by Kylie Brant
“See that’s what I’m saying.” This is why he’d called Hans in the first place. The man could reason things through. He didn’t let fear color his thinking. “Why the human torches? Offing cops is going to bring a shitload of attention to bear anyway, but doing it like this? He’s trying to prove something. Can’t be one of those dickwads from the street. Doing it this way takes too much finesse.”
“Yeah.” Hans brought the cigarette to his lips. Blew out a cloud and waved it away from Johnny. “Finesse. We can’t discount them, since they have the most to gain. But maybe we’re making this too complicated. We’re assuming none of us ever talked about our deals. With anyone. Not to a wife. A son. A partner.”
Johnny stopped breathing for a moment. Such was the sacredness of the silence invoked by the group, the thought had never occurred. “Fastest way to end up in cuffs.” Or dead. Because if he ever heard of one of the members talking, he’d personally put a bullet in him.
The older man gave him a humorless smile. “So maybe whoever hears about it bides his time. Works out the details for a way to take over the entire sweet deal for himself. And this is how he chooses to do it. For whatever reason.”
“Okay, I can see if one of us talked to someone.” Even if the thought of that sort of betrayal had his chest going tight. “But to have given up all our names?”
“Just throwing out possibilities.”
“And ignoring the obvious,” Johnny retorted. “That it’s one of us.”
“Fuck that.” Hans pointed the cigarette at him. “Fuck that. I’ve trusted these guys for over two decades. And now I have to wonder which one is targeting us? To what, take over the whole operation? That’s too much exposure. One of us would never risk it.”
“Maybe it’s not about the money. Maybe it’s conscience. Hell, maybe one of them got religion.” But one of them had had religion all along, he recalled. Hadn’t stopped Jonas from taking the money, though, had it? Somehow money always trumped God, when it came right down to it. “You can do what you want, but I’m taking a closer look at some of the squad. Maybe I’ll hear something about one of them having a gambling problem. Or their kid has cancer.” His imagination deserted him at that point. Because even those scenarios couldn’t have made him turn on the group. “Hell, maybe one has IA up their ass, and they gave us up to save themselves.”
Hans made a rude sound. “Oh, now IA is killing cops?” He smiled then, his usual good humor returning. “Besides, you’re the only one I know of under an active IA investigation.”
“What, that excessive use of force bullshit? Just a punk trying to weasel out of an attempted murder rap.”
“So you didn’t kick him in the balls once you cuffed him?”
“Well, yeah,” he drawled, recalling the moment with pleasure. “Think I want the little asshole reproducing?” They laughed, a little longer and louder than was warranted. Two men in desperate need of some relief.
After a minute, Hans asked, “I hear that McGuire got himself appointed lead on the task force.”
Johnny grunted. He’d heard the same thing. “I’ve never met any of them on it. You?”
“One of them. He isn’t giving up much yet but I’ll keep working on him. We need to keep tabs on how close they’re getting. He did say they haven’t connected the victims yet.”
“Yet.”
“We take what we can get, Johnny boy. Maybe we should meet up again in a few days. Compare notes.”
“Good idea.” They could confer before calling the others together. Decide what to tell them. What to keep quiet.
They walked toward the street. A drunk lurched around the corner, nearly plowed into them. Johnny gave him a shove and the man fell to his knees, cursing him in a slurred voice.
“Tell you one thing,” Hans said. “With this idea of yours that it’s one of us? Next time you call, I won’t be meeting you alone in a dark alley.”
The screams were hideous. They reverberated through her skull, bouncing and echoing, one after the other. Risa burrowed deeper into the covers, trying to muffle the cries. The nearby tree swayed in rhythm with the cries, its twisted branches reaching out as if to extend assistance.
The heat from the flames seared her skin. The smell from burned flesh filled her nostrils. Her lungs.
And through it all, the nude figure danced before the flames in a frenetic exultation at what he’d wrought.
