Doc

by Dahlia West, Caleb

  Where was the fun in that?

  Chapter 3

  “Hey,” said the skip, this time kicking the seat.

  “Oh, you can talk now,” said Izzy, glancing at him in the rearview mirror. “Good. Thought I’d given you a stroke.”

  “You’re not a cop.”

  She sneered. “Cookie or a star?”

  “You’re a bounty hunter.”

  Izzy sighed. “Bitch, bounty hunter. How’d you get this far in life only stating the obvious?”

  Ignoring her comment, he said, “I got money.”

  Izzy turned the wheel, aiming the car down Holder Street, toward the station at the corner of Holder and Cross. It wasn’t the closest precinct, but it was where she preferred to drop off her skips. Of course, going there wasn’t without its drawbacks.

  “Hey, I got money,” the skip repeated.

  Izzy rolled her eyes. “No, you don’t. If you did, you’d have paid your own bail instead of using a bondsman. And I wouldn’t be chasing your ass now.”

  He grunted. “I do, too,” he insisted. “I made some big sales the last couple days.”

  “Getting together some cash to skip town?”

  He glowered at her.

  Izzy wouldn’t have bothered to chase him if he’d left Denver. Dealing and statutory were small potatoes and it would cost her more time and money to hunt him outside the city than he was worth. The payday just wasn’t there. She believed him that he’d made some quick sales during the time she’d caught his jacket and started looking for him, not that she’d take him up on his offer even if it were true. He wasn’t the worst skip she’d ever brought in, not by half, but a bad guy was a bad guy, and one less of them on Denver streets was always a good thing.

  Plus, she was a good guy, as Pop had always reminded her. “We may not play by their rules, Z,” he’d always say, “but we got our own and we don’t break them.”

  Taking a drug dealer’s cash to let him go was out of the question, no matter how badly she might need the money.

  She parked in front of the station and killed her Mustang’s engine. She pocketed the keys and slid out from behind the wheel.

  “Goddamnit! I have money!” the skip whispered fiercely as she dragged him from the backseat. He looked around fervently at the cruisers surrounding them and ducked his head when he spotted the uniforms talking animatedly on the sidewalk nearby. “Don’t tell me you can’t use the cash,” the skip sneered as he jerked his head back toward her car. The backseat was littered with cheeseburger wrappers and empty Coke cans.

  Izzy’s pride bristled. It might look like she lived in her car, but it wasn’t true. She only worked out of it. Her laptop was securely mounted to a steel frame on the passenger seat, the week’s active files sandwiched between the seat and the center console. A digital camera was locked in a case that was bolted to the floorboards. She shuddered as she thought about the day when she’d finally have to drag it out and use it, and how fast that day might be approaching.

  She cuffed the skip on the ear. He cursed her, then glanced at the cops. Izzy didn’t recognize any of them in particular, but they probably knew her. They gave her a wide berth as she shoved the skip toward the front doors of the building. She resisted the urge to nail him with the door as she opened it. She was in a bad mood, but he wasn’t a real bad guy per se, and therefore not worth the headache it would cause either of them.

  She herded him in to the front desk where a large, fried-blonde eyed the skip as though he were something she’d found on the bottom of her shoe.

  “Hey, girl,” said the blonde.

  “Hey, Vernita.”

  Vernita raised an eyebrow at the skip. “Where’d you find him?”

  “Train yard,” Izzy replied, pushing him to the desk.

  “Mmm hmm. You a hobo?” Vernita asked. “You look like a hobo.”

  The skip glared at the older woman. “Yeah? You look like a bleached wha-”

  Izzy slapped him on the side of the head again.

  The skip ducked under the blow. “Bitch!” he yelled.

  “Speaking of whaling,” Vernita replied sarcastically.

  Izzy couldn’t help but laugh. Vernita had been working the front desk since before Izzy had graduated from high school. Not much fazed the older woman these days. Izzy always harbored a sneaking suspicion that Vernita and Izzy’s pop had enjoyed an “understanding” —the kind that older people sometimes entered into when neither of them wanted anything serious but still enjoyed the company of another person from time to time.

