Penny Legend Page 8

  “Watch it, copper top!” he yelled. I have no idea why people think I’m a redhead. I took three squirts of flower remedy and kicked the hell out of a can in the gutter before I stepped back on the sidewalk.

  I picked up my pace and tried to focus on my objective. I needed to stay calm so I could do a fair assessment of the situation at the foster home, so I could hear the quiet voice of my intuition, so I could really do my job well and help Legend.

  As I neared Chinatown I heard the noise of protesters chanting and looked ahead to see a small group holding cardboard signs. One sign said “Fuck the cops” and another “Stop killing black kids.” Across the street a duo of police officers—one black, one Latin, walked their beat. I took a couple sprays of flower essence. I entered the building at Tai Tung Village and hit the button for the elevator.

  I hadn’t let Maggie know I would be coming for a visit. I wanted to see how the place looked when she didn’t have time to prepare.

  She opened the door seconds after my knock and greeted me warmly. She was likely used to unannounced visits.

  The place looked the same as it had on my previous visit. Two of the kids were sitting in front of the TV.

  “Legend is in his room reading,” she said. “Do you want to see him?”

  “No, not yet. I need to talk to you but…” I pointed my chin subtly toward the kids who were absorbed in their show.

  “Boys, I need to talk to Ms. Wade here. Go on back and do something in your room for a little while.”

  The boys obeyed and closed the bedroom door behind them. That made my stomach turn a little.

  One of the things about this kind of interview is that if the suspect is guilty, or is protecting the guilty party, they will be dying to know how much the interviewer knows. Maggie wouldn’t know that Legend hadn’t confessed to me, verbally or otherwise. But since I wasn’t there as an official investigator and I didn’t want to blow everything for an official investigation, all I could do was ask questions with subtle implications and see if her mind was in a space to latch onto my meaning, and if so, what she did with that. I decided the best way to do it was to approach her as an ally.

  “Maggie, I have the sense that Legend’s trauma may extend beyond the circumstances we’re aware of. You have so much experience with kids in tough situations. I wanted to just come and see what you’ve observed—if there’s anything you see as red flags that I should be aware of.”

  “Well, like you I’m finding it a bit hard to tell without him talking. Was there something in particular that made you concerned?”

  I didn’t want to let on that he hadn’t spoken with me either. Maybe she assumed it, maybe not.

  “I was really wondering if there was anything that shows up here at home that might be of note. Things like trouble sleeping or digestive issues, lack of appetite, any regressive behaviors?” My hand went to my pocket and I felt the bulge of the flower remedy spray. I was totally jonesing for it.

  “No, none of that,” she said. “Has he spoken at all to anyone? His aunt?”

  I was stuck. “No. But I’m sure you’ve noticed he’s gotten better with nonverbal communication and I think this is actually motivating him to learn to write better! Does he write anything for you here?”

  “No,” she said. I wasn’t sure if her eyes registered a bit of alarm or if I was looking through my paranoid lens. I was worried enough to want to take him out of the apartment. What if she was abusing him and now she thought he’d told me? What would she do when I left?

  “Would it be okay if I took him out for dinner? I was going to see if his uncle Gabe wanted to get a burger with us and see him a little.” Lies lies. I was tapping the rescue remedy spray in my pocket.

  “Well, I guess that would be fine. What time will you have him back?” She shifted on the couch, then pulled herself up.

  “I’ll bring him back by eight o’clock if that’s okay.”

  “I’ll get him.”

  Maggie went back to the bedroom and I pulled out my phone, which had been vibrating in my pocket.

  Legend and I went to a hamburger place and when we got there I returned the call I’d had from Conner.

  “She’s out,” he said, skipping hello.

  “What?”

  “She’s out. Just left the jail. She should be back at her place within the hour.”

  “How—” I cut myself off, realizing that I probably didn’t want to know. “Okay, Legend and I are at Pottsie’s Burgers.”

