Sophie's Last Stand

“Well, ma’am, I don’t know. The arson investigator’s looking it over. He’s with the fire department, so he’ll tell us when he’s through. You didn’t see or hear anything of a suspicious nature before the car blew?”

I shook my head. “Like I said, I was sleeping.”

A familiar form was making its way up my driveway. Gray Evans, dressed in a T-shirt and shorts, had arrived, a worried look on his face.

“You all right?” he asked me. I nodded and he turned to the young officer. “What you got?” The boy handed him the clipboard, Gray scanned it and then nodded. “All right. Go rope it off. We’ll get forensics over here.”

When we were alone, Gray looked back at me, his lips twitching with a suppressed smile. It took only a moment to figure out why he’d see this as funny. Long enough for me to realize that I was wearing bright green-and-pink pajamas covered in dazzling red cherries and fuzzy pink bunny slippers that Joe’s daughter, Emily, had given me.

“I was sleeping,” I said.

“And the slippers?”

“My niece gave them to me. She would be hurt if she found out I didn’t wear them.”

He looked over his shoulder as if searching for her in the crowd.

“Well, they’re comfortable. You wanna try them?”

He shook his head and smiled. “Your niece might not like that,” he said. “Besides, I’ll bet they’re way too small for me.”

I looked at his feet, remembered the things people said about the correlation between foot size and, well, you know, and started turning red. Gray noticed immediately and smiled even more.

“Y-you probably have your own,” I stammered.

“Bunny slippers? No.” He had no intention of making it easier on me. The young cop helped me out by calling Gray away.

I looked down at my feet and wiggled my toes. The pink bunnies tossed their ears and danced. They were cute. I looked back at Gray and saw that he was now talking on his cell phone, his back to me. My car was a sodden mass of ashes and debris. Men poked at the wreckage, examining it, taking samples of charred material and bagging them in small paper bags. The neighbors were disbanding, returning to their homes in ones and twos. Soon the sun would begin brightening the horizon.

I watched for another minute and then decided to make coffee. I figured that was useful. We could all use coffee. It gave me something to do. It made me feel like I had control over something, if only my coffeepot.

When Gray returned, he found me sitting on the front porch steps holding a thick mug in my hands. I’d pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt, replaced the bunny slippers with sneakers and tried to tame my hair.

“Coffee?”

“Yeah, that would be nice,” he said, but he seemed distracted and distant. The smile was gone.

I led him through the house and into the kitchen, poured his coffee and motioned him to the table, where the milk and sugar sat waiting. He pulled out one of the heavy wooden chairs and gestured me into another.

“We need to talk,” he said.

“Okay.” The air in the kitchen felt heavy. I knew he had something unpleasant to say.

“So, somebody blew up my car and it wasn’t a freak accident.” I thought if I said it first it might make it easier for him, but that didn’t seem to help.

“Sophie,” he said, “earlier today, as part of our investigation, we ran routine checks on all the cars parked in the area. We do this in case one of the cars belongs to the victim. You know, if it gets left behind then we know maybe it was hers, or if it clearly doesn’t belong to someone in the neighborhood we can begin to narrow the field a little.”

I nodded, feeling impatient.

“We identified a white, 1996 Mercedes convertible, registered to Nicolas Komassi, 532 Hartford Street, Philadelphia.” Gray looked at me, his eyes smoky and somber. “Your ex-husband, right?”

I felt my hands begin to tremble, and the sudden urge to cry tightened my throat. I nodded, took a deep breath and said, “Nick’s in prison. He won’t be out for another eight months. And that address you have, it’s not his anymore—it was mine.”

Gray just stared at me. “Sophie, Nick got out of prison a week ago. I talked to his parole officer. He got an early release for good behavior. They tried to notify you, but you didn’t leave them a forwarding address.”

I slapped my hand down on the table. Coffee sloshed out of my cup and stained the napkin beneath it. “I didn’t want him to find me! I thought it would be better if no one knew how to reach me. I didn’t even leave a forwarding address with the post office. I just went in the house with Joey, packed my things and drove away.”

Gray covered my hand with one of his. “Okay, Soph. It’s okay. But somehow I’m thinking he found you.”

“No! He couldn’t. He wouldn’t do that!”

“It’s his car.”

