McCafferty’s house is a quaint Tudor style dark red brick covered charmingly in a teeming lace of English ivy on two sides.  There’s an arched lattice covered in it over the door and front porch making a deep, leafy tunnel inside which I can barely make out a pale wooden door with lead crystal insets.  Nice. 

There’s an MG parked in the driveway to the far left of the well manicured yard and the deep green garage doors are open so we can see it looks as if it’s been unloaded there recently.  I can make out what looks like a badly folded tent and sandy canvas bags out of which emerge the metal feet of folding camp chairs.  I try to imagine why in the world anyone would take an MG on what was obviously a camping trip and rack it up to the oddity of Californians. 

I look at Jinny and squeeze the hand still laced with mine. 

“You ready?”

She utters a sort of low, growling laugh, a terrible combination of mirth and despair and grins at me, shaking her head and echoing my earlier words to her. 

“Yes.  Fuck no.  Maybe.  I have no clue.  Take your pick.” 

I hold her gaze steadily and lift her hand and kiss the palm. 

“We’re going to get through this.”

I am granted the amazing sight of Jinny Exstead literally melting.  She goes soft and surprised and vulnerable and gazes at me in consternation at the sudden influx of emotions.

There’s a precarious second or two and then she blinks hard and swipes away the tears she’s squeezed out from her eyes and nods at me, not speaking. 

I drop her hand and grab my duffel bag, exiting the vehicle, then wait as she slowly eases herself out and looks at me over the top, face very white. 

“I am absolutely not going to throw up,” she tells me firmly. 

“You go, girl,” I say reassuringly in my best ‘sistah’ imitation and she snorts surprised laughter before giving me a wide, yet sickly grin in response. 

We see McCafferty stepping out of the house and down some steps at the rear of the garage as we slam the doors on the Mustang.  She pauses briefly when she sees us, then comes forward again, steps brisk and no nonsense.  She’s dressed in a pair of obviously ancient, much loved faded jeans and an enormous button front cotton shirt, open over a heather gray tee.  Her hair is scooped up in a disordered ponytail and she seems amazingly small to me without her heels.  In the scuffed pair of sneakers and the casual camping outfit she looks alarmingly like a fifteen-year-old. 

Until we’ve come far enough up the drive to catch sight of the look she’s got leveled on Jinny.   It’s the kind Jase would have referred to as an 8.5 on the Sphincter Scale.  My stomach churns in sympathy and I glance sideways at Jinny’s ghastly pale face. 

She cuts her eyes to me and gives a rueful grimace and I slow my steps so she’ll reach McCafferty first and have at least a moment of privacy for the initial greeting. 

“Captain,” Jinny says, her voice fairly level, considering.  There’s silence from McCafferty as she looks up at Jinny appraisingly, eyes very cool and distant.  I cringe for Jinny when she chooses to not address her at all but merely slides her gaze past Jinny's stiff form to me. 

“Sgt. Finn.” 

Ouch.

 No greeting for her immediate subordinate; greeting with rank attached for me.  And done quite deliberately, too.  Who teaches them this shit?  Is there a class they all attend?  “How to be dismissive and intimidating in ten words or less.”

“Captain,” I say, stepping forward and holding out my hand.  She grips it firmly and then gestures the two of us into the garage saying we can enter through there. 

I eye the rather large pile of luggage and obviously dirty laundry which has been laid down in the utility room we cross through first and wonder again how in the world it will fit in the sports car.  From there we move through the kitchen and then into a living area with McCafferty moving ahead and flipping switches and apologizing for the rather large collie that bounds out and happily gooses me in the crotch. 

“He likes you,” McCafferty comments dryly before shooing him out a rear door into the yard. 

