Blown Away

by Shane Gericke

  A Viking of a paramedic ran up, equipment jangling. He clomped a stethoscope to the man’s chest, bellowing, “Alla ya shut up! I can’t hear!”

  The hubbub stilled. The SWAT lieutenant motioned his black-clad troops to the children’s library in the basement and fanned the uniforms across the reading room. Annie hustled up, examined Emily top to bottom. She squeezed her shoulder, then wheeled off after Luerchen, who’d retreated to the front entrance. Emily turned back to Viking, who was listening with closed eyes. Five excruciating seconds later, he opened them and shook his head.

  “I felt a pulse!” Emily insisted. “I did, in both my fingers!”

  “Could have been your own you felt, Detective,” a new voice said.

  She turned and saw Chief Cross. No surprise there.

  What did shock was his appearance. Stubbled face. Torn jeans, wrinkled navy sweatshirt. Beat-up Nikes without socks, badge flopping crooked from a neck chain. Submachine gun pointed at the ceiling, sleep sand crusting his bloodshot eyes. She’d never seen Cross less than perfectly kempt. The effect was unnerving. He’d clearly been asleep when all this erupted.

  “That happens when you’re under stress,” Cross continued. “You think it’s the victim’s pulse, but it’s really your own because your heart is hammering and you want it so damn bad.”

  “I’m not doubting what you felt, uh, Emily is it?” Viking said. “But the man’s gone.”

  She bit her lower lip, ordered herself to look at the corpse. Do your job, she told herself as she took in the man’s terrible wounds. Clear-eyed, dispassionate, iron grip on emotions. Like Branch. Like Benedetti. Most of all like Cross, the patron saint of coolness under fire. Look for clues, connect the dots, and you’ll find the Unsub.

  Heated voices made her turn to the entrance doors. Annie was shoving Luerchen. Emily excused herself and went over.

  “You froze!” Annie hissed. “You did nothing while your partner was in danger!”

  “Bullshit!” Luerchen sputtered. “I was with her every second.”

  “Emily was already with the victim when I came in. You were standing right here with your thumb up your ass.” Annie pushed her face into his. “You were scared.”

  “Go fuck yourself, Bates!” Luerchen said. “I backstopped your pal one 100 percent. You tell that lie to anybody else and I’ll kick your ass into next week.”

  “Yeah, right. I’m only gonna say this once, Ray,” she said, her tone so chilling Luerchen backed up several feet. “Stay away from this case. You’re a walking, talking disaster, and I won’t have you endangering my friends.”

  Luerchen went white with fury. “You haven’t heard the end of this,” he muttered, backing toward the parking lot. “Neither of you.”

  Annie blew him a kiss. He gave her the finger and stomped out. “Great job,” she said, turning to tousle Emily’s hair. “You responded exactly the way you should have.”

  “Thanks,” Emily said, blowing out her breath.

  “As for the hole in the floor, here’s what we’re gonna do.”

  “Hole? What hole?”

  Annie snorted. “Ray already ratted you out, dear. I, uh, counseled him that nobody likes a tattletale, least of all me.” Wide grin. “But he’s a weasel. He’ll find Halfass and make a preemptive strike on you in revenge. A complication you don’t need right now. So I’m telling him, I did it.”

  Emily stared. “Lie to Cross? Are you out of your mind? He’ll hang us both!”

  “No guts, no glory.” They talked several minutes. Then Annie waved over the chief, who’d come into the room from a fire exit. He limped their way.

  “You like waving red capes in front of bulls?” Emily demanded.

  “Just nod when appropriate. I’ll handle the rest.”

  “Annie, please, don’t get yourself jammed up for me.”

  “Nonsense. This is what family does.”

  Emily sighed. All she could do now was play along.

  “Chief, I have a problem,” Annie said, arranging her face into an Oscar-winning look of contrition. “I accidentally discharged my weapon into the floor.”

  “What? You’re kidding,” Cross said.

  “Afraid not, sir.” She held out her submachine gun, pointed to the floor near the reception desk.

  “You’re SWAT,” Cross said. “And an army sniper instructor. How could that happen?”

