by brett hicks
I bit my lip and deftly nodded in agreement.
“I hope to be a part of the solution, not the problem.”
I said honestly to my partner, who gave me a meaningful look.
“Despite how dodgy you act I never doubted you were a goodie.”
I chuckled and smacked his thickly muscled chest.
“Oh, dodgy, am I?! You’re an arsehole!”
Jimmy rubbed his pretend wound on his chest and stared into my eyes. I felt heat fluttering inside my body in response. I could not forget how his body felt pressed all against mine. How his hungry masculine lips had devoured my soft lips and traced down my nape. Try as I might, I still could not forget how he felt, and how much he wanted to take me where we stood.
Forgetting was easy, living with the memories was the true challenge. Jimmy’s expression gave away hints that he had remembered something similar, or else I had forgotten to button my blouse in the morning. I would like to believe Sorcha and gran would have been kind enough to warn me off, if I had!
“Well, shall we finish canvasing further away? Then we can swing round to the back road connected to the hotel, see if maybe the perp fled that way.”
Jimmy asked, and I agreed with a simple nod. I finished my hot coffee and carefully tucked it into a fast food bag on the floor. Jimmy was no slob, but he was a very busy detective. He had some take-away evidence from stakeout’s past.
“Yeah, I’m finished here, what about you? Any news from Sorcha or any of the other leading detectives?”
I inquired, and Jimmy shook his head.
“No, she said that she was off looking into possible explanations for the electronic glitches that coincided with the murder. She’s got the bit between the teeth on that whole line of inquiry. Hopefully something good will come of it.”
“Well, that sounds potentially promising. Make sure she knows we are here if she needs backup.”
I said, sounding a little too excited. I was fairly sure Jimmy knew Sorcha was investigating the supernatural end. He was using a cover story, since he still believed me to be human. I felt guilty, yet again for lying to him, but such was the price for an answer that had eluded me half my life. If Ernie was not exaggerating, then it might be possible that he really was the only one who could tell me. Still, I was beginning to like and respect my partner, and I would beg his forgiveness for a good while after this case resolved.
Whatever the end may be, I knew that my time hiding from the rest of the sup world was over. I was coming out to the community, and I would have to face whatever that meant for me. I was sure there would be new dangers, and I would have to look everyone in the eye from now on. No more pretending that I was a silly human girl.
“I’m sure yours is the first number she will ring, in that case.”
Jimmy said, sounding slightly annoyed. I managed not to grin at his very male reaction.
“Oh, come on now big fella, not like she is trying to win me off ye. I’ll have you know; she spent the night at mine last night, and it is obvious we are both straight as two arrows. I’d know by now, if she kicked with her left.”
I sniggered lightly, and Jimmy seemed somehow more at ease. Had he really thought I was sleeping with her?! Men are so two-dimensional!
“Of course not! I’ve known Sorcha for years and she’s never really shown such a predilection.”
Jimmy said, and I just smiled and eyed him skeptically. I did not bother to call him out on his jealousy, but he amused me. He didn’t think I belonged to him or anything, but being such a dominant male, he felt as though I should show some loyalty towards him over others. I could break his balls about that mentality, but there is no helping men when they get like this, so I was just going to have a private laugh and move on.
All things considered, we were behaving more like partners, and less like we were nearly in each other’s knickers.
***
We moved along the eastern portion of the immediate area, collecting CCTV from each of the local shops and businesses. We walked for hours, canvasing, and checking for any potential sightings of a dodgy fella in the area. Aside from a few crude cop jokes and a few sketchy street venders, we didn’t seem to have anything to go on. Our perp appeared to have vanished, as if by magic, like Jimmy said this morning.
I hated how supernatural this case was appearing. I hated it, because the more sup it was, the less I could involve my partner. The higher my risk of rupturing our partnership for a second time. After spending the day working with Jimmy earnestly, without pink elephants between us, I could see a lot that I could admire about him. He was a solid copper, and I was hoping to learn a lot more about the detective’s side of the job from him. I did not delude myself into believing that I knew it all, just because I was a detective myself. I was fresh off my promotion out of the blue. Jimmy and Sorcha had both spent years in the detective role.
