Broken Places

by Tracy Clark

  Get up! Get up! Get up! I shouted the words in my head, willing myself to obey. But I couldn’t get up. I was back on the rooftop, Jimmy’s bullet having found its target. I couldn’t move. I was going to die today. My eyes squeezed shut. I saw his face again, Jimmy’s, and the exact moment he decided to kill me. I smelled my own blood and recalled how the world fell away. I grabbed for it then. I needed to grab for it now. I needed to move. Now! A bullet pinged off the dirt inches from my head. I reached inside my shirt and grabbed onto the ring at the end of the golden chain. I opened my eyes, focused.

  Move, goddammit!

  I let the ring go, pushed myself to my knees, forced myself up into a squat. The bullets kept coming, but I scrambled toward Yancy, reached him, and took hold of the back of his parka and rolled us both into the shadows behind a pair of garbage cans. I pinned him under me, then grabbed my gun and aimed. But there was nothing to shoot at. The lot was empty. The shots were coming from somewhere in the park. The sound of the bullets hitting the metal cans reminded me of a shooting arcade at a traveling carnival, all pings and dings and thuds—fine if you were the shooter, frightening as hell if you were the target.

  Suddenly, I heard the sound of police sirens and the shooting stopped. I stayed put. I didn’t trust it. I hoped the police were heading here. I rolled Yancy behind me and carefully peeked out from behind a can. Nothing. How long had it been since the last shot? Five minutes? Five hours? I listened for the sound of approaching footsteps, but there were none. Then a car with a faulty muffler started up somewhere close, followed by the sound of squealing tires. The park fell silent. The shots had scared even the crickets away. It felt like the worst was over. Well spent, I leaned my sweaty forehead against the can and took a moment to breathe, my hands taking on a life of their own. I turned around to check on Yancy, but he’d taken off. I couldn’t believe it. He’d slipped through my fingers again.

  “Son of a—”

  Blinding light suddenly hit my face, watering my eyes. It was too early for the sun. Was I dead? My brain sputtered, firing synapses that didn’t quite connect, as I, like Yancy, worked to separate reality from nightmare.

  “Police!”

  Voice. Male. A flashlight, not the sun. Get it together, Cass.

  “Hands up! Do not move!”

  Do. Not. Move. The words pinballed around my sputtering brain before slowly registering.

  Finally, a command I could follow.

  * * *

  Detective Farraday stepped into the interview room. I was sitting at the perp table in handcuffs. The cuffs, of course, were unnecessary—kind of like using a ball-peen hammer to pound down an office staple. Farraday made a dramatic show of slapping a file folder down on the table and slowly pulling out a chair to sit across from me. I didn’t know what time it was, but it felt like I had been in the small, hot room for hours. That too was Farraday’s doing. I glared at him as he folded his arms across his chest and plastered a wide grin on his stupid face. I groaned inwardly as I took in the deep lines at the corners of his eyes and the spider web of broken blood vessels creeping along his fleshy cheeks.

  “What’d you do with the other gun, Raines?”

  I didn’t bother answering. What did he think I’d done? Shot at myself, then raced over to the beach and tossed one of the guns into the lake? I wondered, truly, what world Farraday lived in, because it was painfully obvious to me now that he didn’t live in mine.

  “I’m guessing whoever shot it, took it with him, or her,” I said.

  I scanned the yellow nicotine stains on his fat fingers and his greasy hair. I had a monster of a headache. The pounding behind my eyelids was relentless and the harsh cop light hurt my eyes. I didn’t have the energy for another go-round with Jim Farraday, or the time. I had to find Yancy. I needed to know if he was okay, and I needed him to tell me more about the wolf.

  “The unit heard shots and went to check it out. POs found you crouched behind a garbage can.” He smirked, obviously amused, as though my dodging from bullets was some big joke. “Park closes at eleven. Signs are posted everywhere. Target practice, maybe?” He chortled. “We’ve got guys out there looking, of course, but what do you say you save us all some time and tell me what you were playing at out there?”

  I watched his lips move but tuned him out, my mind drifting back to the park and the sound of bullets pinging off the cans, the smell of my own fear, and the dirt I cowered in for a time.

