Blue Smoke

there was the changeover. Semester ending in May, a lot of the kids went home for the summer, or graduated. New ones coming in. We weren’t full up yet, that early in June. And Josh was pretty focused on you once you started dating. I honestly don’t remember him having any dramatic breakups, no serious issues with anybody. In the building or on campus. People liked Josh. He was easy to like.”
    “Yes, he was. Did you ever see him smoke?”
    “He must’ve. I remember drawing blank on that back then. A lot of us smoked socially—or toked recreationally. You had a few smoke nazis—and those I remember. He wasn’t one of them. He got along.”
    “And you didn’t hear or see anything off the night of the fire?”
    “Nothing. Is the case being reopened?”
    “No. No,” Reena repeated with a shake of her head. “It’s personal. Just something that keeps coming back around on me.”
    “I know.” In an absent gesture, Mandy pulled her sunglasses back in place. “Still does on me, too. It’s harder when you’re young like we were, and it’s one of us. You’re not supposed to die at twenty. At least that’s what you think when you’re twenty. Life’s forever. Plenty of time out there.”
    “DeWanna Johnson was twenty-three. There’s always less time than you think.”
    B ut she put it away, put the file away as she’d done before and concentrated on now.
    When DeWanna Johnson’s mother walked into the squad room, Reena rose. “I’ll take her,” she told O’Donnell, and stepped over.
    “Mrs. Johnson? I’m Detective Hale. We spoke on the phone.”

    “They said I should come up here. They said I couldn’t take DeWanna yet.”
    “Why don’t we go back here?” Reena laid a hand on the woman’s arm to lead her into the break room. There was a short counter crammed with a coffeemaker, an ancient microwave, foam cups.
    Reena gestured Mrs. Johnson to a chair at the table. “Why don’t you sit down. Can I get you some coffee, some tea?”
    “No, nothing. Nothing.” She sat. Her eyes were dark and tired.
    She couldn’t have been much past forty, Reena judged, and would soon bury her daughter.
    “I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Johnson.”
    “Lost her the minute he got out of prison. Should’ve kept him in there. Should’ve kept him locked away. Now he’s killed my girl, and left her baby an orphan.”
    “I’m sorry for what happened to De Wanna.” Reena sat across from her. “Jamal’s going to pay for it.”
    Grief and rage warred with fatigue in those dark eyes. “How do I tell that baby her daddy killed her mama? How do I do that?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Did she . . . the fire. Did she feel it?”
    “No.” Reena reached out, closed her hand over Mrs. Johnson’s. “She didn’t feel it. She didn’t suffer.”
    “I raised her on my own, and I did my best.” She drew a deep breath. “She was a good girl. Blind when it came to that murdering bastard, but she was a good girl. When can I take her home?”
    “I’ll find out for you.”
    “You have children, Detective Hale?”
    “No, ma’am, I don’t.”
    “Sometimes I think we have them just so they can break our hearts.”
    B ecause those words played over and over in her head, Reena stopped by Sirico’s on the way home. She found her mother at the big stove, her father at the work counter.

    She was surprised to see her uncle Larry and aunt Carmela sitting in a booth nibbling on stuffed mushrooms.
    “Sit, sit,” Larry insisted after she bent to kiss him. “Tell us all about your life.”
    “Right now that would take about two minutes, and I don’t even have that. I’m already going to be late.”
    “Hot date,” her aunt said with a wink.
    “As a matter of fact.”
    “What’s his name? What does he do? When are you going to get married and give your mama pretty grandbabies?”
    “His name is Bowen, he’s a carpenter. And between Fran, Bella and Xander, my mama has about all the pretty grandbabies she can handle.”
    “There’s never too many. Is this the one who lives next door? What’s his last name?”
    “It’s not Italian,” Reena said, and with a laugh kissed her aunt again. “Buon appetito.”
    She wound her way back, pulled herself a soft drink from the dispenser. Her father’s hands were in dough, so she rose on her toes and kissed his chin. “Hello, handsome.”
    “Who is this?” He glanced around to his wife. “Who is this strange girl giving out kisses? She looks a little