Exacting Justice

by TG Wolff

  Another stall. He didn’t mind. He learned patience long ago and enjoyed looking at the beautiful woman. He fingered through pages with their reds, yellows, blues, and greens.

  “Your speech made a strong impression on them. It has become part of our daily routine. Talking about safety.”

  A woman walked into the dining room with an armful of roses. She approached the first table, where a man pulled out his wallet. The woman with him laid an appreciative hand on his arm.

  Cruz watched the woman and the couple. His gaze slid to the next table and that couple and then the next. He looked at Aurora, who wouldn’t meet his eyes. “What day is today?”

  Her cheeks were crimson red now. “Wednesday. February, uh, fourteenth.”

  He read the scene again, this time with his eyes open. Dinner in a nice restaurant, a cozy table in the corner. His gaze snapped to the woman sitting next to him. “Son of a…”

  “It’s not what you think,” she said quickly.

  What he thought? He didn’t have a thought. “What do you think I think?”

  “That I tricked you into a dinner on Valentine’s Day.”

  “And that’s not what happened?”

  “No,” she said firmly. “I tricked you into doing me a favor. Totally different.”

  “A favor?”

  “I, um, told my friends that I was spending Valentine’s Day at my favorite restaurant with a handsome man. You’re doing me a favor, saving me from lying.”

  Cruz took in the wringing hands, the eyes that wouldn’t meet his, and his ego swelled to ten times its size. “Don’t forget intelligent. And funny. Tell them I’m funny.”

  Those amazing eyes shined at him. “I will. And just so we get this out of the way, I’m buying.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Yes, I am. I tricked you into a date. I’m paying.”

  Didn’t that sound nice. “Now we’re on a date?

  Her smile quickly vanished, her hands began wringing again. “No, I didn’t mean a date. I meant a…”

  He laughed. It felt incredible to have this gorgeous woman was nervous around him. “Well, just so we get this out of the way, when we go out next, I’m paying, and it is a date. This is your favorite restaurant?”

  She sat a little taller, radiating happiness. “The food here is wonderful and I just love the place. I made the reservations in December to make sure to get the table.”

  His wheels turned. “December. We didn’t meet until January. Was your plan all along to trick some unsuspecting man into a date?”

  “You really are a detective, aren’t you? I was seeing someone at the time. I broke up with him nearly a month ago but, well, I kept the reservation.”

  So, she had been seeing someone when they first met, but she wasn’t now. Interesting. “I’m glad to be the man sitting with you, in your favorite restaurant. There’s just one thing missing.” He raised his hand and caught the attention of the flower lady.

  “Oh, Detective, no.” She pulled on his arm.

  “Six please.” Damn, he liked making her blush. “A dozen.”

  Aurora’s eyes grew wet as the woman laid rose after rose in her arms.

  “Now you can tell your friends you had dinner in your favorite restaurant with a smart, handsome, and funny man who bought you flowers.”

  She hugged the flowers to her chest.

  They chatted and laughed over tasty appetizers, through savory dinners, and into a sweet dessert. Time didn’t follow the rules. Two hours flew by in the space of minutes. He was disappointed when the dessert plates were cleared. He hesitated when Aurora reached for the bill, but she bared her teeth, staked out her territory by setting her credit card in the tray.

  He held up his hands in surrender. “I didn’t touch it.”

  The waiter returned with the slip for her to sign and then they were out on the street. The weather had taken a turn for the worse. Sleet rained down, making it impossible to walk in the heels she wore. Cruz held her close, escorting her to her car.

  At her driver’s door, he let her go. She didn’t hurry for her keys but turned to him. “What is your name?”

  “What?”

  “When I tell my friends I had dinner with a smart, handsome, and funny man, they are bound to ask me his name. I can’t tell them ‘Detective.’”

  “Cruz. Everyone calls me Cruz.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “What is your first name?”

  “Jesus, but nobody calls me that except my mother.”

  “What’s wrong with Jesus?”

