by Jenna Rae
It took nearly ten minutes to work her way past the crowd and across the street to the looming parking garage. Finally alone in her ancient Caprice, she took a deep breath, glad the evening was behind her.
What did she fail to see? What should she have done differently? She wasn’t arrogant enough to think she should have been prescient, but she certainly wished she or someone had been able to see Donnelly was a bad apple.
She wondered whether the recent events showed as starkly on her as they did on her colleague. She’d seen Vallejo in a lot of ugly situations over the years and had never seen him look so brittle. Though she hoped otherwise, she knew she probably didn’t look much better.
At this thought she snorted. The circus was over and no one would be at home when she got there. What did it matter what she looked like?
As she sat in the cocoon of her car, Brenda peered over the garage’s perimeter wall and saw the crowd from the hearing was starting to spill out into the street. Loath to draw attention to herself by loitering in her assigned parking spot, she started home.
“Three hours completely wasted,” she fumed by Bluetooth to her retired former partner Jonas Peterson.
“They have to put on a show, Borelli. Whaddya expect?”
“I notice my old partner didn’t show up to support me.”
He snorted. “It’s not like you needed any help, Slick. And it sure as hell ain’t like my presence woulda helped you.”
She made a noncommittal sound. She’d never asked him to attend the hearing but had hoped he would show up. Sober, hopefully. But she couldn’t pursue this without pushing him away and didn’t want to give him a reason to disconnect.
Accept people as they are, she told herself. If she’d learned anything from the breakup with Tori, it was the necessity of accepting people as they were. She blew out hot air and tried to let go of her frustration and disappointment.
She tuned back in, and while Peterson shared his own stories of brass-coated misery, she wondered if she would end up like her old partner, with no life outside the department. She knew it would be easy to let that happen.
Like Peterson, she’d let the job swallow her hours and her years. Like Peterson, she’d lost the one person she’d expected to be with for the rest of her life. Like Peterson, she had failed to develop a support network outside the department. So far, she was batting a big, fat zero in work-life balance, just like her old partner. After setting up a lunchtime get-together for the following week, Brenda rang off feeling more alone rather than less.
If she and Tori hadn’t broken up months ago, they’d have had dinner before the hearing, strategizing and anticipating what might happen, and afterward gone over the evening’s events on the ride home. She’d have heard what Tori thought and could have talked about who said what, how it was said and why it mattered.
Of all the things she missed about Tori, it was their conversations she ached for most often. But there was no going back, and she knew she had to start really accepting the end of things between them.
“Acceptance,” she said aloud in the bubble of privacy provided by her car. “Acceptance, acceptance, acceptance.”
It was, as her best friend Andi kept insisting, time to move on. She would have to start dating again, she realized with a shudder. Later, she told herself. After Donnelly was caught, after Tami Sheraton’s death wasn’t hanging over her and staining every moment of each day. No matter what she did, no matter what punishment the judicial system ultimately doled out to Donnelly, Tami Sheraton was never going to be alive again.
“Let it go, Borelli,” she told herself, determined to find the necessary detachment. She needed to put her grief, anger, and guilt aside. Maudlin mulling was, she knew too well, a waste of her time and energy.
She headed to the coastal road and drove home the long way, letting the cool and quiet of the late January evening soothe her. She passed one of the newer condo complexes and sighed. Briarwood had been her home for two decades, and she’d once known every road and just about every family in town.
But in the last five or six years there’d been a huge influx of new people, drawn from the various reaches of the San Francisco Bay Area to quiet little Briarwood by its good schools, low crime rate and reasonably priced homes Its proximity to the Pacific Ocean made the small northern California city a very attractive option, and its relative peacefulness made the long drive to Bay Area employment centers a worthwhile trade-off for many.
Waves of newcomers tipped the scales until everything they’d come to Briarwood in search of was spoiled. A population swell strained the resources of the small community, overloading the place with too many kids, too few jobs and a series of sharp rises in home prices just before the country’s real estate bubble burst. Briarwood residents new and old lost their jobs and their homes.
