The captain stared beyond him and shook his head. “Damn, that’s sad.” He faced Doug. “What do you have so far?”
Have? Doug had been on scene about ten minutes and hadn’t gotten close to the body yet because he was waiting for the techs to finish their jobs. All he had were the basics of the call. “Body was found about thirty minutes ago, called in by a woman walking her dog.” Their witness lived in the luxury apartments over the newest line of boutique shops across the street from the coffee shop. “Patrol found her where you see her. No ID on the body. We’ll know more once the lab boys get her on a slab back in their place.” And why exactly are you here? Unlike previous brass, this captain didn’t come to crime scenes. His focus was more on the schmooze parties thrown by whatever council candidate needed the department’s backing.
“Sounds good.” No, it didn’t. It sounded like I have shit. “Listen, we’ll want to avoid gossiping to the vultures on this one.” Captain made a vague gesture towards where the reporters stood, talking into the screens of their phones as they gave live updates back to their editors. “There’s interest in this one from up above.” That had to mean the mayor’s office, which explained the captain’s presence. “Keep me updated.”
Doug nodded slowly, not missing how the liaison was gone, the journalists’ circle had grown by two, and his captain’s forehead had a sheen of sweat. “Will do.”
***
“It was weird, Winger.” Doug lifted his glass and drained it, setting it down and nudging it towards the inside of the bar top. “Cap hasn’t shown at a scene since I’ve worked here. Why this one?”
Winger was the head honcho of a riding club here in Fort Wayne. Not an MC, and Doug hadn’t tried to explain why he knew the difference the first time he assured Winger he didn’t have to clarify for the cop that they weren’t a gang. But, he figured Winger had been around long enough he understood there was some level of experience in Doug’s background.
This bar wasn’t on Doug’s way home, but he still found himself here more often than not, enjoying the easy familiarity of the bartender and men. Dixie, the barkeep, was a good woman who didn’t take bullshit from anyone and had sized Doug up on his first visit with one word as she’d set a beer in front of him. It’s what she’d called him since, and he heard it again now, “Another one, Lawman?”
He shook his head as he smiled at her, getting the same in return. “Nope. I gotta head out. Run my tab, honey.” She nodded, and he watched her move away for a moment before turning to see a conflicted look on Winger’s face. Something was there, just under the surface, blending unease and anger into a single expression. “What? You know something?”
“Anyone come forward who knew the gal?” They’d learned her identity today, fingerprints in the system as part of a middle school program. Fourteen years old, a runaway from Indianapolis, which might be less than a hundred miles away but was a long fucking distance for a barely-teen girl to come without help. That help was what Doug had looked for all day, and come up dry, which was why he shook his head now. Slowly Winger said, “I might…know someone who saw her, once.”
Doug fought to stay calm, to not react as he knew a cop would, to not demand the information Winger might be holding close to the vest, knowing there would be a reason. Casually, almost too casually, Doug asked, “Yeah?” Dixie was walking in their direction with his credit card and slip to be signed. He stalled her steps with a lifted finger and then flicked a glance at his empty glass, holding her gaze until she nodded. “Anything I need to know?” A moment later Dixie settled a full glass in front of him and then quietly moved along the bar. Doug lifted it and turned, looking at Winger over the top as he drank deeply, waiting.
“Yeah, you might need to know.” Winger squinted one eye as he took a deep drag on his cigarette, a stalling tactic before he spoke again. “Know what she ran from in Indy?” Doug shook his head. Her being a runaway was barely adjacent to the crime of her death, he hadn’t looked deeper. IPD handled the family notification as far as he knew. “Her daddy runs in powerful circles. I know, because some of those circles are the ones tightening down on everything.” He flicked his ashes into an empty beer can. “They’re even voting on whether I can keep smoking when I’m throwing one back or not. I understand he’s pissed off some people. I got friends there—” He grinned without humor. “—and understand the girl didn’t like some of the things her daddy was aiming for, and she was vocal about it. Seems her brother got a call from her about two weeks ago.” Two weeks ago would have been two weeks after she’d been reported as a runaway. “Said their daddy had put her in a tough spot. Before she could tell him where, they were disconnected. He called back, no answer. Called back the next day and found the phone was disconnected. It was a Fort Wayne number.” He stabbed out his cigarette. “That man called me, I rousted my boys and we rolled to see what we could find. Found a couple of men who’d bought time with her.” He leaned forwards. “Let me tell you”—his voice dropped—“that was not what her brother wanted to hear.”
