Case of the Claw

by Keith DeCandido

  "But first, a commercial break."

  6.45am

  As soon as Captain Javier Garcia walked up the large brick staircase that led to the front entrance of Super City Police Department Headquarters, the headache started. It never hit him until he approached the door that led to the chaos of the squadroom, and it only occasionally went away when he walked out.

  His right hand held a plastic bag with his lunch; in his left was his ZP500 phone, held against his ear as he pretended to listen to his mother. The ZP500—or "Zap," as the ads called it—was the latest model in mobile phones developed by Ms. Terrific. It was a combination phone, PDA, music player, television, radio, eBook reader, Internet browser, GPS, e-mail reader, and personal computer, all at twice the processing speed (and half the price) of anything produced by Apple or Motorola. Garcia mostly only used it for a phone and purposefully ignored the rest of it.

  "Yeah, I know all about the Claw, mami."

  "Well, you be careful, Javy, okay? I worry."

  "I know you worry, and I will be careful, I promise." He nodded to two uniforms who passed him as he entered. For the life of him, Garcia couldn't remember their names, even though he'd just stared at their name badges as he walked past.

  After placing the plastic bag in the refrigerator in the kitchen, which involved cradling the Zap against his shoulder as he shoved other people's brown bags and Tupperware out of the way to clear space, then he squared his shoulders and entered the squadroom. Immediately, mami's words were drowned out by the cacophony of indistinct voices belonging to officers, complainants, perps, lawyers, and whoever-all-else was parading through.

  Garcia's goal was to go straight to his office at the other end. However, that way was blocked by the stout form of Sergeant Paula Taylor. Her arms were folded over her expansive chest; glasses, attached to a chain around her neck, were perched menacingly on the bridge of her nose as she peered over them like an elementary school teacher admonishing a recalcitrant student. Taylor wasn't very tall, but she made up for it in breadth. She kept her curly dark hair cut short, giving her the air of someone who didn't take any shit—which, in fact, she didn't. It was a skill she had honed as the single mother of four children, the youngest of whom was now away at college, and which served her very well as the day-shift desk sergeant at SCPD HQ.

  When Javier Garcia started feeling stress, he undid the top button of his shirt and loosened his tie. Today, he'd worn a maroon shirt and a dark green tie, and he unbuttoned the former and loosened the latter the minute he saw the look on Taylor's face. Rare was the day he made it all the way to his office with the button fastened.

  "Mami, I gotta go, I'm at work now, I'll call you later." He ended the call before his mother could tell him "one more thing, Javy!" and stuck the ZP500 in his jacket pocket.

  "Y'know," Taylor said, arms still folded, "I think it's cute that you call her Mommy."

  "Mami—it's Spanish. What's wrong?"

  "Why do you think something's wrong?"

  "Because you don't stand there with your arms folded like that unless something's wrong."

  Taylor nodded. "Yeah. We got a problem in holding."

  Garcia closed his eyes and counted to ten in Spanish. "Let's see it," he said after opening them again.

  He followed Taylor to the back stairs that led to the basement, where they kept the holding areas. Garcia knew something was odd when he felt a breeze stirring his thinning dark hair—this whole floor was sealed off from the outside.

  Then he saw the big hole in the wall.

  They had a total of four wire-mesh-fenced holding areas down here, all against one of the thick outer walls of the building. Each cell's maximum capacity was about seventy-five people—a hundred if they wanted to give them the rush-hour-on-the-subway feeling. Normally, they didn't have more than twenty per, unless there was a raid or some such.

  Each of the other three holding areas had people in them, most of whom looked like they'd been woken out of a sound sleep. Many were grumbling, but at least they weren't directing any invective at Garcia or Taylor. The presence of two uniforms probably had something to do with that, especially since they both had their clubs out and were tapping them into their palms: universal cop language for, "Don't fuck with me."

  Garcia counted to ten again. "That ain't gonna be holding much, is it? What happened?"

  "Fontaine and Baptiste brought in a DUI. Guy was weaving around on Nantier and running red lights, they pulled him over, and he practically melted the breathalyzer. He had no ID and apparently couldn't remember his name. So they brought him in to sleep it off. I swear, I was actually reading Fontaine's report on it when I heard the boom."

