Fall from Grace
The television was on, but while Bruce stared at it, he had no idea what was on it. He was losing it. That heightened sense of situations and people that led him to solve the kinds of cases that left other detectives shaking their heads. Ten years ago, he was a bloodhound. Bruce found evidence where it looked like none existed. He pieced together the puzzles of events and lives and circumstances of crime scenes, studying them from the perspective of a man with a gift that could only come from God.
He’d solved cases more difficult than this. And it pissed him off because on the surface there was absolutely nothing extraordinary about the murder of Toni Robbins, and solving it should’ve been a piece of cake. Everybody was starting to look at him sideways. His captain, colleagues, and the media were taking advantage of the fact that time had stopped being on his side.
What’s taking so long to solve this case, Detective?
Do you have any leads on who might’ve killed this woman?
The public wants answers, Detective Baldwin. What do you have to say?
He said nothing, because he knew nothing. Anybody remotely suspected had an alibi, and he was beginning to think that maybe her death was random after all. As he’d done so many times before, Baldwin closed his eyes and mentally retraced Toni’s last night alive.
She’d gotten off work at five, walked six blocks to The Broadway Shelter, played kissy face with her man, chatted it up with some other volunteers, and said hello to some folks waiting in line to eat. At six, she helped to serve the evening meal. Seven-thirty, she read stories to some kids, reassured some woman who, along with her four kids, had been evicted from her one-bedroom apartment, that everything would be all right, said good night to the staff and boyfriend, and finally walked out of the door, headed back to her car parked in a lot halfway between her job and the shelter. She was found early the next morning underneath the Corona and Speer overpass.
Denver’s honorable mayor was attending a fundraiser the night she was killed, as attested to by three hundred of his fondest admirers and lovely wife. Nelson Monroe left the shelter around nine–thirty. He gave one of his volunteers a ride home, stopped at the ATM on his way home, and held a brief conversation with a neighbor on the elevator who lived next door to him.
No evidence had been found near the crime scene. Not a damn thing. There had been shoe prints in the snow, but by the time the cops showed up, snow had covered them and the city’s finest had trampled over any potential evidence buried underneath it. Whoever killed her wore gloves. He didn’t rape her, or hit her, or abuse her, other than to choke the life out of her. It was almost as if he were careful. Baldwin opened his eyes. It was almost as if he cared. Before he had a chance to decipher this revelation, his phone rang.
“Yeah,” he said gruffly.
It was his friend from vice, Dan Goodwin. “Tell me you can be up and out the door in thirty seconds or less.”
“Why? What’s up?”
“Man! You are not going to believe who we got in handcuffs for soliciting sex from an underage girl he found over the Internet.”
Baldwin bolted up from the sofa. “Where?”
He was out the door and in his car speeding across town with the light flashing in the window. Baldwin headed west towards Lakewood, to a seedy motel on West Sixth Avenue. All he had to do was follow the parade of lights illuminating the scene like it was a holiday party. News cameras were out in full force, and in the back seat of one of the squad cars he passed, Baldwin caught a glimpse of a man he thought looked like Mayor Shaw. He stopped, leaned down and peered at the man to be sure. Shaw glanced at him, then turned his head away.
Goodwin spotted Bruce. “Baldwin!” He waved him over. A female officer was escorting a frightened Hispanic teenage girl to another squad car. The girl was trembling despite the blanket she’d been wrapped in.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Baldwin said dismayed.
Goodwin shook his head. “I wish I was, man. This is some shit for sure.”
“How old is that kid?”
“Fifteen. Doesn’t speak English either. Her mother sent her here to live with relatives, only the girl never made it to any relatives.”
“How the hell did he find her?”
Goodwin looked shocked that Baldwin would be so naïve. “I told you, man. The World Wide Web—www.younghotchick.com. It’s all the rage among pedophiles. Or hadn’t you heard?”
Bruce scratched his head. “Sounds like some fucked up eBay shit if you ask me.”
“Not quite, but . . . our mayor here has been busy. Careful, but not careful enough. He’s a pompous sonofabitch, though, thought he was too slick to get caught.”
“How long have you been on to him?”
Dan chuckled. “Hell, we were never on to him. We just got lucky as hell. Went fishing for a good-sized trout and came out with a fucking shark.”
“Who called the piranha?” Baldwin asked, referring to the media.
Goodwin gave him a sly look. “He pissed me off.”
Baldwin stared at him in disbelief. “Remind me never to get on your bad side, man.”
Lucas was numb. The whole scene unraveled around him like a movie he was watching on late night television. News cameras surrounded him, flashing lights in his face, pointing fingers, shaking their heads, talking so fast, their tongues couldn’t keep up. He hadn’t known that girl was so young, but he knew she was young enough. He’d told himself that if she looked too young, he’d walk away, but deep down, he knew it was a lie. His wife had taken one of her sleeping pills so she’d get the news first thing in the morning like everyone else in the city. Lisa hated drama. She hated when things weren’t perfect and to be embarrassed in any way. He watched them put that child in the back of that patrol car and breathed a sigh of relief. If he had touched her, he would’ve never been able to forgive himself.
Lucas had always dreamed big. He’d dreamed of becoming a national hero, a figurehead, respected, admired, loved by everyone who’d ever shaken his hand. The reality of what he’d become was a hell of a lot more frightening.