Chapter Eight Barb
Chapter Eight
Barb
I stare at the brick facade of the Pacific Community Police Station, gathering the strength to walk inside.
I thought the canals, the site of her death, would embolden me.
Instead, I’m left feeling more alone in this ugly city.
The only thing that scares me more than walking through these doors is never learning what happened to my daughter.
I take a deep breath, give myself a pep talk, and press the buzzer to be let inside.
Behind bulletproof glass, the receptionist picks her teeth as she completes a crossword. When I approach, she holds up a hand, signaling for me to wait.
“Etui.” She scribbles the letters onto the grid. “Yes?” Her voice is indifferent, her attention wavering as I fumble through an explanation for why I’m here.
Once I’ve managed to communicate who I am, her demeanor changes. She flips closed her crossword book and inches her hands toward mine, thwarted by the glass.
“Let me find out who the first responder was.” She types, scans the monitor, then picks up the phone and dials.
“I have a Mrs. Geller. Her daughter was—” The person on the line must recognize my name, because the receptionist doesn’t finish her sentence.
She hangs up and tells me that Officer Gonzales will be out, then apologizes as she asks me for my ID.
I wait on the plasticky faux-leather couch in the lobby, unable to get comfortable. It’s a few minutes before a capable-looking Hispanic man enters the waiting room.
“Mrs. Geller,” he says, “I’m Officer Gonzales. I’m so sorry about your daughter.” From his tone, I believe him. “Do you want to come back? My partner’s waiting in the conference room.”
He leads me through the locked door into a large room with several desks, some occupied, others not.
He offers me coffee, which I decline. Water, which I also decline.
I follow him into an understated conference room, where a young man is waiting for us.
From his freckles and red hair, he appears Irish, a nationality confirmed when he introduces himself as Officer Mahoney.
“I’m glad you came to see us,” Officer Gonzales says as he holds out a chair for me. “I’m sure you have lots of questions. We’ll do our best to answer them. Sometimes, though, we think we want more information than we really do.”
It takes me a moment to decipher what he’s really saying. I can’t unlearn details. Anything he tells me, I’ll never forget.
“I’m having trouble believing Regina accidentally drowned.” The words catch in my throat. I wish I’d accepted the water. It feels too late to ask for it now. “I know how this sounds, but I also know my Regina. She was a lifeguard. And sober for seven years.”
“We won’t know what was in her system until the toxicology report comes back,” Officer Mahoney says.
“And how long will that take?”
Mahoney frowns, clearly not wanting to tell me that it will take longer than I’d like. Before he has a chance to speak, Officer Gonzales interjects, “About four to six weeks. I don’t want you holding out for that. The medical examiner has already ruled it an accidental drowning.”
“Is it possible someone hurt her? Held her down?” I can barely get the words out.
“Do you have reason to believe anyone would have wanted to harm your daughter?” Officer Gonzales takes out a notepad, ready to transcribe my answers.
I shake my head no.
He keeps the notepad open, but he puts his pen down. “We’ve interviewed her neighbors, friends, her girlfriend. They all had alibis for that night.”
“Girlfriend,” I whisper, stunned at the word. He doesn’t mean it the way my book club uses it. He means girlfriend the way everyone under sixty-five means girlfriend. Regina had a girlfriend? Why didn’t she tell me? Did she think I would judge? Did I somehow convey that I wouldn’t be accepting?
“Maisy Rosenthal. She lived upstairs from Regina. She was out with friends that night. We’ve confirmed her story.
No one else in Regina’s life came up as suspicious.
We spoke to her employers at A-Plus Tutoring, the families she worked with—she was on a hiatus from tutoring.
And the outlets she freelanced for hadn’t heard from her in a while.
It seems she’d been retreating.” I hear what he’s intimating, a cheap euphemism for relapse.
“Isn’t there a lot of crime in Venice? It could have been random.”
“Ma’am—” Officer Mahoney cuts in. In my thirties, I hated it when men called me ma’am. At seventy, it is downright offensive. “There’s no evidence to suggest anyone else was present when she died.”