Her eyes opened, the breath sawing in and out of her chest. And the relief of discovering it was just a dream almost overtook the dread of knowing they were back. Really back. Her breath shuddered out of her lungs at the realization. It hadn’t been a one-time thing. This had been a near duplicate of the one she’d had the night before last.
She sat up, used the sheet to wipe the perspiration from her face. There had been nothing new in this rendition. Except for the fact that she’d been closer. Not just a passive watcher, but near enough to smell. Hear. Feel.
Pushing her damp hair away from her face, she discovered her hand shaking. Goose bumps broke out on skin that was still overly warm to the touch. She crossed her arms to rub at the raised flesh. And forced herself to concentrate. To examine each minute detail and try to draw information from it.
Coming to a sudden decision, she surged from the bed, found her legs unsteady. Flipping on the lamp on her bedside table, she tugged open the lone drawer.
The tablet and pencil had sat unused the entire time she’d been here. There was a time when she’d thought—hoped— they’d go unused forever. And the possibility had elicited twin spires of hope and despair.
Shoving aside the thought, she drew out the drawing pad. Flipped it open. Better not to think. Better to dwell on the individual elements of the dream. They lost power that way, extracted from the whole. They’d absorb her for a time. Until the sketch was complete, a vivid reminder of what her unconscious had wrought.
It had been this way for nearly three decades. Since the first time she’d pointed to a newscast showing a murder suspect and announced to Hannah and whoever the boyfriend had been at the time that that was the bad man from her recent nightmare.
Her head began to throb, a common enough souvenir from the dreams. She worked through the headache, anxious to have the task done. When she was on a case, she treated each sketch as part of her personal investigative file. After the drawing was complete she’d jot down notes, impressions.
Like the figure was definitely male. In good shape. More than that she couldn’t be certain. At least not until the next time the vision recurred.
She knew from experience it wouldn’t be long. And if they were going to torture her sleep, they may as well be put to good use.
That idea is what had driven her to join the academy in the first place. That desperate need to make the psychic episodes useful. If she was never going to be normal, if she was going to spend her life a freak, the dreams damn well would count for something.
Chapter 7
Risa had meant to get an early start that morning. It wasn’t as if she’d gotten much sleep the night before. Her mouth pulled up humorlessly as she waved at Darrell behind the bulletproof glass and quickened her step toward the conference room.
But she hadn’t counted on her mother being awake. Hannah hadn’t even been to bed yet, although the bus had probably had her home by two A.M. “Too much to do and not enough time to do it in,” she’d told Risa. But it had given them a few minutes to sit down and visit. Their paths hadn’t crossed much in the last couple days. As a result, Risa had been later than she’d wanted in calling for a cab. Then it had taken longer than expected at the car rental agency. She couldn’t depend on taxis to get to and from the station daily.
Slipping into the conference room, she found it full. Nate was talking and Morales was standing silently in the front of the room. Rather than call attention to herself, she leaned a shoulder against the wall just inside the door and listened.
“. . . be pursuing the identities of the men on the tape, s
ee if that connects to our case. We’ve also got a lead on another person who was in the park the morning Christiansen was discovered. I’ll be following up.”
“What about the autopsy report?”
The voice calling from the back sounded familiar. With a glance, Risa determined it was Brandau.
“Nothing yet. Hopefully today. Let’s start with report outs on yesterday’s assignments. Brandau and Recker, what do you got?”
“Not much.” Cass did the talking this time. “We visited Parker’s widow and showed her pictures of Detective Christiansen. She’d never seen him before. Although she obviously couldn’t say whether Roland knew him, she could tell us he’d never been to the house and she didn’t recognize his name.” She stopped reading her notes to look at Nate. “Except from the newspapers, of course.” Without waiting for his nod, she went on. “We’re still trying to track down the ex-wife of Sherman Tull. Got a lead on her from the neighbor across the street from his house. Apparently the women were friends. She claims the ex never made it back for the funeral.” She shrugged. “Anyway we have an address to start with on her.”
