Chapter 4:
They took the opportunity of the lunch break to chat about something other than the case, both because they all knew that thinking about something else was one of the best ways to let the brain process information and maybe put it together creatively, and because they were getting burnt out on the hideous details of this one. Even seasoned cops have their emotional limits. That said, it was still definitely "first date" territory, and they stuck to work-related topics. Devon asked how long they'd been partnered—"Five years!" Chris smiled widely and looked at Rita, who gave him a loving grin and that endearing tilt of her head she saved for him. "Five mostly wonderful years," she teased.
"What do you mean 'mostly'?!" he asked with false indignation.
"Well, the first few were a little rocky until you learned how to follow the rules."
"Which rules?" Now he was confused.
"MY rules," Rita said playfully. Chris put his hands together in prayer position and bowed his head in mock deference. But what he said was, "Oh, but I'm sneaking up on you, Sammy. Secretly, I'm training you."
Rita just snorted and popped a French fry into her mouth.
Devon saw the way they looked at each other, noted again their easy intimacy and the genuine affection that could dip into flirtatiousness, and wondered what else they shared. She was a cop, too. She knew the kind of closeness that was necessary for a strong partnership to develop and sustain itself, that it could be more emotionally intimate than a marriage in many ways and never cross the line into a sexual relationship. But she also knew some partners did cross the line, none of them successfully, at least not that she knew about. They either married and split up the working relationship, or fell apart between the sheets and on the job, too. So Devon guessed that Chris and Rita hadn't become lovers, at least not yet, but she couldn't be sure. Maybe a one-night fling that had been enough to scratch the itch? It was possible, but also none of her business, really. Certainly she was in no position to ask them here and now.
"What about you?" Chris turned to Devon. "Do you always fly solo?"
"Not always." She ran her hand through her hair and looked into the distance beyond Chris as she thought about how to answer the question. Briefly, she decided.
"Mostly I work with a small team. There are six of us, and we usually work on interstate kidnapping and murder investigations. Sometimes we get called in on hate crimes or other bad behaviours by the religiously fanatic or anti-government types. But occasionally we head out in pairs or 'fly solo' as you say. Depends on what the case we're consulting on calls for and what the rest of our case load looks like."
All of this was true. She just didn't bother to get into the fact that they had regular partners they were paired with when they were out in the field, and her most recent partnership had gone fantastically sour after they had crossed the line a few times. They'd actually done pretty well at keeping the boundaries clear—at work, they were all-professional all the time—and they'd been good together. No weird jealousies. No inappropriate possessiveness. It had all been really good for a few months. Then his almost-ex-wife came back in town and decided she didn't want to be his ex anymore. They'd been split for 11 months, and in just one more, the divorce would have been final. But Janet changed her mind. And Doug—that loyal sap—decided he owed it to the woman who was technically still his wife to try to make it work. Devon knew she had a knack for picking men with commitment issues. She just wasn't used to those commitment issues being so focused on the maintaining of commitment rather than the avoiding of it.
Chris noticed a slight hesitation in her answer, but decided not to pursue it. At least not here. Possibly over drinks in a day or two? "I mean, if we're going to be partners," he thought to himself, "we ought to learn a little more about each other, right?"
After a few more minutes of pleasantries, they took a break before resuming work on tracking down their killer. Devon called in to the Miami office to update her superiors and offer a few thoughts on their on-going investigations there. Chris and Rita scrolled through emails on their iPhones, happy to be working silently together.
Eventually, the three of them headed out to interview a few more witnesses the uniformed officers had flagged from the morning's canvassing, and they revisited a couple of informants from the previous cases. They didn't learn much, but it gave Devon a chance to see how Chris and Rita worked an interview, and vice versa. Mostly, though, Devon honored Rita's earlier demand in the Captain's office, and she let them take the lead. They called it a night at 7:00 p.m. and split up to get some dinner and rest. Devon had to get settled into her apartment hotel, and Chris and Rita had a previous date to keep: Casablanca was playing on cable. They were committed to two hours on Rita's couch.
