50

 

 

Things went about as I expected them to. The dispatcher was efficient. She tried to get more details from me, but I hung up. She called back, and I told her again that we were all on the porch and that the gun was still inside. She asked if I was sure he was dead. I told her that unless he could halt his heartbeat on demand, I was pretty sure. She didn’t like that and her next question had a snappish tone to it.

I hung up.

Patrol units arrived in a frenzied rush. The officers approached with exaggerated caution, fanning out and flanking us. I saw two with shotguns and one with what looked like a short version of an M-16. One officer called to the three of us in a loud voice, directing each of us in turn to walk toward their position. I figured they considered me the biggest threat, so I went first.

As I got close, the voice bellowed at me to turn around. I did so slowly. When he directed me down to my knees, I looked over my shoulder at him. “I’m a witness,” I said.

He pointed the M-16 directly at me. “On your knees!”

I turned away and lowered myself to one knee. I winced as my second one hit the ground.

“Now fall forward and catch yourself with your hands,” M-16 barked.

I did. My shoulder cried out in protest but held.

“Hands out to the side,” M-16 commanded. “Palms up.”

I complied.

“Cross your ankles.”

I crossed them, then waited for what I knew was coming next. First there was the tramp of feet. Then the weight of two officers fell upon me. The worst was the heavy shin across the back of my neck, pinning my head to the ground. The downward pressure crushed my cheek to the grass, making me glad this wasn’t happening on asphalt.

They pulled my arms behind my back. I winced from the shoulder pain, jerking my whole body.

“Don’t resist!” one of them said

I didn’t bother explaining that I wasn’t. It wouldn’t matter.

The cold metal of the handcuffs snapped around both of my wrists. Rough hands frisked my beltline and pockets before sliding down each leg.

“Clean,” said the same voice that had warned me not to resist.

I heard the nearly silent three count pass between them before they stood simultaneously, jerking me to my feet. The force of the motion caused my shoulder to flare in pain and I winced again.

“What’s the matter?”

“Old injury,” I gritted.

He didn’t answer, and the two of them bustled me back down the driveway to a waiting police car. They performed another search of my person at the car, this one more thorough, and removed my wallet and my keys. Then I found myself in the back of the patrol cruiser.

From there, I watched the same process occur twice more, once for Marie and once for Jeni. Even though they’d known what to expect thanks to my briefing, they responded awkwardly to the officer’s commands. Despite that, it appeared to me that the two responsible for taking them into custody went a little easier on them than they had on me. I was glad for that.

Once the three of us were secured, there was a long wait while the officers formed a tactical plan and went into the house. I knew that as soon as they’d determined the scene was safe, they’d lock it down, call detectives, and take us to the station.

Five minutes later, an unmarked police car arrived and parked right behind the car I was in. A single figure exited, and headed leisurely toward the house. I spotted the light blue sergeant’s stripes on his sleeve, tinged with white.

As he drew close to the car, he peered in casually, then stopped and did a double take. He obviously recognized me. By then, he was close enough that I recognized him, too.

Sergeant Rick Hunter.

I’d known him passingly when I was on the job. He’d worked swings and I was on graveyard, so our interaction was limited to crossing paths in the locker room before or after shift, along with the occasional training session. He’d always been something of a self-righteous prick back then, and when he got his sergeant stripes, he made less of an effort to disguise it.

The last time we’d met had been a couple of years ago, when he was on scene at a motel where a woman had supposedly committed suicide. I was there because of a case I was working for a hockey player named Phillipe Richard. Hunter wouldn’t tell me anything about the situation, and ordered a young officer to escort me from the scene. It didn’t matter. I knew she’d been murdered without him telling me.

Now, Hunter stared through the back window at me, his eyes cold and calculating. After a minute, he shook his head slowly in disgust, turned, and headed toward the house.

Fifteen minutes later, officers began straggling back toward their cars. I knew they’d leave one at the inner perimeter of the crime scene and a couple on the outer perimeter, but that still freed up most of those that had responded. First, the owner of the car Marie was in returned, and headed off with her. Jeni’s escort went next.

I waited.

Within a few minutes, an officer sauntered toward the car I was in. I recognized him when he was a few feet away. Aaron Norris.

And the hits just keep on coming, I thought.