“You canvassed the neighbors? Showed pictures of the three men?”
“Just Parker’s and Tull’s. No one recognized them. We’ll hit Christiansen’s neighborhood today.”
Nate’s gaze moved on. “Shroot, what about you and your team?”
“Combing through the case files is going to take a while.” Shroot was the tall, lanky detective with ginger-colored hair, Risa observed. His voice had a distinctive southern drawl, causing her to wonder how he’d ended up in the City of Brotherly Love. “We’ve found a couple things to tug on. Tull and Christiansen were once called to testify on a case against a con artist running scams on the elderly. Parker busted a B and E guy, one Tommy Naigle, about ten years ago, and seven years later Christiansen and his partner brought him in for the same charge. Near as we can tell, Naigle is still serving his stretch but we’ll follow up.”
“Do that. There’s a lot of material to dig through. All these men had long careers with the department. That’s a lot of arrests, a lot of potential perps harboring grudges.”
“Edwards.”
Risa studied Nate as he moved on to the next pair of detectives. He’d managed to shave that morning. If she had to choose, she preferred the look he’d sported yesterday. The stubble had added a touch of the uncivilized. The unfamiliar. Today he was solidly back in command. The same controlled, if slightly impatient, detective who’d shown up on her mother’s doorstep a couple mornings ago.
“Nothing in their schools, for sure. We checked their records. Tull and Christiansen graduated from the same police academy, but years apart. None of them pulled an instructor stint in the academy, either. Didn’t want to go at Christiansen’s widow, with the funeral coming up. But his obit lists the United Methodist on Arch Street. Each of the ceremonies has been held in different churches.”
“Hoy, what’d you and Mendall find?”
But mention of the upcoming funeral distracted Risa for a moment. The ceremony would have a massive department turnout. As such, it presented an almost irresistible scene for the suspect.
Her attention turned belatedly to the detective speaking. A pair was walking up to Nate. The speaker held two DVDs in his hand. “This may be something that will help. Mind if we use the TV?” They continued to the unit in the corner of the room as the one continued talking. “So Christiansen’s wife said he was running to the convenience store to get milk, right? Surveillance tapes had him inside the store. Got a few other customers in there, too, but no one in the parking lot. But here, I’ll show you.”
Several minutes passed as the two of them fiddled with the TV and DVD player. Finally the original speaker stabbed a finger at the screen. “Plenty of activity out front of the parking lot, right?” An older man walking a Boston terrier that bore a startling resemblance to his owner. A shaggyhaired skateboarder. A guy with his arm around a woman, both of them in hoodies, and in the midst of what looked like a disagreement. A figure in a Windbreaker, hood pulled up over his head passed. “So a minute goes by.” He began the recorder again. “Two minutes.” The time stamp from the original tape was displayed at the bottom of the screen. “Now look.” The DVD was paused again. “See that?”
Risa pushed away from the wall, straining to see. Nate was partially blocking her view by the position he’d taken up before the screen. “The shadow? Does it move?”
The detective started the recorder again. “It surely does. Right there.”
“I’ll be damned.” A murmur rippled through the room. And although Risa hadn’t seen the shadow they’d spoken of, she saw the back car door of a late model Malibu ease open. Close again. A moment before a customer exited the store and headed to a short-boxed pickup truck.
“For the record, Christiansen was driving a 2010 navy Chevy Malibu that night. License plate matches the vehicle we see in the lot.” Nate gave the two detectives a grim smile. “Good work. You checked the traffic cameras on his route there and back?”
“We did,” the shorter, rounder of the two detectives put in. “Funny thing, he took a different route from the convenience store. One that didn’t pass any nearby streets with those cameras on them.”
