She'd grown up wherever her mother lit in her never-ending pursuit of best job, best house, best climate, best schools, best place to live. Took the name of her first stepfather, then resolutely refused to change it when others came along. That was the Burke. Just after she turned twenty-one she started calling herself J. T. Never felt like a Sandra, she said. It didn't stand for anything, "just your initials."
She'd graduated high school at seventeen, done two years of prelaw in Iowa City, where Stepfather of the Month, a teacher of religion, had moved to study the Amish, then when that household broke up (and the marriage shortly thereafter-"in a roadside diner on the way to their new home's the way I always imagine it, him hugging his Bible as Mom steps out to flag a ride with some trucker"), she stayed behind, crashing with friends, hanging out in college bars. Got all that essential youth experience behind me in record time, she said, couple, three months, and was done with it. Never could get the knack of small talk, parties, hobbies, that kind of thing.
She'd driven to Chicago with a friend one weekend and stayed behind when the friend headed back. Worked as a corrections officer, which led to process serving, which led to a stint as a federal marshal. Now she worked up in Seattle, detective first grade. Knew she'd hit it right the first day on the job, went home glowing.
Then she hit the second day.
A sixteen-year-old had come in late one night and quietly murdered his whole family. Drowned his baby sister in the kitchen sink so she wouldn't have to see the rest, then with a Spiderman pillow smothered the six-year-old brother with whom he shared a room. Got the father's ancient service revolver from a box in the garage, loaded it with three bullets he'd bought on the schoolyard (just chance that they proved the right caliber) and shot both parents to death in their bed. Before shooting himself, he sat down at their bedside and painstakingly wrote out in block letters, vaguely Gothic, a note, just one word: ENOUGH.
But it wasn't, because the boy survived. Brian was his name. The round had gone through the roof of his mouth, wiping out any higher brain functions but leaving the brain stem untouched. He was still breathing, after all these years. And his heart went on beating. And one could only hope that his mind truly was gone, that he wasn't trapped in place somewhere in there going through all this again and again.
J. T. and her new partner, who had about two weeks more experience than she, were first call, right after patrol responded. Nothing can prepare you for a sight like that, she said. Or for what happens afterwards. It gets in your head like some kind of parasite and won't turn loose, it just keeps biting you, feeding on you.
She was quiet for a time then.
My partner quit the force not long after, she said. Why did I stick with it? Why do any of us?
So I told her a few stories of my own.