Cold Hit

by Stephen J. Cannell

  We hit the call ahead of the designated unit and Zack took off running into the apartment, leaving me sitting in our unit, still nauseous and dizzy. I remembered hearing gunfire inside the apartment and stumbled out of the patrol car, fumbling for my weapon. I dropped it in the flowing gutter water and fell in face first after it. While I fished for my pistol in the sewer drain, Zack was in a deadly shootout, dropped two assholes, both with long yellow sheets, and saved a wounded officer. He also kept me away from our watch commander, sending me back to the station with another officer before our field supervisor arrived on the scene. At the time, I’d been grateful. But now I was confused. Were these rages I was witnessing now a new development, or had Zack always had them? Was I the perfect partner for a cop prone to violence—too useless to even be a witness? I didn’t know. My memory of that period was an alcoholic haze.

  By the time I arrived at the address in Canoga Park, the crime scene was already filling up with news teams and looky-loos. Zack was not on the scene. This time I decided not to wait for him. I had a hunch he would be a no-show. A lot of civilians and neighborhood kids were milling around near the edge of the concrete levee. Fortunately, there were enough cops this time to hold them back.

  I located the officer in charge; a forty-year-old sergeant with blond hair, a Wyatt Earp stash, and three service stripes—nine years on the job. His nameplate read: P. RUCKER.

  “Come on, we got a trail marked over here,” Rucker said.

  I followed him along the lip of the embankment while news crews tracked us from across the street and shot our progress. Rucker led me down through tangled sage, old McDonald’s cups and Burger King boxes, into the concrete riverbed. There were three young cops standing near the body. Ray Tsu was already leaning over the guest of honor looking at the wounds, but was waiting to move him until I got there. A ratty old blanket, which probably belonged to the victim, covered the corpse’s face.

  “Thanks for waiting,” I said.

  Ray nodded and lifted the blanket. This vic, like all the others, was mid-fifties to mid-sixties, and had been shot in the temple. The bullet was gone—another through and through. I kneeled down and studied the body. He was bald, sun-weathered, and dressed in rags. His teeth were a tobacco-stained mess. I named him Quimby—a comedy name, but I was getting frustrated.

  “John Doe Number Five,” Ray said, looking up at me. “No wallet. Somebody in those apartments probably called it in. Anonymous call, so we don’t have a respondent.”

  “Let’s clear this crowd of uniforms out,” I said to Rucker, not wanting any of the cops to see the symbol if there was one. Rucker moved the officers away while Ray and I kneeled down on opposite sides of the body and pulled up his ratty shirt.

  The now-familiar emblem was carved crudely on his chest.

  An hour later we were ready to carry the deceased up to the coroner’s wagon. I was up on the street wondering where my partner was, when I heard a voice behind me.

  “Detective?”

  I turned to see a young patrolman whose nameplate read: OFFICER F. MELLON.

  “Yes?”

  “I think I might know this guy.”

  I pulled him away from the swarming press and walked him fifty yards up to my car, opened the door, and sat him inside. Then I got behind the wheel, turned on my tape recorder, and set it on the dash in front of him.

  “Where do you know him from?” I asked.

  “Well, not know him, exactly. I mean, I never talked to him or anything, but if it’s the same guy, I used to see him all the time, a couple of miles from here, standing by the freeway off-ramp at De Soto holding a sign.”

  “Panhandling.”

  “Yeah. His sign read: HELP ME. VIETNAM VET. CORPSMAN. Or something like that. I remember thinking I’d never before seen a sign where the vet put down what he did in Nam. Maybe he figured vets who’d been hit and saved by a corpsman would stop and give him money.”

  “Officer Mellon, I want you to go back to the station and get some guys together. I’ll get a picture of this victim over there in an hour. I want you to start talking to homeless people near that off-ramp. Show ’em the picture. I’ll square it with your watch commander. Get me a name to go with this guy. Can you do that?”

  “I can try.”

  I handed him my card and took his numbers.

  After he got out of the car, I put it in gear, and drove Code Two down to the lab on Ramirez Street. On the way, I called the WC in Canoga Park and told him I needed everybody he could spare to go out and show the new vic’s picture around.

