Readjustment (Restitution #2)

2

Caleb Straus

I just wanted to eat my Eggos in peace.

I finger-combed my messy, short curls as I snuck one final bite, then stood and stretched my spine. Someone must have started a vacuum on our floor, because the overhead light in the living room dimmed for a second, then regained its usual pale-yellow brightness. Out on the balcony, a squirrel had perched on the railing, clutching a walnut in its greedy paws. The dim morning sun brought attention to its chubby little belly as he gnawed away at his treasure.

At least one of us is enjoying his breakfast.

After leaving Adam’s apartment, the only thing on my mind was to scrub the remnants of Adam and my shame off my skin, then eat. I was halfway through my breakfast when Chief Branson told me a DB was found near the abandoned Tesco plant. I scraped the remaining waffle into the trash, then ran some water over my plate and left it in the sink. While an untimely death is never a good thing, it was better than facing the lies I’d been telling myself for weeks.

Like how last night was just sex.

Or that hooking up with Adam was safer than the guys I met on Grindr.

Okay, that last one had some truth to it. Adam was clean and blew my mind sexually

But emotionally? He was the most dangerous man I’d ever gone to bed with.

The apartment still smelled like maple syrup as I padded to my room. The fiddle-leaf fig plant in the corner was still hanging tough despite being stuffed too close to the window on the left wall. The maize-and-silver checkered comforter was haphazardly tousled over the bed, and the lamp had been burning since last night. The light reflected off the glass case that housed the pyramid of signed baseballs on the shelf above the dresser. Most were signed by old teammates (two of them went pro) but my favorite was the one signed by Mark McGuire in 1998 during the home run battle with Sammy Sosa. Our little league team had won a meet and greet, and I could still sense the butterflies in my stomach that day.

I dressed in a navy-blue suit and tried to shake off the weight of self-recrimination. I snatched my keys in the living room, stepped towards the balcony where the squirrel was still enjoying his grub, and remote-started the truck. After a few moments of watching the fumes expel from the tailpipe, I fastened a smile in place.

In the hall, Mrs. Norris was ushering her three kids out of -D. Axel, her oldest, waved to me with both hands and dropped half a honeybun. I gave his mom a sympathetic look, then took the stairs down to the main doors.

Despite the remote start, the air inside my F-150 was still cold as I pulled out of the apartment’s lot. Dirk and Joe on the sport station’s morning show were discussing the countdown to pitchers and catchers reporting when the broadcast was interrupted by an incoming call.

“G?” I answered. “Everything okay?”

Guadalupe was my AA sponsor, but so much more. At five-one with stark black hair speckled with some grey, green eyes and smooth sienna skin, it was hard to believe she was in her fifties. She was fiery, witty, and when I was ready to give up, she pulled me up by the bootstraps and helped me get sober. Her keen instincts and sometimes straight-talking brand of care are what make her a great sponsor and friend. Even if she annoyed the crap out of me sometimes.

G let out an exasperated chuckle. “I was calling to ask you the same thing, mijo . I haven’t heard from you in a week.”

“Sorry,” I said, as I drove through the tunnel of trees at the creek. “I’ve just been…busy.” I took a sip of Snapple Half ‘n’ Half to combat the sand in my throat.

“You’re fucking him again, aren’t you?”

Tea flew from my mouth, and I choked on my own spit.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

I caught my breath and accepted my fate. “How’d you know?”

“Oh, please,” she huffed, “this is me you’re talking to. Let me guess: He promised to leave his husband. Again. And you promised yourself you wouldn’t get more attached. Again.”

After a long pause in which I nearly swallowed my tongue, G pushed the issue.

“Right, mijo ?”

“Are you stalking me or something?”

“Pah! You aren’t the only one who’s done this.”

“I know.” I admitted.

“So, why this guy? What’s so special about him?”

“It’s…” my voice caught, “hard to explain, G.”

“Try me.”

She wasn’t going to let this go. “He’s different when we’re together. Like I get to see part of him the rest of the world doesn’t.”

“And you like this side of him?”

“I do.” The sun blasted my eyes as I turned east, so I pulled the visor down. “He’s healthier. Happier. And he doesn’t drink as much. He actually eats and sleeps.”

“And lies to you,” G added.

I bit my lip and swallowed down what I wanted to say to that. “I don’t think he’s lying. He wants to leave Josh, but…it’s complicated.”

“And you think fucking him will make it less complicated?” Her accent grew thick.

Why did I answer the phone? Between the sun, the warm air and this conversation, sweat broke out under my arms. I punched the vent slots down. “I’m not sure how to answer that.”

“All I’ve heard so far is how this benefits him. What do you get out of it?”

Despite turning off the heat, my face still burned. “Well, good, safe sex, for one. “

“Besides that.”

