Part 10 (1/2)
”Hi!” Mich.e.l.le was dis.h.i.+ng up grilled cheese and dolphin-free, packed-in-water, tuna sandwiches. ”Did you have a hot date last...” She turned and stopped in dismay. ”Oh, G.o.ddess, you look like death warmed over! Oh, Alison, if you want to play out some little bondage scenes go ahead, but please don't get into s.h.i.+t where you're letting people beat up on you! I can't deal with that at all, it's not erotic, it's just plain sick....”
”I didn't let anybody beat up on me, you a.s.shole,” Alison snapped. She held up a hand to forestall the indignant reply. ”Okay, I'm sorry. I feel like death warmed over.”
”What happened?”
In answer Alison unfolded her paper and sifted through the front section. There it was, buried on the tenth page. She tapped the article with the opal and silver ring that she wore on her left hand and got up to pour herself a cup of coffee.
”Oh, no, again?” Mich.e.l.le bent over the table, moving her lips as she read. ”This is you, the officer at the scene?”
”That's me.”
”Oh, I didn't see your eye before. You've really got a s.h.i.+ner.” Alison remembered hitting her face against the handle of the Volkswagen as she went down. ”Boy, the cops sure were lucky you were right there, weren't they?”
Alison took a sip of the hot coffee before answering. ”They didn't think so,” she finally said bitterly.
Mich.e.l.le's phone began to ring. After answering, Mich.e.l.le handed it to her with a look of warning which could only mean one thing.
”h.e.l.lo?”
”Alison Jean? This is Dad.”
Oh, s.h.i.+t. She loved her father dearly, but he was one of the last people from whom she wanted to hear at the moment. She knew what was coming, and it would make her feel like a little kid being called on the carpet.
”Honey, what's going on? Your mom and I thought you were in the mountains staying with your friends, and then we hear a rumor,” he said the word as if it hurt his mouth, ”that you're not, and before I can get anything but your machine” (another source of contention) ”I go into the station this morning and find out that you've been involved in a shooting!”
”Oh, Daddy.” Oops, there she went into the little-girl-in-trouble role immediately. Gotta try to fight that. ”You're making it sound worse than it was. All I shot was somebody's tire. I'm sure you read that in the report.”
”Well, yes, but I don't understand why you changed your plans and didn't tell your mother or me.”
Because I met a hot new woman, Dad, and I know that you and Mom won't approve of her. You haven't liked anybody I've dated since Sandy, and that was five years ago. Because I've been digging around on a case that doesn't belong to me, where they do not want my help, and I knew I'd get a lecture for that. Aloud she said, ”Colleen got sick right before I was going to leave. It was too late to reschedule, so I just decided to stay home.”
There was a long silence on the other end. He was deciding whether to pursue the hurt feeling, or whether to just accept the explanation so that he could continue questioning her about the incident last night.
”Well,” he said finally, ”it's a good idea to let your mother and me know where you are, just in case anything happens.” Unsaid was, ”Because it's not like there's anybody else to take care of you, honey.” She wondered if he would have time to throw in the rest of the lecture. No, that was unfair. It was too caring to be called a lecture. It was more like concern that had settled into a few routine phrases. Why don't you settle down with some nice woman who will take care of you so we don't have to worry that you've had an accident and can't call? After all, you're over thirty. Look at how much happier Mich.e.l.le is since she's settled down. And whatever happened to that nice Sandy woman you used to go out with?
”Sorry, Dad, it's just that this is the first vacation I've had since Lydia moved out, and being alone really appealed to me.” Bringing up Lydia, who had amused her father, but of whom neither of her parents had approved, was a response to the unvoiced criticism. Better n.o.body than a flaky dope-smoker, Dad.
”Hmm.” He took the point and dropped the subject. ”Honey, what exactly went down last night? How did you get involved?”
This could only be handled bluntly. ”It was a d.y.k.e bar, Dad. I was just there to dance. That's exactly what I told those a.s.shole detectives when they asked me.”
”Honey, please.” She could hear the wince in his voice. ”That att.i.tude is not going to help your career any.”
”Dad, they were being totally unreasonable.” Now she was back in grade school, explaining why she had smacked one of her cla.s.smates. ”They were acting as if this woman had deserved to have her head sliced open just because she was hanging out at a gay bar. You know that's not right.”
”Well...” Her father, as often happened when the subject of her lesbianism came up, was caught between a rock and a hard place. Secretly, she thought that he might have liked to express an opinion similar to that of the two detectives, though she knew, no matter what his personal feelings about anyone, he never would have allowed it to affect his work as they had. However, the only creed in his life that came before 'The Police Department, Right or Wrong' was 'My Family, Right or Wrong.' If his beloved only daughter, who had honored him by following in his footsteps, insisted that she really was h.o.m.os.e.xual and it was not just a phase she'd been in for fifteen years, then, by G.o.d, gay was good, no matter how he personally felt about f.a.ggots in public. She felt a rush of warmth towards him and hoped that somebody would have the nerve to make a remark about d.y.k.e officers to his face.
”Are you sure about that, honey? You weren't just upset? You know how you get when it's late and you haven't eaten....”
