by C. Gockel
“Can I ask you a question?”
She glanced at Baxter. “Sure.”
“Why didn’t you pull me into the task force?”
“No reason. I already had John on the Patsy Jordan thing with me. When more bodies started turning up and we knew that we had a serial on our hands, Cappy told me to take Raz and Matt.”
“Cappy told you, you’re sure?”
“Sure I’m sure. Baxter… Dave, what’s this about?”
He didn’t comment on her use of his first name. He watched traffic behind them in the door mirror for a long moment in silence then said, “I’m thinking of retiring.”
She swerved a little. “You’re kidding!”
“No.”
“But you’re too young!”
Baxter grinned. “Thanks, but I’m heading for forty. I wouldn’t stop working. I’d just retire from the force.”
“And do what?”
“I’d find something to do.”
Goddess, he was serious! She stared hard at the road ahead trying to see Baxter doing something else with his life and just couldn’t. Baxter behind a bar flashed into her thoughts, but the familiar suited figure polishing glasses didn’t work. In her mind’s eye he threw down the glass and pulled a police issue stunner. Now he looked right. Baxter was… Baxter! Who would she fight with when she was bored? John was good, but he couldn’t banter with her like Baxter could. He was too serious. Baxter had been a permanent fixture in the department since before she came on the scene. He couldn’t leave. She wouldn’t let him.
“Did I do something to bring this on? I’ll promise not to steal your candy anymore.”
He chuckled. “You couldn’t keep a promise like that, Chris.”
“I would try real hard.”
“It’s not you, or anyone else in the department.”
Not in the department. That meant outside it then. “Is it Mary Pat?”
Baxter nodded. “When I got shot last year,” he said still watching the mirror. He frowned. “When I got shot, Mary Pat freaked. I shouldn’t have told her, but I was wearing my vest right? So no big deal I thought. Wrong! It was a huge deal to her. I had a walloping big bruise over my heart. It took weeks to fade and every night she cried in the bathroom. She doesn’t think I know, but I could hear her over the sound of the shower. She got over it, but I see her looking at me sometimes as if she can still see that bruise through my shirt.”
“Oh that’s nothing,” she said, trying to make light of it. “Women look at guys just as much as guys look at women.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. We’re just usually subtler about it. A guy gets fixated on your tits, right?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Baxter said self-righteously. “I only look at my wife’s tits.”
“I’ve caught you looking a time or three.”
“Never happened.”
“Has too!”
“Has not!”
Chris snorted. “Have it your way, Baxter, but we know.”
“We?” Baxter said a little nervously.
“Women’s Union of the Republic.”
“Oh, them.”
“Right. So, men fixate on your tits and their brains leak out of their ears. They don’t even know they’re doing it. Women don’t do that. We have bigger brains. When we look, we get everything in one glance and file it away for later. We don’t need to stare usually. Mary Pat is just lusting after your body. She didn’t ask you to retire did she?”
“No, she wouldn’t do that.”
“There you are then.”
“Seriously Chris, I think my time’s up.”
“You haven’t told Cappy have you?”
“Not yet,” he said with a frown. “You think I should?”
“No!” she gasped, and then more calmly, “No. Don’t tell him. If you tell him, you’ll be relegated to a desk! He’ll have to find someone from outside to take your place. Goddess knows where from. I certainly don’t and I doubt he would either. With Lou gone, we can’t lose you too.”
“We?”
“Me and the guys,” she said, looking at him as if he were dense. Her eyes narrowed as she thought of something. “When did you start thinking of retiring?”
“I told you—”
“No, I mean when did you seriously start thinking about it? It was around the time Lou got his promotion wasn’t it?”
Lou Debono had been Baxter’s partner for years before he was kicked upstairs. Lou was Captain of his own station now.
Baxter turned to her angrily. “If you think I’m jealous—”
“I don’t!”
“—then you don’t know me at all!”
“I said I don’t think that! Settle down. I’m just trying to understand that’s all. You know we’re short-handed. Cappy has been yelling about it for years! We need you, dammit!”
“And Mary Pat needs me still breathing!”
“I told you what I think about that.” She would have a chat with Mary Pat when they all got together over the weekend. It was her turn to bring the chips, she remembered. She would have to stop off and get some on the way home. “Mary Pat knew what she was doing when she got hitched to your wagon. Her dad worked the streets for almost forty years! She knows what it is to be married to a cop. What, you think she doesn’t know her own mind when her mother brought her up in a cop’s house?”
“She knows but—”
“But what?”
“She’s pregnant again.”
“Oh.” Her mind went blank for a second. “Is it money?”
Baxter shook his head. “Junior’s college tuition is covered and he’s raring to go.”
“Takes after his dad.”
“Yeah,” Baxter said with pride. “He’s already found an apartment to share with his buddies and a little part time job for extras. I’m not worried about him. Beth and Carla have years to wait yet. It’s not money.”
“I can always do with more money.”
“Me too, but this has nothing to do with that.”
She wasn’t sure she believed him. She would have a private chat with Mary Pat over the weekend. The barbecue would be crowded with all the guys and their families along. It shouldn’t be hard to spirit her away for a minute or two.