  “Hey!” Farraday pounded a beefy fist on the table, setting my teeth on edge. “Wake up!” I tuned back in, watching as he whipped open the folder, then leaned over to sneer at me. “I knew we’d end up here, me sitting across the table from you, and you in cuffs. I knew you wouldn’t let any of this go. That’s how you are, isn’t it? Digging, digging, but with no sense of how it goes, how I say it goes. So, let’s have it. Who were you shooting at?”

  Still I didn’t answer.

  Farraday grinned. “Don’t tell me . . . some other kid got in your way?”

  My heart seized, but I fought hard not to show it. Some other kid, as if Jimmy Pick weren’t kid enough. He wanted me to strike back. I could see it in his eyes. He was hungry for it. I folded my hands in my lap. Farraday pounded another fist on the table, hoping to rattle me. I didn’t flinch. I’d expected it. Pounding fists on things was what lousy cops did when swagger and bluff didn’t get them what they wanted.

  “I’ve got you,” he hissed. “Breaking and entering, trespassing, damage to public property, not to mention the gun charges. You know what else I got? I got all damn day to sit here and watch you sweat. Then I’m going to toss you into a box and leave you there.” He leaned back, prepared to wait me out. “So I suggest you start talking, and if I were you, I’d make it real good. Impress me.” His eyes held mine. “I bet those cuffs are uncomfortable. Up to you how long you stay in them.”

  I smiled, ignoring the pain in my arms, my numb fingers. Giving in to the discomfort would only make Farraday think he’d won some twisted battle of wills. Under the table, I flexed my fingers, trying to bring sensation back. Cowering in the dirt hadn’t been my finest hour, I had to admit. Good thing the shooter had been a lousy shot, or I’d be dead, Yancy, too. I’d hoped I’d put the worst of Jimmy Pick behind me, but tonight made it clear I still had work to do. And where would I look for Yancy next? He’d never go back to the beach. He knew he wasn’t safe there now. But I had to find him. He saw who killed Pop.

  “I’m prepared to make a statement.”

  Farraday leered at me, confident he’d won. “Now that’s you being smart, for once.”

  “But not to you. I want real police.”

  Farraday shot up from his chair and leaned over the table, nostrils flaring . . . “You deal with me right now, or I swear to God I’ll bury you in a cell and swallow the key whole.”

  I turned my back to him, facing instead the two-way glass. “Who’s behind the glass?”

  “I asked you a question!”

  I ignored him. “I assume the lieutenant in charge, maybe Weber, a couple more cops? If I’m wrong, one of you tap on the glass.”

  No one tapped. I’d pegged it right. Farraday had an audience. I also had one, which meant pounding fists was all Farraday was going to be able to get away with. I stood, addressing the glass.

  “I found a witness. He was there that night at the church. He may also be connected to the attacks on the homeless. Someone unknown shot at the both of us. You have my gun. You know by now it hasn’t been fired. You’ve also checked the beach house, so you found the blankets and the candles. I wasn’t alone out there. The witness is in the wind, and so is the killer.” I lifted my cuffed wrists, angled them toward Farraday. “This is doing nothing but wasting time.”

  “This is my case,” Farraday barked, maneuvering himself so he stood between me and the glass. “Mine.”

  I stepped around him, inches from the glass now, close enough to fog it up with my breath. “I’m more than willing to talk, but not t
o him. Not if he were the last man standing after the bomb drops, and I want that on the record. This is not a murder-suicide or a robbery. It’s personal, it’s close. It’s got something to do with Cesar Luna and a girl and Father Heaton and somebody in that parish.”

  I backed away, reclaimed the chair. Farraday looked as if he wanted to throttle me. I hoped he’d try. I really wanted to take a shot. I’d regret it immediately, of course, as serious consequences would rain down on my head, but for two glorious seconds it would be sheer bliss to clamp my hands around his throat and squeeze till my fingers gave out. “Unlike you,” I said calmly, “I don’t have all damn day. Neither does the next homeless person unlucky enough to get it in the back while you sit here fiddling with yourself on company time.”

  He grabbed one of the chairs and slung it across the room. It looked as though he might make a charge, but he stopped suddenly before he got to me, no doubt remembering the peanut gallery. Instead, he made a great show of straightening his tie, then walked over and leaned in, his face way too close to mine. “You know what your problem is, Raines? You don’t respect the star.”

