Straight from the Heart

by Layce Gardner

  Straight from the Heart

  by

  Saxon Bennett

  Layce Gardner

  This is a work of fiction; names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product oftheauthors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Square Pegs Ink

  Text copyright © Saxon Bennett & Layce Gardner

  All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without the authors’ written permission.

  Editor: Kate Michael Gibson

  Katemichaelgibson.com

  Cover designed by Lemon Squirrel Graphics

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  Chapter One

  Steph Rizzo ran out of the house carrying her girlfriend’s oversized lunch bag. Rosa sat in her car with her forehead resting against the steering wheel.

  Steph rapped on the car’s window. Rosa sighed and rolled it down.

  “You forgot your lunch,” Steph said.

  “That is the least of my problems at the moment,” Rosa said, frowning. She loved her Nissan Sentra despite its advanced age. She looked at the odometer. Usually, she avoided looking because at 235,000 miles and despite her diligent care, her beloved car was dying. She turned the key again and only heard a dull, metallic click, click, click.

  “Won’t start, huh?” Steph asked, trying to hide the glee in her voice. She’d been trying for years to get Rosa to break down and buy another car. A newer car. It didn’t even have to be brand new, just newer. Like something from this century. “Look at it this way,” Steph said, “Maybe it’s time to…”

  Rosa’s glare stopped Steph’s words dead in their tracks. “I am not buying a new car. This baby has a lot of life left in her,” Rosa snarled. But even to her own ears, the words sounded more hopeful than true. “It’s probably just the battery, anyway,” Rosa ended weakly.

  “Or the starter, or the alternator, or the solenoid…” Steph added.

  “Stop gloating. What I need right now is a ride to work,” Rosa said. She got out of the car and retrieved her kit bag from the passenger seat.

  “I’ll get my keys,” Steph said, thrusting the lunch bag at Rosa.

  Rosa watched her girlfriend of eleven years take the front porch stairs two at a time. Sometimes, Rosa wondered how she’d managed to snag such a gorgeous woman. Steph was a firefighter, which kept her fit. She had legs of steel and a tush to die for. With her short, dark hair, flashing black eyes and olive skin that she’d inherited from her Italian ancestors, Steph was handsome. She turned a lot of heads, male and female.

  Rosa chuckled to herself. She had caught her very own Italian Stallion.

  As she walked to Steph’s truck, she saw her own reflection in the passenger window. She had a round face with dark eyes and long hair that she wore in a messy bun when she was at work. She was only 5’4” tall and had to watch what she ate or the short waist she’d inherited from her Mexican mother would balloon out without notice.

  Running out of the house again, Steph grabbed Rosa’s kit bag and tossed it into the bed of her truck. The jet-black Dodge Ram was her pride and joy. It was the first thing she bought after she got hired as a firefighter. She changed the oil herself, not trusting anybody else to touch it. She washed it weekly and waxed it monthly. There were times that Rosa was jealous of the attention the truck got.

  Steph unlocked the doors and jumped inside.

  “We’re not going to a fire,” Rosa said, pulling herself up and into the truck. Getting in the truck was a challenge for her because it was four-wheel drive with oversized tires. If Steph had been a man, Rosa would’ve teased her about having a genital inferiority complex.

  “Sorry, I don’t want you to be late,” Steph said, starting the engine. “Ooh, listen to that baby purr. Your engine could sound like that too, if it weren’t a hundred-and-five years old.”

  Deep down, Rosa knew she should get a new car. But she didn’t want to throw away a car that was, let’s face it, the place where she’d had some of the best times of her life. Her first kiss had been in that car. She drove it across country once, with two of her best friends, and that was one of the happiest, most free times of her life. Its trunk still had remnants of parties she’d attended over twenty-five years ago. Her softball glove was still on the back floorboard and she hadn’t played softball since she was in college. She knew it didn’t make sense, but she just didn’t feel capable of letting go of something that was such a big part of her life. It would’ve been tantamount to throwing away an old photo album.

