by Dale Mayer
At that, the two men smiled at each other.
“Sorry.” Johnny chuckled. “It’s been a shit day.”
“Ah,” Simon said.
“It’s the usual problems, nothing major, nothing new, just a continuation of all of the above.”
“Which, in itself, gets to be very worrying.”
“It does, but it is what it is.” He looked at Simon. “How come you’re in such a good mood?”
“I’m not exactly sure, but you know what? It—well, it is what it is, and, if you don’t need me here, I’ll go home early.”
“What’s the matter? Gotta hot date?”
“I’d like to think so, but she caught a new case, so that’s out.”
“You’re dating a cop?” Johnny looked at him in surprise. “Really?”
“Why not?” Simon asked. “It’s an experience.”
“Yeah, I’m not exactly sure it’s a good one though.”
“The jury’s out. I haven’t found any reason to stop, but there are many compelling reasons to continue.”
“Well, that’s interesting. In that case, see where it goes.”
“That’s the plan.” And, with that, Simon waved his hand, turned, and headed in the direction of home. On the way, he stopped, picked up a newspaper, and then popped into his favorite little Italian restaurant for lunch. Then his sense of smell overrode his desire to eat. So he stopped eating and brought his leftovers home, before he continued the rest of his day. Thankfully his overactive sense of smell retreated on the way. As he returned to his apartment building, the doorman met him with an open door. “Hey, Harry, how you doing today?”
“Good. Sorry I didn’t see you this morning, sir.”
“I was up and out early, not an issue.”
“Glad to hear that.” Harry looked at the bag and smiled. “Had a good lunch, I see. The finest Italian in town.”
“It is, indeed, and my favorite.” And, with that, he headed to the elevator and upstairs.
As he dropped the newspaper on the dining table, along with the lunchtime leftovers, a headline caught his attention. “Another Hit-and-Run at UBC.” When was it time to change the road rules and protect these young people from the actions of poor drivers? He wondered if that was the case that Kate had just picked up, though it didn’t seem a traditional homicide case. As he stared at the headline, his fingers retraced some of the letters of the first couple words.
“Traffic,” he muttered.
He stared out the huge expanse of windows in his living room that overlooked the beautiful city of Vancouver. Somehow, from the back of his head, came a scream, from a long distance away; it was faint and indiscriminate. He couldn’t even tell if it was a scream of joy or one of horror. Then came a thud, as somebody was hit.
He couldn’t see anything, yet he felt the blow. He bowed at his midsection and slammed down onto the kitchen chair, his breath gusting out in shock. He shook his head, turned, and looked around. “What in the hell was that?”
But, of course, nobody answered at all.
Chapter 3
Kate walked several blocks of the neighboring area, her phone in hand. She mentally noted where the other accidents had happened, as she reached each one, even though—according to the coroner—the cases had no connection. True enough, no apparent relation had emerged, but it was early days yet. The crime scenes were all within a span of probably four or five blocks, and, given that a lot of heavy traffic was here—from the students and the rest of the traffic coming out of the university—this intersection itself had a bad history. Plenty of small pizza places, sandwich shops, little delis—all to tempt the college crowd—also contributed to quite a traffic jam in itself.
With that being mapped out, Kate walked back to the scene of the current death to find that everything had been cleaned up, except for the smear of blood on the road. The fire truck had just arrived to do something with that. She always wondered what that substance was that they put all over the pavement. She walked down the long boulevard, heading toward the main part of the campus, golf courses on both sides. Beautiful, stunning, peaceful, elegant, and yet such a killer.
She shook her head as she walked a good hundred yards, wondering if anybody could have been over here watching. Obviously, if they had been playing golf or walking through any of the grounds, they could have. So far, she hadn’t spoken to anybody but those who had been walking on the streets and who had seen the accident from that vantage point. She pondered the location, and, when Rodney texted her and asked where she was, she answered by calling him. “I just walked around the five crime scene areas along the boulevard.”
“It’s quite something, isn’t it?”
“The grounds are gorgeous and amazingly open for people to walk and to take advantage of the countryside. Where are you?”
“I just finished with another group who arrived. Sounds like they’d been here earlier and came back. I’m on my way to you.”
When he met up with her, she guessed, “So, as usual, nobody really saw anything.”
“One thought he saw her riding on a bike—or saw someone riding a bike. He did describe the red hoodie though.”
“So beforehand.”
“Yes.”
“Did they have anything to say that was helpful?”
He shook his head. “Not really. They crossed there.” Rodney pointed, facing the intersection and using his left hand. “They were walking from here over to the other side. One guy glanced this way and saw the cyclist coming, so he was past the viewing point when she was hit.”
“Yes, but,” Kate said thoughtfully, “that means she was riding the bike then.”
He stopped, frowned, and nodded.
“So we know that the bullet hit somewhere after she cut out of his view, right? Could he explain how close?”
“He said it was down a way. Close enough that he could see she had on a red jacket, but too far away to determine that she was a she.”