  Cruz rolled his eyes. “Hey, Jesus—” he said it Gee-sus, “—walk on water lately? Hey, Jesus, how about turning this water into a little wine?”

  Aurora shook her head. “Children can be cruel.”

  “Those were cops.”

  “Still.” Only the petals of flowers separated them. With her heels on, their mouths were scant inches apart. “I can’t kiss a man I call by his last name.”

  His temperature spiked, steam rising as the sleet melted upon contact. “You’re going to kiss me?” God help him if she didn’t.

  Her gaze was on his lips. “I’m thinking about it. Zeus.”

  Her breath was sweet on his face. “Zeus. That’s what you’re going to call me?” All he had to do was drop his chin and…

  “If you don’t mind.” She popped up and her lips were on his. Her lips on his. It was the only place they touched and yet every nerve ending fired in triplicate.

  She stepped back, her gaze on his mouth. “Yes. I think I will. Are you going to call me? Zeus?”

  He was infatuated. Happily, willingly, totally infatuated. Wrapped around her little finger. “How long will it take you to get home? I’ll call you then.”

  She smiled shyly, brushing her fingers briefly against his. “Give me thirty minutes.”

  His phone rang. He looked at the display. “Oh. Uh. How about tomorrow?”

  “Work calls?”

  He nodded. “Hazard of the job.”

  She buttoned his coat to the top, rose once again and brushed her lips against his. “I would like if you called, but I understand if you don’t. Happy hunting, Detective.”

  Dispatch chirped in Cruz’s ear, but in his mind, he was talking her into meeting him for coffee or something.

  His brain cued into the voice on the phone. “What was the location?”

  The party was easy to find. Five cop cars in the middle of a bridge tend to stick out at eight o’clock on a Saturday night. He drove past and pulled on the shoulder at the head of the line.

  The first district had secured the scene. As he got close, one looked familiar.

  “Buettner, right?”

  “You got it, Detective.” The big officer was fully outfitted by the Cleveland police and impervious to the weather.

  “What do we have?”

  “Another head job.”

  He took a deep breath, the cold air a shock to his lungs. This made three, assuming it wasn’t a copycat. “How? We’re on a bridge?”

  “You gotta see it for yourself.”

  Roughly half way across the quarter mile long bridge on I-480 east, a sign cantilevered off the outside of the bridge barriers: CLEVELAND CORP LIMIT.

  Suspended beneath it was another head. Male. Caucasian. The head hung in a cargo net sack attached with bungee cords, swaying as winter pelted it with all it had.

  “When was it reported?”

  “Seven-forty a call came in of a man on the bridge. I don’t know if it was our friend here or the suspect. In this rotten weather, anyone with any sense is focusing on what’s in front of him, not on the side of the road.”

  “Do we have anything for crime scene? Tire treads? Boot prints?”

  “We tried to cordon off the area, but you see the weather, Detective.”

  Cruz looked at the slush covered concrete. “He had to park there.” He pointed to a position that would have blocked the sign from the view of on-coming traffic. He leaned over the ba
rrier, looked below, and saw nothing.

  Somewhere under there was the Rocky River, but as dark as it was, it could have been in China.

  The scene was worked quickly, the head removed, and scene documented. A news van set up onto the shoulder, but Cleveland police was already on its way out.

  A reporter called his name, but Cruz didn’t stop. Who could hear anything over the wind?

  At his desk, he reviewed the few facts available. The victim was male, Caucasian. Late teens, early twenties. The medical examiner wouldn’t make a guesstimate as to the cause of death but would say the cut on the neck appeared consistent with the other two she had examined.

  Yablonski hadn’t answered his phone. Cruz left him a message, hoping his friend would get it after he enjoyed his Valentine’s Day. Morning was only a few hours away.

  Cruz had no fingerprints to run through the system. He ran the facial recognition software but came up empty.

  He took a mental step back. What did he have? Three heads—all male, different ages, different ethnicities. Two of the three were drug dealers—so far. Two had connections to Christopher Parker—so far. Three were found on the interstate highways going into the city.

  Cruz brought up the internet and Google Maps. All three were found at the corporate limits for the city of Cleveland.

