A Voice from the Field (10 page)

Ben walked over and gave his wife a peck on the cheek and slung an arm around her waist. She pushed him away, playing like she had better things to do.

“Not now, Ben. I'm getting ready to dump the seeds.”

“Hey, sorry.” Ben feigned offense. “I think you paid more attention to me when you drank Folgers.”

“I never drank Folgers.” Alex pulled on the large silver handle and the chute opened. Dark brown coffee beans, which Alex always liked to point out were actually seeds, cascaded out of the spinning drum and into the cooling bin. She switched on the metal paddle that began to slowly stir the warm beans, then flipped on the cooling fan, filling the air with the unmistakable aroma of fresh-roasted whole-bean coffee.

Soon after buying Books and Java, Alex began roasting coffee in the store. The eight-foot-tall, four-hundred-pound piece of machinery sat just a few feet inside the front door. When she was roasting, which was most mornings, Alex would leave the door open and the smell would bring customers from blocks away. In the winter months, when it was too cold to keep the door open, every patron's arrival and departure sent a blast of warm, aromatic love into the world. Business had doubled. Ben didn't know why he was surprised to add entrepreneurship to her list of skills.

“What's the blend?”

“Sumatra Peaberry. Sit down. I'll bring you a mug.”

Alex scooped some still-warm beans into her hand and went to the grinder behind the counter. Ben made himself comfortable at a nearby table. Alex had switched out the artwork since the last time he had come by, he noticed. Used books were stacked on the cement floor, waiting to be shelved. Head tilted, Ben was reading titles when Alex glided over, setting two steaming mugs onto the table and taking a seat.

Ben held a cup high and gave his typical salute. “Fuck-Bucks.”

Alex shook her head at his coarse language. “Cheers,” she said, lifting her own mug.

Ben took a sip of what most people agreed was some of the finest coffee sold east of Seattle. “So,” he said, doing his best to sound casual, “Tia come by this morning?”

“No,” Alex said. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason. I know she is a regular customer, just wondered if she'd been in.”

“So you walked down here to ask me? You can't keep track of your detectives?”

Ben said nothing.

“What aren't you telling me?”

“It's just…” He wasn't sure what he wanted to say. “I don't know. She's going through some stuff. I thought she might have come by. She and I don't really talk much. Not like we used to.”

“Why is that? She's back to work right? Full duty?”

Ben had held off on telling Alex about the hooker detail, but he knew she would find out sooner or later, so he launched in. After fifteen years of being a cop's wife and a lifetime as a cop's daughter, Alex was more than familiar with all aspects of police work. Ben never had to dumb it down or sugarcoat it. In fact, if he ever tried Alex would call him on it. Ben gave Alex a complete rundown of the operation and how the wheels fell off with the prosecutor. Alex listened intently, without interruption.

“Disorderly conduct?” Alex said when Ben finished. “She has every right to be upset. Can't you do something?”

“Apparently the deal's been struck. Can't unring the bell.”

“Should she have even been working a U/C detail? I mean, I thought you were going to start her off slow?”

“Yeah, that was the plan, but I didn't make the call.” Ben thought back to his conversations with Sergeant Jackson. “TJ gave her the assignment, but Tia twisted the hell out of his arm. You know how she can be.”

“So she saw a girl in the back of the van?” Alex asked. “What now?”

Ben sipped his coffee and looked over the top of the cup. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, what are you doing about it? So what if the DA kicks it. Get back in there and build a stronger case, right?”

“That's not going to happen.” Ben shook his head and began to question the wisdom of having brought it up at all. “I got a call from the prosecutor. She was all worked up about Tia going to see the suspect in county lockup. If we go sniffing around the case now, it'll get really ugly.”

“So what then? Milwaukee PD?”

Ben shrugged. “That's up to them.”

Alex sat back in her chair and shook her head. “Well, if I were Tia, I'd be pretty mad, too.”

“Come on, Alex. Really?” Ben's voice reflected his disbelief. “A girl in the back of a van? Does that make any sense? When you consider all the circumstances—”

“Don't tell Tia you feel that way. She might bite your head off.” Alex grimaced.

