Bay of Deception (2 page)

Five minutes of knocking on the McKenny’s solid oak front door produced little more than sore knuckles for Peidmont. He'd confirmed that the new Jeep Cherokee in the driveway was registered to Jennifer Lynn McKenny and its hood gave off no heat. He walked back to his car and radioed Richardson.

"She’s not answering, Tom,” Peidmont said into the microphone.  “You sure she was going to be home for awhile?”  He looked out across the bay as Richardson checked with Chief Williams and saw Santa Cruz, somewhat hazy behind a thin bank of fog, twenty miles away.  He turned back toward the house just as the light blue curtains rippled in the main front window.

“Cancel that, Tom, she’s home,” he said and replaced the microphone back into its cradle, then strode back up the wooden steps.  This time he had to knock only twice before a crack formed at the door’s edge and a single eye peered out at him. 

“Mrs. McKenny," he said.  "I’m officer Peidmont...” 

“I
know
who you
are, officer,” she said, cutting him off while opening the door wide enough to see her.  “How could I or anyone on the Monterey Peninsula
not
know?  What I don’t understand...”  She continued after a pause.  “Is why they would send
you,
of
all
people?”  She shook her head, obviously perplexed.  “I mean,
really?
” 

He didn’t bother trying to answer this now familiar sentiment and after a pause, she threw the door open wide.

“Whatever!” Mrs. McKenny stated flatly, stepping back and allowing him room enough to enter, followed by the door thudding closed behind him.

Mrs. McKenny passed by him as he stood in the entrance, her face a mixture of smirk and disgust.  Since he'd been cleared, Oliver had found himself unsure of how to respond to this seemingly universal reaction to his trial’s sudden end and his subsequent acquittal. 

He followed her down the long hallway toward the living room, her blonde waist length hair swaying ahead of him.  Dressed in white shorts and light blue tank top, Oliver estimated Mrs. McKenny stood five foot four inches and though she looked slight, the taut, toned muscles of her legs and shoulders did not escape his notice. 

Along the hallway, several framed glossy photos of Mrs. McKenny in her cheerleading heyday caught his attention, along with those of her all-American husband in his Chicago Bears' uniform.  A career ended, Peidmont recalled, by a third failed drug test resulting in a lifetime ban from the NFL.  One glossy photo of her petite figure posed beside the steroid-enhanced frame of her husband seemed almost comedic in its contrast.  It brought to Oliver’s mind the Beauty and the Beast fable.  After taking one final glance at the McKenny's wall of fame, Oliver continued into the living room.

Mrs. McKenny now sat on a black leather sofa and peered at him, then hugged both legs to herself.   He took the matching couch opposite her, an expensive looking coffee table between them.  Once he was settled, he told her what he’d been telling people since the trial ended.

“You shouldn’t believe everything you read in the papers, Mrs. McKenny.”

“Oh, I don’t, officer Peidmont,” she replied, not bothering to hide her contempt or the smirk she wore.  “...or should I call you,
Ollie
?”

“
Officer Peidmont
will do just fine!” he snapped, then took a breath.  “Look, Mrs. McKenny, I’m here because Chief Williams,”
who I’d like to kill right now,
he
thought to himself
,
“...said you might be ready to press charges against your husband.  Is that true?” 

She said nothing, her smirk now gone and hugged her legs tighter.  After a full minute of silence, she shifted around to stare at a spot on the wall behind her, then turned back toward him.

“I was seated right where you are and the drunk bastard picked me and threw me like a stuffed doll,” she said.  Her voice was now thick with anger and Oliver saw where fresh paint had been applied over new drywall. 

“My head went right through, Officer Peidmont,” her chin now pushed forward.  “I’m told that if I'd hit a wooden stud, I wouldn’t be here today.”  He made a quick estimate and guessed she'd been thrown close to ten feet. 