It’s what I would expect inside.  Neat, orderly, distinctly lacking in clutter and done in mostly earth tones with the emphasis placed on off-white and pale gold although I bet the interior designer had referred to them as “egg-shell”, “oatmeal” and “sand”.   She waves at us to be seated and I sink down in an over stuffed armchair while Jinny tensely perches on the edge of an equally fluffed couch.  McCafferty takes the second arm chair and leans back in it, crossing her legs, looking as composed and regal as if she were behind her desk.   One tiny foot swings lazily as she waits Jinny out with her chin in one hand and the gaze fastened on her employee is steely and discerning.  

I try to sit back and lend Jinny strength through composure but it’s a wasted gesture.  I am dismayed to see she’s got the disgruntled thing going on; she’s slouched back with her feet out in front of her and is staring at the toes of her boots as if they are revealing secrets of dire importance to her.  Except the secrets would have to be about things which are intensely pissing her off because both brows are drawn down in a ferocious scowl and her mouth is twisted in a very cruel (although sexy) pout. 

The angrier and more sullenly subdued-yet-belligerent Jinny’s body language becomes, the cooler and more composed McCafferty grows and in less than two minutes of watching this silent tableau (mostly silent; there is the occasional muffled grunt and growl from Jinny) I suddenly experience a major epiphany.  I almost wish Legaspi was handy to ask about it, so excited am I at this revelation. 

Because I realize that what I am seeing is classic parent-child interaction.  Jinny is furious that she has fucked up and disappointed her Captain, let down this person whose approval and affection is of utmost importance to her.  She’s lost one mother already and she’s subconsciously stuck McCafferty in that slot and McCafferty has unknowingly obliged.  There’s not a great enough age difference between them for it be physically possible but the juxtaposition of their career ranking has underscored McCafferty’s natural maternal inclination to lead, guide and steer and Jinny at the moment is behaving like a sixteen year old caught sneaking in past curfew, drunk.  McCafferty is obligingly acting out the role of the parent who is long-suffering, patient, but really, really sick of this shit. 

I look between the two in growing amazement and want to chortle out loud in glee at my discovery.  It’s all I can do to not leap up and make a T with my hands and yell “Time Out!” and then tell them what they’re doing. 

Every time Jinny heaves a put upon sigh, McCafferty’s foot dips lower and arcs higher and slower.  Each time McCafferty’s brow lifts slightly or the slender finger taps gently against her temple, Jinny’s face blackens more ferociously and her spine slides further down and her feet further out.  When Jinny dares to lace her fingers together and pop all twenty or so knuckles simultaneously McCafferty is so annoyed she actually clears her throat and switches legs and hands. 

 Too fucking funny.

After five minutes of this, which feels like five decades, McCafferty finally sighs and leans forward, hands together, small white fingers making steeples pointed directly at Jinny.

“If you don’t tell me your side of it Jinny, I am going to have to assume that those photographs were taken with your knowledge, with your permission and with no extenuating circumstances.  And I believe you know what that means.” 

God, she’s awesome.  Her voice is controlled and not angry, her body language is poised and direct and she never once drops that cool, appraising gaze.  Sarge, being a Marine, would have been screaming himself hoarse the second I stepped out of the car.  Total opposites but I’m not sure I’d lay money on Sarge were they to go toe to toe on anything.  She’s little but she’s scary.  I bet she was fun when she was still on the street. 

I look expectantly at Jinny thinking, okay, this is it, do it, talk to her…  And Jinny’s face goes fretful and surly and without a single word she yanks the chain holding her badge over her head and thrusts it out in a furious gesture.  At least twenty dark hairs come with it but she doesn’t even flinch. 

Oh shit. 

Before McCafferty can say anything or move to take it or even respond I decide my time on the sidelines has now ended.  I take myself off the bench and yank the badge and chain out of Jinny’s hand, pass between them and then stand there, looking at both of them.

“Okay.  That’s it.  Time Out.”  I do the hand signal with Jinny’s chain swinging. 

