October 21st
Fletcher woke with a throbbing headache. He reached around on the ground in the dark for his phone and found it under the couch he was laying on. He turned it on, and the time displayed 4:42. It took him a moment to remember where he was, but then the car ride with Tina replayed itself. He scrunched his eyes closed and rubbed his temples with the heels of his hands.
He searched the browser on his phone for a taxi and selected the first one that popped up. When a voice answered on the other end he said quietly, "Can I get a pick-up at Willow Condos?"
"Sure thing. We'll have someone there in ten minutes."
"Thanks."
Fletcher put his phone into his pocket, then felt around for the glass Tina had given him before he fell asleep. Not finding it, he stood up and walked as quietly as he could to the kitchen. He found the glass on the counter and filled it with water from the faucet. He drank it down, refilled it, and started on the second glass. From where he stood at the sink, he could see the door to Tina's bedroom. He considered going and joining her—something told him she would more than welcome him—but dismissed the thought almost as quickly as it occurred. After finishing the second glass, he set it down and made his way to the front door.
Fletcher locked the door before pulling it shut behind him, and stepped out into the crisp autumn air. He ran his hands up and down his arms vigorously, working some warmth into them, and walked toward the condos' entrance. He wondered when one of those new rideshare services would finally start serving the area. A taxi pulled in just as he walked past the front office. He stuck his hand up and the taxi pulled to a stop.
"Where to?" the driver said when Fletcher sat down in the back.
"Ponderosa's."
The driver didn't offer up any conversation, so Fletcher sat in silence as the taxi made its way downtown. He figured the driver thought he was returning from some sort of a tryst, but that didn't bother him. He wished he was returning from a tryst. He certainly wanted it—just couldn't bring himself to do it.
Thirty minutes later Fletcher found himself leaning on the island in his kitchen with both hands, staring down at a stack of legal papers with a Post-it affixed to it. The top one said, "DECREE OF DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE WITHOUT MINOR CHILDREN." Katherine Wise was listed as the petitioner and he was listed as the respondent. The boxes for self-representation were checked, as well as the box indicating the dissolution was one of consent.
"Consent? Really?" he said. "Cause I don't remember consenting."
Fletcher read the note Kate left on the Post-it, then flipped through the papers. She wants it to be simple and without a lot of fighting. Every page was filled out. When he turned to the page itemizing their possessions, he was surprised to find that Kate had put the house in his column. Really?
He shook his head and went to the bedroom. Without bothering to undress, he flipped the covers back and climbed in. Within moments he was asleep.
* * *
Fletcher knew he was late for work the moment he woke. He didn't care, though, because he had no intention of going in. He grabbed his phone from the nightstand and glanced at the time as he slid his finger across the screen to open it—9:10. He texted Eric, telling him he wasn't coming in today.
Eric: You make it home OK?
Fletcher: Yeah. Crashed at Tina's but came home early this morn.
Eric: You dog!
Fletcher: It wasn't like that. I slept on her couch.
Fletcher: Anyway, like I said, I'm taking a personal day.
Eric: No worries. I'll let Sarge know.
Fletcher plugged his phone in to charge then took a shower. When he finished, he dressed in cycling clothes. He'd always hated exercising, but cycling was different. He needed to think, and there was nothing better than riding his bike to facilitate that.
Even though he'd told Eric he was taking a personal day, he realized he didn't really want to. What would he do? Sit around and mope all day? So he grabbed a pair of work clothes, figuring he could go for a ride then still put in a few hours at the station. He really wanted to find Renee's motive before they went to the grand jury.
Fletcher went to the kitchen, laying his work clothes on the couch, and made himself a couple of bottles of water with energy powder mixed in, as well as a protein shake. He glanced at the papers on the island a few times, but otherwise ignored them. He went out to the garage, set the water bottles and shake on the roof of his truck—which he'd parked in Kate's spot in the garage; no sense parking outside if she wasn't planning on coming home—then lifted his road bike off its wall-mounted rack. He took the front tire off and fitted the front fork to the mount in the bed of his truck. When he finished, he placed the two water bottles in the bottle racks on the bike, put his helmet and gloves on the passenger seat, then went back inside to get his work clothes.
Twenty minutes later Fletcher was riding down the alley between the employee parking lot and the station, his earbuds in and his cycling playlist on random. He turned right at the end of the alley, rode the block and a half to Montezuma Street, then turned left onto Montezuma and followed it as it wound its way south out of town. He was glad to be making up the ride he'd missed with his cycling buddies yesterday. Nothing else gave him the sense of calm he felt when he rode.
