Last Call (3 page)

“I’m gonna figure out his caseload and his partner’s—”

“No, no, no.” Joe jabs a finger between her breasts. “How
are you
dealing with this?”

Frank stares over his shoulder. “Best I can. There’s not a lot of options.”

Joe stays quiet, but keeps his face in Frank’s.

She manages a grin. “You’re interrogating.”

“Damn right.” He grins back. “I know you won’t give it up without a fight.”

“Even then,” she says, backing away, raising her palms in the air.

Joe shakes his head. “It’ll eat you alive.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“How?”

“Joe, I respect you. Always have. But you’re not my LT anymore. Don’t push me.”

“All right, all right,” he soothes. “I’m just asking. I know what you’re gonna do anyway.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”

“You’re gonna dive into a bottle and pretend it’s never happened.”

It rankles Frank that she is so transparent, and she answers, “So what if I do? Who’s it gonna hurt?”

“You, girlie-girl. It’s gonna hurt you. And it doesn’t have to be that way.”

“Maybe it does.”

Frank stands squarely during Joe’s full appraisal. She feels like she’s let him down, but she can’t change that. Finally he nods.

“Maybe it does. Come on,” he says, swinging an arm around her neck. “Let’s get back to the party.”

He leaves soon after. Lightly slapping her cheek, Joe tells Frank to be careful. And reminds her she has his number. Watching him leave, she’s surprised by the lump in her throat. She sips club soda so her crew can tie one on. As the funeral reception breaks up she pours them into cabs and sends them home with more sober revelers. She hugs Tracey and promises to call. She winds up alone in her car, driving with no destination. Like a serial killer, she cruises aimlessly until a perfect opportunity appears.

It’s the Alibi. She locks her .38 into the lockbox in her trunk. In the bathroom she exchanges her uniform for shorts and a T-shirt from the backseat. They’re wrinkled and stiff with sweat, but there’s hardly anyone in the bar. Much of the Alibi’s trade is from downtown offices so the place is quiet on Saturday afternoons. The weekend bartender doesn’t know Frank well and tries to initiate conversation. When Frank shuts him down he takes up a position at the opposite end of the bar.

She stares at the NASCAR race over her head and drinks doubles. She did what she had to do at the wake, but now her time is her own, and she intends to use it getting shitfaced. As she finishes her third Scotch, Johnnie walks in. She doesn’t admit how glad she is to see him. They order boilermakers and raise their shot glasses.

“To Noah.”

They order again. By midnight they see two of themselves behind the jeweled bottles in the mirror. The bartender’s afraid to cut the cops off and afraid not to. He’s relieved when Frank tells him to call a cab. She and Johnnie tumble out to the sidewalk, Johnnie bellowing, “I’m drunker ‘n a fuckin’ lord!”

“Hella high,” Frank agrees. She sways gently while Johnnie waggles a finger. Or two.

“La Freek.” He calls her by the old nickname only he uses anymore. “You’re drunker’n a fiddler’s bitch.”

“Uncanny, Detective Briggs. No foolin’ you.”

When the cab comes they go to another bar. By the time she gets home she has to kneel in front of her door and shut one eye to get the key in the lock. She gets in on the third try, stumbling past the flashing light on her answering machine. She knows who’s called and it’s too late to do anything about it. She drinks a big glass of water and takes four Excedrin PMs, hoping she’ll sleep through the worst of the hangover.

It’s a good plan, but at dawn Frank is hugging her John. After she’s left with dry heaves she drinks more water and sticks her finger down her throat. When the water comes back up her stomach levels out. She chases two naproxen with an inch of Pepto Bismol and goes back to bed. The ringing phone wakes her. She reaches for it while assessing damage control. The hangover has left only a foggy head and sore stomach muscles.

“This is Franco.”

“Hi.” Gail’s voice elicits remorse mingled with caution.

“Hey.” Frank makes an offensive play. “I’m sorry I didn’t call yesterday. Johnnie and I stopped by the Alibi and kind of closed the place down.”

“Kind of closed the place down,” Gail repeats, her words stuck in the wire like an icicle. “I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you that I might be worried.”

“Honestly, yes. But by the time I thought to call you I was pretty smashed.”

While waiting for Gail’s move Frank tries to remember how she got home. She walks to the living room window, doesn’t see her car in the driveway and assumes she had sense enough to take a cab.

