Doc

by Dahlia West, Caleb

  Moira winced, apparently realizing her mistake. It obviously wasn’t from before; it was a fresh cut. But ‘before’ seemed to imply that there’d been prior abuse, which was obvious. “I had an accident. At work,” Moira said quickly.

  “Oh, so he didn’t take a few hits and then hit you?” Caleb asked, nodding at the pipe.

  Moira gasped. The drunk growled.

  “Told you that you can’t be in my house!” he shouted.

  Caleb shrugged. Too late. The woman lived there, too, and she’d allowed him to come inside.

  “Barnes,” said the kid reproachfully. Caleb glanced at him.

  It was hard to tell who was getting more wound up—the kid or the drunk. The drunk was flitting his eyes between Caleb and Moira, anger heating his gaze. The kid was rocking on the balls of his feet, anxiety creeping into his.

  The Book! the kid’s eyes said. The suspect might become enraged!

  Caleb shot him a cool look of his own. Yep. The suspect might become enraged.

  “I didn’t give you no kind of permission to be in my own fuckin’ house and I’m saying that you—”

  A door down the hallway suddenly opened. Caleb directed his gaze at it. The kid started reaching for his holster. Moira started for the cracked door. Thankfully, before the rookie could empty a clip into the flimsy wood, a pair of stark, blue eyes appeared, at the height of the tarnished brass knob.

  “No, no, no,” Moira said in hushed tones. Her frantically waving hands belied the quiet timber of her voice.

  Caleb remembered those hushed tones himself, the brittle edge of a half-whisper.

  "Just go, honey," the woman said. "Just—"

  "Get back in your room!" the drunk bellowed.

  Caleb saw red.

  ‘Is this how it is, Shelia?! I work all day, come home, and you got his fucking toys out every damn where!’ Always 'his' or 'him' or 'the boy'. Caleb was never Caleb at home. ‘How many times do I have to tell you? Huh? How many? One time?’

  The drunk swayed a bit on his feet but his rising anger seemed to buoy him. "How many times do I have to tell you, Moira? He stays—"

  Caleb surged forward, toward the front door. The rookie paled. The asshole was too busy yelling to really notice.

  "Why don't you tell me?" Caleb snarled, charging through the screen door.

  The drunk's head jerked toward him, lower jaw slacked.

  "Forget it," Caleb told him, letting the door slam shut behind him. "I already know. You don't let him play with his toys in the living room. Because you don't want to be reminded he exists." Caleb moved closer. He was a whole head taller than the drunk. He leaned down into his face, fighting the urge to wince at the man's rancid breath.

  "Why do you think that is?" Caleb said in a quiet voice that dripped with venom.

  The man reared back. "This is my goddamn house!" he cried. "No one talks to me like that in my own goddamn house!"

  Ignoring him, Caleb stepped closer, not touching the man but forcing him to back up. He teetered precariously on the edge of the top step of the porch.

  "Officer Barnes," the rookie called out, his voice tight with anxiety.

  Caleb ignored them both. "Is it because when they're around, they remind you what a shitty fucking man you turned out to be? Can't feed your family. You all live in a rat trap. Do they remind you every day that you're nothing but a fat, ignorant, dumb fuck of a drunk?"

  The man suddenly forgot about the possibility of losing his balance and surged forward instead of backward this time. His fist curled and struck out, catching Caleb in the ribs. The vest absorbed the impact of the blow entirely. No knife this time. And that was damn disappointing, because assaulting a cop with a deadly weapon while drunk was a trifecta that would have landed this piece of shit in jail for a good long time. As it was, Caleb would just have to settle for simple assault, possession, and drunk and disorderly. He grabbed the drunk’s wrist and twisted it, spinning him around. The man stumbled on the step and lost his footing. Caleb let go of him and he tumbled down the cracked wooden steps and sprawled onto the lawn.

  “Barnes!” The rookie yelled, but Caleb ignored him. He calmly descended the stairs himself, reaching for his cuffs.

  “You’ve assaulted a police officer, sir. I’m afraid I’m going to have to take you in,” Caleb announced in a tone that made it obvious he was anything but sorry. As he bent over the flailing man, he yanked one hand behind his back. Just then the front door banged open.

