by Frank Zafiro
Tower shrugged. “This isn’t an exact science. I could be wrong.”
“You know you’re not.”
“I could be.”
Katie snorted lightly. “You’re wasting your time.”
“I’m paid by the hour,” Tower said. He squeezed Katie on the shoulder and left the observation room. As he stepped through the doorway, he almost bumped into Lieutenant Crawford.
“Sorry,” he murmured.
Crawford ran his hand through his thinning, tousled hair. “See me in my office after your interview, Tower.”
“Yes, sir.”
Tower took three hurried steps to the interview room door. At the door, he took a deep breath and put on his game face. Then he turned the knob and went in.
The man looked up at the sound of his entrance. His face was calm, despite the small scrape on his cheek and the smudge of dirt on his forehead. His eyes fixed Tower with a hard, appraising stare.
Tower sat down opposite him. For a long minute, the two men looked intently at each other from across the small table. Neither blinked.
“What’s your name?” Tower finally asked.
The Russian did not speak. His flat expression radiated a cold hatred back at Tower.
“Do you speak English?” Tower asked.
“Da.”
“Then answer my question. What’s your name?”
A small smile curled at the edge of his thin lips. “Do you know that I could refuse to tell you? Or give you any name I wish? You would never know difference. You not have my fingerprints.”
Tower matched his smile with his own. “Let’s start over. You know you don’t have to talk to me, right?”
“Da. Of course.”
“And that you can have an attorney, if you want?”
The Russian snorted. The line of his mouth went straight and hard, all hint of the smile gone.
“You don’t want an attorney?” Tower asked.
“In my country,” the Russian replied, “we have saying. God, he want to punish mankind, so he send lawyers.”
Tower allowed himself a small grin. “I think we just found something to agree about.”
The Russian did not return his smile, but instead shook his own head. “I no need lawyer. I do nothing wrong.”
“Well, since you know so much,” Tower said, “do you know that I can hold you until I do identify you? Even if that means sending your prints back to Moscow?”
The Russian shook his head again. “No. Is America. You will set me free.”
Tower chuckled. “Hate to break this to you, pal, but that isn’t how it works. Even here in the Socialist Republic of Washington, we can hold people who commit felonies until they’re identified.”
“What is felony?”
“A crime,” Tower said. “A serious one.”
“What crime? I get scared because girl point gun at me and then men chase. You should arrest her, not me.”
“She’s a cop.”
The Russian blinked. “She is cop, this girl with gun?”
“Yep.”
He shrugged. “But I no do nothing. She is one who points gun at me. Crazy, this girl.”
“What’s your name?” Tower asked again.
The man considered, then shrugged again. “Is fine. I no do nothing wrong, so I tell you.”
“Thank you. What is it?”
The Russian drew himself up in his seat. When he spoke, his voice had a touch of pride in it. “I am Valeriy Alexandrovich Romanov.”
“Your name is Valerie?”
“Nyet. Valeriy.” He pronounced it slowly. “Vuh-LAIR-ey. You see?”
“Here in America, that’s a girl’s name.”
Romanov shrugged. “Many things different between America and my country.”
“Yeah?” Tower asked. “What do they do with rapists over there?”
“What is this word? Rapist?”
Tower raised his hand and made a circle with this thumb and forefinger. Then he lifted his middle finger and thrust it in and out of the hole he’d created.
Romanov’s eyes narrowed. “You think I try make sex on this girl?”
“Didn’t you?”
“Nyet. I no do nothing.” Romanov shook his head. “I no need to do that. I get woman when I want. Many woman.”
“Well, it ain’t about the sex, pal,” Tower told him. “It’s about other things. Like being angry at women. Or being an inadequate. You know, stuff like that.”
Romanov glared at him. “I no do nothing,” he repeated.
“If I run your name through Interpol, what will I find?” Tower asked him.
“Go find out,” Romanov told him. “I no tell you shit.”
