Fang and Claw

by Markie Madden

  He couldn’t fault her logic, but he was finding himself even more impressed by her skills. Never did he expect to be awed by her when he learned he was to be partnered with her. Now, however, he was beginning to, albeit reluctantly, consider her to be his partner. She had skills and abilities that complemented his, and he found himself wondering if they could work together in a way that meshed both sets of skills completely. He imagined, if they could, they would be the most formidable team on the department.

  If only we could get past the white elephant in the room, he thought once again, referring to the ugly incident in Greece which, from what he understood, had actually been precipitated by the ancestors of his own pack, rather than the Vampires, as most of his pack would like him to believe.

  He had been told the story by his grandfather, who, on his deathbed, had told him the true account of what had happened. It had always been an embarrassment to the pack, and his pack Alpha had wanted his grandson to know the truth, in the hopes that, someday, a truce of sorts could be reached.

  Lacey’s loud knock startled him from his reverie. The hollow sound echoed dully through the hallway. Impatient, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. She knocked again, and he listened intently, but his sharp ears could detect no movement from behind the door. Lacey glanced back at him with a questioning look, and he shook his head. She knocked a third time, loudly enough that the elderly man in the unit right across the hall from their suspect’s door opened his own.

  “Whaddya want?” He demanded, peering myopically at them over the rim of his glasses.

  “We’re looking for Mr. Blyge,” Lacey replied, a tone of politeness in her voice.

  The man looked the two of them over carefully. “Well, if you’re friends of his, you ought to know he’s at work! He won’t be home until this evening.”

  Lacey put up her hand in Colton’s direction, stopping him before he could speak. “We just thought maybe he’d come home for lunch.” She was apologetic. “We didn’t mean to bother you.”

  “Now you’ve made me miss half the Price is Right!” He slammed his door without waiting for a response. Lacey gave a small chuckle.

  As they walked down the hallway to the elevator, Colton found his voice. “If I get that old and cranky, I’m giving you permission to put me out of my misery.” He glanced back down the hallway as the elevator doors opened. “And everyone else’s!”

  ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

  Lacey chuckled in real amusement. For the first time, she realized that maybe being partnered up with Colton might not be so bad. As they returned to her car, she wondered what their next step should be.

  “Maybe we catch him at work.” Colton mused from the passenger side.

  “Interesting,” Lacey replied, remembering that his alibi for one of the incidents was that he had been at work. “Yes, I think I’d like to see how his work area is set up.”

  She spoke aloud to the car, which she had synced with her tablet and the laptop in her office, instructing it to call the company Jason Blyge worked for. A receptionist answered the call right away.

  “May I help you?” Her voice sounded far-away through the radio speakers of the car.

  Lacey pitched her voice in a way that she knew would come across the best on her hands-free. “This is Lieutenant Anderson with the Dallas Police. I’d like to know if Jason Blyge is at work today, and where I can find him.”

  “Of course, Lieutenant.” A tapping of computer keys could be heard. “I think I spoke to you before?” The woman made the statement sound like a question. “Yes, Jason clocked in this morning, and he’s scanned into the scaffold at the Bank of America Plaza. Do you know where that is?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I do,” Lacey answered politely. Anyone who lived in Dallas was familiar with the building, which boasted green strip lighting at night around the edges and marking the concave corners of the structure.

  “You can ride the elevator to the top floor, which is maintenance access. The door to the roof should be open, the crews are required to do that for safety reasons.”

  “Thank you. Can you tell me, does Mr. Blyge work with a partner?”

  “That depends. Some of the bigger jobs, we’ll send out a team. But often he prefers to work alone.”

  After disconnecting the phone, she exchanged quick glances with Colton. “Likes to work alone, does he?” She set the car to auto drive and began calling up the address of the building in question.

  “What are you thinking?”

