to my sister, but lying to my wife would be even worse. No way was I going to lie. I might sanitize the truth a tad, but no more outright lies. Besides, I’d tried a fib or two to Anna before—no, I hadn’t eaten the last two chocolate chip cookies, etc.—and I always got busted. The woman was a walking polygraph machine.
I unlocked the back door, which opens into the kitchen, and Anna was at the kitchen table, helping Isabel with her homework. She looked at me then did a double take.
“Everyone’s favorite man is home!” I sang out, my voice as merry as an elf on Christmas Eve.
I saw the cold fury in my wife’s eyes and I knew it was game over. “Isabel, go upstairs,” Anna said. “Finish your math sheet in your room.”
After my daughter left—without a hug for her Dad, I might add—Anna folded her arms, waiting.
I began describing what happened, editing out the worst moments. I was only about halfway through the story when Anna started crying, and I immediately started feeling guilty. The girls ran down from upstairs upon hearing the sound of a grownup crying.
“Mommy, what’s wrong?” Isabel said, her lower lip immediately starting to tremble.
Anna was trying to get herself under control but failing miserably. I idly wondered when I would get my framed certificate proving once and for all that I was, in fact, the world’s biggest jackass.
I decided to divide and conquer. Leaving Anna in the kitchen, I took the girls upstairs, immediately distracting them with a game of tackle and tickle, then we read some books and I tucked them in for the night.
I went back downstairs and found Anna drinking. Turning to booze was always a bad sign. But a small glass of Amaretto wasn’t a bad thing. I splashed a cocktail glass half full.
“Finish the story,” she said as I sat down on the couch next to her.
I told the rest of it to Anna, glossing over the part where I’d almost been blown to a million pieces of man gnocchi and minimizing how close I’d come to drowning. I told her exactly what the doctors had said, embellishing only on the soundness of my overall health. Still, she was pissed. Whenever she got upset, she cried first then got pissed right after that. Super pissed, in fact.
“Why didn’t you take your sister with you?” she said. You have to understand, she was mad, but she wasn’t mad at the guy who tried to kill me. She was mad at me.
“She’s a cop, honey,” I said. “She can’t just take off with her brother when he’s got a case. Besides, I had no idea this was going to happen. I thought it would be a routine interview. As boring as those Barbara Walters specials. Do you remember the one with Bo Derek? God that was—”
“What about Nate? Why didn’t you take him?”
“Nate?” I said. “Well, he’s best in culinary emergencies . . . you know, when you can’t decide whether to have the roast duck or the broiled flounder.”