by Jason Letts
“U free 2nite?” the text read, and she knew it was from Lawrence. Containing her excitement was excruciatingly difficult, but she didn’t want to get her Mama’s hopes up yet. Maybe in a week or two if it was still going on they’d be able to meet for lunch or something. It would be nice to have a good answer for her personal questions.
“What’s that about?” Eliza asked, leaning forward to try to look.
“It’s work. There’s an emergency going on and I might need to go in a little later,” she said. Her mother wanted to hear about a relationship, not the casual hookups with men she’d just met that tenuously could extend to a second day. Her mind flooded with thoughts about getting back to her apartment and changing into something that would look good if her legs were in the air, or more likely if she were on her hands and knees, but first she had to nail these texts.
“Not free at all. I’m expensive, but I’ll cut you a deal,” she wrote. Time enough for a few more bites passed before he responded, during which Tera managed to tear her eyes away from her phone for about three milliseconds.
“How’s about my room at 7.”
Tera pursed her lips, glaring at the phone. It wasn’t clear if he wanted to meet at his hotel and head out for something from there, or if all he had in mind was a booty call. Her preference was for the former, because their thing wasn’t going to last long if all he wanted from her was sex, but she would find out.
Now that she’d gotten the invitation, she was able to put down the phone and ignore it. Responding at all would’ve been a mistake. Let him stare at his phone, sweat it out, and be pleasantly surprised when she showed up.
After leaving her mother’s and returning to her apartment, it struck her that her wardrobe had some serious deficiencies and wouldn’t hold up to a rendezvous every night for long. But since she’d done black the previous night, it was time for some color, and she grabbed a kaleidoscope skirt with a lime green top that would do the trick.
When she knocked at his door five minutes after seven, she saw he’d also moved on from his funeral attire, as one would expect. Seeing him in what appeared to be the outerwear for workout clothes, Nike athletic pants and a blue long-sleeve tech shirt, was a little underwhelming even if he did still look good in them, but perhaps this was part of the territory when it came to being with a serious athlete.
The good news was that he was intent on going out again, and for all she knew Nike would be paying for her to get through the door and drink. Even though she hadn’t had much the previous night, with work looming the next day she definitely couldn’t go overboard or stay out too late.
They hung out and partied for a couple of hours, mostly talking and laughing with people she couldn’t hear because of the music, and it really started to feel like Lawrence wanted her to be with him when he was talking to people. It was a promising sign, and it greased the wheels for more time that evening with the side of her face pressed against the bed sheets.
It wasn’t Saturday anymore, and that meant another night in the hotel wasn’t going to work when the next day would be busy. He looked surprised when she started to get dressed.
“You’re going?” He looked genuinely disappointed.
“My life isn’t going to let me crash late and sleep in every morning,” she said, even though her work shifts pretty much required that. “It doesn’t mean we can’t find time together, but my schedule is not an open book.”
Deep down, she felt put off by the doggie-style sex, which was impersonal and left her less fulfilled. Next time she planned to take charge more and dictate the agenda, but for now she felt like she needed time to develop a good response if he asked her something like, but doesn’t it feel good? It did, but that wasn’t the only thing that mattered.
Driving home, she was still optimistic about things getting to a good place with Lawrence. He was young, but so far he treated her well and didn’t act wild or reckless like some guys. If there was room for improvement when it came to sex, that had to be a plus and was somewhat expected. Two nights left so much for them to learn about each other.
Her good feelings made it easy to go into work early the next day to find a way to push the issue about the fingerprint samples she’d taken, which she hoped would point directly to Wayne Chechy and maybe even his long-haired accomplice, Meghan.
Heading straight to the lab, she met with one of the techs, a heavyset man who may have grown too big for active duty police work and managed to shift into handling some of the lab work. The room was dim and really not all that large, since there were larger labs at the CPD main offices, but since he was the only one here she hoped that meant he’d be more flexible about helping her out.
Leaning through the open door, she tapped on it to get his attention. He looked up from a disassembled handgun on a work bench in the middle of the room. Tera was sure that if she could get him interested in the case Kim would finally get some real attention.
“Hi, Alex Tartarly, right? I don’t think we’ve ever been properly introduced. Still sort of new here. I’m Tara. You wouldn’t mind giving me a few minutes of your time, would you? I’ve got some prints I’m hoping to run.”
She hoped her sweetest smile would secure his cooperation, but it didn’t seem to move him in the slightest. Still, he set down the barrel he was holding.
“I suppose. Which case is this in reference to?”
Tera stepped in and began to pull out the film samples containing the prints.
“This is about the murder of Kim Parkinson. Perry down in forensics thinks it’s a really important one,” she said, catching herself quickly when he gave her a skeptical look. “We’re looking for more members of the team and for someone to take charge.”
Pursed lips and a deadpan look from the tech followed, and without a word he reached out for her samples. She handed them over, and he began to run his eyes over them as he moved toward a computer and scanner against the back wall.
