Deputy Chief Virginia West complained bitterly through painful expressions and exasperated huffs as she jogged around the University of Richmond track. The slate roofs of handsome collegiate Gothic buildings were just beginning to materialize as the sun thought about getting up, and students had yet to venture out except for two young women who were running sprints.
‘I can’t go much farther,’ West blurted out to Officer Andy Brazil.
Brazil glanced at his watch. ‘Seven more minutes,’ he said. ‘Then you can walk.’
It was the only time she took orders from him. Virginia West had been a deputy chief in Charlotte when Brazil was still going through the police academy and writing articles for the Charlotte Observer. Then Hammer had brought them with her to Richmond so West could head investigations and Brazil could do research, handle public information and start a website.
Although one might argue that, in actuality, West and Brazil were peers on Hammer’s NIJ team, in West’s mind she outranked Brazil and always would. She was more powerful. He would never have her experience. She was better on the firing range and in fights. She had killed a suspect once, although she wasn’t proud of it. Her love affair with Brazil back in their Charlotte days had been due to the very normal intensity of mentoring. So he’d had a crush and she had gone along with it before he got over it. So what.
‘You notice anybody else killing himself out here? Except those two girls, who are either on the track team or have an eating disorder,’ West continued to complain in gasps. ‘No! And guess why! Because this is stupid as shit! I should be drinking coffee, reading the paper right now.’
‘If you’d quit talking, you could get into a rhythm,’ said Brazil, who ran without effort in navy Charlotte P.D. sweats and Saucony shoes that whispered when they touched the red rubberized track.
‘You really ought to quit wearing Charlotte shit,’ she went on talking anyway. ‘It’s bad enough as is. Why make the cops here hate us more?’
‘I don’t think they hate us.’ Brazil tried to be positive about how unfriendly and unappreciative Richmond cops had been.
‘Yes they do.’
‘Nobody likes change,’ Brazil reminded her.
‘You seem to,’ she said.
It was a veiled reference to the rumor West had heard barely a week after they had moved here. Brazil had something going on with his landlady, a wealthy single woman who lived in Church Hill. West had asked for no further information. She had checked out nothing. She did not want to know. She had refused to drive past Brazil’s house, much less drop by for a visit.
‘I guess I like change when it’s good,’ Brazil was saying.
‘Exactly.’
‘Do you wish you’d stayed in Charlotte?’
‘Absolutely.’
Brazil picked up his pace just enough to give her his back. She would never forgive him for saying how much he wanted her to come with him to Richmond, for talking her into something yet one more time because he could, because he used words with clarity and conviction. He had carried her away on the rhythm of feelings he clearly no longer had. He had crafted his love into poetry and then fucking read it to someone else.
There’s nothing for me here,’ said West, who put words together the way she hung doors and shutters and built fences. ‘I mean let’s be honest about it.’ She wasn’t about to paint over anything without stripping it first. ‘It sucks.’ She sawed away. Thank God it’s only for a year.’ She pounded her point.
He replied by picking up his pace.
‘Like we’re some kind of MASH unit for police departments,’ she added. ‘Who were we kidding? What a waste of time. I don’t remember when I’ve wasted so much time.’
Brazil glanced at his watch. He didn’t seem to be listening to her, and she wished she could get past his broad shoulders and handsome profile. The early sun rubbed gold into his hair. The two college women sprinted past, sweaty and fat-free, their muscular legs pumping as they showed off to Brazil. West felt depressed. She felt old. She halted and bent over, hands on her knees.