by Diane Kelly
I grabbed the jug and made certain to fill every square with syrup. Evidently Adriana wasn’t the only one with obsessive tendencies. I grabbed my fork and took a bite. Mmm. I cut my eyes to Seth, who was flipping the bacon in the pan. “You’re the best.”
A sly grin slid across his face. “You talking about my waffle-making abilities, or something else?”
“Both.” It was true. While he made a mean waffle, he sure knew how to heat me up, too.
My demands met, he turned his attention back to the sizzling bacon, using the fork to lift the strips from the frying pan. The dogs sitting obediently at his feet wagged their tails and licked their chops. “You’ll have to give it a minute,” he told them. “Don’t want you burning your mouths.”
Much to Brigit’s and Blast’s disappointment, rather than giving them the fried strips of meat right then and there, Seth opened the freezer and placed the plate of bacon inside to speed up the cooling process. He turned back to me, angling his head to indicate the pot the station kept perpetually brewing. “Coffee?”
“Do you even have to ask?”
He poured me a cup, added a splash of the soy milk he kept on hand for me—gotta love this guy, huh?—and set the mug on the table. He went back to the freezer, removed the plate of bacon, and placed it on the table, taking his seat. Tearing a strip into pieces, he blew on each one to make sure it was cool enough before tossing the pieces to the dogs, alternating between them. The two snapped each piece out of the air with precise skill. “Did I tell you one of the guys is leaving the station?” he said. “His wife got a promotion at her job and they’re moving out of state.”
“So there’s an opening here?”
“Yeah. If Frankie wants to apply I’ll put in a good word for her.”
Seth’s station was only a couple of miles from the house I shared with Francesca “Frankie” Kerrigan. Frankie and I had become roommates on a whim after I’d pulled her over for reckless roller-skating. To make a long story short, her a-hole of a boyfriend had dumped her, leaving her with an empty room and rent she couldn’t afford on her own. I’d used my badge to stop him from taking the television the two had bought together, and moved into the spare bedroom he’d been using as his man cave. The house provided a much better living arrangement for me and Brigit than the tiny studio apartment I’d been leasing, and Frankie had proven to be a thoughtful and considerate roommate. She’d recently given up her job as a nighttime stocker at a grocery store to attend the firefighter academy. Standing five feet eleven and with a strong physique honed from years of playing Roller Derby, she was a good candidate. Her training would wrap up at the end of the week, and she’d be seeking her first assignment. Seth’s station would be a quick and easy commute for her.
“Thanks!” I told Seth. “I’ll let her know to get her application in right away.”
ERT! ERT! ERT! Before Seth could respond, the station’s alarm went off, calling the firefighters into action. He stood and leaned over to give me a quick kiss. “Maple. Yum.”
I kissed him back and put my index finger to his chin dimple, my special sign of affection for him. “Be careful!” I called after him as he rushed off to jump into his gear and secure Blast in his kennel while they were gone.
Brigit watched Blast run out after Seth, a look of doggie disappointment on her furry face. I supposed my face bore the equivalent human expression. But when Brigit realized Blast’s departure meant the rest of the bacon was all hers, she changed her tune. Before I could stop her, she’d put her paws on the edge of the table, used her long tongue to swipe the remaining strips of bacon off the plate, and gobbled them down.
“Looks like our break is over, partner.”
I picked up my mug and the plates, rinsed them in the sink, and put them in the dishwasher. Brigit and I returned to our cruiser and waited in the parking lot as the firefighters climbed onto the truck and turned on their lights and siren to head out to the fire. Seth raised an arm in good-bye as they careened out of the lot. Dang, he looks hot in his firefighter duds.