  “You can tell him the news and take him to Desiree’s when you’re finished. She can take him to the foster home and get his stuff tomorrow.”

  I couldn’t believe it. Problem solved! DCF would still investigate the home for the safety of the other boys, but I didn’t have to worry about Legend. The truth was I had very mixed feelings. In my gut I trusted Maggie, but my gut also knew that there was more to what was going on with Legend than what was written in his file.

  Conner and I disconnected and I told Legend the news. He smiled, a pretty big smile for Legend. I thought about how confusing and disorienting it must all be.

  “We can go there after dinner and you can sleep at home. Isn’t that great?”

  He looked at me with those giant brown-green eyes. I was waiting for more of a reaction but his burger and my salad arrived and we dug in. He gobbled his food as if a real appetite had finally returned.

  After dinner it was still light enough to walk back to Southie. I asked Legend if he would rather take the bus and he shook his head so we started walking. I was feeling a little nervous but whether it was for myself or Legend I didn’t know. He was fiddling with the frayed edge of his T-shirt as we walked and glancing up at me a lot. I stopped when I saw some steps we could sit on for a minute.

  “Let’s have a rest, huh?”

  He sat.

  “Are you okay with this? I know it’s a surprise and everything.”

  He stared out into the street.

  “It has to be really hard to move around a lot and stuff.”

  He gave me a glance and stared into the street again.

  “Desiree will take you by Maggie’s tomorrow and you can see her and the other kids and get your stuff. I’m sure you could see them again if you want to.”

  He looked down and picked at his T-shirt hem.

  “Did anything bad happen at Maggie’s?”

  He bowed his head a little lower and swung it slowly side to side. It was a “no.”

  “Will you feel safe at Desiree’s?”

  He looked at me in the eyes and gave a tiny nod. I still didn’t know what was going on but I felt like we were on the right track.

  “Let’s go.”

  We stood and I put out a hand, just a little, a suggestion that he could ignore without feeling bad. He took it and we walked hand in hand to the apartment.

  I finally reached home around ten. Desiree had welcomed Legend with such exuberance I thought it might push him over the nonverbal edge, but it didn’t. Still, he seemed happy to be there and I was ready to get a peaceful night’s sleep. I wanted to collapse but the day wasn’t over.

  When I reached the top of the steps I saw three bullets standing at attention on the hallway floor in front of my door. I stood and stared at them for a while because I didn’t know what to do. Finally I realized I could unlock the door and step over them. That would be a start. Once inside I thought about calling Conner but I felt really ashamed for some reason. I decided to take a picture, then pick up the bullets with an inside-out sandwich bag before Gloria got home from her date and saw them.

  I did that and then sat on the couch and waited for inspiration, clarity, or at least a bad idea. I was too stressed to think. I took out the spray and pumped it into my mouth for a while. The bottle was feeling pretty light and I was thinking maybe it wasn’t quite up to the task that day.

  I realized that I really needed to call Conner. But maybe it could wait. I leaned over and put my head on the uncomfortable throw pillow
and fell immediately to sleep.

  Gloria got home around midnight and asked me what I was doing sleeping on the couch fully dressed. I didn’t want to talk about it. I pulled out my Rescue Remedy and asked her, “Does this stuff come in a power wash version?”

  She laughed. “No, but if you’re interested I can give you some other strategies for stress.”

  I was a little afraid to ask because Gloria comes up with some strange stuff, but I liked the flower stuff, so I decided it wouldn’t hurt. “Sure, thanks, G. Lay it on me.” My words sounded slurred because I was so tired. She was still full of energy from her night out. Looking at her was kind of like looking at a light that’s too bright, so I lay back down and stared at the ceiling.

  “Well, for one thing, your posture strongly affects your mental and emotional state. If you stand in a pose of power, like this”—she set her feet wide apart and lifted her arms so they made a football goal—“you will regain a powerful state of mind.”

  “Okay…” It looked pretty powerful but I was too tired to get up and try. “What else?”

