David Levien - City of the Sun

Behr drove his burgundy Toronado toward Dekuyper and the house that had once been his. The neighborhood was modest, but the homes were comfortable in size. It was a place for young families to stretch and grow. He had been a real face on this street once. As a cop, he had been a near celebrity. Everyone had felt safe with him around, and he and Linda had hosted many a barbecue. Turning onto his former street, he saw the old road sign, smashed and dented, the iron pole to which it was connected bent down to the ground the way it had been for ages. Behr thought back half a dozen years to the night he had done it. He ’ d been on a grief-soaked drunk and had pulled over, half out of his mind, taken out the aluminum bat he kept in his trunk, and beaten the sign down to the ground. No one had stopped him that night. The neighbors had just stood back at a distance and watched with their hands over their mouths. The sign still had not been repaired. It readPLEASE DRIVE CAREFULLY, WE LOVE OUR CHILDREN. Behr wondered what he ’ d been thinking that night as he rolled up in front of his old house. Number 72. The house was a small center-hall colonial. It had been white when it was his but had been repainted a creamy yellow by the current owners. He could see a swing set around the side in the backyard. Behr looked at the house. Sweat prickled along the back of his neck. He hadn ’ t been by in years and had not stayed in touch with any of the neighbors, his old friends. But the street was still familiar, as if he ’ d last left it to go to work that very morning. His stomach hollowed out and his throat went dry and stiff. His old life was a relic. He didn ’ t belong here anymore. “Fuck it,” he said aloud, jerked the gearshift into drive, and lurched away from the curb.

Carol had taken to thinking about her past most afternoons as the house darkened and she sat looking out the window onto the street. It was the only way to escape the fog of blackness in her mind that was the present. She ’ d sit and listen to the low thump of Paul punching the bag in the garage and remember the wild times she ’ d had when she was young, during college, when nothing mattered. She ’ d gone to school in Michigan and she and her friends had been fixtures on the local saloon circuit. They ’ d owned the Spaghetti Bender outright. She could still smell the sawdust and peanut shells on the floor in the bar section. She and her girls would roll in early, around 7:30, in their Champion sweatshirts, their hair up in ponytails, and split dinner specials, not wanting to get too full to blunt the drinking. As the frat boys began trickling in, she and her group would start flirting with them and tag them for pitchers. After the first few icy beers and shots of tequila, accompanied by salt, lemon, and screams, the middle part of the night became a blur. The music they played at the Bender was predictable, and she ’ d be flying by the time AC/DC came on. Her group would take over the dance floor, mugs in hand, and shout the words to “You Shook Me All Night Long.”

The nights would end, often, with young men. Too many. Sometimes they brought the promise of a relationship, other times not. She was no angel, and she didn ’ t want to be. She was learning about life, she told herself. She knew things no angel knew. Oh, those boys and their firm bodies. It led her, as predictably as AC/DC, to a cold clinic one morning her junior year. She ’ d had an accident, she was pretty sure she knew with whom, and needed it taken care of. She was put on a Valium drip, her head lolling on a stiff sheet, and the sticks were inserted. She ’ d wondered back then on that lonely morning, if in the future one day, when she was ready, if God would remember that moment, if He would judge her unfit to be a mother. This was the year before she had met Paul and calmed down. Before life was serious. And as she sat in the gloam of the living room, she thought differently about those nights. She knew what they were now and that God had judged. They were nights of sin and she was being punished for them.

There was something about the way the man punched. He wasn ’ t trained. He didn ’ t have form. He moved around the bag flat-footed and didn ’ t put his full weight behind his shots. But there was real emotional content in his blows and no quit in his routine.

“You ’ re carrying your hands too low. Your jaw ’ s open for a counter-right.”

Paul Gabriel dropped his hands all the way, stepped around the edge of the bag, and saw that it was the detective, Behr, standing in the open door of the garage.

“That happens when you only practice on a bag without leather coming back at you.”

Gabriel shrugged, pulling off his gloves. He did throw both hands with commitment, that was the important thing, and Behr supposed that at this point the man didn ’ t much care if he was open to countershots.

“Mr. Behr. I didn ’ t expect to see you. How ’ d you find me?” Paul stepped toward him.

Behr shook his head. Gabriel nodded. Stupid question.

“Make it Frank. You still want to do this?”

Gabriel did nothing, said nothing, but his whole being answered in the affirmative.

“I read the file. Your son ’ s dead. That ’ s the assumption we ’ ll have to work from.”

Gabriel breathed deeply and braced himself against the diamond-hard words.

“I ’ ve been coming to grips with that.” The truth was, he ’ d been trying to come to grips with that since the beginning but was unwilling to come any closer to doing so without knowing. “My interest is in finding who did it, learning something about it. It ’ s the only way we ’ ll be able to make peace with the situation.”

“No promises. No guarantees,” Behr said.

“No, sir.”

They shook hands, Behr ’ s mitt enclosing Paul ’ s wrapped hand. “Call me Paul.”

“Paul.”

“My wife ’ s inside. Come meet her.”

The abandoned heavy bag swung slowly as the dust motes settled in the garage.

It was worse than he thought. Behr was on a comfortable chair in the couple ’ s living room. He had a half-downed cup of coffee next to him and a photo album on his lap. The parents sat across from him silently, watching, waiting, and doing the one thing he told them not to do, and knew they couldn ’ t help: hoping.

“A case like this is a huge slippery wall that ’ s tough to get a grip on,” Behr said. He could see that the first time he ’ d read the file. He selected a batch of photos of the boy, Jamie, spanning a period of years, and carefully removed them from the album.

“The idea is that these might indicate a range, a projection of how he ’ s aged over the past year or so,” Behr volunteered. Paul and Carol nodded. He really needed the variety to show to coroners and cops who might ’ ve encountered a body in a condition that couldn ’ t be predicted. Maybe some tiny characteristic in one of the photos would correspond to what was left of the boy.

“Now, you two don ’ t have any enemies, people who were looking to hurt you?” He knew it was unlikely but asked anyway. The couple ’ s faces were blank, and they looked at each other and grew even blanker. “Have you fired any domestic help, had a runin in the workplace? You ’ re in insurance. Any angry beneficiaries who were denied payouts on policies?”

“No. Nothing like that.”

Behr nodded. The room went quiet. This was only the first of what was going to be many clipped, unsatisfying conversations. He knew it well, and also knew that there was no way around it.

“I ’ ll need information on what he did. Where he went to school, his teachers. Did he play sports — ”

“He played soccer,” Paul said.

“I ’ ll need his coach ’ s name, his teammates.” Behr spoke to the father, who nodded.