A Hope City Duet

by Kris Michaels

  “We need you to come down to the precinct.” He stopped and nodded at the patrol officers who stood just inside the back door. He caught Kallie’s eyes as he spoke. He was changing course in mid-stream, and he wanted to ensure his partner was with him. “The officers will give you a ride.”

  “I can’t leave! I have a business to run.”

  That was a new wrinkle. “You own this business?”

  “No, my uncle does, but I’m in charge of this store.”

  “So that move from pick-up driver to the front of the house was guaranteed, then?” Kallie kept her eyes on the other man.

  “Hell, Cynthia works wherever she wants, whenever she wants. If she works more positions, she gets a better cut of the profits.”

  Brock turned to the man. “Who are you?”

  “Eric White. My dad owns this shit hole and five others just like it. I’m only here because Dawson called out again.”

  “Does he do that often?”

  “No more than any other fucking slug she hires.” Eric drew his hands up on his hips.

  Cynthia was a different person today, and he had a feeling the woman they'd first met wasn't as placid as they had thought. Granted, she was still getting around on that little scooter, her limbs still in plaster, but her attitude, that had changed. She was caustic, and her cousin wasn't much better.

  He tipped his head. “That so?”

  “Yeah.” The guy looked pissed.

  Brock didn't care. He gave a big fat, fake smile and some not so subtle directives. “Well, Eric, you need to call your old man down here. Cynthia is going to come with us.”

  Kallie motioned toward the back door. “That's right. Do you need a coat, Cynthia?” Brock caught the way Kallie ushered her toward the back without giving her any choice.

  He moved toward Eric and caught his arm. “You will not call anyone to tell them we were here. Do you understand me?”

  “Like I’d call that jerk?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Are you talking about Dawson?”

  “No, I’m talking about the boogie man. Of course I’m talking about Dawson.” Eric yanked his arm from Brock’s grip and shoved his phone to his ear. “Yoh, old man. You got some serious shit going down at Cynthia’s store. Yeah, the cops are pulling her in and looking for that loser she’s hooked up with.” The man headed to the front of the store at a rapid clip.

  “Are you arresting me?”

  Brock’s head whipped around at Cynthia’s question. “We just need to get some answers and our information is down at the station. You’ve been so helpful so far. We do appreciate you taking time away from your business to answer our questions again. We just have to dot some I's and cross a few T's.”

  The woman pushed herself on her scooter, her casted ankle dangling off the back. “Well anything I can do, but I don’t understand why I need to go down to your office.”

  “We need you to write an official statement. The same thing you told us, but official. No worries.”

  “Okay. Yeah, I can do that.”

  “Perfect. If you go with this officer, we’ll meet you downtown.” Kallie handed her over to a young officer who courteously assisted her into her coat that was on a peg by the back door. Brock motioned for the other officer.

  When he got close enough, he whispered. “Don’t know where she falls in this case. We’ll sort that when we get to the precinct. You or your partner stay on that woman. She needs to be isolated and kept at the precinct. Do not let her leave.”

  “Roger that.”

  The older patrolman headed to the door, and he joined Kallie. “My bullshit meter is chiming.” He sent her a quick look as they walked back to the front of the store where Eric was apologizing to a line of customers who had formed. They hopped the counter again and headed to the Crown Vic.

  “What was the address on Dawson’s apartment building?”

  Kallie rifled through her notebook after fastening her seatbelt. “989 East Lancaster Avenue, Apartment 5C. Cynthia’s apartment is 1A.”

  "She said she fell down the stairs at her apartment. Maybe he pushed her when she left his apartment?" Kallie's brow drew together. She was thinking out loud, but he wasn't buying that premise anymore.

  He glanced at her. “Tell me I’m not the only one catching the Jekyll and Hyde routine that woman had going on.”

  Kallie nodded. “I keep falling back on the fact that abused women act differently around their abusers. But yeah, I’m getting an uneasy feeling. Like I missed something.”

