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I operate under the assumption that Jinny is unaware of Peyton’s presence—for about ten seconds after we’ve exited the club’s double glass doors. Then I am hauled ass around the left side of the building and swung violently into the shadows where something masquerading as an alley has been inserted. The brick wall of the building slams into my back and I grunt as the air is knocked out of me and she glances at me once, then sees I’m okay and plasters herself against the wall to my right, apparently operating under the assumption she might have to protect me bodily. When I try to ask why we’re hiding from Andrea Peyton who, although she might run her mouth off and make our lives miserable, is hardly going to come blasting out of the G Spot with a 12 gauge or something, she hisses me silent and there’s such vehemence and ferocity in the white face and pale green eyes, I obey. Jase would be so impressed. With Exstead. Maybe forty five seconds later I see why we’re hiding and from who and it isn’t Andrea Peyton. Besides the Porsche, Sylvie Chandler apparently has a limo. Black of course. With a driver. She’s had him or her cruise by the club; she’s in the rear and the window is half lowered and that incredible silver blonde hair is visible above the deep tinted glass. She’s looking, eyes searching and I assume it’s for Exstead since we’re hiding back here. What, does she recognize the sound of the freaking engine or do they just know one another so well? “So how many times will she cruise back by?” I ask when she’s relaxed enough beside me to clue me in that whatever danger she thinks we were in is past. She heaves a sigh and glances at me, shaking her head. “I don’t know. I pissed her off tonight.” “Hmm. I thought it was the other way around.” She snorts. “Yeah, well. Maybe it was mutual.” “And since we’re on the fascinating subject of infamous San Francisco Lesbians…” I drawl and when she tilts her head to the side waiting, “How often do you see Andrea Peyton here?” She shrugs. “Enough to assume she’s considering being one of the infamous San Francisco Lesbians,” she drawls back, grinning. “God, promise you won’t ever try to be a movie star,” I say and she laughs too and I am absurdly pleased when she reaches for and takes my hand, threading her fingers through it before lifting it to her mouth and placing a kiss there. The tenderness it’s done with leaves me breathless. That part too would leave Jase impressed. She tugs me closer and wraps her arms around me and I’m treated to a kiss on the top of my head, something I have not known in almost a year. If the kisses I’ve received so far have undone me sexually and found me reinventing myself from scratch, this one leaves me shocked at the emotional deprivation I have enforced upon myself. “You’re shaking,” she whispers. “Are you cold?” My teeth chatter when I try to answer so I settle for nodding. And it’s the truth because I am; from the inside out and every way there is for a human for to be chilled. I cannot let myself think about this too much or too long; I know my own feelings are faulty and however good the reasons are they’ve done as much damage as protecting. I should be scribbling this down for Legaspi. “Notes on Cooper’s re-entry to the Human Race 101; Part I: How fucking terrifying it is to feel again. Porn film at eleven.” It’s unfathomable to me how those mere hours earlier I had been terrified of mounting the Harley behind her. I slide up as close to her as I can marveling at the easy smooth way she takes it round turns and tightening my thighs in tandem; it’s like a jet ski only with pavement as the repercussion should there be a wipe out. I lay my face in the space between her shoulder blades and although I am fucking freezing my ass off I think I’m happy about it. And when we stop at the first red light intersection she leans back against me and brings my hands from her belt loops to the warm skin of her waist beneath her shirt. “Better?” she asks and I nod and wonder if my gulp was audible. By the third intersection I have realized I have no idea where we’re going and I don’t care because I trust her. It is as an amazing sensation to me as her kiss and her hands and her skin. I am snuggled in close to her as we ease to a stop at yet another intersection and I feel her tense head to toe; her thighs and shoulders and the smooth warm skin beneath my hands which I am exploring with the hesitant fervor of a religious convert. “Shit.” She breathes and I hear a smooth purring motor gliding up on our left and know who it is before I even open my eyes. Sylvie Chandler’s silver blonde hair is highlighted in the amber glow of the San Francisco streetlights and her smile is wide and very white. “Hey, baby,” she says, voice sugary and ecstatic. “Is that for both of us?” The skin under my palms leaps but she stares straight ahead and when I lift my head and look I can see the muscles in her jaw working as she grinds her teeth. I slide my eyes uneasily to the left to see I am being languidly perused by eyes so wide and glassy I’d bet my career she’s dropped X or maybe a wee hit of blotter acid. She smiles at me and takes a sip from a fluted glass of wine or champagne and cocks her head to one side and remarks, “Little tomboyish for your