The muzzle flash gave her a better fix on his position. Idiot, she thought. She picked up the pace, her pistol in her outstretched hand as she ran. A panic welled up in Clint’s chest when he heard the shot. “Charlie!” he yelled louder as he plowed through the underbrush.
The robber was winded but could hear the pursing officer losing ground. Another quarter of a mile and all he’d have left to worry about would be K9. He knew from experience he’d have a good 20-minute head start on them as well. He knew this underbrush well as if he had been born a rabbit and knew every opening that would allow him to pass without obstruction while his pursuers got bogged down in branches, stickers, and brush so thick you had to go around rather than through. He could barely even hear his pursuer’s footsteps as he crossed the last creek bed. That would throw the impending K9 off and take him to the street where his pick-up truck sat waiting. He jumped into the creek bed and sloshed twenty feet in the shallow water before climbing out and passing through the last patch of woods.
BAM! It was the kind of a punch you never saw coming; just one punch, close range, right across the bridge of the nose. A bright white light flashed and encircled the robber’s vision as he hit the ground. In the final second as he passed from conscious to unconscious he saw a large black leather boot kicking the gun away from him.
Charlie stopped at the creek to catch her breath and to listen for footsteps before she left her position of cover in the brush, but heard nothing. She wanted to yell for Clint so he could catch up but the robber might be lying in wait and she couldn’t give away her position without making herself a target. She tried to control her breathing so she could hear, but the adrenaline drums were beating hard in her ears. She would have to hold her position and wait for Clint to find her. She battled her disappointment by reminding herself they could use the spot she was at as starting point for the K9 track. She had lost the perp.
Charlie kneeled down, trying to stay small and quiet and that’s when she caught a glimpse of the red baseball hat on the ground. She pointed her weapon at the hat across the creek bed, scanning back and forth, back and forth and slowly moving toward it, knowing she was messing up the K9 track but too keyed up to stop. She wanted this son-of-a-bitch and was anxious to return the shot he had so foolishly fired in her direction. She moved closer, her finger on the trigger. Up until now she had kept her finger outside the trigger guard so that if she fell, she wouldn’t accidentally squeeze off a shot but now it was finger-on-the-trigger-time. She loved finger-on-the-trigger time. Truth be told. . . most cops did. It’s not the rush of maybe having to kill someone, it’s the rush of the fight; the adrenaline of survival; the smell of blood in the water. There was nothing like it.
Aware that she could be ambushed, Charlie moved very slowly—then she saw him lying flat on his back.
“Police, don’t move!” she screamed at the unconscious man.
“Clint!” she yelled. “Over here!”
“Sarge!”
“Here! Here!” She rolled the robber over, secured his hands with her cuffs and made sure he was breathing. She continued to yell to Clint who finally arrived out of the brush, scratched up, covered in stickers, and panting like a dog.
“Damn it Sarge!” he said. “What the fuck? Oh, you got him. Cool. What did you do to him?” Clint wiped his face and reached for a cigarette.
“Nothing. Found him like this,” she said in broken sentences, still trying to regain her normal rate of breathing and motioning for him to give her a cigarette, too.
“Gun?” Clint panted as he took a deep drag on the cigarette. Charlie lifted up her foot to reveal the weapon under her tiny Rockport shoe and took a deep drag herself.
Clint laughed and said, “Grecko will be so pleased you didn’t fuck up his little fingerprint pattern! Seriously, what did you hit him with?”
“Nothing. I swear. I found him like this. Maybe the dumbass ran into a tree,” she laughed and coughed, the foreign smoke tickling her throat.
They stood in silence for a moment, trying not to process the danger of what had just transpired. Thompson used to say, “The quiet that follows a near miss is the loudest silence you’ll ever hear.”
“Take your sunglasses off,” Clint said out of the blue.
“What?” Charlie asked. “What for?”
