Simon Rising

by Brian D Howard

  “Then things get more complicated, but Müller and I both have cops on payroll,” he reminded her. “Plenty of people die in police custody. What’s one more?” Police corruption in Bay City might not be rampant, but only the naïve or deluded tried to pretend it did not exist.

  A word from the news on the large television in the living room behind him caught his ear and he held up a hand to interrupt the sentence she started.

  A newswoman explained, “Another arrest today involving the street drug ‘Boost.’ Men allegedly involved in buying and selling this dangerous drug seem to have been attacked by the masked vigilante known as ‘The Messenger.’ Two unidentified men being charged with possession are believed to have been the potential customers, while two other men, who police are also not naming, are accused of selling the drug that inside sources are describing as, ‘the bane of the Vice Department.’

  “Both of the drug dealers died shortly after their arrest from what police are calling severe injuries sustained from the brutal vigilante attack. Police captain Gabriel Delgado issued a statement to reporters minutes ago reminding the public that, quote, fighting crime is a job for sworn police officers. Members of the public can best help by being aware of their surroundings, reporting anything suspicious, and then avoiding contact.”

  He had heard Delgado’s voice before and easily recognized it next with its slight Puerto Rican accent. “When vigilantes like this get involved they put the public in danger. They increase damage to public and private property. And they can compromise our investigations as well as endangering officers sworn to protect this city. These people are not heroes. They are dangerous criminals.”

  Reporters jumped in with overlapping questions and the sound cut off in favor of a weather update. He did not need to hear that.

  No mention of the burning building the men had been dealing out of. That Messenger bastard must have gotten the location from those two. He wondered who in the police silenced the men. This was not the first arrest. None lived long enough to give the police anything useful. Etherax assured him and the others that would be the case. Was there a creepier man in the city?

  “See,” he assured her. “People die in police custody all the time.”

  “It’s possible the vigilante inflicted those wounds.”

  “Possible, but doesn’t really fit. Yeah, he’s done a lot of damage, but I wouldn’t call him brutal.” Efficient, effective, dangerous....Plenty of other words came to mind. But so far the masked man hadn't struck with the kind of ruthless brutality Barton would retaliate with when he figured out who the bastard was.

  “The thing that worries me,” she said, lifting and half staring into her wine, “is that I just don’t trust that German, and neither should you. He says he sent a man to take care of Steven. What if his man got Steven out of the hospital and is holding him somewhere?”

  “For what?”

  She was smart, and she applied it. That was one of the things he loved about her. He watched her eyes while she thought. He loved the way the light glinted in them when she tilted her head. Maybe some age did start to show in the lines in her face, in her having to work harder to keep her figure as her muscles softened despite her best. But her beauty was undeniable. It would never fade, and he would never let her feel unloved or unappreciated. That silly Love Languages book had been so right.

  “Leverage, maybe? I don’t know. But what if the reason he was able to get Steven sent to St Mary’s instead of General was because he had it planned out in advance?”

  He already wondered that himself. Still, it did not click quite right. Something was missing.

  “No,” he countered. His almost empty wine glass beconed. He wanted something stronger. “Müller’s not that good a planner, although I could see him wanting to. I could see him wanting Steven for himself. The man’s a genius—which we can’t say for a lot of Müller’s guys.”

  “Maybe just getting Steven off your payroll would be enough for him...removing that advantage from us.” His heart grew a little lighter every time she said “us” like that. She thought of herself as his partner, not just the trophy wife she played the part of so often in public.

  “Or maybe Steven set it all up, somehow,” she added. “He’s good enough and smart enough to do that if he wanted to disappear.”

  “Why would he do that?” he challenged. “He had a good life with us. The money was good, and we protected him. I found him the kind of kinky girls he likes. Hell, even the guys when that’s what he wanted.”

