Powers

  Crane’s face widened to a smile, and he leaned back in the chair, holding out his hands. “My dear detective, even if this were true, I can’t be held responsible for all the decisions made by poorly informed, weak-willed underlings, can I?”

  “So you deny that it’s true? That Monroe and my father didn’t pay members of the Human Front to kill Powers and cover it up? Because I can show you stacks of depositions and courtroom testim—”

  “Of course it’s true. But a few bad apples don’t represent the orchard.”

  “Goddamn—look, speak like a human being, okay?” Deena leaned forward and tapped her phone. “Did you or did you not refuse an offer by Joseph Monroe to kill specific individuals in exchange for financial gain?”

  “I did.”

  “You … you did?” Stunned, she sat back. The room spun, and she had to grip the table to keep from falling. “Why refuse?”

  “Simple,” he replied with a wave of his hand. “At the time, Joseph Monroe was my enemy. We’d clashed in Vietnam, Detroit, and several other battlefronts along the way. I’m not in the habit of abandoning my principles and getting in bed with enemies, especially for something so crass as money.”

  “But he wasn’t your enemy. You said it yourself: Monroe belonged to the THF. I’ve seen the tattoos in person.”

  Crane nodded, the wattle in his neck quivering in an obscene manner. “Yes, but that was much later. After we’d incorporated.”

  “Why? What changed your mind—or changed his heart?”

  Crane grinned again, wrinkles cracking across aged, withered skin. “That’s not for me to explain—or your shell of a father, my dear. That’s someone else’s story entirely.”

  “And if I told you again that by withholding that name, you could be charged with obstruction of justice?”

  Crane stood up, still smiling, palms down on the table. “Then I’d tell you again that with the proper documentation, you’d be well within your rights to drag me downtown and hold me in one of your depressing little interrogation rooms for twenty-four hours. To save you some time, however, let me say this: in the end, we would arrive at the same conclusion. Me, a full day short. You, lacking the evidence and name your heart desires.”

  He circled the table and stared out the window, hands clasped at his back as he’d been the first time Deena had visited his office. This guy sure likes to look out windows, she thought, frustrated and grasping at nonexistent straws. “So you’ll at least admit to the fact that Monroe, through Waldo, was releasing criminals and paying them to kill other criminals?”

  He looked over his shoulder, nodding in confirmation. “I will.”

  “And that he did it using Liberty’s name, creating a second persona under which he and several others stalked and murdered over fifteen powered and non-powered individuals?”

  “I can corroborate that Mr. Monroe was involved, yes.”

  Deena raised an eyebrow, along with her voice. “’Involved’? What kind of evasive fucking statement is that?”

  The guards, alerted by Deena’s sudden increase of antagonistic volume, turned and entered the boardroom. Crane waved them away; everything was fine. “If I’m evasive, Detective Pilgrim, it is only due to my continued reticence in telling another man’s story. Joseph was involved with the Liberty killings, yes.”

  “Was he or was he not Liberty?”

  Crane smirked and turned away, heading for the door. “Exactly that.”

  What the fuck? Deena stood up, melted snow sliding from her lap and onto the floor. “Hey, I’m not finished.”

  “But I am,” he announced with an air of finality. “My offices are shortly about to open, and a phalanx of devoted staffers should be streaming from the elevators at any moment. I have answered every question I’m likely to answer, Detective, and should you require I do anything more, I suggest, for the third time, that you produce a document urging me to do so. Now, if you don’t mind, please clear my boardroom and exit the premises. One of the men will show you out.”

  “Yeah? And what will you do?” She snatched up the phone, stamping toward the hallway. “Stir the pot some more? Announce the exact opposite of what you’ve told me? You’ve done it before.”

  Crane leered at her, flashing that blocky, pumpkin-headed smile once more. “If that’s the way you choose to see it. As I said, I’ve explained everything I’m likely to explain. You asked what I planned to do now. I believe I’ll put the coffee on before the receptionist arrives.”

