It’s difficult to be commanding when you’re bleary and woozy in front of three people who know you just vomited up 1800 milligrams of a drug not prescribed to you, along with several ounces of choice vodka, all while supposedly on assignment in another state as a law enforcement official.  Having one of them be a psychiatrist, the other some undetermined mix of medical doctor and CIA agent and the third a cop you’re supposedly investigating does not help.  But I tried. 

I climbed wearily up between Sylvie Chandler’s white satin sheets and told the entire interfering group of them that when I woke up—and I would be waking up—I wanted explanations for all the things that I was too fuzzy to comprehend without major sleep under my belt.   

“All of you,” I repeated, firmly, daring to sneak a sideways glance at Exstead who was slouched against the wall with her chin tucked and a ferocious scowl puckering her brows together.   

Then I turned my back on them and was out in less time it had taken me to swallow the Vicodin in the first place.  

So of course not a single one of them was there when I woke up.  

I have no idea how many hours I was out, but when I finally stagger to the four foot wall overlooking the room below there’s nothing greeting me but silence.   

Great.  Try to take a nap, everyone comes over uninvited.  Clue them in you expect some answers and everybody vanishes.  It will be a relief to get back to Texas where people are at least slightly more predictable.  Although what I am predicting will happen once I’m there isn’t anything I am looking forward to.  

Sylvie Chandler has a gorgeous black marble shower with a bench running diagonally across the corner for those trying hygienic moments when you’ve just got to sit down.   There’s room in it for three or four more people and I bet Sylvie has had them in it. 

 The clothes in her huge closet, along with the boxes and boxes of shoes and the varied prescriptions from different doctors hints of a socialite party girl lifestyle.  Who really favors leather.  Any girl who owns a pair of butter soft black leather thigh high boots is bound to have indulged in a shower orgy or two.  Any girl who owns leather bustiers and halters and several garments I can’t figure out but which involve metal spikes and detachable collars has probably conducted orgies in every inch of this bathroom.  

  I catch myself grasping the gleaming chrome hand held shower massager gingerly.  You never know where it’s been.   

 I have to call Sarge.  It’ll be better to do it now while I’m still raw from the whole thing rather than later when I’ve developed scabs and justified my behavior and started to think I might can talk my way out of it.  He does not deserve that kind of bullshit from me.  

 I screwed up the last job too, although I hadn’t gone down in flames anything like these.  I just wasn’t there mentally.  I couldn’t focus because I couldn’t let go of how different it was without Jase.  I couldn’t seem to leap from one impromptu situation to the next.  It felt stilted and forced and I missed cues and I was distracted and tense which bled over to the guy we were trying to make the case on.  Scott, the one they had buddied me with, had been polite about it, but I knew he was irritated they had saddled him with me my first time back out.  And he’d put the word out too.  “Coop’s lost it.  Stay clear.”   

Looking back I realized that I had tried to force myself back into it, into anything that would take my mind off my grief.  Jase had only been dead six months then.  It wasn’t long enough to go under with a new partner, not when Jase had been so much more than that, not with all the other on top of it.  But I was sick of being babied and sick of being stuck at a desk as a narcotics analyst.  That wasn’t me.   

Nobody wanted to be burdened with me.  Cops are superstitious creatures.  Once I’d had mojo; drugs practically fell into my lap and dealers seemed to line up for me to cuff.  But then my partner died and I lost my timing and I would just blank out in the middle of a conversation.  On a job that could be deadly rather than merely annoying.  I couldn’t sleep and I’d go days without being able to keep anything down and I’d cry sometimes without even realizing it.  Classic depression indicators.  However sorry the guys might be for me, they didn’t particularly want to die because I’d been awake for four days and didn’t have my shit together.   

 It had taken Sarge three months to get me off that desk and the Captain had ordered I see a psychiatrist; he wanted a piece of paper saying I was good to go.  If I wasn’t good to go then I needed to be at a desk.  It was simple.  Tragic thing, Jase dying, awful yes, but it’s nearly a year later now so get your head out of your ass.  