  “Meditation, herbs like lavender, passionflower, and chamomile, homeopathic aconite, walking barefoot on the grass, exercise, sex.”

  I said goodnight to Gloria, shed my clothes, and collapsed into bed. Just as I closed my eyes my phone rang.

  Conner. “Huhh?” I whined in answer.

  “Hello, sunshine,” he replied with that smirk in his voice.

  “That’d better not be a redhead reference. I’m not a redhead.”

  “Who said you were?”

  “Nobody. Just some people. Never mind. I’m not.”

  “Okay then, glad we got that settled. How’s the kid?”

  “What kid?”

  “Very funny.”

  “He has a name.”

  “Sorry then. Let me try again. How is Legend faring, did he have a joyous reunion with his aunt?” He said it slowly, deliberately, formally.

  “He did.”

  “And is there anything you want to say to me? Like ‘thank you’?”

  Then it came back to me. I was so exhausted and annoyed with Conner I almost forgot. “Well, I did want to say that there were three bullets standing at the door to my apartment when I got home.”

  “What?”

  “Chill. That was really loud.”

  “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I was tired and I, um…” Why didn’t I call him? Why didn’t I call him? “I’m not sure.” I was defeated by my failures. I never seemed to make the right choice. It was like I was so afraid to not be self-sufficient that I tried to run the universe from my own foggy, inadequate brain and didn’t let other people in to help. I remembered what Nathan had told me about being overly independent. That tendency might be exacerbated by men—certain kinds of men. I decided I needed to try to confess, not for Conner’s sake but for my own learning process.

  “I don’t know, Conner. I guess I didn’t want to need a big strong man to rescue me from danger. I have a little problem with accepting help, especially from men.”

  “Do ya think?”

  “Okay, that sarcasm doesn’t help.”

  “This is serious, Penny. Did it occur to you that you’re in danger? Where are the bullets? Did you touch them?”

  I have them in a sandwich bag. I didn’t touch them.”

  “I’m coming over.”

  He disconnected.

  CHAPTER TEN

  He arrived sometime after one o’clock. I had dozed off on my bed, but Gloria was still up. I heard her flirty voice from the living room. She must have thought she’d won the lottery when she opened the door to Handsome.

  He came into my room and sat on the edge of my bed. I opened my eyes but didn’t get up. He reached over and rubbed my back, comforting circles like what you’d do to get a child to go to sleep. I closed my eyes again. He smelled like soap—not fragrant soap, just soap. I wondered if he was impatient. It was the middle of the night and this was work after all. I didn’t care enough to get up. I kept my eyes closed and squirmed a little closer to him so he would keep up the back rub. He did. He put both hands on my back and rubbed my shoulders, then down along the sides of my spine. My muscles ached with the tension I’d been holding. I felt my breath deepen. I liked the sense of safety he brought to my room. I heard a little “mmm” escape me and stifled it.

  Conner leaned over and kissed my hair. “I know this is scary,” he said. “I know you don’t want to deal with it and I can think of other things I’d rather do right now too. But my priority has to be to keep you out of danger.”

  I opened an eye. He was lit only by the faint orange glow of the street lights filtering between the buildings. I could see the outline of his square jaw and the shape of his biceps emerging from the short sleeves of his T-shirt. I rolled over onto my side to see him better. The contours of his totally built chest were visible even in the loose shirt. I reached a hand toward his and took it before I could think twice about what I was doing. We sat like that in the dark for a while and I realized that I really was scared and I really should haul myself up and get the bullets and tell Conner everything I knew.

  He left around three, having confirmed that Martel and Tasha were still “persons of interest.” I told him my suspicions about the doctor. I couldn’t tell how seriously he took them. I’d walked him to the door, where he put his arms around me and lowered his mouth to my ear. “You are brave and beautiful and smart. You need to let me help keep you safe right now. I know you can take care of yourself, but this is different, okay?”

  I nodded, a little dizzy with masculine energy, with the breath of his soft voice in my ear. I probably would have agreed to anything he said.

