Rose City Free Fall

by DL Barbur

  "Officer Bloem," he said, shaking my hand briefly. Officer Bloem. Jesus. I had boots with more time on the street than this nugget. I introduce myself with my first name, but he's Officer Bloem.

  "Soon as they patch him together, we will transport him to the hospital." Mandy and I couldn't transport prisoners in our unmarked car. It lacked a cage dividing the backseat from the front. That was one rule I followed religiously. Bloem just nodded.

  The paramedic shook her head. "No can do. This guy can’t walk. He has to go by ambulance."

  I rolled my eyes. Since Wendt was in custody, the department would have to pick up the ambulance bill, and the bill from the hospital. Most of the time, the paramedics patched them up enough so we could carry them to the hospital in the back of a cruiser. We saved the taxpayers some bucks that way.

  I took a deep breath, let it out. I did the math in my head: use of force report, reports on the ambulance ride and the hospital visit. I could do some of it at the hospital while we were waiting on Wendt to get fixed up. "Ok. Call him a limo and let’s get this show on the road."

  I turned to Bloem. "Guess we won't need you." He nodded, turned to go without a word. I watched his back for a few seconds. He walked like he had something up his ass.

  I turned, Mandy was behind me.

  "Hey, Dent. You go back to the office, do your part of the paperwork. I'll stay with Wendt at the hospital and tuck him in at the jail. If you hurry, you can still take Audrey out for her birthday."

  "You sure?" It was Friday night. It didn't seem fair for me to be out having fun while she was stuck with Wendt.

  She shrugged. "Sure. I can use the overtime." That was a laugh. My partners usually wound up screaming to work less overtime.

  "You rock, Mandy." I headed for the car, not giving Wendt a second glance. When they were running free, suspects were fascinating. Once I bagged them, they were just a statistic.

  As I left, she yelled after me. "Don't forget we're catching this weekend!"

  I turned, nodded and went on. That meant if a homicide or suspicious death happened over the weekend, it was our turn to catch the call. What she really meant was, "don't show up with beer on your breath like last time." People were picky about stuff like that these days. I had joined the bureau in the middle of a transition. My mentors had all been men with scarred knuckles who figured if you didn't have a drinking problem and a few divorces, you weren't a real cop. Everybody hired since me seemed to be young, educated, and into things like Pilates and yoga.

  I retrieved our unmarked car from behind the Park's store, then pulled around front so I could collect my eavesdropping gear from upstairs. They were busy selling Pixie Sticks and Gummi Bears to the after-school crowd. It was like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting, something this neighborhood desperately needed. The kids that weren't inside buying candy milled about out front, ogling the fire truck.

  As I was putting the laser thingy in the trunk, I heard a voice. "Excuse me, mister?" I looked around for a second, then looked down. It was a little blonde kid, maybe ten, probably younger, I was bad at telling kids’ ages.

  "Are you a policeman?" He looked at my dirty jeans, then the badge hanging around my neck.

  I nodded, guessing at what was coming.

  "Can I have a sticker?"

  Every morning, I strapped on two guns, three knives, handcuffs, pepper spray, a baton, a radio and my badge, all of it without the benefit of a black tactical vest. I also always made sure I had stickers for the kids.

  I pulled a roll out of my breast pocket. "McGruff the Crime Dog says stay in school." My favorite. I counted the kids on the street, pulled out enough for him to hand out some to his buddies too. Maybe it would earn him some cool points, maybe it wouldn't.

  "Here. Some for you, some for your friends."

  He smiled. That was cool. Most kids these days didn't seem impressed by something unless it lit up and made noise.

  "Thanks."

  "Stay out of trouble." I waved and hopped in the car. Ordinarily, I would have stuck around and talked to the kid. Back in my patrol days I always let the kids climb in the front of the car and play with the lights, sometimes the siren.

  But today I was in a hurry. Paperwork. Then Audrey's birthday. Driving one handed, I dialed Aud's number. Her voice mail didn't have a message. Just a beep.

