Lightning Chasers

by Cass Sellars

“The spare closet is practically empty so I can move some of my stuff in there. And I’m sure we can probably rent one of those industrial storage things for your shoe collection,” Sydney teased Parker who poked her in retaliation.

  “And what do you propose we do with all the skeletons currently in that closet, Ms. Hyatt?” she teased back at the reformed womanizer.

  Syd was grateful for the moment of lightness that fell over them. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with souvenirs, Ms. Duncan.” She smiled and led a laughing Parker back toward the door to plan the next phase of their lives together, while feeling guilty that theirs continued as Sandy’s had so abruptly ended.

  Chapter Seven

  Darcy Dean badged into her lab still trying to right her brain from the twenty-four hours on duty thanks to the home invasion and the Curran case. The few hours of restless sleep she had managed afterward would have to suffice for tonight. She wanted to start on ballistics testing and try to locate any trace evidence that might exist on the lifeless body.

  The elderly couple from the home invasion could wait, sadly, until she was done with Sergeant Curran. They had been brutally beaten by some thug who left with eighty bucks and a thirty-two inch tube television. She had listened to the officer make notification to the family when they had arrived outside the home. The gut-wrenching wails she heard from her place in the couple’s bedroom would stay with her for a long time. All so some crack addict could get his next fix. The world treated some lives like they were nothing and revered others like they were sculpted from precious metals. The only thing any of them could cling to in this line of work was hope, and Darcy mused that she often had a hard time finding hers.

  Entering Sergeant Curran’s name at the top of a new document, she transferred her notes and questions to the empty page. She took the custody form from her folder just as she heard the passenger elevator arrive on her floor. Darcy glanced through the window above her desk and saw Sergeant Mack Foster striding purposefully toward her office. She had been told that Sergeant Foster was a good cop, a tough woman but a talented law-enforcement professional nonetheless. That didn’t mean Darcy wanted her in her lab. She didn’t like cops trying for early answers or offering useless speculation.

  “Mack Foster.” The homicide cop stopped and offered Darcy a stern handshake while she waited for a response.

  “Darcy Dean, Sergeant. I assume you’re here about the Curran case.” Darcy straightened and addressed her guardedly.

  “I am. Do we know anything yet?” Her voice wasn’t as hard now. Darcy had heard the two had been good friends and could see her struggle to remain composed.

  “I’m sorry, no. I just got back in here. I pulled twenty-four hours in the field. I’m starting ballistics and trace now.”

  “Any thoughts from the scene?”

  “Nothing yet, some questions maybe, but I need to lay it all out. I’ll have some information for you then, Sergeant.”

  “Can I ask a favor?” Mack lowered her voice and scanned the lab. She looked wary and uncomfortable.

  “Sure.” Darcy couldn’t imagine what she wanted of her.

  “Will you call and let me know what you find before you make the official report? I know that isn’t protocol—it’s just that she was…” She paused and tapped the dented metal desk with the black portfolio in her right hand. “She was my friend.” Mack’s words faded to a whisper. She seemed to barely manage to finish the sentence.

  Darcy knew that didn’t explain the unofficial request but considering her own questions about the scene Sunday night, she didn’t need the official explanation.

  “I get it. No justification necessary.” She waited for a moment to see if the brooding cop would ask her anything else.

  “The assumption is a drug deal too near the police.” Mack spoke quickly and quietly.

  Darcy considered her response. “Yeah. We’ll run all the tests we can, but like I said, we haven’t got anything yet, I’m sorry,” she said patiently. “I’ll check back when I do, I promise.”

  “It’s okay. I know you haven’t had much time.” Darcy watched the sergeant dance around protocol. Foster’s rep was that she was strictly by the book, and her discomfort seemed to confirm that. “What about her phone?”

  “The clip was empty, assumption is that the shooter took it.” Darcy watched frustration mount in the officer’s expression.