tastes, isn’t she love?” “Just go away,” Exstead grits out and I feel a hand lay itself over mine on her skin as I bristle and stiffen. “Ooooh,” Sylvie says, eyes round. “Are you sure she’ll let you be the boy tonight, Jinny?” I can feel my eyes going as wide as my skin goes hot and without thinking I begin to straighten and pull away from her but she grabs my hand and shakes her head no and over her shoulder says quietly. “Ignore her. She’s ripped.” Sylvie laughs. It’s long and throaty and she swings her legs up onto the seat inside and rests her arms on the open window and props her chin on them, grinning. “She hasn’t tried to tell you she’s single and available now, has she?” “Sylvie,” Exstead says, voice low and ominously calm, “Just go. Please.” “Awwww, Baby. You know how much I like blondes. Let’s share.” And then to me with a deeper smile and an appraising glide of the eyes, “Jinny’s a very kinky girl, you know.” Exstead’s head droops and she releases her breath in a long and heavy sigh, then guns the Harley forward so fast when the light turns I have to grab to stay on and we leave a smear of rubber behind us. I know without asking that Sylvie will lean back and laugh and languidly direct her driver to follow us and that sooner or later we’re going to end up at another stop sign or in traffic or at a red light. And it’ll start again. So many questions and all of them pivoting around the mysterious Sylvie Chandler. If I were not drunk and bewildered I would be thrilled at this opportunity; I would take it as a person used to role playing and I would maneuver my manipulative cop’s ass into that limousine and do pretty much whatever it took and I could legally get by with to get my answers. But I’m drunk. And confused. And there is no way I would leave Jinny Exstead’s side. “Fuck!” Jinny hisses when we turn onto a business related avenue and are immediately swallowed up in traffic and the sleek lines of the limo slide up beside us, this time to our right. “You should know it’s hopeless, baby,” she says, presumably to Exstead as she nimbly switches sides and perches with her head out the window and her eyes and silvery hair shining. “I know this city better than you and Robbie knows it better than me.” I try to see if Robbie is someone sharing the back of the limo with her but it’s impossible; it’s a smooth black gleaming length of metal and tinted glass and not even the driver is visible from this angle. “What is it you want Sylvie?” I’m stunned to realize I’ve spoken to her but yes, that was definitely my voice. She smiles deeply and blinks a few times, then extends a hand to examine five perfect nails before sighing, “I think that’s between Inspector Exstead and me, Sgt. Finn.” Oh fuck. I did not see that coming. Jinny pats my hand through her shirt, then squeezes it warningly and I stare at Sylvie’s white blonde head where it’s framed between the black roof and the dark window. She peals rich laughter, delighted with herself and grins at me, “Yes, I know your name too. Isn’t that interesting?” There’s a brief pause and then she looks up at me through her lashes, mischievously. “Have you fucked in my bed yet, Sergeant? Jinny really loves that bed. She loves fucking on satin too although she does tend to get overly enthusiastic and slide right off.” “Stop it!” Exstead spits out and I turn my face and put it nose down between her shoulders because I for some reason cannot handle the mere thought of Exstead and this… person fucking on the bed I’ve been sleeping in for nearly a week. I know they have but I don’t want to be forced to think about it. “Oh, no… Did I say something upsetting, honey?” The voice is saccharine and sickeningly sweet. “Doesn’t your little police friend know we’re lovers?” She must know I want to answer because Jinny’s shaking her head and has a hand over mine, holding it tight in some warning and as freaky as things have been I don’t dare ignore her even though I want to slide off the Harley and go yank some of that fucking hair out. We’ve inched forward only a foot or more and the traffic ahead of us is solid. It appears Sylvie will have at least twenty more minutes to just sit there and bait us at her leisure. Every muscle in Jinny is tensed and coiled and I know she’s eyeing the narrow opening between lanes and wondering if it’s worth the risk. “Jin-ny,” Sylvie coos and I recognize the cadence of the voice I heard over the phone earlier. “We’ve got business to discuss, baby. We really need to talk.” “We’ve had that talk, Sylvie.” Exstead says voice grim. “You know what my answer was. You may get my ass fired but you are not forcing me to resign." I blink and try to not stiffen and go on alert like a bird dog eyeballing ducks on a pond. The studied casualness Jinny has laced through her voice tells me I should pretend to know what’s being discussed because to let Sylvie realize I don’t is handing her yet another weapon to use against Jinny somehow. “Now don’t be like that about it, baby. You know it isn’t so much me who wants to see it happen. In so many ways I am just as helpless in this whole thing as you are.” “Uh huh,” Jinny drawls. “Helpless as a cobra.” Sylvie falls back trilling laughter and Jinny chooses that moment to gun the Harley forward through the narrow space between cars and I hang on and try to move with