The Flats

by Kate Birdsall

  I park behind the Justice Center and pull out my phone to text Goran: Grabbing coffee with Becker. Be in by 9:15.

  I’ll buy you breakfast before the big interview, he replies. Meet me at the diner when you’re done with coffee. I’ll handle Fishner.

  How that man puts up with me boggles my mind, especially given how I barked orders at him throughout that whole spectacle. I’ve already apologized, but I’ll probably do it again.

  I spot Becker at a table in the back corner—the good table this time. I smile and give her a little wave. I try not to limp as I cross the restaurant.

  As I slide into a chair across from her, she asks, “Knee still hurts?”

  So much for hiding the limp. I shrug. “Not much.”

  She slides today’s Plain Dealer across the table and taps on the front page. My stupid picture is there again, but at least it’s below the fold this time. You’d think after three days, the media would have something better to report. But no, there I am, drenched in Sarah Taylor’s blood, standing next to Christopher’s stretcher outside the movie theater. I’m holding my brother’s hand while a medic closes a different ambulance door on Taylor in the background. The headline reads: CDP Special Homicide Well-Known for High Closure Rate.

  I push the paper back to her and stand. “I’m gonna grab a cup of coffee. You want anything?”

  She smiles and gestures at her mug. “I’m good. Thanks.”

  Waiting in line at the counter, I shift my weight off my left leg. I look around at the old man in the corner, the attorneys in the middle, then the mom with three kids struggling to get out the front door. The little girl makes eye contact with me, and we smile at each other. People want to think the city is safe. Even if they hate cops and everything we are, they want to tuck their kids in at night and make sure the door is locked and go to sleep without too much worry, knowing that we put another psychotic asshole away. When it’s my turn, I step up to the counter.

  The teenager smiles. “What’ll it be, Detective? The regular?”

  “I’m treating myself today. Double-shot Americano, room for cream.”

  He calls out the order, and I move down to the end of the counter to wait. People want their realities to match the stories they tell themselves about certainty, about nothing bad happening to them or the people they love. On some level, maybe they even want to put a name and a human face to the people that put the perps in prison, which might explain the stupid newspaper interview Goran and I have to do. Alexis Edwards, the Plain Dealer reporter, wants to write another piece on us for next Sunday, something about taking a “more personal angle” and “showing the city that cops are human.” Fishner is making us do it. Whatever.

  Back at the table, Julia is tapping away on her phone.

  I take a seat and wait for her to finish. When she looks up, I say, “Taylor woke up yesterday afternoon. I talked to her. She’s not denying anything.”

  She puts her phone back in her bag. “I read your report. Do you really think she wanted you to kill her, or is that another manipulation tactic?”

  “She wanted me to kill her. Suicide by cop. She knew I’d never get over it. She knew too much about me.” Sarah Taylor isn’t happy to be alive. She rambled like a lunatic yesterday when Goran and I were there. “I’m pretty relieved she doesn’t have any communicable diseases, after all that blood.”

  “I’m sure the grand jury will indict her. Her case is scheduled for Monday.”

  “What about my brother? I’m having dinner with him. Can I tell him he’s free and clear of this, beyond having questionable taste in women?”

  She chuckles. “Questionable taste, indeed. Yeah, he’s off the hook. Taylor’s notebook is clear that he wasn’t involved, and his alibis still hold.”

  “Thanks.” I take a sip of my coffee. “She’ll plead insanity.”

  “It won’t fly. Everything was so methodical, from the abduction to the murders to all the clues she left.”

  “Yeah, but the abduction itself was opportunistic. I honestly think she did lose her shit after that, had some kind of psychotic break. I’m pretty sure killing the kid wasn’t on her original agenda.”

  She takes a drink of her coffee then looks at me over the rim of her cup. “She killed two innocent people. She left a written confession. She stalked you and Teresa Whittle. She tried to frame your brother. She tried to frame Cox. Craig Phillips. There’s no way a judge—or a jury—would go for insanity.”

  I nod. “Yeah, Heights has good evidence for Allie Cox.” A bloody fingerprint on Cox’s bathtub was a match for Taylor.

  Cora Bosch and I ran into each other in the hospital hallway yesterday, and we were civil to one another. I’m supposed to have a drink with her later this week. We’ll see how that goes. I have apologies I need to make to her, too.

  “The notebook speaks for itself, Liz, and the physical evidence is hard to beat. You guys did good work.”

  “Uh-huh.” The notebook goes on and on about Teresa Whittle, about me, and about all the ways that Taylor was wronged as a kid. “All of us conspired to fuck her right up.”

  Becker chuckles. “I know you’re not being glib, but it sure sounds that way.”

  “No, not glib. I mean it. It’s possible that the system made her a criminal. All that stuff she wrote about how small the world is, how entwined we all are… it’s hard to argue with that. And thinking she’s right, even about something as woo-woo as that. It scares me a little.”

  She gives me a soft smile. “She’s still guilty, Liz. It seems like you feel bad for her.”

  “It’s gonna be hard to forget those CFS photos. First her mother, then her foster mother beating the shit out of her… and then being the victim of two sexual assaults.” I shake my head. “The system completely failed her.”

