Behind the Badge

by J. D. Cunegan

  “With all due respect, ma'am,” Jill began, “if you've got something to say, just go ahead and say it.”

  “You have been warned, repeatedly, to tread lightly on this case,” Baldwin explained.

  Another frown from Jill. “I have? Mystery lawyer aside, everyone’s been pretty rah-rah about it.”

  Baldwin sucked in a deep breath as her jaw clenched. “I don't care if you have the highest closure rate in the city, Detective. You have repeatedly demonstrated reckless behavior and a complete disregard for the way things are done in this department.”

  “So the fact that I want justice for Devin Buckner is a bad thing?”

  Baldwin's shoulders slumped ever so slightly; she was a black woman, and she understood exactly the gist of what Jill was trying to say. Even as the second-highest in terms of rank within the BPD, there were people she had to answer to, and Jill couldn't help but wonder if this little visit was requested by someone else. The commissioner? Maybe the mayor? Or the governor, perhaps? Baldwin stunk of false bravado, as if she didn't really believe the tongue lashing she had been ordered to give.

  “You know what I had to swear to when I got this?” Jill asked, grabbing the badge from her hip and waving it in Baldwin's face. “To protect and serve, uphold and defend the law. I was not hired to kiss ass, and I was not hired to look the other way while other cops abused their authority because they haven't yet joined the 21st century. A kid is dead, and it is up to me and my team to make sure the people responsible pay for it.”

  The left corner of Baldwin's mouth crept upward as she unfolded her arms and unbuttoned her blazer. She studied Jill, her eyes working up and down before her shoulders relaxed and she gave a terse nod. “Stubborn doesn't quite do you justice, Detective. I kind of admire you for it.” She grabbed for her bag again, slinging it over her right shoulder. “Tell me, Andersen... you're scheduled to take the Sergeant's exam, correct?”

  Jill blinked and deflated. “Three weeks from now.”

  “Hm.” With another nod, Baldwin turned to leave the break room, but she stopped when she reached the door. Turning to glance back at Jill, the sideways grin on the deputy commissioner's face was gone. “Good luck with that.”

  CHAPTER 37

  Fifteen years ago...

  As the days crept by, it turned out the concussion was the least of Paul Andersen's problems. Every lead he and Richards had uncovered in their investigation had disappeared. It was almost as if Paul's run-in with Officer Brady and the mystery assailant had been the tipping point. Whereas Paul had worried about another attack -- and maybe even an attempt on his loved ones’ lives -- the tactic seemed to have shifted. Instead of brute force, Officer Brady or those working behind the scenes on his behalf had taken to subterfuge.

  Not that this sort of thing was new; police departments all over the country were rife with stories of whistleblowers and other cops who were stonewalled and blackballed for daring to stand up to those who abused their badges. Paul had been naïve to think his own investigation wouldn't come with some blowback. More accurately, he hadn't expected the blowback to be so severe. Captain Franklin had pledged his support for Paul and Richards from day one, but if the raised voices Paul could hear from within the captain's office were any indication, that support had come with a cost.

  Whoever was behind the clean-up had been thorough; aside from the notes Paul had kept at home locked in a safe in the bedroom, there was nothing left. Even the white dry-erase board beside his desk had been wiped clean. All of the other detectives and uniforms had plead ignorance, and so far, the questioning of the janitorial staff had been no more fruitful. So either whoever was behind this was just that good, or someone was covering someone else's tracks.

  It didn't help that security cameras were disabled for the week due to scheduled maintenance.

  How convenient that was.

  “Bullshit,” Richards muttered, taking off glasses that were thicker than Paul thought possible. Richards' poor eyesight had long been a source of good-natured humor between them, though Paul had cut down on the teasing once he found out just how expensive that particular prescription was.

  “So what now?” was all Paul could muster, wincing at the dull throb in the back of his head.

  “You should be at home with an ice pack,” Richards warned.

