by V. P. Trick
Busy as they were, showing appreciation often came way down his to-do list, but Chris made it a point of honour to remind them every couple of weeks of how important each one of them was to the team. The fucking quartet he didn’t consider important; he had not chosen them, which might help explain why it had blown up in his face. The remains of the four were persona non grata. Indefinitely.
Fredrick and Hamilton entered the conference room at ten sharp. They had learned not to be late for the weekly meeting’s kick-off. Fred was not the most sociable and well-adjusted guy. Chris had arrested him some years ago. The kid being on the cusp of adulthood (according to his birth certificate at least), Chris had commuted the kid’s arrest into a job, Chris’s first and only try at a rehabilitation programme. A crash lesson.
Today, a couple of years later, Chris still debated with himself. Was he truly helping Fred? When one knew how to work around the kid’s phobias and quirks (and Chris knew how), Fred was good at what he did. Chris never expected a full reintegration; Freddie was too damaged for that, but most of the time, the kid was (somewhat) functioning in society from deep down there in the cave. Fred acted as the team’s geek; he knew how to work the technologies and computers and had helped the team on numerous occasions, on and off the records, efficiently.
When the kid walked in yesterday’s clothes (last week’s?), Chris wondered when was the last time he had changed or washed. Fredrick shuffled in with his head down, eyes on his blackberry, or his iPad or whatever gizmo he was playing with, and sat close to the door, not looking at anybody, not saying hello. Patricia wasn’t in today, hence Fred’s lack of social interest.
Ham’s entry was in total opposite. The guy ambled in like he owned the place, grin all around preceding a flow of crude remarks. The show.
Chris closed the door behind Ham. “OK, guys, settle down. I don’t want us to be at it all day. Shapiro, you start.”
Fredrick seemed to wake at that. He lifted his head and looked around. “Where is she?”
Patricia being Patricia, Fredrick adored her. As much as she liked geeks, Chris knew from the likes of Joshua and his friends, geeks loved her more. She was possibly one of the only females to have touched Fred physically, skin to skin. The damn woman had the habit of fingertip-touched the kid’s forearm when she spoke with him; she held his wrist when they strolled together, patted his shoulder when she observed him work. More than her touch, it was the attention she gave Fred that drew the kid toward her. She was sweet, gentle without being motherly, and visited him in the basement to enquire about his work, his friends, his life. Had Fred not been scared and grateful, Chris might doubt to whom Fredrick’s loyalty swung because she had tricked the kid into doing special projects for her. Damn woman.
“Patricia will not be in today.” Nothing else to add.
Chris had brought a paper calendar, on which Bridget had written out Patricia’s schedule (Patricia was only in every other week), but to no use. Half the time, the damn woman didn’t follow her damn agenda, so Freddie here kept on asking for her. Except for when she had replaced Bridget for a sick day or two, Patricia had not been around much lately; the kid was in withdrawal. Fred wouldn’t lift his eyes from his toy for the rest of the meeting, but as long as he was listening, it made no difference to Chris.
The meeting took the rest of the morning. He had Bridget order some sandwiches and salads, and they worked through lunch. Everyone started to leave after that. Visits to do, follow-ups on leads, places to inspect, people to call, people to see.
Chris headed to Central. Brass wanted to review the Feds’ latest visit. A complete waste of time to discuss another waste of time. He did not bother checking the quartet leftovers since he didn’t fucking care. He met some contacts, chatted with old colleagues, and didn’t return to his office until three, after a quick stop at Vitto’s place for a double espresso.
Bridget and Frankke were waiting for him. His guys had no time to spare and certainly no time to wait around for him. Hence, Frankke’s sitting in his office was not a good sign.
“Was waiting for you.”
“I can see that. I had a meeting at Central. You should have called, I would have enjoyed the interruption.”
“Thought better to be with you in case you blew a gasket.”
“Fuck, that sounds bad. What’s up?”