  “Daddy!” the young boy squeaked, though his mother held him back.

  “Sonofabitch!” the drunk shouted. “You can’t do this! You can’t come into my house and— Ow!”

  Caleb yanked on the other arm and secured the steel bracelets to the man’s wrists.

  “Barnes!” The rookie called out again in a tone that told Caleb he was siding with the drunk on this one. The younger man jogged down the steps and stopped short next to Caleb as he wrestled the drunk to his feet. “Come on, Barnes,” he said, lowering his voice and glancing over his shoulder at the woman and child standing on the porch. “This is crap.”

  “Damn right it is!” the drunk snapped.

  “Shut up,” Caleb replied, giving the man a slight shake. To the rookie he said, “He assaulted a police officer.”

  The rookie gaped at him. “After you provoked him! And that search—”

  “Was totally admissible,” Caleb reminded him.

  The rookie glared at him. “Just by the hair on your nuts,” he grumbled.

  “He can’t do this!” the drunk protested as Caleb took a step toward his cruiser.

  The rookie jumped in front of them. “Come on, Barnes,” he repeated. “You want to do this? In front of the kid?”

  Caleb glowered. He was doing the best thing for the kid, something no other cop who’d been called here before either cared enough or had balls enough to do: lock the asshole up.

  “He’s got it rough,” the rookie whined. “From a broken home—”

  Caleb laughed bitterly. “Broken home? And what? You think you’re going to fix it? With your Conflict Resolution bullet points? Let me tell you something, you can’t fix this kid’s broken home, but you can sure as fuck take out the trash.” He shoved the man toward the cruiser without looking back over his shoulder.

  Chapter 5

  Izzy cruised through The Heights with her windows rolled up and her car doors locked. It wasn’t the kind of neighborhood where you’d want to stop and ask for directions. Most of the fences were chain link. Scruffy looking pit bulls glared at her from ragged brown yards. Summer’s green had already faded and autumn was hot on its heels, though Izzy somehow doubted that many of these yards had ever been green in the first place.

  On the corner of King and Vine stood a crumbling brick apartment building. She pulled into an open space in the lot and scanned the front of the place. Finding the doors marked Apartments F through K, she set the parking brake and then locked the Charger. As she stepped onto the curb, she aimed the fob at her ride and waited for the chirp of the alarm being set. As she approached the building, she glanced around, looking for any potential trouble spots. There was no one in sight in the lot, so she felt better about leaving her car. But she couldn’t afford to stay long. There was nothing in the car worth stealing, but it would take a broken window to find that out and Izzy didn’t need the headache of replacing one.

  She walked briskly to the doors and was happy to note that she didn’t need a key to get into the building. An ancient buzzer was on the wall to the left, but it had duct tape over it. She let the doors shut behind her and adjusted to the light—and the smell. It was a mix of urine, weed, and something that may or may not have been boiled cabbage. Izzy didn’t want to know what it was. She took the stairs two at a time until she reached the second floor. Apartment J wasn’t hard to spot. Police tape covered the door, but no uniforms were stationed outside. Izzy wasn’t surprised. Denver PD didn’t really have the resources for round the clock surveillance, esp
ecially when a traffic cam had caught the shooter’s car headed toward the interstate just after the robbery.

  She strode toward the forbidden door, reaching into her jacket pocket. Just before she reached it, though, the door across the hall swung open. Izzy paused. An older man with gray, stringy hair and crooked glasses peered out at her. He sniffed.

  “You a cop?” he asked brusquely.

  “I’m looking for Jeter Paul,” she told him. “He’s wanted for questioning in a robbery homicide.” It was true. And Izzy added just enough authority to her voice to hopefully convince the old man she was Denver PD. If he asked to see a badge, though, things could get hairy.

  The old man sniffed again. “You’ve already tossed his place.”

  “We’re hoping he’ll return,” she replied coolly.

  The man groused. “I knew where he was, I’d turn him in myself for the reward,” he told her, putting the emphasis on ‘RE’.

  Izzy nodded encouragingly. “We hope you do. Please contact the department if you see or hear anything.”

