Women With Handcuffs Read online

  A COP’S WIFE

  Evan Mora

  There’s an empty wine bottle on the kitchen counter and an empty glass beside it. Good thing it was half empty when I began, otherwise I might really be in trouble.

  Half empty.

  There was a time when I was a half full kind of girl. I could find a silver lining in any cloud.

  “Always so damned optimistic,” Patrice would laugh, shaking her head with amusement.

  “One of us has to be!” I’d jokingly reply. Such was the yin and yang of our relationship: I did feel-good humanitarian pieces for the city paper, and Patrice was a Detective with the Sex Crimes Unit. We had a good balance, and it had served us well in our life together—at least it had until I picked up the phone one otherwise unremarkable evening and our world changed.

  “Is this Amie?”

  “Yes, it’s Amie.”

  “Amie Norris?”

  “That’s right.”

  “The wife of Detective Sergeant Patrice LaMarque?”

  “Yes…” I’d been hesitant by then. He’d spoken quietly, but there’d been something in his tone that didn’t sit right with me.

  “Can I help you?” I’d asked briskly.

  “Yes. You can help me, Amie; you can deliver a message for me. You can tell Detective LaMarque that I know her license plate number, and I know your home address. And you can tell her that I’m going to kill her.”

  Patrice was fierce. Phone records were pulled, patrol cars swept our sleepy residential neighborhood every half hour, wiretaps on our phones—everything that could be done was done.

  “What can you tell me about his voice?” Patrice’s steely gray eyes bored into mine.

  “I…I don’t really know.”

  “Did he speak with any discernable accent?”

  “Not that I recall…”

  “Did he sound old? Young?”

  “Patrice…” I shrugged miserably.

  “Merde!” She bit off the curse, exhaling heavily and running an impatient hand through her close-cropped dark hair. Tears pooled helplessly in my eyes. Seeing them, Patrice dropped to her knees in front of my chair, framed my face with her hands and forced me to meet her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, chère, please don’t cry,” she said gently.

  “I’m scared, Patrice—what do I do if something happens to you? And the kids! He said he knows where we live. What if—”

  Patrice’s kiss cut off the flow of my words, her mouth moving over mine with the sureness and familiarity of a decade of togetherness; of a life built on love and passion and trust. I kissed her with all the fear and desperation I felt, and she took it, eased it, gave me a measure of calm. When it ended, she pressed her forehead against mine as I took a steadying breath.

  “Amie, I need you to be strong,” she said. “You are the sun that holds us all in orbit—me, the kids—you are the center of our universe. This man is a coward, nothing more, and nothing is going to happen to me. Do you understand? Nothing.”

  I nodded my head, squared my shoulders. “You’re right.” I said it with a conviction I didn’t quite feel and a weak smile that I’m sure didn’t reach my eyes, determined, for her sake, to show a brave face. Keep Calm and Carry On, as the saying goes.

  Being a cop’s wife is a particular life. There is an understanding that, on any given day, the likelihood that bad things could happen to your spouse is much greater than if they were, say, an accountant, or a school teacher. You imagine what it would feel like to get the phone call, or the knock on the door, that tells you that they’ve been injured, or worse, that they’ve been killed.

  People say, “I don’t know how you do it,” but the fact of the matter is, that despite this understanding, the fear remains mostly abstract because by and large, nothing does happen. And at the end of the day, you trust in the training and the instincts and the support that enable these men and women to do their jobs and protect the public.

  Patrice had been in tight scrapes before and had always emerged unscathed. And this wasn’t an irate, abusive husband pointing a gun at her chest, or a rapist she’d just chased into a dark, dead-end alley. It was just a threat. Just an anonymous voice on the phone.

  A week went by. A week that, but for the patrol cars silently passing our block, looked like any other week. We ate breakfast together, Patrice kissed the kids good-bye on her way out the door, and I walked them to school and went to work. Our evenings were a jumble of swimming lessons and Little League and homework and the usual chaos that comes with raising two kids. It wasn’t unusual for Patrice to miss dinner, and there were nights where she’d come home to tuck Jake and Ella into bed, read them a story and then leave again.

