Beneath a Weeping Sky rcc-3

by Frank Zafiro

  Tower half-chuckled, half-snorted at his own thoughts.

  Jeez, am I really turning into that big of an asshole?

  Rather than study that question any further, he reached for the list of license plates that the surveillance officers had jotted down. At his request, they’d noted any cars that pulled onto Calispel during surveillance, as well as cars parked a block in either direction. It was a long shot, but at this point, he didn’t have much else.

  Systematically, he began running the license plate numbers through the Department of Licensing computer. That gave him the registered owner. If it were a male, he’d run that male through the criminal database. He’d also run a history on the address and get any other male names from that, which he’d also run through the criminal database. Anyone with a criminal record would be a nice start, but he figured he should look hard at anyone whose car didn’t belong in the neighborhood by virtue of living there. Maybe the Rainy Day Rapist had driven by to case MacLeod’s house.

  As he worked, he thought about the women who’d been victimized in this case. While his analytical mind worked on the license plate data, he let the unconscious part of his mind drift over the names.

  Heather Torin.

  Patricia Reno.

  Maureen Hite.

  Wendy Latah.

  How were they different?

  How were they the same?

  How did he pick them? Was it coincidence or design?

  Tower kept tapping information into the computer, reviewing the returns. Both sides of his brain whirred with activity, but the only thing that he knew for sure was that the Rainy Day Rapist was getting progressively more violent. Tower was pretty certain that if he didn’t find the suspect before he struck again, the news media was going to have to change his name to the Rainy Day Killer.

  Graveyard Shift

  2129 hours

  “So?” Matt Westboard asked Katie as soon as they were clear of the basement of the police station.

  “So what?” she replied from the passenger seat, but she knew what he was asking.

  “How are you holding up?” Westboard asked.

  Katie gave a long, irritated sigh. “Please, Matt. Not you, too, okay?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Katie watched the scenery of River City’s West Central neighborhood flit by. The smaller single-family homes were some of the older houses in the city. It was easy for Katie to tell which were owned and which were rentals, as the well-tended lawns and neatly painted homes alternated with the overgrown yards and houses with chipped, peeling walls. She greatly preferred working up in Hillyard instead, even though the scene there was much the same, just with homes from the 1950s instead of the 1920s. But since Westboard was driving, his choice as to where they’d patrol was pretty much the default. Maybe she’d suggest they give Hillyard a try later in the shift.

  “How’s Putter doing?” she asked, changing the subject.

  Westboard smiled knowingly. “Your cat’s doing fine. He likes to sleep on the recliner in my living room.”

  “And you let him?”

  Westboard snorted. “He’s a cat. Like I can tell him what to do.”

  “I don’t let him sleep on the furniture,” Katie objected lightly.

  “Yeah, well, he’s a guest, so he gets special privileges at my house.”

  Katie shrugged. “Your call. I hate to see how spoiled your kids will be one day, though.”

  Westboard didn’t answer. After a few moments of silence, he repeated his earlier question. “What’d you mean before?”

  Katie turned her head, facing the other officer. There was no sense of guile about him. She felt momentarily guilty for including him with most of the others. While they didn’t hang out away from work, Westboard had proven to be a good friend on duty. He probably didn’t deserve any attitude.

  “I’m sorry, Matt,” she said. “It’s just been a frustrating week.”

  “Not enjoying your vacation with Chisolm?”

  She shrugged. “That part isn’t so bad. Tom’s a nice guy. He gives me my space when I need it, but he’ll hang out with me if I’m in the mood. We’ve watched Jeopardy just about every night. He’s pretty good at it.”

  “That comes with getting old,” Westboard joked. “Pretty soon, Alzheimer’s will kick in and that streak will end.”

  “Maybe. But he’s been cool through all of this. I mean, I’m sure there’s someplace he’d rather be.”

  Westboard grinned and said nothing.

  Katie noticed the grin. “What?”

  Westboard shrugged and shook his head. “Nothing.”

  She figured it out then. “My God, Matt. You’re as bad as the others.”

  “I didn’t say anything,” he protested.

  “You didn’t have to.”

  “I didn’t,” he repeated.

  “You didn’t have to,” she repeated back. “You guys are all alike. So does everyone else think the same thing?” She imagined it were so, but had held out a futile hope that maybe, just maybe some of her co-workers would give her the benefit of the doubt. Or Chisolm, for that matter.

  Westboard glanced over at her. “Oh, you mean does everyone think you and Chisolm are fooling around?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I mean. Duh.”

  “I don’t know. Probably a few. That’s not what I meant, though.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “No, it’s not. Honest.”

  Katie frowned at him. “Really?”

  He gave her an emphatic nod. “Really.”

  “What did you mean, then?”

  Westboard turned on Nettleton Street, slowing to a crawl. He scanned the sidewalks as he drove. “All I meant was that I don’t think there’s anywhere else Chisolm would rather be than protecting you. That’s it.”

  Katie narrowed her eyes, thinking. “That’s almost the same thing.”

  “Not even close.”

  “Saying that Tom and I are shacking up at the hotel and saying that there’s no place he’d rather be than shacking up is pretty much the same thing, Matt.”