  “Thanks for the help.” She unzipped the portfolio cover and jotted a number on the back of her business card. “That’s my cell. Whenever you can call.”

  “Will do.” Darcy took the card and slid it into the pocket of her work pants.

  She watched the officer head back to the elevator spinning her wedding ring absently. Too bad she’s taken, Darcy thought and pushed aside the inappropriate musings. She began the task of identifying microscopic fibers before analyzing the tiny chunk of distorted lead that was responsible for altering so many lives.

  She lifted the intake sheets from the clipboard and walked down the hall to the positive cold chamber in the medical examiner’s locker. She slid her master key into the lock beyond which Sergeant Curran’s body rested. She stared for a few seconds and forced herself not to feel profoundly sad at the mental picture she would carry for a long time. She collected a packet of fibers left by the autopsy technician and returned to the lab.

  She tried reminding herself how much she liked her job, ordinarily. After years in DC, doing less of a job than she was qualified for, Silver Lake seemed like a perfect solution. Three relationships in ten years had left her worn-out and jaded. When Molly, her last girlfriend, had finally gotten sick of Darcy’s inability to commit, Darcy found her belongings waiting alone in the apartment they had shared for nine months, a sparse reminder of yet another failed relationship. Molly had been right and Darcy didn’t fight it. The pattern had started long ago when the woman she really loved left her after finding her in bed with an ex from college. She was ready for a clean slate at work and some anonymity within the lesbian circle, although she wondered how much there was of one in Silver Lake.

  Darcy couldn’t believe three hours had passed when Jamie Amana pushed through the lab doors. Darcy jerked out of her mental cocoon and turned to him before he dropped his backpack under his desk.

  She pushed her fingers into her temples and rubbed in small circles. “I need you to process the plastic bags from the warehouse for residue as soon as you can.”

  “I’m on it. Any theories?” He glanced at her nervously as he spoke.

  “You sound like Foster. I don’t have anything yet.” She tried to look like everything was routine but since one of their own was thirty feet away, she didn’t believe it. “I’m just logging in the trace report and I typed the bullet. Standard ten millimeter. No foreign prints and nothing to match it to.”

  “Let’s hope the PD works its magic and brings us a perfect specimen.” Jamie spoke with the defeat of a man who had done the job just long enough to be thoroughly jaded but not completely without hope for the occasional miracle.

  “Yeah, wouldn’t that be nice.” She started arranging the results in the order she would put them in her final findings document. “Can you start on the Parkside prints after that?”

  She didn’t hear him answer before her mind was entrenched in the task ahead of her.

  * * *

  Long after the expected end of her shift, Darcy sat in front of her notes, discouraged. A list of questions without hint of explanation dominated the page she had hoped would be a useful, cogent investigative tool for detectives. Instead it was a catalog of things that didn’t match up and a scene that provided inadequate information.

  Seconds later, the phone rang and Darcy snatched the receiver from the cradle mounted to the wall. “Silver Lake lab, Dean.” Her words were clipped and cold.

  “Dean, Sergeant Foster, time to talk?” Her shorthand delivery was jarring to Darcy.

  “Honestly? Not really.” Darcy exhaled loudly at the impatient cop. “
Things are still in progress and a little crazy around here right now.” They weren’t particularly crazy but Darcy thought that sounded better than unsettling.

  “I understand. Perhaps we can talk over a cup of coffee. I’ll buy. After shift, you pick.”

  Darcy was mildly cautious. It was common knowledge that Foster was a lesbian, and it was even more commonly known that she was married to the mother of their newborn, so this wasn’t a date or even a social meeting. Not that Darcy would have accepted anything social at this point. She’d moved out of DC partly to gain some perspective and some distance on her love life.

  “Yeah, how about I call you tomorrow, when I get a handle on things?” She expected Foster to continue to push.

  “Fine, call my cell?”

  “Sure, Sergeant.” Everyone knew Foster’s no-nonsense reputation. Darcy trusted her but wasn’t sure how much.

