The Sleeping Girls

by James Hunt

  “Nope,” Palmer answered. “Fake plates and no VIN either. It was abandoned. I think our guy ran on foot after you saw him.”

  Susan nodded. It was further confirmation that she had seen someone. And the van matched the description of what they saw on the ATM video. “What about blood, hair, any fluids?”

  “We found some bleach stains between the floor that had been cleaned pretty good, and forensics found a few fibers that we can see if it matches with the DNA from the blood samples we found over in Box Town,” Palmer said. “But it seems like our guy was prepared to ditch the van if he needed to.”

  Susan took a slow walk around the van to see if there was anything out of the ordinary, anything that the perp might have missed since he was in such a hurry. But Susan found nothing. “He’s been planning this for a long time. He already knows who he’s going after. It’s why he’s been able to move so quickly. Sick bastard probably already has someone else picked out.”

  “That’s our line of thinking too,” Palmer said, then checked his phone. “Winterguard is hanging back with Marsh, but he’s already got counsel with him, and he’s saying that you broke into his office?”

  “He’s involved in this,” Susan said. “Regardless of what he says or what anyone says, he’s involved. I don’t know how yet, but if we get that DNA sample and we can match it, or if we can get him to roll on Foster and Jerry—”

  “Shawn Foster and Jerry Winger both have alibis for tonight,” Palmer said. “We’ve already checked it out. Had an officer go to both of their houses. Foster had a girl over, and they were hanging out all night, and Winger has video footage from his doorbell that has him coming home at six thirty, and he didn’t leave the house all night.”

  “He could have walked—”

  “It’s not enough, Susan.” Palmer flapped his arms at his side, exasperated. “We don’t have enough to get a judge to give us a search warrant. Trust me, I’ve tried. We need to start looking elsewhere.”

  “Palmer, both of those girls went through the system at Ancient Oaks during the same time frame that a new person takes charge,” Susan said. “We found Polaroids of Katy Matthews in lingerie, and Foster takes all of his pictures of people that enroll in the shelter program with a Polaroid camera. That’s not a fucking coincidence!”

  Palmer opened his mouth to speak, but the radio interrupted him before he could get his point across.

  “Officer Quinton,” Dispatch said. “Lieutenant Williams needs to see you at the precinct.”

  Palmer crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows. “I guess you better go and get that taken care of then, huh?”

  Susan said nothing as she walked away, then shouldered her way through the storm of reporters that continued to swarm the line of yellow police tape. They shoved cameras and lights in her face, microphones pressed against her shoulders as she fought her way through.

  It was nothing but noise and distractions to take away from the real problem, and the real threat that was still out there, still waiting in the darkness to strike again. Susan didn’t care what kind of alibi Foster and Winger had. They were guilty as sin. She just needed to prove it.

  The ride back to the precinct didn’t help calm her down any, in fact, she was more wired and raring to go when she pulled into the lot. She knew that Williams wanted to talk to her about why she put those cuffs on Kevin Marsh.

  Susan stepped through the doors, and the moment she got a good look at the detectives in the bullpen, she knew she was in trouble. The only time every officer in the bullpen eyed a cop when they walked in was because they had heard LT either screaming about that officer or he was getting yelled at by someone higher up the chain of command.

  Susan had never known Williams to lose his temper, even when the situation called for it, so she was betting it was probably the latter.

  “Susan.” Williams stepped out of his office, and the room went silent at the sound of his voice. He said nothing else as he returned inside, knowing that his message had been clear.

  Susan walked over, feeling all of the eyes on her as she walked the green mile like an inmate on death row.

  When she reached his office, the lieutenant was already behind his desk and sitting down.

  “Shut the door,” Williams said.

  Susan complied, but she didn’t sit, and he didn’t ask her to. She figured the conversation would be short.

  “You're suspended pending further review for illegal search and seizure,” Williams said. “I need your gun and your badge, and you will report to administration tomorrow morning for a full psych review—”

  “You have to be fucking kidding me,” Susan said, shaking her head.

  “And upon completion of the review, that report will be made available to—”

  Susan lunged forward, slamming her hands down on the desk and getting in LT’s face. “Girls are dying out there! And we’re just sitting here with our thumbs up our asses trying to figure out our next move!”

  Williams stood so quickly that he flung his chair back and it smacked against the ground. His face had reddened, but he didn’t raise his voice, though the muscles along his neck were trembling, which only made his calm voice more menacing. “If, and only if, the board decides to pass you on your psych exam will you return to this department, and you’ll be lucky to be doing traffic stops downtown.”

  Susan didn’t back down, she was too heated, and she’d already lost her gun and her badge, so it didn’t really matter what happened next. She wasn’t going to quit. “How many more girls do you want on your conscience, Lieutenant? Hmm? Three, four, five?”

  Williams dropped back into his chair, no longer looking at Susan. “You’re only making this worse for yourself, Susan.”

  “You know how many girls are out there for him to pick up?” Susan asked. “More than you and I can handle. The streets are like a goddamn all you can eat buffet out there!”

