by Brent Pilkey
“. . . sixteen staples in her scalp and three broken ribs,” the doctor intoned, concluding the lengthy list of Cindy’s injuries.
“Holy shit,” Jenny breathed. “Sounds like the bastard was trying to beat her to death.”
“Well, she’s lucky one of those ribs didn’t puncture a lung.” The doctor was young, recently out of medical school, but already the light in his eyes was aging. Although, Jack noted, that light certainly perked up whenever the doctor looked at Jenny. “If this happened early Thursday morning like she said, I’m amazed she was able to stay out of the hospital that long before deciding to come in.”
“She didn’t want to,” Jenny told him. “Her friend was the one who brought her. She was afraid she wouldn’t be treated because she’s a prostitute.”
The doctor sadly shook his head as he cleaned his glasses. Slipping them back on, he asked Jenny, “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Actually, there is.”
So Jenny noticed his interest, as well. Guess that’s my cue to leave.
“I’ll meet you out in the car,” he excused himself, but Jenny stopped him.
“Don’t go anywhere, moron. This is about you.” She favoured the doctor with a dazzling smile. “My partner hurt his ribs and I was wondering if you could check to see that he didn’t break anything?”
“C’mon, Jenny. I’m f —”
For the second time that day Jack choked back a scream as Jenny jabbed him in the ribs. Trying to stay as erect as possible — it would have been damned embarrassing to collapse in a room full of people — he glared at her.
“What was that for?” he managed while keeping a protective forearm over his side.
“Proving a point, dummy. Do you see what I mean, doctor?”
Oh, sure. He gets a smile.
“Point taken,” the doctor assured her. Taking Jack by the arm, he led him to a vacant room. “Let’s take a look at those ribs, shall we?”
“That was nice of you.”
“What was nice of me?” Jack asked over the roof of the scout car.
“I saw you take Casey aside.” Jenny opened her door and ducked in. “You let her know she was wanted, right?” she asked, adjusting the steering wheel.
“Yeah.” Jack eased himself into the passenger seat, babying his rib as much as he could. “I told her to turn herself in tomorrow morning and get it taken care of. That way, she’ll be out before Cindy’s out of the hospital.”
Jenny nodded in agreement and pulled away from the curb. They were on the way back to the barn to do Cindy’s aggravated assault report. “How do you crack a rib doing squats?”
“It takes talent,” Jack replied smugly, lounging in the passenger seat drinking a Diet Coke. Or as close to lounging as possible when wearing Kevlar and a gun belt. After being poked and prodded by the doctor — insult after injury after Jenny’s little jab — Jack was more than happy to relax and sip on his version of a doctor’s lollipop while Jenny drove.
“How can he be sure it’s cracked without X-raying it?”
“He says the pain is too site-specific for bruising. He wanted to do X-rays but we would’ve been there for hours.”
“That’s fine, but how did you crack it?”
“When I got folded up under the bar the rib was either forced over or under the weight belt, that’s all.”
“Idiot,” Jenny muttered. “That’s why you’re supposed to use a spotter.”
“My spotter and I weren’t talking that morning.” He took a sip of Coke, musing. “Still aren’t, now that I think about it.”
Jenny let the comment about Karen slide and asked instead, “What are you supposed to do for the rib?”
“Not much. Take it easy.” He looked meaningfully at her. “And not let anyone punch me in the ribs again.”
Jenny ignored that comment as well. “Did Brian give you any painkillers?”
“Brian? Who’s Brian?”
“The doctor, moron,” she said gruffly, trying to cover a sudden blush.
She wasn’t gruff enough. “Ah, so it’s Brian now, is it?” Jack taunted, noticing the flush climbing up Jenny’s neck. “So, when did you ask him out?”
“When you were getting dressed. When else? And, for your information,” she smugly enlightened him, “he asked me out.”
“Good for you.” Jack drank some, belched.
“What a gentleman.”
“Always. Whatever happened to what’s-his-name?”
“Don’t you remember? He stood me up for a hockey game and that was a mistake he never recovered from.” She sighed, thinking. “Fuck, that’s pathetic.”
