Bass and the baby
"Hey... Uncle Bass?"
I was long past reacting to the nickname. Ruby had been calling me Bass for most of my life. The "uncle" part was new, but even that didn't faze me as much, this long after the fact. "What's up, Yuki?"
"Did you choose my name?"
No. I didn't choose anything about the circumstances behind your birth - let alone was it my choice to take you in. "I didn't," I said, after waiting perhaps a bit too long for the little ten-year-old.
"Nobody understands where I came from, or why you're the one who takes me to school. I don't know what to tell them." Yuki Kitamura was well-spoken for her age. I'd like to think I had something to do with that. "I know I'm adopted, but I don't know why."
"Yeah... yeah, I guess there's not any sense in pretending we're related at all."
"So, where did I come from?"
"I think it's a little early for the birds-and-bees speech."
"What? No, I don't mean --"
"I'm kidding. Nah, sit down, I'll explain what it was like, why I took you in. I'm probably going to leave some of the details out. They're not pleasant."
The sun clung for dear life on the edge of the horizon as I hopped off my bus at the Tamlin Street shelter. Something was in the air, it felt like, and I wasn't sure what, until I realized it was getting too dark to see where I was walking. It only took a couple of near-stumbles on errant walnuts to understand why. The street lamps hadn't turned on. The sky at twilight backlit everything else, casting all the nearby buildings and hills in a theatrical shadow, like the backdrop to a somber urban soliloquy. Most windows were blackened, plunged into the darkness with the rest of the city. The few that weren't, flickered a dim orange as if lit by candles.
I was only a few houses away from the address I'd been given, but the wind was picking up a bit. Rain wasn't far off, I figured. It was cloudy enough that I couldn't see the stars, even without all the light pollution, and the chill in the air got to me through my flight jacket. The power outage made it hard to see the path up to the house, but I found what was probably the door and gave it a few taps. "Hello? Is this the Kitamura house?" I raised my voice to a register I wasn't comfortable with; I could hardly read the brass numbering hammered into the pillar. 1717. It was possible I had the wrong house, given I could barely read the street sign, but I was pretty sure I was on Wood Brook Parkway. I pounded on the door and shouted a bit louder, nearly at the limit of what my voice could accomplish. "Kitamura! Anybody home?"
Somewhere inside the house, I heard a voice. Not a voice that spoke words…a voice that cried. A young voice. A very young voice. A nerve in my neck started to twinge. There was a baby in there, and they were crying. And if my mother had taught me anything, it was that babies wouldn't often cry without a reason.
I pounded the door a couple more times. The pain flashed through my hand and into my forearm as I kept it up. "Hello? What the hell's going on in there?" There was still no response, save for the baby crying louder. This couldn't wait any more. My hand froze against the doorknob. Whether this thing was locked or not, going in there meant subjecting myself to baby noises. But something much worse could have happened in there. Nobody just leaves their baby to cry. I finally willed my hand to twist the knob - it wasn't locked. The inside of the house was, if anything, even darker than the night. I dug in my jacket pockets and took out the novelty candy bar flashlight that I'd been given at the symposium.
A couple of corners, through a front room probably used for entertainment, and into the den I went. The noise I heard was only getting louder. I wasn't entirely sure what room I was even in, or if anybody else was home besides the bawling and fussing baby.
At once, the lights flickered to life - only a few inches away from my feet was the unmistakable red color of blood, in a pool about six feet across. On top of the pool was a woman. Face down. Long black hair. Long skirt, long sleeve blouse. Looked like she would have been the reserved, prim and proper type, if she were still with us.
I wasn't sure why I thought I knew what I was doing, but I reached down to her neck to feel for a pulse. I couldn't find any, having tried for over a minute. It was hard to concentrate enough on it with the baby racket next to me, but when I felt a wet, cold sensation, I pulled my hand back, and it had been stained red. I was no doctor, but her throat had definitely been cut.