her as she swings and weaves it through with mere inches to spare on either side. When we’re through it she makes an insane left turn on a red light, whipping the bike through bumpers and grill guards and ignoring the shouting and honks of irate drivers. A hundred yards later she swings us up an on ramp and onto a freeway and chokes it back to the speed limit expertly. Amber lights flash past and she leans forward and I lean with her and bury my face into the black leather and just hold on. She takes the next off ramp and we pass through several residential neighborhoods before she takes another on ramp and merges us into heavy traffic once again. I am bone deep mind numbingly cold by this time and trying to keep my teeth chattering as inaudible as possible when I realize that she’s nursed the Harley down to a mere putter and is guiding it into a driveway. I raise my head as she lowers her feet to the ground and toes the kickstand down before killing the engine. It takes me a moment because the pepto bismol color is a ghastly shade of orange in the amber glow of the streetlights but those incredible cop instincts kick in shortly and I realize we’ve pulled up in front of the Legaspi and Weaver Gang’s Head Quarters. “Oh you’ve got to be kidding me,” I say and Jinny sighs and turns half around and shakes her head. “If we go to my place she’ll follow us. I’m not going to the penthouse, period, but if I consented to, she’d follow us there for sure. I’ve got a room here over the office that’s mine when I need it and it’s guaranteed Sylvie won’t show up here. So, yeah, this is it.” Great. Jinny leaves the bike in the driveway of the pink house, then takes my hand and pulls me towards the porch of the violet gray house next door. I am definitely dragging my feet. This is not a scene I have any idea how to play and Jinny finally clues into this and stops abruptly, dropping my hand, then stands there staring at me from beneath the tangled dark hair. “We can do this however you want,” she says finally. I don’t reply because I have no idea what I want, have no idea exactly what it is I am suddenly so terrified of. Legaspi and Weaver are lovers. It’s not like they’re going to faint or swoon or dial up Jan Crouch to weep with them via satellite from the Trinity Broadcasting Network. They might care if we’re waking them, Weaver might care that I’ve broken my 24 ounce promise by several beers, but they will presumably be fine with the idea of Jinny and I showing up together hand in hand. “Your call,” she tells me, hands inching into her pockets and fisting themselves protectively. “I can spin some kind of bullshit and you can stay here and I can go to my place and deal with Sylvie there.” God, the look on her face at the idea of that. It’s the Firing Squad again, but she’s going to stand there and take it and fuck me or anyone else who thinks she can’t. I don’t even know I’ve put my hands in my hair until I feel my fingers tugging the tender skin at my temples. She sighs and it breaks my heart, so heavy it is, so forlorn and tired. “I’ll just tell them you need a place to sleep tonight. They know I won’t go to the fucking penthouse unless I have to. Kim practically had to threaten me with bodily injury before I’d go over there with them to check on you the other day. I’ll tell them I want to leave you here because Sylvie’s shown up again. They’ll get it. They won’t ask questions.” Jesus fucking Christ. Why is there not a pamphlet for this kind of shit? The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce should pass one out at the city limits to every female over the age of sixteen. There ought to be hotlines and toll free help numbers and professionals standing by waiting on your call. Because I am terrified out of my mind and I don’t even know for certain what of. It’s ridiculous. An hour ago I was panting and rubbing with this person in public; an hour ago I could not wait to be alone with her because I want to know every inch of skin between her scalp and the soles of her feet and I want to learn it slowly and with dedication. And now I am frozen with terror on the sidewalk in front of a house because I know that the two people inside are beyond my capacity for bullshit and they are going to look at us and know exactly what we’ve been up to and what we are going to do (hopefully) the moment we’re next alone and they are not anonymous faceless strangers in a dimly lit lounge that I’ll never lay eyes on again. I throw my hand out before I can second guess myself. This is bullshit. She does not deserve it. It’s amazing to me that there’s no hesitation before she takes it. I definitely deserve that. At least we’re not waking them; the two windows on either side of the front door show light from within and the porch light overhead is switched on within twenty or thirty seconds of Exstead’s knock. She does this with the hand not threaded through and firmly gripping mine. Legaspi peers at us through a diamond shaped window in the door and then opens it after several deadbolts click and slide audibly. She’s dressed for bed; baggy plaid green and blue flannel draw string trousers, a cropped gray Bum Equipment tee shirt, feet shoved into enormous brown Scooby Doo house shoes. She’s pulled her hair up and it is fringing out behind her head in a messy fan