“What?”
“I dumped him over three months ago but we both knew who you meant. I haven’t had a date since. Fuck.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll always have me.” He reached over and playfully stroked her thigh. “I noticed you called me ‘partner’ while you were talking to Brian.”
“Of course, that’s what people expect us to call each other. It’d sound stupid to say you were my assigned escort for the evening. Makes it sound like I’m paying for you for the evening. And since I’m not . . .” She plucked his hand from her leg. “Did you rub Manny’s leg all the time?”
“Of course not,” Jack said defensively. “Just once in a while.” His phone rang and he checked the call display. “There he is now.”
“Probably needs a leg rub.”
Jack shot Jenny a look then flipped open his phone. “Hey, Manny.” He listened for a few moments, then said, “No problem. Give us a few,” and hung up.
“Would you mind doing a food run for Manny?” Jack asked. “He’s stuck at that machete homicide and didn’t bring a lunch. Swing by a Pizza Pizza and I’ll grab him a couple of slices.”
Jenny nodded, goosed the car through the light at Parliament Street and headed north while Jack called the dispatcher.
“Go ahead, 5106.”
“Before we head in to do that report, we’re going to stop off at 40 Alexander Street to see the Ident unit. 10-4?”
“10-4, ’06. Off at 40 Alexander. Let me know when you’re heading to the station.”
“Two slices and a Coke. That’ll be ten even plus tip.”
“Thanks, dude.” Manny gratefully snagged the paper sleeves holding his lunch, unmindful of the grease seeping through to drip on his dark golf shirt. “I’ll catch you next time.”
“Cheap bastard,” Jack griped with a smile. “You sure your partner didn’t want anything?”
“Nah,” he replied around a mouthful of cheese and pepperoni. “He brings a garden with him every day.”
They were standing in the ninth-floor hallway outside the apartment crime scene. The uniformed copper from 52 who was stuck guarding the door while the Ident guys did their thing inside had appreciatively taken the opportunity to disappear for a while.
Probably went to check on paid duties.
“You know you can take time to chew, right, Manny?” Jenny was watching Manny with a queasy, disgusted look on her face. “My dogs don’t eat their food that fast and they’re both pigs.”
Manny wadded up the first empty sleeve and chucked it in the McDonald’s bag that was acting as a makeshift garbage can next to the old lawn chair beside the apartment door.
“Nothing like a copper’s diet.” Jenny poked Manny in the stomach. A stomach already easing out past the belt buckle. “If you aren’t careful, Manny, that’s going to get bigger.”
Manny shrugged as he mowed down on his second slice. William Armsman, Manny to everyone except supervisors when they were pissed at him, was a big, imposing guy with a shaved head and goatee, but Jenny was right: he was going to end up huge, and not in a good way.
“I see you’re taking advantage of being in plain clothes,” Jack noted, indicating Manny’s goatee
. “But I thought goatees still weren’t allowed in investigative positions, only old clothes.”
Manny pumped his shoulders again, a silly grin on his face. “Until someone tells me otherwise . . .”
The apartment door opened and a tall, bespectacled man in a golf shirt and khakis stepped out. “I do keep telling you, Manny. You just ignore me.”
“That’s because I know you’re not serious, Al. Can I show them the front hall?”
The Ident detective waved them on. “We’re finished there, so go ahead. I’m heading down to the van to get my lunch.”
“Come on, guys. This is cool.” Manny swung open the door and stepped back, beaming like a proud parent.
Jack let Jenny go first and bumped into her when she stopped just inside the doorway.
“Holy shit,” they both exclaimed, softly and in perfect unison.
The front hall was small, no bigger than twenty square feet, with a solid wall to the right and a closet opposite. The floor, walls, closet doors and even the ceiling — Jack craned his head in disbelief to check — were shrouded in old blood, dried over the last few days to a rust brown. Protruding from the walls and clumped in the thick desiccated puddle like tiny, grotesque islands were pieces of bone, some with scraps of scalp and hair still clinging to them.
