by L. A. Witt
Oh well.
I started the car and, without looking back, left the gun range.
By the time Darren showed up an hour or so later, the dark cloud hadn’t gone away. As we dove into paperwork, scoured files in search of something we might’ve missed, and drove downtown twice to interview people who might have—but didn’t—know something, I couldn’t shake it. Not that I was surprised.
At just shy of six, I was done. There was plenty of work left, but I was completely spent.
“I think I’m going to duck out early.” I closed a file folder I’d been looking through, leaving a pen in it to mark my place. “You can do the same if you want.”
Darren looked up. “So you’re telling me when I can come and go now?”
The snide tone caught me off guard. “Uh . . .”
“Just go.” He waved me away and returned his attention to the papers spread in front of him. “See you tomorrow.”
I hesitated, trying like hell to figure out what had changed since this morning, but I was too fucking tired to read between any lines. So, without another word, I picked up my jacket and keys, and left.
I didn’t go home, though.
Down by the river, not far from where Darren and I had eaten our sandwiches a while ago, I found a parking space and got out. The evening was starting to cool down, so I zipped up my jacket as I walked toward the water.
The river wound through the city, and it was dotted with parks where people took their dogs or their kids. I sometimes went to the dog park near the north edge of town. It had been years since I’d had a dog—my job just didn’t leave me enough time to give one the attention he deserved—but I liked being around them. Maybe when I retired, I’d get one again.
Tonight, I didn’t want to be around dogs, kids, or anyone. So I’d come here—to one of the industrial areas that had foundered during the last few recessions—where most of the buildings were abandoned and nobody really went. We didn’t even find all that many bodies down here anymore.
It was deserted, and that was exactly what I needed tonight.
Hands in my pockets, I strolled as close to the lazily flowing river’s edge as I could without getting in the mud. As shitty as I felt today, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I were to cap off the evening with a muddy shoe, sock, and pant leg.
With no one around to distract me and nothing to hold my thoughts except making sure I was walking on solid ground, it didn’t take long for my mind to wander back to my partner.
There was no point in entertaining fantasies of coaxing him over the boundary of platonic professionalism, but that didn’t stop me. There was no point in thinking about all the things we could do without clothes or inhibitions, but that didn’t stop me either. I knew how my mind worked. I’d torture myself with the idea that, in some parallel universe, I had a snowball’s chance in hell with him, and before long, I’d be jerking off every night until I was ready to lose my mind just being in the same room with him. All because I couldn’t quit imagining a night that could never in a million years actually happen.
Naturally, though, the one thing that had even less of a chance of happening was me getting a new partner. Captain Hamilton would laugh me out of his office if I requested someone else, even if the reason wasn’t I’m getting chronic blue balls from being around him.
Sighing, I gazed out at the river, watching a couple of ducks cruise along the swirling surface.
I was being stupid. I’d get over him just like I’d gotten over the last few people I’d nearly lost my mind over. My ridiculously hot neighbor had moved away a year ago without anything ever happening between us, and I’d gotten over her. Lieutenant Jackson had transferred to another city two years ago, and though I still kept a few fantasies about him tucked away, I didn’t trip over my own feet when he crossed my mind now. Hell, after my divorce a decade ago, my roommate and I had actually slept together for a few weeks, and then managed to live together as friends after his girlfriend moved in.
My attraction to each of them had been easily as strong as it was to Darren right now, and I’d made it through without going insane. The same thing would happen with Darren. The only reason I was losing it now was that he was new, and I was frustrated that it had been four years since I’d touched anyone. I’d been fine before. I’d be fine this time. All I needed was to get my head together, get all my thoughts of him out of my system, and—
The ground was suddenly softer than I’d expected, and before I could shift my weight back to solid ground, the mud swallowed my left leg to mid-shin.
“Fuck!” I jerked my foot free, and glared down at the thick mud now coating my shoe.
