Badge of Honor

by Justine Davis

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  BADGE OF HONOR

  Justine Davis

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  Contents:

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

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  Chapter 1

  ^»

  "Why are you writing a stupid parking ticket when there are killers running around loose?"

  Kit Walker almost missed a step at the screamed accusation. She turned and saw a young, uniformed man standing in the street next to a yellow sedan. He looked harried and was being confronted by a clearly irate woman.

  Kit backed off the sidewalk into the doorway of the Marina Heights dry cleaners she'd just exited, to get out of the way of the pedestrians who were watching the display with varying degrees of interest and paying little attention to where they were going.

  A parking ticket, she thought in mild amusement. Sometimes it seemed as if nothing made people angrier.

  Normally she would have left him to handle it, knowing he had the lesson to learn. Every cop had heard what the woman was screaming at one time or another from citizens who didn't know or care that a parking control officer had nothing to do with murderers and criminals, and was a civilian just like they were. The comment was right up there with doughnut shop jokes, and usually issued by someone who would scream even louder if a similar stereotype-based comment was aimed at them.

  It was part of the job, part of being professional, learning to deal with verbal abuse without retaliating. But Kit stayed, hanging back, just in case. The instinct to back up another uniform ran deep in her, as it did in any cop. And violence had erupted out of lesser situations than a dispute over a parking ticket.

  "I understand you're upset, ma'am," the young man said patiently. "But the meter is expired, and I have no choice but to write a citation."

  "That's all you cops know how to do, harass innocent people—"

  Kit only half listened to the familiar tirade. She glanced at her watch. She'd been so nervous about the detail Captain Mallery had given her last night that she'd left her house extra early this morning. Her stop at the cleaners hadn't taken long, so she had some time to spare. She'd stay, just to be sure the young man—barely more than a boy, really—didn't get in over his head.

  "Writing parking tickets when the murderer of my son walks the streets freely!"

  Kit's attention snapped to the woman. The young man holding the cite book was gaping, clearly startled by this unexpected turn.

  "But you don't care about that, do you?" the woman exclaimed. "You don't care that an innocent boy was beaten to death. You just want to write your little ticket."

  Uh-oh, Kit thought. She moved out of the doorway toward the pair, threading her way through passersby who were slowing as the scenario before them grew more interesting with the mention of murder. The last thing the poor kid needed was a crowd, she thought. He would end up having to call for armed backup, and this could escalate unnecessarily into something even more unpleasant than it already was.

  The parking control officer spotted her then, and the look of relief that crossed his face told her he'd recognized her—and expected her to solve the problem. She flicked a glance at the woman, who was still ranting, and gave a quick shake of her head. The boy looked puzzled, then seemed to realize that she didn't want the woman to know who she was. It would be better if she thought Kit was just a passing citizen rather than another cop. Feeling outnumbered might only make things worse.

  Kit came to a halt beside the woman. She was Hispanic and petite—about six inches shorter than Kit's five-eight. Her hair was coiled in a tidy bun at the back of her head, and Kit guessed it would be almost as long as the woman was tall. She was suddenly very conscious of her short, tousled blond locks. They had once been nearly as long, but had long ago been sacrificed to the practicalities of 3:00 a.m. call outs.

  The woman's face was lined and worn, and her expression told Kit it was as much from sadness as from time. She wore a thin gold wedding band that Kit guessed from its wear had not been off her hand in decades. Her eyes were a rich, warm brown, although right now they were more hot than warm. She was glaring at the young man before her in a way that belied her diminutive stature. Dignity fairly radiated from her despite—or perhaps because of—her anger, and Kit made sure there was respect in her tone when she spoke.

  "It certainly doesn't seem fair, does it?" Kit said sympathetically. The woman glanced at her, clearly startled at her intrusion. "Seems like all the taxes we pay ought to allow us to park on our own streets without having to pay all over again."

  "It most certainly does," the woman agreed.

  "It's not like this is Marina del Mar," Kit went on, "where you have to pay to park at the beach. That's a choice. But in Marina Heights you have to come here to get your business done, don't you?"

  Her tone was gentle, empathetic, and invited the woman to join in her commiseration. The woman studied her, then finally responded.

  "That's right. We have no choice. We must come here to go to the bank, to the shoe repair."

  "And there are no shopping malls here where the parking is free. You must park on the street. It just doesn't seem fair, does it, Mrs.…?"

  "Rivas. Carmela Rivas," the woman said, and Kit gave an inward sigh of relief. It was a tiny bit harder for people to be angry if you were on a first-name basis. "And no, it is not fair," the woman added emphatically.

  "I'm Kit Walker," Kit said, holding out her hand. After a moment's hesitation, the woman took it. Her grasp was firm but brief, and Kit sensed she was diverted enough. Kit glanced at the young officer.

  "You must hate your job sometimes, to have to give nice people like Mrs. Rivas citations."

  "Yes, ma'am," the boy said fervently, his gratitude at Kit's intervention obvious. "Sometimes I do."

  "Are you in school?"

