Soul Food

by Gareth Lewis

  Soul Food

  Gareth Lewis

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2017 Gareth Lewis

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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  1

  Who watches the watchmen? Bastards, that's who.

  Internal Affairs has two settings: hostile and indifferent. They only really see you if you make yourself a potential victim. And the more victims they get, the better their chances of escaping Internal Affairs. Because really, who would actually want to be there?

  And why am I so often a target of their attention?

  'Another murder, Detective Blake.' Wolfe manages to suppress a growl from her voice this time, if not the predatory glint from her eyes.

  'Killing,' I say. 'Murder's a crime.' And generally requires more intent than I possessed.

  'We'll be the judge of that.'

  'Investigator and judge? What about jury? Will you be that too?'

  That she doesn't lash out is probably as much restraint as I can expect. She considers herself a professional hardass. Sitting there in the type of sharp suit and tightly bound hair that could make an Edwardian lady feel guilty of slovenliness, she doesn't bother to hide from her eyes the hunger of a high-achiever whose talent is incompatible with her ambition.

  She has the understandable frustration of dealing with the types of criminal who know how to get away with stuff. Not me, obviously. But there's the ghost of fear in the corner of her eyes that she'll never escape IA. That she'll be stuck here like her partner.

  'Could you describe for us again the sequence of events,' says Sinclair, sitting alongside her.

  He's an IA lifer. You can see in the eyes he's given up on any chance of getting a proper job. It makes him less likely to go actively digging for dirt. He'll just hold Wolfe's jacket while she does. And woe to him should it get any creases.

  It's generally accepted that most in IA are either fast-trackers, or those who've been caught doing something less than murder and took what looked like the soft option. Wolfe I'm fairly certain of. Sinclair less so.

  It's possible he stole the suit. I can't see anyone paying money for it. But until the '90s reports it missing, I can't arrest him for it. I'm proper police, not fashion police.

  He looks a bit too young for the grey hairs, but that's what IA'll do to you. It drains your will to fight the grey.

  'We went to question a witness,' I repeat for maybe the fifth time today.

  'A suspect?' asks Wolfe.

  'Not at that time.' Because that would've meant we'd have had to formally question him, letting him have a lawyer and similar concessions. They always get in the way of police-work. 'We'd just intended it to be a conversation.'

  'So many of your intentions seem to end in bullets,' says Wolfe.

  'Not really. Just the ones you hear about.'

  'A statistically unusual number,' says Sinclair.

  'You shoot a lot of people,' says Wolfe. In case I didn't understand her partner.

  'Bad people,' I say.

  'Are you the judge now?' asks Wolfe.

  'I've been cleared on previous shootings. Should they therefore be considered relevant?'

  'They present a pattern,' says Sinclair.

  'Of psychosis,' says Wolfe.

  'Is that a clinical diagnosis?' I ask.

  With a growing scowl, Wolfe stands and starts pacing around their side of the room. Her eyes rarely leave me for more than a couple of seconds. Probably afraid I'll steal the pen she left with her notes. Maybe that's a trap.

  The interview room is unnaturally clean. IA got the shiny new offices. Their knowledge of bribery put to good use, no doubt. The shine won't last long though. Cop desks tarnish any shine around them fairly quickly. Even for pretend cops.

  'The suspect drew on you when you pushed too hard,' says Sinclair.

  'The witness grew agitated. We invited him to the station. For a formal interview.'

  'So you decided to finally let the suspect have access to his right to counsel.'

  'He escalated himself from a witness.'

  'And you weren't watching for a gun?'

  'Obviously we were watching. Otherwise we'd be dead. And no doubt still in contravention of policy.'

  'You think this is a joke?' Wolfe almost growls this time.

  'No, but I'm trying to amuse myself until you finish with the pointless flexing.'

  'Does it even bother you?' she asks. 'Killing?'

  'Killing a killer?' We found enough evidence, post-mortem, to close the case. With no danger of appeals threatening the holy stats. 'I didn't force him to draw.' Maybe I gave him the opportunity, but he had a choice. I simply respected his right to choose.

  Portelli, my union representative, finally chips in. 'Detective Reilly's statement matches...'

  'Isn't that surprising,' snaps Wolfe.

  Portelli doesn't glance up from his phone. His Candy Crush addiction is too strong for proceedings to occupy too much of his attention. 'Detective Reilly's statement matches Detective Blake's. But please feel free to continue wasting our time. We're all on the clock here.'

  'It's not as though I have a murder to investigate or anything,' I say. I'm assuming that was what the alert on my phone was. Not just Jake wanting to know how it's going.

  'Suspects have rights,' says Wolfe. She probably isn't happy about certain suspects having them.

  'As do witnesses,' I say. 'And police officers have a right not to get shot.'

  Sinclair leans forward, before Wolfe can respond. 'Given how often you've had to kill to defend that right, one might wonder at your facility in finding such situations.'

  'I'm a cop. It's kind of in the job description. For proper cops.'

