Last Call

by Baxter Clare

  Listen to me, Frank thinks, the poster girl for the vocally challenged.

  Garcia’s nodding. “Yeah, okay.” She still doesn’t make to leave.

  “You okay?” Frank asks.

  “Yeah.” ‘

  “I’ll give you a ride home. It’s no big.”

  “No, I’m okay.” Seeming to marshal her strength, the young woman adds, “It’s just been a hell of a day.”

  “Yeah, it has. Go home, take a shower, get some sleep. Try to.”

  “I keep seeing his face, like a picture, you know, all framed in broken glass. I just keep seeing it.”

  “Yeah. You will for a while.”

  “After I cuffed him and Haystack got there I had to throw up. It kinda hit me then, you know?”

  Frank nods, leaving silence for Garcia to fill.

  She does, flashing a weak smile. “I guess we were lucky, huh?”

  “Lucky, plus you did some damn good shooting. You were like Jane-fucking-Wayne out there. I see you doing that again, I’ll get you busted back down to probation.”

  Garcia opens the door, thanking Frank for the ride. Frank waits until Garcia pulls out of her space then follows her from under the building.

  The Alibi is only of couple blocks away and Frank gets there on autopilot. The soft evening riffles her hair and she smirks. “I should get a fucking Oscar.”

  When she was dispensing advice and letting Garcia talk, she felt like she was outside herself looking in. She was two Franks—one compassionate and supportive, the other detached and mechanical. She can dispense “atta girls” and sage counsel to her staff but she can’t muster it for herself. Bottom line is, she’s an awful hypocrite. She should be doing exactly what she’d told Garcia to do, but instead of talking the day out, she will ooze into a shot glass and clamp her mouth shut. Keep it all in. Stoic the Magnificent rides again. She knows today is going to kick her ass farther down the line, but right now it’s hard to give a fuck. She’ll worry about farther down the line when she gets there.

  Chapter 30

  Tuesday morning Frank has the shakes so bad she can’t hold her coffee during the drive to work. When she walks into the station Romanowski slams the desk phone down and yells her name. Everything is too loud.

  “This is a citizen with good timing,” the sergeant booms, waving a slip of paper. “Got a cold one for ya.”

  Frank snatches the paper and heads upstairs. She used to get to work half an hour, an hour early. Now she slides in at 0558 like the rest of the squad. Jill’s late, as usual, so Frank hands Lewis the paper. She’s paired Jill and Lewis during Johnnie’s absence, and after a five-minute briefing the detectives head to the address Romanowski gave down. Frank follows in her Honda, hoping the drive will clear her head. The chain of events from a couple drinks at the Alibi to a fullblown drunk is unclear. She doesn’t remember getting home but must have driven herself, since the Honda was parked safely in the driveway this morning. The thought that she might kill herself while under the influence doesn’t scare Frank, but the thought of taking someone else out with her makes her stomach roll over.

  The nine-three detectives pull up to another broken body on the pavement. Hispanic male. No ID. He looks like a wino. When the coroner tech turns the body, Frank, Lewis and Jill spot the drag marks. It’s a dump job. Jill and Lewis moan at the same time.

  Frank tells Lewis, “It’s a religious case,” and Jill rolls her eyes.

  “Huh?” Lewis screws up her face.

  “Gonna take an act of God to clear this one.”

  “Shee-it,” Lewis complains.

  There is no evidence to collect, no witnesses to question, and Frank is soon headed back to the office. She stops at Shabazz for bean pie and a large coffee. The food eases the worst of her hangover and she drives south toward Freeman Medical Center. She still has questions for Floyd.

  She finds him in a room with a large Asian family crowded around an old woman. The television blares news. Floyd is on his back, eyes closed.

  “Hey.”

  When he sees Frank, he closes them again. She waits, reading his mood. He seems resigned, as he should be. After the hospital he’s going straight into lockup, probably until he’s walking with a cane.

  He looks at her again and she asks, “Why’d you shoot?”

  “Didn’t want to go back in.”

  “I wasn’t gonna bring you in. I just wanted to talk.”

  “‘Bout what?”