  “Come on, Babe, let’s get you a new car. You could even buy another Sentra,” Steph pleaded, “You know, if they still make them.”

  Rosa looked straight ahead, crossed her arms over her ample chest, and said, “I do not want to talk about my car right now. I have a big day ahead of me.”

  “Okay.” Steph put the truck in reverse and looked over her shoulder. “I packed you two roast beef sandwiches, four energy bars, carrots and celery sticks, two apples, and two 20 oz. Gatorades,” Steph said while backing out of the driveway.

  “No way I can eat all that.”

  “Half of it’s for Gary,” Steph said.

  “He’ll eat his own lunch and then most of mine.” Rosa was a police officer and Gary was her partner. They’d been partners for eight years now. They were so symbiotic that sometimes Rosa felt like she had two wives, one at home and one at work.

  “I can’t have you two eating all that convenience store junk or fatty fast-food. Did you know that heart disease is the number one killer in the United States?”

  “I had no idea that a hamburger and French fries were so deadly,” Rosa said, as they headed toward downtown Fenton and the police station.

  “You can make fun all you want, but it’s true. I pack your lunch because I care about you.”

  Rosa sighed wearily. She was taking her frustration out on the one person who cared about her. “I know, honey. I’m just upset about my car, that’s all.”

  As they turned onto Dorset Street, the town’s main drag, they passed the Fenton Sentinel newspaper building where their friend Amy Warner worked as a reporter. “Did you read Amy’s column this morning?” Steph asked. “It was hilarious. All about the food fight at the farmer’s market.”

  “No, some of us were getting ready for work. I’ll read it while we do the stakeout. It’ll kill time.”

  “What stakeout?” Steph asked, as she pulled into the police department parking lot. “You didn’t tell me you had a stakeout today.”

  “I didn’t tell you because you worry too much. I didn’t want to have to sit through an hour-long safety lecture.”

  “I wouldn’t have lectured you,” Steph said.

  Rosa looked at her and raised one eyebrow.

  “Well, not for an entire hour. More like ten minutes.”

  Rosa raised the other eyebrow.

  “Okay. Twenty minutes.”

  Gary walked out of the police station. He saw them and waved. Gary was the polar opposite of Rosa. He was fair where she was dark. Tall where she was short. Skinny where she wasn’t. Despite the physical differences, they were more alike than not.

  Gary deposited his kit bag into the beat-up Crown Vic they’d inherited from the hot shot police department in Kansas City. Fenton was like the little brother in a poor family, always dressing in big brother’s old clothes. But like the saying, beggars can’t be choosers. And even the old Crown Vic tha
t smelled like rancid onions and testosterone was better than sitting in a police cruiser in front of a stakeout.

  Rosa filled her in. “We’re staking-out that old house down on Arden. We got a tip from the neighbors about suspicious ‘going’s-on,’ as old lady Smithers put it. We’re pretty sure it’s drugs. Gary and I got stakeout duty. It’s probably just weed. We caught Johnny Miller peddling joints out of his locker at the high school. He’s not talking, but he will when his daddy gets back from Milwaukee.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes. Mr. Miller is one mean bastard,” Steph said.

  “Yeah, but Johnny shouldn’t be dealing drugs either. You reap what you sow.”

  “Quoting Shakespeare now?”

  “I think it’s the Bible.”

  Steph leaned over and kissed her lightly. “Be safe, babe. I love you.”

  “Love you, too.” Rosa got out of the truck with her lunch tucked under her arm, grabbed her kit bag, and headed toward the station to clock in.

  Steph rolled down her window. “Remember about tonight!”

  Rosa turned and nodded. “Don’t worry. I’ll be home in time for your shindig.”