“I bet.” Doug empathized.
“We couldn’t find her, though. Damn shame. Turned that motel upside down, ran the side roads and ditches. Nada. Hated making that call back to her brother.” Winger shook his head. “But, I still got the names of those time-buyers, you decide you want ‘em.” He dropped his butt inside the ash can, shaking it until there was a brief sizzle as beer dregs extinguished the cigarette.
Doug grimaced. “I can’t use them. You’d have to make this official.” He wouldn’t make that kind of ask because he’d found some friends here and liked the vibe when he hung out with them. He gained a measure of comfort and confidence with every encounter. It didn’t hurt that Winger’s group walked the right side of the line, and Doug didn’t want to do anything to alienate them. I don’t want to jeopardize the bit of good I’ve got.
“You decide you still want ‘em, it doesn’t have to be official.” Winger picked up the fresh bottle Dixie had slid in front of him, eyeing Doug. “I gotta get goin’. It’s my night at the shelter.” Winger didn’t have to explain what he meant. Doug already knew the club stood as an unpaid and unofficial security at the local battered women’s shelter. This was something the club organized without the help or request of the facility, because a member’s sister had been recovering there when her husband found out where she was. Three days later the club had ridden honor guard at her funeral after taking up a donation to cover those final expenses. Whatever Winger gave him would be the truth as he knew it, and even if Doug couldn’t use it legally, he knew he’d use it.
“Know what? You’re right. I want ‘em.”
***
Jesus. It seemed life had twisted back around on itself, because here Doug was pounding down an alleyway again, gasping for breath, yet things were entirely different. He rounded a corner to find the dead-end nook ahead of him populated by a wild-eyed man brandishing the lid of a garbage can as a shield.
The man’s tie was askew, his jacket hanging crooked, but even that wasn’t enough to mask the quality of the suit and accouterments. His mouth, however, was pure trash. “I can pay. I have money. You don’t want to do this.” He might have been panting and wheezing, but his eyes were shining with arrogance as he stared straight at Doug. “I can make it worth your while.”
Doug paused only a moment to take in the sight. Then he stutter-stepped and reached to grab the man by the arm. Twisting it in a practiced move, he whirled and slammed the suit-clad man against the wall. Doug pressed close, pulled the man’s wrists to the middle of his back with a yank, and without responding to the man’s statements started, “You have the right to remain silent…”
Forty-five minutes later, Doug closed the door on a cruiser and tapped the roof twice as he stepped back, watching as it drove off into the darkness. Taking a deep breath, he turned and was not surprised to find his captain standing there.
The man he had just arrested and had whisked away for booking was not a small man i
n state politics. No, Brinkley Sullivan was reported to be in line for a state-appointed position that would allow a significant amount of grooming for a near-future Washington slot. Something Sullivan had been angling for over the last dozen years. Doug tried to tell himself the captain’s presence was because he’d want to be there from the beginning, even knowing it for a lie.
“Sir.”
Without speaking, his captain turned and looked up the street at the disappearing taillights, then back to Doug, his eyebrows lifting in an arch. “You arrested Sullivan?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You arrested Sullivan. Brinkley Sullivan.”
That was less of a question and more a statement, the man seemed to need repetition to seat the information in his brain. Doug still obliged with a response. “Yes, sir.”
“You arrested Brinkley Sullivan. You know who he is, right?” Doug nodded. “Jesus fucking Christ. You do have a career death wish. I wondered, but this is…this takes the cake. You arrested Brinkley Sullivan.” He shook his head, looking down. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
“He killed a fourteen-year-old girl. After he paid a pimp to tie her to a bed so he could rape her.”