  Holding up the well-worn pictures of Trevor and Ladeenia, she scours Floyd’s face. It’s blank, then changes to puzzlement.

  “That’s those two kids got murdered. I already been asked about that.”

  “Not by me. I want to hear your story.”

  “Man.” He sighs like a tire losing air. “Ain’t nothin’ to it.”

  “Humor me,” Frank tells him. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

  He sighs again, bringing a forearm over his eyes. “What do you wanna know?”

  Frank tries tripping him up, like she did Noah’s other suspects. Like McNabb’s, Floyd’s story is consistent straight down the line. She’s done with her questioning when she spies a tear gliding down his temple.

  “What did you do that you thought I was gonna bring you in for?”

  She watches his throat work as he swallows tears. He shrugs and winces at the motion. “Coulda been anything. I ain’t no choirboy.”

  She nods and moves to the door.

  Emotion makes his voice shaky, but the words are compelling enough when he calls after her, “But I ain’t killed no children.”

  After putting in her time at the office, Frank bolts at two sharp. She’s going home to work out. No stops at the Alibi. No stops at the liquor store. Frank’s answering machine indicates she has two messages. One is a solicitation. The other is Gail. She tells Frank she has packed her things in a box and left it in the hall.

  “Please come by and get it and leave my key on the table. If you don’t want the box, please leave my key anyway.”

  Frank has tried not to think about Gail. She’s hoped this will somehow pass. That maybe time can reconcile them. Frank knows she’s wrong and Gail’s right. She’s willing to make a few concessions and hasn’t expected the finality of this message. She plays it back. Gail sounds cool and determined.

  Frank thinks about calling to offer contrition, but Gail’s tone doesn’t brook reconciliation. And Frank won’t beg. She made her choice when she walked out and Gail made hers when she’d said don’t come back. Apparently, she was serious. Frank respects Gail’s resolve, wishes her own were as solid. Dropping hard rock CDs into the player, she sweats in the gym for hours, afraid of what will happen if she stops. The exercise and one tumbler of Scotch get her to sleep. But they don’t keep her there.

  She wakes up at three and prowls around the Pryce binders, refusing to let Gail into her thoughts. She goes in early and a neglected desk keeps her occupied. Finishing the day out she leaves around three. On the freeway, she dials Gail’s number. When the machine picks up, Frank disconnects. She drives to the apartment and lets herself in. The box is in the hall, but Frank looks around anyway.

  Newspapers and medical journals are strewn on every available surface alongside folders and loose papers. Coffee cups and half-finished water bottles perch where Gail left them. Neatness was never her specialty. A wan smile crosses Frank’s face, like sun trying to come out in the face of a hurricane. As quickly as she thinks of it, Frank dismisses the idea of leaving a note. What would she say?

  Gail’s cats rub against her legs, pleased to have company in the middle of the day.

  “Fucked up, didn’t I?” she says, squatting to stroke them. She resists a wild urge to go into the bedroom and lay her head on Gail’s pillow. “Take good care of your mommy,” she tells the cats.

  Frank takes the box and leaves the key.

  Chapter 31

  It’s a big horn night. Frank loads Houston Person and Terence Blanchard into the player tray. She
adds Phil Woods and early Joshua Redman. Blanchard starts off on a track with Diana Krall, who begs Frank to get lost with her. Frank is happy to comply. She raises the glass that has become an extension of her hand.

  Arranging her length along the den sofa, she borrows a line from the chief.

  “We’ve made some mistakes, but this is the opportunity for rebuilding ourselves in the desired image.”

  Frank reviews the two things she knows for sure about police work. The first rule is that everybody lies, which in turn leads to the second rule. A good cop doesn’t let shit get to her. These are the golden rules that all the academies in the world can’t teach. These lessons have to be learned through on-the-job training.

  Frank’s been a good cop because she can maintain emotional distances. With one parent dead and the other insane, detachment was a skill Frank developed as a child. Police work honed her innate abilities, demanding that she be emotionally objective, hypervigilant, and in control at all times. Being a cop was the perfect occupation for Frank. Shit dripped off her like rain off a fresh wax job.

