by B. D. Gates
Both women laughed at that, Tess nodding. “Do you remember that one guy, the one who took off out the passenger side of the car, had a twenty-yard lead and he just stopped dead when I caught him by the arm? The look on his face.”
“I don't know whether it was because you caught him or because he was beaten by a girl.”
“A little of both, I think. And then, his buddy giving him such a hard time about it. I mean, they're both in handcuffs and he's steady ragging the guy,” Tess took on a masculine tone. “Bruh. It was like you was standin' still. Bruh. Seriously. That was sick. She's a girl. Bruh.”
Both women chuckled over that. Miranda stirred her coffee, then capped it before they made their way over to a bench under the trees. “So, Tess, it's early, what are you doing out on a Saturday morning when you could be sleeping?”
Miranda had three kids, two boys and a girl, and her day always started bright and early. It was on purpose, usually, because it was the only “alone” time Miranda had in her day, and it helped her keep her sanity.
“Oh, well, you know, things to do, places to go, people to see...”
“Yeah? And just what have you got on your agenda today?”
“Things. Stuff,” Tess replied. “The usual.”
“Tess, my girl, what am I going to do with you? You've got to get out, see the city, do things. Make some friends.”
“Miranda, I go out. I do things. I talk to people.”
“And then you go home. I know.” Her face took on a thoughtful look. “You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to make you a dating profile, put you out there. My treat.”
“Oh, gawd, no,” laughed Tess. “Please, anything but that!”
“I'm serious, Tess. Now, tell me, what do you look for in a man?”
Tess was shaking her head. "Uh, well, really..."
She did not know how to answer that.
At just that moment, a motorcycle jumped the curb and pulled up about ten yards from the two women, the smoked glass of the helmet obscuring the rider's face.
The rider gunned the motor, three short blasts.
Tess looked at her partner, hoping she was armed. Detective Miranda Miller shot up from the bench, showing the rider her badge clipped to her waist as she squared her stance dead-on and popped the strap on her holster, her hand on the butt of her gun, daring him to come any closer.
The cyclist revved the engine.
“Geezus,” thought Tess, on her feet as well. “What the hell!”
Miranda was drawing her sidearm when the rider flipped the visor up and shut down the engine. Boisterous laughter filled the air.
“Aw, c'mon, Miranda, you wouldn't shoot me now, would you? Not after you spent all that time training me. What a waste that would be.” The rider set the kickstand and swung a long, booted leg over the bike while unstrapping and removing the helmet in one fluid motion.
In less than two seconds, Miranda Miller was swearing and laughing all in one breath. “Gawddamnit, Hatch, I almost did shoot you, you stupid shit!”
Tess looked back and forth between the rider and her partner.
“Tess Hayes, let me introduce you to one of the biggest assholes I've ever had to train. This is Joelene Hatcher.”
Joelene Hatcher laughed at that introduction. “Hi, Tess! Call me Hatch. Hope I didn't scare you too much.”
“No, no,” said Tess, shaking her head. “That was...that was just enough...”
Hatch smiled at that. Tess smiled weakly in turn. Miranda was still having none of it.
“Your luck will run out at some point, Hatcher, and someone will shoot you one day, keep that in mind the next time you pull a stunt like that.”
Hatch hung her head, the dark blond reflecting the morning sun. “Yes, ma'am.”
“What are you doing in Richmond?” Miranda asked as they walked with Hatch to the coffee wagon.
“We're doing a little investigation involving some drug runners from up the coast,” Hatch replied.
“Hatch is with the DEA,” Miranda informed Tess. She seemed very proud of that.
“Three years next week,” added Hatch. “Couldn't have done it without you,” she nodded to Miranda.
“Tess, let me tell you, when I got Hatch, it was like training a big, stupid puppy. Hardheaded, willful, and god knows, if she got off-leash she'd go running into traffic.”
Tess nodded, chuckling. “I know what you mean. I had one like that myself, once,” she offered, a little wistfully.
Miranda nodded in turn, smiling conspiratorily. “Then you know what I had to put up with.”
Tess smiled.
It was a little bittersweet.
7
Hatch placed her order for her coffee with the attendant. “So, Miranda, it's Saturday, are you serving lasagna for dinner?”
Miranda laughed. “Am I that predictable?”
“I hope so,” Hatch replied. “No other reason I'd be here two days before I needed to be.”
