Strange Robby

by Selina Rosen

  "Spider, help!" He held a hand out to her. She reached for him, and something hard and hot hit her shoulder, throwing her back. She tore a piece of her shirt off and packed her own wound as she watched a bullet splinter James' skull. She grabbed her gun, got up and ran towards the enemy. It wasn't courage; it was rage that empowered her. Rage, and fear. Sarge screamed, "No Webb!" But she ran in, firing, and now he was dead and she was still alive. Another bomb hit. This time it hit behind the Iraqis line. The cavalry had come. Seven of her unit joined her, only four lived to see morning. Only the five of them waded through the blood and carnage and survived. It was idiotic. They gave them a medal for living, but then they gave everyone else a medal for dying, and how much more stupid was that?

  "Spider!" Tommy screamed again. "Spider!"

  She turned away from the scene towards Tommy. She must have looked as shaken as she felt.

  "You OK, Spider? You're looking a little green."

  "I'm . . . OK."

  "You hear my question?"

  She shook her head no.

  "I asked if you thought it was the Fry Guy."

  She didn't have to think about that one. It was a no-brainer. "Yes."

  "Why so sloppy? Why such a mess?"

  Spider thought about the mess he was talking about. Thought about what had happened to her in Baghdad.

  "Killing Rage. This time he was mad. He didn't really think; he just struck out. Apparently—at least in his mind—they did something personal to him."

  "He left five witnesses," Tommy told her.

  She looked at him in disbelief.

  "And this is what they all said." He punched up the data and showed it to her. She watched all five interviews, and then Tommy repeated the description. "A man of unknown ethnic origin wearing a purple ski hat, a red cape and leather work gloves."

  "He knew there was a chance that not everyone here would be truly bad, evil if you will. The five he left alive he must consider redeemable. See if they had any previous records."

  Spider seemed disconnected. Maybe she was just tired, but somehow Tommy didn't think so; there was something wrong. It was cold and she was sweating. He looked for the files anyway.

  "You're right. None of those five have a record that includes anything harsher than shoplifting. Three of them have no record at all."

  "And what do you want to bet that all those corpses do. Or if they don't, that they were deeply into the gang—totally corrupted. We should interview some of the families of both the victims and the survivors see if there are any similarities . . . "

  Bodies, so many bodies, and somebody had to move them. No one ever thought about that.

  The flies. That's what she remembered—the flies. Like black air they were so thick, and the smell—sweetly putrid. They sent them in on what was supposed to be a routine relief. They were to go in and take over the post; that was what they were told. Their sergeant never told them that everyone there had been killed by some biological or chemical weapon that they weren't at all sure had dissipated. Life was cheap to the boys at the top; that was a fact that never changed. Some dick way up the food chain was always willing to put someone else's life on the line to prove some stupid point.

  She didn't sleep the first three days they were there, and any food she ate came right up. By the fourth day they had most of the corpses cleaned up and she had become desensitized, or at least that was what the military fucks like to call it. It was a nice clean way to explain that they had killed part of your brain. That they had stolen away part of your humanity.

  Becky never did "desensitize," and it made things that much harder for her. Spider tried to make things easier for her and in doing so wound up making things harder for herself.

  Who cleaned up Becky's body? Who cleaned up James's? What good was life when, in the end, you were reduced to nothing more than a mess someone had to clean up?

  Body after body, day after day, the heat and the sand and the damned flies . . .

  "Goddamn it, Spider!" Tommy all but screamed.

  She looked at him, took a deep breath, and rubbed a sweaty hand down her ashen face.

  "What the hell is wrong with you?"

  She checked first to make sure her comlink was off, and then took a quick look at Tommy's. He had apparently severed the link before he screamed at her.

  She laughed nervously and started to lie, but she was shaking and felt sick to her stomach. She looked at Tommy, her teeth chattering, suddenly cold.

  "Sometimes when you see things, Tommy . . . Things people shouldn't have to see . . . It changes you, and you're never quite the same again. You have to bury those things real deep or you can't even think to lead anything close to a normal life. But they're never gone, and when you least expect it, they'll jump right back up in your face."

  She looked into Tommy's eyes. "You can see too much, Tommy." She wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. "Things that will keep you up at night, things that won't let you sleep. I'm having a PTS episode. I'm going home, Tommy."

  "You OK to drive?"

  "Yeah, I'll be all right as soon as I put some distance between me and . . . that. You got things here?"

  "Yeah. Sure, pard." Tommy watched her go. He saw her bend over to pick something up; he couldn't see what. Then she got in her car and drove off. He knew he shouldn't have let her leave alone, but he turned around and went back to work.

