by Frank Zafiro
“Interesting how?”
“Well, for starters, Battaglia hit on me all night long.”
Westboard’s eyebrows shot up. “No way.”
She nodded slowly. “Yep. That was ten hours of the married man waltz.”
“Ouch. I wouldn’t have figured that about him. Sully, too, then?”
“No. Actually, Sully went too far the other way, making sure that I didn’t take anything he said as a come on.”
Westboard’s face bore a surprised expression. “I wouldn’t have figured that, either.”
Katie laughed lightly. “It was kind of cute, but kind of annoying, too. And then when we ended up riding together two days in a row, it was even worse the second day.”
“Who would’ve known the twins were actually so different?”
Katie waved his comment away. “Ah, they were both pining away for the other by midnight, anyway.” She faked a deep voiced, Italian accent. “I wonder what Sully’s doing on that call. Let’s go see if he needs any help.”
Westboard laughed at her impression.
Katie shifted into a light, Irish lilt. “Let’s check up on Batts, lass. Just in case he needs some assistance.”
“That’s pretty good,” laughed Westboard. “I think you have them nailed.”
She shook her head in mock disgust. “It’s like they were going through withdrawals or something.”
“So how about Kahn?”
Katie wrinkled her nose. “Ugh. Too much aftershave and too much bragging. All night long.”
“Figured that one. And Chisolm?”
“Chisolm was...Chisolm.”
“And now,” Westboard pronounced in a grand tone and a stately wave, “you have moi.”
Katie laughed at his pomp. “It’s not the company that sucks,” she said, although that wasn’t entirely true. Kahn’s braggadocio and not so subtle hints disgusted her as much as Battaglia’s flirting surprised her. But she was a big girl. She could deal with those things. “The part that bothers me is that I’m being treated like some kind of china doll. Like I have to be protected or I’ll break.”
Westboard shrugged. “Pretty big stuff that happened to you. And those threats...”
“Fine,” Katie conceded. “But I still don’t think they’d have gone to this extreme if I was a man.”
Westboard’s only reply was to continue rolling slowly forward through West Central. Finally, he asked her, “Does it matter?”
A warm spike of anger flared in Katie’s gut. “Of course it matters!”
“Why?”
“Would you like it if they treated you different”?
“No,” Westboard whispered. “I wouldn’t.”
“Neither do I,” Katie answered.
Afterward, they drove in silence for a long while, thinking.
Thursday, May 8th
Day Shift
1018 hours
Captain Michael Reott opened the office window. He reached out through the slanted opening and caught some of the cascading rain on his hands. Then he wiped the cool water on his face and the back of his neck.
“You should leave that open,” Lieutenant Crawford told him.
“Why’s that?”
“Get some fresh air in here,” Crawford said. “This office reeks of cigars. If the Chief ever comes in here –”
“The Chief of Police doesn’t care if I smoke a cigar in my office. I’d be more worried if some smoking Nazi from City Hall came knocking.”
Crawford shrugged and stirred his coffee. “Leave it open, anyway, Mike. The cool air is nice.”
Reott agreed and left the window open. He sat down at his desk, reached into the drawer and removed a package of Rolaids. “Now I know why they pay us more than the line troops,” he said, holding up the antacids. “I bet I spend a thousand bucks a year on these little bastards.”
He removed two and popped them into his mouth.
Crawford chuckled. “That’s not why they pay us more, and you know it.”
“No, I suppose not,” Reott said, crushing the chalky tablets with his molars. “I guess they pay us because we’re the ones who have to make the tough decisions.”
“That’s some of it.”
“Some? What’s the rest, then?”
Crawford raised his eyebrows. “They didn’t teach you this at the FBI National Academy?”
Reott waved his comment away. “You want to tell me, then tell me. But don’t break my balls.”
“Fine. They do pay us more to make the tough decisions. But the thing is, most every one of those decisions will probably piss someone off, right?”
Reott half nodded, half shrugged in agreement.
“Of course it will,” Crawford continued. “It’ll piss off the citizens, or it’ll piss off the patrol cops. Or the detectives. It might even go the other direction and piss off your boss or God forbid, the Mayor. Point is, if it doesn’t piss somebody off, then it probably wasn’t such a tough decision.”
“Agreed. So what?”
“So,” Crawford continued, “if a good leader makes tough decisions and if making those tough decisions pisses people off, then pretty soon you’ll have pissed off enough people that pretty much no one will like you anymore.”
“You’re saying that we get a little more pay in case people start disliking us?”
“No,” Crawford corrected. “I’m saying that they inevitably will. And dislike is a weak word.”
“Oh?”
“The more accurate word is hate. They’ll end up hating you for it. As a leader, you’ll eventually become something of an outcast. When that social ostracizing happens, there’s only one thing left to do.”
“What’s that?”
“Drink.”
Reott blinked. “Drink?”
Crawford nodded. “Yep. What else are you going to do? Stop making those decisions? Start making decisions based on how popular it’ll make you?” He shook his head. “No. All you can do is say fuck it, and have a drink.”
