Third Time's the Charm

by K. J. Emrick

  See? Two totally different people.

  “Come on, Sarge,” I try again. “I told you what happened. Can we at least lose the handcuffs?”

  His curt answer is a snarl. “No. You aren’t getting out of the backseat of my car, either, until we’ve got the truth out of you.”

  “Well, I’d raise my right hand and swear to it, but it’s sort of cuffed behind my back right now. Hey I know. Maybe if you took the cuff off…?”

  He’s sitting in the front seat of the marked Ford Explorer police cruiser, and like he said I’m locked up in the back behind the divider. The bottom of the partition is metal up to the height of his headrest, and plexiglass from there to the roof. It’s meant to keep police officers safe from individuals sitting back here but it makes it really hard for us to hear each other. We keep having to raise our voices.

  Sergeant Braxton doesn’t have any problem making himself heard as he whips around on me now, smacking the side of his fist into the plexiglass, angrily glaring at me with eyes the color of muddy water. He’s not a good-looking man on his best days, and his face being all flushed like that doesn’t do anything to improve his appearance, believe me.

  “You think you’re so funny, don’t you!” he practically screams at me. “We’ll see how funny you think this is when we have you downtown in one of our holding cells. Yeah. Won’t be laughing then, will you?”

  “Downtown? On what charge?”

  “On what…are you serious? Lady, you were running up the street with a gun in your hand!”

  “It’s licensed. I’ve got a copy of the permit in my wallet.”

  “That don’t give you permission to go running down the street with it in your hand!”

  The plexiglass divider actually vibrates with the force he puts into his words. He is definitely not happy.

  “Did you know,” I ask him, calm as can be, “that you tend to mix your words up when you’re angry? It’s ‘doesn’t’ give you the right, not ‘don’t’ give you. I mean, I wasn’t an English major or anything, but I do read a lot, so…”

  Oh, that did it.

  Sit back, I tell myself, seeing what’s coming.

  It’s hard to push back into a bench seat with your hands cuffed at the small of your back. The pressure it puts on your wrists and forearms and shoulders is very uncomfortable. Painful, even. However, I can see that Braxton is going to open the spring-loaded lock on the little sliding window in the plexiglass divider and reach his arm through and if I’m not sitting back as far as I can go—like this—that hand was going to grab ahold of my hair and from there I’m sure it would have gotten worse. I saw it coming, however, so I avoided it.

  Oh, yeah. I much prefer being able to see the future.

  “You need to shut your trap back there,” he snarls at me, pointing a finger when his grasping hand failed to catch hold of me. “You shut up, and you sit there, and you don’t say nothing until we get this sorted or so help me God, I’ll see to it that you—”

  “Anything,” I correct him, just for the fun of it. “You meant to say, ‘don’t say anything.’ Listen, proper grammar is important if you want people to take you seriously, that’s all I’m saying.”

  “That’s it! That is it!” he growls. Throwing open his door he pushes himself out and slams it closed again and now he’s at my door and what I see happening in the next three seconds is bad. Those videos you see on the news where the cop is beating on a defenseless woman in handcuffs? That’s going to be me in…

  Three.

  I rotate myself down onto my back, my arms pinned behind me, and swing my legs around, because if nothing else I’m going to kick Braxton’s teeth out before he lays a hand on me again.

  Two.

  The car actually rocks as he yanks the door open.

  One.

  “C’mere, funny girl!”

  Somewhere between deciding if I should correct his grammar again or just slam my heel into his jaw, a hand takes hold of Braxton’s shoulder and hauls him back.

  That hand looks very familiar.

  It ought to. I’ve seen Chris’s hands lots of times before.

  You need to explain yourself, Sergeant!

  “You need to explain yourself, Sergeant!” I hear Chris shout loudly at Braxton. The next thing I know the police sergeant is being pushed up against the back end of the Explorer. “You know better than to ever lay hands on a handcuffed suspect. You touch her again, you look at her again, and I’ll have you on suspension by the end of the day!”