tail. She peruses us silently with her head to one side and then calls out over her shoulder, “Kerry? Did you order take-out from the sushi place?” I can’t believe she’s just said that. Jinny’s hand jerks in mine and then she’s laughing and yanking the storm door open. Legaspi is ludicrously pleased with her joke and winks at Jinny as she steps aside for us to enter. Weaver enters the hallway at the opposite end of the house with a bemused and puzzled expression then grins broadly when she spots us. “We were about to pop some corn and watch ‘Young Frankenstein’,” she tells us coming up the hallway, still smiling. “Yet another hot date foiled by intruding mental patients.” Jinny says, grinning and then, ”We need to stay over if that’s okay.” Legaspi nods and shrugs, “You know that room is there any time you need it, Jin.” “Thanks,” Jinny responds and then glances at me. “I’m going to go roll the bike into the back yard so I’ll still have wheels come morning. You be all right here?” “Sure,” I squeak and feel suddenly abandoned when she drops my hand and slides back out the door and gallops off across the lawn. “Well,” Legaspi drawls out swaying from side to side slightly. “Looks like Jinny gets a toaster. I owe you twenty bucks, Kerry.” “Behave yourself,” Weaver says mildly and then when my expression veers over into horror that they have been laying odds on Exstead’s conquest of me she pats me soothingly on one shoulder. “Just ignore her. She gets a little miffed when she’s wrong about anything. Would you like a soda or a glass of lemonade?” She straightens slightly and tilts her head to one side and with a poker face expression and perfect Frau Blucher intonation adds, “Some… Ovaltine?” It catches me completely by surprise, Dr. CIA doing Frau Blucher and I explode into laughter which, even to my ears, sounds as if it is bordering on hysteria. They glance at one another and shortly thereafter I find myself in the rear of the house in a cozy den area settled into a deep cushioned sectional sofa across from an entertainment center and a large screen television. There is a big glass of Sprite within easy reach and two attentive female doctors who apparently think I am on the edge of something, doing their best to not appear to be hovering. Jinny enters the house from a door in the rear. I can hear her scraping or stomping her feet on a mat presumably somewhere off the den. “Bike’s put up,” she says when she enters and she glances at me cautiously as if unsure what her reception might be now in front of Legaspi and Weaver. “Sprite, Jinny?” Legaspi calls out from the kitchen area and Jinny hesitates and then decides to go with, “Sure. But we don’t want to interrupt your movie.” “It’s on DVD,” Weaver tells her, “Sit down.” Jinny sits in a chair which is at least three feet too far away from me. Half of me is relieved because I am just not up for public viewing right now and the other half is dismayed and frustrated because I feel rather exposed and defenseless so far from her. I feel as if I have been peeled and I am just raw emotion sitting there. This is a terrifying sensation. Weaver has settled comfortably back in an enormous over stuffed recliner similar to the one in Legaspi’s office and has both gray socked feet propped on the foot rest, the crutch tucked in between her legs and the chair’s arm. She’s dressed for bed also in baggy gray and lavender plaid pajama boxers and a short sleeved gray top with Piglet on the chest. I would never in a million years have linked Weaver with Piglet but somehow it suits her; the expression I’m being presented with at the moment is a calm mix of disquiet and concentration which is somehow rendered less potent than usual due to her hair being tousled and messy and disordered and sticking up all over her head. Legaspi emerges from the kitchen with another big glass of Sprite which she hands to Jinny and then curls herself smoothly into one corner of the sectional sofa saying, ”I’m guessing you didn’t bring tooth brushes or shampoo but you know where all that is.” I wonder vaguely how often Jinny has stayed here, which leads me to wonder how many times Sylvie has made it necessary for Jinny to find a place other than her own apartment to stay. “So what’s up?” Legaspi asks brightly and adds, ”More of the Sylvie drama?” Exstead nods wearily, “Yeah, the never ending drama of Sylvie.” The round blue eyes slide from Jinny to me in a silent question and Jinny heaves a deep sigh and shakes her head. “Not yet. I’m… I guess I’ll be explaining the whole thing tonight though.” Legaspi nods and I eye them both warily unsure if it’s a good thing they know what the scoop on Sylvie is all about while I, supposedly out here to investigate and figure this shit out, feel even less certain and informed than I had just hours ago. “Just tell me,” I say and am startled myself at how fatigued and drained my voice is. She sits there staring down at her feet and in the silence Weaver comments they should go pop the corn and give us a bit of privacy and Jinny lifts her face shaking her head. “No. We came here and barged in on you and you know the whole thing anyway.” She glances up at me and when her cheeks flush I know she’s thinking that they don’t quite know all of it as pertains to me and her. “Just tell me,” I repeat and this time my voice