*****
Why does he have to look at me that way?
Everything had been going fine. Or rather, I thought everything had been going fine. Frank and I have
been back together for a while, with okay results. As good as can be expected. I have dealt with Uncle
George, able to at least visit him and help him out a little. So I haven’t forgiven him yet, but who knows
if that will ever happen. But then we had to come across HIM. Bastard scum beat a man to death. Just
another typical day in Charm City.
So, my week started out like crap. Certainly, being dumped isn’t my idea of a good start. It really was all
for the best, though. It would have been over sooner or later, Julianna just chose sooner. Maybe I was
moving too fast, but we could have taken a break. So where does that leave me? Alone again. Like
always.
At least I’ve got Frank. He always knows what I’m thinking. And he understands me, at least on some
level. I do know it surprised him to find out about me and Julianna. I said I don’t tell him everything -
hell, that’s the understatement of the year. If they only knew the half of it. Nobody would ever want to
partner with me. But they don’t know, not even Frank. They just don’t know.
And then we get this murder. Of course it would figure that I’d be the primary. Drug shootings? Give
‘em to Lewis. Domestics? Ballard and Gharty are all over them. But children, gays, anything hinky just
has Pembleton and Bayliss written all over it. Give it to them. They’re good at those. Fortunately, the
hardest part of this case was finding out whose death we were investigating.
But all day, all night the crowds are out there chanting, again and again. That insistent mantra, don’t
they ever stop? I can still hear them, the voices. Never stopping. Never quieting. ‘We’re here, we’re...’
Over and over. And as I sit here in this room with the deafening silence, those voices are what I hear.
And Frank’s laughter. He still doesn’t see it, does he? I thought he would. And now, even in the
silence, I hear Frank’s laughter. Just laughing. Laughing at me.
It’s an interrogation. Dunker. He knows he did it. We know he did it. We’ve got the evidence against
him, but I want to hear him say it. Just say the words, say the damn words. I know, they’re just words,
but I want to hear them.
But he wants me to answer his question, to hear me say something. Words. Just more words. ‘I like
your nice, hard ass.’ Just words. It’s not the words so much as the look. I could say the words. That’s
easy. Just open my mouth and out they come. I do it all the time. They’re just words, it’s not like
words ever killed anybody. But it’s the look. That sly stare, that sees right through me. Revealing me to all
who care to see. There’s nothing I can say, nowhere I can go to escape that stare, because he knows.
He KNOWS. They all know.
“I like your nice, hard ass.”
Those seemingly simple words, choked out in pain as if simply uttering them was a cry of defeat.
And in the silence, I hear the laughter.