  “Carelessness. I entered the reading room just as Detective Thompson reached the victim. My finger was on the trigger, ready to engage targets, because she was exposed to attack. Somehow the overhead lights flipped on, engaging my startle reflex. Kablam.”

  Cross surveyed the room. “Where was Detective Thompson’s backup in all this?”

  Annie tapped the floor with her foot. “Right here. While Emily put her life on the line, Sergeant Luerchen guarded the entry doors to thwart any escape by the Unsub.”

  Long pause, then, “You know, the first rule of guns is you never put your finger on the trigger unless you intend to shoot.”

  “I know that, sir. I feel like a stupid rookie.”

  “That’s not true,” Cross said. “You’re a very good officer who made a mistake. It happens.” He looked at Emily even as he spoke to Annie. “You understand that bullet could have taken your partner’s life, Sergeant?”

  “Crystal clear, sir,” Annie replied. “From now on, finger off the trigger till I need to shoot.”

  Cross sighed. “All right, all right. Since you’ll punish yourself worse than anything I can dream up, there’s no reason to pursue this further. Excellent job in here.” Cross swung his eyes to Emily. “Goes for you, too, Detective. Are you all right?”

  “Yes, sir. Just a little shaken up.”

  “Take a few minutes to get yourself together, then go debrief Branch. He’s in the parking lot.”

  “Sounds good, sir.” She spotted Luerchen peeking through the front door, and her anger boiled. “Did he rat me out?”

  Cross looked at her. “Come again, Detective? I didn’t quite hear you.”

  The question let her compose herself. “Uh, I was wondering if you ran into my backup officer before you came in? I wanted to compare notes, but he’s not in the room.”

  “As a matter of fact, I did,” Cross said. “Sergeant Luerchen introduced himself, and we had a long conversation.”

  So Cross knows we’re lying! His nice-nice was a trap, and Annie was snared but good. Maybe she could reduce the damage by confessing. “Chief, it wasn’t Sergeant Bates—”

  “Interesting man, Luerchen,” Cross continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “He talks so much yet says nothing of interest. I quit listening to his story halfway through. Carry on, both of you.” He turned and limped toward the corpse.

  Annie smiled and, when he was out of earshot, said, “Listen, I know you don’t like Cross. Not without reason since he rides you like a plow horse. But he’s not only a taskmaster. He’s a really good guy with more than one side to his personality.”

  “Be nice if he showed us the human one,” Emily snorted.

  “He just did,” Annie said. She waved at the coroner on the other side of the room. “Now tell me everything that happened.”

  Emily did, finishing with the Vagina Monologue crack.

  “That’s pretty creative for someone with brains of Play-Doh,” Annie said. “Maybe Ray’s the Unsub. He hates you enough.”

  “I thought of that. But he’s too stupid, and Lucy was dead before I met him.” Emily said. She bade Annie good-bye, then walked over to Cross. “Thank you, Chief,” she said to his back.

  “I wouldn’t thank me just yet, Detective,” Cross said, turning to look at her. “You and Sergeant Bates will serve one-week suspensions for lying about the shooting.”

  Emily stared.

  “Luerchen’s an idiot,” Cross continued. “But he’s also right. You shot the floor. Sergeant Bates is fanatic about cleaning her weapons after every use, and there was no gunpowder smell in her submachine gun. Therefore,
she never fired it.” He pointed at her. “Your accidental discharge was entirely understandable, and I would not have disciplined you for it. The lie is not acceptable. I cannot be misinformed about anything in this case. Hence the suspension. Not for the mistake, but the cover-up.”

  Emily wanted to argue, but what was the point? “Yes, sir,” she mumbled. “Starting now?”

  “Hardly, Detective. I can’t afford to be without two officers right now. I’m suspending the sentence till the Unsub’s safely behind bars.”

  “Uh, yes, sir,” Emily said, knowing a break when she saw it. She turned, straightened, and pushed through the entrance doors toward whatever came next.

  CHAPTER 12

  Tuesday, 5 A.M.

  Forty-nine hours till Emily’s birthday

  “Neither rain nor sleet nor gloom of night,” Branch cracked as Benedetti strode up to the library entrance.