Turning my attention away from my sexy boyfriend and back to my work, I logged into the laptop mounted in my squad car and pulled up the police report detailing Adriana’s alleged attack on Ryan. According to the officer’s report, Ryan Downey worked as a subcontractor for Interstellar Communications, an Internet and cable company with an ambitious name. Adriana purportedly followed Ryan when he went to install equipment at a house in Ridglea Country Club Estates. At approximately one o’clock in the afternoon, he finished the job, came out of the home, and found her waiting by his truck. When he informed her that he had no intention of resuming their relationship, she physically attacked him. The report included photos of the injuries to Ryan’s neck, the wounds raw. The report noted that the responding officer had spoken with the owner of the house where Ryan had been installing the equipment as well as a neighbor next door, but neither had seen anything. There were no witnesses. The report also noted that Ryan had expressed concern that Adriana had taken a valuable comic book from him. Wonder Woman #1.
One thing that caught my attention was the truck. Did Ryan drive one that was owned by the cable and Internet company, or did he own a truck himself?
I logged into the motor vehicle records and ran a search for those registered in Ryan’s name. Sure enough, both the Camaro and a heavy-duty Silverado truck were registered in his name. Looked like Ryan was a Chevy man.
I chastised myself for not having read the report immediately after speaking with Ryan. Had I done so, I would have realized that Ryan owned a work truck in addition to the Camaro. But better late than never, right?
I started the engine, pulled out of the fire station, and returned to Ryan’s apartment complex. My eyes scanned the parking lot, searching for his truck. There it is.
Brigit lifted her head from her cushion when I pulled to a stop behind the truck, and watched me as I exited our cruiser. I put my fingertips to the truck’s hood, but felt no excessive heat. To be certain, I flattened my palm against the metal. It felt the same as the outdoor temperature. If Ryan had driven the truck to Adriana’s earlier to throw the brick, would it have cooled off already? It was possible. After all, it had been well over an hour since I’d responded to the call, and the drive between the two locations was relatively short. And of course it was possible, maybe even likely, that he hadn’t been to Adriana’s house tonight at all. Adriana could have been trying to frame Ryan, as he’d suggested. Or someone else could have thrown the brick. The event might have had nothing at all to do with their relationship. ACME bricks were common, after all.
As I climbed back into my cruiser, my cell phone rang. I recognized the number as the one Adriana had given me earlier. I jabbed the button to accept the call. “Hello, Miss Valdez.”
“Did you arrest Ryan?” she asked. “Is he in custody?”
“Not yet,” I told her.
“Why not?”
“He had an alibi.”
“I bet he had some woman lie for him, didn’t he? Was there a woman at his apartment?”
If I didn’t know better, I’d think she sounded jealous. Heck, maybe I didn’t know better. She did sound jealous. I decided not to give her any more information. I wasn’t sure who to trust here and felt it was better to hold my cards close to my vest. “Since you’re still up I’m going to swing back by your place. I have some things I’d like to discuss with you.”
“All right.”
A few minutes later, I pulled back up to Adriana’s house. She’d been watching for me out the window and met me on the porch. Her eyes were bright. But was it from eagerness, or worry? It was difficult to distinguish between the two.
“Did you find anything at his place?” she asked, again looking at my ear instead of my eyes. “Any evidence?”
Hmm. Is she fishing to see if I’d noticed the muddy shoes on his porch and the missing brick? I decided not to tell her about them. If she screwed up and mentioned them herself, I’d know she’d pla
nted them and was truly trying to frame Ryan, as he’d claimed. “Nothing definitive,” I said.
Her face clouded and her eyes sparked. “But you looked around, right?”
“As much as I could. I peeked in the windows of his car and checked the hood to see if it was warm. It wasn’t. Without a search warrant I couldn’t go into his apartment.” I said no more for a moment, waiting to see if she might say something that would out her as the window breaker, maybe a reference to the shoes or the other bricks on his porch. When she said nothing, I gave her a subtle nudge. “Was there something in particular you think I might have missed?”
She stared at me for several seconds as if assessing me in return before lifting her shoulders. “I don’t know. I guess I’d just hoped you’d find something incriminating and take him to jail so I wouldn’t have to keep living in fear. I’m on edge all the time and can barely sleep at night. It’s exhausting.”