“Well I can tell you right away about half of these aren’t going to fly,” he said, and Tera’s shoulders slumped. “Some aren’t clean lifts, but some of these prints just look too incomplete, either because it wasn’t a firm press or because the digit making contact was at an odd angle. Using good judgment about which ones to take is so important.”
“The others then,” Tera said, hoping to move the conversation beyond what a bad job she’d done. It was already starting to feel like a lost cause with fifty percent of her samples in the trash bin, and things only got worse from there. Tartarly pulled up the six remaining prints on the screen, and the program began searching for matches.
“Three of these look the same. You can tell from the core leading down to this island. But there’s no match. Whoever this belongs to isn’t in our system.”
“OK,” Tera said, hoping that meant they were Kim’s. Getting into the chair and searching with her name would lend support for that idea.
“The rest are bringing up matches. Two of them belong to a Robert Parkinson, and one to someone named Ted Flint,” he said, and Tera peered at the screen wondering who that was and if she’d managed to stumble onto a big break in her search for Kim’s killer.
“Who’s that?” she asked.
“The print profiles can bring back a lot of info, if it’s available, but you can see here that this one has very little. Evidently just the initial print was logged in the database nearly thirty years ago as part of a public school background check. Must’ve been a teacher or something.”
Tera gritted her teeth, feeling like she was on thin ice. The last thing she wanted to do was tip him off that she was on some kind of vigilante mission under the guise of police training.
“That makes sense. But you agree that this seems like a solvable case, right? Do you think there’s anyone you could talk to, the lieutenant or anyone, who could get this case the attention it deserves?”
Tartarly turned to her with eyes narrowed.
“I’m sorry, but I’m just not seeing how this st
ands out from the other cases going on. What are there, at least a hundred by now? We don’t all get to direct the focus of the police department according to our whims,” he said.
Tara winced in disappointment. Answers like that were allowing Kim’s killer to remain free more than anything.
“Do you mind if I sit down and look through the database a little to get more familiar with it? I don’t want to hold you up anymore from what you were doing.”
Tartarly turned to her with eyes narrowed.
“This isn’t a toy.”
Tera put her hand on his shoulder and nudged him to get moving.
“Alright, alright,” he said, lifting himself out of the seat and returning to the work bench. Tera found the chair had a lot of bounce to it as she sat down, and it was hard to resist swiveling around. It was a shame she’d made that comment about not playing.
Fingers on the keyboard, she was able to quickly discover that Kim wasn’t in the database at all, as she suspected. Those three prints were certain to be hers. Ted Flint was someone she’d have to find more about through other means. And then she casually took a look at what came up for Kim’s father, Robert, who must’ve touched a few different things when he discovered his daughter’s body.
Robert didn’t exactly have a squeaky clean record, but there was nothing serious to it. A bike theft as a teen. Later on he’d been brought in after a traffic stop for marijuana possession. Considering some of the things people in the O-Block had done, he was nearly a saint.
Wayne Chechy on the other hand had quite a history, and it was a wonder he wasn’t still in jail. Assault, shoplifting, resisting arrest, public urination, possession of stolen property. Nothing for drugs, but he had spent time in juvenile detention and about a year in state prison. The more she read, the more disturbed she was that she’d been right next to him unarmed. Nothing for drugs or murder, but a slight breeze could’ve turned him that way.
Turning her attention to Ted Flint, she thanked Tartarly for his help and exited the lab. Some web searches and city records revealed that he was actually the owner of the apartment building that Kim had lived in. He had been a teacher for most of his life, and a call to him resulted in the news that he had been in her apartment recently to repair the light socket in her bedroom, since he did a lot of the repairs himself.
Back at her desk, she slumped in her chair, feeling like she’d botched the fingerprinting and come up with nothing. If she went back for more, she doubted Tartarly would be so nice about it. He’d put in a call to the lieutenant, and the jig would be up. In Tera’s first week on the job another officer had received charges for evidence tampering after he’d tried to pick up a gun as a souvenir and the wrong person saw it.
Who knows what they’d throw at her, but she had to believe that Kim was worth it and that finding the killer would dispel any clouds of impropriety. That meant rolling up her sleeves and gathering more information about what Wayne and Kim had been up to.
But she was hardly able to get started on that before Brady and Olivia walked into the office just a few steps apart. Despite an undeniably spicy weekend of her own, Tera still found herself annoyed by Olivia’s rosy cheeks and loose strands of hair. She wasn’t the only one showing clear signs of a sexy encounter either. If only locating evidence in her murder case was as easy as this.
“Your fly’s open,” Tera said to Brady as she walked by him at the copy machine. She glanced over her shoulder to catch sight of his wide eyes as he zipped up his pants.
“It must’ve just come loose.”
“Tell it to the judge,” she said to his laughter.
In all honesty, Tera couldn’t care less who he was sleeping with, but that was more than a little easier to say now that she wasn’t among the ranks of the involuntarily celibate. It didn’t hurt to have a good-looking guy around the office that she could joke with for a change, even if he was already with someone else (who happened to be way beneath him).
