the Alibi. No stops at the liquor store. Frank's answering machine indicates she has two messages. One is a solicitation. The other is Gail. She tells Frank she has packed her things in a box and left it in the hall.
'Please come by and get it and leave my key on the table. If you don't want the box, please leave my key anyway.'
Frank has tried not to think about Gail. She's hoped this will somehow pass. That maybe time can reconcile them. Frank knows she's wrong and Gail's right. She's willing to make a few concessions and hasn't expected the finality
Frank thinks about calling to offer contrition, but Gail's tone doesn't brook reconciliation. And Frank won't beg. She made her choice when she walked out and Gail made hers when she'd said don't come back. Apparently, she was serious. Frank respects Gail's resolve, wishes her own were as solid. Dropping hard rock CDs into the player, she sweats in the gym for hours, afraid of what will happen if she stops. The exercise and one tumbler of Scotch get her to sleep. But they don't keep her there.
She wakes up at three and prowls around the Pryce binders, refusing to let Gail into her thoughts. She goes in early and a neglected desk keeps her occupied. Finishing the day out she leaves around three. On the freeway, she dials Gail's number. When the machine picks up, Frank disconnects. She drives to the apartment and lets herself in. The box is in the hall, but Frank looks around anyway.
Newspapers and medical journals are strewn on every available surface alongside folders and loose papers. Coffee cups and half-finished water bottles perch where Gail left them. Neatness was never her specialty. A wan smile crosses Frank's face, like sun trying to come out in the face of a hurricane. As quickly as she thinks of it, Frank dismisses the idea of leaving a note. What would she say?
Gail's cats rub against her legs, pleased to have company in the middle of the day.
'Fucked up, didn't I?' she says, squatting to stroke them. She resists a wild urge to go into the bedroom and lay her head on Gail's pillow. 'Take good care of your mommy,' she tells the cats.
Frank takes the box and leaves the key.
Chapter 31
It's a big horn night. Frank loads Houston Person and Terence Blanchard into the player tray. She adds Phil Woods and early Joshua Redman. Blanchard starts off on a track with Diana Krall, who begs Frank to get lost with her. Frank is happy to comply. She raises the glass that has become an extension of her hand.
Arranging her length along the den sofa, she borrows a line from the chief.
'We've made some mistakes, but this is the opportunity for rebuilding ourselves in the desired image.'
Frank reviews the two things she knows for sure about police work. The first rule is that everybody lies, which in turn leads to the second rule. A good cop doesn't let shit get to her. These are the golden rules that all the academies in the world can't teach. These lessons have to be learned through on-the-job training.
Frank's been a good cop because she can maintain emotional distances. With one parent dead and the other insane, detachment was a skill Frank developed as a child. Police work honed her innate abilities, demanding that she be emotionally objective, hypervigilant, and in control at all times. Being a cop was the perfect occupation for Frank. Shit dripped off her like rain off a fresh wax job.
At least it used to. Frank swirls the rusty liquid at the bottom of her glass, descrying the crystal to track when she started slipping. Probably with the Delamore case. Rule number two kind of took a backseat when she began discovering one dead girl after another. She lost it a little on that case, and then let her guard down even more with Kennedy.
Frank wags her head. Seeing the company shrink seemed to help, but Frank should have known better. Indulging a weak moment, she'd created hairline fractures in her armature. By the time Placa Estrella was killed Frank's armor had considerable chinks in it. She and Noah, and a lot of Figueroa cops, had known Placa since she was an infant. She was a kid with a lot of promise and her murder had been hard to detach from. Frank lost any remnant of objectivity when it turned out one of her own detectives had killed the girl.
That, Frank concludes, was the pivotal moment. Instead of shoring up her reserves and sealing the cracks in her armor, she had only widened them by turning to Gail. They were starting to date around that time and Frank couldn't resist the doc. Gail was warm and funny, quick to laugh and quick to anger. Blowing into Frank's stale environment, the doc was as fresh and honest as an ocean breeze. She completely stripped Frank's defenses.
Sinking her head back into the couch, Frank pronounces, 'That's where I lost it. Bought into those pretty green eyes and Betty Grable legs. What a stunner. Bitch had me tore up from the floor up.'
Even though she's killing another fifth, Frank nods soberly.
'Hella mistake.'
Time has shown Frank over and over that she isn't built for love. Love is for other people. Normal people. Frank is hard-wired for two purposes and two only. One is to work. To solve homicides. This is what she does. It's what she's good at.
The second is to drink. This is also what she does, and what she's good at. Raising her glass into the air, she adds, 'And getting better every minute.'
She knows she's drinking too much again, but this time she has planned it. Yes, she'll pay in the morning, but Fubar's on call and that's too good an opportunity to waste on sobriety. She wants to drink quickly, to get to the click, but paces herself in order to minimize the inevitable hangover.
'Should eat,' she says, and gets up to peer into her desolate refrigerator. She makes peanut butter and jelly on stale bread, wondering how Johnnie's doing. He should be back soon and she realizes she's been glad he was gone. Having him around is like looking in a mirror.
Frank takes the sandwich into the living room. She forces it down with gulps of Scotch. 'Sweet and Lovely' spills from the speakers. It's one of the songs she and Gail danced to the night they made love for the first time. Frank feels like a red-hot poker has been rammed down her throat. She can't breathe around the pain in her chest. She is sure it will suffocate her. And is equally sure that wouldn't be such a bad thing.
Chapter 32
The call comes in next afternoon just as Frank is leaving for the Alibi. Lewis catches it and leans into Frank's office. 'Hey, I gotta go look at a possible and Jill's out talking to a wit.'
'Who else is out there?'
'Nobody.'
Frank swears in her head but says, 'A'ight. Go get a car. I'll meet you downstairs.'
Their silence is thick as they drive up to a crumbling apartment building. Paramedics are stowing their gear. Frank follows Lewis to a doorway flanked by patrol officers and neighbors. Inside a woman is screaming and kids are howling. Frank steps around clothes, toys, plastic diapers and dirty dishes. The squalor is oppressive and Frank is pissed at being called out so close to end of watch.
In the kitchen, a toddler lies on cracked and peeling linoleum. Its face is so badly burned Frank can't guess at a gender.
Garcia's the responding officer and Frank asks her, 'Boy or girl?'
'Boy, Lieutenant.'
The kitchen floor is slick with oil. The kid floats on it.
'What's the story?'
Garcia looks at her notes. 'One of the kids ran next door, to a Martina Morales, in apartment five. She couldn't understand him at first because he was screaming but she finally got that his mother had burned the baby. Mrs. Morales ran over and saw this. She called nine-one-one and they called us. The mother claims she slipped while she was taking the oil off the stove. Says it was an accident.'
Frank checks the pattern of bubbled skin. It starts at the kid's head, where most of his hair is peeled off. The blistering has obliterated his face and deformed his shoulders. She studies the spill pattern. It's concentrated in a thick pool near the body. Dabbing two fingers in the spattered oil Frank rubs them together. She shakes her head, lamenting, 'Should've used Crisco. Less greasy.'
Lewis blows up to Frank like a gust of wind. 'That was uncalled for, LT' She keeps her voice low, but Lewis's outrage is loud enough. Frank pivots to give the detective her full attention. Anger colors Lewis's face, which is square in Frank's. She adds, 'You're talking some cold, disrespecting shit. Lieutenant.'
Lewis's
'Right you are,' Frank admits. Lewis holds her glare and Frank shrugs. 'Sorry.'
