Justice Served

by Radclyffe

  “How do you think we should play this?” Rebecca asked, maneuvering cautiously between rows of gigantic containers that had been off-loaded from ships that morning and awaited transport to the adjoining railroad yard. There they would be stacked on flatbed cars and shipped up and down the East Coast. The workday was in full swing on the docks, and a multitude of orange forklifts, their front-loaders raised and extended, scurried about like so many ants in a hill. Rebecca began to wish she had driven a department vehicle and not her ’Vette. The last thing she wanted was for one of these teamsters to spear the side of her car with a forklift or—worse yet—dump a couple of tons of metal on top of it.

  “Well, we could go for typecasting,” Watts suggested helpfully. “You could be the bad cop, and I’ll be the good cop.”

  Rebecca flicked him a glance, and he looked back, perfectly straight-faced. She grinned. “What’s your next idea.”

  “Why not tell this guy we’re just following up on the homicide investigation because Horton and Marks ran out of steam. Since Jeff was one of ours, that would make sense.”

  “Yeah. And we just came across these notes and are tying off loose ends. That plays.” Rebecca pulled into a space in a small employee lot in front of an eight-foot chain-link fence that ran parallel to the water as far as the eye could see in both directions. Beyond it, sheet-metal-covered warehouses as big as airplane hangars lined the waterfront. “Guess we go on foot from here.”

  “Christ, it looks like it’s a mile away.” Watts lit a cigarette the instant he stepped from the car.

  “At least you’ll get some exercise.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  Rebecca watched as a decktop crane on an enormous cargo ship pivoted over the water with a container as big as a Cape Cod cottage swinging from its massive arm. With surprising precision, the operator lowered the loaded storage crate onto the dock at the end of a row of a dozen others exactly like it.

  “It’s amazing how they can keep track of anything here. All these cargo ships, hundreds of containers.” Rebecca shook her head. “What a perfect way to smuggle contraband.”

  “Special delivery, right to your door,” Watts agreed.

  Pointing to one of half a dozen identical buildings distinguished only by six-foot red letters painted on the front of each one, Rebecca said, “This way.”

  After they stopped a harried dockworker to ask where the office was, they were directed to a side door leading into the warehouse. Once inside, they followed an unadorned corridor lit by bare fluorescent tubes dangling on chains toward the interior of the building. Just before the passageway opened into a cavernous space filled with pallets of boxes and more containers, they found the office. The door was open, and Rebecca and Watts stepped inside.

  The top half of one wall of the twenty-by-twenty-foot room was glass, affording anyone inside a view of the interior of the warehouse beyond. File cabinets lined the opposite wall, a metal desk sat in the center of the room, and a small TV stand in one corner held a water-stained coffee machine. A single monitor displaying a view of the dock immediately in front of the building was mounted high in one corner opposite the desk. An African American woman in a spotless uniform sat behind the desk.

  She studied them with an expression of curious interest. “Can I help you two?”

  “Captain Reiser?” Rebecca asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m Detective Lieutenant Rebecca Frye, and this is Detective Watts. PPD.”

  Reiser pushed back her chair and stood in one fluid motion, extending her hand. “Detectives,” she said, as she shook each of their hands in turn. Indicating a stack of metal chairs along one wall, she said ruefully, “Grab yourself a seat.”

  “Thank you, we’re fine,” Rebecca said.

  Seated again, Reiser nodded. “Same question. How can I help you two?”

  “We wanted to ask you some questions about Detective Jimmy Hogan.”

  Reiser’s expression didn’t change. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “Somebody put a bullet in his head down here about six months ago,” Watts said conversationally.

  “Ah, yes. Him and another police officer. I’m sorry.”

  “We thought you might be able to tell us what he was doing down here.” Rebecca’s tone was casual. Friendly. But her ice blue eyes were sharply appraising.

  “Is there some reason you think I might know?” Reiser replied, her expression equally relaxed and her deep chocolate eyes just as intent as she scrutinized Rebecca.

  “Watts,” Rebecca said softly.

