by James Hunt
Palmer didn’t acknowledge his partner and instead looked at Susan. “There are some peculiar aspects of the case, and we’re examining every angle. We were hoping that because of your recent experience on the street that maybe you could put your ear to the ground, see if there has been anyone wandering through the back alleys, bothering folks.”
“Do you have a file?” Susan walked to Palmer, who removed a folder from his briefcase, then handed it to her.
“We’ve got most of our notes inside,” Palmer said. “It’s not much, being so early on in the case.”
Susan flipped through the file, scanning the pages. She saw the notes about the possible OD from the track marks along the victim’s arm, along with the fact that she was wearing a floral print sundress in the dead of winter before she moved onto the parent’s interviews. “Parents didn’t say much.”
“The parents found the body,” Winterguard answered. “They’re grieving.”
Susan arched an eyebrow. “And you’re already twelve hours into a homicide investigation, so you need to start eliminating suspects.” She turned back to Palmer, hoping to find some semblance of sanity in the younger detective.
“We put them through the process,” Palmer said. “But I can tell you that my Spidey senses weren’t tingling when we were at the scene. The parents were devastated.”
“Don’t suppose you have children of your own, girl?” Winterguard finally looked at her when he made the statement.
The thin veil of her civility disappeared under the combination of the old detective’s holier-than-thou gaze and the fatigue from her assignment.
“And I don’t suppose you enjoy stepping on your own balls after too many years of riding the pension bench until you retire—”
“That’s enough.” Williams raised his voice, casting his authoritative glare at Susan as an exclamation point.
Palmer cleared his throat, breaking the awkward silence. “Nate is helping us with some of the local shelters, but we’d appreciate your insight into the streets. It’s been a while since I’ve hung around Vice, and I think both of us could use a refresher.” He glanced at Winterguard before turning back to Susan.
Susan crossed her arms over her chest and nodded. “Yeah. Sure.”
“Good.” Williams stood and slapped his palms on the desk to signal that the meeting was over.
Palmer collected his briefcase and then shook Susan’s hand on the way out. “I’ll get you a copy of the murder book so you can take a closer look.”
“I don’t need one.” Susan pointed to her temple. “All up here now.”
Palmer laughed, waiting for her to say that she was joking, but when she didn’t, he only cleared his throat. “Oh. All right.”
Winterguard cast a glare at Susan on the way out, looking down on her the way so many did during her time in the academy and her time with Vice.
Nate was the last one out. He’d kept quiet for most of the meeting, but sported a coy smile. “Good job out there, Susie.”
“Thanks, Nate,” Susan said.
She watched him leave, and Williams shut the door, leaving the two alone again.
“I might do better next time if you give me a little heads up, Lieutenant,” Susan said.
“It was meant to be a surprise.” Williams blew past Susan as he returned to his desk, grabbing a piece of paper and scribbling something down on it. “I’ve made a deal with their lieutenant that you’ll be acting as an assistant investigator on the case. I know you want a detective’s spot, and this is your chance to prove you can hang with the big boys.” He finished writing and then gestured for Susan to come over. “I need you to sign it.”
Susan turned the paper around, leaving it on the desk as she studied it. “Voluntary assignment transfer?”
Williams leaned back. “Look, I won’t lie to you. You made all of us look good today. And I’ve been working my ass off to get other precincts to work together more, trading resources. Right now with this case, you are a resource, and if you do well, then I do well. But.” He dropped his arms, fiddling with his thumbs. “I want to cover my ass if you fuck this up. Or if you end up shooting Winterguard.”
“That’s one way to get him to retire.” Susan picked up the pen and signed the paper, then dated it.
Williams grabbed the paper and then filed it away. “Excellent. Now go home, take a shower, get some rest, and be ready to go tomorrow morning. I’ll have Palmer give you a call. And don’t forget to grab your standard issue on your way out.”
“I won’t forget that,” Susan said. “I’ve missed that gun.”
4
Before Susan left the precinct, she stopped by Sergeant Hayes’s desk and offered to finish up the reports, but he waved her off.
“You look like shit, Q,” he said. “I think you’ve done enough for one day. Good work out there.”
“Thanks, Sarge.” Surprised by her boss’s praise, Susan stepped out of the precinct just as the night sky consumed the last of the neon reds, oranges, and pinks of the sunset. A cold wind tossed trash across her feet, and she pulled her coat around her tighter and caught her own foul stench.
Too tired to walk home, Susan ordered herself an Uber, hoping that the driver wouldn’t knock her rider rating for the smell she was about to unleash in his car. She could have probably piggybacked on a black and white ride, but she wasn’t in the mood to talk shop, and she knew that her success from today was already spreading through the department.
Everyone was impressed with the little girl from Vice. She knew that most folks expected her to burn out, to fail, to have the streets chew her up and spit her out. But she had won.
A red Toyota picked her up, and Susan climbed in the backseat, thankful for the heat. A brief hello was exchanged between herself and the driver, but that was the extent of their conversation, which she was incredibly grateful for.
