by Cass Sellars
“I know, but at least it’s something.” Mack sounded desperate for any lead.
“I brought the 9-1-1 call if you guys want to listen,” Darcy offered as she held out a disk to Sydney. Parker watched her fingers graze over Syd’s for just a second as she released the CD.
“I would do anything to know who made that call to dispatch, wouldn’t you?” Mack looked resigned.
“I know. I think it could maybe tell us if someone is pulling strings here or it’s just what it appears to be.” Syd looked doubtful.
“You can clearly tell this is a guy trying to sound like a female and doing a really bad job,” Darcy offered.
Syd piped the sound through the room’s speakers.
Dispatch: Fairfax 9-1-1, what is your emergency?
Caller: I think an officer is dead at Forty-Sixth and Lincoln.
Dispatch: How do you know it’s an officer, ma’am?
Caller: Uh, I looked in the window of the car after I heard a gunshot.
Dispatch: Where were you?
Caller: Uh, walking by.
Dispatch: Did you see anyone else there?
Caller: No.
Dispatch: Any other cars?
Caller: No, just her unit is there. It’s number 2-3-4. All black, no markings.
Dispatch: Can you stay on the line with me until police reach your location?
Caller: I don’t want to get involved.
Dispatch: What is your name in case the police need to reach you?
Caller: I want to remain anonymous.
Dispatch: Okay, can you tell me anything else?
A dial tone roared into the speakers.
“Bad, right? That was clearly a guy,” Darcy declared shaking her head at the poor impression everyone had heard.
“Wait, wait.” Sydney excitedly spun back to the computer and enhanced the audio, driving the audio slider on the screen back about ten seconds.
“Listen.” She hit play and everyone strained to hear over the background noise.
No, just her unit is there. It’s number 2-3-4.
“Did you hear that? Her unit—civilians don’t say that, cops do. Civilians say her car, the car, or something like that.”
“You’re right.” Mack stared at the screen as if she expected the answers to be written there. “The background noise was brutal.”
“That was the helicopter looking for the home invasion suspect that went out right before we got there. We had to resort to yelling at each other a couple of times.”
Both Mack and Syd shifted around to look at Darcy. “What did you say?” Syd asked slowly.
“A police helicopter was still there?” Mack asked impatiently glancing back at Syd who was grabbing her cell from the clip on her belt. Parker noticed her gun again. She also noticed Darcy watch Syd intently.
“Fairfax County or State?” Syd asked enthusiastically. Darcy seemed captivated by watching Syd work.
“Well I didn’t see it, but it had to be county. State was putting on the dog and pony show with their bird at the fairgrounds all weekend,” Darcy responded. “They had one of my scene team vans out there until Monday.”
Mack looked at Syd, obviously understanding her new train of thought. “Williams told me we had a double at Parkside Manor. I assumed that’s why no one was available for Sandy but me and David.”
Syd’s fingers started flying over her telephone contact list. “Zander Young is the newest pilot for Fairfax County. He and I did a long investigation together last year,” Syd replied in answer to the rest of the room’s curious stares. “He owes me one.”
“For?” Parker looked over to Syd.
“Let’s just say I have information he doesn’t want made public.”
“Blackmail?” Jen stared incredulously at Sydney.
“No, nothing like that. He just owes me for not reporting the slap and tickle session he was conducting with another member of the flight center staff…in the new helicopter.”
Parker laughed out loud and then smacked her hand over her mouth as the call connected.
“Zander, Syd Hyatt, how are you? I need you to check back in your log for me as a favor…A really quiet favor, okay?” Sydney slid a large paper clip back and forth in her fingers as she described her request. A smile broke over her face as she high-fived Mack and did a victory dance in her chair before she disconnected.
“One full-reel video coming up. Zander was flying that night and made a pass over the warehouse district at least once because they got a report about the possible shooter in the Parkside case.” The group cheered as Sydney started tapping away at the video she had been working on.
Everyone got closer to the screen and Parker leaned against her lover while the newest evidence began to play. Mack dropped a kiss on Jen’s fingers as she tilted her back against her. Parker felt a pang of jealousy stab at her and forced herself to refocus when Darcy brushed her thigh against Sydney and took up position on her other side.
“I’ve uploaded all the pictures Darcy sent and integrated them into Mack’s cell video to get the best 3-D images I could approximate without using any presumptive data. Meaning I wanted to be careful not to add or assume information where there was none just based on our conversation. If we need to do that later, I can.”
The rough video from Mack’s phone began to find focus, a morph somewhere between a cartoon and a movie. A shaky tour of an open expanse showed an empty industrial space in the midst of some sort of transformation. Mack narrated the tour through the warehouse adding approximate distances.
“Was the warehouse being remodeled?” Parker spoke first breaking the silence in the room. “I’m noticing what looks like fairly fresh Sheetrock mud. Is that just an effect on the video or is it really new?” She leaned to look closer at the image.
