Chapter 9
I hate this job sometimes. It feels lousy when you do everything you can to help someone and it still doesn't make a difference. But what's worse than that is when someone you see almost every day is in trouble and you never even saw it.
Guess I should start at the beginning...Oscar and I have this little bodega we visit during every tour specifically for the Cuban coffee they brew behind the counter. The stuff is like motor oil which is why they whip up about 5 pounds of sugar into it. Stuff's damn good though and is a great pick-me-up when you need it in the middle of a long tour. The store is owned by this couple, the wife doesn't speak a lick of English, or so I thought. I always figured that was why she would hardly say 2 words when we'd come in for our caffeine fix. All she would do was nod shyly and turn away to make the coffee. She made it much better than her husband too so we were always disappointed when she wasn't at the store which was often and usually for a period of several days at a time. She or one of the kids was sick, the husband would tell us. I always thought there was something sad about her and the husband was usually too chatty and eager to please us for my liking. But I never really thought about it, not until early this morning. Oscar and I were working the midnight shift and really jonesing for that coffee but there was no way to get it at two in the morning from our favorite shop. We had no idea we'd be seeing the very same bodega owners until we responded to a domestic a few blocks over from their store.
It was chaos with the kids screaming and the husband claiminag all was fine, nothing more than a misunderstanding and an accident. I didn't even recognize his wife at first with the swelling and the blood. What he did to her was just...I've seen vics of domestic violence before, but this one got to me. If I could have beat the crap out of that asshat myself I would have, give him a taste of his own medicine. I've never been that livid and I lost it handling the husband, might have even made Danny proud. Thank God for Oscar and his ability to keep his cool while his partner almost went completely nuts; he told me he's never seen that side of me.
After the medics left with their mom, that was when I really saw the kids - God those kids, I'll never forget the looks on their faces - but after their grandparents came for them and we took the husband in, I realized part of why I was ready to kill the guy myself. It wasn't only because the act is so despicable and that he did it in front of his children was just...there are no words. But I felt guilty about it.
We've been going to their shop ever since we discovered the stuff, for close to a year during almost every tour when they're open. Something about them was off, I felt that much in my gut, but I could never pinpoint what it was and I never tried to learn more about them. It was going on almost right under our noses and when I think back, her absence was always long enough to wait for the bruises to fade.
I should have known. Dad says he's been there, that every cop has been there, but sometimes there's no way to know until someone asks for help, but I don't know...
I still should have known.
Jamie warmed his hands around the tall cup of Colombian dark roast as he stared out through the window of the coffee shop near his apartment. His leg bounced up and down nervously while the text book he'd brought with him to pass the time as he waited for his visitor sat forgotten on the table. Jamie had been surprised when he had received a message at the precinct a few days back from David Cefalo, his old middle school friend, Brandon's father. But he didn't hesitate to return the call as soon as he went off duty, even with his vow to leave the past completely behind him. The now retired cop turned security consultant had planned a stop through New York City on his way from Boston to DC for a security conference and asked Jamie to meet him. It was a request he could not refuse. Brandon and his family had been one of the few bright spots of his childhood and he'd always considered Mr. Cefalo a father figure...hell, he wanted to be just like him when he grew up and it was why he became a cop. They hadn't spoken for very long on the phone, but they made plans to meet for coffee, which was why Jamie was here thinking back to all of the happy times he had shared with the Cefalo family.
"Jimmy?" a familiar deep voice asked.
Jamie automatically responded to his old name, his head snapping up to find a big, hulking man standing on the other side of the table. He'd forgotten that Mr. Cefalo was built much like his own father and except for the extra lines on his face and the gray mixed into the temples of his jet-black hair, he looked just like he remembered him. "Mr. Cefalo," Jamie smiled as he stood and held out his hand. "Hi...and its Jamie, now."
David Cefalo responded with a warm smile of his own as he shook his hand and reached over to pull Jamie into an affectionate hug. "Of course, son! By God, look at you! Feels like the last time I saw you, you were half as tall and a bean pole," he laughed warmly as he took in the young man before him. "You're all grown and a police officer now, so you can call me David. It's really good to see you."
Jamie laughed at the reception, recalling both of Brandon's parents' constant offers to feed him whenever he was at their house. He had definitely been the scrawnier one of the pair and Jamie had enjoyed all of the home cooked meals and treats they had shared with him. "You too. It was a nice surprise to hear from you. Please, have a seat," he said while gesturing to the empty chair across from him.
The two sat down as David continued to gaze at Jamie in amazement. "Well, I'm sure you can imagine that it was a hell of a shock to see you all over the news last year," he began as his bright smile turned nervous. "I'm sorry it took something like this to reach out. I hope that you don't mind that I did."
"Are you kidding me? Of course not," Jamie assured him. "Those few years I practically lived at your house are some of my best childhood memories. How's Brandon and Mrs. Cefalo?" he asked, hoping to keep the conversation light and focused on the positive.
David sat back in his chair, relieved that Jamie wasn't put-off by his sudden appearance. "Jeannie's fine. She couldn't get the time off from work, otherwise she would have joined me on the trip down here. She really wanted to see you too but she sends her best. And Brandon sends his regards as well. I spoke to him over video conferencing yesterday, he's based out of Germany now."
"Wow! Germany?" Jamie asked with some surprise, although he wasn't sure why. He had completely lost touch with his friend shortly after he moved away to Boston with his parents, so he had no clue what Brandon had been up to in the last 15 years or what had become of his life.
"Yes, he joined the army after high school. He's an MP now," David said proudly.
"No kidding?" Jamie said.
"Yeah."
"I guess we both kind of followed in your footsteps," Jamie commented. That definitely wasn't a surprise, Brandon looked up to his dad just as much as he had. He had always considered him the luckiest kid in the world to have grown up with two amazing parents.