“I can imagine.” I cocked my head. “Why didn’t you tell me that Ryan had a protective order against you?”
She didn’t hesitate before responding. “Because it means absolutely nothing, Officer Luz. I was served with a notice that he’d filed for an order based on an alleged attack that never happened. The notice said there was going to be a hearing, but I couldn’t take off work the day it was scheduled. The other dietitian had already put in for vacation, and one of us had to be at the center.”
“You could have asked the judge for a continuance,” I said.
“Why would I bother? I don’t want to go anywhere near Ryan, so what would I care if a court ordered me to stay away from him? Besides, I would’ve had to hire an attorney. Ryan was just trying to cost me money, and he was trying to force me to see him again by dragging me into court. The whole thing was nothing more than a ploy, and I wasn’t about to play into his hands and give him what he wanted.”
Could it be true? Had Ryan misused the court system to harass Adriana? If he had, did that mean he might have smashed her window tonight for the same reason? This situation seemed to get more complex by the second. “What about the injuries to his neck?” I asked. “If you didn’t do them, who do you think did?”
“Probably a hooker,” she spat. “I didn’t get into this earlier because it didn’t seem necessary, but Ryan has some weird sexual fetishes. It’s disgusting. That’s one of the reasons I dumped him.”
An image popped into my mind of Ryan dressed in a horned Viking hat and a studded leather codpiece, wielding a whip in one hand and a microwave burrito in the other. Ew! I wasn’t a prude, but I wasn’t exactly comfortable with this topic, either. Still, it was my job to gather the facts. No avoiding it. “Are you talking about autoerotic asphyxiation?”
She pursed her lips primly. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. He was also into role-play. You know, dressing up in costumes. He’s into comic books so at first I thought it was innocent fun. But when he bought me a crotchless tiger costume and wanted me to wear it during—”
I cut her off with a raised hand. “Say no more.” Please! Say no more! I knew I was supposed to be gathering facts here, but in this case the general gist would have to do. I wanted no more details. “Do you know for a fact that he interacted with hookers?”
She frowned. “Well, no. It’s only a guess on my part. But I don’t think a woman would do the things he wanted unless she was being paid.”
As long as the subject of comic books had come up, I figured I might as well ask her about the missing Wonder Woman #1. “Ryan told me one of his rare comic books is missing. The first Wonder Woman comic.”
“He probably claimed I took it, right?”
I shrugged.
“You saw how messy his place is, didn’t you?”
“It wasn’t immaculate by any means, but I didn’t go inside and I didn’t see where he keeps his comics.”
“I’ll tell you where he keeps them. All over the place.” She waved her arms around in demonstration. “He spends a small fortune on the dumb things and doesn’t bother keeping them in a box or drawer or somewhere safe. His nephew Toby might have taken it to look at. Or Ryan could have tossed it in the trash by accident or something.”
I had my doubts he’d be as careless as she was implying but, then again, I didn’t know the guy. All I did know was that people did stupid, strange, and senseless things all the time. It was precisely those stupid, strange, and senseless things that kept the eighteen thousand U.S. police departments in business.
I admonished Adriana both to be careful and to refrain from any contact with Ryan. “I’m working the night shift all week,” I told her. “I’ll be sure to swing by here regularly to keep an eye on things, and I’ll ask the other officers on duty to do the same.” Of course I’d tell them to keep an eye on Ryan’s place, too. With any luck, one of us would catch either Adriana or Ryan doing something they shouldn’t to the other, and then I’d know which of them was the real culprit.
“Thanks, Officer Luz. I appreciate it.” She offered a soft smile. “By the way, did you get a chance to tell Ryan that I’ve moved on? That I’m dating a doctor now? If he knows I’m dating someone else, maybe he’ll move on, too.”
