By the Book

Chapter 2

I am Vic. I am so fucked. Toxic. In Philly I was alternately The Terror or the By the Book that graduated me in upper 10% of my class and earned me four citations in five years. Unfortunately, both of those monikers got me in trouble. To understand why it's here and now that I'm nowhere, you have to understand me.

I used to be The Terror to my family as a teenager, and took a kind of pride in being unexpected and outrageous in the wake of four brothers. It takes *something* to be noticed in a menagerie like that, especially in a family of cops. A near-miss with the law when I was seventeen, and I suddenly realized I was hanging with cretins, and familial spats or not, I liked it way better on the right side, and became the precursor to By the Book Vic.

That got me to the Academy, and for the next ten years I was patrol, then newly on homicide, where I saw some dark shit going down between a couple of veteran cops. That and manipulation by a cop who thought he was charming me but was actually a cheater, chilled me to the bone.

As a result, By the Book Vic ruled as a whistleblower, and a man killed himself over it. I married Sean while all this was going down. Sean tried to protect me, to be fair, he did, and we left Philly to get out from under that oppressive shit that hangs over you all your life like a pall. For sure I didn't want to become another Bobby Donaletto in ten years.

Sure, I wasn't thrilled with Durant at first, but the challenge of solving complex cases using simple methods like brains and observation instead of laboratory minutaie, that made up for dead dogs on the road and confrontations among the panoply of cultures intersecting in that tiny town and one huge county.

And, then there was Walt. Never Sheriff Longmire to me, we spent three years tentatively becoming friends while he sifted through the remains of his life after his wife had died. We worked well together, and I even saved him once from a pot grower whose contact had gotten in over his head with a Mexican drug cartel. That he had confronted the killer alone earned him a dressing down from me, separating when confronting a possible killer, not a good plan. See, that's part of him. He's not much more of a team player than Branch, that's what I think Walt saw in Branch.

Walt has his flaws, or maybe that's an understatement. He sometimes drinks too much, he is taciturn and unappreciative. He's this crossbred product of the Old West 'Thank you, ma'am,' and kickass from the military he won't discuss. After his first bar-fight with a motorcycle gang, it became obvious to me that he doesn't always go By the Book, which was probably the most shocking thing for me to work around. That, and after a fist-fight with a former boxer (he said he won, I thought maybe it was a draw?) I discovered he was actually a Hidden Terror. This rather intrigued the Former Terror.

So, what happened? Something about Former Terror meets a Hidden Terror, I think, I was drawn to him, well beyond all his shit, and all he was going through. It kept going, the non-team player Branch, a deputy less dry behind the ears than me, ran against him for sheriff, his friend Henry was imprisoned for murder, and it was hell to even get Henry out on bail, every easy way destroyed. Another good man died along the way, but again I had a hand in it, even if I didn't pull the trigger.

Never, never for a minute had I thought Walt's wife had been murdered…until wild-eyed after Branch had been shot, he revealed it to me. Knowing how deep he buries stuff, I was shocked, but professional. It seemed like he was finally willing to confide in me.

He tried to keep me in the loop throughout the investigations, he did, even clued me into some sinister characters I didn't study well enough he thought might be responsible for his wife's murder, and I stupidly got captured by one of them. Sean did take the initiative and call Walt, or we would have been dead and probably cozily stored in one of Chance's freezers. We fought a duel, a fucking *duel* to get Sean and me released. I still have moments when that day overwhelms me.

After that, after I was hurt, Walt became…unprofessionally overprotective. He had me lock myself in his office to protect me from Branch, even while he went after David Ridges without backup. I didn't want to lock myself in his office, but By the Book didn't want to screw the pooch, so I followed Sheriff's orders. It almost got Walt killed. This toxicity thing, it's a pattern, see?

Walt found me on the bridge after Barlow had let an angry Branch out, thought someone should stay on with me, but didn't want to tell me my husband had filed divorce papers because, guess what? — Sean thought Walt and I were too close.

Little did Sean know…getting anything out of Walt was like extracting dynamite in tiny nuggets. That evening Walt served me with divorce papers and…asked me to stay. Stay for what? Now I look back, maybe he was just sorry for me and wanted to be sure I knew I had a job. Was I smart enough to ask that? No. It was his eyes, always his eyes…Stay on with you took on different dimensions after he asked me 'to stay,' but again, I must have misunderstood.

So I made a rookie cop mistake, didn't get it all out in a written statement, confession, whatever. I misunderstood. It really seems it was as simple as that. I thought the eyes were saying one thing, when his mind was off on another. Or, to be more accurate, maybe at that time, what was in his words was in his eyes…maybe it was Branch's death that turned the equation on its head.