  “That would be,” Westboard agreed. “But that’s not what I said.”

  “It’s exactly what you said.”

  “Okay, then it’s not what I was referring to.”

  “Then what?”

  Westboard stopped for the stop sign at Boone. He turned to look at Katie before answering. “I’m just saying that the kind of guy Chisolm is, being on a protection detail for a platoon mate is probably his idea of heaven.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Come on, Katie. That’s exactly what drives the guy. You ever hear him talk about anything away from work?”

  “No, but neither do you.”

  Westboard shook his head. “Sure, I’m private, but at least you know when I’ve gone to Mexico on vacation or seen a baseball game. I told you when I bought a new truck. Chisolm ever talk about something like that? Does he ever talk about anything?”

  Katie considered. She had to concede that Westboard had a valid argument. Even in the ten days they’d spent in adjacent rooms at the hotel, Chisolm had shared little in the way of personal information. “You could have a point,” she admitted.

  “I know,” he said, crossing Boone and cruising slowly. “And that point is what I meant.”

  “Sorry, then.”

  “Apology accepted. Now, answer the rest of the question.”

  “I forgot the question.” She pointed at a house on the corner of Nettleton and Sinto. Two different insulation brand names were plastered across the unfinished outside of the structure. “That place has been waiting for siding for two years now.”

  Westboard grunted that he knew, then gave her an impatient wave of his hand.

  Katie sighed. “All right. It’s just that this last week has sucked. I’m holed up at the hotel on my off time. Then I have to ride with someone every day at work.”

  “How has it been partnering up?”

  Katie s
hrugged and glanced out the window. She saw a long-haired man in jeans and some kind of heavy metal T-shirt raking his small lawn under the harsh yellow porch light. He noticed the police car cruising by, stopped and stared. Katie raised her hand in a small wave. The man didn’t wave back, but continued to stare defiantly at them as the car rolled past.

  “Nice to have your support,” Katie muttered to the closed window.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” Katie said, turning away from the window. “Riding partners has been…interesting.”

  “Interesting how?”

  “Well, for starters, Battaglia hit on me all night long.”

  Westboard’s eyebrows shot up. “No way.”

  She nodded slowly. “Yep. That was ten hours of the married man waltz.”

  “Ouch. I wouldn’t have figured that about him. Sully, too, then?”

  “No. Actually, Sully went too far the other way, making sure that I didn’t take anything he said as a come on.”

  Westboard’s face bore a surprised expression. “I wouldn’t have figured that, either.”

  Katie laughed lightly. “It was kind of cute, but kind of annoying, too. And then when we ended up riding together two days in a row, it was even worse the second day.”

  “Who would’ve known the twins were actually so different?”

  Katie waved his comment away. “Ah, they were both pining away for the other by midnight, anyway.” She faked a deep voiced, Italian accent. “I wonder what Sully’s doing on that call. Let’s go see if he needs any help.”

  Westboard laughed at her impression.

  Katie shifted into a light, Irish lilt. “Let’s check up on Batts, lass. Just in case he needs some assistance.”

  “That’s pretty good,” laughed Westboard. “I think you have them nailed.”

  She shook her head in mock disgust. “It’s like they were going through withdrawals or something.”

  “So how about Kahn?”

  Katie wrinkled her nose. “Ugh. Too much aftershave and too much bragging. All night long.”

  “Figured that one. And Chisolm?”

  “Chisolm was…Chisolm.”

  “And now,” Westboard pronounced in a grand tone and a stately wave, “you have moi.”

  Katie laughed at his pomp. “It’s not the company that sucks,” she said, although that wasn’t entirely true. Kahn’s braggadocio and not so subtle hints disgusted her as much as Battaglia’s flirting surprised her. But she was a big girl. She could deal with those things. “The part that bothers me is that I’m being treated like some kind of china doll. Like I have to be protected or I’ll break.”

  Westboard shrugged. “Pretty big stuff that happened to you. And those threats…”

  “Fine,” Katie conceded. “But I still don’t think they’d have gone to this extreme if I was a man.”

  Westboard’s only reply was to continue rolling slowly forward through West Central. Finally, he asked her, “Does it matter?”

  A warm spike of anger flared in Katie’s gut. “Of course it matters!”

  “Why?”

  “Would you like it if they treated you different”?

  “No,” Westboard whispered. “I wouldn’t.”

  “Neither do I,” Katie answered.

  Afterward, they drove in silence for a long while, thinking.

  Thursday, May 8th

  Day Shift

  1018 hours

  Captain Michael Reott opened the office window. He reached out through the slanted opening and caught some of the cascading rain on his hands. Then he wiped the cool water on his face and the back of his neck.

  “You should leave that open,” Lieutenant Crawford told him.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Get some fresh air in here,” Crawford said. “This office reeks of cigars. If the Chief ever comes in here — ”

  “The Chief of Police doesn’t care if I smoke a cigar in my office. I’d be more worried if some smoking Nazi from City Hall came knocking.”

  Crawford shrugged and stirred his coffee. “Leave it open, anyway, Mike. The cool air is nice.”