I froze up in the moment. The baby, and the pounding of my own heart, were all I heard. My eyes couldn't focus. I just stared at the blood on my hand forever.
When my vision came back into focus, the first thing I saw was the Kitamura residence's telephone sitting on a table near the crib. I needed to call somebody that I trusted. I needed the source of the problem taken away.
And somehow, the first thing my hands did with the phone was reflexively dial in the digits to Ruby's desk at the paper.
"Crime desk. You have any idea how goddamn late it is?" I didn't even say who I was. "And--Jesus Christ, is that a baby? Who is this?"
"Ruby, it's Bass, I'm in a load of shit here."
"You're what?" Not a great time for the baby to get louder. "Speak up, I gotta hold the phone, like, six inches away right now." I worried for a moment that I wouldn't be able to hear Ruby over the implacable child, but I guess with Ruby, I didn't need to worry that much.
"The SHIT has HIT the FAN," I stressed every other word as clearly as I could. "Kitamura's house. His wife is dead. That's her baby. It's a crime scene."
"Call the damn cops, not me."
"I need this scene, I can't call the cops." I paused a moment to wait for the baby to catch its breath. "Look, I need someone to watch a baby while I figure out what happened here."
"I know someone just died, but FUCK NO. Call the cops. Call CPS. Or better yet, maybe take some responsibility and try to figure out what the little brat wants." There was a pause as I failed to think of a response to her. "For fuck's sake, do SOMETHING, Bass! Get that kid to shut up!"
"Are you kidding me? I can't take care of this thing!" I shouted into the receiver. The screeching baby next to me only screeched harder. "I need somebody to handle it while I figure out what the hell to do!"
"I can't fucking do it either! You think I'm mommy material? You should get the cops down there or something, I don't know!"
"If I call the cops, I lose this entire crime scene, and all the evidence! I cannot get them involved right now!"
"What do you care about more, right now? Solving this case, or getting this baby to safety?"
This was not the time for moral quandaries. I could barely concentrate on talking as it was; the baby was kicking and screaming in the crib next to me, and the poor mother was still sitting there, very dead, in the most horrific way possible.
"ANSWER ME, shit pile!"
"I FUCKING CAN'T!" My voice broke as I screamed for all I was worth. The baby wouldn't shut up. Ruby wouldn't shut up. My own brain wouldn't shut up. Nothing was going to give me an inch of quiet with which to concentrate. I needed to do something, right the fuck now. My hands took control on their own, first, by slamming the receiver down on its cradle, knocking over the pencil cup on the end table next to it. My eyes were starting to flood over. My hands were still stinging from the act of telephone violence, but they picked the thing back off the hook and brought it back to my ear. My other hand shook as it operated the dial - nine, one, one.
They answered before I even heard it ringing on their end. "9-1-1 Emergency."
"I-I-I… please send an ambulance," I croaked.
"I can send paramedics your way right now, sir. Help is on the way." I had no idea who she was, but her voice was simultaneously urgent and reassuring. A far cry from Ruby's. She probably heard the screaming baby in the background, too. "I'll get a social-worker down there too. Can you tell me where you're at?"
I didn't remember the address right then. My other hand instinctively reached for my notebook and awkwardly thumbed through it until I was at roughly the page I needed. "Seventeen-seventeen… Wood Brook Parkway." The notebook slipped out of my hand. The hand stayed where it was anyway.
"OK. I'm dispatching the ambulance right now, sir. Stay where you are, alright? It'll be over soon."
I dropped the phone and sat down on the floor, holding my head in my hands. As soon as they got here, the paramedics would see what happened to Mrs. Kitamura. They'd get the police involved. The police would find out what I was doing to figure this thing out. They'd… what would they do, anyway? Wasn't somebody in there supposed to be paying me for this? What would they end up doing with the kid, considering Mr. Kitamura was already in hospital for having tried to stab himself, and his wife was now bleeding out on the floor? And this baby will just not shut the hell up no matter what…
