Bleed Blue 69: Twenty-Five Authors…One Sexy Police Station

by Anthology

  Somehow, Barney seemed to be able to sense there was something special about Raff too, and he let the kid pull on him and climb all over him with the patience of a saint. But to me the most remarkable person in the equation was Cassie, Raff’s mom. The way this petite, blue-eyed beauty had risen above her poor choice of first husband, and raised Raff on her own for most of his five years made her pretty special in my eyes.

  Sure enough, before I’d killed the engine Raff was knocking on the rear car window, his pink cheeks framing a wide grin as he waved to Barney who slobbered on the glass in response. I knew Cassie wouldn’t be far away, so I took a moment to check my reflection in the rearview mirror and smooth down my short, nearly black hair. I reached for the glove compartment where my gun was stored before deciding to leave it for the time being. The last time Rafferty had seen my gun, he’d freaked out and started crying, and I didn’t want to scare him and spoil his fun. I climbed from my station wagon and jogged to the back of the vehicle so I could open the tailgate and let Barney jump down.

  “Hey, Raff, how’ve you been?” I asked, knowing there’d be no response as he was already giggling, and racing after Barney across the little garden bed that divided our two properties, and onto his own front lawn.

  I followed their trail with my eyes. Cassie was on the far side of her property, her arms full of groceries as she struggled to balance several bags, hold her keys, and shut the car door with her hip.

  “Cassie, let me give you a hand,” I hollered, jogging across the lawn and scooping up a couple of bags to relieve her dark red fingers.

  “Thanks so much, Liam,” she replied, looking up at me with a grin, her cheeks the same shade of pink as Rafferty’s. “I didn’t want to make two trips so was determined to carry it all in, at one time.”

  I took the other bags from her hands and followed her to the front door, waiting behind as she unlocked the three deadbolts.

  “Should I call him in?” she asked, grinning broadly as we both stood on the front porch watching Raff attempt to ride Barney like a pony.

  “No, they’ll be fine. Barney won’t let Raff outta his sight.”

  Cassie giggled, making my heart skip. “Raff won’t let Barney outta his sight. He doesn’t speak much to me, but I swear he can communicate with that dog.”

  I followed Cassie in as she flicked on lights through the living room and into the kitchen. The house was freezing, the cold air from outside chilling the air indoors. She blew into her hands and rubbed them together as she watched me lift the bags onto the countertop.

  “Would you like a coffee?” The coffee pot was already set to brew, and two mismatched mugs placed beside it before I had finished accepting. I hadn’t spent much time in this little home that was the mirror image of my own, but I wanted to. As much as it was laid out with the same floorplan, it had a homely feeling to it as soon as you set foot through the door that mine was sadly lacking. And there wasn’t anything I could change in my home to fix that, because it wasn’t the furniture or floor coverings—it was the toys that were strewn across the living room floor that I’d stepped over on my way to the kitchen, and it was the crayon-drawn pictures of trees and hills and little square houses that adorned the refrigerator.

  Cassie scooped three teaspoons of sugar into a cup and handed me a strong black coffee, made just the way I liked it.

  I warmed my hands on the mug, but the rest of me was chilled to the bone.

  “Sorry it’s so cold in here,” she said with an embarrassed flush. “A couple of the windows don’t close properly, and they let in a terrible draft.”

  “Maybe I could take a look,” I offered. God. I have to make sure she’s safe.

  She glanced at me over the rim of her cup, her brows raised.

  “I’ve got a couple of days off. I could see if there’s an easy fix, and if not, I could replace the hardware so they shut properly. You really need to be able to lock them anyway, for security.”

  “Always, on duty aren’t you, Officer Donovan?” She pulled a stern face as her body tensed and stood to attention.

