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  Last Call

  ( L.A. Franco - 4 )

  Baxter Clare

  LAPD Homicide Lieutenant L. A. "Frank" Franco is back in the latest installment of the popular Detective Franco Mystery series.

  Six years ago, Lieutenant L. A. Franco’s partner, Detective Noah Jantzen, investigated the case of a double homicide of two innocent children. Unable to close the case, the two murdered children haunted Noah for years

  Now that case is haunting Frank, who must cope with the loss of her dear friend and right-hand man. Unwilling to deal with her grief, Franco buries herself in obsessive work, rigid denial and bottle after bottle of her favorite alcoholic beverage. Frank’s refusal to mourn her old friend strains her business relationships and more importantly, the romantic relationship with the county’s Chief Coroner.

  Focused only on solving the cold case of the murdered children, can Frank see the cost to those around her and the risk to her own life?

  Last Call

  Baxter Clare

  Chapter 1

  Lieutenant L.A. Franco's message is short: "Noah, you lazy bastard, where are you? Give me a call."

  She hangs up on Noah Jantzen's voice mail, wondering why her cop has missed the Monday morning six am briefing. That's not like him. He's usually early, not late. She wonders if one of the kids is sick. By eight o'clock Frank is worried enough to call his wife. The receptionist transfers the call to Tracey Jantzen's ward. A man named Eric answers.

  "Eric, could I speak to Tracey Jantzen, please."

  "Uh, she's not here."

  "Will she be in later?"

  "Uh, no. She came in but she had to leave."

  Frank stops filling out a requisition form. She's spent a career listening to bullshit and she's hearing it now. She puts down her pen and says, "Eric. My name's Lieutenant Franco. Tracey's husband works for me. I'm trying to locate either him or Tracey. Do you know where I can get in touch with her?"

  "Urn, I think her husband was in some kind of accident. She went flying out of here. She didn't say where she was going but I guess she's with him."

  "All right," Frank says. Ice water replaces blood in her veins. She speaks with extreme deliberation, as if the man on the phone was a five-year-old. "Eric, it's critical I find her. She has a cell phone. I need you, or your supervisor, to find that number for me. Do you understand?"

  "Yeah, sure. Hang on a sec."

  The phone gets quiet in her ear and Frank yells, "Lewis!"

  A large, ebony woman appears in Frank's office.

  "Go through Noah's desk and find Tracey Jantzen's cell phone number."

  Frank is sure Noah knew his wife's number by heart but hopes he's got it written down somewhere.

  A woman says into Frank's ear, "This is Amanda Koening. How can I help you?"

  Frank prays for Amanda Koening's sake that she doesn't want to play hardball.

  "Ms. Koening," Frank starts.

  Lewis comes in and hands Frank a scrap of paper. Frank hangs up. She dials the number Lewis gave her. It rings once, twice, three times. Four times. Five. Tracey answers on the sixth ring. Her voice is thin and Frank's guts get loose.

  "Trace. It's Frank. Where are you?"

  Frank is moving even as Tracey sobs. "Oh, Frank, I'm at LA County. Come quick. It's bad."

  Chapter 2

  Waiting for the doctor, Frank wonders, if karma is true, what the hell has she done in past lives that she has to watch so many people die in this one? Who was she? Hitler? Pol Pot?

  She and Tracey try to reassure each other with valiant bravado. When the doctor comes out they stop pretending. The doctor is a woman, and maybe because of that she spares them a lot of the details, stating simply that when Noah was crushed against the steering column he suffered massive pulmonary trauma and they just couldn't stop the bleeding. His heart stopped and they couldn't get it going again. Of course she was very sorry.

  As Tracey starts screaming Frank reaches for her, saying singsong in her head, All the king's horses, and all the king's men, couldn't put Noah together again.

  She accompanies Tracey to the operating room, stopping at the door. Frank's played this scene before. Her mind and feet won't move her closer to the metal altar where her best friend lies broken under an obscenely white sheet. Frank stares at the litter of useless offerings—plastic tubing and torn wrappers, discarded gloves, footprints smeared in Noah's blood. She listens to Tracey's simultaneous vilifying and deifying, her outrage against this final and most unjust of decisions. Frank absorbs every detail, feeling herself detach from the trauma like a balloon cut from its tether.

