Chapter 249: Mimi XXIX—The Marks Left Behind
“Keep your eye on the puck! Don’t look away! You’re looking away!”
Michele cringed and hugged her knees as she sat hunched forward on the bleachers in the ice arena. The man next to her was loud, a father, heavy set, a thick mustache and overly zealous when it came to what he considered would be the future career of his son in hockey. Nevermind the coach, he was the one who knew how his son should be playing and when he should do it. It was the same every week for this man and he always chose to sit next to her.
“Please, Mr. O’Shea,” Michele said, pressing her fingers lightly into his knee, into the thinning fabric of his jeans. He had his hands cupped around his mouth and had been about to belt out another string of instructions for his son.
Ted O’Shea put his hands down and looked at her, he had twinkling, pale eyes. “Oh I’m sorry Mrs. Roy,” he pronounced her name the American way with a hard R, “Am I being too loud again?”
Michele did her best to smile. “Just a little.”
“Gosh I’m sorry,” he said, and his smile was crooked, higher at one corner, rippling his mustache like a hairy caterpillar, “This happens every week.”
“Maybe not as much as that yes?” Michele said. Every stupid week! She thought.
“Yeah, I’m a shit,” he said. “You must be getting a headache.”
“The coach is extremely good,” Michele said as kindly as she could, her head indeed clanging from O’Shea’s screaming. “Even Patrick helps the team when he can, yes? Why not let them do their job?”
O’Shea stuck out his bottom lip, a pink fleshy object; it was his way of thinking. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah it’s hard see? I mean I don’t doubt the coach, and hell I don’t doubt your husband, but I pay a lot for my son to be on this team you know? I haveta drive thirty miles to get here, and get up early to do it. I just want to make sure he’s getting everything he can from this. He won’t have a free ticket like your boy you know?”
Michele’s eyes widened and she felt her cheeks redden, for a moment she was speechless. What a stupid man!
“Naw I didn’t mean it like that Mrs. Roy,” Mr. O’Shea said quickly. “Fred is a golden champion, I see it day in and out, and he’s a great kid. I just meant that it will be a helluva lot easier for him to get noticed than my boy. Jason is gonna haveta shine to get himself noticed and all, you know?”
Michele sighed. “Yes I see,” she said simply, feeling her temper flush down.
“Hell,” Mr. O’Shea said. “I’m sorry, I make you all flustered every week. Heh, you know I don’t have a wife at home, not since Jason was tiny, sometimes I forget my manners.”
Michele nodded. “Do not worry yourself, is alright yes?”
“Sure,” O’Shea said. “Aw hell, lookit that, he’s not paying attention again!” O’Shea stood up and Michele closed her eyes. “JASON! JASE! Kid you gotta pay attention or you’ll never get that pass. JASE!”
Michele cringed and looked at the boys on the ice, puppies in the truest, purest sense. All of them had mussy hair, rosy cheeks, bright eyes, all of it hidden under protective helmets similar to those worn by goaltenders. She could tell Freddy from the rest of them and not just because of his number and name. She could sense his form, his stance, the surprisingly aggressive way he seemed to treat the other children when they were in the middle of drills. He was a determined boy, quieter than his siblings and his father, but he had the same fire within him nonetheless.
Michele smiled, began to ignore O’Shea’s braying as she watched her son and that’s when her phone twinkled a tune from within her purse. She answered it, watching as Fred skated on a drill by himself, the puck strung on his stick. “Yes?”
“Mrs. Roy?”
It was a woman’s voice, it sounded official. Michele frowned. “Yes this is her.”
“This is Officer Peterson from the Greenwood Village Police Department,” Michele felt an electric jolt within her stomach and she sat erect, her eyes fixated on her son. He was waving at her. Michele lifted her hand weakly.
“Yes?”
“Try not to panic Mrs. Roy,” the officer said, a woman’s voice, clipped but not cruel. “You daughter is safe, but there was an incident here at your home…”
“What happened?” Michele exclaimed, wanting to scream. Her voice must have carried more loudly than she would have thought as O’Shea stopped shouting in mid-sentence and she could sense him looking at her.
“Let me stress your daughter is uninjured,” Officer Peterson said. “A man attacked your caretaker and Jana called 911, we were able to get here in time and…”
“A man?” Michele gasped, she felt herself fill to the eyeballs with anger. “What man? What has he done? How is Cecile?”
“Ma’am, calm down,” the officer said.
“I am calm!” Michele snapped.
“Mrs. Roy, it would be better if you came home, your caretaker took the entirety of the attack, she will be alright, but your daughter..”
Michele hung up the phone and closed her eyes, her heart pumping. Her hands were trembling as she shoved her phone back into her purse and stood up.
“You need some help Mrs. Roy?” O’Shea asked she looked at him and saw the concern on his face; the color had left it completely. “Whatever you need I can do it.”
Michele shook her head. “Just take care of your boy, yes?”
She jumped
off the bleachers and leaned through the partition of the ice. “
The boy stopped and looked up. “Yeah, Mom?” he called.
“Mrs. Kennedy will take you home,” she called back. “An emergency has come up.”
The boy’s skates sliced rapidly as he approached her at top speed. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“I need to get home,” Michele said pressing her hand into the side of his helmet and looking into his eyes. “I will tell you later, finish your practice my love.”
