Kisscut

"I'm only going to say this once, Lena," Jeffrey began, and it seemed like he had been wanting to say this for a while. "You're not the boss here."

"I know that."

"Don't interrupt me," he ordered, cutting his eyes at her. "I've been doing this job a hell of a lot longer than you, and I tell you to do things a certain way because I know what I'm doing."

She opened her mouth to agree, but then thought better of it.

"Being a detective gives you some autonomy, but at the end of the day you take your orders from me." He looked at her, as if anticipating she'd argue. "If I can't trust you to follow simple orders, why should I keep you working for me?"

Obviously, it was her turn to speak, but she couldn't come up with anything to say.

"I want you to think about this, Lena. I know you like your job and I know you're good at it when you decide to be, but after what happened…" He shook his head, as if that wasn't right. "Even before what happened. You've got a problem taking orders, and that makes you more dangerous to me than the crooks."

Lena felt the sting from his words and rushed to defend herself. "Mark wouldn't have confided in me if Brad had been there."

"He might not have tried to take his life, either," Jeffrey said. He was quiet, staring out at the road as he drove. He sighed, then said, "That wasn't fair."

Lena was silent.

"Mark probably would've found a way to do something like this. He's a very troubled kid. It wasn't your fault."

She nodded, not knowing whether what he was saying was true or not. At least he was trying to comfort her, which is a hell of a lot more than she had done with him when they had talked about his shooting Je

"And it's not just Mark. Have you made an appointment with a therapist yet?"

She shook her head.

Jeffrey said, " Lena, I hate to say this now, but there never seems to be a good time." He paused, as if making sure to word this carefully. "You need to think about whether or not you want to be a cop anymore."

She nodded, biting the tip of her tongue so that she wouldn't start crying. How could she not be a cop? If she wasn't a police detective, what was she? Certainly not a sister; barely a woman. Lena wasn't even sure some days if she was a human being.

"You're a good cop," he said.

She nodded again, resting her head against her hand, staring out the side window so he wouldn't see her face. Her throat felt like it was closing up as she strained not to cry. She hated herself for being so weak, and the thought of breaking down in front of Jeffrey was enough to keep her from sobbing like a girl.

"We'll talk when this case is over," Jeffrey told her, and his voice was reassuring, but it didn't help. "I want to help you, Lena, but I can't help you if you don't want to be helped."

It sounded like Hank's A.A. bullshit, and Lena had had enough of that to last her a lifetime. She cleared her throat and said, "Okay," still staring out the window.

Jeffrey was silent as he drove, and she didn't speak again until she noticed that he missed the turnoff heading back into town and the station.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"Dottie Weaver's house," he said. "She hasn't picked up the body at the morgue."

"It's been a while," Lena said, surreptitiously wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "Do you think something's wrong with her?"

"I don't know," Jeffrey told her, his jaw working.

"Do you think she's done something?" Lena asked. "Like Mark?"

He gave her a curt nod, and she did not push it.

Jeffrey pointed up the road, saying, " Randolph Street is up here, right?"

"Yes," Lena confirmed, and Jeffrey took the turn onto Randolph. The driveways were few and far between, most of the houses set back from the road and resting on three to four acres each. They were in an older section of Grant, built back before people started throwing cheap houses on top of each other. Jeffrey braked the car in front of a gray mailbox that was open in the front, mail stacked so tight someone would have to use a crowbar to get it out.

"This is it," he said. He backed up the car and turned into a tree-lined driveway. If he noticed the four copies of the Grant Observer wrapped in plastic bags at the head of the drive, he did not say.

The Weaver home was farther back from the road than Lena would have guessed, and a few seconds passed before a small ranch house came into view. A second level had been added at some point, and the bottom of the house did not really match the top.

"Do you see a car?" Jeffrey asked, stopping in front of an open carport.

Lena looked around, wondering why he had asked a question with such an obvious answer. "No."

They both got out of the car, and Lena walked around the perimeter of the house, checking every window on the first floor. Either the curtains or the blinds were drawn on each one, and she could not see inside. There was a double door leading to what was probably the basement, but it was locked tight. The small windows around the foundation had been painted black from the inside.

As she circled back around the house, she could hear Jeffrey knocking on the front door, calling, "Mrs. Weaver?"

Lena stood at the bottom of the porch steps, wiping the sweat off her forehead with the back of her arm. "I couldn't see anything. All the curtains are drawn." She told him about the basement and the blackened windows.

Jeffrey glanced around the yard, and she could sense how anxious he was. Dottie Weaver had not bothered to get her newspapers or mail for a while. She was divorced and her daughter had just been killed. Maybe she had felt there wasn't a lot to go on living for.

Jeffrey asked, "Did you check the windows?"

"They're all locked tight," she reported.

"Even that broken one?"

Lena got his meaning. As law officers, they needed a damn good reason to go into Weaver's house without a warrant. A bad feeling was not good enough to go on. A broken window was.

She asked, "You mean the broken one in the basement?"

He gave her a curt nod.

"What if an alarm goes off?"

"Then we'll call the police," he said, walking down the steps.

Lena would have broken the window herself, but she appreciated that Jeffrey was trying to keep her out of this gray area of the law as much as he could. She leaned against the porch railing, waiting for the sound of broken glass. It came about a minute later, and then several more minutes passed with nothing further from Jeffrey. She was about to go around to the back of the house when she heard his footsteps inside.

He stood in the doorway, one hand on the knob, the other holding a bright yellow raincoat.

"Lacey's?" Lena asked, taking the coat. It was small enough for a child, but the label in the back took away all doubt. Someone had sewn the child's name onto it in case it was lost.

"Jesus," Lena mumbled, then looked back up at Jeffrey. He shook his head no, meaning he had not found her in the house.

He stepped aside so that she could walk in. Heat enveloped her, and the house felt hotter inside than it was outside. The first room was large, and probably was used as a living room. It was hard to tell, though, because all the furniture was gone. Even the carpet had been pulled up from the floor, and the tacking around the perimeter stood out like teeth.

"What the…?" Lena said, walking through the room. She noticed that Jeffrey had his weapon drawn, the muzzle pointed toward the floor. Lena followed suit, kicking herself for being so stupid. She had been so shocked to see Lacey's coat and the state of the house that she had forgotten that someone might still be in the house. With all the noise they had made outside, whoever might be inside was certainly aware there was company.

Jeffrey nodded for her to follow him into the kitchen, which was in the same state as the main room. All the cabinet doors were open, showing empty shelves. Lena walked through the dining room, a den, and a small office, all of them empty, all of them missing carpeting.