“Okay, so what are we talking about then? Thirty or forty meters?” Kate asked.
He nodded. “Walk backward.”
She immediately stepped backward until she got closer to the point of impact with the car. “What about here?” she yelled.
“I can see your jacket, but I can’t see any details.”
As she walked closer, he stopped her. “You know what? Right about there is maybe one hundred feet out. I can see that your jacket is black. I can see that you’ve got the hood up, and surely I could see that you’re on a bike at that point, right? At a quick glance that’s probably as close as I get with these parameters.”
She nodded and continued to walk forward. She looked around. “This area has no cameras of course. Absolutely nothing here for any security. It’s wide-open grounds. Other people could have been walking here, but that didn’t mean they paid any attention either.” Kate shook her head. “Not only didn’t they pay any attention but they might not have had any clue that something was wrong with her. And the car wouldn’t have hit her necessarily until the intersection.”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. Was she shot before and went down, then got hit by a car? What does the driver say?”
“Right.” She rolled her eyes. “No driver because he took off.”
“Well, he’s probably afraid that he killed her.”
“He might have, but, if he’d stayed in place, it would have gone much better for him, and we would have had a hell of a lot more information,” she snapped. She ran her fingers through her hair. “It’s just so frustrating that people can’t do what they’re supposed to do.”
“If they’ll get in trouble, nobody will do it,” Rodney said, with a weary smile.
“I know. I know.” She waved her hand dismissively. “It’s still just pissy.”
“Pissy it is.” He nodded. “A good word for it.”
She sighed. “I get it. Nothing really to fuss about.”
“It is frustrating, particularly in this case, because we m
ight have found out that she was already dead before she made contact with the vehicle. So right now, our driver is probably hiding at home, terrified to be sent up for vehicular manslaughter.”
“Or worse.” She nodded, with a roll of her head to loosen her tightening neck and shoulder muscles. “Reese can check city cameras here, to see if we have anything that gives us a clear view.”
“Yeah, should be waiting on us, as soon as we arrive at the station. I’ve already put in a request.”
“Okay. I guess it’s back to the office then, huh?” Kate stopped, looked around, and swore. “Still seems like such a waste.”
“It’s always a waste,” he said. “No other way to describe it.”
“I know.” She looked back at him and smiled. “You driving?”
“I can if you like,” he said. “You drove here.”
“I did, but I’m feeling a little on the tired side.”
“It’s all good,” Rodney said. “Let’s go.”
*
He watched the vehicle pull out and away. He didn’t know who they were, but he had taken several photographs of their vehicle and the two people wandering around who had gotten out of that vehicle. They had been flashing badges early enough, but he didn’t think they realized they were being observed. Or, if they did, they didn’t care. That always fascinated him. Everybody always thought that they were in charge, that somebody out there was beneath them.
In this case, the woman fascinated him. Tall, sparse, and lean, she walked with a clip to her step and strode around with a no-nonsense demeanor. The guy was slower, more comfortable, not as young, and walked with an easier gait. That guy was okay if it took him an extra couple minutes to get somewhere. His stride was more of a shuffle, although he covered a lot of ground at the same time, but he didn’t have that same tension that the woman had.
He’d watched her as soon as she had arrived. It was fascinating. The whole thing was fascinating. It was always the best part; he knew that. He’d certainly been told that, and, right now, it was … sheer fun. But the fun was beginning to wane. He felt the adrenaline—that had been so high and had spiked earlier—now dissipating, and he missed it.
He missed that high. He missed that sense of being in control, that feeling of living on the edge. Somewhat like crossing a wire with no safety rope or net to catch you. That sense of danger, that sense of purpose, that goal that you needed to accomplish before everything blew up in your face.
When he reached that goal, this euphoric moment washed over him, this sense of Oh my God, I did it, along with the panic, the fear, and the complete chaos running through his mind. But he was here. He was done with his earlier deed. He was good, and the investigators had no freaking clue. He smiled, took a sip of his coffee, and watched as the rest of the details played out.
All of the action was long gone, and he thought that was interesting too. He figured it would take hours and hours for sure, but it didn’t. They had been beyond efficient. But, to them, there was absolutely nothing to this. And here he was, already looking at a completely normal traffic pattern.
That was a disappointment.
And even now the two investigators pulled away in the small Jeep that she had driven in, yet he had driven out. He wondered if they were partners in life as well or if there even was such a thing. They were dressed in plain clothes, so they couldn’t be street cops. Had been plenty of uniforms on the scene earlier; still were a couple. But any motor vehicle accident involving a fatality would bring more than the average patrolman, since an investigation would have to be done.
And that was very true. It was all good and definitely something he wanted to keep feeling. But he also didn’t want to lose his focus—or his reason for doing this. With a smile he turned and poured himself another cup of coffee.
Chapter 4
Kate walked into the bullpen, sat down at her desk, and downloaded the photos off her phone into her computer. After printing those out, she put them all into a physical file, setting up a new one for this latest UBC case.