  When Tracey returns to Frank's arms she moans about how to tell the kids. Frank guides her from the building, letting Tracey cry and stumble against her. It takes them a while to find the car, then Frank drives Tracey home. When Tracey is calmed enough, Frank has her call her sister. Frank will stay with Tracey until the sister comes. She offers to pick the kids up but suggests Tracey let them finish their day in school. Their world will crumble soon enough. Let them have a few more hours of ignorant bliss. Tracey agrees and when the sister comes, Frank calls a cab.

  In the taxi, she calls the station and talks to Diego. She tells him to bring in whoever's not in the squad room and to stay until she gets there. She hangs up and closes her eyes.

  Maybe she's just having a really fucked-up dream.

  Frank probes the edges of reality. Traffic sounds through the window and the taxi jolts to a stop. The driver has the AC on too high and the cab is sour from the sweat of thousands of bodies. When Frank opens her eyes, she is disappointed, but not surprised, to see that nothing has changed. She rolls the window down, preferring the hot sting of tar and diesel to the cab's fetid cold air.

  The driver drops her off at the hospital and she sits in her car, buying time. When she finally starts the engine, she drives slowly to the Figueroa Station. Her station. Noah's station. The only division either of them has ever worked. They partnered on the street and later again in homicide. They never got arbitrarily transferred and never put in for a move. Newton, Figueroa, Rampart—those are the stations that rookies without connections get assigned to and bad cops get demoted to. Frank had been put there straight out of the academy and Noah had transferred in from Pacific when he got off probation. He complained about his choice from then on but never did anything to change it. Noah was a whiner. He didn't mean most of what he said, but it was how he dealt with life. Frank had learned to ignore him or tease him. Usually the latter. Humor was Noah's other coping tool, and he made Frank laugh, too.

  Climbing the stairs to the homicide room, she wonders who'll make her laugh now.

  Faces question her when she walks into the room. Bobby, Jill, Lewis, Diego, Johnnie, Darcy—their presence makes Noah's absence grossly conspicuous. For a horrifying instant Frank feels her heart ripping open. She stares at the floor, willing herself to do what she must. A tsunami of grief breaks over her, then washes back to the far horizon from which it came. Frank lifts her head.

  "Noah was in an accident on the way to work. Three-car pileup. He suffered major internal damage. They couldn't stop the bleeding."

  The phone rings. No one moves to pick it up. Jill finally has the courage to ask, "He's dead?"

  "Yeah."

  Then they break. Jill cries. Bobby and Diego turn to their desks. Johnnie swears and fires questions at Frank. She doesn't know the answer to one, doesn't see the relevance of the other, but answers anyway. Lewis stares at her big hands and Darcy fidgets with a Pepsi can.

  Frank addresses diem. "You can take the rest of the day off if you want. It's up to you. I'll cover."

  It's Bobby who follows her into her office, his dark face lit with concern. "What about Tracey?"

  Frank ex
plains.

  "What about the funeral? Is there a date?"

  A strange impulse to anger rises in Frank. Instead of yelling, "Jesus Christ! The bastard's barely four hours cold," she answers, "I'll let you know as soon as I find out."

  When Bobby leaves, she does a rare thing and tells him to close the door. She has more calls to make.

  The hardest is her old lieutenant. Noah's old lieutenant. There's never a good time to call Joe Girardi. The time zone puts them two hours apart and usually when Frank thinks to call him it's in the middle of his dinner or after he's in bed. In the morning he's out on the lake. In the afternoon he takes a nap. Evenings he's at one of his damn AA meetings. There will never be a good time for this call, but she can't put it off.

  Ruth, Joe's third wife, answers. She sounds pleased to hear from Frank, a change that occurred only after her husband retired. She tells Frank to wait, Joe's outside. Frank blows loudly into the telephone, massaging the back of her neck. Joe comes on, chirping, "Hey, hey, girlie-girl. Give us the report from the trenches."

  Frank gives it to him straight up. She hears sorrow in his response, acknowledges it without reciprocating. Spending his days fishing on Lake Superior, Joe can afford this luxurious dip into emotion. He is well removed from its constant ravages. Frank is not. She is deep in the thick of it. One misstep and she'll drown in it like a common civilian. Not an option.

