The worst of it is he sits there in silence, face calm other than the occasional tell tale bulge of jaw line as his teeth meet one another in stoical wordless endurance.   

My voice is dull as I list my many indiscretions, temper tantrums and policy violations.  For the most part it’s old news to him as he has read the majority in newspapers, documents from SFPD (courtesy of Massey) and of course seen a snippet or two on the evening news.  This is my side of it though, my turn.   

It would be helpful if I felt something other than a sort of vague guilt and apathetic terror.

 And the thing is none of what has happened and how I have reacted can be excused from a Department viewpoint; if they had handed me a manual and ordered me to do my very best to complete each and every fuck up listed therein, I couldn’t have succeeded more thoroughly.

 And there can be nothing but black and white for him and there is a very narrow line to walk between my explanations and what has happened.  S’Phear’s involvement; that very grey and muddied area of legality that I must keep Sarge away from as much for his protection as for S’Phear and our plan.  If told he will be forced to take action in order to prevent what is a felony level crime in progress.  Looming up behind it all is Jinny.  And I cannot bring myself to utter those words.   

The lack of both pieces of information, the gap between action and thought and emotion hollows the center out of the entire situation and out of me as well.  I drift off a few times distractedly and he reels me back with extraordinary patience; and I find that even more alarming.   

They tend to be very nice to you just before you’re terminated. 

 Several times he interjects the same calm question; is there anything more you need to tell me?  Is there anything else you’d like to clarify or add?  Is there some motive for revenge or retaliation on the Chandler’s part?  On Massey’s?  Is there something that would provide conclusive evidence as to why they had gone to such lengths in order to set up Exstead, anything that would tangibly prove that due to their influence, perhaps at their request, an officer had planted drugs and alcohol on me, anything substantial that would provide a motive for their having attempted to have me killed?  Do I have anything other than the tape I found in the penthouse? 

I blink at him, confused, the tangle of half truths and not-lies dense and baffling.  I can feel my fingers knotting into fists and make a deliberate effort to lay my hands palm down on the tops of my thighs, then have to mentally order the Oh Shit leg to stop bouncing frantically. 

 “No,” I whisper.  “Just the tape.  You listened to it, right?”  

“Oh, yeah.”  

“Isn’t that enough?  I mean, you heard Chandler and Massey both on it, discussing~” 

“I heard two male voices over a lot of background noise and static.  Some parts of it were too distorted to understand and not one time do either of them refer to the other by name.”  

“But it’s them,” I say helplessly and he nods.   

“I think so too.  But me thinking it and you thinking it doesn’t prove it.”   

“But a technician could isolate the voices, run authenticity tests~”

 “Yep.  And that’s what will be happening tomorrow.  I’ve got Crime Lab flying out to do it.  I don’t want to risk involving SFPD because this is all we’ve got.”  

I blink.  “McCafferty okay with that?”  

The grin he gives me is huge.  “I didn’t ask.”   

 Oh, shit. 

 “What about the guy that broke in here?  Dominguez?  The bat had my name on it~” I begin and then stop when he shakes his head. 

 “No bat.  Mysteriously disappeared from evidence. “

 I laugh, a harsh and ugly sound that seems to rip up from my chest more than my throat. 

 “Fuck.  And you know what’s funny?  I’m actually surprised.” 

 “Yeah?  Well, so was McCafferty.  She’s got a regular Bermuda Triangle going on in her division.  Heads were rolling when I left.”  He grins suddenly and laughs.  “I couldn’t see the family resemblance between her and Jase until she got pissed off, but then, hoowey!”  He whistles in appreciation and I struggle to smile and laugh with him.  The effect must be excruciating and ghastly judging from the look he gives me. 

 “What about photos?  I know Jinny and Magda would have taken~”

 “Missing as well.  McCafferty was getting search warrants together for Dominguez’s residence and a couple of others including the officer who has filed on your for assault~” he lifts a finger and points it at me as if to say, “And we haven’t even gone there yet” and I sigh and slide my spine further down in the chair. 

 “They won’t find anything.” 

 “Nope.  It’s floating around out by Alcatraz by now.”

 “There was another guy with Van Zandt, younger, a rookie~”

 “Mennie,” Sarge supplies immediately.  “Forget it.” 

 “But he saw him do it, Sarge.  And he went to the hospital and asked about the blood tests before the second lab got hold of them~”

 “Yeah.  And when I interviewed him this afternoon he told me on tape recorder under oath that he smelled alcohol on your breath and saw the evidence in the rear floorboard prior to your even exiting the vehicle.” 

 I can’t help it; the disappointment, not just in Mennie but in peace officers in general, in the law, in the system, in mankind… 

 “We’ve got the tape though,” I put in.  My voice is thready and small.   

“Yeah,” he agrees.  “We’ve got that.  And McCafferty assured me the original is in a safe place and not at her station.  Because with just copies we’ve got nothing.  Chandler can hire a hundred expert witnesses to testify just how easy it is to splice together and fake an audio transmission.” 

“But the original…  They can tell when it’s the original, right?”  My voice is a mixture of desperation and something bordering on exhausted and whiney. 

 “Yes.  And that’s what we have to do.  But that is a mighty slim rope to be dangling by, Coop.”  He pauses for only a second before asking, “And there’s nothing else you want to tell me, or share with me, or make clear to me, or clarify?” 

 I clear my throat and put my gaze somewhere to the left of his face and murmur I can’t think of anything else; not a lie because the overwhelming sense of panic has effectively blocked out anything remotely resembling coherent thought. 

