Work Text:
Jenny Hoyt took a deep breath of the clear mountain air, held it long enough to accumulate the entirety of the last twenty four hours before exhaling it slowly. As the air left her lungs, she let her eyes drift down from the clear blue August sky to the retreating back of Carla de Lugo.
The interview (interrogation) had taken less than an hour but had shaken them both.
Jenny empathized with the other woman. She knew what it felt like to be blindsided on discovering your spouse was keeping a secret from you. Whether it was from omission or deliberate subterfuge it still felt like a deep betrayal. While not disclosing your company, and the source of your livelihood, was under an SEC investigation might not be on the same level as infidelity, Jenny could still definitely understand the other woman’s desire for something stronger than coffee this early in the day.
She thought about what she, herself, had just learned and while she wasn’t married to him nor involved in that way, she reminded herself, she still considered Beau a partner and yet she wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Until Carla had asked, Jenny hadn’t really taken the time to realize that Beau, in fact, had not really shared much of his life before coming to Montana with anyone. She’d only just recently decided to actually accept his presence as her temporary boss and she was studiously trying to ignore whatever was lingering under the surface.
Carla’s demeanor during her interview had been resistant and defensive. Something Jenny had expected from an attorney but Jenny found herself still empathizing with the woman’s position. Her entire family was now caught up in a double homicide investigation. Her daughter is a witness, her new husband is a person of interest and the local sheriff in charge of the matter is her ex-husband with what could only be generously called “tensions” between all of them.
Carla had started the story with aloof bluntness attempting to both distance herself emotionally and, at the same time, layering in what Jenny assumed was supposed to be some kind of warning to “the new woman” in Beau’s life. Carla had clearly not believed Jenny’s answer of “we just keep things professional.”
So Jenny wasn’t sure if Carla had meant to make Beau look bad by trying to lay the breakdown of their marriage entirely at his feet. But by the end Carla seemed to regret mentioning it at all and realizing it was unfair to blame their problems on what had happened completely on Beau.
Jenny had only known Beau for a short time and an even shorter time spent actively trying to get to know him. But Carla’s depiction of the events that ended with the death of Beau’s partner were woefully short of details and turned everything Jenny thought she knew about the man on its head. Every interaction that she’d had with him would need re-evaluated through the lens of this new information.
Nothing about her observations of Beau until now even remotely hinted that he’d experienced such a tragedy. He’d never told her any of this and she chastised herself for the disappointment she’d felt as Carla started in on the story. What duty had he owed her to pull the scab off this wound and bare it to her? After all, she’d hardly even wanted to know anything about him with his “temporary” status. Why try and form that bond at all if he was going to be gone in a matter of months?
But then, the Cutter murder investigation changed all of that didn’t it?
Jenny pushed the thought away.
How much did she even really know about him at all? He was a retired cop from Houston who was really apparently “retired” with all of the vagaries associated with the double-quotations. He had a brother of which he was apparently very fond of, if his stories held any truth to them, and she didn’t even know his name.
Guilt over a dead partner. Found to be not at fault administratively and yet “retired” all the same. A divorce like a cherry on top of it all.
It explained nearly everything about him.
The rigid buffer that seemed to be between himself and everyone around him that he somehow also seemed to be able to camouflage with good natured humor. The expert deflection of any personal question asked to him. The quiet insecurities that crept in when he thought no one was looking. The constant anxiety over his relationship with his daughter. He’d said he felt like he was on the outside looking in and the inevitable self comparison to Avery.
But now she knows. The guilt, the failure and the grief all made up the shadows she saw in his eyes sometimes.
Her heart ached for the man.
Jenny sighed, feeling the headache starting. She needed sleep. They all did.
She watched as Carla reached the bar and picked a bottle filled with dark brown liquid before her eyes were drawn to Beau as he walked up the three steps at the other end.
Beau seemed lighter and yet still carrying the seriousness of the situation from what Jenny could see in the set of his shoulders and the ease of his gate. She’d noticed that he had started to relax as the sun had come up, although finding a second body hadn't helped. The realization that his daughter was shaken but okay and the reality of the work ahead of them allowed Beau’s affable nature, or at least the facade of it, to reassert itself.
Jenny watched as he seemed to greet Carla cordially. Even from where she stood, unable to hear any words spoken between Beau and Carla, Jenny knew Carla’s response had been a scathing one. Beau’s back stiffened, his lips pursing to a line and Jenny found herself torn. Her natural instincts to protect rose briefly but she was unsure of her place now in this suddenly complex position. Technically, she was being a voyeur here and, on the other hand, did she even have a right to say anything?
Jenny turned away, suddenly sad, as she caught the shape of Cassie heading towards her with purpose. There would be time to fully process this new information later. It was time to try harder at being a friend now.
And they still had a lot of work to do.
end.