“You’re just feeling old, Dave. What you need is a snot-nosed kid for a partner, someone to make you run after him. That’ll get you back into condition.”
“Says you. I work out three times a week and my times are better than ever.”
“Still can’t shoot straight though.”
Baxter was frowning at the mirror again and didn’t seem to have heard her.
“I said you still can’t shoot straight.”
“Take the next right,” Baxter said in a distracted voice.
“Why?” she said, already making the turn.
Baxter was watching the mirror intently. “Change lanes.”
She did that while watching her own mirrors for manoeuvring cars. “Is it the black Ford?”
“Yeah. I think we have a tail. I saw him pull out after us when we left Central. Take a left.”
She did and was rewarded by a black Ford, the same one, following her. She tramped her foot on the brake and the car skidded to a stop. In a heartbeat, they were out of the car with their guns pointed at the Ford’s windscreen where it had skidded to a stop. Cars beeped horns at them and swung wide around the obstruction they caused.
“Get out of the damn road you freaks!” a driver yelled as he sped by, his engine roaring.
“—goddamn road hog!” another driver yelled leaning on his horn.
Chris ignored them. “Police! Hands… show me some hands… out the window! Do it now!”
A pair of hands appeared out of the driver’s window. Another pair appeared from the other side, but Baxter had that door covered. Chris eased forward. There were two men sitting in the front seats. The back of the car was empty. She kept her gun on the driver and worked the car’s door handle.
“Out slowly. Keep your hands where I can see them. No! Work the seatbelt with your other hand.”
“There’s no need for this, Detective,” the driver said. “I have my I.D in my pocket—”
“Freeze!” she snarled and nearly pulled the trigger.
The driver froze with his hand reaching into his inside jacket pocket. She could see the gun as plain as day.
“Gun here,” she called to Baxter who was covering the passenger. She reached into his coat and took the weapon—a K6 Remington stunner like hers. She was almost certain that she knew what she had here. Feds. The goddess be damned feds were tailing her. “Out!”
The driver glowered but complied and was careful to keep his hands out in the open. The passenger was receiving the same treatment from Baxter who had also found a K6. Baxter pushed the passenger against the fender of the car and searched him. Chris thought that was going just a little far until he came up with another gun. The hold out piece was an old 38 police special. Slug throwing boomers might be old fashioned, but they were still deadly. Baxter dropped it into his jacket pocket and shoved the passenger around the front of the car to join his partner.
“I.D now,” she said deciding not to push her luck with the driver by searching him. She was certain now. He was a fed. She flipped open the wallets they offered. “Well now Agent Barrows, Agent Feinstein. Would you care to explain why you were following us?”
“You know damn well why!” Feinstein snarled angrily taking back his wallet.
“My weapon?” Barrows said calmly ignoring his partner.
Chris holstered hers and handed the K6 back to him. Baxter reluctantly did the same with both of Feinstein’s guns. They quickly holstered them well aware of the scene they were causing. It wouldn’t be long before one of the bystanders called the cops.
“I want some answers.”
“Do you?” Barrows said. “And you think I’ll give them to you for the asking?”
“You’ll answer me, or it will be my captain and your department chief having this discussion.”
“And that will concern me because?”
“Don’t play games,” Chris said with a put upon sigh. “We both know you’re not here officially, tailing me I mean. The feds haven’t been called in on this case.”
“Yet!” Feinstein said and got a very annoyed look from his partner for his trouble.
“We’re within our authority, Detective.”
“To drive around the city? Sure you are, but obstructing a police investigation? I don’t think so. If you don’t want me to take this further, you had better tell me something I want to hear.”
Barrows glanced around. “A little public isn’t it?”
She shrugged. “Okay, we’ll wait for the black and whites,” she said and Barrow’s eyes tightened. He wasn’t as blasé as he wanted to appear. “Don’t like that huh? Tell me something.”
“I, we are investigating a case that might have links with yours.”
“You’re after my serial. The Ghost?” She wasn’t surprised, angry yes, but not surprised.
“Not him, but someone we think might be linked to him. Before you ask, no I won’t give you his name—it wouldn’t do you any good. He has dozens of aliases. He’s been on our books for a lot of years. He moves about, covers his tracks.”
“His crime?”
“Murder.”
“Serial?”
Barrows shook his head. “Not classic, but he’s wanted for multiple murders in half the states in the country. Mass murder on his scale doesn’t happen anymore.”
“Really?” she said with scepticism heavy in her voice. “I have eight very dead people down at the morgue.”
“And the guy we’re after is responsible for more than eighty!” Feinstein snarled angrily.
“Oooh, theirs is bigger than yours, Chris,” Baxter said with a smirk.
She grinned and Feinstein’s face darkened. “You think I’ll lead you to him?”
“Your Ghost will find him, or he’ll find Ghost,” Baxter said with no doubt.
“Why would he do that?”
Barrows wasn’t willing to say apparently. He ignored the question. “When you find Ghost—”
“If she finds him,” Feinstein said.
