I wait until a semi-decent 0530 hours before I phone McCafferty and wake
her with the news about the recently deceased Bat Boy.

“Oh shit,” is her half-awake slurred response and I’m startled to hear a
male’s voice growl something out before her hand is placed over the
receiver partially and I hear her low murmured, “Nothing. Work. Go back
to sleep.”

She assures me the tape is in a locked safety deposit box at a bank and
asks if I want her to relay the news to Kerry; it’s a relief to me in my
exhaustion that I don’t have to explain to her how Alphonso’s death changes
everything and ups the ante.

I hesitate for a moment, feeling myself wanting to tell her yes so I can
grab a beer and then another and spend the day holed up in my corner very
carefully not thinking about how my self-imposed exile affects anyone but me.

“No,” I hear myself say, to my surprise although my voice is heavy and slow
and certainly not happy about it. “I’ll call. Think she’s up?”

I’m so surprised when Legaspi answers I almost disconnect without speaking
but apparently the rather startled intake of breath gives me away and I
just don’t have the guts to do it after she says clearly, “Cooper. Just a
minute. Kerry’s in the shower.”

“Okay,” I manage and then clear my throat uneasily, “I could… I can just
tell you.”

There’s a brief pause and then carefully, “Okay. If you’d be alright with
that. “

“It~~ yeah. I am,” and to my surprise I realize it’s the truth. “There’s
two things. First is Alphonso Dominguez, that guy Kerry dinged in the
head, is dead.”

“Oh God,” she breathes and I hear the sound of paper rattling and her voice
changes as she props the receiver against her shoulder, turning pages and I
know she’s riffling through the morning paper, searching for the article.

“It’s not in there yet. Or I doubt it is.”

“Okay. How? Isn’t he~~ Tell me it wasn’t~~” I hear her take a deep breath
and then, ridiculously calm ask, “It wasn’t complications from the head
injury, was it?”

That she would think that had never occurred to me and I’m stunned.

“Fuck no,” I hiss. “He died at the jail. They’re going to say it was
suicide but I’ve glanced over the coroner’s report and the arrest sheet and
there are some discrepancies. McCafferty already knows.”

“Alright.” The breath she releases is ragged, but relieved. “And you
obviously think this is related to you and the break in…”

“Absolutely. I think he was sent to get the tape, the one I hid in the
jelly and Kerry took to McCafferty’s. I don’t know if he was stoned or if
he thought he’d get his jollies first, but I think he was sent for that
tape. And then I think he was killed because they knew he’d squeal about
who sent him.”

“Oh shit,” she breathes and then, “And Kerry said there was a little blurb
on Headline News last night that Sylvie had been released from the
Rehab~~ Do you know anything about that?”

“That’s the other thing, yes. It looks like she was signed out, not
released. Picked up by a family member but I don’t know who.” I pause for
a moment and then add, “And you would know better than me what kind of
threat Sylvie might be.”

She murmurs an assent and then, voice carefully neutral, “And you? How are
you holding up?”

I pretend to have not heard the question.

“How’s Kerry? She saw it on Headline News? Is she not sleeping?”

“…it’s been a little touchy around here. I think having the patio door
fixed and motion detector lights installed have helped and we were talking
about maybe making a few calls to local breeders, see about getting a guard
dog~~”

“You ought to get a retired SFPD dog.” I interrupt, “There’s a program~~or
there is in Texas anyway and I’m sure they have one here~~for retired
narcotics canines to be adopted. They can’t do the drug stuff for whatever
reason but they’re still healthy and trained to be protective, to attack on
command~~” I stop, floundering, embarrassed that I’ve gushed and there’s a
brief pause while the heat floods my face before she speaks again.

“That’s a great idea actually. Thank you. I’m afraid I wouldn’t have
thought of that but I know Kerry’ll love the idea. I can’t let her near a
pound or a pet store or a zoo. She wants to let them all out, can’t stand
seeing them in cages.”

The tears are quick and unexpected; my throat clogs up at the same time and
I have to put my head back and blink a few times, then clear my throat
roughly to get things settled.

Of course she can’t.

“Cooper?” The voice is very calm and gentle. “Would you like me to get
Kerry now?”

“No.” It comes out hoarse and I clear my throat again and repeat
it. “No. I think I’ve told you everything. Just, you know… be careful.”

“And what about you? How are you?”

I start to give the standard response; my mouth opens for it, my upper
teeth reach for my lower lip and form the “f” but what comes out is not
‘fine’.

“Fucked,” I whisper. “I think I’m kinda fucked.”

There’s dead silence on the other end and I close my eyes and grimace,
wondering if she’s fainted in shock or if she’s merely put the phone down
to turn ecstatic cart wheels through the house in some sort of bizarre
shrink ceremony of glee.

After twenty seconds of it I have to ease the silence with a little rush of
laughter which ends up sounding much more breathless and unpleasant than I
had intended.

“What are you doing there, Knuckles? Trying to decide now how big a gold
star you deserve for this one?”

Her response is swift and calm and whatever nerve I strike or have struck
in the past, she keeps under wraps.

“No. I was wondering how you got here to this place when everything you’ve
done, everything I’ve done has quite frankly, been a total fuck up.”

“Fuck if I know,” I mutter, gripping my nose while my sinuses try to decide
if I want to laugh or cry; they’re caught up in some sort of prickly,
uncomfortable limbo which isn’t painful exactly but is very annoying.