  Susan realized that she was screaming and that she had worked herself into a breathless frenzy. But it hadn’t stirred any type of revelation within the lieutenant, who only stared at her, his cheeks no longer red, waiting for his request to be fulfilled.

  And for the first time in a long time, Susan was filled with hopelessness. It hurried through her veins like wildfire, burning everything and leaving behind only the silky ash for her to sift through with her fingers. She handed over her badge and gun, stripped of the title that she had worked so hard to earn.

  “You’re wrong, Lieutenant,” Susan said, placing both the gun and the badge on the desk, no longer shouting.

  “Let me be clear,” Williams said. “In no way are you a part of this investigation. And if I see you sneaking around it, I will be the first one to slap the cuffs on you for obstruction of justice and save the review board the trouble of taking up your file, because your future would be over. Now, get the hell out of my office.”

  Susan lingered, but only for a minute. She knew there wasn’t anything else she could say, and as she stormed back through the bullpen heading toward the front doors, she could already hear what everybody was thinking.

  The little girl from Vice finally snapped. It was only a matter of time. She’s a kid, how the hell would she be expected to handle it? It was hard for a woman to separate their personal life from their professional one. Another one bites the dust.

  The stuffy heat inside the station only made her anger worse, and she was thankful for the cold air when she stepped outside.

  Lost in thought, Susan didn’t realize her phone was ringing until the fourth buzz. She glanced down at the number and was glad to see it was Charlie.

  “Hey, I’m glad you called,” Susan said. “Listen, about this morning, I—” She cleared her throat and scuffed her heel against the blacktop. “You caught me off guard. But we definitely need to talk about some things. I’ve got some time now if you want to meet up?”

  Susan waited, but Charlie didn’t answer on the other end.

  “Charlie?” Susan asked. “H
ey, are you there?”

  Susan checked the screen to make sure she was still connected. When she confirmed that no one had hung up, she placed the speaker back to her ear.

  “Charlie, are you there? What’s—”

  A raspy wheeze broke through the silence, followed by coughing.

  “Charlie?” Susan couldn’t hide the concern. “Are you all right?”

  More raspy breaths filled her ear, Susan growing more panicked until she was able to make out a single, precise word. “Help.”

  23

  Susan didn’t hang up the phone, staying on the line with Charlie as she checked out a cruiser and flicked the lights, weaving through traffic

  “Just hang on, Charlie!” Susan put the phone on speaker, shouting over the siren.

  Susan arrived at his house, which sat on the edge of a small neighborhood of single family homes that were built in the fifties as low-income housing.

  But the past seventy years had seen the houses fall apart, held together with scraps, barely able to keep the people who lived in them protected from the elements. The moment she reached the neighborhood, she dropped the siren but kept the lights, wanting people to know that she was there in case whoever had hurt Charlie was still hanging around.

  Unlike other neighborhoods when police entered, bathing the houses in blue and red emergency lights, no one stepped from their homes to investigate what was happening. Because out here the police only meant trouble, even when all they were trying to do was help.

  Susan pulled into the driveway, screeching to a halt, and then parked the cruiser. Because of adrenaline, Susan forced herself to slowly approach the front door, which was cracked open.

  The curtains on the windows were drawn so she couldn’t see inside, but she paused at the door, listening for anyone inside before she shouldered the door open. “Police! Identify yourselves if you are in the house!”

  Susan wasn’t sure how by the book she should play it, so she decided to go in all the way. She had been to Charlie’s a dozen times and already knew all of the choke points in the house, so she was able to move more quickly through than had she not been familiar with the house.

  The moment that Susan entered, she could smell something off, like something was burning. She passed from the foyer and into the living room, which was sparsely furnished with furniture that looked like it had been pulled from a landfill, but Susan noticed the blood on the dirtied carpet and saw that it trailed into the kitchen.

  Susan followed the blood, dreading what she would find, but praying that Charlie was still alive, and when she hit the tile, she wasn’t sure.

  “Charlie!” Susan dropped to her knees to examine Charlie’s lifeless body. She checked for a pulse and felt one, though it was faint, and then she gently cradled the back of Charlie’s head in her palm. “Charlie? Charlie, can you hear me?”

  His face was bloodied and swollen, far different than the handsome face she remembered from this morning. His body was completely limp, and she saw the blood that stained his clothes as she searched for any other injuries to his body, such as stab or gunshot wounds, but she found none. He had only been beaten to within an inch of his life

  Susan looked up and saw what she had smelled when she first entered the house. He had been cooking something in a pan, and it was burning. The house didn’t have any fire alarms, so there was nothing to alert anyone to the burning save for the smoke.

  Susan got up, turned off the burner, then removed the skillet and its blackened contents from the stove. She then retrieved her phone and dialed an ambulance.

  Susan dropped back to Charlie’s side, grabbing his hand and squeezing it tight, never letting go of his hand while she spoke to dispatch.

  “This is Officer Susan Quinton, badge number eight-five-seven-one-three.” Susan cleared her throat, struggling to keep her voice steady. The rush from the adrenaline made it difficult to keep anything steady, and she felt the vibrations from her trembling. “I need an ambulance at 47 South Torrent Street.”