is frenzied and exasperated. “I get she’s blackmailing you somehow. She wants you to resign and you’re refusing so she’s threatening to go public with whatever she’s got on you. I’m guessing photographs and hopefully no video and no audio tapes. Am I close?” “You’re dead bang on,” she tells me, voice quiet. “Okay. That’s out of the way. Now the real question is why? Why would an exotic dancer seduce you and then try to blackmail you and why would she be going after your job instead of money?” Legaspi snorts derisively but it’s Weaver who speaks and I remember that Sylvie is now or has been in the past a patient of Legaspi’s and although I can see her pushing the envelope on any doctor patient relationship should she feel it necessary, I can’t see her volunteering information . “Sylvie Chandler doesn’t need money. What she’s getting out of it is a sense of power and control over Jinny, that fucking with someone else’s dream and destiny… that’s at least partially what motivates her.” “So how does she have all this money? Has she blackmailed people in the past or what?” Jinny’s shaking her head and Legaspi is eyeing me as if I am a mushroom recently emerged from a warm damp place. Only Weaver takes pity on me and does something productive by searching blindly with one hand in the magazine pocket on the side of her recliner. When she finds what she’s looking for she glances at it once and then tosses it to me, pages fluttering. It’s a ‘People’ magazine. The cover photos are of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston and Winona Ryder looking strung out on Oxycontin. I glance at it and then at all of them and shrug. “So? I don’t get it.” “Open it up to page twenty seven,” Weaver tells me quietly and obediently I flip through the glossy colorful articles and ads becoming more bewildered by the second—and there on page twenty seven, in glorious color, I find a full page photograph of Sylvie Chandler with an older, distinguished looking gentleman. She’s in formal wear; something a deep indigo blue and silver and strapless and her hair is up but falling down in that movie star style that takes some stylist three hours to accomplish. The huge eyes are thick with liner and mascara but done tastefully and the full rosebud mouth is glistening with gloss and shiner and the necklace adorning her slim white throat is crusted with deep blue sapphires and diamonds. The man whose arm she is holding possessively to her side is also in formal wear wearing a black tuxedo and his salt and pepper hair is clipped short. He is almost agonizingly groomed and neat. He has the deep crow’s feet wrinkles at his eyes which speak of an outdoorsy existence on ski slopes and sea waves and which only look good on men and the teeth, bared for the camera in a wide breezy grin, are perfectly straight and white and capped. The caption beneath the photo reads, “Congressman Max Chandler and daughter Sylvie at a recent opening of the San Francisco Ballet.” “Oh shit.” I breathe looking up at Jinny. “Yep.” She says and exhales hard falling back into the chair and stretching both feet out in front of her, staring at her boots. “This is that guy who was a fighter pilot in Viet Nam, right? There was some scandal a couple of years ago about his wife…” “That’s him. And yeah. They eventually ruled it a suicide but some money changed hands somewhere and I don’t think anybody but the voters really ever bought it.” I look back down at the magazine. It’s some clever PR piece probably concocted because it’s coming up on re-election time. There are five paragraphs of ecstatic drivel about what a boon for humanity Max Chandler is after enduring the humiliating and painful police investigation into the suicide death of his adored and much loved wife and how he has emerged triumphant and stronger than ever and more determined to make the world a better place, blah blah blah. Sylvie is mentioned as being his constant companion at dinners and openings and charity benefits and is listed as the head or president of several humanitarian San Francisco organizations. Republican Congressman’s daughter by day; exotic dancer by night. “So she’s got a lot of money and a lot of power,” I say and the three heads nod in agreement. “And you two met up how?” “Take a wild guess.” The smile is grim. “The suicide investigation,” I say flatly and she grins and makes a harsh noise of laughter and intones, “Ker-ching!” I nod and look back down at the photograph for a moment thinking how vulnerable Exstead personally would have been to anyone whose mother had even possibly committed suicide and how the emotional investment of an unsettling murder of a woman, a mother, would have affected the cop in her. And coupled with Sylvie’s extraordinary ethereal beauty… “So you started seeing one another and then for whatever reason she decided to break up…” I let my voice trail off and then look up at her waiting. I can’t read the expression but when she speaks her voice is controlled. “Sort of. I’d actually seen her out before the investigation at night clubs. Lesbian night clubs,” she adds. “I’d just seen her dancing, getting drinks, had never really spoken to her although I’d noticed her. And then when I showed up at her house to investigate the death she recognized me and freaked. It threw both of us for a loop because I’d honestly never realized who she was. I knew she looked familiar but that was it.” I wait, more or less patiently, for the rest of it. “And the next time we ran into one another—“ she stops suddenly, blushing and peers at me uncertainly. “That was bullshit. I went out of my way to be at the same place at the same time she was after that. I kidded myself it was because she was a suspect in a murder investigation but I really just wanted to fuck her.