  Watts reached into his rumpled tweed jacket and extracted three creased sheets of paper. Wordlessly, he leaned forward and deposited them in the center of Captain Reiser’s desk.

  After only an instant’s hesitation, the Port Authority captain picked up the pages and scanned each one in turn. Then she read them again. Finally, she placed them back in the same position that Watts had deposited them. “He called on the phone. Said he was working with the Harbor Patrol and that they were trying to track ships suspected of illegally dumping waste after they’d left port. Garbage mostly, sometimes industrial items.” Frowning, she swiveled her chair and stared through the glass partition into the dimly lit, crowded warehouse beyond. “I think he had a list of ships—he wanted their schedules, port-of-origin information, and manifests.”

  Rebecca felt a spark of excitement. Hogan had been on to something down here. Almost certainly something involving cargo, since the Harbor Patrol story was completely fabricated. While technically a division of the PPD, the men and women who policed the waterways were much more closely tied to the Port Authority than to the city police. There was very little overlap in assignments.

  “Any reason you didn’t report this before?” Watts questioned, his voice rough with irritation.

  Reiser met his gaze steadily. “I didn’t make the connection. I remember the call now that you show me the list, because at the time I thought it was an unusual request. Usually the Harbor Patrol is more interested in civilian waterway violations, not commercial.” She frowned. “I recall pulling some of the manifests. But, for some reason, the name Hogan doesn’t ring a bell.” She shook her head. “No—I think I would have put it together when those two cops were gunned down. So maybe it wasn’t him.”

  “Your name’s in those reports, Captain.”

  “Yes. I see that.” She still seemed more curious than alarmed. “What’s this all about?”

  Rebecca studied the other woman. Reiser looked to be in her late thirties or early forties, tall and solidly built. Her attitude was one of quiet confidence, and Rebecca didn’t get the sense that she was hiding anything from them or was even particularly concerned about their visit. Rebecca made a decision. “We think something Hogan stumbled onto down here got him killed.”

  Immediately, Reiser sat forward, her hands clasped on the desk, her face severely intent. “What kind of thing?”

  Rebecca shook her head. “We don’t know. We were hoping that you would.”

  “Maybe the three of us should take a walk.” Without waiting for their answer, she stood and pulled a black wool overcoat from an aluminum coat stand in the corner. Shrugging into it, she eyed Watts’s sport coat and Rebecca’s silk blazer. “You two are going to freeze out there. The wind off the water is going to make it feel like twenty degrees.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Rebecca assured her. Watts just grunted.

  “Good enough.”

  Watts and Rebecca followed Reiser as she led them from the office, through the warehouse, and out the rear to a loading dock. She hadn’t exaggerated. A brisk wind blew off the water, whipping their clothes and penetrating to skin with the ease of a knife blade. A cargo ship blocked their view of the river as it rode low in the water, laden with containers stacked ten high on the deck.

  “Three thousand ships load and off-load at the Port of Philadelphia every year.” Reiser shouted to be heard above the wind. “We handle more than one quart
er of the entire North Atlantic District’s annual tonnage, making us the fourth-largest port in the U.S. for imported merchandise.”

  As she spoke, another container swung out from the deck of the ship on the end of the crane arm toward a waiting truck. Reiser pointed up at the crane.

  “That’s a three hundred seventy-five–ton container crane—one of the largest in use anywhere. We handle bulk merchandise, containers, automobiles, perishable goods—a broader range of imports than almost any other U.S. port.” She hunched her shoulders inside her heavy regulation coat. “Four hundred and twenty-five trucking companies pick up and transport out of here on a regular basis.”

  She led them back under the shelter of the warehouse eaves. “Do a few crates fall off the back of a truck now and then? Probably. We have a central computer system with a staff of ten who do nothing but cross-check bills of lading, ports of origin, and destinations against incoming and outgoing manifests. Do we check each barrel, crate, and container? No. They’ve been cleared by Customs at the point of origin, and U.S. Customs agents do visual inspections upon arrival.”

  “We’re not suggesting any of your people are at fault, Captain,” Rebecca interjected.