I needed to talk to Sorcha, learn what she found, and to report everything we had not found. I also needed to go through all the CCTV footage, to see if the eyewitness accounts were corroborated, or if it proved them false. I did not hold much hope that the many witnesses were all conspiring to claim they all remembered the same thing. It was far more likely that I would find nothing on the CCTV, at least nothing pertaining to my murder investigation.
This was not my first time hitting a solid wall in an inquiry, but this one felt many folds more frustrating to me. The perp had so brutally killed Jen Bowman, that she had been leaking out her insides.
“Take us back to the station. I’ll get cracking on this CCTV footage. I assume you will have to write up reports for the boss?”
I asked Jimmy, who gave a slight nod and grumbled, “Aye, and he’s not gonna like us bringing back naught.”
I bit my lip absently as we climbed back into his small sedan. My feet were burning from all the walking we were doing. I had been doing foot patrol since I got onto my first posting, but we had truly trekked all over the central hub of Dublin today. I had spent a lot of my day gazing at many possible exits. We had also collected video in a very wide radius away from the Hotel.
“What are we going to tell him, if he asks about the soft pint, we had at the pub this morning?”
I asked, and Jimmy sniggered in a deeply masculine sound of amusement.
“You’re so damn green! Ye tell him the truth. If he catches ye in a lie, we’re both for the high jump. You give it to him straight. The boss will not bang us up over a soft one, to help us loosen up the lips of a buncha wankers in a pub.”
I made an O shape with my lips, and I nodded again. Strictly speaking, we were not fobbing off on the clock. We were just trying to fit in and make ourselves approachable. However, we both knew it was not in a direct line with the garda handbook. Even I was not green enough to believe every single case was handled strictly by the guidelines, but I did not color outside those set boundaries. I was a very strait-laced cop. I believed in the letter of the law, and the spirit of the law, which are not always exactly the same.
Navigating the hectic world of grays and compromises, without letting them chew you up and devour you, was no easy task. I did not see it getting any easier with practice either.
“Sorry, I did not mean to sound like a stuck-up arsehole. I am not saying we really did anything wrong. I am just, well, you know.”
Jimmy snorted, and he bobbed his head slightly again.
“Yes, Avery, I know. Stick to yer convictions, they are not wrong, nor do they make you sound like an arsehole. You sound like a sound copper to me. I’d trust ye with my back kicking in doors.”
He said, and he winked at me playfully. I snorted and rolled my eyes at him again. Rapport was fully reestablished between us. I just had to hope it would survive the added blow to come once this case resolved.
Twenty-One:
“So, in the words of your American brethren, you got buttkiss?”
Sorcha asked in a very chipper and sassy tone. I shot daggers at her head, via my imaginary d
eath-stare. She had a bright sunny smile plastered on her face that appeared innocent and radiant, despite the blatant sass in her words.
Damn fairy!
“No one outside a cheesy eighties mob flick says buttkiss!”
I protested, and I crossed my arms over my chest. I was surfing through the footage as we talked and caught each other up on our individual lines of inquiry. Sorcha had spent the day tracing different shadow-aligned magiks suspects, each with known histories of violence. She had been putting the screws to her perps, making them sweat, and milking them for any loose information she could gather. It probably helped that the ursine shifter DI was accompanying her. Nothing says roll over and play dead, like a grizzly bear at your door!
“Well, in my defense, it was nineteen-seventy-seven the last time I visited New York. The clubs were hopping. Loads of different music, and lots of places for a fairy to shake her… feathers.” Sorcha said mischievously, and she shared a conspiratorial smile.
“Sound like you were in time to see the Son of Sam killer.”
Sorcha chewed on her lip for a moment and then blew a strand of hair out of her eyes.