Reott sighed. “You’re on quite a downer jag these days.”
“That’s life. You ought to be used to it, Captain.”
“I’m still trying to get my mind wrapped around your point,” Reott said, frowning. “The added pay is because I might become an alcoholic?”
“How’d you get to be a captain with that little brain?” Crawford asked, a roguish grin forming under his moustache.
“I took a Civil Service exam.”
“Ah, that explains a lot.”
“You made lieutenant the same way,” Reott reminded him.
“True, but at least I’ve figured out why it came with a pay raise.”
“So you can drink more?”
“No.” Crawford shook his head. “So that when you’re sitting alone at your house with no friends anywhere to be seen, crying in your cups, at least you can commiserate with a little bit finer brand of booze.”
Reott let out a long, knowing chuckle. “Oh, that’s rich.”
“It’s true.”
“I know,” Reott said, still laughing.
Crawford smiled and drank his coffee.
Reott allowed himself a few more quiet chuckles, thinking of the two bottles of seventeen year old Glengoyne single malt Scotch whisky at home in his cupboard. He’d dropped over a hundred bucks for the two of them right before Christmas last year, so maybe Crawford had a point.
His laughter tapered off. He resumed chewing his Rolaids and swallowed. When he’d finished, he leaned back in his chair. “So where are we on this rapist?”
“We’re nowhere,” Crawford replied.
“Aren’t you just a little ray of sunshine?”
Crawford shrugged. “It is what it is. Tower hasn’t come up with anything. The victims didn’t see anything. The forensics is a bust.”
“What about the composite sketch?”
“Tons of responses, just like I expected.”
“And?”
“And Tower ran them all down. Most of the
m, anyway. I’ve got Finch and Elias running down some of the others, along with the other dicks in Sexual Assault.”
“But no luck,” Reott concluded.
“No luck,” Crawford said.
“Which leaves us with what?”
“It leaves us with nothing,” Crawford said, the frustration in his voice apparent.
“We can’t keep MacLeod in limbo like this forever,” Reott said. “How long has it been?”
“Only a week and a half.”
“I’ll bet ‘only’ isn’t a word MacLeod would use to describe it.”
Crawford shrugged. “You want my take on this?”
“I didn’t ask you in here for your theories on police pay scales.”
Crawford ignored the jest. “I think he’s moved on.”
“You mean left River City?”
“Yes. I think that when things got too hot, he packed up and moved on.”
Reott looked at Crawford, appraising the Investigative Lieutenant’s words. Finally, he said, “The investigation part of this is your call. I don’t know if I agree with your theory, but it’s your call to make.”
“I know.”
“But I’m curious why you think this guy’s gone.”
“He was on a rampage, Mike. He couldn’t control himself. Then he almost gets caught. Now there hasn’t been a stranger rape for two weeks.”
“That’s not very long.”
“He raped two of them one day apart,” Crawford pointed out, shaking his head. “No, this guy is compulsive. He couldn’t stop himself if he tried.”
“What does Tower think?”
“All he cares about is catching the guy. He’s not going to admit the possibility that this suspect is out of his reach.”
“Did you talk to the Prosecutor?”
“Yes. Patrick Hinote said he doesn’t have an opinion on the matter. He’s more concerned that if we do find the guy, he gets a call right away. Unless the evidence in this case opens up, a conviction is going to be tough.”
“How about his team?” Reott asked. “They seemed pretty hard core during that meeting we had.”
“I don’t know. That’s Hinote’s problem and he said he’d handle it.”
Reott sighed. “Sounds like just about everyone is ready to give up. I don’t like that idea.”
“It’s not giving up, Mike.”
“What would you call it?”
“Re-allocating our assets,” Crawford replied immediately.
“Does that include the MacLeod detail?”
“They’re your people, but I’d say yes.”
Reott pursed his lips in thought. “What if this guy is just waiting for us to do exactly that? What if he’s been watching for that this entire time?”
Crawford met Reott’s eyes with his own steady gaze. “Well, if that’s the case, then it will still be true no matter when we pull the plug on this detail, won’t it?”
Reott thought about it for several long moments. He rose from his chair and walked back to the window. Reaching through the opening, he let the thick spring raindrops pepper his palms. Then he wiped the cool water on his face and neck again. “Is this one of those tough decisions we were talking about earlier?” he asked, more to himself than anyone else.
Crawford answered anyway.
“Only if you make the wrong one,” the lieutenant said.
1804 hours
Tower glanced at the clock on the wall. It was after six already, which put him an hour past quitting time.
He didn’t care.
Lieutenant Crawford informed him earlier that afternoon that both the surveillance and the protection details were being pulled. He took the news in stride, knowing that there wasn’t anything he could do about it. Moreover, he struggled to find fault with the decision. That didn’t stop him from being pissed off about it.
Listlessly, he flipped through the three most recent tips. He found nothing interesting, so he reached for another license plate and tapped the information into the computer. As he waited for the return, his telephone rang.
He snatched the receiver off the hook, hoping it was something helpful. “Tower,” he barked.