  'Some other cops have never pulled their gun during their career,' says Wolfe.

  'Some other cops have shorter careers, and lives. And I daresay I get better stats. I do give good stats.' Good stats can excuse minor improprieties.

  It's not as though I've ever fatally shot anyone whose guilt I wasn't certain of. If only guilt of drawing on a cop. Most of them were career criminals anyway. They chose a life that probability suggests will end in violence. Practically a permission slip to be shot.

  Why should I feel sorry for them, even if I were wired that way? Or to feel anything beyond recoil? It's not like I don't give them the chance to come quietly.

  'We have rules,' says Wolfe.

  As do I. And in general, they coincide. It's not as though I randomly shoot any bad guy I happen across. That'd get messy. And be too easy. The game has to have some challenge.

  'Are we approaching a question?' asks Portelli. 'Or can I totally blank you out? Because we all know this shooting was good.'

  'The number of shootings is suspicious,' says Wolfe, her eyes still on me.

  'Detective Blake saw the department psychologist after the last shooting,' says Portelli. 'He was given a clean bill of mental health.'

  That'd been fun. Or at least offered its own kind of challenge, to not be labelled a sociopath. It was almost its own game.

  Maybe I should treat this more like a game. Except to make sure I don't shoot anyone here. That'd be bad. But games are less fun without gunplay.

  'If he'd been classed unfit, you'd have already pulled him off the streets,'
says Portelli. 'So this borders on harassment.'

  'We're investigating a killing,' says Wolfe, finally turning her glare on him.

  It fails to draw his attention from his game.

  'What's to investigate?' I ask. 'I did it. In self-defence.'

  'Which forensics confirms,' says Portelli.

  Wolfe seethes, obviously frustrated she can't just shoot me. But they're IA. They probably have to fill out a dozen forms in triplicate for a bathroom break.

  Also, she can't prove I did anything illegal. Because I didn't. I always make sure of that. Certainly nothing prosecutable. Not that that always matters. There's still the threat of ending my career on technicalities. That's the threat they hold over all cops. Their main source of power.

  But it's only a power if you let it be. If you view your career as your life. I'd be the same person even if I wasn't a cop. But being on the job makes who I am easier to be.

  Though I'm starting to think maybe I should cut back on shooting people for a while. Fatally, anyway.

  2

  The one area of modern policing where Internal Affairs excel is paperwork. Excel in terms of volume, if not efficiency. So after Wolfe grudgingly agrees I can return to proper police-work - while they continue trying to catch me out, of course - I still have to suffer through half an hour of vindictive administration before I can escape the building. Far too shiny a place for proper police-work to occur.

  Detective Jake Reilly's waiting outside, reclined on the hood of the department-issued car. I assume he's waiting for me, and that the heap of junk didn't just happen to break down here.

  He has two coffees. One he's still drinking. Still relatively hot then, so he must've known I was on my way out.

  I won't ask whether he paid for the coffee. That could get awkward if it was one of the unofficial bribes from the public he views as acceptable.

  He inherited his father's dubious reputation on the force. While he's generally lived it down, it isn't entirely unwarranted.

  As usual, he's wearing a shirt that veers towards the bright. And a tie that's more a loose decoration than an attempt at formality. Not a good look when informing the next of kin of a bereavement, so it's frowned on in homicide. You can take the boy out of vice, but the slimy sheen is harder to scrape off.

  Dragging himself from his prone position, he hands me the other coffee. 'We caught a case.'

  'You waited for me?'

  He shrugs. 'She's already dead. No rush.'

  He still turns on the lights and sirens as soon as we're in the car. Never seen the appeal myself, but it keeps him happy.

  I'm sure the sirens have been toned down. Possibly to draw less attention to the piece of shit cutbacks have left us driving around in. Though with Jake driving, we're generally not around long enough for anyone to determine the model, let alone its state of decrepitude. The strain on the engines as we speed past swerving pedestrians threatens to overwhelm the sirens.

  I don't pay too close attention to our surroundings. Not from fear of crashing, as much as to avoid noticing Jake's driving misdemeanours. He hates it when I charge him on those.

  'Where we headed?' I ask. May as well learn what he knows. Show some involvement.

  'The Apollo Hotel, on Franklin. Anonymous call said there's a body. Uni's checked and were surprised to find it genuine.' And probably disappointed, having to man the scene for hours.

  'Staff see anything?'

  'Place's been derelict for years.'

  'The body's definitely one for us?' I ask. Because it's not unknown for us to get lumbered with undetermined CODs that end up being natural causes. They can take almost as much paperwork as actual murders, with none of the stat clearance.

  'She was definitely sliced up. Not self-inflicted, from what I've heard.'

  'Who is she?'

  He takes a hand off the wheel to pull up the details on his phone. I could have waited for what he can't recall. 'Provisionally IDed as Fiona Mortimer. Sales Consultant at a company called Tempusonics. Haven't got around to looking them up.'

  We swerve around someone slow to spot us.