 And now I have done a flamboyant tail spin, a major crash and burn and what the Captain will see is how I embarrassed the Department and violated several of the Ten General Orders not to mention one or two criminal ones. For instance, possession and consumption of a prescription drug not prescribed to me.  That’s a felony.   I will never get off the desk again.  That’s if they don’t terminate me.   

Nearly a year later.  It’s nine months and six days exactly.  I decide I absolutely will not think about that right now. 

I’ve let my cellular’s battery run down so I plug the charger in and start rummaging through Sylvie’s incredible kitchen hunting coffee.  I find it and of course it’s gourmet blend and fresh beans.  I have no idea how to operate the freaking machine that grinds it into espresso, but I muddle through.  I’ve over estimated the amount of beans required and the first cup nearly takes off the top of my head.  Sylvie is totally wasting money on that Dexedrine.  I should leave her a note and tell her how to make Jet Fuel espresso and she can get off on caffeine instead.   

I’m relieved to find the front door isn’t dangling open on one side, kicked in by Exstead’s boots when the Legaspi Gang broke in.  The security system shows active, the little red light blinking on the keypad in the short entry hall.  I know Massey had said something about the building having 24 hour security so I’m guessing Exstead flashed her badge and a guard let them in.  Nice that it’s been re-set since I was in here unconscious for god knows how long.   

The phone’s still not charged.  Shit.  I check my pager again to make sure I haven’t missed Sarge, but it’s clean.  I’ll use the cordless to call information for the airport.  I want to leave yesterday.  This second cannot be soon enough.   

I start into the living area to plug it back in and I run full force into Jinny Exstead.  I don’t know which of us is the most surprised or the most freaked.  Cops do not like people unexpectedly popping up around the corner, right in their face.  If I hadn’t left the Glock on the counter in the kitchen she’d have had it rammed up her nose.   From the look she is giving me I think I’d have the same if her arms weren’t full of brown paper bags.  

“Shit,” I get out and feel giddy.  “Oh holy fuck,” 

“Yeah,” she says and then stomps past me and sets the bags down on the big butcher block in the center of the room.   

I know I wanted answers, but now that she’s actually here slamming things around I decide I’d just rather skip it.  Legaspi is aggravating, but Exstead seethes some strange brand of fury at me and me knowing just how badly I fucked up and deserve that disgust does not help.

  Knowing she stood impassively in the doorway while I hurled up incredibly gross vomit doesn’t either.

 She throws open one side of the double fridge so hard it bounces off the wall behind it, then squats in front of it and begins transferring items from the bags to the shelves.    

I hesitate there in the doorway, then tentatively go back in.  This woman totally unnerves me.  I don’t know what to do with her in the room.  I catch myself gnawing at a thumb nail that’s already non-existent and force my hands down on top of the butcher block and clear my throat.  This is ridiculous.   

“What’s…  what’s all that?” It would have been nice if my voice didn’t break or sound so shaky.   

Exstead pauses, rocks back on her heels and turns her head just enough to glower at me.   

“It’s called food,” she says tightly.  “You might want to try some.” 

And then I’m dismissed and she’s throwing things into the fridge.  I’m astonished any of it is surviving.  I try to hand her another bag when she stands up and pivots towards the butcher block, but she’s way too fast and snatches up a different one, then wordlessly kneels and slams the contents into one of the bins.  I don’t even bother for the next sack; I just stand there and let her do it.  I recognize a temper tantrum when I see one.   

When she’s done she massacres the paper sacks in the guise of folding them and stomps across to a louvered wooden door where she chunks them into a plastic bin marked “PAPER”, and slams the door so hard something inside thuds off a shelf.  We both choose to ignore it.  

 I don’t miss that she’s very familiar with this place.   

