RCC03 - Beneath a Weeping Sky

by Frank Zafiro

  “Wait.”

  Tower looked over his shoulder at her, but it was Avery’s gaze that she met. Katie took a shallow, wavering breath.

  “Can...can you stay a while?” she asked Avery.

  Avery nodded. “Of course.” She returned to Katie’s bedside.

  Tower watched for a moment, then said, “I’ll wait out here.”

  “Thanks,” Avery said, without turning toward him.

  Tower gave Katie a nod and left, closing the door behind him.

  Avery stood next to Katie’s bed. To Katie, she seemed patient, as if she were willing to wait a year for Katie to speak.

  Katie licked her lips, wondering where to begin. The two women remained silent for a long minute while the monitor next to her bed beeped.

  “There’s something I want to tell you about,” she finally said.

  “Okay,” Avery said.

  “Not this,” she said, motioning toward her bandages. “Something else. From a long time ago.”

  Avery reached out and touched Katie lightly on her hand. “We can talk about whatever you want,” she said with a light squeeze.

  Katie swallowed. She looked up into Julie Avery’s warm eyes and nodded. “All right,” she said. “All right.”

  2145 hours

  Graveyard Shift

  Connor O’Sullivan drove in silence while Battaglia looked out the window. The pair had been uncharacteristically quiet during the early part of the shift. Sully wondered if Battaglia was having issues at home or if, like himself, he was concerned about MacLeod.

  “The El-Tee said she was going to be fine,” he finally ventured.

  “Huh?”

  “MacLeod. Saylor said she’d be all right.”

  Battaglia nodded without turning from the window. “Good.”

  “Yeah,” Sully echoed. “Good.”

  They drove a few more blocks in silence. Then Sully said, “I guess she nailed the guy four or five times. Probably crippled him.”

  “Good.”

  “She’s a good shot.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Blasted the guy all around the groin area.”

  “That fits.” Battaglia was silent for a moment, then added, “Sounds like she ten-ringed him like that rat under bridge.”

  Sully smiled. “Exactly.”

  Battaglia turned away from the window, a dark grin already fading from his face. “She’s the bomb,” he said. “MacLeod, I mean.”

  Sully nodded in agreement.

  “Guy attacks her in her own house. In her bathrobe, for Christ’s sake. But she still wins.” Battaglia shook his head. “I guess you just never know when it’s going to happen.”

  “When what’s going to happen?” Sully asked, though he knew what his partner meant.

  Battaglia stared out through the windshield, uncharacter-istically deep in thought. “You never know what moment on this job will turn into the moment.”

  Sully raised his eyebrows, marveling at Battaglia’s serious side. It didn’t come out very often. Most of the time, he wondered if the man even had one.

  “Adam-122?” the radio chirped.

  Battaglia picked up the mike. “Go ahead.”

  “Disorderly person at 2114 E. Wellesley,” the dispatcher recited. “Refusing to leave the Tacos Plus restaurant.”

  “See?” Battaglia said. “This could be the big one right here. You never know.”

  “Also,” the dispatcher continued, “the suspect is apparently wearing a clown suit.”

  Sully and Battaglia looked at each other. A slow smile spread over each man’s face.

  “Or maybe not,” Sully said.

  Battaglia pushed the button on the mike. “Copy on the clown,” he said.

  “This call is a joke,” Sully deadpanned.

  Battaglia chuckled. He motioned toward the light controls. “We should run lights and siren.”

  “Oh, Lieutenant Hart would love that.”

  “Hell,” Battaglia said, “it probably is Lieutenant Hart. This is probably his off duty hobby. Getting drunk, dressing in a clown suit and raising hell.”

  Sully let out a loud laugh.

  “Oh, man,” Battaglia said, shaking his head, “We were born to take this call.”

  Saturday, May 10th, 1996

  0913 hours

  Lieutenant Alan Hart sat at his desk. It being a Saturday, he was dressed casually in a pair of jeans and a neatly pressed collared shirt. The silence of his office was the same as it was every other day of the week, no change in his lonely existence.