“ She says it levelly and doesn’t drop the steady gaze until I nod shakily. I know I have no right to it, but my stomach rolls queasily and my skin feel suddenly icy cold and clammy. I finally manage to give her whatever expression she needs to go on with though. “So we started seeing one another. I pretty much moved into the penthouse with her. She said we needed to keep it quiet because of the political repercussions to her father—this may be San Francisco but a Congressman has a wider circle of exposure than that and a lot of his constituents wouldn’t be so open minded. And then I wasn’t real eager to share it with Captain McCafferty either. I think she knows I’m gay but we don’t discuss it and I am definitely not ‘out’ at work.” I remember that under current of tension when McCafferty informed me Officer Peyton was a “she” and pair that with Peyton’s presence at the G-Spot tonight; oh, she knows all right. “So, what about her dancing at that place? Does she do that all the time? Doesn’t that have the potential to backfire on her with Daddy or is he cool with her slumming?” “Of course not. He just overlooks it so he won’t have to confront her with it. She uses an alias when she goes out and takes a taxi most of the time and if anyone comments on how much she looks like Max Chandler’s daughter she laughs her ass off. She doesn’t take people back to the penthouse unless they already know who she is. There’ve been a couple of times her name got dropped as being out at a gay bar in some local tabloid like the ‘Nob Hill Gazette’ but this is San Francisco. Everyone goes to gay bars. It’s chic. And he doesn’t care as long as she plays the game. And that’s exactly what it is to her, a game.” She waves a hand at the magazine which is open on my lap. “They don’t really even speak. They show up for the same events and his PR guy arranges for there to be press and they snap the photo and that’s it. And all those organizations she’s supposedly so involved with—she just writes them a check with a lot of zeros at the end and they’re happy to stick her name at the front.” “So what went wrong? Why is she doing this to you?” She bites her lips and looks at me silently for a moment and I glance warily at Legaspi and Weaver whose expressions are carefully neutral. Jinny pulls in a long shaky breath and leans forward with her hands crossed protectively over her belly as if in pain, then lifts them to her face where she rests them wearily over her eyes. “The whole thing was a lie, a set up.” Her voice is muffled and nearly inaudible and I can see her hands are trembling. “What?” She scrubs at her face and then drops her hands and looks at me. “It was a set up. All of it. Me and Sylvie and her saying she loved me, asking me to move in, asking me to risk being outed at the division-- the whole thing was a set up. She did it because Max Chandler was furious with me. She did it because he wanted her to humiliate me.” I look at Legaspi and Weaver both for clues but they gaze back at me impassively apparently thinking it’ll dawn on me any second and obviously not realizing how screwed and disordered my mental processes are right now. I’m sitting there really not getting it when suddenly it clicks and slides into place. “You didn’t buy the suicide story.” She nods. “Bingo. I was the lead investigator, first one on the scene and I didn’t buy it. The gun was in her hand but there was no gunpowder residue found on her skin other than the entry wound and it was in her right hand. “She pauses for a moment and then says succinctly, “Deborah Chandler was president of the SFSP; the San Francisco South Paws. It’s a women’s group along the lines of a sorority but whose members are required to be left handed.” Well, there’s a glaring error, for sure. Bet whoever fucked that up was cringing and suffering a bit of sphincter tension. “So you were pushing for a murder investigation.” “Yep. And word came down from high up to leave it alone. And I made some noise and went to Captain McCafferty who backed me—“she looks up to make sure I am hearing that and I nod. “But the M.E. ruled it a suicide, said the gunpowder residue kit I used at the scene had an expiration date which had run out a month earlier-which was true-and that I had botched the sample, which was not true. Max Chandler said his wife had always been ambidextrous actually and used her right hand for some tasks and it never even made it to Grand Jury. My evidence was proclaimed compromised and it got tossed out. I embarrassed my division and Captain McCafferty just had to eat it.” I grasp that Sylvie maneuvered Jinny into some reckless acts of sexual abandon with revenge being the motivator… but how does this tie in with the evidence room and the missing controlled substances and Detective Massey’s vehement insistence on Jinny’s being the culprit? When I’ve asked it Jinny