Rachel rushed down the hall to jump in the shower. The house had two bathrooms, one located off the master bedroom and one located adjacent to the children’s room, but neither of them had tubs, only shower stalls. The fixtures were brown and the master bathroom had no windows. Rachel had redone the floors with peel-and-stick tile that created the illusion of a marble floor. She hung her robe on a hook on the back of the door, then wiped the water spots off the mirrored cabinet with the edge of a towel. The room was painted, not tiled, and she grimaced at the mildew stains on the ceiling.
A few moments later, Tracy opened the shower door and handed her a cup of coffee in a ceramic mug. “Don’t drop it,” she cautioned. “If you do, you’ll cut your foot. I was going to give you a paper cup, but we’re all out. I’ll pick some up when I go to the store tomorrow with Lucy.”
“Stop mothering me,” Rachel said, taking a quick sip of the coffee. “I’m a cop, damn it. Sometimes you treat me like I’m ten years old.”
“Don’t use profanity,” Tracy said. “You’re picking it up at work. Every time I say a bad word, you jump all over me.”
Rachel handed her daughter back the coffee mug and stepped out of the shower, wrapping herself in a towel. Tracy was right. She had never used bad language before, but it was hard not to mimic what she heard every day. “I know what this is all about now,” she said, a light coming on in her head. “You’re setting me up for the pitch again, right?”
“Wh-what?” Tracy stepped back a few feet.
“You’re not staying here alone all night,” Rachel said, “no matter how mature you act or how many favors you do for me.” She picked up a comb and ran it through her hair, then twisted the wet strands into a tight bun at the base of her neck. Her hair always looked neat when she left the house, but by the time it dried, the natural curl took hold. Wiry strands would trickle down her neck, her forehead, around her ears. “A dozen things could go wrong,” she continued, finding her daughter’s eyes in the bathroom mirror. “The house could catch on fire. Someone could break in. Joe could get sick during the night. We’ve been all through this before, Tracy. You’re not staying in the house alone. That’s the end of it. I refuse to discuss it again.”
Tracy kicked out at a mound of dirty towels on the floor. “If some crook breaks in at Lucy’s, Mom, they’ll trip right over our sleeping bags. She makes us sleep right by the front door.”
Rachel arched an eyebrow. “Burglars seldom use the front door.”
“I hate sleeping over there,” Tracy said. “I feel like Lucy’s dog or something. At least let us come home and get dressed for school in the mornings. There’s six people in that house, and they only have one lousy bathroom. It’s disgusting. Mom. Lucy makes Joe pee in the backyard.”
“You made that up,” she said. “Lucy would never do that. She’s been wonderful to us. She lets you stay there every night and she’s never taken so much as a dime from me. How many people would do that, huh? You should show some gratitude, young lady. Right now we need all the help we can get.”
Tracy gave her a look of defiance. After a few moments, though, she found herself chuckling. “How do you know these things, huh? It’s the nuttiest thing. You always know when I’m lying.”
“So, you did make it up?” Rachel said, heading to the bedroom to put on her uniform. “I knew Lucy would never make Joe go to the bathroom in the yard.”
“Yeah,” Tracy said, tossing her head. She followed her mother around as she removed a freshly cleaned uniform from the closet, then went to the bureau for her T-shirt, socks, and panties.
Most of her life Rachel had been thin, so much so that her breasts were almost nonexistent. Having purposely packed on an extra fifteen pounds during the past two years, she found the extra weight unsightly and cumbersome. Her breasts seemed like enormous blobs someone had glued to her chest. She picked up her bulletproof vest, which squashed her breasts inside like a pair of overripe grapefruits.
Tracy had to step lively to avoid a collision as her mother hurried to get dressed. Rachel’s room contained a four-poster bed, a large bureau, a rocking chair, and several massive chests that had once been in the living room of their old house. Sometimes you had to turn sideways just to get from one side of the room to the other. In addition, her mother compulsively lifted weights, determined to bulk up her body. Dumbbells and barbells were strewn all over the floor. Tracy was tired of stubbing her toes on them.
Rachel stopped and stared at a rubber plant. “I think this guy needs a drink, too. Remind me to water it tomorrow.”