  He didn't dare voice his other worry: what if Steven had succeeded? Barton had no idea what the alien artifact could do. Perhaps he got it and tried to use it and it changed him somehow? How many people died when Hoffman sabotaged the alien reactor he was studying? So many people at the trial said the artifact changed him. Or perhaps worse, what if Steven simply retrieved it and decided to deliver it to the Etherax himself?

  “You have a better theory?” Her lipstick made a single mark on the wineglass. She somehow managed to get the same spot all night long. Little details like that mattered. He tried not to miss them.

  “Mmm, no. I don’t,” he said with a sigh, rubbing the handle of his fork absently with a big thumb. A small lie. No, not a lie. He refused to believe those theories. Steven would not have betrayed him. Steven couldn't know how to use the artifact. Those theories were simply too unlikely. He could dismiss them. So not a lie. He did not have a better theory. “That’s what bothers me the most,” he admitted.

  His stomach clenched. She had prepared a dinner which genuinely impressed him at the start, and now his appetite was gone. It was time to change the subject. “Let’s talk about your day.”

  “Easier than yours, apparently. I had lunch at the restaurant. Mario was in there again. He didn’t notice me. He never does. I think you’re going to have to do something about him.”

  Mario had to be a simpler problem. What did he do this time? “Oh?”

  “I’m pretty sure he was drunk or high again. He had that skinny black girl again, the one with her temples shaved. He was...more grabby than normal. Creepier than normal. For a minute I thought he was gonna rip her blouse right there. He’s always bolder and more aggressive when he’s drunk.”

  Mario, Mario. The boy had no taste, no manners. He was a thug. But he brought in reliable money. Maybe he cut the boy too much slack. Well, he could be reined in if that’s what needed to happen. “Who isn’t?”

  “Yeah, but him especially.” She finished her wine and set the glass aside. “His anger comes out a lot more. He’s more careful whenever you’re around, or any of your men that he knows about. I’m sure if he knew I was there he would have behaved differently.”

  Would a drunken Mario have hit on her? No, he was there the time she made an example of someone. What was the guy’s name? Frederico, that was it. Frederico had been drunk. Frederico ripped her dress down the front at a dinner party. She executed him on the banquet hall floor.

  “I’ll have someone watch him for a bit. I’ll make an example out of him if I have to.”

  ‘Like I will with Steven, if I have to,’ he kept to himself with a regretful sigh.

  She pushed her plate far out of the way. He hadn’t touched his for a bit, but he ate most of it. She would not be offended if he did not finish every last bite.

  She stood and pushed the rest of her place setting the other direction.

  “I know how to help you feel better.” She undid her blouse from the bottom, stretching out the pause between each white button until the last one exposed the center clasp on the brown bra, pretty much all lace.

  “Fuck me.”

  The blouse slid off her shoulders. The darker brown of her nipples showed through the lace bra. Her abs might not be what they were ten years ago, but they were still sexy. She undid the button on her designer jeans.

  “Right here.” Slow zipper.

  “On the table.”

  He shoved his own dishes out of the way, feelin
g a little better already.

  CHAPTER 12 – FIVE THIRTEEN

  Rachel clicked ‘Save and Submit’ on her daily report and let out a long sigh. It was late, but she had gotten enough done to let herself go home. She was ready to shut down the laptop, tuck it in its bag, and leave it off until she got back in the morning. Long, hot shower, that was what today called for.T

  The last container half-full of cashew pork still sat on her desk from a couple of hours ago. She wasn't going to finish it. If she put it in the precinct refrigerator she would probably forget about it by dinnertime tomorrow. She and Thorne had only made it two-thirds through the list of hospital staff to interview. Tomorrow wasn't looking any better. Hopefully, it would at least be more productive.

  Her back ached, her eyes were dry and tired, and she wanted to change out of her bra into the more comfortable sports bra she would sleep in under flannel sheets. If it wasn’t so late she would go for a hot bath, but at this point her bed was more appealing.

  Someone rapped on the door. Lieutenant Thorne came in without waiting for acknowledgement, smoothing out his thick mustache. She looked at the clock on the wall: 9:26 p.m.

