Detective Robert Massey looks downright startled to see me when I stroll
in his office at 0800 the next morning.
The guy is such a cliché; he’s gobbling a handful of powdered
doughnuts. The white sugar has flecked down the front of his very
expensive silvery gray suit and when I grin at him and throw myself into
the chair in front of his desk he inadvertently jerks and spills coffee
in his lap.
He attempts to greet me with his mouth half-full.
“Mith Finn. I wathn’t ekthpecting you.”
No shit, Sherlock. God, I’m so glad I have this training and expertise
so I can be relatively certain that when someone dribbles and spits a
beverage from their mouth it’s an indication of surprise.
“Just thought I’d stop by and brief you, let you know how the case is
proceeding.”
He nods enthusiastically. Ruddy jowls work frantically as he attempts
some sort of half-stand and extends a meaty hand across his desk.
I take it and I want to grin as he typically attempts to reassert his
masculinity and rank by gripping mine fiercely, piggy blue eyes gleaming
as he tightens his grip with a big freckled hand.
I’ve played piano since age four. Guitar for the last three years. I
calmly return the clench with an equal amount of muscle and resist the
grin I can feel wanting to spread all over my face as I say, slowly,
“And it’s Sergeant Investigator, Detective. Sergeant Investigator
Finn.”
He blinks slightly and for a moment I see the furious metallic flare of
the pure hatred this man has for women who have dared to tread into what
he considers sacred male territory, then he recovers smoothly and nods.
It’s a big good ol’ boy nod, punctuated with an abashed grin.
“Sorry. I tend to think of anyone in law enforcement as family.”
“Ah,” I reply, sinking back into my chair again and beaming at him.
“Then you should call me Cooper, Robbie.”
He blinks and I have to remind myself that the idea is not to piss him
off and stomp all over his barbaric red neck mentality, but convince him
I am harmless and genuinely sincere.
I arrange my face into a girlish expression of hopefulness.
“Of course, it’s hard for me to address anyone who outranks me by their
first name.”
I lean forward earnestly. “I’d like you to call me Cooper though. If
you don’t think it’s too forward or anything, Detective.”
I am woman; hear me squeak.
He leans back, grinning an expansive toothy smile as he arranges his big
white fingers over his expensive suit’s white powdered belly.
“Not at all, not at all. I’d like that, Cooper. It’s an unusual name
for a female. A family name maybe? In that grand ol’ Southern style?”
I try to ignore the way his voice pronouncing my name sets my teeth on
edge.
I nod, beaming at him in harmless and gracious womanhood. “Yes, sir.
It is. A family name.”
Of a well-known bathroom fixture manufacturer . Cooper-Halsey porcelain
toilets; my parents had been well acquainted and intimate with them,
having spent many hours kneeling in their cool and chilly embrace.
Huckleberry Cooper Finn; named after a fictional juvenile delinquent and
a commode. You just can’t make this stuff up.
I spend a few moments stroking his ego and then proceed to slather him
up with a bunch of bullshit in reference to how he was just soooo right
about Inspector Exstead. I have such respect for the sort of genuine
instinct and intuition a long-term high ranking officer like himself
simply takes for granted~~ blah blah and yet more blah.
I spill it until I feel distinctly nauseous and he gobbles it up,
grinning and awww shucking in between staring raptly at my breasts and
crotch.
He grins at me expansively as he
leans back and drawls," I assumed you'd realized how to handle this case
when I saw you with Exstead the other night."
I take a small chunk of my inner
lip in my teeth and bite it ferociously as I allow a small embarrassed
grin and nod, murmuring that had it not been for that list of clubs and
his guidance I might have failed to grasp all the implications here...
He actually winks at me as he
leans forward, rubbing his hands gleefully, depositing powdered sugar on
the tops of his thick, meaty thighs.
"Lots of implications in this
case," he agrees happily and attempts some version of embarrassment or
misdirected humility as he stresses to me he hopes I understand about
his niece and his job as her chauffeur.
"She's a wild child, I don't deny
that and she bends every rule and law there is. It's difficult for
someone in her social position... So much money and people using
her to get at it. But she's a good girl at heart and I can't help
but feel that this last year, after her mother's suicide and the way
Inspector Exstead chose to keep dragging it through the muck~~"
I nod as he drones on and I keep
my teeth set in my lip, savagely. The gist of it is, Poor Sylvie!
Poor little misguided rich girl led astray so easily by the Evil
Inspector Exstead and thank God she's got good ol' Uncle Robbie on her
side looking out for her, even driving her around to keep her
protected~~
It's nauseating but I take it,
nodding, smiling when appropriate and putting raw half moons in the
palms of my hands as I clench my fists.
