Burnout (Goosey Larsen Book 1)

by James Vachowski

  I flipped to the next photo and froze. This most recent one was a five by seven studio portrait of James Smithson, dressed in a sharp blue suit and smiling for the camera.

  Alicia mistook my surprise for interest and kept running her mouth. “And that one’s his school portrait from this past fall. I always complained about the cost, but James absolutely loved the tradition of class pictures. He got a new photo taken every year, and insisted on ordering extras to trade with his students. He kept two big scrapbooks full of signed portraits that his students had given him over the years.”

  She sniffled, and for a second it looked as if she was about to let loose with the waterworks again. I was in a state of shock myself, and I had to force my eyes to look away from the picture. When I did, I spotted the Hamster eyeing me suspiciously from his cage, like I must have said something horribly offensive to make Mrs. Smithson tear up like that. I gave him a single head nod while I silently mouthed, “Screw you.”

  On second glance, the picture seemed like a pretty good likeness, and there was no doubt in my mind that James Smithson was the same drunk bum who’d approached me in front of the station that morning. I studied the photo carefully, mentally adding in some stubble, raggedy clothes and a puddle of drool. His hair had been shorter when the picture was taken, and he had picked up a few more wrinkles, but it was most definitely the same person. The whole thing was pretty sad, really. I’d had no choice but to make a couple of drug arrests early on in my career, and it never failed to amaze me how much damage the street life can do to a person. I was at a loss for words. Thankfully, Mrs. Smithson broke down into a full-on sobfest at that exact moment, which gave me a few seconds to think about what to say next. I mean, how could I come right out and tell a lady that her husband had thrown away his whole life in order to become a bum, a junkie and a thief? Yeah, there was no way to break that kind of news gently. I decided to bite my tongue for the time being, and check back in with Big Jim first.

  She eventually stopped bawling and came up for air, so I squeezed my hands together in a show of false concern. “I’d like to keep this photo for a few days, Mrs. Smithson, but I promise I’ll get it back to you as soon as I’m finished.” After a moment’s thought, I added, “I’ll be making up some fliers with your husband’s photo and getting them out to our patrol officers.” It was technically the truth, even though I neglected to mention that the cops would be looking to bring him to jail instead of back home.

  Alicia nodded and stood up. She was still distraught, and had to lean on my shoulder just to make it out the front door. As we walked I could sense a pair of eyes burning into my back, and I glanced over my shoulder to see the Hamster watching my every move. He was probably hoping to catch me taking advantage of a lonely, vulnerable female victim by copping a feel. I dumped Mrs. Smithson off at her car, promised I’d call her as soon as I had any news, and stepped back inside.

  On my return, the Hamster poked his head out of that little glass cage and stole a few quick peeks around the lobby. I guess he was making sure there were witnesses nearby in case he needed backup. A couple of patrol rookies were standing off by the courtroom, so the little punk felt safe enough to kick off his tough guy routine. “Detective Larsen!” he whined. “Get over here! We need to have a serious talk about your attitude.”

  The rookies heard that and started paying attention, so he turned up the volume. “Right now, Mister.” The pitch of his voice jumped as he said it. Even when he’s trying to talk tough, the Hamster has this natural high pitch that still comes across sounding like a whiny little girl.

  It’s been my experience that the best way to deal with a pissed-off sergeant is to just face up to him like a man, so I shuffled across the lobby. “Look, I’m sorry about that, Sarge. It’s just been a rough day, you know?”

  The straight-shooter approach must have caught the Hamster off-guard, and I saw his tiny chest deflate. “Trust me, Larsen, I know the feeling.” His tone softened as well. “Sometimes it seems like every day is one of those days when you work at this place.”

  I glanced back to make sure the rookies had heard us. They were both watching intently, biting down on their lips to keep from busting out with laughter. “Thanks, Sarge, I really appreciate it. And hey, you know what? You’re looking pretty slim since the last time I saw you. Have you been working out?”