  “I’m not the only one here late, I see. What are you doing still here, Pat?” She reached for the ceramic coffee mug, then remembered she had pushed it aside at least an hour ago when it had gotten cold. She turned it, pointing the handle away from her, hoping to remember to rinse it out when she left.

  “Same as you,” Thorne replied, “finishing up paperwork from all the interviews today. But, um, now I’m thinking I’m not sure if we’re done for the day or not.” Thorne’s lined face looked as tired as Moore felt.

  “So,” Thorne said, drawing the word out, “we’ve been getting some odd reports from the 19th precinct, near St Mary’s.”

  “What kind of odd?” She was not positive she wanted to know.

  “Three apparent break-ins at an apartment building about six blocks from the hospital,” Thorne answered with a frown, turning the coffee mug so the Bay City Police Department logo faced her.

  “And that got flagged for your attention?”

  “Three apartments, all in the same five-story building, all on the top floor. I told them to flag me on anything out of the ordinary. That’s not exactly ordinary.”

  “Okay,” she conceded. “What all have you got?”

  “Whoever broke into one of them cooked food and left dirty dishes. There’s a coat missing. No valuables taken. Just clothes and food. The kinds of things someone just escaped from a hospital might need. And no signs of forced entry at any of them.”

  “You’ve got my attention.” She sat up a little straighter in her chair, wanting to adjust her bra but unwilling to do that before the police lieutenant and his sometimes inappropriate sense of humor. She shifted her shoulders around, pretending it was just stretching. It helped enough.

  “But wait,” Thorne said with a smug grin, “there’s more,” and tossed a CD at her. She caught it awkwardly, nearly dropping it, not expecting the toss.

  “What’s this?” She pulled the disk out of its case and slid it into the drive on her laptop. Thorne crossed his arms and leaned against the doorjamb with a smirk.

  “One of the tenants had a nanny-cam that caught the intruder,” Thorne explained, his annoying grin widening. “Wanna guess who’s on it?”

  “You wouldn’t have that stupid grin for anyone but our favorite walking quadriplegic.”

  “Yyyep,” Thorne confirmed, dragging out the ‘Y.’

  “I’ve got a list of the names,” he continued. “Fingerprint runs from all three apartments are in progress. I’ll let you know if we get anything that we can tie to him. But it fits,” Thorne added. “And it means we know where he was as recently as sometime early to middle this afternoon.”

  “I agree,” she said and sighed. “Let’s pull more traffic cam footage from the area and see if we can get something more specific. Let’s pin that as the center of our map for the moment and throw additional sweeps around it until we get something more.” Camera footage had already picked him up leaving the hospital, but just enough to show he wasn’t taking a straight route before he vanished.

  “In the meantime, I want to go visit those apartments on my way home. It’s the first place we’ve known where he’s been. I want to stand there and try to figure out what might have been in his head. We need to figure out how he thinks.”

  “I’ll get you the address and apartment numbers.”

  “Text it to me.”

  Thorne nodded and left.

  Sure enough, it looked like Ambrose, in a coat he hadn't left the hospital with. He entered from the left, looked around, and walked off-screen to the right. Then back the opposite direction about twenty minutes later. The quality and lighting were poor, but it looked like him.

  She shut the laptop and looked at the coffee mug. It would be an hour or two at least until she got home. No, not more coffee on the way out. The tenants might not be pleased about her visiting this time of night, but she did not want to wait until morning.

  The night streets were quieter than normal, an eerie calm. The occasional siren breaking it did not reassure her. The city was getting weird, even for a city with alien wreckage in the bay. A man who could more than double his size was behind a string of robberies which would probably have been her next case if Ambrose hadn’t vanished and brought her back into his case. The last kind of case she wanted. A pattern of unexplained arsons was baffling the property crimes division. Messenger, a vigilante in black and blue armor was attacking drug dealers and drug dens with some kind of force beams.