I eventually decide he’s lubed enough and exit his office after a last
hand shake which somehow involves his finger stroking and rubbing my
palm suggestively and leave feeling as if I need to be deloused and
flea-dipped and hosed down with an AIDS spill kit.
I find the nearest women’s restroom and duck in and busy myself at the
sink scrubbing furiously using handfuls of the typically cheap and runny
pink liquid which passes for soap in police facilities. I’m longing for
a nice rancid-avocado green bar lovingly made for Texas officers by
inmates which possesses some sort of unique skin-peeling ability when
the door opens and Officer Andrea Peyton steps in.
Let’s hope she’s not secretly longing for a career in Hollywood; her
double take at seeing and then recognizing me is so over done as to
qualify as some sort of screen test for a silent film. I’m half
expecting her to lay a trembling hand across her forehead and swoon in
stunned surprise.
“Hey,” I say mildly, flicking water off my hands and leaning past her in
the small area to pull paper towels out of the stainless steel dispenser
attached to the green tiled wall.
I smile at her blandly and say, “You should have stopped the other
day.”
Her face blanches white beneath her peach toned foundation and her
pupils dilate between the spiky black clumps of lashes lined with
iridescent purple glitter.
“You know, when you were driving down Jefferson and Magda tried to get
you to stop?”
She shakes her head slightly; turtle shell green eyes slide off and up
to the left in pure reflexive fabrication mode as her brain frantically
searches for a plausible lie.
“Oh, c’mon, you had to see her.” I say. “She was the furiously spitting
hell cat trotting along beside your silver 1986 VW 4 door California
license plate 2RGB781 in wedge heeled booties, screeching expletives and
throwing her hands around.”
“I~~ I~~ Uh~~” she flounders helplessly, casting looks about the
bathroom as if she expects some sort of back-up to materialize up from
the chicken-coop hexagonally marked linoleum.
Obviously it never occurred to her that I might not be operating under
the same sort of screen vamp vixen rules she’s instituted on herself.
Never dawned on her I might not fake not knowing what she was up to.
I grin at her as I toss the damp paper towels into the waste basket and
pull the door open to leave.
“I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around, Officer Peyton,” I say and wink as
the door swings shut on her still frozen and startled face.
I’d ended up sleeping on McCafferty’s sofa; Jinny had
called sometime near midnight saying she couldn’t leave the CS.
McCafferty had not volunteered to return me to my penthouse but had
grinned rather evilly when she’d informed the ecstatic Amanda and Jamie
cousin Cooper would be sleeping over. Weaver had looked slightly less
thrilled but had elected to stay as well.
Oh God.
I think I handled the subsequent girl-fest quite well given my
inexperience at such things and the sheer plentitude of shit I’d had
dumped on my weary head during the day.
McCafferty had located a bottle of champagne in the rear of her
refrigerator and the three of us had toasted one another and Massey and
Chandler’s demise in dainty peach tinted wine glasses while Amanda and
Jamie had begged off and had beer instead.
I could have guzzled the entire fucking bottle in one swallow by that
point but did the polite smile and sip routine as long as Finnly
possible, then gratefully accepted the can of Tecate Amanda had offered
me, downing it in record time even for me.
With the resulting mild alcoholic buzz padding the jagged edges I’d
actually found it possible to sit through a Jase marathon; Amanda had
happily loaned me a pair of pajama pants and an SFPD tee and I found
myself sitting cross legged in the floor of McCafferty’s living room
with and Amanda and Jamie and surprisingly enough Weaver, the albums
spread out all around us, giggling at Jase at age two and eight and
eleven.
He’d been all elbows and knees, all bones and sharp lines but even then
the man he’d be was obvious in the merry, jaunty angle of his grin at
the camera.
I’d marveled over photos of him and a skinny, gawky teen age Kaitlyn
McCafferty together at the infamous Gram’s, faces smeared in huckleberry
and teeth stained purple, beaming delightedly at the camera with arms
slung about one another’s skinny sun burned shoulders, two of Jase’s
front teeth missing and his nose crinkled as he squinted in the
sunlight.
I hadn’t even known I was crying until the tears plopped onto the clear
plastic of the album because I was fairly certain that the emotion I was
somewhere near to actually feeling was one of joy and I protested when
McCafferty rose from her arm chair and gently tugged the book away from
me.
“No, no. I’m fine. I’m fine.” I’d said and felt fairly
confident it was true and utterly bewildered when she’d firmly shushed
me and tugged me to my feet and given me a gentle shove towards the sofa
which had already been made ready for me to sleep on.