  The chump gave me a wide smile. “Well, you know, I did splurge on a gym membership last month.”

  He puffed out his tiny chest again, causing all of the pins on his uniform shirt to shimmer under the fluorescent ceiling lights. The Hamster had at least a dozen different colored pins plastered across his lapel, a clear display of pride for all his meager accomplishments at CPD. The resulting look was downright silly, almost as if should have been waiting tables at T.G.I. Friday’s instead of pretending to be a cop.

  The little jerk kept babbling on. “I’ve been hitting it pretty hard. Chest, lats, you know. Got to look good for the ladies.” He shot me a sly wink as he flexed his baby fat.

  I patted him on the back before walking over to the hallway door. “Well, keep up the good work, Sarge. All that time on the exercise wheel is really paying off.”

  The two patrol rookies completely lost it, breaking down into hysterics. I heard the Hamster turning his fury towards them as I beat feet towards the other end of the building. Upstairs, my office was almost empty when I walked in. The few remaining detectives all had their feet up on their desks, just counting down the minutes until closing time. My phone was ringing off the hook, so I stepped over and snatched up the receiver. “Central, Mike Larsen.”

  It was Katie Maslow again. She sounded out of breath, but suspiciously happy to hear my voice. “Hi Mike, you’re a hard man to catch up with.”

  I grabbed my chair, sat down and leaned all the way back. “Yeah, well, it’s sort of been a madhouse around here.”

  Powers and Geary, two of the younger property crimes detectives, were throwing sharpened pencils like spears in a mindless attempt at piercing an empty cardboard computer box. Whenever one of them missed and the pencil went rolling across the floor, the other would break out in a cackling laugh.

  “But for you, I can probably break free for a couple minutes. What’s up?”

  “Did you get the file I sent over? From our autopsy on McGurn?” I caught the way she had used the word “our” instead of “my” and I knew that I’d definitely have to send her a clear message before things went any further. Hopefully there’d be a string of murders the next week, after I was off duty, so Katie could latch on to the poor sap who got stuck dealing with those bodies.

  I glanced down at the mess on my desk and saw her file right on top, but made sure to rustle some papers around so I’d sound busier. “Yeah, here it is. Man, I’ve been absolutely swamped this week.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but I needed an alibi in case she’d been planning to ask about my weekend plans. I opened the folder to the first page, which was some kind of medical form full of scribbles and numbers. “Want to translate for me?”

  She laughed, but not without some effort. “I knew you’d want the information as soon as possible so I had the toxicology workup done last night. There was another odd chemical concentration in his blood that was noticeable right off the bat. Once again, our databases didn’t have any exact matches for it.”

  I yawned and tried to stay focused. “Uh huh.”

  “Well, when two separate toxicology results come back with an unknown substance in one week, I tend to get suspicious, you know? So I did a side-by-side comparison of McGurn’s sample with Encienario’s and sure enough, it was a match. We’re still not exactly sure what this chemical is, but its structure has a strong resemblance to a synthetic dopamine precursor.”

  Dopamine. For some reason that word rang a bell, and I sat up straight. “Now, you said that dopamine means the person’s a druggie, right?”

  She laughed again, and it sounded easier in coming this time around. “I wouldn’t
put it that way, but it’s possible. Dopamine isn’t a drug itself, but rather a hormone produced in the brain. Remember?” Katie went rolling right along with her lecture as though she were standing up in front of a middle-school biology class. “The brain controls the release of dopamine into the bloodstream, most often as a response to some sort of pleasurable stimulus.”

  A pencil clattered on the floor again and Geary howled in a fit of laughter. I plugged a finger into my free ear in order to drown out those two lazy bastards. “So drugs act as the stimulus, and then the brain releases dopamine to make the body feel good?”

  I could almost see her smiling on the other end of the phone. “You’ve got it now, but remember the stimulus doesn’t always have to be drugs. That’s just the most common cause with the type of people we’re usually dealing with.”

  I rolled my eyes. There she went again, sticking that royal “we” into the sentence.

