Warrior in the Shadows

by Marcus Wynne

  "Go ahead."

  "Rendering of courtesy is a necessary thing in both our businesses."

  "That's true," Bobby Lee said. He put the money back in his billfold. "I didn't mean you any disrespect."

  "None intended, none taken."

  "Josie?"

  "At the address I gave you previously. I hear that she may be working at a coffee shop in Calhoun Square. This time of day might be a good time to stop for an espresso, if you like them."

  "That's a good idea. Maybe we should get an espresso together."

  "Thank you for the thought. Can I help you with anything else?"

  "One thing, Dave…"

  "And that would be…"

  "Do you know how much money they launder through this place on a monthly basis?"

  The big black man stood silent for what seemed to be a full minute. To Bobby Lee it seemed as though the gleam on Nyser's shaven head took on an extra layer of sweat.

  "I don't know anything about that, Detective. And even if I did, it wouldn't be something I could discuss. You understand that."

  Bobby Lee nodded, carefully watching the big man's hands.

  "I understand that," he said. "I want you to know up front that I'm looking for a killer that may have a connection to the cops. I'm looking for that white Australian guy. I don't do dope and I don't care what kind of money goes through here. I'm looking for a killer. And if I have to kick over a couple of apple carts in here, I will… I want you to know that going in. I've got a job to do. I want you to know, for you personally, that I want you out of the way if that happens. I owe you for some things."

  "I always remember that, Detective Martaine. I'll keep your comments in mind."

  "I'll be back to talk some more."

  "I look forward to it."

  Bobby Lee left the club, and stood outside for a moment, blinking in the bright daylight, before he got into his car and drove into Uptown. He parked across the street from the Calhoun Square shopping center in a red NO PARKING zone, and waved a greeting to one of the uniformed officers on foot patrol outside Calhoun Square.

  "Hey, Spike!" he called to the young rookie, who he remembered from a class he'd taught at the Academy. "Where's the coffee shop in here?" he said, pointing at the two-story shopping complex.

  "There's a couple, Detective," the rookie said. He lifted his hat and ran his hands through his crew-cut blond hair. "There's one just inside each of the main entrance doors on the first floor, then there's a diner upstairs, and you can get coffee in Figlio's restaurant there."

  "You know a girl named Josie works in one of them?"

  "Oh, yeah." The blond rookie grinned. "Used to be a stripper, works down in Coffee Express on the other end of the ground floor. Real looker, but bent, you know how strippers get."

  "Thanks," Bobby Lee said.

  "She into something we should know about?" the young officer said.

  "No, I just need to talk to her about one of her 'dates,'" Bobby Lee said.

  "I'd like one of those dates."

  "I'd think a young stud like you would get all the dates he'd want without having to pay for it."

  "Oh," the rookie said. "That kind of date."

  "Yeah," Bobby Lee said. "Later."

  He went into the mall and as always was struck by the combination of hip and bizarre that was Uptown street life: a herd of young kids in the long dark coats and black clothing of the Goths hanging around outside the body-piercing shop; several young execubabes in their tight-fitting short black skirt suits; two baggy shorts-wearing skate-boarders getting a lecture from a hugely muscled black security guard. All the diversity that made Uptown the crossroads of the hip, the young, and occasionally the lost. Back when he was in patrol, he'd worked on a number of runaway cases. They always seemed to gravitate toward Uptown with its plethora of restaurants whose Dumpsters they could dive for food and its serious drug and prostitution subculture that carried out its business in plain sight, yet unseen by the straight passerby.

  He walked through the mall to the far side where the Coffee Express counter was located across from the bookstore. A pale white girl in her mid-to-late twenties, dressed in a long black clinging dress and the black lipstick and heavy mascara of a Goth, made an espresso drink for a young man who looked like an ad executive on a break.

  Bobby Lee waited until she was through and she said, "What can I get for you?"

  "What time does Josie come on?"

  "She doesn't come on till three— she should be here in about ten minutes."

  "You are?"

  "The barista," she said, bristling. "What do you want?"

  "I meant your name."

  "I know what you meant. Just because I serve you coffee doesn't mean I have to talk to you or tell you my name. If you don't order something, I'll have the security guard move you out."

  "Nice attitude," Bobby Lee said. He took out his badge case and showed her his ID.

  "So?" she said. "What do you want?"

  "A cappuccino, small," Bobby Lee said.

  "That I can do."

  She made him the drink. While she was busy at the espresso machine, he looked at the clipboard leaning against the cash register. A work schedule was sketched out on the first page and the name for this block of time was Susan.

  She handed him the cappuccino and he said, "Thanks, Susan."

  Susan looked at him for a moment, then at the work schedule clipboard. She reached out and turned the clipboard facedown.

  "That's $2.10," she said.

  He slid three ones across the counter and said, "Keep the change."

  "Big spender."

  "You disrespect cops because you don't like them, or is it to prove a point to somebody?"

  "I don't know anything."

  "You don't know anything?"

  A tall blond girl dressed completely in black from head to toe— black Levi's, a tight black T-shirt, big black Doc Martens, and a black leather jacket— came to the counter and paused at the sight of Bobby Lee. She was beautiful, with a heart-shaped face drawn into hard, severe lines. While she was probably no more than twenty-four, she carried herself as though older.