“No, it’s fresh,” Mack responded. “I called the property’s registered owner and he said that construction crews had been working all week. The new tenant plans to store textiles in their warehouse, so they wanted the environment to be as clean and dry as possible, hence the expense of finished walls. He said that they were planning to paint the Tuesday after the holiday. The crew doesn’t work Mondays as a rule. I asked him about loading-in construction materials and he claimed that, as far as he knew, they used pickups which aren’t high enough for that dock. He gave me the contact at the construction company but I didn’t have a chance to follow up before I got yanked off the case.”
“What makes you ask about the walls?” Sydney asked.
Parker rested her hand on Syd’s shoulder and she entwined her fingers in response. “Well, first of all, unless they have the worst construction manager ever, that place isn’t ready to paint.”
“Why?” Mack stared at the now frozen image.
“Look at this knee wall.” She pointed to the place on the image. “The panels have been torn away from the floor strips and the screws are missing.” Parker felt Darcy look over at her when she held Syd’s hand.
Sydney leaned closer and enlarged the image. “Actually, I don’t think they’re missing, Park, look.” With the mouse, she hovered over two screws that had been wedged against the corner and gleamed as the light of the video passed over them.
“Yeah, those are Sheetrock screws. They weren’t unscrewed either, the rock is all torn away and crumbly. Something hit that corner. I don’t know if it means anything, but if you’re remodeling a space and preparing it for finishes, that should be the last thing you let happen.” She was pointing at the screen as everyone else followed her finger.
Syd began clicking windows as new pictures were laid over old and layers became 3-D renderings. “I think I can enhance the shot of this section.”
The images skimmed by. Syd played the video at regular speed first and then replayed it two additional times at half-speed before Jen whispered, “I think I know what made the break in the wall.” Mack raised an eyebrow at Jenny.
“Time out, Syd.” Mack said quickly, and Syd clicked the mouse and the
view of the wall froze again.
Jen leaned toward the screen. “I think this may be useful…maybe. It looks like there was a pallet jack here. The floors are clear and smooth. But look at the worn path in the dust, how it kind of shines like metal. If someone isn’t very experienced at using a jack, they won’t pick their load up high enough and the forks skid along the ground. If you follow the trail of the skid marks”—she waited as Syd zoomed the video out and dragged her finger along the pattern that only she had noticed until then—“the marks go straight from the dock leveler and toward that wall where the break is.”
Mack looked at her wife and crinkled her nose. “How do you know about pallet jacks?”
“Mack, I wasn’t always the mother of your child and Parker’s favorite employee, you know.” She smiled at Parker who laughed at her. Mack nudged her to go on.
“I was in a leadership program in college and spent two summer internships learning how to manage a shipping warehouse. I kept having to terminate workers because they were damaging product on the jacks or chipping out the ramps because they wouldn’t raise the forks. It’s laziness really, but it’s faster to pull them up as they go and just enough to begin to move the jack, but that doesn’t allow for uneven concrete, hazards, a dropped board, etcetera.” Jen smiled satisfactorily, obviously quite proud of herself. Mack squeezed her cheeks and planted a loud kiss on her lips.
“So,” Darcy continued the thought as she stood close behind Sydney once more. Parker saw her intentionally skimming her breast over Sydney’s shoulder. She was sure any rush born of the contact was felt by Darcy alone. “If someone was loading or unloading a trailer, it obviously means a delivery truck would have been in the dock. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been able to reach this…stage? platform?”
Parker said, “It’s called a dock plate. And no, if there was no truck there, no one would have walked on or off the dock plate from inside the warehouse.” She looked at the group to see if they were following. “If you were just using the door for ventilation, you wouldn’t get that close without worrying about falling off, right?” Syd nodded at her.
“So why are there half footprints leading on and off the plate, if a truck wasn’t there?” Mack chimed in.
“And there would be no reason for equipment like a pallet jack or a forklift to be there, since this was supposed to be the finish week and the guy says they reportedly haven’t been using it,” Jenny continued Parker’s thought.
Mack was taking furious notes in a spiral pad as the brainstorming continued. “So let’s say Sandy drives up on a truck being loaded or unloaded in the middle of the night at a supposedly vacant warehouse. She thinks maybe kids or vagrants or maybe a stolen truck. She tries to get close enough to see which it is before she calls it in, and someone makes her.” She was talking almost as fast as she was writing before giving up the pen and staring again at the screen.
“The subject or subjects get spooked and shoot her when they figure out who she is, see the uniform, or the government plates. Even though she drives an unmarked, it’s pretty obviously a police issue.”
“She wouldn’t have tried to approach the warehouse.” Syd picked up the thought. “There are too many ambush points. She would have observed from the side lot and gotten a good look at the operation from back here before picking up her phone or requesting a check-in. She wouldn’t have confronted them unless she had backup, and her mic was never keyed, right?”
“No, never,” Darcy confirmed. “I asked someone from dispatch to go back over their records looking for random squelch or broken transmissions around that time, and nothing.”
Parker squeezed Syd’s shoulder as she leaned even closer to the screen. “Can you zoom in on this part?” She pointed to a tiny red square tucked under the knee wall that had been hit.
“Here?” Syd looked at her for confirmation.
