In Pursuit of Justice

by Radclyffe

  “So,” he said with soft finality. “What you’re saying is that you would risk your life…no, forfeit your life…for anyone in the same situation.”

  “I’m a cop, Whitaker,” Rebecca remarked sharply, at last allowing her impatience to show. “In case you haven’t noticed, that’s what we do. I’m not a loose cannon; I’m not a danger to society. I’m not a risk to anyone.”

  “Except yourself.”

  Standing, she asked quietly, “Are we done here?”

  “For today, yes. I’d like to see you one more time, which is my standard operating procedure.” As she turned to leave, he added, “You might consider, Sergeant, that you would be much more effective if you valued yourself as much as those you are sworn to protect.”

  She didn’t answer but closed the door gently behind her.

  *

  When Rebecca stepped out into the hallway after leaving Whitaker’s office, she turned right and almost walked into Watts, who was leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette under a big bright red No Smoking sign. She stared at him. “What are you doing here?”

  “I saw you pull into the parking lot this morning.”

  “And what? You didn’t have anything better to do for an hour than hang around out here?”

  “Well,” he said unhurriedly, taking the last drag on his cigarette, dropping it onto the stained tile floor, and crushing it beneath his scuffed wingtips, “Now that you mention it, I do have something better to do, and I thought you might like something better to do, too.”

  “What have you got?” She was curious despite her irritation at finding him outside the psychologist’s office.

  It wasn’t exactly a secret what she was doing there, but she still didn’t like being reminded that her colleagues were aware of the fact that she was undergoing evaluation. Even though she was not under any kind of suspicion, the process still made her feel as if she was not on firm ground within her own province. As much as she intellectually accepted the need for police officers, with their steady diet of stress and physical danger, to have the support of psychologists who understood the pressures of the job, it was still something of a stigma to actually see one.

  Before Watts could speak, she snapped, “Let’s get out of here.”

  As the two of them walked toward the stairwell at the end of the hallway, Watts replied, “I’ve tracked down a guest of the state, conveniently staying at the correctional institution at Graterford, who might be willing to provide a bit of information for a little something from us in return. You know the drill—these cons will roll on their own mothers for extra privileges or a shot at an earlier parole hearing.”

  “Who is he?” Rebecca asked, her pulse quickening at the thought of any kind of hard lead. It wasn’t in her nature to sit by and wait for other departments, or in this case federal agents, to point her in the right direction on a case. If Sloan and McBride turned up something with their Internet searches, all the better, but she wasn’t holding her breath.

  “A guy by the name of Alonso Richards. He’s doing six to ten for possession with the intent to sell.”

  “Huh,” Rebecca said disappointedly. “Drugs. What makes you think he can help us?”

  “Because when they raided the house where he was holed up with his stash of crack cocaine, they also found some very interesting videotapes. Tapes with a whole bunch of teenage girls and a couple of…uh…mature men frolicking in the nude in a variety of combinations. And they weren’t commercial tapes—these were home movies.”

  “Do you have the tapes?”

  Watts shook his head disgustedly. “Nope. I checked with the evidence room last night. Mysteriously, the tapes have disappeared.”

  “So we don’t know who was on them?”

  “No such luck. There was no mention as to whether the men were ever ID’d or not.”

  Rebecca stopped at the bottom of the stairwell and stared at Watts. “How did you find this? And how come we’re just hearing about it now?”

  Watts shrugged, but his expression was wary. “Something doesn’t smell right, but I can’t figure out where the smell is coming from. Since we’re Vice, someone from Narco should have tipped us off about it when they turned up the tapes during the raid. But it was buried in the arrest report, and the only reason I found it at all is because I pulled the files on the busts you and Cruz made when you closed down that chicken coop last spring.”

  They pushed through the exit door into the parking lot, where Watts promptly lit another cigarette. Rebecca regarded him impatiently.

  “And?”

