Bleeding Out (28 page)

“I’m not sure I know who I am lately,” Frank said, quietly to her feet. “I mean this stuff with Tunnel, you almost dying, my cops all getting reamed by Internal. I’m not even a fucking cop right now. It’s all a little confusing.”

Frank met Kennedy’s eyes, fumbling for the next words. “I’m sorry I jumped on you. You just…sometimes you bring up stuff that I don’t want to get into. It’s old stuff. Irrelevant.”

“So I’m supposed to tiptoe around like I’m in some sort of verbal minefield? Make sure I don’t set you off?”

Frank shook her head emphatically “No. Look, I just…we’ve been through a lot in the last week, and…a lot of stuff’s getting stirred up.”

“Like what stuff? Tell me about it.”

“I can’t,” Frank said, talking to the floor again.

“You see? That’s what I mean,” Kennedy accused. “You’re great at talking about my shit, but what about yours?”

“You’re better at it than I am,” Frank offered lamely. “I’m pretty rusty when it comes to talking about stuff like that.”

“Rusty?
Goddamn,
girl, the Tin Man’s got
nothin’
on you.”

Frank ducked her head in an embarrassed grin, then looked earnestly at Kennedy.

“Stay,” she said.

Kennedy hooked her thumbs defiantly into her waistband and arched an eyebrow. “Gimme one good reason to.”

“My cooking.”

Kennedy’s smile was Machiavellian. “I’ll stay,” she bargained, “but only if you tell me who you bought this house with.”

Frank was too astonished by Kennedy’s moxie to be fazed by the question. “Why do you want to know so bad?”

“‘Cause I don’t really know anything about you that’s not related to your job, or this shooting somehow. I do know there’s a real person lurking somewhere inside you, someone who’s more than just the badge she wears.”

“Think so?”

“I know so. I met her in Tunnel’s apartment and in the hospital. She was even in your guest room the other night.”

Frank was slipping on her hard-ass mask and Kennedy asked seriously, “What are you so afraid of?”

Frank laughed at the ceiling. “I’m not afraid of anything.”

“Girl, you lie like a rug,” Kennedy said with a heavy accent.

“It’s not too late to take you back to your apartment.”

Kennedy picked up the suitcase. “Let’s go.”

Frank had to make a decision, and she didn’t want to make the wrong one. She gnawed the inside of her lip, looking at Kennedy but not really seeing her. They waited like that until Frank spoke slowly, measuredly, “I bought the house with my lover. And she’s dead now. Okay?”

Kennedy’s face softened and Frank looked down at the suitcase. “Why don’t you
go
put that away.”

The drive to Parker Center was crowded and slow, but Frank wasn’t in a hurry. Now she was just wasting IAD time. The sun felt great pouring in through the window, and even the diesel fumes and oiled asphalt smelled good. Punching the radio’s memory buttons and finding only commercials, Frank settled for the freeway’s orchestra of random horns and a thousand cars and trucks.

IAD had been grilling her hard over this shooting, and Frank wondered if they had other motives. That wouldn’t have surprised her. Honestly, she was amazed she’d made it this far. Her time on the force hadn’t earned Frank any loyalty. The department was a machine, consuming people and spitting out statistics, that kept a handful of career politicians in coveted spots. Frank produced good stats so she was useful, but she’d never be one of the boys.

Gough had taunted her about that, telling her she could work for the department for fifty years and still not fit in. He was right. After almost two decades on the job she had yet to develop the proper “us against them” mentality. Frank wasn’t a saint—she did her share of bending means to justify ends—but she maintained her belief that her primary allegiance was to the streets, not the department.

The day she’d been sworn in as a police officer she’d taken a fundamental oath to protect and serve the people of the city of Los Angeles. Without that oath, she’d never have made it through her first day. The bitter politics and bloodied back alleys would have forced her out long ago. No matter who was on her now— IAD, Foubarelle, Johnston’s mother, hell, maybe even one of her own men—she still owed Nichols’ father, Peterson’s mother, and Agoura’s parents the meager satisfaction of finding their child’s murderer. It was that simple. It was all she knew.

Frank pulled up at Parker and ran up the stairs, not because she was in a hurry but for the exercise. She greeted Rothman, who snarled, “You’re late.”

“Traffic.”

