Last Call

'Generally it's fine.'

'Tell me what you like about it.'

'Gail, why are you doing this?'

'Because I need to know. What do you like about our relationship? From what I can see, it doesn't look like much. Half the time you beg off seeing me, and when you do deign to grace me with your presence you're remote, aloof and unapproachable.'

Frank notes the triple redundancy of Gail's description, thereby making her guilty of only one fault.

'And in case you haven't noticed, we haven't made love since Noah died. I don't think you even like breathing the same air as me! But you're perfectly happy.'

Guilty as charged, Frank thinks. Gail is absolutely right. Frank doesn't want to be with her. It's more effort than she can manage right now. It's not fair to drag Gail down to her level, but neither is it sporting of Gail to demand Frank meet her bar. Searching the air above the bed, Frank knows she must choose. Gail or the wall. Falling or staying. She makes her decision, but her words are halting.

'You deserve better, Gail. Someone who can go through things with you. I can't. I just can't. I'm not built that way. I'm sorry.' She rolls her back to Gail. 'Good night.'

To ensure she won't fall, Frank has crucified herself to the wall.

Chapter 17

Frank's commute always gives her time to reflect, and the next morning she will go so far as to say she's a heavy drinker and sometimes she drinks too much. Who doesn't? But there is drinking, and then there's problem drinking. If drinking doesn't interfere with her daily functions, then there's no problem. If it does interfere, then it's a problem. Frank can't see how her drinking is a problem. She does the same things that teetotalers do—she gets to work on time, does a good job, pays her bills and keeps her house up. What more does Gail want?

To prove she has no problem, Frank vows to stay sober for a week. If she can get through the week without seeing purple spiders or ending up in the Betty Ford clinic, then she must be okay. If she can't, then she has a problem. She tests herself the week Foubarelle goes out of town. Being on call the whole week is good incentive to stay sober. The days are easy, the nights a little harder. Around four or five o'clock, her body nags that it's time for a drink. She distracts herself with work. She spends the hours interviewing residents along the street where the Pryce family used to live. She knocks as late as eight o'clock and then spends another couple hours writing notes. Twice she sleeps on the skinny vinyl couch in her office. The other nights she slips in next to Gail for what is little more than a nap and change of clothes.

When Fubar returns, Frank celebrates her week of sobriety at the Alibi. Tossing off a double, she orders another. Johnnie joins her and at midnight Nancy asks, 'Want me to call you a cab?'

Frank thinks, you can call me anything you like, but says, 'Good idea.'

Next morning her hangover is exquisite. She wonders how she got that drunk. She didn't mean to, and scolds that she should've had dinner. She resolves to go easy tonight. Two beers, max, she tells herself.

Alcohol has always been a friend Frank can count on. When she feels low it consoles her. When she wants to celebrate it takes her higher. When she mourns, it comforts her. When she needs to chill, it calms her. If she's a little down, it brings her up. If she's amped too high, it brings her down. The booze oils her enough to fit comfortably into her own skin, no matter how tight, how large, how raw or how exhilarated she feels. It makes bad times bearable and good times better.

Because the booze has always been such a loyal and dependable friend, Frank cannot—will not—see its betrayal. And the betrayals start off small enough: a hangover on a workday, the fuzzily recalled evening, a tiff that in the sober light of dawn seems senseless. They're petite mignons, really, little sins, of fleeting concern during her shower or drive to work.

Because she hasn't noticed the smaller betrayals, she's equally blind to the larger ones—the recriminating arguments that leave her bruised but justified; remorseful cold shoulders to those deserving better; the dull head that shadows much of her workday followed near the end of watch by distractive planning of what to drink and where.