  “Har, har,” Benedetti said. “Sorry I couldn’t back you up. I got two flat tires on the way over.”

  “I don’t see your car. Where’d you park?” Branch asked.

  “Next block. Too many cop cars here, so I dumped it behind Anderson’s Bookshop.” Benedetti stretched his arms over his head. “I changed the first tire quick enough. A mile later the second pops. Had to roust a deputy to bring me a third. Poor old Love Shack is showing her age.”

  “Love Shack?” Emily asked.

  “Pet name for my car. You’ll know why when you meet her.”

  “That thing’s gonna kill you, man,” Branch said. “Time to junk it.”

  Benedetti shook his head. “What self-respecting man dumps his sweetie because she’s old and gray?” He looked at Emily. “So, you OK?”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  Branch rubbed his eyes. “Detective Thompson figures if she has to work in the middle of the night, everyone should.”

  “Detective Thompson,” Benedetti mused. “Gee, Branch, it seems like only yesterday she was an officer. They grow up so darn fast….”

  Emily smiled. “You know, Branch,” she said, struggling for the studied nonchalance of a homicide veteran, “if this guy keeps it up, he might very well start ticking me off.”

  “Me, too,” Benedetti said. “Do we know the victim’s name?”

  Branch jerked his thumb at the library. “Arnold Harrison Soull. Double l. He lives in DeKalb.”

  Where I finished college, Emily realized.

  “The local cops are checking him out.”

  Benedetti scratched his chin. “DeKalb’s a half hour away. Being dead and all, I wonder how he managed to get himself here?”

  “First thing I’ll ask Mr. Unsub,” Branch said dryly.

  Emily told Benedetti what was in the victim’s shin. The commander growled a dozen compound expletives. “Power-drill a guy just to plant a clue?” he asked. “That’s cold. Was his wallet there?”

  “Yes,” Emily said. “Everything intact, just like Lucy’s homicide.”

  “What’s our game connection?” he said, pulling his notebook.

  She explained the Boggle reference scrawled on the birthday card.

  Benedetti stopped writing. “Your birthday? That’s where all this is heading?”

  “Yup,” Branch answered. “That card tells me the Unsub intends to play the final game on her fortieth birthday. The day after tomorrow.” He looked at Emily. “Please tell me you were born during Johnny Carson. We need every hour we can get.”

  “No such luck,” Benedetti answered. “Emily greeted the world at 6:02 A.M., according to her birth certificate. Giving us only forty-nine hours to run him to ground.” He shook his head. “There isn’t a thing this creep doesn’t know about her.”

  Emily looked at him. “Actually, Commander, how’d you know?”

  “Yeah, Marty,” Branch chimed in. “How’d you know?”

  Benedetti flushed. “Couldn’t sleep last night thinking about these game connections. So I swung by NPD and borrowed, uh, Emily’s personnel file.” He looked everywhere but her face. “Figured I should familiarize myself with it. For the, uh, you know, case.”

  “That’s a good, uh, you know, idea,” Branch said. Emily said nothing, enjoying Marty’s discomfort.

  “Geez, you take a little initiative…” Benedetti mumbled, color deepening. Then, changing the subject, “How’d Soull get inside?”

  “The Unsub cut a hole in a downstairs window. Wanna see?”

  “Yeah. Show me the victim first, though.”

  Emily tour-guided. When they reached Soull, Benedetti asked a dozen questions, paying particular attention to the silver dagger. He told Emily to describe exactly how Soull looked before paramedics arrived. He touched the dagger with a gloved finger as she talked, flicked the chain linking the handcuffs. He frowned, touched the dagger handle as though taking its pulse. He cleared his throat and said, “Show me where they entered.”

  They passed Emily’s bullet hole on the way. She didn’t comment. Halfway down the stairs, they conferred with the weary CSIs tweezing the handrails for hair, clothing fibers, and other trace. A minute later they stared at the hole in the plate glass on the westernmost wall of the children’s library. Emily looked around. The posters, pint-size reading chairs, and gaily painted decorations were cheerful yesterday but now served only to mock her.

  “…Then he cut this hatch,” Branch was saying. “Threw Soull inside, then climbed in. Dragged the body upstairs and planted it in the chair.”