That much was irrefutable. Nick’s car didn’t drive itself down to New Bern. Nick was in town, in my new town, in my safe haven, and now bad things were starting to happen, just like he’d promised.

Gray was watching me and I knew there had to be more. “What else?” I asked.

“His parole officer can’t find him. He’s been missing for three days.”

My stomach clutched into a knot. For a year, since Nick had been sent to prison and the divorce finalized, I’d felt relatively safe, but now this. I looked at Gray briefly and felt my future slip away, contaminated by the past. Even if I were interested, who wants a relationship with the ex-wife of a sicko-pervert convict? He’d look at me and think of Nick. He’d wonder what kind of a woman lets herself get taken in by such a twisted man. And Gray Evans didn’t know the half of it.

Gray hadn’t seen that Web site, hadn’t seen the pictures and videos Nick took of me without my knowledge. Gray didn’t know how I felt, what it was like to feel scummy and dirty every day, no matter how many showers I took or how long Nick spent in prison. Like a fish needs a bicycle, I reminded myself, and squared my shoulders. No one would ever use me that way again. I would never let myself be that vulnerable.

I shivered involuntarily. “Okay, so he followed me down here. I’ll handle it.”

Gray frowned slightly. “What do you mean?”

I tossed my head and ran my fingers through my hair like I do when I’m thinking or upset. “I mean I’ll get a restraining order.”

Gray looked over his shoulder, toward the front of the house, still frowning. “If that’s Nick’s work out front, I don’t think a restraining order will cover it.”

“I said I’ll handle it and I will. I can take care of myself.” I stood up, shoving my chair back so hard it screeched on the plywood subflooring. I knew I sounded harsh and defensive.

Gray ignored it. “I know you can handle yourself, Sophie. All I’m saying is you don’t have to do it all alone. I’ll have the officers in this zone make extra patrols. If you want I can check your doors and windows and help you put more secure locks on. You’re not alone, Soph. Let us help you.”

Don’t you see? I don’t want your help! I screamed silently. I wanted a fresh start, clean, without the film of scum that covered my life in Philadelphia. Now it felt hopeless. I had let myself dare to think everything would be fine, and now this.

“I’m tired,” I said. “I think I just want to go back to sleep.”

He pushed his cup aside and stood up. I looked at him and felt numb, almost. He couldn’t possibly understand, and it showed in his kind, concerned eyes and worried expression. He wanted to help and couldn’t understand why I was pushing him away. Gray Evans was never going to be anything to me because I couldn’t take the pain of coming to love someone and then losing him. Nick would ruin it. Nick ruined everything. Ruining my life had become his passion.

“I’ll come back later and help you clean up out there,” he said.

“No, that’s all right. I have good insurance. I’ll call the company and they’ll send people out to take care of it.” I wasn’t half believing this story, but it sounded good. “Thanks for your help. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do or any information I can give you that will help with the investigation.”

Gray was looking at me like I had two heads, like I’d changed and, of course, I had. What he was seeing now was the survivor, the Sophie that got cornered and came out swinging. I could take care of the car, the ex-husband and my life just fine, without anybody’s pity and without any help. I was going to figure out what was going on and why people thought I had something to do with Nick’s dirty business or else I would never, ever be truly free to have my own life. I couldn’t wait for cops to figure it all out. A fairy godmother wasn’t going to appear and set things straight. No, this was my battle and I could handle it.

“Still,” Gray said, not getting it yet, “I’d like to come by later and check on you. I could bring my chainsaw….” He tried to grin and I tried harder to resist him. If he stayed much longer, I’d cry, and that was unacceptable.

“How about I call you?” I lied. “It may be a day or two before I’m ready to tackle the backyard.”

He nodded. He knew I was lying, but what could he do? He wrote his home phone number on his business card and handed it to me.

I walked him through the house to the front door, opened it and stood just inside the hallway while he said goodbye from the other side. The farther away from me he was, the less chance there was of me giving in.

“Sophie,” he said, “I know you’re upset. Try to go back to sleep and see if things don’t look a little brighter later.”

Right. Brighter. Gray Evans was an anomaly, an optimistic cop, or maybe he thought I was as naive as I looked. I forced a smile, thanked him again and closed the door. Goodbye, Gray Evans. I’ve got work to do and a life to live and I will be just fine without you. However, deep down inside where I keep my secrets, I was thinking fish might not need bicycles, but they sure would enjoy a ride every now and then.