  “We missed something. This isn’t a single person investigation.” He glanced over at her before he put the car into gear and headed to Lancaster Avenue. It was a fifteen-minute drive when traffic didn’t suck. Unfortunately, the suckage was extreme on this particular morning.

  “What the literal fuck? Why is there so much traffic?”

  “What’s today?” His brain did a mental rolodex of city activities.

  “Saturday.”

  “Shit. The Mustangs. Damn it.” He glanced over at her and laughed at her raised eyebrows. “They are the Division One college team in town. Damn it, today is the big rivalry game. Fuck, no wonder we have traffic. People are trying to avoid traffic around the college and stadium which dropped them into fringes of The Desert.” He flipped his lights on and pushed his way across three lanes of traffic before cutting through East Central on his way to Lancaster. Once they were away from the main flow of traffic, he was able to make decent time. They drove up to the front of the building, and he jammed the nose of the Vic into a vacant area near a fire hydrant.

  “We go in the same fashion. Get him to come down voluntarily if we can, and discover what the actual fuck is going on.” Brock took her hand. “Watch your six. I don’t like the vibe I’m getting.”

  “I’ll take care of my ass. You make sure you don’t get yours shot off. I haven’t had enough time to admire it.” He did a double take in her direction, and she winked at him. They stood silently, staring at each other in the elevator. The door opened, breaking the connection. They strode down the hallway to Dawson's apartment. Brock knocked on the door. "Dawson Jenkins, Detectives King and Redman. We need to speak to you."

  There was a muffled bump in the apartment and then a slow shuffle toward the door. From behind the door, Dawson spoke. "I'm not feeling well, Detective. Can we do this another time?"

  "I'm afraid not. We need to talk. Now." Brock stared at Kallie as he spoke. It took several seconds, but the deadbolt turned, and the door cracked open. Kallie pushed the door open. What greeted them stopped them both in their tracks.

  "What happened to you?" Contusions littered Dawson's face; his left eye swollen to the point he couldn't open his eye. His lip was split, and his arms were a dazzling display of black, blue and red.

  "Nothing." The man turned slowly; his hands wrapped around his midsection. He took two steps before he swayed and leaned against the wall. "Look, I don't feel so hot, man. Can we please do this another time? I got nothing to say to anyone." Dawson coughed, his arms still held tight against his body, and swayed radically. Brock's eyes widened and he reacted the same time Kallie did, moving to help keep the man upright. This close he could hear the rattle of the man's breathing. "Call it in, get an ambulance rolling." He put his hand around Dawson and held his hip.

  Dawson hissed, "No, I'll refuse treatment. I don't have insurance, man. I didn't do anything. I didn't. I swear. I didn't..." Dawson's weight fell against him. The man whispered the words over and over.

  "Who did this to you? Tell me who beat the fuck out of you?" He helped the man to the tiny living room. It had been trashed. A baseball bat had been jammed through a small aquarium and broken glass covered the soaking wet area rug.

  Dawson closed his eyes and shook his head. A tear dropped. "I didn't do anything."

  "All right, I hear you."

  Kallie came into the room and he nodded to the bat, mouthing the word 'fingerprints'. She nodded and plucked a pair of latex gloves from
her coat pocket. "The lock wasn't broken or pried that I could see. Crime scene techs are on their way."

  He nodded and turned his attention back to the beaten-to-fuck man beside him. "Dawson, who did this to you? You let them in, didn't you?"

  The man opened the one eye he could. He coughed again, and Brock waited until the man could breathe again before he asked, "You can tell me, man. I'll make sure this is handled the right way."

  "I got nothing to say to anyone. Why are you here?" Dawson looked across the room, but he really didn't think the man was seeing anything.

  "We want to talk to you about Samuel Treyson." The man looked at Brock and shook his head. "I'm so damn tired. Life's too fucking hard, man."

  Kallie sat down on the small recliner across from the couch. "It just seems like it. You can't give up. It gets better."

  "You believe that?" The hollow disbelief in the man's voice rang through his words.

  She nodded. "I know it. Where you're at right now? I've been there. My story is an abusive ex-husband who killed someone. Thankfully, it wasn't me."