  “Hugo!” Vernita bellowed, thumping the glass behind her. “Izzy’s got a skip!”

  A larger man in an ill-fitting officer’s uniform lumbered out of the surveillance room. Izzy handed Hugo the skip and Vernita the manila folder in her hand.

  “Reginald Deacon,” Izzy told her. “Signed, sealed, and delivered. Meth dealer.”

  Vernita grumbled and took the folder. “Damn TV. Everybody wanna be Heisenberg.”

  Izzy watched as Vernita processed her claim paperwork.

  “Don’t spend it all in one place,” Vernita told her, handing the claim over for Izzy to take upstairs.

  Izzy faked a smile. It was less than two thousand. It would cover next month’s rent, at least, and business expenses if she stuck to fast food. She’d already had to let the office space go, which had pained her because Pop had occupied that space since before she was born. But rent on two places was too much for her to cover now that she was on her own. It was probably for the best. The place had too many memories of Pop any damn way.

  She took the claim and headed for the stairs, leaving Vernita and Hugo to listen to Deacon’s diatribe about The Injustice of it All and The Tyranny of Bitches, or whatever the hell he was ranting about. She stopped at the second floor and headed down the hall to the cashier’s office. She ducked quickly into the small room as she heard voices farther down the corridor. In the cashier’s room she collected her (extremely) modest pay for three days’ work and stuffed the check into her jacket pocket.

  “Another payday,” remarked Ollie as Izzy turned to leave.

  She smiled and didn’t argue with him.

  Back in the hall, Izzy checked to see if the coast was clear. After confirming that it was, she headed for the door to the stairs. She’d nearly made it when a sizable hand clamped down on her shoulder. Izzy stifled a noise that was halfway between a groan and a growl. She turned, grudgingly.

  “I’ve been calling you.”

  She smirked. She couldn’t help it. It was a dumb thing for him to say. Of course he’d been calling. She hadn’t been answering. For a detective, you’d think he’d connect the dots a little better.

  “We need to talk,” he demanded.

  Izzy attempted to shrug off his hand, without success. “There’s nothing to say.”

  “Goddamnit, Izzy.”

  She finally twisted out of his hold and shoved the door open. She might have made it down the stairs and away from him, but he drew her back by the sleeve of her jacket. He pressed her against the door as it shut behind them, sealing them off from the rest of the building and its occupants. Izzy’s heart thudded in her chest. She wasn’t afraid. Far from it. She was well-armed, not that she needed to be. She could defend herself without the Glock, if it came to it. Not that she’d need to do that, either.

  The one thing, apparently, that she couldn’t defend herself against was betrayal. And it seemed she wasn’t going to be able to avoid the fallout, either. It was easier when people just disappeared from your life, like her mother, and, she supposed, Pop as well. Dragging it out wouldn’t change anything.

  “I’m sorry!” he hissed but he seemed less angry than apologetic. “I fucked up, babe.”

  Izzy bristled. “Don’t call me ‘babe,’ ” she snapped. That hit a little too close to home for her comfort.

  “It was a mistake,” he insisted.

  “It was a decision,” Izzy countered. “One that sure as hell didn’t inclu
de me.”

  “Look, I’m sorry,” he replied. “I- I just wasn’t thinking. I won’t do it again.”

  “You sure as hell won’t,” Izzy declared, pushing him away.

  He grabbed at her again. “We can work this out!”

  Izzy jerked her arm out of his reach and moved toward the stairs. “There is nothing to work out,” she told him through clenched teeth. “You crossed a line. This is over,” she said, gesturing between them.

  “Izzy, come on, don’t—”

  “It was never supposed to be anything in the first damn place!” she reminded. “You were the one constantly moving the goalposts, changing the rules. And when that didn’t work, you cheated.” She was aware she was raising her voice now. All her calm self-control fled from her and she was fully aware she was making a spectacle of herself, but some things were so unforgivable, such a violation…

  “You didn’t cheat,” she amended, lowering her voice to a deadly timber. “What you did? There’s not a word big enough for it.”

