by Jeff Taylor
His stomach churned and he nearly wretched just saying the words. Private security had always been looked down on by full-time police officers. “Rent-a-cops,” were just wannabes or guys who couldn’t cut in the real world. Strinnger had never seen them as anything but mercenaries, selling their training and expertise to protect a selfish interest rather than the community at large. One night a few years ago when a few of the officers played poker together they had made jokes that if ever one of them fell into such a trap, they would remove his toenails with a pair of vice grips. Secretly he hoped Drake wouldn’t remember that arrangement.
Drake’s once cheerful expression morphed from genuine excitement to veiled disappointment. At seeing his friend’s reaction, Strinnger would have preferred to have had his nails removed.
“A bodyguard, really? Wow. That’s great,” Drake said trying his best to appear sincere, but failing miserably.
Strinnger shrugged. “Yep. It won’t be as bad as we always said it would. I’ll get to travel, great benefits, and I’ll have more fixed hours so I can spend time at home while Loura and I start a family,” Strinnger answered, trying hard to put a positive spin on the news. “Plus, I’ll be working with former general Stepan Treyklor. He’s the head of security for the company and who knows, when he retires in five years I might step in and take his place.”
He paused, unsure if he was trying to convince Drake or himself. “And the best part is they’re going to pay me three times what I would have made on a detective’s salary. In three years I could almost be making a hundred grand, including bonuses and incentives.”
The junior officer’s eyes widened. “Wow,” he said, this time truly impressed. “Has he got a job for me?”
Strinnger forced a chuckle. “I’ll put in a good word for you.”
Drake’s expression turned serious. “And this is seriously what you want?”
“Yep,” Strinnger lied.
“Well, okay, but this doesn’t change anything between us. We’re still playing ball on Tuesdays and you still have to come to poker nights on Fridays. You have no choice in that.”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Strinnger replied truthfully.
His former partner once again slapped him on the back and then turned to leave. “See you around then.”
Strinnger couldn’t help but smile himself. Drake was a good man, a good friend. He would miss him most of all. His good-natured and light-hearted attitude, as well as his genuine concern for other people was something he would miss being around every day. But standing there watching his friend saunter down the hallway, he felt for the first time like life would go on. He knew Drake would be there to support him, no matter what. Of course, he would still miss the job. Police work was all he’d ever known, but he would manage. The resigning detective took a deep breath and pushed the heavy doors open.
The morning was still young and most people in the homicide office hadn’t arrived at their desks, a fact Strinnger had anticipated. The fewer there the better. As usual, a few early risers were milling about, nursing their coffee and pastries while they focused on their case files. They either didn’t notice or chose to ignore him as he walked through the office, which was fine by him. A few did call out to say hello. Strinnger nodded to them but didn’t stop to chat. He wanted to get in, see the chief, and then get out as quickly as possible.
Detective Samuall Dunbar, the lieutenant overseeing the homicide division, was not an easy man to work for, or live with for that matter. The man had been divorced seven times. Former military, he ran his unit like a drill sergeant, lording over his corps of cadets, poised to pounce on them for any little mistake. “Tear down to build up” was his motto, and did he ever live it. Strinnger would run out of digits, fingers and toes, if he tried to count the number of times he’d been taken to the woodshed by the bulky supervisor. Dunbar was an intimidating force in the office and he demanded respect, which he had deservedly earned over the years. Most of the precinct’s major murder investigations had his fingerprints on them, whether assigned to him or not. He was an icon in the law enforcement community and many, including himself, felt he should be higher up on the career ladder. The only thing holding him back was his Vesuvius-like temper.
The sound of the bellowing lieutenant, who insisted his subordinates call him “Chief,” perhaps alluding to which job he thought he should have, grew louder as Strinnger drew nearer. His heart beat faster with step toward the chief’s office. His entire approach to how he would tell Dunbar of his resignation hinged on the uncertainty of the chief’s mood. To be safe, Strinnger had rehearsed a separate speech for each scenario: happy, sad, angry, more angry, agitated, or grumpy. As silly as it sounded, with Dunbar the latter four were truly distinct, separate emotions. Loura had laughed when he’d recited the list of possibilities to her.