  Five minutes later, Deena was back on the steps, shivering in the wind. Reporters surged forward, recognizing her and peppering her with questions both piercing and inane. She ignored them, shoving her way through their ranks with a few well-placed elbows. The parking lot had filled up since she’d gone inside; the denizens of 500 Fialkov Way were arriving for the day. She wanted to question them all, but she knew if she tried, Crane would release his goon squad. Anyway, she had plenty to figure out based on their meeting. A great deal to decide before she made her next move.

  Deena headed north, leaving footprints in the snow as she left her car and pointed herself in the direction of the precinct. She didn’t know if that was her final destination, but she knew she didn’t want anyone trailing her steps. Losing a man on foot was easier than in a car; you could go down a subway, in a doorway, onto a roof. The city was Deena’s fortress, and she knew ways to assure her solitude. She glanced back. She’d picked up two tails—one across the street, another on top of the adjacent building. Deena grinned, waved, and smiled. They both disappeared, respectively hiding in a doorway and ducking out of sight. She rolled her eyes and shook her head and then jammed both hands into her pockets. She looked back again and gestured for her tails to follow. “Come on! Let’s go for a five-mile walk!”

  She lost them in Tyler Square amid hordes of commuters. Deena turned left down Connor Street and doubled back on Hudson. She located a small bistro—the Armenian kind, one you could only access by walking downstairs—and settled into a corner booth with a piping cup of tea and a plate of gatah. She watched the door, waiting for men with snake-and-bullet tattoos to come wading into the café. But no one did; she owned the place, and the proprietor, delighted to have an early morning customer with a taste for his native delicacies, offered Deena a hearty bowl of kalagyosh with a stack of spiced croutons. She thanked him and ate slowly, placing her jacket on the back of a chair and consuming the first true meal she’d had in nearly a day. The kalagyosh—a vegetable stew—warmed her belly, and the tea soothed her throat, sore from having yelled at so many people in so short a period of time.

  As Deena ate her breakfast, she considered the testimony that had been presented to her since she’d left for Atlanta. On one hand, can I believe the word of a crooked cop?—Even if he is my father, Waldo was dirty and corrupt. That’s not up for debate. Everyone has read the papers and knows what happened after the gang wars came to a close.

  And can I believe the corroboration by a noted, manipulative, anti-Powers fascist who may simply be trying to further smear the once-sterling reputation of a living legend … and by doing so, clear a path to do the same for anyone connected with that Power?

  Or do I believe the man who once owned my heart? A man who betrayed me before, who isn’t the man he was back when I fell in love. A man who inspired me to be a good cop, even if he eventually turned out to be a rat bastard.

  “There’s no way,” she said out loud. “No way Aaron could have done the things my father said he did. Not for those reasons.”

  “Hm? Yes, yes. Coming right up,” the bistro owner responded from the kitchen, having thought that Deena was asking for more croutons.

  Aaron Boucher had left Atlanta because of men like Waldo, despite his obviously skewed confession. Aaron had been exhausted, tired of being forced to work with men who profited from the innocent and dealt dirty with the law. He left because Atlanta was dangerous—for the entire Boucher family—and he needed to get them away from the graft, corruption, a
nd lies. No, Aaron might be a grade-one dick bag, but the only thing he was truly guilty of was betraying Deena Pilgrim and breaking her goddamn heart. She knew it.

  But still …

  Something didn’t sit well with Deena, and it wasn’t the kalagyosh. For one, who had infected her father? Nobody else had been there, and Waldo had been fine when he came to the door. A slow-acting virus? Timed to release and then spread quickly through his bloodstream? It made little sense to Deena. But then, none of Liberty’s crimes really connected in any way. The MO shifted from place to place, and the victims—until now, until this new batch where various threads of the past found themselves centering on Joseph Monroe—had previously been random kills. So … maybe. Maybe it was Liberty.

  But again, there were three of us in the apartment: Waldo, Aaron, me. I know I didn’t do it. Aaron claims he didn’t, as well. Would my father have infected himself, knowing that Aaron and I would find a way to save his life? Would he put his life in that kind of danger, hoping for an honest moment—or perhaps to throw off the scent—in order to place the finger of blame on someone else? Someone he hated, like Aaron Boucher? Okay, let’s say that’s true. Then how the hell did the Liberty tag get on the door? We were with him the entire time. Did he pay someone else to do it, maybe the pantsless basket case across the hall? Or was Waldo working with someone else—Crane, perhaps, lying again to me?