  "You did what!" Laura screamed at him.

  Tommy didn't want to do this. If he went back to bed right now he could get an hour's sleep before he had to get up and go back to work again. "She wanted to go home. I let her."

  "Damn it, Tommy, she's your partner. It's not like this is the first time she's had one of these PTS episodes. You know she's not safe to drive."

  "She's a grown woman. She's never had trouble driving before, she said she just needed to get away," Tommy defended.

  Laura picked up the phone and dialed Spider's apartment. Carrie's sleepy voice answered.

  "Hello?"

  "Hello, Carrie, it's Laura. I'm sorry to call so late. Is Spider home?"

  Carrie looked around. Spider wasn't in bed, and as far as she could see, not in the apartment. "No, why?"

  Laura took a deep breath. "Ah . . . Tommy wanted to ask her something about the case, that's all."

  "Is everything all right?" Carrie asked. "Is Spider all right?"

  "Yeah, she should be home soon. Sorry I woke you. Good night." She hung up the phone and glared at Tommy.

  Tommy dialed up Spider's private comlink number. He sighed a sigh of relief when she answered, then frowned when he realized she was in her car. "Spider, what the hell are you doing?"

  "It's OK, I'm going home now. I just had to calm down, that's all."

  "All right. Go straight home and call me when you get there."

  "Will do."

  Carrie gave the phone a weird look and hung it up. She looked at the clock, frowned when she saw the time, and rolled over to try and go back to sleep. It wasn't happening. About fifteen minutes later Spider came in. She looked up at Spider and patted the bed beside her. Spider shucked her clothes and crawled under the covers. Carrie snuggled around her.

  "My God, Honey! You're so cold and sweaty. Do you have a cold?"

  Spider turned around to face Carrie. "I had a girl friend in the service, you know."

  Carrie laughed. "That's OK, Honey. This may come as a shock, but you're not exactly my first, either."

  "No, Carrie, let me finish." Spider swallowed hard. "Becky and I were close. It wasn't like you and me, but at least we thought we were in love, we cared about each other. We were entrenched just outside the heart of Baghdad when a bomb landed in our trench. It literally blew pieces of her all over me. For just a second I thought about just standing there till something hit me, too. It was too horrible to imagine living through. But something inside me, somewhere deep down, some instinct took over and I just kept going. She was my lover and my friend, and I wiped her blood
off my face and kept fighting. I never looked back."

  "If you had, you'd be dead, too," Carrie said quietly.

  Spider looked at Carrie. "Don't you see, Carrie? I never told anyone about her. About what she meant to me. She died, and God only knows who buried her—if anyone. I went on with my life, and I left her there—body and soul—in that trench."

  "You want to talk about her?" Carrie asked carefully.

  "That would be too weird," Spider said.

  "Why? Because she was your girl friend? I'm not going to feel threatened. I am one cocky bitch, and I have an almost too healthy self-image. If you loved her even a little, she must have been pretty special, and I want to hear about her."

  Spider hesitated for a second. "Becky had delusions of grandeur; going in, she wanted to be the first woman three star general. Two weeks into basic training she was trying to find a way out . . . "

  "For the fifth time, what did you take from the crime scene, Webb?" the lieutenant boomed as he showed the damn comlink video from detective Levits' unit for the fifth time.

  "And for the fifth time that is not—technically—part of the crime scene," Spider answered through clenched teeth. "Who says I'm picking up anything? The view is obstructed by a fucking car. I bent over to look at something. I didn't pick anything up . . . "

  "Detective York said he saw you put something into your pocket."

  "That's called my hand," Spider hissed.

  "He makes a strong accusation, Webb. He says he thinks you took evidence. He says he believes you have been doing so all along. Did you take something from that crime scene?"

  "No I did not," Spider gritted out. She looked at Tommy then. "Go ahead. Tell him."

  "I didn't see her pick anything up," Tommy lied.

  "Not that. Tell him about last night. What kind of shape I was in."

  He looked at her for confirmation. Did she really want him to tell the lieutenant about the PTS episode? It would mean a trip to the department shrink at the very least—medical suspension at the most. She nodded at him. He looked at the lieutenant, but just couldn't.

  "Ah . . . crap, Spider."

  "Just tell him!" she nearly screamed.

  Tommy took a deep breath and let it out, but still stammered when he started talking. He'd never had another partner, and he didn't want one now. "She, ah . . . she occasionally suffers from a minor form of post-traumatic shock syndrome. She had an episode last night after viewing the crime scene. She wasn't really out, but she didn't really seem to have a handle on present events, either. She wanted to go home, and I told her to do so. She certainly wasn't up for tampering with evidence."

