by Alex Hughes
“Be glad that’s all I’m doing,” Paulsen said. “The department is under extreme surveillance by the powers that be, and I am out of rope with you.” She paused. “Speaking of, the review board is less than two weeks away. Do you have your license?”
I swallowed. The PI license. Great, not another thing. “Not yet.”
“I told you to have a license prepared by now. Your Guild inquiry didn’t work out. What do you have?”
I took a breath. “I’m in final stages of appealing. There was no reason for them to slow down the process in the first place. Legally, I have passed all the requirements. I have all of the filing paperwork for you to show if you need to.” It shouldn’t be this hard.
“Appealing?” she said. “That means they denied you.”
“I passed every test,” I said defensively. “I’ve jumped through all the hoops for the Second Chance Act. I’ve done the rehab. You yourself have mandated the drug testing. We have, what, three and a half years of records?”
“Closer to four,” she said flatly. “They’re giving you issues about the felonies.”
“Well, yes.”
I could feel her pulling back a cloud of negative emotion, lassoing it, and setting it aside. Cops didn’t like felonies. They didn’t like felons. And me . . . well, mine were all drug related, and what I did made up for them. Mostly. On most days.
Finally she spoke. “I hope for your sake that you get your approval. I warned you already, if you don’t have some kind of license going forward, the odds are that the review board will terminate your contract. That review is in two weeks.”
“You said you were going to stand up for my job,” I said very, very quietly. I’d fought tooth and nail to get here this morning at all. I needed this job. I wanted this job. And she’d promised.
“I said I would do what I can,” she returned, and looked down at another pile of folders on the side of her desk. Cutbacks, likely, again. The county was cutting back far too much from far too many directions lately. As she put it, “real cops” were losing their jobs. What right did I have as a felon to be here?
Obviously I couldn’t tell her about the Guild issue right now, not and keep my job. It was Friday—I had the weekend to figure this out.
She was still waiting on me.
I sighed. “I’ll get the certification. I will. I can’t promise timing, though I’ll do my best. I may need you to fill out a few forms.”
She looked up as Captain Harris knocked and opened her door. “Yes?”
“We have a problem,” Harris said, in an intense tone I only seemed to hear from cops when people were actually bleeding to death. “There’s an arbitration situation that is about to turn violent.”
Paulsen looked at me. “Emergency?”
“No,” I said, and found myself ejected out to the hallway before I could blink. The door closed with a snick as I looked at it.
The captain had been taking on arbitration gigs for years, and had been stepping up the high-profile ones lately (according to Paulsen) to help fund department paychecks. I wondered where the violence was coming from. Union situation? Gangs? Politicians with knives? Impossible to know. Whatever it was clearly was more important than me.
• • •
Instead of going downstairs to the interview rooms like I was supposed to, I locked myself in the coffee closet and took several deep breaths. I had debated going outside for a cigarette, as it had now been so many hours I couldn’t count since the last one, but they’d taken my cigarettes at the Guild, and my sponsor, Swartz, said people before poison.
The coffee closet was dim today, one of the two lightbulbs burned out, the coffeepot still heating from last night; the smell of burned coffee and ozone filled the space. The two donuts left were so stale they clanked, and a small scout ant poked at the crumbs on the table.
I killed him, feeling bad about it, but knowing there would be two hundred more in an hour if I let it go. You didn’t see many ants in the winter; I was betting they had an inside heated spot somewhere. Trouble.
Okay, now I was putting this off. I wiped off my hands, picked up the phone receiver, and dialed Swartz’s number.
Ringing came on the other side of the line. He was still at home, resting up, with any luck having remembered to turn the ringer on again.
“Adam,” came over the phone, in an out-of-breath voice. “Where the hell were you this morning? I called the station, but they said you weren’t assigned anywhere. Do I need to come down there and kick your ass?”
I took a breath. That voice—that voice was the most comforting thing I’d heard in a long time. Swartz had been my Narcotics Anonymous sponsor for years, and he always knew the right thing to say. To do. To think about. He didn’t let me get away with crap, and even since his heart attack, he was there when I needed him. When I didn’t know what to do. “Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t know, Swartz. No drugs—I haven’t even had a cigarette this morning. The Guild—”
“What about the Guild, son?”
“Well . . .”
“I assume you’re on break. Might as well spit it.”
Something inside me loosened. “Yeah. The Guild locked me up and then decided to tell me I was going to solve a murder for them.”
“A murder?”
“A guy I knew back in the day. Kara’s uncle. He’s, well, majorly important at the Guild now. On the Council.”
“Intimidation? Really? What does Kara say about this?”
“She helped them throw me in that cell after I broke some stupid rule. Maybe I did, I don’t know. But they’re threatening me with a lot of crap, and I . . .” A pause over the phone, in which I saw another scout ant. I killed this one too. I hadn’t told him about the debt. “I feel like I have to do this.”
“How stupid a rule?” Swartz asked.