Great. Now I had something else to think about tonight besides Darren.
Fucking awesome.
The next day was more of the same—interviews, leads, dead ends, and paperwork. Darren and I had gone into the suburbs to talk to a potential witness about some interactions between suspects, but it was yet another dead end. Same shit, different day.
Before heading into town, I pulled into a convenience store to grab a cup of coffee. On the way back out to the car, Darren stopped suddenly.
“All right.” He turned to me. “What did I do?”
I blinked. “Come again?”
“Don’t play stupid.”
“Play— I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
An eyebrow flicked up, but he said nothing.
Irritation tightened my chest. I quickly ran through a mental replay of the last few hours, but came up empty. “Don’t play games. What are you talking about?”
Darren sighed heavily and rolled his eyes. “I thought we were working together. So what’s with this cold-shoulder business? You gonna tell me what I did wrong, or what?”
I avoided his eyes.
He sighed again. “Just tell me what the fuck is going on. I mean, we had that talk, and everything was fine. Then yesterday, you helped me at the range—and thank you, by the way—but suddenly when I got back to the precinct, you’d gone completely cold. You’ve barely said more than two words to me since yesterday, aside from telling me I had your permission to leave early if I wanted to.”
I exhaled. “I’m sorry. I . . . I’ve just been up in my own head. It’s not you.” Except it is. Because I can’t tell you I want you or why I can’t have you. “Just, uh . . . couple of off days.”
He watched me, but his posture relaxed slightly. “So everything is still, uh . . .”
I inclined my head. “You tell me.”
“Nothing’s changed on my end. I just, I mean, we ended that conversation kind of abruptly, and it seemed like something important, so . . .”
“What more was there to say?”
“I . . .” He chewed his lip. “I don’t know. Kinda seemed like we’d left something hanging.”
I shrugged. “Not really, no. You said you’re in for the long haul and that I can trust you. That’s all I needed to know.”
“So then . . . the last few days . . . they weren’t—”
“Like I said.” I tapped my temple. “Just up in my own head. It happens sometimes.”
“Oh.”
I shifted my weight. “We’ve got some work to do back at—”
“Yeah. I know.” He cleared his throat and played with the lid on his coffee cup. “Okay. Um. Let’s go, then.” He started toward the car.
“Darren.”
He paused, then turned around.
“No one ever said working with me is going to be easy. In fact, I’m pretty sure they warned you about it.”
“So did you.” He laughed so subtly I almost missed it. “But we do have to work together. So, you know, talk to me.”
Hadn’t I had this exact conversation with my ex-wife? And my ex-girlfriend? And at least one ex-boyfriend? And just like I had with them, I nodded and said, “All right. I will.”
“All right. That’s all I need.” Then he continued toward the car.
I hesitated for a moment, but
finally followed him.
Damn, I definitely had to get my game face on. We had a major case to crack, and we weren’t going to have much longer to crack it.
Whatever Darren was doing to my brain and my body, I’d deal with it on my own time. Because dealing with it at work was sure as hell not doing me any favors.
The drug business, I was fast coming to understand, was a fucking bureaucratic nightmare. It had to be. Blake either had an army of enforcers he held in an iron fist, or a photographic memory to keep everything untraceable. He controlled the flow of the heroin, but the dissemination? That was down to the everyday pushers, guys like Jake who worked under someone higher on the food chain or struck out on their own while still reporting back to the organization. How much they sold, where they worked, whether law enforcement was getting too close? All that resulted in the kind of mercenary-yet-dull decision making that I associated with dictators, not with drug dealers.
Andreas and I spent the rest of the week running down some of the contacts we’d gotten from Jake’s list. We hit brick wall after brick wall on all of them. Some were among the missing, a few were killed in gang turf wars, and yet another died literally minutes before we got to her.