“If my neighbor hadn't called you cops...” She stopped, then looked straight at him.  “The newspaper said you beat your wife, Officer Piedmont.  Said you tried to kill her, but now supposedly it was all just one big mistake.”  She laughed and shook her head.  “Is it just me, or do you see the irony of a wife-beating cop trying to convince me to press charges against my abusive husband?” 

Weariness swept over him and he closed his eyes. 

“You shouldn’t believe...”

“I DON’T!” 

Her shout pulled his eyes open and he saw tears beginning to spill down her flushed cheeks.  He suddenly felt like a first class heel.

“Look, Officer Peidmont,” she said, wiping her right cheek with the back of her hand. “You're asking me to trust you and that's not something I’m not very good at lately.  Before I can do that, you’ve got to convince me there’s something to trust
in
.”

For a full minute he debated, arguing the wisdom of telling a total stranger what he’d revealed only to Donetelli.  Caution won out and he rose off the couch, wearily.

“Mrs. McKenny, when you’re ready to press...”

“That’s all right, Officer Peidmont,” she cut him off briskly.  “I figure you cut some deal with the men downtown and I’m not eager to get chewed up by your ‘Good-Ol-Boy’ network.  What’s it matter that your wife nearly died.” 

He felt his face redden and suddenly his lungs lost power to pull in anything, the air around him seemed thick as molasses.  Not trusting himself to speak, he sat down again and stared at this damaged, beautiful woman and it seemed she sensed a line had been crossed.  Her eyes softened and after a moment, she looked away.  

It was another full minute before Oliver felt his breathing return to its steady familiar rhythm, silence filling the room about them as it did so.  He could sense a chasm of distrust between them and knew only one way to bridge it.

After a nearly inaudible sigh, he finally spoke. 

“I’m...willing to tell you what happened, Mrs. McKenny, on the condition that you’ll seriously consider pressing charges against your husband."  He paused as she considered this. "Agreed?” he asked

“I’m listening,” she responded after a pause, her tone skeptical. 

He leaned back and debated where to begin, finally choosing the only place he could. 

“I met my wife, Linda, when I was a few weeks out of the police academy over in Brooklyn, New York ...”

“Listen, officer Piedmont,” she interrupted.  “I love a good story like the next girl, but do I really need to hear about your entire marriage?” 

The urge to simply walk out swept over him, but he fought against it. 

“Mrs. McKenny,” he said, struggling to keep his tone even, and failed.  “
You
wanted to know why I was the one who arrived on your doorstep.”  He stood as if to leave. “Do you, or don’t you?”

“Sure...why not?”  She replied sarcastically, lifting both hands. “I’ve got all afternoon.”  

He took a deep breath, sat down once again and picked up where he'd left off.

“I was three weeks out of the Brooklyn police academy when we met.  Linda was an East Coast girl all the way, although she’d spent summers with her divorced mother in Hickory, North Carolina.  A friendship was what I wanted originally and for the first three months, that’s all it was.”

“Her parent’s marriage, as Linda used to say, ‘was not a happy one.’  Her dad was a cop, as well as her uncle, an older brother and two cousins.  I’d met her in the D.A.’s office where she’d worked and asked her out a couple of days later.  I couldn’t have been more wrong for her, I know that now, but she still lived with her dad and was eager to break free herself.  Because I acted like a gentleman and treated her well, Linda thought I was different than all the cops in her family. Different than what she thought of all cops.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”  Mrs. McKenny asked, her tone edgy.

He looked at her and felt a growing sense of exasperation.  “I was about to explain...” She waved him on and taking a deep breath, picked up his life’s thread.

“As a child Linda had discovered her father’s infidelity, saw him cheat on her mother repeatedly till the two were divorced.  In time her uncle, older brother, and even her two cousins took up girlfriends on the side.  Their wives, suspecting much, confided their worst fears to Linda, who felt obligated to keep their dark secrets.  I knew none of this for a long time.  By the time I did, Linda already believed I had followed in her father’s footsteps.” Oliver paused, darted a look at Mrs. McKenny and then continued.

