military, professional sports, coaching, construction, or physical education were oriented
toward same-sex relationships. Those who succeeded in any of these professions, or
owned businesses, or became doctors, lawyers, or bankers, and did not paint their nails or
play round-robin tennis in a league during office hours, were also lesbians. It did not
matter if one were married with children. It mattered not if one were dating a man.
These were simply facades, a means of faking out family and friends.
The only absolute proof of heterosexuality was to do nothing quite as well as a man and
be proud of it. West had been a known lesbian ever since she was promoted to sergeant.
Certainly, the department was not without its gay women, but they were closeted and full
of lies about boyfriends no one ever met. West could understand why people might
assume she was living the same myth. Similar rumors even circulated about Hammer.
All of it was pathetic, and West wished people would let their rivers flow as they would
and get on with life.
She had decided long ago that many moral issues were really about threats. For example,
when she had been growing up on the farm, people talked about the unmarried women
missionaries who kept busy at Shelby Presbyterian Church, not far from Cleveland Feeds
and the regional hospital. A number of these fine ladies had served together in exotic
places, including the Congo, Brazil, Korea, and Bolivia. They came home on furlough or
to retire, and lived together in the same dwelling. It never occurred to anyone West knew
that these faithful ladies of the church had any interest beyond prayer and saving the
poor.
The threat in West’s formative years was to grow up a spinster, an old maid. West heard
this more than once when she was better than the boys in most things and learned how to
drive a tractor. Statistically, she
would prove to be an old maid. Her parents still worried, and this was compounded by the nineties fear that she might be an old maid who was also inclined elsewhere. In all
fairness, it wasn’t that West couldn’t understand women wanting each other. What she
could not imagine was fighting with a woman.
It was bad enough with men, who slammed things around and didn’t communicate.
Women cried and screamed and were touchy about everything, especially when their
hormones were a little wide and to the right. She could not imagine two lovers having
PMS at the same time. Domestic violence would be inevitable, possibly escalating to
homicide, especially if both were cops with guns.
After a light, solitary dinner of leftover spicy chicken pizza. West sat in her recliner chair
in front of the TV, watching the Atlanta Braves clobber the Florida Marlins. Niles was in
her lap because it was his wish. His owner was at ease in police sweats, drinking a Miller
Genuine Draft in the bottle, and reading Brazil’s article about herself because it really
wasn’t right to be so hard on the guy without taking a good look at what he had done.
She laughed out loud again, paper rattling as she turned a page. Where the hell did he get
all this stuff?
She was so caught up, she had forgotten to pet Niles for fourteen minutes, eleven
seconds, and counting. He wasn’t asleep, but merely pretending, biding his time to see
how long this might go on that he might add to her list of infractions. When she ran out
of indulgences, there was that porcelain figurine on top of the bookcase. If she thought
Niles couldn’t jump up there, she had another think coming.
Niles could trace his lineage back to Egypt, to pharaohs and pyramids, his skills ancient
and largely untested. Someone hit a home run and West didn’t notice as she laughed
again and reached for the phone.
Brazil didn’t hear it ring at first because he was in front of his computer, typing,
possessed by whatever he was writing as Annie Lennox sang loudly from the boom box.
His mother was in the kitchen, fixing herself a peanut-butter sandwich on Sunbeam white
bread. She slurped another mouthful of cheap vodka from a plastic glass as the phone