Tracy went to the bathroom for a glass of water, walked over and tossed it at the rubber plant. “There,” she said. “Now you have one less thing to worry about.”
“You have to do it with love,” Rachel scolded. “Plants know when you don’t like them, Tracy.”
“Right,” her daughter said. She touched a shiny green leaf, thinking her mother’s ideas about plants were crazy.
Their old house had been almost twice the size of this one. Tracy’s father had inherited a houseful of furniture from his grandmother years before. The few valuable antiques had already been sold, and what remained were simply old, dilapidated relics. Her mother always talked about weeding out the clutter, yet she never did. Tracy knew her mother wanted to believe they would move back into a larger house one day.
“You should stop lifting weights,” the girl said, watching as Rachel slipped her uniform shirt over the bulletproof vest. “You’re beginning to look like a man, Mom.”
Rachel smiled, flexing her biceps. “A little extra strength comes in handy when I end up with a nasty drunk on my hands.”
“What happened with the guy who sent the roses?”
“Oh,” she said, “trust me, nothing’s going to come of it.”
“Why not?” Tracy said. “I thought you liked him. When you got the flowers, that’s all you talked about. How handsome he was, what a great body he had, how smart he was.”
“He’s out of my league,” Rachel told her. “The flowers were just a payoff for the things I told him. Since his little plan didn’t go off that well, I’ll probably never hear from him again.”
Leaning back against the bureau, Tracy chewed on a ragged cuticle. She had loved her mother’s delicate body. Before she had become a police officer, she’d looked almost like a little girl, skinny and frail. Her neck was long, and she’d always held her head up and her shoulders thrust back. Recently her mother’s shoulders had rounded, and her once graceful arms now hung at her sides like two heavy, braided ropes.
“I didn’t make up how much I hate sleeping at Lucy’s, Mom,” she said. “Can’t we please come home in time for me to get ready for school? I promise I won’t disappoint you. By the time you get home from work, I’ll have Joe fed and dressed for the day. Lucy just shoves him in a chair and hands him a box of Froot Loops. I’ll make eggs for him. I’ll give him hot oatmeal at least once a week.”
“Okay,” Rachel said, smiling warmly as she laced up her shoes. “You can come home to get dressed in the morning, but only after the sun comes up. This is just a trial period, Tracy. If anything goes wrong—”
“Cool,” Tracy said, floating out of the room in a daze, as if she couldn’t believe she had gotten what she wanted.
Once she was dressed, Rachel went to say goodbye to her son. “Hey, big boy,” she said, “come and kiss Mommy goodbye.” Hoisting the heavy three-year-old up in her arms, she kissed the curly hairs on the top of his head, then set him back down on the floor in a mess of building blocks. He had Rachel’s gray eyes and strawberry-blond hair, a tiny dimple in his chin, and the short chubby legs of a toddler. His mother was generally able to squeeze in a few naps during the day, crashing on the sofa while Joe watched TV or played with his toys. Once Tracy got home from school, Rachel would finally stagger off to the bedroom, remaining there until she had to go to work. Because of her schedule, she was not able to give the child enough attention. Lately, he had started clinging
to her every night when she tried to leave for work.
“Book,” he said, thrusting a brightly colored book at her with a giraffe on the cover. “Read me, Mommy. You promised.”
Rachel felt her chest constrict. “You know Mommy has to go to work right now, sweetie,” she said. “I’ll read it to you first thing in the morning, okay? We’ll read your book. We’ll watch cartoons together. I’ll even take you to the park.”
“Book,” he said, grabbing her leg.
Rachel glanced at her watch, then squatted down on the floor beside him. After she had read three pages, she handed the book back to him. “I can’t read the rest, Joe,” she said, crushing him in her arms. “Be a big boy now, and let Mommy go to work.”
Tears pooled in his eyes. “No,” he said, fumbling with a button on the front of Rachel’s uniform. Grabbing the book off the floor, he shoved it back in her face. “Please, Mommy. Read me a story.”
Tracy was standing in the doorway, a tense look on her face. “Just leave,” she snapped. “The longer you stay, the worse it’s going to be. I’ll read him the stupid book. He’s tired. By the time you get to the station, he’ll be sound asleep.”