pauses before answering and takes a sip of the Sprite, then sits apparently absorbed in the slide of condensation droplets down the sides of the glass. “Detective Massey’s wife just happens to be Max Chandler’s sister,” she says finally, not looking at me. “And, as if that were not enough, Detective Robert Massey earns some extra cash as Sylvie’s limo driver.” Oh shit. What was it she’d said earlier? Something about ‘Robbie’ knowing the streets better than her or Exstead. Great. Just lovely. “No wonder she knew my name,” I say finally and Jinny nods. “So she’s telling you to resign or she’ll go public with the photos and her dad is probably threatening to cut the purse strings if she doesn’t,” I state and she nods again and I sigh and close the magazine, laying it beside me on the sofa. “And Massey is being the kind and benevolent uncle and setting you up for the fall.” I get another disillusioned and weary nod. “Okay. But this is San Francisco, Jinny. Lesbians are everywhere and they can’t fire you for your sexual orientation. You have civil rights like everyone else. Why let her put you on the rack for this? Why not just go straight to McCafferty and tell her what’s really going on? Why not pull the blackmail rug out from under Chandler’s feet and go public with it yourself?” She sighs and groans and picks at one of the knees of her jeans before finally managing to get her eyes up level with mine. There’s a terrible amount of shame and humiliation in them when she does. “There were drugs. “ She lifts a hand to silence me, so I must have started slightly, but I stay silent. “I didn’t do them. I didn’t take them or buy them or provide them. But I was there when she did them and I didn’t stop her or seize them or bust her. “ I wait guessing already what she’ll say next. “And there are photographs with the drugs in them. Compromising photographs.” Shit. “Why were you so stupid?” I demand and she groans again and shrugs and slinks deeper into the chair, avoiding eye contact. “I don’t know,” she says quietly. “I was drunk most of the time and I’d been fucking up a lot on the job and got my ass chewed by McCafferty and I was strung out over Sylvie… I knew everyone was watching me, laying bets I’d go down in flames and I just didn’t care. “ She stresses the last three words emphatically and looks up to see if I understand and I do, of course. I understand completely. “I have three brothers. All cops. You know that right? That was in the file?” The green eyes are as flat as her voice is laced with emotion and I nod. “And one of my brothers, Casey, is gay. I’ve seen what he’s gone through; not just as a cop, but from his own family, from people he thought were his friends, from complete strangers who have made it their personal mission in life to hate and torment and ridicule gays and lesbians. I’m a chicken shit, Cooper. I didn’t want to go through that. I didn’t want my private life laid out for other people’s toilet reading.” “Well then it seems like you’d be extra cautious about letting her take pictures,’ I put in and she nods and glances at Legaspi who stays serenely silent, not opting to take the verbal cue. “You’d think so,” Jinny says finally,” but I was in a self-destructive spiral and I was subconsciously making all the choices guaranteed to bring about my own failure. It was a very sick relationship and she just… She made me crazy. She’d fucking OD every other week end and I’d come home to find her unconscious and have to drag her to the ER and give a fake name to get her stomach pumped. I’d come off a job after being awake for thirty or forty hours straight and find some one I didn’t know asleep in our bed and she kept telling me I was boring to her, you know, sexually boring to her and that was why she had to look elsewhere for excitement. So when she wanted to take photographs I didn’t stop her. I was so incredibly fucking stupid.” “No shit,” I say and earn a fierce scowl from Legaspi. Jinny takes it head on though and doesn’t flinch. Her mouth is a straight tight line and she just nods and picks at the hole forming in the knee of her jeans. “So there are photographs floating around somewhere of you with Sylvie and whatever drugs laying around or being done.” “That about covers it.” “And she’s got Massey on her side because he’s family and he likes the money and the perks and he concocted the missing evidence scheme to help her force you to resign and they’re using the pictures as leverage.” “Ker-ching,” she whispers miserably. “And if it was just sex then I would suck it up and face the heat and keep my job but with the drugs in there… And the evidence missing…” Her voice trails off hopelessly. Green eyes cut despondently up to meet mine. “And you’re not going to leave unless they fire you.” She nods. “I can’t. I didn’t do anything wrong,” she says, stressing each word forcefully, her voice hoarse. “I was stupid, yeah. I was careless and reckless and negligent about enforcing the oaths I took, but I didn’t take the drugs for her and I didn’t sell them to her or anyone else. I just fell in love.” I think this statement startles us both. It’s spoken with such ardor and desperate emotion. She silently blinks her way through whatever she is feeling and I nod and let my mind race and babble trying to deal with all this new information. Of