by Frank Zafiro
I flipped to the classifieds and reviewed what people were selling without much interest. My mind kept catching on the past. Snapshots of moments and small pulses of emotion distracted me from the tiny words on the newspaper page.
The Circle K shooting. Me getting loaded into the back of an ambulance. Katie there, refusing to let go of my hand even as the medics worked on me.
That year together. That wonderful year where the world seemed right. Even with the pain of rehabbing the shoulder and the knee, things were the best I could remember. Mostly because of Katie.
Then, when it was my turn to be there for her, I wasn’t able to do it. She had faced an impossible situation and lost, but I was too caught up in my own self-pity over the Amy Dugger affair that I pushed her away. I chose painkillers and booze over her. When the painkillers ran out, I chose the booze because she wasn’t willing to listen to my bullshit anymore. Looking back, I couldn’t blame her.
Never let it be said that the universe doesn’t offer second chances. I had my shot at redemption with her. When she ran up against an event every bit as bit as tragic as Amy Dugger, she surprised me by calling. I was probably the only one who could understand what she was going through. That’s what she said, anyway. And I grasped at that chance. For a while, it worked. But I was still a drunk, and drunks are clumsy.
I blew it.
The last time I saw her, she had an expression on her face that I don’t think has a word to describe it. Part anger, part disappointment, part hurt. But where her expression was mixed, her words were clear.
“Leave.”
I did. I left and I went on a bender for the ages. I still don’t remember parts of those days and weeks that followed. And when the dust settled and I tried to call her a few weeks later, her number was changed.
Like I said, who can blame her?
I stopped trying to read half-way through the classified and turned instead to the comics. At least Snoopy made sense. And he was a hockey player. Maybe the Flyers should offer both him and Woodstock a contract. Charlie Brown could coach.
“This is how you spend your retirement now?”
I jolted upright. Katie stood next to my table , a cautious smile on her face. A frantic flutter raced through my stomach. I cleared my throat. “How’s that?”
She motioned toward the newspaper with her hand. She held a manila folder. “Drinking coffee and reading the funny papers?”
I swallowed. I’d forgotten how beautiful she was. “Just waiting for you,” I said, and instantly cringed at how stupid I sounded.
She motioned to the empty booth across from me. “May I?”
“Yeah, please,” I said. I scrambled to fold the paper and set it aside. Why did she still have this effect on me?
Katie slid into the booth. She set the thin manila folder next to her on the table, but I barely noticed it.
I was watching her eyes.
19
They were guarded, her eyes, and her smile didn’t completely touch them. I sat still, words caught in my throat. Katie watched me and waited.
Phyllis appeared at the table and Katie asked if they made lattés. I let out a small laugh, more at the look Phyllis gave her than the request itself.
“No, hon,” Phyllis told her. “Nothing fancy here. Just coffee.”
“Tea?”
“Lipton.”
Katie nodded. “I’ll have that.”
Phyllis wrote a T on her notepad. “Eating today?”
Katie shook her head. “Have to be in court at one.”
Phyllis glanced at her watch and back at Katie, shrugged and walked away.
Katie followed her departure with her eyes, then shifted them toward me. “Gee, you’d have thought I asked for something exotic instead of a simple latté.”
I shrugged. “I think, for here, that is an exotic request.”
“Welcome to the 21st century, people,” Katie muttered.
“It’s part of the charm of the place,” I said.
Katie didn’t respond, but slid the manila folder across the table to me. I left it alone, not wanting to admit that things looked like they were going the route of “let’s pretend.”
Let’s pretend I didn’t screw up on the job.
Let’s pretend I didn’t completely blow any chance of us making a go of things.
Let’s pretend that her giving me this information is no big deal, when we both knew she could get fired for it.
I didn’t want to pretend. I wanted to tell her I was sorry. That I still cared for her. That maybe we could try again.
Phyllis set down a cup of hot water in front of Katie and plopped a packaged teabag next to it. Katie nodded her thanks.
Brown-Eyed Girl played over the radio. Katie had hazel eyes, but the song sparked a bittersweet slice of emotion through my belly anyway. I knew that I was kidding myself. What did I have to offer her? Dishonor? Poverty? And I’d already shown how capable I was of hurting her.
I was acting like a fool.
“So you’re doing private investigations now?” she asked, trying to sound casual.
“No,” I said. “Just helping out a friend.”
“Oh. Anybody I know?”
I shook my head. “Guy I went to high school with.”
“Fellow Stag?” she asked, teasing.
It had been a point of ribbing between us from the very beginning, when we started the police academy together. Katie had gone to Riverside High and they were arch-rivals of Deer Park High, where I went to school. When things had been good between us, we’d teased about the mascots of both schools—Deer Park Stags and Riverside Rams. The possibilities of what high school kids will come up with are as endless as they are obvious and Katie and I both had a good memory.
But those days were gone, so I gave her a simple nod. She looked mildly hurt that I hadn’t picked up the gauntlet.
“I heard you made detective?” I asked, almost as an apology.