Clint reached up and slid the glasses down her nose, nodded, smiled, and slid them back up. Charlie looked at him perplexed but was too curious about the robber to be distracted by Clint.
“Let’s search him,” she said.
Clint pulled out his cell phone and gave their location to Communications. Jan had already positioned officers on the street on the other side of the brush based on the information Clint had provided so back-up units were there in moments.
The heroes were called to the scene to check out the perp who was finally coming to and complaining of police brutality and a wicked headache. Detective Cramlin offered to take the arrest since he knew Charlie didn’t want or need the stat and Clint was tied up with the serial. “Thanks Crammy,” Charlie said.
“Oh yea, thanks Crammy! Big sacrifice. Way to take one for the team,” Clint said rolling his eyes at the pointy nosed detective for poaching the easy robbery arrest stat.
Police agencies try to pretend that stats and quotas don’t exist, but they do, only now they call them performance objectives. Jesus, no wonder Thompson hated white shirts.
Clint and Charlie caught a ride back to their cruiser with a marked unit. Clint reached for the front seat passenger door but a raised eyebrow from Charlie had him open the door and step back saying, “I was just getting the door for you, Sarge. Geez.” Clint climbed into the cage in the back seat, his long legs pinned to his chest as he closed the door. He banged on the plexiglass that separated him from Charlie and the patrol unit, “Hey! The dipshits who make these cage inserts know we arrest other people besides midgets, right?” Charlie laughed and ignored him.
Once they were back at their unmarked cruiser, they pulled into the Circle 7 to check the scene before leaving. The clerk had not been shot, which was good. That makes the report and the crime scene a hell of a lot less complicated. This job really screws up priorities, she thought.
“Don’t forget the tape,” Charlie said to Cramlin as they were leaving the crime scene. Crammy picked up the video tape from the counter that the clerk had already pulled from the closed-circuit video camera and waved it at Charlie. “Got it.”
They both released a perfectly timed sigh once back in the cruiser. “Okay, ready to try this again?” Clint grinned as they climbed back into their cruiser and headed for the Gay Dolphin.
“That’ll teach me to leave the office,” Charlie laughed as she pulled the hitch-hikers from her jacket and pants. “How about you drop me at the station so I can clean up and get this supplement report done while you pick up the food so we don’t get into anymore crap? How about that?”
“You cleaned up? Look at me Sarge!”
“You look great Clint,” she smiled.
“Yea, I do, don’t I?” Clint grinned.
He dropped her off in front of the station. Once inside she ran into a pack of patrol officers who were all trying to high-five her. “Nice job Sarge!” “Way to outrun a twenty-two-year-old perp!”
“No, no, no—I caught UP to him. I didn’t catch him. He was unconscious. We think he ran into a tree.” They weren’t listening to her. She knew by the time the day was done, she would have single handedly chased the perp fourteen miles through quicksand and fought him off with only her hands and teeth, barely surviving the encounter. Drama queens.
She sat down at her desk and tried not to think about Jake Adams. She tried really hard. She wanted to call him and tell him about the robbery. That was one of the things she missed most about having someone; being able to call them when something good happened, when something bad happened. Charlie just wasn�
��t sure he wanted to hear from her. He hadn’t said goodbye or reached out to her and he had been gone for hours. He acted like he was all worried and wanting to protect her and then . . . nothing. She pushed it to the back of her mind and tried to start on the robbery supplement report and shut everything else out, but it crept in, as it always did, and the darkness enveloped her. She closed the door to her office.
The demons had arrived and she would have to deal with them. Her constant companions, self-doubt and feelings of unworthiness; the unintended mantra of the abandoned. The deep ache in the pit of her stomach was familiar and unwelcome. Charlie had felt it so many times in her young life. It was the very reason she had been alone the last three years. It just wasn’t worth it. The span between the exhilaration she felt with Jake this morning and the excruciating pain she was feeling at this moment was . . . cruel. It was devastating and it was worth avoiding at any cost. She tried hard not to think, but it was a futile fight. Don’t go there, she pleaded with her demons. Please don’t make me go there.
