J. Bertrand - Nothing to Hide

I have no role to fulfill here, no casket to carry and no eulogy to give. I prefer it that way, though I was not consulted on the matter. From experience I know that tragedy has a way of marking a person, setting him apart, making others as reluctant to approach him as they would be to enter some awe-filled holy place. I should be invisible in this crowd, unnoticed, and if it weren’t for the fact that I’d riddled Lorenz’s killer with bullets, I would be.

We file down one of the aisles-the anticipated crowd is so vast, the event was moved to the auditorium of one of Houston’s smaller megachurches-and disappear down a long, padded pew. As I stare down at the folded program, Charlotte spots people she knows in the crowd, wondering aloud if we should go and join them.

“There’s Theresa,” she says. “She looks pretty torn up.”

I glance up briefly. Cavallo is half hidden under her husband’s arm, her eyes damp and sparkling, her mouth hidden under her hand. Maybe Lorenz had been right and she did think highly of him. She’d told me once they went to the same Bible study, though he’d never given any evidence of piety in my presence. While I’m watching her, José Aguilar catches my eye. He raises an eyebrow in acknowledgment, then nods. Hang in there. I nod back.

It takes a long time for the mourners to enter, there are so many. All the brass is up front, and so is the new mayor and most of the city council. The shocking death of an HPD detective will not go unheralded, not on their watch. I realize for the first time that there will be speeches. I shift in my seat.

“Are you still in pain?”

“I’m fine.”

“If you can’t sit through it all, we can always slip out.”

“I said I’m fine.”

I’m not going anywhere. I owe him that much at least.

Near the front, weaving between the public officials, I see my old boss, Lt. Wanda Mosser, her white hair radiant. She shakes a few hands, managing to smile and look appropriately sober all at once. Two years ago she presided over the media fiasco that was the Hannah Mayhew task force, and even though it failed to find the girl alive, Wanda managed to use the opportunity to burnish her own reputation. Back in the day, when she’d come through the ranks, a woman couldn’t hold her own and be successful in this man’s world unless she was even tougher than the boys. Wanda had no trouble delivering. When she was angry, she had a way of looking at you like she might just slit your throat. I’ve been on the receiving end of that look, so I should know.

Today, though, she’s just one of the brass. Nothing to prove except that she knows how to lend decorum to a solemn occasion. Which is not such a bad skill to have.

The funeral lasts more than an hour, but it’s a good one. The politicians keep their remarks brief, relinquishing the spotlight to Lorenz’s family. His widow does not speak. Instead, his younger brother reads from a prepared script, mostly recounting how proud Jerry was to be a homicide detective and the only thing he loved more was his wife and their two-year-old son. I manage to get through this stony-faced, though Charlotte doesn’t. Then there’s music, an aria of some kind from a famous requiem I’ve never heard of, performed by a woman from the Houston Masterworks Chorus without even a hint of accompaniment or artifice. Her voice rings through the church, austere and beautiful, the words incomprehensible to me, most likely Latin. When she finishes, I realize for the first time that I’ve been holding my breath.

“I want that at my funeral,” I whisper.

“Don’t even joke about it.”

I feel strangely detached from the spectacle. I shouldn’t, but there it is. No voice, no matter how haunting, can bring me ritual closure. No endearing anecdote, no volume of tears. If I want, I can conjure Jerry in my mind, blood-spattered and choking, whispering his final confession.

My kid .

None of them will ever have that moment. I wish I didn’t. But I do, and because I do, all this does nothing to stir me. I can’t bury him, not yet. I can’t shovel the dirt onto his coffin and move on. For everyone else, this is a great trauma, something that happened and can’t be reversed.

For me, it’s still happening. The guilt trip from the IAD investigator sees to that. It was my gun that killed Lorenz. For me, his death feels utterly reversible, too.

I retrace the moments, following them back, then push play and do it all over, gaining valuable seconds in the process. I can move faster, load quicker. I can get down the stairs in time. When the shots rang out, I was in the vestibule just feet from the building’s entrance. As the pallbearers approach either side of the casket, as they take up the weight of their burden, here I sit, working out how to shave a few seconds off my time. Like I’m back at Shooter’s Paradise, watching the others run the course so I can learn from their mistakes. Only it’s myself I’m watching, my own mistakes, and eliminating just one of them could make the difference.

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.