by Paul Bishop
“Here you go, Brentwood,” she said as she set the food on the kitchen floor. “Good Brentwood.” She stroked the cat's long back as it dived nose-first into the tuna.
The cat was totally oblivious to his new name. Fey realized she could have called him Attila the Hun as long as she fed him.
Watching Brentwood eat, she pulled open a kitchen drawer and took out a sealed packet of cigarettes. Fumbling with the packet in indecision, she eventually put it back and closed the drawer. She had quit the habit two years earlier, but the urge was still strong – never more so than when under the stress of a fresh homicide.
The rest of the day at work had been rough. The mountains of paperwork had been waded through, the press had been handled, and a large amount of shoe leather had been wasted canvassing the townhome complex for witnesses without success. There remained a short list of units where nobody was home. Two of those units were close enough to the victim's residence to perhaps be of use, but Fey didn't hold out hope.
The facts surrounding the victim's multiple identities and the money found in the dryer had been kept back from the press. The last thing any detective needed on a case was a media circus. When the situation was under better control, she would tip a reporter who might get half the information right in print.
She put a bowl of water down next to the saucer of tuna. She moved the litter box to a corner of the kitchen, then left Brentwood to his own devices. Kicking off her shoes, Fey picked them up and carried them into the bedroom. She picked up her jacket along the way to hang in the closet.
The house was a long, low ranch-style design. It was set back against the foothills of the San Fernando Valley. There was an attached three-car garage and a half-circle drive. The exterior was a pleasing blend of red-tiled roof, adobe-colored plastering, and bleached split-rail fencing. The front yard consisted of low-maintenance cacti and yucca trees. A long strip of Kentucky bluegrass was kept in shape by a local kid for spending change.
Fey had bought the property after her first divorce. She had married young and wrong. She’d been looking for a way out of one abusive situation, found herself in another.
Her first husband had inherited a successful contracting business. After two years of putting up with his fists, Fey never felt guilty about taking him to the cleaners, as Colby had called it.
Once, when feeling extremely cynical, she told a therapist she had earned the money the old-fashioned way, with her body. The male therapist didn't understood the joke. She never went back to him again. The cost of earning money with bruises and broken bones was far too high for her to waste time with someone who had no concept of the price.
The house had been built after marriage number two. Fey had been on the job for two years when she found herself swept off her feet by Johnny Killerman. He was a dashing motor cop as macho and sensitive as his name implied. There was something about the black boots, the Harley, the macho mustache, and the last-of-the-cowboys image which still sent a tingle up her spine.
There had been no physical abuse this time, but Johnny was interested in only three things – motorcycles, guns, and sex. Romance, travel, education, reading, or any kind of police work not on two wheels was a waste of time as far as Johnny was concerned. He couldn't understand why anyone would be interested in anything else.
Johnny also had trouble with the concept of keeping his dick in his pants. Fey got tired of hearing other women talk about how good Johnny was in the sack. She also wondered how low some of these women's standards were. From her own experience, she knew Johnny was all acrobatics and no passion. After five years of playing mother to a man who refused to grow up, Fey packed her bags and walked.
She let Johnny buy her out of the house they bought together. She then used the money to start construction on her current residence. Bit by bit, she scrimped and saved to complete the structure. It took five years to complete, but she was happy and secure in the end result.
During those five years, Fey battled her own emotional demons. She drifted into casual affairs. She drank hard, she played hard, and she kicked butt on the street. She thought she was one of the guys until she realized the guys had a double standard. What was good for the gander was not good for the goose. A guy's reputation was enhanced by drinking and whoring, but a gal's reputation was ruined by the same behavior.
Marriage number three also came and went. Yank Conners was a hard-living hockey goalie with the Los Angeles Blades, a feeder team for the Los Angeles Kings.
For all his fierceness on the ice, Yank was a sensitive person in relationships. He sent flowers, wrote bad poetry, made love gently, and could listen with as much intensity as he could talk.
Life looked good, but then fate intervened. The Chicago Blackhawks bought up Yank's contract, offering him a starting position. Yank wanted Fey to come to Chicago where fame and fortune awaited. Fey wanted Yank to stay in Los Angeles where she had her own career.
She still remembered the night when they held each other and cried into the small hours of the morning. Marriage or career? Which was more important? Neither could determine if they had made the right decision.
Yank went to Chicago. The marriage lasted long distance for another year, dying with a whimper instead of a bang. Yank appeared before packed arenas for every game. Fey moved into her dream house to lick her wounds. Yank had shown her she was capable of a good relationship. Love, however, demanded a high price in compromise.
Yank's playing career was cut short by injury, but he found a spot for himself on the Blackhawks' coaching staff. He'd remarried and had three little prospective goalies.
He and Fey stayed in touch, even saw each other when the Blackhawks came to town. Their relationship was one of love's strange tangents, incomprehensible to anybody but those involved. They figured their ongoing relationship was their business, not his wife’s or Fey’s current lover.
The house was Fey's castle. She decorated the interior in country fashion –
straw dolls, gingham curtains, wood and fabric couches, and horse-related gewgaws.
