by Skye Knizley
"Unless you have coffee and an éclair or a search warrant, fuck off," she growled, grabbing her Automag off the nightstand.
The door opened slowly and a hand bearing a greasy paper bag came through the gap. "I've got a large black coffee too!"
"Rupert?" Raven asked. "What are you doing here?"
"I brought you donuts and coffee," Levac replied. "Can I come in?"
Raven looked at her bare legs, dirty feet, torn skirt and almost non-existent blouse and decided she was too tired to care. "Yeah, come on in, Rupe, I need that coffee in the worst way."
Levac entered and opened his mouth to say something, but stopped when he saw Raven on the bed. His mouth opened and closed a few times before he finally said, "Ray…partner you look like hell."
Raven slid off the bed, dropped her Automag on her pillow and padded toward her bathroom. "Thanks Rupe, no wonder you don't date much."
She looked in the mirror and did have to admit that the blood-flecks on her face, ash in her hair and her tired, gaunt look didn't exactly make her look like a new VS model. She splashed water on her face and wiped her feet on a towel before going back into her room. Levac was sitting on the edge of the bed, almost falling off like he was afraid it was going to bite him. He was still holding the coffee and donuts like they were prizes to be offered to his fair maiden. Raven picked up the coffee and took a long draught of the hot, black Columbian brew.
"Thank you, Rupert," she said when she came up for air. "Sincerely. I hate to ask, but you're not here to arrest me, are you?"
Levac shook his head and looked a little hurt. "Of course not. I don't know what's with Chris. I thought Aspen was going to hit him with a shovel. She has a whole timeline of evidence showing it was impossible for you to kill DeGrey and get blown up. He just keeps ignoring her. I'm getting frustrated just watching her stand up for you."
Raven fished an éclair out of the bag. "I appreciate you both being there for me. Without you two and Mom I think I would be in Mexico by now."
Levac smiled and pulled out his own éclair. Raven knew he was eating rather than saying anything, but she could see in his eyes the words he wanted to say. She sat next to him and rested her head on his shoulder before biting into her own pastry.
"How many officers does Frost have looking for me?" she asked around a mouthful of chocolaty goodness.
"About half of traffic and every detective in homicide except me and Gibbs," Levac replied. "But they're looking for Eleanor not that Equus your mom bought you. Stay out of their way and you will be fine till this blows over."
Raven was licking her fingers clean but stopped to stare at her partner. "How did you know about the 770?"
"I helped your mom pick it out. It was supposed to be a birthday present," he said. "I guess it is just a little early. Mrs. Tempeste thought it was time you started driving a newer car."
"I doubt she would have blown up the Shelby just to get me to upgrade," Raven said. "Whoever did is going to get hurt. Bad. That car belonged to my father."
Levac put his arm around Raven. "I know, partner. I kind of loved that old jalopy too. I was sorry to see them tow the pieces away. I was even sorrier to see you lying in the street covered in metal and blood. I thought you were dead."
Raven sat up and looked at Levac. "You were first on scene, weren't you?"
Levac nodded, but kept his eyes on the far wall. "I was outside dispatch when the 911 call came in. When they said a Shelby had exploded near The Dark I couldn't believe it, I knew it was you. I dropped everything and practically beat a patrolman to death for his cruiser to get to you. By the time EMS arrived I'd been giving you CPR for ten minutes. No one thought you were going to make it."
Raven squeezed Levac's hand. "But here I am, thanks to you. Thank you, Rupert," she said.
Levac looked at Raven, his eyes meeting hers. "I'm not sure what I would've done if you hadn't pulled through."
Raven leaned forward and kissed Levac's forehead before resting hers against his. "You won't have to find out, partner. You're stuck with me. Now get out of here so I can get dressed, we have work to do."
"But… Ray, you're wanted for murder and escaping police custody, I just told you half the force is looking for you," Levac said.
Raven grinned and pulled her top over her head. "So what? They have to find me. Besides, you still have a badge and all your credentials. You can ask 'just one more thing' all you want. We've got bad guys to catch and it's a brand new day. Now get the hell out of here!"