…
The next day was "shoe leather" work: going back over crime scenes and making phone calls. Chris and Rita also had to do a little paperwork catch-up on some recently-cleared cases, and Devon settled into her temporary desk in a cordoned off area to the side of the squad room. It was a standard-issue, Dilbert-style office cubicle, but it still offered her more privacy than anyone else in the squad room had. Being a Fed clearly had a few privileges.
They had agreed to check in at the end of the day, but nothing much had come of their efforts, and they ended up fairly frustrated by quitting time. Chris headed off a few minutes early to coach a local boys' basketball team and then see if he could persuade Misty, a woman he'd had a few promising dates with, to stay in for "dinner." That left Rita and Devon alone in the squad room.
"So," Rita said, "wanna grab a pizza? Sal's isn't too far from here, and they have the best pizza in town." Rita wasn't the kind of woman who got competitive with other women. She had a number of strong friendships with both women and men, and she was confident enough in her own beauty and brains that she wasn't troubled by insecurity around others who were also attractive and smart, nor was she prone to the petty possessiveness over friends or lovers that she had observed in too many of her species. Plus, she was starting to like Devon, and heading back to her empty apartment right now sounded really unappealing. Usually she could maintain the emotional distance from her work that was necessary for a homicide cop to stay sane and good at her job. This case, though… this one had gotten under her skin and seemed determined to settle in. It was personal.
"That sounds perfect," Devon smiled. She liked working with both Chris and Rita, but it would be nice to get a little female-bonding time in, too.
…..
"So I've seen Chris on his best behaviour" Devon was saying as they settled into the booth at Sal's, starting on beers while waiting for the pizza to arrive, "but what's he really like?"
"He's exactly what you see," Rita said a bit proudly. "I mean, he can have his cave-man moments, but I've coached most of those out of him." Both women laughed. "He's thoughtful and smart. He's sensitive…."
"And easy on the eyes," Devon interrupted.
Rita laughed and raised an eyebrow. "Yep, yes, he is very good looking." She paused. "Are you, um, interested in my partner?" It was a friendly inquiry.
"Oh, no, no. Nothing like that. It's just hard not to notice, you know?"
"Yeah, I know. And I think he knows, too, given how frequently women hit on him. But luckily he doesn't let it go to his head. Too much."
The conversation was easy and going well. And they each had a good half a mug of beer in them with no food in sight yet, so Devon asked the question she hadn't felt comfortable raising the other day. "So… have you two ever… you know" she shrugged a bit and looked meaningfully at Rita, waiting for the younger woman to catch her drift.
"Have we ever slept together?" Rita tossed off easily. It wasn't like she hadn't gotten the question before. And she didn't mind. The inquiry was clearly motivated by genuine curiosity and a friendly getting-to-know-you spirit more than gossipy prying. "No, we've never crossed that particular line."
"Why not, if you don't mind me asking. And if you do, just tell me to shut up!" They both laughed and held up their empty mugs toward the waiter in the universal signal for "more beer!" Two new mugs quickly materialized, along with their pizza.
"No, I don't mind. Chris and I… we're more than work partners; we're best friends, you know? Complete each others' sentences, can call each other at 3 in the morning, would literally take a bullet for each other best friends. I love him. And he loves me. But we're not in love, if that makes sense."
"Yeah, it does." Devon paused. The beer was making her loose, loose enough to press the point, anyway. "But sometimes people say that as a way of avoiding an entanglement they're afraid of, afraid it would mean a kind of emotional vulnerability they don't want to risk. I mean, surely you've thought about it?"
Rita was getting pretty relaxed as well. "Yeah, if I'm being honest, I have thought about it on occasion. But never very seriously. If I'm afraid of anything, it's not about commitment to him, it's about screwing up the best relationship in my life! We have the perfect relationship. Why risk messing it up with sex!"