  Frank kneads the knots below her skull while Joe asks how Tracey and the kids are holding up.

  "As well as can be expected," she answers.

  "How about you? How you doing?"

  She says, "Fine," too quickly.

  Joe waits for more. When there isn't any, his response is as measured as the footsteps of a man in a minefield. "Are you still seeing that shrink over at the BSU?"

  "No. He retired. I'm all right. Really."

  "Okay," Joe says, sounding unconvinced. "When's the funeral?"

  "I'm not sure yet. I'll let you know. Think you can make it?"

  "Oh, I'll make it."

  "Good. Listen I just wanted to let you know. Wanted you to hear it from me. I'll call you as soon as Tracey sets a date."

  "Sure, sure. I appreciate the call, Frank. I know it was a hard one to make."

  "Yeah. Get back to those fish."

  Frank gently replaces the receiver. Then she hurls the phone across the room. It breaks into dozens of pieces. Frank wants to throw more.

  Chapter 3

  Everyone is out of the office by two, including Frank. She cannot wait to leave today. Usually the office is her sanctuary, her refuge from the world, but today it mocks her. Everything in it reminds her of Noah.

  She grabs a six-pack at Cat's Liquors. Two bottles are gone before she reaches the Alibi. She is sure Johnnie will be at the bar and doesn't know if she can face his pain. He partnered with Noah for a long time after Frank became lieutenant. He and Noah fought like they were married, but they covered for each other too. Johnnie hated it when Frank paired Noah with Lewis, but Noah'd been ready for the change and eager to coach the prickly detective trainee.

  Frank parks outside the Alibi but doesn't shut the car off. There will be other cops in there. As the afternoon changes to evening, people from Parker Center and the district attorney's office will trickle in. Frank doesn't want to deal with their sad faces and so sorry's. She keeps driving. She gets onto the freeway and heads north. She catches the 210 to Lincoln Avenue. Traffic is light and soon she's climbing into the San Gabriel Mountains.

  She remembers an overlook that looks down on Pasadena. She finds it vacant and pulls in. Taking her fourth beer, she sits on the hood. The engine ticks beneath her. A warm breeze lifts her hair. She looks down at the city while the sun kisses her arms. For a moment she is almost peaceful, but the day returns and being up here is no good either. She wants to run. To get in the car and keep driving, but where to? There's nowhere to go. Frank doesn't know what to do with pain like this, except drown it. Drown it even as she denies its existence.

  She guzzles the beer and waits for the click. The click that Brick explains in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The click in his head that switches the hot light off and the cool one on. The click that makes him feel peaceful.

  But the click doesn't happen. It's too soon and she knows it. Before she reaches for the fifth beer, she hurls her empty into the brush. She chases it with a wild, gargled yell, slamming both fists against the hood, but her pain remains unfazed.

  When the six-pack is gone she goes home, stopping on the way for a bottle of Scotch. She's supposed to be at her lover's tonight. It's the regular routine—a couple weeknights, and weekends, spent at Gail Lawless's apartment—but when the doc calls, she lets her talk to the answering machine. Frank digs deep for the strength to tell Gail what's happened. Clinging to her glass of Black Label, her shovel, she returns the call.

  "Hi."

  "Hi yourself. Where are you?"

  "Home."

  "Are you on your way over?"

  "Nope."

  "How come?" The pause is long enough that Gail asks, "What's wrong?"

  Gail waits until Frank can say, "Noah's dead. Car wreck on his way in this morning."

  Frank hears the sharp intake of breath. She dreads what's coming next but bears the standard response stoically. Nor does she protest when Gail says, "I'm coming over."

  Gail lets herself in and crosses the room to where Frank is leaning against the patio door. She enfolds Frank and Frank dutifully accepts the embrace. Gail's smell is sweet and familiar, as wonderful as a child's must be to its mother. Frank has loved the scent of this woman, the feel of her flesh against hers, but for all the comfort it brings tonight, she may as well be hugging marble. She feels nothing and that's all right. The click is kicking in. While she wouldn't exactly say it was peaceful, at least it isn't painful. And that is worth a lot. Yes, indeedy, that is plenty good right now and she won't risk losing that precious cessation of feeling.