But Harold Dreck and the demands of her regular duties prevented her from spending more time looking into Wayne Chechy. On top of that, her hours kept her from enjoying any more evenings with Lawrence, and she was on pins and needles about whether or not he could hold off from hooking up with anyone else until she was free on Thursday and Friday before being back on over the weekend.
He wasn’t a morning person, but they did manage to get together on Tuesday for a midday bite and walk along the waterfront, and she took it as a positive sign that they were spending time together that didn’t revolve around intercourse. That night almost her entire shift was consumed by a twelve-car pileup on the highway instigated by a drunk driver that left traffic backed up for miles, but when she got up the next day she was treated to an intriguing text from Lawrence.
“What do you say we get out of town this weekend? Cruise over to Indi or St. Louis.”
Tera immediately started chewing on her lip in consternation as she began getting ready for a shower. As nice as it was to get an invitation and plan a trip, he knew that she was working this weekend and had to go to her partner’s funeral. Not being there to remember Johnny even though he was a lazy coward would really rub people the wrong way in a manner they’d never forget.
“I’m off next weekend. How about that?”
The quick reply killed the optimism she had that they could quickly sort this out.
“Me and the guys are going this weekend.”
She gripped the phone as she glared at the words. If she’d been any stronger she might’ve cracked the screen. It was frustrating not being able to have a conversation like this in person. If some weekend-long party happened and she wasn’t able to even be a token presence in it for him, she felt like the odds that she’d hear from him afterwards were close to zero. And with him giving her so little to work with, she had to find a solution out of nothing.
“Why not stay in town this weekend? I could show up in uniform and give your guys a scare. They’ll probably blow their lids when I lean in to kiss you.”
“We’re tired of the scene around here and want to ride up to somewhere new. Take some sick days or get someone to cover you.”
Tera felt like the ground was disappearing under her feet. Maybe there were guys out there with whom one little hitch early on wouldn’t blow the relationship, but that wasn’t the case with someone like Lawrence.
“I can’t do that. I’ve got to go to a funeral.”
“Every weekend there’s a funeral.”
What’s surprising about that to you? This is Southside Chicago, she thought. What didn’t make sense was why he was so adamant about a trip this weekend. One of his boys probably said something casually and now they were all taking it as set in stone.
“Next weekend we’ll have a blast,” she wrote, not knowing what else to say. Staring at the screen for five minutes didn’t bring her anything new from him, and a cold ache was growing in her gut that a searingly hot shower couldn’t dispel. When she got out, she did finally see his reply.
“All good. I’ll hit you up.”
Perhaps he’d sent that to give her some comfort, but it didn’t amount to much at the time. Over the following days she began to take a little more stock in it though as they continued to text like there was no sudden rift at all. It was disappointing that they weren’t able to get together on her days off—something about him helping out with some car shopping before they left earlier than they thought for a long weekend—but they were already talking about spending the next weekend together by storming the Illinois State campus.
Considering going to a real four-year college was something she’d never done, that held a lot of appeal, and she went into a busy weekend feeling like she could get things back on track once Lawrence got a trip out of his system with his guy friends out of town.
CHAPTER 5
The Chicago Police Department’s main headquarters was closer to the north side of the city, not far from a municipal cemetery where Johnny Riggiten was about to be buried. H
undreds had gathered on the headquarter’s grounds for a catered tribute in his honor, with a number of speakers planned that included his father, the chief of police, and even the mayor.
Since she was his partner, Tera was worried that she’d be asked to say something, but nobody did and she wasn’t about to volunteer. That allowed her to mostly mill around the area in the same black dress she’d worn the previous weekend, which thankfully hadn’t gotten any stains or collected other kinds of…residue.
Tera engaged in a few brief greetings and short conversations until Brady Lance appeared by her side as she was checking out a wishing well with the nearby cemetery set against it.
“I think I saw Olivia over there,” Tera said to him, gesturing vaguely, but he didn’t look away from her at all.
“No, I actually came to talk to you and see how you’re doing,” he said. Tera blinked.
“Just fine. I mean, it’s still crazy that he died and it could’ve been me and I’m sorry about it. You know?”
Brady raised his hands in a defensive way.
“OK then. Doesn’t hurt to check. I did catch wind that he was into you, so I didn’t know if there was something going on between you two,” he said, and Tera had an easy time guessing where that gossipy wind had come from. Olivia had this guy to herself and she evidently spent it blathering on about baseless romantic speculation between people in the department.
“There wasn’t anything between us. Definitely not. I have a boyfriend,” she said. His unflappable poise seemed to get flapped for just a moment when she told him that, but he recovered quickly and raised an eyebrow.
“I’m not surprised. Who’s the lucky guy?”
“Lawrence Asper. He sprints for Illinois State. Not a bad gig, I guess. We can’t all be in the CPD,” she said.