  I sit up, looking at my good friend Christian Caine through the side windows of the Explorer. I’ve seen him mad before, and it’s actually kind of awesome. Some men try so hard to keep it together all the time that you forget they’ve got steel in their backbone. Chris is an absolute terror when something sets him off. I sure wouldn’t want to be in Braxton’s polished boots right now. Or ever, really, but now especially.

  There’s movement around the car as the other officers on scene start to crowd around Chris with their versions of the story. Sitting up, taking the pressure off my bound wrists, I watch with growing interest. I know there’s too much going on in my life right now to waste time like this, but I kind of wish I had some popcorn for this show.

  “All of you can just back off,” Chris tells the officers. “I didn’t see any of you stepping in to stop him, either. As of right now I’m taking over this investigation. Any of you who feel the need to argue about it will face suspension as well.”

  “You don’t have that kind of authority,” Braxton sneers.

  “Try me. You were just about to attack someone in your custody and it’s all on your body cameras. None of you tried to stop it, and that makes all of you just as guilty. You want me to get the video evidence to Internal Affairs or are we done here? All of you can lose your badges today if you really want to try justifying an attack on a handcuffed suspect. All! Of! You!”

  Oh yeah. This needs popcorn. I can hear all of them tripping over themselves to explain their actions and even if I’m in handcuffs, it’s worth the price of admission.

  “Sir,” one of the other cops says to Chris, “she was seen running after someone on the street with a gun in her hand. There’s a broken window in an apartment back there. We can’t just let her go.”

  Chris sighs, and when he exhales the last of his patience goes with it. “She is a licensed private investigator. Her weapon is also licensed. She also happens to be a consultant with our department, or didn’t Sergeant Braxton here tell any of you that part?”

  The officers who had been so quick to come to Braxton’s defense just a moment ago are now looking at him with suspicion, or else looking down at their hands. None of them look my way. Obviously, he did leave that detail out. He just wanted to get something on me, anything, to build a trumped-up case. Some guys can really hold a grudge.

  Don’t get me wrong. Most of the officers in the Detroit PD are decent people just trying to do their job and protect the people of the city. It’s guys like Braxton who give cops a bad name. They’re the ones who end up on the evening news and inspire protests with people chanting “no justice, no peace.”

  I know when Chris is going to come to the open door of the patrol car before he does it, but still I wait right where I am until I see his beautiful mug. It wouldn’t do for the cops around me to wonder why I was leaving before Chris actually said the words…

  “Come on, Sid. Let’s get out of here. You can tell me what really happened on the way.”

  He makes them give me back my gun, and my wallet too, after Braxton himself takes off the handcuffs. It killed him to do it, too. I could tell. I want to tell him it’s okay because there’s no doubt in my mind that the next time our paths cross, he’ll try to arrest me again. Better luck next time. I keep it to myself though, because I’ve pushed my luck just about as far as I can today.

  The thing is, I’m upset, and frustrated, and sarcasm just kind of naturally rolls off my tongue when I get like this. I had bee
n sitting in the same apartment with the guy who stole Arnie Chen’s statue, and I let him get away. Okay, sure, the information I got from my snitch Parker Broderick wasn’t a hundred percent. And sure, Samuel Kato can apparently use magic—of some kind—and that threw my whole future-sense out of commission. Wasn’t prepared for that either. Then there’s the whole thing about Kato being made out of taffy, or whatever.

  It still added up to me losing my suspect.

  Arnie Chen’s not going to be happy.

  “All right, spill it,” Chris says to me when we’re sitting in his unmarked patrol car, parked down the street from the apartment building where Kato had eluded me. The other patrol cars have cleared out. This is Chris’s investigation now.

  “Where do you want me to start?” I ask him.

  From the beginning…

  “From the beginning, Sid. Always from the beginning.”

  He’s turned toward me, one elbow up on the back of his seat, the other hand casually laid across the knee of his slacks, patiently waiting for me to answer him. That’s the kind of trust he has in me. He knows I won’t lie to him.