  He’d told his wife, Marianne, that he’d needed to run a couple of errands. That was true, he supposed, but he still ended up seated at his desk, whether by design or happenstance. He stared at the far wall, which was adorned with photographs of all River City police officers. Everyone was there, from the Chief of Police to the newest recruit in the Academy.

  And I’m here to watch over them.

  It’s not like anyone else would. He saw the summary judgment that the Patrol Captain filed on Officer MacLeod’s so-called accidental discharge. A cop lets a bullet fly in a public park, and all she gets is a written reprimand? All Hart saw there was a continuation of the century-old code of silence that has permeated and corrupted law enforcement for far too long. It was that same warped sense of loyalty that no doubt motivated the Chief to issue oral reprimands for O’Sullivan and Battaglia. Worse yet, he didn’t even give that light punishment to Chisolm for his violations.

  Clearly, the cops in River City believed they were above the law.

  “They aren’t,” Hart muttered, turning a heavy, gold pen over in his hands.

  And it was his job to watch over them, to make sure that they paid for their mistakes. The public deserved it. Justice demanded it.

  He knew the cost. Ridicule. Hatred. Ostracism. It was a small price to pay to do the right thing.

  The River City Herald lay open on his desk. The front page headline blared RAINY DAY RAPIST CAUGHT! He’d read the article. Normally critical of the police department, the editors allowed this story to positively praise the stalwart bravery of Officer Katie MacLeod. The only negative element of the story was a subtle jab at Detective John Tower for failing to identify the suspect before the attack. The close resemblance between the police sketch and the suspect’s photograph made that failure seem like a particularly inept one.

  Hart wasn’t concerned so much with that. There had been other mistakes. He was sure of it. Those mistakes needed to be answered for. Not just with an oral or written reprimand, either. With suspensions. Maybe badges.

  How high did the mistakes go? He knew the only way to find out was to investigate thoroughly.

  Lieutenant Alan Hart fired up his computer. He opened his word processor program and began drafting a memorandum to send to the Chief.

  He planned on getting to the bottom of things.

  1113 hours

  Chisolm set aside the newspaper after reading the article about Katie for a third time. The reporter rightfully made Katie out to be a hero, but he didn’t like the dig against Tower. He knew the detective did the best job he could. Hell, if anyone was at fault, it was Chisolm.

  Once again, he’d failed to be where he was needed.

  Just like Mai. The image of the young prostitute was burned into his mind. Despite stopping two assaults on her, he couldn’t save her in the end.

  Hell, Bobby Ramirez, too. When a sniper took his best friend’s life, had he done anything to prevent it?

  No. He’d failed.

  And, of course, there was Officer Karl Winter. He was a good man who died alone on the dark asphalt of a River City street. No help from Chisolm.

  Other faces danced in front of his eyes. That kid he and Ramirez had teased mercilessly from the day he arrived in the unit until the day he hit a trip wire in the jungle. A young mother and her baby, on the run from an insane husband. That husband eventually hurt that little baby, didn’t he?

  Sylvia’s knowing eyes came next
. The image hovered before him, growing even more vivid when he closed his eyes against it.

  All my ghosts are here today.

  Thomas Chisolm clutched at his coffee cup, squeezing the porcelain in an effort to avoid going to the fridge for a drink.

  1222 hours

  Crawford turned onto Reott’s street. He drove to the front of the captain’s house, easing the car to a stop.

  “Thanks for lunch,” Reott said.

  “My turn to buy,” Crawford replied easily.

  “So it was. But thanks, anyway.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Reott reached for the door.

  “They’re releasing MacLeod today,” Crawford told him.

  Reott paused. “Good. She’s all right?”

  Crawford shrugged. “A few good cuts. Some hard knocks. But I think she’ll be fine.”

  “Good.”

  “Our rapist won’t be out for another month. Maybe two,” Crawford continued. “Tower already has his affidavit to the prosecutor. Hinote said he is going to charge him with all four rapes, plus the attacks on MacLeod. He doesn’t believe he can win them all, but he figures he’ll win enough of them to send the guy up for life, or close to it. And if he decides to plea instead, then he has plenty of charges to bargain away.”