“Interesting that your mind made that leap, considering they requested me as a liaison to the NYPD for the Son of Sam man hunt. My persona at the time was a Detective Inspector. I was one of the few lady cops who had raised in the ranks of the fraternity that is law enforcement.”
My eyes went bug wide at her mater-of-fact tone. Sorcha did not lie. She joked, but she never seemed to tell lies. It was amazing to imagine that she helped in the hunt for David Berkowitz. My mind spun to serial killers of any time and location, because of my less than healthy obsession with such killers, because of my father.
“Well, I mean, anyone who studies law enforcement learns all the classic cases. Wow, so what was he like? And, did you have anything to do with tracking Berkowitz down?”
I asked, my eyes straying from the screen for a moment, as I looked to Sorcha for more details. She waved me off and made a humming noise.
“I hate to admit it, but he was a real pain in the ass to track. His patterns were illogical, and he was just chaotic. I mean hell, that is why he was such a terror to the Big Apple. No one could pin down his movements. That is part of why modern police study these classic cases, to help find the illogical, logic in the minds of killers. It is part of why those who can get in the minds of killers devote ourselves to hunting them.”
Sorcha said this, I could see her gaze go distant. I could easily see that her people’s deaths were at the core of why she did what she did. She put on the badge to protect, and to stop any other murderers before they could leave some other little girl in ruination, as she had been so long ago. I guess you could say Sorcha and I were almost like sisters of a sort.
“Or we could end up with the average dirtbag trafficking of knockoff goods. The job is nothing, if not colorful.”
Reline interjected, she was holding a hand full of files I had requested from records. I had a wild hair to comb through every female murder case that went unsolved in Dublin. I was casting a wide net, but I wanted to be thorough and I also wanted to see if this perp had struck before. Given that the normal law would never think to connect him to a homicide, say seventy years ago, I could not expect them to search such obscure records.
“Cheers, fancy a cuppa? We’re just trying to sort out our facts now.”
Sorcha said, inviting Reline to join us. The bubbly vampire smiled brightly, so brightly that I saw her four fangs glistening in the station's light. I knew that she had a glamor up to hide her most obvious inhuman features, but that did not seem to stop me from having a full view of her glorious top and bottom fangs. She was obviously a pureblood. Even with my limited information and inner workings of the community, I knew that only purebloods were born, and that they had all four fangs, not the commonly depicted two. Turned vampires would grow only two after their human death.
“I don’t drink tea.” Reline said with a glint of humor in her eyes. Sorcha snorted and rolled her eyes. I was not meant to get the joke, but I did. It was a twist on the Stoker’s Dracula, replacing wine, with tea.
“I do, however, love a cup of coffee. I am naturally cold-blooded, so the caffeine helps keep the circulation higher, and warm the skin.”
She explained, and I nodded understanding the nuances of this explanation. When I thought back, I noticed that the fanged hung around coffee shops frequently. I had always assumed that they just considered it to be a good hunting ground for a one-nighter and a bit of quick blood, but I had to reconsider my earlier assumptions now. They could just be coffee snobs, like myself.
“Makes sense, or you could just find a smoking hot man to keep yer bed warm at night, right?”
Sorcha said, and she leaned in closer, more conspiratorially.
“You seeing anyone new? Please tell me one of us is getting some around here.”
Reline sighed wistfully and wiped a faux tear from her eye.
“Sadly, no, not since he-who-shall-remain-nameless. May the bloody pox consume his wank and balls!”
My eyes widened, and I too leaned in, as if I could not help myself.
“What happened, and who do I need to help you bury?”
I asked in a serious tone. I’m not exactly sure what it is about us girls that we feel the sisterly need to gang up when one of our own is hurt. I guess it is just part of being the “fairer” sex. Women are anything but weak, but that does not stop us from banding together!
“He’s a doctor, should have read that warning label, yeah? Not like there are many doctors who are not shagging all sorts.”
Reline sighed again, this time more in frustration.
