Long Bright River

On Christmas day, Mickey leaves Gee’s house with Thomas. She thinks, “This cold and unwelcoming house. This house that is no place for children.” (369). She takes the stash of cards from her father with her. One of the cards has a local return address, and she decides to track down the man she believed was dead after asking Mrs. Mahon to babysit Thomas.

Mickey goes to her father’s last known address, where she meets her 13-year-old stepsister. Her father explains that he’s no longer an addict and that he hired a detective to track down his daughters. He came looking for Mickey, but she was never home. After he found Kacey, he convinced her to come stay with him during her pregnancy. She was adamant that she wanted to keep the baby and is now on methadone to kick her habit. When Mickey gets back home, she learns that Detectives Nguyen and DiPaolo have been trying to reach her. There has been a new homicide, and the victim is Paula. The detectives send a patrol car to watch Mickey’s home just in case she’s been targeted next.

A few days later, Mickey attends Paula’s funeral, where she sees Kacey. The two finally talk. Kacey reveals that there is a rumor in Kensington that Truman is behind the killings, and everyone thinks that Mickey is covering for him. Mickey decides to stake out Truman’s house and follow him for a day. When he enters Wright’s shop and emerges with a suspicious-looking suitcase, Mickey tails him to an abandoned building and confronts him there. As it turns out, Truman has been helping junkies by providing food, clothing, and medicine. When Mickey asserts that the baseball bat attack on him wasn’t random, he admits that a junkie beat him for intervening in an abuse case while he wasn’t on duty.

Now that Truman is in the clear, Mickey calls Kacey to hear the specifics of the rumor about a killer cop. Everyone says it is Mickey’s partner. Since Truman has been on disability for months, Mickey now knows the rumors must be referring to her most recent partner—Lafferty. Kacey comes by Mickey’s apartment to talk more about the case. She discusses her past with Dock. They both tried to get clean after Kacey got pregnant, but Dock relapsed. He beat her up when she threatened to leave him. Shortly after this, her father spirited her away.

Tracey admits that she visited Cousin Ashley for a family get-together a month before Mickey saw them all at Thanksgiving. Kacey swore them to secrecy, which was why nobody would admit to Mickey that they knew Kacey’s whereabouts. After Mickey let it slip that Dock had beaten Kacey, Cousin Bobby went after him, which explains how he himself got beat up.

Kacey sees Gee at the party and says she is pregnant. Her grandmother doesn’t take the news well. Kacey says, “She told me she was done taking care of other people’s babies. And that you were too. She told me you had enough trouble on your hands without taking in another little bastard of mine” (436). Gee says that Mickey wasn’t born addicted like Kacey was. Wanting to prove this, Kacey breaks into Gee’s house and goes through her filing cabinet. Medical records bear out her statement. While searching through the files, Kacey finds all the cards, letters, and money from their father. She leaves them in the secret floorboard hiding place for Mickey to find.

Kacey says Gee’s confession made a big impression on her. She is determined that her second child will not be born addicted and has stayed on methadone during her entire pregnancy. Mickey thinks about the contrasting start in life that she and her sister had and contemplates the battle Thomas might someday face. She says, “Then I look at Thomas, and I am reminded, as always, of the ever-present threat of departure, of permanent loss” (441).

Mickey and Kacey continue their online investigation of Lafferty. Kacey immediately identifies an online photo of him and says he is a friend of Dock’s. She believes she can get more information about Lafferty since Dock will talk to her rather than a cop. Mickey forbids her sister to take such a risk. Kacey seems to agree and stays the night but is gone in the morning.

Just as Mickey is about to go in search of her missing sister, she gets a text from Dock’s phone to go to a nearby closed cathedral. Upstairs in the choir loft, Mickey finds Kacey, Dock, and Lafferty. Mickey pulls her gun, but Lafferty charges at her, knocking her to the ground. Dock picks up the gun and gives it to Mickey, who then subdues Lafferty. At that moment, Nguyen and DiPaolo arrive and take everyone in for questioning.

After Mickey tells her story, DiPaolo gives her the scoop: Lafferty is the serial killer. His first victim was his ex-wife. The reason that Simon goes to Kensington is to buy drugs for himself. He has been lying about being clean all these years. Lafferty has been taking a cut of Dock’s drug money. He is the dirty cop that the local residents fear to accuse.

Once everyone is released, Kacey explains that she arranged for Dock to confront Lafferty in the cathedral. She also called the detectives. Mickey is angry at the risk Kacey took. Hurt by her sister’s reaction, Kacey runs down the street. Mickey follows: “I have the feeling, now, that if I say or do the wrong thing, I’ll lose her: the Avenue will take her back, away from me. Kacey will sink into the ground and disappear” (463). Mickey tries to soften her approach. She tells her sister that she’s sorry for everything that happened in the past.

This chapter consists of the same list of names that began Chapter One. The reader now knows that these are all local residents of Kensington who died of drug overdoses. This time, the girls’ father’s name is not on the list. Mickey draws an analogy between drugs and the Pied Piper of Hamelin, who lured away an entire town’s children. She says of the names on the list, “All of them children, all of them gone” (467).

In the aftermath of the murders, Mickey quits her job with the police. She also anonymously blows the whistle to an investigative reporter about corruption in the department, but she feels conflicted: “I worry I’ve sold out the people who’ve protected me all these years, who’ve always had my back—sometimes literally” (473-74). Mickey also recognizes that the ongoing corruption problem in the police department affects the entire community, especially its most vulnerable citizens.

Mickey’s family life stabilizes. She finds work and a dependable babysitter. Mrs. Mahon, Mickey, and Kacey often get together to share a meal and watch movies together. When Kacey’s baby is born, everyone is concerned about whether she will show signs of addiction. Thankfully, she doesn’t. Mickey reflects back to her fond early memories of her own mother. “When I was younger, I used to think it was this single memory that saved me from Kacey’s fate, that made me the way I am and Kacey the way she is” (477). Mickey recalls a time when she felt loved. Now, Kacey will have the chance to transmit that feeling to her own daughter. She has a chance to get it right.