“John? It’s Stephanie.”
Disappointment settled into Tower’s chest. Was he ever going to catch a break?
“Oh. Hey.”
“Don’t sound so enthused,” she chided gently.
“Just busy, babe. What’s up?”
“Nothing. I was just wondering when you’d be home. I was thinking of cooking some steaks.”
Tower felt a pang of guilt. “I, uh, I don’t know exactly,” he said.
Stephanie was quiet on the other end of the line. Then she said, “John, just come home. We’ll have some steak and some wine and then I’ll take you to bed.”
“That sounds good,” Tower admitted. In fact, it sounded very good.
“Great,” she said. “Then I’ll see you soon?”
Tower looked at her picture on his desk, then at the open case file. The stack of license plates next to the case file were his best lead right now, probably his only lead. He should probably finish them before calling it a night. But that would take hours.
“Steph, I don’t know. I’ve got these license plates to check through –”
“They’ll still be there in the morning, right?”
Tower sighed. “Give me a couple of hours and I’ll be home.”
Stephanie was silent a moment, then sighed herself. “Okay, John. Your couple of hours usually turns into all night, but okay.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” she said, and hung up.
He stared at the receiver for a few moments afterward, shaking his head to himself. What was he doing? He was going to screw things up with this woman if he didn’t pull things together pretty fast. Most women would have probably already called no joy and split.
Tower hung up the telephone and turned to back to his stack of license plates. The computer let out a soft ding. He took a look at the vehicle registration return.
Goodkind, Jeffrey A.
Tower suppressed a sigh. That certainly didn’t sound like a serial rapist to him, but he’d dig into Mr. Goodkind a little bit just the same, exactly like he had all the others.
Time for another trip down another blind alley.
“Working late, John?”
Tower turned toward the voice behind him. Ray Browning stood near his desk, a light jacket slung over his shoulder.
“Just trying to find the piece that breaks things open,” Tower said.
Browning nodded knowingly. He settled into the chair at the empty desk opposite Tower. “You want a little help?”
Tower shook his head. “Thanks, Ray, but no. Take off. You’ve got a family to get home to.”
“Don’t you have a Stephanie?”
“She’s a big girl,” Tower said. “She understands.”
Browning nodded again. He adjusted the small wire frames on his nose and observed in a quiet voice, “Be careful you don’t take advantage of that, you know?”
Tower cocked an eyebrow at him. “So what, you’re a relationship counselor now?”
“No,” Browning said. “Just someone who has gone before telling a fellow traveler about the dangers of the road ahead.”
“That sounds more like Buddha than a counselor,” Tower remarked dryly.
Browning let out a small chuckle. “Well, if it helps, I don’t care if it makes me sound like Bobcat Goldwhaite.”
“Point taken, Ray. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. And the offer’s open, if you want the help.”
Tower shook his head again. “No, it’s all right. There’s nothing but grunt work here anyway.”
“I’ve done plenty of that.”
“Boring grunt work,” Tower corrected, then added, “that doesn’t net anything.”
“Done that, too.”
Tower smiled grimly. “I’ll bet you have. But really, I’m just going to run a few m
ore of these registered owners and then I’ll head home.”
Browning nodded, but Tower could tell the older detective knew he was lying. He must have understood Tower’s angst, though, because he had the decency not to call him on the lie. Instead, he rose to leave.
“You should go home, too,” he told Tower. “Those plates will still be there in the morning.”
“That’s what Stephanie said.”
“She’s right. Besides,” Browning added, “if you leave them for tomorrow, you’ll be fresher when you look at them. Detail work like that, you don’t want to miss anything.”
Tower nodded, but made no move to leave.
Browning gave him a warm smile. He slipped his arms into his jacket. As he adjusted it around his shoulders, he said, “You know, John, when you find this guy, he’s not going to live up to your expectations.”
“I don’t have any expectations. I just want to stop him.”
Browning’s smile widened. “Don’t kid a kidder,” he said. “This guy has brutally raped at least four women. He assaulted a police officer. He’s gotten more violent every time out. Has the teacher come out of her coma yet?”
“No,” Tower whispered. “She’s still unresponsive.”
Browning raised his eyebrows and nodded. “And he’ll be even worse the next time.”
“Probably.”
“So when you find him, you’ll expect him to be some evil, maniacal genius. You already half-imagine him to be a man capable of sprouting horns on his head and spitting fire from a forked, demonic tongue.”
“That’s a bit much, don’t you think?”
“Barely,” Browning said. He reached up and stroked his graying goatee. “But the point is that no matter how much you’ve built him up, you are going to be disappointed in the end. That’s because what you’ll discover is that he is a sad, sick, flawed, insecure, inadequate creature who figured out how to do one thing well in life. When you take that away from him, all the rest of the bravado falls. All that’s left is the weakness.”
Tower stared at Browning. A sarcastic reply of “profound” died on his lips. Instead, he swallowed and thought about Browning’s words. Then he asked, “Is that how it is with you? With the murderers you investigate?”
Browning nodded slowly. “Every single one of them.”