  Twenty minutes later, I pulled into the basement garage at the crime lab and ran for the elevator. I had just remembered where I’d seen that symbol before. It was when I was in the Marines. The carving was so crude and lacking in detail that everyone, including me, had missed it.

  When I got to Symbols and Hieroglyphics, everybody was gone. I found a secretary to help me. She took me to the stacks where I pulled out a book on military emblems. I started flipping pages until I found it.

  The badge for the Combat Medical Corps.

  12

  It was almost 10 P.M. when I arrived at the Glass House. I had to fight my way through a downstairs corridor crowded with news crews, staff rank officers, and press relations. A network news team had actually brought in their own coffee trolley. On the way into the elevator, Carmen Rodriguez of Channel Whatever found me and nodded to her cameraman, Gar. With no preamble, it was all Lights, Camera, Action. No Hello. No How’s it going? Just shove the old mike under my nose and start asking questions. I’m not good at this. When I see myself on TV, I always look pissed and dangerous. My annoyance with the press comes across.

  “What do you think of the Fingertip task force being formed?” was her opening question.

  “Carmen, do you think it’s possible that you and I might ever have even one conversation without that damn camera in my face?”

  “Cut, Gar,” she said to her cameraman who turned off the sun-gun that was mounted on the nose of his state-of-the-art HD 24 camera.

  “Much better,” I said. “What task force?”

  “Chief Filosiani is naming a Fingertip task force. The news conference is in a few minutes.”

  “A task force ought to be a big help.” I smiled. “Nice chatting.”

  I turned and ducked into a closing elevator before she could stop me and headed straight for six. The sea-foam green carpet and light-wood paneling on the command floor were a stark contrast to the overpopulated steel desk clutter of my space on four. I found Alexa in her office going over some notes. She had changed into a tailored suit since leaving the restaurant, and was putting on her flats with one hand while holding up a protesting palm with the other.

  “Don’t start up with me,” she said as I came busting through the door.

  “You’ve gotta stop this. Shut this task force down. I finally have something. One of the Blues thinks he remembers this last guy in Canoga Park holding up a panhandling sign at De Soto and the One-Oh-One.”

  “It’s too late, Shane. Tony contacted the FBI two days ago and since all the homicide detectives in HS have full, high-priority caseloads, the manpower assignments are coming from the five city Homicide Divisions and have already been made. He was all set yesterday and pulled the trigger two hours ago when the new body was found. I told you this was about to happen. All that’s left is to announce.”

  “But I’ve finally got a lead—a good one.” I handed her a Xerox of the Combat Medical Badge I’d made from the book.

  “What’s this?”

  “Combat Medic’s insignia. That’s what the unsub’s been carving on all the vics.”

  She picked it up and looked at it, then reached into her top desk drawer for a photo of the carved symbol. She compared the two. “It’s not very exact.”

  “Hey, it’s a very intricate badge. To get it exact, he’d have to use a tattoo needle or a pen, not a knife. It’s close enough,” I said. “If I’m right, this sets up
a course for our investigation.”

  “Look, Shane, I—”

  “Lemme run it for you.” She hesitated, but then nodded.

  “Somebody is killing vics who are fifty to sixty years old. That makes all our DB’s Vietnam vintage guys. They’re homeless and they all have this medic’s symbol carved on their chests.”

  “So you think the unsub was in Nam?” She leaned back in her swivel and studied me skeptically. “The mean age of serial killers is twenty-five. If you’re right and the killer was in Nam, that makes this guy way over the target age.”

  She was right about the mean age. But that was just a computer-generated statistic achieved by taking all of the serial killers ever caught, adding their ages and dividing that by their total number. But serial murder, like bad fashion, often defies rationale, and when dealing with aberrant psychology, it’s a mistake to marry computer generated facts.

