Man Down: An Everyday Heroes World Novel (The Everyday Heroes World)

by BJ Bentley

  I opened my eyes to the sound of the car door slamming and saw Vance marching up the sidewalk to the small ranch-style house.

  Without me.

  Painted mint green with white trim, the house sat in the middle of a minuscule plot of land overgrown with nettles and dandelions. The dirt driveway was mostly devoid of the gravel that had once covered it with the exception of the two rather large potholes which still held a few rocks. There was nothing unique about the house. In fact, it blended in with every other house in that neighborhood. Not well cared for, but certainly well lived in. A slowly deflating basketball lay in the grass near the sidewalk which was covered in colorful chalk drawings of stick figures, flowers, and other whimsical iterations of a child’s imagination.

  Clutching the file to my chest I got out of the car and jogged up the sidewalk to join Vance before he got too far ahead of me. I was at his heels by the time he raised his fist to knock on the chipped paint of the front door.

  Neither of us spoke as we waited.

  Seconds ticked by with no movement. Vance raised his hand to knock again, this time harder and louder.

  Eventually, we heard shuffling on the other side and the door slowly creaked open to reveal a slight woman in a pale pink velour tracksuit, the kind of outfit that went out of style when pink became mandatory Wednesday attire. Her platinum blonde hair hung limply around her pale face, giving her a washed-out appearance and emphasizing her hollow cheeks.

  “Mrs. Santulli?” Vance asked, though I was sure he already knew the answer.

  “Y-yes,” she answered, her dark blue eyes darting up and down the street.

  “Detective Vance Brody.” Vance confirmed his identity by holding up his badge and allowing Mrs. Santulli a good, long look. “This is Officer Poppy Leighton.” He tipped his head in my direction as he spoke. “May we come in?”

  Her gaze flicked to me and she licked her cracked lips before answering. “Okay,” she said softly, stepping back and allowing us entry.

  In the dim light of the house, Mrs. Santulli seemed to relax a bit, but it was difficult to say if that was because the neighbors could no longer see us or if she wanted to talk. Something in her demeanor told me it was the former.

  “I remember you, Detective. C-can I get you anything? A drink?” she asked.

  Vance graced her with a small smile. “A glass of water would be great, Mrs. Santulli, thank you.”

  I murmured in the negative when she looked at me.

  She nodded and left the living room for the kitchen.

  Vance turned to me. “Look around,” he ordered, his voice low enough not to carry.

  “What?” I asked, startled. We couldn’t just go around rifling through people’s homes, even if we were invited.

  “Don’t touch anything. Just look.”

  I shook my head but did as Vance ordered. I moved to his left, starting in one corner of the room and walking slowly along the perimeter, taking in the details of the small space. Drab brown carpet with darker patches that were probably stains of some sort. The walls were off-white, though they looked like they may have been brighter at one point. The furniture was of good quality, but it was obviously old and well-worn, some of the stuffing peeking out of a small tear here and there. Photos hung on the walls. Dust covered the entertainment center which housed a small, flat screen TV and a box store quality stereo.

  I began to move in front of Vance to continue my inspection, but Mrs. Santulli returned with a glass of water, effectively halting whatever lesson Vance was teaching me.

  “I-I hope tap water is okay,” she offered up apologetically.

  Vance took the glass from her hand. “It’s perfect. Thank you,” he said, though he neglected to drink from it. “May we sit? We have some questions for you.”

  “Sure.” She gestured toward the couch while she took a seat in the matching recliner across from us.

  Vance flipped open a pocket sized steno pad and handed it to me. I had to set the file I still held down in order to take it and scrambled to find a pen in one of my various pockets. I came up empty, but I raised my head to find that Vance had likely anticipated my incompetency as he offered me his own. He didn’t even look at me as he held it out to me. I snatched the pen from his fingers with an annoyed little huff and poised it over the paper.

  “Mrs. Santulli, do you know where your husband is right now?”

  Mrs. Santulli swallowed and shook her head.

