Tommy
2001, Fort Lauderdale
“I think you are being ridiculous, but you know what? If it’s so important to you, if it’s what I need to do to prove I’m over him, then I’ll do it. But let me make it clear, Tommy. I’m not doing this for me. I know my heart. I’m doing it for you.”
Ginny had done as promised and put her hair in a high ponytail, wrapping the blue bandana around it, and wore it that way throughout Jason’s basketball game.
Tommy noticed Carter’s discreet trip to the ladies’ room.
It was done. No going back now.
To a casual observer, Tommy and Ginny appeared to be the epitome of happiness. Only Tommy sensed the undercurrent of her attitude. She was upset with him, and he couldn’t blame her.
Ginny had said very little to him since the game that afternoon. He’d trudged up the stairs that night alone and after waiting up for her until after midnight, finally decided to turn the light off and try to get some sleep. She’d told him she was going to watch TV in the den and would be up shortly. She was either still upset or had fallen asleep.
He was awakened by his cell phone buzzing on his nightstand. He looked at the clock. 6:45 a.m. He picked up his phone, and not recognizing the number, answered it. It could’ve been one of the kids from the shelter where he volunteered.
“Yeah?” he mumbled.
He looked to his left and realized Ginny had never come to bed.
“It’s Blue. I need to talk to you. I’ve heard something on the street. Don’t know how much truth there is to it, but I want you to know what I heard.”
“What is this about?” Tommy was fully awake now.
“It’s something I heard about your daughter. About Mimi.”
“Tell me.” Tommy sat straight up. “What is it? Is she in danger?”
“No. She’s not in danger. At least not anymore. It’s been a few months, but I need to know if you want anything done about it. I don’t want to go into it on the phone, and I’m trying to stay away from this type of shit, but I think this is important. Can you meet me?”
“Yeah. I’ll meet you. I was going into the office today for a few hours, but I’ll meet you first.”
Tommy was already out of bed and heading for the shower.
“Do me a favor. Don’t bring Ginny. I don’t think this is something she’ll want to know.”
Then it’s a damn good thing she wasn’t lying next to me. Tommy hung up. How would he have explained an early morning call from Blue? Blue should’ve known better.
Less than twenty minutes later, Tommy headed downstairs. He found Ginny asleep in the den. The TV was still on.
“Gin. Gin, wake up.” He gently shook her.
She groaned and opened her eyes.
“Uh, I guess I fell asleep. I meant to come up. I—”
“I can see that. You’re still in your clothes,” he told her.
“You look like you’re ready to go somewhere.” Her brows knitted together. It was Saturday, wasn’t it?
“I forgot to tell you I need to meet with Phil and Brody. I need to go over some plans they’re working on for a new client who’s coming in on Monday. Do you want to meet me for lunch somewhere? Bring the kids with you? Jason doesn’t have any games today. Maybe we can take them to a movie matinee afterward. That is, if you think you can find something everybody wants to see.”
He was surprisingly calm and his emotions were steady.
“Yeah,” she said in a groggy voice, sitting up. “Yeah, that sounds good. Even if we can’t agree on a movie, they have to eat.”
She rubbed at her eyes and stifled a yawn. “I smell coffee.”
He kissed her forehead. “I just turned the pot on for you. It’s still brewing. I’ll grab some on my way to work. Call me about noon. We’ll make a plan.”
At 7:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning, the streets of South Florida were already alive and busy. His meeting with Blue wouldn’t take him too far off his regular route to work. He pulled into a convenience store that also had gas pumps.
He left the nozzle running as he headed inside to grab a coffee to-go. He’d said good morning to the clerk behind the counter and headed toward the rear where he saw a coffee station. The clerk glanced up from the newspaper he was reading and grunted. Tommy was the only one inside the store and had just made his coffee when he realized there was something sticky on the handle of the carafe he used to pour the cream. Dammit. He left his cup on the coffee station and headed for the restroom to use the sink.
The moment he exited the men’s room, he felt the tension in the air. The atmosphere had changed. He felt uneasy. Quietly, he made his way through the aisles. He could see his car at the gas pumps. He didn’t see any other cars in front of the store.
“Keep your hands above the counter! Just give me the money. Put it in here.”
A robbery. Tommy could hear the criminal’s hand hit the counter hard as he slammed down what must’ve been a bag.
“If you try and reach for anything below the counter, I’ll put a bullet in your head. Got that?”
Tommy ducked low as he surveyed the store. He reached for his cell phone and remembered he’d left it in the console of his car. Fuck. He raised his head slightly to see above the shelves. The thug was now waving the gun around. The nervous clerk was doing as he was told, but Tommy could tell he was shaking. Should he intervene? Should he stay put?
He glanced out the front window then. Another car had pulled up, and an elderly man was leaning against his car as his tank was being filled. He more than likely paid with a credit card and wouldn’t be walking into the store. Good.
“You purposely dropped it, motherfucker!”
“No. No, I didn’t drop it on purpose.” The clerk’s voice was desperate. “You’re scaring me waving that thing around. It could go off.”
“Yeah, well, it’s going to go off now.”
In two swift movements, the thief shot the clerk in the face and jumped over the counter to retrieve the bag of dropped money.