  I chuckled. I guess I had sounded like a policeman instead of the helpful, friendly neighbor I had intended to be. I didn’t want to lecture her about safety—I wanted her to see me as someone she could count on. A guy who she could call on at any time for anything, and maybe if I was lucky, something could develop from our friendship. “I’m just saying …”

  She laughed, her golden hair falling over her shoulders as her head shook. “I’m just teasing. I appreciate your concern, really. The windows are on my ever-growing list of things to fix.”

  I was just about to offer once more to take a look when Rafferty barreled in, squealing with glee as Barney trotted behind him, red ball in mouth. Raff was covered in dirt but that didn’t stop him from wrapping his chubby arms around his mom’s legs.

  “Look at you!” Cassie chuckled. “We’re supposed to be going to see Nanny and Poppa soon. We’d better get you cleaned up, mister.”

  That was my cue to leave. They had somewhere else to be, and I needed to go home and heat up my dinner-for-one in the microwave.

  “I’ll leave you to it,” I told them, as I called Barney over and tried to pry the slobber-covered ball from his mouth. “I think you need a bath too, buddy.”

  We made our way back through the living room, and I stopped to admire the six-foot-tall Christmas tree in the corner that blocked half the fireplace. Cassie had gone for a red and gold theme with every branch weighed down with glittery baubles. The angel that sat at the crown of the tree was crooked and I crossed the room, easily reaching the top and straightening it. Around the base was the beginning of what looked to be an impressive cache of gifts for Rafferty.

  “Are you looking forward to Santa coming tonight, Raff?’ I asked as he stayed huddled against Cassie’s thigh.

  He nodded, his eyes shining brightly as the broadest of grins lit up his ruddy face. “He’ll come through there.” He pointed toward the window that overlooked the laneway down the side of the house. “It’s open for him.”

  My eyes locked with Cassie’s. She in turn gave me a shrug. “It’s on the list, I swear.”

  “Just make it a priority.” I sounded like a policeman again. “Please, as a friend ...” The corner of her mouth twitched as I said friend. “I worry about you and Raff, that’s all.”

  She nodded her acknowledgment of my concern, but I got the feeling she wasn’t taking me seriously. How could she when she wasn’t privy to information that only those of us on the police force knew? I wanted to tell her, but there were certain aspects of a case we were all monitoring, whether officially or out of interest, that couldn’t be spoken about to civilians.

  Barney and I made our way across the lawn and through the little garden bed as quickly as possible. The night air had lowered the temperature further, and frost had already begun to form a thin layer over the ground. After a quick detour to grab my gun from the car, we were inside, and I locked my gun in the safe in the laundry and then busied myself making a fire in the living room fireplace. There was no fire danger in the form of a six-foot fir tree in front of the hearth. There was only one gift that had been wrapped and was sitting on the sideboard—a new collar and some dog treats for Barney.

  I microwaved my frozen dinner of roast beef, potatoes, and vegetables, then carried it into the only warm room in the house and closed the door behind me to confine the heat.

  Barney and I sat side by side on the couch, and I flicked on the television, clicking through the channels until I found a news report. There was a festive feel to the news program that made it difficult to take the presenters seriously. The female was dressed in red and wearing an elf hat, while the gentleman in his suit and novelty Rudolf Christmas tie reported on yet another woman who had been brutally attacked and murdered in her own home as she lay sleeping in her bed. There were no further details to report because the facts of the investigation were being kept close to the department’s ches
t. In a case that involved a serial offender, too many times details would be leaked, and then every nut-job in the city would claim to be the assailant, all vying for their fifteen minutes of fame.

  I held out a piece of the bland meat from the cardboard box that contained my dinner. Barney licked his lips but didn’t take it until I told him he could. “We know the truth about the case, don’t we, Barney?”

  Yes, we knew that the attacker broke into the homes of single women through a ground-floor window. He had always chosen nights when it had snowed because by the time the victims had been found, any footprints had melted away. Once inside, he tied and gagged the victim before spending the entire night toying with her. There were details that were specific to the case, like the fact that with the exception of his first victim, he had removed the women’s hearts, and according to the coroner, he had done so while they had still been beating.