Chapter 4

D arlene couldn’t wait to tell on me. It was payback for not letting her ask Gray twenty questions about the dead body. She rushed right back to Neuse Harbor and proceeded to tell my parents every single gory detail. Then, when she rode past my house on her way to work and saw the charred Honda, she hit the speed dial on her cell phone and told my parents I was most probably dead, but not to worry because she was investigating.

While Ma was becoming hysterical and Pa was asking questions, she hung up. Later, when I pinned her down, and I do mean that literally, she tried to say she’d hit a bad cell and the phone had dropped the call. Upon further interrogation and perhaps even a little physical intimidation, Darlene admitted she had “accidentally” hung up on them.

This is why, at 8:19 a.m., I was roused from a deep and dreamless sleep to find Darlene and my parents standing at the foot of my bed. Ma was crying. She stood there, barely coming up to Darlene’s shoulder, clutching her old black purse, her gray hair a wire-brush double of my own. She wore thick, sensible shoes and a black dress with tiny white flowers all over it, her standard, Italian mother uniform. Darlene, dressed in an outlandish, bright purple silk dress and wearing a fake orchid in her hair, stood patting Ma’s shoulder and beaming. This is just how she likes it, a crisis with her in the middle, coordinating the fireworks. Pa shifted from one foot to the other, looking like an embarrassed, older version of my brother.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Is somebody dead? Is it Joey?” I sat up, my heart pounding into overdrive, trying to read the expressions on my parents’ faces.

“I’ll make coffee,” Darlene said, vanishing like the night.

“Darlene,” Ma sputtered. “She said you was probably dead! Why you didn’t call? What happened to your car?” Then Ma lapsed into Italian, saying something about how she just knew the evil eye was on me and that my new house was filled with malice.

Pa was still standing there, looking from her to me and waiting for the initial storm to subside. Instead, Ma turned on him. “What?” With lightning quick speed her hand moved, slapping Pa upside the head. “You gonna do something here? You let this happen! What, you no fix it now?” She slapped him again, a rough head shot that Pa was used to because this is how Ma punctuates all her comments.

“You look all right,” Pa said to me.

“I am,” I said, raising myself higher in bed and trying to look calmer than I felt.

Ma shrieked. “How can you say that at a time like this? A dead woman in the garden?” Here Ma crossed herself. “Your car burned to cinders? What? All right, you say? You’re all right? Stunade!”

Darlene appeared in the doorway behind us. “Ma, coffee’s ready. Come have some.”

I shot Darlene a look that promised retribution. Ma, still slapping at Pa, allowed herself to be led into the kitchen, leaving me to hop out of bed and trail along after them.

Darlene, all sweetness and light, made a big fuss, handing us coffee, spooning three teaspoons of sugar into Ma’s cup and stirring it for her, then clucking like a satisfied hen over her brood of chaotic family members. It was disgusting. I sat there for thirty minutes and answered questions, at least half of them about how a daughter could disrespect her family by not coming to them personally and presenting the information firsthand, preferably as the events were actually occurring.

The phone rang three times while I was under interrogation, and each time when I picked it up and said “Hello?” the person on the other end hung up.

“Probably someone else’s old number,” I explained, but of course, I didn’t believe that for a second. If Nick could find me in New Bern, he could get my unlisted, private number, too.

Darlene had to throw gasoline on the fire. “Tell them about the cute cop,” she said. Of course, Darlene had already given them her version, probably leaving it that we were “fated” to become man and wife.

I looked at Ma. “The detective in charge is very efficient,” I said.

“Stunade!” Ma barked. “Darlene says you know him.”

Darlene was going to die. I was going to enjoy killing her. It would be a long, slow death, accompanied by many pleas for mercy on her part.

“No, Darlene imagines that I know him,” I said. “I have only seen him one other time, from a distance, and that was a thirty-second encounter.” I was shooting daggers at Darlene with my eyes, daring her to dispute this.

“What? You would lie to your mother?” Whap! The hand was upside my head.

“Ma, don’t do that! I’m telling you the God’s honest truth.”

The sound of the back porch door opening saved me from further mayhem. Joe stepped into the kitchen, looked at us all sitting there, and said, “I brought coffee cake.”