  She shook her head. “Not sure, but his alibi for the home invasion at Mrs. Smith’s house was that he was at work at Fountain Place. That’s not very far away from her apartment building. It’s a possibility that he slipped out, committed the crime, and then just came back to work, without anyone being the wiser.”

  “He said he has to scan his card in and out of the scaffold for safety reasons. That way, I guess, if he doesn’t scan out at the proper time, they can send someone to check his welfare.”

  “I suppose.” She returned her attention to the road even though the vehicle was driving for her. “But I’d like to see the setup, and look for ways that he might have been able to slip out for a half hour or so.”

  “I like the way you’re thinking.” Colton shifted in his seat, seeming more comfortable now that she wasn’t doing the driving. “Who knows, we might be able to spot something that will break his alibi.”

  The enormous 72-floor building was one of the tallest buildings in Dallas, and a familiar part of the city skyline. The glass and steel walls glinted in the afternoon light. Looking up, even Lacey’s sharp eyes couldn’t see the small scaffold cages built into the sides of the building for the purpose of maintaining the windows, for cleaning or for replacing damaged panes. For a moment, Lacey stopped, enthralled at the thought of anyone working in such hazardous conditions. The wind alone in Dallas was difficult enough, not even factoring in the heavy rain that often came their way. She had an innate fear of heights, something left over from her long-ago life as a human.

  Colton, not noticing that she had stopped, moved a few steps beyond her before he realized that she was no longer striding next to him. He looked back at her, a look of confusion crossing his face. “What’s up?” She pulled herself out of her reverie, and just shook her head. “Afraid of heights?” He asked.

  “Apparently,” she replied absently. “I never really thought about it before now.”

  “I can do this myself,” he offered.

  “No,” she said, harsher than she’d intended to. “Let’s just get this over with.” She softened her voice in apology.

  They entered the building and flashed badges at the security guard sitting at the desk, manning the cameras. “I need access to the roof to speak with one of your window washers,” Lacey informed her.

  “Oh, there are a couple of them up there today,” the woman said. “I think they’re trying to get it all done again before the weather turns for the winter.”

  Sensing an opportunity, Lacey rested one elbow on the tall portion of the squared-off U-shaped desk the uniformed woman was sitting behind. “Tell me, do they have to sign in and out with you?”

  “They used to. But a few months ago, the building issued each of them their own key cards. It allows them access to the building after hours, as well as the roof doors. It’s made my job a lot easier, since I don’t have to run up there every time they want a cigarette break or something.”

  Noting the camera monitors situated on the desk, Lacey asked, “Do you have camera access of the roof?”

  “Sure, at the access door. Nothing actually on the roof, though.”

  “Does it record?” Colton spoke up.

  “Naw, none of the cameras do, they’re just for us to be able to monitor. I think people used to go up into that stairwell and smoke, after they passed the laws that you couldn’t smoke indoors anymore. It was bad enough when they did it in the garage downstairs.” The woman handed Lacey a small metal key.

&nb
sp; “Thanks,” Lacey said, turning to the elevators and gesturing for Colton to follow. She inserted the silver key into the mechanism, the car’s doors slid silently closed, and after she felt upward movement begin, she said, “Too bad there’s no recording on that door. It could have made it very easy to verify if Jason was truly on the roof when he said he was.”

  “Yeah.” Colton rubbed his chin as he thought. “It pisses me off that places like this, they spend all that kind of money on a security system and it doesn’t record. I don’t get it!”

  “They always assume there’s going to be a human being there to watch the screens.” Lacey had a bit of experience with security guards in her many years of working for the police department. Some of them were good, intelligent people, others not so much. But she also understood the mentality of people who owned places like this; they were often forced by inadequate budgets to choose the cheapest alternative available for security purposes, and sometimes, that meant equipment that onlyallowed for monitoring instead of recording.

