I’m not prepared for how much she resembles Jase.  

I know her the instant she steps out of the cab and onto the sidewalk in front of the Bistro she’d suggested we meet at.  For once I am not only on time, but at least fifteen minutes early.  This can be accredited to nervousness and the fact I’d not anticipated how much more smoothly the cabby would negotiate the San Francisco traffic than I had been doing in the Cavalier.  No way am I trying that Porsche when I am this wired.  All I need is to get distracted and run into the back of someone and have my blood alcohol level tested.  I’m not real interested in acquiring a DUI at this point in my career.   

It’s given me time to order two beers and down one of them.  I’d chosen a table outside on the patio beneath a striped umbrella, even though I am chilly in my jeans and leather jacket, still not used to the weather which seems to rotate between foggy and soggy every other day.  I wanted to spot her first if possible; see what she drove up in, observe her without her knowledge, before she can assume any sort of expression for my benefit.   

But when I see her, all the training and the knowledge and experience from years of having to rely on my observations to stay alive and make cases simply vanishes.   

I’m stunned because until this moment I could never have imagined Jase as a female, yet there he is as one, leaning back into the cab and grabbing a tan leather coat and an umbrella. Her hair is an auburn brown, wavy, a riot of curlier wisps around her face because of the dampness in the air.  I know exactly how that hair would feel to my fingers. Once in 1998 or so Jase’s hair, that same exact shade,  had even been almost that long because his cover was a wanna be rock star trying to make it on 6^th street in Austin.  I was his groupie girlfriend.  I hadn’t even needed to reach for that one.   

She turns towards the Bistro and pauses, eyes doing a quick sweeping search of the people strolling or loitering on the sidewalk in front of it, and there it is again~~  If it were not so terrible to have to see I would laugh because from thirty feet away I can see the familiar puckered brow scowl of concentration and Jase’s nonchalantly watchful, feet-apart stance is being demonstrated for me in high heels and a dark colored conservative, yet split up the back, skirt.  If he were just here, if he were just fucking alive seeing this would be hysterical.   

I can’t do this.  I look away from her because I can’t bear it.  My hands are shaking and I grip them together and try to put them between my knees but my right leg is jittering up and down and rocking the little iron and glass table.  My Oh Shit leg, Jase used to call it, because he knew when it started my Hink Detector had gone off full blast and the shit was rapidly approaching the fan.   

“Where?” he would ask quietly, pretending to nuzzle the skin under my ear, or sometimes, “Who?” and I would turn, smiling and bite his neck, or lick it and whisper the answer under my breath.  And sometime later when the last of the poop had been mopped up and we were alone Jase would generously reward me for possessing that Oh Shit leg, and he would make them both shake and tremble.   

“Sgt Finn?” I hear and look up blinking, shocked that she has somehow recognized me.  I take the hand extended to me and shake it, trying to remember why her knowing me on sight might be a very important piece of information to retain.  She politely ignores the trembling and pulls out the chair across from me and sits, then smiles at me and leans forward slightly. 

“I’d have known you anywhere,” she tells me and when I simply stare across at her she kindly transfers those familiar brown eyes to the waiter and tells him she would like an espresso and a slice of cheesecake.  He asks if she would prefer strawberries or blue berries on her cheesecake and I close my eyes and silently beg her not to say it. 

“Do you have huckleberries?” she asks and I will myself to not start shrieking.   

My voice is very rough when I get myself under control enough to speak. 

“How did you recognize me, Captain?”  

She gazes at me with such an expression of compassion and serenity that I would really, really like to lean over the table and hit her for it.  I am jittering apart at the seams and she sits there like some kind of beaming, law enforcement Madonna.   

“I flew to Texas for the funeral,” she says mildly and then, while I am still reeling in shock from actually hearing the dreaded word pronounced aloud, she adds, “And of course Jase sent me photos of the two of you.”  She puts her head to one side and studies me and then says quietly, “You bear more resemblance to the woman I saw at the funeral than to the vacation and Christmas cards.”   

Which is a kind way of saying I look like shit.  My laugh is a very ugly sound.   

“I don’t remember it,” I tell her, careful to skirt around having to say it myself.  “So if we were introduced I apologize.”   

“No need.” 

 She’s smiling up at the waiter who has returned with her order and calmly stirs her little cup with a striped straw before she takes up the fork and hesitates with it poised over the slice of cheesecake, purple-black huckleberries spilling down the sides of it.   