  I noted that and every other response to every other question Vance posed to her over the next twenty minutes.

  By the time they were done talking, I’d filled the remaining pages in the steno pad. I flipped it closed and wordlessly handed it and the pen back to Vance. We rose from the couch and Vance thanked Mrs. Santulli for her time. I tucked the file under my arm and moved to follow Vance out the door, but a hand on my elbow stopped me.

  “Th-thank you, “ Mrs. Santulli whispered.

  I met her gaze, confused. I hadn’t done anything except take notes. Vance was the one who treated her with kindness. Made her feel comfortable. Asked her all the questions. Before I could question what I’d done, she continued.

  “It’s nice just to have another woman in the house,” she explained. “Detective Brody seems like a good man, but even a good man…well, anyway, thank you for coming with him today.”

  I thought about the photos I’d seen in the file and the accompanying report. I laid my hand over hers. “Anytime. I mean that,” I stressed.

  She gave me a weak smile, which I returned, and walked with me the rest of the way to the door.

  Vance was already behind the wheel. How did he move so fast?

  Back in the car, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d missed something. Something felt off about the entire situation, something besides the obvious. I just couldn’t put my finger on it. “I can’t help but think there is more going on here than what’s in the file.”

  Vance shot me a glance as he turned the engine over and pulled us away from the curb. “Good instincts, rookie. I first met the Santullis when one of their neighbors called in a domestic dispute complaint. Colin and I arrived on scene to find Kayla Santulli with a black eye and a dislocated shoulder.”

  I couldn’t contain my gasp. Kayla Santulli was no more than five foot two inches tall and thin as a rail. According to the file, Mark Santulli stood six foot four and carried the kind of muscle one got from years of manual labor. He wasn’t beefy like the gym rats I sometimes saw at Linc’s, but he was solid, and there was no doubt, if he had a mind to, he could have done far more damage than a black eye and dislocated shoulder with minimal effort.

  Vance kept talking. “Canvassed the neighborhood; everyone said the same. Mark Santulli is a gentle giant. Wouldn’t hurt a fly, let alone his wife.”

  I shook my head trying to reconcile that description with what I’d read in the file. “I don’t get it.”

  “Tell me what you saw,” he ordered.

  “What?”

  “In the house when I told you to look around. Tell me what you saw.”

  I closed my eyes, picturing the living room and described what I’d observed.

  “Good. Now tell me what you didn’t see.”

  I frowned at him in confusion. “What?”

  He sighed out his nose. “Being a cop means being observant. And what you don’t see is just as important as what you do see. So tell me what you didn’t see and what that means.”

  I closed my eyes and once again pictured the Santulli living room. “They don’t have kids.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “There were photos on the wall. Looked like the Santullis on vacation in a few of them. One of their wedding day. No photos of kids. Plus, there were no toys in the living room, so that rules out little kids, at least, and I doubt Mrs. Santulli is old enough to have teenagers.”

  “Good. What else?”

  “Umm.” I scrunched my face up in concentration, mentally scanning what little I had see
n of the Santulli household. “No pets?”

  “True,” he confirmed. “What about Kayla Santulli?”

  My gut clenched remembering how uneasy I’d felt about her. Not uneasy in a suspicious way, but uneasy in the way that I knew something was wrong. My instincts were screaming, I just wasn’t sure what they were trying to tell me. I pictured her in her velour tracksuit that may have been at least one size too big. Her ashy skin and limp hair. I huffed in frustration. “I don’t know…she seemed…off, somehow.”

  Vance pulled the car into the parking lot of The Beat and cut the engine before turning to me. “Close your eyes,” he ordered.

  I did.

  “Picture her face. Tell me what you see.”

  I did that too. “Pale skin-”

  “Where?”

  I shook my head. “What do you mean? Her face,” I sniped, growing more and more frustrated by the minute.

  “Compared to what?” he prompted.

  It dawned on me then, and I opened my eyes. “Compared to her hands,” I breathed my realization. “Her hands were tan, like she either spent a lot of time outside or in a tanning bed. So, why was her face so pale?”

