Megan Abbott - Phoenix Noir

Seven years old, Donny was. And he fought, or his body fought, half the night, until the ER surgeon came out with that look on his face, to talk with Barb and me.

All I remember of the next two weeks is I went on a mission — horning my way into the loop as every department in the valley tracked down the driver, even tagging along when the arrest came down in Apache Junction. They put two men on me, to make sure I didn’t take my shot as they dragged the guy out. His name was Phil Packer, an insurance adjustor with a DWI sheet ten years long, bench warrants in four counties — he’d been hiding in his girlfriend’s trailer.

After that, every time Packer shuffled into court from lockup for a hearing, I was right there, front row, eye-fucking him and his wash’n’wear lawyer. None of which made a difference, of course, nor was it anything close to what Barb or our baby girl needed from me. That wasn’t part of the mission.

My wife called me out on all that one night — it was late, she’d had a few, her face streaked with mascara from sitting in the dark with a bottomless cocktail and her son’s ghost. Melodie, the baby, lay asleep in her room. I’d been out in the car, driving around, something I did a lot.

Seeing me there, Barb stood up and tottered closer, into the light. Her eyes were puffy and raw. “I’m sorry. Do I know you?” She had that tone.

I said, “I had to finish up some work.”

“No. I called. You left hours ago.”

I had a lie ready. “A CI called, he wanted to meet. They didn’t tell you?”

She laughed acidly, inches from my face now. “You’re such a coward.”

Looking back, I think of the things I might’ve done, might’ve said, but all I could come up with in the moment was, “How many have you had?”

“Not nearly enough.” She shoved the glass into my hand, a dare. “You know, Nick, disappearing isn’t the same as dying.”

I remember feeling cold all over. “You’re not talking sense.”

“You’re jealous of Donny.” Her eyes, glistening in the light, turned hard. “Somehow you think staying away is going to make me miss you. The way I miss him. Christ. Are you honestly that pathetic?”

Some scientist should measure the speed at which shame turns into hate. I’ll never forget that sound, never forget the feel of the glass shattering in my hand or the sight of her crumbling in front of me, no matter how much I try. There’s some things “sorry” won’t cure, no matter how many times you say the word, or even how much you mean it.

It’s said that only one in five marriages survives the death of a child, and maybe I should take comfort in the numbers. Regardless, it was my divorce that turned me into a workhorse, not the other way around.

This was the early ’90s and I’d rotated into robbery, great place to get lost, the numbing paperwork, sixteen hour days if you want them. There were four of us from different departments — Phoenix, Tempe, Scottsdale, Mesa — meeting once a week to share intel. We’d had twenty restaurant take-downs around the valley the previous six months, all the same guy. He came in at closing, when the back door was propped open by the kitchen crew — that’s when they dragged the rubber mats out to the parking lot for the nightly hose-down. Meanwhile, inside, the money was getting counted and bagged for deposit.

The robber wore dark coveralls, gloves, a ski mask, and he always slipped in and out within minutes, which meant he knew the business. Brandishing a snubnose, he’d prone out the manager, tie him up with plastic cuffs, the kind they use for riot control, then snatch the night deposit. Right before leaving, he’d grab the manager’s wallet, dig out the driver’s license. “You’re gonna say some wetback did this,” he’d whisper. “I know your name. I know where you live.” Even after we found out the guy was white, we still had vics swearing to our faces he was Mexican.

Finally, luck stepped in, as it does more times than most cops care to admit.

Two cars responded to a domestic here in Tempe — how’s that for poetic? One cop grabbed the husband, the other took the wife, separated them, different rooms. The wife — eye swollen shut, cracked lip — she bawls to the cop there with her, “You know all the restaurant jobs around here the past few months? That asshole in the next room, he’s the one you’re after.”

The woman wouldn’t swear out a statement, though, so the uniform tracks me down in robbery at the end of his shift to give me a verbal. I’m Tempe’s case agent on the restaurant spree. You can imagine, he lays out the scenario, I’m cringing a little. Everybody on the force knew my business. Even so, I should’ve been thrilled, right? Finally, a suspect.

The guy was Mike Gallardi, his wife’s name was Rhonda. Together, they ran a hole-in-the-wall called Mike’s Place out on Baseline Road in South Phoenix. You could get a coronary just reading the menu but the place was clean, with a small counter and maybe a half dozen booths.

Here’s the thing: They catered to cops. You walked in, one whole wall was dedicated to fallen officers. Flash a badge, your kids got free sodas with their meals. Come in on duty and no one’s around? Boom, wink, you ate free.

I’d been at their place just once, a couple years before, taken there by a buddy of mine in traffic division. Rhonda worked the register and counter, a shy, chesty, bleached-out woman in her thirties. Mike was the talker and he came out from behind the grill to toady up, all shucks and gee-whiz.

How to say this — I don’t trust people who backslap cops. They always want something. Not that I made much headway on that point when I broke my news to the robbery roundtable.

“No way Mike’s the suspect.” This from Cavanaugh, the detective from Phoenix. “I can name fifty guys right now, this minute, who’ll vouch for him.”

“His own old lady handed him up.”

“After he batted her around, yeah. Go back, now that she’s cooled off. I’ll bet she admits it’s crap.”

He had a point, of course, domestics being what they are. But something about the way he said it made me think what he meant was: What would your wife say about you, Boghossian, if we gave her the chance?

Thankfully, the four commanders overseeing the roundtable agreed with me and ordered surveillance. The teams worked in rotation, each department on for three days then making way for the next detail. But Mike was smart. He made our guys early and burned them in heat runs, crazy Ivans, every kind of stunt you can imagine to flush them out. Once he just stopped in traffic, walked back to the unmarked car, and said, “Why are you following me? I haven’t done anything.”

I could just picture him, over one of those free burgers or shrimp baskets he doled out, pumping guys for information on tail jobs: C’mon, tell me, I’m just so doggone curious . And cops — hated by damn near everybody, grateful for someone who actually gives a rat’s ass — I’ll bet they couldn’t tell him their stories fast enough.

It got to me, sure. We were the ones who’d trained this guy — inadvertently, granted, but he was smarter than he should’ve been because of us. He was pulling out our wallets, whispering our names and addresses. And yeah, like everybody else he’d chumped, I felt ashamed.

Two weeks later, I got a call from surveillance: “Boghossian, get this. Gallardi and his wife locked up their place as usual but didn’t head home. They checked into a hotel on the frontage road along I-10.”

I knew the strip, we all did: a line of restaurants flanked that part of the freeway.

As I drove on over I thought about Rhonda’s tagging along. It surprised me, I’ll be honest. Maybe Cavanaugh had been right — I should’ve gone up to her early, asked her to confirm what she’d said that night Mike trashed her. And even though I knew that would’ve tipped our hand, now she wasn’t just keeping mum, she was joining in. I felt responsible, like there’d been a point in time when I could have saved her. No surprise, I felt like that a lot back then.