  I stared up at him, my cold eyes boring into his hot ones. “I respect the star just fine. It’s you I don’t think much of.”

  He hesitated, the veins in his neck straining. He kept his voice low, his back to the glass. “Let’s get this straight; you killed that kid, not me.”

  I both loathed and pitied him. He hadn’t taken a life. He had no idea of the weight you had to carry afterward. He didn’t know I saw Pick’s face everywhere, always. He didn’t know the nights were the worst, and that there’d be no end to it. We were linked, Jimmy Pick and I, and always would be. The back of my neck got suddenly hot, my headache worsening. “What was his name?” I watched the blank expression on Farraday’s face. He hadn’t a clue. “You have no idea. He was just another black kid to you, and that’s your problem.”

  “I don’t need to remember their names. All I have to do is bring them in.”

  “But you weren’t going to bring Jimmy in, were you? You were going to kill him right there on that rooftop. That’s why you rushed up after we told you to hang back. You saw your chance slipping away, and you wanted the takedown. You wanted it more than you wanted that kid down safe. You didn’t care who got hurt then, you care even less now. That’s who you are. That’s who you’ll always be.”

  Seething, Farraday slid a furtive glance toward the glass, his lips curled back into a ferocious snarl. “There will always be a cloud hanging over my head because of you and that damn kid. You’re going to pay for that. Maybe not here, maybe not now, but it’s coming, you have my word on that.”

  I took a moment to steady myself. Just because Farraday didn’t know how to conduct himself didn’t mean I didn’t. Sometimes you had to bury heat and hate; sometimes you had to bide your time. I watched as Farraday drew back, retrieved the tossed chair and set it right again.

  I asked, “Am I under arrest?” He wouldn’t answer. He’d gotten to the end of what he could do with me with the others watching. He’d always be there seething and waiting, and I’d have to be ready for him. But for now, we were done. I approached the glass. “Someone tap once, if I’m under arrest.”

  Again, no tap came. My hands in cuffs, I turned the knob on the door and surprisingly found it unlocked. I stood in the hall waiting for the room next door to empty. As I’d assumed, the lieutenant, Ben, and Weber filed out. I held my wrists out to Ben, and he reached down and used his cuff key to free me.

  The lieutenant, Fisher according to his nameplate, spoke up. “You’re free to go, Ms. Raines.”

  Weber nodded, then eased into the room with his partner, shutting the door behind him. Ben held me by the arm and led me through the squad room. As we walked, I let out the breath I’d been holding. I drifted off to my happy place. There were clouds there and cute baby chicks. We stopped at a small room with no mirrors. I slumped down into a padded chair, an improvement over the metal one I’d just spent hours in, and rested my head on the table. Ben sat beside me.

  “What do you need?”

  I lifted my head up off the table, but before I could scream for aspirin, Weber walked in with Farraday’s file folder, the one he’d tried to intimidate me with. He dropped the folder on the table. I opened it. Why not? What more could they do to me? There was nothing inside but a skimpy incident report. Farraday didn’t have enough to justify holding me for hours, interrogating me. It had all been a ruse, a cheap show of force. The interview, the cuffs, the sweating it out in the tight room, all of it was Farraday flexing muscle, digging screws into tender places.

  I held the folder up. “Really?? How does he still have his job?” I held up a hand. “Don’t bother answering. I know.”

  “Back in a sec.” Ben eased out of the room and came back carrying a bottle of Tylenol and water in a CPD coffee mug.

  I nearly lunged at him as though he held the antidote to a poison I’d just ingested. I downed the tablets, the water. “Thank you, partner.”

  He nodded. “I saw the signs.”

  I sat there, my eyes closed, waiting for the medicine to take hold. When I opened them again Weber was sitting, too. The last time we’d met on the rectory steps, he’d wanted coffee and mentioned my eyes.

  He grinned. “I’m real police.”

  I glanced at Ben. “And you know I sure as hell am,” he said.

  I started talking.

