Lilith Saintcrow: Redemption Alley

It would not have been pretty.

I braced myself. “Neither have I. But I’ll get hold of him soon. Let me talk to him.” In other words, Theron, this stays between you and me.

He absorbed it. “How close was it, Jill?”

What do you want me to tell you? “Close enough. I can’t count this one a win.” I stared unseeing at the tableau around the open, yawning grave, a mound of dirt covered with Astroturf sitting neglected to one side. Rosie’s chin was up. Monty had his arms folded, his shoulders slumped. Sullivan looked down at the ground, Piper’s cheeks were wet.

“City’s still standing. And that ’breed who ran the Kat Klub—”

“She’s dead.” I said it too quickly, on a breathy scree of air. Carp, I avenged you without knowing. I wish I could do it again.

Sometimes avenging isn’t enough. They don’t tell you that when you’re training. You have to learn it on your own. It is one of the lessons that makes you a hunter, not an apprentice.

The service began to break up. The honor guard marched away to their flashing vehicles; the knot of uniforms and suits at the graveside fraying. Theron watched with me, in silence. Monty stayed while car doors slammed and engines started.

So did Rosie.

The chaplain, an unassuming, balding little man in a black suit, exchanged a few words with Monty, who neatly cut him away from Rosie. She stood in the sun, her hair throwing back its light with a vengeance, her hands knotted into bloodless fists at her sides. She stared at the hole in the ground, then lifted her head, scanning the cemetery’s rolling greenness.

I made a restless movement. Theron was still, the peculiar immobility of a cat Were.

The chaplain headed off toward his own car, a sunny yellow Volkswagen Beetle. I stepped forward as he drove away. Picked my way with care around headstones and plates set in the ground, passing wilted flowers and the occasional shrub. The last twenty feet or so were the hardest, because I could feel Rosie’s eyes on me and the grave opened like a mouth. Strata of sprinkler-wet earth striped its sides.

I came to a halt outside the awning’s shelter. The sun beat down.

Monty clapped me awkwardly on the shoulder and handed me a new pager. “We’re going to Costanza’s.” The words hung in still air, the breeze had died.

I nodded. Silver clanked as my hair moved.

Rosenfeld sounded steady enough. “Give me a minute, Monty?”

“Sure.” He shifted his weight, awkwardly.

I could feel his gaze on me, maybe he was trying to tell me something. I didn’t look up. There were a few handfuls of dirt scattered across the coffin’s lacquered top, and someone had dropped in a rose. Probably Piper.

Monty retreated. I steeled myself, raised my gaze, and met Rosie’s head-on.

Rosenfeld was crying.

Oh, hell.

“He was Internal Affairs.” She lifted her prizefighter’s jaw a little bit, as if daring me to make something of it. “Jill…”

So she knew.

She was his partner, and probably knew him better than he knew himself. Of course she would at least suspect he was IA.

“He was clean, Rosie.” The words came out in a rush. “I did my best. He saw something, something awful. I didn’t get there in time.”

“Oh, Jesus.” Her mouth gapped a little, her nose inflamed—redheads can’t cry gracefully, at least not any redhead I’ve known. Then again, the whole point of crying is that nobody does it gracefully. “I thought… his ex-wives, and the case he was working. I thought…”

“I got the people responsible.” My voice didn’t seem to work quite right. “I tied up the case.”

“They’re dead? The motherfuckers that did for him?” She searched my face.

Do you even need to ask me that? “They’re dead.” Except the other dirty cops Harvill had on a string. But sooner or later, I’ll get to them. I swear it, Rosie.

It would be vengeance, and it wouldn’t help. But it was the least I owed her.

She glanced at the grave, her mouth firming and twisting down, bitterly. “I’ve been thinking, I should have seen it. It was all there. He’s been withdrawing all year. Just sinking deeper and deeper into the pit. I should have nagged him into something. Counseling. Something. ”

Oh, Rosie. “It was the nightside, Rosie. Not him.” Give her that much, at least. Don’t let her blame herself for this. “I should have kept him under tighter wraps, made sure he was okay. It was on my watch. I’m… sorry.”

“It isn’t your fault. He was already cracking.”

I smelled the sweat and the misery on her. The heat was immense, Biblical, no shred of air moving to break the bubble of silence laid over us. We stood in the sun and watched each other.

Once, Rosenfeld had checked herself out of the hospital and marched into my warehouse, all in order to apologize to me. Seeing the nightside up close had put a streak of white in her hair she had to dye and given her nightmares she’d needed two years of therapy to face. The guilt would eat at her, because she had seen the naked face of darkness and survived.

And Carp hadn’t.

I broke the silence. “He was a good cop. A damn good cop.”

The air started moving again, flirting and swirling as the breeze came up the hill, laden with heavy green rainsmell. We’d have thunderstorms as soon as the season started changing. Fall would ride in with afternoon rains, and winter. And here, sleeping under the earth, would the dead take any notice of weather?

There was never any rain in Hell. I knew that for a fact.

“He was,” Rosie agreed. “Don’t…”

Don’t blame myself? “If you won’t, I won’t.”

“Deal.” She held out her hand. I took it gingerly, and we shook the way women accustomed to men shake—a brief squeeze, eye contact, and a half-embarrassed smile.

The scar throbbed, sensing the misery saturating afternoon scorch. I let go of her hot fingers. A thin trickle of salt sweat oozed down my spine. “You’d better go on. Monty probably needs a drink.”

She let out an uneasy half-cackle of a laugh, choked off midway as she glanced toward the scar cut in the green earth. “I feel like I should stay with him.”

“They’ll be along in a few minutes to fill in the… to fill it in. I’ll stay.” It’s my job. It’s the least I can do.

She nodded once, sharply, her spiky hair drooping, plastered to her skull. We stood there for a few more moments, nothing left to say hanging between us.

Her shoulders finally dropped. “I guess I’ll see you around?”

Why did she make it a question? “I’m not going anywhere.” This is my city. And when I find the other dirty fucking cops, I’ll serve vengeance on them too. I promise. “Rosie? Take care of yourself.” Please.

“Yeah. You too, Kismet.” Military-precise, she turned and headed for Monty’s car, running now. I thought of the air-conditioned comfort inside and breathed out softly through my mouth, since my nose was full.

Monty pulled slowly away. Theron approached, and I heard a golf cart buzzing along. The diggers, two broad Hispanic men in chinos and blue button-downs— of course, I thought, white would show the sweat and the dirt, and we can’t have that —arrived, and gave me a nervous glance.

I headed for the strip of asphalt and paused there, watching. One of the diggers had shucked his button-down and was in a black wifebeater. The other was still eyeing me. They began filling in the grave. Heat bounced, shimmering, up from the black asphalt, clawed at me in colorless waves. Still, I didn’t sweat much, even under the leather.

I did wonder, standing there and watching them work with their shovels, if they had come over the border. I wondered if they’d been born in my city. I wondered if either of them had any idea who they were burying, or if it was just another job to them. I wondered if they resented the fact that they were cheaper than a machine, or if they were grateful for the work.