The Third Eye

by Jenna Rae

  The day before Lauren died, Andi stood staring at her unconscious wife from the doorway of their bedroom, her face as blank and smooth as a wall. Then it twisted into a mask of pain and horror. Brenda had known what Andi was thinking before she whispered it.

  “How did I let this happen?”

  Brenda knew exactly what she meant. You were supposed to protect the people you loved. You weren’t supposed to let bad things happen to them.

  What if the bad thing that happened to Tori was me?

  When her phone vibrated and interrupted her thoughts, she knew without looking it was Tori. She bit her lip and grunted in greeting.

  “Why did you have Walton report the stripper missing?”

  “Because she left her three-year-old alone, which I already told you.”

  “And it’s Super Brenda to the rescue, right?”

  “She asked me to come see her, and then she took off and left her kid alone. And her place was torn apart.”

  “So she knew a police officer was coming over soon. She read you like a book, Bren. She knew you would make sure the kid was okay.”

  This thought hadn’t occurred to her, and she took a moment to process it. “You’re right, that might have been what happened. But I don’t know. Just like every other weird thing, we check it out. We don’t just tell ourselves a story and leave it at that.”

  “Don’t we?” Tori blew out air, and the sound filled Brenda’s ear. She knew that meant something but she didn’t know what.

  “I met with Peterson and he vanished. Then I met with Staci Smith and she disappeared. Her apartment was ransacked, but a bunch of expensive jewelry and the electronics were left behind. Doesn’t any of this seem odd to you?”

  Tori snorted. “Jonas Peterson’s a depressed, lonely drunk who was barely functional before he got pushed out to pasture and decided to drink himself to death. Staci Smith is a high school dropout whose boyfriend just killed himself because he was a crooked cop. Odds are, she’s off doing whatever drugs she takes to deal with her soul-killing job.”

  “If you suddenly disappeared, what would you want me to do? Or do we only care about certain people?”

  There was silence, and Brenda gave Tori a minute to process her thoughts. Either she’d hang up in rage or she’d restart the conversation with a cooler head. There was a moment of tongue tapping before Tori’s voice came across at cucumber temperature.

  “Who’re your main suspects?”

  “The entire department. Everyone above lieutenant.” She had spoken without thinking and bit her lip, glad Tori couldn’t see her face. Except you, she knew she should add, but she didn’t. There was another long pause. Then Tori muttered a curse and rang off.

  Talking with liquor-store owner Narek about Tami Sheraton’s murder had reminded her to call Sheraton’s family members again. She’d already left messages on their phones, not expecting to hear back. She’d hoped to see them at the funeral to offer her inadequate condolences, but the family had kept that private. Still, she wanted to follow up again. Maybe Sheraton had confided in her mom or sister or cousin.

  If twenty years on the job had taught her anything, it was that people always talked to someone. Good guys, bad guys, witnesses—everyone needed a friendly ear sooner or later.

  A slew of phone calls later, she had again left messages for Sheraton’s mother, sister, brother and aunt. Hopefully one or more of them would get back to her. Families of slain officers tended to either enthusiastically seek interaction with members of the force or shun it entirely.

  If the shuttered funeral was any indication, the Sheraton family was leaning toward the latter. But that might have been the mother’s doing. When her child was murdered by a fellow officer, Mrs. Sheraton might have been understandably angry at and distrustful of the department.

  There was a boyfriend listed in Sheraton’s phone only as “Mason” with a heart emoji. She left a message for him too.

  She headed back to Joe’s Place, where the décor was no less appalling at second glance. She found her old partner’s friends at their counter, nursing cooling cups of coffee and wearing anxious expressions. At her arrival, Peterson’s friends took in her new look with disarming nonchalance and a few significant glances between them. She smothered a wan smile.

  “Good idea,” put in Andy, raising his eyebrows, “going undercover. We’ll call you Sharona.”

  She made a sound like chuckling but didn’t follow up on this.

  Big Henry offered her a small smile, which she returned by half.

  Just Henry leaned forward. “So what’ve you learned?”