  "Yes, Sarg— I mean ma'am," the boy corrected at the quick shake of her head. "I take classes out at the junior college. I'm in my fourth year. It's taking longer because I can only afford to go part-time."

  "So this job is to pay your school expenses?"

  "That's one reason. I want to—"

  "Good for you," Kit said, cutting him off. She guessed he'd been about to say the other reason was that he wanted to join the cops of Trinity West, as the Marina Heights police station was called because of its location on Trinity Street West. Many young men took the PCO job thinking it would get them a foot in the door. And Kit could tell from Mrs. Rivas's expression that she was for the first time seeing the young man as a person, not just a uniform, and Kit didn't want to lose that bit of progress.

  "You should find some other work," Mrs. Rivas said with audible disdain. But, Kit thought thankfully, no anger. And the passing pedestrians had returned to their normal pace. The situation had been defused. And, she thought with another glance at her watch, she still had time to spare before she had to be at the airport. This distraction had killed several minutes, and she had to admit she was grateful.

  "I will pay this, I suppose," Mrs. Rivas said grudgingly. "It is not really his fault." She watched the young officer move on, and a remorseful expression came across her face. "My Jaime would have been nearly his age now," she whispered. "His twenty-second birthday is … would have been next week."

  The woman's earlier words, the ones that had spurred Kit to action, came back to her now. "Jaime is … your son you spoke of?"

  Grief haunted the woman's eyes as she looked at Kit. "Yes. He was murdered, not far from here, five years ago."

  He would have been seventeen, Kit thought. "So young," she said. "How awful for you."

  "It would have made no difference if he was older. He was still my son. And he was a good boy, a smart boy
. He belonged to no gang, I don't care what they say."

  "Is that what they say?"

  "Of course it is. They say that about all young Hispanic boys, that they are all in gangs. It is not true. It was not a rival gang who did it. My Jaime was never in a gang."

  Kit had heard this from lying, denying or honestly unknowing parents nearly as often as she'd heard the parking ticket complaint. But she wasn't about to point that out to the woman she'd managed to calm down.

  "I gather," she asked delicately, "they never caught who did it?"

  Anger flashed in Carmela's face again. "Caught him? You mean the police? Of course they have not. Why would they?"

  Her tone said everything, and Kit stifled a sigh. Blaming the police for everything from traffic to the weather had become commonplace. She knew she should have walked away once the immediate situation had been controlled. But something about this woman's vehemence, the pain beneath her grief and anger, reached Kit in a way she'd come to recognize. Whatever this woman was feeling, it was very, very real.

  "The police will never catch the man who killed my Jaime," the woman said with bitter emphasis.

  "I'm sure it feels that way, Mrs. Rivas," Kit said gently. "But sometimes it takes time."

  The woman laughed, a harsh, bleak sound. And suddenly Kit realized what had kept her here, why she had stayed. The woman sounded just like she had after Bobby had died, and then Anna. As if there was no hope left in the world. Or for it.

  "He will get away with it," Mrs. Rivas insisted. "They won't touch him."

  She sounded so positive Kit couldn't stop herself from asking, "Why do you say that?"

  "Because—" the woman fairly spat the words "—it was a cop."

  * * *

  Well, Kit thought as she pulled onto the loop that circled the airport parking areas, she'd been looking for a distraction, and she'd certainly found it.

  And in the process, she'd cut her time margin to almost nothing. If she didn't find a parking place in the lot close to the terminal, she was going to be in trouble. Being late to pick up the chief of police was not a good career move.

  She wished the captain had sent somebody else on this run. But she had no good reason to avoid the task, none that she wanted to use, anyway. She could hardly tell Captain Mallery she didn't want to pick up the chief because she was never quite comfortable in his presence. That would be an unwise career move, as well. She'd picked him up before, and every time found herself babbling like a fool or not talking at all, and either one made for an uncomfortable ride in a car with just the two of them.

  It wasn't his position as chief that made her uneasy. Miguel de los Reyes wasn't the kind of man who used his rank to intimidate. Nor was it his demeanor. While he could project command presence with the best of them, he was also unfailingly courteous, gentlemanly in an old-world kind of way that suited him unexpectedly well and sometimes made him seem older than his forty-four years. She supposed that was why he was able to bridge the gap between the youth of the city and the older residents—he looked young enough to understand the former, but his demeanor helped him relate to the latter.

  No, there was no reason for her to feel so uncomfortable, other than the simple fact that his aristocratic good looks would make any breathing woman … twitchy. But she did feel that way. She always had in the fourteen years she'd been at Trinity West, back when he'd been just a sergeant, and his wife her friend, long before tragic circumstances had made him chief. She supposed she always would.

  Her outlook brightened slightly when she saw that the parking lot adjacent to the terminal wasn't yet full and closed off.

  That's half the battle, she thought. Now to find an empty spot.

  For a moment she wished the chief was the kind of man to take advantage of his rank. Then she could have parked right in front of the doors, badged the sheriff's deputy and marched on in. But Miguel de los Reyes had strict rules, and not invoking professional courtesy for small things like this was one of them. Save it for when it will help you do the job, he said. Nothing was more important.

