Beneath a Weeping Sky rcc-3

by Frank Zafiro

  Tower cursed at his own hesitation. He dropped the small truck into gear and tore up to MacLeod’s location. As he arrived, the young officer stood up, clearly favoring one leg.

  “Are you hurt?” Tower asked, slamming the truck door and walking toward her.

  Katie laughed ruefully. “I think my pride just took a serious beating.”

  “How’s your leg?”

  Katie tested it gingerly, limping for several steps. She grimaced each time she put weight on her left leg.

  “It’ll be fine,” she told him through a pained expression.

  Tower brought his portable radio to his mouth. “Ida-409 to Adam-122. Update.”

  There was no response.

  “Adam-122, an update!” Tower barked into the radio.

  Katie reached out and grabbed his wrist. He met her eyes and she shook her head. “Can’t you hear it?”

  Tower’s eyes narrowed. “Hear what?”

  2209 hours

  “Police!” Battaglia yelled with each exhale. “Stop!”

  The man in front of him didn’t slow or pause. With each stride, he seemed to pull farther away.

  Battaglia renewed his effort, forcing his legs to pump harder and faster.

  The suspect seemed to sense his advance and answered with a burst of his own.

  You son of a bitch.

  “You better quit running!” Battaglia yelled. “If I have to catch you, I’m going to kick your ass!”

  Instead of slowing down, the suspect seemed to find an extra gear. He sprinted forward along the sidewalk, slowly widening the gap between them.

  Battaglia pushed on, his breathing labored, his lungs burning.

  * * *

  Sully stretched out his stride, trying to eat up as much ground as possible with each step. The suspect in front of him was shifty, cutting through two yards and over one fence already. He ran in a zig-zag fashion, almost as if he expected Sully to start firing rounds after him.

  “Police!” Sully yelled for the third time. “Stop!”

  The suspect’s only reaction was to hop over a four-foot chain-link fence and sprint for the alley.

  Feeling much lighter in civilian clothes than his usual uniform, which came complete with duty belt and bulletproof vest, Sully vaulted over the fence easily, barely needing to use his hands on the top edge.

  The suspect turned back westward once he reached the alley. Sully momentarily lost sight of him behind a garage. Without pause, he sprinted after the dark figure.

  * * *

  “Hear what?” Tower asked her again.

  “You’ve lost your patrol ears,” Katie told him. She limped over to the Gray Ghost and leaned inside the passenger seat, fishing for something. When she removed her hand, Tower immediately recognized what she held.

  The portable radio.

  Tower frowned. “You mean…”

  Katie nodded. “Yeah. They’re out there chasing bad guys in the dark without backup and without a radio.”

  2210 hours

  “Goddamnit!” Battaglia yelled. “Where the hell did he go?”

  He slowed to a walk, trying to listen for sounds of movement in the alley. The only noise that filled his ears was his own deep, ragged breaths.

  The suspect had managed to get almost a block between the two of them before cutting into the alley. Battaglia walked down the dirt alley, looking left and right for hiding places, just in case the suspect had gone to ground.

  But he knew that isn’t what happened.

  Nope, the guy didn’t stop and hide. He just outran your fat, Italian ass.

  Battaglia sighed. He wasn’t fat. And the son of a bitch was fast. Carl Lewis fast. Hell, he was The Flash fast.

  The residential alley was quiet except for the sounds of his own breathing and the thud of his boots on the hard packed dirt and gravel. He thought about stopping and calling for a K-9 to track the suspect, but he knew it was useless. He didn’t have a radio to call for patrol units to set up a perimeter. Without a hard perimeter to contain the suspect, the K-9 track was useless. Even if the dog caught the scent, the suspect’s head start would never be overcome. He could keep running for an hour and they’d never catch up. And as fast as this guy motored, five minutes was all he needed to be halfway to China.

  Battaglia continued his lonely walk down the dark alley.

