The Room Where It Happened

by Jason Letts

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Chapter 01

  Chapter 02

  Chapter 03

  Chapter 04

  Chapter 05

  Chapter 06

  Chapter 07

  Chapter 08

  Chapter 09

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Copyright Page

  THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENED

  Jason Letts

  CHAPTER 1

  He was looking at her that way again.

  Those hungry blue eyes cast a lurid gaze in her direction, washing over her features and seeming to revel in her presence. She turned away, shuddering, and reached for the handle on the passenger-side door of their squad car.

  “Come on. Let’s get going,” she said, trying to stay upbeat.

  Johnny Rittigen slumped back in his seat and groaned, letting his hand slip off of the wheel with such carelessness that it audibly smacked against his thigh. They’d been partners for nearly a month now, and not a day on the job went by when she wasn’t reminded that the only thing he hoped to accomplish at work was getting into her pants.

  “Are you kidding me? Not again, Tera.”

  Her fingers still on the door handle, she kept her frustration in check. He was a solidly-built guy with short, reddish hair and freckles on his cheeks. Her eight months on the force was nothing compared to his two plus years, which was why he was already rank III and her supervising officer on their beat.

  “Nothing’s going to happen sitting in here,” she said, hoping he would get the double entendre. He ran a finger over his upper lip and looked through the windshield in front of them at one of O-Block’s vacant city streets. They were parked in a narrow alley with windowless brick buildings on both sides. Along with the headlights being off, they were quite well concealed.

  “That’s the whole point,” he said with a grin. “Besides, I just figured out how to get Netflix to work on this thing.”

  Johnny grabbed hold of the vehicle’s dash monitor and started fiddling with whatever it was in the back of the device that he’d tampered with as he raised an eyebrow at her. The longer she stayed in the vehicle, the harder it would be to hold him back from the make-out session and more in the back seat that his heavy breathing hinted might be close at hand. One of the things Tera wanted more than anything was to have a good working relationship with her partner, but he kept making it difficult.

  Tera popped the door open and set foot on the asphalt in the dark alley.

  “I’ll let you know if I need any help,” she said, shutting the door when he didn’t respond with more than a curdled grimace.

  Stepping toward the street and taking a deep breath of the warm summer air, she tried to put him out of her mind. The streets around here had a bad reputation and she’d learned first hand how even many police officers didn’t want to be out in them. This was Chicago’s south side, after all, but it was also her home.

  She reached the dirty, rundown street, which ran between small apartment buildings, the odd dingy storefront, and cheap single-family homes that hadn’t seen a splash of paint in decades. The lights were on at the crack house on the other side of the street. Some yelling inside the building right behind her filtered through the brick exterior.

  This was her home turf, and she’d asked for this beat thinking that she could make a difference in the place she grew up, where things were tough for kids growing up. Skulking between buildings, hiding from the gangs, and trying to survive till the morning was the nightlife she knew.

  But during the day it wasn’t so bad, and she knew a fair number of the people, many of whom were good and honest. Protecting them was what she got into this line of work for. Somebody had to. And based on her life experiences, no one would if she didn’t.

  Around here she learned what her code was: live fast and love hard. She was ten years old when her father was shot and killed at the age of thirty, and ever since then that had seemed like the appropriate length of a life. That meant she had six years left to live, but if it came to an end early she’d have no regrets.

  Tera continued on, beginning to wonder if she really would be spending the night pointlessly walking the streets. So far she’d mostly handled domestic disputes, petty thefts; occasionally she’d be another officer on the scene for something more serious as the veterans called the shots. If it wasn’t for the name tag on her uniform most of the other officers at the precinct wouldn’t even know her name, but that was something she was working to change.

  She noticed her reflection in the large pane of glass of an empty storefront, wreathed in graffiti. Reaching out to touch it as if it could finally give her the connection with someone she wanted, she noticed the olive skin and unpainted nails of her hand. Her shoulder-length hair was jet black. Whether it was her dark brown eyes or thin lips, her appearance seemed to have the desired effect of getting across that she meant business. When it came to men, she certainly had an effect, desired or not.

  Some noise drew her attention and caused her to pull away, but before she could consider what it was the sound of shouting caught her ears.

  “Help! Somebody help! Please!”

  Without a second thought, Tera took off running. Shouting for help around here was more likely to create problems with whoever came than solve them, so it had to be pretty bad for somebody to resort to that. Her first thought, for whatever reason, was that someone had fallen.

  But as she rounded the corner and sprinted down the street, the stocky man hollering on the sidewalk was upright, even if his hands were on his head and he appeared to be listing about aimlessly. Her footsteps caught his attention, and when he turned to her he appeared surprised and at a loss for words.

  A police officer was probably the last person he expected to show up, but it was a good thing she did. No one else appeared to be coming.