Chris looked Feinstein up and down. “I don’t like you.”
Feinstein’s eyes popped wide. “You can kiss my arse!”
“Doug, shut your trap and get back in the car,” Barrows said.
“But she—”
“Now.”
Feinstein glared at Chris and got back in his car to sulk. He slammed the door. Barrows watched all this in silence.
“I don’t think he likes me,” she said with smirk.
“I don’t like you either. Have you got any friends at all? No matter. I don’t have to like you to use you. Find Ghost, Detective, and I’ll be a very happy man. Take too long, and I’ll have you removed from the case. Before you say anything, believe me that I do have influence enough to do it. I will have the case under federal authority if I must. I don’t particularly want to do that, but I will.” Barrows moved away to join his partner in the car as two black and whites arrived. “I’ll be watching.”
Chris and Baxter pulled out their badges and held them high as they slowly approached the patrol cars just then arriving on scene. Feinstein glared at her out of his window as Barrows pulled away and back into traffic.
They quickly dealt with the uniforms and tried to get back to work. The story would make the rounds back at Central, but there was nothing they could do about that. They decided between them to keep Barrows’ name and status as a feebie out of it. Cappy wouldn’t be too pleased to learn the FBI was sniffing about without informing him of its interest in Ghost.
“Whoa,” Chris said as she sat behind the wheel of her car and thought about the consequences. The puff of air between pursed lips blew a lock of hair aside. “That was interesting.”
“Interesting? Well yes you could say that. Barrows is after your butt. Maybe you shouldn’t have given him so much lip.”
“He doesn’t worry me.”
“I can see that,” Baxter said as they pulled back into traffic. “But he should.”
“I don’t see why. I’m doing my job, he’s doing his. As long as he doesn’t stick his nose where it doesn’t belong, I’ll leave him alone.”
“But will he leave you alone, that’s the question?”
She shrugged and concentrated upon her driving. Barrows didn’t worry her on a personal level, but his threat to take her case did. She knew his type. He would play by the rules and keep it professional as would she, but he knew how to play the system. He would use it to get what he saw as his job done. If he decided his job was to take hers away from her, he would do it. She could understand that. She knew how to play hardball too. He wouldn’t take the case easily. The rules were specific where federal jurisdiction was concerned. The feds had to be called in through proper channels.
The problem was the Chief. He was basically a paper tiger and would go whichever way the wind was blowing. At the moment, it was blowing strongly from the Mayor’s office. The newsies didn’t much like Mayor Richards, but maybe they could be encouraged to be nice to him if he could somehow clear up the little matter of bodies piling up in the morgue. Barrows must think that he had the juice to pressure the Chief into making an official request for assistance. Maybe he did. It wouldn’t take much to persuade the Mayor that a certain detective should be reassigned elsewhere. Eight bodies and the potential of losing popular support was a hell of a strong motivator.
“To hell with it. We have a job to do.”
“You still want to roust some hookers?” Baxter said.
“Why not, you only live once.”
Baxter grinned.
They parked the car in a no parking zone close to the alley where Karen Sykes said she was attacked. They walked the route the girl had taken along Union Avenue that night, and then down the alley. It was like hundreds of
others; dark, smelly, and full of garbage where it had fallen out of the dumpsters or where careless people had tossed it.
“Pretty scary down here at night I bet,” Baxter said looking around and wrinkling his nose. “What time did you say she was attacked?”
“Late. After midnight she said.”
“She didn’t have her wristband on?”
“It was busted. Needed a new charm laid on it or something. Why?”
Baxter kicked aside some of the garbage to reveal blankets and a few trinkets. A couple of old cans held a cut throat razor and soap brush. They looked neglected and abandoned. The razor had begun to rust.
“Someone used to call this shit-hole home.”
Chris frowned at the items he’d discovered. “We talked to a couple of bums that heard screaming. They didn’t see anything. They were probably telling the truth. It was dark as hell that night. No moon. They spent part of it at a soup kitchen and wandered back here after they’d eaten. We checked and confirmed that side of their story.”
“Damn shame they’re not here. I’d ask who this belonged to and whether he was here that night. You’ve got to wonder when someone with nothing leaves behind his shaving kit. It might have been all he owned, yet here it sits.”
“Yeah. We could get it dusted for prints I guess. See if he has a record. We might even find him in the drunk tank.”
“It’s a thought,” Baxter said pulling on a pair of latex gloves and collecting the items. “Don’t get your hopes up though.”
No, she wouldn’t do that, but it was an indication of how desperate she was that she was even bothering with the items. Something like this was unlikely to go anywhere, but stranger things had happened, only not to her. They scouted around the alley familiarising themselves with it and its contents. Chris had done all this before with John, but for Baxter it was his first time on the case. Not that he hadn’t thought about how he would run it if it were given to him. He wouldn’t be much of a homicide cop if he hadn’t. Baxter asked questions, Chris answered, and spent most of her time watching him hoping that fresh eyes would turn something up.
“Nice quiet little spot for a murder,” Baxter mused. They had walked the entire length of the alley and he was studying the busy street that joined it. Nice and quiet it was not.