The house put her close to her horses, and was a place where she could be totally independent. She thought of it as the Land of Fey, an extension of her inner self. Lock the doors, run up the flag, and defend the walls against all intruders.
Her bedroom was neat and tidy. There were two phones with attached answering machines in the room. The answering machine on her dresser showed two messages. The machine on the nightstand held another.
Fey checked her watch. Midnight-thirty. She still had time. She ignored the machine on the dresser, pressing the message button on the nightstand machine.
“You have one message,” advised the electronic voice. Beep.
“Hi, honey. I heard you hooked a real whodunit.” Fey smiled, instantly recognizing the voice of Jake Travers. “I know you'll be out late, but call me anyway.”
Travers was an experienced deputy district attorney. He and Fey had become close friends over the course of winning several big cases together. After losing a big one, they had also become lovers.
“If you don't get back in time,” the message continued, “I'll touch base with you in the morning. The Hansen case is coming up for trial next week, and we need to make sure all the wits are ready. Talk to you soon. Love you.”
The machine voice took over again. “No more messages.”
Love, Fey thought, reflecting on the message. Did she love Jake? Probably. But she loved her freedom more. Twice he'd asked her to marry him, but she had demurred. She'd was intimate with those pitfalls. She was too set in her ways, too comfortable with her life-style. She could be a friend or a lover, but not a spouse. She loved Jake, but he would never be hanging his suits in her closet.
She knew it was still before midnight, but she had things to do. Rather than calling Jake back, she slipped out of her work clothes and pulled on a pair of jeans, an old sweatshirt, and a pair of beat-up Jodhpur boots. Back in the kitchen, she poured a glass of red wine. She finishe
d it quickly and then opened the sliding glass door to the back of the property, turned on the exterior lights, and went to see to her horses.
The rear yard ran back for a full acre before sloping sharply upward to meet the scrub marking the beginning of the foothills. There was a large, partially covered patio attached to the house extended out to surround a hot tub. Behind the tub was a five-foot brick wall with a wooden gate at one end.
Fey let herself through the gate and into the dirt corral area. The corral was surrounded by an iron-railed fence. It contained a wooden stable structure at one end. Her two horses nickered as they became aware of her presence. Trotting over to the iron-railed fence, they stuck their necks over for their noses to be nuzzled. Fey talked softly to both animals as she slid between the rails and entered the corral. Patting Thieftaker, a dark bay gelding, she checked the loose shoe on his left hind hoof. She swore softly. The farrier would have to come before the horse could be ridden again.
Constable was a black gelding with a gleaming coat and regal bearing. He stood two full hands higher than Thieftaker and was a recent addition to the family. Fey patted him and checked him over to see if there was any noticeable reason for him being off his feed. His right front leg felt slightly warm. If it was still warm in the morning, Fey knew she would also need the vet. With the cost of caring for two horses, Fey was glad she didn't have kids to raise.
Kids, however, were one thing she didn't have to worry about. Her father had taken care of the problem.
After checking the feed and water bins in the horse boxes, Fey left the horses and returned to the house. She checked her watch again. Eleven forty-five. She knew she'd better hurry.
Throwing off her clothes, she turned on the radio in her bathroom to catch the sports scores. From the shower she could hear the announcer rambling on about basketball scores and college sports. Finally, he got around to reporting the Kings lost their hockey game to the Chicago Blackhawks by a score of five to two.
Fey smiled as she dried herself, put on perfume, and slid into a soft nightgown. She would call Jake in the morning. A five-to-two win meant Yank would be in a very good mood when he arrived.
Life for the victim was over, but Fey learned long ago life went on for the living.
Chapter 10
The following morning, Fey allowed herself an extra fifteen minutes sleep. Making love with Yank always left her feeling stress-free, relaxed, and deliciously naughty. The infrequency and the secretive nature of their liaisons added spice to the encounters. They were both friends and lovers, and their relationship had survived the long term because it did not suffer from the demands and everyday stresses normal romantic, dating, or spousal ties engendered.
Fey stretched her legs across the bed and felt an unfamiliar lump down by her feet. She opened one eye to peer down at Brentwood. The cat was perched at the bottom of the bed with his feet tucked in underneath him. His eyes were wide open watching Fey, seeming to will her awake.
“Good morning, Brentwood,” she said.
The cat yowled back.
There was a dent in the pillow next to Fey's where Yank had slept. He'd told her the night before he would have to leave early since the team was catching a morning flight to Vancouver for another road game, this time against the Canucks.
She vaguely remembered his weight shifting off the bed while it was still dark outside. A little later, she had felt the brush of his lips against her cheek. With her eyes closed she had whispered an endearment and drifted deeply back to sleep.
Once out of bed, she wrapped herself in a white terrycloth robe and struck out for the kitchen. She put a pot of coffee on and put a saucer of milk down for Brentwood, who was more interested in attacking her fuzzy bunny slippers. She wrote a sticky-note reminder to pick up cat food and stuck it to her purse.