At last Gail says, “I hope you feel like bloody hell this morning.”

“I do,” Frank lies.

“Good. You deserve it.”

The doc’s honesty amuses Frank. It’s what she loves most about Gail. That and her legs.

“I owe you dinner. How about I take you out and we catch a movie?”

“And you think that’ll get you off the hook?”

“I don’t know. Will it?”

Gail considers, allowing, “This time.”

It’s too late for Frank to go back to sleep so after a glass of chocolate milk she exorcises her guilt in the garage that is her gymnasium. With the Soloflex, treadmill and free weights, she sweats the night from her system. A cab takes her to the Alibi where her old Honda waits patiently. When she picks up Gail, she is bright-eyed and hungry. She will not drink tonight. She will be charming and attentive. Frank plans this, she thinks, to keep Gail off her back, to convince the doc everything is all right.

Frank takes Lewis and Bobby aside after the Monday morning briefing. She asks them to clean out Noah’s desk. It takes three boxes to hold all his gag toys, pictures, holiday decorations, art projects and birthday cards. Per her instructions, they leave the boxes in Frank’s office. They are filled to the top, overflowing like Christmas stockings. She ignores them until the end of the day, when she walks across the street and comes back with two more boxes. She repacks everything until she can seal each box, thinking if it’s this hard for her to look at his stuff, how hard is it going to be for his wife?

She calls Tracey, asking if she’d like company for dinner. She’s pleased when Tracey answers, “Fuck, yeah. I’d love to see you.”

Having six tender ears around hasn’t bled the blue from Tracey’s tongue.

Frank suggests, “How ‘bout I get some Kentucky Fried Chicken? Wash it down with plastic coleslaw and watery potatoes?”

“God,” Tracey groans. “I haven’t eaten that shit in years. But the kids’ll love it. And don’t forget the biscuits and gravy.”

When she arrives at Noah’s house—it will always be Noah’s house—Tracey greets her with the usual bear hug. What it lacks in exuberance it makes up for in comfort. The women hold on to each other for a while.

“Hey, I’ve got some stuff in the car. From Noah’s desk. Want me to put it in the garage?”

“Would you?”

“Sure.” Noah’s youngest are watching TV in the living room and Frank says, “Hey, come help me bring your dinner in.”

“Hi, Frank,” Jamie says. “We’re watching a movie.”

“Not anymore,” Tracey replies, waving the remote at the TV. “Go help Frank.”

Frank loads the kids with bags of food, then stacks the boxes on a shelf in the garage. She brings a six-pack in from the car, but Tracey has already snapped the cap off a Bud and left it on the counter. Picking up her own bottle, she clanks it against Frank’s.

She quips, “I was going to open a delicate little Pouilly-Fuisse but thought this might have a gutsier bouquet.”

“Hear, hear,” Frank says, draining much of her bottle in one go.

Tracey wipes her lip and says, “Thanks for coming by.”

“Thanks for letting me invite myself.”

“Well, hell, how can I refuse when you bring dinner?”

The kids aren’t in the kitchen, so Frank asks, “How’s it going?”

“Horrible. I can’t stand this. Waiting for him to come into the room, or call and say he’s running late. I don’t know how many times a day I think, oh, I’ve gotta tell No this, and then each time it’s a fresh kick in the stomach when I remember I can’t.” Tracey starts crying and yanks a paper towel off the holder. “I talk to him anyway. I like to think he can hear me, that he can still see us and knows how much we love him. What else can I do?” she pleads.

“Nothing.”

“That’s it.” She nods. “Nothing. I cry all the time. My shirts are always wet,” she jokes, but not really.

“It’ll get better, Trace. You saw me go through Maggie. If I can do it, then anyone can.”

“No kidding.”

Tracey tries a chuckle, swiping her cheeks. Frank wraps her arms around her best friend’s wife and for a minute they share the load.

The spring night is balmy, so they picnic on the patio. Tracey confides that they’ve been eating dinner everywhere except in the dining room. She can’t stand seeing Noah’s chair empty. After dinner, Tracey brings fresh beers. Leslie has disappeared into her room, but Mark and Jamie color near them.

Frank tilts her head, asking so they won’t hear, “How are they?”

Tracey blows her sorrow and frustration out in a sigh. “Markie follows me everywhere I go, and at some point during the night Jamie joins us in bed. They’re so confused. But at least they’re talking about it. Les just hides in her room. She answers me in monosyllables but won’t volunteer anything.”