  Reiser scanned the area. They were surrounded by dockworkers, but no one paid them any attention. “The majority of personnel you see are civilians—longshoremen, teamsters, truckers. They don’t work for or answer to me.”

  “Who do they work for?” Watts questioned.

  “The unions.” Reiser held Watts’s gaze. “Supposedly.”

  “Huh.” Watts looked as if he smelled something unpleasant. “And we know who they answer to.”

  Rebecca made no comment, watching Reiser, attempting to decipher just how much the captain really knew of organized crime’s presence on the waterfront. Or how much of what she knew she would share. But she clearly had not wanted to have this conversation in plain sight of the workers in the warehouse. So there’s something she suspects, at least.

  “I don’t know what your man found, Lieutenant,” Reiser said empathically, finally turning to Rebecca. “If anything. I’m not saying there’s nothing to find. What I am saying is if there’s anything big to find, we would know.”

  “So if someone swipes a load of goods bigger than an armload, you’ll know about it,” Watts summarized.

  Reiser smiled fleetingly. “Well, let’s say bigger than a truckload. Obviously, vehicles are checked upon exiting the compound, but off the record, I wouldn’t swear that a case here or there doesn’t end up in someone’s backseat.”

  “I doubt that something like that would have interested Jimmy Hogan,” Rebecca said. “What about drugs?”

  “Imports from South America make up a large percentage of the traffic here. Again, the merchandise is checked at the point of origin, and Customs clears it here. Is there a bag of cocaine tucked into a crate of coffee somewhere? Possibly, but large scale? Doubtful.”

  “But not impossible,” Watts said.

  “No,” Reiser agreed. “Not impossible.”

  “Is there anything about the particular information that Hogan requested that raises a flag for you?” Rebecca asked.

  “Not offhand, but why don’t you leave me copies of those requests, and I’ll look them over again. If something clicks, I’ll call you.”

  “Good enough. Appreciate it, Captain.” Rebecca extended her hand, and they shook.

  Five minutes later, Rebecca slowed for the same taciturn guard at the security post, who waved them through with barely a glance.

  “You think she’s straight?” Watts asked.

  “I do,” Rebecca replied immediately. “What’s your take?”

  “She’s careful, but something was bothering her. Because nobody likes to freeze their balls off for no good reason.”

  “Yeah, that little trip outside had to be because she didn’t want anyone seeing her cozying up to us.”

  “Well, she didn’t tell us much.”

  Rebecca was silent for a full minute. “She seemed pretty certain that something big wouldn’t get by her—or her people.”

  “I think there’s a hell of a lot of stuff moving in and out of that port every day, and I don’t care how many computer jockeys they’ve got watching it—stuff has to disappear.”

  “I agree. But why would Jimmy Hogan care?”

  “Could be Zamora is moving stolen merchandise though there. Maybe using the proceeds to underwrite his drug operation. Jimmy could’ve gotten wind of it, started poking around.” Watts drummed his heavy fingers on the dash. “That tends to make people suspicious.”

  Rebecca nodded, slowing for a light at the turn onto I-95. “So how does Jeff come into it?”

  “Cruz and Hogan were tight, right? From the academy? And Jimmy passed Jeff intel before when he wasn’t going to act on it himself.” Watts shifted and tried to stretch his legs in the narrow space beneath the Corvette’s dash. “Jimmy couldn’t afford to be involved in any kind of bust that involved Zamora, because it would blow his cover.”

  “It still comes back to Jimmy, and what he knew.” Rebecca sighed. “We need to get as close to Zamora’s organization as we can.”

  “Well, we’ve got two ways in already.” Watt’s tone suggested that he wasn’t all that happy about the fact. “Our boy Mitch and his cute little squeeze.”

  Mitchell and Sandy. Rebecca suppressed another sigh. A A wet-behind-the-ears detective and a smart-mouthed streetwalker. Wonderful.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sandy emerged from the bedroom, sleepy-eyed and fuzzy-headed in pink satin bikinis and one of Mitchell’s T-shirts. Shuffling through the quiet loft toward the kitchen, she yawned and stretched, baring a long expanse of hip and belly. The quiet voice from across the room made her jump.