  "Hey, it's me." I waited for a minute, hoping she would pick up. Nothing. Probably still out. "I'm finishing up. Take me an hour and a half, two hours, tops. Then I'll be over. Bye." I hung up before I realized I should have said, "I love you." I always forgot that. Nobody ever said it to me when I was a kid, so I guess I never learned how.

  I dialed the shift sergeant, an old dinosaur named Dan Winter, to let him know what went down. It was standard procedure when you arrested somebody. I explained how Wendt had been armed with a handgun and I had to tune him up with an ASP, sent him to the hospital. He grunted and reminded me to do the paperwork before I went home. Dan would retire in another year. He already had a place bought out in Sun River.

  I bombed west on Burnside, flipped on the radio just in time for a Warren Zevon rock block. Perfect. It was getting dark. The sun was putting on a show behind the west hills. Say what you want about the weather in Portland, we had some good sunsets. I weaved in and out of traffic, compulsively looking at the clock on the dash as I went. I crossed the river, headed straight through downtown instead of turning off to go to Central Precinct.

  I really didn't have time for this, but I was doing it anyway.

  I cruised up Burnside, gaining altitude and property values as I went. I was cutting through Forest Park, big enough to have a population of black bears. It was hard to believe you were in a major city once you got up here.

  The cemetery was on top of the ridge. It started raining as I pulled in, just a light mist. It was quiet and you could see for miles. They called it Skyline Drive for a reason. It was a huge cemetery, but I found the grave quickly. I knew the place well. Sometimes I wondered if I knew more dead people in the graveyard than I knew live people in the city down below. I was afraid to do the math.

  I parked the Crown Vic, went squelching through the mud, gathering rocks as I went. Mrs. Rosenburg had two daughters and two sons. One of each lived in Seattle, the others in southern California. One was a doctor, I forget which. The others all had the sheen of people who looked good and went to meetings for a living. They seemed to regard settling her estate up like some kind of unpleasant, but necessary task, like homework.

  They had buried her up here, over the city where she had lived all her life. I got the feeling this was more because it was easiest than because they put any thought into what she wanted. None of them had seemed interested in finding out who killed their mom.

  Her grave was next to her husband's. He'd died ten years ago. Stomach cancer. I stood there for a minute, silently, looking at the Star of David on the headstone. I left the rocks piled on top of the headstone, to show that somebody had come. I'd read on the Internet that was an old Jewish tradition. I'd be back with more after the trial or the guilty plea.

  It started raining harder. I slogged back to the car, started thinking about my cases, trying to decide what suspect I would pursue next. I stopped myself and made myself think of where I would take Audrey for dinner tonight.

  The graveyard attendant was locking the gate as I pulled out. I waved and headed the car towards downtown and my paperwork.

  Chapter Two

  Since it was almost four o'clock on a Friday by the time I got back to the office, I thought I had a pretty good chance of finishing my paperwork without having to deal with The Seagull.

  The Seagull was my boss, Steve Lubbock. We called him that because of his tendency to swoop in, make a bunch of noise, shit all over everything and then fly away. Lubbock had been working for the Bureau for twenty years, fourteen of them as a Lieutenant. He wasn't ever going to make Captain. I had a hard time thinking of him as a fellow cop. Somebody said the
term "Law Enforcement Administrator" around me once, and it stuck in my head. I was a cop. Lubbock was a "Law Enforcement Administrator." That distinction didn't mean much to the outside world, but it made him easier for me to deal with.

  As I had hoped, all the cubicles in our office were deserted. I sat down and started typing my reports.

  I sidestepped a few issues rather delicately in my use of force report. It wasn't exactly kosher to smack a suspect silly with an ASP baton as they came running out the door. Basically, I had ambushed Wendt, and I would be the first to admit it, at least to myself. It wasn’t an approved procedure. Hell, it wasn’t even legal. But I knew guys like Wendt. He was just dumb and vicious enough to provoke a standoff on a crowded street or bring on an exchange of gunfire with a bunch of innocent people in the middle. I liked it this way. It was over and done with, with nobody hurt but Wendt.