  “Remember, Mike, dopamine can be released as a response to any kind of pleasurable stimulus. For example, several studies have shown that peoples’ dopamine levels will spike immediately after they eat chocolate … or have sex.”

  The mere mention of sex coming from Katie was enough to make my stomach turn. I swear I could feel my dopamine levels dropping as I considered just how much chocolate a girl that size could put away.

  She went on. “But let me backtrack. Like we said, the most common chemicals that turn up in our toxicology tests tend to be illegal street drugs. It’s just the nature of our business.”

  Geary threw an unsuccessful lob. The pencil slapped sideways off the box, then rolled across the room and came to a stop at my feet. I snatched it up and tore open my desk drawer, grabbing for the first piece of paper I could get my hands on. It was only a stained Chinese take-out menu but I hunched over it with my pencil, ready to scribble in the blank spaces. “Okay, spill it. What else did you find? Cocaine or heroin?”

  I figured that it must have been cocaine seeing as how McGurn had been a rich lawyer, but a small part of me hoped she’d found heroin. Shooting up with a needle is a much more scandalous act than simply snorting a couple lines of powder.

  “Neither. Mike, we run tests for all the derivatives of cocaine, all of the opiates and amphetamines too, even marijuana. Just like with Encienario, there were no traces of any street drugs in McGurn’s blood and the only foreign substance was that one unknown chemical. I even called in my best lab tech for a second opinion, and he didn’t know what to make of it.”

  Katie said all this as if it was supposed to be some kind of great revelation, but I still didn’t grasp the importance. With a loud sigh, I tried to summarize it. “Okay…so. We’ve got two death cases here, and both of them were high on this unknown drug when they kicked the bucket. So could we be talking about Ecstasy, maybe, or one of those other designer club drugs? I’ve heard those are supposed to be some pretty good stuff.”

  I figured that my theory was a stroke of genius. If both Encienario and McGurn had died after taking some hot new designer drug, then maybe I could convince Big Jim that our narcotics unit would be better suited to work the cases. That would cut my caseload in half and besides, I could never pass up a chance to piss off those narco jerks. Those guys thought they were so much better than other cops because they were allowed to wear blue jeans to work and come and go as they pleased.

  My lofty hopes were quickly crushed, though. Katie said, “Of course we can’t absolutely rule out this chemical being a recreational drug, but in actuality it’s not very likely. Ecstasy is just the street name for MDMA, a type of amphetamine that would’ve shown up in the tests we run for crystal meth or heroin. And as for other designer drugs that we’ve seen pop up in the bars and clubs, well, most of them are just different mixes of MDMA, PCP, ketamine, or even caffeine. If any of those club drugs had been in these guys’ systems, we would’ve seen at least a trace amount.”

  I scratched my head and sighed. “So, now you’re saying that they weren’t dopers?”

  I heard Katie take a deep breath. “Well, think about it, Mike. Both of them were wearing hospital gowns when they died, and both had high levels of some mysterious chemical in their blood. I think it’s much more likely that both Encienario and McGurn would have been patients in a hospital rather than out hitting the clubs in nothing but cloth dressing gowns.”

  I couldn’t deny the logic of her argument, but I felt my blood pressure spike as the frustration came to a head. “Come on, Katie, I’ve already checked into that! I visited all the hospitals and called all the treatment centers downtown, but nobody’s heard of these guys!”

  An awkward silence fell over the line. In a quiet voice, she finally said, “Just trying to help, Mike.”

  I figured I’d hurt her feelings again, but did my best to shake it off. Besides, by that point in her life Katie was probably used to people treating her like crap.

  “Anyway,” she said, “I sent a sample of McGurn’s blood up to Columbia so SLED can compare it to Encienario’s. They’ve got a much better facility than we do here, so maybe they’ll be able to see something we missed.”

  “SLED?” I groaned. “I’m so glad those guys could break away from busting underage drinkers and seizing video poker machines.”