  * * *

  The suspect reached the end of the alley and turned south. As he cut to his left, he slipped on a patch of wet grass and tumbled forward onto the sidewalk. Sully heard him grunt in pain. Before the man could scramble to his feet, Sully was on top of him.

  “Down on your stomach!” He ordered as he grabbed the suspect’s arm at the wrist.

  “Yob tvaya mat!”

  Sully didn’t know what that meant, but from the tone he figured it wasn’t compliance. The thin man slipped and turned underneath him, trying to escape.

  “Police! You’re under arrest!” Sully barked at him, refusing to release his grip on the man’s wrist.

  The suspect answered by rolling onto his back and throwing a punch at Sully’s head.

  * * *

  “Take the car,” Tower instructed Katie, “and go after Battaglia. I’ll try to find O’Sullivan.”

  Katie nodded. She slammed shut the passenger door of the Ghost and limped hurriedly around to the driver’s side.

  Tower returned to his truck, reversed the engine and headed off toward the northeast.

  Katie’s leg throbbed as she adjusted the seat to reach the pedals. She was grateful that the Ghost was an automatic. Operating a clutch right now was probably not an option.

  She put the car into gear and flipped around to go after Battaglia.

  * * *

  The punch whizzed by Sully’s face, grazing his cheek and temple.

  A shot of anger exploded in his chest. First this guy attacks Katie, then he runs from them and now he was going to punch him?

  “Enough of this shit,” he growled at the suspect.

  He slipped to the side, drew back his knee and drove it into the man’s buttocks. The man grunted in surprised pain, but managed to throw out another punch toward Sully. This second punch was a wild one and came nowhere near hitting him.

  “Stop fighting!” Sully shouted. He slid to his left and fired his opposite knee. This one thudded into the soft tissue below the rib cage.

  The suspect howled in pain. He curled his body into a fetal position.

  Sully transitioned quickly into an arm bar, controlling the man’s elbow as well as his wrist. Using his leverage, he forced the suspect onto his stomach. Once he had that accomplished, he shuffled forward and lowered his left knee across the back of the man’s neck. Now he controlled three points — the head, the elbow and the wrist.

  He’d won.

  Propping the elbow against his right knee, Sully fished in his belt-line for the handcuffs hanging half-in and half-out of his jeans. He was grateful to find they hadn’t fallen out in the chase or during the brief struggle.

  Like every other time he’d won a foot pursuit or a fight, the clicking sound the cuffs made when he ratcheted them onto the suspect’s wrist was like a symphony to his ears. As the second cuff clicked into place, a pair of headlights turned the corner and illuminated the two of them.

  2212 hours

  Katie found Battaglia trudging up the middle of Howard Street, three blocks from the park. If the lack of a prisoner didn’t tell the story of what happened, the sour expression on his face would have.

  She slowed the Ghost, pulling up next to him. Without a word, Battaglia opened the door and dropped into the passenger seat in a huff. He slammed the door and stared straight ahead.

  Katie didn’t say a word. She drove to the next block, turned and headed back toward the park.

  “Goddamnit,” Battaglia muttered, staring out the window in sullen anger.

  “Don’t feel bad,” Katie said, her leg still throbbing with each heartbeat. “At least you didn’t get your ass kicke
d like me.”

  Battaglia sighed. “I guess this is the loser car, then, huh, MacLeod? All passengers must have gotten their ass kicked or been outran by a suspect?”

  “I guess so.” She was quiet a moment, then said, “I hope Sully and Tower have better luck catching their guy.”

  “Sully is the reincarnation of Bruce Jenner,” Battaglia said. “He’ll catch his guy. Besides, he went after the slow one.”

  The pair rode in silence for a block. Then Katie said, “Bruce Jenner isn’t dead.”

  “Huh?”

  “Bruce Jenner is still alive.”

  “So?”

  “So you can’t have a reincarnation of someone who is still alive. That’s not how it works.”

  “Whatever,” Battaglia said, shrugging away her comment. After a second, he shook his head to himself. “That son of a bitch was fast.”