  Colton scoffed, as if in disbelief. It took less than a minute for the elevator doors to open again, depositing them on the top floor. It was a floor not open to regular people and contained a multitude of secure broadcasting mechanisms, maintenance equipment for the elevators, the building’s central heating and cooling machinery, and the water purification system. The loud, mechanical rumbling made conversation impossible. Lacey hesitated, ever so briefly, before opening the door hiding a short flight of stairs that led to the roof.

  At the top of the stairs was another door, and when Lacey didn’t open it right away, Colton reached across her and grabbed for the handle. A wide beam of sunlight sent a bright triangle down the staircase. Colton stepped through the door first, holding it for Lacey.

  “Thanks,” she murmured. Her earlier admission of a fear of heights now embarrassed her, but she appreciated the fact that Colton would have undertaken this interview on his own, had she asked him to. Her confidence in him inched just a bit higher.

  ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

  Not knowing which side of the building Blyge would be working on made finding him that much harder. Winds buffeted them both as they made their way from the center of the building toward the edge. Understanding his partner’s fear of heights, though not sharing it, Colton stepped gingerly toward the edge of the roof. It was edged with a two foot high lip, topped with a sturdy barrier fence made up of two rows of heavy-gauge steel pipes. Still, he was cautious as he approached, getting a tight hold of the fence with both hands before slowly leaning over the edge.

  The winds whipped even harder here, and strands of his long black hair swept into his face, stinging his skin like a thousand needles. He felt his slacks and the long sleeves of his button up shirt flapping with force against him, and assumed that his shirt tails were doing the same. Not willing to let go of the safety barrier, he shook his head several times, attempting to rid his face of the hair blocking his view, but it was no use. The wind seemed to be coming from all directions at once. He squinted, but could see nothing along this side of the building.

  Stepping back from the edge, he shook his head at Lacey, who had come to a stop about halfway from the door leading to the safety below. If he didn’t know any better, he would have said her face looked even more pasty than usual, and, though it was almost indiscernible, he swore he saw her tremble in fear. She’s not afraid of ME, one like those who nearly killed her, but she’s afraid to fall? He stepped closer to her so he could be heard over the roar of the wind. “Nothing there. I’m going to check the other sides. You stay here, I’ll be right back.”

  “No.” He almost couldn’t hear her voice. She laid a cool hand on his arm, and it seemed that this time, the act of doing so didn’t repulse her. “I’ll go with you.”

  He just nodded, and his respect for her increased dramatically. He watched her take a deep breath, and begin to follow him to check each side of the building. Working clockwise, it was the third time Colton leaned over that he saw the suspended scaffolding hanging from thick steel wires. He estimated Blyge might have been ten or twelve stories below them. Glancing back at Lacey, who had remained several paces away from the edge, he gave her a thumbs-up before leaning over the edge again.

  Cupping one hand around his mouth, he took in a deep breath and yelled with all his might, “Yo!” His voice seemed to echo half-heartedly once or twice before fading away into the wind. There was no response from the scaffold. Colton hesitated, not sure of any other way he could get the attention of anyone who was in the cleaning apparatus. Then, he smiled as an idea came to him.

  He pulled a Leatherman multi-tool from his trouser pockets. It was the sort of thing available almost anywhere, which could be folded out into a pair of pliers, had a knife blade, screwdrivers, and a bottle opener all in one handy device. Moving to the steel cable suspending the scaffold from a mount on the roof, he took the tool and rhythmically banged it against the wire. One, two three, pause. One, two, three, pause. He did this a number of times before stopping and waiting, one hand grasping the wire.

  Before long, he felt a slight ringing vibration in the cable he held in his hand, and he released it and turned to face Lacey. “I got his attention!” He yelled, just before the motorized winch engaged with a loud sound of metal on metal. He stepped back, instinctively placing himself between Lacey and whomever might be in the scaffold. The noise of the winch grated on his nerves as well as his sensitive ears, and he resisted the urge to clamp his hands over them.