Homeowners became renters as a wealthy few snapped up foreclosed homes at bargain prices, rented out the houses and charged tenants increasingly exorbitant rates. Crime increased, school test scores dropped and gang violence invaded the south side of town like disease in a weakened body.
Briarwood was still a nice place to live if you were middle class or upper class and had managed to keep your job or get a new one that paid several times more than minimum wage. But the shine had been scraped off the small city by poverty, uncertainty, and fear. Brenda felt guilty for her relative comfort. She also felt increasingly uneasy about the simmering unrest she sensed fomenting in the cauldron of widening economic disparity.
Where would it all end? How could a society survive with such weakness in its foundational elements? Brenda shook off the question and reminded herself she was not responsible for the fate of the world. All she could do was try to make Briarwood a little safer for a little longer. That would have to be enough.
Night hid Briarwood’s grime and graffiti. The tips of the rooftops and the redwoods and the waves were painted otherworldly blue by moonlight. She caught glimpses of the Pacific between condominium towers and hotels and rows of identical beige minimansions. Boats dotted the small harbor that made Briarwood an attractive tourist destination, and she recalled the days when there were only a few dozen boats scattered around the shallow bay.
She breathed in the cool, clean, salt-washed air and felt scrubbed. The sweet apple scent of the briar rosebushes that dotted nearly every yard and shopping center in the city balanced the crispness of the sea air and mostly covered the industrial and automotive smells.
She sniffed deeply as she drove along, drawn by the perfume of Briarwood to memories of her early days here, when she’d found this mix of clean, sweet air so irresistible. In the dark she could still be a young newcomer and Briarwood could still be a charming little village. It could still be the sweet small town named after a rose.
Over and over she saw the ugly, ubiquitous signs of Briarwood Watchdogs. Dan Miller’s private security company was the most successful venture in town. Its numerous signs, resplendent with fluorescent renditions of the city’s namesake flower, glowed proudly in front of at least half the homes she passed. They seemed to reflect a newer, more cynical world that thought a plastic flower was better than a real one and neighbors couldn’t trust each other.
Brenda wished she could always see Briarwood through the softening veil of obscurity and found herself wanting to do the same with regard to Tori. She pushed away this whimsical thought with a snort not unlike Peterson’s.
Her tension dropped as she unlocked the front door of the foursquare cottage she’d bought back when the northern part of Briarwood was still affordable. Like most of the older homes, it was surrounded by the sweet briar roses whose foliage perfumed the air with their apple scent.
Brenda yanked off the charcoal gray suit she hated, the one she used only for court, meetings, and hearings. She left a trail of sweat- and coffee-scented clothing on the way to the bedroom, the one part of the house she’d tried to strip of Tori’s presence, albeit half-heartedly.
In a fit of piq
ue, she’d bagged up the bedding, a sumptuous suite of gold and silver threads and bold geometric shapes, and dropped it in a donation bin. She’d replaced it with a plain gray comforter and scratchy white sheets that would have been right at home in a detention center.
But the unlovely bedding was still surrounded by antique furniture, beautiful fixtures and warm gold paint a shade or two lighter than the gold Tori had picked for the living room and hall. The bedroom still glowed with the hominess Tori had brought with her, and Brenda wasn’t quite ready to ditch all of that.
Tori’s mark was all over her as well, Brenda realized as she sighted her reflection in her dresser’s mirror. Her short, dark curls were cut to look carelessly flattering by in-demand stylist Logan, to whom Tori had brought her a decade back. Though she couldn’t have said how he achieved simple elegance with her formerly unruly mop, she had to admit it looked more professional and a lot more attractive than when Brenda used to hack at it herself.