“Yeah, see it?” Parker pointed at a thin item that looked like a piece of colored paper sticking out of the wall at the floor. “So, if construction was being fast-tracked, Sheetrock would have only taken a week for this size area.” She circled the space on the screen. “If that paper was there before the stud runners were bolted into the concrete, they would have moved it or kicked it into the void space behind the wall. You should see what gets left back there. This item looks like it just got wedged under the metal runner which means it happened recently. And maybe, just maybe”—she looked to Jen for confirmation—“if it’s a pallet tag, it would give us an idea what was being loaded and unloaded. Of course, if it’s not just construction materials.”
Jen nodded. “It could be a pallet label that got jerked loose when whoever hit the wall. They usually only use one industrial staple to affix it to the base or side run of boards on the pallet. The wood face can be really soft, so they can come off fairly easily,” she explained, and Parker leaned to offer a triumphant slap on Jenny’s shoulder because they were too far away to hug.
Mack stared at both women. “I don’t know what just happened but I’m very turned on right now.” The room erupted into much needed tension-dissolving laughter.
“Nice job, Park,” Syd whispered to Parker who was still standing behind her.
“So,” Mack said with new focus, “now we need to figure out what truck was there when, and what happened to the merchandise if there was some. I guess we can rule out a party or a drug deal.”
“You mean because drug dealers don’t usually have pallets of weight dropped at a warehouse they don’t own?” Syd said sarcastically.
“Exactly. And we can’t be sure that the owner of the property isn’t involved somehow, so I’m leaving that alone for the moment.”
Darcy held up her phone displaying an email. “Williams just sent me a message asking about the scene photos.” Darcy looked at Mack. “I haven’t had a chance to make any copies of them yet. What do you want me to do?”
“Send him the pictures from the lot just like you would on any other case. Just interoffice them to the wrong mail code. Address them to him, but at South District. Hell, they can’t find their own station half the time, let alone misdirected mail. That way you’ve done what he asked and he can’t get too bent out of shape. I just want a little extra time.”
“We need to get in that warehouse, Mack,” Syd said. “Sooner rather than later, in case someone notices it. The construction crew could just sweep it up and not think anything about it, assuming they aren’t involved, of course.” Syd was picturing evidence disappearing and it made her nervous. If this was what they thought, it could really help to have that tiny piece of paper.
“Syd, I can’t ask you to break into a privately owned building with me. That’s too much.”
“You aren’t asking,” she replied quickly. “Maybe I like long walks in the Warehouse District, and I happen to hear a dog whining? I would have to look into it in case the poor thing got locked in, right?” She flashed an innocent look at Mack.
“Let me think about this. I have to know who I can trust if we need backup, and right now, everyone’s running scared of being the next one transferred into Siberia.”
“I can help,” Darcy offered to the group as Mack shook her head. “Come on, I can drive you and stay in the car as a lookout. Ask Syd, I can defend myself.”
Syd nodded as she remembered being tackled by Darcy one night when she came in late from work without calling. Darcy had put Sydney on the floor in roughly five seconds. While Syd tried to get her breath back, Darcy finally realized she wasn’t a machete-wielding burglar. She had apologized for a week afterward. “Yeah, she could probably defend herself.”
“Let me try and get the lay of the land before we make a plan,” Mack said. “Syd, call me when you get the aerials, okay? Let’s all get some sleep and meet back when there’s something new. I know you’re right—we can’t wait too long.”
The baby voiced her opinion right on schedule as Jen collected the bundle and headed down the stairs.
Syd pushed the door cl
osed after everyone had filed out and observed Parker sitting on the kitchen island. She walked to her and wedged between her knees, “What?” She studied Parker’s furrowed features as she gripped the countertop instead of pulling against Sydney as she would have expected.
“I don’t like this,” she said in a matter-of-fact way that made Sydney pause.
“The case? You don’t have to be invol—”
“Being jealous. I don’t like being jealous.” Parker frowned at the floor as if considering her words carefully.
“Of Dean?” She hadn’t noticed that Parker was upset during the meeting but her girlfriend was very good at laying low in certain situations. That made her good at her job and often confounding in a relationship.
“Yes, of Darcy. She looks at you constantly. She puts herself in a position where she touches you all the time—like tonight, dragging her chest across your arm.” Syd remembered it and had hoped Parker hadn’t seen the blatantly tacky move. “She brings up things from your past together any chance she gets. She does it to push her way back in with you and to push me away. She loves to recount your history that I know nothing about.”
Syd had never ever seen Parker pout before and thought it was adorable. She silently congratulated herself on mentioning neither of those things out loud.
She placed her hands around Parker’s hips and touched her forehead to Parker’s as she prepared to fill in the blanks of her history with the devious Ms. Dean. “Okay, here it goes. First of all, I was twenty-two when we met. I had never had a girlfriend and my only female role model was my mother. The fact that I didn’t move in with a drunken murderer seemed pretty good as far as I was concerned. She was older and she knew how to manipulate me—like I told you when we first met, remember?”
She tilted Parker’s chin so she could see her eyes before she continued. “I did what she said, when she said it, because I thought that was what relationships were. That was certainly what my mother demonstrated them to be, one person in charge of the other. I was going to parties with law enforcement types who could, and did, help me professionally, and I was getting regular sex.”
