A Time to Cast Away by Pat Welch

After serving time in prison, former cop Helen Black returns home to Berkeley, California, hoping to start over... but her new life doesn't look very promising. Struggling through her days with dull temp jobs, she meets Alice one night at a local bar. A few days after their brief encounter, Helen stops by Alice's apartment - only to find the woman dead.

Soon the police become involved - and her former partner, Manny, treats her like the criminal he thinks she has become. Of course it doesn't help that his wife just left him for another woman - and he thinks it's all Helen's fault?

With the world around her spinning, Helen is painfully struggling to find security in her old turf, and wonders if she will ever be able to put the past behind her.