Alcohol is Frank's right-hand man, her Robinson Crusoe and Gal Friday rolled into one. It's the cavalry routing the bad guys in the final desperate hour. It's the lifeline suddenly appearing in a walloping sea. So of course she has ignored all the hints and signs that her old friend is going behind her back. Who could look at that? Who would want to see? She keeps loving her buddy, her pal, sharing the bulk of her time with it and all her confidences. And her friend pats her hand or gives her the high-five just as it always has. And because she still trusts it, unable to believe it has anything but her best interests at heart, she willingly takes its hand and follows it too far.

When she wakes from a blackout wondering how she got home, while she pulls her guts up through her teeth at the kitchen sink, or hides bloodshot eyes behind Ray Bans and shaking hands in pockets, she wonders how she's crossed the line again. She berates herself for going as far as she has and swears she won't do it again. But when the booze calls her and says one or two won't hurt, just for old time's sake, she says, 'Sure,' certain, trusting even, that her old friend won't hurt her. And because she trusts it, she follows it repeatedly, again and again, over the line.

Frank decides her vow to stick to two beers is unnecessary. By nine o'clock that night she has finished a six- pack. There are no notable aftereffects and Frank thinks no more of limits or abstaining. She is fine. Just fine.

Chapter 18

There are two people that Frank has yet to talk to—Mary and Walter Pryce. She's put off calling Ladeenia and Trevor's parents because she knows they will ask about Noah. He had stayed in touch, calling them regularly just to check in. To let them know he hadn't forgotten. He'd been fond of the Pryces and they of him. Everyone liked Noah. He was just that kind of guy.

Frank has a few questions for the Pryces, loose ends she could easily tie up on the phone, but she wants to meet them. They are the living link to the case she's become so attached to. And they are a link to Noah.

She calls to arrange a meeting. Sundays, after church, is the best time for them. And the worst for Frank— Sundays are when she and Gail try to carve some time out together.

During a late dinner on Wednesday night, Frank tries killing two birds with the same stone.

'I called the Pryces today. The parents in Noah's cold case. I need to talk to them face-to-face but the only time that works for both of them is Sunday afternoons. They live up in Santa Maria, so I was wondering if you'd like to drive up there with me. I just need about twenty minutes with them, and then we can have the rest of the day to do whatever you want. Maybe have lunch in Santa Barbara, hit some antique stores?'

They are eating Chinese food at Yujean Kang's. Gail looks up from her Ants on a Tree to reach for Frank's hand. 'That'd be fun. I'd like that.'

Frank holds on to the hand in hers. This is the part where she should say something tender and sincere. The words themselves come easily enough after a lifetime of cajoling witnesses and suspects, but Frank is sure that if she speaks them without feeling that Gail will see right through her. She settles for squeezing the doc's hand and assuring her, 'Me, too.'

Sunday breaks hot and bright. They pick up coffee and cinnamon buns at Europane and head for Highway 101. Looking east, the mountains sport spring wildflowers, and to the west the Pacific sparkles benignly under a bright blue sky. It's a textbook southern California day. Gail chatters about work and her mom and sisters. Frank makes the appropriate noises and feigns interest but her thoughts are where they always are—with the Pryce case.

Leaving Gail contentedly reading in the car, Frank introduces herself to Mary and Walter Pryce. When they inevitably ask why the case has been reassigned, much as she hates to, Frank tells them the truth. The news saddens them and although they offer to help Frank however they can, their resignation is palpable.

As promised, Frank is soon back on the highway where it occurs to her that the Pryces have closed the book on their dead children and moved on. If they've moved on, why shouldn't she? Why keep flogging this dead horse? There are file cabinets back at Figueroa full of unsolved cases, some as tragic as Ladeenia and Trevor's, some more so. Why not focus on them instead?

Because this is Noah s case, comes the dim response from a corner of her brain. She tells herself she wants to solve it for him. Not for the Pryces—to hell with them—but for Noah. He'd appreciate it. But an even darker corner of her brain whispers that if she lets Pryce go, she has to let Noah go, too.

She turns to Gail and forces a smile. 'So what's for lunch?'

Frank keeps her brain hushed for the next couple of weeks by spending every available minute canvassing a