“And one that didn’t lead home,” Nate put in. “Okay, let’s center on the convenience store and fan outward. Get a map of all the traffic cameras in that area, and plot out which ways he could have taken to surpass all of them and get to that park. Maybe the car passed some other camera that caught a glimpse of it. An ATM camera or one mounted at a store.”
“Has Christiansen’s car been found yet?” It was Cass’s question.
“No.” The Captain spoke for the first time. “We’ve got his and Parker’s vehicle descriptions flagged and nothing has shown up yet. The unknown subject might have disposed of them in the Delaware River. Or he may have abandoned them in a part of town where he could be assured no report would ever be filed.”
Risa had had the same thought. Why take the chance of possibly being seen running a car into the river when there were a number of areas of the city where one could just leave it and walk away? The vehicle would be stripped, stolen, or land in a chop shop in a matter of hours. Any of the scenarios would destroy whatever trace evidence the UNSUB might have left behind.
Nate wrapped up the briefing by running through the assignments. It left her wondering what he had planned for them to work on today. She had a few ideas, but she still didn’t feel like she knew him well enough to predict how he’d react to her suggesting them. Tiptoeing around fragile law enforcement egos had to be one her least favorite aspects of her job.
She waited for the detectives to shuffle out of the room. A couple of them gave her a quizzical look, as if wondering what her role there was. With her visitor ID, they’d know she wasn’t on the force. And McGuire had made no effort to introduce her to the group and explain her place on the team. Maybe that was for the best. She wasn’t sure he was comfortable with her presence on the task force himself, although he’d never given any indication that he resented her.
Of course, knowing of her personal relationship with his captain, he’d be careful to make nice, lest he jeopardize his standing as lead investigator on the task force.
She made her way over to where he was conversing with Morales. The captain shifted to make room for her to join them. “I assume you’ll be talking to the ME today,” he was saying.
“I haven’t gotten a call from Liz, but I figure I’ve given her enough time to come up with some answers. I plan to drop by the morgue this morning on my way to see Christiansen’s widow.”
Eduardo nodded. “That’s a good idea. You can be damn sure his wife will have plenty of questions.”
“Then let’s hope I get a few answers for her.”
Risa fell into step beside him as they left the room. “So it sounds like you’ve got an agenda worked out for today.”
He took a package of gum fr
om his pocket and held it up questioningly. When she shook her head, he took a piece out and replaced the package. “Couple things so far. You have something in mind?”
They entered the squad room and the noise level rose accordingly. She swerved in the direction of his office. “I’d like to follow up on those guys that popped on the search yesterday.”
“I did a little more digging on that last night.”
But she was focused on his early words. It took effort to keep her voice mild. “Last night?”
“Yeah, I came back to work around seven thirty.” Seeing her expression, he raised a hand placatingly. “I know I said I’d call you, but you neglected to leave your cell number with me.”
And he’d neglected to ask for it, she thought wryly. Her bad. If she wanted to be kept in the loop on this investigation, she was clearly going to have to make all the overtures. She put her palm out.
He looked at it. Then at her. “You decided you wanted gum after all?”
“Give me your cell phone. I’ll log in the number.”
They’d come to his office. Without waiting for him, she opened the door and walked inside.
“I’ll do it. What is it?” He took the cell from his pocket. She took it from his hand.
“Don’t want to take the chance of you punching it in wrong,” she said blandly.
“I didn’t deliberately exclude you.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She dropped in a chair and quickly added her number to his contacts. Then she took out her phone and did the same for his number. Handing his back to him, she said, “There. Now there won’t be any excuse next time.”
His eyes gleamed. “I keep late hours but I don’t expect you to live the case. You’ll have to let me know when you’ve had enough. Given your unofficial capacity and all.”
She cocked a brow at the arrogance in the words. She had a feeling they were the first truly unguarded ones he’d spoken to her. “My capacity on this case won’t be an issue.” At least not for him. The issues it was causing her, while she slept, would continue whether she was key to the investigation or not. Experience had taught her that.