Jani, coming in with a tray of coffee, was also happy. At any rate, there was a softness in her that had not been there before, and conversely, her spine was straighter. Al had won her, and she was freed from solitude, and Kate heard the heavy footsteps of returning melancholia as she sat on the comfortable ugly sofa and drank coffee with these two friends who had obviously spent this gift of an unexpected free day mostly in bed. She drained her mug, took her leave of them, and drove home to her empty house on Russian Hill. She looked at the keyhole with loathing, opened the door. No lights, no warmth, no smells, the only noise the sharp echo of the door closing. The only life here was an importunate raccoon.
"You miserable house," she said loudly, and went to feed Gideon his dinner.
FOUR
Kate woke early after a night of fitful sleep, and she decided the time had come to find her running shoes again. It took her a while, but she uncovered them at last in a box on a shelf in what she had begun thinking of as Lee's closet, where Jon must have put them some months before in one of his fits of tidying. They were old friends on her feet, and she did a careful round of stretches before letting herself out into the gray half rain of an early, foggy morning.
By the base of the hill, her calf muscles were quivering, and the intended easy run of two miles was whittled down still further. At the end of the short circuit, she returned up Russian Hill, walking, and slowly at that, with a red face and heaving lungs. Inside the house, the red dot on the answering machine was glowing, an excuse to sit down on the carpeted stairway to listen to the message - three messages, it turned out; the telephone must have rung the whole time she was out. The first one was from Jon, his voice sounding distant, exaggerated: defensive.
"Katarina, dearest, why do I always get the machine? Are you never at home? I do hope you're getting these messages; I'll feel terrible if you haven't been. Anyway, I'm back in Boston, but only for a few days. A friend wants me to go to his place in Cancun, and you know how I adore Mexico. Just for a week or two, maybe a bit more, I don't know. I may be back in the City first, but if not, I'll drop you a line and let you know just where I am, exactly. If you really have to get ahold of me, that same number in Boston will do; they'll know where I am. Did you get my postcard from London? Don't you think those helmets the bobbies wear are just so adorable? Why don't our boys wear them? Couldn't you suggest it to the police commissioner or whoever is in charge of the uniforms? Ah well, enough of this, I'll use up the whole tape. Toodle-oo now, Kate, as they say in jolly old. I hope you're well. I'll be in touch soon."
The next message was a brief one from Rosa Hidalgo, who said, "Kate, I just wanted to tell you that if there's anything I can do to help you with Jules, just call me. She's a real sweetheart, but she can be a handful, and I'm happy to offer advice." Kate stared at the machine, wondering what on earth the woman was talking about. She shook her head at the neighborhood busybody and dismissed her from her mind.
Fortunately, the third message was from Jules.
"Hi, Kate. I, um, I suppose you're asleep, and don't bother calling me back. I just wanted to say thanks for yesterday; I really enjoyed it. Especially when that guy in the next lane who was giving you a hard time turned around and dropped the ball on his foot. God, that was funny. Anyway, thanks, I really had a great time, and, if you ever want to do it again, I'd love to. I mean, not just the same things, but anything. Oh, this is Jules - I forgot to say. As if you wouldn't have guessed by now, duh. Gotta run - the French club's going to the beach. Bye, Kate. And thanks again. Bye."
Kate was grinning when the tape clucked to itself, and she pushed herself off the stairs to go shower.
The message from Jules was to prove the high point of a very long and very trying week, a week designed by malevolent fate to push the most phlegmatic of detectives over the edge. Kate was not exactly riding the most even of keels to begin with.
Monday her car would not start.
Cable car and bus got her to work late, irritable, and with leg muscles still quivering from Sunday's run, to find that Al Hawkin was out with the flu and she had been paired with Sammy Calvo, easily the most abrasive and inefficient detective in the city. And of course they caught a call first thing, so she had the pleasure of listening to his offensive jokes - told in all innocence; he truly could not comprehend why a woman might not think a rape joke funny - and going back over his interviews to see what he had left out.
Tuesday, the tow truck was delayed, so she was late a second time. She was further irritated by the truck driver's friendly offer to take Lee's Saab down from its blocks so Kate could drive it - because the thought had already occurred to her and been squelched by the need to reinstate its insurance at a moment's notice, by the knowledge of the comments a Saab convertible would stir up when she climbed out of it at a crime scene in one of the more unsavory parts of town, but mostly by pride. The car was Lee's; Kate would have nothing to do with it.
Wednesday, she sat in the department's unmarked car and had a shouting match with Sammy Calvo over his treatment of a witness, the fifteen-year-old mother of the child whose death they were investigating. His final querulous remark made her blood pressure soar: "I don't understand why you're so hot about this, Katy. I just asked her if she'd ever heard of the Pill." Although sorely tempted to whack him over the head with the clipboard he invariably carried, she satisfied herself with snarling, "It's because you're an insensitive jerk, Sammy. And for Christ's sake, don't call me Katy." She slammed the door of the car behind her and went back into the house to calm the teary young mother and her angry family, finally retrieving some of the answers she needed.
It was a long time until night, and longer still before she came through the door of the house, her very skin aching with the stress and frustrations of a fourteen-hour day, aching for a friendly voice, aching for Lee, aching, most of all, for a drink, many drinks; craving alcohol like a drowning person craves air, she yearned for the world's oldest painkiller to knock the edges off the intolerable day. She heaved her things onto the kitchen table, plucked a bottle of wine from the rack without looking to see what kind it was, took it over to the drawer to get the corkscrew, and then stood with the corkscrew in one hand as a strong and distressing thought intruded itself into her actions.
How long has it been since you did not finish off the better part of a bottle of wine at night? Since the middle of August, maybe?
Oh God - she shook her head - not tonight, no guilt tonight. It's been a hell of a day.
What day isn't? If not tonight, when?
Fuck off; it's only wine.
Only…?
I want a drink.
Or six.
She stood there for a very long time, aching and frightened and knowing at last, on this gray and dreary night, that she was walking on the edge of a precipice, the one that began with just a bit of letting go and ended up with a few shortcuts and reassuring herself that nobody would notice, until finally she would be just another cop who gave up the fight, a woman who couldn't cut it with the big boys, a lesbian who wasn't as good as she thought. And no, she was not exaggerating the importance of this night's bottle of wine that she held in her hands, because she had at last admitted that if she opened it, the wine would be drinking her, not she it, and if knowing that, she went ahead, then she was also being consumed by tomorrow's bottle, and Friday's…
And oh God, who would care? She put the point of the corkscrew to the foil over the cork, and no further.
It was, oddly enough, Jules who pulled her back from the edge, that annoying young reminder of yet another responsibility unmet. The thought of Jules was bracing. Maddening, but bracing, like a slap in the face. She put the bottle away and made herself a cup of hot milk in the microwave, then sat with it at the kitchen table while she sorted through the mail.