Tess looked back and forth between the two. Hatch caught it.
“You haven't had her lasagna?”
“Well, yes, but I didn't know she served it every Saturday.”
“Miranda serves it up at seven o'clock sharp. You could set your watch by her.”
“Am I that predictable?” Miranda asked again.
“Did I not find you sitting on that park bench at eight o'clock on a Saturday morning?” Hatch chuckled.
“Oh, hell, I am that predictable,” Miranda agreed. “Okay,
okay, dinner at my house then, both of you, and don't be late.”
Hatch grinned at the two women. “Yay!”
Tess laughed.
Hatch just smiled all the more, her face shining with her winning the invitation.
“Where are you staying?” Miranda asked.
“We're working out of your station, Miranda, I've got a suite at the Belmont.”
“A suite? Well, aren't you the bigshot,” Miranda replied.
“We don't know how long this is going to take, we're thinking a couple of weeks, maybe a month, maybe more, depending on how the investigation goes, and the department didn't want to comp us for all of our meals, so they got us suites with kitchens so we could cook rather than eat out.”
“Oh, lawd, you're going to starve, Hatch,” Miranda laughed.
“I can cook,” Hatch objected. “I've kept myself alive this long.”
“Hatch can't cook,” Miranda informed Tess.
“Miranda, that is no longer true, there is this thing called “the internet” and you can go on these other things called websites that will show you videos of how to cook just about anything you want, but absolutely nothing compares to your lasagna. It is heaven.”
Miranda grinned at that, shaking her head. “Still the charmer, aren't you, Jo Hatcher.”
Yes, she is, thought Tess, shaking her head and smiling to herself. Just like someone else I know. “Okay, well, then, I'm gonna run on, y'all. I need to get my errands done so I can make it to this dinner tonight. Miranda, can I bring anything?”
“Just your appetite, sweetie,” smiled Miranda.
“Good enough. Call me, though, if I can pick up anything on my way in.” Tess smiled up at Hatch. “Nice meeting you, Hatch, I'll see you later.”
“Later, Tess.” Hatch nodded, also smiling, as Tess turned and started a slow jog towards the paved path.
“Hey,” said Miranda, smacking Hatch on the arm after she noticed her watching appreciatively as Tess jogged off. “That's my partner you're eyeing.”
“Lucky you,” replied Hatch.
“She's a good girl, Hatch.”
“They're all good girls, Miranda. And how do you know she's so good?”
“You haven't changed a bit, have you?”
“What does that mean?”
“You need an explanation?”
“Miranda, I do not set out to sleep with the women I meet. It just...happens.”
“Hatch, are you telling me that you don't d
eliberately charm
women with your smile, your wit, your 'aw-shucks' good looks?”
A small smile tugged at Hatch's lips. “No.”
“Liar.”
Hatch laughed at that. “Okay, maybe a little.”
“Let me tell you something, Jo Hatcher, and you hear me good. You leave that girl alone. It took me weeks to get her to talk about anything other than cases and general pleasantries. I don't know what her issues are, but she's not one to share much personal detail and, slow as it's been, she's starting to warm up to me. If you do anything to make that girl draw back in, I swear to god I will give you a beat-down the likes of which you've never had.”
Hatch was a little stunned and, honestly, also a little wounded by Miranda's stern warning. “Mir, I promise, I won't do anything to encourage her. Okay?” She crossed her heart.
“Ya damn right ya won't, not if you ever want to eat lasagna at my house again.”
“Miranda,” said Hatch, shaking her head and smiling, “I think that has to be the meanest thing you've ever said to me.”
“That's just to start.”
“Duly noted.”
Hatch leaned back against the park bench, stretching her arm across the top slat.
Time to change the subject.
“So, how are the kids?”
8
Tess wandered through the grocery, picking items on her list while she considered the earlier events of the morning. Hatch was a little taller than Bishop, a bit leaner, but everything else? Like those two women had been cut from the same cloth, personality included.
Tess smiled.
"Bishop."
She hadn't noticed that she'd whispered her name aloud, like a prayer.
Bishop was always there, attached to her like a shadow, images of her hovering just behind Tess's eyes, the memories stronger than usual after meeting Joelene Hatcher. She'd barely managed to keep thoughts of Bishop in check, especially those nights when she was alone in her apartment, and lonely, her sleep filled with dreams of the woman she loved, who'd loved her.