"Both?" David questioned.
"I became a cop before the truth about Sherry came to light and it was all because of you," Jamie said.
"Really?" David replied with some surprise.
"Yeah," Jamie nodded as he closed the textbook in front of him before giving David a sheepish grin. "I had teachers I looked up to but you...the way you were with Brandon and all the time you'd spend doing things with us and especially all of the cop stories you'd tell us - "
"Oh, the stories!" David laughed. He remembered spending hours with the boys telling them about some of his adventures on the job. Most were toned down to spare them some of the grittier things he saw, but he made sure to share the tales involving juveniles and the consequences they faced for their actions. Brandon and Jamie were in middle school at the time and statistics showed that was the age when kids began to travel down the wrong path when surrounded by bad influences. David was not afraid to use real life experiences to scare them straight, so to speak. "You better never let Jeannie know I kept telling you boys those stories after she got on me about that."
"Never," Jamie swore with amusement. "Anyhow, I always thought Brandon was the luckiest kid in the world. He wanted to be you and it wasn't long before I did too."
David looked away for a moment as he was flooded with emotion. "I'm touched, Jamie. I am," he sighed as he faced him again, regret filling his eyes. "Makes me really wish I could have figured it all out and done something for you."
Jamie knew that look, the one that had people volunteering to take some of the blame for Sherry's crime. He didn't want to get in to this, but it pained him to see the guilt in David's eyes. He was tired of seeing the people that meant the most to him carry that burden. "Don't, please. You couldn't have done anything. My whole family is already in line to take the blame for something they couldn't stop," Jamie begged.
David leaned against the table. "You were a great kid, Jamie. A little quiet at first, but once you got comfortable around us, you came out of your shell for the most part, except for the family stuff; you hated talking about it which is understandable now. I never really talked to her - your mother, for a lack of a better word. According to Jeannie, she wasn't known to be too friendly, not that she made many appearances at the middle school. I only met her once that night I dropped you off at home after Brandon's 12th birthday dinner. Do you remember that?"
"Yeah...yeah, I do," Jamie confirmed right away. He remembered all instances when Sherry had to interact with any of his teachers and friends because his biggest fear was always that she was going to embarrass him somehow. He had been ashamed of her and had even felt guilty sometimes for feeling that way about her...until the next time she did something that made him want to fall into a deep, dark hole.
"She came off as odd to me," David said as his brow furrowed at the memory. "I think she opened the door just enough to let you slip through. You know well that for a cop, that's never a good thing...just made me a bit suspicious."
"Yeah...she didn't care for the uniform. She never liked me being friends with Brandon and I guess you were probably the main reason why, I just didn't understand it."
"I'm sure she didn't," David agreed. "I don't know if you picked up on it, but after that, I always made sure to ask you how your mom was and how things were going at home. I even ran her name once, but she seemed to have stayed out of trouble for the most part."
Jamie shrugged and shook his head. Nothing about hanging with Brandon and his parents ever felt off to him; that was when things felt right. And it wasn't a real shock to learn that David also got his own strange vibes, but he appreciated his efforts to help even if nothing came of it. "I never thought anything of it if you did. And by then I was well trained in keeping my business to myself," Jamie replied. Sherry always drilled it into him that nothing good came from letting others meddle in your business and he knew how to separate his schooling and friendships from anything having to do with her.
"Brandon commented once about how you'd never invite him to your house and when he'd suggest it, you usually gave him one excuse or another," David said.
"Mom's sick or at work and I'm not allowed to have friends over when she's not there," Jamie recited some of the more commonly used excuses.
David nodded sadly. "I told him that if that's what you told him, then that was that."
"He stopped asking eventually," Jamie remarked. That was a relief, one less lie he had to repeat.
"Aside from being the quiet kid with the strange mom, I couldn't figure out why I got a strange feeling about you two. I'd even look for physical signs, wondering if she'd - "
"She didn't. There was nothing like that going on," Jamie assured him, seeing the same worry he saw in his father's eyes when concerns about physical abuse were brought up by the DA after Sherry was charged. "There were no signs to see. I was just the kid with the crazy mother."
"I never in a million years would have guessed at what she did, Jamie," David said. "That it could even be kept a secret for that long was just -"
"Join the club. Shocked the hell out of me," Jamie said lightly at the guilt in David's brown eyes.
"Too bad we can't arrest everyone that seems squirrelly to us," David smirked, thankful for Jamie's kindness.
"Most of New York City would be behind bars if we could do that," Jamie chuckled. David's warm laugh took him back to those two years in Buffalo and he spoke the words that were long overdue. "I wanted to thank you," he began.
"For what?" David wondered.
"For just being who you were, giving a strange kid a place to call home for those few years. You don't know how much it meant to me. I needed that little bit of normalcy and sense of belonging. And you were the reason I became a cop."
David's lips formed a tight smile as his throat moved up and down repeatedly at the large lump he was struggling to swallow. "Glad I could do one thing right," he quipped once he could speak again. "You should be proud, Jamie. You seemed to have turned out very well and you did it on your own. Says a lot about who you are. Don't ever stop believing in yourself, no matter what anyone else tells you."
Jamie smiled shyly, but had to look down and blink away the moisture that was threatening to fill his eyes. Sometimes he needed a reminder of how far he had gotten on his own.
Sensing that Jamie needed a break from the emotional talk, David directed the conversation to a much happier topic. "But it seems that you couldn't have done better, huh? I mean a family of cops? I want to hear all about them," he prodded with a smile.
Jamie didn't hesitate to brief him on the Reagan clan because even if he'd already managed to navigate through some pretty choppy waters in his young life, David's visit also reminded him that he had no desire to lead that same lonely existence from this point forward.