Raven turned and headed back to her bathroom, dropping her bra as she walked. Behind her she heard Levac gasp and bolt for the door. She stifled her giggle until he'd left the room.
* * *
The day was bright and clear with the sun shining warmly and no hint of the blizzard that had nearly buried the city. Raven was behind the wheel of the Bass dressed in comfortable leggings, a warm blue sweater and knee boots under a black leather long-coat; she and Levac were cruising sedately toward the morgue where Raven hoped to get a good look at Rayne DeGrey's body. As Raven drove, Levac played with the car's many buttons and dials and filled Raven in on his visit to Chicago VIP's.
"So, anyway, after they finally accepted I wasn't there to hire an escort or get something called a 'happy ending massage,' I got to talk to the owner or Madame or whatever she's called. She confirmed DeGrey did indeed take outcalls from them, but assured me there was no sex or prostitution involved and that her women were contracted for single dates. Anything after that was off the clock."
"Yeah, and I'm Wile E. Coyote," Raven said. "Did you find out about any recent dates?"
Levac flipped through his notes. "I was just getting to that. According to their records she had three dates recently, including one with Mr. Zackary Shevlin."
"Mm, which gives her opportunity, but we have no motive," Raven said.
Levac nodded. "And I have nothing to connect them outside of a single date and I doubt she was strong enough to decapitate a full-grown man."
"She could have an accomplice. Remember, some of his wounds could have been inflicted during S&M games. I'm willing to bet the date was to set up the murder," Raven said. "When did they meet?"
Levac consulted his notes. "The night before we found him in Death Alley."
"Which makes sense, now we just have to figure out why, and who her accomplice was," Raven said. "We need to track Riscassi's movements the night of the murder."
"Already done," Levac replied. "She was home that night by 6:30 p.m. for a dinner party with clients. No one saw her leave and in fact there are both photos and video providing her with a nice little alibi."
Raven slammed her palm into the steering wheel, "Damn!"
"Relax, partner, we will figure this out. You think Riscassi is the accomplice?" Levac asked.
"I'm not sure, but it would sew things up nicely if she were," Raven replied. "We could take two scumbags off the street with one arrest."
They pulled into the lot behind the morgue and Raven backed into a space away from the street. The Bass was a little conspicuous.
The morgue was housed in a building that had once been one of the city's slaughterhouses. Though it was somehow beautiful in its stark white paint and Amityville windows, it always smelled of death and blood to Raven and she gagged the minute she got out of the car.
"You okay, partner?" Levac asked out of habit.
Raven nodded and swallowed hard. "I've got this."
The pair entered the building through the back door, using Levac's police keycard. Raven shook off the ancient, coppery smell of blood and followed Levac down the stairs, trying to concentrate on the fact that her partner had obviously been working out. His butt looked much sexier than it had before.
They reached the basement, which had been painted in bright pastel hues to keep the "dungeon" feel to a minimum for the employees that had to work on the lower levels, and walked toward the light at the end of the hall. No matter how many times it had been repaired the old li
ght buzzed, flashed and sparked like it belonged in an old Frankenstein movie right before the doctor raised his monster from the beyond.
"Zhu is in his office," Levac observed. "I'll keep him busy. DeGrey is in drawer 24C."
Raven nodded and slowed her pace, letting Levac enter Zhu's office ahead of her. A moment later she heard them discussing the case and Raven sped up, slipping into what she called the 'freezer' without being seen.
She hated this room almost as much as she hated the main autopsy lab. Every corpse in the three dozen drawers had once been human and had now been reduced to a shell with, if they were lucky, their organs haphazardly put back. In some cases, organs were so badly damaged in the autopsy, they were destroyed and the shells in the freezers were empty.
What made it worse was this room had also once been one of the rooms where cattle were hung to drain. The ancient copper blood channels were still placed around the room and the smell emanating from the copper drains was almost too much for Raven to stand.
