The booking procedure was pretty much the same from what she remembered in her hometown. They’d asked her to come in, make a statement about her encounter with her alleged assailant, see if she wanted to press charges. She opted not to. The man didn’t strike her as malicious, didn’t seem like he intentionally intended to hurt her or Mrs. Bartlett, who was stationed a few desks over from Linda with another officer. She was still hysterical, ranting like a lunatic about how unsafe DC had become and the indignity of having to sit in a filthy police station.
A seated Mr. Bartlett held his wife’s hand. His brow was furrowed. His peeling bald pate gleamed from the overhead light. Linda easily recognized the sinewy man from all her hours of surveillance, though she pretended like she didn’t know either of them to maintain confidentiality. He looked genuinely concerned, which made Linda wonder if Mrs. Bartlett was laying the drama on thick so she could finally get the attention she craved.
Good riddance, Linda thought. Her time dealing with anything Bartlett was done. Still, she was curious if her former client had seen what Linda and the other officers had. The stranger’s eyes.
The couple left the station without looking her way. There was a god.
Linda had been asked to sit at an empty desk after she’d been interviewed by Officer Murray, who’d been kind enough to bring her an ice pack for her busted lip. “One of our senior detectives wants to speak with you,” he said. His face was pale as a ghost ever since the encounter with the stranger. She thought he needed to head home soon.
She took out her phone and pretended to read texts and emails as she looked up and scanned the premises. The station was large, well lit. In the far-left corner of the main room, toward the back, stood a table with a small statue of a woman in blue and white robes flanked by lit candles and rosary beads. Her head was slightly bowed, her arms outstretched,a crimson heart etched on her chest. Her porcelain skin glistened in the overhead light.
The Virgin Mary,Linda realized. An incongruous sight considering the setting. How many other precincts had created makeshift altars post Equinox?
Linda’s feet rested on some sort of concrete flooring used for heavy-traffic offices. The holding cells were hidden from view, probably around the corner, where she assumed they’d detained the stranger. Standard layout for bigger stations. Seemed like they kept the space well maintained and clean despite Mrs. Bartlett’s assessment. Linda smelled the light scent of bleach. Maybe janitorial staff had just come through to wipe down passageways.
The cleanliness made her realize yet again just how much of a wreck her Bronx precinct had been. Water-damaged ceilings from old, tired pipes constantly leaking. Broken-down toilets so that everyone had to use one bathroom or even the restroom at the KFC across the street. The Dupont Circle police station was even tidier than Linda’s agency, truth be told. She felt a twinge of embarrassment.
The officers were handling their standard business of the evening. Several uniformed cops, detectives, and other staff circled Martinez as he animatedly described what happened in a hushed voice. His body was hunched low, like he was frightened something big was going to swoop down and seize him. “The dude smelled like burnt bacon,” he said. “Shit was so fucked up.” After he finished his story, a few colleagues seemed spooked, as if infected by Martinez’s emotions. Fear radiated from his body in waves, which Linda chose to block. She heard someone mention something about the perp having to be taken to the feds’ “special place.” She had an idea what that meant.
A man walked over to where she sat. He was white, around six one, sixtwo with blond hair and gray eyes that had an eerie resemblance to Mrs. Bartlett’s. His badge swung from a long chain around his neck. She rose to greet him.
“Ms. Villanueva?” he said. He shook her hand. “Uh, hi. I’m Detective Fitzgerald. Great to meet you. You weren’t quite what I was expecting.”
Linda barely managed to stop herself from rolling her eyes at the subtext of his words. Wasn’t worth engaging.
“Cool. You wanted to talk?”
“I just wanted to extend heartfelt thanks on behalf of the entire department and the captain, who couldn’t be here to extend her thanks in person. She’s at a mayoral gala with Commissioner Smith. But you’re a hero, bringing this guy in. We appreciate it. I mean… this is something.”
Detective Fitzgerald glanced down at the floor, unable to look Linda directly in the eye. She’d dealt with this sort of discomfort countless times from male law enforcement, especiallywhitemale officers. Didn’t matter how cosmopolitan or urbane the place was, how progressive the bros thought they were. Their inability to maintain eye contact, to get too chummy with tales of their girlfriends or wives or details about the latest baseball game like they did with their other colleagues told her all she needed to know. Fitzgerald’s reaction, typical. These guys had to show Linda deference whenever she apprehended someone or presented herself as the authority on a case. A Black woman with wild hair and a hard stare who’d worked her ass off to get to where she was.
Yes, Linda had dealt with this sort of energy countless times. She wouldn’t give Fitzgerald an inch. Let him squirm.
“So what’s going to happen with the guy who was taken in? Is Mrs. Bartlett going to press charges?”
“Happy to say we convinced hernotto. That we checked this guy’s record, a Jeremiah Samuelson. Completely clean, model citizen. Anassociate pastor at this well-known church in Southeast. We’re pretty sure that any sort of… uh… aggression came from the peculiar set of circumstances he’s dealing with.”
“You’re talking about his eyes… and skin.”
“Yeah… I talked to him a bit in our holding area. Seems very disoriented, not really sure what’s going on. His eyes… It was lighting up the entire cell. Creepy as shit.”
“So what’s going to happen to Mr. Samuelson? I presume you can’t just let him back on the street. He needs to be hospitalized, correct?”Though what hospital would admit him in his current condition?
“Yep. We’ve already had him transported to a special facility that, uh, that’s geared toward situations like this. That’s all I’m at liberty to say for now. But again, just wanted to extend our heartfelt thanks. I’m sure the NYPD misses you.” He cleared his throat, rubbed the back of his head. “We just ask for a certain level of discretion with the case. No need to alert the news. We’re figuring out how to share this with the public, waiting for a bit more guidance from the feds. Of course, a few people caught what went down on their phones. Officers Murray and Martinez asked them to be discreet as well, but legally there’s nothing we can do if they choose to circulate the clips. Let’s try and keep things quiet, just for now. No need for panic, considering what went down in New York.”
Now Iget it.The “heartfelt thanks,” really a way of greasing Linda’s palm so she wouldn’t run off at the mouth about what she’d seen and experienced, especially since no one was pressing any charges. But what she really wanted to know: Where had Samuelson been taken? She knew exactly who she’d reach out to for intel. In the morning.
Linda tugged the left cuff of her bloodied tee and stopped herself. Her damned tell. She was tired.
She tapped her forehead with a two-finger salute. “I assume we’re done here, Detective.” Then she strode out the station.
Linda took a rideshare back to her town house. Fatigue sat on her shoulders like cinder blocks, the adrenaline high slowly wearing off. She wasn’t in the mood to weigh what it meant that the government might be involved in taking care of Samuelson. To consider the larger implications for who she was and what she did on the low. She was too beat.
The image of the Bartletts continued to play in her head. The show that Mrs. Bartlett put on to engender affection from her husband, an annoying game that reminded Linda of her solitude.
She got out the car. The sight of her town house soured her mood further. The peeling paint, the patchwork of roof shingles that had fallen away, the chipped bricks… a shaggy, embarrassing thing, considering the pristine condition of the other properties on the block. She chuckled to herself, how some of her more lucid Broken Hearts would opine about the gorgeousness of the space they’d just wandered into upon meeting her. The aftereffects of her gift touching their mind. They needed to believe that what they’d stumbled onto was majestic, beyond reproach, a sparkling haven that would ease what ailed them.
She made a beeline through the foyer and up the steps to her room, a small space with a bed, desk, two large shelves, an altar, and bathroom in the corner. On the middle of the shelf closest to her bed lay a framed picture of her and another young woman, the image signedXO… Imani…