“He admitted that?” Doug lifted his chin. The captain frowned, then his mouth twisted sideways. “Before or after you Mirandized him.”
That was a critical question, and Doug couldn’t live with himself if he weren’t open and honest. “Before.”
“So, he didn’t confess.” Hands on his hips he stared at Doug. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Uh, yeah. He did. He wasn’t in custody when he talked about it. It’s admissible.” The information was, in fact, admissible, but not how Doug had found out about the man. That had been courtesy of the girl’s brother’s friend. “I read him the rights after I caught him. This was after he tried to evade arrest, which will be added to the list of charges, because I want to make the case he’s a flight risk.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
The sentiment followed Doug through the next hours and days as he struggled to keep the case on track. To keep the focus on the dead girl, where it belonged, and not on the interrupted life of an up-and-coming political powerhouse.
He was not successful.
***
“That’s what he said when you arrested the man?” Winger’s head swung back and forth in shocked disbelief. “Jesus fucking Christ? As if the worst thing he’d seen all day was that dickweed bent double and shoved in the back seat of a goddamned police car?”
Doug upended his shot, throwing the alcohol to the back of his throat. He swallowed convulsively, without tasting it. “Yup.” His voice was gravelly, raw from drink and arguing. His head was already pounding, and he reached up to rub the back of his neck, fingers tangling in his hair. He was about a month past needing a haircut, and tonight he didn’t give a shit, the tickle along the collar of his shirt reminding him of better days. “And now that dickweed is back in his house in Indy with his wife and two kids, one of which is a little girl only a year younger than the one he raped and murdered.” Silence surrounded him, and he looked around at the men sitting near him. “Fuck, did I say that?” Winger nodded. “I’m so fuckin’ pissed. I had everything lined up to keep him inside. He confessed, I arrested him, got the evidence in order, and the judge still signed his bond papers.” Doug picked up the shot glass, forgetting it was empty. He tipped it up and then stared at it in annoyance. “Dixie, gimme another one.”
“He’s got a little girl?” Winger’s question surprised him because it came from a different angle than before. Doug looked to see his friend had found his feet and was now staring down at Doug. “That dickweed has a little girl, and they let him go home to where she lives?”
“Sick, right?” The clink of glass made him look down. There was an amber-filled shot glass on the bar in front of him. He picked it up and tried to upend it, swallowing air when it was plucked from his hand. “What the hell?”
“Don’t get drunk.” A hand fell heavily on his shoulder. “Dixie, no more for Lawman.”
“Why?” Doug tipped his head back and watched as his friend drank the shot down.
“Because I need you to go home under your own power. And stay there.” The last was added as an afterthought. Winger followed it with a definite order of, “Stay away.”
Doug’s chest clenched, the pain of rejection stinging deep. “The fuck you say?” He lurched to his feet. “Kicking me out now?”
Winger stood there and stared into his eyes for a minute, then nodded slowly. “Yeah, kicking you out. This way you’re home safe and sound.”
“For what?” Doug became aware there were a dozen men crowded around. He glanced side to side, cataloging the faces he knew. A mix of Winger’s group, and some men from the Rebel Wayfarers. They were an MC who was building a larger presence in town. An uneasy trickle of fear wormed down his spine. “What are you going to do?”
“Nothing that concerns you, Lawman.” A gray-bearded man Doug didn’t know stepped up behind Winger and spoke, reaching up to place his hand on Winger’s shoulder. That show of support was not lost, and Winger’s chin tipped up in confirmation of the sudden realization he no doubt saw on Doug’s face.
I know what they’re going to do.
He held Winger’s eyes. They were certain, unwavering, confident in the rightness of what was coming.
And I’m going to let them.
He let that rightness of the decision wash over him, firming his resolve. The men around them crowded closer, heat from their bodies all along his back and Doug smothered a snort of laughter as he mentally acknowledged the truth. Like I could stop ‘em.