“Well, at least he can treat himself when that pox sets in, yeah?”
Sorcha added, and I could not help the eruption of laughter from my gut. Sorcha seemed to have a very blunt sort of humor that seemed to keep surprising me.
“It’s ok Reline, look at it this way. The bloke is on his way to five alimony payments, and multiple expensive arse divorce settlements in his future!”
I promised her sincerely, and she looked at me, as if this was the greatest news she had ever heard.
“Serves the bugger right! Hope one of em hacks his pox-ridden manhood off and feeds it to bears at the zoo!”
Several of the keen-eared shifter males nearby winced and sympathetically covered their bits. I pretended not to notice, but Sorcha gave them a sassy smile when they looked over at us. She threw in a little finger wiggle-wave as well.
“Back at it, lads, nothing to see here!”
Sorcha said loudly enough for her voice to carry. To their credit, they all minded the Detective Sargent, when she spoke to them. Sorcha was the second highest ranking detective in this building. I could sometimes forget this, but she was just a very kind and easy-going person when lives were not at stake. She did not abuse her authority, and she did not see any need to flaunt it. She pulled her commanding air out when was necessary, otherwise; she focused on what needed to be done.
“We’ll discuss this further, tonight, girl’s night at our local, yeah?”
Sorcha added, then she winked at me. She seemed hell-bent on pushing me out of my comfort zone. She wanted me mingling with other sups and building bridges. It scared me to open up, but I knew deep down, she was spot-on. Everyone needed someone to confide in, lest we all go hatter mad.
“Overdue! I have been wanting to get our lovely new detective out on the town since she transferred! We’ve just been backed up with all sorts!”
Reline said in her cheerful and bubbly tone. I was not usually taken in with women so damn happy and bouncingly positive but Reline seemed to be the genuine sort. No daggers in yer back with her, and her kindness was confusingly sincere, considering she was a damn vamp! I was no hater, but most the vamps I have happened upon were less than desirable sorts. Then again, I had never met a pureblood before Reline either. Most stay well clear of “commoners” such as myself.
“S-sure, but are ye sure we have time, considering the killer on the loose?”
I asked, reluctant to learn what drinking with a vampire might involve. I was not ready to part with a pint of my own precious blood! Besides, I was not sure what giving my blood might do to a vamp. I know some types of sup blood affected them differently. There were even types they could get addicted to.
“Unless you have a suspect in your scope that we can set the whole of Dublin on, I think we can spare enough time to get pissed and let off steam.”
Sorcha said, chiding me.
“You sure you’re proper Irish, Parker?”
Another detective asked nearby, and I clenched my fist so tight, I could feel my nails digging into my meaty palm.
“Aye, I’m Irish as the Pope is Catholic, ya sod!”
I snapped back with a little more venom than I intended. I hated thinking about my bloodlines, being reminded of the man who made me. I was Irish all right, because that fecker was a proper patty. A proper psychotic one, that is.
“All right, all right!”
The older man held up his hands in surrender. Sorcha gave him a single flick of her wrist, silently dismissing him. Lucky for us all, he took the hint. I could see that she wanted to ask more about what that was, but Sorcha was centuries old, and with that came the experience to know when to back off. She winked again, and some of her playfulness bled back into her expression.
“I’d say you need a proper stiff one tonight, in more ways than one!”
She joked, and several of the other officers and detectives sniggered. I forced myself to laugh along with them. I did not want to become the bitch of the station. I knew logically that no one knew my history. I went to great lengths to keep it from public view. I knew that the Garda knew of my family history, and my personal past. They had accepted my application, because of my willingness to help capture my father at such a young age. I was grateful to the higher ups, that they had been tasteful and respectful enough to seal particular information from my file. At least I was not forced to walk around with those scarlet letters branded into my flesh. As it was, I felt I could never escape my dad. I was forever confronted with the black-eyed person I had fought tooth and nail to bring down. I could never forget the haunting images of the monster that had once been the man I adored.