“You may as well throw ‘sneezy’ and ‘bashful’ in there too,” she had said.
Strinnger reached the tempered glass door with Dunbar’s name on it. He took a deep breath and opened it slightly. The door was only partially open when something unexpectedly smashed against it, knocking Strinnger backward. The projectile then landed on the floor with a thud. The glass on the top half of the door cracked just above the door knob from the impact.
“Great,” Strinnger mumbled, “it’s not even eight-thirty yet and I can already scratch ‘happy’ and ‘sad’ off the list.”
Cautiously, he poked his head in and surveyed the damage. In a heap on the tiled floor lay fragments of fabric clinging to pieces of splintered wood. Considering there was now one where there had been two, Strinnger surmised the victim was once one of the chairs opposite the chief’s desk. A broken chair wasn’t anything new to Dunbar’s office. In fact, many considered it his trademark. For years he had taken his anger out on his furniture. Usually, the display was to emphasize a point or remind everybody who was in charge. At first, it was fairly effective, but as time wore on so did people’s tolerance for it. The city manager had grown so tired of refurnishing the office he had threatened to make the chief sit on the floor. An immediate yelling match took place and a new set of chairs arrived the next week. When he really applied himself, Dunbar could get what he wanted.
Unsure if he should enter, Strinnger waited for the chief to mumble a few of his favorite expletives before venturing into his lair. Dunbar was standing behind his desk, trying desperately to open a prescription bottle. In addition to his seven divorces, the chief had also had six minor heart attacks. Strinnger had been witness to the most recent one several months ago. The old man had stubbornly remained at his desk working while the ambulance was en route. Frustrated, Dunbar now tossed the unopened bottle at the blinds covering the window directly behind him and cursed again.
“Perfect timing,” Strinnger muttered to himself. He softly cleared his throat and braved the torment of Hurricane Dunbar.
“What is it?” snapped Dunbar whirling around as if he expected a bear attack. His fierce eyes glared toward the doorway, but then softened when he caught sight of Strinnger. His expression didn’t show the expected pity or empathy Strinnger had gotten from other friends and co-workers. Instead all he saw was disappointment and frustration.
Dunbar surveyed Strinnger from head to toe then leaned over his crowded desk and locked his gaze on his monitor, pecking something on the smudged keyboard.
“Oh, it’s you. What do you want?” he grumbled, suddenly very interested in a report now illuminated on the screen before him.
“I need to talk, if you have a minute?” Strinnger said firmly.
“Take a look at this,” Dunbar said ignoring his question and waving Strinnger toward the lone surviving seat opposite the desk. Strinnger didn’t want to sit. He wanted to make his peace and get out. But he knew better than to argue with the chief when he was in such a sour mood. Strinnger obeyed and Dunbar tossed a blue piece of paper, folded into thirds, onto his lap. Strinnger picked it up and read the title on the front cover. The bolded typeface may as we
ll have been announced by trumpets and flashing neon lights.
“Notice of Filing of Suit for Divorce,” Strinnger read aloud. Another one bites the dust. “Wow,” he said, politely, but not surprised.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” the chief bellowed. “Doesn’t she realize how this will ruin me? I’ll have no retirement, no assets, no house, nothing! I won’t let her do this to me. If she thinks she can get away with this, boy has she got another thing coming! I’ll give her the fight of her life!”
Strinnger knew any reply would be useless but decided to give one anyway. “You know, you could try to reconcile. It says here that she is claiming abandonment. If you spent more time away from here and with her at home, she might come around and drop the whole thing.”
The chief kept ludicrous hours and slept many nights at the office. There was nothing more important to him than his work. What he did everyday kept people safe and that gave him purpose, drive, and focus. Notwithstanding, everything he did was hard; he worked hard, played hard, drank hard, and sadly, even his heart was hard. Cynicism from having to face the ugly side of humanity for more than three decades had left little feeling for anyone or anything.