  One corner of Vance’s mouth tipped up. “My guess is stage makeup. Kayla Santulli used to work as a dancer down at the Glo Room. I’m guessing the pancake makeup she was wearing is a leftover from her stripping days.”

  I flipped open the file in my lap. “She’s covering her bruises,” I surmised. Covering her bruises with makeup that may or may not have been the correct shade when she bought it, but it certainly didn’t suit her coloring now. But it was likely what she had at home, and using it was better than going out in public all banged up and no way to hide it.

  I followed Vance as he exited the sedan.

  “But,” I started as he opened the door to the coffee shop, the bell chiming to announce our arrival. “What does that mean? I think any woman who had bruises on her face would want to cover them with makeup, and how is this connected to Janus?”

  Vance stopped and pivoted to face me. Hands on his hips, he stepped into my space and rolled his lips before he spoke. “It’s relevant because I conducted my preliminary interview with Kayla a week ago, and a week ago, those bruises weren’t there. She claims she hasn’t seen her husband in two weeks, but I’m willing to bet my badge that’s not true. And,” he continued, “it’s connected to Janus because I have reason to believe that Mark Santulli, the so-called gentle giant, has been dealing Janus and sampling the product.”

  One of the symptoms of Janus-use was behavioral changes. If Mark Santulli was taking the drug, it would explain how a man whose neighbors claimed he wouldn’t hurt a fly could beat on his wife. But still…“We didn’t actually see any bruises,” I reminded him.

  He gave me a look that said don’t be stupid, and I glared at him.

  “Okay, let’s assume she has seen her husband and he did give her fresh bruises. Why would she lie to us about it?”

  Vance looked to the ceiling before turning toward the counter and hailing Morrie for two coffees. “Battered women lie for all sorts of reasons. Mainly, out of fear.” He shrugged. “It shits me to say this, but we can’t force her to tell us something she doesn’t want to share. And, if it comes down to it, we can’t force her to press charges.”

  “She isn’t going to press charges?” I asked, incredulous.

  “She is, otherwise we wouldn’t have paid her a visit this morning. But I’d heard from a source that she was wavering. That’s why I needed to talk to her today. Make it known that I was still involved, still interested in finding her husband, putting him away, and keeping her safe. She needed to know that someone out there gives a fuck.”

  I nodded, accepting the coffee Morrie handed me and taking a sip. The Beat had been owned and operated by a family of retired cops for the past fifty years. Old man Jacobson passed it down to his son when he retired, and word on the street was the current owner planned to do the same at some point in the very near future. “So, what do we do now?”

  Vance stared at me a minute before declaring, “It’s your case.”

  “What?”

  “She was comfortable with you there, plus women tell other women things they’d never tell a man. I’m still your supervising officer, but I want you to work her case. Just run everything by me before you do anything.”

  I stared at him in slack-jawed wonder. “You’re serious.”

  “Dead.”

  It was literally my first day on the job, and there was no way that I, a rookie, should be handed a case like this, regardless of the fact that I had to have someone else sign off on my every little move. Still, it was my first case, and I couldn’t help that rush I felt at sinking my teeth into something real. Something that could make a difference to someone. This time, I was going to be able to help someone and not be the one who was helpless.

  The bell over the coffee shop door chimed as Colin walked in. That morning, we’d parted ways in the station’s parking lot. Vance and I to interview Kayla Santulli and Colin to follow up on a lead in an unrelated case.

  Colin was nearly as attractive as Vance, and in a purely objective way, I could appreciate the way he filled out his jeans. Plus, he had dimples, and who could resist those?

  “Hey, probie, how’d it go?” he said, swinging into the booth next to me and shooting his partner a grin across the table.

  Vance glared back at him in irritation for some reason.

  “It was good, I guess.” My eyes darted between the two men staring at each other as I spoke.

  “That’s good,” Colin offered, still not looking at me.

  I rolled my eyes. “Move.” I shoved Colin’s shoulder. “I have to pee.”

