David Handler - The Blood Red Indian Summer

“Morning, Des,” Marge said wearily as Des climbed out of her cruiser.

“Back at you. Feels like I just saw you ladies ten minutes ago.”

“It was ten minutes ago,” Mary said.

Des hopped into the van with the girl, acutely aware of Mitch’s parents watching her. “What have we got here?”

“Collateral damage from that party, we’re figuring,” Mary said. “Meet Jane Doe.”

Jane Doe was an African-American in her teens. She had an oxygen mask over her face and an IV tube in her forearm. She was swaddled in blankets.

“The Bergers got most of the water out of her,” Mary said. “Her lungs sound pretty clear now. We’re oxygenating her and giving her fluids for dehydration. Her blood pressure’s a little low but she’s stable and conscious-although she won’t tell us who she is or what happened to her.”

“All she has on is her underwear,” Marge said, lowering her voice. “Her panties are intact but her T-shirt’s torn. She has fresh bruises on her thighs and around her wrists and throat. Her knees are all scraped up, too. We’ve phoned ahead to Shoreline Clinic for a SANE.” Meaning a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner.

Mary bent down and removed the oxygen mask from the girl’s face. “How are you doing, hon?”

“Fine,” she answered hoarsely. She didn’t look fine. Panicky was more like it.

“Would you like to tell us your name now?”

“I can do that,” Des said, studying the girl with great concern. “It’s Kinitra Jameson. Her older sister, Jamella, is married to Tyrone Grantham.” Des crouched down close to her. “What happened, Kinitra?”

Kinitra wouldn’t say. She just shook her head.

“Were you out on a boat? Did someone attack you? How did you get all of those bruises?”

Kinitra shook her head again, then started to cry-huge, wrenching sobs.

Des turned to Marge and said, “Get her up to the clinic. I’ll be along after I speak to the Bergers.”

“And you’ll notify next of kin?”

“That, too,” Des said as she climbed out.

“Lucky you.”

“Yeah, I’m just lucky all over.”

Mary pulled the rear doors shut from the inside as Marge got behind the wheel. The van started its way back toward the causeway.

Des strode toward the Bergers, her pulse quickening.

Mitch was grinning at her in a most unfamiliar way. He looked as if his upper lip had been Krazy Glued to his top teeth. “I guess this is the moment we’ve all been waiting for,” he said, his voice soaring at least an octave higher than usual. “Ruth and Chet Berger, I’d like you to meet the one and only Desiree Mitry.”

“This is a real pleasure, Desiree,” Chet said effusively. “Mitch has told us so much about you. Except he didn’t tell us you were so beautiful.”

“Or so tall,” Ruth said, gazing up, up at her.

“It’s the hat,” said Des, who suddenly felt as if her own top lip had been glued to her teeth.

“Is that poor girl going to make it?” Chet asked.

“She’ll be okay.”

“I marked the spot where we found her,” Mitch said. “Want to see it?”

“Is there anything to see?”

“Not really.”

“Then it can wait. I need to contact her family now.”

“So you’ve got an I.D. on her?”

“I know her. She’s Tyrone Grantham’s sister in law.”

His face dropped. “Uh-oh…”

“Uh-oh is right.” Des turned back to his parents and said, “This is really not how I planned to meet you folks. And now I’m afraid I have to run.”

“Do what you have to do, Desiree,” Chet said. “Besides, the best way to get to know someone is to watch them at work. Not at some artificial dinner party.”

“Which we will, in fact, be having later on,” Mitch pointed out. “Artifice and all. But you’re absolutely right, Pop. It so happens that the two of us met because of her work. Dinner came much, much later. First, she had to make sure I wasn’t a murderer.”

Chet’s eyes widened. “You thought Boo-Boo was a murderer?”

Des blinked at him. “I’m sorry, what did you just-?”

“Nothing,” Mitch blurted out. “He didn’t say anything.”

“Really? Because it sounded like… did he just call you-?”

“Pop, I begged you.”

“No, no. I like it large, Boo-Boo. And for the record, Chet, I never thought he was a murderer. Wouldn’t have brought him Baby Spice if I did.”

“Who’s Baby Spice?” demanded Chet, who had some volume control issues. Talked a bit on the loud side. Maybe it was the pants.

“From the Spice Girls,” Ruth said to him. “That English singing group, remember? One of them’s married to David Beckham. The one with those huge, fake boobs.”

Chet shook his head. “Who’s David Beckham?”

“The soccer player.”

“He has huge, fake boobs?”

“No, she does.”

“Who does?”

“Des was referring to Clemmie. Her name used to be Baby Spice.” Now Mitch’s voice had a semi-adolescent edge to it. The poor man was growing younger by the minute. Before long his testicles would be retreating back up into his pelvis. “I’ll be right back,” he said to them, steering Des across the driveway toward her cruiser. “You saw all of those bruises?”

“I saw them.”

“When she came to, she said, ‘Please don’t make me go back there.’ She seemed really, really terrified.”

“I’ll take down your formal witness statement later. Your folks, too. Will they be okay?”

“Are you kidding? They spent their entire working lives in the New York City public school system. They’ve seen shootings, knifings-don’t worry about them.”

Des looked out at the water. “I’m all turned around. Where’s the Grantham house from here?”

“A mile or so that way.” He pointed up river. “The river current sends all sorts of debris our way. Tree limbs, plastic bottles-everything washes up here. She’s lucky she did. Otherwise she would have drifted out into the open Sound. Then again, maybe that’s what she wanted to do.”

“You mean commit suicide?”

“Why else would she go for a swim in the middle of the night-in her underwear?”

“Could be some guy was getting rough with her. She jumped in the water to get away from him but the current was too strong and she couldn’t get back.”

“That plays,” he conceded. “Especially if she was drunk or high. There was a party there last night.”

Des shoved her heavy horn-rimmed glasses up her nose and said, “I don’t like this.”

“I wouldn’t either if I were you.”

She waved good-bye to Mitch’s parents, got in her Crown Vic and drove back across the causeway, stopping when she reached the Nature Preserve. She’d input Tyrone Grantham’s unlisted home number in her cell phone. Chantal answered the phone, sounding sleepy and grumpy.

“Sorry to disturb you so early, Chantal. It’s Resident Trooper Mitry. Is Jamella awake yet?”

“She been up since dawn with her morning sickness. Poor thing hasn’t gone a day without vomiting since she got pregnant. You need her?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I’ll go get her.”

Des gazed out across the undulating green meadows of the Nature Preserve, cherishing this fleeting moment of serenity.

“Hello?…” Jamella’s voice sounded guarded.

“It’s Resident Trooper Mitry, Jamella. I’m calling about Kinitra.”

“She’s asleep in bed. You want me to wake her? Chantal could have done that for you.”

“Kinitra’s not in her room. I’m afraid she’s being taken by ambulance to Shoreline Clinic.”

Jamella let out a gasp. “She’s what?”

“A resident of Big Sister Island just found her washed up on the beach there. She nearly drowned, but she appears to be okay.”