Life on the streets wasn’t quiet. There was always something to wake you up in the night. A gunshot, some addict screaming nonsense. The night was the time for demons to roam the streets, performing their dark deeds.
Susan placed her right hand in the crook of her left arm, rubbing her fingertip over the coat’s thick sleeve. She couldn’t feel the scars beneath the fabric, but she knew the marks of her past were still there. Susan had lied to Hayes, and she had lied to Williams, but she could handle herself. She was still in control.
The heat inside the car started to put her to sleep, her eyelids fluttering when the driver slammed on his brakes, jolting her forward before the seatbelt pulled tight across her chest to keep her still.
“Jesus!” The driver smacked his palm on the steering wheel and then laid on the horn. “Get out of the fucking road!”
Heart still pounding in her chest, Susan saw why the driver had stopped. A woman stood in the middle of the road, her appearance like so many of the homeless that roamed the streets at night.
The woman had her eyes wide open, stuck like a deer in headlights.
“Fucking junkies, man.” The driver turned back around to Susan. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Susan unclipped her seatbelt and then opened the door. “I’ll just get out here.”
“Ma’am, you can’t—”
Susan shut the door, muffling the driver’s voice as she walked toward the woman still staring at the headlights. Silver flecks circled her mouth, and Susan knew the woman had just huffed paint and was high as a kite.
The driver sped around both Susan and the homeless woman and drove away, his engine drowning out the curses he shouted from his window.
With the car gone, the woman turned to Susan, startled, as if she was a ghost that had appeared out of thin air.
“Are you all right?” Susan asked.
The woman just stared at Susan, squinting her eyes, and then pointed her index finger at her. “Who are you?” The woman looked middle-aged, but her stringy grey hair and hard face made it difficult to tell. From the looks of her, she had been on the streets
for a long time.
Susan extended her hand, gently placing it into the bewildered homeless woman’s palm. “C’mon. I know a place where you can stay.”
It was four blocks from the Lazarus Center, a Catholic housing building where Susan had stayed more than a few nights during her undercover stint. It was one of the few safe places to rest her head when she couldn’t go home to her apartment.
The woman kept silent on their walk, amusing herself by staring at her fingers, wiggling the digits quickly, then slowly, enthralled with her own dexterity while Susan guided her down the sidewalk.
They arrived at the center before all of the beds were filled, and Susan paid the woman’s way inside. It would probably be the first warm bed the woman had occupied for months.
As Susan passed the woman off to the staff members, she suddenly stopped and then spun around, pointing at Susan the same way she had done in the middle of the road, repeating the same question.
“Who are you?”
“Just someone trying to help.”
The woman stared at Susan until the pair of staff members turned her around and led her inside. Susan lingered outside the building, the glow of the lights from inside the front doors nearly reaching the tips of her shoes, leaving her on the cusp of darkness.
Susan knew the city was filled with women and girls just like that homeless woman, wandering the streets at night. Most women who were homeless slept during the day and stayed awake at night so they wouldn’t be attacked or raped down some dark alley or beneath an overpass.
It was a cruel existence, and Susan knew that if Palmer were right about the homicide case, if there were someone targeting girls on the streets, then the killer responsible would have plenty of potential victims.
The thought dissolved her fatigue, and Susan wanted to start working immediately. She called another Uber, but it took three tries before she got a driver that was willing to take her where she wanted to go. Susan was heading back down south. There were some women she needed to talk to.
The Blue Chevy Suburban’s brakes squealed when it pulled up outside the Pink House. It was a place no man would visit, a site where no man was allowed.
The working girls of the south side had banded together a few years prior, casting aside pimps if they could get away, and took residence in the dilapidated three-story structure where Susan had been dropped off.
Most of the paint had peeled off the wood in long, curving flakes, but enough remained to keep the residence’s recognizable flair intact. The house was maintained by the girls, owned by the girls, and provided the girls a place of their own.
It was where they slept, gossiped, and, every once in a while, beat up one another over which corner belonged to whom.
But the fights were rare. The girls that chose to live in the Pink House knew that there was safety in numbers and that most of them would have died on the streets long ago had it not existed.
Susan quickly learned that in the continually evolving battleground on the streets, few possessed the wits and persuasion like the women of the night. More than once, they had provided her a treasure trove of information because they were instinctively trained to watch for everything. They had eyes in the back of their heads and were a network unto themselves.
Susan sometimes wondered what the difference between herself and the girls working the corners was because she honestly couldn’t figure it out. Most of the women were smart, some were pretty, but all of them had a constitution of iron and steel. Nothing shocked them, and it was rare that a client or anyone else managed to pull one over on them.
A lot of the girls had the same childhood as Susan. A bad home life compiled with a few wrong decisions in their youth led them into a pack of shady individuals that sealed their doomed fates.
Somewhere along the line, Susan had made some unconscious decision to fight against the things that were bringing her down. And the longer that she hung out with these women, the more she began to identify what separated her from the others. It was rage.
The rage was born from all of those nights when she was a little girl, and Susan was forced to fall asleep hungry, alone, wanting what all the other little girls at her school had. It was a rage that had simmered for a long time, and then finally boiled over, thrusting her into her life as a cop.