Norris actually wasn’t such a bad guy. Not the hardest worker, and kind of a smart ass, but I never had any run-ins with him during or after my time on the job. But I hadn’t come across him since then, so I didn’t know what his reaction was going to be. And if Hunter got to him…

Norris popped open the back door. “Come on out. I need to search you.”

I opened my mouth to say that the other officers already did, but stopped. It didn’t matter. He was transporting me, and he hadn’t done a search yet, so he would. It was a matter of safety. More than that, it was standard procedure, and if I’d done a better job of sticking to it years ago, my life would have been a whole lot different. So would Amy Dugger’s.

“Now, please,” he said, putting the slightest bit of steel into his tone.

I slid across the plastic covered seat and planted my feet on the ground. With some effort, I rocked back and then forward to get up and out of the car. It was surprisingly hard with my hands behind my back. Norris caught me on the forward swing and gave me some extra momentum. Then, wordlessly, he turned me to face the car at the rear wheel well.

Without being told, I spread my legs shoulder width apart. The motion made me feel a little dirty, because I knew it was the practiced action of a criminal familiar with police procedure. But Norris didn’t comment on it. He checked the handcuffs first, loosening both of them by a single ratchet click.

“Better?”

“Yes. Thanks.”

“Goddamn rookies don’t stop until they hit bone,” he muttered. “No finesse to any of them.”

I didn’t reply, mostly because I remembered slamming on the handcuffs pretty hard on a few occasions myself.

Norris conducted an easy but thorough search of my clothing, his motions practiced and efficient. He limited his comments to direct instructions of when to bend or turn to facilitate the search. When it was over, he lifted the plastic covered seat cushion in the back seat and peered underneath it.

In that moment, I had a terrible vision of him finding some kind of planted evidence, most likely dope, and charging me with it. That thought was immediately followed with the realization that Hunter put him up to it.

But Norris didn’t find anything because nothing was there, and he didn’t plant anything, either. He simply replaced the cushion, then guided me into the seat.

“Watch your head,” he said, as I got in, then he shut the door.

As he walked around the front of the car toward the driver’s seat, I saw Sergeant Hunter approaching again. He called to Norris, who paused and waited. Hunter waved him over, and Norris dutifully trudged up the driveway to speak with him. They talked for less than a minute, looking my way several times. Then Norris nodded, turned away and came to the car.

I didn’t like the exchange one bit, but there was nothing I could do but wait to see what came of it.

Norris started the car and typed something into the mobile data terminal. It beeped at him. He frowned and typed again. It beeped at him again.

“Then the hell with you, you piece of junk,” he muttered, and reached for the radio. “Charlie-153?”

“Charlie-153, go ahead.”

The voice of the dispatcher sounded familiar. I thought for a split second it might be the same one I’d talked to on the phone, but this one was male.

“I’ll be en route to the investigative division with one from the scene here on King Pigeon Lane. My mileage is reset.”

“Copy,” came the clipped response. “Your terminal broken?”

Norris held the mike in front of his mouth. “Screw you, you lazy bastard,” he snapped into it. Then he very deliberately pressed the mike button. “Negative. Your fingers broken?”

The dispatcher didn’t reply.

Norris glanced up at me in the rear-view mirror, and shrugged. “They hire them already lazy and then everyone is shocked when they just get lazier.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I gave him a slight nod.

Norris put the cruiser into gear and did a relaxed but expert three-point turn. When we reached the end of the driveway, he slowed to a stop. Crime scene tape was drawn from one fence post to the mailbox on the other side. The patrol officer stationed there approached the driver’s window. I didn’t recognize him.

Norris lowered his window. “You want to lift that shit for me, Cavender?”

“You want to blow me, Norris?”

Norris flashed him a grin. “Sure. Just lift the tape first, and I will. Promise.”

Cavender put his hands on the outside of the car and leaned down into the window. “Yeah, you probably would, you sick bastard.”

“What’s sick about loving your fellow man?”

“The fact I gotta answer that question for you is the whole problem.”

Norris shrugged, still smiling. “See, I was only joking. But now you’re starting to sound a little defensive. Makes me wonder some about the true nature of your orientation.”

“More like makes you fantasize,” Cavender said.

The ease of their banter, combined with its inappropriateness, struck me in an odd way. Irritation tickled my nerves, but so did a strange, jealous, bittersweet sense of loss and longing. Maybe it was the job, but more likely, it was the camaraderie I missed.