Just before that, after Henry's release, I had put on my tightest jeans, a shirt unbuttoned a little low, combed my hair and taken a six-pack of Rainier to his cabin. To my dismay and humiliation, Henry answered the door, a little distraught at Walt's saddle not in the right place, and I thought, very judgmental of how I looked. I erased my message on Walt's answering machine, and put my uniform back on.

Down by the river, I've never seen Walt like that, before. Ferg and I, we had nothin', standing behind him where he knelt in the creek beside Branch's body. Poor Walt to find him, poor me to think this was the third in a triumvirate of men who had died because of me. It occurred to me that Walt was too tough, too good to die, but he would be next on the list if we ever did hook up.

It all led back to toxic me. I had been part of Bobby Donaeletto's suicide. I had started the sequence of events which led to Hector's murder. I had reported Branch and gotten him suspended, which led to what we thought was his suicide. Without food, I got smashed on the 6 pack of Rainier, and cried over a possum by the riverbank where Branch had died. Walt showed up, covered me with a blanket in his Bronco, and buried my possum. It was his next-to-next-to-last act of kindness toward me…

He saw me reacting to that baseball bat during the War Eagle case, how I white-knuckled it, and offered to talk if I wanted. I knew it meant medical leave if a shrink saw me, so I maintained I was fine. I threw it in his face, mocked him about offering later, and he did not bring it up again.

A couple of months later, there was a slight reprieve in my toxicity, to find that Barlow, not me, was responsible for Branch's death, but still…back to Walt, that meant somebody else was in line after Hector, right? I was terrified I'd get Walt killed if I hesitated to pull the trigger when needed, because of the dreams I kept having. Crusty old Lucian called it 'Bullet Fever,' and we'd all seen it before, in different incarnations. The Gillette woman…

I was afraid to partner with him again, but was saved while he voluntarily took time off pending the FBI investigation after Barlow. I ended up spening a lot of time with loaner deputy Eamonn. O'Neill. Stupid idea. Eamonn was nice enough, but I was desperate and pathetic enough to want his adoration, not his respect or friendship.

When Walt finally returned, in a perplexing turn of events, everything turned on its head. Walt changed. He became…*me,* By the Book Walt. He hired, then fired Zack for acting exactly like Walt had with the biker gang, and although people thought it was because he was jealous, now I know better. It was because he was slowly putting his department back together, what I had been hired on to provide as a stop-gap but did not have the full authority to enact. He began a stickler for propriety and the very By the Book procedural methods we had never before mastered as a department.

And he began to distance himself from me. Why? Maybe it was realizing just how toxic I was, and that he was next in line to be infected. Maybe it was the older guy-younger gal thing, or that I was his deputy. I had thought we were both well beyond that, but…something was wrong.

"Some people don't know how to end things." He had made that comment in the hall after those girls were charged with murder and accessory…but was it about the girls, or was he talking to me? Based upon his behavior, I had to conclude it was to me, because what ever had maybe started with that hug in the ER exam room had apparently disappeared.

And, as his last act of kindness to me, he even, more or less kindly, gently, and helping, evicted me from my house. In the wake of the divorce, and no contributions from Sean, I had no money to pay any of the bills and had been in denial for a while. Not sleeping, not taking care of myself, it was all in the pattern post-Chance, post-Sean, post-Walt.

My salary barely scraped by for food and expenses. When before, I might have thought Walt might ask me to move in with him until I could find something, Walt tactfully moved me into Cady's house, which would have once felt hugely awkward. Now, it just felt like I had a room-mate just slightly younger than me, and further distanced Walt and me.

So I retreated to my only defensive team, The Terror. He seemed to retreat into his By the Book proscript that he must 'see' someone his age. Apparently Lizzie was not the only fish in the sea. The shrink. It had to be her. It didn't take real long to figure out.

And so I wanted to hurt him. I slept with Eamonn in his daughter's house. Once. Fortunately, Eamonn slapped me with ice water and recognized that I had to figure out me before we could continue with anything more between us. He was right. All I knew was I wanted to hurt Walt more than he had hurt me. Unfortunately, I don't think I could, I don't think he ever even knew, or probably cared. Then.

With the Barlow Connally Wrongful Death suit pending, and several investigations stemming from how Branch's medical leave was handled, Branch's false arrest (well, it didn't bother me after he tried to strangle me) and just a mound of legal morass, Walt remained preoccupied, and from simple observation, changing to a new shirt mid-day, I figured out he was fixing to date the PTSD shrink (heck, I had figured out Cady and Branch from less.)

