Last Call

Frank gives it to him straight up. She hears sorrow in his response, acknowledges it without reciprocating. Spending his days fishing on Lake Superior, Joe can afford this luxurious dip into emotion. He is well removed from its constant ravages. Frank is not. She is deep in the thick of it. One misstep and she'll drown in it like a common civilian. Not an option.

Frank kneads the knots below her skull while Joe asks how Tracey and the kids are holding up.

'As well as can be expected,' she answers.

'How about you? How you doing?'

She says, 'Fine,' too quickly.

Joe waits for more. When there isn't any, his response is as measured as the footsteps of a man in a minefield. 'Are you still seeing that shrink over at the BSU?'

'No. He retired. I'm all right. Really.'

'Okay,' Joe says, sounding unconvinced. 'When's the funeral?'

'I'm not sure yet. I'll let you know. Think you can make it?'

'Oh, I'll make it.'

'Good. Listen I just wanted to let you know. Wanted you to hear it from me. I'll call you as soon as Tracey sets a date.'

'Sure, sure. I appreciate the call, Frank. I know it was a hard one to make.'

'Yeah. Get back to those fish.'

Frank gently replaces the receiver. Then she hurls the phone across the room. It breaks into dozens of pieces. Frank wants to throw more.

Chapter 3

Everyone is out of the office by two, including Frank. She cannot wait to leave today. Usually the office is her sanctuary, her refuge from the world, but today it mocks her. Everything in it reminds her of Noah.

She grabs a six-pack at Cat's Liquors. Two bottles are gone before she reaches the Alibi. She is sure Johnnie will be at the bar and doesn't know if she can face his pain. He partnered with Noah for a long time after Frank became lieutenant. He and Noah fought like they were married, but they covered for each other too. Johnnie hated it when Frank paired Noah with Lewis, but Noah'd been ready for the change and eager to coach the prickly detective trainee.

Frank parks outside the Alibi but doesn't shut the car off. There will be other cops in there. As the afternoon changes to evening, people from Parker Center and the district attorney's office will trickle in. Frank doesn't want to deal with their sad faces and so sorry's. She keeps driving. She gets onto the freeway and heads north. She catches the 210 to Lincoln Avenue. Traffic is light and soon she's climbing into the San Gabriel Mountains.

She remembers an overlook that looks down on Pasadena. She finds it vacant and pulls in. Taking her fourth beer, she sits on the hood. The engine ticks beneath her. A warm breeze lifts her hair. She looks down at the city while the sun kisses her arms. For a moment she is almost peaceful, but the day returns and being up here is no good either. She wants to run. To get in the car and keep driving, but where to? There's nowhere to go. Frank doesn't know what to do with pain like this, except drown it. Drown it even as she denies its existence.

She guzzles the beer and waits for the click. The click that Brick explains in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The click in his head that switches the hot light off and the cool one on. The click that makes him feel peaceful.

But the click doesn't happen. It's too soon and she knows it. Before she reaches for the fifth beer, she hurls her empty into the brush. She chases it with a wild, gargled yell, slamming both fists against the hood, but her pain remains unfazed.

When the six-pack is gone she goes home, stopping on the way for a bottle of Scotch. She's supposed to be at her lover's tonight. It's the regular routine—a couple weeknights, and weekends, spent at Gail Lawless's apartment—but when the doc calls, she lets her talk to the answering machine. Frank digs deep for the strength to tell Gail what's happened. Clinging to her glass of Black Label, her shovel, she returns the call.

'Hi.'

'Hi yourself. Where are you?'

'Home.'

'Are you on your way over?'

'Nope.'

'How come?' The pause is long enough that Gail asks, 'What's wrong?'

Gail waits until Frank can say, 'Noah's dead. Car wreck on his way in this morning.'

Frank hears the sharp intake of breath. She dreads what's coming next but bears the standard response stoically. Nor does she protest when Gail says, 'I'm coming over.'

Gail lets herself in and crosses the room to where Frank is leaning against the patio door. She enfolds Frank and Frank dutifully accepts the embrace. Gail's smell is sweet and familiar, as wonderful as a child's must be to its mother. Frank has loved the scent of this woman, the feel of her flesh against hers, but for all the comfort it brings tonight, she may as well be hugging marble. She feels nothing and that's all right. The click is kicking in. While she wouldn't exactly say it was peaceful, at least it isn't painful. And that is worth a lot. Yes, indeedy, that is plenty good right now and she won't risk losing that precious cessation of feeling.

The doc asks, 'How'd you find out?'

'When he hadn't called in by eight I tracked Tracey down at County General.'

'What happened to him?'

'I told you. He was in a car accident.'

'No, I mean, was it his head, internal trauma?'

Irritation bleeds into Frank's drunken equanimity but she decides the question is only natural coming from the county coroner. 'He bled out. The doctor working on him said he'd sustained a lot of trauma and that they couldn't stop the bleeding. His heart quit.'

Frank's almost stops as she says that. Noah's heart quit. She can't believe that big, stupid, goofy heart could be stilled. How could an organ with so much life in it just quit? Her heart, sure. It was a rock. People like her died every day. That was to be expected. But Noah was good. He was a good dad, a good husband, a good cop. A good friend.

'Did you get to see him? Or talk to him?'

'No. He was in surgery when I got there. He never came out of it. Tracey didn't get to see him either. Not until it was over.'

They have broken apart a little and Gail nods at the glass affixed to Frank's hand. 'I assume you're getting drunk.'

'Not as drunk as I'd like to. Fubar's on call, Darcy and Bobby volunteered to catch tonight, but I want to see Tracey first thing in the morning. I won't be any good to her hungover.'

'How is she?'

'Pretty fucked up. Her sister's with her.'

'Is there anything I can do?'

Frank shakes her head. 'Nothing anybody can do.'

'Have you eaten at all?'

'No.'

'How about some soup?' Gail asks, moving toward the kitchen.

Frank doesn't stop her.

'How'd everybody at work take it?'

Again Frank is irritated. It's taken her hours to dim the day's hot lights and Gail's flipping them back on.

'Like you'd expect. I gave 'em the choice to go home if they wanted. Johnnie and Jill left.'

'What about Lewis?'

'She seemed kind of at odds.' Then more to herself, Frank says, 'I don't know what I'll do with her.'

Cheryl Lewis had come into the 93rd Squad barely a year ago. Frank had watched her advance from boot to sergeant and when Frank needed replacements for her depleted squad, she'd requested Lewis. She'd partnered her with Noah. Lewis was big, black and temperamental. Noah was an impish, skinny, white boy whom Lewis insisted on calling O'Malley even though he always countered he was Jewish. Noah would take his partner to the edge of her temper and back away, gradually building elasticity into it. Lewis learned quickly and Noah blossomed as a mentor.