  “No. I’d know,” she muttered to herself, polishing off her gatah. It made more sense that Aaron had placed it there, probably when he left to call 911 after surreptitiously injecting Waldo … or maybe when he’d first lingered in the hall.

  “Fuck!” she cried, banging a hand on the table. “I don’t know what to believe.”

  The proprietor shuffled out. “More tea?”

  “Keep it coming. Gonna be a long morning.” The man smiled and hurried off, darting into the pantry for a fresh mug.

  I can’t do this myself. I’ve tried; I’m too close to it. I have the word of three very different men, and I can’t believe a single one. The only man I can believe, that I can trust, won’t pick up his goddamn phone. Deena glanced down, staring at the dark, dormant cell phone next to her plate. She willed it to ring, wishing that Walker would get over his bruised ego and call her the fuck back.

  Screw this. I’m going over there. He’ll help me figure this out, right?

  She lifted the phone and willed it to ring one more time. Walker!

  The device shuddered in her hand and started to vibrate. Deena jumped, taken aback, and nearly dropped it on the floor. She checked the number. It wasn’t Walker, but she tapped to receive, anyway. An awkwardly posed image of Detective Enki Sunrise filled her mobile screen, saved to Deena’s caller ID.

  “Enki,” she inquired, happy to hear a familiar and welcome voice, “where have you been?”

  “Deena. I’m at Ellis General. You have to get down here right away, okay? Where are you? I’ll pick you up.”

  She sat up in her chair, quickly tossing a handful of cash onto the table as she prepared to make her escape. “The hospital? Is it Kirk? Man, I feel like I’ve been in more hospitals—”

  “Not Kirk,” came Enki’s response, somber and succinct. “It’s Walker.”

  Deena’s stomach leaped into her throat, and she knew with certainty that it wasn’t the food. She grabbed her jacket from the back of her chair.

  “I’m on my way.”

  23

  December. Wednesday morning. 9:59 A.M.

  “—viewers tuning in, this is Collette McDaniels at Ellis General. Late last evening, yet another devastating, Powers-related catastrophe struck our city … circling at the edge of an ongoing national tragedy. According to eyewitnesses, two men entered a fifth-floor apartment at 44122 Andreyko Place—one in early evening, the other just after ten, moments before the building was destroyed. Over thirty-five injuries, fifteen near-fatalities, and at least six deaths were the result of an unknown altercation involving the owner of the apartment, Detective Christian Walker of the Powers Homicide Division. Walker, as regular viewers may recall, formerly operated as the masked vigilante known as Diamond. These days, he finds himself powerless, an unfortunate set of circumstances that landed Walker—no doubt at the epicenter of the wreckage—in Ellis’s intensive care unit. More recently, Walker had been a key contributor to the terrible series of … wait … wait, hang on. Someone’s coming through the door. Yes … yes … “Manny, bring the camera! Walker’s partner has arrived at Ellis, currently lead detective in the … here, I … Detective Pilgrim! Deena! This way. A moment for Powers That Be?”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “We can edit that in post … Detective, care to comment on—”

  “Seriously, stick that camera in my face again, and you’ll be picking glass out of your teeth.”

  “Really, Detective, our viewers just want to understand—”

  “And you. Come near me—or Walker, for that matter—with a recorder, phone, chalkboard, or quill and I swear to fuck I’ll boot you right in the dick.”

  “Well, that’s just the kind of ill-mannered—hey … hey, where are you going?”

