"Yeah." Garcia sighed. "Dammit, I should've gone to the hospital instead of getting all self-indulgent and going to the damn Argonaut."
Taylor stepped in front of Garcia just as they were nearing the reception area in the center of the squadroom, putting a hand on his chest. "Cut that out right now, Javier. You're the captain—you can be self-indulgent if you wanna, and you're entitled to have one lunch break where you say the hell with it and get Greek food. So stop all this nonsense, you feel me, Captain?"
Again, Garcia shook his head and chuckled. "Absolutely, Sarge. Now can I go to my office, please?"
Stepping aside, Taylor said, "Absolutely."
Barreling past any number of unis and deputy prosecutors, Garcia made it to his office, turned the knob, and proceeded to not open the door.
He turned to glare at Merkle, who shrugged. "I called maintenance. They said they'd be by this morning."
"It's after two in the afternoon," Garcia pointed out.
"I know, but that's what they said." Before Garcia could say anything else, Merkle quickly added, "I'll call them again" while reaching for the phone.
"Do that, but first get me Charlie Duffy at the Gazette and then call Jenny in the mayor's office and tell her that the Superior Six sent over their Claw files."
"Yes, sir," Merkle said, picking up the phone and starting to dial.
After shouldering his door open, Garcia shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it on the guest chair. He sat at his desk and stared at the green sheets that hadn't been there when he went to lunch. Jesus Christ, is it time for annual personnel evaluations again? Didn't we just do this last year?
Before he could start to flip through the new pile of paperwork, Merkle called out, "Charlie Duffy on two!"
Stabbing the button for line two on his phone as he picked up the receiver, Garcia said, "Hey, Charlie."
"Javier," said the scratchy voice on the other end. "To what do I owe the honor?"
"So I'm walking back from lunch, and Matt Barnett shoves a mic in my face and tells me the Gazette has a source that says the FBI's taking over the Claw investigation, and I'm thinking to myself, 'There's no way that can be true, because the only Gazette reporter who would have that kind of source is Charlie Duffy, and Charlie would never let something like that leak out to a TV reporter before he verified it with me or one of my people.' Especially since it's crap—no state lines have been crossed, and the feds can't do shit unless we invite them to, and if we had, I'd know about it."
"Since when do you go out to lunch?"
"Stop changing the subject, and—"
"Seriously, Javier? This is why you called me?"
"Yeah, this is why I called you, I wanna know—"
"For Christ's sake, Javier, how many years you known me? Do you really think that I'd let some dickless TV reporter know about a source of mine giving me police gossip before I ran it by you first?"
Garcia let out a sigh of relief.
"More likely, it was one of the thumb-suckers that Malmat brought over with him from the windy city last year," Duffy continued, referring to the Gazette's new city editor, hired away from the Chicago Tribune a year and a half ago. "Either that or Barnett just pretended it was a Gazette source because he knew that you'd know it was bullshit if he said it was one'a his sources 'cause he don't actually have sources."
At that, Garcia laughed. "I had to be sure, Charlie. I get ambushed with shit like that—"
"Yeah, yeah. Hey, it's been a while, you wanna get a drink at Manny's after work?"
Remembering his promise to visit O'Malley in the hospital, Garcia said, "Not tonight—and not Manny's. No way am I letting you loose in a cop bar. Bad enough you're gonna try to pump me for dirt."
"Jesus, Javier, what do you take me for?"
"Exactly what you are, and don't even try to deny it," Garcia said with a big grin.
Duffy let out an exasperated sigh that sounded worse than it might have if the reporter hadn't been a chain-smoker since his teens. "All right, fine, we'll meet at the Blarney Stone."
"Always living the stereotype, aint'cha, Charlie?"
Putting on an exaggerated brogue, Duffy said, "Sure an' that's so, laddie." Then back in his normal gruff voice: "Tomorrow night when you get off-shift?"
"You got it."
Garcia hung up, chuckling. Duffy was part of a dying breed, and Garcia was fairly certain that the breed was dying for very good reason. But he'd seen and done pretty much everything, and was always fun to have a drink with and compare war stories. Duffy had turned out to be the last person to interview Old Glory—it was the fifth person to take on that mantle since World War II, and shortly after his sit-down with Duffy, he was killed fighting the Pantheon at the harbor. That interview had earned Duffy his second Pulitzer Prize.