Her look at my beer is pointed, yet very polite.  

“You’re not eating?” she asks and I don’t even bother to answer and after a moment she lifts her eyebrows slightly and then slices off a neat bite of the dessert.   

“You know, Jase said he knew you were the one for him when he found out your first name was Huckleberry,” she says, in a conversational tone and adds, “We were only six years apart, you know.  More like cousins than aunt and nephew.  We used to spend every summer together at my grandmother’s place in British Columbia and she would put up jar after jar of huckleberry jam from her garden.  She used to tell us were going to turn purple because we’d eat huckleberries until we were sick. “ 

I know all this of course.  I know that story so well and have heard it so many times, little Jase and Katie, first from him and now along with all Jase’s stories, in a never ending silent litany in my head. It’s almost as if it’s my story, my memory.  Family is not my thing.  It never has been.  It was Jase’s though and sometimes when he spoke I could almost grasp the concept of loving people genetically related to you.   

Few people know that the H in H. Cooper Finn is for Huckleberry.  It’s much simpler to just let people assume it is for Helen or Hilda or Harriet.  You have to wonder what my parents were thinking at the time.  Or ingesting.   

I know the only way I am going to be able to do this is if she’ll stop talking about Jase, so I clear my throat, swig down what’s left in the second bottle and wave at the waiter for another.  Then I lean forward and thinking, fuck it, I just lay my cards out there in the open. 

“I need to know two things from you, Captain.  Why did you give my Lieutenant the name of the same psychologist Exstead is seeing and what the fuck am I really out here for?” 

She pauses a moment and then laughs, grinning at me. 

“You are exactly how Jase described you,” she tells me, her expression delighted and adds, “And you’ve been busy I gather.” 

I lean back and stare at her.  She has no idea how close I am to ending my career with an assault on a peace officer.   

“Actually, I’ve been sitting around with my thumb up my ass waiting for someone to let me start doing my job.  And I’m going to leave now, pack my shit up and fly back home.”  I stand and toss down a twenty dollar bill, then add a hundred to it, because after all this is the money given to me by Massey and no skin off mine.   

The waiter arrives when I’m plunking down that hundred and I snatch the bottle out of his hand and wink at him, then sketch a half salute at Captain McCafferty who is gazing at me over the rim of her espresso and jam my sunglasses onto my nose.  It’s cloudy of course, but I am going to be in tears any moment and I hate giving that away.  My grief is mine.   

“Sit down, Sergeant,” she says mildly.   

 I stop and turn half back towards her. 

“No more bullshit?” I ask and she sighs and sets the little cup down and nods.   

“And no more about Jase.” I tell her, this one not a question, and she hesitates a moment and then nods again.   

I sink back down in the chair and the waiter lays the money back down on the table regretfully, so I add another hundred to it and shove it into his hand.  He grins at me and tells me he’ll have another beer right out.   

“Alright,” I say to her, leaning back in the chair and crossing my arms.  “Go for it.”  

“Detective Massey…” she begins, drifting off and using the fork to massacre the cheesecake and staring down at her hand.  “What did he tell you?” 

“Detective Massey is a pompous asshole.” I tell her, “He has stuck me in a penthouse with a Jacuzzi and a wet bar and he’s given me a list of clubs I’m supposed to go party at apparently and a wad of cash to party on.  I’ve got five files on five different people and no real evidence that any of them are responsible for the drugs missing out of the evidence room.  Plus, what he apparently intends for me to think is happening with the drugs makes no sense, because up until a few months ago the amounts disappearing were minimal, the kind of thing evaporation or humidity or simple human error could account for.  And then suddenly there’s 50, 60 grams gone at a time, but no steps are taken to develop a more secure system.  

“And then,” I push on, “Everything I have asked him for, whether reports,  or surveillance on the room, is dismissed as unimportant and not pertinent to an investigation.  Including a meeting with you, the Captain of the precinct where the drugs are going missing.  I am being served up a full meal of bull shit and then I find out that you have recommended the same psychologist as Exstead is seeing.  The same Exstead who is one of the five suspects and the one I get the feeling I am meant to be focusing on, given the fact that the rest of them read like soggy cornflakes.  She’s the only one in the pile with any snap, crackle, or pop, the only one any higher up would look at sideways.  And Exstead is one of your investigators.  This whole thing reeks.”  

She lifts her brows and puts her head to one side and turns the cup round and round in her hands, then glances up at me and sighs.   