At that, they both laughed again. "I hear you," Devon said. "That does make sense. And I'm sorry to push." And she did believe Rita. Having watched Chris and Rita together this week, it was clear that they had a deep, abiding connection. She'd never been one of those people who thought men and women couldn't be "just friends." Hell, some of her best friends were guys. But it did mean other people were always curious. Especially if you set off sparks the way Rita and Chris did sometimes.
"So, if not Chris, is there some other man in your life?"
"Just Alfred," Rita paused, "my goldfish." This got another laugh from Devon as Rita went on. "I've had a few serious relationships, and some fun flings, too, but… the job, you know?"
"Believe me, "I know," Devon commiserated. At Rita's questioning ("Turn about is fair play!" Rita said), Devon ended up telling her the whole Doug saga.
"Oooh," Rita said. "That's a tough one. Married man…" Rita tried to keep the judgment out of her voice.
"He was separated!" Devon exclaimed. "He said he wanted nothing more to do with her. I mean, for Pete's sake, she had moved three states away to be closer to her parents. I thought he was safe!" Devon may have been a bit defensive. She wasn't a prude, but she also didn't think of herself as a home wrecker. In general, married men were out of bounds in her book.
"So are you two still partnered at work?"
"We're still on the same team—awkward!—but we managed to get the partnerships switched around. We convinced everyone that it was time for a rotation to keep things fresh and develop our field skills. I don't think anyone figured out the real reason. God I hope not!"
"Yikes. That's quite the cautionary tale! I'll remember that the next time I let my imagination get the better of me where Chris is concerned."
"He doesn't have a secret family holed up somewhere, does he?"
At this, Rita just snorted. "Yeah right. Like he could keep that kind of secret from me." Chris couldn't keep any secrets from Rita. Indeed, occasionally she wished he'd tell her a little less about some of the more intimate details of his romantic affairs.
In addition to the Doug fiasco, Rita also learned that Devon hadn't always been a cop. She'd actually started out working in D.C. as a policy analyst. "Spending that much time around politicians made me want to do some good in the world" Devon said, mostly in jest. "After three years in Washington, I applied to the FBI and got accepted on the first round."
"Have you ever regretted it? Joining the force, I mean."
Devon thought about the question for a minute. "No" she said seriously. "I really haven't. Some days are hard…" Here Rita responded with a knowing nod. "Sometimes it's the bureaucracy, and sometimes it's just a case that wears you down. But I feel like I'm doing something important, you know? Actually contributing something… helping people."
Rita vigorously agreed. "Exactly. And I always wanted to be a cop. Well, at least since high school. When I was seven, I wanted to be a dolphin trainer at Sea World." This got a laugh from both of them, and a call for one—final—round of beers. They were clearly going to finish this whole pizza. They needed something to wash it down with.
Probably inevitably, their conversation turned to the trials—and benefits—of being a woman in a "man's job." Both agreed that there were double standards, and still far more sexism than there ought to be in this day and age, but neither one of them was a shrinking violet. "You have to let some of it just roll off and pick your battles," Rita was saying through the globs of melted cheese that was a signature of Sal's "the works" pizza.
"And be willing to see when the guys are just blowing off steam versus being actual jerks," Devon added.
They looked at each other. "And to tell them where to shove it when you have to," they said nearly in unison, laughing again and clinking their mugs together to emphasize the point.
They nursed their beer and nibbled on the remaining bits of pizza crust, chatting for close to another hour about movies and friends, hi-jinks they'd gotten into on slow work days and their hopes for families of their own in the future. As the evening was winding down, Devon asked Rita about her work at Night Moves.
"I have a volunteer shift there tomorrow night," Rita said. "You can come help out if you want. See what it's all about."
"I'd like that. Thanks." Devon was genuinely interested, but she also thought it'd be a good chance to meet some of the street kids and maybe catch a break on this damn case.