“Where you heading, Spengler?” Loren asked. She was the first detective he saw, so she’d won without even knowing she was playing. That was the bitch of things in Homicide—it was either feast or famine. There were times when it seemed like the entire city was busy killing each other, usually around the holidays or during high summer, but then there were times when everything was quiet. Those between-times felt like waiting. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, or maybe it was the ax, and this was just another one of those times.
Spengler’s desk was out in the center of the bullpen, where it was the loudest. That’s where the newbies started, and after a while you got to move farther out, maybe even end up in a private office. She looked up in surprise at his question. She’d just slipped her purse over her shoulder and had her car keys jingling in her hand.
She was the new kid on the block, the latest addition to Denver’s Homicide department. Loren had heard some of the guys moaning over the way her ass looked in the pantsuits she wore, clutching their chests and rolling their eyes into the back of their heads when they thought she wasn’t looking, although Loren had an idea she knew exactly what was going on. She wasn’t an idiot, like so many others who’d ended up promoted to detective. She’d been in charge of a major sex trafficking case that stretched across several states but was based in Denver, had spent months undercover until it culminated in a bust at the Western Stock Show. She was a big deal, and when Chief Black had offered her a choice of assignments she’d asked for Homicide. She’d been with the department a few weeks now but still hadn’t managed to make any friends. There was something standoffish about her that put people off.
“I’m driving out to Estes Park again.”
“For what?”
“To get statements from some campers.”
“Why wouldn’t you have them come down here?”
“I’m going up there anyway to watch the search, I figured this would be easier for everyone. They’re waiting for me at the Estes police station.”
“I’ve never seen you dressed like that before.”
She was wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt with a flannel layered over the top. On her feet were hiking boots, brown with red laces. They looked brand-new.
“I would’ve dressed like this yesterday if I’d known what I was in for.” She smiled at him. Her lips were stretched as thin and sharp as a razor.
His cell phone buzzed inside in his pocket.
“I’m gonna tag along with you today.”
Spengler frowned.
“Why? You’ve got cases of your own.”
“Yeah, I do,” Loren said. “But if I had a choice between waiting on these dipshits to deliver lab results or chew off my own fingers, I’d be nothing but palms. And then how would I wipe my ass?”
Spengler blinked.
“What’re you talking about?”
Loren sighed.
“I’m tagging along,” he said. “You’ve got a partner. Congrats, Spengler. It’s a boy!”
Spengler gave him a strange look.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go. I’m already running late as it is.”
His phone buzzed again.
“I’ve gotta take this call. Give me five minutes and I’ll meet you out in the parking lot.”
“All right,” Spengler said. She didn’t look thrilled to have him coming, and that made him smile for the first time that morning. And it wasn’t one of those smarmy, polite smiles most people wear all the time, their lips pursed so tight they look like puckered little buttholes, but a real big grin.
“Preach, you there?” Loren said, pressing the phone against his ear and watching Spengler march down the hall toward the elevator. She pushed the button and then disappeared down the stairwell, too impatient to wait. But she didn’t walk—no, Spengler slammed the door open hard enough that the wall shook and several heads turned curiously, and he could hear the angry stamp of her feet as she went down. Loren’s grin widened.
“It’s Captain Preach to you now, dipshit.”
“Captain? Big mistake, putting you in charge of anything.”
Captain Robert Preach had been Detective Robbie Preach thirty years before, when Loren had first been hired on with the Springfield Police Department. Back then Loren had thought he’d live the rest of his life in Ohio—there were plenty who did, lived and died within the city limits—but now he thought of Springfield not as the armpit of America, but the perineum, the tender spot between the balls and asshole where the dingleberries grow thickest. He’d been lucky to escape—not that he’d gloat about it to guys like Preach, who were still there.
“You still pissing on electric fences?” Loren asked. Back in the day they’d called Preach Cocksmoke, after the night he’d drunkenly urinated on a fence surrounding a cattle ranch, and the current had zapped him and thrown him back ten feet. Loren swore he’d seen tendrils of smoke curling up from Preach’s balls and disappearing into the night sky, and while the nickname didn’t stick, the story had become legend.
“Fuck off,” Preach said loftily. “You know I’d love to listen to your dumb ass chatter on like a schoolgirl, but I’ve got a meeting with the city commissioner in a few so I’ve gotta be quick. And you’re the one who called me, I’m just getting back to you. What’s up?”
This was also the Preach Loren remembered. He was a guy who’d fall asleep at his desk and fart so loud it’d wake him up and he’d tip right out of his chair, but he wasn’t full of shit like so many other cops were. Straight down to business when he had to be.
“Ortiz showed up out here, paid my boss-man a visit about Gallo.”
There was a pause so long, Loren thought they might’ve been disconnected until Preach finally sighed.
“Oh, shit, Loren. I had no idea. That cocksucker said he was going on vacation, out to California. I told him to leave you outta this whole thing, but he couldn’t let it go. I’m gonna rip that idiot’s asshole a mile wide when he gets back here.”