  A few minutes passed, and the scaffold framework came into view. Colton beckoned to Lacey before it came to a stop. It, too, was made of round pipe, in a rectangular basket shape, with thick steel grating wrapped around it and forming the bulk of the sides. The top pipe reached just over Blyge’s waist, and Colton saw that the man was wearing a thick nylon harness across his chest and around each leg. Several white buckets containing some type of cleaning solution were also in the gondola, along with several long-handled squeegees. Blyge was alone.

  Lacey, evidently overcoming her fear, even if for a brief moment, had stepped closer to the apparatus in order to observe Blyge’s protocols as he stepped from the gondola. He took in hand a white plastic key card attached to a ring on his one-piece uniform, which was strung on a retractable cable. With the movements of one well-accustomed to doing so, he swiped the card through a tiny reader mounted on one arm of the basket, and when the indicator light went from red to green, his harness unclipped itself from the safety rail and he stepped from the car with the ease of long practice.

  Rather than trying to yell over the howling wind, Lacey gestured to the two men and began to make her way back to the door leading to the interior of the building. It was obvious to Colton that she didn’t want to spend one moment longer than necessary out on the treacherous roof. He shrugged to himself; after all, he was afraid to fly, though he would rather chew off his own arm than admit that fact to anyone. But, aware of the potential for violence from the man they were there to interview, he stayed step in step with Blyge, even squeezing himself next to the other man going down the staircase. He would take no chances that the suspect might go after Lacey while her back was turned.

  Once they had left the noisy equipment room for the tiny foyer housing the single elevator, it was quiet enough for them to talk.

  “What can I do for you, officers?” The man tried for a congenial attitude and failed. The use of the word officers, though they had spoken to Blyge just yesterday, enraged Colton. The man doesn’t even have enough respect to remember the cops who suspect him of several crimes! He must have made a small sound, for Lacey gave him a sideways glance, compelling him into silence. Fuming, he let her take over the interview while he took out his tablet to make notes.

  Lacey had pulled out her own tablet, and was waiting while it spit out a paper copy of the warrant to compel a DNA sample. She handed it over to Blyge, who looked at it in confusion.

  “I don’t understand, what is
this?” He finally asked, avoiding direct eye contact with either one of them.

  “It’s a court order to get a DNA sample from you,” Colton growled, no longer able to contain himself. He nodded at Lacey, who had pulled on a pair of blue latex gloves, and held a plastic vial containing four cotton swabs on long sticks, used to rub the inside of the cheek to painlessly remove some of the suspect’s epithelial cells. “Open wide.”

  Blyge’s face had taken on the look of a man fearful for his life, but it seemed that he realized he had no other choice. If he refused, they could then arrest him on failure to comply with a warrant, and even throw in obstruction of justice charges. In that case, he could be restrained in the jail’s booking area and a blood sample forcibly taken from him. Colton silently dared him to refuse; nothing would make him happier than to slap a pair of handcuffs on the seedy man, even roughing him up just a bit in the process.

  His thoughts must have been clear on his face, for the other man opened his mouth and turned to Lacey. With efficient movements, she rubbed the swabs briskly against the inside of their suspect’s cheeks, both of them, using all four swabs to guarantee a large enough sampling. When she was through, Colton could see the man rubbing his cheeks with his tongue as if he felt violated. He felt a slight sense of smugness.

  “I tell you, I didn’t do anything,” he protested again as Lacey sealed the swabs in their container and initialed and dated it. “I was right here at work, just like I told you!”

  “How does that thing work?” Lacey asked as she pointed to the key card hanging from a belt loop on his uniform.

  “Well, just like any other security key, I guess,” the man stammered. “I mean, I swipe it once I’m in the car and my harness is in place. Then it locks the harness ring until I swipe the card again.”

  Now Colton could understand the need to have the card on a secure and retractable lanyard; if the man lost his grip on the card while trying to leave the gondola, he would be stuck in it until someone else with the proper card could come to let him out. Also, if the man fell or was taken ill while in the car, the key card being attached to him would enable rescue crews to get him out without cutting through his harness.