 She, of course, is furious and glares up at me.  McCafferty’s expression is a mixture of bemusement and curiosity.  She settles back to watch me.  Jinny is showing signs of getting up which might not be good.  I’ve already had one SFPD take me down today.  And not in a fun way. 

I hold my hand out in a “hang on” gesture, glance at McCafferty asking to be excused for a moment and talk directly to Exstead. 

“What are you doing?  If you wanted to quit or get fired you could have done that without coming here.  Coming here means ‘I want to fix things, Captain’.  So sit up, stop growling at me and start talking about what actually happened because this is the only chance you get to fix it.” 

She’s glaring up at me, green eyes hostile and rather dangerous looking and I am all ready to pull out that ace (“I’ve got shit wayyyy out on the line for you”) when I see she’s just realized this herself.  She almost has a marquee marching and flashing across her forehead:  “COMMITTED BLATANT CYBER CRIME… ASSOCIATED WITH KNOWN TERRORIST… JUST TO SAVE MY SORRY, UNGRATEFUL ASS”. 

She clears her throat and frowns up at me for twenty or thirty seconds then without moving, slides her eyes to McCafferty and speaks for the first time since we’ve entered the house. 

“There were extenuating circumstances.” 

There.  She looks up at me like, “Happy now?!” and I nod. 

I am just about to state that I don’t really need to be in on this part of the discussion, mainly because I know Jinny will loathe me hearing it and partly too because I know it will be excruciating for me to listen to, when there’s the unmistakable squeal of breaks very near the house accompanied by the distinct thump…thump-thump of a stereo with too much bass. 

 “Somebody’s woofers are on steroids,” I observe and McCafferty heaves a put upon maternal sigh. 

“That will be my daughter Amanda returning, probably not with the dog food and milk and actual groceries I sent her after, but no doubt with a new CD and cool sun glasses and some type of alcoholic beverage.” 

There’s excited barking from the collie out back which we can actually hear once the vehicle is turned off and then a slamming vehicle door followed by a female voice screaming, “Mom!  Come get the door for me!  Whose Mustang’s out front?”

McCafferty is shoving herself up when I wave a hand at her to stop. 

“Nah, let me go.  You two need to talk and I don’t need to be in here for this part anyway.”

I pause and hopefully rivet Exstead with a look which she translates as, “Sit up and talk” before retracing my steps back through the dining room, butler’s pantry and kitchen to the utility room’s garage door entrance. 

“What took you so“the girl on the other side of the door asks in a huffy daughter to mother voice as I begin swinging it open.  She stops in mid sentence, frowning in perplexed confusion and looking askance at her surroundings as if wondering if she’s wandered into the wrong homestead. 

I suppress my laughter.  I’ve done that more than a few times for real. 

“She’s talking to someone in the living room,” I say and lean over and grab a few of the bags before she drops them.  “I’ll help you.”

“Thanks,” she says and grabs up the bag of Pedigree by one tattered corner.  “That your Mustang?”

“Rental, but yeah.” 

I trail her back into the kitchen and lay the bags on the counter top near the sink noting she has managed to come back with at least part of the food stuffs requested along with the predicted CD. 

I reach in one of the sacks and pull out a pair of purple heart-shaped sun glasses, grinning as I hold them out to her. 

“Aren’t they cool?” she asks happily, placing them on her nose, tag and all and preening for me model style, hand on hip and head cocked. 

“Absolutely,” I manage to say with a solemn face and then begin withdrawing more edible supplies from the brown paper sacks and laying them on the counter for her to put away.

 In three minutes I have been filled in on a stirring memorandum about her mother, who is now on some health kick and demanding they buy brown eggs; brown, she repeats looking to see if I grasp exactly how disgustingly gross this is and wheat germ and soy beans and she’s been talking about possibly going vegetarian although that’s cool, because her friend Arjuna is a vegetarian and Amanda agrees with a lot of their philosophy, but imagine having a mother who decided to go vegetarian before you did…  And then she suddenly realizes she has no idea who I am and stops, gazing at me. 