  The first victim, Melinda Parkinson, had survived, but was still in the hospital three weeks after the assault with multiple internal and external wounds. She should have been our best source of information, but was still too traumatized to provide anything more than a vague description before becoming hysterical as memories flooded back in. I guess he had decided after Melinda that the chance that his victims may have been able to identify him was too great a risk, and he had slaughtered the next four women who were unfortunate enough to leave a window unlocked.

  The details of the attacks had kept me awake when I’d first heard them. The imagination it must have taken to even contemplate the brutality meant he was surely a psychopath, and that made him unpredictable.

  I clicked to another channel. They seemed to only want to report on good news for Christmas Eve with a live cross to a soup kitchen, where people dressed in Santa suits served food that looked tastier than the flavorless slop I was eating.

  “No more mention of him, Barney. It’s as if overweight men with fake beards, dressed in red suits, are more important than a serial rapist and killer.” His head tilted, his eyes darting between me and my dinner. “Okay, boy, you’re welcome to it.” I placed the cardboard tray on the floor, and Barney gobbled it up within seconds.

  The same old Christmas movies played. The Santa Clause was ridiculous. The Grinch movie was barely tolerable. I settled for The Polar Express and got comfortable, lying down on the three-seater couch and pulling the blanket that had draped over the cushions onto me. Barney licked the final scraps of gravy from the corners of the tray, then went to his bed which was positioned to the side of the fireplace. He turned in a circle three times before flopping down, his head resting on his crossed paws.

  So this was it—another Christmas alone. I’d sworn this time last year that I wouldn’t be single in twelve months’ time. I had planned to make a concerted effort to get out more, to meet people other than the guys at the station. Then Cassie and Rafferty had moved in next door four months ago, and meeting random women had seemed less important. Meeting them had put everything into perspective. I was thirty-two, and I didn’t want random—I wanted a family, and commitment, and responsibility. I was well past ready for it; I craved it. I wanted to belong to someone and have them belong to me. In the simplest of terms, I wanted to be loved.

  I closed my eyes and listened to Tom Hanks’ voice in the movie. It was a kid’s film so the message was basic—you just have to believe, and it would be. Maybe if I believed then something magical could happen with Cassie, and I could move out of the friend zone. I smiled as sleep washed over me. It was a few minutes before midnight, and tomorrow was Christmas Day. If something extraordinary was going to happen, then tomorrow was as good a time as any.

  Barney’s sharp barks accompanied by deep, throaty growls startled me from my slumber. His hackles were up, and he scratched at the door in a fruitless attempt to get out.

  “What is it, boy?” I asked, immediately awake and on full alert. On instinct, I reached to my hip for my sidearm, but it wasn’t there—it was locked in the safe in the laundry. My first thought was that someone was in the house so I yanked open the living room door. There was no chance of sneaking up on them with Barney’s barking, so I charged through, ready to take them on.

  There was no one there.

  Barney, however, knew exactly where to go as he ran to the front door, jumping up at the handle and scratching at it. I’d never seen him behave this way at home. There was definitely something happening outside and I wondered if I should be calling it in, but I had no idea at this stage what I’d tell the operator.

  As soon as the door was opened, Barney ran to the little garden bed and sat, a deep growl filling the night air. At some stage while I’d been sleeping, snow had fallen, casting a pure white layer over the grass and up the side of the house.

  “Stay,” I told Barney in the German he would understand and obey, then ran back inside to collect my pistol and a flashlight. As an afterthought, I snatched from the junk drawer the spare keys to Cassie’s house that she’d left with me in case she was ever locked out.

  When I returned outside, Barney was in the exact same position I’d left him, but I could see by the way he fidgeted that he was itching to spring into action as soon as I gave the command.

  Now that I had the flashlight, I shone the beam on the ground to light my way, and my heart leapt to my throat. Fresh boot-prints led from the bushes on the far side of the property next door to the side window that Rafferty had pointed out earlier. I took a moment to compare the size of the boot-prints, as they wouldn’t be there for long once the snow began to melt. They were my size, around an eleven, and the depth would indicate the wearer was approximately my weight.

