Cal Rogan Mysteries, Books 1, 2 & 3 (Box Set)

by Robert P. French

  “Wait a minute, Rogan.” Stammo breaks into my train of thought. “You just said that when you found the license plate, you were leaving through the back yard. Why the hell were you doing that?” His eyes narrow. “You didn’t call it in?”

  “I thought you called it in.”

  “Me? No.”

  “Someone did. Patrols were arriving as I left over the back fence.”

  “Then why the hell did you run?” I can see his anger rising.

  I have been debating internally whether I should tell him about waking up with the silenced gun in my hand and Seth with three bullets in him. We have only been collaborating for little more than twenty-four hours; prior to that we were colleagues by circumstance, enemies, or at least rivals, by choice.

  He sees my hesitation and his face reddens.

  I decide.

  I tell him everything.

  “Where’s the gun now?”

  “Under the driver’s seat of my car.”

  “What the… Geez, Rogan.” He looks off, deep in thought, grinding his teeth. “You shouldn’t’a run,” he says. “You shoulda’ stayed ’til the patrols got there. You may have had the gun in your hand but they would have swabbed you for GSR and found out it wasn’t you that shot the gun.” His anger at me is ratcheting up.

  “What if whoever shot Seth, did it by putting the gun in my hand while I was unconscious? I’d have gunshot residue all over me.”

  He is close to shouting now. “That’s no excuse—”

  “Besides, I didn’t have any time to think it all through. It was a split second decision. I just ran.”

  “No excuses, Rogan. You’ve gotta turn that gun in. It’s evidence. Plus you’re the only one who knows that those two were there.”

  “Sam knows. She’ll have already told them.”

  He sighs in exasperation and the fact that I know he’s in the right doesn’t help.

  “Yeah, but she doesn’t know who they are. She doesn’t know they’re the ones that did this.” He looks down at his useless legs under the blankets and uses the same expletive. “And don’t go fucking around with the evidence, no wiping off your prints or scrubbing your hands.”

  He’s right of course. It was a poor decision to run. I just have one question.

  “Who should I go to? If I go to the one who’s dirty… I mean it could be Superintendent Cathcart, or Steve, or anyone. There could be more than one.”

  “Just find out who’s assigned to the case and go to him.”

  “OK, I’ll go first thing in the morning.”

  “Not a good idea. What if they find evidence that you’ve been there or what if Sam tells them. Then you’ll be on the defensive. You need to go to them now.”

  I don’t know why I’m being so argumentative. “They won’t and Sam won’t.”

  Stammo lays back in the bed and rolls on his side facing away from me. He sighs and gives a dismissive gesture with his hand.

  A great wave of tiredness washes through me.

  And something else.

  A cycle is in process, a cycle with which I am altogether too familiar. Everything I have done in the last twenty-four hours is wrong: when Inspector Vance suspended me, I should have stood up for myself and told him what happened, told him why my system was full of heroin; I feel guilty about spending yesterday afternoon in bed with Elizabeth Wright while Sam was being taken by Seth, kidnapped solely because she’s my wife; guilty that I didn’t contact VPD and get them involved when I guessed where Sam was being held; angry that I was too stubborn and stupid to accept Stammo’s offer of his gun—if I had done so, Seth Harris would be alive and the women who crippled Stammo would be under arrest.

  The Beast is calling me. He wants me to erase the memory of the last twenty-four hours. I may have licked the physical withdrawal with Tylenol but this need is greater than mere physical pain.

  Just one little ten-dollar flap of heroin.

  Just one.

  “Sorry,” I say as I turn and go. I don’t know if I’m saying sorry to Stammo, or to Sam, or to Seth Harris or to myself and Ellie for what I am afraid I’m going to do next.

  54

  Cal

  The eight items are all laid out neatly in front of me on the kitchen counter.

  The night that surrounds me is quiet. There are no traffic sounds, no hints of music or TV seeping through the apartment walls. Quiet. Peace and quiet.

  But inside me a screaming battle is raging.

