Page 111 of Family Affair

Chapter 25

Bless her mother’s heart for all her cooperation and support, no matter what. This particular “no matter what” topped everything either one of them had ever experienced in their lives.

Huddled together by the window, Coco and Lucy watched in silence how police officers conducted a thorough search of their little home. Two cops wearing rubber gloves methodically examined every corner, niche, and crevice of the old house. They opened each drawer and checked under, over and behind all the furniture and appliances Lucy possessed. Even Chap’s leopard-print orthopedic pad was given a careful shake-out.

Coco observed this violation of privacy with detached interest. Who knew they had so many places to hide stuff?

“We’ll move to the backyard now.” Detective Smirnoff came over where the two of them were standing. Chap followed at his heels and whined, requesting attention. Bless his heart, the pupper probably thought they were having a party.

Coco looked out of the window.

The police cruisers, practically stacked atop one another in their tiny driveway, didn’t exactly say “party,” and neither did a uniformed officer loitering out front.

They’d never live it down with the neighbors.

“Is there anything you’d like to warn us about?” The cops were about to go out to the backyard.

“No. What do you mean?” Lucy stammered. “There’s nothing out there.”

“We’ll be sure to check it out, ma’am,” a cheeky young cop affirmed and gazed at the lush potted garden. “We’ll have to check all your plants out.”

Lucy looked stricken. “My plants? Yes, of course. Do whatever you have to.”

What idiot would hide a piece of paper in the dirt?Coco thought absently but didn’t comment.

She hated Atlanta’s finest at this moment. She hated herself for bringing this on her mother. But most of all, she hated the Sheffields, the whole bunch of them, dead or alive, for throwing her quiet life off track.

Yesterday, in the first frantic moments after Cade had dropped the bomb, she had panicked and almost gave up the Pollock. But the first impulse had quickly passed. Until she knew why she ended up with it, until she sorted out Ross’s allegations about Cade and Stevie Stark, she was going to hang on to it. In this intricate weave of multiple charades, she now had her own string to pull.

“The tip was anonymous,” Cade had told her and Lucy. “I don’t know if the police decide to act on it, but my gut says they will. You’re an artist, and in their eyes, you fit into the storyline along with the Pollock drawing and my dearly departed artsy brother Frank.”

I am in Frank’s storyline,she had thought then.

Coco had had to agree with Cade, Smirnoff or Willis would act on the anonymous tip and come looking for the Pollock drawinghere.

Bingo. She could give herself a pat on the back. She had seen the future.

The younger officer in the backyard drew her attention. He didn’t just lift the fragile plants from their pots, he ripped them out. He did it with gusto, like a naughty boy taking apart his sister’s doll. Whether his zeal could be attributed to his general dislike of fauna or a desire to finish the job quickly, she didn’t know.

As Coco looked on, he stumbled and stepped on an uprooted tomato plant. The ripe fruit squished under the heel of his boot, the red juice squirted, and the officer, with a loud “Fuck!” started his own version of breakdancing. His feet executed a series of complicated if haphazard steps, trampling fragile clay pots at the ground level. His arms flailed, grabbing everything within reach in a futile attempt to regain his equilibrium. He strained, and reached, and made every effort to stay upright, in the end only prolonging the inevitable.

When he finally fell, he left no plant standing. The dwarf peach tree, the hanging strawberry baskets, the delicate and fragrant sweet peas - all lay in shambles, flattened by the officer’s ample ass. The disturbed wind chimes lamented the destruction in soulful notes of a church organ gone out of whack.

“Are you all right?” Smirnoff and another officer rushed to help their fallen comrade.

Something snapped in Coco’s head and a tight vine squeezed her throat. Little black dots appeared all over her line of vision. Her hands fisted on their own accord.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she bellowedandtook a step forward, determined to go out in the backyard and finish the klutzy officer off by appending a clay pot on his head. With dirt in it. “Do you know how much hard work my mother put into this garden? Do you?”

The officer, still in a sitting position, scooted back. “I’m sorry, ma’am, I fell! It was an accident!”

“An accident?” Coco took another threatening step forward. “I’ll show you an accident, you… you… dickhead!”

Behind her Lucy gasped. “Honey, the poor officer tripped on the tomato cage.”

Coco whirled around. “Yes, he tripped on the tomato cage that he himself threw on the ground when he ripped your tomatoes out of their pots!” Coco was so angry she was suffocating. “Look at what they did to your garden! Look at this and this and this!” She pointed to the broken pots and mounds of fresh soil spilled everywhere. “They ruined it. For what?” Tears threatened to spill, and she swallowed hard.

Detective Smirnoff pulled the unfortunate officer to his feet.