Nancy Bartholomew - Sophie's Last Stand

“You know the district,” Mr. Wonderful said. “It’s transitional. These things happen sometimes…probably a hooker who got dumped after a bad deal.” He shook his head again, but his eyes darkened and his expression was grim. His good humor was gone and he was all business.

Mr. Wonderful looked at my brother and the smile flashed back for a second. “Joe, you got a sister? Why didn’t you tell me? She doesn’t take after you, does she?” Now he was grinning, trying to lighten up the situation for my brother.

Joe touched the top of his scalp and grinned. “No, Gray, she’s got hair.”

His name was Gray. It was perfect for him. It matched his eyes. Oh God, I was drooling like an idiot.

But Joe didn’t waste time. “Sophie,” he called, turning and revealing my hiding place on the steps. “Come here. I want to introduce you to someone.”

I stood, my hand touching the porch rail so I wouldn’t trip walking down the steps because the way I felt, I couldn’t trust my body not to betray me. I saw him do a double take, as if he couldn’t believe this was happening, either. I saw the easy smile flash, then grow tentative as I suppose he remembered me passing him on the street like a stranger.

I smiled back because I couldn’t stop myself. I was suddenly so very glad to see him. My brain wasn’t working right. My inhibitions, the stuff that would normally put on the brakes and stop me from looking foolish and desperate, were gone. Instead it was just me, smiling up like he was someone I already knew well, someone I wanted to keep close to me.

“She don’t always look this good,” Joe said, picking up on something, but uncertain of what it was. “She’s down here, what, two weeks? Already she’s with the overalls and the work boots.”

That stopped me. I suddenly saw myself as Gray must be seeing me. I was covered in dirt and yard grime, sweaty, probably smelly, too. I was wearing one of Pa’s old V-necked undershirts, worn overalls from the thrift shop and a red bandanna around my hair. I lifted my hand to touch the bandanna and the unruly curls my grandma Mazaratti once said would trap birds. This was wonderful. Dirty, no makeup and standing right in front of what Darlene called my destiny. Marone a mia.

“Like a fish needs a bicycle,” I muttered under my breath.

“What’s that, Sophie?” Joe asked.

“I said hello.” I started to extend my hand toward Gray, then realized it was probably filthy and that I had touched a dead body with it. When I moved to withdraw it, Joey’s friend was too quick. He read my hesitation, reached for my hand and took it, anyway, and then held it, like he was trying to reassure me, his grip warm and firm.

“Sophie,” Joe said, “this guy here is a friend of mine, Gray Evans. We play rugby together—only he’s good at it. Just so happens he’s a police detective and got himself assigned to this case. Our lucky day, right?”

I smiled, opened my mouth, and for the first time in my life, words failed me. “Uh.”

“She’s eloquent, my sister is,” Joe said.

Gray’s eyes held mine. “Hell of a morning, huh?” he asked softly.

I could only nod. The big cop came walking toward us and Gray dropped my hand and turned to her, then looked back at Joe.

“Excuse me a minute. I gotta go do this,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’ll probably have a few questions I’ll need to ask you in a little while. Can you stick around?”

I think the last question was directed at both of us; at least Joe seemed to take it that way. “We’re not going anywhere,” he said. “Come inside when you’re ready.”

With that, Mr. Wonderful vanished and Detective Gray Evans went to work.

“He’s a friend of yours?” I asked Joey, trying to keep my tone casual.

Joey looked away from the crime scene, glancing sharply at my face, then back to the crowd of police officers. “Yeah, I like the guy, but we travel in different circles. He’s single, I’m married and got kids, so we mainly see each other at practice or a game. Nice guy, though. Even read my books. Go figure that, huh? A cop reading poetry?”

I shrugged, watching Gray talk to the uniformed officers. I liked the way the sunlight glinted off his hair, tinting the gray into a brilliant silvery white and somehow managing to make him look even younger.

“What? You’re saying a cop can’t be sensitive?”

Joey barely seemed to hear me and I was surprised when he answered. “You know any like that? Sensitive?”

Well, no, I didn’t. In Philadelphia the streets hardened them, and even if they had felt an emotion, I never saw it. But then, I only knew the South Philly boys, the ones from the neighborhood. I can assure you, sentimentality was not their forte.

“He works with Boy Scouts. That’s sensitive.”

This grabbed Joey’s attention. “I thought you didn’t know the guy?”

I could feel the heat rising up into my cheeks, spreading like a rosy wildfire across my face. I looked away, focusing on the activities of a slow crime scene technician who seemed to be gathering blades of grass from the ground around the victim’s body.

“Oh, I ran into him at the Tour of Homes. He was helping them sell lemonade.”

Joey’s attention sharpened. “So you run into him at the tour and still remember him?” he asked.

“Well, I guess he sort of stuck out in my mind, that’s all. You know, Joe, women are observant.”

Joey snorted. “Tell me about it.”

“So have you met his girlfriend?” I asked, fishing.

Joey had switched his attention back to the scene. “Met who?” he asked without turning.

“His girlfriend, Joey. He has one, doesn’t he?”