“I’ll bet you’ve got a record over there, Valerie.”
“Valeriy,” Romanov corrected.
“I’ll bet that record will tell me a whole lot of interesting things, Valerie,” Tower continued, ignoring his correction. “I’ll bet you’ll have a whole slew of indicator crimes like weenie waving, minor assaults, the whole gamut.”
“What are these things you say?” Romanov asked. “Negavahru po angliscky. I no speak English much.”
“You understand me perfectly well.”
“Nyet.”
“How many women have you attacked here in River City, Valerie?”
“I no do noth—”
“How many did you rape?”
“Nyet. You think I do that, then you more stupid than I first think.”
Tower watched Romanov while they spoke. He knew the Russian was lying about the attempted robbery, but everything he saw told him the man was being truthful about the subject of rape.
Which I already knew, Tower thought to himself. No victim mentioned accents. None mentioned a second suspect. He was wasting his time.
“Maybe you’re right,” Tower told Romanov. “Maybe I am stupid. Maybe you aren’t a rapist. But I saw you try to steal that fanny pack.”
“Nyet. Is not true.”
“I watched you reach right out and try to take it. So did three other cops, including the ‘girl’ you tried to steal it from. Now, are you going to sit there and deny that?”
Romanov gazed back at Tower, his countenance flat. “I no do nothing,” he said.
Tower sighed and stood up. “Well, then I guess you’ll like it here in America, Valerie. Because we throw innocent people who ‘no do nothing’ into jail, too.”
The corner of Romanov’s mouth twitched into a smile. “I very scared at U.S. jails,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “So much worse than Russia.”
Tower waited a moment longer, but could think of nothing to say, so he turned and left the room.
2310 hours
Katie sat in the women’s locker room, her leg propped up on the long bench that ran down the center of the aisle. Her locker stood open, a calendar depicting a lighthouse displayed on the inside door.
I’d like to be there right now, she thought. Yaquina Head Lighthouse, on the coast of Oregon. Surrounded by fog. The smell of salt water in the air. A brisk wind making you glad that the door to the lighthouse was so close.
Of course, she probably couldn’t climb the stairs right now with her throbbing quadriceps. She kneaded the bunched muscle and grimaced in pain. She’d trained in defensive tactics ever since the academy. That repertoire of kicks included one very similar to what the Russian suspect had used on her – a hard, low blast to the quadriceps. Although she’d taken those shots in training, it had never been full force. Usually, she knew it was coming and had time to turn her leg or retract it defensively. There’d been soreness, but never the kind of cramping, pulsating pain this kick had wrought.
A loud knock came at the locker room door. A moment later, the door nudged open a crack.
“All females decent in there?”
Katie grinned. The gravelly voice of Thomas Chisolm always made her feel better. “It’s all clear,” she called back.
The door swung open. Thomas Chisolm strode i
nto the room. He spied Katie in her gym shorts and averted his eyes. “Jesus, MacLeod, you didn’t tell me you were half-naked.”
“Don’t be such a prude. They’re workout shorts.”
Chisolm kept his head turned, but stole a glance at her out of the corner of his eye. “All right, then. I’m just a stranger to what goes on in the women’s locker room. Never know what to expect.”
“Oh, it’s pretty much what all you guys imagine,” Katie said. “When we’re not standing around naked and rubbing lotion on ourselves, it’s a big lesbian love-fest.”
“Save that for Giovanni,” Chisolm said. “Or Sully and Battaglia. They might just believe you.” He looked around. “It is nice in here, though.”
“You want the full tour?”
Chisolm shook his head. “Nah. I didn’t come to compare digs.” He reached into his back pocket and removed a small jar. “I brought you some magic juice.”
Katie squinted at him. “Magic what?”
Chisolm approached and swung his leg over the bench, straddling it at her feet. “Sully said you took a hard kick to the leg?”