  "Are you Josie?" Bobby Lee said.

  "He's a cop, coming around asking for Josie," Susan said.

  "Nice try," Bobby Lee said. "It was great not talking with you." He turned to the blond girl and toasted her with his coffee cup. "Hello, Josie. You got a good friend here."

  "Hey, Josie, do you want me to stay?" Susan said.

  "No, thanks, Susan," the blond girl said.

  "I'm meeting Alfie at the Uptown for a drink. If there's a problem, call me on my cell. You sure you're okay? You want me to stay?" Susan said.

  "I'm fine, go ahead, tell Alfie I said hi," the blond girl said.

  "Yeah," Bobby Lee said. "Tell Alfie I said hi."

  "Later," Susan said to Josie, ignoring Bobby Lee. She took up her purse and swept out. Bobby Lee watched her cross the street where she went up to a big half black man with a mane of hair pulled back in a ponytail sitting on a motorcycle. Something about the guy reminded Bobby Lee of something, but then Josie spoke to him.

  "What do you want?" she said. She had the cooperative stance and tone of someone who had experience dealing with the questions of police officers. "Am I in trouble?"

  "No trouble. I just need to ask you about some of your old customers from the club."

  "People I danced for, I don't see them anymore."

  "You saw some of them outside the club for some personal business, didn't you?"

  Josie went behind the counter and began straightening up the work area. While she was tidying, two customers came to the counter.

  "I'll help you if I can, Officer. But I don't need any reminders of that place. I put that part of my life behind me," she said. She turned to the two customers. "What can I get you?"

  Bobby Lee waited until they had their coffees and left.

  "I want to know about the cops you used to date and a young Austr
alian guy who came in there. You know who I'm talking about?"

  She had the resigned and hopeless look of someone at the end of something, Bobby Lee thought. She turned away from him and began wiping at the counter furiously.

  "I don't suppose it will do me any good to say I don't know anything?" she said.

  "Look, this can be easy…"

  Several more customers came to the counter. She turned to face him and said, "Look, I really need this job and I'm here by myself. Can you come by later and I'll talk to you then? I'll tell you all I know, it'll take a while. I need this job and I can't talk to you and serve customers at the same time."

  "That sounds reasonable," Bobby Lee said, relenting. "What time do you get off?"

  "I close at midnight."

  "I'll be by before then unless I get caught up in something. You wait for me if I run a little late," he said.

  "Cops always tell me that," she said.

  "That's something you're going to tell me about," Bobby Lee said. "Sorry."

  2.15

  Lieutenant Simon Oberstar sat in the small office accorded to an officer of his rank and looked at his walls and the mementos there. Like many other police administrators, his walls were covered with cheaply framed certificates— from the FBI National Academy, the American Society for Law Enforcement Trainers, and other organizations— and lots of photographs. Here was one of him as a member of the motorcycle squad back in the sixties, here was one when he was on the very first Emergency Response Unit squad, the first SWAT cops ever in the Twin Cities; here was another taken on the day he'd gotten his detective's shield. He looked smaller in that photo, with his close-cropped hair and big jug ears, and a much leaner body.

  He'd been young, then.

  The walls belonged to the department and the job; everything up there had to do with his identity as a long-time hard street cop. But the desk was his personal territory and the pictures there were of his wife and his kids. Two great kids, Marge and Roger, both in good colleges with all the concomitant expenses. He made sure they lacked for nothing: new cars when they graduated high school to see them through college and on their way in the world; tuition bills paid promptly, and plenty of pocket money for the clothes and the other things a college student needed. He didn't want them to work, though both of them held part-time jobs and told him it was more for the social aspect than for the money. He'd worked his way through school and he knew just how hard that could be.

  Alone on one corner of his desk, where it occupied the biggest part of his vision, was a portrait of his wife Angie. Angel, he used to call her. She was the sweetest, kindest woman and the best person he'd ever known. They'd met at a church service not long after he'd started with the police department. He'd grown tired of the loneliness he felt, even with the company of other single cops; he was tired of the endless rounds of drinking and casual sex with the cop groupies that swarmed the young single officers. His partner, Bill Dillon, had invited him home several times for supper. Simon had bloomed in the comfortable house and with the great meals his partner's wife put into him.

  Bill's wife Maureen had told him that if he wanted to meet nice girls he had to go to church. He took her at her word and had gone to mass with the Dillons. He signed up for the young Catholic singles group that met one Saturday a month for socializing. He'd met Angie at his very first meeting there and it was as though they had known each other forever. They laughed at the same things, and she knew just how to draw out his funny insights and quirky character from beneath the hard shell he maintained for the job.

  They had almost twenty good years together, the kids only eighteen months apart. She'd been the perfect policeman's wife. Then the sickness came, and it ate away at her so fast it seemed like a wildfire raged inside her, shriveling her, but at the same time illuminating her from within with a fierce white light. He remembered sitting beside her bed, stroking her hand, her thin face framed by the beautiful Hermes scarf he had spent most of a paycheck on after she'd lost her hair. She was still so beautiful to him. He watched her go that day, watched how she smiled at him before she closed her eyes, and minute by minute, hour by hour, she faded like a candle flickering its last in a puddle of wax. She went the way she wanted, surrounded by her two children and her husband who loved her more than anything in the world.