  Two interstates came into the city from the south and ended: I-71 and I-77.

  Two interstates crossed the city east-west: I-480 and I-90.

  That meant there was a total of six points at which the interstates came into the city limits. Except that wasn’t accurate as the corporate limits darted around suburbs, meaning some of the highways entered the city multiple times.

  He leaned back in his chair, tapping restless fingers on the arm rest. “What is the purpose of leaving the heads, and only the heads, at the city limits?”

  Cruz scribbled dates on a sheet of scrap paper.

  November 6

  December 23

  February 14

  They are all close to holidays. Halloween. Christmas. Valentine’s Day. But then why not New Years? Why not Hanukkah, Kwanza, Epiphany, Martin Luther King Day, President’s Day? And what happened to start it all?

  Thursday, February 15

  The donut Cruz ate was as stale as the coffee he drank. He hadn’t been home yet. He had twenty minutes until the meeting in the chief’s office. His cell rang, his nieces’ faces filling the screen.

  “Hey, Mari. What’s going on?”

  “You sound tired,” she said over Gabby’s singing.

  “Long night. Longer day.”

  “Ah. I was wondering if you could watch the girls this evening. Tony’s out of town at a flower show, and I just got tagged for a double shift.”

  “You know I would if I could. I have no idea what time I’ll get out of here.”

  “And get some sleep. You are human, you know.” She sighed. “I’ll call Mom. I just don’t want to get stuck in a thirty minute conversation about who she should set you up with next.”

  Cruz smiled, exactly as his sister planned. “Nobody. No one. Tell her I don’t want a woman, Mari. If you love me, you’ll do it.” Then he thought of Aurora and the blush on her cheeks as he filled her arms with flowers. He touched his lips, remembering the taste of hers.

  “She’s never going to stop, you know. She wants to see you fat and happy.”

  “I don’t want to be fat and I am happy.” Cruz jerked back, shocked as he realized it was the truth. When did that happen?

  “You are?” his sister said and then quickly covered. “Good. Good, Jesus. You deserve to be happy. What’s her name?”

  His little sister should have been a cop. She had a nose like a bloodhound. If she got wind of Aurora, there would be dinners and events and interrogations.

  “What’s who’s name?”

  “Oh, you don’t fool me. You met a woman. She is a woman, right? Because, you know, it’s okay if she’s not.”

  “Mari, I have no idea what you just said. Gotta go. Love you.”

  “You can tell me—” and he hung up on her.

  “You look like a man with a big dog biting on his ass.” Matt Yablonski flopped down in the empty guest chair.

  “A Puerto Rican Rottweiler. Once their jaws lock, there’s no getting free.”

  “Anyone I know?”

  “My sister.”

  “What does she want?”

  “A sister-in-law.”

  Yablonski raised an eyebrow.

  “Exactly. You have a good night?”

  “I did. I’d brag about it but seeing as I know how you spent your night, I’ll spare you the details of how I re-wrote the books romancing Valentine’s Day.”

  “Oh. My night wasn’t all bad.” A smile grew despite being ordered not to.

  Yablonski leaned forward and slapped Cruz’s desk. “You dog.”

  Cruz’s phone rang. A direct call from the chief. Not good any day. “Morning, Chief.”

  “My office, now. Call Yablonski and bring him.”

  It was déjà vu all over again. Chief Win Ramsey paced his office. At the conference table sat Alison Hyatt, public information officer, and Dr. Ming Chen. Homicide Commander Kurt Montoya was in attendance. Then, there was the new face, one that was pale against the navy-blue suit. His hazel eyes gave nothing away and said it all. Fed.

  “Before we get started,” Ramsey said, “I’ll introduce Special Agent Zachary Bishop, FBI, Cleveland Bureau.”

  Cruz, Yablonski, and Montoya looked at each other with identical expressions. Oh, fuck no.