Ben thought about stopping there, but again, the woman was going to find out one way or another. “Too late. And you're right. She wasn't happy.”

“I can imagine.” Alex looked hard at her husband and Ben knew she suspected that there was more. “So now what? Back to business as usual?”

“Not exactly.” Ben looked into his cup. “I told Tia she needed to get cleared by Dr. Gage.”

Alex set her cup down. Her voice was pained. “Oh, Ben. Really? Gage? Do you realize how awful he has been to Tia?”

“I don't have a choice, Alex. She was in a major fight. She says they tried to kidnap her. An event like that is considered traumatic and requires a fitness for duty eval.”

“But Gage?”

“Can't be helped. He's got the county contract. Tia just needs to answer the man's questions and she'll be back to work. That's how it is.”

The couple sat quietly and Ben knew that Alex was pained by what he had done. He also knew she was wise enough to understand that he hadn't had a lot of choice in the matter.

He sighed. This was as good a time as any to bring up the real issue.

“You know, Tia never really bounced all the way back. She's not the same.”

“How so?” Alex said in a voice that told Ben she had her own misgivings.

“Drinking. Maybe script meds. I've heard rumors she shows up to work late. Kind of disheveled. She hasn't closed a major case in over a month.”

“Did you talk to her about it?” Alex looked at him and Ben saw the hint of anger on her face. “Or are you just going to let Gage deal with that, too?”

Ben's first thought was that the low blow was unfair, but then he thought,
Not so much. I kind of deserved that.
He blew out a deep breath. “I want to talk to her, but it isn't like it used to be between us. I don't even know her anymore.”

Alex reached out and took her husband's hand. “Yes, you do. You know her better than anyone and you know right now she needs
you
. Not some damned shrink.”

“I'm the chief of police, Alex. She doesn't talk to me.”

“Then stop being the chief for a while. Just talk to her.” She squeezed his hand. “You two were friends long before you became chief. If I remember right, you were pretty good friends.”

“Good morning, Alex,” said a new voice. “That smells wonderful. What in the world is it?”

Ben looked up to see a group of women in the doorway. He watched as Alex switched gears from concerned wife and friend to coffeehouse barista. She stood to greet her customers. “Fresh roasted, ladies. All the way from Indonesia.”

Ben watched and listened as his wife engaged the group in the finer points of coffee roasting. Before she finished with them, three more customers walked in. Alex looked between her patrons at her husband and it was as though she were whispering in his ear.

You know what to do, Benny. Be Tia's friend.

Ben stood from the table and mouthed,
See you tonight
. Alex smiled and waved. He left the coffeehouse, heading back to Newberg City Hall. He wished things with Tia were really that simple. Their friendship was one of the cornerstones of his life. But lately his relationship with Tia had faded, becoming a pleasant but disconnected part of his past. Like the scent of the fresh-roasted coffee, with every step he took the memories that he and Tia shared seemed to slip away on the breeze.

 

ELEVEN

Tia hustled along the sidewalk leading to the upscale office building, which was tucked back on a grassy hill of white-barked birch trees. She bolted the stairs two at a time to the second floor, then quickstepped down the open-air breezeway, mentally ticking off the familiar nameplates as she rushed by each door. Three CPAs. Two law offices. A dentist, a podiatrist, and finally her destination. Tia stopped and took a deep breath. She took one last look back toward the greenbelt landscape, dotted with parking lots and sidewalks that were empty of people. She opened the door and slipped into the small waiting room that had been designed for a single occupant.

She assumed that the muted tones of the room, the bubbling fish tank built into the wall, and the quiet jazz music were intended to be soothing, but she always found herself on edge in this space. Large tropical fish stared at her, their expressions seeming to say,
What, you again?
There was only one chair in the room, a fabulous leather recliner-and-a-half that Tia figured put the good doctor back a couple of grand. She perched on the arm, knowing she wouldn't be there long. One thing about Doctor Elliot Gage, he was always on time. Expected patients to be, too. No sooner had the exterior door closed than the door leading to the inner office swung open. The shrink glided in.