  I dissolve the powder on the spoon in the sterile water and the Beast screams his victory.

  The cheap plastic butane lighter, neon green, plays its flame under the spoon, its soft roar a ripple in the silence. Inside, Ellie begs me not to do it, don’t go Daddy, I don’t want to lose you, she cries.

  The liquid reaches boiling point and froths silently. Cal, I want you back, Sam’s voice is seductive. All you have to do is stop using.

  Don’t worry, Rocky. You can have it all, roars the Beast.

  I drop the little cotton filter into the spoon and put the needle into it, bevelled side down. As I draw the liquid up into the barrel, I see their faces: Stammo, Steve, Inspector Vance. They are silent. They just look, except for Stammo. He shakes his head and turns away.

  And the Beast just laughs.

  I tie the surgical elastic around my left bicep. A vein rises and I swab it with the alcohol wipe.

  I know this is the point of no return. I know where this path leads. I don’t care.

  The voices inside stop.

  Even the Beast—he knows he has won.

  I take up the needle.

  A face.

  A child’s face.

  The eyes are bloody, damaged in some way, but I see the rebuke in them. It cuts into me. His mind reaches out to mine. He cannot speak, there is a cross carved over his mouth.

  Please, his mind says, please speak for me.

  “Noooooooooo!”

  That voice was mine.

  The sound of the bell cuts through the labyrinth in which my dreams hold me captive.

  I reach out and slam the alarm’s snooze button.

  But that’s not it. The bell rings again.

  I creak out of bed, pull on my pants, discarded on the floor last night, and go to the door.

  The peephole shows Steve. What the—

  I open the door and the other actors are revealed. Sarge and two patrol officers of the large variety. Definitely not Hotspur’s velvet-guards.

  “Would you come with us please, Cal?” It is not the request that the words imply.

  Steve follows me back into my bedroom and stands silent while I get dressed. My mouth is screaming for a glass of water but I dare not go into the kitchen. If Steve follows me there, he will see my drug paraphernalia, left lying there last night after I somehow managed to squirt the precious liquid down the drain.

  “What’s this about, Steve?”

  “Let’s talk about it when we get to Gravely.”

  As we head back toward the front door, I go to grab my leather jacket from the hall closet but remember the state of the interior lining. Instead, I grab a black pea-jacket. Steve holds the door open for me. I walk through, relieved that he didn’t want to look around, relieved that he did not see my drug gear, the jacket or…

  But that’s short-lived.

  In addition to Sarge and his boys, the hallway now holds a three-man forensic team.

  I look at Steve. He pulls a paper from his pocket and opens it. I have seen enough search warrants to recognize this as one.

  Busted.

  I have been sitting here for almost three hours. It’s par for the course. I was chartered and warned and asked to wait. Steve came in once with two bags of my clothes. “What items were you wearing last night?” he asked; I pointed them out and he left me alone with my water, and a Tim’s donut, kindly supplied by the VPD.

  Although I am itching to be gone so that I can track down the Reverend Harris, it has given my some thinking time and I kno
w why I’m here. At first I thought that maybe Sam had told them but when I thought through every moment of my time at the Church, I remembered the flashlight, covered in my fingerprints… and the fingerprints of the woman who had the drop on me. And when I left the Church that fresh-faced young cop could have got my license plate. My arrest was inevitable.

  Sitting here as an outsider, I wonder if I will ever fit in again. Especially after what Stammo suspects: My liege, beware; look to thyself; Thou hast a traitor in thy presence. I could be in the same building as a dirty cop who is undermining the work of the department.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” he says as he walks in and takes a seat opposite me. I can see the reflection of his back in the two-way mirror; he has a bald spot taking over the crown of his head. I never noticed it before.

  “I want you to tell me everything you did from about midday yesterday.”

  I’ll start with a lie. Midday yesterday, I was paying a visit on Harold Varga. Let’s see if he knows about it.

  “After lunch, I went to see Elizabeth Wright—”

  “What did you do at lunch time?” he asks.

  “I had a sandwich at home.”