  The door practically slammed in her face, which was just as well, she decided. She took a few long strides toward Paul’s door. Keeping her arm close to her body to obscure the view of prying eyes, she pressed the button on a short, spring-lock blade and sliced the No Entry sticker that sealed the door. She quickly pocketed the just-this-side-of-legal knife and pulled out a small, black Lock Aid. Working quickly, she maneuvered herself in front of the door, pressed the tension rod into the deadbolt’s key hole, and pulled the trigger. The cheap lock gave way immediately and Izzy turned the knob and slipped inside. Anyone looking would have thought she had a key to the place, which no doubt Denver PD had secured from the building’s super yesterday.

  Jeter Paul’s apartment was a sea of garbage. Pizza boxes, beer and soda cans littered over every flat surface. The kitchen drawers were pulled out. The police had obviously searched the place pretty thoroughly. But despite her connections within the department, things like crime scene notes were still off-limits to her. She’d have to come up with her own leads if she had any hope of tracking down the skip. Paul wasn’t technically a skip, since he wasn’t out on bail, but old habits died hard and Izzy began thinking of him as her next target as she looked around.

  In the bedroom, for the apartment only had one, the mattress had been tossed, slit open and the innards pulled out. If the cops had found anything, it was impossible to tell. Izzy was more interested in what she didn’t see: Jeter’s clothes. The drawers of a scratched, worn dresser stood open, casualties of the search for anything that might link Jeter to the robbery, but they were mostly empty inside. The closet doors were thrown open. Empty hangers were scattered across the rod. Jeter had always planned to leave town after hitting the gas station, which was a bit heartening. Anyone who had a plan, usually left a trail of bread crumbs behind. People acting purely on impulse were far less predictable.

  Attached to the back of the dresser was a large mirror. Izzy crossed the room to get a closer look. Ignoring her own reflection, she saw Scotch tape along the length of it. The edges of a few photos remained. They’d been torn off when picking the tape had apparently become too tedious. A sliver of blue sky marked the corner, under it a sign, but it had been sheared off. ‘BA- NA’ the sign had said. Izzy sighed and slid a fingernail underneath what was left of the photograph. If this was all she had to go on, her hopes of finding Jeter and getting the payoff were dwindling. She knew the photo was important, though, so she pocketed it.

  Pop had always said people kept the things that meant the most where they could see them every day. Photographs, mementos. Show Izzy a person’s room and she could put together the puzzle of who they were, or who they wanted to be. Deciding she’d been in the apartment long enough and that she’d get no more from it, she headed back to the door and locked it behind her. As she passed the old man’s door, she nodded sharply at the peephole, which was darkened and she knew he was watching her. She held her head high, like she belonged there, and made her way toward the stairs.

  Once outside, she slid the cell phone from her pocket and pressed a key. She speed-dialed the precinct and Vernita’s brusque voice answered immediately.

  “Hey, V. It’s Izzy.”

  “Well, at least you’re still alive,” the older woman gruffed. “For now.”

  Izzy smirked and turned off her car’s alarm. “Listen,” she said, as she slid into the driver’s seat, “what’s the scuttlebutt about Paul?” Vernita wouldn’t have any first-hand knowledge of any particular clues Denver PD may have found when they searched the apartment, but cops were a gabby bunch and if you wanted to know the lay of the land, Vernita was the person to ask. She knew everything from how much the janitor got paid to who was on the short list for Commissioner.

  Vernita sighed and though Izzy couldn’t see her, the accompanying eye roll was implied. “Mexico,” she drawled.

  Izzy nearly laughed. Of course. Paul had been headed to the interstate. Izzy supposed it was possible that he was headed across the border. But in her experience, desperate people tended to stick to what they knew. And hiding out in a foreign country wasn’t all that appealing to most people.

  “His mama lives in Kirkwood,” Vernita offered.

  Izzy cranked the Charger’s engine. “Thanks, V,” she replied and disconnected. She rolled out of the lot and back onto Vine. Kirkwood was a nicer area, though not by a whole lot. It tended toward older, retired folks, though no one with anything like a 401(k).