  “Good morning,” Michael said.

  “Jesus,” Sandy blurted, pivoting in Michael’s direction. The other woman sat on a tall stool at the angled draftsman’s table next to a computer console bearing two widescreen monitors. “Man. I didn’t think anyone was here.”

  “I just came home an hour ago.” Michael smiled ruefully. “I knew that Sloan would be working late, so I stayed at Sarah’s last night. Jason brought me back early this morning. I’m sorry. Did I scare you?”

  “Uh-uh,” Sandy replied, still breathless. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bother you.” She started to backpedal toward the guest room, but Michael shook her head.

  “You’re not bothering me. I was just thinking of taking a break. Tea?”

  Sandy made a face but managed to stifle a groan. “Uh, I think it better be coffee this morning.”

  “Late night?” Michael asked conversationally, her smile friendly.

  “Yeah, sort of.” Sandy thought of Dell, and how upset she’d been after the visit from her sister, and of what she had seemed to need so desperately from Sandy. Sandy had made love to her for hours, Dell reaching for her again and again in the night, until they’d both collapsed from exhaustion. Dell had slept with her head nestled to Sandy’s breast, their arms and legs entwined. Sandy had never before experienced sex as healing, and knowing that she had given her lover something that no one else could made her feel powerful and nearly overcome with awe.

  “Working?”

  Sandy jumped, the question resounding in the air. “No. Not last night.”

  Michael slid from the stool and crossed the loft to Sandy’s side. “How about that coffee? I think there are some scones left from yesterday. Interested?”

  “Sure.” Sandy paused a beat, then asked hurriedly, “Do you and Sloan talk about…everything?”

  Struck by the serious note in Sandy’s voice, Michael halted. “I think so. Sometimes, it takes one of us longer to say what we need to than it should, but eventually we get there. Why?”

  “So, did Sloan tell you what I do?”

  “Do? Oh! You mean for work?”

  “Uh-huh.” Despite feeling very vulnerable, standing half naked in front of a woman so privileged and sophisticat
ed that Sandy doubted she’d ever even seen the strip at night, Sandy kept her head up and her eyes on Michael’s.

  “No, she hasn’t.” Michael’s voice held a note of curiosity.

  “I’m a prostitute.”

  “That’s something Sloan would consider yours to tell,” Michael said gently, her expression holding no trace of censure. She touched Sandy’s arm fleetingly, then turned toward the kitchen. “Coffee?”

  “Oh yeah. Bad.” Sandy padded after her, barefoot. Funny, how getting the truth out in the open made her feel better. It mattered what Michael thought—because she liked her, and she knew that Dell did too. But mostly it felt good not to hide.

  Michael crossed to the counter along the wall and assembled the makings for French-press coffee. As she worked, she said, “Is it something you decide? Or just something that happens?”

  Sandy settled on a stool at the breakfast bar opposite Michael and hooked her toes over one of the wooden rungs. “A little of both, I guess. After a while, you run out of choices. Or at least…choices that won’t kill you pretty fast.”

  “Is that how it was for you?” Michael poured boiling water into the coffeepot, set the kettle carefully back on the burner, and turned, her hips resting along the edge of the tiled counter.

  If there had been the slightest hint of condescension or even pity in Michael’s tone, Sandy might not have answered. But what she heard, besides gentle interest, was a subtle sense of caring that what Sandy had to say mattered. Even Dell had not asked. Sandy smiled. “Dell and me…we’re pretty into each other, you know?”

  Michael nodded, containing a smile. She was glad for the fact that the loft, despite its open design, had well-insulated, private sleeping quarters, because even with the distance between their bedrooms, now and then she heard an ecstatic cry or a desperate groan. “Every time I’ve seen you two together, I’ve had the sense that she was crazy about you.”

  Sandy’s face lit up. “Yeah? You think?”

  “Oh yeah,” Michael said with a grin.