  “I have to be careful because this is a case. But when this is over, things between us might change.” My head was bowed and my eyes closed as I leaned against him, exhausted. I felt him pull away from my ear and then his lips were on mine. There must have been six voices in my head, each with a different opinion. I thought the one saying Oh, no, no, no was probably the best one to heed, but my body melted into his and his arms responded pulling me closer, kissing, kissing. He didn’t seem to be listening to himself about being careful, why should I? The moment lasted with the velvet dark luxury of the middle of the night.

  One of my voices wanted him to carry me back to bed. One thought I could simply take his hand and lead the way. A couple of others protested. I thought maybe they were just prudish and I was on my way to dismissing them when Conner’s grip loosened slowly and he released me. He looked into my heavy lidded eyes. Only a thin ring of blue showed around his pupils. “Goodnight. Call me if there’s anything I should know.”

  As the door closed behind him, I wondered what all that could include.

  I passed the runner on my way to work on Tuesday. She wasn’t singing. I tried not to take it as a bad sign. After all, Legend was with Desiree and Conner was all over figuring out the crimes. I could spend the day focusing on my other clients, catching up on paperwork, and maybe checking in with Nathan. I could manage on four hours of sleep—no problem. I forced a little skip into my walk to convince myself that a good day lay ahead.

  The air was particularly thick from rain the night before. It hadn’t managed to lower the temperature, so the steam factor was high. People were dragging trash containers to the street for pickup and the smell of stale beer and rotten tomatoes was followed by more stale beer and old cheese, followed by spoiled fish and stale beer, so on down the sidewalk. When I got to CCS I was almost relieved to be greeted by the familiar air of mustiness and bleach.

  Lynnie stopped me before I got through the reception area. “Vivian wants to see you today and I had to reschedule one of your clients from Thursday to today. That only left lunchtime for Vivian. Sorry.”

  “Do you know why she wants to see me?”

  “Nope.”

  I tried to force that skip back into my step but the toe of my shoe caught too much friction on the lino
leum somehow and I staggered forward, barely catching myself before falling. I stomped the rest of the way to my office.

  My office was empty. I looked at the chair where Conner usually sat and thought, Am I so sleep deprived that I think I’ve overlooked him there? I get so easily annoyed with myself when I’m tired. But really. It was stupid. Of course he wasn’t there. I just saw him like five hours before.

  I slumped into my desk chair and pulled up the day’s schedule. The dog lady, then the veteran, followed by a druggie teen, then Vivian. Then a kid transitioning between foster homes, a woman with pretty severe depression, and a guy with a gambling problem. I hoped someone would take me out for a drink after work.

  I got through the morning drinking a lot of metallic office coffee, which did nothing to wake me up and everything to make me more irritable. The most interesting session of the morning was the dog lady. She had four little Zuchons (some sort of shih tzu mix) in a tiny apartment and was always facing some kind of a crisis related to the dogs. Sometimes the dogs just weren’t getting along with each other, then there were illnesses, escapes from the apartment, and the ever-present battle with the landlord, from whom she was always trying to hide the actual number of little mongrels. The dogs didn’t like to be left alone, so she was often on edge when she came to see me, but she didn’t get out of the apartment much or have very much social interaction. Every time she came to see me she brought a framed photo of them and set it on the coffee table facing her. This week she’d had a close call with the landlord when he stopped by unannounced. She tossed two dogs in her bedroom closet and begged them to be quiet. She said they understood her perfectly and they hadn’t made a peep.

  At noon I zombie-walked down to Vivian’s office. She motioned me to sit while she finished a phone call. I did. I could hear Lynnie down the hall chatting with someone, and the open and close of the front door. I looked at Vivian’s bookshelves. Her collection revealed her interest in family systems therapy and behavioral modification approaches. I tried to find something a little more “fringy” like stuff on intuition or lucid dreaming, but I couldn’t find anything even slightly entertaining. Maybe Vivian really didn’t have an interesting side.