  “You gotta catch the bad guys, right, Maman?” Jake would ask seriously, a frown creasing his seven-year-old brow.

  “Right, mon fils, catch them and lock them up tight.”

  “Do the bad guys not go to sleep at night?” Ella, at five, had less of an understanding of the dangers the bad guys posed.

  “No, ma petite, sometimes they don’t.” She’d smile, tousling Ella’s long dark curls.

  Patrice worked late every night that week, poring over case files past and current, trying to put a name to the voice on the phone. It would be midnight or later by the time she’d finally come home and fall exhausted into bed with me. And even then, I could feel the tension in her shoulders and see it in the set of her mouth. He was getting to her—whoever he was—and her frustration was palpable.

  “He could be any one of a hundred men, Amie. How am I supposed to find him?”

  “Shhh…” I brushed a gentle kiss across her lips and placed another on each of the deep lines that bracketed her mouth, lines born of laughter and worry both. I loved those lines; they spoke of hard work and good times and a wealth of experience that added to, rather than detracted from, the attractiveness of her face.

  “Nothing’s going to happen, remember?”

  “I know, it’s just—” I kissed her fully then, silencing her words and pressing my body against hers, offering her the comfort I knew she needed. Patrice groaned, her strong arms closing around me, holding me tight as she pressed me into the bed. Her thigh slid between mine; her hand sought out my heat as her body rocked against me.

  “Amie!” She cried brokenly when she found release, her face buried in my neck as her body trembled.

  “It’s okay, baby,” I murmured, running my fingers through the damp tendrils at the nape of her neck, kissing the shell of her ear. “It’s okay” I repeated, whispering it again and again in the darkness, though secretly, I wasn’t sure I believed it.

  The nightmares started soon after that. She didn’t tell me right away, but I didn’t need to be a detective to figure out that she wasn’t sleeping. Her restless tossing and turning and the dark circles under her eyes told me that.

  “Patrice, you’ve got to get some rest.” I watched her stumble toward the shower after yet another sleepless night. “Maybe we can get you something to help you sleep.”

  “No!” she snapped. Then more quietly, “No. I just…I don’t…” she sighed heavily, looking at me with haunted eyes. “Every time I fall asleep I dream about him. I dream that he’s here. That there’s this faceless man standing over the bed with a gun pointed at my head. I feel…helpless. Stupid.” She turned away from me, braced her arms on the vanity, her head hung low.

  The confession cost her, I knew. Patrice, who was always so strong, who was always my safe haven in any storm, needed my strength now, needed me to be big while she felt small. I wrapped my arms around her waist and pressed my cheek against her shoulder.

  “Not stupid, my love. Not at all. And there’s nothing shameful about feeling fear. I’d be more worried if you weren’t frightened.”

  Patrice laughed bitterly. “I’m a cop, Amie. I deal with things every day that most people don’t see in a lifetime.”

  “Yes. And that’s your job.” I spun her around. “And you’re very good at it. B
ut that isn’t personal and this is. This isn’t some pedophile you’re tracking down, Patrice; this man is threatening you. He’s threatening us. Our life. Our family. Being afraid doesn’t make you a coward, it makes you human.”

  “I know…”

  “And I know what an amazing, strong woman you are and what an amazing detective you are. And I know that there is no one I trust more than you to keep us safe.” She nodded her head, shaking off her mood.

  “I’m going to get this bastard, Amie.” The steel was back in her eyes, and I sent up silent thanks.

  A week turned into two without any additional contact from the man on the phone. Patrol cars continued to drive by our house once or twice a night, but the growing hope was that this had been an idle threat, the cowardly prank of someone who had brushed with Patrice and come out on the losing end. But while I was cautiously optimistic that it was over and done with, Patrice was still edgy. I worried that she was holding on to this for the wrong reasons, that she felt compelled to keep searching because this man had somehow breached her defenses and made her feel weak, but she was steadfast in her belief that it wasn’t over.