“What?” Ma said, “Did you buy that? How much did you pay for it? I got that at home. I make that better. Why you buy that?”

Joe was unflappable. “Ma, Angela made it.”

Ma’s expression said it all. Despite her name, Angela was not Italian. Ma shrugged, resigned to eating inferior food, and gestured to the center of the table. Then she slapped my hand when I reached for it. “What is wrong with you? Get the plates!”

My entire morning continued this way. I excused myself, took a shower and returned, but they were still at it. The conversation now turned to what they should do to protect me, and this without me even mentioning Nick. I drank another cup of strong coffee, rolled my eyes at Joe and went to check the mailbox.

The note was folded up and stuffed into a plain white envelope, typed on computer paper, and generic in all respects except for what was written on it. “She didn’t cooperate, but you will, won’t you? You have what we want. We’ll be in touch.”

Joe came up behind me, took the note from my hand and read. “It’s probably just some local crackpot looking to scare you,” he said. “I’ll call Gray.”

“No. I’ll call him later, when they’re gone. That’s all I need, Ma whacking Gray upside the head because he didn’t prevent this, or Darlene batting her eyes at him and asking stupid questions.”

“I’ll handle it,” Joe said.

“No, Joe, let me do this.”

Joey looked into my face, into my eyes, and then pulled me to him, holding me tight against his shoulder. “You know, Soph, I’ve known you all your life. You won’t call him.” He reached up and stroked my hair. “You won’t call on account of you’re embarrassed. You don’t want to be any trouble. Worst of all, you don’t want to make this real.”

I pushed back and looked up at him. “Joe, Nick’s out. He got early release.”

Joe sucked his breath in through his teeth. In the background I could hear Darlene chattering on about nothing with Ma and Pa. “I thought they were supposed to let you know?” Joe said. “I thought you got a say in that?”

“I didn’t leave a forwarding address when I left,” I said. “I didn’t think.”

Joe tried to smile. “Well, good then. He can’t find you.”

But I was already shaking my head. “He already has, Joe. The police found his Mercedes around the corner yesterday. They were checking plates, thinking they might find out about the girl in the backyard.”

“I’ll kill the son of a bitch,” Joe said, his voice pitched low so Ma and Pa wouldn’t hear him.

“No, Joe. Look, Nick is a twisted little man who thinks he can frighten me. He’s mad because he ruined his life and he wants to make that my fault. He’ll get over it.” I looked at Joe like I believed my own propaganda. “After all, what’s a sawed-off little accountant going to do to me? I’ll cut his balls off and hand them back to him before he knows what hit him.”

Joe was shaking his head again. “Look, I don’t doubt your intentions, but I don’t think we should underestimate Nick, either. He blew up your car. Hell, he probably killed that woman and put her in your backyard to scare you. He’s a nutcase, Sophie, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t dangerous. I’m calling Gray.”

He brushed past me, stepping out onto the front porch and flipping open his cell phone.

“And I moved here to take control of my life,” I muttered.

“You cannot twist fate to suit your needs,” Darlene said. I jumped, wondering how long she’d been listening to Joe and me.

“Put a sock in it, Darlene,” I said, and pushed past her back into the house.

Ma was talking to Pa in Italian, so fast and low that I had trouble following anything she said, but she made it easy on me by switching to English as I entered the room.

“You are coming home with us,” she said. Her arms were folded across her chubby middle and her expression said that the matter was not open for discussion.

“Ma, I am fine. I’m not leaving. The insurance company is sending out someone today and I need to be here. Joe’ll take me to get a rental car later and I’ll be good to go.”

“You are living in the presence of death,” Ma said.

“No, they carted the body off yesterday. Death has departed.” I gave the look right back to her, strong, like I wasn’t moving an inch.

“I’ll check in on her,” Pa said, but only because he hadn’t heard about Nick yet. They’d be on me once that piece of news leaked out.

“Joe’s gonna check on me, too, Ma.” I wasn’t going to lie and tell them the car thing was due to spontaneous combustion, but I wasn’t going to tell the entire story, either. This might be called a sin of omission, but better that than moving in with my parents.

