various memos, another long letter from her ancient mother, and a few salient pages from
Marianne Williamson’s A Return to Love. Hammer did her best to block out Seth
making noise in the kitchen.
His failure in his passage through the world felt like hers. No matter what she told
herself or the therapists she left in Atlanta and Chicago, profound personal failure was
what she felt every hour of every day. She had done something very wrong, otherwise
Seth would not be committing suicide with a fork, a spoon, or chocolate sauce. When
she looked back, she realized that the woman who had married him was another entity.
She, Chief Hammer, was a reincarnation of that earlier lost manifestation. She did not
need a man. She did not need Seth.
Everyone knew it, including him.
It was a simple fact that the best cops, Marines, Airmen, National Guards, firefighters,
and military people in general who were women did not need men, personally. Hammer
had commanded many such independents. She would pick them without question, as
long as they weren’t so much like the men they did not need that they had completely
adopted bad male habits, such as getting into fights rather than not, or being clingy and
demanding and domineering. What Hammer had concluded after all these years was that
she had an overweight, neurotic, nonworking wife who did nothing but bitch. Judy
Hammer was ready for change.
Thus it was that she made a tactical error this very early morning, in her long clean robe.
She decided to go out on her wraparound porch, and sit on the swing, sipping
chardonnay, alone with her thoughts, for a spell.
Vft Brazil was mesmerized when she emerged, a vision, a god glowing in lamplight, all
in white and shimmering. His heart rolled forward at such a pitch, he could not catch up
with it. He sat very still on the cold cement bench, terrified she would see him. He
watched every small thing she did, the way she pushed forward and let go, the bend of
her wrist as she lifted the tapered glass, her head leaning back against the swing. He saw
the slope of her neck as she rocked with eyes shut.
What did she think? Was she a person just like him, with those darker shades, those
lonely, cold corners of existence that no one knew? She swung slowly, and alone. His
chest ached. He was drawn to this woman and had no clear idea why. It must be hero
worship. If he had a chance to touch her, he really wouldn’t know what to do. But he did
want to, as he stared, in the night, at her. She was pretty, even at her age.
Not delicate, but fascinating, powerful, compelling, like a collector’s car, an older BMW,
in mint condition, with chrome instead of plastic. She had character and substance, and
Brazil was certain that her husband was quite the contender, a Fortune 500 man, a lawyer,
a surgeon, someone capable of holding an interesting conversation with his wife during
their brief, busy interfaces together.
Chief Hammer pushed the swing again and sipped her wine. She would never be
completely devoid of street sense, no matter her station in life. She goddamn knew when
she was being watched. Abruptly, she stood, feet firmly planted on her porch. She
searched the night, detecting the vague silhouette of someone sitting in that annoying
little park right slam next to her house. How many times had she told the neighborhood
association that she didn’t want a public area adjacent to her domicile? Did anyone
listen? To Brazil’s horror, she walked down porch steps and stood amidst pachysandra,
staring right at him.
“Who’s there?” she demanded.
Brazil could not speak. Not a fire or a Mayday could have pried a word loose from his
useless tongue.
“Who’s sitting there?” she went on, irritable and tired.
“It’s almost two o’clock in the morning. Normal people are home by now. So either
you’re not normal, or you’re interested in my house. Police live in this house. They have
guns and shoot to kill. And you still want to rob us?”
Brazil wondered what would happen if he ran as fast as he could. When he was a little