“Cool, right?”
Jack stepped back from the carnage. “Well, I’ll never accuse a horror film of overdoing the blood again, that’s for sure.”
“What the hell happened in there?” Jenny shut the door behind her.
“Someone took a machete to the guy’s head. Imagine hacking away at a block of cheese with a kitchen knife.” Manny karate chopped the air. “Whack, whack, whack.”
Jenny grimaced. “You’re sick, Manny. You should fit right in at Ident. By the way, when you worked with Jack, did he ever rub your thigh?”
A puzzled little smile flittered across Manny’s face as he looked from Jenny to Jack. “All the time,” he confessed. “Only when he did it, he called me Jenny.”
The Seaton House, the city’s largest men’s hostel, was a huge, bleak building. A sense of weariness and finality hung about the four-storey edifice and its faded, yellow-brick exterior appeared to sag beneath the burden of too many lost souls. The homeless, the mentally ill, drug users and alcoholics, all passed through the Seaton House’s doors, adding their tales to the institution’s near half century of history.
In the winter the hostel could be wedged to capacity, providing beds and meals to hundreds of men seeking shelter from the cold. But in the heat of summer, only the long-term clients who called the hostel home could be found haunting its halls.
As the sun sank below the skyline, mercifully dragging the worst of the heat with it, a handful of residents drifted aimlessly along the sidewalk abutting the fence that ran the length of the hostel. The head-high metal fence with its spearlike rods always reinforced the hostel’s brooding, medieval feel to Jack.
Jenny pulled to the curb behind the crisis team’s white unmarked Crown Vic. Jack slowly got out of the car, favouring his sore rib but trying not to show any impairment. He and Jenny headed for the front doors, their eyes constantly scanning the people and area about them. A cyclist in a dull red shirt, upon catching sight of the officers, did an abrupt U-turn back into the alley he had just come out of, nearly spilling himself off the bike. Jack smirked.
“If I was any more sensitive, I’d get a complex.”
Jenny nodded. “Some people just aren’t comfortable around uniforms, I guess.”
On a warm evening such as this, the front steps — All they need is a moat and portcullis — would normally be populated with smokers, the odd card game and the occasional resident daring or stupid enough to sneak a forbidden alcoholic drink. Today the worn stairs hosted only three people: the cop and nurse from the CIT and one sorry-looking sack of shit.
Shit Sack, clad only in a pair of threadbare jeans, was having trouble staying upright even though he was sitting on the concrete steps. His forearms were braced on his wide-spread knees and his head, with its mop of unkempt black hair, hung listlessly over a puddle of vomit between his feet. As Jack and Jenny approached, Shit Sack’s left arm slipped free of its mooring and he would have toppled down the stairs had he not caught himself. His hand, already dropping, splatted into the puke, splashing his bare feet. He held that position for a moment, then dragged the arm back up to the knee. He didn’t wipe his hand clean. Jack watched as vomit slowly dripped from Shit Sack’s fingertips.
“Hi, Sue, Aaron. I take it he’s not EDP?” Jenny asked, gesturing to Shit Sack.
Sue twiddled hello with her fingers as she chatted on her cell phone.
“The call came over as EDP and he might be emotionally disturbed when he sobers up,” Aaron said, “but right now, he’s just piss-ass drunk. Can’t hold his Gatorade and rubbing alcohol. I hate to dump this on you but there’s no mental health issue here and my chicken dinner’s getting cold.”
“No problem. Do you have a name on him?”
“Lloyd Henry, Jack,” Sue told him, snapping her phone shut. “Come on, big boy. Everybody’s arrested Lloyd at least twice.”
“Guess I’m just lucky.” Jack snugged on a pair of latex gloves. “We’ve got him. You guys can take off,” he offered, but Sue was already back on her phone and heading for her car. Aaron rolled his eyes and left, shaking his head.
“Let’s get you home, Lloyd,” Jenny suggested as she and Jack each took an arm.
“Home?” Jack inquired as they hoisted Lloyd to his feet. He hung limply between them.