  “Kicks like a mule, too,” Katie added. She reached down and massaged her bunching quadriceps.

  “You all right?”

  “Hurts like hell,” she said. “But what’s worse, these guys weren’t even who we were after. They’re not rapists. Probably just a couple of crooks who saw an opportunity to rob someone.”

  “Assholes,” muttered Battaglia.

  2249 hours

  Tower stood in the small observation room next to Katie. Both stared through the one-way glass at the slender man seated in the interview room. Under the light, his features were clearly Slavic.

  “He looks Russian,” Katie guessed.

  “Safe bet,” Tower said. “There’s been thousands of them pouring in to River City since the fall of the Soviet Union.”

  “We’ve noticed it on patrol,” Katie told him. “All across the boards, too — witnesses, victims and suspects. A noticeable increase in contacts with Russians.”

  “Well, this one is definitely in the ‘suspect’ category. The question is, of what?”

  Katie shook her head. “He’s not a rapist. They went for my fanny pack. It was a straight up robbery.”

  “Which one went for the bag?”

  Katie pointed at the man in the interview room. “He did. The one that got away is the one who kicked me.”

  “Did he say anything that made you think he might be after more than money?”

  “He didn’t say anything at all,” she answered. “He just reached for my fanny pack. It was a robbery, not a rape. Besides, you never said anything about The Rainy Day Rapist being a team.”

  Tower shrugged. “This isn’t an exact science. I could be wrong.”

  “You know you’re not.”

  “I could be.”

  Katie snorted lightly. “You’re wasting your time.”

  “I’m paid by the hour,” Tower said. He squeezed Katie on the shoulder and left the observation room. As he stepped through the doorway, he almost bumped into Lieutenant Crawford.

  “Sorry,” he murmured.

  Crawford ran his hand through his thinning, tousled hair. “See me in my office after your interview, Tower.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Tower took three hurried steps to the interview room door. At the door, he took a deep breath and put on his game face. Then he turned the knob and went in.

  The man looked up at the sound of his entrance. His face was calm, despite the small scrape on his cheek and the smudge of dirt on his forehead. His eyes fixed Tower with a hard, appraising stare.

  Tower sat down opposite him. For a long minute, the two men looked intently at each other from across the small table. Neither blinked.

  “What’s your name?” Tower finally asked.

  The Russian did not speak. His flat expression radiated a cold hatred back at Tower.

  “Do you speak English?” Tower asked.

  “Da.”

  “Then answer my question. What’s your name?”

  A small smile curled at the edge of his thin lips. “Do you know that I could refuse to tell you? Or give you any name I wish? You would never know difference. You not have my fingerprints.”

  Tower matched his smile with his own. “Let’s start over. You know you don’t have to talk to me, right?”

  “Da. Of course.”

  “And that you can have an attorney, if you want?”

  The Russian snorted. The line of his mouth went straight and hard, all hint of the smile gone.

  “You don’t want an attorney?” Tower asked.

  “In my country,” the Russian replied, “we have saying. God, he want to punish mankind, so he send lawyers.”

  Tower allowed himself a small grin. “I think we just found something to agree about.”

  The Russian did not return his smile, but instead shook his own head. “I no need lawyer. I do nothing wrong.”

  “Well, since you know so much,” Tower said, “do you know that I can hold you until I do identify you? Even if that means sending your prints back to Moscow?”

  The Russian shook his head again. “No. Is America. You will set me free.”

  Tower chuckled. “Hate to break this to you, pal, but that isn’t how it works. Even here in the Socialist Republic of Washington, we can hold people who commit felonies until they’re identified.”

  “What is felony?”

  “A crime,” Tower said. “A serious one.”

  “What crime? I get scared because girl point gun at me and then men chase. You should arrest her, not me.”

  “She’s a cop.”

  The Russian blinked. “She is cop, this girl with gun?”

  “Yep.”

  He shrugged. “But I no do nothing. She is one who points gun at me. Crazy, this girl.”

  “What’s your name?” Tower asked again.