  Hastily taking a drag, he continued. “I was looking to find some connection with the guys running that deal, hoping we’d find someone still working the streets. Didn’t find anything, so I cross-referenced the names of the guys you sent away for known associates. Then I ran the names of those guys looking for recent activity and out popped this Richards.”

  Police vans, cruisers, and unmarked vehicles were interspersed with civilian cars in the broad lot. As the two of them wove between the haphazardly parked automobiles toward Rebecca’s Corvette, she remarked, “You must have spent a lot of time humping that computer. Nice job.”

  He didn’t reply, but a smile flickered across his face and was just as quickly gone. “I think we need to hunt down the Narc dicks who made the bust and find out why we never heard about the pornography tie-in. I’ve called and left messages, but no callbacks. Anything to do with prostitution and kids should have automatically been kicked over to someone in our division, and I couldn’t find a record of it.”

  As Rebecca opened the door and slid into the seat, she grumbled, “There seem to be a lot of things that we should have been informed of that we haven’t been. Come to think of it, Cruz and I were lucky to have made that initial arrest. We were tipped off to the place by a junkie we were bracing about something entirely unrelated, and he gave up the location hoping we’d leave him alone. Now I wonder if we hadn’t moved on it so quickly whether there would have been anyone there at all when we showed up.”

  When Watts had settled in beside her, she swiveled in her seat and said to him, “How come you didn’t tell me about the rumors that Jeff Cruz was dirty?”

  Watts merely regarded her with his bland, laid-back to the point of stupor expression. “Because it’s bullshit. And if I had any idea who started that talk, I’d wait for them some night after dark out here in the parking lot and kick the crap out of them. Cruz was a cop who died in the line of duty, and you don’t tarnish a cop’s badge unless you’ve got evidence carved in stone.”

  Rebecca started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot. There wasn’t any reason to comment. For once, she and Watts were in perfect agreement.

  *

  Three hours later, Rebecca dropped Watts off in front of the one-eight. “I need to stop around to Sloan’s office and put in an appearance,” she said. “You want to write this up and run those names through the computer?”

  “Sure,” Watts said, considering it wise not to mention that she was supposed to be on desk duty and he was supposed to be the leg man. Whoever thought they could put Frye behind a desk didn’t know her very well, or knew her well enough to know that it would be a sit-down job in name only. “Hey, Sarge,” he added as if in afterthought, “if you’re going to poke around in other departments, you might not want to spread around why.”

  Rebecca studied him thoughtfully. Not counting the period of her recovery, she and Watts had really only worked together a few weeks. She had absolutely no reason to trust him, but she reluctantly had to admit to herself that she did.

  “What are you saying, Watts?”

  “I’m not saying anything,” he intoned innocently. He looked as if he was about to scratch his balls, and then thought better of it, putting his hand in his pocket instead. “I just think it would pay to be careful until we know what happened to Hogan and Cruz.”

  “You think we have a leak in the department?”

  “Don’t
you?” His expression didn’t change, but his eyes grew hard.

  She looked away for a second, thinking of all the inconsistencies that had surfaced in just a few days. Homicide had apparently dropped the investigation of two dead detectives; files were missing from the crime scene lab concerning the deaths of the same two cops; arrest reports containing information that might have pointed toward a local child prostitution network had been buried; and, finally, she had been quietly assigned to an investigation that was being run from outside the department but which seemed to have connections to local organized crime figures. She was beginning to wonder exactly who Avery Clark was investigating.

  “Yeah, Watts, I do. That or something worse. So you watch your back, too, okay?”

  “You don’t have to worry about me, Sarge. I don’t intend to make waves.” Whistling, he turned and walked away.

  She watched him for a minute, wondering how many people he had fooled with his blasé facade. Watts was a good cop, and that was one department secret she was happy to have uncovered. Just as she was about to pull away, her beeper went off, and she recognized the University Hospital’s number. She fished her cell phone from her pocket and punched in the number even as she headed across town toward University City.