“If I were to tell you about some colleag~~” she begins, voice careful and
I cut her off, my voice low and wary.

“Don’t push it.”

“Alright,” she says, suspiciously quick to agree.

“I’m not planning on posing as the Poster Child of Mental Health,” I warn.

Her laugh is quick and spontaneous and sincere and I find myself chuckling
as well.

“So, we’re good then?” I ask and find myself saying I will tentatively
think about going to dinner at their place in the next few days, with Jinny
invited as well.

“Just something casual and easy. A fresh start. And so, you know, Kerry
can monitor your consumption of actual edible material. We can only hope
she won’t ask the status of your B.M.s’~~”

I hang up bemused and smiling and am afraid to pick too much at the
residual emotion the talk has left me with.

I think it could be hope and hope is a dangerous endeavor indeed.

There’s one phone call left.

I wait until 0815 to make it and the receiver is on the way to the cradle
when I hear the ring stop abruptly.

“Inspector Ramirez,” the familiar jaunty voice snaps and I cringe slightly.

Not the person I wanted to talk to.

I think about attempting an accent and asking for her, but decide, fuck it.

“Hey. It’s Cooper. Is Jinny around?”

There’s a brief pause and then the creak of a chair before she answers,
voice slightly lower and somehow more intimate.

“No, she went across the street to grab us some breakfast.”

“Oh.” I close my eyes to ask it because I know Magda will not hesitate to
flay me with the answer and it may not lessen the pain any, but it’ll help
with the sheer shock of it.

“Is she alright?”

“Well, let’s see… I suppose that depends on your definition of alright,
doesn’t it? She hasn’t taken thirty or forty Oxycontin this week. Yet.”

Christ. I can feel my belly tighten and I let my knees come up and my head
rock forward as I curve into myself.

“Then again, she doesn’t look like she’s eaten or slept in three days
either. Are you a Buffy fan, or do you maybe read Anne Rice or Poppy
Brite? She looks like she could star in anything requiring one of the
Undead. But hey,” and the shrug is clear, “I guess she’s fine.”

I don’t know how angry I am until I speak and then the violence of it, the
sheer controlled measure of fury, shakes me.

“What is it you want from me? I didn’t ask to be sent out here. I didn’t
ask to find myself stuck in the middle of your Division’s crap- fest. I saw
what was going on from pretty much Day 1 on this thing, I knew she was
being set up, I saw why and I went after the people doing it.”

“Yeah and you’ve fucked up righteously every step of the way. And now this
shit, just disappearing, walking out like that~~ I was just starting to
give you the benefit of the doubt, Finn. Actually thought maybe you cared
about someone besides yourself.”

“I do care about Jinny and if you do, why the fuck didn’t you one single
time step across that line you drew and help me instead of chalking me down
as the enemy and doing everything possible to make my job harder?”

It comes out of me in some kind of concentrated hoarse shriek and I’m
literally panting with rage when suddenly it dawns on me with the
brilliance of a nova.

“You’re pissed off because this time someone else engineered the rescue,” I
say wonderingly and have to stand up; I’m so amazed at the realization. I
pace off the two and a half steps to the wall carting the phone, then spin
and walk them back to the bed, my head reeling.

“You’re ticked because this huge thing in your partner’s life, whether
she’s innocent or guilty, fired or not, was handed over to someone else and
you’ve got no say so in it, you don’t get to ride in and rescue her from
this one, you have to sit back and watch someone else do it.”

“That’s bullsh~~” she starts and I surprise us both by raising my voice
into a Sarge-inspired bellow.

“Oh, shut up. Be honest with yourself, Ramirez. Just for five seconds. I
don’t give a shit if you like me or hate me or whatever, but he honest with
yourself for just five seconds and admit that. You’re angry and you want
to hate me whatever I do because it’s not you that can fix this and save
her this time.”

In the silence that follows I hear the chair creak as she moves and the
steady sound of something tapping on the desk top she must be leaning over
and when I hear her breath indrawn I figure it’s for another attack and I
interrupt her.

“Listen, I’ve got an email address for De Lorenzo. She needs to get in
touch with me about the investigation and getting me by email is
easiest. Do you have a pen?”

“Yeah.” She sounds incredibly annoyed that she does.

I spell out my email and then, although it’s more than I want to share with
her, I decide fuck it and say it anyway, “Sylvie’s out of Rehab and
Alphonso Dominguez is dead.”

“Yeah, we know.” I can’t read the expression in her voice, can’t tell if
it’s sarcasm or irony or irritation or some combination of the three.

“Then you know you should be sticking close to Jinny,” I say and hear the
sharp intake of breath indicating I’ve infuriated her.

“Save it,” I tell her. “Your loyalty, your abilities as a cop aren’t in
question. I’m just saying.”

“Fine,” she snaps.

“I just don’t want Sylvie having any more chances to hurt her,” I say, my
voice slow and measured and on the other end of the line I hear something
like a hiss followed by several extremely ugly words in Spanish and a final
thump.

“Fine,” she says again and I realize Jinny has returned; a second later I
hear her, voice sounding thready with fatigue, “Everything okay there,
Mags?” and I know I cannot… I cannot speak to her now and I gently ease the
receiver into its cradle.
 

S’Phearhead: Chicken.

This is the response I get when I share the conversation with S’Phear. To
which I respond with a rather exhausted; Oh, pluck you.


END OF FIFTY TWO