  Reott agreed and left the window open. He sat down at his desk, reached into the drawer and removed a package of Rolaids. “Now I know why they pay us more than the line troops,” he said, holding up the antacids. “I bet I spend a thousand bucks a year on these little bastards.”

  He removed two and popped them into his mouth.

  Crawford chuckled. “That’s not why they pay us more, and you know it.”

  “No, I suppose not,” Reott said, crushing the chalky tablets with his molars. “I guess they pay us because we’re the ones who have to make the tough decisions.”

  “That’s some of it.”

  “Some? What’s the rest, then?”

  Crawford raised his eyebrows. “They didn’t teach you this at the FBI National Academy?”

  Reott waved his comment away. “You want to tell me, then tell me. But don’t break my balls.”

  “Fine. They do pay us more to make the tough decisions. But the thing is, most every one of those decisions will probably piss someone off, right?”

  Reott half nodded, half shrugged in agreement.

  “Of course it will,” Crawford continued. “It’ll piss off the citizens, or it’ll piss off the patrol cops. Or the detectives. It might even go the other direction and piss off your boss or God forbid, the Mayor. Point is, if it doesn’t piss somebody off, then it probably wasn’t such a tough decision.”

  “Agreed. So what?”

  “So,” Crawford continued, “if a good leader makes tough decisions and if making those tough decisions pisses people off, then pretty soon you’ll have pissed off enough people that pretty much no one will like you anymore.”

  “You’re saying that we get a little more pay in case people start disliking us?”

  “No,” Crawford corrected. “I’m saying that they inevitably will. And dislike is a weak word.”

  “Oh?”

  “The more accurate word is hate. They’ll end up hating you for it. As a leader, you’ll eventually become something of an outcast. When that social ostracizing happens, there’s only one thing left to do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Drink.”

  Reott blinked. “Drink?”

  Crawford nodded. “Yep. What else are you going to do? Stop making those decisions? Start making decisions based on how popular it’ll make you?” He shook his head. “No. All you can do is say fuck it, and have a drink.”

  Reott sighed. “You’re on quite a downer jag these days.”

  “That’s life. You ought to be used to it, Captain.”

  “I’m still trying to get my mind wrapped around your point,” Reott said, frowning. “The added pay is because I might become an alcoholic?”

  “How’d you get to be a captain with that little brain?” Crawford asked, a roguish grin forming under his moustache.

  “I took a Civil Service exam.”

  “Ah, that explains a lot.”

  “You made lieutenant the same way,” Reott reminded him.

  “True, but at least I’ve figured out why it came with a pay raise.”

  “So you can drink more?”

  “No.” Crawford shook his head. “So that when you’re sitting alone at your house with no friends anywhere to be seen, crying in your cups, at least you can commiserate with a little bit finer brand of booze.”

  Reott let out a long, knowing chuckle. “Oh, that’s rich.”

  “It’s true.”

  “I know,” Reott said, still laughing.

  Crawford smiled and drank his coffee.

  Reott allowed himself a few more quiet chuckles, thinking of the two bottles of seventeen year old Glengoyne single malt Scotch whisky at home in his cupboard. He’d dropped over a hundred bucks for the two of them right before Christmas last year, so maybe Crawford had a point.

  His laughter tapered off. He resumed chewing his Rolaids and swallo
wed. When he’d finished, he leaned back in his chair. “So where are we on this rapist?”

  “We’re nowhere,” Crawford replied.

  “Aren’t you just a little ray of sunshine?”

  Crawford shrugged. “It is what it is. Tower hasn’t come up with anything. The victims didn’t see anything. The forensics is a bust.”

  “What about the composite sketch?”

  “Tons of responses, just like I expected.”

  “And?”

  “And Tower ran them all down. Most of them, anyway. I’ve got Finch and Elias running down some of the others, along with the other dicks in Sexual Assault.”

  “But no luck,” Reott concluded.

  “No luck,” Crawford said.

  “Which leaves us with what?”

  “It leaves us with nothing,” Crawford said, the frustration in his voice apparent.

  “We can’t keep MacLeod in limbo like this forever,” Reott said. “How long has it been?”

  “Only a week and a half.”

  “I’ll bet ‘only’ isn’t a word MacLeod would use to describe it.”

  Crawford shrugged. “You want my take on this?”

  “I didn’t ask you in here for your theories on police pay scales.”

  Crawford ignored the jest. “I think he’s moved on.”

  “You mean left River City?”

  “Yes. I think that when things got too hot, he packed up and moved on.”

  Reott looked at Crawford, appraising the Investigative Lieutenant’s words. Finally, he said, “The investigation part of this is your call. I don’t know if I agree with your theory, but it’s your call to make.”

  “I know.”

  “But I’m curious why you think this guy’s gone.”

  “He was on a rampage, Mike. He couldn’t control himself. Then he almost gets caught. Now there hasn’t been a stranger rape for two weeks.”

  “That’s not very long.”

  “He raped two of them one day apart,” Crawford pointed out, shaking his head. “No, this guy is compulsive. He couldn’t stop himself if he tried.”

  “What does Tower think?”

  “All he cares about is catching the guy. He’s not going to admit the possibility that this suspect is out of his reach.”