RCC03 - Beneath a Weeping Sky

by Frank Zafiro

He glanced over his shoulder again. Still no pursuit. Maybe he was away clean. He slowed to a loping jog. His breath rattled in his ears.

  He was like his father, at least in one way.

  He knew how to treat women.

  His father may not have taught him anything else worth a damn, but he sure taught him that.

  He taught him about the whammo.

  He taught him plenty.

  When he reached the edge of the bridge, he cast another backward glance. Nothing. He let himself fall back to a trot as he veered to the left. Ahead, the trail led to the parking lot where he’d left his car.

  Frustration gnawed at him. The pressure in his chest made his hands tremble.

  Bitches ruin everything.

  He would have to hunt again another night.

  TEN

  Saturday, April 20th

  Graveyard Shift

  2126 hours

  Katie MacLeod adjusted the strap of the purse on her shoulder. The bag hung awkwardly at her side, an uncomfortable add-on that she couldn’t get used to. She found it both amusing and frustrating that it would matter what kind of purse she carried. But she became familiar with her purse when she was off duty in much the same way she became familiar with her police equipment on duty. Now, she was melding the two and it was all wrong. The strap on this one was too wide, but not long enough. The weight of the fake leather was off. The heavy police contents of the purse made it even worse. Unlike her own purse, which felt snug against her side when she gripped it, this one seemed to sway even when she tried pinning it with her elbow.

  And besides, the purse was ugly as sin.

  “This purse is so ugly,” she muttered, “even my Aunt Thea would throw it out.”

  She wondered if Battaglia and O’Sullivan could hear her when she spoke that low while moving. When they’d tested the wire, they’d been able to hear her clearly from a block away, but that was with a clear line of sight and while she was standing still.

  “It’s even uglier than that,” she muttered again, this time slightly quieter. “Even Batts would have the sense to throw it out.”

  She stopped on the wide footbridge near the carousel. Below the bridge, The Looking Glass River streamed past languidly. The water gave off dark reflections of the trees along the bank and the taller downtown buildings just a block or so away. A lamp post behind her threw a yellowish light that cast her shadow onto the water.

  Katie took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  I can do this.

  She knew she wasn’t alone. Detective Tower was perched at the top of the clock tower, watching with a pair of binoculars. A SWAT sniper with a night vision scope stood by with him, just in case. O’Sullivan and Battaglia were at the pavilion in the middle of the park with a golf cart, ready to respond wherever she needed them. That should make her feel better, she reasoned.

  The brick-like transmitter taped to the small of her back should have made her feel safer, too. Tower had a receiver. So did Sully and Batts. They could hear everything she said. Everything that happened around her.

  If that weren’t enough, she had a police radio in her purse.

  And her gun.

  So she was safe.

  Then why am I so afraid?

  She focused on the question for a moment. She’d been on undercover specials before. They’d done a half dozen hooker special details over her career in which she’d posed as streetwalker and snared prospective johns. Last summer, she went on loan with the dope unit for almost a month and made hand-to-hand buys. Once, there’d been a rash of purse snatchings and she’d been tasked to stroll around downtown with all the other shoppers until the maggots tried to grab her purse, a much nicer one than the ugly bag they’d issued her tonight.

  The point was, she’d done these kinds of sting operations before. She’d even been wired before. So tonight shouldn’t be any different.

  A slurred, whispering voice from the past answered her question clearly.

  Don’t be a goddamn tease!

  Katie took in another deep breath and let it out.

  This is no different, she told herself. No different.

  Do your job.

  Katie heard the sound of approaching footsteps. She glanced up. A man jogged lightly in her direction from the north. Katie looked away.

  “Someone’s coming,” she whispered into the microphone taped to her chest.

  She kept her eyes averted, hoping to lure him in. A confident woman won’t look away, but a victim would. So she stared into the water, watching him approach on the edge of her vision.

  He trotted closer. Fifteen yards now.

  It can’t be this easy, she thought.

  Her hands were ice cold and slick with sweat.

  Ten yards.

  “Nice night,” the man said in a pleasant voice, his breath only slightly quickened from his exertion.

  Katie looked up.

  His eyes were on her.

  She took in his face, his eyes, his frame. She figured he might be a habitual jogger and had great wind. That’s why no exertion in his voice. Or he was the Rainy Day Rapist and only started jogging a block away.

  He continued to meet her gaze as he came closer.

  Five yards now.

  Katie didn’t answer him.

  He smiled.

  Katie popped the clasp on her ugly purse. She slid her hand inside and wrapped her fingers around the handle of her Glock. The cold, hard plastic gave her little comfort.

  Three yards.

  Two.

  One.

  And he whisked past her.

  Katie watched him go. She realized that she’d been holding her breath and let it out in a whoosh.

  “Goddamnit,” she muttered.

  The jogger glanced over his shoulder at her, then shrugged and went on.

  “Who tries to pick up women while he’s out jogging at night?” she said, staring after the retreating jogger in amazement. “What is he, Giovanni’s brother or something?”