  “Other people have been in that situation, or worse, and not killed anyone, much less a child.”

  “I know. I really do know.” Having a fucked-up, tragic past isn’t an excuse. Most people do their best to get through their lives without inflicting their pain and misery on anyone else. “What about Sean Miller?”

  “Aiding and abetting.”

  “The poor dumb shit.”

  “It’s hard to argue with traces of the victim’s blood in the trunk of Phillips’s car and his fingerprints all over the interior. Your report on your interview with the Whittles was an exercise in brevity. What happened?”

  I lean back in my chair and stare out the window before meeting her eyes again. Teresa and Peter both cried and thanked me for coming by, but their grief was so palpable, so real, that it felt like getting kicked in the stomach to witness it. “The look on Teresa’s face pretty much said it all. Regret. I started to wonder what would have happened if I’d followed up all those years ago. If I’d asked those kids who was hurting them, if I’d done anything but get in the car and leave.” It’s out of my mouth before I know what I’m saying. Dr. Shue will be so proud when I tell her.

  “You can’t blame yourself. That was a long time ago. I’m serious.”

  I laugh. “I can’t believe I’m saying any of this to you.” The universe will reward you for taking risks on its behalf.

  She raises her eyebrows. “Thanks?”

  “I’m just not much for sharing. I hope it doesn’t make you uncomfortable.”

  “I’m not uncomfortable, Liz. That’s what friends are for.” Her phone chirps, and she pulls it out of her bag. “I’m due in court in fifteen minutes. Let’s grab a drink after Taylor’s grand jury, and I’ll fill you in.” She stands.

  “Sounds good.”

  As she’s walking away, she pauses and puts her hand on my shoulder. “Well done, Detective Boyle.”

  “Thanks, Counselor.” I smile, and I mean it.

  Dear Reader,

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  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to my editors, Lynn McNamee and Angela McRae, for filing off the rough edges, with extra-special thanks to Lynn for those interesting phone conversations, for seeing the dark humor in this book, and for laughing with me about things that others might not find funny.

  Thanks to the whole staff at Red Adept Publishing for the good work that you do.

  Thanks to Claire Anderson-Wheeler, my amazing agent at Regal, Hoffman & Associates, for seeing potential in a very early draft and taking a chance on me. She will never know how much I appreciate her, especially when she was on the other end of those emails during what I call “desperate season,” aka heavy-duty revising in the cold, dark Midwestern winter.

  Thanks to my parents for instilling a love of dark, demented mystery fiction in me at a very early age and for always encouraging me to follow my heart. I love you. (And seriously: I was reading books about autopsies at the age of about eleven.)

  Thanks to my fellow lover-of-the-macabre Jessica L. for the dream sequence that, somehow, brought Liz’s character to life for me in the early days of drafting this book. Thanks to my early readers, whose feedback helped me write a better book—Tom, Linda, Suzanne, Megan, Wendy, and Rick, you helped keep me honest. Thanks, too, to my writing buddy KFO, and to Veronica, Em, Danielle, and Hannah. You rock. Now finish those lists.

  Special thanks to Deputy Amanda H. for taking time from her own family and law-enforcement career to consult on some of the police work details.

  Thanks beyond words to Malia, the love of my life, whose love and support means everything in the world. Writing can be isolating, and writers can be fickle. You make it—and me—less so. It’s smaller than a toaster, but only just, and you and I will continue to visit discount stores together and laugh in the aisles as we write scenes for our favorite comedy shows for many, many years to come.

  All of the characters and events in this book are figments of my imagination. I am not Elizabeth Boyle any more than you are, though I like to think that she and I have an understanding of sorts. The Cleveland Department of Police does not have a Special Homicide Division. Therefore, the squad room, the ranking system within the unit, and some of the procedural aspects of the book are, like the characters and events, fictional. It was, for example, law until roughly 2005 that CDP officers live in the Cleveland city limits, which makes Liz’s apartment in Cleveland Heights a no-go. But for the sake of character, there she is. It’s also tremendously likely that I’ve botched several facets of how real police would investigate this crime, and I’ve definitely taken creative liberties with the city itself. In short, none of this really exists or ever did, and any similarity to actual places, events, or persons, living or dead, is a coincidence.

  Any mistakes are my own.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Kate Birdsall was born in the heart of the Rust Belt and harbors a hesitant affinity for its grit. She’s an existentialist who writes both short and long fiction, and she plays a variety of loud instruments. Kate lives in Michigan’s capital city with her partner and at least one too many four-legged creatures.

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  Did you love The Flats? Then you should read Warped Ambition by Debbie S. TenBrink!

  When the battered body of a teenage girl is found in a dumpster, Lieutenant Jo Riskin is called to take the case. Investigating with her partner, Detective Lynae Parker, Jo uncovers secrets, loyalties, and ambitions that give motives to a surprising number of suspects , including a boyfriend from the wrong side of the tracks.

  While immersed in her current case, Jo is battling her own personal demons. After two years, she is still grieving over the loss of her husband, who was killed in the line of duty. New information that could help solve his murder, and let her move on with her life, is within her grasp.

  Barricading her heart, Jo is determined to solve both cases and bring the killers to justice.

  Read more at Debbie S. TenBrink’s site.