  Rubbing the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, Garcia said, "He was a costume."

  "Well, either that or he was hidin' a cannon up his ass." Taylor shook her head, and took her glasses off her nose, letting them dangle over her chest by the chain. "According to these other fine, upstanding citizens, he shot a ray-beam of some kind out of his hands, blew the hole in the wall, and walked out. Followed by six other people. I already got their sheets together, and I'll put the word out at roll call for the day shift."

  Before Garcia could compliment Taylor on her efficiency, a uniform handed the sergeant several pieces of paper that looked like they'd just been spit out by one of their departmental printers—Garcia knew the smell of their color laser jet anywhere.

  Taylor glanced at the papers, then handed them to Garcia, who looked down to see a bald white guy. No, it was more than that—he had no eyebrows, either, and no facial hair. The top of the page read, hiram donewitz, a.k.a. the bolt.

  "According to this," Garcia said as he read over the sheet, "he can fire some kind of coherent light beam out of any pore of his body. Explains why he doesn't have any hair." He looked up at Taylor. "This our guy?"

  She nodded.

  "Why the hell didn't they use the damps?"

  Taylor put her hands on her hips, and Garcia realized she was going to go all mama-bear on him with regards to the uniforms. "It ain't like the fool had any ID on him. He wasn't even wearing his damn costume, what the hell were Fontaine and Baptiste supposed to do? All they knew was they got a drunk bald guy."

  "Yeah, okay." Garcia sighed. The Enhanced Ability Dampening Restraints, or "damps," were designed by Ms. Terrific to prevent people with enhanced abilities from accessing those abilities. They weren't a hundred percent, but anytime a costume got booked, policy was to put the damps on.

  But that policy could only be enacted if the officer in question knew the person had enhanced abilities.

  Letting that go, Garcia asked, "So we got, what—six half-processed drunks?"

  "Seven if you count him," Taylor said, indicating the file on the Bolt with her head. "We'll take care of it. What do I do about our new window?"

  "Get the usual guy in—y'know, the one with the hair on his nose."

  "You know he's gonna overcharge again, right?"

  "That's 'cause he does it fast and right. I'm perfectly willing to pay for that with the city's hard-earned money."

  "We ain't even halfway through the fiscal year yet, and we're already breakin' the damn budget."

  This time Garcia counted backward from ten to one. "Look, Paula, the Claw's back in town. That means we've got half the department chasing his feathers down, plus the other assholes decide to get cocky 'cause they figure we're too busy chasing the Claw, plus there's the copycats. We're gonna need four working holding areas, not three of them and a room with a view. Call Hairy Nose."

  Now Taylor put her hands on her hips, which meant she was displeased. "Whatever you say, you're the captain."

  Staring at his sergeant, he said, "Any time you want the job, Paula, it's yours."

  "Hell, no. I wouldn't last a week in your job—dealin' with Dellamonica and the mayor and all that other garbage. I'd tell them all to kiss my ass, and then we'd need another captain."

  "It'd be worth it just to have som
eone say that to them. Some days…" Garcia sighed and turned toward the staircase. "I'm going to my office. Oh, and I'm gonna need a minute during roll call."

  "What for?"

  Looking over his shoulder as he started upstairs, he called back, "The Claw, what else?"

  When Garcia got to the top of the stairs, he braced himself for the onslaught, then pushed open the swinging doors.

  Straight ahead of him was the small reception area, which included the big desk that was Taylor's domain—currently it was occupied by her assistant. To the right was the bullpen, where the officers and special units had their desks. To the left was the staircase to the detectives on the second floor. And ahead was a long corridor that eventually ended with Garcia's office.

  When he got to the end of that corridor, Garcia saw Merkle sitting at the desk outside his office, a phone at his ear. Merkle was given a uniform even though he was pretty much just a glorified secretary, and was also the living embodiment of mousy. Garcia always expected him to be nibbling on cheese and scampering out from under the file cabinets.

  As Garcia tried to walk past Merkle, he said, "Uh, hold on, Commissioner."