The chilly air blowing across his body gave him goosebumps. This time of year, he was tempted to wear warmer clothing, but after a couple of minutes' riding he no longer felt the chill. He'd made the mistake of over-dressing one too many times.
As he settled into his cycling rhythm, his mind turned to Kate. 'Dissolution of marriage'—the fancy, or legal, way of saying divorce. He couldn't believe their relationship was where it was. How could something that had started out so good end up so bad?
Things moved pretty quickly after their first date—at least for him. At the ripe old age of twenty-five, he had never been in a serious relationship. He'd known it was serious when, after only a couple of months, they started talking about a future together. He wasn't ready to get married—and at the time, she claimed she wasn't either—but he didn't mind talking about it. He knew she was the one he wanted to marry. He loved her, he knew that. By the time their relationship was six months old they had moved in together. They were happy.
Although there was a lot of talk about marriage, he wasn't ready nearly as soon as she was. He was still new to the force and wanted to get a few more years under his belt, and hopefully build up a little savings. He knew with marriage would come additional financial responsibilities—especially if children were in their future, which they were—so he wanted to be more prepared. Looking back on it, as the wind whistled past the music playing in his ears, that was probably the first of the cracks in their relationship that would eventually cause it to break.
For two and a half years Kate had expressed her desire to marry. After a year, he finally broke down and bought a ring. He didn't propose for another six months, but she knew he had it, so it seemed to satisfy her a little. Thinking about it now, it sounded silly. He chuckled at the thought that he "broke down" and bought a ring.
Fletcher's legs started to burn as the grade shifted to a steady climb. His thoughts naturally gravitated to focusing on maintaining a steady rhythm with his legs as well as his breathing. He reached down and grabbed a water bottle from its rack and took a drink. As the grade leveled out, his mind began to wander again.
He and Kate had hit a few rough patches after he'd bought the ring; they always started with an argument about why he wouldn't commit to her. Kate had friends who'd met someone and gotten married in less time than they'd been together. He remembered explaining that he wasn't them and that he did want to marry her. He didn't remember exactly how many arguments there had been—five or six—but he finally decided to propose. He still wasn't ready to get married, but he wanted her to know he loved her and was committed to her.
The engagement went off flawlessly, not that it was anything special or required a lot of pieces to fall together. Even though he loved cycling, Kate had never been into it, but one thing they did enjoy together was hiking. So he planned a routine hike up to the top of Granite Mountain—the mountain that stood guard on the west side of the valley. At the top, for those who persevered the switchback trail—it wasn't for the casual hiker—was the reward of a picturesque view of Prescott, Prescott Valley, the Bradshaw Mountains that cradled the southern end of Prescott, and, in the distant northeast, Mingus Mountain. Even farther to the northeast, the San Francisco Peaks were visible in the crisp air. It had been early fall when he had taken her up there, and the tops of the distant peaks were already blanketed with snow.
The simple act of getting down on one knee with the valley spread out behind them served as a reset for their relationship. Their once-passionate lovemaking, which had tapered off when the fighting began, found a new life. But it didn't last.
Kate started planning their wedding almost immediately, and when he indicated she was moving too fast, the fighting began anew. Her sister's nosiness didn't help, either. It drove him crazy when she meddled in their affairs. He grew to loathe Denise before their wedding day even arrived. He was convinced that were it not for her, they wouldn't have had half the trouble they did.
Finally, in the summer of 2004, they got married. All their previous problems had evaporated when he saw her walking down the aisle. In that moment, he knew he was the luckiest man in the world. He couldn't understand why he'd waited so long. He loved her so much and wanted nothing but the best for her—for her to always be happy.
Fletcher crested the final rise before the road started its winding descent. He took another drink of water and thought about turning around and heading back to the station. He replaced the water bottle, but instead of turning around, he shifted his hands from the top of his handlebars to the drops. He positioned his pedals so they were parallel to the ground, one foot forward and one back, tucked his knees in against the frame, and let gravity do its job.
He accelerated until his velocity matched the speed limit of the winding road. No longer having to worry about cars passing him, he drifted away from the shoulder and used the entire lane, leaning left and right to follow the road's sharp curves. He reached up with one hand, found the mic on his headphones, and paused his music so he could listen to his bike humming beneath him. God, he loved that sound.