  “This is Frye,” she said when the call was picked up.

  “It’s Catherine, Rebecca.”

  Rebecca’s heart skipped a beat. “Hey. I’m just on my way over. Can I see you?”

  “I’m in my office.”

  “Is everything okay?” There was an odd formality to Catherine’s tone that made Rebecca uneasy.

  “Everything’s fine. I just wanted to talk to you for a minute.”

  “Okay,” Rebecca replied suspiciously. It hadn’t been her experience that when a woman wanted to talk to her that it was something minor. Especially not when she and that woman had parted on less than perfect terms the night before.

  Catherine laughed, picking up on Rebecca’s uncertainty. “And I wanted to tell you that I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too.”

  “Good. Drive carefully.”

  *

  An instant after Rebecca knocked, Catherine answered the door.

  “Hi,” Rebecca said, hesitating on the threshold, still feeling uncertain about her welcome.

  “Hi.” Catherine took her detective’s hand and pulled the unresisting woman into the waiting room that adjoined her office, closing the door resolutely. “Joyce is at lunch, and I don’t have a session for an hour. What about you?”

  “My schedule is my own. I’m still on light duty, remember?”

  “Yes, I know that’s what it’s called,” Catherine said dryly. “Come on back to my office.”

  Catherine locked her inner office door and motioned Rebecca to the couch, then settled beside her. Before she could speak, Rebecca slipped an arm around her waist and kissed her. It was more than a simple hello kiss. There was an edge to it, an underlying pulse of hunger that immediately left Catherine aroused. She kissed her in return, for longer than she should have, but she liked knowing that she stirred this desire in her. Finally, she broke away, palms against Rebecca’s chest.

  “Enough. I’m working,” she reminded her lover regretfully. “I have to see patients in less than an hour. I can’t sit here all afternoon in a state of sexual frustration.”

  “I could fix that in just a few minutes.”

  Catherine laughed. “I have no doubt that you could. But I think I’d rather anticipate now and be satisfied later at a slightly more leisurely pace.”

  “Then that’s what you shall have,” Rebecca promised, lifting Catherine’s hand from her chest and kissing her palm. Serious now, she asked, “What did you need to see me about?”

  Catherine appeared uncharacteristically tentative as she glanced away, then met Rebecca’s gaze squarely. Taking a deep breath, she said quietly, “I was contacted by Agent Clark this morning. He requested my services as a consultant to a task force he’s running.”

  Rebecca stiffened, and her eyes grew cold. “Son of a bitch,” she said softly. “How did he get your name?”

  “I’m on the list of departmental consultants,” Catherine said. “He also mentioned Captain Henry.”

  Rebecca got up and quickly crossed the room to the window that fronted the street. She’d stood there once before, the first night she’d met Catherine, but it had been dark then. She watched university students come and go outside the window, carefree and confident. It was a beautiful early September day.

  Without turning, she asked, “What did you say?”

  “I said I would get back to him. This is your task force, isn’t it?”

  “No,” Rebecca said sharply, her back still to the room. “It’s Clark’s task force.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  There was no anger or accusation in Catherine’s voice, and Rebecca realized that Catherine had not instigated the situation. Her lover didn’t deserve her wrath. Turning to face her, she tried to figure out why she felt like punching something. “I’m sorry. You caught me off guard. Yes, it’s the task force I’m involved with—the pornography prostitution investigation.”

  “I work with the police fairly frequently, Rebecca. It’s quite likely that you and I will come into professional contact from time to time.”

  “I know. Why didn’t you give Clark your answer earlier?” She tried and failed to keep the resentment from her voice.

  “Because this is the first time something like this has come up for us,” Catherine said gently. “I wanted to see how you felt about it.”

  “Does that matter?”