  Great. Garcia gave Merkle a pleading expression, which the officer typically either missed entirely or ignored.

  "It's Commissioner Dellamonica on three, sir."

  "Of course it is," Garcia said, not knowing or caring if Enzo Dellamonica could hear him. He turned the knob of the door that had the words captain javier garcia stenciled on the frosted glass window, but the door wouldn't budge. After he forced it open by slamming his shoulder into the door, causing a rattle throughout the corridor and soreness in his shoulder, he added, "And get someone to fix the damn door."

  Merkle said, "Maintenance said the door's fine."

  "Maintenance can kiss my ass." Shrugging out of his jacket and tossing it on the guest chair, Garcia shoved aside the various papers on his desk and unearthed his phone, touching the button labeled "3" next to the blinking light while picking up the receiver. "Yes, Enzo?"

  "Javier, you're killin' me, you know that, right?"

  Garcia sighed. Enzo Dellamonica was married to the sister of Giancarlo LaManna, the mob boss, who was now in jail serving consecutive life sentences. The arresting officer of record was Giancarlo's brother-in-law Enzo, and it got him into the commissioner's seat. The fact that the Bengal had dedicated himself to bringing LaManna down and had put the biggest dent into LaManna's activities—one of those life sentences was for the death of a woman the Bengal had sworn to protect—conveniently was left off of the commissioner's press releases.

  "How, exactly, am I killing you, Enzo?"

  "Don't kid a kidder, Javier. I got the city comptroller crawlin' up my butt. You're already over budget, and the fiscal ain't half over yet. I'm gonna need to cut back on OT, you keep this up."

  "Uhm…" Garcia almost dropped the phone. "Enzo, you do know the Claw's back, right? I'm gonna need more OT, not less."

  "Oh, please. The Six'll take care of it. Don't worry about it."

  "Don't worry about it? Enzo, we've got four bodies that we know of, and all the physical evidence and the witnesses are telling us that it's the Claw—which we kinda already knew. We gotta find him, and we need bodies on the street. And it isn't like the Six has caught him any of the other times."

  "Don't overdo it, okay? I need to keep the budget down, 'cause once the comptroller's done crawlin' up my butt, he's gonna crawl up the mayor's, and then we're both gonna be hip-deep, you know what I'm sayin'?"

  With that lovely image, the commissioner hung up. Garcia was torn between anger at being hung up on without getting a chance to get in the last word and relief that he didn't have to talk to him anymore.

  Garcia told Merkle to let him know when roll call started, and also to catch any calls. Then he closed the door to his office and sat down, turning his brain off by signing off on some paperwork that needed his initials. He had no idea what he was going to say during roll call, but with the Claw back in town, he had to say something.

  The phone beeped. "Sir, it's your mother on four."

  Great. This time he closed his eyes and counted from eleven to twenty in Spanish. Then he tapped the button labeled "4." "Hi, mami."

  8am

  Lieutenant Therese Zimmerman had been looking forward to a quiet week.

  It had been fairly calm lately. No major blowups, no big murders, no crime sprees beyond the usual. The costumes had more or less been behaving themselves, and things were fairly routine. Of course, "routine" generally meant a ton of work for the detectives she supervised, but it wasn't anything out of the ordinary, or anything they couldn't handle. She'd even managed to get a full night's sleep without the assistance of pharmaceuticals a couple of times.

  That all ended when she woke up this morning to see that News 6 at 6's top story was that the Claw was back.

  The first thing she had done was call the sergeant in charge of the overnight shift and tear him a new one for not calling her right away. Then she put on her dark red suit, the one that looked good on camera, on the theory that she might be called upon to talk to the press. Javier Garcia was a great police captain, but he gave the world's worst press conferences, so whenever Regina wanted to put a cop on the podium, they usually went to her.

  And even if she wasn't going to be on TV, she also had a date tonight, and she hated changing clothes at the office.

  She was currently sitting in that office, located on the second floor right over Garcia's on the first. She faced Detectives Peter MacAvoy and Kristin Milewski, who'd caught the Claw case, sitting in the two guest chairs on the other side of her immaculate desk.