Her hair is lighter, finer and straighter, her eyes not the warm chocolate brown I know so well, the features rounded and more gentle, but I can see the resemblance to both McCafferty and Jase. 

I’m just about to stick my hand out and explain who I am when something flits disconcertingly fast and familiar across her face and she blinks at me, wide-eyed. 

“You’re Jase’s girlfriend!” she announces, as if I might not have known otherwise.  “I knew I recognized you.  Mom said you were here, working on something.  You come over for dinner?”

Now there’s a terrifying thought.  Endure an hour or two of Jinny’s toe-curling humiliation while attempting to maintain the calm ambivalence of an investigating officer who hasn’t had sex and become emotionally involved with the cop she’s investigating; settle down for an excruciating traipse down the Jase memory lane, coupled with the intense (although understandable) curiosity of his family about the mysterious girlfriend/partner who has somehow avoided meeting any of them for eight years. 

Maybe I can just go have my pubic area tweezed. 

I shake my head and watch her face fall in disappointment.  “I don’t think so.  I’m working on something with Inspector Exstead and I think when your mom gets through talking to“

I’ve apparently uttered the magic words because the light in the eyes goes on again and I stop, amused. 

“Jinny’s here?”  Amanda is apparently a sworn member of the Jinny is Awesome Fan Club.  “Where is she?  Why can’t you both stay for dinner?” 

“Um, well… we’re working on this thing“

I stand round-eyed and stunned into silence as I’m treated to a rather ear-splitting and abnormally fast speech which vaguely sounds familiar to me and almost English in places and in which I recognize my name and Jase’s and the word “Texas” a few times but it’s all spilled out in such a ferociously happy bird-chirp of a voice that I am honestly quite lost. 

Which must be apparent because at the end of it she leans over, giggling and covering her mouth and obviously amused, says something which sounds like, “Oh my God!  That’s so cute!  You can’t understand me, can you?”

“Uh, no,” I manage to say with a straight face. 

“You sound like Jase,” she interrupts, grinning and adds, “I mean, you know, the accent.  The Texas thing.” 

“Thang,” I correct her and she giggles and then leans into the fridge and emerges with a Dos Equis. 

“Want one?” she asks me and I swear, it isn’t that I have to play cop all the time…  but no way am I buying she’s 21. 

I put my disbelieving cop face on, snap my fingers and do the “gimme/c’mon now/hurry up” finger flutter; the official universal cop gesture for, “Let me see some ID.” 

She giggles, draining at least half of the beer in one gulp and then turns to grin at McCafferty who has emerged and joined us. 

“Mom, get this; she’s carding me.”

McCafferty smiles and pats me on the shoulder.  “Rest easy Cooper, she’s legal.  Barely.  As in mere days.”

McCafferty rolls her eyes and smiles at me while Amanda struggles to not spurt beer out her nose momentarily.

“Cooper!” she exclaims when the danger’s past.  “That’s it!  I was thinking it was like, something that started with an “H” and was like, weird.”

I nod and feel like, very old. 

McCafferty’s dubiously eyeing Amanda’s beer with a slight frown.  I can see some internal mother debate going on in her head which she apparently decides to not voice before sliding her gaze to meet mine. 

She answers my unasked question without prompting, crossing her arms and leaning back against the counter’s edge. 

“Well, we’re talking…  I’m not thrilled with everything I’m hearing but relieved it’s not quite as bad as it looked at first.”

She pauses and looks pointedly at Amanda.

“Have you started your laundry to take back with you?” McCafferty inquires and Amanda does a combination eye roll/foot stomp/head twinge that’s quite impressive for it’s varied display of teenage angst.

“I want to talk to Jinny,” Amanda says to which McCafferty replies, “Later” in a very discernible “I’ve had just about enough” mom voice which apparently works miracles because Amanda spins towards the utility room with only a brief rolling of eyes. 

