Beneath a Weeping Sky rcc-3

by Frank Zafiro

  “All females decent in there?”

  Katie grinned. The gravelly voice of Thomas Chisolm always made her feel better. “It’s all clear,” she called back.

  The door swung open. Thomas Chisolm strode into the room. He spied Katie in her gym shorts and averted his eyes. “Jesus, MacLeod, you didn’t tell me you were half-naked.”

  “Don’t be such a prude. They’re workout shorts.”

  Chisolm kept his head turned, but stole a glance at her out of the corner of his eye. “All right, then. I’m just a stranger to what goes on in the women’s locker room. Never know what to expect.”

  “Oh, it’s pretty much what all you guys imagine,” Katie said. “When we’re not standing around naked and rubbing lotion on ourselves, it’s a big lesbian love-fest.”

  “Save that for Giovanni,” Chisolm said. “Or Sully and Battaglia. They might just believe you.” He looked around. “It is nice in here, though.”

  “You want the full tour?”

  Chisolm shook his head. “Nah. I didn’t come to compare digs.” He reached into his back pocket and removed a small jar. “I brought you some magic juice.”

  Katie squinted at him. “Magic what?”

  Chisolm approached and swung his leg over the bench, straddling it at her feet. “Sully said you took a hard kick to the leg?”

  Katie pressed her lips together. “Yeah, so?” She wondered if the two of them were yukking it up over the girl getting her ass kicked. Well, at least she hadn’t let the guy get away in a foot pursuit.

  Chisolm pointed to her propped leg. “This one?”

  Katie nodded.

  Chisolm settled onto the bench. He twisted the top off the small container and dug his first two fingers inside. When he removed them, his fingers were coated in a thick gel.

  “What is that?” she asked him.

  “I told you,” Chisolm said with a grin. “It’s magic juice. Now, where did that bastard kick you?”

  Katie shook her head. “No way, Tom. You’re not putting that stuff on me. Not without telling me what it is.”

  “Calf or quad?”

  “Quad,” Katie said, “but what the hell is that?”

  Chisolm fixed her with an amused look. “You don’t believe in magic, MacLeod?”

  “No.”

  “How about secret medicine?”

  “No.”

  “Wow.” Chisolm motioned toward her quadriceps. “Does it hurt?”

  “Yeah,” she admitted.

  “Throbs? Tries to cramp up?”

  “Both.”

  Chisolm proffered his gooey fingers to her. “That’s what the magic juice is for.”

  Katie hesitated, then said, “All right. I trust you.”

  Chisolm smiled. “Good.” He held his fingers out toward her hand.

  Katie shook her head. “Uh, no. I don’t want to touch that stuff, whatever it is. You do it.”

  “Fair enough,” Chisolm said. He reached toward her leg. Just before touching her, he paused. “This might hurt a little.”

  “Hurt? But you never said-”

  Chisolm smeared the thick yellow goop over the skin of her quadriceps. The cool sensation made her gasp lightly, though it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Then Chisolm dug his fingers into her muscle, rubbing in the ointment.

  Katie exhaled sharply. Jolts of pain zipped from her leg outward through her entire body. All of her muscles tightened up. She gripped the sides of the bench with her fingers and let out a quiet curse.

  Chisolm said nothing. His strong fingers kneaded her leg muscle, the roughness of his skin scraping and sliding across hers. The two remained silent while the veteran officer worked in the ointment. The coolness spread across her entire outer thigh. She could feel the sensation seeping into the muscle.

  Katie noticed that Chisolm focused on her leg with the clinical distance of a family doctor. She wondered for a moment how many of the other men she worked with would be comfortable rubbing medication onto her leg without making it into something more. How many of them would be able to do something like that and then not run off to the rest of the platoon to spill the secret like some kind of schoolboy?

  To be fair, she wondered how many men she’d feel safe enough with to let herself be touched? And were there some that she might react to with a hand on her leg? More than one kind of reaction, she decided, depending on who it was.