  His eyes narrow. “You didn’t go and see Harold Varga?”

  Gotcha. “Yes, but how did you know that, Steve?” I ask.

  I watch him like a hawk. He doesn’t answer immediately; he just looks at me but I can tell that options are being examined and decisions reached.

  “I’ll ask the questions here,” he says.

  Bad answer.

  “OK, yeah. I did go see Varga.”

  “Why? You’d been suspended. You had no business going to see him.”

  I shrug. “I had a theory about Terry Wright’s murder that I wanted to check out.”

  He doesn’t ask me what my theory was. This is strange because Steve is a good interrogator; he rarely leaves stones unturned.

  “I’m telling you right now, Cal, you are on suspension. Do not involve yourself in the Department’s affairs anymore. Do you understand?”

  “Sure, Steve, I understand.” I understand the order but will ignore it. If Terry Wright can beg me to speak for him and can get me to resist the lure of heroin, I’m not about to abandon the investigation into his death just for the sake of the Department’s standard operating procedures.

  “So why’d you go and see Elizabeth Wright?”

  Part of me wants to say, “So we could screw each other’s brains out,” but good sense prevails.

  “I wanted to talk to her about her husband’s associates.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “Nothing of any use.” Nothing at all in fact.

  He looks at me long and hard. “OK, then what.”

  “Then I went home and thought about the case and that I’m probably going to be fired.”

  If they ask me to hand my Blackberry back, they are going to be able to check the GPS and find out that I was at Elizabeth’s all afternoon. Thoughts of the afternoon stir my body.

  “And you were home all evening?”

  “No. At six o’clock I got a call from Ellie’s after-school care to say that Sam hadn’t shown up to collect Ellie.”

  I tell him everything that happened except for two things: my conversations with Stammo about there being a crooked cop in the VPD and having a gun in my hand when I woke up and found Seth Harris dead.

  He takes it all in, asking the occasional question.

  As I’m telling him about leaving through the back garden of the Church of the Transcended Masters, an officer from Forensics walks in with a report in a blue file folder. She hands it to him and leaves.

  He scans it quickly and I can see disappointment on his face. I hope that he can’t see the relief on mine.

  “No GSR on my clothing, eh Steve?” I guess.

  He neither confirms nor denies but I’m pretty sure I’m right.

  “Why does Sam deny you were there?”

  “I told her to.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t want you guys to know I was there.”

  “Why?”

  “Sam was having an affair with Seth Harris. With Harris dead, it makes me a suspect.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  “Let’s cut to the chase here, Steve. You know I didn’t kill him. You also know that the search warrant didn’t turn anything up… like a murder weapon.” I feel the heat rising in my face as I think what the search warrant did show up: evidence of heroin which, ironically, I didn’t use.

  “Also, the flashlight on which you found my fingerprints had some other prints on it, didn’t it?”

  He nods.

  “Whose?”

  “I’m not at liberty to tell you that.”

  I blow up. “Come on Steve, you know and I know that it was one of the women who tried to kidnap Michael Chan, the women who put Nick Stammo in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Who the fuck are they?”

  “I’m sorry, Cal, that’s sensitive information. I can’t share it with you.” He stops and thinks for a moment then continues, “One, because you’re suspended and two because you are using again.”

  “It just happens that—” I start to protest, to tell him that I didn’t in fact use last night… but what’s the point?

  I try to suppress a sigh. “OK, Steve. Either arrest me or let me go.”

  “I have other questions for you.”

  “You can ask my lawyer. Am I under arrest?”

  He is silent.

  “I thought not.” I stand and leave the room but before I can close the door behind me he says, “Cal, wait.”

  I turn.

  “There’s a Police Board disciplinary hearing into your status with the Department at nine Monday morning at Gravely Street. Make sure you’re there.”

  Hiding the turmoil, I hold his eyes for a moment. “See you around, Steve.”

  As I head down the corridor to the elevator, I pull out my Blackberry and make the call I would have made first thing this morning if I hadn’t been rousted out of bed by Steve.