McCafferty reaches out and snags the beer bottle as she passes and sets it on the cabinet top, looking at me and shaking her head.

“They turn 21 and think it’s their legal duty to imitate Courtney Love.”

I smile politely.  I don’t think it’s worth mentioning that I was imitating Courtney Love in junior high. 

She looks exhausted suddenly and sighs, leaning her head to tug the clasp out of her hair and shake it free, then rubs her temples, grimacing. 

She gestures at the sack nearest me on the counter top.

“Could you see if she remembered to get some Excedrin?”

No point in asking if she’s got a headache; she’s practically a walking advertisement for a migraine. 

I dig the green and white box out, open it and the bottle for her, then shake two out in her palm.  She points at a cabinet to the right of the sink and I obligingly fill and hand the glass of water to her. 

I can’t hear anything out of the other room and Jinny hasn’t emerged.  I try to not appear as antsy and on edge as I feel and certainly don’t want to annoy McCafferty and her migraine, but I’d really like to know how things are going in there. 

Caring about someone who seems to be constantly up to their neck in self-dispensed shit is exhausting.  I have new respect for Jase now and what a chore it must have been to stick with me for eight years. 

My face is obviously asking the question anyway because she contemplates me, smiling tiredly and says, “Don’t worry; she’s okay.  I thought I’d give her a few minutes to get under control again while I head this migraine off.   And I wanted to talk to you privately about a message on the machine when I got home.  A message from Detective Massey.”

I wonder if my face just went as white as I think it did.  My head buzzes for a moment while I contemplate how injurious swooning would be to my bad ass reputation.  Maybe I can fall backwards as I faint and whack my head on the counter and end up in a coma for several years.  Cooper Finn, eternal optimist. 

I think I recover nicely when I ask in an only slightly shaky voice, “From Massey?” 

McCafferty puckers one brow at me in thought and then says, “Yes.  Made late on Monday evening and he sounded rather intoxicated.  He wanted to let me know my “pet” had missed two assigned shifts and the rumor was she’d OD’d so I might want to check the morgues when I got back.” 

Nice.  I wonder if I’ve got room to add the words “STUPID” and “GODDAMN” to the security code for the penthouse. 

He must have been extremely confident to have made that call, I think.  Sylvie must have told him exactly how bad off Jinny was when she left her.  He’d indulged in a little celebrating and, being stupid and egotistical, had found it impossible to resist gloating over their success. 

“You’ve kept that tape, right?” I ask her and she studies me for a moment before replying.

“It’s a digital machine, but yes.  I’ve got it.”  She swirls the water in the glass for a moment and then lays it against her forehead and closes her eyes before sighing.  When she speaks next her voice is strained. 

“I take it there’s some truth to it since you didn’t appear stunned or surprised and didn’t leap to tell me how ridiculous the accusation was.”

Fuck.  I glance uneasily at the swinging door that separates the kitchen from the small butler’s pantry and clear my throat. 

“I think you should ask Jinny about that.”

This pops the brown eyes open and I’m the lucky recipient of a 6.2 on the Sphincter, which is no less intense for being viewed partly through a glass of water.

“I will ask Jinny about it but I’m asking you first, Sgt. Finn.” 

Amazing that they all know how to use that title and rank in a voice which relays they’re really calling you “shit head”. 
 
I groan and pop the top off the Excedrin again and shake three out in my hand.  I toss them back with water right out of the faucet, then straighten, wiping my mouth on my hand and lean back again crossing my arms. 

“Yeah.  It happened.” 

She purses her lips tightly, still rolling the glass back and forth over her brow.  “And I suppose it’s safe to assume she did it because she knew all of this was about to come out?” 

“Yeah, well, it’s a little more complicated than that, but yes.  Sylvie’s been threatening this for months now.  And then she showed up and told her the photos were on their way to you and left her with two bottles of JD and thirty or forty Oxycontin.” 