  MacAvoy, a twenty-nine-year veteran who was counting the milliseconds until he reached his thirty and longed-for retirement, looked haggard. The bags under his eyes had bags under them, his salt-and-pepper hair was all over the place, his rimless glasses were askew on his nose, and he sported a five-o'clock shadow on his craggy cheeks to go with his dark mustache. His suit looked like he'd slept in it. By contrast, Milewski, the newest addition to the Homicide Unit and the only woman, looked perky and ready to run a marathon. Her brown hair was neatly tied back in a ponytail, her blue eyes were bright and alert, and her navy blue pantsuit looked cleanly pressed. They'd spent the entire night at the four crime scenes.

  "So," Therese said, "tell me about our victims. Anything in common?"

  "Besides being ripped to pieces?" MacAvoy asked. "Not a goddamn thing."

  Consulting her notebook, Milewski said, "The two in SimonValley were Pablo Martinez and Dr. Sophie Ashlyn. Martinez was the one in the alley that O'Malley and Fiorello called in. He's the manager of Paperbacks and Things at 222 Ayers, and he lives four blocks away, so he usually walks home."

  Therese blinked. "In that neighborhood?"

  MacAvoy shook his head. "The amazing thing is he stayed alive this long."

  Peering down at her notebook, Milewski went on: "Last person to see him was one of the clerks when they locked up. She drove home, and offered him a lift, but he said he was okay to walk."

  "She was tearin' herself up about not insisting," MacAvoy said. "Also said he didn't have any enemies that she knew about."

  "What about Ashlyn?" Therese asked.

  "Gynecologist," Milewski said after flipping pages in her notebook. "Was doing a shift at the Severin Free Clinic on 12th and Gaines. She was walking to her car."

  "That clinic does abortions," Therese said, recalling several calls there over the years, "so she's probably got a longer list of enemies."

  Milewski nodded, and MacAvoy added, "Lady we talked to at the clinic who found the body said she figured it was one of the pro-life thugs that've been harassing them until they saw the Post-It."

  Therese scratched her chin. "Check the thugs out. It's probably nothing, but let's be sure."

  "No problem," Milewski said.

  MacAvoy, though, frowned. "What the hell for, Zim? We know this was the Claw. Why waste time with si
de shit?"

  While Therese could have tried to justify her desire to make the lives miserable of people who claimed to be pro-life while harassing and injuring doctors, she had no reason to do so, instead simply saying, "Remind me, Mac, when did detectives start outranking lieutenants?"

  "We'll get right on it," Milewski said quickly. "The bodies in Leesfield were Soon-Li Han and Monte Barker. Han was co-owner of a deli on 35th with her husband, Tomo—she was taking out the garbage when she was attacked. Barker was a student at Drake High who was walking up the stoop to his home."

  "Tomo Han's in three," MacAvoy said, referring to Interrogation Room #3. "We're waiting on a translator. One of the customers we talked to said she was the one who spoke English."

  "As for Barker," Milewski said, "his mother was a wreck. We'll talk to her again once she stops screaming."

  "Which, at the rate she was going, will be next Christmas," MacAvoy said. "We'll go to the high school in a bit and talk to the kids, too—if nothing else, no teenager's out that late on a Sunday unless he's hanging around with someone."

  "And they've got nothing in common?" Therese asked, though she realized it was a dumb question—how much crossover would there be among a high school student, a gynecologist, a bookstore manager, and a deli owner?

  "Not that we've noticed," Milewski said, "but we'll keep digging. Also—"

  "No!" MacAvoy said suddenly, standing up.

  "What?" Therese asked.

  "I told you," MacAvoy said, "we ain't—"

  Milewski ignored him and looked at Therese. "I think we should check with the Superior Six and the Terrific Trio. They've all faced the Claw before, and maybe if we pool our resources—"

  "They ain't gonna 'pool' anything," MacAvoy said. "Besides, they don't know shit. It's a waste of time, which is what I told you an hour ago when I told you not to ask her about it." That last was with a point of his finger at Therese.

  "And he was right," Therese said. "The Six have never cooperated, even when it would do us all some good, and as long as they've got Marc backing them, they have the political clout to stay above it all."