“Probably the only thing in there which is absolutely innocent was my giving your Lieutenant Dr. Legaspi’s name.”  She takes a sip and adds, “And maybe that was not so innocent either.” 

I wait.  And finish the beer just in time for the next one. 

“I recommended her because she is a good psychologist and too, she is a friend.  She became my friend after I saw her for counseling after my divorce a few years ago.   I had trust issues.” She tells me, smiling ruefully.   

“I am assuming there’s doctor-patient privilege rights in California.”  

“Certainly,” she says frowning slightly and then understands.  “Oh.  No, no, I didn’t send you there so I can pry into the investigation.  I just know she is a good doctor and I understand what losing Ja-“ she stops mid-name, catching herself, gazing at me, and I finally jerk my head in what must have looked like a nod because she proceeds on.   

“I just know what losses like that do.  Even if the person is just a partner and I am using the word “just” unfairly here because we all know the importance of partnership between officers.  But when that partner is something more…”   

I am so glad I left the shades on.  And that they are my darkest pair.  I nod again and she sighs and sits back.   

“So I just gave your lieutenant the name of the person I honestly thought would be helpful right now.  But…  It did occur to me that it might end up with you and Jinny crossing paths and that it might be good for you to see her in that set of circumstances as opposed to possibly out at the clubs on that list Detective Massey gave you.” 

“You think then that Exstead is who I’m supposed to focus on.” I say and she shrugs a little. 

“I think it’s quite obvious that she’s the one Detective Massey would like the investigation to center around, yes.”     

“And simply from my mentioning I was given a list of clubs to party at, you know right off that she is likely to be there at those clubs.  Without even seeing the list.” 

She leans forward, elbows on the table and laces her fingers together,  rests her chin on them and smiles.   

“Like you said, Sgt Finn, she is the only one with any snap, crackle or pop.”  

The brown eyes twinkle and there is an all-too-familiar humorous twist to her lips but I will absolutely not let that intrude on my brain process.  There’s something she’s not telling me, but there’s time to go over this whole thing when I am alone and fish it out. 

“So, I take it the Rehabilitation was not successful?”  I can’t keep the scorn and amusement out of my voice and I see a very different Captain McCafferty for a moment when she glares at me, brown eyes coolly furious.  I’ve just dissed one of her babies.   

“It is possible, Sergeant,” she tells me, her voice very tight and controlled, “For some people to go out to clubs without consuming alcohol,”.  

There’s a lot of stress placed on that word “some”.   

”Hmmmm,” I murmur, gulping my beer and shrugging out of my jacket one handed and lean back again.  

 The tee shirt is black, the words white and large. It’s one of my favorites even though it’s faded and worn now.  It’s very large on me because it was Jase’s and sometimes I don’t take it off for days, wearing it to sleep in even.  The furious brown eyes involuntarily drop down to my chest and for a moment she is dumb-founded, then she throws her head back and hoots laughter. 

I’m surprised to find I’m giggling too.  I never tire of the REHAB IS FOR QUITTERS punch line, but this time it is especially delightful to me for some reason.   And once I’ve started I find I can’t stop until I hear the laughter edging dangerously over into the huskier range of sobs.  I set the beer down and put my hands up to my face and slide my fingers beneath the shades.  My eyes are so hot and my fingers feel deliciously cold lain over them.   

Please, I beg whatever or whoever might be listening, Please.  Don’t let me lose it, not right here.  You can have all the pieces you want after while, but please, please not now.   

I feel something bump my wrist and see Captain McCafferty has handed me a tissue and she’s scooting a little cellophane package of them across the table to me.  I blow my nose and scrub my face with my hands and dare to peek at her.  None of them have spilled over, but her eyes are full, and her lip trembles when she smiles at me.    

“It’s not just yours, you know.  That pain and anger and grief. ”  

What I want to do is put my head down and bawl and howl and wail and shriek until somebody hits a vein and sticks me in a jacket with a lot of straps and tucks me away in a room with very soft walls.  What I need to do is take hold of the hand she’s pushing my bangs around with and lean into her shoulder and just let my fucking heart break.   

But what I want and what I need are hardly ever what I give myself anymore.  So I push her hand away and stand up, gripping the table when I sway briefly.  I clear my throat and toss down another hundred and give her what must be a ghastly grin. 

“No, ma’am.” I say, showing all my teeth. “but the guilt is.”               

END OF FOUR

 {~> Crossroads  Next Story, Please <~}