  The lieutenant gave Spider an angry look. "Why didn't you report this incident immediately?"

  "It's not like it's not a matter of record that I have them. I need to work," Spider said pointedly. "I have debts, and I can't afford any time off. It's more unnerving than anything else. I've never put myself, my partner, or anyone else in danger. I don't think I should be punished for something I have very little control over. Truth is, I might have picked something up—a rock, a piece of broken glass. I don't really remember. But if I had picked anything of any significance up, I'm sure I would have found it by now, and I would have turned it in."

  The lieutenant seemed to think about it. He took a deep breath and exhaled. "I'm not going to take your word for it that these episodes aren't dangerous. You'll be expected to go to the department shrink for evaluation and then treatments. If you fail to make appointments you will be suspended without pay. Do I make myself clear?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  Tommy was surprised to see the relief cross Spider's face. It wasn't like her to give the bastard what he wanted. Then to his dismay the lieutenant turned his attention on him.

  "The FBI seems to think that we are mucking up the crime scene. They are blaming this department for the fact that they have no leads . . . "

  "They're blaming us because they don't want to admit that they are as stumped as we are," Spider hissed.

  Tommy smiled. Now that was the Spider he knew and loved.

  "This guy has some kind of weapon he probably stole from Uncle Sam. They know a hell of a lot more than we do, and they aren't any closer to catching him than we are. They're looking for a scapegoat."

  "That may be so, but you two have made no bones about the fact that you think this guy is doing a public service . . . " They started to protest and he held up his hand. "You're on too much vid-tape to deny it. God only knows what you say when you've got your comlinks off. My point is this. This guy is breaking the law. He's killing people. He's a murderer. As cops we shouldn't care who he's murdering. If I find out that any of my officers, even one who has been decorated for distinguished service," he glared at Spider, "is tampering with evidence, I'll be the first one to testify against them. Do I make myself clear?"

  They nodded silently.

  "OK, bugger off then."

  Tommy glared across the car at Spider. He couldn't tell what she was thinking, but then he rarely could. He had to look back at the road, because he was driving, after all.

  "What did you pick up, Spider?" Tommy more hissed than said. He didn't like being left out to dry when he didn't even know he was wet. Spider started humming and stared out the window as if she hadn't heard him.

  "What did you pick up, Spider!" he screamed.

  Spider must have known he was about to scream, because she didn't jump even a little. She turned her head slowly to face him. "Nothing."

  "Lying bitch," Tommy swore. "This isn't a game anymore. This guy is killing more and more people. Some of those gang members were just kids . . . "

  "They were all hoods, every last one of them . . . "

  "They didn't deserve to die like that. I'm not sure anyone does. This has got to stop; it's gone too far. At first I was right with you. Hell, it may have even been my idea. But we can't keep covering for this guy. We're going to have to start looking for him. Now, what did you pick up?"

  She started humming again and continued staring out the window.

  "Goddamn it, Spider . . . "

  She spun on him, fast and hot. Tommy jumped at the fury in her voice when she started to talk. "I saw what he did last night. I saw it, too. It dredged up shit I thought I'd put to sleep. But that doesn't change the fact that everyone who got slammed had it coming. If they hadn't already raped, mutilated, or killed, they would have. He knows that. Somehow he sees men's souls. I understand that you don't want to cover for him anymore, and I won't ask you to, but don't ask me not to."

  Tommy pulled the car over and parked so he could safely glare at her across the car. "Are you going to tell me what you picked up?"

  Her silence answered his question.

  "Damn it, Spider! You could burn us both with this shit. This guy is a loaded cannon. A man with a very powerful weapon he probably stole from the government. He is not some avenging angel sent to do God's work. Get that through your head."

  Spider didn't look at him as she answered. "When I was in the military it was easy. We had one kind of uniform; they had another. We were the good guys, we knew who the bad guys were, and we killed them, even though we didn't really know why they were shooting at us or we were shooting at them, it was easy. All black and white—no grays. Now I'm here in the streets and I don't know who the good guys are any more. Everything is in shades of gray."

  Spider turned to look at Tommy then, and the look in her eyes scared him more than a little.

  "But not to this guy, Tommy. This guy sees evil. He sees it like you and I see color. I'm not going to do anything to stop him. I'm not going to do anything to help them stop him. I'll go through the motions, but that's it. It wasn't that long ago that you agreed with me. Sometimes the ends do justify the means. The end isn't a room full of mutilated corpses. The end is good kids that will be alive tomorrow because those bastards didn't live to turn them on to drugs or kill them outright."