Time seemed to stand still. As if in slow motion, Tommy saw the man climb back over the counter. He had a plastic grocery bag, and Tommy could see through the thin sack that there was money in it. Tommy hadn’t realized it, but he’d been slowly inching closer down the aisle toward the cash register. He could make one quick lunge from behind and knock the thief to the ground. Or he could let him leave and not take any risk.
Tommy and the man spotted her at the same time. A young woman approaching the door. The criminal started to raise his gun. He was going to shoot her when she came inside.
Tommy didn’t have to make a decision. It had been made for him.
He started to leap at the man from behind, but something must have caught the guy’s attention because he turned just in time to avoid Tommy’s grasp. The gun went off, and Tommy felt a quick stab of pain in his stomach.
They were wrestling for the gun now. A split second seemed to play out over the course of an eternity.
Even in the midst of the trauma, a Scripture verse came to Tommy’s mind.
“With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”
What an odd Scripture to remember at a moment like this, but it was exactly what he was feeling. In this case, a few seconds seemed to slow down and stretch out. As they wrestled for the gun, time ground to a halt. His mind was cluttered with thoughts trying to grapple for his attention, yet they all came to him in a proper and succinct order.
How odd that he hadn’t heard from Blue in ages and yet, on the morning they were supposed to meet, Tommy had come upon a robbery. Was this a setup? Was he the actual target?
He could answer it as quickly as he thought it. No. He had randomly selected this store. If he’d stayed in the restroom longer, the perpetrator might’ve been gone before he came out. The criminal hadn’t been looking for Tommy, had just been heading for the exit.
He looked into the face of the man and stared into dull blue eyes that hadn’t seen sleep in days. Eyes that were looking for their next fix. There was fear mixed with anger and hopelessness in those eyes. He was probably not even twenty. Had he killed before? Did he have a family? Did his parents know what their son was doing?
Even with all of these things racing through his mind, Tommy managed to glance at the door. He saw the girl come in. He saw the recognition and fear of what was happening on her face, watched as she turned around and ran, arms flailing frantically has she headed toward another motorist who’d just pulled up.
He looked back into the eyes of the man who’d gambled his entire life away with one bad decision.
Tommy felt the gun loosen from the man’s grip, but not before it went off a second time. As he fell to the ground, another bullet lodged in his chest.
The gun now tightly in his own grip, Tommy’s last conscious thoughts were of her.
“Ginny. Ginny. Please forgive me,” he whispered.
And then his world went black.
**********
Ginny stared at her reflection in the bathroom vanity.
After Tommy had woken her up, she’d made her way to the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee. She took her cup back into the den, sat down.
Sipping her coffee, she’d quietly reflected on the last two weeks. The visit with Sister Mary Katherine and Sister Agnes. The detour on her way home that brought her to the place where she thought she might find some of Grizz’s relatives. Could the elderly nun’s memories and Ginny’s suspicions be confirmed?
She’d been surprised by what she’d found there. A tight-knit community of people who had roots going back before the Civil War. She was quickly directed to the local historian, and he was more than happy to spend the morning with her sharing local legends, myths, and memories. He was also able to share some facts. He knew exactly who Ginny was asking about. As a matter of fact, he had a surprise for Ginny.
Ginny was shaken out of her thoughts when Spooky jumped up on her lap, almost causing her to spill her coffee.
“You little stinker. Where did you come from?” Ginny asked the cat as she laid her mug on the end table and started to stroke her soft fur. She smiled to herself as she thought about how Jason had insisted on being allowed to name her. They all threw suggestions at him, but he was insistent on Spooky.
“It just fits her,” Jason had told them. “She’s like a mystery gift since you don’t know who the present was from. And she’s black. It’s all kind of... spooky.”
Well, Tommy and Ginny had known who the gift was from. Tommy had assured her then that it was Grizz’s way of saying from the grave that he was happy for them. And she now knew, after talking to Tommy on the beach last weekend, that it was somebody else’s way of letting them know their home was no longer under surveillance. She and Tommy knew that “somebody” was Carter’s husband, Bill.
She shook her head at the thought of everything she’d learned. Tommy had told her he was tired. She could understand why. She was tired, too. But she was still also more than a little miffed about his insistence that she see Grizz again. How would she feel when she saw him? She almost hadn’t recognized the Grizz she’d seen at the execution. She wondered if he’d shaved his head or if he was naturally going bald. And that beard! She never remembered him wearing one that long.
“Oh, Spooky!” she cried. The kitty had tired of her company, and in her haste to jump off Ginny’s lap, had kicked the cup as Ginny was picking it back up off the end table.
Ginny now stared at herself in the bathroom mirror, dabbing spilled coffee off her shirt. No harm done. There hadn’t been much left in her cup to clean up, anyway.
She’d passed Jason coming down the stairs as she was going up, told him Tommy wanted to meet later for lunch and a movie, and he should plan on talking to his sister after she woke up.
“You look like crap, Gin,” she said to herself. A long hot shower will feel good.
She lifted both hands to remove the bandana and take out her ponytail when she was interrupted by a loud banging on the bathroom door.
Jason.
“Mom. Mom! You need to come downstairs, now! Some cops are here, and they want to talk to you.”