Then, when challenged on it, he told me that his personal life was "None of your business." *None of my business.* —None of my business— Chilling. Final. Brutal.

After years of what amounted to friendship, partnership…it was mercifully only a few seconds, a sharp knife to the heart, and I'm convinced he knew what he was doing. Maybe he was twisting it to destroy any residual youthful sexual fantasies I might be having, but whatever, the method was effective.

Obviously someone saw me drinking about it over the next few weeks. Walt challenged me on morals, someone having obviously seen me out doing my skank of the week imitation. I challenged him to fire me, and when he didn't, I just changed the duty rosters to partner him with either Eamonn or Ferg.

I presumed he went off to his assignations and I did something that seemed really unlike my old self.

In the relative calm through most evenings and nights, since I was not working with him, I could pretend my heart hadn't been broken, and I returned to By the Book Vic. I worked well beyond my shift hours, turned in all my paperwork before I left, no longer complained on the boring aspects of police work, stopped drinking, and went home in the dark of the night by myself to the lonely bed at Cady's spare room. I went on calls with Ferg or Eamonn, whoever was scheduled at night. We talked about nothing. They were not partners nor friends. They just were. Ruby looked concerned, and Cady looked at me askance more than once, but for once I had nothing to say.

So a few weeks into this new pattern Omar calls me out of the blue.

"Hear you're livin' with Cady," he said after unpleasantries were exchanged.

That made me even warier, in my ever-present flight or fight state.

"I'm not asking for a date, Vic, I just need to talk to you. It's important."

I admit, I was a little intrigued. Walt swore to Omar's honesty, so it was unlikely he was playing a game in this.

"As long as it's not a date." I set the boundaries. Fucked as I am, BTB Vic gives not an inch.

"Not. Well, I'll stake you to a burger at the Red Pony, but no strings are attached, I swear."

"Okay, then," I said, still hesitant.

"I'll meet you there, say, seven? Are you off by then?"

Wow, he did not understand that the duty rosters were now opposite Walt, not in synch. Like everything else which had changed between me and Walt.

"I go in at eleven."

"Fine," he said, "Then I'll do all the drinkin'."

"Please don't – I probably can't give you a ride all the way out there and make it back by start time…"

"I'll stay there if I have to. The Indian'll see to that."

"'Kay." Not sure about all that, but when I walked into the Pony, it was during a merciful lull in a local band. I knew them—they tried hard to be almost not that bad. Henry was nowhere to be seen, a pity, but maybe he had opted hiding somewhere in the kitchen, with BTB Vic in the house.

Omar stood up when I approached his table, like Walt always did. Pang. Must be the generation. The age thing, another pang. Stupid heart. It was in full gear, tonight.

"Thought you might have chickened out." He had some of the really good Blanton's in front of him, but only a splash swirled in his glass.

"That bottle probably cost you my whole week's salary," I observed with an indulgent smile. I had nothing against Omar —he had come by his wealth relatively honestly—one could say, since inherited it from a relative.

"I'd offer to share it with ya if you weren't going on duty in a couple of hours."

He called over the wait-staff, a pretty Indian woman I vaguely recognized. She took my iced tea order and disappeared.

"Lily has really grown up, she's just working here during college break."

Oh, it was Lily, who I had helped retrieve from an Indian-run mobile brothel, the same one who had won the Miss Cheyenne title during the case involving a doctor murdered by one of the judges. She was so beautiful, I barely recognized her. When she returned, I said, "Good to see you, Lily. How's everything going?"

She launched into a several-minute description of college and how her Miss Cheyenne Title had opened up a world of possibilities. I tried to be interested and smiled. Inside, I crumbled. Walt and I had really worked together for the first time on that case.

"But I still help Uncle Henry when I can," she smiled. He knows I get the orders right."

I smiled some more. She went off, I unsmiled, and Omar turned to me.

"Heard some stuff, Vic."

I bristled a little. "What, about Eamonn? Or getting a little sloppy so Henry wouldn't let me drive home?"

"Heard you got divorced."

Oh. That "stuff." Well. I nodded, mouth set mutinously for whatever hit on or onslaught might be coming.

He ran a finger around the rim of his glass. I was pretty sure it wasn't Henry's standard bar glass, it looked like lead crystal to me.

"I've been here, done that. Really loved Myra, but the shooting between us…well, one of us was going to get hurt, and the drinking was bad."