She could
see Freddy’s nose wrinkle and he obediently skated back to the rest of the
children. When she turned around, Mrs. Kennedy was standing there, an eyebrow
lifted. “Mimi?” she said. “What’s going on?”
“Oh please,” Michele said.
“There has been something horrible at home; please can you bring
“Yes, of course,” Mrs. Kennedy said, “Go on, and tell me how things turn out.”
Black eyes, a solid body, meaty hands, a deep voice. Again he had come back. She had not forgotten him but there had been a lull, a lapse, there had been an illusion of peace. Jana was not hurt, they had told her that. That was what’s important. Her head hurt, imagining, what the child could have seen. She was not surprised that it was Jana who had thought to call the police; all of her children had such instincts.
When Michele got to the house and she saw the police cars it occurred to her that she had not called Patrick. The thought had not even crossed her mind. She supposed that the police had called him; he would be on his way.
Her jaw was set as she was stopped at the front yard, her neighbors were scattered around the sidewalk, and there was a barrier set up.
“What has happened? Let me by,” Michele said with as much icy calmness as she could muster. “This is my house and my daughter is inside!” She already had her driver’s license out and she shoved it into the face of the officer who had dared to step in front of her. He pulled the barrier aside for her and she blew out a plume of nervous breath as she pushed open the front door.
“RARF!” Michele was met with Gigi’s little paws on her legs. She felt tears in her eyes as she leaned over to scoop the puppy up and as she stood up there she was.
“Mommy!” Jana exclaimed and Michele felt the tears drop when she saw Jana, a bright face, not a hair out of place, untouched.
“Baby,” Michele gasped and she hugged her daughter, Gigi yapping in protest as her little furry body was squished between them. “What happened? Tell me!”
“It was Bill!” Jana snapped, she pushed away and crossed her arms, her cheeks flushed. “That dork, he got all weird and he cut Cecile’s face.”
“He what?” Michele asked, feeling her pulse slow, just the sight of Jana’s righteous indignation, not a drop of trauma or fear on her face, was a world of medicine for her.
Jana nodded. “He tried to attack me, Mom, and I went into my closet and I got out of the secret passage and Cecile saved me! She led him away, Mom, and he hurt her, and they won’t let me see her. They took me away from her Mommy, she was bleeding all over her face. Mom she’s my sister! She’s my sister Mom, can she be my sister?”
Michele hugged Jana again and that’s when she was approached by one of the police officers, it was that woman, Officer Peterson. She calmly filled in the details they knew that the plumber had attacked them, and apparently was interested in harming Jana. Peterson led her away from Jana and that’s when she told Michele that he was killed while in the act of injuring Cecile.
“Injuring, how?” Michele said, “Is she still here?”
“Yes,” Peterson said, “She’s upstairs in the bedroom, she’s not seriously injured and they’re taking a statement.”
“I want to see her,” Michele said. “Now.”
“Of course,” Peterson replied and Michele followed her upstairs.
Plumber, it was the plumber? She couldn’t even bring Bill’s face to mind, he was just a body slumped over a tub, snaking drains, answering in a monotone to any of the endless questions Jana would ask him. It was him this entire time? He had attacked her, he had come in twice to harm them and four more times to snake their drains and she had not once recognized him. She had left her child alone with him and a hapless nanny, this was beyond inexcusable.
The blood was the first thing that registered on Michele when she entered Jana’s bedroom which was now a zoo of uniformed officers and some in plainclothes. She could hear the flash of camera bulbs and there was an endless buzz of conversation. Cecile was sitting on a wicker chair, her pale hands fists on her lap and her white blouse was smeared all over with darkening blood. Not that injured? She should be a hospital with that much blood.
The next thing Michele noticed was Cecile’s face. She stopped and held short a gasp of horror. There was a cut under the girl’s left eye that was closed with butterfly bandages and the flesh around it was already blackened with bruising. Cecile was also slumped forward and her long black hair was stringy and wet. There was a policeman next to her with a notepad.
“My God,” Michele said, “Cecile are you badly hurt.” Cecile looked at her, the corners of her mouth turned down and Michele saw the damage to the girl’s eyes. She could see red speckles staining and rimming the edges of her irises, clashing with the green of them. Michele felt her lips draw back in horror and she had to quickly look away, but a flash in her memory still taunted her at the sight, she remembered looking in the mirror, seeing similar stains on her face. “What did he do to you?”
“Nothing permanent,” Cecile said in a monotone voice.
Michele did not look back at the girl, her eyes focused on the bathroom and she walked unimpeded to it. She peered past the photographers and the men squatting next to the corpse. It was a corpse, and she thought in terms of it. She ignored the voice of someone next to her trying to nudge her away and she looked at the first thing she noticed on the body. His arms were lined and threaded over with gouges, deep scratches, frantic scratches, almost as if they had been shredded by an angry cat. She saw the water all over the floor, the blood mixed in there. She saw the water, clouded rusty and shining in the bathtub. Michele felt the bile rise and fall in her stomach and she turned around and looked at Cecile who seemed almost vacant faced. “He tried drowning you?” Michele said.
“It must have been his first time,” Cecile said. “Sloppy of him don’t you think? He wasn’t even prepared.”
At that point Michele wanted to grab her, hold her close, and cry.
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