This feeling she had was the kind that made her remember every other time she ever felt it. She wanted someone but was not wanted back. She trusted, and was made a fool. She loved, but was not loved. This was her story line. The evidence added up quickly. The common denominator was her. These were the facts and they were not in dispute.
Charlie grabbed the stack of reports out of her desk as the captain opened her door and cocked his head sideways at her. “Hey kid,” he said. “You look good. Good job on that robbery. I hear he gave you a hell of a fight.”
“No Captain, he . . .” she started and then surrendered. “Thanks Captain,” she said forcing a smile. “Statement’s all done from the Silver homicide, now I’m doing the robbery supplement but Crammy is taking lead, then I’ll try to get through this stack of reports.” She motioned to her in-box.
“Damn it, I told Willever from Special Ops to take some of those,” the captain said, exasperated.
Charlie held up the Post-it Note. “She did. She took half, but there’s still a crapload left.” She laughed half-heartedly. “It’s okay Captain. I’m no skate.” She grinned and the captain grinned back, catching the Thompson reference.
God, how Charlie wished her mentor were still alive. There was so much she wanted to talk to Thompson about. What would he say about Jake, she wondered. She knew what Thompson thought about cops getting involved with cops, but she was equally confident that Thompson would see that Jake was different. He was, wasn’t he? Her demons were trying to convince her otherwise.
“Where’s Adams?” the captain asked, breaking into her thoughts.
“Isn’t he out there? I don’t know.” She lied and went back to checking her paperwork, signaling the captain that she was through chatting. He knew the drill.
God her head hurt.
“Orange crusted chicken from the Gay Dolphin,” Clint announced. Oh, thank God, Charlie thought. Save me from myself Clint. “Conference room,” he directed as he passed by her office.
“Hey thanks for seeing if anyone else wanted anything!” Detective Cramlin said walking in from the robbery scene.
“Oh, right Crammy, I fly—I buy! Right? Yea, I caught on to that after about the 50th time you mooched a free lunch from me. Forget it,” Clint said pushing past him.
“Okay,” Crammy continued in his nasal drone, “Well, let me know if you guys have any left . . .” SLAM!
Clint slammed the conference room door in Crammy’s face. Charlie laughed. “You’re mean, McCallister.”
“I know,” he grinned. “But not to you.”
“No,” she smiled. “Not to me.” Never to me. She thought. Maybe sex really does ruin everything, she pondered. The truth was, the best relationships in her life didn’t involve sex; Clint, Thompson, Mr. Daley, AJ. Clint laid out the food and picked a few more hitch-hiker stickers off Charlie’s jacket and she picked a few off his pants leg, grooming each other like two spider monkeys.
Then Charlie took a napkin, wet it with her water bottle and dabbed at the scratches on his face. Clint was undeniably attractive. He was tall and lean and had dark features that matched his tanned and weathered skin. His eyes were deep brown and full of mischief. He had a rugged sweetness about him that made him irresistible to most women; definitely Hollywood material.
Clint could feel his blood pressure rise with her touch. “I hope the studio doesn’t find out about this,” she joked with her Hollywood handsome detective, but Clint didn’t laugh. He made eye contact with her in a way that held her eyes on his. She couldn’t seem to pull her hand away from his face.
Through the silence and intense eye contact they transmitted an unspoken conversation:
Good job today Sarge. I’m glad you’re okay. You’re important to me.
Thanks for backing me up today Clint. I’m glad you’re okay. You’re important to me too.
The moment went on a few seconds too long and got uncomfortable. Charlie finally broke eye contact first. She blushed a little and started looking through the takeout boxes on the table while Clint continued to stare at her. That’s when Charlie noticed the printed articles scattered out on the table. She picked one up. “What’s this, Clint?”
