The Fog of Dreams
Page 35
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It was another late night when Chief Gutierrez walked in her front door, exhausted from a ten hour shift that had started at just before 8:00am and finally finished just after dinner time. Louisa and Julietta tried to have a meal together at some point during the day if they could, though both of their schedules made that almost impossible. Tonight, Jules was putting together the finished touches on a homemade pizza on the kitchen counter and smiled when she heard the front door open.
"Louisa?" she asked.
"Yeah, I'm home, Jules."
The smell of fresh sun-dried tomatoes with a hint of pesto and oregano wafted through the small house and Louisa closed her eyes as she crossed the living room floor, taking in the aromas of home. It felt good just to walk in the door. She unclasped her broad, black belt and strapped it over a hook next to the front door, making sure to unfasten her holster and slide it into the top drawer of an end table by that same front door. Pulling her blue shirt from her pants, she walked towards the kitchen.
"Smells great," she said softly as she stepped into the kitchen, wrapping her arms around the narrow waist of her lover, nestling her nose in the crook of her neck, just next to the stray tail of blonde hair that hung down to her shoulders.
"Glad you made it home in time, I was going to start without you. Grab me that pizza slicer, would you?" She gestured towards the top drawer next to the metal sink and Louisa headed that way. "How was work?"
"Typical. Another day praying that ole Charlie Buck will give me his retirement notice."
"Good luck. Guys like him will be pulling over speeders and making teenager's lives miserable until they drop dead."
Louisa gave the pizza slicer to Jules, then dipped her finger into the open jar of sun-dried tomato sauce, peeling out a thick fingerful of chunky red liquid. She stuck her finger in her mouth and smiled.
"Good stuff."
"Thank the food Co-Op," Jules smirked. "Straight from their grocery aisle."
Louisa unbuttoned her blue shirt and pulled it off, bundling it into a tight cloth ball as she walked back out into the living room. "How was your day?"
"Really interesting," Jules replied. "We did some cadaver work today."
Opening the closet in the small hallway between the living room and their master bath, Louisa tossed her bundled shirt into a half full laundry basket and replied, "Sounds lovely."
She walked back towards the kitchen and was met by Jules walking out towards the table with the sliced pizza on an elaborate metal elevated tray.
"I think one of the bodies might have been from your little problem at the Strickland house," she said in passing as she walked towards the table.
Louisa stopped cold, twisting her features. "What?"
Jules set the tray on the table and glanced back over her shoulder. "Yeah. Looked like some sort of animal mauling, but there were some really interesting bite and claw patterns. PSI on some of those injuries was pretty crazy."
Louisa just stood there staring. Her mind was rolling at a rapid pace, but her mouth couldn't seem to form the words she needed to say.
"What's the matter?" Julietta asked standing up and looking at her partner.
"There's an active investigation," Louisa replied. "They released those cadavers already? Why?"
Jules shrugged. "Not sure, but they belong to us now."
"Something stinks about this," Louisa muttered. "This isn't right. They're glossing this whole thing over."
"What are you talking about?" Jules asked. She took a step closer, but then stopped. She could see tears forming at the corners of Louisa's eyes. "Louisa? Sweetheart? Are you all right?"
Louisa took an uncertain step backwards, then another, like a toddler just learning to walk, then dropped back, bringing her full weight down on the old brown couch behind her. She sat there for a moment, her muscles limp, all energy temporarily expunged.
"Louisa?"
"He asked me to leave it alone," she said quietly.
Jules inched closer to her, dropping down onto the couch next to her. "Leave it alone? Leave what alone?"
"The Strickland thing. The murders. All of it. He told me to leave it all alone."
Julietta looked at the woman sitting there, squinting slightly. "Did you say murders?"
Louisa leaned back in the couch, closing her eyes. "Lord help me, yes. I think those two men were murdered. I don't know how?I don't know why, but I think they were."
"So what are you going to do about it?" Jules asked.
There was no answer forthcoming. No answer that Louisa could bring herself to say. The air inside the small home was thick, still, and silent. Trace smells of oregano and sun-dried tomatoes still permeated, but instead of smelling delicious, they suddenly started smelling sour and repugnant, like fermented apples.
"Nothing," she finally replied.
Jules stood up and turned towards the other woman, looking stern. "What do you mean nothing? I don't understand what's going on here."
"That makes two of us," replied Louisa, dropping her chin in her hands and sinking deeper into the couch.
"Why don't you start from the beginning?"
The Chief of Police sighed deeply and sat back upright again, considering her words. "Not much to say, really. I was approached yesterday. Someone in a fancy suit named Richard Grace."
Julietta continued watching her, trying to gauge her emotions. She was failing, which was unusual.
"Said he was with the Department of Homeland Security, but he sure didn't seem like that kind of agent. Told me I needed to drop the Strickland case. Take his house off our patrols. More or less forget he ever existed."
"What?" Jules asked, looking almost personally offended. "Didn't the last Chief just get fired for looking the other way?"
Louisa nodded slowly.
"So you told him to go fuck himself then?"
Louisa's silence was the worst reply.
"Louisa?"
More silence.
"Jesus, Lu! You're not seriously considering?"
"End of the year the FBI is opening a field office for Northern New England."
Jules tilted her head. "What?"
"Boston has always been the most northern field office. But by the end of the year, there will be satellite location in New Hampshire. Less than sixty miles away."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"In my desk drawer at work I have a letter from the Director of the FBI with a commendation on my performance during my training at Quantico." Louisa remained seated, not looking at Julietta. Not being able to bear to.
"You're not making sense." Julietta dropped herself down on the couch next to Louisa again. Her mood was quickly shifting back from outrage to confusion.
"The letter?from the director. It promises me a spot at the Northern New England field office as soon as it's open."
Jules sat in silence, realization starting to settle in, the blanket of understanding mixing with the fading smells of sun-dried tomatoes and pesto.
"No," she said quietly. "You wouldn't?"
Louisa lifted her head, a surprisingly piercing glare of resentment in her eyes. "I could commute from here. You could continue your residency, and I could work for the FBI like I've always wanted!"
Jules stood, pushing her palms against her ears as if she was able to block out a conversation that had already been had. Desperately trying to muffle the echoes of those words. "Louisa, you can't be serious! This is illegal!"
Louisa stood, growing increasingly defiant, pushing aside her feelings of shame and replacing them with her own fierce outrage. "It's from the Director of the FBI! You don't get much more legal than that, Jules!"
"And if this gets found out? They would sell you down the river faster than you can blink! You don't need to do this!"
"Easy for you to say! You're living your dream. I'm the one just getting fucking dragged along in your wake!"
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br /> Sometimes in life there are things you wish you could take back the moment you say them. However it seems as if those words in particular are the ones that are heard more clearly and permeate more deeply. The harsher the words, the sharper and deeper embedded they become.
Echoes of words in the small, silent house.