  Katie released her grip on the Glock. She hesitated, then left the clasp unhinged as she turned to walk away from the footbridge. With an effort, she forced herself to walk without any confidence. To accomplish this, she hunched her shoulders forward and shuffled her feet. She picked a spot on the path just a couple of yards ahead of her and stared at it while she walked. Every once in a while, she glanced up nervously, then returned her gaze to the ground.

  Where next?

  A quick look told her she was at a fork in the path. North led through a wooded area beside the YMCA building. That path eventually flowed out of the park to a parking lot next to the River City Flour Mill, an historic building full of shops that Katie was pretty sure would never sell anything as grotesque as the purse she was hauling around Riverfront Park.

  Turning east would lead her toward the clock tower and under the Washington Street Overpass. Beyond that was an area known as the Lilac Bowl, a grassy hillside bordered by bushes and some trees on the north.

  Katie paused, shuffling to a stop. She wondered where an aggressive rapist might lie in wait. Where might he strike?

  She glanced to the dark path through the wooded area to the north. Images of Phil and the sound of his slurred voice came unbidden into her mind. She tried to brush them aside, but his voice kept whispering in her ear—

  You liked it. Don’t forget that.

  —accusing her. She felt pressure against her lips, reminiscent of his hand clamped across her mouth.

  Katie felt her breath quicken. Sweat dampened the nape of her neck. She breathed in through her nose, but instead of the clean smell of river air and damp grass, the only scent that filled her nostrils was the ghostly aroma of Phil’s rum-coated breath.

  She stood at the crossroad, unmoving.

  2129 hours

  Tower peered through the binoculars at MacLeod.

  “If she goes north, my vision will be obscured by those trees,” he told Officer Paul Hiero.

  “That’s all rig
ht,” Hiero told him, eyeing her through the rifle scope. “I should be able to pick her up with the night vision pretty well.”

  Tower picked up his radio and keyed the mike. “Ida-409 to Adam-122.”

  O’Sullivan answered immediately. “-22, go ahead.”

  “She’s at the fork just north of the footbridge.”

  “Which footbridge? There’s about seven of ‘em.”

  Tower frowned, but Sully was right. “Near the carousel,” he transmitted. “If she goes north, we’ll have a limited view of her from here.”

  “Copy. You want us to move?”

  Tower considered for a moment. Then he pressed the transmit button again. “Not yet. If we lose sight of her, I’ll let you know. If that happens, you two get down to the wide bridge that leads to the Flour Mill. If she’s not on the bridge, come south and find her.”

  Sully replied with a brief click of his mike.

  Tower looked over at Hiero. Dressed in all of his SWAT regalia, complete with his baseball cap turned backward, he reminded Tower of every clichéd version of a SWAT officer that Hollywood had ever created. He considered humming the TV theme song, but instead raised his binoculars back to his eyes.

  Katie still stood at the fork in the pathway.

  “Come on, MacLeod,” he whispered. “What are you going to do?”

  2130 hours

  “You think Tower’s an asshole?” Battaglia asked. “Because I think Tower’s an asshole.”

  Sully shrugged. “I don’t know. What kind of an asshole?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means, East Coast or West Coast asshole?”

  Battaglia narrowed his eyes. “Like there’s a difference, other than accent.”

  “Oh, there’s a difference,” Sully said, “but I wouldn’t expect you to know.”

  “Why? No, wait—don’t tell me. It’s because I’m Italian, right?”

  Sully shook his head. “No, because you’re a philistine.”

  “I’m full of what?”

  “Exactly,” Sully replied.

  2131 hours

  Katie looked down the pathway into the dark.

  Everything in her police experience told her that rapists weren’t boogeymen. They didn’t jump out of bushes and attack strangers. In all of the rape reports she’d taken—and being a female cop, she’d been stuck with an inordinate number of them—she discovered that the suspect was almost always someone the victim knew. Maybe not someone they knew very well, but knew all the same. They came dressed as frat boys, like Phil had. It was never a stranger who leapt out of the darkness. Rapists don’t do that.

  This one does.

  Katie turned east.

  * * *

  “She’s going east,” Tower transmitted.

  “Copy,” Sully answered over the radio.

  Tower peered at Katie through his binoculars. “She’s doing a good job of looking scared,” he said quietly. “Look at her poor posture. The way she’s walking and looking down the whole time. You see that?”

  “I see it,” Hiero said.

  “She’s a natural decoy.”

  “Maybe she’s not pretending,” Hiero said.

  Tower broke away from his binocs to look at the sniper. “You think she’s scared?”

  Hiero raised his eyebrows and turned down his mouth in a facial shrug. “I would be.”

  “Even with back up?”

  “It is Sully and Battaglia,” Hiero half-joked.

  “Fine,” Tower conceded with a small smile. “How about a sniper, then?”

  This time Hiero shrugged with his shoulders. “I’m not that great a shot.”

  2132 hours

  Katie made her way east, shuffling along with her shoulders bent and her head low. She paused at the railing near the duck feeding station. Her presence brought over a few mallards that she figured were insomniacs. In the darkness, the green feather headdress appeared black. They quacked at her, at first in appreciative tones, then in demanding ones. When she didn’t break out any bread or other goodies, the quacks seemed to take on a derogatory tone. Finally, the ducks paddled away in disgust.