  “It was too personal to be a prank.” She picked up the thread of conversation once more, late into the evening when I was all but asleep, lulled by the sound of her heart beneath my cheek and the warm strength of her arm across my back.

  “Oh, Patrice…” I murmured my protest against her skin, burrowed closer as though I could will myself back into that fleeting moment of peace.

  “I know, chère, but he took the time to find our address, my license plate number, our home phone number. He knew your name—knew that you were my wife. If this had been an impulsive prank, he would have called the station and delivered his threat to the operator, or whoever had answered the phone at my desk. It’s too calculated. I don’t like it.”

  “Baby, please…just try to sleep?” I pleaded.

  “Okay, okay,” she groused half-heartedly, kissing the top of my head gently and turning out the light, “but I’d still feel more comfortable if I had my gun beneath my pillow.”

  I didn’t answer other than to grunt at her; I didn’t need to. Her gun was in the lockbox she kept on a shelf in her closet, where it was every night when she returned home. I didn’t doubt that she’d feel more comfortable with her weapon close at hand, but it wasn’t a risk you took with kids in the house.

  As each day passed without incident, I felt as though things were returning to normal. Good things still happened in the world—I wrote about them every day. The kids, who had remained largely oblivious to the tension in the house, played happily with the other kids on the street.

  I’d watered the plants on the front porch and was thumbing through the usual assortment of bills and junk mail that filled our mailbox when a large manila envelope with Patrice’s name on the front caught my eye. I opened it and found a single photograph inside: a picture of the kids and me in the schoolyard, and on the back:

  What a beautiful family you have, Detective LaMarque. It’s a pity your children will grow up without you. I hope your pretty wife will be able to find someone to comfort her when you’re gone.

  The photograph slipped from my frozen fingers and for a moment I couldn’t move, could barely breathe for the terror flooding through me. He had followed us. He had been here, on our front porch. He could be somewhere close by right now, watching us. My world became sharp and flat all at once: the street, all the houses, even the trees went gray; the sounds of the city all faded to dull insignificance. But the kids—suddenly everything around them seemed oversaturated with color, their clothes, their bicycles…their innocent laughter seemed like the only sound I could hear.

  “Jake! Ella!” I ran down the steps and the few meters to where they were playing. “Inside. Now!”

  “But, Mommy!” they chorused.

  “No buts. Now!” I rushed them into the house, locked the door behind me and swiped at the tears that filled my eyes, aware that they didn’t understand what was going on, and that I was scaring them too.

  I punched Patrice’s cell number into the phone with trembling fingers, cursing myself for not trusting her instincts and cursing the naïve optimism that had made me believe this was over.

  There were no fingerprints on the photograph or the envelope, and it appeared doubtful that there’d be any DNA evidence either. The handwritten note had been sent off for analysis, but any clues it might yield would not be forthcoming this night. The patrol cars were back on their twice-hourly sweeps; other than that, there was nothing more that could be done.

  In the early hours of morning, it was Patrice and I once more, alone in the dark. I’d convinced her to lie down with me, if only for the few hours that remained until dawn. I knew she wouldn’t sleep. I wouldn’t either for that matter, but I needed her close. I needed the reassurance of her skin against mine, and whether or not she’d admit it, she needed it too.

  But even like this, held tight in the circle of her arms in the privacy of our bedroom, he was there. He was everywhere. His taint was like a mist curling in through a crack in the window, seeping under the doorframe, spilling through the keyhole. It was insidious, filling the inside of the room until I felt like I couldn’t breathe again, until I felt like I was suffocating in fear and anger and despair.