  “Hey, what’s the problem?” she asked, catching her breath. It took him a moment to overcome his hesitation, and in that time Tera imagined there was something familiar about the man, who had stubble on his upper lip and thick eyebrows. Probably just someone she’d seen passing by in the neighborhood one time or another.

  “I…‌I…‌she’s gone. I can’t believe it. She’s gone. Please do something,” he said, choking back tears.

  “What do you mean? Who’s gone?” Tera asked, and for a second it still seemed possible that the man’s wife had left him or something. But he was already leading her up the steps of the apartment building, and Tera began to get the sense that something much worse than a domestic dispute was going on.

  The door creaked loudly as he pulled it open, as did the floorboards inside an apartment building that had to be on the verge of condemnation. The walls, stairs, and railing all seemed so brittle. The air was musty with a trace of marijuana smoke to it.

  “She hadn’t been returning my calls, so I up and decided to come over to check on her. I just…‌it hurts so bad. Never expected…”

  Tera didn’t recall ever being in this building before, but she wouldn’t be getting much of a tour as the man left the stairwell at the second floor, where he hustled to an open doorway to the right. Although the corridor was dark, light from inside the apartment spilled out in front of the doorway like a rectangular welcome mat.

  As they entered, her hand drifted over her 9mm Luger, a habit she’d picked up quickly and had needed to follow through on a number of times already in her short tenure. The apartment appeared vacant and empty, but its layout was like that of many buildings in the area. The cramped space would barely qualify as a room in most other parts of town, but here a tiny kitchen branche
d out into a bathroom and bedroom.

  The man leaned against the kitchen counter, hunching over and wheezing. In the light she could see paint flecks on his overalls and even in his curly black hair. His tough, calloused hands had the marks of a working man, something of a rarity around here.

  “I can’t go in there again. Please,” he said, unable to look at her or the bedroom, which Tera cautiously inched toward. Before she’d even reached the open doorway, she got a sense of the stench, and that gave away what she was in for as much as anything could. Human bodies expel waste when they pass, and it wasn’t a good sign that there’d been plenty of time for this to take to the air.

  Her hand over her mouth and grimacing, she dreaded what she was about to find. Considering it was a small room with barely enough space for a bed and a dresser desk, it didn’t take her long to see the dead body that had caused the man so much anguish. Although she’d been prepared to see a body and had done so relatively frequently in her work, not to mention her life, she hadn’t expected this.

  The young woman was lying flat on the bed’s dirty yellow sheets, thin blanket leaving her right breast exposed as it draped down to the floor. She was entirely nude, and her head was shifted hard to the side in a way that looked painful, chin right over her shoulder.

  As Tera came closer and began to analyze what she was seeing, she noticed the blood staining the sheets at the top of the bed. The bullet hole near the side of her temple was nearly imperceptible, the result of someone using a gun to press her head against the mattress before pulling the trigger, but in Tera’s mind the visible signs of the cause of death instantly got washed away as she caught sight of the victim’s face.

  Tera gasped and lost her footing as she stumbled backward, crashing into the side of the desk. From the young woman’s dyed blonde hair to the pretty eyes, now so glassy and lifeless, to her reddened cheeks, this was a face she could never forget.

  Suddenly the glimmer of recognition for the man made sense. She’d crossed paths with him a couple of times years and years ago, but Tera and this girl had had the kind of low key high school friendship that didn’t require much parental involvement. Mostly they’d just bump into each other around the neighborhood and end up doing the same thing, or they’d see each other in school in the halls or at an event and quietly enjoy each other’s company without ever bringing it up.

  But that was if this was actually who she thought it was. It had to be, but she couldn’t believe it, and the aching in her chest started to grow.

  “What’s her name?” Tera called, trying not to let her voice warble. The father replied from the kitchen.

  “That’s my baby girl, Kimberly Parkinson.” He started breaking down again.

  Tera slumped onto her knees, shivering as her face came parallel to Kim’s. They’d left high school years ago and hardly talked since, but one memory from shortly before graduation came to mind. She was filling out her community college application in the library when Kim swept by and happened to notice.

  “Don’t sell yourself short, Tera Caldera. You’ve got what it takes,” she’d said with a smile Tera would never forget.

  Tera hadn’t taken the advice to heart and sent in the application anyway, rather than getting a new one for state school like Kim’s point implied, but the warm memory and the scarce feeling of being supported stayed with her. Kim had been one of the few people who’d made her teen years bearable. Now she was gone, evidently gunned down immediately after sex if her clothes haphazardly strewn about the floor in an otherwise neat room were any indication.

  The indignation and the pain swelled in her gut, as did the feeling of loss. Tera recalled that Kim’s mother was on public assistance but had often helped out with events at the school. What Kim did was unknown, but in a place like this for those with subsidized housing it hadn’t been enough to rise out of the squalor they’d grown up with. And if there’d been anyone who’d had what it took, it was Kim, a good student and clever girl.

  Tera tried to freeze her face so that the impulse to weep wouldn’t overcome her.