  The doc asks, "How'd you find out?"

  "When he hadn't called in by eight I tracked Tracey down at County General."

  "What happened to him?"

  "I told you. He was in a car accident."

  "No, I mean, was it his head, internal trauma?"

  Irritation bleeds into Frank's drunken equanimity but she decides the question is only natural coming from the county coroner. "He bled out. The doctor working on him said he'd sustained a lot of trauma and that they couldn't stop the bleeding. His heart quit."

  Frank's almost stops as she says that. Noah's heart quit. She can't believe that big, stupid, goofy heart could be stilled. How could an organ with so much life in it just quit? Her heart, sure. It was a rock. People like her died every day. That was to be expected. But Noah was good. He was a good dad, a good husband, a good cop. A good friend.

  "Did you get to see him? Or talk to him?"

  "No. He was in surgery when I got there. He never came out of it. Tracey didn't get to see him either. Not until it was over."

  They have broken apart a little and Gail nods at the glass affixed to Frank's hand. "I assume you're getting drunk."

  "Not as drunk as I'd like to. Fubar's on call, Darcy and Bobby volunteered to catch tonight, but I want to see Tracey first thing in the morning. I won't be any good to her hungover."

  "How is she?"

  "Pretty fucked up. Her sister's with her."

  "Is there anything I can do?"

  Frank shakes her head. "Nothing anybody can do."

  "Have you eaten at all?"

  "No."

  "How about some soup?" Gail asks, moving toward the kitchen.

  Frank doesn't stop her.

  "How'd everybody at work take it?"

  Again Frank is irritated. It's taken her hours to dim the day's hot lights and Gail's flipping them back on.

  "Like you'd expect. I gave 'em the choice to go home if they wanted. Johnnie and Jill left."

  "What about Lewis?"

  "She seemed kind of at odds." Then more
to herself, Frank says, "I don't know what I'll do with her."

  Cheryl Lewis had come into the 93rd Squad barely a year ago. Frank had watched her advance from boot to sergeant and when Frank needed replacements for her depleted squad, she'd requested Lewis. She'd partnered her with Noah. Lewis was big, black and temperamental. Noah was an impish, skinny, white boy whom Lewis insisted on calling O'Malley even though he always countered he was Jewish. Noah would take his partner to the edge of her temper and back away, gradually building elasticity into it. Lewis learned quickly and Noah blossomed as a mentor. He was a helluva good cop. Frank had always thought if the day came when she was ready to leave the nine-three that she'd like to leave Noah holding the reins.

  Now that won't happen.

  Gail puts a bowl of tomato soup on the table and Frank sits in front of it. She tastes a few spoonfuls, then lets the soup cool and drinks her Scotch. Gail gazes at her over the slab of glass tabletop.

  "How are you?" she asks, chin in hand.

  Frank pushes the bowl aside and adopts the same pose. Gail is lovely. Green eyes, crow's feet, the silky, dark-chocolate pageboy that Frank only recently found out is dyed. All lovely. Frank would testify to it in a court of law, but Gail's beauty can't move her. She sees Gail from a great remove, like a master's painting in a book of great art.

  "How am I?" Frank repeats, having no idea how to answer the question. "I guess I'm all right."

  "How do you feel?"

  Referring to the BSU shrink she used to see, Frank counters, "You sound like Clay."

  "You liked Clay."

  "Not in my living room."

  A slight curve lifts Gail's lips. Frank realizes they didn't kiss hello. She wonders if it's too late. She could lean over and kiss the soft folds right now. She knows what they will feel like. Firm and giving at the same time. Frank considers this but doesn't have the inclination to act on it.

  "How much of that have you had?" Gail asks, indicating the glass at Frank's elbow.

  "I'm not counting."

  Frank's "lapses into inebriation," as Gail calls them, are an issue around which they have created a wary detente. Gail's dad was a destructive drunk, always promising to go on the wagon and stay there, and always falling off. Frank doesn't get drunk in front of Gail and Gail doesn't bring it up. Today Frank has broken the rules and couldn't care less. Her best friend's dead and she's entitled. She lets the chips of their delicate truce fall where they may.