 She lifts her brows but stays silent, rocking the glass back and forth against her forehead. 

“And let me guess,” she says, half-smiling.  “Magdalena Ramirez came riding to the rescue.”

“Yep.”  I wait a few moments, and then try to make my voice casual when I ask it. 

“What are you thinking about what you’ve heard so far?”

She smiles crookedly and snorts, shaking her head.    

“It’s bad.  It’s not as bad as those photos made it appear, but it certainly does not look good.  And I have to be honest… I’m not real sure it’s going to make a lot of difference when it comes to the end result.  You and I may agree there were extenuating circumstances but all a review board is going to see is an officer allowing herself to be placed in a compromising situation, not only sexually but professionally as well due to a lack of discipline and control and ‘personal problems’.”  Her voice puts the quotations in quite clearly.  “And you know how Departments react to officers with ’personal problems’. “

I frown slightly and wonder if she means I know personally how Departments react to personal problems.  She is, after all, Jase’s aunt.  I’m mentally picking through the raveled threads of Cooper Finn’s Frayed Career and musing on what Jase might have shared when she shrugs and begins speaking again. 

 “If it was just a matter of her being stupid and allowing the photographs to be taken~~I could probably see her through it.  We’ve got several excellent lesbian attorneys on the payroll to represent SFPD officers when accused of anything and the civil libertarians would have a field day if they dared play that card in San Francisco, although her life would be pretty crappy until it all blew over…  But the negligence in reference to the drugs, that’s what’s going to hurt her.” 

I nod.  “That’s a given.  But hurt her how bad?”

She turns to set the glass on the counter and sighs hard, one hand gripping her cheekbones and rubbing.  “I don’t know.  She’s not actually consuming or participating in any of the photos, but she’s certainly not doing her job either.”   She snorts very unamused laughter and shakes her head.  “I could just… slap her right now.  Of all the stupid, moronic, idiotic things she could have done, I seriously think getting naked with Congressman Chandler’s daughter and watching her put coke up her nose is further up the Jinx meter than I could ever have imagined.  Just so incredibly stupid.  And then to let that little twat take pictures, trophy shots…” 

I drum on the counter top with my fingers in thought until an irritated and pointed look at my hand stops me. 

“Is there any doubt in your mind that Jinny consumed any of those drugs?  Or that she took them or bought them or obtained them for Sylvie?”

I’m relieved when she doesn’t hesitate before shaking her head. 

“No.  But I don’t see that making much difference.  Massey pulls a lot of weight, mainly because he isn’t stingy when it comes to buying drinks and dinners and schmoozing it up with anyone in the Department that’ll stroke his ego and is willing to put up with his bullshit.  He’s co-signed on some loans with junior officers even, donates bikes every year to the San Francisco Juvenile Cancer Center…” she frowns and makes a noise of disgust. 

“Unless you really, really know him Robert Massey looks like a saint.  And he is never going to drop this.  He’s loathed Jinny since the first time she turned down his invitation to earn a little pro gratis on the side.   He won’t be satisfied until he’s got her badge.  I’ve always knows it was a personal vendetta but you know as well as I do that those are next to impossible to prove or substantiate when you’re dealing with a high ranking detective who just happens to be the brother in law of a Senator on top of everything else, verses a much lower ranked officer who has time after time after time proven she’s a fuck up.”

Jinny chooses this very unfortunate moment to shove the swinging door open. 

She stands there in it, the hand still out, fingers splayed on the white wood and even with her feet apart she rocks slightly.  I watch her face blanch out to a deadly, appalling shade of white; even her lips go bloodless and pale.   The look she sends to McCafferty is one of pure wretchedness and misery and by the time it slides to me is glassy and unfocused.   She nods twice as if answering some internal questioner, then attempts some horrific version of a smile. 

 “Well,” Jinny says slowly, still smiling, expression queasy, “At least I still have that amazing Exstead timing.”
 

END OF CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN