by Frank Zafiro
Katie recited her address, knowing that Chisolm would have no difficulty finding it. That was the way it was with cops in general, her included. They didn’t want directions, just an address. Every one of them knew River City inside and out anyway.
“Sergeant Shen said to give him a call sometime in the next couple of nights to let him know how long you’ll be out,” Chisolm told her, pulling out onto Eighth Avenue.
“Okay.”
Chisolm drove in silence for several minutes. The stop and go motion of the truck made Katie feel tired again. She started thinking about her bed and how good it was going to feel to slip between the covers and sleep for another year or so.
As they pulled onto the Monroe Street Bridge, Chisolm cleared his throat. “Uh, Katie?”
“Yeah?” She stared off to the right toward the falls near the Post Street Bridge. Images of her experience there the previous year flashed through her mind’s eye. It was almost as if she could see herself on the bridge, her pistol pointed at the insane man who stood dangling his own infant son over the edge of the railing. She looked away.
“I’m...sorry,” Chisolm said.
“Huh?”
“I said I’m sorry. I let you down.”
Katie turned his direction. The muscles in his jaw were bunched. He stared straight ahead at the road in front of them.
“Tom, you didn’t –”
“Yes, I did,” Chisolm interrupted, his voice intense. “I was supposed be your cover and I let you down.”
Katie didn’t want to argue. She just didn’t have the energy. Instead, she adjusted the blanket around her shoulders. “It’s okay,” she said.
“No, it’s not,” Chisolm said. “I should have been there.”
Katie thought about telling him that he was always there when it counted, but she sensed that he wasn’t going to hear her words. So she simply sighed and murmured, “You were there. And I’m fine. I’m just tired and I want to go home.”
Chisolm didn’t reply. He just kept driving.
FIFTEEN
Wednesday, April 24th
Day Shift
1109 hours
After calling sick into work, something he had done only twice since taking the job, he gathered up a notebook and a pen. Then he headed to the library.
The newspaper article had been perfect. Not only did the reporter detail the task force’s unsuccessful attempts to trap him and thereby neuter the cops, but there’d been an additional benefit. The bitch he nearly killed was identified in the article as Officer Katie MacLeod (said to be “resting comfortably” at the hospital, he noted with disappointment). That revelation made him so happy that he almost considered a second phone call just to thank the reporter for supplying the information. But that was a risk he wasn’t willing to take. It wasn’t worth it.
There were other risks, though – ones he was willing to take. But that would take some careful planning.
At the library, he headed to the newspaper archives in the basement. He had some research to do.
2218 hours
Officer Matt Westboard cruised down Madison Street toward downtown. He was returning from Sacred Heart Hospital, where he’d dropped off another Forty-eight. Unlike the one he’d helped Katie with the previous week, this person’s mental problem was more dangerous. She’d been threatening to kill herself with pills. Once she voiced that threat to Westboard, he had little choice but to transport her to the Mental Health ward for an evaluation.
Gratefully, such calls generated only a brief report. He was already down a burglary report in addition to this mental health hold and his shift was barely more than an hour old. He wondered if it were going to be that sort of night – the kind where he got buried under an avalanche of paper.
Westboard passed Second Avenue and continued north. He was getting into an area of downtown that bustled with drugs and other criminal activity, most of it culminating on a stretch of First Avenue known as The Block. Every time he drove through this section of downtown on his way back north, he seemed to get side-tracked with something. It never failed. As if to offer proof in the matter, he spotted a woman mid-way up the street. She leaned into a car window at the curbside, cocking her hip provocatively to the side. Her huge mane of blond hair bounced as she bobbed her head in agreement with whatever the driver was saying.
Westboard recognized her as a prostitute immediately. He slowed down and watched.
With an almost prey-sense, she looked up and saw his patrol car. She glanced back at the driver and said something. The driver looked over at Westboard’s approaching vehicle. Without hesitation, he pulled from the curb and drove away. The woman did the same thing, walking quickly in the opposite direction.
Westboard debated briefly as to whether to stop the hooker or the john. Truth be told, his sympathies lay more with the prostitute, but he knew that it was better to attack supply than demand.
He pulled alongside her, angling his car toward the curb and coming to a stop just ahead of her path. Then he activated his overhead flashers.
The woman didn’t try to run. She threw up her hands in mild frustration, then crossed them and waited.
Westboard advised radio of his location, then exited the patrol car. “How’s it going?” he asked pleasantly.
“Fine until you showed up,” the hooker shot back.
Westboard nodded knowingly as he approached. “Isn’t that how it always is? The cops show up and spoil the fun.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, unsure how to take him. “Usually,” she answered.
Westboard stopped next to her. She looked around twenty-five years old to him. At this range, he could see the acne scars that she was trying to hide with heavy makeup. The woman was thin with very little curve in the hip. Westboard made her for a heroin user. She wasn’t twitchy enough for a crack whore.
“Do you have any I.D.?” he asked.
She sighed, then reached into her small purse and withdrew a driver’s license.
