by S. E. Harmon
I raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”
“We have this wonderful new invention called the phone. You know, like that thing you’re currently on?”
I winced. I forgot her office was between Kevin’s and mine. “Sorry.”
She scowled and turned on her heel. She disappeared down the hall, but her voice floated back through my open doorway. “Also, he nearly jumped off a building, you guys. And almost took the boss with him.”
“True story,” Danny agreed.
I glared at the empty doorway. “Lest we not forget I was trying to save a life.”
Quiet reigned for a moment. Then, somewhere down the hall, Nick bellowed, “Anyone have some extra R-75 forms?”
Tabitha’s door slammed.
“I have to call you back,” I told an amused Danny. “We’re going to find this Dillon guy, and it’s going to be perfectly safe.”
“That sounds like a fucking great plan. Make sure it turns out that way.”
“I always try.” I hung up on him and grabbed my keys. By the time I got to Kevin’s office, he was mowing through a bag of jellybeans. “St. James.”
He glanced up suspiciously, a handful of candy halfway to his mouth. “I’m busy.”
“Working on ass expansion is not a paid activity,” I said. “Now get your ass in the car. I’ll even drive.”
“Christiansen, if you want to drive my car again, you’re going to have to buy it,” he said definitively. “My Camaro hasn’t been right since. You fucked up my suspension.”
“I gave your car a thrill. You drive like a little old lady on her way to bingo.”
“Yes,” he said pointedly. “And you know what? Little old ladies arrive alive to play bingo.”
“Are you coming or not?”
He leaned back in his chair with a heavy sigh. “I promised my wife I wouldn’t ride with you again.” At my glower, he held up his hands. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you are walking, talking trouble.”
I waved a hand airily. “Things are different now. I was still finding my groove back then.”
He grumbled as he shut down his computer. He shook the rest of the bag of jellybeans in his mouth, muttering something about even a Death Row inmate getting a last meal.
“They did away with that policy,” I informed him. “Don’t worry, this isn’t dangerous in the least. We’re going to question a suspect and everything is going to be perfectly routine.”
I’d like to say I kept my word. I really would. But you know what they say about the best laid plans.
Chapter 24
Dillon’s neighbors were helpfully nosy. At our repeated knocking, a blue hair poked her head out in the hallway and told us that it was Dillon’s laundry day. She also informed us that he usually went to the Wash ’n Suds on 44th avenue.
We found the giant laundromat with no problems and a nice place to park to boot. Kevin took the back of the building as a precaution, while I entered the front, and so concluded the “going smoothly” portion of the program.
I scanned the occupants of the laundromat. It only took a few seconds before I spotted Dillon. Other than a young pregnant woman, he was the only other person in the building under sixty. He was carrying a basket under one arm and scrolling through his phone in the other hand.
He looked up then, almost as though I’d called his name. His gaze went straight to the badge at my hip and then shot back up to my face. There was a moment of frozen silence between us before he threw the basket at me and sprinted for the back door.
Please be clean, please be clean, I prayed as I batted the clothes out of my face. A dirty sock fell from my shoulder, and I held in a gasp. I ran on as dirty laundry flew in my wake, even though I was tempted to give up the chase and strip down naked, just so I could Lysol my very soul.
An orange blur flew at my face, and I ducked just in time. It hit the washing machine behind me with a bang, and little packets went flying everywhere. I heard a gasp and looked up to find the pregnant girl in overalls staring at me, wide-eyed. An orange and blue colored packet fell out of my shirt and landed on the ground with a jubilant bounce.
I blinked at the mess on the floor for a few seconds until I realized what they were. “Did you just throw Tide PODs at me?”
She slapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh God, I’m sorry,” she said around her fingers. “It was a reflex.”
“To try to maim me with laundry detergent?”
“You can’t take Dillon back. He didn’t do anything wrong!”
I’d opened my mouth to retort when I heard a sound outside. Pop. Pop! Bang. Bang. Bang. I was stunned to realize the explosion of noise was gunfire and then the steady bark of return fire. I was no ballistics expert, but the return fire sounded police issue. What the fuck was going on out there?
Even before the thought could fully materialize, I saw Dillon sprint down the side of the building, heading for the sidewalk. I realized that if Dillon was running, Kevin had to be down. Down.
I was torn. I wanted to check on Kevin, but I had a responsibility to apprehend what was now a fleeing suspect. With a curse, I ran for the front doors.
“Stay down,” I barked at the girl as I flew past. My mind raced as I pulled out my phone, and between huffed breaths, I called in a possible officer shooting.
Danny was going to kill me.
I’d expected Kevin to nab the little shit and bring him back in the backdoor, already cajoling him to cooperate in that easy-going manner he always had. We’d sit Dillon down on one of those stupid little plastic chairs and grill him for a few minutes and… just, fuck. I almost felt physically sick as I thought about Kevin’s wife. And how many kids did he have now, five?
Dillon ducked into a restaurant, and I forced myself to focus before I caught a bullet too. Startled diners looked up as we thundered through the main seating area and the kitchen. Dillon skirted around a busboy carrying a tray of dishes and practically pushed the man at me.