  “Well, things are weird.” She debated how much she wanted to share with these men she barely knew. “Listen, you guys are civilians, and I’m not even officially—”

  “We’re not fools,” Stan said softly, holding her gaze. “We look like a bunch of daffy old geezers, I know, but we’re not about to do anything stupid or dangerous. We’re certainly not about to do something that’ll get you into trouble. Captain Borelli, I’ve known Jonas Peterson for thirty years. And you mean more to him than you realize. The girls—well, you know. You kinda took their place.”

  She nodded, trying not to choke on the sudden lump in her throat.

  Stan offered her a pained expression that almost approximated a smile. “Our friend is in some kind of trouble. No one’s seen him for twenty-four hours. He’s a senior citizen, which means we can call him an at-risk missing person. Right, Big Henry?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “So we can make that call instead of you. If Jonas is off in Vegas with a coochie-coo and comes back to find himself on the news, fine, he can throw a fit about it. But we don’t think that’s how it is. Somebody was working with that little weasel, that’s what Jonas thought. He said Donnelly wasn’t competent enough to tear wet paper. So what do we need to do? Who do we need to talk to?”

  When she hesitated, Big Henry held up a hand. “Let’s do this, Borelli, I’m gonna make a guess and you don’t even have to confirm or deny, okay?”

  She nodded. The interaction was an uncomfortable echo of her conversation with Narek.

  Big Henry turned his large body slightly so he was facing the group. “Donnelly killed the rookie, Sheraton, behind Sam’s Liquor, which, like many of the small businesses in that neighborhood, is owned by an immigrant.”

  She kept her expression blank and receptive, wondering where this was going. She noticed the others were listening as intently as she, so Big Henry was sharing his theory for the first time.

  “Folks from other countries are often used to having to pay to be in business. Bribes, extortion, whatever. And they’re usually pretty easily dissuaded from trying to get help. They’re used to the police being as crooked as everybody else in power. So I figure Donnelly was shaking down the easiest marks. Then he got stuck with the rookie, and the kid found out what he was doing. He ended up shooting Sheraton in a panic because she caught him in the act. It wasn’t premeditated, that’s obvious. We’ve all seen that video. Hell, it’s been on the Internet for days.”

  Brenda saw the other guys eyeing her for some reaction, but she gave none.

  Big Henry nodded at her. “Borelli and Peterson—Jonas—both think Donnelly was working for somebody bigger and smarter than him. So Borelli’s in a delicate position. Jonas is retired, and she’s on vacation or compassionate leave. How else could you go after somebody in the department without clueing them in on what you’re investigating? So you could use some men to do legwork for you.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Victimology,” said Stan. “Big Henry told us, that’s one of the things you look at.”

  She jumped in. “Donnelly had a girlfriend. Two, actually. One of them hasn’t returned any of my three calls. I saw the other one yesterday, and I was supposed to see her this morning again. Now she’s missing. Left her sick three-year-old alone and upped and left. Her place was tossed. No jewelry or electronics missing, except her cell phone.”
r />   Big Henry and Stan exchanged glances.

  Stan nodded slowly. “So you met with Jonas to talk about Donnelly and he went missing. You met with Donnelly’s girlfriend and she went missing. You file a report on the girlfriend because of the kid?”

  “I had someone else do it. And I would appreciate your filing on Peterson like you offered. Also, are any of you familiar with Briarwood Watchdogs?”

  “Mike Miller’s boy started that.” Stan made a dismissive gesture. “We call ’em the Meathead Patrol.”

  “Wannabes.” Big Henry scowled. “Too many steroids, not enough brains.”

  “Are they dumb but clean, or dumb but dirty?”

  Just Henry blinked at her. “Dirty how?”

  She shook her head. “I’m fishing. Anything?”

  Bill plucked at his ear. “We could nose around a little. I know the guy who patrols around this place acts like he was trained by the Gestapo.”

  There was a chorus of dismayed agreement.

  “Well, keep it under the radar. Just keep your eyes and ears open on that one. I don’t want anyone’s guard up, so to speak. Do not engage under any circumstances. Listen, there’s other stuff I’d like to ask you to do, but it’s scut work.”