She'd left Tenley, left all that she had known, because of Bishop, who'd shown her that it could be done, that she could make that move to what she'd hoped was a brand-new, better life. This is what she'd wanted when she was eighteen and headed for college--to live in the city, to feel the frenetic pulse of the larger world.
Now, though, at thirty, and nearly ten months in on her Great Journey, it didn't seem to be as exciting, so much as a daily hassle, the throngs of people, traffic, horns blowing, the loud banging and jackhammers more bothersome than she supposed it all would have been at a younger age.
Had she missed the cutoff, was it too late to reclaim her young adulthood?
Had she ever really had one to begin with?
9
I met up with Penny at her house after leaving the Tenley PD, swinging by the carriage house to feed everyone and grab some fresh clothes for the morning.
Sitting at the kitchen bar while she stood at the stove, I told her about the meeting with Whyte, how he'd agreed that there was something "fishy" going on. I also passed on that he really appreciated the pics, thought that they were "very well done." She was thrilled, of course, since going on the stake-outs had been a real treat for her.
"So, what's next?" she asked.
"What do you mean?"
"What happens now?"
"Well, Whyte's going to read Fowler in, then they'll go from there."
"So, we're done?"
"Well, yeah, Penny, we're done. What'd you think, we'd be in on the investigation? Be in on the bust, if there is anything going on?"
"I don't know, it just seems so...unfinished."
"Sorry, Penny, this is where we get off and let the police take over."
"Hmm."
Penny went back to stirring the chili she'd been making. I picked up the Whitmore paper, started perusing the sports page.
"Baxter?"
"Ma'am?"
"Do you ever think about being a cop again?"
I put the paper down, looked at Penny, who still had her back to me. That question--well, that was quite a question.
"Penny."
"Just curious, Bax. I mean, I know why you wouldn't, after what you went through, but still..."
I didn't know how to answer her. After I was brought to Tenley, I'd struggled to recover from my injuries, to accept my new identity and forget my past, and then, when I could have gone back to Baltimore and resumed my former life, I had chosen, instead, to stay in Tenley as Lisa Baxter.
At the end of the day, I liked my new life.
"Penny, let me just say this. I am a completely different person now, living where I live, doing what I do. Even my name has been changed. I'm not who I was in Baltimore, and frankly, I don't think you'd have liked her. The job had a lot to do with it. It was stressful, it was emotional, hell, it was exhausting."
Penny was listening, had nodded her head as I answered her question. "I was just wondering, Bax, that's all."
"I know, babe. It's okay."
Penny gave the chili one last stirring, then came around the counter and took the seat next to me at the bar. She sat looking at me. I put down the paper, looked back at her. She was pensive.
"What's on your mind tonight, Penny?"
"Have you heard from Tess?"
Wow.
Could she read my mind?
I shook my head. "No. Why?"
"Because, oh, I don't know, it's hard to explain, but you're just different, when she's 'around,' and I kind of feel it sometimes."
I went still. I'd had no idea that Penny could tell when I'd been thinking of Tess.
She was dead-on with her observation. How do I reply to that without hurting her? How do I deny that I've never stopped thinking about Tess? That I wonder what our life would have been like if she'd stayed with me?
"No, Penny, I haven't heard from her since she left. But to be honest, Whyte mentioned her this afternoon."
Penny leaned back, nodded. "Maybe that's it, then. You're missing her. It's okay, Bax, I understand," she said, putting her hand on my leg. "She was--is--special to you, always will be. Did Whyte have any news?"
"Just that she's still in Richmond."
"Hmm." Penny patted my knee, gave it a little squeeze, then stood up, walked back around to the stove.
I just looked at her as she stirred the chili, wondering what that was all about.
Penny stood at the stove, stirring and staring into the pot, but she didn't see the chili she was preparing. She was watching the dream she'd had the night before, with Tess, standing so close to Baxter, the fervent look on her face as she reached, took Baxter's hand in hers, softly speaking the unheard words to her, words that had taken Baxter with her when she turned and walked away.
Penny'd had that exact same dream three times in the past two weeks. That day was coming, she was sure of it.
And it made her want to cry.
§§§§§§§§§§§§§§
DOUBLE PLAY is now available for purchase on Amazon.com.
If you'd like to contact me, you can do that here:
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @BDGates4real
therealbdgates.wordpress.com
And, as always, thanks for reading.
BDG