  The last thing she noticed before Chisolm drew his hands away was that he had studiously avoided the inner thigh.

  “There,” he said, twisting the cap back onto the container. “Give it about ten minutes to dry before you put anything over the top of it.”

  Katie gazed down at her leg. The skin bore a yellow tinge. The cool sensation seemed to be shifting into something warmer in the brief seconds since Chisolm’s touch.

  “You want to tell me what it is now?” Katie said. “It’s starting to get warm.”

  “Good,” Chisolm said. “It should feel like a heat pad for a few hours.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  Chisolm slid the canister back into his pocket. “Well, let me put it this way. Do you remember when you were a kid and had a stuffy nose? Your mom probably put some of that vapor rub stuff on your chest before you went to bed, right?”

  “My dad usually did stuff like that,” Katie answered, “but yeah.”

  “Well, this is sorta like a Ben-Gay version of that. With a little aspirin mixed in.” Chisolm shrugged, then added, “And a couple of herbal remedies I read about a few years ago.”

  Katie looked at him in wonder. “Wow, Tom. I never figured you for a medicine man.”

  Chisolm grinned broadly. Katie noticed that the thin white scar that ran from his temple to the corner of his mouth faded into his laugh lines a little when smiled like that.

  “Once you hit forty, MacLeod, you look for relief anywhere you can find it,” he said, lifting his pant leg and wiping the excess gel on his own lower calf. “See?”

  “Old age and Russians that kick like Chuck Norris,” Katie said. “An odd combination for a cure, even if it is magic juice.”

  Chisolm faked a scowl. “Who’s old? I said forty.” Then he smiled and tapped Katie lightly on the shoulder with his left hand. “Rest up, MacLeod. We’re back at it tomorrow.”

  “Thanks,” Katie said, her gratitude genuine. “And I will. See you tomorrow.”

  Chisolm winked at her, rose and left the ladies’ locker room.

  2321 hours

  Tower sat in Crawford’s office, rubbing his sleepy eyes. The heavy breathing of the Major Crimes Lieutenant irritated him, but he tried to hide his frustration.

  “You sure hit a home run with that interview, Tower,” Crawford said sarcastically.

  Tower shrugged. “I’m not much of a diplomat.”

  “Why exactly is he in custody?”

  “We tried to catch a trout and landed a perch.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  Tower rubbed his eyes again. “It means he didn’t do the rape, so we lost nothing there. And we have witnesses on the robbery attempt, so who cares what he says?”

  “Nice attitude,” Crawford said. “This task force of yours is not only crapping out, but it is causing collateral damage.”

  “Collateral what?”

  “Collateral damage,” Crawford repeated. “First, you’ve got MacLeod cranking off rounds under the bridge at no one. Now you’re arresting Boris.”

  “MacLeod’s thing was an accident,” Tower said in a low voice. “And the Russian tried to rob our decoy.”

  “There was nothing accidental about MacLeod firing her duty weapon without cause. It was a choice.”

  “It was a reaction.”

  “It was a reaction that makes me wonder if you picked the right patrol officers to support your operation, detective,” Crawford snapped. “And when I get called down here in the middle of the night on a goddamn attempted robbery call, something is definitely wrong.”r />
  “I’m sorry,” Tower said. “There’s only about two hundred thousand people in this city. Half are male. That leaves me one hundred thousand suspects. If you filter out non-whites and those too young or too old, that leaves about fifty thousand potential rapists. The odds that this particular guy will bite at our decoy aren’t that great.”

  Crawford gave him a dark look. “I’m not interested in odds, Tower. I’m interested in results. You better figure something out.”

  “I’m working on it,” Tower said.

  “If you can’t handle it, I can put a homicide detective in charge,” Crawford told him.

  Tower gritted his teeth. “It’s my case. It’ll make.”

  Crawford sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Then what’s your next move?”