  Steph was having their friends over for dinner. She loved to cook and entertain, something Rosa had learned early in their relationship. Her girlfriend was a social butterfly. Rosa didn’t mind. She loved being surrounded by people. Their friends were dear to both of them. They were the family that Steph and Rosa didn’t have. Steph had been disowned for being gay and Rosa was an orphan. So they both made family where they could.

  Steph began to pull away, but stopped. She honked and Rosa turned around with a ‘what now?’ expression on her face.

  “Don’t forget to wear your vest,” Steph said.

  Rosa waved her away. “Go cook.”

  “Vest.”

  “I know, I know,” Rosa said. She hustled inside and punched in. Steph always nagged her about wearing her bullet-proof vest. It was Fenton, Missouri, an idyllic small town nestled in a valley—not New York City, or Chicago, or even Kansas City. Rosa was careful, but sitting all day in a car wearing a vest was uncomfortable. The vest was heavy and hot. It left bruises above her hipbones where it rubbed. Vests were made for the narrow hips of men, not the hips of female officers. Besides, in the entire history of Fenton, there’d never been a shoot-out. It wasn’t likely there would be one today.

  ***

  After roll call and the morning briefing, Rosa joined Gary beside the Crown Vic. “Ready to roll?”

  “What’s for lunch?” he asked, gesturing at Rosa’s lunch bag.

  “Roast beef sandwiches.”

  “Excellent.” He belched his approval.

  “Must you?” Rosa asked, putting her kit bag in the back seat of the car.

  “Hey, if I don’t belch now, I’ll just fart later,” Gary said. “Your choice.”

  “Men are so gross,” Rosa muttered.

  “You love me,” Gary said. He made kissy noises at her over the top of the car.

  Rosa rolled her eyes. “You’re the reason I’m gay.”

  “So, what happened to your beast? It finally die?” Gary asked.

  “It didn’t die,” Rosa snapped. “It’s just the battery…or something.”

  Gary opened the door and slid in behind the wheel as Rosa got in the passenger seat. “You should check out the new cars,” he said. “I heard tell they have these new-fangled windows. You push a button and it lowers, you don’t have to roll it down anymore.”

  “Shut up.”

  “And they have what is called an automatic transmission. Doesn’t even need a clutch to work. You don’t have to even shift. Imagine that!”

  “Just drive.”

  Gary laughed and pulled the car out of the station parking lot. He turned onto Dorset Street. “Let’s go catch some crooks, Officer Garcia,” Gary said.

  “Any more news on our drug dealers?” Rosa asked.

  Gary turned right and headed toward the east side of town. It was known to the locals as Dogtown because there were so many stray dogs. The area had mostly rent houses that were falling apart, but the city was having a hard time getting the local slum lords to fix them up—mostly because the slum lords were also on the city council.

  “Old lady Smithers called in again. There’s a suspicious lowrider that came in late last night,” Gary said.

  “A lowrider in Fenton? Like that doesn’t stick out,” Rosa said. “Why didn’t they just put a bumper sticker on the car that says ‘Look at me. I’m a drug dealer?’”

  “Drug dealers aren’t known for their smarts,” Gary said. He turned onto Arden. Sure enough, there was a metallic green lowrider in the driveway. Parked on the street was a black Lincoln Navigator with tinted windows.

  “Uh oh,” Gary said. “Our lowrider boys got company.”

  “Looks like the ante just went up,” Rosa said. “Drive on by and park at the Our Lady of Lourdes church.”

  “We going to pray first?” Gary asked.

  “Couldn’t hurt,” Rosa said. She reached into the back seat and unzipped her bag. She pulled out a jean jacket and ball cap for Gary and an ugly brown fur coat for herself. “Ready to play dress up?”

  “Dibs on the jean jacket,” Gary said.

  “No shit.”

  “You really think this is necessary?”

  “Sometimes it pays to not look like a cop. I stopped by the thrift store last night. So now, we’re going to walk into the church, light a candle or two, say a few Hail Marys, and watch the house from the comfort of inside. In a town this small, drug dealers, especially those kind,” she pointed at the Lincoln Navigator, “can spot a stakeout a mile away.”