Her eyes brightened slightly. “Yeah. It only took ten years.”
I shrugged. “Some people never make it. Some people push a cruiser for their entire career.”
“I guess,” she said.
“How do you like it?”
“It’s a fun job,” she said. “I like it a lot.”
“Slower than patrol?”
“Yeah, but more mental. I mean, you have to think on patrol a lot, and most of the time you have to think fast. In investigations, I’ve had to get used to thinking slower.” She spread her hands apart. “And broader.”
“So it’s not the retirement gig everyone says it is?”
Katie grinned. “Well…for a few, it is. But there’s as much work available as you’re able to get done.”
“Good for you, Katie,” I said quietly. “Good for you.”
“Thanks.” She motioned at the folder. “You going to look?”
“Later,” I said. “I’d rather talk to you now.”
I was surprised at how easily I said it, but my surprise washed away when I saw her reaction. A moment of concern flashed across her face and she winced. It was gone a moment later, but it told me everything I needed to know about any chance for us.
Ever.
“Stef…” she began.
I held up my hand. “Never mind.”
“But, I—“
“No, it’s okay. Really. I didn’t mean it that way.”
She looked at me with the same cautious, guarded expression that she’d had when she arrived, only now there wasn’t a smile to mask it.
“I know there’s no chance for us,” I told her. “Not after all that’s happened. I know where I’m at right now would be a deal breaker all by itself. That’s not even counting what happened on the job or between us. So—“
“Do you think that’s what it’s about?” she snapped. “Where you are now?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I do.”
Katie shook her head. “You’re still a selfish bastard,” she said, her voice lower. Caution had given w
ay to anger and a blush of red lit up her cheeks. “Nothing’s changed.”
I didn’t answer. It was easier that way.
“But you’re right,” she said, the anger rising in her voice. “There’s no chance for us. I could’ve told you that four years ago. But I thought maybe we could still be friends.”
“Women always think that,” I muttered. “But it doesn’t work like that.”
Katie shook her head in disgust. “And for men, if you’re not having sex or trying to have sex, then there’s just no point, is there?”
We sat in silence for a long moment. I wondered if she was right about what she said.
Katie took a sip of her tea and looked out the window toward Sprague. I looked at the soft hollow of her throat and remembered kissing it. The scent of her hair.
“You really think we can still be friends?” I asked quietly.
Katie didn’t look at me. She slid out of the booth. “I guess we’ll see,” she said before walking out of the diner.
I followed her with my eyes and felt a stab of sadness at how erect she stood as she strode confidently away. I stole a glance at the curve of her hips just as the diner’s door swung closed behind her.
“I guess we will,” I said to no one and no one answered me.
20
Phyllis re-filled my coffee and took away the tea cup, which was still nearly full. I pushed my thoughts of Katie as far away from the front of my mind as I could and I opened the folder that she’d brought for me.
Keeping her out of mind was nearly impossible as I thumbed through the pieces of paper inside the folder. She must’ve received my voice message almost immediately and gone straight to work. There were notes on some of the items, and they were grouped together by subject.
I took a deep breath and rubbed my eyes. She put some effort into this. And now, just like that, she was gone again. A familiar aching in my chest flared and pulsed at the thought.
I took a sip of my hot coffee and swallowed too soon. My throat burned and my eyes watered. I brushed at my eyes and turned back to the file.
Matt Sinderling had nothing more than traffic tickets on his record, which didn’t surprise me. Katie had written only one word in red ink below his entries. “Comp?” meaning complainant.
Good guess, chica.
Gary LeMond was also clean. Not even a traffic citation. I noticed that he’d been fingerprinted, but Katie had circled the entry and made a note that all teachers are required to be printed for their teaching certificates.
Kris Sinderling had just one entry. My stomach sank when I saw the type-code for the entry.
PROST, it read.
“Great,” I muttered. Prostitution.
It didn’t make sense. How does a girl like Kris go from wanting to be a movie star, and probably having the tools to make it happen, to working on the streets? That was a Los Angeles story maybe, but not a River City story.
The entry wasn’t a formal charge or even an arrest, though. It was an FI, a field interview. That meant a cop had stopped her and figured that prostitution was what she was up to. He just didn’t have enough probable cause to make an arrest, so he did an FI.
Even so, she was a runaway. Why didn’t he take her into protective custody and call her parents?
I looked at the date and realized the contact had occurred before Matt had reported her as a runaway.
I pressed my lips together. Fine, she wasn’t a runaway. But she was still a sixteen-year-old girl out at—
My finger traced the typed entry and found the time.
0213 hrs.
Jesus. How do you not do something about a sixteen-year-old girl out on East Sprague at two in the morning?
I turned to the next page and saw that Katie had pulled a copy of the FI. I read through it.
Subject contacted Sprague/Smith with known prostitute (street name Rhonda, see other FI). Dressed provocatively. Claimed to be waiting for bus, but busses no longer running. Offered her a ride home or to safe location. Subject refused. Denied being engaged in prostitution. Name check clear. Known pimp, Rolo, spotted one block away, across the street.