I’m practically frostbitten by the chill she exudes as she strides past me.  She pauses for a moment in the doorway and digs at the wood with a thumb and without even looking at me says tersely,”Before you start on the next pill and booze marathon, eat something.   And call Kim.  If you don’t want a repeat of the other day, you’ll call her.”   

And then she’s gone.  One quick heel spin and she’s marching towards the front door of the place and I’m standing there feeling thoroughly mystified.  What the fuck?  Do they think I’m staying out here?   

“No fucking way,” I finally get out and dash to catch up with her, barely catching her as she’s jabbing a finger at the keypad with furious intensity.  I slide a little on the polished floor of the entry hall, but stop before I crash into her.   

“Huh uh,” I say.  “I can’t imagine what could have happened in all that the other day to give any of you the idea that I’m planning on hanging around here.  I’m not.” 

I leave the other thing foremost in my head unasked.  How the fuck does she know the security code to come and go from this place?  Wouldn’t you think that might be a little tidbit of info Massey might should have given me?  The person he’s jumped up and down to point the investigation towards knowing the code to come and go from the place he has given me to live?   

She’s ignoring me.  She barely glances at me as she hits the last button and grabs at the door handle, swinging it open.   

“As far as SFPD is concerned you’re still here on an investigation, Sgt. Finn and the incident the other day never happened.”   

She’s actually going to just stomp in here, throw things, yell at me and leave, expecting me to obediently go eat and sleep and call Legaspi and move forward on a case which is so off it makes my teeth ache.  I have no idea why I piss her off so much or why she makes me so edgy, but there is no way in hell I am letting her bail from here before I get some answers.   

I grab a handful of black leather and more than a little dark hair and haul her backwards and kick the door shut.  When she spins around I am positive I am about to get the shit beat out of me.  She’s gone dead white except for two bright spots of furious red on either cheek and there’s a vein visibly throbbing in one temple.  There is no doubt in my mind that right now Jinny Exstead can mop the floor with me, but I’m also too pissed off to care. 

I thump her hard on either shoulder with the heels of my hands and she skids back a step.  Before she can get past the shock of it and deck me, I do it again and when I see the hand go up and back I lift my own and put a finger right under her nose.  

“I think you should remember before you hit me, Inspector Exstead, that I am the investigating officer on a case in which you are the prime suspect.  Consider this your first interrogation.”   

She’s stunned.  For a second she just stands there and blinks and one corner of her mouth twitches as if she’s going to laugh, but apparently that would be too civil.   

“Now.  Let’s start over.”  

I lower the finger and extend my hand to her.  “I’m CLE Sgt. Investigator Cooper Finn from Texas.  Somebody wants me to think you are pilfering from the evidence locker, Inspector Exstead.  I think you should tell me what you’ve done to piss Detective Massey’s bunch off.”   

This time she does laugh.  Hard.   

I’m ridiculously pleased I’ve managed to break through that fierce shell, absurdly glad she might see that I am, in spite of what she saw, a very good cop.   

Plus, Jinny laughing is much nicer to look at than Jinny sullen. 

I’ve discovered I’m ravenous, so we move back to the kitchen and I dig out the bread, Mayo, tomatoes and ham she’s just tossed in and make us both thick sandwiches on wheat.  I pour us both big glasses of milk, calmly flip her off when she comments she hadn’t realized I could drink anything without alcohol in it and earn yet another burst of Jinny laughter.  I feel oddly… happy. 

The dining area is built up four steps, like the same area in the other room and all windows.  The table is spotless and is probably some exotic wood, but I head right past it to the window seat and sit cross legged on the striped navy and cream cushion, looking out at the incredible view which I have for the most part ignored this whole time.  It’s hard to give a rip about sail boats and bridges and sea gulls when the “How Jase Died” movie is playing.   

“Jase?” Jinny repeats, settling in across from me and putting her glass on the window ledge.

 “Captain’s Jase?” 

Shit.  Still talking out loud.  I wait for the crashing gloom and frustrated rage to descend between me and the alert green eyes so I can pull back from the interest in her face, can retreat back to that place where I store that movie and all my memories of Jase to guard them.   

