by Frank Zafiro
Questions.
And Lieutenant Crawford.
He poured another cup.
“I saw your sister yesterday,” Stephanie said. “Little Ben sure is cute.”
Tower smiled in spite of himself. His nephew was a cute kid, and he was proud of the boy. He didn’t know if he’d ever have kids of his own, but somehow being an uncle to Ben made that concern less worrisome.
“Thought that’d make you smile,” Stephanie said. Then she assumed a mock pout. “Although, it’d been nice if the prospect of waking me up for sex had done the same thing.”
Tower leaned over and kissed her temple. “I really was exhausted, babe. And I had a bad night.”
Stephanie leaned in and nestled into his chest. “Well, I’ll tell you what. When you have bad nights like that and you’re tired, wake me up anyway. I’ll make your night better. And I’ll even do most of the work.”
Tower kissed the top of her head. “Okay. You got it.” He kissed her head again, pausing to smell her hair. “Thanks,” he whispered.
In that moment, it didn’t matter to him that Crawford was probably already waiting to chew his ass at the office. Or that the Rainy Day Rapist was getting the better of him. For those few seconds, it didn’t even matter that Katie MacLeod was up at the hospital. All that mattered was the scent of her hair and the closeness of her body.
“Thanks,” he whispered again.
0630 hours
He sat at his kitchen table, staring down at his uneaten breakfast. The reality of his near capture the previous night settled in after he’d slept for a few hours. He’d been foolish to attempt something with no plan. And to risk doing it without his ski mask was doubly foolish. What if she’d seen his face?
The entire scenario played itself out behind his eyes. Spotting her while driving by. The rush to grab her. The quick response of the police. Her rebellious words—
Fuck you!
—once he had her in the wooded area rang in his ears. So did the beautiful sound of his fist slapping into her face. The memory of the sweet limpness of her body afterward still made his fingers and palms tingle hours later.
But he forced his mind to ignore that for a moment. He worked on the events some more, thinking things through. He supposed it was possible, though not probable, that there had been police officers that close simply by chance, but he doubted it. And one of them had called out a name.
“Katie,” he breathed.
If they knew her name, then they knew who she was. So that meant she was with the police. Or she was police. Probably a decoy.
Yes, he decided. That was it. He’d fallen for a decoy.
The idea made him grind his teeth. Still, even with all their planning, his unplanned actions had won out. He’d escaped, leaving behind a limp body. Not a dead body, granted. But a limp one was pretty good for the time he’d had to work with.
So now their little ploy had failed. He knew their game. He could stop what he was doing. Maybe even move to a different city and start over.
The thought caused his jaw to clench even tighter. He didn’t want to be dictated to by the police. He’d never considered them as rivals before because he’d been so focused on his work, but now he knew that was exactly what they were. Rivals. Enemies. And there was no way he was going to allow them to beat him. Especially not some bitch cop who thought she could trick him.
No. He’d stay. He’d just have to be more careful.
The first thing he needed to do was get them to stop with the decoys. After that, he needed to finish the job with this Katie the Cop bitch. The prospect of that made his whole body tingle.
Still, first things first. How to get rid of the decoys?
He stared down at his uneaten blob of scrambled eggs. Next to the plate was the River City Herald, still folded and unread. His mind drifted to the letter V. had written—
Was it really Victoria, he wondered. He thought so.
—the day before. He recalled how good the letter made him feel when he realized that at any given time, Victoria or some other bitch like her was walking around afraid of him.
He reached out and touched the newspaper. A thought struck him. He considered it for a few moments, liking the idea better and better the more he thought about it. Finally, he smiled.
It would work, he decided. He lifted his fork and scooped up his lukewarm eggs into his mouth, gobbling down his breakfast. Then he rose from the table, found a coat and left the house in order to find a payphone.
0707 hours
Katie MacLeod stared up at the ceiling. The faraway beep of medical monitors seemed to echo down the quiet hallway. She imagined a four-foot bunny rabbit stepping lightly along on the red balls that each beeping sound created.
Beep.
Out her door.
Beep.
Down the hallway.
Beep.
Past the nurse’s station.
She blinked. She took a deep breath. The sound of the air sucking into her lungs sounded like a hurricane.
A small voice in the back of her mind screamed out, “You’re loopy, MacLeod. You’re doped up!” but she brushed the voice away with a giant light blue feather. The effort made her exhale, then swallow. That seemed to take five minutes. And it created another hurricane, followed by a waterfall.
A stocky nurse bustled into the room. “How are we this morning?” she asked in a blasting, cheery voice that seemed harsh against all of the softness in Katie’s world.
“Gooooood,” Katie managed to reply. She’d wanted to tell this loud, happy woman all of the secrets of the world that she’d discovered, but she didn’t know how to put those colors and sounds into words.
The nurse glanced at her chart. “Mmm-hmmm. I’ll bet. Well, just so you’re aware, the doctor has ordered us to taper off your magic juice by noon.”
Magic juice? Katie flashed to the women’s locker room at the police station. Chisolm’s rough hands digging into the little jar. The heat on her leg.
Was Chisolm a doctor? Was he her doctor?