Katie pressed her lips together. “Yeah, so?” She wondered if the two of them were yukking it up over the girl getting her ass kicked. Well, at least she hadn’t let the guy get away in a foot pursuit.
Chisolm pointed to her propped leg. “This one?”
Katie nodded.
Chisolm settled onto the bench. He twisted the top off the small container and dug his first two fingers inside. When he removed them, his fingers were coated in a thick gel.
“What is that?” she asked him.
“I told you,” Chisolm said with a grin. “It’s magic juice. Now, where did that bastard kick you?”
Katie shook her head. “No way, Tom. You’re not putting that stuff on me. Not without telling me what it is.”
“Calf or quad?”
“Quad,” Katie said, “but what the hell is that?”
Chisolm fixed her with an amused look. “You don’t believe in magic, MacLeod?”
“No.”
“How about secret medicine?”
“No.”
“Wow.” Chisolm motioned toward her quadriceps. “Does it hurt?”
“Yeah,” she admitted.
“Throbs? Tries to cramp up?”
“Both.”
Chisolm proffered his gooey fingers to her. “That’s what the magic juice is for.”
Katie hesitated, then said, “All right. I trust you.”
Chisolm smiled. “Good.” He held his fingers out toward her hand.
Katie shook her head. “Uh, no. I don’t want to touch that stuff, whatever it is. You do it.”
“Fair enough,” Chisolm said. He reached toward her leg. Just before touching her, he paused. “This might hurt a little.”
“Hurt? But you never said—”
Chisolm smeared the thick yellow goop over the skin of her quadriceps. The cool sensation made her gasp lightly, though it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Then Chisolm dug his fingers into her muscle, rubbing in the ointment.
Katie exhaled sharply. Jolts of pain zipped from her leg outward through her entire body. All of her muscles tightened up. She gripped the sides of the bench with her fingers and let out a quiet curse.
Chisolm said nothing. His strong fingers kneaded her leg muscle, the roughness of his skin scraping and sliding across hers. The two remained silent while the veteran officer worked in the ointment. The coolness spread across her entire outer thigh. She could feel the sensation seeping into the muscle.
Katie noticed that Chisolm focused on her leg with the clinical distance of a family doctor. She wondered for a moment how many of the other men she worked with would be comfortable rubbing medication onto her leg without making it into something more. How many of them would be able to do something like that and then not run off to the rest of the platoon to spill the secret like some kind of schoolboy?
To be fair, she wondered how many men she’d feel safe enough with to let herself be touched? And were there some that she might react to with a hand on her leg? More than one kind of reaction, she decided, depending on who it was.
The last thing she noticed before Chisolm drew his hands away was that he had studiously avoided the inner thigh.
“There,” he said, twisting the cap back onto the container. “Give it about ten minutes to dry before you put anything over the top of it.”
Katie gazed down at her leg. The skin bore a yellow tinge. The cool sensation seemed to be shifting into something warmer in the brief seconds since Chisolm’s touch.
“You want to tell me what it is now?” Katie said. “It’s starting to get warm.”
“Good,” Chisolm said. “It should feel like a heat pad for a few hours.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Chisolm slid the canister back into his pocket. “Well, let me put it this way. Do you remember when you were a kid and had a stuffy nose? Your mom probably put some of that vapor rub stuff on your chest before you went to bed, right?”
“My dad usually did stuff like that,” Katie answered, “but yeah.”
“Well, this is sorta like a Ben-Gay version of that. With a little aspirin mixed in.” Chisolm shrugged, then added, “And a couple of herbal remedies I read about a few years ago.”
Katie looked at him in wonder. “Wow, Tom. I never figured you for a medicine man.”
Chisolm grinned broadly. Katie noticed that the thin white scar that ran from his temple to the corner of his mouth faded into his laugh lines a little when smiled like that.
“Once you hit forty, MacLeod, you look for relief anywhere you can find it,” he said, lifting his pant leg and wiping the excess gel on his own lower calf. “See?”