Joe walked in, saying, “That’s true, I’ll be right here. Besides, I’m only five minutes away if I do go home. Don’t worry.” He put his hand on Ma’s shoulder. “Ain’t nothin’ gonna happen to Sophie. Capishe?”

He was looking over the top of Ma’s head at me, then toward the front door, nodding his head imperceptibly in that direction.

“Ma, you guys should go back home and Darlene should go on to work. Sophie’s a big girl. She’s fine. I’m looking out for her. Ma, why don’t you make the braciola, eh? I’m coming for dinner. I’ll bring Angela and the kids. Sophie, you’re coming, too, right?”

I took the hint. “Yeah, yeah. Ma, there’s no decent food here. Look, all I have is a microwave. The stove isn’t even hooked up yet. What kind of life is that?”

Ma sniffed. “That is why a good daughter stays in her parents’ home.”

“Ma, I did that already. Then I got married. I moved out on my own ten years ago. It’s too late for moving home again.”

The hand, quicker than the eye, whacked me hard. “Stunade! It is never too late to respect your mother,” she said.

“Dinner, Ma. I’ll be there for dinner.”

“Good morning!”

We all turned. Gray Evans stood in the doorway. He was giving Ma the smile, the one that had melted my heart just yesterday, the smile I was trying to avoid thinking about.

“Hey, y’all,” he said, his voice like molten chocolate. “I knocked, but I figured you didn’t hear me and wouldn’t mind….”

“What? Get the man a cup of coffee and some cake! Where are your manners?” Ma cried. She was struggling to stand and do it herself, but Joe’s hand was still clamped firmly on her shoulder. Gray moved into the room and over to the table to meet my mother and father.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Gray Evans.” He didn’t add that he was the investigator working on the murder case.

“The detective,” Darlene said with a sigh. “You know,” she added, looking at Ma, “the detective.”

Gray didn’t seem to hear her. He was shaking Pa’s hand and pulling up a chair, flirting with my mother and making it seem totally genuine, like he didn’t have a care in the world and this was a social call.

I watched him, taking in every detail about his appearance. This was the first time I’d noticed the gold shield clipped to his waist, or seen the holster and the thick, black gun protruding from his side. He wore another white shirt, but the pants were a charcoal-gray and the tie today was navy. When I handed him his coffee, his fingers touched mine. A current of electricity seemed to jump from his hand and I willed myself not to feel it. He radiated heat and musk, and it was all I could do not to reach out and lay my palm on his shoulder.

“So,” Ma was saying, “you know who burned my daughter’s car?”

Gray shook his head. “Not yet.”

“Vandals, eh?” Pa was asking.

Gray looked him in the eye, a look Ma couldn’t see because Gray was turned to face Pa, but I saw it. It was the look between men when they wish to keep their secrets for later.

“Maybe,” Gray stated, and that was enough for Pa.

“You think she should move home?” Pa asked.

“Hey, what did I say?” I interrupted before Gray could answer and possibly ruin my life by accident. “I’m fine. I’m staying here. There’s no danger.”

But Pa was watching Gray. The detective’s eyes never wavered. “I’ll make sure she’s safe,” he said. “If I think she isn’t, I’ll bring her to you.”

Marone a mia, you’d think I didn’t exist. You’d think this was the old country. Here they were, two men, discussing my whereabouts and living arrangements like I wasn’t even in the room, like I didn’t count.

Gray took it a step further and saved himself from certain death at my hands. “Sophie’s a smart woman,” he said. “She took care of herself up North and didn’t seem to fare too poorly. I’m thinking a little town like New Bern won’t be too much of a challenge. She’ll be all right. And, like I said, I’ll be around.”

He looked at me then, as if it was a statement of fact, as if I hadn’t ever said, “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”

Gray stood, smiled and said, “I do need to ask Sophie a few more questions, just nitpicky details and the like for our records.”

“Sure,” I said. “Let’s go sit out on the front porch.”

“No need for that, honey,” Pa said, standing up and assuming control of the family. “Your mother and me have to go.” He gave Darlene The Look. “You’d better get to work.”

Ma, utterly charmed by Gray, didn’t whisper a murmur of protest. “Mr. Detective,” she said, “you eat real Italian ever?”

Gray gave her everything he had—the smile, the eyes, the works. “Home-cooked Italian? No, ma’am, I can’t say as I ever have.”