  At least it used to. Frank swirls the rusty liquid at the bottom of her glass, descrying the crystal to track when she started slipping. Probably with the Delamore case. Rule number two kind of took a backseat when she began discovering one dead girl after another. She lost it a little on that case, and then let her guard down even more with Kennedy.

  Frank wags her head. Seeing the company shrink seemed to help, but Frank should have known better. Indulging a weak moment, she’d created hairline fractures in her armature. By the time Placa Estrella was killed Frank’s armor had considerable chinks in it. She and Noah, and a lot of Figueroa cops, had known Placa since she was an infant. She was a kid with a lot of promise and her murder had been hard to detach from. Frank lost any remnant of objectivity when it turned out one of her own detectives had killed the girl.

  That, Frank concludes, was the pivotal moment. Instead of shoring up her reserves and sealing the cracks in her armor, she had only widened them by turning to Gail. They were starting to date around that time and Frank couldn’t resist the doc. Gail was warm and funny, quick to laugh and quick to anger. Blowing into Frank’s stale environment, the doc was as fresh and honest as an ocean breeze. She completely stripped Frank’s defenses.

  Sinking her head back into the couch, Frank pronounces, “That’s where I lost it. Bought into those pretty green eyes and Betty Grable legs. What a stunner. Bitch had me tore up from the floor up.”

  Even though she’s killing another fifth, Frank nods soberly.

  “Hella mistake.”

  Time has shown Frank over and over that she isn’t built for love. Love is for other people. Normal people. Frank is hard-wired for two purposes and two only. One is to work. To solve homicides. This is what she does. It’s what she’s good at.

  The second is to drink. This is also what she does, and what she’s good at. Raising her glass into the air, she adds, “And getting better every minute.”

  She knows she’s drinking too much again, but this time she has planned it. Yes, she’ll pay in the morning, but Fubar’s on call and that’s too good an opportunity to waste on sobriety. She wants to drink quickly, to get to the click, but paces herself in order to minimize the inevitable hangover.

  “Should eat,” she says, and gets up to peer into her desolate refrigerator. She makes peanut butter and jelly on stale bread, wondering how Johnnie’s doing. He should be back soon and she realizes she’s been glad he was gone. Having him around is like looking in a mirror.

  Frank takes the sandwich into the living room. She forces it down with gulps of Scotch. “Sweet and Lovely” spills from the speakers. It’s one of the songs she and Gail danced to the night they made love for the first time. Frank feels like a red-hot poker has been rammed down her throat. She can’t breathe around the pain in her chest. She is sure it will suffocate her. And is equally sure that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

  Chapter 32

  The call comes in next afternoon just as Frank is leaving for the Alibi. Lewis catches it and leans into Frank’s office. “Hey, I gotta go look at a possible and Jill’s out talking to a wit.”

  “Who else is out there?”

  “Nobody.”

  Frank swears in her head but says, “A’ight. Go get a car. I’ll meet you downstairs.”

  Their silence is thick as they drive up to a crumbling apartment building. Paramedics are stowing their gear. Frank follows Lewis to a doorway flanked by patrol officers and neighbors. Inside a woman is screaming and kids are howling. Frank steps around clothes, toys, plastic diapers and dirty dishes. The squalor is oppressive and Frank is pissed at being called out so close to end of watch.

  In the kitchen, a toddler lies on cracked and peeling linoleum. Its face is so badly burned Frank can’t guess at a gender.

  Garcia’s the responding officer and Frank asks her, “Boy or girl?”

  “Boy, Lieutenant.”

  The kitchen floor is slick with oil. The kid floats on it.

  “What’s the story?”

  Garcia looks at her notes. “One of the kids ran next door, to a Martina Morales, in apartment five. She couldn’t understand him at first because he was screaming but she finally got that his mother had burned the baby. Mrs. Morales ran over and saw this. She called nine-one-one and they called us. The mother claims she slipped while she was taking the oil off the stove. Says it was an accident.”