  I flipped on the FM radio, just in time for the blues hour on one of the independent stations. Pinetop Perkins. Outstanding. My office cubicle contained a desk, a computer, a filing cabinet, and a cheap FM radio. Nothing else. Nothing on the walls. The desk was usually bare. My battered leather valise was my real office.

  My office was bare for two reasons. For one thing, I never spent any time in it, even before Lubbock became my boss. I preferred to be out on the street. It was also a defense mechanism. I reserved the mental right to quit at any time, to go in and lay my gun and badge on the chief's desk and walk away so I could do something else. I told myself that having nothing in my office to go back for would make that easier.

  It was stupid, really. I had never figured out what else I would do, but pretending I had a way out kept me relatively sane. Mentally I had one foot out the door ever since the day I figured out the Bureau didn't give a rat's ass about me. Collectively, it only cared about the Bureau. So I decided I would only care about me, whoever my partner was, and people like Mrs. Rosenburg.

  The paperwork wasn't as bad as I had made it out to be in my head. It never was, especially after you developed a knack for it. I was good at paperwork. Early in my career, I'd lost a few cases in court because of a misplaced word here, an unclear sentence there. I hated to lose, especially to some smart ass lawyer, so I'd become a master at paperwork, but I still hated doing it.

  A shiver went down my spine and I swiveled in my chair. Damn. There he was: Steve Lubbock, the Seagull, standing in the entrance to my cubicle. Usually, I could feel it when somebody was standing behind me. I'd turn and check them out without even thinking about it. I'd never really figured it out. It was like they gave off vibrations or something. But Lubbock was like some vibrational black hole. The one talent he had seemed to be sneaking up and eavesdropping on people before they knew he was there.

  "Why wasn't I notified about the Wendt arrest?" Lubbock asked. When he said it his eyes darted around the room, never landing on my eyes or even my face. Lubbock rarely looked anybody in the eye. When he did, it was usually a sign that he was lying to you and trying to appear earnest.

  "I called Winters. I wanted to follow the chain of command." Lubbock was a big fan of the chain of command. I was careful to keep my voice neutral.

  Lubbock wrinkled his nose up like he smelled something he didn't like. He was a skinny little dude, short, with a short man's ego. He dressed like a million bucks. I had to give him that. Nice suits, linen, Italian silk, some damn thing like that. I could never tell.

  Lubbock’s eyes bounced and rolled around in his head like little marbles, never lighting on one thing for long. It was fascinating to watch, although if I wasn't careful I could get seasick. Suddenly they stopped, I could almost hear the tendons straining to keep his eyes still. His beady little eyes focused like laser beams on the knees of my blue jeans. He hated it when I wore blue jeans. Even worse, these particular blue jeans had big muddy spots on them. My boots were covered in mud too.

  I might have even tracked some on the carpet. One of Lubbock's first priorities, when he took over Major Crimes was new carpet for the office. He'd fought like a badger for his carpet. At any point in the hundred-step process in the administrative chain, his request for new carpet could have been killed, but finally, he'd won, brought back the signed purchase order for the carpet like a man with a prize deer he'd just shot.

  Lubbock took a step forward, bent a little at the waist, I guess so he could see my pants better.

  "Miller, you're a Portland Police Bureau Detective, for god's sake. If you aren't willing to dress like it, maybe this job isn't for you."

  It wasn't the first time Lubbock had not so discretely mentioned that maybe I should transfer out. I had the highest clearance rate of all the Major Crimes detectives but what the hell did that matter when I had mud on my blue jeans.

  I felt myself getting angry. This couldn't end well. I stood up, rather abruptly I guess because Lubbock took a jerky step back. It was the kind of hard-wired reflex that nervous little men with no confidence hated themselves for. He turned red and I suppressed a smile. I hadn't planned it this way, but I'd take it.

  "You're right, Steve." He hated it when I called him Steve. He liked to be called "EllTee" by his guys. It made him feel cool. "I should get myself home and change."

  I hit the button that would finalize my report. "I just sent the Wendt report to Sgt. Winters.”

  I pulled my coat off the back of my chair and put it on, picked up my valise. There was an awkward little moment when I took a step forward, waited for him to get out of my way.