“Sorry,” I said. “It didn’t come up.” No sense antagonizing the guy. If he had thrown the brick through Adriana’s window, why say something that might only encourage him to do worse? And if she was the guilty one here, why help her in her efforts to annoy him?
With a nod in good-bye, I returned to the cruiser, loaded Brigit into her enclosure, and slid into my seat.
I was at a loss as to where to go from here. Both Adriana and Ryan had made arguments that seemed reasonable and valid, yet one of them had to be a damn good actor. Unfortunately, I wasn’t a casting agent and couldn’t distinguish between who was telling me the truth and who should be nominated for an Emmy. Looked like it was time for me to escalate things.
I placed a call to Sergeant Spalding, the supervising officer on duty at the station. “I have an unusual situation,” I told him.
“It’s not another man with his pants down, is it?”
He was referring to my recent arrest of a Peeping Tom who had terrorized the Berkeley Place community in Fort Worth. When law enforcement hadn’t been able to identify the perpetrator right away, the neighborhood watch group had nearly turned into a lynch mob. Luckily, Brigit and I had nabbed the guy before things got out of hand, though when we’d caught him he’d had something in his hand. But no need to disgust you with the details. Long story short, Brigit and I have a good “track” record of solving cases, pun intended.
“All the pants are up this time,” I told Spalding. No need to get into Ryan’s droopy undies, either. “But I’ve got an odd situation and I’m not sure whether to make an arrest.” I ran through the events of the night for him, adding that Ryan had procured a protective order against Adriana after the alleged altercation last week.
“You made the right call not bringing anyone in,” he said. “You were also smart not to tell Miss Valdez about the shoes on Downey’s porch. Detective Bustamente will be in the office in the morning. Check with him and see if he thinks this warrants further investigation.”
“Will do. Thanks.”
Though I was loath to do so, I knew I should also talk to Derek Mackey, get his take on things. After all, he’d been to Adriana’s place recently. Maybe he’d noticed something I hadn’t. Then again, maybe not. Hard to notice much when your head is perpetually up your back end.
* * *
It was a few minutes past six A.M. and the sun was just beginning to light up the distant sky as I stood at the counter of a combination gas station and convenience store near the intersection of Rosedale and Hemphill, my notepad at the ready, my furry partner sniffing at the packaged pork rinds hanging from a peg below. I nudged her nose aside with my knee and returned my attention to the sixtyish clerk. “What was the shoplifter wearing?”
“Green scrubs,” he said.
“Scrubs? Like nurses and do
ctors wear?”
“Yup. He was wearing a surgical mask and cap, too.” He scratched at the horseshoe of gray hair encircling his balding head. My thoughts must have been written on my face because he followed up with, “I’m as surprised as you are. Most of the shoplifters I see are either kids or scuzzy types. Never would’ve pegged this guy for a thief if I hadn’t seen him do it with my own eyes.”
Like the clerk, I would’ve expected someone wearing scrubs to be above petty thievery. This culprit seemed dressed more for a big-time thriller-type crime, like illegal trade in prescription painkillers or human organs. But while there were profiles and stereotypes for those who committed certain varieties of crimes, I knew that books could not always be judged by their covers. Kleptomaniacs came in all shapes, sizes, colors, and attire.
While the clerk rang up a woman in a white lab coat who’d come in for coffee, I jotted some quick notes. Suspect: male. Green scrubs. Surgical mask/cap. Of course I’d need much more than these paltry details to go on. The store sat smack-dab in the center of Fort Worth’s medical district. Both the Harris Methodist and Cook Children’s Hospitals were located within a few blocks of where we now stood, as were the offices of dozens upon dozens of doctors with admitting privileges at the facilities. Add in the various clinics, laboratories, and the blood collection center, and there had to be hundreds if not thousands of health-care workers—most of whom wore scrubs—in the immediate vicinity.
When the woman left the counter, I addressed the clerk again. “What else can you tell me about the guy?”
“He’s a white fella. Average sized.” He shrugged again. “That’s about all I can tell ya.”