  A part of him died that day and would never be reborn. The rest of him was injured so profoundly that his entire view of the world changed. The only things that mattered to him anymore were his two children, and even to them he became removed and reserved. He couldn't bear to tell them that he wanted to cling close to them; he couldn't bear the pressure it would put on them.

  So he threw himself into his work to the point where the chief had finally taken him aside and told him he was working to self-destruction. The chief asked him to take over the Special Investigations Unit, and handle the delicate cases by bringing his expertise inside and devoting it to bringing up the young detectives.

  That worked.

  The chief's intervention had channeled all Simon's grief and loss into something constructive, something he loved, and that was mentoring young police officers. That saved him. The respect and affection of the younger detectives, who called him Obi-Wan, brought a second springtime into his life.

  Or so it felt.

  This case that Bobby Lee, the sharpest of his detectives, was working on… there were complications there. He'd made Bobby Lee for a comer when he first saw him in uniform, doing a street interview with a witness. Bobby Lee had all the right instincts, all the right moves, knew how to jolly an answer out of someone and leave them with their self-respect, keep somebody on his side or at least neutral out there in the arena they called the street. He'd put a word in for Bobby Lee when he tested for detective and snagged him as one of his own when he came into the Detective Division.

  He'd grown close to Bobby Lee, but it was hard for him to socialize with Bobby and his family. Bobby's wife Maxine reminded Oberstar of Angie— painfully so. While Angie had been short and plump, Maxine was tall and thin, but both of them had the same warm and loving nature and a great gift for making their men feel safe and at home in the circle of their family and their friends. If he was honest with himself, he'd admit that there were times when he was envious, maybe even a little jealous of Bobby Lee and Maxine and their close-knit family. Like Angie, Max was the perfect police wife. Or so it seemed.

  He wondered how the cannibal killer investigation was playing out at home for Max and Bobby; he hoped it wasn't causing them too much stress. He knew this was a big one for Bobby Lee, not just a big one but the big one that every ambitious detective hopes for, the front-page case that builds a career while getting him the attention and the accolades that were so few and far between in the jungle on the street. Bobby Lee was working night and day on the case and he knew Bobby had the right instincts; he was going to run down those leads to their source and that meant repercussions within the department. He had to think about how to handle that, because graft and corruption were one thing, complicity in murder another. Neither was good, but the two of them together were devastating.

  He had to think that through.

  His phone rang, a second line he maintained for private calls.

  "Hello?" he said.

  "Simon? It's Josie. I have to talk to you about this cop that came to see me today."

  2.16

  Charley drank his wretched home-brewed coffee and stared at the image of Anurra on his wall. He tried the name out loud.

  "Anuuuura."

  It sounded better when rolled out long. He'd said it so many times the sound was familiar on his tongue.

  He picked up his cordless phone and dialed Kativa Patel's office. The secretary told him she was out to lunch and could she take a message?

  "No," Charley said. "I'll call her back later."

  He dialed Mara, only to get four rings and the answering machine with its cool message: "No one's answering the phone right now. Please leav
e a message and we'll get back to you as soon as we can."

  He hung up and looked out his narrow window onto the street. It was cold and wet and gray, all the reasons not to live in Minneapolis during the cold time, which was half the year. But the cold time had its own beauty, especially during the fall and the still bitter silence of midwinter. He went to his nightstand and took out his spotless Glock pistol.

  He knew an excellent way to blow off steam, since it seemed that sex wasn't going to be on his agenda for today. He took out a Kydex inside the waistband holster, and snapped it onto his thick belt, then took out a matching double magazine holder and snapped it on the off side. He took the full spare magazine and slid it into the pistol, then pulled back the slide and chambered a round, press-checked the Glock for a glimpse of bright brass, then holstered the pistol. He took out his weapons bag from the storage chest where he kept it and his other gun paraphernalia, and loaded up another spare magazine and put it into the double pouch. Then he threw two boxes of practice .45 ammo into the bag along with his hearing protection headset and some amber shooting glasses.

  A little violent exercise would help clear his head.

  It was only a short drive to the Edina Shooting Range, a small indoor/outdoor facility in the western suburb of Edina. During the day it was mostly empty, with only a few off-duty police or security guards practicing. Occasionally there would be a class from the Edina Police Department, who shared responsibility for the range with the city.

  Charley nodded to Lyle, the range manager, who raised his hand, checked a clipboard inside his office, and said, "Pick a lane, any lane. Don't expect much today in the way of traffic. You need some targets?"

  "Let me have two combat silhouettes," Charley said.

  Lyle handed him two of the big B-27 targets of a black human figure superimposed on a white background. Charley went into the range and hung his target on a hanger, then hit the button and slid the target a measured seven yards from him. He drew the pistol and ejected the full magazine and the chambered round. He put an empty magazine in place, slid the slide back a fraction to cock the Glock, then holstered it.