“I was at the 31st station, near the West Precinct, info on my case, you know? I heard a copper called in a body. Dead girl in an alley. The locals were closing down the place when I left. I’ve been listening in; the locals are still at the scene.”
“And?” Regular stuff, Chris didn’t see where Frankke was going with this.
Bridget looked at him strangely.
“Look, boss, Intel so far is the cook found the girl, but they’re questioning their clientele.”
“Get to the punch line, Frankke.”
“Dispatch has an ambulance waiting because one of their customers is incoherent. I twitched when the dicks at the scene reported the customer, an unidentified female, plucked the body from behind a dump container in a back alley.”
Chris’s heart skipped a bit. What the fuck was she doing there?
The Good Cop, the Bad Cop, and MacLaren
He dialled Patricia’s number as he headed to the car with Frankke. No answer. He tried her hotel suite, hung up after the sixth ring.
He phoned the hotel’s front desk next. The receptionist transferred him to the hotel’s cook, and then to the doorman; those three were part of the unofficial watchdog team he was slowly organising around her. He knew their loyalties went to her first, no contest, but they did help out from time to time, mostly when she had not specifically asked them not to. The men both informed him Patricia had not been seen since her early morning departure. Shit.
“You got confirmation on the witness yet, Frankke?”
“Nothing.”
Chris drove too fast. Their first stop was at the 31st station. If he didn’t clear it with the local chief there, he would not be able to take over once they got to the diner. And he intended to handle the case. He had to. Again. If.
The local chief wasn’t collaborative. Hence, the talk at the station took too fucking long. Even if he had not wanted the case to start with, now that someone else wanted in, the man wanted something out of the trade. “Seeing as you have a similar case, you can go over the scene, MacLaren, but, for now, I keep the case.”
“I want to see all the logs,” Chris specified.
“Let my guys do their things then we’ll talk.” Asshole. “And MacLaren? Just so we’re clear. Consider this a personal favour I’m doing you here. You’ll owe me.” Asshole jerk.
Chris hated to owe anybody anything. “What’s the word on the witness?”
“No ID.”
He had a plan. First, get her out. Then, get the case, find a way to clear the ledger with the chief. Then put her under arrest. Handcuff her to the bed posts. Buy bed posts.
The street was cordoned off with yellow tape and forensics was already at work when they arrived. Chris parked next to the yellow crime scene ribbon, and getting out, asked for the detective in charge.
If the chief had kept his part of the deal and called his guys as he was supposed to, someone should have been waiting for them, but it took more than five minutes to get a police officer their way. A cop motioned them to the diner. Ten steps from the front door, another cop blocked the way and gestured to a plain-clothes officer.
“What you here for again?” The dick asked.
No fucking collaboration, the chief’s way of ensuring Chris didn’t override his authority. Unacceptable. He signalled Frankke, “Sneak closer,” while he growled at the detective in charge.
Local cops barred the door for Frankke. Frankke was an impressive man, built like a barrel, scarred face and black. He could have pushed the cops aside and walked right in had Chris told him to but, if Patricia was indeed the mystery witness, they might need the locals’ collaboration. So Chris
kept his calm and waited while Frankke argued, pushed a little and managed a peek into the restaurant.
He came back and nodded at Chris. “We have a visual.” Meaning he had seen her.
After additional fruitless waiting, arguments and power trips, the detective finally allowed them in the diner.
“You don’t touch anything. You don’t talk to our witnesses.”
“We look like rookies to you, Officer?” Frankke.
The dick ignored Frankke and went on, “You have questions, you come to me. Any connection between this shit and that old case you haven’t been able to solve, you give me the information to him.” The dick pointed at the plain-clothes inside the diner.
Chris repeated the sentence in his mind. ‘The old case they hadn’t been able to solve.’ Probably the jerk had meant it as an insult, but Chris didn’t react outwardly. He just wanted to get inside to see what the hell was going on.
The detective finally granted them access, trailing tightly behind them.