  She admired him for it, really. She admired him for many things. But right now she would have settled for a little less admiration and a visible parking space.

  Of course, she could have kept circling and let him walk to the curb to meet her—that was always his suggestion—but her deeply ingrained respect for the man and his rank made that seem wrong. He deserved to be met at the gate, she thought. But if she didn't find that elusive spot in the next couple of minutes, it was going to be academic.

  She turned down yet another aisle of the big lot, her mind going to Mrs. Rivas and her claim about her son's death. Kit found it difficult to believe a cop had killed the boy and nothing had come of it, but the woman's passionate declaration, issued to a woman she had no way of knowing was a cop, stayed vividly in Kit's mind.

  She tried to set aside her instinctive reaction, that gut-deep bond she felt with all cops, built over years of dealing with the ugliness, the kind of bond no one on the outside ever quite understood. She wasn't about to say that it never happened, that things never got out of hand, but this … it just didn't seem likely.

  On the surface, it was simple, an open and shut case. Rival gangsters, taking each other out in the tradition of the streets. True, a personal beating, one on one, as Mrs. Rivas said this had been, was rare. Gangs weren't called gangs because they worked alone. Their strength was in their numbers and the willingness of every member to die for the honor of his gang and his "homies." And what they saw as bravery many saw as cowardice—shooting from racing vehicles, sniping from hidden positions, heedless of innocent bystanders who got caught in the crossfire.

  "Give me an old-fashioned gang rumble any day," then Lieutenant Mallery had once said years ago, after a night filled with particularly ugly carnage and a body count in the double digits. "Make 'em kill each other in a real personal way. It'd save a lot of innocent lives."

  "Maybe we should give them weapons training," Clay Yeager had said rather fiercely as he'd stared at the body of a beautiful, tiny little girl who would never grow up. "If they were better shots, maybe they'd hit who they meant to hit instead of … babies."

  A chill swept over her at a sudden storm of memories. She hadn't thought of Clay in a while, but as always when she did, she sent up a little prayer that, wherever he'd gone after his life had crumbled, he was all right. He'd been a cop's cop and a people's cop. He'd been a miracle worker in the simplest of ways—he cared. He cared for his fellow cops, he cared for the people he served, he cared for the job. He cared for everybody, and they'd let him, never once wondering if he might need a little care himself.

  Guilt welled inside her. She had to blink back the moisture that brimmed stingingly behind her eyelids, and almost missed an available parking place. Maneuvering into it enabled her to shove aside her emotions, and by the time she was walking into the terminal she was in control once more. The chief was a very perceptive man, and she didn't want him asking her questions that would only bring back a time that was painful for him, as well.

  She got to the gate before the passengers had begun to deplane and took a moment to steady herself.

  It's just because he's your chief, she told herself. You've known him for years, but now he's got all the power, and it makes you edgy.

  But she knew that wasn't true. He wasn't that kind of man. He didn't rule by coercion, as his predecessor had been known to do. And there wasn't the slightest hint of any misuse of his considerable authority on any front. He was scrupulously fair, sometimes painfully honest, and he genuinely cared about his people. As Gage Butler had once said, de los Reyes had taken a bunch of cops who didn't give a damn anymore and turned them into the toughest, best run police department in the county, if not the state.

  And most of them would follow him into hell if he led the charge.

  None of which explained why she was standing here talking to herself, trying to convince herself she wasn't really nervous a
t all. That she wasn't feeling an odd sort of unease in her stomach, that she wasn't—

  She saw him before he saw her. He was dressed in a black suit—he almost always wore black or gray, she'd noticed—was carrying a briefcase and had a dark gray overcoat tossed over his arm. He certainly didn't need it here. Even in October the southern California days were pleasantly warm, so it must have been cold wherever he'd been.

  Chicago, she realized suddenly, glancing at the flight designation that glowed in red letters over the gate. The captain had mentioned that, but it had slipped her mind. That explained the coat, she thought. It had been cold there of late.

  Among other things, she added inwardly with a frown, he looked exhausted. Even his golden skin couldn't hide the traces of it, the dark circles beneath his eyes, the fine lines around his eyes that seemed more pronounced, too pronounced to write it off to the unflattering lighting in the terminal.

  But nothing, not even the weariness etched in his face, not the slight effort that showed in his long strides, could rob him of that innate dignity.

  And, she admitted wryly, that undeniable attractiveness. Even tired, Miguel de los Reyes was a beautiful man. Tall, at least six-two, lean and fit, and with patrician features that made her think of kings of ancient cultures, thick dark hair touched with a becoming silver at the temples and pale gray eyes that seemed to see far beyond the surface, he turned more than one head in the crowded terminal.

  And most of them were female, Kit noted with what she told herself was amusement.

  He saw her then, and when their gazes met, Kit felt the odd little jolt she'd almost grown used to. But then he smiled, as if he was glad to see her, as if he was glad it was her waiting for him, and she felt a warmth blossoming inside her unlike anything she'd ever known—except when this same man had praised her work or her judgment or her handling of a difficult situation.