  Dawson closed his eyes. "I can't help you."

  "Can't or won't?" Brock watched the man swallow hard and shake his head. Not an answer, but not a denial either.

  "I'd like to take you by County, let them check you over." He was worried about the way the man was breathing.

  "I got no insurance. I've been beat worse. Ribs are broken. Nothing anyone can do about that."

  "You could have a punctured lung."

  "I ain't spitting blood. Besides, I couldn't be that lucky." Dawson pushed forward and stood on shaky legs. "I'll need my wallet."

  The crime scene techs showed up before they left. Brock also called in a favor. Bettis, one of the detectives Davidson had assigned to go through the elder Treyson's grudge list, showed up to take over the crime scene. If the assault was connected to Samuel's murder, he wasn't going to allow sloppy handling of the scene to affect the outcome of the case. The trip downtown was slow and torturous, not only for Dawson, but also for Brock and, by the tightness of her expression, Kallie, too. Nothing was adding up. He'd broken his golden rule of assume nothing and verify everything. They'd assumed Dawson was the abuser in the relationship, but it could very well be that Cynthia was the aggressor. It was something they hadn't considered. Still, there were too many questions, and they needed to get to the bottom of it. Now.

  The looks they got when they walked into the precinct with Dawson shuffling between them were expected, as was Davidson's sudden appearance outside the interview room. He waited quietly until they got Dawson settled and shut the door behind them.

  "Why the fuck isn't he at a hospital right now?" Davidson was never one to beat around the bush.

  "Refused all of our requests to take him for medical attention." Kallie crossed her arms over her chest and turned to look at him.

  "How the fuck could Cynthia use a bat? She has a cast on her hand."

  "I'm wondering now how those injuries she's sporting actually happened." Brock scratched his beard. "Sir, we need a warrant for her medical records. I'm not sure where she was seen, but if we can access the centralized medical information database, we can track that."

  "What are we going to use for probable cause? We got nothing but speculation." Davidson shoved his hands in pockets and rocked back on the heels of his highly glossed shoes.

  "Let me see if I can get her to talk to me." Kallie glanced between the men. "I treat her like the victim, get anything she’ll divulge; see if she slips up. Now that they are both potential suspects, I want her to give me her alibi. Dawson, too."

  "We'll talk to Dawson after we talk to her. Sir, can we get one of the patrols with medical training to come up and look at him? I know it isn't standard procedure, but..."

  "Good idea. I'll call the squad room and talk to the duty sergeant. Kallie goes in without you to interview the woman. If she can work the solidarity angle, maybe we can get more from her."

  "I agree." Brock nodded his head at the observation room. "I'll be watching and taking notes. We'll have the tapes as backup, but don't worry about getting information down on paper, Kallie, I want you to be fully engaged in what this woman is saying."

  "Got it. Do me a favor, sir, give me like ten to fifteen minutes and then bring in a file folder. I don't care what's in it. Put it down on the table and say, something like 'the information has been confirmed'."

  "You got it." Davidson spun on his heel and marched down the hallway.

  "You've got a plan?" Brock stepped closer than necessary. He discreetly ran a finger down her shirt sleeve.

  "She's got an aggressive, mean streak. We saw that earlier. I'm going to get her started on her original statement. I’d like to see if I can get her to contradict herself or give us more than she has. That file will give me leverage. Or at least she'll think I have leverage." Kallie winked at him. "It's been a while since I've played hardball, but I think I still got what it takes."

  Brock chuckled. "Why does that turn me on?"

  "Because you're dating a cop, and you think I'm sexy?"

  He chuckled and stepped away before he did something stupid—like kiss her. "Oh, yeah, there is that. Go get 'em, tiger."

  Kallie took a deep breath and leaned around him, looking down the hall. A patrolman with a medical kit trotted toward them. "Lieutenant Davidson said I needed to look over a witness?"

  "Interview two. If you need me, I'll be in observation." Brock pointed to the observation room joined to Cynthia's interview room.

  "Got it." The uniform knocked politely once, opened the door, and disappeared inside.

