subject. “I could make another cup. Or maybe a beer?”
“I’m okay,” I said, sitting on the couch next to her. I looked at the TV screen. “Which one is this?”
“The one you said you liked. Fixer Upper.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, recognizing the sandy-haired doofus who remodels houses with his much more grown-up and professional wife.
“How’s your pain been today?” she asked.
Among the many things you learn when you suffer from chronic pain is how little anyone really wants to hear about it. They’ll ask you, of course, how you’re doing, but you quickly realize that, no matter how much you’re hurting at the moment, the only socially acceptable response is “not too bad.” But I knew with Jen I could always tell her the truth. And that’s why she always made it a point to ask. Not because she didn’t know. She was remarkably perceptive of the physical signs of my pain. One of the first things the doctors teach you when you’re diagnosed is how to rate your discomfort on the pain scale, with one being “no pain” and ten being “the worst pain I can imagine.” For a brief time, Jen and I played a kind of game in which she’d guess the number based on my behavior. The novelty quickly wore off when it became clear she got it right every time.
“Pretty bad,” I said. “I was busy enough for most of the day to deal with it, but it’s going to be a rough night.”
“You take a Vicodin?”
I shook my head. According to my pain-management specialist, the new research was showing that opiates were not as effective for long-term treatment as doctors had previously believed. So I’d spent the last several months trying to wean myself off of them. I discovered that they weren’t helping as much as I’d thought they were. But they were helping some. And when you hit eight or nine on the pain scale, even a slight help is better than none at all.
“No,” I said. “Not yet. I’m figuring I’ll need one tonight, though.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
I shook my head.
We watched the TV for a while. Chip, the doofus, was gleefully sledgehammering a kitchen wall in his eternal quest for the magical open floor plan.
“There’s something else I should mention,” she said.
“What?” I asked.
“I actually spent a long time talking to Ruiz today.” She took a sip of her tea. “He’s worried about Patrick.”
“About Patrick? He’s not worried about me?”
“He’s always worried about you.” It was hard to imagine Ruiz expressing worry about anyone, least of all me.
“Why?”
“The captain was hesitant about letting someone on the squad investigate the bombing. He was worried it might be too close to home.”
“Who did he want to work it? The Sheriff’s Department?”
“That was discussed, yeah. But not even the captain wanted to cede jurisdiction to the county. They talked about a few other possibilities. Ultimately, though, the lieutenant talked him into the joint assignment with the bomb-squad guys and Patrick leading the investigation.”
“So why is Ruiz worried? Patrick’s got a great record. His closed-case rate is right up there with ours.”
“He’s not worried about his competence. He’s worried about it blurring too many lines. About conflict of interest. About a cop investigating a crime against a friend.”
I didn’t bother adding that from the victim’s point of view, that doesn’t always seem like a bad thing. “The lieutenant’s worried that Patrick won’t be able to compartmentalize things effectively?”
“Well,” Jen said. “He’s more worried that you won’t let him.”
“Aha,” I said. “So it is me Ruiz is really worried about.” I grinned at her. She wouldn’t smile back.
Jen went to bed around eleven. I thought about trying to sleep. Even though I was tired, I knew I wouldn’t be able to quiet my mind enough to rest. I went through what I had on Denkins’s case again, but I was just spinning my wheels. Without the files and his laptop, I’d done all I could.
I typed a text message to Julia, but didn’t send it. If I had, it would have just resulted in a situation in which I’d have to come clean with her and tell her what was going on. That was a bridge I still wasn’t ready to cross.
I wasn’t the gym rat my partner was. Most of the exercise I got was from the stretching-and-strengthening routine prescribed for my pain by my physical therapist, or from the long walks I’d take several nights a week. Years ago, when my insomnia