 He pushes himself up off the arm of the love seat he was leaning against and gazes at me solemnly.  He does a slow walk around the perimeter of the room, arms crossed except for the one time when the right lifts to rub wearily at the back of his neck as he sighs. 

 “You’re sure about that?” 

 It’s the same question he has asked repeatedly in varying degrees of peeved yet patient annoyance; again my courage and eyes falter downwards.  This time even my voice fails me, croaking out a cracked and miserable, “no, sir” as I shove my hands palms together between my knees and grip them. 

 “Okay,” he says sounding exhausted and disappointed.  “I guess that’s it then.” 

 We hear the raised voices at the same instant, followed by the unmistakable sound of breaking glass and both of us start, automatically reaching for weapons.  I register one of them is Jinny’s less than two seconds before I throw the door open, aware Sarge is right behind me, service weapon drawn. 

 What I see once the door is open is nothing short of ludicrous.  I couldn’t have conjured up a scene from a more maniacal version of comedic hell if I’d been free basing Drano on a regular basis. 

 Sylvie Chandler, in a tight black leather skirt and black lace blouse over a brilliant red brassiere, is systematically slapping the absolute crap out of Jinny who is standing rigidly against the wall, hands loosely clasping Sylvie’s upper arms but not doing anything in the way of even attempting to stop her.  Sylvie’s hand prints stand out on Jinny’s white cheeks in garish, flaming relief and the green eyes above the marks are brilliant and glassy.  Behind the two of them stands Weaver, boosted on her crutch, face livid with rage and hair in wild disarray as she attempts to separate the two, catching a good many of the blows on her forearms.  At the end of the hall way stands Legaspi, cordless clutched to her ear as she specifies the exact reason she needs officers to respond to her residence yet again and behind her stands a weeping and terror stricken Angelo, long fingered hands clutching at one another as he wails.  He demonstrates exactly how distraught he is when he reaches upwards and gropes at the hair of his temples, destroying his perfect curly mane in a frenzy of emotion.   

“What the fuck?”

 Sarge and I say it together in the exact same tone of bewildered, shocked Texan.   

Sylvie turns immediately, abandoning the attack on Jinny.  Her face is twisted with rage into something monstrous and distorted; the melted layers of mascara and kohl streak her gaunt white face in black tears. 

“You!” she spits, taking three strides towards me on wicked five inch dominatrix spiked heeled boots which put her towering, if slightly wobbly, over me.  “You fucking cunt! You ruined everything!  Everything!”

 I don’t even have to look at Sarge to sense the relief when I holster the SIG back beneath my jacket.  She’s clearly zonked on some combo of illegal substances and alcohol, she’s absolutely out of her mind and under the influence; but she’s an unarmed Senator’s daughter nonetheless. 

 “Sylvie,” I start, my voice startling calm and soothing~  And the next second my head is bounced off the wall beside me with the force of her back hand. 

 “Don’t touch her.”  I make out Jinny’s urgent order over the ringing in my ears as I blink back tears of shock and rage and put a hand up to my cheek. 

 “She wants you to lose your temper, it’s what she’s after.  She wants to goad you into losing it and leaving bruises and then she can claim assault.  Don’t even fucking touch her, Coop.” 

 Sylvie’s laugh is shrill and hysterical. 

 “Oh, you think you know me so well, Exstead.  You think you’ve got me all figured out, spoiled little rich girl, Daddy’s little baby, gets everything she asks for~” she pauses in her tirade to slap me yet again, this time pushing me backwards into Sarge who grunts and rights me. 

 “You see how it’s been?” I ask him and am surprised to discover I’m laughing, although it’s a rather frightening sound even to me.  “It’s been like this out here. Just like this, over and over.” 

 “Well, it isn’t going to be like this now,” he growls, gently pushing me aside.  “Ms. Chandler?  You’re under arrest for assault~”

 Sylvie howls laughter up at the ceiling.  “Oh, that’s rich!  That’s just lovely!”  She looks at me, eyes red, pupils dilated so hugely there is nothing but a pale icy ring of silvery blue gray about the outer edges.   When she speaks her voice is no more than a whisper, the tone of it pathetic and wistful and sad.

  “Why couldn’t you just leave it alone?  Why couldn’t you just stick to what they called you out here to do and prove she didn’t take anything?  You could have done that and saved her, got her out of it, left the rest of it alone. Why did you have to keep digging and digging and turning more shit over?  Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

 The look she is giving me is something more than angry and vengeful; it’s with shock I realize this hysteria is not rage-induced. 

 Sylvie is literally terrified. 

 “Wait,” I tell Sarge who is making moves to come around me, no doubt to attempt to cuff her.  I lean slightly forward and speak to her, watching the white throat spasm as she swallows, seeing the frantic pulse in her throat below the silver medallion she’s wearing.  “No, I guess I don’t, Sylvie.  Tell me.” 

 She shakes her head and the sound she makes could be either a sob or the fluid throb of frenzied laughter. 

 “Too late,” she says, smiling, shaking her head.  “Too late now.”

 “Why?” I ask and then stiffen and cringe as she moves the leather bag hanging off her shoulder around to the front and reaches inside with one shaking hand. 

 “Oh fuck,” I breathe aloud as the bottom drops out of my stomach with the appropriate feeling of weightlessness and bewilderment to accompany such a sensation. 

 Behind me Sarge tenses immediately, reaching for the weapon he has holstered and I feel the cold bolt of panic and fear up my spine which ends in a prickling chill at my scalp. 

 “Don’t do this,” I tell her, voice low and urgent and she looks up at me, hand inside the Gucci leather and smiles again, expression sweet and angelic, regretful and pained. 

 And one hundred percent crazy.

END OF 63