This earned me another sharp glance. “What? No, I haven’t met her. I don’t know who guys bring to the game with them. I’m just there to play. I didn’t notice anybody in particular. Lots of women come to the games, but so do guys.”

Men were so unobservant. “So he brought a lot of different women to the games, huh? What is he, a player?”

Joey’s attention was only marginally on my interrogation. He shrugged. “Whatever. Yeah, I’d say he’s a good player.”

I looked back at the detective. He radiated charisma; of course he was a player. Why not? He was a man, wasn’t he?

Like a homing pigeon, my sister Darlene arrived. How she knew something was going on at my house is a mystery, but then, that’s Darlene, ruled by the cosmos, victim of supernatural wavelengths. Our grandmother always said Darlene had the gift—the Eye, as the family calls it. She said Darlene “saw” things and “knew” things, things that other people don’t know…yet.

Darlene drives a beat-up Chevy Colt. It resembles an empty soda can on wheels, half crushed up and dented by what would be normal wear and tear in a regular vehicle. Of course, Darlene drives the way she thinks, in a nonlinear fashion, weaving from one location to another, which probably accounts for the car’s condition more than anything.

She parked, if you want to call it that, halfway down the block and then strolled back toward the house. She was wearing another one of her hippy outfits, a flowing chiffon dress and pink sandals. She didn’t wear a floral wreath today, probably because she’d come from work, but two slender braids pulled her straight brown hair back into a post-sixties look. She appeared to be oblivious to the police cruisers parked in the driveway. As she drew closer, I realized she was humming.

Joey rolled his eyes. He has no patience with her because he says she’s a disaster waiting to happen. I think actually she stresses him out because he feels he needs to protect her because she’s divorced two husbands and buried one. He’s worried because she doesn’t seem in a hurry to find number four.

“Good morning,” she said, her voice a singsong lilt. Then she stopped, seemed to take stock of her surroundings and said, “Oh, I guess it’s afternoon, huh?” Still no acknowledgment of the police cars.

She wandered up to where we stood before the change came over her. “Oh, man, something feels weird here. There is, like, a total disturbance in the energy level.” She actually shivered, wrapped her arms around herself and looked toward the backyard.

“Oh…it’s cold here, even colder back there.” She looked from me to Joe. “All right,” she said, “who’s dead?”

“Sweet Mother of God!” Joe gasped in mock astonishment. “What was it gave it away, the crime scene van or the three cop cars and the entire New Bern police force in the backyard?”

Darlene gave him her patronizing smile. “You should give up meat, Joe. It makes you mean.” Then she looked back at the scene and saw Mr. Wonderful.

How the woman recognized him again, after only seeing him one time in passing, is beyond me, but she did. She broke out in a triumphant grin. “Aha!” she cried. “What did I tell you? It’s your destiny! Fate cannot be denied!”

“Have you lost your fucking mind?” Joe cried.

“It’s the meat, isn’t it, Joe? You’re probably constipated,” she said, and dismissed him.

“He’s a detective,” I said. “Who knew?”

Darlene smiled. She knew. You could see she was thinking it. I knew.

At that moment, Gray Evans looked back at us and smiled. He knew, too, I thought. He knew all along.

“Let’s go inside,” I said. I couldn’t take it, couldn’t take everybody seeing my future, even me. I knew that it was all an unrealistic fantasy we were creating, not real life. In real life people simply do not fall in love at first sight or cement their relationship over a dead body. It just didn’t happen and the sooner we all got that, the sooner I could get on with my life.

We stood in the kitchen, or what would be the kitchen, and stared out the back window into the yard where Gray Evans and his squad of officers toiled. It was a close-up view of things we probably shouldn’t have seen.

A technician nodded to a question asked by Gray’s partner, the tall older man with a permanent look of sorrow on his well-worn face. With a quick nod to Gray, the senior detective leaned forward, pinched the edge of the plastic between two latex covered fingers and slowly tugged the wrapping away from her body.

Joe and I crossed ourselves, with him saying the Rosary softly and Darlene on my other side murmuring an incantation that sounded like “Now I lay me down to sleep.” As the police officers moved and the technicians snapped pictures, we had a pretty good view of the victim. She was young and had worked hard to disguise any natural beauty that might have been evident. Her hair was black, cut into a scalp-hugging cap of short, shaggy layers.

Joe whistled softly, cutting off his prayer at the sight of this poor dead thing. She was wearing a black leather halter top, complete with bright chrome studs, cutoff jeans and heavy black boots. Her skin, pasty in death, was covered with a number of intricate tattoos.

I watched the police officers exchange glances, a couple of them seeming to snicker. I looked back at the dead girl. She looked more like she was sleeping than dead. Her eyes were closed and her body wasn’t contorted into any of the anguished positions I’d expected of a violent death.

Darlene studied her. “Would you look at her boobs?” she said finally. “You think those are real?”

“Darlene!” Joe and I both yelled at her. “Have a little respect for the dead,” Joe added.

“I am respectful,” Darlene said. “I don’t have tits like that. I mean look at them. They have to be a triple D cup. Do you think they’re real?”