Stephen White - Blinded

“Did she go away?”

“She’s like sixty or something-she looks exactly like my aunt Esther-and she just flipped me off behind her back as she was walking away. What is that? I don’t think I want to live in a society where old people are pricks.”

“She’s an exception, Sam. Tell me about Sterling.”

“You know he was in Florida, producing coverage for some football game? Yeah, of course you know that. After his damn football game was over yesterday, he was driving from Tallahassee to visit an old college friend in Albany, Georgia. You know where that is? Me, neither. Personally, I think he was avoiding coming back here to face the music, but it’s a free country, right? Until the cuffs are on, hey-he can do what he pleases. Lots of people want to talk to him, but nobody was ready to arrest him.

“Anyway, there was some freak rainstorm all across southern Georgia yesterday. Flash floods, the whole thing. A biblical-type storm. Witnesses say a car went off the highway and was about to slide into the Ochlockonee River. If I said that name right, I deserve a prize. I thought Minnesota had goofy names for places, but the South? It’s like they had a goofy name contest and there were a thousand winners. No, ten thousand winners.

“Anyway, Sterling, being the sweet guy we all know he is, stopped his rental car and went to help this woman whose car was about to go in the river. He slipped on the bank, fell in, and went underwater almost immediately. His body hasn’t been found.”

“Wow.”

“That’s it? ‘Wow’?”

“Sam, the man’s about to be picked up for questioning for a homicide and instead he dies a damn hero trying to rescue a stranger from a car wreck? That’s world-class irony.”

“Warms your heart, doesn’t it? Three witnesses to the whole thing, too. One of them is a damn preacher. The others are twin sisters. A social worker and a pediatrician.”

“I take it you don’t believe what you’re hearing?” Sam often didn’t believe what he was hearing. It wasn’t evidence of a character defect so much as it was the foundation that made him a good detective.

“What do the lawyers say? Render up the body? Do I got that right? Well, when they render up the body, then I’ll believe it. It’s all too convenient as far as I’m concerned.”

“How do you fake a rainstorm and a biblical flood, Sam? Sterling Storey isn’t Moses.”

“Moses? What Bible do you read? Moses doesn’t fake any floods in the Bible I read. Forget my question-I don’t want to know what Bible you read. No. All I’m saying about Sterling Storey is that maybe… maybe the guy thinks on his feet, that’s all.”

“I assume that the Georgia cops are looking for his remains.”

“They are. The river he went into-I’m not going to try to say the name again-is pretty wild, apparently. Lots of things underwater-trees and shit-where a body could get caught up.”

“Sam, why do you care about this case so much? You have plenty more important things to worry about.”

He was silent for ten seconds before he replied, “I’m not sure. I think I’m going to go back home.”

“Wait, Sam. Hold on. Do you know anything about Jara Heller’s husband? Judge Heller?”

“I saw the paper. Nothing more than that.”

“Will you do something for me? Will you check and see how they became suspicious of him? How they knew he was involved?”

“Why?”

“It’s important.”

“Somebody fingered him. You can count on it. Maybe he walked into a sting, but odds are somebody gave him up. You hang around with people who do drugs, especially people who buy and sell drugs, you come to realize that it’s not the most honorable segment of our society.”

“Just check for me, please. If somebody turned him in, I’d love to know that. I promise I won’t ask who did it.”

“You promise?”

“Yes, Sam.”

“That means you already know who turned him in. You just want me to confirm it for you. Am I right?”

I stammered.

He said, “You should be seeing a higher quality of clientele. You hang out with a lot of scum.” Then he hung up.

Across the room Grace-bless her-continued to entertain herself. She was absolutely captivated by the wrong end of a spoon.

I called my office phone and checked for a call from Gibbs. I wondered if she even knew what had happened to her husband the previous night, whether anyone had called her.

The only messages on my voicemail were from other patients. One was a cancellation; another was from a patient requesting an additional session. And one was a confirmation from a paranoid-obsessive guy I was treating named Craig Adamson. Craig always required confirmation that I hadn’t forgotten his next appointment. Always. It was sad.

All in all, the messages on my voicemail were a zero-sum game and included no frantic calls from Gibbs Storey.

I was trying to decipher what that meant when, behind me, Lauren said, “Who was that who called?”

A big smile exploded across Grace’s face, and she said, “Mom Mom.”

I pivoted.

My eyes stayed glued on the cranky old lady until she was all the way down by the wine store. I didn’t want her to think I was getting off the line for her. When she hopped from the curb to jaywalk over toward Ideal Market, I hung up the phone.

Sherry would tell me I was being petty. Maybe she would be right. I can be petty sometimes. Especially with people who flip me the bird when I’m not doing anything but talking on the phone.

A little bubble of gas erupted down in my gut and began a sudden northern migration that would take it directly into belch territory. I could feel it rise. As the capsule crossed the midtorso territory that I now knew- knew -to be my heart’s domain, my hand rose involuntarily to my chest. I placed my knuckles on my sternum and pressed gently. It took no more than a second for the gas to rise the entire length of my esophagus.

I did burp, kind of loudly actually. After, I left my hand in place below and between the boobs on my chest that looked just like my dad’s, the man-boobs I’d promised myself I’d never have.

Never.

Well, I had them now.

I inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. No pain rose in my chest. It was okay to move my hand away, to slide my big feet.

I stepped away from the phone and got into the long snaking line that led to the counter at Moe’s. What had Alan said I could order? Whole grain? Nonfat cream cheese? Lox?

Damn.

I had man-boobs, a heart artery that looked like a muck-filled galvanized pipe, a wife who hadn’t smiled in my general direction since the summer monsoons had passed us by, and a kid I adored who was a thousand miles away from my hug.

What had Alan asked me?

“Why do you care about this case so much?”

The woman in front of me was ordering nineteen different things nineteen different ways. She wanted an “everything” bagel without sesame seeds. Jalapeño this with white meat turkey that. “You mean you don’t have veggie cream cheese without those orange things in it?… Oh, those are carrots? Ooh, red onions? You don’t have white? Are they bitter?”

She asked for a spelt bagel. What the hell is spelt?

The girl waiting on her had an oblong ring the size of a carabiner through her right eyebrow. She didn’t care a hoot about the woman she was waiting on, or her act. The clerk’s eyes didn’t frown. Her lips didn’t smile. She was going to get minimum wage for the next hour of her life no matter what the hell the idiots on our side of the counter wanted her to do.

I could relate.

The girl shook her head at the spelt question.

I was glad Moe’s didn’t have spelt. I would have been seriously dismayed if Moe’s had spelt.