  Deena hurried away from the salivating vultures skulking by the door. She flashed her badge and sidestepped the triage area of Ellis’s emergency ward, casting about for a doctor, nurse, or familiar face to point her where she needed to go. The ward was loud and hot, littered with gurneys and wailing family members. She tried to flag down one of the orderlies, but every able-bodied professional had his or her hand in a wound or body. It felt like the last days of war, the screaming for help, and Deena whirled around at the nurses’ desk, unsure where to go. She was especially disoriented after elbowing through not only a horde of journalistic bloodhounds but also an army of hysterical loved ones, not to mention angry protestors picketing on the street. Deena had already seen video of crowds like it around the city, either riled up by Crane’s intolerant rhetoric or indignantly fighting against Human Front wackos who aimed to marginalize their right to powers. Three days after Monroe’s death and the city was ready to blow. She hoped it wouldn’t happen until after she solved his murder or at least got a chance to see her partner one last time. Deena spotted a tiny phalanx of cops and plainclothes detectives at the far end of the ward. Steeling her resolve, she headed in that direction.

  “Deena!” She turned left and was elated to see Enki Sunrise hurrying down the hall with an armful of snacks. Enki handed Deena a pack of M&M’s she’d retrieved from a vending machine. They hustled away, avoiding stares and possible distractions.

  “What happened?” she asked Enki as they ducked into an empty room.

  “Still piecing it together. Could be Liberty; could simply be an enemy with a grudge. Could also be an exploded gas leak. We’ll know more soon, for sure.”

  “Was there a tag? Why do we think it could have been Liberty?”

  Enki shrugged and poured candy down her throat. “We’re not sure,” she mumbled through a mouthful of chocolate. “Building’s rubble; won’t know if it’s been tagged ’til we sift through the wreckage … or Walker comes to.”

  Deena touched Enki’s forearm. “He’s alive, though. Is he okay?”

  Enki frowned. “He’s stable, at least for now. Walker’s a bruiser—and he used to have powers. That’s why the doctors think he’s not a puddle. But he is in pretty bad shape. Broken bones, contusions, heavy blood loss.”

  “But he’ll live?”

  Enki nodded in reply. “More than we can say for some of these poor bastards.” She gestured to the sea of gurneys. “You think it was Liberty?”

  Deena stepped aside to avoid a passing wheelchair. “I thought Liberty was with me, down in Atlanta … but so was Aaron, and then Aaron came back…”

  “Right before Walker got hit.”

  Deena peered around the ward. “Where’s Aaron now?”

  “Last I saw him—and really, I only met the guy last night—he was stewing in the bullpen. He and Walker have
history?”

  “Not Walker. Me.”

  Enki raised an eyebrow and opened her mouth, and then she thought better of it and let it go. “Want him found? I can make some calls.”

  Deena vigorously shook her head. “Not yet. I need to work shit out, confirm a few things before we do. Can I see Walker? They admitting visitors yet?”

  “Captain’s been in, a coupla lawyers. No family as of yet.”

  Deena grimly stuck out a thumb and pointed it back and forth, between the two of them. “Family’s here. Let’s go.”

  Moments later, Enki closed the door, shutting out the madness, as Deena pulled a chair to Walker’s bedside. Her friend, her partner, was stretched out amid a tangle of tubes, wires, charts, and sheets. A single window let in the light, casting it across his bed in a bright-yellow rectangle. Deena reached out to take Walker’s hand, and her heart thudded against her chest. I should have been here. I should have done something, she thought, instead of being so focused on the shit pile I left behind. You were right, she admitted. I was distracted—by Aaron, by Waldo, all that bullshit. I should have listened to you this one time … because face it, Walker, I’m usually the one that’s right … but this time … this time it was you.

  She wiped a tear away. Enki, arms crossed, leaned against the wall and seemed amused. “What is it?” Deena retorted. “Didn’t think I could cry?”

  “It’s like watching bears masturbate. Something you never see, something you aren’t sure you ever wanna see again.”

  “Funny girl. Sit down; think on this with me a bit.”

  Enki pulled up a second chair. The room shut out all the noise, all the insanity waiting in the ward. Their world narrowed down to two detectives, an injured partner, and the incessant beeping of many, necessary machines.

  “Fucking hospitals,” Deena opined. “I really should see how the newborn is doing upstairs. Fuck, I was just here for him. First Kirk, then my dad. Now Walker. One more ER visit and I get free ice cream.”