Dunbar’s eyebrows cocked in confusion. “Reconcile?” he said defiantly. “Give in before the fight? I don’t think so.” He paused, eyeing Strinnger carefully. “But that’s I’d expect from you. After all, isn’t that why you’re here, to give up? Take your pension and run?”
Strinnger sat stone silent for an uncomfortable minute. He had expected his resignation to be difficult. He had even prepared himself for the berating and verbal assault, but the old man’s palpable disgust wrenched Strinnger’s insides. All he could do was look down at the floor unable to reply. Finally, he summoned the courage and lifted his eyes to the chief. “That’s not how I see it.”
A slight fire ignited in the chief’s eyes.
“Oh, really? You see this,” he asked, hoisting up his right sleeve to reveal a white and purple scar stretching from the inside of his elbow around and up to his shoulder blade. It was not the first time Strinnger had seen the famed scar but he knew that wouldn’t deter Dunbar from reliving the moment an armed assailant cornered him in an alley on his rookie beat. “Spent eight months in rehab learning how to feed and clothe myself because of that. But did I quit? No. And neither should you.”
His voice increased in volume as he spoke and Strinnger couldn’t help but feel like a schoolboy being lectured for smoking behind the playground.
“Do you think you’re the first amputee to turn tail and run after a near-death experience? You’re too good a cop to leave after something like this. We can’t afford to lose you.”
That last sentence was the closest thing to a compliment Strinnger had ever received from the chief, so he didn’t know how to reply. Deep down he knew Dunbar was right. He was taking the coward’s way out. Law enforcement wasn’t easy, and especially not safe. He knew the risks when he signed on and had come to terms with the fact that he could wind up dead one day. He was prepared for that. What he hadn’t factored into the equation, however, was having someone special come into his life. The volatile nature of the work had convinced him not to allow himself to get involved seriously with anyone. He didn’t want them to bury a heroic husband. But Loura had been different. She understood the risks and accepted them just as he had. In fact, occasionally her job put her in dangerous situations too. This precariousness put them on equal footing and gave each other a level of understanding that he had never experienced before. That all changed, however, when he’d seen Loura weeping in the hospital. When she cradled his face with the hand he’d decorated with an engagement ring only days before, he knew he couldn’t make her live another day like this. Her pleas for a more secure future had convinced him that this was no longer the life for him. Her reddened face, streaming with tears, haunted him and gave him the reassurance that what he was doing was right. He knew, though, that the calloused chief wouldn’t accept his reasoning or make it easy to walk out of there.
Dunbar reached into a drawer and removed a large cigar. He then circled around the desk and sat on the edge facing Strinnger. The desk groaned under the weight of his heavy frame. He then leaned back and glared at his junior detective, puffing smoke like a steam engine.
“You know those are illegal, right?” Strinnger coughed.
“So arrest me,” Dunbar replied. “Does it interest you to know that the D.A. has closed the Schulaz investigation?”
This news shocked Strinnger. “How can she do that? There’s clearly enough evidence to …”
Dunbar cut him off, shaking his enormous head. “Yeah, but who does she charge? Your dead waitress?”
“Hostess,” Strinnger corrected, “of course not. But when I ran a check of her finances all of her debts were paid in full just two days before the murder. All of them, even the $800,000 she borrowed for her townhome. That’s at least a reasonable suspicion somebody paid her off. And someone would’ve had to plant that bomb there besides her. You didn’t see her face, Chief, she was terrified. If she had planted it there herself, she would’ve known how to get around it. Someone else was involved in all this so we need to keep looking.”
“You’re forgetting one very important thing; she’s dead and you have no other leads,” Dunbar countered. His expression then turned thoughtful. “But Schulaz had a lot of powerful friends. Could be that one of them got to her and used her to get close to him. And when it was done they made sure she never left her house. Those two bodyguards you spoke to at the scene, they knew who she was, right?”