Stuka grabbed a folder off his desk and motioned to a conference room down the hall. IAD called their interrogations
interviews. Conference room
was a euphemism for hot box. Stuka told her to take a seat, but she said she’d prefer to stand.

She slouched against the wall, casual in pressed jeans and LAPD T-shirt, thumbs hooked into her pockets, Ray Bans on her head. The day was warm enough for Topsiders without socks, and Frank crossed a bare ankle over her shin. She looked like she was waiting to take off on a sailing expedition. Frank knew her posture alone was enough to piss off the IAD men.

“Where’s your little chicken?” Stuka clucked.

“Back at the hen house.”

“Not worried about a fox getting in while mama’s away?”

“I’d feel sorry for the fox,” Frank answered calmly.

“Oh, she doesn’t like men either, huh?”

“You’d have to ask her that.”

“Doesn’t she do whatever her sugar mama tells her?”

Frank grinned, but her eyes were as dark and flat as a shark’s.

“I wish. She’s her own girl, Stuka. If you knew anything about women, you’d have seen that right off.”

“Guess I haven’t had as much practice as you.”

“Nah, guess not. You and the Ratman are too busy being IA moles.”

Rothman finally spoke up, telling Frank to cool her jets.

“Don’t take it so goddamned personal. This is SOP. We’re just doing our job.”

“Some job you got. You sleep good at night?”

“Lieutenant, how long have you been with the LAPD?” Rothman asked monotonously, a standard baseline question.

“That’s not in your file there?”

“In your own words,” Stuka growled.

“Sixteen years.”

“You like it here?”

“Love it.”

“How come you’ve never been out of Figueroa?”

“It doesn’t get any better.”

“Oh really?” said Stuka, feigning surprise. “No better than Rollin’ ‘60s and Pirus going off on each other like rabid dogs, wanting a piece of your ass worse than anybody else’s? No better than Salvatruchas and Westsiders sticking each other every night and working leads from strawberries and hookers with running sores and that’s the best they got? It doesn’t get better than piss and graffiti on your own station house and snipers taking potshots at you and cockroaches in your desk drawers?”

Stuka ran out of steam.

Frank said sheepishly, “Guess I don’t get out much.”

It was Rothman’s turn now.

“Nobody likes IAD, and that’s okay. But at least Stukie and I haven’t spent sixteen years in Figueroa.”

Tapping an unlit cigarette on the table, he asked Frank directly, “Do you know what I think?”

“No clue.”

“I think you’re afraid to leave Figueroa. You’re a big fish in a small, scummy pond, and you know in your heart of hearts that you couldn’t make the leap into a better pond. You’re a big cheese in Figueroa because nobody else wants to be there. You’re a woman in a man’s job and you know there’s only two ways to rise—EEO appointments or blow jobs. You don’t have the guts to leave. If I was a woman, I’d be pretty frustrated.”

Frank allowed a glimmer of a smile. She knew they were playing her, shaking her cage. If it were a normal workday she’d be livid wasting her time like this, but on ROD she was actually amused by their tactics.

“That’s very insightful,” Frank congratulated. “Did you come up with that all by yourself?”

Rothman ignored her, getting to his point.

“Yeah, I’ll bet it gets frustrating knowing there’s only two ways out for you. So you build a little steam, take it out on felons and colleagues, an occasional hooker now and then.”

Rothman was referring to the handful of excessive force and coercion charges she’d accrued over her career.

“That’s okay, nobody really cares. Everybody looks the other way. All the claims are unsubstantiated or unfounded. You feel pretty good, but little by little the pressure builds up again. So one day you’re out on a routine bust, and some asshole that you know has a record a mile long and has walked on most of those charges, he starts dogging you and he’s in your face, and maybe, just maybe, you’ve heard
bitch
or
cunt
or
dyke
one too many times lately, and you let fly. You give this son of a bitch everything you’ve got.

“And you know what? There’s not a cop in the world who wouldn’t sympathize with you. You lose it. And rightly so. There’s only so much a man, or a woman, can take. Especially a woman. Nights get lonely, I know, and probably more so for a girl like you. Gotta be secret, gotta be quiet, keep things in the closet. The pressure builds up…it’s understandable. You’re only human. So this Johnston dude gives you and your team a scare, and you’re primed. You blow. It’s a normal reaction, nobody’s blaming you, Franco. Hell, even your own cops are backing you. It’s understandable.”