  Standing up and looking around, she tried to figure out what to do next. Calling Johnny to help her out was high on her list, but the lessons she’d learned growing up were that the police were the last people to call, not the first. Tera tried to see if there was anything else in the room that might indicate what happened or who did this.

  There wasn’t much to work with, nothing that stood out as being out of place or belonging to a man. Not so much as a bottle or drink that they may have been having shortly before this happened. For all she knew, the body had been here at least since last night. There were no other signs of a struggle or visible injuries on Kim’s beautiful young body.

  Suddenly nervous about what the father would think, Tera glanced at the doorway before she began a more thorough search of the room. The cheap laptop on the desk was not on. The window was securely closed.

  That was when Tera nudged open the bottom drawer with a knuckle tugging on the bottom side, avoiding the knob in case it had fingerprints. What she saw inside made her clutch her chest. Her eyes widened. A handful of dime bags containing white powder. Was Kim dealing coke now?

  On the one hand it didn’t seem like all that much, but for any one person it was quite a lot. One thing was for sure, if her father had been aware of this, he never would’ve let her in here. Nobody in their right mind would be caught in the same room as a police officer when drugs were found. His life and Kim’s mother’s public assistance and housing, not to mention their freedom, was all suddenly on the line.

  Growing up, they called it the “family vacation,” when the wrong person would catch wind of something somebody was doing and suddenly the entire family would disappear, never to be heard from again. Whether it was prison, the juvenile detention system, or just homelessness somewhere else, every year another family they’d lived alongside for as long as they could remember would vanish without a trace.

  And now Kim’s father had inadvertently put himself next in line because of whatever it was that she’d been caught up in. Tera had to find a way to get justice for Kim without pulling down her family.

  “Can I help?” The father muttered weakly from the other room, and Tera hastily pushed the drawer closed. He must’ve grown suspicious about something, either the time she was in there or her own labored breathing.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” Tera said, not able to hint at what she was doing.

  Back in school Kim had been clean as a whistle. Yeah, they drank some, but drugs were never their style. Certainly nothing like this. Years had passed since they’d seen each other, but Tera had a hard time believing that Kim had turned to this kind of life, where the existence of drugs in salable amounts made it a short hop to speculating about prostitution, theft, and all manner of crimes that the neighborhood was rife with.

  But one more look at Kim’s face, her eerie open eyes, made Tera deeply question it. The girl didn’t look at all like the addicts she’d seen. She was still so much like the teenage girl who knew she didn’t have to act wild to get attention. Apart from some clothes on the floor that she may have taken off in a rush shortly before it happened, the room was relatively tidy.

  Tera’s heart was breaking.

  In her mind she could see the towering stack of open cases that were basically forgotten lost causes that no one would ever get around to seriously investigating. Her head spun one time she’d seen some files about a double homicide and one of the detectives said they’d get to it when they could, meaning never. All Kim had to look forward to was being a statistic in Chicago’s crime-ridden south side.

  Plus, calling Johnny or anyone back at the precinct would take a tragedy and make it ten times worse for her parents, whose grief would leave them with little defense against the legal and bureaucratic nightmare in front of them.

  Beginning to shake, she needed to find a better way. This seemed to go beyond her job, like a part of herself had been atta
cked and killed. If she could just get a good lead and a little evidence on the killer there was a chance she could convince someone higher up at the department to give Kim’s case the attention it deserved.

  She knew she had to do something, had to find out who did this. Or else maybe she couldn’t make a difference after all.

  After one last look at her departed friend, whose life had been cut short much too soon and in a grotesque and disturbing way, Tera left the bedroom and returned to the kitchen with her best impression of a calm and principled police officer on. The father was leaning against the sink with his hand over his face, peering at her from just above his fingers that had hints of white paint on them.

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Parkinson. We’re going to get to the bottom of this, I promise,” she said, his eyes widening. “If we’re going to find out who killed your daughter, it’s going to be because we’ve gathered enough information to determine what was going on in her life at the time that this happened.”

  “Right,” he said, seeming a little encouraged.

  “Do you know who was with her last? I’m guessing last night,” Tera said.

  “Before I reached out to her, it’d been a week or two since we’d spoken. She always replied quickly, but I don’t know how she ended up like this.”

  Tera sighed, pressing her mind to think faster. She could do this. She knew she could.

  “Was there a guy she’s been seeing?” she asked. The question brought a pained look to the man’s face, which she hoped meant that there was a clear answer coming.

  “I hate to put it like this, but she always had a number of guys around. This one this week and that one that week. It was always somebody different. But that’s not a bad thing. You understand, right? She’s a grown woman who gets to do what she wants,” he said.

  Tera felt like she was walking on eggshells, needing more information but not wanting to brutalize this poor man with all of the details of his daughter’s sexual habits. And Tera could sympathize. A handful of times sprung into her head when she’d thought she’d met a good guy only for him to prove himself otherwise before the week was out. Finding love wasn’t easy.