Dark Rivers of the Heart

any tighter, he would have had to hurt her.
        She, the girls, his brother, and his sister-in-law were all that he had now.
        He was not merely without possessions but without his once strong belief in the system of law and Justice that had inspired and sustained him during his entire adult life. From that moment on, he would trust in nothing except himself and the few people who were closest to him.
        Security, if it existed at all, could not be bought, but was a gift to be given only by family and friends.
        Bonnie had taken Ondine and Willa to the mall to buy some new clothes for them.
        "I should've gone along, but I just couldn't," Jessica said, wiping at the tears in the corners of her eyes. She seemed fragile in a way she had never been before. "I'm still… I'm shaking from all this.
        Harris, when they came on Saturday with… with the seizure notice, when they made us move out, we were only allowed to take one suitcase each, clothes and personal stuff, no jewelry, no… no anything."
        "It's an outrageous abuse of legal process," Darius said angrily and with palpable frustration.
        "And they stood over us, watching what we packed," Jessica told Harris.
        "Those men… just standing there, while the girls opened dresser drawers to get their under-wear, bras…" That memory brought a snarl of outrage to her voice and, for the time being, chased off the emotional fragility that dismayed Harris and that was so unlike her. "It was disgusting! They were so arrogant, such bastards about it. I was just waiting for one of the sonsofbitches to touch me, to try to hurry me along with a little hand on the arm, anything like that, because I'd have kicked him in the balls so hard he'd have been wearing dresses and high heels the rest of his life."
        He was surprised to hear himself laugh.
        Darius laughed too.
        Jessica said, "Well, I would have."
        "I know," Harris. "I know you would."
        "I don't see what's so funny."
        "I don't either, honey, but it is."
        "Maybe you've got to have balls to see the humor," Darius said.
        That made Harris laugh again.
        Shaking her head in amazement at the inexplicable behavior of men in general and these two in particular, Jessica went to the kitchen, where she was preparing the ingredients for a pair of her justly renowned walnut-apple pies. They followed her.
        Harris watched her peel an apple. Her hands were trembling.
        He said, "Shouldn't the girls be in school? They can wait till the weekend to buy clothes."
        Jessica and Darius exchanged a look, and Darius said, "We all felt it was better they stay out of school for a week. Until the press coverage isn't so… fresh." 'That was something Harris hadn't really thought about: his name and photograph in the newspapers, headlines about a drug-dealing cop, the television anchorpersons conducting their happy talk around lurid accounts of his alleged secret life of crime. Ondine and Willa would have to endure heaw humiliation whenever they returned to school, whether it was tomorrow or next week or a month from now. can your dad sell me an ounce of pure white? How much does your old man charge to fix a speeding ticket? Does your daddy just deal in drugs, or can he get a hooker for me?
        Dear God. This wound was separate from all others.
        Whoever his mysterious enemies were, whoever had done this to him, they must have been aware that they were destroying not only him but his family as well. Though Harris knew nothing else about them, he knew they were utterly without pity and as merciless as snakes.
        From the wall phone in the kitchen, he made a call that he had been dreading-to Carl Falkenberg, his boss at Parker Center. He was prepared to use accumulated personal days and vacation, in order not to return to work for three weeks, in the hope that the conspiracy against him would miraculously collapse during that time. But, as he had feared, they were suspending him from duty indefinitely, although with pay. Carl was supportive but uncharacteristically reserved, as if he were responding to every question by reading from a carefully worded selection of answers.
        Even if the charges against Harris were eventually dropped or if a trial resulted in a verdict of innocence, there would be a parallel investigation by the LAPD Internal Affairs Division, and if its findings