Merkle stuck his head in the doorway. "Uh, I talked to the mayor's office, I left a message with maintenance, and your mother's on one."
Garcia closed his eyes and counted to ten in Spanish. Hey, it's been ten whole minutes. He picked up the phone again and tapped the button for line one. "Hello, mami."
4.32pm
Peter MacAvoy smiled as Milewski's Zap rang right at half past, just like it had at every hour on the half-hour since their shift started. She looked at the display, made that same disgusted face she'd been making all day—the same one she usually made at MacAvoy—and then hit ignore.
She then glared across their desks at him. "Aren't you gonna ask who it is again?"
MacAvoy's smile widened into a grin. "Not much point, since I know who it is."
For the third time since the Claw case, MacAvoy got to watch Milewski go all crestfallen on her. When it was Garcia dressing her down, MacAvoy was mildly entertained. When it was the news that they had another victim, he was pissed.
This time, though, he felt full-on glee.
In a low, even monotone, she asked, "How the hell did you find out?"
"His name's John Morgenstern."
Milewski's eyes went wide. "His last name's Morgenstern?"
The grin widened. "Never got to last names, huh?"
"Fuck you, Mac." Milewski turned back to her laptop.
That only served to keep the grin at full length. "So lemme reconstruct the sequence of events. We just got finished processing the scene at the Cowan. We hadda return our Malibu to the motor pool, which you did so I could go straight home, since HQ ain't on my way but was on yours. Thanks for that, by the way."
Milewski did not acknowledge the gratitude, but simply continued to stare at him.
"Anyhow, you dropped off the Malibu, and then decided you were too wired to sleep after all this bullshit, so you went to Maberry's Pub—"
Defiantly, Milewski asked, "How do you know I didn't go to Manny's?"
"Please—you never go to Manny's. You hate Manny's. And Maberry's is the closest place to Morgenstern's address that isn't a theme bar, which you also hate."
"You have his address?"
Now the grin became a chuckle. "Yup—474 85th Street, Apartment 3W. Anyhow, you met some guy named John, you had way too many Manhattans, you went back to his place, you had drunken sex, and then you woke up this morning feeling guilty as all shit because you think you're better than other police, even though we all fuck like bunnies on speed, and you slinked out and came straight to work wearing the same shitty suit you wore yesterday."
Clapping slowly and sardonically, Milewski said, "Let me guess, you saw his number on my Zap one of the eight hundred times he called me, and then ran the number while I was in the bathroom?"
"Bingo, Watson."
"Yeah, well, Holmes you ain't. For starters, I did go to Manny's—"
MacAvoy's jaw dropped. "Really?"
"—for about five minutes. You're right, I do hate it, but I needed a drink sooner rather than later. I left because everyone there wanted to talk about the damn case. So I went somewhere where nobody knew I was a cop."
"Maberry's."
Now it was her turn
to grin. "No, the Bengal's Lair."
Shaking his head with disgust, MacAvoy said, "A costume bar?"
"It isn't, actually—the Bengal owns it, but it's a regular bar, except it's got pictures of costumes on the wall. And I didn't drink Manhattans because it's not 1918 and we weren't at the Ritz Carlton."
MacAvoy chuckled. "Fair enough. Gin fizzes?"
"Mojitos." She shuddered. "Way too many of them. And yeah, I did go back to John's place, but I didn't slink out."
"Hah!"
"I didn't!" she yelled, defensively, then shook her head. "No, in the sober light of morning, John I-didn't-know-his-last-name-is-Morgenstern decided to let me know that he's getting married next weekend, and he wanted one final fling. So, no, I didn't slink out, I stormed out. And it was already eight in the morning, so I came straight here." She shook her head. "I was an idiot."
"Whaddaya mean? We all been there, rook—there's always a case that makes you crazy and you need a release. Sometimes it's sex, sometimes it's booze, sometimes it's both. Billinghurst plays handball. Schiazza has his cigars. Jablonski used to go to the range."