We found Zoe Dugan’s body even before the officers sent by a jogger’s 911 call did, not far from her last known address. From the look of things, she’d been dragged to the side of the park across from her apartment, shot in the gut, and then finished off with a shot to the head. It had been a hard death, her agony apparent in the withered curl of her body. The jogger was still in hysterics a few feet away, finally distracted by the arrival of the cops.
Andreas was pissed. “What the fuck?” he demanded under his breath as he crouched down to examine the body. Zoe’s hands had been bound behind her, and she was bent forward over her stomach. The head shot had obviously come second, a simple, final punctuation signifying the end of her life. “This wasn’t random.”
Well, duh. “No shit.”
“I mean the timing, Darren. We decided to go after her next last night, and she ended up dead this morning? Outdoors, in this area?” He shook his head and stood up. “It wasn’t the safest way to take her out.”
“Too public,” I said, my mouth playing along as my brain worked to catch up. “Why not kill her in her apartment?”
“They’re pretty nice units. A person couldn’t shoot someone and expect the neighbors not to call the police. Her back door was open, too. She tried to run for it.”
“Who would it be safer to run from than fight?”
He shrugged. “Someone well trained. Maybe someone whose authority couldn’t be easily questioned.”
My mouth went dry. “You think it might have been a cop?” I murmured, not wanting the two officers behind us to hear.
“We need to consider the possibility. We aren’t the only ones with access to Jake’s list. We’ve been going right down the line, and we’re getting cockblocked every time. We’re going to have to change things up before we lose every lead we’ve got.”
“What do you want to do?”
Andreas opened his mouth, then shut it again before saying anything. “I’m not sure yet,” he said slowly. “We could try switching up the order we go after them, but if it really is someone on the inside, then it might not matter.”
One of the cops came up to my side, distracting me before I had a chance to press Andreas. “You two done here? The coroner’s on the way.”
“Yeah,” I said after a quick glance at my partner, who didn’t meet my eye. “We’re done. Thanks.”
The ride back to the precinct was silent, which I didn’t like. Even during the tense times this week, Andreas had been open—eventually—to talking with me after he’d come clean about his actions in Jake’s place. Now he was either deep in thought, or he was brooding over some unexpressed man-pain. Either way, I wanted to know what was going on. I figured I’d give him one ride’s grace, then start bugging him again once we were out after the next person on the list—whoever that ended up being.
Instead, I was waylaid the moment we stepped foot inside the station.
“Darren!”
It was Detective Newberry, one of the guys I’d gone through the academy with. He was a few years older than me, had spent four years in the army before deciding to go into law enforcement, and had found his niche in the Major Case Unit. They had their own office in another building—I didn’t know what he was doing here.
“Hey, Trent.” We shook hands, and then he turned to Andreas.
“You must be this guy’s partner. Be careful, man, Darren plays dirty.”
“Are you still holding that paintball game against me?” I shook my head in mock despair. “It’s been years. Let it go, Trent. Let it go.”
Andreas smiled at him. It was the least genuine smile I’d ever seen. “I’ll keep that in mind. See you upstairs, Corliss.” He left before I could say anything else.
“Wow.” Trent watched him go. “He’s just as much of an asshole as they say, isn’t he?”
“What’s up, Trent?” I asked, trying to redirect him without being obvious about it. It didn’t work. Trent was a decent detective, and we’d been pretty close once. He knew all my tells.
“Aw, what, are you feeling protective of big, bad Ruffner?” He grinned knowingly. “He is hot, I’ll give you that, but I don’t think you’ve got what it takes to grab his attention. The guy’s a lady-killer.”
After the morning I’d had, I was in no mood to hear that dumbass phrase. “Really, what are you doing here?”
“Just stopping by to see a friend. Speaking of which, Detective Thibedeau mentioned that he wants to meet with you. You should rescue him before he goes looking for you and Ruffner sets him on fire or something. Kidding!” Trent held up both his hands. “He’s in his office on the fourth floor. You want me to walk you there?”