Westboard thanked her, looking down at the card. Her name was Toni Redding and she was younger than he’d thought by about five years. The photograph on the driver’s license was only about two years old, but the woman who smiled out of it might as well have been an entirely different person than the one standing before him. The young woman in the photograph had a full face and a vibrant smile. Her eyes shined with life and hope. When he glanced up at today’s Toni, her eyes were flat and dead. Only her hair, long, blond and flowing, seemed to come from her previous life.
She seemed to read that he was comparing the picture with her current state. “That was a while ago,” she explained.
Westboard nodded. He removed his portable radio, switched over to the data channel and gave the operator Toni’s name and birthdate. “What’d that guy want?” he asked.
Toni eyed him carefully. Then she said, “Directions to the freeway.”
Westboard smiled. “Well, he left heading the wrong way.”
Toni shrugged. “So I’m bad with directions. Is that against the law?”
“Not the last time I checked. If that’s what you were doing.”
“It was.”
Westboard nodded again. “Okay. You live here in town, Toni?”
“What do you care where I live?”
“Just passing the time while I wait for your name to come back.”
She gave him another suspicious look, then shrugged. “I’ve got a place in Browne’s Addition.”
“Not far, then.”
“No. It’s like ten blocks.”
Westboard immediately thought that if Sully or Battaglia were here, one of them would pop off with something about how convenient that made it for her to walk to work. The quip was humorous, but he figured it would be unnecessarily cruel to cut on Toni. He’d already interrupted her trick. No need to ridicule her, too.
“How long have you lived there?” he asked instead.
“A few months. Why? You a real estate agent?”
W
estboard raised his hands in mock surrender. “Easy,” he said. “I’m just talking with you.”
“I don’t like talking to cops.”
“Most people don’t. But it hurts less as you go along.”
She gave him a curious look, but he noticed that her jaw wasn’t set as rigidly as when he’d first approached her.
“Baker-124?” his radio crackled.
“Go ahead,” he told the dispatcher.
“Redding is clear with prostitution entries and a suspended driver’s license.”
“Copy, thanks.” Westboard handed the driver’s license back to Toni. “Here you go. I’m supposed to seize that when it’s suspended, but you go ahead and keep it.”
Confused gratitude crept into Toni’s eyes. Westboard didn’t tell her that his ulterior motive was making sure she had good picture identification for the next cop that stopped her.
“Thanks,” she said.
“No big deal,” he told her. “Listen, you don’t have any warrants and I’m not going to arrest you for soliciting tonight. But you need to scat out of the area for the rest of the night. If I see you down here later on tonight, I’ll have to take you in.”
Toni scowled, though not as harshly as before. “The charge wouldn’t stick, you know.”
“I do,” he said, “but you’d still spend the night in jail instead of in your apartment.”
She sighed in resignation. “Okay. You win. I’m out of here.”
“Be careful,” Westboard said.
She turned to go, then paused. She cast a sideways glance at Westboard over her shoulder. “Hey, is that cop all right? The woman cop that got beat up a few nights ago?”
“Yeah,” Westboard said. “She’s fine. Why?”
Toni shrugged. “I just wondered.” She turned to leave, then paused again. “I hope you guys catch that asshole.”
“We will.”
“Because he’s an asshole.”
“I agree.”
“There’s lots of men who are assholes, if you really stop to think about it,” Toni said.
“True enough,” Westboard agreed. “You come across a fair number that type?”
She gave him a measured look before asking, “Do you really care?”
“Of course.”
Toni turned back to face him. “I run into them every night. Some nights are worse than others.”
“Maybe you should get away from this life,” Westboard said quietly.
Toni looked away, absently rubbing her hands up and down her arms. “Maybe I will. Or maybe you should mind your own business.”
Westboard shrugged in mild agreement. An awkward silence fell between them for several seconds. Westboard expected her to turn and leave, either in an indignant huff or the practiced casualness that he’d come to associate with prostitutes. When she remained standing near him, looking everywhere but his direction, he finally broke the silence, asking her, “Toni, is there something you want to tell me?”
She met his gaze, then lowered her eyes to the ground. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
Westboard realized what she was working herself up to. He made it easy for her. “Have you been assaulted?”
She nodded. A tear formed in the corner of her left eye.
“Sexually?” Westboard asked.
She wiped angrily at the tear, nodding again. “Yeah. A few times. But there was this one guy who almost choked me to death about a week ago. He was a bigger asshole than the others.”
Westboard reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. “What happened?” he asked her in a soft voice.
“He picked me up. We did our deal, you know? But then in the middle of it all, he started choking me. I almost passed out. Then he threw me out of the car onto the ground.” More tears spilled down her cheeks. “I thought he was going to kill me.”
Westboard nodded his head in understanding. He gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Did he say anything?”
“Yeah,” she said, sniffling. “He said he only let me live because I was beautiful.” She laughed nervously through her tears. “Like I’m supposed to forgive him because he threw out a lame compliment or something? What an asshole.”