“What’s the matter?” Rodney asked.
She looked over at him, shrugged. “I’m … not sure. I—I just—something’s wrong about that bullet.”
“What do you mean?” he said.
“Based on the entry wound, it had to be super-small, like a BB or a pellet.”
He frowned at that. “If the shot happened from a distance, regardless of the size of the ammo, wouldn’t she have completely collapsed from the force alone?”
She replied, “I don’t know. I mean, do people continue to walk or to ride a bike after that? Could she have been disoriented enough that she rode into an intersection, where she was hit by a car? What was the sequence of events? What are the chances that somebody came up after the motor vehicle collided with her, carrying a small BB gun, and shot her behind the ear, even though she was down and potentially already dead?”
Rodney looked at her in shock.
Kate shrugged. “I’m just tossing out ideas and various concepts as to what could be going on here because it doesn’t make sense to me.”
“So, you’re taking something that looks like a pretty normal shooting, where the person is shot in the head, and circumstances propel her forward into traffic, where she also gets hit by a vehicle, but now you’re wondering if that’s how it really happened?”
“Yes, I am. You didn’t see the size of that hole.”
“I’ll wait for the autopsy report, thanks.”
“And I get that. I know it’s not your thing to stand beside the dead, whereas it fascinates me. I could easily have gone into that field myself.”
“Why didn’t you?” She just gave him that look. His gaze caught sight of the folders beside her, and he winced. “Sorry. Okay, so we obviously know why you didn’t, and I applaud you for the dedication that took you down this pathway because we obviously need your help,” he said, with a smile.
She rolled her eyes at that. “I don’t know about that, but this case?” She shook her head. “Just … something feels off.”
“Definitely something is off in the sense that she was killed for no apparent reason. She was picked out as a victim, targeted, and brought down. But why?”
“That’s what we have to find out,” she said, turning to her computer.
“Where will you start with that?” he asked curiously.
She smiled. “First, I’ll go through these faces at the crime scene because there’s always that—that feeling that somebody out there is watching what we’re doing. Watching however long we’re out there doing it.”
“I’m sure there is.” Rodney nodded. “The press is always looking to hunt down whatever it is that we’ve found and to tear us apart for our methods, and the general public is right there with them.”
“When you say it that way, why would anyone even want to do this job, since everybody is out there working against us?” she asked, looking at him sideways.
“I’ve asked myself that a hundred times,” he said, with a grimace.
“Did you ever get an answer?”
“Not a good one.” He laughed. “I mean, when you think about it, what’s a good answer?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head, then pulled up all the images she’d taken, and slowly sorted through them. A couple that were really terrible she deleted, since she had better ones. “I have got to get a better camera phone,” she muttered.
“Yeah? Will you learn to use it properly?”
“I sure need to,” she said. “Some of these are great, and some of these are shitty. I mean, like, why? Why is one better than the other?” She shook her head again.
“Usually it’s because you moved, or you didn’t give it a chance to lock on to whatever it was supposed to focus on,” he muttered.
“I can see that in some of these. When you look at them, it’s pretty obvious that I was either still in motion or hadn’t stopped long enough because they’re blurry.”
“Exactly, but, if
they’re not any good, you took another one.”
“I took a lot from every position. I took hundreds of them. I think I was just snapping, afraid whoever would be out there was already leaving.”
He looked at her. “We often talk about having that feeling that somebody committed a crime and stood around to watch. But why would they in a case like this?”
“I don’t know. Maybe just for the chaos. Or maybe to make sure she was dead because they didn’t get the chance to confirm it.”
He frowned at that, as he turned back to his desk. “It could be any number of things, and the problem is, … they all suck,” he snapped.
“Yep, they all do, but it doesn’t change the facts.”
Sergeant Colby Stevens walked in just then. “What are we looking at?” he asked, one eyebrow lifted.
She shrugged. “We had what we initially thought wouldn’t be a case for us, but, as it turned out, it is.”
“Okay, try again, and this time tell me something,” he said.
“Aren’t you supposed to be off doing paperwork or schmoozing with the brass?” Kate asked.
He glared at her. “Come on. Spill it. As you just pointed out, some of my tasks aren’t that enjoyable. So I’m looking for a distraction.” He added, “I don’t like what I have to do next, so you can take my mind off it.”
“Fine, that’s way too much information. We have a woman struck by a vehicle.”
“Okay. So why did it end up on our desk?”
“We had an unidentified body, which is why we got the call in the first place,” Rodney said.
“It looked like a vehicular accident, but we weren’t sure,” she interrupted, “and, when the coroner took a look, we found a small hole of some kind behind the ear.”
“Bullet hole? She was shot?” he asked, his eyebrows rising.
“Well, we said shot, but I’m not exactly sure with what just yet. It was an extremely small caliber.”
“So, an air gun?”
“We don’t know. Maybe a BB gun or something smaller than a .22.” She scrunched up her face. “I’m not exactly sure what’s out there when it comes to something that small.”