“Turns out I’m super good at counting to four. I think I can find it without you.”
“Of course you can.” Trent left with a smirk and a swagger, and I wondered for the thousandth time since meeting him whether or not it was worth the hit to my record to deck him in the fucking face. And now I was heading up to IA on his say-so?
I didn’t want to, but I wanted Andreas and Thibedeau coming face-to-face even less. I chose the lesser evil and headed up to the fourth floor.
Damn, it was cold up here. Wasn’t heat supposed to rise? How much air conditioning did our tax dollars pay for just to keep the demons on the fourth floor cool and comfortable? Detective Thibedeau had a private office, and the door was firmly shut. I took a deep breath and knocked twice.
“Come in.”
Thibedeau didn’t look surprised to see me—that sharp crease in his brow suggested annoyance instead. “Darren. I thought you’d have been here sooner.”
“You said you’d be arranging our next meeting, not me.”
“But you’ve had a busy week.” He still hadn’t asked me to sit. At this point it was probably deliberate, so I didn’t bother getting any closer. “Surely you’ve learned a few things about your partner since Monday that are worth sharing. Even if it’s just to clear him of suspicion,” he added condescendingly.
“We haven’t gotten very far on the case. All the new leads are drying up.”
“How is Detective Ruffner taking that?”
“Oh, he’s upset about it.”
“How can you tell?”
“The constant swearing is a pretty solid tip-off. Look, if I had anything for you, I’d tell you; Ruffner’s not such a great partner that I’m eager to spend extra time with him. But I don’t. Not yet.”
Thibedeau steepled his fingers. “Not even with regards to Jake Carter? Because bringing him in was certainly a lucky windfall. Almost too lucky.”
Danger, Will Robinson, danger! “I thought so too at the time, but―” I shrugged “―I was wrong. And we haven’t been very lucky since. A week really isn’t much time, Detective Thibedeau.”
“True.�
� He nodded. “If anything of interest does happen, you know where to find me. I want to know as soon as possible, Darren.” Now he was using his Daddy knows best voice. It really didn’t work for him. “Keeping cops from abusing their power is part of a sacred public trust.”
“I understand.”
“Good.” He smiled flicker-fast. “You can go, then. Have a nice afternoon.”
I wasn’t Catholic, but I still had the urge to make the sign of the cross as I left Thibedeau’s office. He was so oily he could probably walk through a rainstorm without getting wet. I didn’t like the guy, but I did have to make an effort with him, at least for now. We’d have more than enough evidence to make him back off after we dealt with Blake, but until then I had to look like I was on his side. I wasn’t going to give Andreas up, not for the heroin thing, even though I didn’t like it. If that was the worst I had to deal with, I’d swallow my worries for now.
Andreas didn’t say anything when I joined him at our desks, but his concerned expression spoke volumes. Later, I mouthed. When we weren’t surrounded by overly interested ears.
Andreas’s paranoia might have been catching.
“What a shitty day,” I said when we finally settled into a booth at the back of a dim bar off Main Street. It wasn’t a cop bar, but it was clean and cheap and it had lots of beer, which was all I cared about. I drank deep from my Guinness, then relaxed with a sigh.
Andreas shrugged. “It could have been worse.”
“We found a body this morning. A dead body. The body of someone who was tortured and executed in cold fucking blood, from the looks of things. And then I had to talk to Thibedeau, which might have been even worse. I didn’t tell him anything, but he’s expecting weekly reports at the very least, so now I’ve got that to look forward to.”
“Let’s not forget your admirer, Trent.” Andreas seemed casual, but his hand was tight around his glass. “Did talking to him make your day better or worse?”
“Trent.” I chuckled. “Yeah, it’s always a toss-up. On the one hand, he’s a pretty fun guy to hang out with. On the other hand, if he’s hanging out with you, you know it’s because he wants something. I swear, the only reason he was interested in me at the academy was because he wanted to get in good with my stepdad.”