  I can’t exactly tell him the whole truth, either.

  He knows about Harry being a genie, so I’m sure he’d believe me if I told him about the Taffy Man, but that’s not the hard part. If I tell him I’m working for a criminal like Arnie Chen, then I’m never going to hear the end of it. Chris is a police officer, with a solid moral code, and doing jobs for someone like Chen is not going to win me any points with him. Plus, I haven’t told him about me and my talent yet, so.

  That’s me, caught between a rock and a hard place.

  “Okay, so,” I start, filtering everything through my brain before I say anything. “I have a client who had a statue stolen from him. I tracked the thief to that apartment back there with the busted window. Actually, I was expecting him to be a middleman who was going to buy the statue, but it turns out he was the thief all along.”

  He nods and manages to shift himself so that he’s sitting just that much closer. Dear God, his eyes are a stunning shade of hazel. “So,” he says, bringing my attention back to his lips. “You aren’t going to tell me who your client is, I’m guessing?”

  I squirm and give him a shrug. “I can’t. Not until it becomes necessary.”

  “Fair enough, but I’m going to hold you to that.” He’s been through this with me before. I protect my client’s anonymity, and he respects that. “So you came here looking for a stolen statue. Find it?”

  “Yeah, I did, but it got away. With the suspect.”

  “That’s who you were chasing?”

  “Yeah, it was. He, um. He got away.”

  “From you?” His head rolls to one side. “That’s hard to believe. I’ve run the track with you before and I couldn’t keep up. This guy was faster than you?”

  “Not exactly. He, um. He’s wiry.”

  I went through the whole thing for him, starting when I got to the apartment and ending with Kato escaping between the buildings in a space that a small child would have had trouble getting through. And of course, me getting arrested.

  “He had the statue with him when he got away. Samuel Kato is his name. Think you can work your police mojo and find out where he might have gone?”

  “Gone? That’s his apartment up there, you said. Don’t you think he’ll come back?”

  “No. Now that I found him here, he won’t chance coming back. He’s got to be somewhere, but it won’t be back here. I think…there’s something else going on with this guy.”

  “You mean,” he says, all sarcastic like, “other than him being able to stretch his body like a rubber band?”

  “Taffy, but yeah. He’s got some sort of magic.”

  He nods, but it’s obvious that he’s taking some time to digest this. “So, he’s magic. Like Harry?”

  “No, not like Harry. Harry’s a genie and this guy…I have no idea what this guy is. He can break through glass without a cut—” I hold out my hands to show the abrasions on my palms, and the few nicks on my forearms. “—and he can change the shape of his body like he’s Gumby or something, but he’s a real living person. He’s got an apartment. He steals things, for crying out loud. He’s as real as you or me so he’s got to be somewhere. If he’s not at his apartment, then he’s got to be somewhere else.”

  Chris nods again, more confidently this time. I’m talking about stuff he understands now. Finding people is part of his job. Magic might confuse the living daylights out of him but this stuff, he understands. “Okay, I can run his name through our system and see what comes up. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

  “Thanks, Chris. You know I appreciate everything you do for me.”

  “Anytime.”

  His hand reaches over, from his knee to mine, and just kind of settles there. After the day I’ve had, it feels nice. Warm and soft in that way that men can be when they aren’t even trying. I smile at him.

  He leans in closer.

  I can smell his cologne, a faint musk that suits him really well. His eyes are locked on mine, and in that instant the vibe in his car changed. The air seemed closer. The heater seemed like it was turned up too high, making it surprisingly warm on a beautiful September day.

  “Chris?” I ask him, not sure what I’m really asking.

  Then I listen for what’s coming.

  I need to tell you something.

  “I need to tell you something, Sidney.”

  Those were almost the exact words that Harry had said to me back at my apartment but with Chris there’s a different feel to them. Stronger. Closer. Softer. It’s hard to describe. His voice has dropped real low, like he’s whispering. Or maybe that’s the sound of my heartbeat in my ears. I am very, very aware of his hand on mine.