  Patrice was vibrating, struggling with emotions of her own. I knew I should say something about how everything would be okay, how I knew she would catch this filthy coward, but the words couldn’t make it past the lump in my throat. I was determined not to cry—she didn’t need that from me right now—but when she said, “I put a copy of my will in the lockbox,” the tears fell of their own volition; she rocked me in the dark and nothing more was said.

  It was 6:54 p.m. when she got the call. We were finishing dinner. She’d made a point to be there to share this time with the kids and me the past couple of days, though if I thought too much about her motivation, I was afraid I’d cry all over again. She picked up on the first ring, striding out of earshot and returning a few moments later, already sliding an arm into her navy blazer, drawing it up to cover the shoulder holster that carried her weapon.

  “I’ve got to go,” she told me tersely, barely breaking stride as she headed toward the door. I caught her as she drew it open.

  “Patrice!” I laid a hand on her arm, stopping her progress, taking in her murderous look. “Tell me, please!” I begged.

  “Call came in a few minutes ago,” she said, barely-simmering rage in her voice. “Guy’s holding his ex-wife and kids at gunpoint, refuses to talk to anyone but me.”

  “Is it?”

  “It’s him. Bastard just got paroled a couple of months ago. I remember this guy. We investigated allegations of sexual abuse called in by the school board a couple of years ago. This guy was molesting his two little girls—Amie, they weren’t any older than Jake and Ella. Wife wouldn’t talk; he was using her as a punching bag when he wasn’t hurting his kids. The things he was doing to them… I’m sorry, chère, but I’ve got to go.”

  “Patrice…” She looked at me, waiting for me to say something. I wanted to tell her not to go, that she was walking into a trap, that this was exactly what this sicko wanted. I wanted to tell her I needed her too much to lose her, that the kids needed her too much to lose her. But I couldn’t. Because this was what she did, who she was. And because somewhere in the city, there was another terrified woman with her two children who needed her even more than I did.

  “Be safe.” It was all I could manage. I stroked her cheek tenderly, trying to memorize her face as it looked in this moment, so afraid that I might lose her, knowing that I couldn’t love her any more than I did right now. And then she was gone.

  I poured myself a glass of wine, went about the business of getting the kids bathed and into bed, cleaned up the kitchen, straightened up the living room. I did all these things on autopilot, while in my head a mantra ran: Please let her be okay, please let her be okay… Then I ra
n out of things to do, so I just stood there at the kitchen counter, waiting.

  A second glass of wine.

  An empty bottle on the counter, and soon enough, my empty glass beside it.

  A thousand what-ifs were all clamoring for attention on the periphery of my mind, but I couldn’t entertain them. I couldn’t allow them in. I couldn’t allow any thought other than, please let her be okay.

  And then the phone rang.

  “Patrice?” I cried into the receiver. Oh, god, please let her—

  “It’s me, chère, I’m okay. It’s over.”

  “Can you come home?” I needed to touch her, to know she was really safe.

  “Soon, chère, I’ll be home soon.”

  I was waiting outside, sitting on the porch step when she arrived. Part of me wanted to hurl myself into her arms and give in to the great wracking sobs that I was holding onto by a thread. But the greater part of me needed more than the simple release crying would provide.

  “Amie?” Her voice was little more than a whisper of sound in the quiet of the night.

  I stood up on the step and opened my arms to her, closed my eyes against the almost painful relief that surged through my body at the feel of her pressed against me. Patrice stroked my back, my arms, anywhere she could reach, her mouth seeking out mine with an urgency that matched my own.

  “You’re okay,” I murmured against her lips. I traced the contours of her face with my fingertips, then her eyebrows, her cheekbones, her beautiful square jaw, placing reverent kisses everywhere I touched, feeling the shudder that traveled through her body.

  “Mmmm…” She captured my lips again, slanted her mouth aggressively across mine, bruised my lips with the force of her kiss and pulled me more tightly against her. “Amie, I need you so bad right now. I’ll tell you everything later, I promise, but for now can we—”