Patricia was sitting on a chair, her back to the door. A cop and the plain-clothes detective were interrogating her impatiently. The cop had one hand on his hip and gestured with the other while he thundered. The detective was leaning over the table, both palms flat on its top. Patricia had her arms crossed. Defensive postures all around. The damn woman sure knew how to make friends when she wanted, and she was always fucking polite with cops, wasn’t she? Politely insulting.
The two coppers didn’t look happy with her answers. Undoubtedly, it had something to do with the fact that she wasn’t uttering a single word.
“You stay put,” the diner detective told her as he looked up at his colleague before turning his stare to Chris and Frankke.
Where can she go, asshole? I’m right here. I’ll catch her.
Cop stayed with her; Detective came to join his pal. They weren’t introduced.
“Those two are from South. They need a quick review. They think they got a similar, unresolved MO a couple of years back. They believe that we might know more.” Assholes.
“We got the cook’s statement first, says the woman came knocking on the back door, the vic at her feet.” The detective didn’t refer to Patricia by name but as ‘the woman’ his face scrunched between a frown and a smirk.
After the cook’s recap, Patricia’s interview had gone from bad to hell in about two hours. From the detective’s summary, Chris got the impression the guy was eager to book her for murder. Every fucking time the jerk said ‘the woman’, his eyebrows rose. Yup, she had done a fucking great job of pissing the cops off. She excelled at it too; when she was angry, cops were amongst her favourite targets. Chris clenched his jaws. She had done the same number on him on numerous occasions. It had not worked on him, though.
A question remained. What on earth was she doing here? Research? Hunch? How? She sure had a gift for finding stiffs. Why had she moved the body? Why hadn’t she called him? OK, that last one was easy. Anger. Pride. The rest of the answers would come later when she calmed down. When his own rage had subsided. But first, he had to get her out of here.
The forensics crew was working around them, taking samples from the kitchen, the back alley. Chris went back out through the front door, walked down the side alley to take a look at the back, the back doors, the garbage container. He retraced his steps, entering the diner by the front door again. The body was still hunched-sprawled on the kitchen floor. Patricia had not moved; neither had the cops. He signalled the detective in charge to come outside. He wanted to get Patricia out before the techs removed the body.
“Look, Officer, I know the woman. Her name’s Patricia. She lives…” He gave her address and phone number, gave his name, his precinct’s coordinates and all his mobile, office and home phone numbers.
“I’m going to take the woman home to dry and change. Her lips are fucking blue. I suggest you call Central if you disagree and prefer to make a mess of things. I do hope she ain’t going to sue your ass off if she gets sick. You can call her later and make an appointment to complete your report.”
The 31st dicks couldn’t say no without openly questioning his authority and rank. They couldn’t do it, wouldn’t do it, not without going through their chief first. They were local station cops; he was a District detective chief, way higher up on the police food chain.
“Tell you what, better yet, call me instead for an appointment. I’ll have her come to the South District building for her statement. Not today, though; today, she’s had enough. She gave a declaration already, didn’t she? You question her according to standard procedures? Good. I’m taking her.” I’m taking her away before you assholes arrest her. And before she kicked one of the fuckers and got charged with assault.
While he talked, he motioned to Frankke. Frankke strode to Patricia, touched her arm gently before turning her around. She frowned when her eyes glanced through the front window and caught sight of Chris. She blinked, swallowed once before slumping in her chair. The sight of him had taken the fight out of her.
Frankke took her elbow, lifting her to her feet quietly, and guided her to the door. She trudged out with her head down, Frankke’s protective arm around her shoulders. She appeared delicate with Frankke’s arm around her. Frankke held his other arm up in front of them as if he went to shove whoever came in their way. Protective. Chris followed them in silence to the car.
PI Unlimited: Bad Cop
The girl had been cold. Someone handed her a blanket. The girl had been so cold. The detectives interrogated her, such silly questions. She had shown them her brand-new licence proudly. She especially liked the shiny black lettering spelling Private Investigator. The detectives were not affected. Her skills rarely impressed men; her looks did, though, but then not so much impressed as aroused them.