Cavender looked into the back seat, spotting me. If he was worried about me having overheard his exchange with Norris, his face didn’t show it. A veil of distaste dropped over his features. He turned back to Norris and jerked a thumb toward me. “He a collar?”

Norris shrugged. “Sarge wants him taken to the dicks’ office. I just do what I’m told.”

Cavender let out an evil chuckle. “Since when?”

Norris spread his hands out in a benevolent gesture. “I’m merely a public servant, doing as he’s bade.”

“Whatever,” Cavender replied, shaking his head. “You ask me, you oughta be careful on the ride in. Lots of stray cats between here and the dicks.”

I clenched my jaw but said nothing. I knew what he meant. In the back seat with handcuffs on, if Norris slammed on his brakes suddenly for a cat in the roadway that wasn’t really there, I’d fly face-first into the clear plastic shield that separated the front seat compartment from the prisoner compartment. It was an old graveyard tactic.

Norris didn’t answer. A moment of uncomfortable silence followed. Cavender broke it by tapping the top of the cruiser with his hands. “All right. Let’s get you on the way, huh?”

“That’d be nice.”

Cavender turned to walk away. When he made it about three steps, Norris called out to him. Cavender turned around. “What?”

Norris beckoned him back to the car window. Cavender returned and assumed his previous stance, leaning into the window.

“You walk like you’re in the Gay Pride Parade, Cavvie.”

“Fuck you.”

“Just thought you should know, is all.”

“Like you weren’t watching my ass.”

Norris shrugged. “It pretty much blocks the view of anything else.”

“Well, then just go ahead and kiss it, because –”

A news van hurtled around the corner and came screeching to a halt just on the other side of yellow crime scene tape. The passenger door burst open. A leggy, perfectly coiffed female news reporter scrambled out, already calling directions to someone I couldn’t see. A moment later, a camera operator appeared from the rear of the van, shouldering his bulky video cam.

“Roll, roll, roll!” the reporter yelled to him.

“Shit,” Norris muttered.

Cavender stood transfixed, watching the scene play out. “Damn,” he muttered. Then he turned to Norris. “She looks hotter in person, don’t you think?”

“Raise the tape,” Norris barked at him.

“Oh. Yeah.” Cavender turned and trotted to the yellow tape, lifting it straight up.

Norris nudged the patrol car forward, edging underneath the arch of the crime scene tape. The camera man trained the lens on the car. A blinking red light told me he was rolling. I stared at that black lens, wondering why Norris was still barely creeping along. He was effectively giving the news reporter a drive-by version of a perp walk.

I glanced at him, but he was focused on his side mirror. His gaze was more intense than before. “C’mon, Cavvie,” he muttered.

I turned to see Cavender bending the patrol cruiser’s radio whip antenna below the yellow tape. He released it, sending it snapping out of sight.

Norris gunned the engine, swinging wide of the two newsies and speeding down King Pigeon Lane.

We rode in silence for a minute or two before Norris met my gaze in the rear-view mirror. “You all right?”

“Fine.”

He nodded slightly, and returned to driving. I adjusted my position slightly to avoid putting pressure on my cuffed wrists.

“Can I ask you something?” I asked.

He glanced into the mirror. “Do I need my lawyer present?”

I shook my head. “Funny, but no.”

“Go ahead, then.”

“You know me, right?”

He gave a measured nod. “Yeah. We worked together on graveyard shift a long time ago.”

“A very long time ago, yeah. A lot has happened since then.”

“I know.”

“Then you know that pretty much everyone at RCPD hates me, right?”

He thought about it for a second, then conceded, “That’s probably not far from the truth.”

“Every time I run into someone on the department, they either know me or they’ve heard of me, and so they treat me like shit.”

“Your point?”

“Why not you?”

Norris considered my question while he drove. Then he said, “Truth is, I always liked you, Kopriva. You had balls.” He paused, then added, “And I guess I think you got something of a bad rap.”

“That’s it?”

He shrugged. “I’m not saying you didn’t fuck up. Maybe I just understand how a thing like that could happen to anyone.”

I sat and thought about his answer. After a mile or so, I asked, “What was your fuck up?”

His eyes flicked to mine in the mirror. “Doesn’t matter,” he said gruffly.

I left it alone. Maybe he was right, and maybe he was wrong, but I had enough people pissed off at me. I didn’t need to convert anyone.