Y is for Yahrzeit
Rating: K+
Warning: Spoilers for Guns and Roses and Burn Rate
Surprise! This is for the 2007 Summer Alphabet Challenge! (And I haven't even finished posted the 2006 stories!)
Rose Hills Memorial Park and Mortuary sprawls out from the urbanized jungle known as Greater Los Angeles and rolls into the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains. The lush grass, graceful trees and sheer size of the park smothers the noise of traffic from the nearby freeway. Even the cars that crawl along the winding roads through the cemetery seem hushed by their environment.
Jessica Malloy, formerly of ATF, stepped gently on the brakes of her silver Toyota Corolla and allowed a doe to cross the road in front of her.
After the deer had disappeared from sight, Jessica pulled to the side of the road and got out of her car. She looked around to orient herself. It had been months since she had been here last, in spite of how many times she had told herself that she needed to come.
One year ago today her best friend, Nikki Davis, had been murdered. Once upon a time, Nikki had been her partner and best friend. Their lives had diverged, but had stayed in touch. They'd been able to talk about anything – work, food, sports… men.
So, Jessica had heard a lot about Special Agent Don Eppes before she finally met him. By then her opinion of him had been flavored by Nikki's pain and her bitterness at Nikki's death. It had taken high explosives, literally, to crack her shell.
Jessica had been investigating a series of bombings and had almost been killed. Ironically, she had been saved by two men that she hated. One of the them was a man she had labeled a terrorist. Another had been Don Eppes.
Jessica consulted her notes. Then she checked her bag to make sure that she had all the equipment she needed because her destination was several yards from the paved road.
She wended her way carefully over the uneven lawn between the graves and located her friends just past the gravesite of Gretchen S. (1957 to 1980).
The Davises were next to a cool, green lake populated with graceful white ducks and energetic mallards. Graceful eucalyptus trees edged the banks. Nearby graves were decorated with colorful tributes such as flowers, balloons and even toys.
Jessica knelt in front of Nikki and Richard's graves and felt around for the holes that had been dug there to hold flowers. The holes had a tendency to fill with grass roots, but the cemetery provided cups, inserted upside down, to keep the roots from completely filling them in.
She pulled the pry bar out of the bag she was carrying and used it to levers the cup out of ground. She filled them from the lake and carefully divided the flowers that she had brought between Nikki and Richard.
There was no other floral tribute at the Davis' gravesite besides her zinnias, Jessica realized. She really hadn't expected Nikki's parents to come. They lived in a different state and only consented to Nikki being buried in Rose Hills because they had expected Richard to be living nearby.
Jessica looked sadly at Richard's grave. Unfortunately, 'nearby' was the only part that had proven accurate.
However, Eppes should have left flowers. She wondered if he had forgotten, or if he just didn't care.
She mentally kicked herself. You'd think that she would have learned her lesson about jumping to conclusions by now. It was early yet. Eppes might come after work, assuming he wasn't being overwhelmed.
Or maybe he wouldn't come today. As far as she knew, Yahrzeit didn't require a gravesite visit.
She had brought her breakfast along, so she nibbled on her blueberry muffin and fed crumbs to the duck. After she finished, she wandered around, dividing her time between studying the headstones and admiring the rose gardens that gave the cemetery its name. Every now and then she looked towards the lake to see if Eppes had arrived.
She hadn't intended to stay all day, but the later it got, the more determined she was to see if Eppes would come. After a while Jessica began to wonder if there was a restroom in the park. She supposed there was one in the mortuary, but she didn't want to go that far away from the gravesite.
She wandered back to the road and asked some women who were unloading a bucketful of colorful bouquets. As it happened, there was a restroom just across the street from where she had stopped her car.
Around 2 PM, a deliveryman left a wreath of white roses and lilies on Nikki's grave. After he left, Jessica drifted over to read the card. She was not surprised to see that they were from Nikki's parents.
Maybe she should have brought a book, she thought. Then decided that maybe she should write one instead. She sighed, Les Miserables and The Fugitive already told her story… from the opposite point of view. The point of view of the people unjustly harassed by an obsessive law enforcement agent.
She found some shade and sat on the bank, watching the ducks and meditating.
The second time that she came out of the bathroom, she noticed that the shadows had lengthened appreciably. She was getting hungry. The cemetary would be closing soon.
She decided that Eppes wasn't coming today, so she went back her car. As she was unlocking the door, she took on last look over her shoulder toward Nikki's grave…
And spotted Special Agent Don Eppes striding across the lawn, carrying a bouquet.