After harassing her with their stupid queries, they left her alone for a while. She had answered as best she could but had seen her responses were not registering. The chain of events that had led her here was straightforward, but, somehow, they had trouble grasping it. She felt as if she was talking to apes. Now, that is harsh, she lectured herself. Not that it was all that wrong.
The men came at her again.
“We need legit ID.”
“I only carry my licence.” Where did they think it came from anyway, a cereal box?
“Full name and address.”
“Seriously? Can’t you read my badge?” Shouldn’t that be enough? She did not tell them anything. She could have, of course, but she wanted to talk to her lover first. Her cop lover. “I want to make a phone call.”
“Not yet, Dollface.”
Apes were like that. Packets of hormones, little pea brains. Lucky her lover was not the same. All hormones yes, but a brain also, and what a brain it was. Sometimes she wished he had less. Of both.
Eventually, she lost patience. “Stop bugging me with stupid questions.” She used short, simple words. “Don’t you know how to do your jobs? If you were any good, you’d have taken notes instead of having me repeat everything over and over. Unless you think that I had something to do with the girl’s death? I have told and retold the story of my day six times already! I shall not make it a lucky seven. Please, try to come up with pertinent questions, you’re wasting my life away here. Besides, what’s the point of all this if you don’t listen.” Really. If she had left it to the cops, the girl would still be in the rain, alone and ignored.
The ape-cops did not appreciate her lecturing. They started again with the useless probing. “We do this here or down at the station, but we’re doing it, Missy.”
Did they believe they could scare her? They truly were the dumbest.
The girl had looked so small, curled up in that corner. And the rain, the damn rain, like in her file on the murdered waitress. Her file. She had not seen blood but perhaps, surely for she was dead, the girl had been wounded in some way. Maybe raped. Her hair was a mess, her clothes dirty under her unzipped coat. A hell of a day to die. A hell of a way.
&
nbsp; Shock, that was what the coldness was. She was in shock. It suddenly occurred to her those idiots probably thought she had killed that girl.
“Am I under arrest? Because if I am, I’m entitled to a phone call.”
That turned out not to be a good thing to say. She had known, of course, had known even before speaking, but she had said it nonetheless.
They searched her, roughly, or tried to. The apes sat her down on a chair forcefully, in a mockery of the bad cop-bad cop play. Amateurs.
Excerpt from PI Unlimited, by Trica C. Line
Chris on Coffee Break
Where to now? She looked like she could use some dry clothes. Her hotel? He had a feeling if he took her home, she would crawl into bed and stay there. Not good. His place? His territory, she might get defensive. Not good either. The precinct? Some of the guys might get involved and, considering the state she was in, that might not go so well, not for him at least. Fuck, he wanted a drink. Scotch, no ice, to sip as he focused and winded down. Not only was he worried about her, but he was also angry. Pissed. Fuck, what was it, the fourth day? Fifth?
He sighed as he studied her in the rearview mirror. He had the heater on full blast, but her shivering hadn’t eased. She sat pressed to the door, gripping the handle as if she was about to jump out. Taking off, her defence mechanism of choice. Not that she could escape right now, he had the car’s child safety lock on. Her hussy act was one of her substitutes to flight. Bring it on, Pussycat, I’m ready for you.
“I need a drink,” she said staring out the window, her face turned away from him.
Reading my thoughts, Princess. Although, her getting a drink might not be a good thing right now. Drunkenness too was a form of escape.
“Christopher, I really need a drink.” She turned to plead with him. “So far, my day hasn’t gone as I had planned.” Neither has mine, Angel. “I need a drink. Something warm.”
Coffee at Vitto’s place was a good place to start. Coffee to warm her and Vitto to lend her a shirt or something. Dry. Warm. Talkative. Maybe.