Chapter 4: Home
I walked up to my brick-faced home and concentrated just enough to get the key in the lock. It was one of those days where I wish I took a car to and from work but that was usually when I was in a hurry to come home and collapse. The house was in the Glen Oaks community just north of Queens Village, about four blocks from the Easternmost border of New York City. If you missed the wrong turn, you’d accidentally end up in Nassau, in the political entity known as Long Island, as opposed to the physical, geographic location of Long Island, which included Queens and Brooklyn. You’d be surprised how many strange looks I get from fellow New Yorkers when I explained that four out of five boroughs were Islands, while the only part of New York City on the mainland was, of all things, the Bronx.
But Glen Oaks was a nice little neighborhood. It was an ungated community, isolated by design, with long blocks along main roads, but sprawling and twisting roads within. It came with its own underpaid security force (the job of which was to call the cops when the crap hit the fan), its own maintenance crews, and its own rabbit warren of streets, where, if you didn’t know where you were going, you would disappear and never return ... at least, that’s what I told my children, though adults believed it much more than the kids did.
My home was directly across the street from the security office, which was indistinguishable from the rest of the community, with the exception of the green awning over the doors.
At my dining room table—a round pedestal table that could have hosted a role-playing game or a board meeting—was my favorite person in the world, my wife Mariel. She had long, wavy chestnut brown hair, round, deep-brown eyes, a pleasant heart-shaped face, and a healthy olive complexion. As Ben Franklin would say, we fit well together. But the first person to tackle me with a hug was a woman I loved (no, not that way), but whose religious views I tolerated. Erin Quintanilla was a tall girl at 5’10”, before the insanely high boots. Despite her last name, she had a complexion like Wednesday Adams, making her black hair pop. She was only mildly goth, with only a tiny diamond chip in her nose stud and only one or two visible tattoos. She also wore a big perky smile to go with her bubbly personality and a hug like an NFL player.
“Tommy! Tommy! Tommy!” she cried as she hugged-assaulted me. I didn’t return the hug so much as I caught her on impact.
“Hey, Erin.”
She landed on the ground with a clomp. “What’s with the glitter?”
I looked over my body. There wasn’t anything noticeable until I looked around on the floor. Glass had flown off of me on impact; I must have looked like a spectacularly gaudy Rockette outfit. “Nuts. Thought I got it all. Apologies. Guess I should shake out in the bathtub or something.”
Mariel slipped in, hugging me. Her head just came up to my chest. I held her carefully against me (lest there was even more glass) and combed my fingers through her long wavy hair. “Hey.”
“Hey, you. Heard there was some excitement at the station today.”
“Guy went nuts. Guy went through a lot of windows. I’m now on first-name basis with the glazier and the vending machine guy.”
Erin gaped. “Really? What are their names?”
“Eric and Jasyn—with a Y.”
“What did the nut do that he was arrested for?” Mariel asked, still holding onto me. I wasn’t in any rush to have her let go.
“Vagrancy, and being covered in blood. We think it wasn’t human, but he went nuts before we could type every speck of blood on him.”
Erin gave me a look that spoke volumes about her incredulity. “Where did they think the blood came from, then?”
“The animals around the park bench.”
Erin slapped her hands over her mouth, eyes wide. “Oh no. Those poor little critters!”
Mariel took a step back to meet my eye. “Was anybody at the station hurt?”
Therein lies the difference between the two ladies—one focused on the squirrels, the other focused on my coworkers. Erin was “spiritual,” a vague, uncertain term that always put teeth on edge.
“Mostly just roughed up. We got lucky. It could have been a lot worse. But it was a long tag-team match with a dozen men on one side and the nut on the other.”
“Good. I don’t look good in black,” Mariel said, adding nothing more. She wore bright summer colors, yellow top and light blue jeans, while Erin was the one in solid black. Mariel and I had come to a decision long ago that Erin had wanted to be that goth character on NCIS when she grew up but missed a few details.
But Mariel’s point was well taken. Since I’d been on the job, I’d been to one police funeral every few years but now to three and four a year. Our mayor wasn’t helping the situation, deciding that he’d rather join Communist protesters at a G8 summit than go to a police funeral and throwing any and all support behind the cop killers—who were little better than common assassins. I could at least understand those criminals who fired off shots in the commission of a crime—that was usually a combination of fear and desperation. But two of the police killed had been deliberately assassinated, with the declaration that “Blue lives don’t matter” by one of the killers. The last thing either one of us wanted was to attend another funeral.
I bent down and gave Mariel just a quick kiss on the lips—any more and we’d have to send our son Jeremy to go play down the block at his friend’s house. “Aww,” Erin drawled. “You two are just so cuuuuttteee.”
I arched a brow and just gave Erin A Look. “Puppies are cute. She is amazing. I’m...here.”
Erin punched me in the arm. “Oh, you. You’re just so cute together.”