About the time my head hit the pillow I knew I was in for a serious jag
of tears and trying to hold it in while Amanda and Jamie picked up the
albums at snail speed. I was threatening to burst several main arteries
when I found myself with Dr. CIA coming to my rescue.
“Leave it till morning, girls,” Weaver had said, voice tired and
strained and McCafferty had added something similar. As the lights were
flicked off and the mess in the floor abandoned I decided it was just
one of Cooper Finn’s rare bits of luck about the timing, until Weaver
paused beside the sofa, motion hesitant and slightly jerky.
She’d bent forward at the waist and out of the little triangle of vision
I’d left myself with my head face down in the pillow, I could see her
hand white-knuckled as it gripped the crutch. The other brushed
hesitantly across the top of my head then paused to pat uncertainly
between my shoulder blades.
She’d cleared her throat roughly and patted again, more emphatically as
she whispered, “Cry it all out now,” before crutching her way
exhaustedly across the room to the doorway where McCafferty had paused,
glasses and bottle in hand.
I was following her advice before the door was even shut behind them.
There was a rather unpleasant surprise waiting for me
when I’d forced my swollen eyes open that next morning and peered
upwards through the pulpy feeling mounds of flesh surrounding them;
Magda Ramirez.
She was glaring down at me, obviously not thrilled with the situation
either, hands, of course, on her hips. It wasn’t even daylight yet and
she of course looked wide awake and gorgeous in full makeup, glossy
caramel curls artfully arranged.
I hate women who always look great. It’s just so fucking unfair to the
rest of us mere mortals.
“What time is it?” I’d croaked and she’d glanced at her watch briefly
before replying.
“It’s almost six.”
Almost six? God help me.
“Why are you here?” I’d asked, beginning to feel very annoyed
with the obviously displeased and appraising look she was giving me,
like I was some sort of unusually revolting insect she’d accidentally
come across.
“I have to give Jin a ride home after she drops off your rental.”
“Y’all just now get off duty?”
By then I’d managed to get myself into a fairly upright position on the
sofa and had asked it while stifling a yawn behind my hand.
“Yeah. It’s amazing how long it takes to process a scene and then all
the paperwork afterwards.” She paused and then attempted to sucker
punch me with the clincher. “You know, real police work.”
“Uh, huh,” I said blandly, not biting. Clan Wars between Investigators
and Narcotics is probably as old as the first Department that hired more
than two men. They’d probably stood there with their stone clubs
accusing the other of laziness, snarling and growling and baring teeth
and wiggling thick mono-brows.
“Where’s Jinny?”
Both eyebrows shot up into her hairline.
“She’s in the kitchen with McCafferty. Let me get her though because
I’m hoping the sight of you right now will knock some sense into her.”
I have the misfortune of looking like a cross between Sid Vicious and an
irritated porcupine when I first wake up.
Jinny of course walked in while I was flipping Magda off.
“Oh, it’s so good to see my two favorite girls getting along so well,”
she said, clapping her hands and grinning in delight.
“Uh huh,” Magda said dryly and gestured at me with one furious hand. “This
is what you think you’re in~~”
Jinny clamped a fast hand over her mouth and spun her away towards the
door with a little shove.
“Go talk to the Captain, Mags. Get a cup of coffee.”
And then in a softer voice to me as she knelt in front of the sofa, “And
let’s hope she puts some extra sugar in to sweeten her disposition.”
I attempted a grin and ran a rueful hand through my no-doubt disgruntled
‘do and wondered if Magda had been going to say what I thought she had.
And wondered how I felt about it, if she had.
And wondered why I was grinning like an idiot.
“Hey,” Jinny said. “Captain told me you had kind of a rough night, sort
of got thrown right into the lion’s den, so to speak. You okay?”
I pondered this briefly. “Yeah,” I told her. “I think I am. I feel
like I’ve been run over by a truck but I think I’m alright.”
“Good.”
I leaned into the hand at the side of my face and felt amazement; that I
could relinquish such trust to another human being.
“I’m sorry,” she told me, “That you had to deal with that alone, looking
at the pictures and talking about him. I wish I’d been here for that.
Not just because I think I could have helped but because I’d have liked
to hear the stories and see the pictures myself.”
It is wonderful and terrifying all at once to have someone say a thing
so extravagantly generous and pure and so genuinely kind.
And being amazed by it, I’d spent another half hour reducing the
shoulder of Jinny’s shirt into a soggy wrinkled ruin.
There must be some damn good writers laying down the hype because
feelings and emotions are just not what they’re cracked up to be.
END OF CHAPTER 32
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