  “Special Agent Bishop is here at my request, gentlemen.” Ramsey left no doubt who was in control. “The Cleveland police and FBI have the same goals, and we have been working toward increased collaboration and resource sharing. I have asked them to consult on these cases. Consult, not take over. This is and will remain a Cleveland police case. Clear?” When all heads nodded, Ramsey tossed the floor to Special Agent Bishop.

  “As the chief said, I’m here to consult and offer the resources of a federal bureau up until the point we are asked to take over or the crimes cross into our jurisdiction. Chief Ramsey shared your reports, and I have been thoroughly briefed on the situation.”

  “Thank you, Bishop.” Ramsey’s attention turned to Cruz. “Your report.”

  He ran through the events of the prior evening, few as there were. “We have yet to ID the victim.”

  “He isn’t known to narcotics?” Ramsey asked Yablonski.

  “I just arrived, sir.” Yablonski accepted a photo of the face from Cruz. “I don’t know him, but I’ll get this circulated.”

  “There is going to be a next.” Ramsey turned to Chen. “Is there a threat to the general public?”

  “Pending identification of the latest victim, the focus is on the drug trade. If the suspect maintains current patterns, the threat is to people the suspect perceives as being part of illegal drugs. His perception. Not ours.”

  Ramsey pinched his chin between his thumb and forefinger. “I want this played down until we know there is a real threat to the public, I want to take advantage of working behind the scenes. Ms. Hyatt, you know the routine. John Doe, I-480 yadda yadda. Dr. Chen, work up a profile with what we have. Bring Bishop in on it. Cruz, I want every stone on that damn bridge turned. I want to know where this kid came from, who he hung with, what he had for breakfast. Can you handle that, Detective?”

  The weight landed on Cruz’s shoulders, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. “Absolutely, sir.”

  He worked the thin case hard, logging so much time on the phone he considered having it surgically implanted. Corned beef and onion rings got him through noon. By four, he was crashing. The coffee wasn’t doing it any more. He needed sleep.

  Home, he stripped off his coat, then his tie, then his shirt. In his kitchen, he fumbled emptying his pockets, stalling out with his phone in hand. The number he had programmed last night showed on the screen. He dialed.

  �
�Hello.”

  “It’s…Zeus.” He smiled, punch drunk on fatigue.

  “Well, Detective, I wasn’t sure you would call. Did you have a good night?”

  “The part with you.”

  She cooed. “When did you get home?”

  “Now.”

  She gasped. “Aren’t you tired?”

  “Exhausted, but I wanted to call you.”

  “Ah, well, I’m glad you did. Now get some sleep.”

  “Meet me. Tonight.”

  “Tonight’s only a few hours away.” A pregnant pause. “Where?”

  His mind tripped and came up with nothing. “Anywhere. You name the place.”

  She named a coffee shop near the restaurant Oscar Bollier ritualistically had Sunday dinner. “Eight?”

  “Perfect. See you then.”

  “Sweet dreams, Detective.”

  “How could I have otherwise when I’ll be dreaming of you.” He cringed. Did he say that out loud? God, he was tired.

  She laughed softly with a little inflection that said she was likely blushing. “Maybe I’ll take a nap, dream about you, too. See you soon.”

  Cruz ran to the coffee shop with a porcelain lotus flower cupped in his hands. It was probably porcelain. The flower was the prettiest thing the corner pharmacy carried, and he didn’t have time to stop somewhere else. It wasn’t impressive, but it was the best he could do on three hours sleep. He snuck in as a couple left because he didn’t have hands to work the door. He scanned the busy room and triumph blossomed. He arrived first.

  Victory was sweet as he claimed one of the few empty tables and carefully set the flower down. The door was thrown open and Aurora hurried in. Her chest rose and fell beneath her coat. Her long legs had denim painted on and boots made to be taken off.

  “You’re late,” he teased, meeting her near the door and helping her out of her coat. Beneath, she wore a black sweater with a small peak-a-boo opening over junction of her breasts. “Damn, you look good.” Cruz pressed a kiss the corner of her mouth to prove he could.

  “Thank you, Zeus. You look…” She pulled back, stared at his face, and stopped what she was about to say.