”Dad! Get serious! Are you really suggesting that I've gone from throwing temper tantrums at bedtime to shooting at people?”
”No, but maybe if you were upset you took some of the things the detectives said wrong ”
”Dad, I've been around h.o.m.ophobia enough times to recognize it. Have you met these men? I don't even think they're admitting the deaths might be linked-it's just coincidental that three lesbians have been attacked in one week outside of bars.”
”Well, why don't I ask around about it? I'm sure it's all a misunderstanding, but if not I'll find out what's going on.”
Now Alison felt like the precious child whose daddy had come to school to straighten things out while all the other kids snickered. She opened her mouth to protest, then shut it. If he could put a bug in the right ear, then let him. She didn't want more women to die because she was being proud.
”Your mother says hi.” Oh, the official part of the conversation was over. ”We got a letter from Eugene yesterday and he had some bad news. It turned out that Mary Lou did miscarry, but the doctor says it's really common with a first baby, and it doesn't mean there's anything wrong” He was starting to settle into a nice chat but she just wasn't ready to deal with it.
”Dad, I've got to go. I've got the tub running downstairs. I'll call you later to hear everything.”
”Oh.” His good-bye was rather cold, and she knew that it was going to take more than a phone call before he forgave her for trying to live her own life. She'd be over there for dinner within a week.
”So, are you going to get ha.s.sled at work for being at a d.y.k.e bar?” Alison felt a little annoyed that Mich.e.l.le didn't at least pretend that she hadn't been listening to her conversation, but then, subtlety had never been one of her strong points.
”I don't know. My opinion for a long time has been that everybody at the station knows. They'd have to be dense not to. 'Hi, my name is Alison Kaine. Notice the way I dress and look and the fact that I'm thirty-three and live with another woman, without any kind of husband or kids anywhere at all in the background. Does that give you any kind of clue, folks?'”
”Yeah, but a lot of people don't know because they don't want to know. Look at Janka's mom. We lived together for two years, we slept in the same bed in the woman's house, we made wills out in each other's favor; the woman knows all this and when Janka just happens to refer to me as her lover, she goes right over the top as if she didn't have a clue. People get very weird if you get in their face about something they're ignoring.”
”Well, the official policy is no gay discrimination, but you're right, all the queers are very low-key. But I'll tell you what. The highlight of the whole evening was when Jones asks me, 'And can I ask what you were doing here in the first place, Officer Kaine?' and I say, 'I'm a d.y.k.e, Detective. I'm on a G.o.dd.a.m.n date, and I'll bet she doesn't ask me out again!' It was very freeing. Oh, and it goes without saying that they don't approve of women who swear, either. I believe there's a little note attached to the report about unprofessional behavior.”
Mich.e.l.le laughed, then said primly, ”You always did like to make things hard for yourself.”
”Look who's talking! Ms Confrontation herself! Ms Why-can't-I-make-out-at-the-Linda-Ronstadt-concert-in-front-of-the-drunk-cowboys-and- show-them-we-really-are-everywhere? Oh, I don't care right now. I am just so p.i.s.sed off at the way these guys treated me-the way they treated everybody there! It was like, 'Well, you're the dregs of the earth, but this is America, where even queers have rights. We'll have to write our congressmen and see if that can't be changed.'”
”Well, did you tell them anything you've found out?”
”I tried. It didn't work. It was f.u.c.king embarra.s.sing. Here I go around all the time saying, 'Oh, cops aren't really pigs, that's a stereotype, we don't really get into the profession because we want power,' and these guys come along and say, 'Actually, we're just exactly like every bad TV show you've ever seen. We have rubber hoses in the car, we'll be bringing them out later.' ”I hate it that all these women went away with that impression.”
You know,” Mich.e.l.le slipped in, ”That's just how I feel about leather d.y.k.es representing the lesbian community.”
Alison looked at her sourly. ”Well, you can just give me the leather d.y.k.es any time at all over Jones and Jorgenson because they were right there in the parking lot when I needed them and they would have kicked a.s.s if we could have caught the guy. But we can go into that later when I feel better. Right now I've got work to do.”
”What?”
”I'm going to go see the woman who was jumped last night. I want to ask her some questions.”
”Why are you bothering with this if you can't tell the guys who are on the case? What good is it going to do?”
Alison sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. ”You know, Ch.e.l.le, I can't tell you. But this can't keep on happening! It's got to stop before somebody else's lover gets it!”
”Do you know where this woman lives?”
”Yeah. She was pretty much in shock last night, blood all over and she knew she had just been lucky, so I went through her wallet. I knew I would want to talk to her today.” She laughed. ”Actually, there is one part that's kind of funny. She was being really pa.s.sive and letting people take care of her. So the ambulance pulls in with its lights flas.h.i.+ng and the siren going, and all of a sudden she sits straight up and starts saying she doesn't have insurance, she can't pay for the ambulance, she wants somebody to take her to a Med Express place because they charge less and she just needs st.i.tches. So the other bartender starts going around with a hat, and women are chucking in five and ten dollars, and since there's a pretty big crowd she's got a big wad of money. So Carla is still fussing, and her friend bends over and says, 'Hey, don't worry about it, we've got it covered financially,' and she says, 'What if they undress me? I'm packing!'”