We stand as the casket makes its exit. Charlotte presses a tissue to her eyes. As the bearers approach, I drop my eyes, hoping to go unnoticed by the passing mourners. All at once, the pews around me go silent. I look up to find Jerry’s widow standing before me, the whole procession paused behind her. Her composure astonishes me. She reaches for my hand, the skin still nicked from my rushed loading of the AK magazine, then starts to say something. Suddenly the brittle surface of her pale, drained face is like an opalescent egg-first smooth, then dented, then cracking all to pieces. She presses herself into me, clinging to my arms, balling my sleeves in her fists.
“That scum,” she sobs into my chest.
My cheeks burn. With every eye on me, I start to wilt. Looking over her shoulder, I see the two-year-old riding a relative’s hip, looking confused by his mother’s actions, perhaps by everything that’s going on around him.
Jerry’s brother advances to take her by the arm and ease her back into place. His expression is fraught and apologetic, perhaps not realizing who I am.
She looks me in the eyes again. “Thank you for what you did.”
Once they’ve gone, I glance down. The lapel of my jacket is wet and glistening. I cross my arms and tuck my hands into my armpits to stop them from shaking.
The mourners move on. I take my emotions and stuff them way down, struggling to get control. Wanda Mosser pauses beside me and leans to whisper in my ear.
“Tomorrow,” she says. “I want to see you in my office.”
I nod, trying to hide my confusion. Whatever help she imagines she can offer-a self-help lecture of some sort, presuming on our past relationship-I don’t need it. Charlotte asks what she said and I just shrug.
Finally we join the procession, Charlotte taking the lead.
Someone behind tugs at my sleeve. Bascombe.
“What did she want?”
“She thanked me for what I did.”
“No,” he says. “Mosser.”
I tell him and his mouth twists.
“That’s her,” he says. “The new boss.”
“Who, Wanda?”
“Captain Mosser. They announced it today.”
I file out, staring at Charlotte’s slender back, the curve of her shoulders. Behind me I can hear the lieutenant muttering. I can hardly believe it. Wanda Mosser? She’s a good cop. She’s not a conniving political-well, she’s got her ambition, obviously. But I’d never have thought Wanda would put the knife in the captain’s back.
Out in the sunlight, mourners huddle in small groups on the lawn, waiting under a mockingly beautiful sky as the pallbearers slot the casket into the long black hearse. Cavallo comes over, tucking a stray lock behind her ear, her face blotchy from crying. She speaks to Charlotte a while, asking about her trip to England and if she’s heard whether the Robbs have chosen a name for their baby yet, or found out if it’s to be a boy or a girl. Then she glances sideways at me, like she’s only just seen me there. She must sense the distance between us.
I step closer. “You knew about Wanda?”
“I couldn’t say anything,” she says. “I wanted to.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
The hearse doors shut and it begins to roll forward, a line of cars edging into procession behind. Time for bystanders to decide whether attending the church service was enough or if they will continue out to the gravesite.
“That was the last time I saw Jerry. When the two of you came to see me. Was that the same case you were working on. . when it happened?”
“It seems like such a long time ago.”
Cavallo’s husband, who’s been standing with a couple of cops in dress uniform, makes his way over. She bites her lip with indecision.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Wanda’s move. She wants me to go with her. I said I would.”
“You passed up the opportunity when Hedges offered it.”
“Well,” she says, “things are different now.”
She leaves us to meet her husband halfway. Charlotte raises an eyebrow: are we going to the gravesite or not? I mull it over a second, watching Cavallo depart. Things are different now. There’s no doubt about that.
“We’re going,” I say. “I owe it to him.”
CHAPTER 10
The first time I reported for duty to Wanda Mosser, I was a different man, a newly minted detective with a happy marriage and a little girl at home, an up-and-comer with prospects and connections. Though my law enforcement experience up to then had been in uniform, unlike most officers getting their first plainclothes assignment, my resumé included a stint with CID while I was in the Army. Military service is always a plus, but having been an MP was golden. Not only would I shine in my new position, but my colleagues would be lucky to have me.
It took Wanda maybe ten seconds to cut me down to size.
“The question is whether I can make anything of you. With most of the boys they send me, even I can’t turn ’em around.”
We were always boys to Wanda. Even the women under her command, when referred to in the aggregate, were boys. And after a while, if you could endure her constant scrutiny and her blistering lectures, if you could earn every so often one of her reluctant smiles, then you counted yourself fortunate to be one of Wanda’s boys. She tore you down only to build you back up. Wanda was a master of esprit de corps.
No one called her Lt. Mosser. No one called her boss or sir or ma’am. She was Wanda to everyone, and yet you never felt like you were using her first name. I remember a veteran detective, a mustachioed old bull trying to stay young by dyeing what was left of his hair an unnatural black, telling a story that pretty much summed the situation up. He’d gone to a family Christmas party, this man of perhaps fifty, where his widowed mother sat in a wheelchair receiving kisses from a line of kids and grandkids. When he approached and planted a kiss on her forehead, he whispered under his breath, “Merry Christmas, Wanda.” Then, realizing with embarrassment the mistake, he corrected himself. “I mean, Merry Christmas, Mama!”
He told that story once in my hearing, but Wanda must have repeated it a hundred times. Supervising the Missing Persons section wasn’t enough for her; she wanted to be our matriarch, too. Fierce and protective as a mother, amongst her children Wanda also played favorites, pitting us against each other in the struggle for favor. The force of her personality was such that, once you were sucked into the familial mind-set, there was no getting out. She dominated your thoughts, provoking fierce loyalty and simmering anxiety at the same time. You’d cry into your beer after-hours about how Wanda didn’t appreciate you, didn’t even notice all the sacrifices you made, and then she’d bestow an “attaboy” and leave you beaming with pride.
I rode that roller coaster awhile, earning my way into her good graces, getting close enough to see how the Cult of Wanda worked. None of it, I decided, was premeditated. She plied her divide-and-conquer strategy by instinct, unaware she was doing anything at all. Realizing that, I admired her even more. I just didn’t want to work for her.
In my experience, Wanda was not above departmental politics. She even excelled at mid-level intrigues and interagency skirmishes. Before now, though, I would have said she only indulged in the squabbles to protect her territory and back up her people. Necessity drove her rather than ambition.
Last time I walked into Homicide, the captain’s awkward leave-taking had spoiled the atmosphere. The morning after Lorenz’s funeral, the shift hasn’t recovered. If anything, the detectives hunkered down in their individual cubicles give the impression of being shell-shocked. Only a few bother to look up as I pass. My own work space has been tidied by hands other than my own, my briefcase tucked under the footwell, and the one where Lorenz worked is entirely vacated.