  “Maybe the unsub is a slow starter,” I said. “Or maybe he’s the son of a medic, was abused by his father and is killing him over and over. Maybe he’s a current vet who was screwed up by a medic. Maybe all the victims were medics. Maybe he’s a medic himself. Shit, come on…I don’t know what the connection is, but this mutilation is a part of his signature, and it damn sure means something. This medic thing is the first angle I’ve had in seven weeks that I can work.

  “I’ve got all the Blues the watch commander in Canoga can spare, showing this new vic’s picture to homeless people around the De Soto off-ramp. If I get a name, I’ve got my first real foothold. I can start assembling possible motives, look for witnesses.” I leaned toward her. “Give me and Zack another day.”

  “It’s done. The FBI is sending us a profiling expert. Some ASAC from the local office named Judd Underwood. We’re wheels up, babe. It’s airborne.”

  “Shit.” I turned and headed out of the office.

  “Don’t go away mad,” she called after me.

  I looked back at her.

  “I tried to stop this,” she said softly. “I really did. And Tony almost bit my head off for it. Wanta see the teeth marks?” She started to pull down her turtleneck. “Look.” She exposed her beautiful neck. There were no tooth marks on her ivory skin, but hey, every defense can’t be bulletproof.

  “Maybe with more people on this, we can run down your Vietnam angle quicker,” she said hopefully. “You know it’s gonna be a huge job going through a military hospital V.A. check.”

  “I don’t want any help. Zack and I should have been able to do this ourselves.” Then I felt the cold breath of political anticipation. “By the way, who did Tony put in charge of this cluster-fuck?”

  “Deputy Chief Michael Ramsey,” she said softly, knowing I’d hate it.

  “Great White Mike?” My jaw dropped. He was the biggest asshole on the sixth floor. The guy actually kept makeup in his briefcase because he loved being on TV. “Guess we’ll be having lots and lots of news conferences,” I said.

  “Give the guy a chance, Shane.”

  “White Mike will run this task force like a Vegas lounge act. At least, don’t bullshit me.”

  “Okay, no bullshit?”

  I waited.

  “You’ve had seven weeks. Nothing’s happened. Now we’re trying this.”

  I left her office and headed down to Homicide Special. Crossing the squad room to my cubicle was a little like being the losing pitcher in the locker room after the seventh game of the World Series. I heard way too many Good trys and Not your faults.

  When I got to my desk, I had a message waiting: Call Fran 555-6890. I picked up the phone and dialed.

  When Fran Farrell answered, her voice sounded quiet, almost subdued.

  “It’s Shane,” I said. “You called?”

  “It’s about Zack.”

  “You have any idea where he is?”

  “He’s here. You better come over.”

  “I can’t come now, Fran. I’ve got my hands full. Our Fingertip case just went postal.”

  “You better come anyway.”

  “Why?”

  “He tried to commit suicide. I came home and found him bleeding in my bathtub with his wrists cut. Get over here, Shane. He wants to see you.”

  13

  The house was a ranch-style, cream-colored bungalow with green trim in the Valley just off Rossmore. I parked the Acura at the curb and walked up the drive toward the front door. It was 11 P.M. I rang the bell, not sure of how I was going to handle this.

  The door was opened by a red-haired boy about Chooch’s age. It had been a while since I’d seen him, but I guessed this was Zack Junior. He was rawboned, with Zack’s rugged Irish looks and blue-green eyes.

  “I’m Shane. Zack Junior, right?” He nodded. “We haven’t seen each other in a while,” I added.

  “Mom’s in the living room,” he said without expression.

  I moved into the house and met Fran coming into the foyer. Young Zack disappeared down the hall. Like most kids caught up in a divorce, he didn’t know which side to be on and ended up just trying to stay out of sight. Fran was wearing stretch jeans and a polo shirt. She was one of those people who should avoid stretch pants. She had a round face and an usually pleasant demeanor. I’d known her briefly when I’d partnered with Zack in the West Valley, but that experience had colored her opinion of me. There was always a hint of disapproval. She gave me a cursory hug and then pulled back and fixed me with a hard amber-eyed stare.

  “Get him out of here, Shane.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “I can’t do this. It was hard enough throwing him out the first time. What on earth was he thinking? In my bathtub? I come home with the boys and find him bleeding, with Sinatra singing on the CD.”