  “Call me Mack.”

  * * *

  Chief Jayne Provost twisted her fingers around the cord of her telephone as she reclined at her desk. She thought about how she had finally made it five years in what she considered a pit of a city outside DC, all that was required of her before layering on another pension and retirement. As far as she was concerned, she deserved it. After all, she had slummed through every patrol unit in the District and never once saw rank above major thanks to obvious politics and untalented pricks who didn’t recognize her skill as a law enforcement administrator. When she retired out of DC, the squads she was overseeing were considered the dregs of the department and she certainly didn’t consider that any of her responsibility. She had spent barely a week packing her things before bidding the cutthroat District of Columbia good-bye and starting at the helm of the SLPD. After all she had done, no one even offered her a retirement party. She saw it as their jealousy rearing its ugly head.

  Not for a moment did she plan on staying long in the role of Silver Lake’s police chief. This was simply a means to a lucrative end. She admired her new heels, which complemented her designer ensemble. She had worn a uniform for twenty years and she wasn’t about to parade around the city looking like every other beat cop in her department.

  The only tolerable aspect of the job had come in the form of a referral to a profitable new private sector position. While it wasn’t official yet, an executive position at a Fortune 500 corporation was all but hers. This was what she was meant to do her whole life; the money and the respect would set her up for another retirement in five years, but she could stay as long as she wanted. Who knew, maybe she could grow the job and make a bigger splash in the business world. They would be lucky to have her.

  She’d practically drooled at the opportunity take over the CSO seat when the current security executive had tipped her to the opening. Although Major Turner from Raleigh was also in the running, Jayne had already made sure that she was indispensable to executive management. She was a shoo-in for the job that would keep her in designer shoes for the next five years.

  She dialed a number she knew by heart.

  “Chief,” Major Damon Williams answered formally. Major Williams had been doing her bidding since she had arrived, practically killing himself to kiss every aspect of her well-toned ass in the event he could curry favor with her and the city council and, one day, warm his backside in the chief’s chair.

  She silently congratulated herself for cultivating him when she saw that he was focused solely on his own advancement, suiting her purposes perfectly. She treated him like an errant child who happily did her bidding. She wouldn’t be there much longer and he was welcome to the job for which he was woefully underqualified. He was incompetent, but the post didn’t require too many brains, making him perfect for the job.

  “Damon, I’ve spent a lot of time cleaning up this pathetic little department and I don’t want to see all my efforts go to waste.” She slid the reports back into the pile on the floor.

  “Nor do I. What’s the issue, Chief?” She imagined him biting his lip as was his habit when he spoke to her.

  “That’s the problem—I shouldn’t have to tell you what the issues are. If your ass is ever in this chair, you better know the answers before anyone else. When I’m running a real business, I can promise you I won’t give a crap about stats in this town, but right now, my numbers need to send a positive message to the selection committee next week.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Why then am I showing a disturbing trend in commercial burglaries and at least three too many unsolved homicides? Why do we think that is, Damon?”

  “They are wrapping up the burg cases as we speak.”

  “And why are the media hounds still standing outside the building speculating on the identity of a cop killer on the loose?”

  “I’m doing what I can on the Curran situation. How would you suggest I get a dead cop case solved with no viable suspects?” His scowl was evident in his voice.

  “You listen to me,” she ordered in a scathing tone. “I will not lose this opportunity because my legacy is a department full of bull dykes who couldn’t make it in a real department and couldn’t solve some random murder. Got it? Maybe Foster needs to be looking for lost puppies and missing bicycles, not some long-gone killer on the Curran shooting if it’s too big for her. The city wants a hero on this case and I’ve given you ample space to be one. Do you understand what I’m saying or should I perhaps be grooming Major Cash for this job?”

  “I got it.”

  “The point is, get those detectives to clear the case or find someone who can. Am I clear?”