“It’s harder for some people.”

“I guess.”

Frank lets Tracey study her.

“I was always amazed how you just sat and drank. You never said a word about Maggie. I used to push No to get you to talk but he’d just tell me to butt out. He said you would if you wanted to. Did you? Ever?”

Frank squints into the past. “Couple times. When I was drunk enough.”

For almost a month after her lover had been killed Frank would come over and pass out on the Jantzens’ couch. Noah would stay up with her until she fell asleep. The poor bastard had almost died trying to match her drink for drink and Tracey finally made him stop. But still he’d stayed up with Frank. They talked about little things, work and news. They shared silences interrupted only by the gurgle of Frank’s bottle.

Frank asks, “You remember the Pryce case?”

“Do I? Christ Almighty, Noah lived that case. He ate, drank and breathed it. Why? Did you get a bite on it?”

Frank’s head shakes in the negative. “I was thinking about taking a look at it.”

“Good luck,” Tracey says. “Excuse me, but I hated those rucking kids. Noah’d obsess about them all day at work, then when he finally came home he’d go straight upstairs to watch the kids sleep. He’d fall asleep on the floor and I finally stopped waking him up. I’d just cover him with a blanket and leave him there. That’s where I found him Christmas morning. He stuck around long enough to open presents then he spent the rest of the day at work. He stayed with his kids all night then went back to those goddamned dead ones in the morning.” Tracey shivers. “I hated that case.”

“Kid cases are tough. Worse for people with their own. Joe knew he was taking it hard, but he said every cop’s got to go through it. That it’d either make him or break him.”

“Yeah, well, it almost broke him. And then when the evidence came up missing? Christ, Frank, I honestly thought he was going to kill somebody. I’d never seen him that angry.”

“I remember.”

Most of the physical evidence in the Pryce case had been lost after analysis at the Scientific Investigation Division. Noah had gone on a rampage and practically instigated a lawsuit against SID.

Frank grins. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him any madder. The SID techs wouldn’t work his cases for months afterwards. Said they’d only work with me or his partner.”

“That’s right. You’d just gotten promoted.” After a pause in which Frank again reflects on how she wasn’t there for Noah, Tracey says, “It was good to see Joe, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. Glad he came.”

“I assume you’re the one who told him?”

Frank nods. The beer is mildly anesthetic. Because she fears undoing its tender effects, she focuses on someone else’s pain. “How are No’s folks?”

“I don’t know. His mom still can’t talk on the phone, and Larry, well, Larry’s Larry. ‘Fine, fine, all right. Everything’s just fine. Awful business, but we’ll get through.’ He’s got that whole Leslie Howard, stiff-upper-lip thing going on. But he’s right. We’ll muddle through somehow, huh?”

Stretching for Tracey’s hand, Frank squeezes it tight. She see herself begowned and turbaned. She has become Stoic the Magnificent, the Great Bearer of Lies sweet to the ear and a balm to the heart.

“That’s right,” she assures. “We will.”

Cases are redistributed, detective teams are rearranged, and work at the nine-three proceeds over the next few weeks, albeit haltingly at times, without Noah Jantzen. The cluckhead who suffocated her baby was turned in, although not from altruism, as Frank predicted. The junkie’s sister is a cluckhead too and rats her out to Lewis for a twenty. Bobby and Darcy catch a domestic grounder and close a corner slice-and-dice. Foubarelle throws make-work at Frank while hounding her for stats. It’s all s-squared, d-squared—same shit, different day.

The Pryce murder books perch on a corner of Frank’s desk. She’s stared at them without the guts to open them. They seem like they’re still Noah’s. This case is the last she has of him. She doesn’t want to pore over the binders without him peering over her shoulder.

What if he is,
she thinks. Tracey likes to think so. The idea embarrasses Frank. Not so much because it’s ludicrous, but because she finds an edge of comfort in it.

The day is over. Only Frank and Darcy remain upstairs in Homicide. Darcy types outside her office and the tap-tap of his keystrokes is reassuring. Frank chides her superstition, but the admonishment is halfhearted. Since the day that Darcy inexplicably saved Frank’s neck from a crazed Santerist’s knife, she is willing to allow that things may exist ‘twixt heaven and earth which she can’t explain with only five senses.