Fletcher had always thought their marriage was great. They were both happy and they didn't fight—at least not like they had before they were married. They had disagreements from time to time, but they were never over anything serious. They both wanted children, and after their first anniversary he finally felt he was in a position to support a family. The irony was that, where he had been in no rush to get married, Kate turned out not to be in a rush to have kids. As the next few anniversaries came and went, she never seemed to be getting any closer to being ready. He began wondering if she really wanted children, despite her earlier assurances that she did. He didn't want to pressure her, figuring she would be ready when she was ready.
It wasn't until after their eighth anniversary that things really started getting bad. Truth was, though, their relationship had been going slowly downhill for a few years. He hadn't recognized that it was heading in that direction until Kate had approached him with the desire to go to counseling. It was then that he realized their respective expectations of what marriage should look like were different.
Sitting in front of the counselor, Fletcher learned what Kate's expectation was: She wanted the feeling of newness. He argued that that wasn't realistic, that it wasn't practical to expect that the nature of their relationship would never change. Relationships go through phases, and as far as he was concerned, the newness phase was over. That didn't mean he loved her any less; it was just different. She claimed she didn't feel loved anymore. He had reassured her that he did love her, and went away from counseling vowing to try harder to express his love the way she needed him to. But it didn't come naturally to him. If it had, they never would have found themselves going to counseling—she wouldn't have felt unloved.
Over the next couple of years their relationship oscillated between good and bad. It was good immediately after she reminded him he was becoming complacent, and bad when he drifted back to being his natural self.
"I shouldn't have to buy you fucking flowers every damn week just so you'll feel loved," he shouted, interrupting the peaceful hum of his bike. Anniversaries, of course; at random, sure—but every goddamn week? Who actually does that? Flowers were superficial. They wilted and died, then you threw them away. Was their relationship really so shallow that it required constant meaningless gestures? They weren't meaningless to her, she said, but he just didn't get it. Maybe they weren't meant to be together. Better suited for other people, she'd said.
I'm never going to be who she wants me to be.
Fletcher's mind went blank. It was the first time he'd thought that, and he immediately realized the truth of it.
He didn't know what to think. He didn't know what to do. So he just rode.
He listened to his bike, to the wind. When he got to the bottom of the winding descent, he crossed the road and turned his bike around. Standing on the side of the road, he pulled a water bottle from its rack and took a healthy drink.
It's so easy when things are going well, he thought, and you can cruise effortlessly. But sometimes you find yourself in a valley and you have to dig in and climb back out. Maybe Kate was okay with giving up, and they faced a difficult climb, for sure—but he wasn't willing to give up.
Fletcher replaced his water bottle, turned his music back on, and started pedaling. From here on, there would be no wind in his face, no easy glide or smooth curves. There was only work—hard work. But in the end, he knew, he would be rewarded with great satisfaction.
The climb back to his life varied in difficulty. For large swaths of it he sat on the saddle, his hands gripping the horns on the outer ends of his handlebars. For portions of it, when the grade was such that he couldn't pedal while sitting, he stood and used the weight of his body to help. At times, he moved almost as slowly as he would if he got off and walked. But he kept pumping. He wouldn't give up.
At the top, he got his reward. The grade shifted from a steady climb to a gradual descent. The last few miles weren't as easy as the steep descent on the back side of the Bradshaws; he still had to pedal to help himself along. But it was a satisfying level of work—the speed at which he moved brought with it a level of satisfaction greater than the work required. He was willing to make the same level of effort to save his marriage—if Kate would only give him the chance.
Fletcher turned into the alley leading to the employee parking with a new resolve not to give up on his marriage. He loved Kate too much to simply let her go. He would have to convince her that their marriage was worth saving.
As Fletcher approached his truck, he saw Eric standing by it. He pulled his earphones out of his ears as he rolled to a stop. "What's up?" he asked, knowing Eric wouldn't be standing outside for no reason.
"I was about to head down to the mall when I saw your truck," Eric said. "Did you get any of my texts?"
Fletcher reached around to his back to pull his phone from the pocket on his cycling jersey. "I told you I was going for a ride. What's going on?"
"There's been another murder," Eric said. "At the mall."
"Really?" Fletcher lifted his tired leg over his bike then bent over his handlebars to unlock the front tire.
"Another woman shot someone."
"Okay…"
"And she's telling the same wild-ass story as Renee."
Fletcher looked up. "Really?"
"Yeah. Come on, we gotta go."
"What's she saying?" Fletcher said as he worked at removing the front tire.
"That's she didn't do it, and that she was a man."
"Really…" Fletcher furrowed his brow. He pulled the tire free from the bike frame and lifted the bike into the bed of his truck.
"Hurry the fuck up," Eric said. "Sarge wants you down at the mall stat."