  Katie laughed. “Don’t be so hard on them, just because they didn’t hire you!”

  I turned red and faked a laugh that I hoped would at least sound sincere. It was true, SLED had turned down my application many years ago, but I was long past that. Besides, everyone knows that agency is nothing more than a good old boys’ club. If you want to get on board with that crew, you’ve got to have an inside man to push your application forward. But instead of dwelling on my past failures, I did my best to steer the conversation back to business. “How long do you think they’ll take to get back to us?”

  “Usually a couple of months, but seeing as we’ve got two cases that could possibly be related, I put in a rush request. Plan on three to four weeks, maybe, but don’t hold your breath.”

  Just great, I thought, hanging my head. Big Jim was going to hold those two files over me until we got those samples back, which meant I’d have to work extra hard at avoiding him. I thanked Katie and hung up, trying to look on the bright side. Having a couple of open cases might not be such a bad thing since it would give me some ready-made excuses to disappear from the office on “follow-up investigations.”

  I scratched a few more notes on the menu before glancing up to see Geary and Powers glaring at me, looking sore at the fact that I’d interrupted their game. As I stood up to walk out the office, I swiveled and whipped their pencil across the room. The sharpened point sunk perfectly into the side of the cardboard box, and those two rookie clowns looked absolutely amazed. A throw like that is a simple matter of keeping your wrist straight, but it does take several years of practice to master the skill.

  I headed down the stairs, making my way over to our records section. Once there, I scribbled “Person of Interest for Auto Break-Ins” across the top of a blank sheet of copy paper, then taped Smithson’s photo just below that. At the very bottom of the page I wrote his name and date of birth, and also that he might be found hanging around the Crisis Ministries homeless shelter. It looked halfway decent for a handwritten job, so I laid it face down on the copy machine and set the presses rolling. If that bum was still hanging around downtown, the odds were pretty good that some enthusiastic patrol rookie would have him cuffed up before midnight. As I dropped off the copies in our squad room, I made a mental note to turn off my pager before leaving work that evening.

  I wasted a few more minutes farting around the Squad Room, but seeing all the other wanted fliers on display was depressing. You know you’ve been a cop too long when you start seeing the same old faces on wanted posters for the third or fourth time.

  Finally, when it was clear there was no use stalling any longer, I decided to stroll on over to MUSC to clear up Squealer’s B+E case.

  I’d forgotten to gr
ab some extra paper from the copier but luckily, some patrol cop had left his notepad on one of the briefing tables. I looked over my shoulder to make sure no one was watching, then claimed it for my own before hustling out the door.

  17.

  I always look forward to warm spring days, if only because the young college girls wear less clothing. There were a few good looking broads out and about in their running shorts and sports bras, so I took my sweet time cruising around campus before finally heading over towards the parking garage on Courtenay Street.

  Some of the younger cops preferred the College of Charleston for their girl watching, and you could always count on seeing at least two or three cruisers posted up at the intersection of St. Philip and Calhoun streets whenever classes let out.

  I’d been by there a time or two when I was younger, but over time I came to prefer hanging out at MUSC. There was less competition there than at C of C since there were no frat boys wandering around with popped-up shirt collars. The way I saw it, if you’re walking upright and not pulling an oxygen tank behind you, you’re going to look pretty good to all those cute nurses who have to spend their days changing bedpans for geriatrics. I savored the feeling of being a notch above the competition, since those opportunities didn’t come along very often.

  For me at least, chasing women was more about business than romance. Eventually I’d like to move up out of my apartment into a big house with a two-car garage, but I certainly wasn’t going to make it there on CPD pay. Hitching my wagon to an up-and-coming nurse or even a hard-working medical student would help tip the scales in my favor, though. Sure, those sorority girls might be nice to look at, but you had to think ahead and consider what a C of C girl would be doing with her life four years in the future. The only thing a degree in communications would qualify someone to do is wait tables down on King Street, and hospitality jobs are even more of a dead end than policing.