I poked at the crumbs. Of all the things for him to pick out of that . . . “Some privacy thing. It’s a matter of interpretation. They’ve tightened up standards a lot since I left, and I don’t think all in a good way.” I thought about telling him about the mind-fight, about Green outmuscling me—it disturbed me still, confused me still—but I couldn’t figure out how to say it quickly. “Either way it’s do what they say or bad things happen.”
“You need help getting out of town, kid?” Swartz finally asked, serious.
I laughed, long and hard. “Ah, no, thanks, though. The Guild are controlling bastards as usual, and I don’t know what’s going on with Kara. But madness is no joke, and neither is suicide, if that’s what this is. Meyers was good to me, and he deserves somebody who will find out the truth.” I sat back, blinking, realizing all of that was true. I’d made up my mind, even if I hadn’t realized it yet.
Swartz’s voice softened. “Good for you. Good for you, kid.”
I smiled then, a real smile. “Listen, about the service project this weekend . . .”
“I’ll give you a pass if you’re working,” Swartz said. “But we’re having a meet-up. I don’t care what you have to do to make it happen.”
“I understand,” I said, still smiling. We said our good-byes, and I sat back.
I still wanted a cigarette. I was still exhausted within an inch of my life. But for the first time, I thought maybe I could do this. The weekend was coming up, two whole days for investigation at the Guild. Two whole days, and maybe I could do some good.
Maybe I could end up not dead and not imprisoned. That would be fun.
• • •
When I showed up at Cherabino’s cubicle, Michael had donuts. Real donuts, fresh-baked today, with gooey fillings and sticky yogurt frosting flavored with heavy spices I couldn’t put names to. He waved me over to the box and I helped myself to three. And copious amounts of coffee. I’d already gotten a cup from the break room of the burned stuff, and had myself a cigarette.
“Everything
okay from yesterday?” Michael asked.
Mouth full, I shrugged. Don’t really want to talk about it, thanks.
His eyes widened and he was suddenly on his feet.
Crap, amateur mistake. I must be way more tired than I’d thought. Cherabino would have kicked my ass back when I was new to this. Some cops still would.
Michael stood there, holding back his hostility.
Cherabino stood too, and patted his shoulder. “Takes you by surprise the first time, I know. Boy Wonder does back off if you tell him to.”
“Okay . . .” He was taking her advice, and calming, without only the occasional look in my direction.
Cherabino shrugged. “Don’t ask about the nickname. It’s a long story.”
Forcing myself to calm, I finished chewing the amazingness that was my new favorite donut and swallowed. Took another gulp of coffee. “I didn’t mean to cross a line,” I sighed. “I’ll try not to do it again, but with the way my week has been going, I’m not making any promises. I’ve just been around telepaths a lot in the last twenty-four hours, over with Kara. It plays with your sense of personal space.”
Michael was frowning, but he didn’t say anything else, and it seemed hypocritical to read him at this point.
“These are really good donuts,” I offered, to change the subject, then for good measure added, “Do we have any new information on the Wright case? Since I was down there for the murder scene, I want to help if I can.” That’s what I was getting paid for, right?
Cherabino gestured to an uncomfortable metal chair at the back of the cubicle. “We’re about to leave for the Cardinal Laboratories. We could use your skills there, actually. I want to interview most of the staff, and I need to be back by two for the task force meeting.” She had a sudden thought I could actually see crystallize.
I stopped walking with the chair halfway to the front of the cubicle next to the two more comfortable ones. “What?” I asked her.
“Clark was looking for you yesterday. He seemed pissed. Should you really be working on the case with us? I’ll understand if you need to be in the interview rooms.” She didn’t sound happy about this; Cherabino had the highest close rate in Homicide because she got grabby and obsessive with cases. But I knew she would share resources if she had to. Bransen’s department hadn’t ever been willing to pick up my full-time salary and she had to be comfortable with that.
“I’ll be here a little longer,” I said, firmly squishing any internal guilt that might be leaking over the accidental Link with Cherabino. I was here, I needed to work, not feel sorry for myself. “What’s going on with the task force?” I asked.
She looked at me.
I looked back at her. “Seriously, Why it is urgent all of a sudden? You’ve been working on the project for years now.”
She sighed and pulled a huge stack of papers out of a drawer and plopped it on the desk, on top of an even taller pile. “This is this list of crimes Fiske is suspected of orchestrating.”
“It’s three inches thick. At least.”
“Someone is observant today. Yes, it’s three inches thick. Murder, extortion, human trafficking, drug trafficking, felony assault, illegal prostitution and gambling rings—sometimes in the same facility—car theft rings, oh, and I don’t know, what’s your favorite crime these days? He’s got his guys doing all of it. Of course I can’t prove any of it’s tied to him. I can’t prove he gave the orders, not in front of a jury anyway.
“The places shut down as soon as we find them. The evidence disappears—twice out of police lockup!—and the people involved leave town. When we can get something to stick, we have judges throwing things out left and right—he has a few of them on payroll—and we have witnesses disappearing. Those, by the way, are always the ones that can connect the crime to Fiske himself. The rest, he lets go.”