  “What’s going on with him, Fran? It’s like all of a sudden the bottom just dropped out.”

  She snorted out a bitter laugh. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “If I’m going to help him I gotta know what’s eating him up.”

  “You can’t help him. His problems go all the way back to his childhood. I didn’t even know about most of it till his mother called a month ago. Since he got back from Florida, it’s gone to a whole new place.”

  “Look, Fran, I need to—”

  “I’m not getting into it, Shane. Can’t and won’t. Just make him go.”

  “Where is he?”

  She led the way into the den at the back of the house.

  Zack was in a big Archie Bunker chair parked in front of a dark big-screen TV. He was staring out the window at a small backyard with a lit kidney-shaped pool. His wrists were wrapped. The bandaging looked professional. I knew Zack wouldn’t go to the emergency room. They’d be forced to report an attempted suicide and that would be career death for a cop. I remembered he’d told me that before they were married, Fran was an E.R. nurse.

  We were standing in the threshold, but Zack was still staring out at the backyard. “Shane’s here,” Fran said. Her voice had the same detached, impersonal tone you’d use showing a plumber where the leak was.

  Zack was wearing a maroon bathrobe and slippers. When he turned, I saw that he had removed the splint from his nose but still looked at me around a swollen purple mess. His eyes were expressionless, like holes punched in cardboard. Fran stepped back into the hall, closed the door, and disappeared.

  “Intense,” I said, as I crossed the room toward a wing chair by the window and sat on the arm. “Propped in the tub, wrists up, bleeding dangerously. Very operatic.”

  Zack didn’t want to look at me, and turned his gaze back toward the window.

  “What’s the deal? Did that fancy Glock jam?” I said.

  “Can it. I didn’t call so you could come over and piss on me.”

  “Hey, Zack, what game are we playing? I’m not a psychiatrist and, obviously, I don’t want to say anything that’s gonna drive you over the edge, but my bullshit meter is red-lined, man.”

  He still wasn’t looking at me.

  “How’s this su
pposed to go now? You come over here and slash your wrists, but you don’t quite get the job done and Fran and the boys come home and find you tits up in the tub with Sinatra singing, ‘My Way.’”

  “Get the fuck outta here,” he said, his voice a whisper.

  I stood and started toward the door, but then stopped and turned back. “Zack, I owe you a lot.You were there for me and I’m trying to be there for you, but you gotta admit, even at my worst I didn’t pull a bunch a weak shit like this.”

  “I try and kill myself and you call it weak shit?”

  “If you’re gonna check off the ride, don’t do it in a bathtub like some Valley transvestite. Screw that damn Glock into your ear and take care of business. You want my take?” He turned his eyes down so I continued: “You’re hoping Fran will let you come back and this is some kinda guilt trip.”

  Then his eyes filled with tears.

  “Get me outta here, Shane.”

  “Done.”

  I left him in the den and went to find Fran. She had washed his clothes. They were still warm from the dryer. In the harsher light of the laundry porch, I thought I saw the last remnants of an old bruise under her left eye. There was a darkening there, a faint smudge covered over with heavy pancake. I returned to the den, closed the door, and handed him the clothes.

  He started rambling. “My boy looks at me like I’m…” He couldn’t finish. “Like I’m some kinda monster.”

  If he’d been knocking Fran around that could be why. But I didn’t know that for sure. I didn’t have any proof. I was confused and conflicted. When he finished dressing, I said, “Let’s go. You got everything?”

  We walked to the car and I loaded him in. Then I went up to where Fran was standing on the front porch watching us. The strain of all this was adding years to her face.

  “Where’re you gonna take him?” she asked, concerned. “I don’t know if he should be alone. He could try this again.”

  “Look, Fran, he’s a cop. He’s got access to weapons, or if he really wants to open a vein, there’re sharp edges everywhere. We can put him in a psychiatric hospital, but unless he agrees to stay no civilian facility is gonna be able to hold him.” She stood there with her arms crossed, her mouth growing smaller.