I’m amazed to discover I don’t want to.  I want to tell her about him.  I want her to understand that I am not a miserable whiny, puking fuck-up.  At least not without cause.  

So I tell her.  Not just the sanitized Department version of, “My partner was killed in the line of duty,” but all of it.  Me and Jase and the jobs and the sex and how good all of it was, how good we were together.  I tell her about the baby and my unexpected insecurity and jealousy as I realized that the very thing I wanted so much, the baby, was going to end up splitting us as partners and my totally irrational behavior over Candi Sutton.  I told her about my hissy fit and my pout on the couch and how he had tried to make up and I had rebuffed him.   I tell her I killed him.                                                                 

I’m stunned at the strength in the hand she grips my wrist with when she leans forward and grabs it, shaking me.  I look down at long white fingers encircling my wrist with ferocious anger and then up at the green eyes which are livid.   

“No.  You didn’t kill him.  Being a good cop who made enemies killed him.  A fucking piece of shit with a direct round to his chest less than a foot away killed him.  I read all the reports.  It would have happened exactly like that if he had fucked the bejeezus out of you the hour before.  It would have gone down exactly like that if you had got up at dawn and made a three egg omelet like June fucking Cleaver.  It was a set up and it was planned.  It would have happened even if you’d been there, except you  would have died too.  And that’s the part you’ve strung yourself up over.   That you didn’t.” 

I’m shocked at the vehemence in her voice but I am more amazed by the fact that I want to believe her.  And more startled still to realize that the little trill of emotion bewildering me at the moment is relief that she’s no longer staring at me as if I repulse her and pleasure that Jinny Exstead is the one seeing this in me, that she understands.  The ink scratch under the “Mother: deceased” line hits me with a rush of adrenaline that leaves me dizzy.  Suicide.  Of course.  That guilt of life just going on would be something she would understand implicitly.  She’s been living with it far longer than I have. 

It takes me a moment or so to grasp that neither one of us is moving or saying anything.  We’re frozen with her hand around my wrist and that look of stern compassion directed at me and I’m feeling strangely befuddled and confused.  She’s not stomping or yelling or glaring but I’m still flustered and shaky. 

She drops my wrist and leans back to her former position and the first time I try to speak it comes out in a dry croak.  She looks up at me, a swift flash of the eyes and I see that wall go back up.  She’s cautious of me again, wary.  Well, she should be.  I’m supposedly out here to investigate and it’s her head Massey wants on the platter. 

I feel relief so intense it makes me lightheaded.  She’s guarded because her morals and her oath as a peace officer are being questioned.  Her career is at stake here and there is nothing in those files to substantiate it.   She has a right to be pissed off, a reason to be watchful around me.  I’m the enemy, so to speak.  It explains the suppressed rage and all the tumultuous undercurrents between us which are flashing like heat lightening and throwing me off balance and making me wobbly.  I need to focus in on this fucking thing and shake the fluff off the top and figure out why Massey is intent on sticking Exstead with this. 

When I slide my gaze back from the scenery out the window she is watching me intently, waiting for something and I sigh and lay the remains of my sandwich on the plate balanced on my crossed legs. 

“I’m floundering here,” I tell her and I can see it isn’t what she expected to hear.  There’s a little tic of surprise and then she lifts her brows politely and waits. 

“Are you the one taking the shit?,” and when that furious gleam flares up I shake my head and say, “Just answer.”

“What do you think?” she demands and there go the brows together, there goes the chin tucked into defensive position. She sits there sullen and defiant. 

“I think I’m supposed to think you are,” I say. 

“And do you?”

I don’t answer, deliberately.  I just look at her and wait.  It doesn’t take long.

She’d like to hit me on the head with the plate but she doesn’t.  She comes up off the window seat like she’s on a trampoline and is in the kitchen slamming things around again before I can unfold myself and follow along behind.