Rothman got quiet. Frank could feel him staring at her. She nodded her head at the floor and scuffed her toe against a black shoe mark.

“You’re good,” she said softly. “You know what? If you don’t make it in IAD you’ve got a great career in pulp fiction. I’ll be first in line to buy your books. Promise.”

“Franco, relax. You can level with us. It’s okay. We really are on your side. You can tell us how it went down and we’ll back you.”

“Yeah?”

“Absolutely,” Rothman swore, one hand in the air.

“You really want to know?”

Rothman nodded sincerely.

“Alright. I’ll tell you.”

Frank patiently recounted the exact story she’d already told them half a dozen times. They interjected their own scenarios and events throughout, which Frank carefully refuted before continuing. They played it that way for two and a half hours. When they were done, Frank was wound tighter than a spring and had stains under her armpits. The two IA detectives didn’t look much better.

Frank extended her hand to the men, saying, “Gentlemen, I appreciate your resolve in keeping the LAPD the bastion of civil rights that its become.”

Stuka reached for her hand before he realized he was being dissed. “Fuck you. You need to get laid proper, Franco. Try a man for once.”

Frank ran a hand through her hair, musing, “Maybe you’re right, Stukie. Tell you what. I’ll try one if you will.”

The round little cop moved toward Frank, but his partner grabbed his arm. “Come on, Jer. Don’t waste your time.”

Frank watched them slip into their office like rats into a hole. She squeezed the back of her neck as she went down the stairs and out into the sunshine. On the way home she picked up a six-pack of Foster’s. She slammed two of them before she even pulled into the driveway.

The house was quiet. Frank was slightly alarmed until she saw Kennedy lounging in the back yard. Except for a Walkman and a pair of pink underpants, she was naked. Frank stared through the French doors, then quickly turned away. She made a fuss of slamming the refrigerator door, shaking the utensil drawer, banging the cabinets.

She cracked another beer, grabbed some chips, and carried them around the blue-tiled bar, relieved to see Kennedy had slipped her shirt on. Casually, she stepped outside.

“Hey. How’s the tanning business?”

“Good,” Kennedy grinned. “How’s the bar and grill business?”

Frank shrugged, popping some chips in her mouth.

“Don’t know how many times I have to repeat the same story to those idiots. They’re so lawsuit-conscious they can’t even do their jobs. They wait for the news and civil rights groups to tell them what to investigate, and then they make up shit instead of going out and looking for real problems.”

“What’d they say?” Kennedy asked, stretching out on her back, eyes closed against the sun.

Frank told her Rothman’s scenario and Kennedy started laughing so hard Frank had to warn her not to pull her stitches.

“Oh geez,” she wailed, “that’s almost as good as you intimidating me with your awesome rank and power.”

In the hospital, they’d pulled the same stunt on Kennedy. Their scenario for her was that Johnston had tried to run past them and accidentally nicked Kennedy, and that Frank had overreacted and blown him away. It was understandable, of course. There was a lot of stress and chaos going down, but Kennedy could tell them the truth. They understood how Frank could “seduce” Kennedy into going along with her story, how Frank’s aggressive manner and higher rank would naturally be intimidating to a younger, more impressionable detective.

“Ain’t it a comfort knowing your tax dollars are being well-spent by those two yahoos?”

Frank sipped, appreciating the buzz she was getting and the sun’s warmth. If Cassandra Nichols’ killer wasn’t still loose, she might have actually enjoyed this time off. Having Kennedy around gave her a focus, and though the kid didn’t need much, she obligingly let Frank fuss over her. But when that was done, Frank’s mind inexorably returned to Agoura/Peterson. She was about to get up and start her trancelike circuit around the table when Kennedy said, “When was the last time you saw a movie?’

Frank remembered going to the Plaza last Christmas, but she couldn’t remember what she’d seen.

“Been a while.”

“Let’s go, then. Later on.”

Frank felt Kennedy eyeing her expectantly. She pulled on her beer, trying to figure why she suddenly felt uncomfortable. Going to the movies, hanging in the sun, drinking beer—all this was fun. She realized that if Kennedy hadn’t been there she’d have been chafing at the bit, gnashing her teeth until she could get back to work. Frank liked being with Kennedy and that made her nervous. But she wouldn’t go further with the realization.