“Tia.” It was amazing, how much judgmental crap he could communicate with a single word.

Dr. Elliot Gage was the contract psychiatrist for a dozen law enforcement agencies throughout the region. When cops got involved in a shooting or other critical life-and-death event, they had to take a mandatory three days of administrative leave. Gage was the one who evaluated the officers and signed off on their clean bill of health, allowing a return to regular duty. A post-crisis psych eval was an industry formality that for cops amounted to a game of hide the ball. Avoid discussing anything too personal. Reveal nothing. Give the right answers—that is, the answers the shrink wanted to hear.

“Hey, Doc.” Tia did her best to appear nonchalant but suspected Gage wouldn't be fooled again. Tia knew Gage looked at her with equal parts of resentment and intrigue. He'd sent her back to work, months ago, only to have her suffer a major, on-duty relapse. He'd blown the call. That had to have him fuming, but Tia knew her case was too interesting to ignore or write off. She figured by the time he got done with her he'd publish an entire series of articles in
Psychology Today
. Maybe a book:
How I Fixed a Broken Cop
.

Most cops who survived an encounter like Tia's shooting happily accepted a high-dollar payout, a tax-free medical retirement, and a hero's exit. Tia had discovered her fellow officers didn't appreciate a daily hallway reminder that sometimes things go wrong, that cops die on the job. In fact, in the unforgiving, eat-their-own-young world of law enforcement there would always be one or two who figured Tia had screwed up and gotten a cop killed. That she walked away and a good man went in the ground. None of that had mattered to Tia. As soon as she'd been physically able, she'd met with Gage and given him all the right answers and gotten back to work. And now here they were again.

“Good to see you, Tia. Come in.”

“Thanks, Doc.”

Gage offered his large mitt of a hand and Tia took it. His firm grip and calculated stare let her know he was conducting his initial assessment right then. Gage specialized in the treatment of PTSD, and to him words were the least significant form of human communication. Tia did her best not to lock eyes with him, instead moving quickly past him and into the office. She went straight for the stiff-backed upholstered armchair she knew was meant for her. In contrast to the recliner, this chair was solid and rigid—a chair that forced the occupant to pay attention. Tia hated “the chair.”

Gage was only a few inches taller than Tia but twice as thick, with a muscular frame that reflected a dedicated workout regime. His skin was deeply tan from regular trips to Fiji, where Tia knew he kept a second home. Gage preferred crew-neck, short-sleeved knit shirts that Tia figured served the purpose of not only avoiding a necktie but also allowing a fortysomething man like Gage that one last opportunity to show off his physique. He kept his hair short enough for the military, but Tia had checked and knew he had never bothered to enlist.

She sat down and crossed her legs at the knees. She put her elbows on the armrests, laced her fingers together, level with her stomach, and stared straight ahead.
Hold this position,
she thought.
Avoid external movement.
She waited for the games to begin.

Dr. Gage took his seat directly in front of Tia, his chair set right at the edge of her personal space. He stared back, notepad and pen at the ready. “It's been a while, Tia. How are things going for you?”

“Great, Doc. Never better.” She was pleased that her voice was steady.

“My records show you recently renewed your prescription for Librium. Went through the last batch kind of quick?”

Tia pursed her lips and shrugged. “I talked with your receptionist, explained that I accidentally dropped a bunch of the pills, probably half of them, in the toilet. I would have fished them out but it seemed kind of silly to go through all that. I hardly ever take one.”

Gage nodded. “I read the arrest report from your undercover detail. Chief Sawyer sent it over.” He paused as if he wanted to be sure Tia picked up on the alliance that existed between her shrink and her boss. She shrugged again. “I was surprised. I thought we agreed you would take it easy. A gradual return to full duty.”

“The shooting was seven months ago, Doc. That's pretty gradual.”

“I'm not talking about the shooting, Tia.”

More traps,
she thought. She let the insinuation hang in the air, and after a few moments of silence Gage changed tactics and threw a new line into the water.