  * * *

  I spilled out details of the previous night’s events. Weber took notes while I talked. Ben sat there nodding, taking it all in. He wasn’t the only one who could read the signs. He was upset with me, and I had a pretty good idea what about. Since the rooftop, he had taken it upon himself to mother hen the heck out of me, and my putting myself in a vulnerable position in the park, I knew, wasn’t sitting well with him. I could almost feel the heat of his disapproval radiating off his skin. I would hear about it later, but not yet.

  “He didn’t ID this wolf?” Weber asked.

  I shook my head, avoiding Ben. My headache was letting up. It took three Tylenol, not the customary two, but I didn’t need Ben’s disapproval counteracting the medicine. “He’s mentally unstable. Something spooked him and he ran.”

  Weber tossed down his pen. “Then how do you know you can trust what he thinks he saw?”

  “He said he’s on his meds. He seemed clear for most of our talk.”

  Ben straightened up in his chair. “How many shots were fired at you?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “I know you know. You counted every one of them. How many?”

  “Fourteen,” I answered begrudgingly. “All misses, obviously.”

  There was a knock at the door. A cop in uniform stepped in and handed Weber a computer report. He scanned it.

  “Yancy Gantt. We picked him up a few times. Vagrancy. No surprise there. I’ll see if we can’t get some units out there looking.”

  I had a thought. “Does he have any connection to LA?”

  “Yeah. Last pickup was in LA, again for vagrancy, about a year ago. Does that mean anything to you?”

  “It just confirms a connection,” I said, thinking of Pop’s receipts for airline tickets. “Meds. He has to get them from somewhere. Wherever it is, it has to be close to his squat. Free clinics?”

  Weber peered at me over the top of the papers. “And what’ll you be doing while we do all that?”

  “No one’s looking at the school janitor, but something’s off there. He’s being watched. He’s into something. We just haven’t caught him at it.”

  Ben’s eyes narrowed. “We?”

  “Freelance operatives. Don’t gnaw on it.”

  Ben rolled his eyes and let out an exasperated groan. Weber went back to the report, and I watched as his expression slowly changed from slightly amused to deadly serious.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “They found fresh blood trailing off from the parking lot. It
follows the path leading to the underpass a couple blocks away. Looks like Gantt was hit.”

  I sat stunned, the thumping in my head instantly back. I was aware of Ben and Weber watching, but I kept my eyes on a small spot on the far wall. I’d been slow to grab my gun, unable to get myself unstuck and moving. If I’d reacted faster, maybe . . .

  I stood up, left the room.

  If Weber or Ben said anything, I didn’t hear it.

  Chapter 26

  It was Yancy’s blood.

  Back at the park, I retraced my steps from the night before, finding in the light of day, the cans I’d crouched behind for cover. The droplets of dried blood trailed off down the pedestrian path leading away from his squat. I followed the drops as if they were bread crumbs, my eyes trained on every crimson dot as they grew fainter and farther apart. How frightened he must have been, I thought, how frightened he still must be. I turned my collar up to ward off the chill from the lake. It was blustery today, and the biting wind blew right through me. Still, I kept on the path. I didn’t have a choice. Yancy was in trouble, and I had to find him.

  The blood snaked north along the path rimming the now empty beach. It was too cold for swimming, too cold for Yancy to be without a warm place. I headed for the underpass, following the dots, walking every inch, kicking aside every sodden leaf blown in on a lake breeze. I stepped aside as bikers, dog walkers, and runners blew past me, then went right back to it. Following the dots. The rain the night before had stopped long before the shooting started. It was my one lucky break in a long night of unlucky ones. If not for it, there’d be no blood at all to follow.

  I stood at the mouth of the underpass, dug my flashlight out of my pocket, and eased inside. The tunnel was dark and cave-like and smelled of dried urine, wet dog, and rancid lake water. I sucked in a breath and held it for a time, then made my way slowly through, sweeping the ground with my light. I took two slow passes, my footsteps echoing off the stone walls covered by faded murals and graffiti, decades old. I found nothing. Maybe that was a good thing, I tried to convince myself. If he made it through the underpass without bleeding, perhaps that meant he hadn’t been hurt too badly. Or maybe he’d staggered up to the crossing, changed his mind, and doubled back across the grass without passing through. I couldn’t know for sure. Either way, this is where the trail ended.