  'It can wait,' I assure him. 'Time of death?'

  'Probably overnight.' He puts the phone away, and his hand back on the wheel. 'You know no one'll give us anything firm until we narrow it down another way.'

  'Killed on site?'

  He shrugs. He's never very detail oriented unless his interest is aroused, and that can take some doing.

  'How'd it go?' he finally gets around to asking. He glances nonchalantly at me, but there's a hint of nerves.

  'The usual.'

  'Is it over? Or ongoing?'

  Worried the interest will draw attention to his perks?

  'They may see me as a promotional target,' I say.

  'That's not good.' He swerves around a bus slow to halt its emergence from a junction. 'Watch where you're going. Public transport workers. They could be watching you.'

  'The public transport workers?'

  'IA.'

  I shrug. 'Not my driving they'll be taking notes on at the moment.'

  'I'd have lost them blocks back,' he says in a dismissive tone. One that doesn't quite suppress a hint of concern.

  Not that I'm entirely comfortable with the thought of their attention.

  We screech out of an intersection, and I start hoping IA will be watching me for a while. That'll mean I've survived this trip.

  3

  The street looks like it might have seen better days. Once upon a time. Maybe. The few small businesses that seem to still be in operation don't match the hotel's exterior décor, so I get the feeling it's been derelict more than a couple of years. And probably not doing too well before that.

  The only traffic seems to be passing through, and there's little of that at the moment. I imagine it'd be dead at night. There's only one camera I can see. Facing away, and quite possibly inoperative.

  It's looking like a good place to conduct illicit activities, and a bad place to investigate them. Which sounds about right for my luck.

  I've no doubt the local surveillance will be checked, and we'll be informed if there's anything. Best to note it on the system as an action though, to cover us in case someone doesn't do their job.

  We park opposite the huddle of patrol cars. They're aging, but probably still in better condition than what we arrive in. Because they can be identified as police without siren and lights going, so when parked the public can see what condition they're in. Our pile is undercover, and the rust is probably considered blending in.

  The off-white coroners van is parked haphazardly nearby the huddle. Would anyone actually ticket a coroner's van?

  The murk as we enter the hotel foyer seems to be from more than just the limited light. The large windows to either side of the entrance have been mostly broken and boarded over. All but a couple of the higher panes, which grudgingly let some daylight eke through.

  Do the boards imply someone thinks the place will see use again? It'd take more than new glass and a quick clean to make it habitable.

  Feels like the place was depressed even before it closed up. There's a despair that seems to have soaked into the walls, and is sticking to them with more vehemence than the drooping wallpaper. And probably with more honesty that the faux cheerful floral patterns, even before they faded.

  This hasn't been a happy place for a long time. But I doubt it would have stayed in operation long with the pall that now hangs over it.

  Of course, with it being derelict, we have to use the stairs. And the body's on the sixth floor. If it is a dump site, somebody got their exercise. And all the stairs between the lobby and the scene will need to be gone over by forensics. So we don the foot coverings the cop in the lobby hands out.

  How did someone happen across a body all the way up there?

  Reaching the sixth floor, I'll admit to being slightly winded. No way would I bother lugging a corpse up here.

  There's a small huddle of unis just inside th
e stairwell door. They regard us with indifference. It's forensics they'll have to wait for before they can get out of here.

  The body's easy to find, lying out in the corridor down to the right.

  She was stabbed in the neck. Here, from the spray on the wall and murky carpeting. No void, so the killer was careful to stay out of the way. And it's localised, so I doubt there was much of a struggle. No signs of struggle on the rest of her, either. From what I can see where the blood hasn't soaked in.

  Smartly dressed. Business-like. Straight from work, or here on business?

  She'd stand out in this neighbourhood. If there was anyone about to stand out against, or to.

  I start reasoning out loud. Jake hates it when I don't share. The unis are far enough away not to be bothered, and the coroner's guys are lounging up the other end of the corridor.

  Everybody else is waiting on forensics, and otherwise don't really care.

  'At first glance it looks like she was drawn here. The killer was behind her, stabbed her in the neck. They either took her down quickly, or held her in place. I'd expect her to have stumbled around a bit otherwise, the spray going wider.'

  'Someone she trusted,' says Jake. 'Why here?'

  'Makes a good site. Quiet late at night.'

  'It'd be as quiet on the first floor,' says Jake. 'And they'd have fewer stairs to climb. Unless there were vagrants about. It would be a nice dry place to crash.'

  'If there were witnesses, it wouldn't be as good a place to use. Going up a few floors wouldn't help that, so it remains a good question.'

  Or maybe just a distraction. People intent on killing don't necessarily think clearly, and can be prone to a surfeit of caution. There's no point in forcing the mystery where there is none. Most murders turn out to be banal. It's simply something you have to get used to. Even if you occasionally hope for a decent mystery to sink your teeth into.

  Jake stands after carefully rifling through her pockets. With gloves, thankfully. He must be thinking of IA's gaze.