Her mascara and tinted lotion, now worn daily, had felt strange back when Tori had first suggested she wear them when testifying. After a while it had been a natural transition to putting on the minimal makeup every day, because the same strategy also worked when Brenda was interviewing victims and witnesses. Wearing the makeup made her seem more approachable, according to Tori. More importantly from Brenda’s point of view, doing so had made Tori coo about how beautiful her brown eyes were.
She was also in the habit of wearing the fancy Breitling watch Tori presented to her on their fifth anniversary, along with the diamond earrings Tori gave her several Christmas mornings back.
Upscale clothes, accessories, lingerie, and sundries had become the norm during her years with Tori, and she hadn’t let go of those luxuries. Nor did she particularly want to. The things Tori had given her had become part of Brenda.
Of course, Brenda had given gifts too, hadn’t she? Last week and again at the hearing, she’d noticed Tori wearing the vintage sapphire pendant and earrings Brenda had given her on their second anniversary. The Dior perfume, the Philippe watch, the Carven scarf—every time Brenda saw her, Tori was still sporting at least one of her gifts.
What did it mean that they both continued to don these presents? Was it simple pragmatism, or was there some unconscious desire on both their parts to retain the good pieces of the relationship? Did Tori want to get back together? Or was Brenda imagining things? If Tori ever did want to get back together what would Brenda say? She bit her lip.
Speculating about what she’d do if Tori wanted to rekindle their relationship when Tori had never indicated she wanted to do so was the height of ridiculousness. She knew that, but she’d caught herself indulging in such musing more and more. The phone rang, and she knew even before she looked that it was Tori.
“I know you think I went after you,” Tori blurted, jumping in without preamble as usual.
“Was that you being gentle?”
“Oh, come on, Bren, you know I couldn’t be seen as going soft on you or those vultures would’ve eaten you alive. Use your head for once. You could thank me, you know.”
“Don’t do me any more favors, huh?” Brenda snapped her mouth shut. She knew that Tori was right.
Everyone in that room seemed to know about their relationship, and the only reason she’d walked away relatively unscathed was that the other brass saw Tori as a vengeful dyke bitch out to screw her former lover. They’d let Brenda off out of spite for their barely tolerated only female commander. Tori had played them at least as well as she had, but Brenda wasn’t quite ready to acknowledge that.
She called me Bren, she thought. Tori hadn’t done that since their breakup, or rather several months before it. What could it mean that she did so now?
“Sorry,” she said. “You’re right.”
Tori inhaled sharply. “Oh.” She breathed in and out audibly. “Listen, I don’t know how to say this.”
Brenda heard a sound she recognized: Tori tapping her tongue on the roof of her mouth the way she always did when she was uncertain or distressed and briefly regretful about having given up smoking. Brenda had given her a flower every day for nearly six years as thanks for quitting. She’d only stopped after Tori had told her the daily flower had become less a gift and more a painful reminder of her having taken up smoking in the first place.
“Whatever it is, it’s probably best to just spit it out.” She spoke more sharply than she’d intended and grunted as if in apology.
“Yes. Of course. Spitting it out. A few hours ago Mark Donnelly’s body was found in a motel in West Sacramento, gunshot wound to the head. Could be suicide. Yolo County says it’s likely to be processed quickly. You weren’t going to be allowed into the investigation, obviously, but I imagine you were planning to look into it on your own. No need to any more. I just thought you should know.”
“Yeah, thanks.” Brenda sank onto the bed they’d once shared. “Any word on his co-conspirators?”
“Well, the department’s position is—or will be, as of five minutes after Yolo County’s statement tomorrow—Donnelly was working alone.”
Brenda scoffed.
“I know you think differently.” Tori made an indistinct, wordless sound. “I wish I could convince you to drop this. But I don’t think you will. You feel guilty about Tami’s death. You hold yourself responsible, even though you clearly weren’t. I imagine you think I shouldn’t ask you for any favors, Bren, but I want you to just walk away from this. Please.”
“Walk away?” She fought a rising note in her voice. She stilled herself, refusing to argue with Tori yet again.