  It was time to call it in.

  Phoning the local Queens station directly got me patched through immediately, and within a couple of minutes two units had been dispatched. But I couldn’t wait for backup. If the gnawing in my gut was right, then the scum who had been attacking women all over the city was in that house right now doing God knew what to Cassie.

  The window had been wedged open with a tree branch but I didn’t want to contaminate the crime scene, so instead I went to the front door and used the spare keys to unlock it as quietly as possible.

  “You ready, boy?” Barney’s muscles tensed as I surveyed the entrance foyer, the flashlight held in my left hand above the gun that was cocked and poised in my right. Downstairs, the house was in darkness and eerily silent. We quickly crept through the kitchen and laundry to ensure there was no one on the ground floor, before making our way to the stairs.

  We took the steps to the second floor painstakingly slowly, trying to tread on the outer edges so they didn’t creak. I didn’t want to go barging into Cassie’s room and risk the guy cutting her if I startled him; the element of surprise was my best option if we were all going to get out of this alive.

  Passing Rafferty’s room, I shone the flashlight through the half-open door. I prayed that he was sound asleep in his bed, dreaming of what Santa was going to leave under the beautifully adorned Christmas tree for him.

  His bed was empty. Fuck! What did that mean?

  “Where’s Raff, Barney? Find Raff.”

  Barney trotted straight to Cassie’s closed door, and my heart sank. They were both in there with the perp. That complicated things. Should I wait for backup after all?

  The muffled cries coming through Cassie’s door made up my mind. There was no time to wait. A few minutes could be the difference between life and death in this situation, and I would never be able to live with myself if Cassie or Rafferty died while I stood there weighing up my options.

  “Ready, boy?” I whispered. Barney gazed up at me with knowing in his eyes. We’d trained for so long together that it felt as though he could read my mind.

  In a split second we were through the door, my gun aimed across the room, my finger on the trigger. The scene before me sent a chill down my spine. It was a sight I was sure I would never forget for as long as I lived. In the light of the lamp on the side tab
le, time slowed as I took in every detail of the scene in a heartbeat. A six foot, muscular man, was dressed totally in black, from his ski mask, to his leather gloves, to his black jeans, sweater, and boots. Cassie faced the door, so saw me as soon as we entered the room. Her eyes locked with mine and beseeched me to help her in what must have felt like a helpless situation. Her arms seemed to be twisted at an impossible angle behind her back and were tied to the wrought-iron of the bedhead. The slightest move would have caused agony on her shoulder joints—it was a sure way to keep her in place and unable to struggle to get free. At her cleavage, a fishing knife flicked off the button from her nightshirt and a glint of light reflected from the long, serrated blade. The rag tied to gag her cries pulled tightly between her lips as she sobbed in terror.

  “Drop the knife and step away,” I ordered, attempting to keep my tone steady as I side stepped to the opposite side of the bed so I was facing him.

  The man didn’t flinch at the sound of my voice. He must have known I was there but was so enthralled in his task that it never occurred to him to look across the bed at me.

  “Oh look, the cavalry has arrived,” he drawled, his Southern accent seeming out of place in this city. Barney’s guttural growl barely had the monster glance at us before he commented, “You know I’ve never killed a dog.” He held the knife up and turned it lovingly over in his gloved hand. “But I suspect it would slide right through his flesh as easily as it does a woman’s.”

  There was a snivel, and my head turned towards the corner where Rafferty was thankfully facing away from his mother and the man that stood over her. His obvious distress as he wept quietly and rocked back and forth tore at my heartstrings.

  “Barney, get Raff.” I indicated to Rafferty, and Barney went to the corner, nuzzling Raff until the little boy threw his arms around his neck, his chubby hands fisting Barney’s fur. I wanted Rafferty out of the room, but the attacker had other ideas.