J. Bertrand - Pattern of Wounds

“Don’t worry about any of that,” I say. “None of it matters. You’re safe and that’s everything. You stood up for yourself and I’m proud of you.” My throat catches. “I’m so sorry. I’m so terribly sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I should have been there. I’m never there.”

“Roland, no-”

“I shouldn’t be here. It was pointless. And he could’ve hurt you without me there to stop him. I’m so, so sorry, baby.”

She shushes me with a whisper. “Just come home.”

“I will. I’ll go to the airport and get a flight.”

“No,” she says. “There’s no rush. I’m fine. Everyone’s here. Just come home.”

If everything is really connected and there are no coincidences, if that’s more than just a platitude I’ve repeated over the years, then how do I explain a drive like this, the second in my life, both of them westward over the long swampy stretch of Interstate 10 that crosses the Atchafalaya? How do I account for such a repetition? Absent again when I’m needed most, forced again to trace the seemingly endless road of shame, only this time alone.

Between them, Charlotte and Carter could only sketch the barest outline of a suspect. Caucasian, male. To obscure his face, he wore the kind of white germ mask that pinches shut over the bridge of the nose. Despite the prints on the knife handle, Carter thinks he wore latex gloves. The whole time he spent in the house, the man never uttered a word.

Around nine I reach Lafayette and decide to give Bascombe a call.

“You wanna tell me what you’re doing in Louisiana in the first place?”

“No,” I say, but I tell him anyway, starting with my trip to Huntsville. The deeper I get into the story, the quieter his breathing grows, to the point that I have to take it on faith that he’s still at the other end of the line. “Lieutenant?”

“You’re aware that Eugene Fontenot is under investigation, right? What am I saying, of course you are. You were sitting right there in the same briefing as me. I’m glad you don’t let details like that prevent you from doing whatever you want and going wherever you want.”

“The lead about Fauk is solid.” Even I’m not convinced by the tone of my voice.

“Good work,” he says. “Meanwhile, you wanna explain why the perp in your open homicide is making house calls?”

“I wish I knew. Either he expected to find me there or-”

“He wanted to send a message.”

“Like they say in the action movies, this time it’s personal. Maybe Fauk wasn’t happy with my prison visit. Maybe he found out and sent an errand boy to my place.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“I don’t know. I want Bridger to compare the knife to the one used on Simone Walker.”

“Sure,” he says. “Let’s alienate Dr. Green for no good reason.”

“I’ll give you one. She tipped Lauterbach off about the supposed connection between his case and mine. That right there is enough for me.”

He thinks it over. “I’ll make the call. When should I expect you?”

“Three hours or so. But I won’t be coming straight to the office.”

“Understood. I’m treating the attack on Charlotte as part of the Walker case, and assigning Aguilar to work it for the time being. I don’t have to tell you this guy cooked his goose. He can’t go after one of us without reaping the whirlwind.”

“Ten-four.”

The lieutenant’s pep talk doesn’t reassure me much, but it gets me thinking. I exit the interstate and drive around until I find a Starbucks. I raise the flap on my briefcase, withdraw the laptop, and log on to the wireless network. My email inbox is flooded with the usual junk, but at the bottom of the list, sent at 7:00 a.m. sharp, there’s a new message from Simone Walker.

HI DETECTIVE,

FOR AN OLDER WOMAN, YOUR WIFES SO HOT.

YOU SHOULD WATCH HER THO. WHEN I DROPPED

IN THERE WAS A YOUNGER MAN.;-)

I CUT HIM FOR YOU THO. SEE YOU SOON.

LOVE, SIMONE

I read it over twice, ignoring the reaction the words provoke, then forward the email to Quincy Hanford’s address, telling him to find out what he can.

A white Crime Scene Unit vehicle sits in my driveway. I park on the street and rush up the walk. Eric Castro slips through the front door, pausing in surprise.

“Detective-”

“Where is she? Inside?”

He nods wordlessly and I slip past.

She’s in the living room, cradled in a wingback chair with the portable phone in hand. Based on the tail end of her sentence, probably talking to her sister Ann. She looks up, sees me.

“He’s here,” she says into the phone.

She rises as I move forward, opening her arms for me, pulling me close. Her body presses into me and I hold on as tight as I can, feeling her breathing, her warmth, inhaling the scent of her hair.

“Oh, Roland,” she says.

When I loose my hold, she pulls back slightly, giving me a crooked smile.

“That’s quite a shiner,” I say, trying to make light of the swollen lid, the purple flesh around the eye.

“It’s fine. It’s nothing. It doesn’t even hurt.”

“Sure, it doesn’t. You’re very brave, you know that? And the guy who did this, he might as well have cut his own throat. He just signed his death warrant.”

“Don’t even talk like that.” She pulls away. “It’s not funny.”

“It’s not meant to be.”

“If I wanted him dead, I could have done it myself.”

“You’re right,” I say, the words coming out harsher than I intend. “Forgive and forget. When I find him, I’ll tell him to mind his manners from now on.”

“Roland,” she says, cutting her eyes sideways.

For the first time I notice the audience. Carter slouches on the opposite chair, his gauzed forearm hanging over the side, and behind him, silhouetted in the doorway, a crime scene tech stands frozen, waiting for the action to pause before passing through the room. I motion him along, then sink onto the couch, pulling Charlotte down beside me.

“How’s that arm?” I ask Carter.

He lifts the bandage for inspection. “I’ll take this any day over getting shot.”

“We did all right,” Charlotte says, giving my hand a reassuring squeeze.

I can imagine them a few moments earlier, knowing my arrival was imminent, deciding between them to put a brave face on things. But all I can think of is my wife screaming as a knife-wielding psychopath beats down the door. I put my arm around her and remember the wounds on Simone Walker’s back. He’d have done the same to Charlotte, even worse, if Carter hadn’t arrived when he did. They can sit here with their awkward smiles and congratulate themselves on the outcome, and I can let out a hundred sighs of relief, telling myself everything worked out in the end. But only by the thinnest margin. If Carter had been slower, if her attacker had gotten through the door, would Charlotte have been able to shoot? Or would I have come home to find her cold and lifeless on the tile floor, another victim of the man it was my job to stop?

“Don’t,” she says. “I know what you’re thinking, but don’t.”

I bury my face in her hair. “I can’t help it.”

“I should probably go,” Carter says, rising to his feet.

Before he leaves, I shake his good hand and thank him again. “You saved her life.”

“She saved mine, too.”

The resentment I’ve built up the past couple of months, the frustration with his influence over Charlotte, ebbs away as he walks through the door. I watch him go and for the first time in a year I finally see him for what he is, just a young man willing to risk himself to do what’s right. Whatever our differences are, I admire that. He’ll never ossify with rust, never cut the corners. He’ll never wake up across the room from his crooked doppelganger, uncertain which side of the line he’s really on.