  Frank checks the pattern of bubbled skin. It starts at the kid’s head, where most of his hair is peeled off. The blistering has obliterated his face and deformed his shoulders. She studies the spill pattern. It’s concentrated in a thick pool near the body. Dabbing two fingers in the spattered oil Frank rubs them together. She shakes her head, lamenting, “Should’ve used Crisco. Less greasy.”

  Lewis blows up to Frank like a gust of wind. “That was uncalled for, LT” She keeps her voice low, but Lewis’s outrage is loud enough. Frank pivots to give the detective her full attention. Anger colors Lewis’s face, which is square in Frank’s. She adds, “You’re talking some cold, disrespecting shit. Lieutenant.”

  Lewis’s cojones amuse Frank, but she has sense enough to know a smile will only fuel Lewis’s fire. She can almost feel the heat coming off her.

  “Right you are,” Frank admits. Lewis holds her glare and Frank shrugs. “Sorry.”

  “Tell him,” Lewis says, tipping her head toward the kid. She wheels out to the living room. Frank is left with the boiled body and Garcia, who looks everywhere but at her commanding officer. Frank sees Lewis take the neighbor aside. She follows her detective into the next room and listens. Frank is suddenly tired and Lewis is asking good questions. She leaves the apartment, grateful for the relatively fresh air outside.

  Frank waits outside against the black-and-white, the sun heavy on her closed lids. Lewis was right to jump her case. Frank ponders what’s happened to her—when she got so callous—but can see no defining moment. Frank knows she’s hurting. And doesn’t know what to do with the hurt. She can’t tackle it head-on like the shrinks and Gail would have her do. She’s got to come at it sideways. Sooner or later she’ll get a handle on it, but right now it twists and squirms inside her like a slippery knife blade. It’s easier to shut it all out, turn off everything, rather than feel anything.

  The hardness is easy after so many years. Law enforcement, especially in the relentlessly murderous divisions, exacts its pound of flesh from those who pursue it. The most common blood sacrifices include divorce, alcoholism and apathy. If these aren’t enough to break a cop, the toll escalates to bitterness, rage and not-infrequent suicides. Frank considers which rung of the burnout ladder she’s on and thinks of Noah.

  “Bastard,” she whispers.

  He’s the lucky one. Noah got out while he was still whole. She wonders if the endless glut of human ugliness would have ever gotten to him. The Pryce case did in the beginning and she was glad when Joe finally put him back into full ro
tation. He resumed sleeping and eating, and Frank knew he was all right when he started whining again. She couldn’t imagine the job permanently beating him down and was glad she’d at least been spared seeing that. Maybe it never would have happened to Noah. Tracey and the kids were his lifeline. They kept him afloat in a sea of shit. And it was Noah that had kept Frank’s head above water. Without him, she wonders if she is drowning.

  When Lewis emerges from the building Frank pushes off the car and calls her over. “First, I’m sorry about what I said in there. You were right. I was absolutely outta line.”

  “It surprised me, is all. It’s not like you to—”

  “Second thing,” Frank interrupts. “This is a slam-dunk. Tell me why.”

  “Well, the mother says she slipped. You ever slipped with even a tiny pot of oil? Shit goes everywhere. You be wiping it outta the crack of your ass for weeks.”

  This earns Lewis a tight but legitimate smile.

  “And the worst mess on that kid is from the top of his head down. Not random like you’d expect if he got spattered in a spill. That bitch poured it on her kid.”

  Frank nods, pleased. “You gonna bring her in?”

  “Yeah, I’ma bring her in!” Lewis says, indignant.

  “When you get her calmed down ask her two things—why she was moving a vat of boiling oil off the stove, and where was she going to put it?”

  Lewis writes this down.

  “Did the kids see anything?”

  “Nuh-uh.”

  “A’ight. Look, I got an appointment. You need me here?”

  “Nah, I got it, LT.”

  “I’ll have Garcia stay with you. Let her talk to the kids. You be nice to her and she might be your partner someday.”

  “Or my detective,” Lewis says with a sly smile.

  “You plannin’ on replacing me?”

  Lewis blushes, explaining, “Yeah, see, ‘cause you gonna be my captain.”