  “We tried south of Clemons Park and it didn’t work. We’ll try to the north of it next.” He peered at Crawford through sleepy eyes. “What are you going to do about MacLeod’s A.D.?”

  “Never mind. Concentrate on catching your bad guy.”

  “I just don’t want that hanging over her, is all,” Tower said. “Distracting her.”

  “If she’s distracted, replace her.”

  “I don’t want to replace her. She’s good.”

  “Good at what?” Crawford snapped. “Killing rats or getting robbed?”

  “No,” Tower said, his voice tightening up. “She’s good at looking like a victim. She’s good bait.”

  “Everybody has to be good at something, I guess.”

  Tower clenched his jaw. Why does Crawford have to be such an insufferable prick every day of his life?

  “Meanwhile,” the lieutenant said, “keep her focused or replace her. I’ll tell you what we’ll do about the A.D. after I meet with the Captain.”

  “I thought this was your operation.”

  “Watch it, Tower.”

  Tower held up his hands in a peaceful gesture. “I’m just asking.”

  “What you’re being is a smart ass,” Crawford snarled. “Besides, it is my operation. But MacLeod is Patrol, so I’ll let the Patrol Captain decide what’s to be done about her accidental discharge.”

  Tower nodded his understanding.

  And I’m sure the two of you will make that decision over a couple of stogies in his office. You prick.

  “Anything else you want to say, Tower?”

  “No, sir.”

  Crawford nodded. “All right, then. Have there been any other developments in your case, besides the screw-ups by your task force team?”

  “None,” Tower told him sullenly.

  “No lab results? Nothing from Crime Analysis?”

  “Nope.”

  “Any tips?”

  “Nothing credible.”

  Crawford swore and rubbed his eye. When he’d finished, he looked up at Tower. He seemed to appraise the detective for a few moments, then said, “Go home and get some sleep. You look like shit.”

  “Thanks, boss,” Tower dead-panned.

  “I’m serious,” Crawford said. “Get some sleep.”

  Tower rose from his chair. “I will,” he said, and left.

  He planned to do exactly what Crawford ordered. He just wanted to stop by his desk and review the files once more. In case he missed something.

  When he’d settled into his chair and switched on the desk lamp, he figured maybe he’d check for any Field Interview Reports from patrol, too. And he might as well check on a few tips while he was at it. Just in case.

  He wouldn’t be long.

  Fifteen, twenty minutes. Tops.

  But it was almost three in the morning when he finally switched out the light at his desk and drove home on deserted streets. As he stood undressing in the darkness of his bedroom, he could hear Stephanie’s light, rhythmic breathing. He slid in next to her, kissed her bare shoulder and fell asleep in less than ten seconds.

  THIRTEEN

  Monday, April 22

  Day Shift

  0812 hours

  Lieutenant Alan Hart proofread his first of his two reports to the Chief of Police. The complaint against O’Sullivan and Battaglia flowed nicely, laying out the facts of the complaint and his findings in a clear, succinct, but complete fashion. His eyes flicked over the familiar words, slowing down at the RECOMMENDATION section long enough to enjoy his own prose.

  Clearly, both officers employ a great deal of irreverent humor in the course of their daily work. While humor is a common response to stress and can provide some relief to the tension associated with police work, it is not appropriate for officers to direct it maliciously toward the citizenry. The testimonial evidence uncovered in this case leads this investigator to the unavoidable conclusion that both officers are guilty of doing exactly that with regard to Mr. Elway, the complainant. Not only was Mr. Elway ridiculed and insulted, but this occurred while he was attempting to report a felony crime.

  This investigator does recommend a finding of FOUNDED with respect to the complaint of POOR DEMEANOR and INADEQUATE RESPONSE. This finding should be entered for both officers. This investigator recommends the following sanctions: One (1) day suspension for Officer O’Sullivan and a three (3) day suspension for Officer Battaglia. The difference in the sanction is justified due to the use of profanity by Officer Battaglia.

  Nothing Follows

  .