Decided, he took a sharp breath, then clipped out, “I’m going home.” He dipped his chin towards his neck. “Feelin’ tired suddenly. Came on me all at once. Probably stay in the rest of the night. Dixie,” he called a little louder, hearing her response from the other end of the bar, “I’ll catch up next time I’m in. You know I’m good for it.”
“I know you are, darlin’. Drive safe.” Darlin’. I like that.
Bodies shifted abruptly, and an empty corridor appeared between him and the door to the parking lot. Without another word, without looking to either side, Doug walked out, got in his car, and drove home. He had a beer and ate a sandwich, then went to bed and slept deeply, dreamlessly. Guilt free.
The next morning there was an article in the local paper about the untimely death of Brinkley Sullivan. He’d been found floating face down in the river that ran through Indianapolis, his body cold and white as they dragged it out of the water. Doug read while holding his breath, his forgotten cup of coffee cooling on the kitchen counter. Off the record, someone from the coroner’s office had noted elevated blood alcohol, and that, along with reports of Sullivan being seen visibly drunk in at least two downtown bars, had pinned it to the wall with a big fat accidental death nail. Done, and done. Sullivan would never face a jury of his peers for his actions, but bemoaning that seemed overkill.
“Dickweed.”
You earned it
“Dixie, can you pour me one more?” Doug called his order across the room and then angled his head down. He stared at the open folder on the table in front of him. Flipping a piece of paper back and forth, he again compared statements he’d read at least a thousand times. A man’s hand appeared over his shoulder and flicked the folder closed, then sat a pint glass of beer on the freshly vacant table.
“Not the first time I’ve seen you in here with that.” Winger pointed a gnarled finger at the folder, rings glinting as he settled into the seat across from Doug. “What is it?”
“An unsolved case.” He raised the glass and tipped a salute to the biker. “Haven’t seen much of you lately. Your colors changed.” Winger’s men had all disappeared off the radar for a couple of weeks, and when they again surfaced in Fort Wayne, the emblem on the back of their vests and jackets was different. No longer a riding club, they had joined one of the larger outlaw motorcycle clu
bs in the Midwest as a brand-new chapter. It had been all the gossip around the coffee machine in the precinct, as cops tried to figure out if it was a good or bad thing for the community. Other than for Doug, who knew it meant the club had more authority to police their territory which would be good in the long run for individual neighborhoods, most of the shields were adopting a wait-and-see attitude. “You happy about the change?” It would mean Winger didn’t have a say in his men’s lives anymore, since they’d become a cog in a much larger machine, something Doug hadn’t expected.
“Ayeap. Change isn’t always bad, Lawman.” Winger tapped the paper folder with a thick forefinger. “Tell me about this file. Ya never know, maybe I’ll have some great insight and help you solve the murder mystery.”
“I didn’t say it was a murder.” Doug didn’t have to open the file to recite the contents, he knew them by heart. Had for years.
“Son, if it’s old, and by the look of it, you’ve been holding onto it for a while and handling it often, then it’s going to matter to you. You don’t strike me as a man who is owned by things overmuch. People, though? People own your soul. Means it’s gotta be a murder.” Winger shrugged and took a drink of his beer. “Lay it on me, Lawman.”
Doug stalled for a moment, sipping from his glass. There wasn’t a downside to giving Winger the basics, at least. Lord knows I’ve spent enough time solo with this in my head. With a sigh, he made his decision and leaned forwards, elbows on the table bracketing the folder. He sipped again and set the beer down.
“About five years ago, I was in San Diego. There was an exchange program and my captain wanted brownie points with some politician who liked progressive law enforcement ideas. The first few months were…normal. As normal as me bein’ a fish outta water can be. Where I was in Chicago was a good house, you know? Solid men led by someone who lived to make a difference because it was the right thing to do. Not like where I’m assigned now.” Winger nodded, fingers idly turning his beer back and forth. “Cali was worse, if you can believe that.”
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