  Everyone knew some alien technology had been found, but nobody knew how much. At least twice divers off the coast had brought back finds. One had exploded when someone tried to hijack the ship carrying it. The other had been deliberately detonated by a scientist who went mad analyzing it. If anything good had come of the crash, she had yet to hear about it. She wanted nothing to do with any of it.

  She found the last empty spot in the apartment’s parking lot and buzzed the number for the first name on the list, Tina Wright.

  “What?” a grumpy voice demanded.

  “Ms. Wright? I’m sorry to disturb you. I’m Special Agent Rachel Moore, from the FBI. I’d like to speak to you about the burglary report you filed. Can I come up?”

  “FBI? Um, sure, I guess. Five Thirteen, left from the elevator.” The door buzzed.

  It did not seem like a nice building. Old and worn and stained carpet lined the hall. Yellowed glass on hallway light sconces on the wall gave a dirty aspect to everything. The elevator whined and lurched and the star on the button for the first floor was half rubbed away.

  She knocked at 513. A shadow darkened the peephole, and she held up her badge. A deadbolt slid with a thunk.

  The door opened and a shadowed head peeked through before a pale hand undid the chain and the door opened the rest of the way. A dark-haired white woman in a pink bathrobe let her in.

  “Ms. Wright, right?”

  “Tina, yeah. Come in. Um, so, why does the FBI care about my apartment?” Her face was just as pale as her hand, and the dark hair had lighter roots.

  “We think the man who was in here is connected to one of our investigations. The things he took, the things he disturbed, might help us figure that out. And maybe we can get your things back in the process.”

  “The cops said things like these usually go unsolved, but at the same time I don’t think I lost anything valuable.” She hugged her robe a little tighter to her chest. The fuzzy pink terry cloth hung about halfway down her thighs. Bare feet sported conservative pink toenails, but her fingers were unpainted.

  “Please tell me everything you noticed when you came home, Ms. Wright.”

  “Tina, please.” She rubbed at her forehead while turning a slow circle as if getting her bearings in her own apartment. Kitchen to the left, living room ahead with sliding patio doors. The rest would be past the kitchen and furt
her left. The kitchen was simple...cheap. Rachel wouldn’t have wanted it. Kitchens mattered to her, or they had mattered to her earlier on when she had more time to spend in them.

  “So, I came home and.... Yesterday. Yesterday I did groceries. This morning I used up my dish soap before work. I remember being pissed off that I forgot to get it with the groceries. ‘Cause I was just there yesterday. I barely had enough to finish the dishes.

  “So I came home, and I had dish soap, ‘cause I stopped on my way home from work, you know? And there were dishes in the sink. Now, now I know I put ‘em away before work. And my little saucepan was in the sink. I haven’t used that in...God, I don’t know how long.”

  “What else was in the sink?”

  “That black spatula, and a fork.” She pointed at a plastic spatula standing up in a cookie jar along with a matching black plastic ladle, a dusty metal whisk and some wooden spoons.

  “Was there any food left on any of it?”

  “Some egg on the pan. The fork looked pretty clean.”

  Probably no prints on it, then. “You’re certain it was egg?”

  “Yeah.” She opened the fridge and pulled out a Styrofoam carton of eggs labeled ORGANIC in big brown letters. Eight large light-brown eggs were all grouped together. The empty spaces were a square configuration, not a line.

  “I bought these at the store yesterday. I was gonna bake with them tonight. Frittata. You ever had one?”

  “I have. Okay, so four eggs. Anything else disturbed in here?”

  Tina’s mouth tilted in a thoughtful frown. “No...? I don’t think so.”

  “Living room?” She followed Wright to the living room. A burgundy loveseat under a rainbow skyscape painting sat opposite a big and expensive looking wall-mount TV. The thick tan plush carpet looked rather new.

  “How long have you lived here?”

  “Two months. Michael and I broke up and I had to find my own place.”