It was a way to focus the memories she couldn’t get rid of to a singular purpose and enact the vengeance on people like her father, and anyone who preyed on the weak.
She brought that rage to the streets; to people like Freddy, and Kip, and Carson. Susan hunted the hunters and forced them into a corner until their only way out was by means of the back of a squad car.
And even though today was a victory, it seemed that for every head Susan was able to chop off, two more took its place.
Susan walked the broken path of pavement from the sidewalk to the front of the house, the boards on the front porch steps groaning, and she heard the chatter from the women inside before she even knocked on the door. She knew that most of the girls were still getting ready for their shift. Business didn’t really pick up until after midnight.
The heavy sound of a deadbolt being disengaged was followed by the opening of the door, and then a body crashed into Susan, wrapping her arms around her and lifting her up off the ground before carrying her into the house. “Look what the cat dragged in!”
Susan was plopped down on the living room couch, the cushions worn and dusty as she finally got her bearings. “Christ, Allie, you trying to make me puke?”
Allie laughed, taking a seat next to Susan on the couch. The young working girl wore tight neon-green nylons and a black miniskirt so short that it exposed the red booty shorts she wore beneath them. A cigarette rested precariously between two fingers, and she took a quick puff as she kicked off her heels and tucked her feet beneath her legs on the couch. “Hey, Q.”
Susan dusted her pants off. “I told you not to call me that. I get it enough at the office.”
Allie rolled her eyes, fist planted on her cheek as she propped her elbow up on the backside of the vintage couch. “You going to arrest me?”
“Maybe.” Susan cast Allie a hard side glare, but both girls cracked a smile.
Allie was a pretty girl. Tan, blonde hair, blue eyes, and a good body. She reminded Susan of the younger sister she never had. And she was just as annoying.
Allie shoved Susan’s shoulder. “It’s been a while.”
“I know,” Susan said. “Listen, I need to talk to you about something.”
It was Susan’s tone that caused Allie’s playfulness to disappear.
“Have you had any trouble on the streets lately? Guys giving you grief?”
Allie shrugged as she dangled the cigarette from her lips. “No more than the usual creeps, trying to get a feel without paying.”
“What about the other girls? Have they mentioned anything?”
“No one’s said anything.” Allie inhaled more smoke. “In fact, we haven’t had a snatcher since I’ve started working.” She smiled. “Hey, maybe I’m good luck.”
Susan reciprocated Allie’s smile. The girl had a good one.
“You hear something that’s going on?” Allie asked.
Susan hesitated. “It might be nothing. But it might be something.”
“Yeah.” Allie put out her cigarette in the ashtray and then exhaled the final stream of smoke. Her posture slackened, and the gesture aged her beyond her years. “There’s always something.”
A dull ache formed in the front of Susan’s head, and she massaged the edges of her eyebrows. She knew it would come eventually, she just hoped that she’d be asleep by the time it happened.
“You need a hit?” Allie asked.
Susan knew what she should say. She wasn’t undercover anymore. There was nothing to prove. But she had already scratched that old itch, and she knew that it was only going to get worse if she ignored it. “Yeah. Just a small one.”
Susan followed Allie, passing a few more gi
rls getting ready. Because Allie was newer to the house, she got one of the old rooms on the first floor, and she had to share the tiny space with two others.
The bedroom was crammed with three twin beds, one dresser, and enough clothes, shoes, and make-up to fill a department store.
“I just got some crazy shit. Pure too, so you’ll only need a little bit.” Allie picked up her kit and then handed Susan the tubing to tie off her arm. She dumped a little bit of the heroin on a spoon, then flicked a lighter to liquify the powder. Once it was melted, she took a fresh needle and sucked the liquid into the syringe. “That should do it.”
Susan removed her jacket and then rolled up the sleeve on her left arm, exposing the red sores that had accumulated over the past six weeks. She had been an addict long before she joined the academy, but had stayed sober long enough to finish her training. She thought she’d kicked the habit for good, but when she was assigned to Vice, it was a huge step backward.
“New needle,” Allie said, handing it over to Susan. “I got them from the clinic yesterday.”
Susan pressed the needle into her skin and felt the immediate euphoric rush of the high as she stumbled from the kitchen, dropping the needle and syringe, and collapsed onto her dirty bare mattress.
She lay on her back, staring up at the water stains on her ceiling, and felt all of those bad feelings slip away. She was cursed with a mind that never allowed her to escape her past. Most times it felt like a prison, but not when she was high.
But the high only lasted so long, and the comedown was inevitable.
5
The dress was nearly finished. The stitching wasn’t my best work, but I had never had the talent for sewing like my mother did. She had been a seamstress and a very talented one at that. But at least I no longer pricked my fingers with the needle. That had been the hardest obstacle to overcome. The wastebasket was filled with the bloody floral fabric from the dresses that I hadn’t been able to finish.
I wasn’t an idiot. I knew what would happen should I leave traces of DNA behind on the girls. If I was going to save as many as I could, then I needed to ensure that I wasn’t caught.