  He moved toward her, looking contrite but she wasn’t buying it. “Izzy,” he said, reaching for her again.

  “Fuck off.”

  She took off down the stairs, through the door to the ground floor. She knew her face was red and she shoved her shaking hands into the pockets of her jacket. She was headed for the door when she realized she was cut off by a group of cops and assorted civilians who were all watching the television mounted on the wall. Vernita had the remote in her hand and was turning up the volume.

  The reporter from Channel 8 was grim as she addressed the camera. “A local convenience store owner was shot and killed just moments ago. The shooter has fled, taking a hostage with him. If you have any information…”

  Izzy watched the live shot as it was replaced by grainy CCTV footage of the interior of the store. The security tape showed one gunman, scrawny with dark hair, gesturing wildly to a young woman who was behind the counter.

  “Hurry up!” he admonished in a voice with no accent.

  The girl opened up the register and filled a plastic sack with the cash, and as she was about to hand it over the counter, a shadow appeared from between two shelving units. Izzy stifled a groan as she watched a fat, balding man approach the kid from behind. Everybody wanted to be a hero—but few people knew how. The man’s Louisville slugger was no match for the kid’s revolver. Izzy couldn’t tell from the video if it was a .22 or a .38, but either way you just didn’t bring a bat to a gun fight.

  The shot was loud and caught the would-be hero in the chest. The girl behind the counter screamed. “What did you do!” she cried, but the dark stain on the floor rendered the question moot.

  The gunman swung around and lunged at the girl. He grabbed her arm and pulled.

  “Come on,” he demanded. “Let’s go.” He snatched the bag of money on his way out the door with the girl. They moved beyond the camera’s view, leaving the poor store owner the only person left in the frame.

  Vernita got the fax the same time the network flashed a mug shot of the gunman.

  “That was fast,” a uniform remarked as Vernita placed the paper into her photo copier.

  “Kidnapping,” the older woman replied and no other explanation was needed.

  “Damn feds’ll be all over it.”

  Izzy frowned as well. No one liked the feds stomping and pissing in everyone’s Cheerios. But no one wanted a dead hostage, either. She plucked one of the copies off the stack. It was still warm and the toner was smeared a bit. The kid had left a print at the scene, which was displayed under his short rap sheet for breaking and entering. Izzy studied his face, then glanced down at the known address. When she looked up, she saw Vernita eyeballing her.

  “Kid’s a shooter,” the older woman cautioned.

  Izzy chewed the inside of her cheek. The kid was a trigger-happy asshole, no doubt about it. Give her a runner or a whiner any day, but a shooter was bad news. No info on a reward yet, but she already knew it would he high. Kidnapping and murder would be five figures at least. Double murder might be six, but Izzy sure as fuck didn’t need a payday soaked in some innocent girl’s blood. It was bad enough the old man bought it. She couldn’t save him, but she might find the girl and make the rest of the year’s rent to boot.

  Izzy folded the mug shot and slipped it into her pocket.

  “I’ve got a vest,” she told Vernita quietly.

  “That won’t matter if he shoots you in the head!” Vernita called after her as she headed for the front doors.

  Chapter 4

  The young officer who’d responded first to the call was standing on the small front porch. There was a marked contrast been the crew-cut, buttoned-down, spit-shined man in uniform and the man who stood before him wearing a stained T-shirt and ripped jeans. The man’s hands were empty at the moment, but they’d recently been holding a beer. Caleb could smell it on him before he even got to the top step of the porch. The scent was all too familiar and burned his nose.

  Bleary-eyed, the man glared as hard at Caleb as he had the rookie. “Was a misunderstanding,” he said in an exasperated tone that told Caleb he’d been repeating that word since the first man had arrived.

  The kid smiled politely and nodded. Caleb tried not to roll his eyes. The kid didn’t appear to be stupid, though Caleb didn’t know him personally. They’d only occasionally crossed paths in the locker room. Caleb was reasonably sure that the kid wasn’t buying this bullshit explanation. He was just sorting out a Domestic, by-the-book, as though the guidelines had been recorded and printed by Saint Peter himself.