  Janice had argued the same earlier that morning, after the oatmeal Paul had eaten for breakfast made an immediate repeat appearance. The doctor had advised Paul to take a few days off, and everyone in his family had agreed, but Paul wouldn't let himself take the time. Not when murderers were still roaming free and disguising themselves as heroes. Homicide cases always took on a rabbit-hole quality as far as Paul was concerned, but this one was so much more stressful than others. The internal pressures alone were almost enough to give Paul a migraine and an ulcer, and the fact that they were back at square one -- largely because internal politics had intervened...

  “I can't.” Paul grimaced when he tried to shake his head. “Not while Brady and whoever's with him are still out there.”

  “We're dead in the water, man.” Richards flipped his pen end over end in the air before catching it. He was just as angry as Paul, if not more so, and he knew it was because Richards was a black man. Whereas Paul was experiencing all of this on the periphery, he knew his partner was reliving vivid, unpleasant memories. Even if nothing had happened to Richards personally, he felt the pain of decades, if not centuries, of racial strife. Just looking at Richards' face told Paul those wounds weren't the kind that healed. “They're gonna keep movin' the goalposts on us til another body washes up. You know it, and I know it.”

  “And you can kiss that pay raise goodbye,” Paul muttered with a hint of regret in his voice. “There has to be something we can do...”

  Only one suspect had been brought in the night Paul had called for back-up. Apparently, in the interim between when he passed out and when the authorities arrived, the masked man had fled the scene. Officer Brady had been medically evaluated and questioned -- by someone else entirely -- before being sent on his way and returning to active duty. That was the biggest insult of all, knowing Officer Brady was still roaming the streets with everything that came with being a cop after murdering a child.

  As for the other man... well, near as Paul could tell, no one had bothered to look for him.

  At that moment, the elevator doors slid open with a ding, one of the many uniformed officers who worked the Homicide floor walking into the bullpen with his police-issued hat tucked under his left arm. Paul rose in his seat with a frown, noting the bruise on the man's neck above his shirt collar and what appeared to be other marks on his face. More than the marks, though, Paul recognized the man himself. The light in the bullpen wasn't great, but it was better than a street lamp in the middle of a busy downtown Baltimore intersection at night.

  “Holy shit,” Paul muttered.

  Richards glanced over his shoulder. “What?”

  “That uniform, heading to the break room,” Paul kept his voice down, indicating with a head nod, “that's the masked man from the other night.”

  When Richards saw who Paul was talking about, his frown deepened. “Paulson? You sure?”

  “Positive,” Paul said, bolting from his chair and making a beeline for the break room. Cursing under his breath, Richards rose from his desk as well, in hot pursuit.

  CHAPTER 38

  Present day...

  Jill wasn't much of a drinker. She was known to knock back a beer or two in casual company, and she frequently hung out with Ramon for drinks either at one of their apartments or at O'Shea's. She had occasionally thrown back shots with her brother, but Jill wasn't the sort of person to turn to alcohol to act as a salve for her emotional wounds. Still, the stress this case had put her under had Jill tempted to add something stronger than sugar to her coffee. She glared through the blinds in the break room, looking out into the bullpen as she stirred her mug, replaying her earlier conversation with Deputy
Commissioner Baldwin.

  The woman had all but threatened Jill, claiming her shot at a promotion would disappear if she didn't stop pursuing this case. The death of a 17-year-old boy and the near-death of a high-ranking BPD official apparently meant less to the Bishop than the reputation of the department and the well-being of the four officers in question. The reality made Jill queasy, and her cheeks hurt from how often she had been clenching her teeth in recent days.

  She was used to suspects getting in her way. She even understood the reality of lawyers stonewalling her. But when those above her, the ones who supposedly had her back, were the obstruction... what was she supposed to do?

  “You know,” a male voice called out from the doorway, “you keep that up, you'll stir a hole in the bottom.”