  Finally, he moved, and I walked away, leaving him standing there in my cubicle.

  The halls of Central Precinct were deserted. Friday. It's good to work for the government. I used to stick around on Fridays, make a few phone calls, run down a few leads, look over the occasional cold case. It was quiet on Fridays, I could get a lot of work done. But now Lubbock was always there, doing what, I don't know, certainly not useful work. A quick poll of twenty cops had shown that none of them could remember Lubbock actually arresting anybody.

  Van Halen was on the car radio as I pulled out into traffic. "Little Dreamer," a classic from the first album. It took me back to high school, back to sitting on a hill outside of a Tennessee town, looking at the lights, getting mosquito bit and touching a girl’s breasts for the first time.

  It was one of the few pleasant memories I had of growing up. I hadn't been back to Tennessee since I was eighteen. My last view of my home town had been in my rear-view mirror as the Army recruiter gave me a ride to the airport.

  As I sat there in traffic, watching tail lights and sucking exhaust fumes, I thought about quitting. I did that too much, especially when the bullshit got too deep and I didn't have a good case to work. Lubbock's attitude shouldn't have stung me, but it did. I brought down a grade-A murderer like Wendt without a shootout and instead of an "attaboy" I got static because of my blue jeans.

  I knew exactly how much money I needed to walk out the door. I was a cheap bastard, had been even when I was a kid in the Army. I mustered out with enough cash in my pockets to buy a car and live pretty well through college.

  I kept my thrifty habits after I graduated and landed at the Bureau. I owned my house outright and, as long as I stayed away from the guitar store and the gun store, I only spent about half of what I made. The rest went into deferred comp, mutual funds, bonds, you name it. I called it my "fuck you" money. I knew someday the Bureau would go too far and I'd say "fuck you" and walk out. Hopefully, it would be after I was eligible to retire, but if it came before, I didn't want those bastards to have a leash on my neck just because of a damn paycheck.

  So as I drove, I did a little thing in my head I called "running the numbers." I knew what I had, barring daily market fluctuations, usually down to a couple grand or so. I knew what I needed to walk out the door and not live on cat food for the rest of my life. I still didn't have enough, not yet.

  Besides, what would I do anyway? I'd go crazy if I didn't work. I hadn't made the right friends in the Bureau, the ones that
could get me cushy corporate security gigs, or find me work as a consultant. I didn't think I would fit into those circles anyway.

  Damn. I needed to quit wasting my time with this, needed to just accept the fact that I was in for a while. I constantly felt like the guy in the cartoons with the little angel on one shoulder, a devil on the other. I always had trouble with commitments. I had liked the Army. What the hell could be more fun for a twenty-year-old than getting paid to shoot guns and jump out of airplanes? But after eighteen years of feeling trapped in that dirty ass Tennessee town, the hold the Army had on my life had felt just too stifling.

  I had less of a noose around my neck in the Bureau, but it still chafed. Sometimes I wondered what was wrong with me, why I couldn’t just be happy with the way things were. Some people are just wired that way, I guess.

  Chapter Three

  Despite my repeated suggestions that she move in with me, Audrey lived in an apartment off Hawthorne. It was a funky old converted Victorian, painted yellow. I found a space around back and parked.

  I didn't see Audrey's Honda in the lot and sighed. She wasn’t answering her cell phone, so she was probably working late again. I let myself in with the key she'd given me, tromped up the stairs to her apartment.

  Audrey and I had similar tastes in interior decorating: less is more. She was better at it than I was. Her place had an air of Zen-like simplicity, all plain polished wood, low furniture, a few tasteful prints, a single flower vase. My place just looked like I was too cheap to buy much furniture. Which I had to admit was true.

  My phone buzzed with an incoming text. “Staying late for a private lesson, back at seven.” It gave me time to take a shower and change clothes at least.

  Audrey had never said no to moving in with me, but she'd never actually done it either. We each had a closet at the other’s place though. Maybe these days that should be counted as a real commitment. Mine held a few changes of clothes and a small lock box.