Of course he was. That made sense. Chisolm took care of things.
Chisolm was always there.
Chisolm was a four foot bunny who could dance on red balls down any hallway.
“The doctor will be in himself once your test results are in,” the nurse said. “Until then, you just rest, okay? We’ll check in with you every so often, all right?”
She wanted to tell her that Chisolm could just make more magic juice if she needed it. He had plenty of beeps. And besides that, she had just figured out where God really came from. She couldn’t wait to explain it to Chaplain Marshall, who would be disappointed that Captain Jean-Luc Picard wasn’t somehow involved.
“Goooooood,” Katie said.
0714 hours
Pam Lincoln rubbed her tired eyes. Being the crime beat reporter meant a lot of late nights. Most police action that was newsworthy took place in the evening hours, so she was up monitoring her scanner. She kept her pager and cell phone at her bedside even after she turned in, just in case she got a call. Not only did she have a few officers who were willing to tip her to the events that might make the cops look good, there were a couple of disgruntled ones who let her in on the more scandalous occurrences as well. Plus she had half a dozen stalwart citizens from both sides of the pro-police/anti-police fence who also monitored the scanner frequencies. Not much occurred without her getting at least a whisper of it.
Despite the need for late nights, her editor required her to be at her desk every day at seven sharp. He didn’t seem to care that her work carried her until at least midnight every night or that she was frequently woken up in the middle of the night to cover something big. He was an old school journalist who idolized two things: Walter Cronkite and a seven A.M. start time.
Pam sipped her triple-shot vanilla latté through two skinny straws. She thanked the coffee gods for caffeine and the fact that there was a drive-through latté stand approximately every fifty yards in Ri
ver City. Seattle may have been the birthplace of the 1990s coffee craze, but River City certainly embraced the notion.
As she got her oral caffeine infusion, she reviewed her notes. There wasn’t much from the previous night.
There’d been a violent domestic dispute in Browne’s Addition, but she’d already written up the brief paragraph on that story. Except for the names and the address, it could fit any dozen other domestic violence assaults she’d reported in the past three years.
On the north side, officers were briefly in foot pursuit of a rape suspect, but that petered out before she’d been able to get to her car. The only real interesting aspect of that call was that an ambulance had responded. She wondered if the Rainy Day Rapist had struck again, but she doubted it. Captain Reott had assured her that she’d get a call any hour if there were any developments on that case.
That left a vehicle pursuit which occurred out in the County. The suspect had been a four-wheel drive truck that simply went off road and lost the Deputy Sheriff, who couldn’t follow in his Chevy Caprice. That might make for a mildly humorous piece, but Pam didn’t think it was worth embarrassing the Deputy. It never was, in her mind. Unlike some of her colleagues, she knew that cops were people, too, just like everyone else – not simply convenient targets.
So all in all, she had a puny paragraph about a DV to hand into Mr. Seven O’Clock.
Her phone rang. She glanced down at the caller ID, but didn’t recognize the number. She lifted the receiver.
“Pam Lincoln, River City Herald.”
There was a pause. She could hear the flow of traffic in the background and guessed immediately that her caller was on a payphone.
She squinted. Now, why would someone call her on a payphone? Leaning forward, flipping open her notepad and fished around in her drawer for a pen.
“Hello?” she repeated, her interest piqued. She found her pen. Quickly, she held it poised above the steno pad.
“You wrote the piece about the Rainy Day Rapist,” a male voice said. Something sounded wrong in the tone and inflection, but for a moment, she couldn’t pinpoint what it was.
“Yes,” she answered, “I did.”
The voice fell silent again. A car horn honked in the background.
“Can I help you with something?” she asked in her most open voice.
He chuckled. “Yes. Yes, I think you can.” He paused a moment. She figured out what was wrong with the voice. He was trying to disguise it somehow. She started to make a note of that on her steno pad.
That’s when he dropped his bombshell.
0741 hours
The Chief of the River City Police Department sat at his desk, his hands folded on his lap. Across from him sat Captain Michael Reott of the Patrol Division and the head of Major Crimes, Lieutenant Crawford.
“I’m not sure these answers are satisfactory,” he told the both of them. “In fact, I have to tell you that, in my opinion, they’re not.”
Crawford squirmed in his seat, his lip curled up as if he were about to deliver a retort. The Chief looked at him placidly, waiting to see if he said anything, but ultimately the Lieutenant remained silent.
The Chief turned to Reott. “You’re the ranking officer here. Explain to me why this occurred.”
Reott didn’t blink. “Sir, at each stage of this operation, Lieutenant Crawford assessed the situation. He took into consideration the officers who were involved, what actually occurred and what was at stake. In each case, he determined that the best course of action was to press on and continue with—”
“Do you agree?” The Chief asked him. Crawford wasn’t Reott’s immediate subordinate, but he was pretty sure he knew how the Captain would answer.
“Absolutely,” Reott told him without hesitation. “He made the best decision at the time with the information available to him at the time.”
The Chief wasn’t surprised. Still, he asked, “When exactly were you made aware of these decisions?”
“As soon as it was practical,” Reott answered.
“Specifically,” The Chief said, “when?”