  Jill whirled around with a glare, the wooden stick she had been using falling to the counter. Her stomach lurched at the sight of the man in the blood-red suit before her, a knowing smile framed by a ghost-white goatee. Matching hair was slicked back, and David Gregor chuckled to himself as he pushed off the frame of the door, shutting it behind him before approaching Jill.

  “Now now, Detective,” he mock-admonished. “Is that any way to greet someone who’s been on your side?”

  “Money laundering?” Jill asked with a quirked brow. “That’s a pretty big risk. What makes you think it won’t backfire and pull you under with Carter?”

  Gregor blinked, resting his hand on the back of a chair. “Detective, I have managed to evade the FBI for the better part of fifteen years. I think I can handle the Baltimore police.”

  “Bullshit.” Jill abandoned her mug, the steam rising from it, as she closed the distance between herself and the billionaire. “See, I don’t think you really have been paying Carter; I think you planted that. You all but telegraphed the move when you called me.”

  “Detective,” Gregor said with a serious glare, “if you found evidence on his computer, that's because he had it. I don't need to play games like that.”

  “Funny. It seems like playing games is all you do. I haven’t even gotten to the masked man or this woman who claimed she was a BPD attorney.”

  “Why would I need to resort to games?” Gregor asked, ignoring the other implications. “I could have Officer Carter killed with little more than a snap of my fingers.” Gregor smiled, as if what he was saying was common knowledge. “Just as I could with you.”

  “Only that didn't work when you tried it.” Jill straightened her posture, folding her arms over her chest. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to reiterate my support,” Gregor said with a casual shrug. “I hear you had a visitor earlier.”

  Jill turned her back on Gregor with a roll of her eyes before swiping her mug off the counter and taking a long first swig. “I don't wanna talk about it.”

  Gregor arched both eyebrows. “You don't wanna talk about it, or you don't wanna talk to me about it?”

  Gregor had a point, but he didn't have to be so damn cheeky about it. Jill took another sip, blanching at the realization she hadn't added enough sugar before setting the mug down again. She studied the businessman standing before her. His body language was as relaxed at it usually was, and his recent quip aside, he didn't have this air of self-importance about him that he normally possessed. He seemed genuine in wanting to help in this case, but that still left Jill with an unsettled feeling in her gut. She knew this man, knew all that he was capable of, and as far as she knew, both the masked man and Lori Taylor were pawns in his game as well. Not that she would ever be able to prove that.

  “Just one question,” she added, cocking her head to the side, “why are you with me on this?”

  “Because I hate to see someone so young and innocent cut down so soon.”

  “Why?” Jill pressed on. “You want a chance to corrupt someone before they fall?”

  “It must be nice to paint me in such a light,” Gregor said. “Easier if it's all black-and-white. This guy's good, that guy's bad. But I think you'll find I'm much more complex than that.”

  Gregor shifted his weight from one foot to the other, cringing when the months-old scar on his stomach twinged. He had been out of the hospital for a month and a half following his stabbing at the hands of a former henchman -- and thanks to another henchman, Gregor had emerged from the fall of the Order with both his fortune and his reputation intact. The woman standing in front of him hated that fact, but not as much as she hated him.

  “I don't pay cops to randomly kill innocent people,” he added.

  “You mean aside from my father?”

  “I think you'll find killing Martha Velazquez was far different than what those animals did to Devin Buckner.” Gregor approached until he was right in front of Jill, just barely two inches taller than her. He grinned ever so slightly at the way her upper lip curled in disgust; in a way, he enjoyed being able to get under someone's skin like this. If he couldn't corrupt Jill, he could certainly play mind games with her.

  “Not as different as you'd think,” she bit back.

  “Be that as it may,” Gregor replied, “you keep doing what you're doing. I'll keep Baldwin off your back.”

  “Who says I even want your help?”

  “Why wouldn't you?” Gregor shrugged again.

  “Because one of these days, you're going to cash in a favor you think I owe you, and I will be dead and buried before I help you.”