  She eyed each of the men in turn, noting their resolve. There was no way she’d involve them in anything that could either endanger them or jeopardize some future prosecution of perpetrators.

  She was equally aware that, having jumped in the puddle of their concern for Peterson, she couldn’t just walk away and risk their hatching some hazardous plan to find their buddy. What she could do with a relatively clear conscience was give them tasks that would not only actually help her but also make them feel useful and keep them out of trouble. They could do surveillance from a distance, check public records at the library, write a narrative of events that didn’t face the limitations of her own assumptions and perceptions. She wanted to know more about each of the commanders, about each of the captains, about Walton, about Miller. Brown could look in the digital universe for her, but these men had lived in Briarwood for decades and knew things she did not, things that had never been recorded digitally.

  She held up a hand and sat staring into space for a few seconds. Then she snapped her fingers and wrote a list of specific tasks and names, leaving it to Stan and Big Henry to divvy up the chores. After agreeing to meet up with her recruits again in a couple of days, she looked around at Peterson’s friends. They were scared for her old partner and that worried her.

  She tried to shake off her anxiety before it became too apparent to the diner gang. It wouldn’t do Peterson any good for her to wring her hands and weep into her pillow, or for her to get the guys more worked up than they already were.

  Ten minutes later she left the diner feeling like a character in a cut-rate television show. She’d just recruited a bunch of senior citizens she barely knew to help her solve a crime. She’d even assumed a disguise. All she needed now, she thought wryly as she sank down in the Caliber that didn’t yet feel like her car, was a tagline and a sidekick. At that her phone vibrated, and her smile deepened.

  “You are a pain in my ass.”

  And there’s the tagline, she thought, hearing Tori’s sardonic voice. She burst into laughter and held the phone away for a few seconds to collect herself.

  “Tori,” she managed to spit out between chortles, “how’s my favorite sidekick?”

  “Sidekick? If anything—whatever. What have you learned? Any sign of Peterson?”

  “Nothing. His buddies are going to file a report. I think there may be some link between—”

  “There’s no link, Brenda. You’re chasing this phantom case like it’ll exonerate you for a crime you didn’t commit. Sheraton wasn’t even your officer. She should have gone to her superior above Donnelly with her concerns and didn’t, not really. Did Vallejo tell you? She had every opportunity to talk to him about Donnelly, but she didn’t.”

  “Vallejo hasn’t been himself lately, you know that.”

  “I thought it was under wraps, but I guess half the department figured out he was in the drunk tank. Banks and Walton and I are the only ones who were supposed to know about it.”

  “Oh.”

  “The latest wife made him go to addiction camp or whatever twelve-step is covered by our insurance. He went three times in the last six months.”

  “Tori—”

  “So he’s been distracted, and she didn’t have anyone else to turn to. Hey, she’s a rookie. Was a rookie. What did she know? Maybe Vallejo could have pulled his head out of his ass in between trips to rehab, but he didn’t. Hell, maybe none of us would’ve seen it. I sure didn’t. It’s not anybody’s fault, including yours. Donnelly was a crook, and he acted like one. Sheraton was a rookie, and she acted like one. Vallejo is a burnout, and he acted like one.”

  “I—”

  “You did all you could do to help Sheraton, given she made up some vague thing about wanting to be more observant, instead of talking to you about how she thought Donnelly was crooked. She played Nancy Drew and walked into a situation she was unprepared to handle. Donnelly panicked. He figured he’d been caught and he killed the officer who caught him. He went on the run. He freaked out, realizing he’d burned his life to the ground. Now he’s dead. End of story. Banks was right, the sooner we put this all behind us, the better.”

  “Banks? Since when is he your best buddy?”

  “Don’t do that, Bren. It was his call and mine, keeping Vallejo in place despite everything he’s been going through. Walton agreed. Maybe we shoulda pulled him. I wanted to, but Banks said we owed him after all he’s done for the department, and he was right.”