  The man considered, then shrugged again. “Is fine. I no do nothing wrong, so I tell you.”

  “Thank you. What is it?”

  The Russian drew himself up in his seat. When he spoke, his voice had a touch of pride in it. “I am Valeriy Alexandrovich Romanov.”

  “Your name is Valerie?”

  “Nyet. Valeriy.” He pronounced it slowly. “Vuh-LAIR-ey. You see?”

  “Here in America, that’s a girl’s name.”

  Romanov shrugged. “Many things different between America and my country.”

  “Yeah?” Tower asked. “What do they do with rapists over there?”

  “What is this word? Rapist?”

  Tower raised his hand and made a circle with this thumb and forefinger. Then he lifted his middle finger and thrust it in and out of the hole he’d created.

  Romanov’s eyes narrowed. “You think I try make sex on this girl?”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “Nyet. I no do nothing.” Romanov shook his head. “I no need to do that. I get woman when I want. Many woman.”

  “Well, it ain’t about the sex, pal,” Tower told him. “It’s about other things. Like being angry at women. Or being an inadequate. You know, stuff like that.”

  Romanov glared at him. “I no do nothing,” he repeated.

  “If I run your name through Interpol, what will I find?” Tower asked him.

  “Go find out,” Romanov told him. “I no tell you shit.”

  “I’ll bet you’ve got a record over there, Valerie.”

  “Valeriy,” Romanov corrected.

  “I’ll bet that record will tell me a whole lot of interesting things, Valerie,” Tower continued, ignoring his correction. “I’ll bet you’ll have a whole slew of indicator crimes like weenie waving, minor assaults, the whole gamut.”

  “What are these things you say?” Romanov asked. “Negavahru po angliscky. I no speak English much.”

  “You understand me perfectly well.”

  “Nyet.”

  “How many women have you attacked here in River City, Valerie?”

  “I no do noth-”

  “How many did you rape?”

  “Nyet. You think I do that, then you more stupid than I first think.”

  Tower watched Romanov while they spoke. He k
new the Russian was lying about the attempted robbery, but everything he saw told him the man was being truthful about the subject of rape.

  Which I already knew, Tower thought to himself. No victim mentioned accents. None mentioned a second suspect. He was wasting his time.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Tower told Romanov. “Maybe I am stupid. Maybe you aren’t a rapist. But I saw you try to steal that fanny pack.”

  “Nyet. Is not true.”

  “I watched you reach right out and try to take it. So did three other cops, including the ‘girl’ you tried to steal it from. Now, are you going to sit there and deny that?”

  Romanov gazed back at Tower, his countenance flat. “I no do nothing,” he said.

  Tower sighed and stood up. “Well, then I guess you’ll like it here in America, Valerie. Because we throw innocent people who ‘no do nothing’ into jail, too.”

  The corner of Romanov’s mouth twitched into a smile. “I very scared at U.S. jails,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “So much worse than Russia.”

  Tower waited a moment longer, but could think of nothing to say, so he turned and left the room.

  2310 hours

  Katie sat in the women’s locker room, her leg propped up on the long bench that ran down the center of the aisle. Her locker stood open, a calendar depicting a lighthouse displayed on the inside door.

  I’d like to be there right now, she thought. Yaquina Head Lighthouse, on the coast of Oregon. Surrounded by fog. The smell of salt water in the air. A brisk wind making you glad that the door to the lighthouse was so close.

  Of course, she probably couldn’t climb the stairs right now with her throbbing quadriceps. She kneaded the bunched muscle and grimaced in pain. She’d trained in defensive tactics ever since the academy. That repertoire of kicks included one very similar to what the Russian suspect had used on her — a hard, low blast to the quadriceps. Although she’d taken those shots in training, it had never been full force. Usually, she knew it was coming and had time to turn her leg or retract it defensively. There’d been soreness, but never the kind of cramping, pulsating pain this kick had wrought.

  A loud knock came at the locker room door. A moment later, the door nudged open a crack.