She willed her sensitive nose to close itself against the hundred-year old stench and pulled open the drawer containing Rayne DeGrey.
The corpse was under a sheet and Raven neatly rolled it back until she could see everything including DeGrey's toes. Zhu's stitch-work was masterful, even on a corpse. The incisions were perfectly straight and the stitches such that, had DeGrey been a living patient she would have almost no scarring.
Like Christina, Rayne DeGrey's eyes were milky white and they stared at Raven accusingly. The detective ignored the corpse's glare and continued her inspection of the corpse, taking a copy of the autopsy report from where it was laying on the woman's chest. Aside from the autopsy stitches the woman didn't have a mark on her except under her breasts where old scars indicated she'd had implants inserted. No tattoos, no scars no nothing.
How did someone get to her age without ever getting a cut or some kind of minor surgery? Raven wondered.
She covered the body back up and pushed the drawer in as quietly as she could, taking the autopsy transcription with her. She crept back to the door and checked to make sure Levac and Zhu were still making small talk before scurrying down the hall and up the stairs. She made it all the way to the Bass without being sick and she leaned against the side of the car, breathing fresh air and flipping through the chart.
She was on her third read-through when Levac appeared at her elbow.
"Ming says hello and he hopes you find the report he left helpful," Levac said.
Raven opened her mouth to say something entirely different when Levac's words kicked her hindbrain.
"He knew I was there the whole time?" she asked.
Levac shrugged. "I tried to keep him busy, but you know Ming and he knows us. Like he said when I left 'where there is one, there is the other'. He was a little disappointed we didn't just come to him. He thinks Frost's witch hunt is insane."
"I should have guessed he wouldn't believe I'd kill DeGrey," Raven said.
Levac grinned. "Oh no, he thought you could have killed her if you thought it was the right thing to do. But he said, ‘I'd have been pulling thirty caliber bullets out of that corpse until doomsday'."
Raven laughed and turned back to the report she'd been reading. "Did you see any of this?"
"Nope, I was in the hospital with you, what did you find?" Levac replied.
"It is just so weird. Everything about her was perfect: Brain healthy and perfect, lungs perfect, liver perfect…the only thing not perfect about her were her heart and eyes. The eyes had corneal decompensation which is exactly what happens in Thirst addicts and her heart stopped due to the presence of a massive blood clot," Raven said.
"And that is weird why?" Levac asked.
"How many scars do you have?"
Levac frowned in thought. "I don't know, probably a couple dozen."
Raven nodded. "And you had a few broken bones as a child?"
"Sure," Levac replied. "I broke my arm and my nose."
"And you drink Jim Beam," Raven said, "which means your liver will have a few spots. Add in those damn cheeseburgers you suck down like air and you probably have a fatty liver in spite of your good physical condition. So how does a mid-thirties call-girl get through life with nothing, but implant surgery?"
"What, you mean she has nothing?" Levac asked.
Raven shook her head. "Not a damn thing. Did her file have her medical history?"
Levac nodded. "I have it back at the office."
Raven opened the car door and slipped behind the wheel. Levac joined her inside and Raven started the car. "I don't suppose you remember much of it?"
"Not much," he replied. "It wasn't pertinent to the case at the time. I know she had nice boobs."
Raven pulled the Bass into traffic and headed toward downtown. "Not exactly helpful unless you can remember the doctor's name."
Levac blushed and looked out the side window. "Actually I do, it was written on the photos. I'm pretty sure it was a Doctor Sullivan. I'm also fairly certain we've grown a tail. There is an unmarked cruiser three cars back and one lane over."
Raven checked her mirrors and located the cruiser. She recognized Detective Murtaugh behind the wheel.
"Good catch… I wonder how they found us," she said.
Levac glanced back at Raven. "No clue, my guess would be blind luck or they would have tried to take you in at the morgue."
"Either way, I hate tails," Raven said. "Let's see what Mom's three hundred grand bought."