“After graduating from New York University with my B.A. in Political Science, my mother hoped I would go into academia, perhaps become a professor at one of the many East Coast universities, eventually.  She refused to accept my becoming a cop, dismissing it as beneath me and grew distant and cold, snubbing my new wife in the process. We found ourselves largely alone on the East Coast. 

"Like my father, I soon grew weary of my mother’s fascination with status and began applying out of state, eventually landing a position in Los Angeles, California.  It wasn’t hard to convince Linda to move and a year after earning my badge, we found ourselves living in Glendale, a small suburb of Los Angeles.  Though my job took me into the rougher neighborhoods of L.A at times, life was good.

"Our second year there, we traveled up to Carmel for our first real honeymoon and instead, we both fell in love with Pacific Grove.  Though I had fit in well enough at my job and made some good friends, Linda struggled to make connections and missed her girlfriends back home.  She seemed to come alive during our week in Carmel and on a whim, I contacted all the local police chiefs. 

"The second to our last day of vacation, as Linda shopped on the Monterey Wharf for souvenirs I drove over to meet the one person who’d returned my call; Chief Williams.  We hit it off right away but in such a desirable small town, it took over two years before an opening came through.  By that time, Linda’s accusations of my unfaithfulness had become a monthly event.”

“Were you?”  Mrs. McKenny’s tone dared him to confess, his guilt apparently decided. 

“No, Mrs. McKenny, I wasn’t.  Contrary to what Linda believed, I was faithful till the day she left me.”

“Collin claimed to be faithful too,” Mrs. McKenny shot back.  “Even when I found hotel receipts for days when he was supposedly at work.”

“Mrs. McKenny, can we get something clear?” he asked, fed up.  “I am
not
Collin McKenny.  In addition, let me go on record by saying I’ve never hurt a woman, or slept around ever during my eight year marriage.”

“So why did she think you were?” she asked accusingly.

“In a word, Mrs. McKenny,
paperwork
.” He paused and looked at her.  “May I continue?” 

With a dismissive wave, she relinquished the floor and Oliver picked up where he’d left off.

“I’ve had lots of time to think since the trial began," he said.  "Time to look back and see that perhaps both Linda and I let our guards down. Maybe it happens to everyone once in their life.  If things go your way, you pick up the pieces and go on.  If they don’t, well, just hope to God you don’t end up like us. 

“As I said, it all started with paperwork.  Though our shifts were defined, the paperwork afterward always varied, depending on the day and crimes involved.  This always made getting home at a set time a gambler’s nightmare and in eight years of marriage, I’d lost an awful lot of those bets.  Once I made detective, a year after moving to the peninsula, it only got worse and, it became even more complicated.  In an area like L.A. where they don’t want to pay a lot of overtime, it wasn't too bad.  But in P.G. I had to finish my paperwork without exception.  More and more we hit heads about my sporadic work schedule and I think over time, it just became easier to believe I was out screwing some unnamed woman, just like all the men in her family.  Infidelity she could rage against, paperwork she couldn’t.

“After a quiet shift one day, I managed to get off early and went for a jog along Carmel beach.  That took an hour and I stayed to watch the sun set, pushing my usual arrival time at home by another hour.  Complicating matters further, Linda had gotten off work early as well and she called the station.  Told that I’d just left, she began a special dinner to surprise me.  By the time I came home, her growing fears and my late arrival had convinced her she’d been right all along.

I arrived home to find Linda wearing her best outfit, but was greeted by only silence and cold stares.  I took a shower, put on some sweats and walked down to figure out what I’d missed.  We were soon shouting, walking the length of our house, going from room to room spitting out all the mean, cruel things people say to each other in such a fight.  All the while getting louder and nastier, yet resolving nothing.  After an hour of this, I made the mistake of going to the kitchen for a drink of water...”