As the house had only two bedrooms, Tracy and her brother were forced to share a room. Grimacing at the toys scattered everywhere, the unmade twin beds, the clothes strewn on the floor, Rachel vowed to clean the room when she got home from work the next morning. Tracy helped with the housework, particularly the kitchen duties and laundry, but it wasn’t right to leave all the chores for her. Even though she acted more mature than most girls her age, Rachel had to remind herself that her daughter was only fourteen and should not assume the full responsibilities of the household.
Giving Joe another kiss, Rachel stood to leave. “How do I look?” She trailed her fingers down the row of buttons on the front of her uniform, making certain they lined up perfectly with her belt buckle. Sergeant Miller was very picky about this type of thing, and she tried her best to keep her appearance and equipment in order. Her bulky Sam Brown was strapped around her waist, the holster empty. She kept her service revolver locked in the glove compartment of her car, refusing to bring a firearm into the house. “Is everything straight? My shoes aren’t spotted, are they?”
“Here,” Tracy said, grabbing one of Joe’s T-shirts off the floor and dropping to her knees. She quickly wiped a few spots off her mother’s shoes and then pushed herself back to her feet.
“Make sure you give Joe his vitamins in the morning,” Rachel said. “Oh, and don’t forget to take his Pooh bear to Lucy’s. I don’t want you coming back over here late at night.”
“Please be careful. Mom,” Tracy said, a glimmer of fear in her eyes. “Another police officer got killed in Los Angeles last night.”
“That’s why I didn’t go to work for the LAPD,” Rachel answered, walking over and kissing her daughter on the forehead. “You know nothing bad ever happens in Oak Grove, honey.”
“There’s always a first time,” Tracy said, squatting down on the floor to read her brother his story.
c h a p t e r
SIX
Rachel arrived in the squad room a few minutes before ten, taking her seat while the rest of the officers were still in the locker room. Grant Cummings walked in a few moments later and sat down beside her. “I hear you and Townsend had a little spat last night.”
“It was nothing,” Rachel said, preferring not to discuss it.
“Ratso’s got a whole case of beer iced down for the party. Meet us in back of the station at the end of the watch. You’ll ride to the beach with me and Ratso.”
Rachel glanced over at the officer they called Ratso. His real name was Frederick Ramone. No one besides Grant knew much about him. Prior to joining the department, Ramone had worked as a clerk in a convenience store. The department had been in a push to hire minorities, and Ratso suddenly found himself with a badge and a gun. Some people thought he was Italian because of his last name, even though the department listed him on the employment rolls as Hispanic. Grant insisted the man’s ancestors were from India, explaining that Ratso had given himself the name Frederick Ramone after seeing it in a magazine. His skin was dark and his face narrow, his eyes the color of tobacco. Wherever he had come from, he had mastered the English language quite well. When he spoke, only a hint of an accent appeared.
Not everyone saw Ratso’s meek demeanor as desirable, however. In a dangerous situation, he had choked. Facing a gun-wielding suspect, the swarthy officer had hesitated before pulling the trigger. Grant had taken the man out with a single shot, saving Ratso’s life.
“I wish you wouldn’t call Fred Ratso,” Rachel said. “That’s not very nice. Grant.”
“Ah, shit,” he said. “The guy loves it. Hey, Ratso,” he called out, waving the man over. “Rach thinks I’m offending you by calling you Ratso. You’re not offended, are you? You like it, don’t you?”
“It’s okay,” Fred Ramone said, shrugging his slender shoulders. He looked down at the floor for a few moments, then returned to his seat.
Fred Ramone was a sad case. He wanted to fit in so desperately, he let people exploit him. Since the shooting incident, he had practically become Grant Cummings slave, constantly doing his bidding, tolerating untold ridicule. Someone should stop it, but Rachel knew no one would. If you wanted to play with the big boys, her first training officer had told her, you had to keep your mouth shut and go along with the program. Fred Ramone had displayed weakness, a cardinal sin among police officers.
“Look, Grant,” Rachel said. “I know I said I would come to the watch party, but I’m really tired. I think it would be better if I went home after work and tried to get some sleep.”