  Lieutenant Hart smiled. It was a well-written summary. Hopefully, the Chief would see things his way. These two clowns needed to get a firm message from management. Police work was not a big joke, no matter how much they might think so. A suspension might just get their attention. If it didn’t, well then it was a nice springboard to termination if they didn’t get with the program.

  He closed the file and slid it into a confidential envelope. Then he reached for the Chisolm file, which he’d just completed earlier that morning. While he wished he’d been able to find a bigger hammer for this one, he figured he’d just have to settle for what the case gave him.

  He flipped open the file and skimmed his report. Once again, he slowed at the RECOMMENDATION section and read carefully.

  Officer Chisolm’s speed may have been justified, given the nature of the call which he was assigned to assist. However, if one concedes that the response speed was appropriate, it naturally follows that the officer should have engaged his emergency equipment. The use of overhead lights is the lowest acceptable measure, though the intermittent use of a siren to clear traffic may have also been in order, depending upon traffic control devices and the number of civilian vehicles present.

  This precaution may or may not have occurred to Officer Chisolm, but in either event, he did not utilize this equipment as per policy. Rather than address this fact in his interview, he chose instead to become defensive and shift blame. As the transcript indicates, Officer Chisolm focused upon the criminal record of the complainant instead of his own actions. Although he rightfully identified the nature of the complainant’s offense, that fact had no bearing on the question of this investigation — did Officer Chisolm drive in an unsafe manner without using the appropriate emergency equipment as outlined in Policy 44A? The evidence clearly answers this question emphatically in the affirmative.

  Given that this transgression is firmly established, what should the sanction be? Under most circumstances, with no mitigating factors, this investigator would recommend a written reprimand for the involved officer. However, Officer Chisolm has shown a history of working outside of policy, flaunting rules and displaying considerable disrespect to his superior officers. This behavior can be, and frequently is, contagious. Additionally, this investigator saw very pointedly during the interview process that Officer Chisolm did not believe he had done anything wrong. He certainly did not express any remorse or accept any level of accountability for his actions. Therefore this investigator recommends a harsh sanction-a five (5) day suspension.

  Hart smiled grimly. He knew five days was excessive, but it was a calculated play on his part. Any more than five days might st
art to seem ridiculous and would probably be rejected outright by the Chief. But by recommending a five day suspension, he’d planted the seed that a suspension was warranted. The Chief might — probably would — reduce the sanction to one or two days, thinking he was going easy on Chisolm. And that played right into Hart’s hands.

  Of course, if he had his way, he’d have fired a malcontent like Chisolm a long time ago.

  But he wasn’t Chief.

  Yet.

  Hart smiled. A stint in Internal Affairs looked great on a resume when you walked into a promotional evaluation for the rank of captain. Especially a resume that showed that the time spent in IA was an active one.

  Yes, he’d make captain next time around. And the irony that he’d make it off of holding certain officers — two clowns and a burnout — accountable was not lost upon him.

  Hart slipped the Chisolm file into a confidential folder. He glanced through the small window in his office. Outside, a light misty rain was spitting water against the glass. He stood and reached for his raincoat. His smile spread across his face for a moment before he forced his expression back to neutral.

  It wouldn’t do to look as if he enjoyed delivering these files to the Chief. Even if, in fact, he did.

  No, a future captain had to keep up appearances.

  Hart opened the office door and stepped out to do his duty.

  2232 hours

  He sat in the small lounge, reading through the editorial page a second time. In addition to the scathing Op Ed article about the police keeping a serial rapist a secret, there were several letters to the editor. The ones that expressed outrage at the police were amusing, but there was the one that caught his interest. He read it over and over.

  Dear Editor:

  I hope that the River City Police Department understands what it is like to live in fear of a man like the Rainy Day Rapist. Never knowing when he might strike. Looking into every face with suspicion. Afraid to live our lives the way we want to out of a perverse terror that at any moment we might become a victim.

  This doesn’t just change my life every day. It destroys my ability to live.

  V. Rawlings