  As she cruised to the other side of town, she rolled the windows down and breathed in the crisp, fall air. Denver was a great town. She’d lived here all her life. But it seemed different now since Pop had died, more hollow somehow. She knew the streets as well as any cop or cabbie, but it just seemed like information now, bits of data that her mind had stored. She didn’t want to stop for a gyro at Rudy’s anymore, because she and Pop had eaten there almost every Friday night. She didn’t want to go to the movies, either, because they’d always gone together. At first, Izzy had simply felt sorry for her dad, alone now that her mother was gone, and had made sure he wasn’t sitting at home in front of the TV every night. It hadn’t taken long for it to become their thing: gyros and a movie on Friday. It was a nice change from hunting skips in dirty alleys and arguing with relatives about financial liability.

  Izzy pulled up to the house of Jeter Paul’s closest living relative and shut off the Charger’s engine. Relatives were hit or miss, as far as cooperation was concerned. In Izzy’s experience, unless mom’s house had been used as collateral for bail, they weren’t likely to get any useful information about where to start looking. Izzy jogged up the porch steps and rang the doorbell. A dog’s bark sounded in response, but it was a yapper not a pit, and so Izzy wasn’t worried. Her ankles were well-protected by her boots.

  The front door opened and a woman stood in the frame. Izzy guessed she was about Pop’s age. She smiled. The woman did not return the sentiment. A black fluff ball that might have been a poodle yipped at her feet.

  “Already talked to the police.”

  Izzy kept smiling. “I know, Mrs. Paul, but we really, really do need to find Jeter. And the girl,” she said, reminding the woman of the stakes. The old lady winced.

  “He’s a good boy,” she insisted. Izzy frowned. “I can’t see how he’d do a thing like this. He’s such a good boy.”

  Izzy resisted the urge to point out that Jeter was anything but a good boy. He was a murderer, and a kidnapper.

  “How long has it been since you’ve seen him?” Izzy asked.

  The woman sighed. “Oh, a while. It’s been…a while.”

  “A few weeks?” Izzy ventured.

  The woman’s gaze fell.

  “Months?”

  The woman took a deep breath. “It’s been about two years now.”

  Izzy winced. She couldn’t imagine living in the same city as Pop and not seeing him all the time.

  “Are you police?”

>   Izzy sighed inwardly. She wouldn’t lie to the woman, even though the assumption that she was an officer helped her immensely.

  “No,” Izzy replied. “I’m a bail bondsman.”

  The woman’s brow furrowed. “Jeter’s not out on bail.”

  Not this time, Izzy thought. But Jeter had been arrested multiple times over the years for minor offenses.

  “No, ma’am. But I track down folks who don’t appear in court and occasionally I help the police find other people as well.”

  This was stretching the truth a bit. She’d made it seem as though she was actually working with the police, which wasn’t the case. Denver PD wouldn’t turn down a collar that a bounty hunter made, but they didn’t exactly encourage citizens to insert themselves into police investigations—especially not ones as serious as these.

  “I think the police want to kill my boy for what he’s done,” Mrs. Paul said quietly.

  Izzy shook her head. She wasn’t a cop, but she didn’t like painting them in a bad light either. “I don’t think so,” she replied. “Denver PD just wants to find him… and the girl. But he’s not in Denver, is he? He’s headed somewhere else. A place where they might shoot first and ask questions later.”

  The woman considered this at length and then stepped back. “Come in,” she said wearily.

  Izzy carefully moved past the dog that was nipping at her steeled-toes. Mrs. Paul shut the front door behind them and moved to the living room that lay just beyond. Mrs. Paul’s house was her son’s polar opposite—clean and tidy, with several framed photographs and knick-knacks laid out on shelves and end tables. The small fireplace had a mantle that was filled with photos. Izzy wasn’t too surprised by this. Sometimes the apple fell from the tree, rolled down the fucking hill, and came to a stop as far from the tree as it could possibly get—Izzy was living proof of that.

  “He is a good boy,” Mrs. Paul insisted. “Or…he was. But then his father died and..” She trailed off. “I don’t know how things got this bad. Greg, that’s my husband, always kept Jeter in line. Guess I didn’t realize how much I needed him here to do that until he wasn’t anymore.”