“Old age and Russians that kick like Chuck Norris,” Katie said. “An odd combination for a cure, even if it is magic juice.”
Chisolm faked a scowl. “Who’s old? I said forty.” Then he smiled and tapped Katie lightly on the shoulder with his left hand. “Rest up, MacLeod. We’re back at it tomorrow.”
“Thanks,” Katie said, her gratitude genuine. “And I will. See you tomorrow.”
Chisolm winked at her, rose and left the ladies’ locker room.
2321 hours
Tower sat in Crawford’s office, rubbing his sleepy eyes. The heavy breathing of the Major Crimes Lieutenant irritated him, but he tried to hide his frustration.
“You sure hit a home run with that interview, Tower,” Crawford said sarcastically.
Tower shrugged. “I’m not much of a diplomat.”
“Why exactly is he in custody?”
“We tried to catch a trout and landed a perch.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Tower rubbed his eyes again. “It means he didn’t do the rape, so we lost nothing there. And we have witnesses on the robbery attempt, so who cares what he says?”
“Nice attitude,” Crawford said. “This task force of yours is not only crapping out, but it is causing collateral damage.”
“Collateral what?”
“Collateral damage,” Crawford repeated. “First, you’ve got MacLeod cranking off rounds under the bridge at no one. Now you’re arresting Boris.”
“MacLeod’s thing was an accident,” Tower said in a low voice. “And the Russian tried to rob our decoy.”
“There was nothing accidental about MacLeod firing her duty weapon without cause. It was a choice.”
“It was a reaction.”
“It was a reaction that makes me wonder if you picked the right patrol officers to support your operation, detective,” Crawford snapped. “And when I get called down here in the middle of the night on a goddamn attempted robbery call, something is definitely wrong.”
“I’m sorry,” Tower said. “There’s only about two hundred thousand people in this city. Half are male. That leaves me one hundred thousand suspects. If you filter out non-whites and those too young or too old, that leaves about fi
fty thousand potential rapists. The odds that this particular guy will bite at our decoy aren’t that great.”
Crawford gave him a dark look. “I’m not interested in odds, Tower. I’m interested in results. You better figure something out.”
“I’m working on it,” Tower said.
“If you can’t handle it, I can put a homicide detective in charge,” Crawford told him.
Tower gritted his teeth. “It’s my case. It’ll make.”
Crawford sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Then what’s your next move?”
“We tried south of Clemons Park and it didn’t work. We’ll try to the north of it next.” He peered at Crawford through sleepy eyes. “What are you going to do about MacLeod’s A.D.?”
“Never mind. Concentrate on catching your bad guy.”
“I just don’t want that hanging over her, is all,” Tower said. “Distracting her.”
“If she’s distracted, replace her.”
“I don’t want to replace her. She’s good.”
“Good at what?” Crawford snapped. “Killing rats or getting robbed?”
“No,” Tower said, his voice tightening up. “She’s good at looking like a victim. She’s good bait.”
“Everybody has to be good at something, I guess.”
Tower clenched his jaw. Why does Crawford have to be such an insufferable prick every day of his life?
“Meanwhile,” the lieutenant said, “keep her focused or replace her. I’ll tell you what we’ll do about the A.D. after I meet with the Captain.”
“I thought this was your operation.”
“Watch it, Tower.”
Tower held up his hands in a peaceful gesture. “I’m just asking.”
“What you’re being is a smart ass,” Crawford snarled. “Besides, it is my operation. But MacLeod is Patrol, so I’ll let the Patrol Captain decide what’s to be done about her accidental discharge.”
Tower nodded his understanding.
And I’m sure the two of you will make that decision over a couple of stogies in his office. You prick.
“Anything else you want to say, Tower?”
“No, sir.”
Crawford nodded. “All right, then. Have there been any other developments in your case, besides the screw-ups by your task force team?”