“A deal is a deal,” he said. “You’re not going to go back on your word, I hope. I mean, I wouldn’t want anyone to find out—”
“I’ll go, okay?” she snapped. Now that Grant had something to hold over her, she knew how Ratso felt.
“I’ve got another damn bunion,” he said, removing his boot and massaging his foot. When he dropped the boot on the linoleum floor, it made a loud thud, as if he had dropped a twenty-pound weight.
Rachel reached over and picked up Grant’s boot, then scowled at him. “You’ve had steel loaded into the toes, haven’t you?” she said, tossing it back on the floor in disgust. Boots and gloves with steel or lead loaded into the tips were outlawed by the department, but a few diehards like Grant got away with using them. It was a hard rule to enforce, unless the brass wanted to assign someone to inspect shoes and gloves at the beginning of every watch.
Rachel decided to switch seats. For some reason Grant had been all over her lately. He’d been trying to talk her into going to the watch parties for almost a year now. He bailed out of the dressing room early so he could sit next to her, knowing she was one of the first people to take her seat in the squad room. Everyone knew he was sleeping with Carol Hitchcock, a statuesque blonde seated on the far side of the room. The entire time Rachel had been talking to him, Carol had been glaring at them.
Because they were not allowed to date their fellow officers, Carol was forced to avoid Grant while they were on duty. While he exploited this situation no end, flirting every chance he got, his antics infuriated Carol. Rachel wasn’t crazy about the woman, but in the mostly male world of cops, she felt the females should stick together. In addition, Carol Hitchcock had more time on the job than Rachel. The stone-faced woman had been a cop for over ten years, whereas Rachel was little more than a rookie. When Rachel wanted advice, or found herself in over her head, Carol was the first person she turned to.
Rachel stepped up behind her chair and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Want to go for breakfast with me tonight?”
“Maybe,” Carol said, somewhat aloof. “What time were you thinking of?”
“You know,” Rachel continued, “around four when things die down.”
“Tell the dispatcher before we hit the streets,” she answered. “If we don’t get on the
list, we won’t get a break until five o’clock.”
Carol Hitchcock stood just under six feet. Her height, her white-blonde hair, and her copper-colored skin made her quite striking. Her features were broad, though, and her bone structure heavy. Like Rachel, she seldom wore makeup, other than a smidgen of lipstick. She wore her pale blonde hair in a stringy-looking ponytail at the top of her head, even though she had been warned repeatedly by the brass that such a hairstyle could be dangerous. A suspect could grab her ponytail from behind and drag her to the ground. Carol said she didn’t care, that by the time the perp got her to the ground, she’d have her service revolver out and blow his head off.
On her way out of the station, Rachel passed Captain Edgar Madison’s office and paused in the doorway. Having grown up in Detroit, Madison was a black man with a chiseled face and large plum-colored eyes. When he smiled, his lip curled up and the pink of his gums was exposed. If an officer made a mistake or stepped over the line, they knew to expect a call from Madison within a matter of hours. Rules were his stock in trade. Laws were sealed in granite. Chief Bates used him as the department’s executioner. The role fit Madison so perfectly, someone had once left a black hood on his desk. Being an African-American, Madison did not find hoods of any color humorous. He’d tracked down the culprit and suspended him for three weeks without pay.
“I’m sorry to bother you, Captain,” Rachel said, “but if you have a moment—”
“Come in,” Madison said, looking up from his paperwork. “I was just looking over one of your reports. You seem to be getting the hang of this, Simmons. The work you did on this rape case is outstanding.”
Rachel stepped inside his office. “Really?” she said, flushing with pride. Although many of the officers found Madison intimidating, he was one of Rachel’s favorite supervisors. He always seemed to have a word of praise, and his straightforward approach to police work reminded her of Sergeant Larry Dean. She wanted to tell him about the problem she had encountered with Jimmy Townsend the night before, along with the particulars of the Brentwood case. Just as she was about to begin speaking, however, Grant walked past the door on his way to the parking lot. “Do you know if our insurance covers a dermatologist?” she improvised. “My daughter’s developed a problem with acne.”
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