  I feel closer to you…

  I swallow and listen to him say it out loud.

  “I feel closer to you, now that you opened up about what’s going on in your life,” he says. “I mean, about Harry and the magic, and everything.”

  We’ve always been good friends.

  “We’ve always been good friends.”

  My breath catches in my throat, waiting for what’s next.

  But now…

  “But now…” His breath caresses my cheek, and he smiles. “Well, you know what I mean.”

  I can feel my jaw drop. I know what he means? No! I have no idea what he means. Unless he says it out loud to me so I can hear it, or almost says it so that I can hear it with my future-sense…damn it, Chris!

  I take my hand back from his, and his expression slips, but for a long moment his fingers are still lightly on my knee. He almost looks let down. It’s like he was expecting me to say something there. I’m just not sure what. He said he was my friend, and he said he was glad that I could talk to him. I agree with that. It’s good to have a man like Chris in my life.

  “Um, thanks,” I tell him finally as the silence stretches. Both of my guys seemed to need that reassurance today. “It means a lot to have a friend who can get me out of jail, you know?”

  I meant it as a joke, and even though a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, I can almost feel the disappointment rolling off him. He slides back over into his seat, putting both hands up on the wheel.

  You know I’m always here for you.

  “Yeah,” I tell him. “I know.”

  He gives me a curious look.

  Oops.

  I was so turned around by whatever had just passed between us that I answered him before he actually spoke the words. I’m usually so careful about that but with Chris acting so strange—not to mention Harry, too—I guess I can’t be blamed for slipping.

  “Um,” I say, before he can think too much about it, “can you give me a ride back to Roxy? I need to catch up on one of my other cases and see if I can find my own leads to find Kato. Not holding out much hope, but you’ve got me covered on that, right?”

  “Yup. That’s what I’m here for.”

/>   Whatever I’d heard in his voice earlier is gone now, back to all business, making me wonder if I imagined it. It’s been a very long time since I’ve thought about getting close to a guy, like really close, but sometimes a girl likes to fantasize about what it would be like. I’m sure that’s all it was.

  He drives me around to my Mustang, sliding into the parking spot right next to her. “You sure you don’t want me to drive you back to your place? I swear that car of yours is going to fall apart underneath you one of these days. Probably right in the middle of the freeway, knowing your luck.”

  “Hey, be nice to Roxy. She works hard.”

  I give him a smile, and this time he smiles back. We’re good, that smile says. Stop overthinking things.

  Chris is going to have hours of paperwork to fill out on the incident here, and that’s after the patrol officers finish going through Kato’s apartment. I wasn’t invited to search the place with them. Not that I had expected to be let up there again, under the circumstances, but it would have been nice to be asked. I’m sure if they find anything, Chris will let me know about it.

  In the meantime I’ve got the rest of the day to work on my two cases. I just hope there aren’t any more surprises today. There’s only so much a woman can take. Even a strong, modern woman like myself.

  Parker isn’t in the Belt when I go to look for him again. I didn’t expect him to be there, but it would have made things easier. Especially since I don’t have a home address for the guy. Snitches don’t offer a money back guarantee, but I definitely wanted to get some clarification on the blunder he let me walk into. Kato wasn’t a guy buying antiquities. He was the guy stealing them.

  So why was Kato asking around about the statue? Why draw that kind of attention to himself? He’s got a priceless statue in his possession, worth a ton of cash. The best thing he could have done would be to keep his mouth shut until he had the opportunity to sell it. Why risk exposing himself by talking to people about it? It’s almost like he wanted Chen to find out…

  Hmm. Now, that brings up a couple of very interesting questions that my curious brain has been turning over and over as I drive myself home. Like, what were the odds that Kato stole a precious statue from Chen at random? Almost none. He sure seemed to know Chen, the way he talked. No, this was personal. Those two know each other.