“Given her body was submerged in water,” Officer Gonzales intervenes, “evidence could have been washed away, but there were no signs of struggle. Her wallet still had money and credit cards in it. There was no indication of attempted robbery or assault.”
“How do you even know it’s Regina? Who identified her?”
“Ma’am—” Officer Mahoney says again.
“Please stop calling me ma’am.”
Officer Mahoney startles. His partner motions for him to sit back and addresses me instead.
“Regina’s license was in her wallet. Her phone was in her pocket.”
“I want to see her. I want to know for certain it’s my daughter.”
“I’d strongly advise against that,” Officer Gonzales says. “She’d been in the water for several hours when she was discovered.”
What happens to a body after several hours in water? Is it bloated? Decomposing? I always skim through the gorier parts of thrillers, not wanting the death on the page to become real. I don’t want it to become vivid now, in the distorted shape of my daughter.
“We’re confident it was your daughter,” Officer Gonzales says again, then hesitates, picking at his cuticles. My stomach sinks. He’s about to tell me something I don’t want to hear. “We found her Vespa parked outside the Brig on Abbot Kinney, where—”
“A motorcycle?” How many times did I make her promise me she would never ride on the back of one? I hate motorcycles. It’s difficult not to take this news personally.
“A scooter, technically. We have her credit card receipt from the Brig, which is a popular drinking establishment. We spoke with the bartender who served her several shots of tequila.”
I want to fight him, to say that Regina hated tequila, but it was her preferred liquor. I scan myself for the seed of doubt this news should germinate. Instead, I’m resolute. Regina wouldn’t slip.
“I know this isn’t what you want to hear.
” Officer Gonzales frowns as his partner stares at me with all his wide-eyed inexperience.
“And believe me, I wish I could tell you something different. I was the first officer on the scene, so when I say we were thorough, I mean it. There’s no evidence to support anything but a terrible accident. ”
“What about—” I try to find another question, something to catch him off guard. “Why isn’t there a detective on her case?”
“There isn’t evidence of a crime, so there’s nothing for a detective to investigate.” There’s a tinge of annoyance in Officer Mahoney’s voice, and I cast him my human resources glare, forcing him to cower.
“Mrs. Geller,” Officer Gonzales intervenes again, “this is hands down my least favorite part of the job. I want to understand what happened to your daughter too. We don’t have any evidence to suggest a crime.
I’ll tell you what.” He knocks his knuckles against the table as though he’s just come up with something.
“Why don’t I put some pressure on the medical examiner to get the toxicology report back ASAP.
Now, that will still take about a month, but leave your number, and I’ll give you a call as soon as we know more.
” He rips a sheet of paper from his notepad and slides it toward me with his pen.
I hear what he’s really saying. Go home. Stop this fruitless quest.
After I write down my number, he trades the pad for one of his business cards. “In the meantime, if you think of anything that might be useful, if you have any questions, this is my direct line.”
Officer Mahoney starts to get his card out. Officer Gonzales subtly shakes his head no and escorts me out alone.
Officer Gonzales holds the front door open for me. “It’s good you’re here. I want you to trust we’re taking this seriously.”
I head toward my car, defeated. There’s got to be more to this. Evidence they overlooked. Details I’ll pursue, even if I have little to go on. Officer Gonzales did offer me one clue to follow—a bar. The Brig. Two clues, actually—a bar and a girlfriend.
In the distance, a woman and small child approach the building.
With her figure cloaked in a loose linen dress, it takes me a moment to tell she’s pregnant.
There must be something in the air. Two pregnant women in one day.
Perhaps it’s a sign, of what I’m not exactly sure.
Motherhood persists. Despite all the heartache it promises, we persevere.
But as she approaches, I realize it’s the same woman from the canals this morning.
She wrangles her son into a horizontal position as she lumbers toward the door.
Everyone says parenthood gets easier as your children get older.
Those early days are the easy ones. The days where love comes naturally and willingly, where you’re the center of their world.
The days where it seems possible to keep them safe.
As if she can hear my thoughts, she glances my way. Through the fatigue, the struggle, I see a flash of recognition across her face. Is she here because of Regina? Does she know something?