course. She fell in love. Sylvie was hurting and a survivor of the same sort of trauma Jinny had endured and beautiful and frail which would appeal to Jin’s desire to rescue and mend what’s broken, sweep up the shards of a shattered person. There’s even an evil man or two to battle in the process. The two of them are aligned in the struggle of daughters without mothers with over bearing dominant fathers and then there’s the added sexual heat factored in. Exstead was working off hormones, not brain cells. Perfect. “So now you know,” Jinny says to me, her voice exhausted. “Yeah. But what do I do with it?” I ask and am only slightly surprised I’ve spoken it aloud. She shrugs and the sigh which escapes her is ragged and drained. “It doesn’t matter what you do with it. Sylvie’s going to take those photographs to the press or to SFPD and it’ll be a done deal then.” “But Massey framed you, Jin. He stole evidence from the room to set you up for some sort of monetary gain on his part.” “What fucking difference does that make? It’s his word against yours and mine and there’s no evidence to support it, in fact, there’s plenty of evidence to make the case against me and let’s face it—we’re both fuck ups on paper, Coop.” It’s the second time she’s used my name. I feel preposterously thrilled at the sound of it, at the gentle way her mouth forms that sequence of alphabet. Fuck ups. Something is niggling at the back of my brain about this but I can’t quite grasp it yet. Something’s lining up in there about me and this case and Exstead and it’s important which means I’ll grasp it around three hours too late. I think my sigh is almost as ludicrously crushed and weary as hers. “She give you some kind of a deadline tonight?” Jinny shakes her head and shoves a hand through the straight dark hair, falling back against the chair. “Nope. She never does. It’s just this constant bullshit… She’s going to mail them to McCafferty, she’s going to take them in to the Chronicle, she’s going to give them to Massey, she’s going to put them up on the internet, she’s going to email them to Governor Davis… and in between I hear shit about how she misses me and loves me and needs me and if I just say the word we can run off to Mexico or Canada and she’ll leave her dad’s money behind and all she wants is to be with me. I’m just… fucked. And goddamn I hate being sober. What a shitty time to get clean.” By the end of it her voice is hoarse with unshed tears and she looks at me trying to blink them back. Legaspi slides to her feet and exits briefly returning with a box of tissues which she hands to Jinny and then squeezes her shoulder gently. I get some kind of look from Legaspi then which I can’t interpret, some sort of warning or cautionary glare. I blink and frown at her, puzzled. Does she think I’d deliberately hurt Exstead who has just laid her soul out for me? Can she actually think I don’t know what this cost her, what sort of pain and turmoil she’s enduring and slogging through? All I want to do right now is hold her and the only thing stopping me is fear which pisses my ass off. If this were any female friend of mine I would be there with my arms around her, letting her cry it out on my shoulder. I’ve done more for women whose husband’s I just cuffed and put in the back seat of a patrol unit for spousal abuse. Yet here I sit, H. Cooper Finn, reeling beneath an onslaught of unexpected homophobia, the biggest chicken shit in the world. I do what I do anytime I am afraid. I suck it up and go in. She looks every bit as startled as I feel when I sink down in front of her and put my arms around her shoulders and pull her head to me. Her shoulders shake hard, once, twice and then she gives it up and is sobbing in earnest, hiding her face in the side of my neck. I can hear Weaver getting up from the recliner and catch a glimpse of her herding Legaspi out of the room towards the kitchen area with a hand in the small of her back. At the kitchen doorway Weaver pauses, looks back at me and makes a gesture I interpret to mean, “We’ll be right here if you need us.” “I’m sorry,” Exstead gulps trying to pull back and mopping uselessly at her face. “Oh hush,” I say mildly and hand her a big wad of tissues. “No. I mean, for this crying shit, yeah… But I meant for you getting drug into my mess. I shouldn’t have let them bring anyone out here to assist Internal when I knew what was going on. I should have just toughed it out and gone to McCafferty and let them take my job.” “I don’t agree.” She laughs a very bitter, jagged rush of air. “Well, I bet you will when you have to try to explain this to your Department.” I shrug. “I’m going to proceed with it, take it forward. It helps now that I actually know what’s going on. I don’t think you should toss in the towel just yet.” She sniffs and scrubs at her face and looks up at me with what I see is a Jinny Exstead version of hopefulness. I hope the expression on my face is a convincing Cooper Finn version of confidence and assurance. She definitely doesn’t need to see my brain cells churning and leaping in useless spins and circles. Knuckles
and Dr. CIA are re-entering after what I am assuming have been several careful
peeks around the door frame.
END OF FOURTEEN
{~> Crossroads Next Story, Please <~}
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