  "Right, well, let's get this shit sorted." Kallie spun and grabbed the handle of the door. Brock winked at her and headed into observation.

  Kallie opened the door and gave an exasperated sigh. "Cynthia, I am so damn sorry it took so long. You wouldn't believe the stuff that has been going on. But I'm here now. Do you need anything?" She sat down across from the woman. She had a bottle of water and her foot was propped up on her scooter, her ass planted in the solid metal chair bolted to the floor on the other side of the table.

  Cynthia sneered. "This is borderline abusive."

  "Abusive?" Kallie blinked and smiled. "Oh, no. Sitting in a nice warm interview room is not abuse. I think we both know what constitutes abuse." She watched Cynthia's eyes narrow. "But let's get to the business at hand." She retrieved her notebook and thumbed through it to the page where she'd talked to Cynthia and Dawson. "Now when we first spoke to you, you stated that you met Samuel Treyson when you..." She let the question trail off and looked at Cynthia expectantly.

  "I met him when I did the pick-ups for a time."

  "Was that before or after Dawson did the pick-ups?"

  "Why does that matter?" Cynthia crossed her arms over her chest and stared at Kallie.

  "Timeline. We need to make sure we can put people in place correctly. This is a very high-profile case, and of course, we need to ensure we are exact."

  "I don't know, after, I guess."

  "You guess or you know?"

  "I know." Cynthia huffed in exaggerated irritation.

  "How long did Dawson do pick-ups?"

  "Why?"

  Kallie tapped her notebook. "Timeline."

  Cynthia shrugged and looked up and to the right. The mannerism indicating a lie didn't go unnoticed. Whatever came from Cynthia's mouth next would need to be double and triple checked.

  "He mainly works in the back."

  "Why?"

  "Why does he work in the back?" Cynthia blinked at her.

  "Yes. Is he trained to work with the chemicals?"

  Cynthia's brows crunched together. "You don't have to be classroom trained. Only the managers do. The machines need to be inspected and you have to post the proper warnings, but there isn't like a class you have to go through to work back there."

  "Oh, so anyone can work the back. It's pretty easy?"

  "No, that's not what I said. I said you
didn't have to be classroom trained. It isn't easy to do it right. It takes a lot of time to get it right."

  "And Dawson does it right?"

  "Eh… he's quick. I get complaints that he doesn't get all the stains out, but I take those returns from his check and do them myself, so I know they're right."

  "Do you work in the back a lot?"

  "Some, why?"

  "Just wondering. The chemicals you use are pretty strong then, huh? To get all the stains out?"

  "Well, yeah. It isn't like you can get the stuff over the counter, you know? Perc is some serious stuff. But what does any of this have to do with my statement?"

  "Oh, nothing at all to do with your previous statement. What's Perc? You work with it?"

  "Perchloroethylene, and yeah, all the time. It’s what most dry cleaners use."

  "Oh, okay. Sorry for that detour. Let's go back and fill in my timeline, okay?" Kallie flipped her book back. “Where were you on Wednesday?"

  Cynthia cocked her head, "Why?"

  "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought I told you. I'm recreating everyone's day so we can show in court why some people are not suspects and some people are. It is a precaution for when we go to court."

  "Oh, so you found the person who killed him?" The woman leaned closer and stared at Kallie, waiting for an answer.

  "You know, I'm waiting for just a bit more information, but my partner and I are pretty sure we know who is involved."

  "Well, that's good. I'm glad you caught them."

  "We're working on it, but while I wait for my boss to bring me that information, I'm filling the schedules of people we've already talked to."

  "Okay. You're going to talk to Dawson, too? He's sick, so you might want to wait a couple days."

  "Sick?"

  "Yeah, horrible. Flu. You don't wanna catch that stuff."

  "No doubt." Kallie cocked her head. "Aren't you afraid you'll catch it? You're his fiancée after all."

  Cynthia blinked at her and shrugged, glancing right. "I got my flu shot, but I ain't seen him today."

  "You got your flu shot at the same hospital where you were seen for your accident?"