"Yeah, I was sorry to hear it went south for you, Omar. Not sorry that we don't have those 3 am calls, anymore, though."

"Well, I'm saying I know it's tough after. If you ever need to talk about it, I'm here."

Where had this Omar come from? Another planet? Talking Omar? Almost like the Talking Walt Action Figure I had mocked months ago.

"Oh. Thanks, but it had been coming for a long time." I was uncomfortable talking about the divorce.

"Doesn't mean it hurts less. I may just be a dumb hunter, but I know that much."

"Yeah, well…" The dissolution of my marriage hadn't make me cry, but one of the causes just might. I was trying to keep it together long enough to have an excuse to leave.

"It occurred to me, ya know, I'm really only good at killing animals, so maybe I'm dense and all that, thought that maybe another guy was involved…"

"Wasn't, or woman either, as far as I know," I said, to clear the air. "Sean didn't like how much time I spent with Walt, though." Now, why would I bring thatup?

"Stressful job," he said, "And you two are close. You can tell."

I stared at him, momentarily fascinated by his dense hunter pronouncement followed by insight. "How do you figure that?"

He shrugged. "Way you look at each other."

Shit. It was our eyes. It had to be—they betrayed us. Then I reviewed what he had just said in my head.

"You're saying—You mean, you think there's something in the way Walt looks at me?"

"Or you look at him?"

I made a noise. He did not misinterpret it.

"Yep," he said. "I had thought…well, I guess I might have been wrong. It sounds like you're working different shifts, now?"

"Yep," I replied quickly. Maybe too quickly.

"Look," he said, leaning forward, elbows on the table, as his steak and my burger arrived. He waited until Lily departed. "I'm not excusing Walt or the county, but I know decent jobs and salaries can be issues, here. I know housing can be, too, especially since the casino came on the scene. If you ever find yourself without, I've got security needs on two of my ranches in the south end of the county. Lots of cameras, but light duty. It would be a little over $40k and free room and board in the on-site cabins there."

It was a fucking fortune compared to what I made. I know my eyes were intense, but all I said was, "Thanks—for the offer. It's…something to think about…" Good girl, don't reject it outright, and I could tell he was really trying. Maybe I did have a friend in this town after all, but if it took me away to an even more remote location, where I would be both alone and bored…

I played with my burger.

"No strings, Vic. I gotta say, though, you just look like Charlie Brown does after Lucy kicks away the football."

I wouldn't cry. I didn't cry. I just flagged Lily down.

"Sorry, something came up, I need it to go!" was all I could muster. It happened often enough on duty, but unfortunately not tonight. I was out to the truck and pounding down the road away from town before it all let go in a flood. His kindness had disarmed BTB Vic to the equivalent of an overfull watering can.

And her weakness terrified me.

A few more days passed. Walt and I did not cross paths, nor did he call. I did not expect him to, and he didn't disappoint.

I wanted to find a loft or a cabin like Walt's, but unlike my ex-husband working for Newitt, deputies are paid nothing. I ended up taking long drives, hikes, sitting by lakes and crying, or worse, contemplating walking into the lakes. Just walking out, not back. Considering Omar's offer. I could of course also explore Newitt, or even the casino. Neither held allure.

The détente continued. I no longer recognized myself. I couldn't sleep, couldn't function. I finally, after one wrenching afternoon where the urge to walk into the lake almost won over, made a decision.

It was because staying here, I was finally nowhere...not myself, not happy with my work, with my life.

I held off in a paralysis of making a move and weighing my options, until the afternoon his Dr. Donna's van burned. Tired of the evening shift, I had traded the early shift with Ferg so he could go to a family event, and he'd take my later shift. I responded to the call with him almost like old times, but in my cranked-down mode, suppressing The Terror that wanted to tell Dr. Donna my only aggression issues were with her, I suggested to the Doctor that she should stay with him. I had tried the same thing with Lizzy, this time, maybe he would find whatever it was he was looking for.

It was later, early evening after my shift. I had just laid my badge and gun on his desk with yet another letter…seemed like our longest conversation ever had been after my first letter addressed to him, about Branch. As I came down the hall preparing to say goodbye to Ruby and Ferg, the call came in.

A woman's voice, hysterical…What the fuck? Doctor Donna? Her van burn again?

She repeated Walt's address and a chill went through me.

Lucian had taken the call, he had already relieved Ruby, working late dispatch. He got all official and said someone was on their way. He looked directly up at me.

Ferg stood up from his desk, ready as well.

"You going, Moretti?"

That could be taken so many ways.

And then the call about Walker Browning came in. Decisions, decisions…