Robert Parker - Family Honor

“Terry the guy in the hall?” I said.

“Yeah.”

“What’s his last name?”

“Nee.”

“What’s your name.”

“Mike.”

Outside on Summer Street I could hear the first siren.

“Can you give me a break,” Mike said.

“Who sent you?” I said.

“I don’t know. I just come along pick up a day’s pay from Terry.”

“Did you rough up a pimp named Pharaoh Fox?” I said.

“Don’t know his name, me and Terry slapped a black guy around a little. He was a pimp.”

“Why?”

“Something about a girl.”

“Do you know the girl’s name?”

“No. Terry did.”

The siren dwindled and went silent in front of my loft. Then another one.

“You gonna gimme a break?”

“No,” I said. “I’m not.”

Mike didn’t say anything and in another minute the elevator door opened and two cops walked out, service pistols in hand, held against the leg, the barrel pointing at the ground. Behind them came two EMTs. I let the shotgun hang by my side. I was holding my robe together with my left hand. The older of the two cops put out his hand, and I gave him the gun. I was glad to give it up. Then I could hold my robe together with both hands. The younger cop stood over Mike and patted him down. One of the EMTs went down on the floor beside Terry Nee.

“He’s cooked,” the EMT said.

“There’s a gun on the counter,” I said. “I took it from Mike on the floor.”

“Glock on the floor out there,” the younger cop said.

“Leave everything for the detectives,” the older cop said. “You, on the floor, you stay right there.”

The young cop left Mike and went and bent over and looked at the dead man.

“Well, hello,” he said. “It’s Terry Nee.”

“If it had to be somebody,” the older cop said, his eyes moving around the room as he spoke, “it might just as well be Terry Nee.”

The young cop opened the big cardboard box and peered in.

“Empty,” he said.

Rosie crept out from under the bed waggling tentatively. I scooched down and put my arms out and she scuttled over, and I picked her up. Millicent stood up behind the bed and stayed there, her back against the wall. The older cop looked at Rosie who was lapping my neck as if it were her last chance.

“Not an attack dog, I’d guess.”

“Not unless you’re a liver snap,” I said.

He looked at a scrap of paper.

“Sonya Randall?”

“Sunny,” I said.

“Sunny Randall?”

“Yes.”

“You Phil Randall’s kid?”

“Yes.”

“I was in a cruiser once with Phil. You’re a lot better-looking.”

“Yes,” I said,

“You want to tell me what happened?”

I could hear more sirens on Summer Street. And the sound of the elevator heading up. It was going to be a long day.

It helped that I had been a cop. It helped that I was a licensed private investigator. It helped that I had a gun permit. It helped that Millicent confirmed my story, however monosyllabically. It helped that I was a woman defending a young girl against two known thugs. It helped that I was kind of cute. It probably helped a little that Rosie was cuter than is legally permissible in many states. And it helped a lot that I was Phil Randall’s daughter. We didn’t have to go downtown. We agreed that Millicent would be better off if she weren’t mentioned to the press. The lead detective on the case was a sergeant named Brian Kelly who had thick black hair and a cute butt and a wonderful smile.

“We’ll need to talk again, Sunny,” he said about five in the afternoon as they were cleaning up the crime scene. “Is it okay if I call you Sunny?”

“Absolutely, Sergeant,” I said.

“And I’d appreciate you calling me Brian,” he said.

We were sitting at my kitchen table with Rosie plomped on one of Brian’s feet, looking up at him with her tongue lolling out. Millicent was sitting up on my bed with her knees to her chin and her arms wrapped around them, staring at the television.

“I’ll do what I can to shelter the kid. If there’s a trial she may have to testify, but I doubt that there’ll be a trial.”

“You don’t plan to bring old Mike into court?”

“The guy you didn’t shoot?” Brian looked at his notes. “Mike Leary. Don’t know him. But he hangs around with Terry Nee, we’ll find some use for him, and he’ll plea-bargain.”

“Fine,” I said.

“You don’t have any thoughts you’ve not shared with me, do you, about why they were here and what they were doing?”

“You know what I know,” I said.

“Maybe,” Brian said.

“Would I lie to you?”

Brian smiled at me. When he smiled his eyes widened a little and seemed to get brighter.

“Of course you would, Sunny. We both know that.”

“So young and yet so cynical,” I said.

He stood and put his notebook away. I stood with him.

“Lemme get back to the station,” Brian said, “and sort of fold this up and put it away for the night. I’ll call you in a couple days.”

“Fine.”

“You okay?”

“Sure,” I said. “I’m fine.”

“You ever kill somebody before?”

“No.”

“It’s sort of a heavy thing,” he said.

“I know,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll leave a cruiser out front for the night, just until we shake this down a little.”

“Thank you.”

“Okay. I’ll call you.”

“Do,” I said.

And he left. I followed him to the door and locked it after he left. Rosie went down the length of the loft and jumped up on the bed beside Millicent and lay down. I sat at my kitchen counter for a while. My ears were still ringing. When the mass of buckshot had hit him, Terry Nee’s shirt had disappeared in a mass of blood. I wondered if he felt it. He might have made a sound when he went backward. I wondered if he had been alive when his leg was twitching, or if it was just some weird reflex and Terry was already somewhere else. I’d have to clean the shotgun. If you fired them and didn’t clean them, the barrel got pitted. Terry was a guy who couldn’t believe a woman would shoot him, or couldn’t allow himself to back down to a woman. Whatever it was, it killed him.

They would have taken the girl. He went for his gun. He’d have shot me. With a 10-gauge shotgun at two feet you can’t aim to wound. I had to kill him. The ringing wouldn’t go away. I shook my head a little and got up and went to the cabinet and got a green bottle of Glenfiddich and a short glass. I poured an inch of scotch and sipped it, and poured some more. I could feel my heart moving in my chest. I was aware of my breathing. It seemed shallow. I took another sip of scotch, and shivered slightly and got up and went to the refrigerator and added some ice. As I was putting the ice in, some of it slipped from my hand and scattered on the floor. When I bent to pick it up I dropped the glass. The glass broke. I couldn’t leave broken glass on the floor with Rosie in the house, so I went to the broom closet and got the dustpan and a broom and cleaned up the glass and ice, and put it in the trash compactor and closed the compactor and turned the switch. I walked over to the broom closet and put the broom away and hung the dustpan on the hook. It slipped off the hook and dropped to the floor. I bent to pick it up and felt all the strength go from me, and sat down on the floor and began to cry. I heard Rosie jump down from the bed and trot down the length of the loft. She came around the kitchen counter and began to lap my face. Maybe to comfort me. Maybe because she liked salt. Then Millicent appeared around the corner of the counter, barefooted, and stared at me. Her face was stark and colorless. Her eyes seemed nearly black in the oval of her face.