  “Stand by.”

  Susan felt the tears coming, but she pushed them back. She knew that she’d have to come up with some story of why she was here, and then guilt flooded her veins because her first instinct was to lie to save herself and her career. But that might not matter anymore.

  Susan stood by the cruiser, distancing herself from the ambulance that was parked on the street. The paramedics were in the house, and more officers had arrived on the scene to handle processing.

  The presence of more police vehicles and emergency vehicles also garnered the attention of the rest of the neighborhood, and Susan noticed more than a few curious eyes had arrived on the scene. Susan knew that Charlie was well-liked, and she recognized some of the faces in the crowds. Faces that had only ever known her as the addict who sometimes came over to visit Charlie.

  Susan knew it was a tight-knit community, and they were folks who looked after one another. And part of that closeness was a disdain for the police because while Susan had joined to help protect people and to help guide the hand of justice, she knew that not everyone saw the police that way.

  The growing faction between authorities and the communities they policed were never more present than they were right now, right here.

  People kept their distance, not wanting to get too close in fear of being questioned. Out here silence was the only rule when it came to the police. It was the only way to ensure that their lives didn’t get worse, because as much as the police tried to help them, the South Siders and others had a hold on the community, and that silence was just as much for their own protection as it was the gangs.

  Most people around here might not have been actually affiliated with the gang, but most folks had friends or family members who were a part of it. The leaders of the gang used those relationships as leverage, threatening violence against the innocent when necessary.

  In Susan’s opinion, it was one of the worst ways that gangs affected the communities because every time that one of those family members was arrested or killed by a police officer, it only provided more fuel for the gangs to recruit other family members.

  “We didn’t kill your brother,” they would say. “It was those pigs. They’re keeping us down. They’re making sure that we can’t survive because that’s all we’re trying to do. The cops put that bullet in your son, not us. The only thing we ever did for him helped put money in his pocket and a roof over his head.”

  Susan had heard that conversation more times than she cared to admit, and it was heartbreaking at how often it worked. But there were those that hated the gangs as much as they hated the police, but even those folks were rare to come forward.

  While she had waited inside with Charlie until the ambulance arrived, she tried to come up with her own story of what happened and how she managed to get the call.

  “He was an informant during my undercover work,” Susan said, knowing that keeping as close to the truth was the best policy when coming up with a lie. “He called me and said he needed help. After the attack I experienced earlier today, I came over to check on him and found him beaten on his kitchen floor.”

  “So you believe that this was gang-related retaliation?” the officer asked.

  “Yes,” Susan answered, watching the paramedics wheel Charlie out of the house.

  He was still lifeless, strapped onto the cot, his head and neck in a stabilizing brace. He was carefully loaded into the back of the ambulance.

  “And you were aware of him being a dealer?” the officer asked.

  “Yeah,” Susan answered.

  The ambulance doors were shut, and the emergency vehicle drove off.

  “Where’s Ch—the victim being taken for treatment?” Susan asked, hoping that the officer didn’t notice the slip-up. He didn’t.

  “Seattle General,” the officer answered, and then cleared his throat. “Is there anything else that you’d like to disclose about the scene when you arrived?”

  Susan couldn’t see the
ambulance down the road anymore, and she turned back to the police officer and shook her head. “No.”

  “All right.” The officer closed his notebook and then tucked it in his belt. “We’ll wrap up here.” He pointed to her face. “Did that happen here or—”

  “It was from the wreck,” Susan said, suddenly growing defensive over the fact that the guy presumed that Charlie had hit her. He wouldn’t do something like that, even though the cop hadn’t specifically said that. “Did anyone talk with the neighbors yet?”

  The cop laughed. “Yeah, like these people are going to talk to us. We’d be better off trying to turn a gang banger into a priest.”

  But while the officer sloughed the question off, Susan walked down the driveway and across the street where the crowd had gathered. “Hey, did anyone see who went in?”

  Before she even finished the question, people started walking away, turning their backs on what they considered to be one of the problems of their circumstance. But Susan didn’t have anything to do with their lives, at least not directly. If there was any cop out there that understood this community, it was her.

  “Please, if you can just—”

  “Trust you?” The voice came from the back of the crowd, and after everyone dispersed, Susan saw Lynn standing behind the rusted chain-link fence of her yard. She had a baggy t-shirt on with a graphic of a Miami Sunset on the front. The shirt was long enough that Susan couldn’t tell if she had any pants on, and she had a cigarette in one hand. “Isn’t that what Charlie did?”

  Susan walked toward her but kept the width of the sidewalk between them. She knew Lynn and Charlie used to be an item. She had never liked Susan, and that opinion had only strengthened now that she knew Susan was a cop.

  “Guess I should have known that you were police,” Lynn said, narrowing her eyes as she smoked, exposing slightly bucked teeth that were starting to yellow from smoking. She was older than Susan, in her early thirties, and the hard life she’d lived had been one that had aged her beyond that. Susan saw the cracks starting to form. “Is that what got Charlie killed?”