  No one wanted to respond to a Domestic, except Caleb. They were usually frustrating or violent, depending on how long that particular argument had been stewing on the burner. They also had no satisfying resolution—usually. Out-of-control abusers were temporarily taken into custody. Aggrieved spouses more often than not simply refused to press charges and the whole thing went back on the burner at a slow simmer until the next boil over.

  When he’d first joined the force, Caleb had known he wasn’t going to go by the book. Hell, he’d barely even read the book. He’d put on the badge, already knowing what it took a few years for rookies to figure out: that Domestics were usually a zero-sum game. You couldn’t win… unless you were playing your own game.

  He glanced through the tattered screen door. A waifish woman was gathering empty cans in the living room and straightening lumpy couch cushions. She refused to look at the door and he could already tell she wasn’t interested in helping the police lock up her man. Caleb didn’t care. He probably wouldn’t need her, anyway. He grasped the handle of the screen door and started to pull.

  “Hey!” the drunk protested. “You can’t just barge into my house!”

  Caleb ignored him and flung the door wide open.

  “Hey!” the man shouted again.

  Caleb turned and glared at him. The rookie looked uncomfortable. “Um…” he floundered, attempting to put himself between the drunk and Caleb. “I… Let’s calm down… We…” Apparently the kid couldn’t improvise for shit. The Book was his Bible and he clearly had no idea what to do when anyone deviated from it.

  Being reasonably sure that the kid could handle the drunk—for now—Caleb set his gaze on the woman. “Glass of water, ma’am?”

  She started at his words, looking as shocked as the kid. Her lips formed an “O” as she stared at him. The bottom one was split but had stopped bleeding at this point. Unsure what to do or who was more dangerous, she simply nodded and turned toward the kitchen. Caleb moved farther inside.

  “Tell me again what the trouble is?” the kid asked the drunk, obviously attempting to direct the man’s focus away from Caleb. The kid cast Caleb a sharp look, though, for good measure. Caleb smirked at him and turned away.

  “I already told you once. How many times I got to repeat myself?” the drunk snarled.

  Caleb winced. ‘How many times do I have to tell you, Sheila? One time?’ He flinched as he remembe
red the sound that had always come after. The muffled whump of a fist hitting soft flesh, the belly usually, and the sharp grunt that always came immediately after. Two times? Another whump, but usually harder. Caleb was always able to tell by the sound of the grunts how hard the punches were. Three times? The second was usually in the belly as well, but never the third. The third was always accompanied by the sickening crunch of fist hitting cheekbone. Caleb flinched a bit as the sound of the cupboard being closed brought him back to the present. The woman had gotten a glass and was filling it at the sink. Caleb wondered if the drunk on the porch liked the counting game, or if he had made up one of his own.

  He looked around for anything he could use. A bong, a pipe, a weapon that might be unregistered. Stacking up offenses was the best strategy. Assaulting a cop was bad, to be sure. Add to that a weapons charge? A possession rap? The weeks behind bars suddenly turned into months. Assaulting a cop with an unregistered weapon? Well, that was as close as you could get to winning the lottery without even having to buy a ticket. Caleb saw a glass pipe in the corner, lying on a small table. His cynical heart nearly leapt with joy, but he kept his countenance grim. He took the water glass from the woman, taking note of the bruises on her forearm.

  “The TV was too loud,” the drunk replied. “Fuckin’ neighbors heard it and called the cops. I didn’t do jack fuckin’ shit!”

  Caleb calmly sipped the water. “What happened to your lip?” he asked the woman, indicating it with his finger.

  She paled and ran her tongue nervously over the swollen cut.

  “Moira,” the drunk said, his voice full of warning.

  “Officer Barnes,” the kid whined.

  Caleb sipped his water. Ah, the Book. The Good Book said, ‘Never interview the victim within sight or hearing of the suspect. The suspect might become enraged.’ Caleb remembered that part, at least.

  “That was from before,” Moira told Caleb in a soft voice, clearly scrambling to create a story she hadn’t had time to invent.

  “Before?”