  “Boy, big city gal, sure picked up a few things along the way,” Gary said.

  Rosa playfully punched him in the arm. “Shut up, you ass.”

  They wiggled into the coats and Gary laughed when Rosa handed him a red ball cap that had stitched across its front: Make America Great Again. He put the cap on and pulled it low over his eyes. “How do I look?” he asked.

  “Uneducated and white,” Rosa answered.

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “On second thought, you couldn’t be a Trumper.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you use beard wax. Unlike those Duck Dynasty guys,” Rosa said. “No self-respecting Trumper would groom himself like that.”

  “At least I don’t have a mun,” Gary said.

  Rosa laughed. “I wouldn’t ride in the same car with you.”

  Gary peered through the binoculars that he’d brought. He turned the button between the lenses until the drug house came into focus. The house looked quiet. “Not a creature is stirring.”

  She took the binoculars from him and peered at the house. Gary was right, there was no movement.

  “Even if I did have a mun, you’d have to ride with me, you know, you’re my partner,” Gary said.

  “I’d get a transfer. It’s hard enough dealing with your pet beard.”

  “And just what’s wrong with my beard?” he asked, giving his hairy chin a fond stroke.

  “It’s creepy how you’re always petting it.”

  Gary stopped stroking his beard. “I save a lot of money on razors.”

  “We need to run the numbers on the lowrider,” Rosa said, changing the subject. “It’s got New Mexico plates.”

  Gary called it in. “I bet you twenty those plates are from Espanola.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I saw a cable show all about car chop-shops. Some of those guys are really talented. That one over there is a piece of crap,” Gary said, pointing at the lowrider.

  “Are those things even safe enough to drive on the freeway?”

  “That’s not the problem. Getting out of steep driveways is the problem. The cars are so low they bottom out,” he said.

  The dispatcher’s voice crackled over the radio: “It’s registered to one Adelina Sandoval. She’s an eighty-two-year-old woman livi
ng in Espanola, New Mexico with an expired license.”

  “I don’t figure she’s the one driving the car,” he said.

  “We should run the Navigator’s plates,” she said.

  “Yeah, if we could see them. They’ve got those plate covers to evade radar,” he said.

  “All right, let’s get moving. We need to get into the church before they get suspicious,” she said. “They’re probably watching us watching them.”

  She got out of the car. The hideous coat was long enough to cover most of her pants and with her hair pulled into a bun she looked like a good Catholic woman going to church.

  They walked arm in arm toward the church. The morning sun glinted off the stained-glass windows, casting multicolored shadows over the wide front steps. Gary opened the heavy wooden door covered with ornamental scroll work and reverently followed Rosa into the foyer. Rosa crossed herself when she entered the church proper. The air felt thick and heavy. Or maybe that was guilt settling over her. She hadn’t been inside a church in a long time.

  The church was dim except for the shafts of daylight shining through the side windows and the rows of flickering red candles before the altar. Dust mites danced in the shafts of light, making Rosa feel as if she were in a snow globe.

  They were the only people in the church. Rosa walked down the aisle and slid into a pew. Gary sat down next to her. He sat on the edge of the seat and put both hands on the back of the pew in front of them.

  Rosa looked at his wedding ring. Gary was a happily married man. He was as in love with his wife as he had been the day he met her. He had a young daughter who was his pride and joy and he and his wife were working on another child. The fact that he was a family man was one of the things Rosa loved about her partner.

  Rosa looked down at her own bare fingers resting in her lap. Steph kept bugging her to get married. Especially now that same-sex marriage was legal. But Rosa couldn’t seem to get past her fear. She had seen too many couples divorce not long after exchanging vows. She was a firm believer in the adage “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” She had lived with Steph ten years now and from her point of view, nothing was broken. So why tamper with that and get married?