Free House of Smoke by JF Freedman Page B

so I’m just a plain, regular dick.”
    “How’d you get to be a detective?” he presses.
    “I was a cop. It just sort of happened. Everybody’s got to make a living.”
    “In Oakland? That’s where you were a cop?”
    “That’s right.” They’re always fascinated when they find out what she does. It gives men a sexual charge or something; this one’s no exception.
    “Let’s talk about something else, okay? Anyway, I’m the one with the job asks questions.”
    “Sorry,” he says. “Didn’t mean to pry. It’s interesting. I’ve never met a woman detective before, not a private one.”
    “We’re few and far between.”
    She’s a woman, a person. A detective is what she does , not who she is . Not anymore, she doesn’t have that cop mindset anymore. Thank God. She doesn’t want to be an “object” of any kind, detective or otherwise. She walked out of that life, she had the courage to take over her life, stop that from being her work, instead of her, whatever she, Kate Blanchard, is. She’s in command, she isn’t about to give that up, not to anyone, certainly not to some cowboy named Cecil who finds what she does interesting. Find me interesting. The who , not the what .
    Maybe finding her interesting is too much to ask. It could imply a closeness beyond this guy’s capabilities. Maybe there’s another woman. Which would be why he threw out the lame excuse about not asking her over because he lives out of town. And not just any woman, that would never do. No; a specific woman: a wife. Kids. A white picket fence, roses.
    Her emotions are running away with her, she can feel them as palpably as she can feel her breathing. Don’t chicken out on your impulse. Life is short and maybe this can’t work, but maybe, she forces herself to acknowledge, I should try it. Isn’t that why she pulled up all her roots and hit the road, to start a new life, to expand her horizons, all that good shit the therapists back in Oakland, especially Dr. Whitcomb, harped on, over and over? To know how much strength, real inner courage, you have, and not to run away from it?
    Give it a shot, she pep-talks herself. You can handle any cowboy.
    To get to Desierto Cielo , the awesome (even by Montecito standards) mansion which is home to Laura’s parents, you drive clear to the top of Picacho Lane, taking a left turn off the road by the huge transported saguaro cactus onto a private driveway (after calling security via the phone box and being cleared to have the gate opened), which winds serpentlike another half-mile through several acres of gardens, both tended and wild, until the compound, consisting of the main house, two guesthouses, the pool and poolhouse (and some utility buildings), all of which have sweeping, heart-stopping views of the Pacific, comes into view.
    The party is a big, sprawling, outdoor gala, a couple hundred people, carefully selected and approved by Miranda Tayman Sparks, who has orchestrated this gala; even the special invitees of Miranda’s mother-in-law, the great dowager Dorothy Hawthorne Sparks, have to pass Miranda’s muster, although Miranda generally doesn’t sweat the small stuff when it comes to dealing with Dorothy—staying on the right side of her husband’s mother is something she learned to do years ago; even before she and Frederick were married she’d figured out the lay of the land.
    The guest list is a mixed bag of money, old and new, other classes of important people, artists; most of them guests of Frederick, Laura’s father, a fine amateur photographer and watercolorist, who is to many of this set a major patron; and a smattering of influential local leaders, like Sean Redbuck, Santa Barbara County’s Third District supervisor, a Santa Ynez rancher who’s one of the family’s good friends and allies.
    Few of these people (except the politicians, who have to) give a damn about the real Fiesta activities. That’s for ordinary people. They float above it all, rarely