“No later than the following morning. Earlier, in some cases.”
The Chief nodded. Reott had always been a stand-up leader when it came to his troops, so his response was exactly what The Chief had expected. He admired the Captain’s loyalty. Still, he was disappointed at the turn of events.
“Just so I’m clear,” he said, “let’s recap how this task force has progressed.”
Crawford clenched his jaw and exhaled heavily, but Reott’s expression remained impassive.
The Chief continued. “The team was out for three total nights. The first night, no rapist. But MacLeod has an accidental discharge under the Washington Street Underpass. And yet she goes back out again the next night anyway. The second night, no rapist again. And MacLeod is assaulted in an attempted robbery. Even after that, she goes out again a third night. This time, we actually get the rapist. But the cover team blows it and MacLeod ends up in the hospital while the rapist gets away.” The Chief rested his elbows on his desk and steepled his fingers in front of him. “Does that about sum things up?”
“No,” Crawford began, but Reott cut him off.
“Yes, sir,” the Patrol Captain said in an even voice. “That is what occurred.”
Crawford looked away and sighed heavily, but said nothing.
The Chief gave him an appraising look. “You know, Mike, I’m not a detective anymore. But I was at one time, years and years ago. Back in those days, we learned all about behavioral cues. And I have to tell you, as rusty as I am, it still looks like the Lieutenant here has something to say.”
He smiled humorlessly at Crawford. In his peripheral vision, he saw Reott turn to the Major Crimes Lieutenant as well.
Crawford stewed for a moment, as if engaged in an internal debate. He glanced at Reott, then leaned forward. “It’s not as clear cut as all that, Chief.”
The Chief held up both his palms. “Educate me, then.”
Crawford wiped the sweat from his lip and cleared his throat. “Well, I’ll deal with things in the same order you did, I suppose. For starters, not getting a bite from the rapist that first night was expected. It’d be like winning the lottery to catch the guy the first time out.”
The Chief made what he hoped was an expression of mild agreement.
“The A.D.,” Crawford continued, “was just nerves. MacLeod was in a dark place and there was movement. She shot a rat.”
“And what if it had been a bum?” The Chief asked.
“A transient,” Reott corrected.
“When I talk to the camera, they’re transients,” The Chief said, unfazed. “In this office, they’re bums.” He turned to Crawford. “Answer the question, Lieutenant.”
“If it were a bum,” Crawford said, “MacLeod would have killed him.”
The Chief nodded.
“And,” Crawford added, “if my aunt had balls, she’d be my uncle.”
The Chief raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. His silence seemed to embolden Crawford, who pressed forward.
“I told the Captain about the accidental discharge. He was considering a summary judgment in the matter rather than sending it to Internal Affairs.”
“Which means?” The Chief asked, his voice sounding a little tight to him.
“Which means a formal letter of reprimand.”
“How does that impact her?”
Reott answered before Crawford could speak. “According to Lieutenant Saylor, she’s just been given a position as a Field Training Officer. A formal reprimand would revoke her FTO status for six months.”
The Chief pursed his lips. That actually seemed a little harsh to him, but he left it alone for the time being.
Crawford pressed on. “The second night was just bad luck. There’s no way the team could have predicted a robbery attempt. The coverage on it was good. One of the suspects was captured, interrogated and charged.”
The Chief nodded, sa
ying nothing.
“The third night,” Crawford continued, “was a stroke of good luck.”
“Good luck?” The Chief asked.
“Yes,” said Crawford. “Good luck. A victim came forward who hadn’t yet spoken to police. Her attack came in the exact same place as the victim we thought was number one. Tower and Renee in Crime Analysis both theorized that the suspect lived near that location. That was why they were at Corbin Park on night two and Mona Street on night three.”
“Tell me where the luck comes in,” The Chief asked.
“We found him,” Crawford answered. “Just three nights into the operation, we found the son of a bitch.”
“How do you know it was him?”
Crawford grunted. A smug look overcame him. “MacLeod was wired. Tower reviewed the tape. The guy used some unique phrases. It was him. No doubt.”
The Chief gave Crawford a long glance. He wondered for a moment if he should lay into him for his demeanor, but he figured Reott would take care of that later. Instead, he conceded the point. “Okay, so we got lucky. We failed to capitalize on that luck.”
Crawford nodded in agreement. “You’re right, sir. But the officers on the scene made the best call they could under the circumstances. They didn’t have the benefit of twenty/twenty hindsight.”
“Maybe so,” said The Chief, a whisper of frustration creeping into his chest. “But the end result is that I have an officer up at the hospital and a rapist still on the loose.”
“I’m aware of that, sir.”
“I’m glad you’re so aware, Lieutenant.” The Chief was unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “Now, tell me what you plan to do about it.”
He saw Crawford’s eyes flash in anger, but the Detective Lieutenant held his tongue. “We stay the course,” was all he said.
The Chief raised his eyebrows. “Stay the course? You don’t think your operation is burned?”
Crawford shook his head. “Damaged, yes. But burned? No. We just need a different decoy and we can keep moving forward. A guy like this won’t stop. We’ll catch him. We just have to stay the course.”