Was that what she thought? “Wimpy?” The microwave dinged. He set a mug in front of her. “Let’s review this. You watched two kids you know die violently, but despite that you worked their accident and notified all the parents. Probably the toughest part of this job.”
“I almost lost it at the parents’. The Wiltz’ were having a party, celebrating the game and Darrell’s play. The minute I said I needed to talk to them in private Floyd jumped to the conclusion the Bellamy boys had sworn out a complaint about their banner and started ranting at me for the stupidity of arresting Jonah over a prank. I wanted to put a bullet in the ceiling to make him shut up and listen to me!” Her hands tightened around the mug as if to crush it.
He knew that feeling. “But you didn’t.”
“Because Abbie realized I wasn’t there about some stupid prank and she dragged Floyd outside!” Maggie shoved the mug away with a force that almost sent it off the table. “He wouldn’t have given you or Duncan that shit!”
“I think he would. He sounds like he’d had a few beers, and maybe something stronger. In the face of which I’m confident you maintained your professionalism…as I saw you maintain it the rest of the night. So…wimpy? Hell…you’ve got bigger balls than a lot of cops I’ve worked with.”
She stared at him as if stunned, then started to tremble. Garreth reacted as he had when reaction to a tough case at the hospital caught up with Marti. He circled the table to lift Maggie to her feet and put his arms around her.
The flood of her blood scent turned his hunger ravenous, the heat of it surging outward through him, including to his groin. Feeling himself harden, he let go and started to step back. “Shit, I’m sorry; I didn’t mean — ”
Her arms locked around him. “No, no; it’s…” She fairly lunged for his mouth, kissing him with violent, desperate urgency.
He recognized what drove her…had been there, too…using sex as an affirmation of life.
He gave her the affirmation, meeting her ferocity with his hunger goading him almost to savagery, as it had in San Francisco. Only this time he fought against biting, making the one penetration substitute for sinking his fangs into a vein.
Her convulsive release shattered all control and the tension, horror, and grief bottled up all night turned into wracking sobs. Garreth held her through the storm, and even after it spent itself and she slid into exhausted sleep. Ignoring hunger, he enjoyed the feel of a woman in his arms again.
Eventually she began shivering…with cold this time, her goosebumps told him. He lifted her to the couch from the pile of their discarded uniforms on the braided rug and tucked the afghan from the back of the couch around her. Then snatching the last bottle from the fridge, he headed to the bathroom for his robe, slugging down half the quart on the way.
Coming back shortly, to his surprise he found Maggie awake and struggling into her shirt and trousers. Minus underwear, which still lay on the rug.
“Maggie…what — ”
“I have to go.” Without looking at him she jammed the underwear into her pockets and her feet into her shoes.
Was she so embarrassed by what happened? “No, please stay. I’ll reheat the tea.”
“I need a clean uniform.” She scooped up her vest and was across the room and out the door.
He stared at the closed door. Shit. Was it something he did? Maybe going after his robe made her think he wanted to get away from her, though he had not just left her lying there on the rug. Did she think she would now be a locker room joke? Or did proving herself the equal of male officers make any softening unacceptable?
Not that the reason mattered, he reflected with a sigh. The result was probably a professional relationship back in the deep freeze for the rest of his time here.
13
Garreth woke to the smell of rain and sound of it drizzling on his balcony. No surprise; he smelled it coming during his blood run last night. Dressing for duty, he tried not to brood about Maggie. Whatever her attitude now, he would live with it. The nearing prospect of crumbling into dust after catching Lane here, or abandoning Baumen to follow Anna to Mexico, left no time to care about relationships anyway.
So it felt anticlimactic to reach the station and not see her typing up reports.
“Is Maggie still out?” he asked.
Nat looked up from going over reports. “Danzig let me send her home at six and order her to get some rest.”
“God, yes!” Sue Ann said. “Then maybe we can live with her tomorrow. She ran registrations and DL’s right and left…” Both arms waved in demonstration. “…and wrote up every blessed moving violation she caught, not cutting anyone slack. Rolling stop, pull over, buddy; jump the light, step out of the car; change lanes without signaling, your ass is grass; three miles over the speed limit, see you in court!”
Nat chuckled at Sue Anne’s vehemence.
“Even pre-menstrual she’s not that hard-nosed!”
That was harsh. “You can’t blame her for being sensitive to moving violations today.”
Sue Ann sighed. “I guess.”
“Speaking of moving violations…” Garreth turned to Nat. “…what’s the rain doing to cruising tonight?” For safety’s sake, reducing it, he hoped.
Nat tapped reports into a neat stack. “The rain isn’t a factor.”
Garreth frowned at him. “Meaning what?”
“You’ll see.”
Once on patrol, Garreth saw. Whether there were fewer vehicles than usual, he could not say…because they used a single lane. No one passed, no one honked, no one leaned out a window to call to riders in another vehicle. With lights reflecting off wet metal and rain-slicked pavement, they followed the customary circuit around and around in silent single file, moving at the speed of a funeral procession. Including Scott Dreiling’s Trans-Am. A few windows had the names Diane and Jonah painted on them.
Garreth parked on a railroad crossing to watch.
Before long, Duncan pulled up to his window. “Creepy, isn’t it. I wonder when they planned this. There are vehicles with Bellamy High parking stickers, too.”
“I don’t think anyone planned it,” Garreth said. “In ‘78, when Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were assassinated in San Francisco, somewhere between twenty-five and forty thousand people spontaneously gathered in Castro Street and walked to City Hall in a candlelight vigil. They didn’t plan; it just happened.” He eyed the slow procession. “It almost makes you believe in a universal consciousness.”
Duncan grimaced. “That sounds like California hippie mumbo-jumbo. But,” he added, “I have to say the whole damn town has been like this today. God knows how Lebekov found those violations she wrote up. Come and see 282.”
Garreth had seen plenty of these yard and streetside memorials before. Still, he followed Duncan out to the highway. And caught his breath.
The memorial stretched along both sides of the highway, in front of the Co-op, just short of blocking its entrance, and at Hammond’s across the road. Piles of flowers, photographs wrapped in plastic against the rain, the inevitable candles — doused by the rain except for several in small lanterns. Hand-painted signs with Jonah and Diane’s names established the Co-op side as Jonah’s and the Hammond side for Diane. Jonah’s side included Timberwolf flags, a basketball jersey, and several basketballs; Diane’s, photos of her sitting on a bay horse and bending around a big oil drum on the same horse, cowboy hats, plastic trophies, toy horses.
“Jonah was the Timberwolves’ star guard,” Duncan said. “My niece keeps begging my sister for a horse so she can barrel race like the Barnes girl. I guess she was good.”
As Garreth pulled away, car lights appeared in his rear view mirror and stopped for a passenger to leave yet more flowers for Jonah. When he passed the Barnes and Wiltz houses later, lights shone from all the downstairs rooms and cars lined their streets. Everyone in town coming to offer condolences it looked like. Including Martin Lebekov. Garreth recognized the Caravan outside the Wiltz house…reminding him this was the second Wiltz death in a week.