  “Good,” Reott repeated.

  Crawford’s eyes narrowed with concern. “You okay, Mike?”

  Reott nodded. “I’m fine. Where are you headed from here?”

  Crawford scowled. “Oh, the wife has us going out searching for antiques or some such shit.” He eyed Reott more closely. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah,” Reott answered. He slapped Crawford on the knee. “Thanks for lunch. And good work on this case.”

  Crawford snorted. “Good work? Hell, we got luckier than a falling drunk on this one.”

  Reott clenched his jaw, his penetrating gaze burning into Crawford’s eyes. “You think that’s luck? Him attacking one of our officers like that?”

  Crawford returned his stare without faltering. “I don’t think what happened to MacLeod was lucky at all,” he said quietly. “All I’m saying is that we didn’t do anything to catch him. We got lucky.”

  Reott took a deep breath and sighed. “Maybe so,” he said. Then he opened the door and got out of the car. “See you Monday,” he told Crawford as he closed the passenger door.

  Crawford gave him a wave as he pulled away from the curb.

  Reott made his way up his sidewalk, unlocked the door and went into the house. The slam of the door echoed throughout the emptiness of the home. Tossing his keys on the table, he walked directly into the kitchen and swung open a cupboard. Inside, two fancy bottles of seventeen year old Glengoyne single malt Scotch whisky stood waiting for him. He wrapped his fingers around the neck of one bottle and pulled it from the cupboard.

  At the table, he poured himself a glass, neat. He stared down at the amber liquid for a while, then raised it to his lips and sipped. The burning smoothness coated his mouth and his throat, before emanating outward from his belly.

  Lucky.

  Crawford’s words burned in his ears. He didn’t believe in luck. He believed in choices. And it was a series of choices that brought things to a head. A series of choices that put one of his officers in the hospital.

  His choices.

  Captain Michael Reott took another sip of the whisky.

  “Damn fine scotch,” he said aloud. He allowed himself a wry chuckle, remembering Crawford’s theories on pay scale.

  Maybe the lieutenant had been right about that.

  But lucky?

  Reott was pretty sure that wasn’t a word he’d use.

  1658 hours

  Katie MacLeod glanced to her left. Kyle, the large, bespectacled man in the driver’s seat remained focused through the windshield wipers and the rain upon the road ahead.

  “Thanks again for the ride,” she said, her voice still a little groggy.

  “No problem,” the hospital security officer said. “It’s an honor.”

  Katie looked away. She remembered what Stef had gone through after his gun battle with the Scarface robber. There’d been a mixture of hero worship and contempt from the different members of the department. She wasn’t entirely sure which he’d been more uncomfortable with, but she knew that he’d struggled with both. She didn’t particularly want to go through that.

  I only did what I had to do.

  An image of her gun sight trained on the back of the rapist’s head flashed through her mind.

  “Is this it?” Kyle asked her, pointing as they rolled up the street.

  Katie followed his gesture toward her familiar brick house. Somehow, in the windy, rainy darkness of the night, it didn’t seem as welcoming as it once had. Yellow crime scene tape still hung from the screen door, flapping in the wind.

  Kyle put the car into park. “Here we are.”

  Katie paused. Suddenly, she didn’t want to go inside. She knew that he wasn’t there. Neither was Phil, for that matter. Those demons might not be vanquished, but after talking with Julie Avery, she felt like maybe they would be eventually.

  But not yet.

  In the meantime, she wasn’t so sure she wanted to be alone. A strange need swept over her and she thought about calling Kopriva. Maybe he would understand.

  “Are you okay?” Kyle asked.

  Katie turned toward him. “Yes,” she answered. Then, “No. Not really.”

  Kyle gave her a confused look.

  “Can you take me to a pay phone?” Katie asked. “I think I want to go somewhere else instead.”