“He makes me believe I finally have a purpose. Like we were meant to cross paths—I recognize his pain, and he knows mine.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” I pictured her shaking her head like a disappointed mother. “I understand wanting to believe that. After Carlos’s murder, I tried to save someone too, and it got me beat regularly. You have to establish boundaries.”

“Adam wouldn’t hurt me like that.” I’d never been so happy to see the Peyton police station when it came into sight.

“Not all abuse is intentional.”

“Adam isn’t abusing me,” I said. “We both get something out of it.”

“I understand Caleb. But you’re still giving him more than he is you, and that’s playing with fire.”

“I’m aware of that.” In the municipal lot next door, a black cloud of smoke wafted over from a salt truck. Burnt oil spoiled the taste in my mouth. “I’ve made peace with the fact that I’m going to get burned. I know I can’t save him, but if I can help him see he’s worth saving himself, that’s enough for me.”

“Then why did it hurt when he lied about getting divorced? Again.”

The muscles in my core pulled until my lungs struggled to expand. “I don’t know,” I said mournfully.

“You don’t know, or you don’t want to know?”

A sudden surge of anger exploded in me.

“What I don’t want is to be interrogated before I have to work a homicide!” I snapped, before I could stop myself.

Stunned silence hung between us as I pulled into my parking space. I was losing myself, and I was going to lose G too if I didn’t straighten up.

“I’m sorry, G.” I gripped the steering wheel. “It’s been a bad morning.”

“I gathered that.” Her voice grew gentle, mothering. “I don’t mean to upset you, but you need to do some soul searching. Because not holding Adam accountable is going to end in disaster sooner rather than later.” Before I could respond, she added, “For both of you.”

“I know.” I pinched the bridge of my nose and took a cleansing breath. “I’ll talk to him, but I need to focus on work right now. Can I call you later?”

“Why don’t you come by for dinner?”

Adam was already walking out of the station with the Charger’s keys and two travel mugs. His eyes turned down, and his posture was wary.

“ Mijo ?” G asked.

“Sorry.” I cut the truck’s engine. “I probably can’t make it tonight, but what about this weekend?”

“It’s a date.”

I walked toward Adam and sent up a silent prayer that he was ready to leave the morning behind us. My quota is one awkward conversation per day.

“You alright?” Adam’s brows slanted as he studied me. “Your face is red.”

“I had the heat too high. Are you ready to go?”

“Ready as I’m going to get.” He thrust a mug and the keys into my chest, then stalked away to the Charger.

He made me coffee. But he won’t look at me.

The car’s old engine groaned in protest before coming to life. Ideally, I’d let it warm up, but we had a date with a dead body. I ignored the vibration as I hit the gas and maneuvered us out of the station lot.

“This is the building by the pond?” Adam looked anywhere but in my direction.

“Yeah.” I turned right on Main Street and ended up stuck behind a stopped school bus. A pudgy kid pressed his face to the back window and then used his finger to write ‘hi’ where the glass fogged. I waved at the kids as the bus drove off again. “Thanks for this, by the way.” I lifted my tumbler to my mouth and took a sip. It was house coffee, but he’d added just the right amount of Cinnamon Dolce creamer to make it palatable.

Adam grunted something as he stared out the window.

The silence on the ride to the scene was strained. I rehearsed lines of dialogue in my head that’d break the ice enough for me to breathe when Adam’s stomach rumbled.

“Did you eat this morning?”

“Ugh,” Adam groaned. “What is your obsession with my food intake?”

“Well, aside from the studies showing links between breakfast and cognitive function—”

“Fucking hell—”

“And I know you don’t believe that hangry is an emotion—”

“Because it’s not.”

“You are a tick more pleasant when you’ve had at least a Pop-Tart.”

Adam shifted in his seat. “Wasn’t in the mood to eat yet.”

Funny, I’d been the exact opposite.

“We’ll hit Big Bertha’s when we’re done.” I toggled on the lights as we hit the freeway, and Peyton’s version of rush hour veered to the right.

“Oh my God.” He palmed his forehead.

“What?” I asked. “You want something else?”

“No. Just imagining what I’ll tell Dr. Nowzaradan when he asks how I got to six-hundred pounds.”

I giggled before I could stifle the sound.

“You laugh,” he wagged a finger, “but your ass will be right next to me. All you eat is Bertha’s, PB & J, and Eggos.”

“You’ll pry my Eggos from my cold, dead fingers.”

I caught Adam’s lips twitching and my heart skipped a beat.

“I saw that.”

“Saw what?”

“You know.”

He pressed his head to the window. “I want a new partner.”