  “What happened? Last time we talked, you were on my side. You thought there was something going on. Now all of a sudden—”

  “All of a sudden, nothing.” Tori started tapping her pocket. “And it’s not a question of being on your side or not. I got caught up in your predictable, self-serving hysteria. I know it’s based on misplaced guilt, but I let myself get tangled up in it and shouldn’t have. Let it go, Bren. Please. Listen, I have to go. We have a meeting. I’ll call later.”

  Brenda leaned back against the headrest, trying to figure out what was really going on with Tori. Had Banks talked Tori into keeping Vallejo in his role as captain because he was somehow involved in the extortion ring? She sighed. She didn’t like Banks, but that was no reason to believe he was some master criminal. She had begun to count on Tori as her eyes and ears in the department, but now it felt like Tori was abandoning her all over again.

  Chapter Seven

  Teresa Fortune, Donnelly’s other girlfriend, worked at a lingerie shop in the older of Briarwood’s two shopping malls. Brenda looked around the mostly empty parking lot and wondered how the stores in the weathered concrete block stayed in business.

  There were a few wan saplings sagging in small squares of weed-dotted dirt every twenty or thirty feet, and they did little to dispel the air of neglect and despair that permeated the mall’s lot. At the base of each of the struggling evergreens stood a bright pink Briarwood Watchdogs sign, and their vividness made the little trees seem even more pathetic.

  As in much of the southern end of town, the lower elevation and slightly increased distance from the Pacific meant staler air than in the better parts of Briarwood. There were none of the city’s namesake roses, other than those depicted on the security company’s ubiquitous signs. As in the area around Mark Donnelly and Staci Smith’s apartment, the stench of poverty was given free rein.

  In contrast to the barrenness of its outdoor space, the inside of the shopping center was a riot of sensory input. Brenda developed an immediate headache from its garish colors, invasive lighting and echoing noisiness. She couldn’t imagine having to spend forty hours a week in such a crummy place.

  Teresa Fortune had a juvenile record and as an adult had been arrested for shoplifting, solicitation, petty theft, vandalism, and simple assault. She’d only
been prosecuted twice as an adult, sentenced to rehab the first time, and spent a few months in county lockup for the second. She’d been on probation for the last two years.

  Brenda wondered who’d hired Teresa Fortune to work in a retail shop, where she had constant access to credit card numbers and other identifying information.

  She found a pretzel shop across from Teresa Fortune’s workplace and spent five dollars providing herself with a stale, salted excuse to linger at a stained plastic table. She noticed neon pink Briarwood Watchdogs stickers in nearly every storefront’s window and wondered if would-be shoplifters were deterred by the cheerful image of a fluorescent flower.

  With little enthusiasm she gnawed on her overpriced snack and watched three blondes at the Silky Stuff lingerie shop fold panties, hang up bras, and argue with each other for a good ten minutes. Why did such a small store need three sales clerks in the middle of a weekday in a nearly deserted mall? As she’d found herself doing so often the last few days, she filed the question away for later.

  She recognized the blonde in the highest heels and shortest skirt as Donnelly’s second girlfriend. She waited until the other two workers were in the back of the store and Fortune was halfway through setting up a busy, sloppy window display. Then she sauntered across the mall’s faded tile passageway, wondering whom the cheap, garish underwear was supposed to entice.

  Teresa Fortune spoke without turning around or looking up. “Welcome to Silky, what fantasy can I help you with?”

  She accepted the lifeless greeting with a bland smile at Fortune’s back. “Good morning. Teresa Fortune?”

  “Oh, goodie, another cop.” Fortune glared at Brenda over her shoulder. Without waiting for confirmation, she rolled her heavily outlined eyes and grabbed her phone from somewhere within her red lace tank top. She jabbed at the screen with her long red fingernails. Then she snagged a crowded keyring from a nearby counter and clipped it to the waistband of her skirt. It was comically heavy, dragging the skirt perilously low and setting it askew on Fortune’s insubstantial frame. After a moment one of the other clerks, a tiny teenager with pink highlights in her long blond hair, tip-tapped onto the sales floor.