  Benedetti nodded, the sharp breeze through the hole fluttering his hair like graying butterflies. “What’s this, two feet across?” he asked.

  “Twenty-six-point-four inches,” the CSI confirmed, not taking his eyes off the fingerprint dust he was brushing across the surface. “The part he cut out is on the table.”

  Benedetti examined both without touching the sharp edges. “There’s no blood puddle upstairs,” he said. “This isn’t the place of execution. It’s the display case.”

  Branch nodded. “When he died, the coroner will tell us. As for where, who knows? Em, lay out our working theory of what happened.”

  “The Unsub parks his vehicle,” she began, pointing to Jackson Avenue, which separated the Riverwalk from the library. “Walks up and shoots out those security lights.” She pointed to the roof overhang, made a finger gun. “Ploop-ploop-ploop, one shot for each light.”

  “‘Ploop’?” Benedetti said.

  “Silencer. It was the middle of the night, but nobody reported gunshots.”

  Benedetti nodded, getting on his knees next to the CSI.

  “He makes the hole with the glass cutter,” she continued. “Retrieves Soull from the vehicle, tosses him inside. Goes in himself, drags Soull upstairs by the ankles.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I saw carpet fibers in Soull’s hair gel.”

  “Good catch,” Benedetti said.

  “Thank you. Then the Unsub arranges my ‘present’ and exits through the hole.”

  The CSI frowned at his brush, headed upstairs to get more powder.

  “We know some interesting things about this perp,” she continued.

  Benedetti looked up.

  “Don’t say perp. Marty hates copspeak, says it’s lazy language,” Branch explained. “Humor him. He had a tough morning changing flat tires and all.”

  Emily crinkled her eyes. “The Unsub, then, is a meticulous researcher. This was the only possible place he could enter the building without setting off an alarm.”

  Benedetti twisted his head through the hole, looked around. “No sensors on the windows,” he said. “Only on the doors. This spot is camouflaged by the retaining wall, shrubs, and roof overhang. And it’s dark as a cave when the security lights aren’t shining.”

  Emily nodded. “Those lamps are small. Recessed into the concrete overhang. If he misses, the ricochet hits him or the alarmed door. He’s a marksman, though—three shots, three lights.”

  Benedetti stood and smacked powder off his knees. “What else?�
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  “Soull weighs at least two hundred pounds,” she said. “Heaving that much deadweight without touching the sharp edges of a narrow hole takes muscle. That’s a good indication the Unsub is male—men have more upper-body strength then women. He’s also got balls.”

  “Yet another indication,” Branch said.

  Emily smiled. “At the tavern, the Unsub had no problem talking a stranger into stripping in a public parking lot. That makes him gregarious and trustworthy.” She pointed at a foot-square sign over the checkout desk. “The library is videotaped after hours. Those warnings are posted throughout the building. He knew he was being watched and proceeded, anyway. Gives him a high tolerance for risk.”

  “Or he’s so whacked out, he don’t give a shit,” Benedetti said.

  “I was hoping to gloss over that one, Commander!” she said. “Anyway, once the lab analyzes the security tape—”

  “He stole that,” Branch interrupted.

  Why am I not surprised? “That’s everything this crime scene tells me,” she said, adjusting The Mule Train to ease its weight on her hips. “What am I missing?”

  Benedetti held up his hand like he was swearing on a Bible. His latex fingers glittered in the CSI’s floodlights. “Did that dagger look real to you?”

  Emily shook her head. “Now that you mention it, the dagger did strike me as weird. Like it’d been painted or something.” She sucked in her breath. “That’s what’s on your gloves—paint. It came off when you touched the dagger.”

  Benedetti brought them to her face. “Correct. Now tell me what color.”

  “Silver,” she said.

  “Darker.”

  “Uh, pewter.”

  “He painted the dagger pewter,” Branch agreed. “Why would he do that?”

  “He wanted it to look fake even though it was real,” Benedetti said. “Like a toy. A prop.”

  “A game piece!” Emily said. “There’s two games represented here! Boggle and something else.” She ran through her collection, but nothing fit. Branch did likewise. They shook their heads.