When they were out of view, Niles jumped up on the table in the foyer. He hooked a claw into the florist's card. He jumped down, landing silently on three legs.
West did not think she could eat the sweet potato pie. She stared at the slice Brazil set before her. The idea that Ruby Sink had made it before her cold-blooded murder was too much for West to process.
'I can't throw it away.' Brazil sat across from West at the kitchen table. 'It would be heartless to throw it away. I just can't. You couldn't either, Virginia. She would want us to eat it.'
'This is kind of sick,' West said, blinking, focusing, looking at him. 'I don't think I can.'
Brazil picked up his fork. He flinched as he cut off the point of his slice. He raised it. He took a deep breath and put it in his mouth. West watched him chew once or twice and swallow. It surprised her that he looked enormously relieved. Tension left his face. His eyes brightened and got that fierce blue flame in them that she had learned to recognize and take very seriously.
'It's okay,' he told her in a strong voice. 'Trust me.' He nodded for her to eat.
West had never backed down from a challenge, especially in front of him. It was one of the hardest things she'd ever done when she took a bite of that pie. It surprised her that it didn't taste weird or dead or who knows what. She had no idea what she had expected.
'Brown sugar, coconut milk, cinnamon,' said Brazil, who spent more time in the kitchen than West did.
He took another bite, this time without hesitation. West matched him.
'Raisins, vanilla extract.' Brazil concentrated on his tongue as if he were tasting fine wine. 'Ah. Ginger. A hint of it. And a breath of nutmeg.'
'Breath of nutmeg?' West said. 'Where the hell does that shit come from?'
Brazil took another bite. So did she. She might just eat another slice to spite him.
Neither of them heard Niles, not that they ever did. He walked in holding up a paw, a white square of paper caught on one of his claws.
'Baby?' West said in alarm, certain he was injured. 'Oh sweetie, what did you do to yourself?'
She didn't realize what was on his claw until Niles was in Brazil's lap and the florist's card from the hallway table was in plain view. Brazil got a confused expression on his face.
'Schwan's Flowers and Gifts? Charlotte?' he read aloud what was on the envelope as he pulled out the card. '"Thinking of you, Andy,"' his voice trailed off.
West tried to act nonchalant and failed. She hated Niles and would pay him back for this.
'How did this end up on your hallway table?' Brazil wanted to know.
'How do you know it was on the table?' she said coolly as she imagined leaving Niles out in a hailstorm.
'I saw it there when we were here working on the computer!'
'Why were you looking at anything on any table?' Old anger and hurt jumped off the shelf where she had been storing them for months.
'Because you put it there so I would see it,' he exclaimed.
'How arrogant of you!'
'Then why?' he said. 'And don't tell me Niles did it.'
West pushed away her plate and stared past him. She tried to think how to say it. Confessing feelings was as dangerous as counting money when you walked down a dark street in a bad part of town.
'Because you didn't care about me anymore.' She was out with it.
'That's because you didn't care about me first,' he argued.
'And that's because I thought you dumped me the minute we got to town and started seeing someone else without even having the courtesy to tell me.'
'Virginia, I haven't seen anybody,' Brazil said in a softer tone.
He reached out and took her hand. She had a hard time swallowing.
'And I didn't dump you,' he said.
He moved his chair next to hers and kissed her. In the bedroom he discovered the wineglasses of Mountain Dew.
Hammer wanted to dump the entire NIJ project. Her mind was a riotous crowd of dissenting, unhappy people who would not let her sleep. She thought about Bubba and how badly she had maligned him. She obsessed over how badly she had handled Leila Ehrhart and those like her.
Part of Hammer's mission was to enlighten people. She saw no evidence that she had. Part of her plan was to modernize the police department. And what happened? The entire COMSTAT telecommunications network crashed. The ATM robberies escalated to murder. There were gangs. There was Smoke.
Hammer didn't think she could ever again endure seeing Ruby Sink's house or even the block Miss Sink had lived on. Miss Sink, in her pink robe and slippers, had shuffled through Hammer's mind all night. Hammer could not get away from their last conversation on Miss Sink's sidewalk. Hammer could see the old woman in such detail it hurt her heart and pierced her with guilt.
'I'm a failure,' Hammer said to Popeye.
Popeye was under the covers, between Hammer's feet.
'I've caused harm. I should never have come here. I bet you wish you still lived in Charlotte where you had a yard, don't you?'
Her eyes filled with tears. Popeye burrowed up to her and licked her face. Hammer couldn't remember the last time she had cried. She had been so stoical when Seth had died because she believed she had to be. She had been rational about the reasons her sons did not seem to want to see her. Hammer had been courageous, innovative, community-minded. All of it so she would be too busy to be lonely, and it hadn't worked. She got up and dressed.
There was no answer at Brazil's house when Hammer called from her car phone. She tried West next and was relieved that he and West were there.
'I've got something important to say to both of you,' Hammer said over the line.
Parking in the Fan wasn't as much of a problem at this early hour, and she managed to squeeze into a space on the curb right across the street from West's town house. Hammer was numb. She did not feel present, nor did she want to be when Brazil opened the front door.
Thank you for seeing me,' Hammer said to Brazil as they walked into the living room.
'Thank you,' he replied. 'It's kind of messy.'
Hammer didn't care. She didn't even notice her surroundings, messy or not. She sat in a straight-back chair while West and Brazil sat across from her on the couch.
'Virginia, Andy,' she began, 'I'm going to resign.'
'Oh God,' West said, shocked.
'You can't,' Brazil said, sick.
'Basically,' Hammer went on, 'I've pretty much screwed up everything here. I used to be a good police officer, a good chief. Everybody hates us.'
'Not everybody,' Brazil said.
'Most of them,' said West. 'I mean, let's be honest about it.'
'Well, I guess the Charlotte connection doesn't help,' Brazil supposed.
'Or our locking up the COMSTAT network pretty much around the globe,' Hammer said.
'Or our failure to crack the ATM cases before they progressed to a horrible murder. Or a communications officer getting in a fight with a traffic cop, both of whom had just received commendations several days before.' West helped her out with the list.
Hammer folded her hands in her lap and kept them still. She did not interrupt. She did not get up and pace.
'Judy,' West said. 'Where are you going to go? Back to Charlotte?'
Hammer shook her head.
'Nowhere,' she answered. 'If I can't handle Richmond, I'm not going to be able to handle someplace else. When the horse dies, get off. I'm retiring from police work. I don't know where I'll live. It doesn't matter.'
'That reminds me,' West said. 'We need to talk about the Azalea Parade.'
'How did what she just said remind you of that?' Brazil asked.
'The horse comment. We've got mounted cops in the parade,' West said. 'And' - she looked at Hammer -'Andy and I are supposed to ride in your convertible.'
'What kind of convertible is it?' Hammer looked distracted.
'Dark blue Sebring,' Brazil said. 'Modest, not showy, although one of the big guys at Philip Morris wanted to drive you in his red Mercedes VI2 convertible.'