  You are losing it, MacLeod, Katie told herself. Attaching human traits to water fowl?

  She stared into the water for several minutes, bringing her breathing under control. Slowly but surely, she forced it to become deep and regular. She noticed she was shivering from the sweat.

  It was time to move again.

  Katie turned and shuffled along toward to the clock tower, her ears perked for anyone approaching her. The park seemed strangely empty for a Saturday night. Usually couples strolled along the pathways, out for romantic walks after dining downtown. Kids hung out around the carousel and tried to get away with skate-boarding where it wasn’t allowed, keeping the park security guards busy. Old, lonely people walked their dogs.

  But not tonight.

  They’re all afraid.

  Katie knew it was true. Ever since the media grabbed hold of the story about the Rainy Day Rapist, people were scared to go out at night.

  She didn’t blame them.

  Even so, a small surge of anger raked through her belly. One man was doing this. One man was preying on the fears of an entire city. One man was imposing his will. And he probably got off on it.

  Katie clenched her jaw at the thought.

  She paused at the base of the clock tower, once again at a crossroads. One pathway led up the hill to the north, toward the pavilion where Sully and Battaglia were staged. Continuing east led her to the Washington Street Underpass.

  In the distance, the darkness of the underpass looked like an inky blot.

  She headed for the darkness.

  2135 hours

  “You’re full of crap,” Battaglia said.

  “Ask Gio,” Sully replied. “His parents are from Brooklyn. I’ll bet he knows.”

  “He doesn’t know because you’re making it up.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “You are.”

  “Look,” Sully said, “it’s simple. Here in Washington, you use the word ‘asshole’ to mean, like, a jerk or something. Only more harsh, right?”

  “That’s what it means,” Battaglia told him. “That’s what the word means everywhere. An asshole is an asshole.”

  “Not back east,” Sully argued, shaking his finger back and forth. “Back there, especially in New York and in Jersey, it’s not such a strong word. It means something more along the lines of ‘schmuck’ or whatever. It’s a softer word.”

  “Asshole is never a soft word.”

  Sully affected a Brooklyn accent. “What am I, an asshole ovah heah?”

  “Oh, nice. Make fun of my people.”

  “That’s how your people use the word.”

  Battaglia shook his head. “I think we use the word to describe the Irish.”

  The radio squawked, pre-empting Sully’s reply. “Adam-122?”

  “Twenty-Two,” Sully said into the portable radio.

  “She’s headed for the Washington Street Overpass,” Tower transmitted. “I’ll lose sight of her when she goes underneath.”

  Sully pressed the transmit button. “We’ll take the path up top and get an eye on her when she comes through the other side.”

  “Good. Copy that.”

  Sully slid the radio into his jacket pocket. “Let’s go, asshole.”

  “East Coast or West?” Battaglia asked, firing up the golf cart.

  “Both,” Sully assured him.

  2136 hours

  Katie forced herself to maintain her hunched posture. She shuffled her feet and looked down. Somehow it was easier than before, almost as if hunching made her a smaller target and therefore safer. Tension laced her shoulders and neck as she made her way toward the darkness under the roadway.

  She paused a few yards from the underpass. The blackness inside caused small waves of apprehension to ripple through her lower stomach. She recalled her irrational childhood fears—the open cl
oset door at night, the boogeyman under the bed.

  That back bedroom with Phil.

  Her father always told her that her bedroom was exactly the same place with the lights off as when the lights were on. There was nothing different once the light went away.

  Katie was twenty-seven years old now, and she knew what her father said wasn’t really true. Things happened in the dark that never happened in the light. People hid in the dark. They did evil in the dark. There was pain in the dark.

  She didn’t want to go into the dark.

  2137 hours

  “She’s stopped,” Tower reported. “Why is she stopped?”

  Hiero shrugged. “I don’t know. You’re the detective.”

  Tower ignored the jibe. “Maybe she sees something under the overpass?”

  “Could be.”

  “Or somebody. Can you see under there at all?”

  Hiero trained his night scope ahead of MacLeod. “Only a few yards in. We’re too close and up too high. The angle’s bad.”

  Tower cursed. “What does she see in there?”

  * * *

  The area under the overpass couldn’t be longer than twenty-five yards, Katie estimated. That was it. Twenty-five yards. That’s maybe thirty paces.

  That’s all.

  To her right, the slow current of The Looking Glass River drifted past. An iron fence ran along the shore to keep people from swimming in the water, which was far colder, deeper and faster than the average jerk realized.

  They were usually drunk, Katie mused, her mind flitting away for a moment, almost as if it were trying to avoid what stood in front of her. And, drunk or not, most of the would-be swimmers were dissuaded by that fence.

  Her focus came back when she looked beneath the underpass. The left edge of the pathway was lined with a sloping rock wall that rose up and receded away into darkness. Katie knew that transients sometimes slept up underneath the bridge in the deep recesses of the scattered rocks.

  She peered into the blackness, wishing for a flashlight. There could be a half dozen transients camped back there, wrapped up in sleeping bags or laying in wait.