Loren closed his eyes and listened to the sound of Preach’s fury. It was almost soothing. Took him back to his roots. He’d come onto the Springfield PD and cut his teeth on guys who all talked the same way, and he was a perfect product of his environment—he was loud and full of curses and threats and anger. They’d all been that way. Raucous, that was the word for them. And they had plenty of good times. They’d spend their entire lives together—at work, then later at each other’s homes, drinking and playing poker and telling dirty jokes and watching the Bengals get destroyed on the field yet again, and they fought like they were brothers. Their lives were hard, crusty outsides disguising the soft parts beneath. People around here thought Loren was a head case, always screaming and throwing around insults, but if they could only see the Springfield station when all the boys were there, present and accounted for. No one knew how easy they had it with only Loren to deal with.
“Did they really find Gallo?” Loren asked when Preach’s fury had burned out some.
“Yeah. A developer was out by the Mad River, doing some digging to pour foundations, and they found the remains.”
“Shit. And it’s definitely Gallo?”
“Yeah. Coroner said he was nothing but bones wrapped in one of those tracksuits he always wore. You remember how loud he’d be walking around in those with his thighs rubbing together?”
“He was so pissed when I said he sounded like a giant zipper being pulled up and down.”
“And then you turned on that Madonna CD he kept in his desk.”
“Gallo in a tracksuit dancing to Like a Virgin. That’s my entire recollection of the eighties.”
There was a pause, and Loren again thought the connection had been dropped or that Preach had simply hung up, but then he heard a wheeze and realized Preach was laughing. He’d forgotten how he always did it silently, his belly and shoulders shaking, the tears running freely down his pock-scarred face.
“Same, Ralphie. Same. Man, fuck the eighties. It was bad.”
Ralphie, another blast from the past. They all had nicknames, called each other Shitbrick and Jack-Off and Cocksmoke, the usual boys’ club idiocy, but the only thing anyone had ever called Loren was Ralphie. Gallo had been a part of the good times, too, although there’d always been something a little off about him. Skewed, that was the best word for it. Like a figure in a picture that’s just barely out of focus, and if you squint hard enough, tilt your head to one side, you just might be able to make out their face. But no one had ever complained about Gallo. Because they hadn’t all just worked together, they were brothers, they were family, and you don’t snitch on family.
“Should I be worried about Ortiz?”
“I—I don’t know, man. He’s still nursing old grudges, and he wants to make you pay.”
“Yeah.”
“He’s been waiting for something like this to happen for a long time. If he gets the chance he’ll try to stomp you out like a bug.”
Thirty years ago Pete Ortiz had been a skinny piece of shit with a zitty face and big, pouty lips that were like two pieces of raw tuna sliding against each other. He’d been promoted to detective before he was ready, but Ortiz had known important people—or he’d known information about important people and had gotten exactly what he wanted. He’d been made a detective, and the other guys would’ve accepted him except he was a know-it-all shit for brains. He’d walk around the station with his fingers hooked into the belt loops of the Wranglers he wore so tight you could see the outline of his cock under the denim and tell men who’d been on the force longer than he’d been alive how to do their jobs. And if anyone told him to go screw himself, he’d pout and whine and moan and probably add their name to a secret list of people who deserved payback, kept safe in his own head. Ortiz was the worst weasel Loren had ever met, but he was mostly beneath Loren’s notice until two things happened.
First, Loren and Gallo, who’d been partners for going on five years, had a falling-out. Falling-out was not an explosive enough word for what happened, but it was what the paperwork put in each of their employee files stated. They were both reassigned and given new partners.
Gallo took Ortiz on as his. And Ortiz, young kid that he was, a dipstick still wet behind the ears, worshipped the ground Gallo walked on.
And then Gallo disappeared. His whole family did. And while most people decided Gallo had picked up and left town, bailed on everything, Ortiz was sure it was a case of foul play, and he’d narrowed his focus and the blame on Loren.
And man, he was right.
“This’ll blow over. Ortiz isn’t a bad apple, not like he used to be. He’s grown up.”
“Yeah,” Loren said, although his question was still hanging out there—do I have to worry about Ortiz? It didn’t matter to him if he was a bad apple or a good guy or a dancer in the motherfucking Lollipop Guild, he was only concerned if Ortiz was poking too deep into corners, if he was stirring up old ghosts that’d cause trouble.
“Don’t worry, it’s not a big deal,” Preach said. “Ortiz’ll get tired of Denver soon enough and come home, and I’ll take care of him. You’re fine.”
Act normal, Chief Black had said. Keep yourself occupied until this blows over.
Do you think I did it? Loren wanted to ask, the urge so strong he had to close his fist and sink his fingernails down into his palm to keep his mouth shut. Because it sure as hell sounds like you do, old friend. Like all you motherfuckers are sure I did it. Like you think I’m guilty and you’re keeping a secret for me.
Good times and good ol’ boys like Preach, pulling together to protect their own.