  “Hi, this is the Cullen residence. May I ask who’s speaking please?” Ellie’s voice sounds very grown up.

  “Hi Sweetie.” I feel the glow that always comes from speaking with her.

  “Hi Daddy.” Her enthusiasm brings a huge grin onto my face. Her voice becomes muffled… “It’s OK Grandpa, it’s my Daddy.” …then back to normal. “Where are you Daddy?”

  “I’m at the police station but I really need to talk to Mommy right now. Is she there?”

  “Yes, I’ll get her for you. Then we can talk after, OK?”

  “You got it.” I hear the sound of the phone being put down.

  I enter the elevator and it takes me to the ground floor. As the doors open I see a uniformed female member trying to calm an irate citizen who is clearly not happy about something. Something about this tableau triggers a memory and Steve’s words to me come rushing back, spawning an idea.

  It’s a crazy idea but something about it feels so right. I need to talk to Stammo and ask him if—

  “Hi, Cal.” Her voice sounds tentative.

  “Hi Sam, are you OK?” I hear her mother’s voice in the background. I can’t hear the words but the tone is condemnatory.

  “Ye-es.” I’m pretty sure this means no. “I need to speak to you Cal. Ellie and I are about to head home. Can you meet me there in half an hour?” I hear a distinct grumble from Sam’s mother in the background.

  I check my watch.

  “Sure, Sam. See you then.”

  I will have to wait to expound my theory to Stammo until after I have seen Sam.

  55

  Sam

  It feels good to hold him so tightly. The three of us are hugging in the hallway in what Ellie calls an all-ee-in-together. “Thanks for finding me, Rocky,” I say. I feel close to tears but I don’t know if they are tears of gratitude for his rescue or tears of shame for what I have to do now.

  “Thank you, thank you,
thank you, Daddy,” Ellie chimes in. “You said you’d bring Mommy home and you did.”

  We hug a little longer, all of us unwilling to break the spell… but I do.

  “Ellie, honey, can you go upstairs and play in your room for a while so Daddy and I can have a talk?”

  She looks at me… then at Rocky… then she smiles. “Sure, OK, Mommy.” She runs upstairs giggling.

  I limp into the kitchen; the stress of the last twenty-four hours have aggravated my MS. Rocky follows and sits on one of the bar stools at the counter. “Thank you so much for rescuing me, Ca—, Rocky.” I want to respect his desire to be called by his nickname but I don’t always remember.

  “Hey…” he leaves it hanging, embarrassed.

  “We need to talk,” I say and set about making coffee; it will allow me to speak without looking at him.

  “Do we ever. First thing is when did you—”

  “Wait!” I cut him off. “Me first.”

  He shrugs.

  “Last night, after the police came, they took me to the Main Street station and I met with Steve. Among other things, he told me that you were suspended because you tested positive for heroin. Is that true?”

  He stays silent until I turn and look at him. “Yes.” He looks me straight in the eye. One word. No excuses. That’s different.

  “Are you still using?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He snorts. “You can’t ever be sure, Sam.”

  This is very different. Where are the promises, rationalizations and assurances which were so quick to his lips in the past?

  A psychiatrist told me that the reason I was so drawn to Cal was a deep-seated need to cure him of his addiction as redemption for the fact that I couldn’t cure my father of his. Am I grasping at straws?

  I turn back to the counter, pour beans into the grinder and inhale the smell.

  “What happened, Cal?” I can hear the break in my voice.

  “I’ll tell you everything,” he says.

  I listen intently to his story. As ridiculous as it seems to believe that his colleagues kidnapped him and shot him full of heroin, I know he is telling the truth; there is a quiet conviction in his voice that chips away at my resolve. When he tells me of how Ellie’s phone call stopped him from using and how his need to speak out for the murdered boy stopped him again, I can feel the tears prickling my eyes and all my former resolve is gone. The two things that he loves, his daughter and his job, were what stopped him from using. I stop halfway through pouring boiling water into the coffee press, turn and throw my arms around him.