The Dearly Departed. Elinor Lipman
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at Saint Xavier’s along with a bureau scarf that wasn’t frilly or stained.
Strangers assumed that she was thrilled to have Joey in uniform; exhilarated by the sight of him behind the wheel of his cruiser, pressed and clean-shaven, but she wasn’t. She turned off the news when she saw reports of police officers shot, killed, sued, eulogized. And now it had happened. A crazy man had shot Joey at close range as he ambled in his good-natured fashion up to the half-open window of—as best as he could remember—a Ford pickup with Massachusetts plates. They were out there—nuts and murderers; sociopaths who thought it was better to kill someone’s son than get a ticket. Marilee and her husband had safe jobs—day-care teacher at a state building with a metal detector and dairy manager at Foodland.
Worst of all, the murderer was at large. “He’s gone,” Joey had promised. “Even the stupidest cop killer would get out of town and not look back.”
“Maybe he wasn’t just passing through. Maybe this was his destination. Maybe he was out to get you.”
“I pulled him over! He shot me because he must’ve had drugs in the car or it was stolen, or there was a body in the trunk.”
“Promise me you’ll let the state police handle this. Let someone else go looking for him.”
“I’m not going looking for him, okay?”
“Will you spend tonight at home?”
He shook his head. She walked from the foot of his bed to one side. “Let me see.”
“No.”
“I want to see what he did to you.”
Joey pulled the thin cotton blanket up to his shoulders. “It’s black-and-blue. They told me to expect a few more shades before I’m done. But forget it. I’m not showing you.”
“Is it very painful?”
“No,” he lied.
She narrowed her eyes. “They said on television it was like getting beat up by a heavyweight boxer.”
“Nah,” said Joey. “Bantamweight, maybe.”
She opened the flat, hinged carton that held his new bullet-proof vest, picked it up by its shoulders, held it against her own chest, and said, “It seems so flimsy.”
“That’s the point—lighter; new and improved.”
“But strong enough to stop the bullets?”
“Definitely. More than ever. You’re worrying about nothing. Lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice.”
“That’s not true! If you’re chief of police, you’re a lightning rod.”
“This is King George, Ma. This was a bad break, but it’s not going to happen again.”
“What if he’s never caught? How do I get to sleep at night knowing he’s out there?”
“You’ll sleep fine. So will I. In fact I’ve got a prescription for sleeping pills. I’ll give you one.” He folded the blanket to his waist. “Now I’m getting out of bed and I’m getting dressed, so you may want to leave.”
“I’ll wait in the hall. I want to speak to the nurses anyway.”
“About what?”
“I want someone besides you to tell me that the doctor discharged you.”
Joey picked up a cord and followed it to its grip. “See this? It brings a nurse in five seconds and I’ll tell her you’re harassing me.”
Mrs. Loach looked around the room. “Your uniform. Where is it? Can I mend it?”
Joey’s mouth formed a tight, grim line. He shook his head. “The FBI gets the uniform.”
Mrs. Loach backed up to the visitor’s chair and sat down heavily.
Joey tried again. “I think visiting hours are just about over. Besides, it’s polite to give the patient privacy when he wants to get out of bed and his ass is hanging out of his johnny.”
His mother’s eyes narrowed. “Why does the FBI need your pants if you were shot in the chest?”
“For lab work. Ballistics. Powder burns. You know the drill.”
“I wish I didn’t!” she cried. “I sit around hoping I’ll never get a phone call from the emergency room, and then it happened, like my worst fear come true.”
He sidled out of bed and walked backward to the bathroom. “It wasn’t your worst fear, though, was it, because I’m fine. The vest worked. I’ve made those phone calls to mothers—’There’s been an accident, and I’m sorry, Mrs. Smith or Jones, but your son didn’t make it.’ That’s someone’s worst fear. This is nothing. Day before last, I had to call the son of the man who died at Margaret Batten’s house. And then Sunny. She’d have been thrilled if her mother was merely in the hospital with the wind knocked out of her.”
“Margaret Batten,” murmured Mrs. Loach. “What a terrible thing.”
“You’re right about that, and it gets worse. Her daughter heard it secondhand from Finn’s son. I called him because she wasn’t home. But that didn’t bother him: He left a message on her answering machine. That’s how she found out.”
It had the desired effect: Mrs. Loach’s features reset themselves for a new course of misfortune. “That poor girl,” she cried.
Joey closed the bathroom door behind him.
“There was just the two of them,” she said. “And I always admired the way her mother fought for her. I hope I told her that. I must have at some point.”
“No doubt,” said Joey.
“Were you nice to Sunny?” his mother called.
“Of course I was.”
“Sometimes you can be brusque over the phone.”
“To you.”
“Did she go to high school with you or with Marilee?”
“Me.”
“She was the girl who golfed, right? Wasn’t there some hysteria about her playing on the boys’ team?”
“They had to let her play. They didn’t have a girls’ team and she was better than all of the boys.”
“It’s because of where she lived,” called his mother. “If you grow up next to a mountain, you learn to ski, and if you live next to a country club, you learn to golf.”
“What?” Joey yelled.
“Bad luck, as it turned out, that house by the golf course. And you know what makes it worse? They fixed the furnace in a half hour. Maybe less.”
“Who did?”
“Herlihy Brothers Fuel just showed up—not ten minutes after they read about it in the Bulletin. Sean and Danny both.”
“Who let them in?”
“I did! When no one answered at the station, they came by the house.”
“But, Ma—”
“No charge. They donated their services.”
“What about the police tape no one was supposed to cross?”
“The door was open. They know their stuff, believe me. They wear gas masks or whatever they’re called these days.”
“Ma! How many goddamn times do I have to tell you that you can’t let every Tom, Dick—”
“I’m leaving,” she said, “but only because you sound like yourself and can walk and do your business. Just promise—”
“No