She reached back in the drawer and pulled out another, much thinner file and set it on top of the first. “This. This is the new evidence. Ruffins—remember him, guy from the Tech Control Organization who hates you? Well, he’s brought his network of informants in, and it turns out since Fiske is up to his ears in technology smuggling, Ruffins has stuff we can actually use. A lot of it. I don’t care if the bastard goes away for taxes at this point, and nobody else on the task force cares either. We’re going to take him down on technology smuggling and a couple of murders that happened along the way. Hell, taxes too if we can call the right guys. But we need to move in the next couple of weeks to be sure of getting the judge we know isn’t bought.”
“We need to go. We’re going to be late,” Michael said.
Cherabino sighed and put the paper back in the drawer with two hands. “It’s always something, isn’t it?”
She stood up and grabbed her suit jacket. “It’s the lab now, isn’t it?”
“That’s right,” Michael said. He led the way and I trotted to catch up.
“What do I need to know about this Cardinal Laboratories?” I asked as Cherabino followed, making notes to herself on a notebook with a pen.
Michael glanced back, slowing his pace a little to give Cherabino a chance to catch up. “It’s the Wright case. Remember how he was fired from his official job?”
“I . . . think so,” I said cautiously.
“It’s the ax murder case,” he prompted, which did it for me.
“Um, did you ever find the missing pieces?” I asked.
“No, actually,” Michael said. “My trophy theory is all we’ve got, and it’s not much other than conjecture. Based on the angles of the cuts and the focus on the head and arm, it’s pretty clear the killer did the damage there on purpose, to take pieces with him.”
“Are there similar cases in the database?” I asked.
“Nothing like this,” he said. “There was the van Gogh murders with the ears missing five years ago, but the perp is still in jail.”
“And we got him on DNA evidence,” Cherabino put in, catching up. “That was one of mine. I’m sure it’s the guy. Still, it doesn’t hurt to cross-check.” She said hello to a few detectives who were passing through the main walkway in front of the elevator where we were.
Michael pressed the elevator button.
“I assume you’re already looking at perps who were recently released from jail?” I asked. “If there’s a weird trophy thing going on, it could be someone who was doing the same thing a decade or more ago and got caught.”
Cherabino sighed. “Unless you have time to go through all the files indiscriminately, we’re going to have to keep moving. I’m not authorized for any more computer time this month, even for somebody else’s database.”
I blinked. I hadn’t noticed that missing. “They took the computer back?”
I felt a small, suppressed twinge of hurt through the Link as the elevator dinged its arrival.
We stepped on, and Michael pressed the button for the ground floor.
“I just let go of my last Electronic Crimes commitment, and the machine can be better used by somebody who’s doing it full-time.” Cherabino shook her head and put the notebook away. “My time’s better spent on the Fiske task force anyway. If we can get the bastard, the whole city will be a better place.”
“You still have the tablet?” I asked. She went through a deep background check every six months or so to let her have the technology, and I’d gotten a little used to its processing power, even if it wasn’t linked up to anything else; I wasn’t cleared for access to anything that hadn’t already been Quarantined six ways ‘til Sunday. Still, sixty years after the Tech Wars, with the public still scared of any computer technology more powerful than an oven timer, I was lucky to have access to even that much. Cherabino, of course, had access to far more.
“I’m sharing the tablet with another detective,” Cherabino said. “He has it this week.”
Michael prompted, “You wanted to know abo
ut the victim, Noah Wright, correct?”
“Probably,” I said. “If I’m interviewing coworkers I need to know whatever’s going to come up. And what we’re not saying.” The cops held back key details of the crime on purpose to weed out false confessions.
“The missing ear and arm section are being held back,” Cherabino said flatly. The elevator door opened as we arrived and she pushed through, nervous energy making her move quickly.
Michael and I followed.
“Wright lost his job about six months ago. He was working on a government contract for technology applications and was fired ‘for improper use of sensitive information.’ There was a lawsuit filed from the state using the same language—it’s odd, I had to look it up—but nothing’s been done with it.”
“You mean another lawyer filed an injunction or it got tossed out of court?” I dodged a few cops pulling suspects over from Booking, as Michael moved out of the way of one of the secretaries from the pool. Cherabino just cut through, and I ended up following in her wake. The main floor of the cop building was a madhouse, as usual.
Michael walked a little faster to keep up. “No, I mean literally nothing’s been done with it. It’s like the paperwork got lost somewhere. It hasn’t been extended, it hasn’t been dismissed, it hasn’t had a court date assigned. It’s like it literally got lost.”
“That’s strange,” I said.
Cherabino pushed through the reception area toward the glass double doors, frosted with the cold outside. “Yeah, the information wasn’t classified because it’s a private company and it’s not considered a national security issue. Still. We need to ask his coworkers about that. Sounds like something somebody would kill for.”
“Information?” Michael asked.
“Sensitive information?” she replied. “Secrets? People kill for secrets all the time. Especially in the government.”
• • •