When she had a cup of coffee inside her, she put on ranch clothes and spent an hour mucking out the stable. Constable's leg was cool and he happily munched into his morning feed. Thieftaker, however, had not fixed his own shoe. Fey left a note for her neighbor, Peter Dent, to call the farrier to take care of the problem.
Peter was a magazine writer with three horses of his own. Like Fey, he lived alone. Fortunately, he was also more than willing to take care of Fey's animals if she was gone or working overtime. It was a good arrangement. Fey likened it to a single parent's problems with child care. Domestic horses, like children, did not take care of themselves.
After showering and washing her black shoulder-length hair, Fey dried off and stopped to examine her body critically in the mirror. At five-foot-nine, she was a big woman with a big bone structure. Hours of horseback riding kept everything firm and toned, but there was no denying she was ten pounds above her best weight.
Looking in the mirror, she realized Her legs were still good and the sharp bone structure of her face was wearing well. Her complexion was smooth and her hair held a gleaming shine.
Her hands, however, gave away her age. She used lotion and kept her nails short, but working with horses and spending hours in the sun took a toll.
Finally, she shrugged at herself in the mirror. She felt strong and healthy, which some days was good enough. She might envy the energy of the female rookies, but she knew the heartbreaks ahead of them. No way would she trade places.
Back in her bedroom she continued to ignore the flashing notification light of the dresser answering machine. While she dressed, she picked up the portable phone from the nightstand and called Jake. He came on the line after the first ring.
“Hello.”
“Hi, kiddo,” Fey said. Thoughts of making love to Yank zipped briefly through her mind, trying to push every guilt button they could find, but she shoved them aside.
“Hey! How are you?” Jake was always upbeat in the morning. “What's this about bodies coming back from the dead to be murdered again? Don't you have enough work?”
“Apparently not,” Fey said. “The victim has as many lives as a cat and more identities than a check-kiter.”
A night's sleep had not given Fey any new angles on the case.
“Any suspects?” Jake asked.
“We're not even sure who the victim is. The files San Francisco is sending may provide answers.”
“Life is never dull.”
“Not in this town.”
“How about the Hansen case? Is our victim available?” Jake asked, changing the subject
“I've got her stashed in a women's shelter. She's safe and getting counseling. She'll be ready when we need her.”
The case Jake was referencing was the third arrest of Ned Hansen for spousal battery. Twice before his wife had backed out of testifying. This time around, though, Fey felt they stood a chance.
“Good,” Jake paused. “How about dinner tonight?”
“Great,” Fey said. “But it depends on how the case breaks today. I'll call you.”
“I miss you.”
“Ditto,” Fey said, and hung up.
Jake Travers was a good man, she thought as Brentwood rubbed around her ankles. She bent to stroke the white bundle of fur. There weren't many good men around who weren't married, weren't gay, and could put together sentences with words of more than two syllables. She considered herself lucky.
As she made the bed, she touched the pillow on which Yank had slept.
She considered herself very lucky.
Chapter 11
When Fey entered the squad bay tin the morning, Hatch and Monk were already busy at the homicide unit's desks. Hatch was sitting in Fey's chair with a short stack of reports in front of him. He was wearing a white nylon long-sleeved shirt even an FBI agent wouldn't be caught wearing. The shirt was stuffed haphazardly into black Sansabelt pants over scuffed black slip-ons. One of the shoes had the tassels missing. His tie was a wide orange and black abstract of the kind five-year-olds buy for Father's Day.
“Anything hot?” Fey asked him, referring to the stack of new crime reports.
“A couple of ADWs
need some follow-up. In one, the victim took fifty-eight stitches to seal up the gash in his head.”
Fey gave a theatrical flinch. “What did he get hit with?”
“A jack handle. The fight took place in the parking lot of the Armory. The suspect didn't like the way the victim talked to one of the waitresses.”
“Typical,” Fey said. “What about the other?”
Hatch nodded toward his partner. “Monk's talking to the victim. It’s probably a sign-off.”
“Victim doesn't want to prosecute?”
“It's a roommate squabble between alternate life-styles. One threw a glass at the other. The victim was mad last night, but they made up over the telephone when the suspect called from jail. The victim was calling us first thing. He wants his buddy sprung.”
“Fine by me,” Fey said. “Get the victim to sign off the report and have Monk to run it by the city attorney for a reject.”
Hatch nodded at Fey's retreating back as she headed for the coffee room. When she came back with a steaming mug in her hand, Hatch had moved over to his own desk. Fey sat down.
“Anything else?” she asked.
“The other reports are twos or threes,” Hatch said.
Reports fell into three classifications. Those with clues or named suspects were category one, and had to be investigated and handled within fifteen days. Category two reports were those with no solid leads – a partial license plate or the description of an unknown suspect. For a cat-two, the detective needed to contact the victim within thirty days making sure there was no further information. Reports where there was no suspect information were category three—filed and forgotten.
Fey would never say anything to Hatch about the way he dressed. He was a good detective and an excellent right-hand man. He kept the unit's paperwork flowing and was a fountain of experience and information. Having him in the unit made Fey's job easier. If Hatch wanted to dress like a reject from a thrift store, Fey had no problem cutting him slack.