We were both wide-eyed as we nearly collided, and at the last second, I leaped on a silver serving table to avoid him. He went down in a clatter of dishes, and I winced as I hopped down and kept running.
“Sorry,” I called to the stream of curses behind me.
By the time I finally burst into the back alley, Dillon was gone. I looked left and right, thoroughly confused as to which way I should go. An annoying buzzing filtered in my ears as I tried to think. I had to choose quickly, before he got too far. If I chose wrong, I wouldn’t have a prayer of catching him, not with his speed and the risks he seemed willing to take.
The intermittent buzzing grew louder. It sounded almost like… a phone? I glanced up and saw dirty, battered soles of sneakers four feet above my head. I blinked at them for a couple of seconds before I processed what I was looking at. That was all the time Dillon needed to jump down from the awning like Spiderman. Faced with chasing him another five city blocks and endangering God knows who else, I leaped on him.
We crashed and rolled in the dirty alleyway like a couple of feral cats before I landed a punch on his jaw that sent him sprawling—for a few seconds. Before I could celebrate, he growled and rolled to his feet, clearly ready to fight.
Instead of fists, I came up with my weapon in my hand and leveled it at him. He gave me a look of betrayal—I guess because everybody was not kung-fu fighting—and took a step toward me.
“This can be just a bad day or it can be your last.” I was still a little out of breath, but my hands were steady. “Which is it?”
“I’m not going back,” he snarled.
“That is your choice. We just want to have a conversation.”
“I shot a cop, man! Ain’t gonna be no conversation.”
My stomach bottomed out as he confirmed what I had already suspected. I forced myself to stay focused. “Get down,” I barked. I was glad when he grudgingly complied; having to shoot someone would really put the cap on this already fucked up day. “Facedown. Arms and hands out.”
When
he did his best impression of a starfish and it looked like he wouldn’t put up any more resistance, I holstered my gun and pulled out the cuffs. I hooked him up then, still trying to catch my breath. After a thorough search of his person for weapons, I hauled him up, and we started the long journey back.
We attracted a lot of attention on the sidewalk that I pretended not to notice. By the second block of random people whispering and looking and taking photos, Dillon’s face was beet red.
“If Bondo told you I stole those cars, he’s a fucking liar,” he snarled as I frog marched him down the sidewalk. “The whole thing was his idea!”
Anything he wanted to confess to, I wanted to hear. “Was it?” I asked noncommittally.
“Of course it was. I mean, yeah, I might’ve helped him with the Lexus, but that’s it. I told him the Audi was a bad risk.” He swore. “Bondo is such a fucking idiot.”
If Dillon was the mental giant between the two friends, I really wanted to meet this Bondo guy. “I’m going to have you write a statement to that effect. What can you tell me about Joseph Carr?”
“Joseph Carr?” He muttered the name to himself a few times before something clicked. “Wait, my social worker? The one who got capped in his car?”
He glanced back at me, his expression a study in genuine confusion, and I gestured for him to turn around and keep walking. He did, shoulders hunched as someone else took a photo. Honestly, I didn’t know what all the rubbernecking was about, but he deserved every bit of the humiliation.
“That would be the one.”
“You think I killed him?” He twisted around to give me another confused look, and I turned him around again. “You couldn’t be further off base.”
“Then set me straight.”
“He was a nice guy, you know? He really tried to help me.” He shook his head. “He gave my mom money when she came up short for rent a few times. And he was always trying to give me odd jobs to pick up the slack. I never left his place hungry.”
“What else?”
Dillon continued to shuffle along. “He was the first person who believed I could be somebody else… go somewhere else other than this neighborhood.”
“So in return for his kindness, you accused him of sexually assaulting you?”
His ears turned a little red as he shot a look over his shoulder. I gestured for him to turn back around before he tripped us both. “How did you know about that?”
Welp, your dead social worker showed it to me in a ghost vision. “Answer the question.”
“I never officially accused him of anything. I never intended to, either, because it wasn’t true. He never touched me. I was just a stupid kid with a crush, upset because my crush had someone else.” His ears got redder still. “He was too old for me, anyway. I got over it.”
I tried to hide my disappointment. I should be happy that my victim wasn’t a horrible person who’d taken advantage of a young, impressionable kid. But Christ above, if someone didn’t tell me something bad about Joey soon, I was going to go stark raving mad.
“So what brought on this miraculous light bulb moment?” I asked.
“His love life was hella messy. He was involved with three dudes. What the fuck, right?”
“Three?” I looked at him skeptically. I’d spoken with everyone Joseph had a history with. The list had been surprisingly small—Alex, of course, a guy he’d known in college, two former coworkers, and Milo. “I assume you’re talking about Alex and Milo. So who’s on third?”
“I don’t know his name,” Dillon huffed. “I came over earlier than expected one day, and I saw him with arguing with some dude on the porch. They were so into it, they didn’t even see me standing there.”
“What were they arguing about?”
“The guy was telling Joey that he was opening a can of worms and that some things are better left buried.”
“How long was this before Joey was killed?”
“I don’t know. A month? Two months?” He shot me a defensive look. “It was a long time ago. I have a life, you know.”