“Listen.” Tori sighed heavily. “It’s late and I’m tired and so are you. This isn’t exactly the way I wanted to spend my Friday night either, you know? I just wanted to tell you about Donnelly.”
“Thanks.”
“Who was she?”
The question was an echo of the one Brenda had asked six months before, and she held her breath, unable to speak.
Tori jumped back in. “That woman you were making eyes at. After the hearing. You know who I’m talking about.”
“I don’t know. I-I mean,” Brenda stammered, “I know which woman you’re talking about, but I don’t know who she is. I just saw her staring at me and looked back. And what do you care anyway? You left, remember? You—whatever.”
“Yeah.” Tori huffed quietly. “Whatever.” And she was gone.
Brenda hated not getting the chance to go after Donnelly, but while the department might think the case was closed, she knew better. And if Tori thought Brenda was walking away from the case that had left young Tami Sheraton shot through the chest and bleeding to death in a rat-infested alley, she was crazy.
Chapter Two
By the following Monday, the department had moved on and so had the media. Brenda barricaded herself in her office all morning, which served only to provoke curiosity and unease in her officers.
Belatedly she realized that in doing this one thing, sitting alone in her office instead of taking calls and circulating among the women and men who looked to her for leadership, she’d already started changing course.
She had taken most of the weekend to carefully consider her course of action, one that would hopefully, but not necessarily mean she’d still have a career to come back to afterward. She’d worked hard to build her reputation in this department, but something was rotten in Briarwood, and she intended to root out that something.
Hamlet had been driven to pieces by his desire to make things right, just like Ahab had been by his pursuit of his white whale. Was she following in their ill-fated footsteps? Would it be better to just let the disruption and uncertainty of the last weeks die with Donnelly?
Certainly it was tempting. Brenda had a good life. She had supportive friends and a successful career and a nice home. She would be able to find another girlfriend if and when she wanted to do so. She was lucky enough to have made it this far with her health, her retirement and her good name intact.
> Why risk all of that to pursue a case against some mysterious, possibly imaginary evil in her upstanding little department in her idyllic little city? There had been, according to everyone else, a terrible, inexplicable, isolated tragedy. Tami Sheraton was dead. By some miracle, the bad guy, Mark Donnelly, was also dead. The matter was resolved. Case closed.
The department was prepared to seal the files on the sordid little matters of extortion and murder as if the crimes had nothing to do with anyone but Donnelly. Everyone was acting like he appeared one day out of nowhere, did his dirty deeds and then conveniently killed himself outside of city and county limits, where no one from Briarwood had to deal with him.
As the clock ticked toward noon, Brenda answered her cell phone and smiled when she heard Andi’s low voice. After two decades, her contralto tones were as familiar as the waves on the nearby shore.
“Did I hear right? The thieving, murdering scumbag’s dead?”
“So it would seem.”
“What’s the deal? I’d have thought you’d be happier.”
“Yeah, I don’t know. It feels unfinished. Too easy.”
“What’s that like, too easy?” Andi sighed loudly. The owner of Briarwood Café had no doubt already been at work since four that morning, baking cakes, scones, muffins, cookies, and bread.
The very sound of Andi’s voice put the scents of vanilla and cinnamon in Brenda’s nose. Of course, Andi had also probably been doing payroll and inventory and other such prosaic things since before dawn too.
“Oh, come on, you must have gotten a good three or four hours of sleep last night, slacker.”
Andi’s laugh was more polite than amused, but Brenda appreciated the effort.
“I know I should drop it, Andi, but it’s all too neat, don’t you think? Donnelly kills Sheraton. Then, before anyone has to do anything crazy like track him down or investigate the extortion, he conveniently turns up dead? What’re the odds it’s that simple?”
“Yeah,” Andi said, sounding distracted. “Listen, maybe you’re right. But why don’t you give it five minutes before you make up your mind about what happened?”