There’s only one door out so I stand there and wait while she stomps around, blocking it. 

She’s tossed the remainder of her sandwich away and rinsed the glass and is putting the plate and it in the dishwasher which is, of course, black and looks like it requires a college education to start. She grabs a rag off the polished stainless steel side of the sink and mops it furiously over the butcher block where I left bread crumbs and bits of pulpy tomato then folds and lays it back where it came from.

 I watch and I can’t keep the grin from spreading across my face.   With every gesture and step she is giving herself away and she is too pissed off and furious with me to even know she’s doing it. 

She knows this place.  She knows the code to get in and out.  She didn’t have to hunt for the plates or the glasses or the napkins.  She knows where the trash goes and she knows that Sylvie Chandler recycles.  She has taken the time in someone else’s home to rinse her plate and glass and put them in the dishwasher and clean up after the person she’d like to throttle right now.  She actually knows how to open that dishwasher. 

I feel the rush of exhilaration I get when I know I am dead on about something.  Another piece of the puzzle is spinning mid-air and where it lands will tell me volumes and this particular piece has a name.

“Move,” she growls, glaring at me. 

I ignore her.

“So…  You and Sylvie are close friends or what?” I challenge and I witness something unimaginable to me until that moment.

I see Jinny Exstead crumple.  

She’s so close I see her pupils flood wide open and dilate in shock until there’s only a tiny rim of green around them and she looks like she’s X’ed out of her skull.  The blood drains from her face immediately and goes a terrible shade of white.  She sucks air in so sharply that it is more of a sob than a gasp and literally sways on her feet.  I grab an elbow and steady her.  It’s rather worrisome to me that she doesn’t shrug it off and hit me. 

She’s shaking and stares at me as if I have whacked her in the head with an axe.  This is it somehow, this is the biggest piece of the puzzle. 

She looks as if she’s about to speak and I’m horrified to see her lower lip is trembling.  In amazement I realize her eyes have pooled up and Jinny Exstead is about to begin weeping. 

I’m floored.  I meant it to shock her, yes, because somebody has to start playing straight with me on this fuck-up of an investigation and I intuitively know that it isn’t going to be Massey but I don’t want her fucking crying.  The idea of it makes me queasy and regretful.  I’d a thousand times rather she have pulled back and punched me than to see her standing there with her shoulders drooping, fighting for control. 

“Jinny—“ I start out, meaning to apologize, then stop as a pager goes off. 

We both slap at our front pockets. 

“Mine,” she quavers, moving back and swiping a hand roughly across her face.   She turns away from me to look at the LED display and then takes a moment to compose herself before slowly turning around. 

Her voice is very low and hoarse and thick with unshed tears.  She doesn’t look at me.

“I have to go,” she announces and the tone is tremulous. 

I wordlessly move out of the way and let her slide past me. 

I trail her into the front room and then hesitate in the doorway of the entrance hall.  There is no bounce, no strut to her walk now.  Her head is down and her shoulders bowed and every inch of her exudes defeat and fatigue.  I feel sick watching it. 

She punches the code in and opens the door, then pauses.  Without looking up or turning towards me she speaks again in the same flattened voice.

“You should change the code.  The instruction book is upstairs in the wardrobe, top drawer.  Don’t… Don’t pick anything obvious and be careful who you give it to.”

 She clears her throat roughly and finally looks at me as if she is going to say something more, or ask something, but then she sighs and straightens her back and shoulders.

“I’ll call you so you can finish this,” she tells me before shutting the door quietly. 

The words are innocuous and civil, courtesy granted from one peace officer to another.  You won’t have to track me down, you won’t have to waste time on this hunting me or waiting on me; I’m cooperating. 

But everything about her stance and voice and face and that terrible shattered look to me…  She might as well have said, “I’ll stand here and let you take me out.” 

What the fuck is going on? 

END OF SEVEN

{~> Crossroads  Next Story, Please <~}