S Hunter: Longevity

“I don’t remember much being said at the time,” Bruno said, giving Livvy a slightly sheepish grin.

“Where are we?” Chris asked.

“Can you believe this one?” Bruno jerked his head towards the house. “Married over 50 years, then last night, this guy, Caster, takes his girlfriend in with him to ask for the divorce. Mrs. Neighbor says she doesn’t think the wife had any idea about the girlfriend before the husband walked in with her. The guy doesn’t have the guts or the courtesy to at least talk to his wife alone first. Wonder what the guy said. ‘Honey, can you set another place for dinner?’”

“Maybe it takes at least an iota of both,” Livvy said.

Bruno stared at her again, as if he forgot what he was saying.

“Guts and courtesy,” Livvy said.

They all went back to studying the front of the small house.

“Yeah, you’re probably right there,” Bruno said, rubbing a hand through his shock of hair. It fell back across his forehead in a tousled mane. “Anyway, yesterday at some point the husband tells Mr. Neighbor – who’s his friend – that he’s bringing the girlfriend along into the home when he breaks it to the wife that he’s replacing her. That same home contains a gun, and he ends up dead. Go figure. One plus one equals two. Maybe an iota of brains, too.

“Of course, Mr. Numbskull Neighbor doesn’t think about the situation again until this morning, when he tells Mrs. Neighbor by the way before he goes off to work and she goes over to check on her friend. Mrs. Neighbor never got through the door, but she heard the crying and saw the gun and the three of them sitting there and had the sense to call us.”

“What’s happening now?” Chris asked.

“There’s nothing new. The wife asked for you by name, including the fact that you work for LLE, and she hasn’t responded to anything since. Our bi-ways aren’t picking up anything but somebody crying. Crying a lot.”

“My favorite,” Livvy said.

“You ready to try?” Bruno asked.

“Let’s do it,” Chris said, taking the bi-way Bruno offered him and aiming it at the largest window. He stood silently for a few moments, then he opened the transmitter function.

“Marcy, it’s Chris McGregor,” he said, keeping his voice calm and quiet. “Will you come out and talk to me, please?”

There was an outburst of unrestrained weeping. “I can’t,” someone said between the sobs.

“Marcy, are you okay? Is there anyone in there who needs medical attention?”

More weeping, which seemed to be getting even more hysterical.

Chris turned off the amp. “I’m going in. She’s escalating into desperation. I remember this woman. This is no longer primarily a hostage crisis, it’s a suicide prevention.”

“I’m going in too,” Livvy said, meeting his eyes briefly.

The officer from Psych Intervention stepped forward. “Detective, you’re from LLE, aren’t you? Have you had any training for this? Hostage retrieval or suicide prevention? Anything? I really can’t allow…”

“As long as it’s a crisis,” Bruno cut in, “it’s my decision. I can let Psych or LLE or the French Foreign Legion in if I chose. McGregor goes in. His partner, too, if he wants her in there.”

Chris went back to the bi-way. “Marcy, my partner and I would like to come in to talk to you. We need to hear about what’s happened. Just to talk. Can we do that, please?”

No response other than some continued weeping, now a little muted, as though her face was buried in a pillow. Chris turned off the amp and handed it back to Bruno.

“Be careful in there. Cara loves having you come for dinner. You validate her cooking,” Bruno said.

“Cara is an excellent cook,” Chris said.

“Uh, huh. That’s what I mean. Watch yourself.”

They began walking. Halfway to the door, Chris turned to Livvy.

“Our first goal is to get Marcy to walk out. Even if can’t get that, we ignore the other woman until Marcy at least calms down, then we can see about getting her released if she seems to be in danger,” he said.

“Understood,” Livvy said.

They’d reached the curtained and ironwork-covered door, and Chris’ voice was still exceptionally calm as he called through it. “Marcy, it’s Chris, and my partner, Livvy. We’re just outside the door. Can we come in? We need to understand what’s happened.”

He paused. There was no response.

“No hurry. Take your time and think about it if you need to. When you’re ready, just open the door so that we know it’s okay to come in. We’ll wait right here.”

Another minute passed. The weeping seemed to have stopped.

“Marcy…,” Chris began, when the door swung open.

With all of the window coverings engaged and most the lights off, the room was dark and Livvy found it more than a little claustrophobic. At the unlit end of the room opposite the door they just entered she could see several shadowy forms on the sofa, one slumped over at an awkward angle at one end and the other, slighter form, huddled against the arm rest at the opposite end. Neither was moving, although the slighter form had moved forward reflexively when they came in.

The woman with the gun, Marcy, was clutching a decorative pillow and sitting in an armchair. There was some dimmed light emanating from an antique crystal chandelier over a small dining set at their end of the room. It was bright enough to reveal half of Marcy’s face and the gun still in her grip, lying in her lap, but not much else. Like the slight form on the sofa, she was tiny. Livvy wasn’t all that tall herself, but with Marcy the impression of fragility was paramount, from the ponytail of fine blonde curls cascading down her back, the one visible pale blue eye swollen and reddened, and the smooth cheek glistening with salt tracks. Livvy thought she must look a lot like the 21 year-old Chris first met over 50 years ago. Including, probably, the tear stains.

“Marcy, I’m just going to bring some chairs over, so we can sit and listen,” Chris said quietly, closing the front door and slowly bringing two of the dining chairs over and placing them about a meter in front of her.

Sitting there, they were positioned so that their faces were illuminated by the dining room light. They kept their hands in their laps.

“Thank you for coming,” Marcy said. Her voice was hoarse. “You helped me before, do you remember? It was so long ago, but I remember as though it were yesterday. You explained that if I got that stupid enhancement reversed I wouldn’t get into any trouble with the law, even a fine. Even though it was unlicensed, and I should have known better. You were so nice about it, and Jack was so upset, because we were barely affording the resets at that point, and the reversal could have cost so much more. I had listened to them when they advertised, they guaranteed , that it would make me more attractive. So stupid. I did it for Jack, as a surprise. Everything I did was for Jack.”

She started sobbing again, almost crooning and rocking back and forth, hugging the tear-stained pillow with her free arm.

“Marcy, what happened here?” Chris asked. His voice was still very calm. Marcy started talking again, at first looking at him, but after the first sentence she began directing everything at Livvy.

“I loved him so much. You know how it is. He said he didn’t want children. He said I was all he needed, and why should we give up 50 years of allotment, 50 years of life, just to have a child, a child that would leave us after 20 years or so and have their own life? He said he just wanted to spend a lifetime with me. He said we’d have our 200 thbirthdays together. So we didn’t have children. Instead, we saved for the resets, so we could stay young for each other.