Milewski frowned. "Jablonski?"
"He medical'd out after he got shot two years ago. Anyhow, you should be flattered."
Now Milewski glared at him. "Flattered? Seriously?"
"You were his final conquest."
"I doubt it. They're not even married, and he's already cheating on her."
"How you know she didn't let him?"
"She—" Milewski cut herself off and waved her hands back and forth. "No. I am not getting into this discussion with you." She stared intently at her laptop.
Chuckling, MacAvoy stared back at his.
Once he finished the file he was reading—which didn't have any information on the Claw's second appearance in SuperCity that wasn't in Blue-Blue's case file—he got to his feet. "I'm gonna get a cigarette."
"Hang on, Mac."
MacAvoy winced. He was having a serious nicotine craving, and his triumph over Milewski was just intensifying it. There wasn't much that sustained MacAvoy in these agonizing final months before he hit his thirty, but messing with Milewski was second on the list after cigarettes. After achieving one, he wanted the other to celebrate.
"I'll just be a few—"
"No, look at this." She looked up. No longer was she glaring; instead she had a look on her face that, after three decades, MacAvoy knew to trust in the face of another police. "It's file 377A5."
With a dramatic sigh—he wasn't about to let on to Milewski that she had done anything other than annoy him—he sat back down and called up the file in question. They had copied the contents of the flash drive onto each of their department-issue laptops, after which the flash drive could no longer be accessed in any way. The files were still fine on the laptop, though. Milewski had handed the flash drive over to the tech department in the hopes that they could work their magic on it, and he and Milewski had spent the two hours since learning all kinds of things about the Six's encounters with the Claw, though nothing useful like, say, a name.
After a quick glance at it, MacAvoy looked across the two desks at his partner. "Yeah, so? It says that the first time they faced the Claw was right after the mission to Dimension X. Besides sounding like the title of a crappy old movie serial, I don't see what—"
"I just got finished reading up on Dimension X."
Rising once again, MacAvoy said, "For this, you're keeping me from a cigare—"
Milewski waved one arm. "Just give me a sec, okay, Mac?" She turned her laptop toward MacAvoy, who peered down at it.
One window on her computer had an article from The Journal of Paranormal Studies, written by a Dr. Stanley Lieber, about the properties of "what has been popularly referred to as Dimension X, but is properly called the Augustyn-Waid Dimension." A quick perusal revealed some quotes from Dr. Sera Markham, a.k.a. Ms. Terrific, and more besides.
"I don't expect you to get the whole article," Milewski said with a sardonic smile, which MacAvoy ignored, "but the gist of it is that people who go there undergo a metamorphosis. They turn into the evil versions of themselves."
"What, like on that old Star Trek episode?"
Smiling sheepishly this time, Milewski said, "Actually, it was a whole bunch of Star Trek episodes, but the point is, no, it isn't. On the TV show they met their evil counterparts. Here, they actually turn into their evil counterparts. They mutate and, according to Dr. Lieber, the baser instincts of their minds take over and they no longer have a conscience."
"Okay." MacAvoy sat back down. "But this only happens in Dimension X, right? And for the record, I can't fucking believe I just said 'Dimension X' out loud and meant it seriously."
Milewski nodded while leaning over and tapping on the track pad to bring another window to the front. This was an article from SC Magazine called "Twenty Questions with the Flame." "Look at the fifth question," she said.
MacAvoy leaned over the desk. Question number five asked what the strangest adventure was that he'd ever had as a member of the Terrific Trio.
Aloud, MacAvoy read the answer: "'That would have to be when we went to Dimension X—or as my older sister prefers to call it, 'the Augustyn-Waid Dimension,' even though those two jerks didn't discover it, they just stumbled across it by accident and the Superior Six had to save their butts. About a year later, we wound up going there, and it was nasty. Sera tried to shield us from the effects, and it did work on me and her—but it didn't help Clyde. I've never seen him like that, and I sure as hell hope I never see him like that again. He was twice his usual size, and vicious.'" MacAvoy stood upright and blinked several times. "Jesus."