I kept my eyes on the road, and when the silence rolled back in, it’d lost some of its charge. I should have taken it as a victory, but the joy was short-lived. How many times could I tell myself I wasn’t falling for him? Or that this is still good for us both? What happens when we’re faced with the reality that G had been warning me about? What’ll be left when one of us has to make a difficult choice? And why did I have to be the one to make it?

The headache I’d been fighting roared to life as I took exit-14B toward an area folks around here called Ghost Town. After the fire at the old Tesco paper goods plant, every politician in the county swore they’d resurrect the district. But once they decided to build a new factory across town, it was largely abandoned. Mom and Pop restaurants were boarded-up, condemned houses stood windowless and crumbling on littered lots, and the air held a musty smell that reminded me of a flooded basement. Dead stalks of foxtail and overgrown crab grass surrounded a frozen, mossy pond. An old billboard for Hookem’s Bait Shop stared down at us. Ethan and I used to go there before heading out to fish on the river. Time had stripped the paint from the sign, but not my memories.

The Charger bumped over the dirt road that needed regrading. Fields of overgrown grass, their blades trying to hold on to some resemblance of green amongst the brown and gold, flanked the road. Shredded paper goods created webs where they got caught up in broken tree branches. Officer Grant Kershaw stood on the side of the road in a heavy police parka with a disgusted sneer on his face. He held up his hand to stop us and shone his flashlight directly into Adam’s face as I rolled down the window.

“Look what the cat dragged in.” Kershaw rocked back on his heels with a sneer.

Adam groaned and held up a hand to combat the light. “The sun’s up, you stupid prick.”

“What’s wrong, Detective?” He tucked the light away. “We wake you up from another bender?”

A recent survey in Psychology Today reported that one in four law enforcement officers struggle with substance abuse. But there was a stark difference between men like Kershaw and my partner. Alcohol was rotting Kershaw from the inside out. He was unruly with subordinates, treated women like property, and was abrasive just for the sake of watching people squirm. Adam, on the other hand, was well groomed, and even with his rough edges, was respected by his peers. Did he drink too much? Yes. Did he let it stop him from being a superior investigator? No. And after the morning I’ve had, I didn’t feel like listening to a sloppy drunk take pot-shots at my partner.

“Hey, Kershaw,” I sniffed the air, “some of us take showers. You should try it sometime.”

Kershaw’s scorn turned ugly. “You little f—”

I rolled up the window and drove down the shoulder.

“Damn, Rose,” Adam said. “That was impressive.”

My Golden Girls nickname brought a smile to my face. “Thanks, Dorothy.”

I parked behind an ambulance, and a plastic bag kicked up in a gust of wind as I stepped out of the car. The rising sun did nothing to stop the frigid breeze from stinging the end of my nose and cheeks.

Chief Charles Branson was walking towards us, veins standing out on his bald head as he spoke into his cell phone. He’d been in law enforcement for fifteen years and had a booming voice and stocky body to match his position. When we got out of the car, he turned and pointed to a path of flattened brush.

“Body’s out there. Harold Brunson heard a commotion last night but didn’t investigate till this morning. He saw the body and called it in.” He glanced at our shoes, then turned back to the field. “Lots of glass out there, so watch your step. Forensics are on the way.”

With booties and gloves on, Adam and I cautiously stepped around broken twigs and stamped weeds. The sun was eating at the frost, making the area slippery. Amongst the shattered glass bottles, a Doritos bag crunched under my foot.

The victim was male, appeared to be in his twenties with mocha skin and wavy dark hair in a messy, French crop style that faded out at the ears. He lay face up, arms above his head in a marshy area of the field that would have been spongy to step in if it wasn’t eleven degrees. A bullet hole was center mass on his chest, and dark cherry rings of blood stained his grey and black coat. The pockets of his Dockers were turned inside out.

“Looks like they picked his pockets,” I said.

Adam bent over the body and snapped a few pictures with his cell phone. “Desolate area for a robbery gone wrong.”

“Could’ve been a tactic to stall us.” I kneeled for a closer look. Something was familiar about the dimpled chin and chiseled jaw. That wasn’t really a surprise, though. I’ve met someone from almost every family in this area at some point.

But very few had a Pacific-islander complexion. Even fewer had a Polynesian turtle, a Samoan symbol for brotherhood, tattooed behind their right ear. I’d been there when he and his brother, Fatu, had it done. It was the same day I got my sobriety triangle on my side. The recognition caught me by the throat.

“Uh, Adam?” I looked up at my partner. “I think I’ve got an I.D.”

Adam stood and looked at me with hooded eyes. “You know him?”

“Yeah, but…” I closed my eyes, hoping it was a mistake. But it wasn’t, and I could already see the press conferences, and hear the daunting questions from reporters and politicians.

“But?”

“It’s Keola Antu,” I said. “The sheriff’s son.”