“Cell thirteen, Jack,” Jenny explained as they shuffle-dragged Lloyd to the car. “He probably sleeps there more often than any other place. Hell, he’ll probably end up dying in there.”
Jack nodded. “Home it is, then.”
“When did Sue join the crisis thing?”
Jenny shrugged. “Couple months ago, I guess. Why?”
It was Jack’s turn to dismiss the question. “No reason. First time I saw Aaron he was working with a cop whose head looked like a fire hydrant.”
“Oh, him,” Jenny giggled, knowing exactly who Jack was referring to. “He transferred somewhere or got his stripes or something.”
Jack shuddered at the thought of Hydrant Head as a sergeant.
“You interested in joining the team?” she wanted to know.
“Nope. I’m happy where I am. Comfortable-looking uniform, though. Hold still, Lloyd.” They were in the scout car parking lot waiting to parade their drunk and Jack had Lloyd leaning face first against the brick wall next to the sally port door. With his hands cuffed behind him — only idiots handcuffed prisoners to the front — and one of Jack’s gloved hands pinning him between the shoulder blades, Lloyd couldn’t move much, but that didn’t stop him from wiggling.
“Hold still,” Jack repeated. “You keep squirming around like that and I’ll let go of you. See if I care if you take a face-plant in the pavement.” Not that it would make much difference to Lloyd’s face.
Lloyd Henry was one of a small group of Native Canadians living within the boundaries of the division. According to Jenny, who had heard it from members of the quarter-century club — coppers who had worked in 51 for twenty-five years or more — Lloyd had been getting hammered since before he was old enough to drink and he was as much a divisional mainstay as the old station house itself. He was in his late forties but looked a bad twenty years older. Lloyd had progressed, or fallen, from drinking hard liquor, to beer, to cheap beer, to the cheapest beer and now rubbing alcohol and cooking wine were his cocktails of choice.
This guy’s liver must look like a used dishrag.
Besides being a lifelong alcoholic, Lloyd was also a well-known scrapper. Apparently, in his younger and not so inebriated years he had loved to fight almost as much as he loved to drink and had the missing teeth, crooked
nose and misshapen knuckles to prove it. The broken web of veins across his distorted nose resembled a road map laid over a three-dimensional map of a mountain range.
But Lloyd’s brawling days were mostly behind him, probably nothing more than dimly recalled memories slowly drowning in the alcoholic bog that was his brain.
“Gah fuh yo’sef,” Lloyd gurgled.
“I think Lloyd just told you to go fuck yourself,” Jenny laughed.
“That’s what I got, too. Love you too, Lloyd. Now stay put.” Jack leaned a little more weight on Lloyd’s back, settling him down. “I hope Greene isn’t parading.”
“Fuck, no,” Jenny agreed. “He takes forever. Yesterday, Paul and I brought in a guy for assaulting his own kid. The guy had a bloody lip and Greene asked him how he got hurt and if he wanted to lay a complaint against me for hitting him. I know they’re supposed to ask about injuries and complaints, but he didn’t have to encourage the fucker.”
“And did he lay a complaint?”
Jenny shook her head.
“And did he have grounds?” Jack asked with a sly smile.
“I wonder what’s keeping the booker,” she said, avoiding the question.
“Greene’s probably doing a sock check on the prisoners,” Jack commented.
A lifer — forty-plus years on the job and counting — Staff Sergeant Greene held to the directives and practices from the time when he took his first steps in police boots. Stand-up parades with full uniform and equipment inspections, including sock checks — must be black — had only been the beginning of his rigid, backward-facing leadership. Morale had been quickly crushed beneath his polished issued shoes.
Open revolt had come when Jack had orchestrated Operation Underwear and the platoon had paraded in their underwear. The brazen display of unity and defiance had shaken Greene down to his regulated foundations, cracking the thin veneer of normalcy he exhibited to the world. Since then his acts of tyranny had abated and his appearance on parade was nothing but a ghostly memory. Greene was wounded but still dangerous, as Manny had discovered. Jack would not relax his guard until the man and his waxed handlebar moustache were gone from the station.