  “If you're not careful,” Gregor warned, “you might be dead and buried anyway.”

  Jill watched with a scowl as Gregor turned to leave the break room. “Is that a threat?”

  Gregor turned the knob to open the door, stopping to look over his shoulder. “It's more of a warning. You're going to reach a point, Detective, where you'll have to determine how much good you're doing as a cop... and you might find you're actually better suited for fighting this city's battles in skin-tight black leather.”

  CHAPTER 39

  “I don't know about you,” Hitori Watson muttered under his breath as he and Jill weaved their way through a busy, pristine white corridor within the halls of University of Maryland Medical, “but I'm getting tired of these cases bringing us to hospitals.”

  Flashing her badge at the nurses' station and waiting for their nods of approval before venturing forth, Jill bit back a smirk. “This have anything to do with when you were five?”

  Despite a relatively healthy childhood, Watson had one experience when he was five that still haunted him. What had originally been a routine tonsil removal turned into three weeks in the hospital, fighting back infection. The hospital in question hadn't been quite as pristine as promised, and a bad cold had ravaged the young Watson as he recovered from his surgery. He could still remember his father screaming at the top of his lungs about how he would take the hospital for every dime it had if Hitori hadn't recovered.

  He had, but the memory stuck with him.

  “That,” he conceded, glancing over his shoulder, “and I remember watching my grandfather waste away in ICU couple years back.”

  Not that Jill cared for hospitals herself, having just spent time in one two months ago nursing a gunshot wound. It didn't help that someone had been sent to her room after the fact in an attempt to kill her -- to this day, she could still feel the way her IV tube felt wrapped around her attacker's neck. Hospitals also posed a unique danger to Jill, since just about any medical procedure or test that was even minimally invasive would reveal her secret. Her surgery two months ago had done just that. But the two surgeons who discovered it were now dead.

  She still wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

  Reaching the room where Colonel Downs was resting, Jill flashed her badge again at the nurse who was changing his IV bag. “Hi, I'm Detective Andersen, this is Detective Watson. We'd like to ask him some questions, if you don't mind.”

  The nurse, whose name tag read Russell, gave an apologetic grimace. “He really needs his rest.”

  “It's okay, Claire,” a r
aspy voice croaked, Colonel Downs gingerly pulling himself up into somewhat of a sitting position. “I can talk to the detectives.”

  “Go easy on him,” the nurse warned. “He's been in and out of consciousness all day, and I think the meds are making him a little loopy.” She came around the edge of the bed and grabbed the rail on her way out. “You need anything, just buzz.”

  Downs waved her off with as genial a smile as he could muster, but whatever mirth was there left his face once the nurse was gone. He sank back against his pillow, staring out the window for a moment before bringing his attention back to the detectives standing at his bedside. “So I'm guessing you heard.”

  “That you're not pressing charges,” Jill said with a nod. “The deputy commissioner herself came to the precinct to tell me that.”

  “A personal visit from Janet?” Downs arched a brow. “That's never good.”

  “Sir,” Watson spoke up, “why won't you press charges? You were going to die.”

  “And who's to say I won't still if I go through with this?” Downs shook his head. “Sometimes, self-preservation comes first.”

  Jill arched a disbelieving brow. “So you're not protecting someone?”

  “Only myself and my family,” the colonel said with a one-shoulder shrug. Even as he said it, the look on his face gave away just how much this decision pained him.

  “We would've never gotten as far as we did without your help,” Jill said.

  “And look where it got me.”

  “So what do we do now?” Watson again. “What's our next move?”

  “The one that saves your hides.” Downs grimaced as he sat up a little straighter. “Look, this isn't my first rodeo. I got passed up for deputy commissioner last year because I wouldn't let the Mendoza case go. I keep pushing on Buckner, I may wind up unemployed. Or worse.”

  Jill nodded in understanding. “Janet threatened me. Said if I wasn't careful, I could kiss the Sergeant's exam goodbye.”