  Both sets of eyes snapped to me, but Colin didn’t do as I’d requested.

  I shot him a wide-eyed look that said, what are you waiting for? He finally stood to let me out of the booth and bizarrely declared, “This is gonna be fun,” before letting me pass.

  God, men were weird.

  5

  Vance

  “You can relax, you know.” I kept my gaze focused on the apartment complex across the street, belatedly realizing my windows could use a decent washing.

  “I am relaxed,” Poppy retorted from the passenger seat.

  “Sure you are,” I muttered, lifting my to-go cup of coffee to my lips and taking a sip of the mediocre brew from the shop on West Third Street. It was probably the worst coffee in town, but I was still a loyal customer, as was most of the force in our little city. The Beat was a veritable law enforcement institution.

  I caught movement in the window of one of the apartments. Squinting through the water spots on my car’s window, I wondered if my suspect was scanning the street, looking to make a break for it, or if it was a nosy neighbor wondering why a vehicle they didn’t recognize was parked in their neighborhood. I tried to ignore the tense body in the seat next to me. If Poppy didn’t relax soon, something was going to snap. Either her spine or my patience.

  Suddenly, the curtain was pulled wide and the face of an old woman peered down from behind the glass. I sat back. Definitely a nosy neighbor.

  “You’re going to stroke out. Why don’t you take a walk around the block?” I didn’t look at her when I spoke, but I could feel her glare burning into the side of my head.

  “If I stroke out, it’s only because my supervising officer isn’t taking me seriously,” she griped, wiping her palms on her thighs.

  “I take you very seriously,” I corrected. “But I’m right about this, and I’m not going to let you blow your first case.”

  Poppy was frustrated, and I got it. In the week since I’d handed over the Santulli case, Kayla Santulli had recanted her initial statement, despite our most recent visit. Poppy had wanted to go back and put the pressure on Kayla to rethink pressing charges, and she got pissed when I told her to stand down. Poppy had good intentions, but bullying an abused woman was not the right course of action. Besides, there w
ere other ways to make sure that Mark Santulli paid for his crimes.

  “Kayla Santulli needs someone to stand up for her.”

  “Kayla Santulli doesn’t even want to stand up for herself,” I shot back.

  “That’s not fair, and you know it,” she bit out before throwing her door open and stepping out onto the curb.

  She was right, of course. It was a cheap shot, and I had no intention of letting it lie. But I needed Poppy to back off, so I could do what needed to be done and keep her hands clean while I did it.

  I watched her hips sway as she marched down the sidewalk, the dark wash blue jeans hugging every curve in a way that inspired jealousy in my gut. Her oversized hoodie did nothing to hide the figure underneath, or at least, not the figure I imagined was underneath. I’d instructed her first thing this morning to change into something casual; we were going on a stakeout. A uniform would have defeated the purpose when we were trying to keep a low profile.

  I hadn’t anticipated how seeing her out of uniform with her hair in a messy ponytail rather than the tight bun she’d been wearing would affect the fit of my pants. It was going to make for a long day.

  It made me thankful for asking Colin to, once again, follow up on another case. In the past week, my partner had started to feel like a rickety third wheel, always finding ways to come between me and Poppy. I knew the asshole was doing it on purpose. He knew me well enough to know when I was interested in someone without me having to spell it out, and he also knew there was no way I could touch my mentee without the captain demanding I turn in my gun and badge. Colin was enjoying fucking with me, though, not going so far as to flirt with Poppy outright, but doing and saying things that poked at my inner caveman’s possessive streak. A possessive streak that had no business laying claim to Poppy Leighton but did so, nonetheless.

  I was legitimately fucked.

  She turned the corner like she was going to walk around the block, and I shifted my attention back to the apartment building I knew housed the dealer I’d been looking for but hadn’t been able to nail. Yet. This guy was higher in the organization than Santulli, a low-level street dealer, was. This was a bigger fish. It was my mission to bring the motherfucker to his knees and dismantle the entire operation.