  “Perfectly.”

  * * *

  Williams longed for the days when you could slam a receiver into its cradle instead of delivering the impotent press of a digital end key. That woman couldn’t be gone soon enough. She got this job because the city council believed her endless line of big-city bullshit. They thought they were getting some expert crime fighter in the role that had been vacant for a year after Chief O’Brien’s untimely death.

  He considered that instead they got some self-interested ladder climber just waiting for the private sector to come calling. He had deserved the chief’s job then and would get it now, whatever it took. As far as he was concerned, it would only be a few months until he could run this pathetic department the way he wanted. He daydreamed about someone taking her down every time she leaned on someone in the department, especially him.

  Contemplating his growing disdain and his next tactical move, he snatched up his phone and dialed. He warred between toeing the party line and serving ethically. He briefly wondered when that had become a choice instead of an imperative.

  “Where are we on the Curran case, Lieutenant Charles?” Williams demanded.

  “Foster has it, Major, you assigned her and Hicks, right? They are waiting for the lab report. They think we’re missing something, Major. Captain Hale thinks so, too.” He sounded puzzled.

  Williams was circumventing the chain of command. It wasn’t uncommon in an emergency or when advancing a political football; Williams hoped it wasn’t obvious which one this was.

  “Maybe if they were busier working cases and not looking for conspiracies, we wouldn’t be sitting on an unsolved homicide of a dead cop. We both know some lowlife took her out when she stumbled on drug negotiations, don’t we, Lieutenant? This isn’t a hard case to solve, so solve it. Didn’t Romano and Summers just transfer in to your unit? You could get some fresh eyes on it.”

  “Yes, sir. But they’ve never even worked a B and E case, Major. You really want them on the murder of a Silver Lake police officer?” Lieutenant Charles sounded incredulous. “She was one of us, Major.”

  “You know what? They gave me these cute little bars to wear on my shirt, Lieutenant. I guess somebody thought I might know what I’m doing. Would you like to call the chief personally and tell her different?”

  “No, sir,” Charles stammered in reply.

  “Foster is needed in Central, Lieutenant. Summers and Romano worked drug inte
rdiction, they know the players. Am I understood?”

  “I…yes, sir,” Charles managed.

  * * *

  Mack emailed her request for Sandy’s cell records and watched her Lieutenant as he slammed down his phone and marched into the bullpen headed for her desk.

  “Foster, I need you to hand over your files on the Curran case to Romano and Summers.” He squeezed his eyes shut as soon as he said the words.

  “What? Are you kidding me, Lieutenant?” Lieutenant Charles stepped back as the meltdown he appeared to be expecting began in earnest. “I haven’t even gotten the labs back yet.”

  “You’ve been reassigned to Central District effective immediately, Foster.”

  “Why?” She could barely contain her rage without being insubordinate. She respected her longtime lieutenant, but she knew that he wasn’t going to fight the system, especially this close to his retirement.

  “I don’t know, Foster. It’s above my pay grade. Just fly under the radar on this one, okay?” Charles replied wearily.

  “She was one of us, Tim. You know they can’t do this job. Does Captain Hale know about this?” She wondered how high and how deep this bullshit went.

  “He’s off. I got the call from Williams. Just cut me a break, Mack. No one’s going to buck Williams on this and you know it. Just go to Central, I’m begging you.”

  “This isn’t over, Tim.” Foster snatched her files off her desk and glanced back at him.

  He held out his hand. “The files?”

  Mack stared. “I think I left them in my car. I’ll make sure they’re in order and back here first thing.” Mack was pretty sure he knew they were in the stack she was shoving into her backpack, but he didn’t question her. She was seething as she threw herself behind the wheel of her patrol car. Her shift was over but she was sure that the fight had just begun.

  She launched her phone camera and began scanning pages of the case file. She might not be officially assigned to Sandy Curran’s murder but that didn’t mean she was planning on letting go.