Westboard removed his notebook from his breast pocket. “I’d like to do a report on this, Toni. If that’s okay with you.”
“Sure,” she said, taking a tissue from her purse and wiping her nose. “Like it’ll ever go anywhere. Most cops just think getting raped goes with the territory.”
“It doesn’t,” Westboard said. “I don’t.”
She stared at him in appreciation, but suspicion still rimmed her eyes. “Yeah, all right. Let’s make a report.”
“Is there anything else you can remember about this guy?” Westboard asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “He said something strange to me while he was choking me. Something about how he was going to put the whammy on me or something like that.”
Westboard felt a surge of adrenaline in his chest. “He said that to you? Whammy?”
Toni nodded.
“You think you’d recognize this guy if you saw him again?”
“Absolutely.” She nodded emphatically. “He was an asshole. I never forget those guys, because I won’t get into a car with them ever again.”
Westboard raised his radio to his lips. “Baker-124.”
“Baker-124, go ahead.”
“Page Detective Tower to my location.”
“Copy.”
Toni watched him carefully. “Is that important?” she asked him. “What I said?”
He nodded. “Oh, yeah. Very important.”
Thursday, April 25th
Day Shift
1044 hours
Katie tapped lightly on Lieutenant Saylor’s door.
“Come,” she heard him say.
She opened the door and leaned in. Saylor sat at his desk, reviewing a thick stack of paperwork. He looked up as she entered.
“Ah, MacLeod,” he said, setting down his pen and turning to face her. “Come on in. Have a seat.”
Katie sat down gingerly in the chair at the side of the lieutenant’s desk.
Saylor watched her carefully. “How’re you feeling?”
“Sore,” she admitted. “But nothing’s broken.”
“Good.” He paused a moment, then asked. “How are you feeling about what happened?”
Katie shrugged. “I’m fine.”
“It was a bit of mess out there that night, from what I can gather,” Saylor said. “Do you think you might want to talk to someone about it?”
Katie looked up at him, annoyed. “You mean a shrink?”
Saylor didn’t waver. “Or a counselor. Or a Peer Assistance Team member. Anybody you want. If you want.”
Katie shook her head. “I’m fine. Things go wrong sometimes. Shit happens.” After a moment, she added, “sir.”
Saylor raised his hand to his chin and scratched it absently, watching Katie silently. Then he said, “All right. That’s your call. Moving along, then – when do you think you’ll be back to duty?”
“Tomorrow,” Katie said. “I probably could tonight, but I think I could use another day of rest.”
“I’m sure that’s true. Is that the timetable the doctor recommended?”
She nodded.
“All right,” Saylor said. “It’s settled, then. One last thing, though. Do you feel up to giving a statement to Tower tomorrow morning? He’s been asking about you.”
“Sure.”
Saylor gave her a warm smile and held out his hand. “I’ll be glad to have you back, MacLeod.”
Katie took his hand. “Thanks, Lieutenant.”
1144 hours
He sat in his car, eating an apple from his sack lunch. The tart taste barely registered as he studied his notes.
It was amazing to him how much you could learn about a person just by going to the library. And not a famous person, either. Just a regular, every day public servant.
He now knew that Officer Katie Mac
Leod was twenty-six years old. That piece of knowledge took a little bit of quick math after he came across the newspaper article from 1991. The story detailed the swearing in of several brand new River City officers, including one Kathleen Maria MacLeod. Both she and another of the recruits, Stefan Kopriva, barely made the twenty-one year old age cut off in order to get hired and were the youngest in their class. Somehow this passed for news in River City, but he didn’t dwell on the poor journalism. Instead, he reveled in that little piece of knowledge about the bitch.
There was another article from 1994 when the so-called Scarface Robber was captured, but it contained more information about other officers than her. But nonetheless, the search yielded a photograph of her accompanying a wounded officer into the rear of an ambulance. The anguish on her face was plain. He wondered if she had feelings for the downed cop. Probably not, he decided. She was probably just another overly emotional female, unable to control herself under stress.
He also found a fluff piece in the city government newsletter proclaiming Katie as Employee of the Month for December 1994. The nomination letter detailed her “tireless hard work on patrol” and “pleasant demeanor with citizens,” none of which really helped him much.
The most interesting news story came from the previous year. Some crazy man dropped his own baby off of the Post Street Bridge in broad daylight. And who do you suppose was there when it happened? The intrepid Officer MacLeod, bitch that she was. Apparently, she was unable to talk the man out of his horrific action. The article was mildly critical of her, though in all fairness, he couldn’t see a whole lot a person could do in that situation. Despite that fact, he took some pleasure imagining the pain that encounter must have caused her.
That was nothing, bitch. You just wait until I lay the whammo on you.
That was it for archived news stories, but not for his research. He found out that the library saved all the old telephone books. He dutifully checked each one, beginning with the current year. He didn’t find anything until he got back to 1991 and then he struck pay dirt. The entry read “K. MacLeod” and was followed by a telephone number.