I sighed. “Anything else you remember from that day?”
“Just that the guy was hot. Looked like he had his shit together. I figured if Joey didn’t want him, what chance did I have?” Dillon shrugged uncomfortably. “You want to know who killed Joey, maybe you should ask that dude.”
“Absolutely,” I said dryly. “I’ll just put out a BOLO for that dude. Any other descriptors?”
“Drove a souped-up black Silverado.” He lifted his bony shoulders again. “I only got half the tag.”
“You were thinking about boosting his ride, weren’t you?”
“Hey, you want the information or not?” He snapped. “He was pretty built. Tall with dark hair. He was wearing a plaid shirt, I think. And he had a thick beard.”
So I was looking for Paul Bunyan. I sighed. “I don’t suppose a blue ox named Babe was waiting in his truck.”
“Huh?”
I silently added a count of not knowing common folklore in the first degree to his arrest. “What did you do after you heard this argument?”
“What else could I do? I left.”
“Are you sure?” I sent him an appraising look. I can’t imagine a hothead like Dillon Cooper giving up with good grace. “Do you have an alibi for the day Joey died?”
“Probably. The hell if I know what it is, though,” he said. “That was a long time ago, man. I barely remember what I did last week.”
“Boosting cars,” I reminded him dryly. “That seems to keep you plenty busy with your pal Bondo.”
The set of his mouth was mutinous. “Whatever.”
Yeah, I was feeling a bit whatever myself. “Just so you know, if you’d told me that story when I first came in the damn door, you’d still be folding laundry with your girlfriend.”
“I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“Then who was that hellion who threw laundry detergent at my head?”
“She did that?” His face lit up as though I’d just given him lotto numbers. “Caryn’s my ex. I’m trying to get her back.”
Maybe she’ll write you in prison. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from saying it aloud, and we marched on.
By the time we got back to the laundromat, the scene was a lot busier than when we’d left. An ambulance was there and three other black-and-whites, lights on, sirens off. Dillon’s ex-girlfriend sat on a bench outside of the building, biting her thumbnail. When she spotted us, she shot to her feet.
I handed him off to one of the uniformed officers and pointed at her. “He doesn’t speak to anyone, including her, until the PTU does a formal interview.”
“Got it,” the officer nodded and opened his back door. “Watch your head,” he reminded Dillon before helping him in the car. His head was nowhere near the door jamb, but he let out an overdramatic “ow” anyway.
I hustled over to Danny, wondering why he was just standing there. He had his hands on his hips as he frowned at something in the back of the ambulance. Where the hell was Kevin, and why was the ambulance still here? Was he already dead? Had they called for the coroner?
I was in something of a tizzy by the time I reached the bus. It took me a moment to process what I was looking at—the back half of Kevin as he bent over, his elbows on the floor of the ambulance. An EMT I’d met a couple of crime scenes ago, Ashton Smith, was squatted down by Kevin’s feet, pawing through a bag of medical supplies.
“It’s not even that big,” Danny said.
“I just want them to get it out.”
“It didn’t even go in. You’d think no one ever touched you back there.”
“No one does, thank you very much.”
Danny snorted. “Your loss,” he said, which Ashton seemed to find hilarious.
I cleared my throat, and they all turned to face me. Well, Danny and Ashton turned. Kevin twisted the best he could to peer at me over his shoulder. I raised an eyebrow. “If you guys are finally going to fuck, you could at l
east try to be sneaky. It’s just common decency.”
Danny chuckled. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“Yeah, that’s what they all say.” I took in the rip on the seat of Kevin’s khakis and let out a long whistle. A singed and burned mark formed an angry line across his left butt cheek. “It looks like someone got shot in the ass.”
Kevin sent me a dirty look. “I missed you, too, Christiansen.”
“I’m glad you’re not dead,” I said sincerely, and he flipped me the bird before turning back around with a piteous moan.
Ashton started to ask Kevin questions, and we stood back as he answered them as dramatically as possible. When Ashton snapped on a pair of purple gloves like he meant business, Kevin let out an alarmed squeak. I figured that was a good a time as any to skedaddle.
Danny followed close behind, and we stopped a few yards away. If his crossed arms were anything to go by, I knew I had a lot of explaining to do. I didn’t know where to even begin. I waited for him to take the lead, but he seemed inclined to wait, possibly forever.
Finally, I couldn’t stand the silence anymore. I let out a little growl. “Will you just say something?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know. Something other than giving me that death stare would be nice.”
Danny death stared me some more.
“Are you angry with me?” I asked. “Because we really need to fucking talk about that.”
“I’m not angry with you. I’m just trying to figure out what it’s going to take to keep you away from bullets. Maybe I should just stick you in a plastic bubble.”
“I think that’s a tad excessive.” I paused. “And would you come in for sex or would I come out?”
“Christiansen.”
I blew out a breath. It was never a good sign when Danny started addressing me by last name. “Yep.”
“Do you understand what it feels like to get a call-out regarding your partner and an officer-related shooting?” I focused on his eyebrow barbell as he struggled to keep his words even. “Any idea what it’s like to wonder if you’re the one who’s shot or the one doing the shooting?”