Strinnger had considered the burly Russians as suspects. From his interview with them, however, it was apparent they had been deeply embarrassed by the murder, fearing the damage it would do to their reputations. If they had been involved though, it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility they would use Donna as a scapegoat.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” he said. “But my friend at customs enforcement says they went back to Russia last week. We can’t extradite them on speculation.”
The chief shook his head again and resumed his seat behind the desk. He laced his fingers in a pyramid over his mouth, his hardened eyes boring into Strinnger. “Look, I’m on your side. I think there is more going on here than we know. The problem is, our only credible witness had her ashes picked up yesterday by a friend. All we’ve got is a dead womanizer, and pieces of a waitress who had access, means, and incentive. With those two bozos gone, our leads are shot.”
Strinnger shifted in the coarse orange chair. “I just don’t think she was the killer,” he answered. “We shouldn’t give up on it now.”
Dunbar leaned back in his chair and stared at Strinnger. “Fine. Your desk is still in the corner out there. Have a report ready for me in the morning.”
The chief was a master manipulator. He had a way of coercing people into accepting his will without really knowing it. Fully aware of what the chief was trying to do, Strinnger stood and looked stoically at his superior officer.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he quietly replied.
Slowly, he placed the data cylinder he’d brought with him on the desk. “This is everything I had on the case and a couple of others I was working on. My letter of resignation is there as well.” With a somber reverence, he then reached into his back pocket, removed his identification and badge and placed them on top of the desk. “I’ll check in my sidearm and equipment downstairs at the armory.”
The division chief hoisted the polished, gold-plated shield and brought it level with his ear. He starred fixedly at his now former subordinate.
“I know,” he began slowly, “what this badge means to you, Daeman. Right now, I want you to take a long, hard look at it. If you can honestly tell me that this doesn’t mean anything to you, and you can walk away without any regret, then I’ll shake your hand and send you on your way without another word. But if not, then you owe it not only to me and the public you protect, but to yourself, to tak
e it back.”
Strinnger’s eyes fell to his feet for countless seconds. He then brought them to bear on the heavy badge that had been a part of him for almost a third of his life. He knew it was only a piece of cheap aluminum but what it symbolized, how it had defined him, made it more. As he now stared at it in Dunbar’s bloated hand he felt hollow and empty. Solemnly, he extended his hand. Dunbar placed the shield in Strinnger’s palm. He examined the badge for a moment and then set it down firmly on the desk. With eyes and will resolute, Strinnger met the senior detective’s glare and said, “Good-bye, sir. Thanks for everything.” He then turned toward the door.
In a flurry, Dunbar jumped from his desk chair and followed behind Strinnger, indiscreetly bellowing for all to hear.
“You pansy! I knew you were a coward. You’ll regret this,” Dunbar boomed. “Mark my words, Daeman Strinnger, when it’s all said and done, you’ll look back on this day as the worst of your life! You’ve betrayed your friends, your community, and most of all your duty! You make me sick! If I ever see your ugly face again I’ll put a bullet in it!”
Of course, everyone in the department turned to see what the commotion was about. Strinnger felt the prick of every set of eyes staring into him, but he kept his focus on the door directly ahead of him. He expected no encouragement from his former colleagues in the wake of Dunbar’s wrath. If he turned back to defend himself he would only encourage further insult. Besides, he didn’t have to put up with the chief’s tantrums and curses anymore. From now on he would only answer to two people: Loura and Nathaniel Kratin. One of those would make him happy while the other could make him well-off. From now on, he would give them everything he had.
The din of Dunbar’s shouting died in his ears. He was at peace with his decision and nothing could persuade him otherwise. His body felt light, a monstrous burden lifted. Regret evaporated from his heavy heart like the dew of a warm spring morning. The antiquated doorknob leading to his freedom turned easily in his hand and he stepped out of the homicide department, never to return.