  “Yes, it does.” Catherine heard the anger, but she saw something else in the troubled blue gaze. Worry. Gently, she said, “You matter. And we matter very much to me.”

  “The last time you and I worked together,” Rebecca pointed out darkly, “it ended badly.”

  “But this isn’t the same thing, though, is it?” When Rebecca was silent, Catherine rose and crossed to her, worried now herself. “Is it, Rebecca? You said this was more or less an administrative assignment for you. That it wasn’t dangerous. Is there more to it than that?”

  “No,” Rebecca said, deciding that there was no point in bringing up her suspicions and speculations about something going on behind the scenes in the department. She didn’t really have any facts, and there was no point in worrying her lover for nothing. Still, she didn’t like the idea of Catherine being anywhere near an investigation that felt as off as this one did. “I only wonder why Clark isn’t bringing in his own people. If there’s one thing the feds have plenty of, it’s profilers.”

  “I asked him the same thing,” Catherine said. “He pointed out that we’re not profiling an individual but just a general pathologic type, and that I probably have as much experience with it as anyone. He also suggested that it would be helpful to have someone local so that…he mentioned two people, Sloan and McBride…so they would have someone immediately available if they got a hit.”

  “That makes sense,” Rebecca agreed reluctantly.

  “Rebecca,” Catherine said, taking the other woman’s hand. “This is what I do, and it’s something I love to do. If it’s going to be a problem working this closely with me—”

  “No,” Rebecca interrupted swiftly, finally getting her emotions under control. “It’s not. When you first mentioned it, I thought about Blake. That’s all.”

  “It’s not the same thing.” Catherine moved closer, gently threading her arms around Rebecca’s waist. “I will never do anything like that again. I would never put you in danger.”

  Rebecca stared at her uncomprehendingly. “What are you talking about?”

  “I insisted on being involved in the Blake investigation, and it resulted in you being shot. Nearly killed.” Her voice broke on the last word.

  “That wasn’t your fault.”

  “Yes, it was.” There were tears in her voice, although her face was calm.

  “Jesus, C
atherine. Is that what you think? You blame yourself?” She pulled her tightly into her arms, resting her cheek against Catherine’s hair. She thought back to the nights that Catherine had lain beside her, tossing fitfully and awakening in terror. Christ, how could I have been so blind?

  “Is that what the dreams are about?”

  When Catherine didn’t answer, Rebecca leaned back, cupping Catherine’s chin in her palm. Looking into her deep green eyes, she saw the pain swimming close to the surface. “No. It wasn’t your fault. What happened—that was my decision. I thought of Blake just now because I don’t want you anywhere near an investigation that might be dangerous. I can’t stand the thought of anything happening to you. I can still see him with that fucking gun against your head.”

  Suddenly, they were both trembling, each of them remembering that moment, each fearing for the other. Quietly, Catherine said, “I love you.”

  Rebecca pressed her lips to Catherine’s temple, her fingers curved possessively on the back of her neck. “And I love you.” Sighing, she asked, “When are you briefing with us?”

  “Tomorrow at 7:00 a.m.” Her cheek was still nestled against Rebecca’s shoulder. “Will you come to me tonight?”

  “It might be late,” Rebecca answered reluctantly.

  “I don’t care.”

  “I want to. I miss you so much.”

  Eyes closed, listening to Rebecca’s heartbeat, Catherine said softly, “Then don’t stay away.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Rebecca knew that what she should do was go home and catch some sleep, but she was too restless for that. Watts was following up on the scant help they’d gotten from Alonso Richards, the inmate at the State Correctional Institution at Graterford, in exchange for a promise to get him moved to another cell block far away from a particular prisoner who wanted to kill him for reasons Richards couldn’t imagine. He’d reluctantly given them a couple of names of some of his old running buddies who might know somebody who possibly knew somebody who maybe had once helped make some sex movies. But he swore he didn’t know who or where or for whom—all he knew was that it was someplace in the city and the chicks were young.