"Well, that confirms one theory." Milewski was smiling again.
"What?"
"That you can't read without moving your lips. Anyhow," she added quickly before MacAvoy could respond, "look at the file from the Six again."
MacAvoy stared at her for a second. He wanted to give her some kind of comeback to that lip-reading comment, but he found he couldn't actually come up with one, which annoyed him no end. So he peered at his screen instead. "I ain't seein' nothin' I didn't see an hour ago."
"Look who was facing the Claw in that fight. Five of the Six. The original roster was still together back then: Old Glory, Spectacular Man, the Bengal, Mercury, and Herakles. Notice who's missing?"
Shaking his head, MacAvoy said, "Starling—or, rather, 'the Starling.' That's how he's listed in all their files. Was wondering why the kimono lady used a 'the' when no one else does. Anyhow, he's listed as being on 'temporarily inactive duty due to illness.'"
"Not only that, but there are three other images of various members of the Six fighting the Claw. In none of them is Starling present." Milewski leaned forward. "Think about it. Dimension X—or Augustyn-Waid, whatever—mutates whoever goes there and makes them lose their conscience. Now take Starling, add what Augustyn-Waid does—"
"And you get the Claw. Christ." MacAvoy leaned back in his char. "Now I really need a cigarette."
"It gets better. Remember Elwood's theory about the proximity to the blimp? What if it wasn't a villain drawing the Six out?"
MacAvoy saw where she was going. "What if the Claw was one of the Six and he just flew down from on high?" He frowned. "But wait—the last two times, the bodies didn't fall anywhere near their floating gasbag."
Milewski held up a finger. "Yeah, but the last two times were after the Six went to the planet Zagnar and got their shiny new teleporter with its proprietary design."
"Sonofabitch." MacAvoy had to admit to being impressed. "We've got him."
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves here," Milewski said quickly. "Right now we've got a theory that fits the facts, but none of it is anything like real evidence."
Getting to his feet for the third time in five minutes, MacAvoy said, "Okay, I'm goin' outside and I'm gonna smoke at least one, maybe twelve cigarettes. When I get back, you and me are talkin' to Zim."
5.46pm
; Judge Eleanora Velasquez looked down at the warrant, then looked up at Milewski and MacAvoy, sitting in the guest chairs of her chambers. The chairs were uncomfortable wood-on-metal seats, the desk an industrial metal monstrosity, both reflective of the fact that this was a converted classroom. The county had taken over DeCarloMiddle School as a temporary courthouse while the original was being reconstructed following a pitched battle between Prism and the Uzi two months ago.
Wooden bookshelves designed to hold art supplies and textbooks were laden with law books, while either the judge or her clerk had decided to use the blackboard for a calendar, with the month laid out in white chalk, appointments written in blue, and court dates in yellow.
Rain pounded a staccato beat against the flip-down windows behind the judge as she peered over her glasses in a move that made her look entirely too much like Sergeant Taylor, especially since Velasquez also kept hers on a chain around her neck.
After one final glance at the warrant, she removed the glasses, leaving them to dangle over her black robes, and tossed the papers back across the desk toward them. "There's no way I can sign this warrant, Detectives."
While Milewski had been expecting exactly this response, she still felt a flush of disappointment. When she and MacAvoy had sold this to Zimmerman—barely—one of the arguments was Milewski's good relationship with this particular judge. Ellie Velasquez and Krissie Milewski were both on the school newspaper when they went to MayorCollettaHigh School together, and they'd remained friends.
MacAvoy gritted his teeth. "C'mon, Judge, we've got—"
"You got nothing, Detective," Velasquez said with a sharp look at Mac. "I don't see a shred of evidence here."
"We're askin' for a DNA sample," MacAvoy said, "so we can get the evidence. That's the whole damn point."
Milewski quickly added, "The PC is good, your honor."
The sharp look moved to Milewski, though the detective took solace in the fact that it was softer on her. "Kris, this isn't probable cause, it's highly improbable cause. You're trying to create a chain of evidence, but for a chain, you need links. All you've got here is a bunch of rocks in a stream. You slip on one, you'll be in up to your neck."
Case of the Claw Page 17