  1704 hours

  Stefan Kopriva sat at his kitchen table, staring down at his hands. His knuckles pressed against the cool bottle of beer in front of him. A small black and white television flickered on the table. The mindless jingle about car insurance did little to keep his attention.

  He glanced up and around at the small downtown apartment. The already narrow walls seemed to close in on him. His tiny kitchen lay only a few feet from the living room, which doubled as a bedroom when he remembered to unfold the bed inside the couch. Right now, a twisted pile of blankets lay in the corner of the ratty couch. Empty beer bottles were strewn across the rickety, stained coffee table.

  Brave, dead soldiers, he thought mockingly. They served their city well.

  “Better than I did,” he muttered, and lifted the bottle of beer to his lips.

  He wondered in passing if he ought to consider taking up smoking. A few cigarettes might prove an interesting way to make the time pass. But he rejected the idea. He had precious little in the way of money as it was, and he much preferred the beer. And, of course, the pills that the nice doctor at the free clinic gave him for his arm and his knee.

  “Too bad he can’t prescribe something for my heart,” Kopriva told the woman on television who was hawking insurance in a bright red dress.

  Sadness awash in self-pity flooded through him, coupled with some shame. The idea of sitting around his tiny apartment smoking cigarettes all day made him think of convicts in prison. The irony that he used to be the instrument that put men behind those walls was not lost upon him

  He took another drink. An image of a child’s still body in a half-empty body bag flashed through his mind.

  “Fuck,” he muttered. He took another drink and glanced at the cheap Casio watch on the table next to him. One hour and eleven minutes. He had one hour and eleven minutes before he was supposed to take another pain pill.

  The commercial dropped off suddenly. In the pause between the advertisement and the broadcast show, the TV screen went black. Kopriva saw his own disheveled image on the dark glass.

  “You look like shit,” he said, raising the beer in mock salute, then draining the bottle.

  The screen lit up with the station’s logo, accompanied by intro music for the news. Kopriva rose and went to the small brown fridge that he was pretty sure the landlord had bought from a Motel 6 going-out-of-busines
s sale. Inside, three more bottles of beer stood tall and ready.

  “We need some reinforcements,” he said. “And we might just have to move to cans.” He removed one bottle and twisted off the cap. “But what the hell. Not everyone can be a Marine. Not everyone can be a hero.”

  Especially me.

  He stumbled back to the kitchen table and settled into the chair just as the music faded and the news anchor affected a serious expression.

  “A reign of terror is over tonight in River City,” he said. “Police have the Rainy Day Rapist in custody. For more, we go to Shawna Matheson, live at Sacred Heart Medical Center. Shawna?”

  The screen cut to the perfectly coifed Shawna Matheson. Kopriva’s lip curled at the sight of her. She’d been on the forefront of reporting the Amy Dugger story last year. Chronicling his mistake and the tragedy that followed.

  “You bitch,” he muttered at the reporter.

  “Thank you, Jack,” Shawna said in polished tones. “I’m here at Sacred Heart Hospital, where accused rapist Jeffrey Allen Goodkind is being treated for gunshot wounds he received yesterday during his apprehension.”

  A small gust of wind pushed Shawna’s hair into her face. Without missing a beat, she raised her hand and brushed it aside, continuing. “Apparently police believe Mr. Goodkind is responsible for the recent spree of violent rapes to rock River City’s north side. Dubbed ‘The Rainy Day Rapist’ by this reporter over three weeks ago, this suspect is responsible for attacking four different women since March of this year. Now, he is in custody.”

  The camera switched to a photograph of a police sketch.

  “This is a sketch police released of the suspect,” Shawna said, “and this is Mr. Goodkind.”

  The camera cut to a professional photograph of a man that closely resembled the sketch. Kopriva immediately knew the man was guilty, simply by the way the face in the picture bore a forced smile.

  “Instincts are still good,” he mumbled, a little rueful.

  “What’s most interesting about this story,” Shawna continued, “is how Mr. Goodkind was apprehended. Police almost caught him during a sting operation in April, but he was able to escape. Instead, he was captured tonight at the residence of the very same police decoy that he attacked during that sting operation.”