“Dad!”
Jeremy charged down the dining room to meet me, and even Erin had to get out of the way when he was running. He was only ten, but gaining height on his mother. He attacked my left side, hugging me around the waist. With Mariel on my right, and Erin hovering close by, I was very loved. Also, very crowded.
“Can I at least get my coat off, folks?”
“Oh! Right!” Jeremy exclaimed. He sped away, as though he needed to give me room on a landing strip.
I looked to Mariel. “And his teachers say he needs to be more sociable?”
“He doesn’t interact with a lot of the other kids. Maybe one or two.”
I shrugged out of my jacket and checked around the floor for more glass. None. “That may just be good taste on his part. It’s easy to love humanity. Loving people is a little more difficult. This is said as someone who spends 90% of his day with the bottom 10% of the gene pool.”
“Isn’t that cynical?” Erin accused. “You still socialize with criminals.”
“Yes. And a lot of them are good people with bad jobs.” I pulled off my clip-on tie and popped the top button open. “But notice that I don’t bring them home.”
Mariel opened her mouth to disagree with me but closed it quickly. I knew she was going to crack my cynical facade by highlighting some of the people I had brought home—mostly because they didn’t have anywhere else to go. I don’t like to advertise, mainly because people tend to blow it up bigger than it is—we have the room to put someone up for the night, so why not? It would be like giving me credit for feeding one of the neighborhood dogs with scraps; we won’t use it, so why not hand it out? The only other option would be to get more stuff to use up the space.
Jeremy’s problem, on the other hand, was more complicated. How? Because he had several enthusiastic pursuits that were unpopular at school. He couldn’t talk about his range time because guns “upset some of the students” (IE: Upset one of the parents). Legos weren’t “in” at the moment (who knew?). Trying to explain “Krav Maga” to adults could be problematic, to heck with children. I wasn’t worried about him. The few friends Jeremy has are as close to true friends as one can get at his age.
After a few more minutes of small talk, Erin left. I was allowed to settle in at the table and lean back.
“Anything else happen today?” Mariel asked, handing me an iced tea.
“I ran in Young Anthony.”
Mariel smiled. “I heard.” I arched my brows, questioning, and she added, “Malinda called me during my time at the women’s shelter, thanking me for your vigilance. Does the boy not do anything other than get caught? Does he enjoy getting caught?”
I shrugged. “Usually not. But as I implied to Erin, crooks are not necessarily the brightest bulbs. He snatched Malinda’s purse right in front of me. He literally passed me to get to her.” I shrugged. “People. What can you do?”
“Did you talk to him at all?”
“After a fashion. After the fight at the station today, Anthony seems to think I walk on water. Talked to me about doing right by everybody and doubling down on his studying. It was quite impressive.”
“Not bad, Mister Policeman,” she teased.
“I’ll be happy if he does half of it.” I frowned, confused. “Why is it that people are impressed by things like...that? Anthony acted like saving him was something extraordinary. It’s like he doesn’t understand that it’s my job. Like I’m going to just let some psycho bite anyone’s face off.”
Mariel smiled at me. “And that you think it’s something ordinary is one of the reasons why I love you.”
I gave her a small smile. We’d had the conversation. She’d explained it to me before. One day, I hoped to understand her explanation.
I sagged into the chair. “Anything interesting happen while I dug through eight hours of bureaucracy?”
“Jeremy got into a fight at school,” she said casually.
I started, sitting up straight. “He what? He started a fight?”
“He got into one. He didn’t start it. Jeremy interceded.”
I frowned. “What happened?”
“New kid named Ali decided to make his mark as lead bully. Jeremy objected.”
I thought over my son’s appearance. “Jerry didn’t have any broken bones or bruises that I saw. What about the other guy?”
Mariel shrugged. “One hip throw was sufficient, apparently.”
I took a drink. “I should probably ask, we sent Jerry to a Catholic school, right? When did Ali become a saint name?”
Mariel laughed. “We’re literally in the most diverse corner of the planet Earth. We have a Buddhist temple a mile away, five Chinese restaurants within blocks of the school, and five store-front churches within six blocks. Good luck having a Catholic school that’s even half Catholic.”
I nodded slowly. “Remind me to look at the curriculum sometime soon. I’m sure that Jerry will be happy to tell me all about the fight over dinner.”
And he was. I was almost certain that Jeremy had embellished a few details along the way. But he was cute about it. It basically boiled down to a hip throw to the floor, followed by a figure-four joint lock, seguing into a hammer lock. This is what happens when a cop’s son gets Krav Maga lessons from an early age.
The final verdict from the school? Apparently, when a dozen children testify to a violent bully, even stupid school officials can come to the proper conclusion. I suspected that the bully would either be in jail within the next decade, or scared straight by the experience.
Dinner was just over when I got the call to report to a murder.
This time, I could walk to the crime scene.