How many FI’s had I written just like that when I was on the job? All it really told me was that she was there and when it had been. And that she appeared to be working as a prostitute. The excuses she had used were amateur and time worn.
I found the name at the bottom of the page. Officer Paul Hiero.
I closed my eyes briefly and tried to recall Paul. I remembered that we used to kid him a little about his last name, but that was about all.
I flipped the FI over and read through the biographical data on Kris Sinderling. She’d given him 329 Poplar in Cheney for an address and a telephone number that wasn’t a Cheney number. All Cheney numbers begin with the prefix 235. I guessed the number she gave to be a cell number. Or one she made up.
Hiero described her clothing in detail. Short denim skirt. T-shirt tied off and exposing the midriff. Matching black stilettos. Small gold hoop earrings. My eyes flitted over to the MARKINGS/SCAR/TATTOO box and saw it had been filled in.
“Oh, great,” I muttered again.
Hiero had drawn a crude North Star compass in the small block and written, “LU thigh, partially obscured.” Kris had a tattoo on her left upper thigh that was only partially visible, even though she wore a short skirt.
In Washington State, it used to be the law that no minor could be tattooed without parental consent. Body piercings and tattoos were rampant among kids today and unscrupulous businesses took advantage of that.
I drank my coffee and shook my head. What had happened to her?
Hiero had let a sixteen-year-old girl stay out on the streets. What was he thinking? On top of that, some maggot tattoo hack had been more than happy to tattoo her upper thigh.
My stomach churned. I pushed the coffee away.
The last piece of paper was a square yellow post-it note. Katie had written, “Check her DOB?” on it.
I flipped back to the computer entry and read Kris’s date of birth.
January 18, 1987.
I checked Hiero’s FI. The same birth date was listed there.
I sat back in my booth seat.
She’d lied.
That was no big surprise, I realized. She had only changed the year of birth by one and had made herself seventeen. Seventeen is a magical age, even for cops. People don’t expect the same level of adult responsibility as an eighteen year old on some things, but on others, we figure it’s close enough. A seventeen year old out at two in the morning is not going to get hauled in, not if there isn’t anything else to hold her on. And based on Hiero’s FI, there wasn’t. Just his suspicions. I’m sure he told her to get lost or he’d arrest her, and she probably believed him and left for the night. He probably didn’t want to get hung up dealing with a juvenile for several hours. Especially not a seventeen year old who was practically an adult.
And Kris Sinderling…well, she had something about her, didn’t she? Something that would say, “Hey Mr. Policeman, I know I’m only seventeen, but I look twenty-three, don’t I? You don’t need to worry about me. I can definitely take care of myself. And maybe take care of you…?”
I forced the image from my mind and slammed the thin file shut.
“You okay, hon?”
Phyllis stood next to my table, a pot of coffee in her hand. Genuine concern was on her face.
I put my hand over the top of my cup. “Fine.”
She shook her head. “I don’t mean the coffee. I mean you. Are you okay?”
I didn’t have an answer for her, so I pulled out two five dollar bills and dropped them on the table.
“You’ll need some change,” Phyllis told me as I slid out of the booth.
“Nope,” I said, folding the file Katie had given me and sliding it into my jacket sleeve. “That’s for you.”
Phyllis gave me an enthusiastic thanks. I nodded that I heard her and left the diner.
21
&nbs
p; My knee ached and my head swam.
I trudged west down Sprague Avenue, keeping the pace slow to avoid my limp coming out. I knew it would anyway, long before I got home. I’d pay for the long walk tomorrow, but right now I needed the time and motion.
None of it made any sense to me. Sure, girls ran away. Some got tattoos. Some even became prostitutes. It wasn’t an uncommon story.
But not girls like Kris Sinderling.
So what had happened?
I continued to walk along, my boots clicking on the sidewalk, because I had absolutely no idea.
22
I wished I’d opened the folder and read it when Katie had suggested it. I could’ve asked her questions that would be useful now.
Rolo, for instance. He wasn’t a pimp that I knew, but my information on River City bad guys was a decade old. I didn’t know who the players were when it came to hookers, gambling or dope anymore. I was about as out of touch with the criminal scene in River City as I’d felt when I’d opened up the entertainment section of the newspaper back at Polly’s.
At Sprague and Smith, I stopped and looked around. Regular Joe Citizens zipped by in their Regular Joe cars, on their way to or from legitimate, taxable enterprise of some sort or another. All the while, most of them remained oblivious to the less legitimate, completely untaxed business that transpired right on Sprague Avenue. Two blocks west, I saw a small black kid huddled in the doorway of a paint store that had gone out of business. He was most likely a dealer, or a runner for one. A half block further up, I saw a heavyset white woman in stretch pants and a dark green windbreaker. A true River City hooker. No import, that one.
I paused, struck with an idea. Some of the cash Matt had given me was still in my front pocket. I pulled it out, shielding the bills with one hand and flipping through them with the other. Carefully, I arranged four twenties on the outside of the stack, folded it over and slipped it into the inside pocket of my jacket.