“Oh!” Clint said shaking off the tension that had filled the room, “I started pulling every case I could find involving known murderers of child molesters.”
He became animated and started to explain. Clint loved being a detective. “Yeah, I know what you’re thinking Sarge, that we don’t have a shot in hell that one of these perps is our perp but maybe if the M.O.s line up we’ll get a clue into this guy’s twisted psyche and catch a break.”
She glanced briefly at the first three articles laid out.
Molestation Victim Kills Tormentor
. . . something would finally have to give. One night in February 2009, he downed beers and vodka, drove to a mobile home in Fort Bragg, CA and shot the man he said was his tormentor once in the chest. “You’re not going to hurt anyone again,” Vargus, thirty-two, allegedly said as the sixty-three-year-old Darrell McNeill lay dying . . .
Serial Child Rapist Allegedly Killed by Molestation Victim in the Same Cell
. . . the sixty-four-year-old man had been locked up for much of the past four decades for sexually assaulting several teenagers in the South Hampton Roads. He tossed one boy in a ditch and abandoned another in a wooden box. Now, a man who himself was a childhood victim of sexual abuse is accused of killing Ausley.
Dewey K. “Frankie” Venable, twenty-four, had vowed in a letter to his grandmother that he would not let himself be raped in prison. He also had told family members that he had been disciplined for attacking inmates who were sex offenders . . .
Thirteen-Year-Old Boy Shoots Sexually Abusive Parents
. . . police report the pedophile suspects as the deceased. Gerard and Gwendolyn Jacobson’s, thirteen-year-old son shot his parents while they slept and then called police to turn himself in. Investigation into the scene and crime revealed a wealthy and kinky life at the lavish Jacobson estate, complete with a full BDSM sexual dungeon. Mark Jacobson, a business man and sole heir to the Case Hard Steel Empire, a multi-million dollar . . .
“It’s a good angle, Clint,” she said. “Really good.”
Clint beamed.
“I know,” he said arrogantly and then unleashed a suppressed laugh spewing a mouth full of orange chicken all over the articles.
“Nice work, Detective,” Charlie laughed.
The food was good. The company was good. Add a cold beer and she’d be feeling halfway human again, but the report pile awaited her. Charlie and Clint ate and chatted about the cases until almost 4:00. She suggested that it was probably time for a pattern analysis, which Clint said was his next move. She thanked him for the food and tried to give him some money but he refused, as he always did.
“This isn’t a date,
McCallister,” Charlie said throwing a ten spot at him.
“I know it isn’t a date, Cavanaugh,” he said. “If it was, you’d be buying.” It was a skit that had played out a hundred times but it always made her laugh.
“So, how’s Mary Jane?” Clint asked as Charlie left the conference room, ignoring him.
Chapter 25
Flash
Charlie returned to her desk and started in on the paperwork. There were several visits from multiple detectives and 1st Sergeant Willever who stopped in to see if she could take any more off of Charlie’s plate. Lyn Willever was a good egg. Professional, nice, competent, educated—everything a good supervisor should be, so of course it took the department 18 years to promote her. Landon wasn’t exactly progressive regarding the gay lifestyle. Gay dolphins were one thing, but a gay supervisor? That was a turd in the promotion pool. Idiots.
After the reports she had 165 emails to go through, interspersed with calls from everyone from God to Grecko who called to update her on the state of the evidence, or lack thereof, on the Silver case. The chemical the killer had doused the crime scene with had made the search for DNA all but impossible just like the last three, but the medical examiner did mention two very small puncture wounds in the victim’s scalp that were still unexplained. Maybe they were related to the homicide. Damn it, this killer knew his shit. She could tell that Grecko was devastated. She didn’t know if he was sorry that he couldn’t help stop a killer, or sorry that he had let her down. Yea, she knew which it was. Oh well, at least there were some men she could count on.
No sex. That was the key.
The Hooker, the Handyman and What the Parrot Saw Page 17