Raven downshifted and pressed on the gas. The Bass 770 surged forward and squeezed between two trucks. She shifted up again making the engine howl and turned left across six lanes of traffic. The black car went into a perfect drift across five lanes before Raven righted it and accelerated. Behind her, Murtaugh and the Ford Police Special were struggling to match her maneuvers, but they still had her in sight.
"He's being persistent," Levac observed, trying to sound calm.
"It isn't often anyone gets to chase us and you know they've been dying to," Raven replied. "If you want, turn on the police radio and see what the odds are."
Levac shook his head. "No way, I don't want to know!"
Grinning, Raven accelerated through a red light and across a wide intersection, years of practice keeping her from hitting anyone. The Bass roared down North Orleans Street and then skidded into West Hubbard, almost skidding into a fire truck tending to an accident. Raven stomped on the brakes and shifted into reverse, backing away from the fire truck at break-neck speed and narrowly missing the cruiser that had just rounded the corner. She turned the wheel with one hand and worked the brakes, spinning the Bass in a perfect J turn and heading the opposite direction on West Hubbard.
"You know, usually we're the ones doing the chasing and it always seemed easier than this," Levac said, twisting to look out the back window.
"Come on Rupe, this is fun," Raven replied.
Levac looked at his partner. "You really have a strange idea of fun, Ray."
Raven grinned wider and turned hard right, sliding into an alleyway barely wide enough to fit through. A second later the Bass blew through a four lane street and into another alley, narrowly missing a Prius.
When they came out the other side, Raven turned again, this time heading toward East Ontario Street, where she was pretty sure Doctor Sullivan's office was. He had enough billboards around the city that almost everyone knew where to get ‘The Breasts You've Always Dreamed Of’.
"I think you can slow down, it looks like we lost them," Levac said, looking behind them again.
"I don't think they made the turn into Sever Alley," Raven replied. "I will buy them a case of beer when this is all over."
Levac settled into his seat and wiped sweat from his brow. "You're crazy, Ray. I love you, but you’re crazy."
Raven just winked at him and kept driving.
* * *
Doctor Patrick Sullivan's office was indeed on East Ontario Street, housed in a mirrored high-rise that you couldn't
have missed if you wanted to. Not wanting to risk being spotted, Raven took a ticket and pulled into the garage that serviced the high-rise and several similar buildings nearby.
The lobby to the high-rise was done in what someone obviously thought of as 'modern chic' and Raven just thought of as 'butt ugly'. Sofas that looked as if they'd been made from the remains of castaway rafts sat in front of a free-standing gas fireplace made of mirrors. The sofas were flanked by brown wicker tables that would barely hold a full-sized magazine and the lights hanging from the ceiling looked like they'd been created by a glass-blower with hiccups.
"This might be the ugliest room I have ever seen," Levac said, staring at the décor.
"You haven't seen my mom's bedroom. Come on, let's find this doctor of yours," Raven replied, crossing the lobby to a discreet signboard.
"2187… penthouse," she said. "That's a heart-stopping surprise."
Levac pressed the up button and the two stood waiting. The building was eerily silent for a workday morning and it gave Raven the creeps. She stretched her senses, but couldn't feel or hear anything other than Levac's heart and the traffic outside.
The car arrived and the pair stepped inside. The décor from the lobby followed them. The elevator walls were made from different colored metal panels and the ceiling fixture was made from the kind of lights usually found outside city offices at Christmas. Raven felt like she was inside a giant checkerboard.
They found Doctor Sullivan's practice easily; it took up the entire penthouse. Raven was grateful the lobby's awful décor hadn't followed them to the office. Here there were comfortable white and black chairs, a plush black and white carpet and glass tables covered in a mixture of magazines and informational pamphlets. A blonde pinup was sitting behind the reception desk. She smiled as the two detectives entered.
"Welcome to Doctor Sullivan's office," the woman said with a slight southern twang. "How can I help you?"
Levac pulled out his badge. "Detectives Levac and Storm. We're looking for a little help with some medical records. Is there someone here who could answer a few questions?"