THE WOLF MOVED through the trees, nose to the ground. Down from the mountain and out of the primordial darkness of the forest, towards the lights of the city. It skulked through a hole in a fence, its heavy pads on the worn pavement. Past a leaning stack of pallets and into a lot that stank of gasoline and men. Jaundiced light beamed from the poles haloed in the light drizzle. The rain dampened the stink of the ground and turned it sour.
It kept to the shadows, winding through the yard to avoid the lights. It wasn‘t far now, the smell it was after. Prey. It caught the scent from a mile away and tracked it from the slope of the dead volcano down into the city.
It was close, the thing it tracked.
The dogs came after, a clumsy pack of pokey ribs and ravaged hide following the lead animal. A Rottweiler and three pit bulls, a Doberman and a sleek Siberian Husky. Others of no discernible breed and still more of such bastard mix they were barely dogs at all. Heads low and single file, the dogs followed the lobo‘s path step by step. The pack snorted and snuffed, sometimes snapping at one another but none barked, none made any unnecessary noise. When the hunt was on, they stifled the raw instinct to bark and ran silent. The lead animal taught them this and they had learned it the hard way. The pack was down in numbers because two ill-mixed breeds couldn‘t help themselves and barked on a hunt. The wolf killed them both, snapping their necks in its enormous maw. The troop was learning. Dogs barked, wolves did not.
They were hungry but the wolf had taught them how to hunt as a pack. First the small woodland animals darting across the forest floor and then bigger prey. At night, always at night. But this night was different and all to an animal knew it. The wolf hunted even bigger prey bigger this night. Something slow and stupid and easy to kill.
TWO BOYS AND A GUN. How many terrible nights have started this way? The gun was an old bolt action rifle. A 303 Enfield with a walnut stock and a battered scope. Lifted quietly from its dusty rack in Owen‘s grandfather‘s house in. Owen held the gun now, sliding the bolt forward to reveal the loading gate, showing it to the other boy.
“Just lemme shoot the fucking thing.” Justin was fifteen and impatient about all things. He drained his beer, also stolen from Owen‘s grandfather, and crushed the can.
Owen looked at him with contempt. “You gotta learn how to load it first, dumbass. Maybe you ain‘t big enough to wear the big boy pants.”
“Hurry the fuck up. Before those things run off.”
They were hunkered down under the steel bridge that spanned the Willamette, the dark riverwater moving slowly below them. Empty cans of Pabst scattered around, two fresh ones sweating cold in the plastic bag. The air was warm, pushing the stink of the river up the banks.
Owen had seen that old Enfield in his granddad‘s cellar since he was seven years old. Once, when he was ten, he pushed a chair up to the wall and climbed up just to touch it. The black metal was cold to his fingers but the wood felt warm. His grandfather had caught him just as he was trying to lift it from its cradle and Owen had gotten a sharp crack over the ear for it. After that the old man kept the basement locked but Owen never forgot about the gun. Now that his grandfather rarely left his bedroom, Owen took it whenever he wanted. Justin wanted to shoot it so they got the beer and the gun and headed down to the river. There were raccoons and cats down there among the broken bikes and appliances dumped from the roadside and the boys had taken to shooting at them late at night. But tonight was different, tonight they got lucky. There were dogs.
God knows where they came from. Six, maybe seven. Hard to tell at this distance. Big and mangy looking. Strays for sure. They swarmed over something down in the weeds, scrapping over it. Teeth snapping and jaws popping. Feeding time.
Justin tossed his can away. “Lemme shoot already.”
Owen sighed and handed him the rifle. “Here”.
Justin rolled onto his belly in the dirt, aimed and fired. It was that quick. He jumped back at the recoil and whined. Owen watched the dogs bolt away then circle back. They sniffed the air then tore back into the thing in the weeds.
“Fuck are they eating down there?” Justin looked through the scope, watching them feed.
“You missed.”
“You‘re fat.”
Owen took the rifle back and now he lay on his gut in the dirt. He put his cheek to the stock and squinted down the scope. He recalled everything he knew about firing a rifle, all of it schooled from a Punisher comic book. Draw your aim, hold your breath and squeeze the trigger slowly. Bang.
He jolted from the kick but quickly re-aligned the gun and looked down the scope. One of the dogs was flopping in the weeds, twitching in a spastic fit. “Shit,” he said. “Did I hit it?”
The dog was still by the time they walked down there. It wasn‘t dead, just lying on its side, tongue flat on the ground and peppered with dirt. It panted, the ribcage undulating up and down. The boys stood over it, watching it die. Neither one horrified or repulsed. Justin spat on it.
“Lucky shot, is all.”
Owen smirked, watching the dog‘s legs kick. Justin moved on, trampling down the weeds. Looking to see what the dogs were scrapping over.
“Fuck me.”
Justin lurched away and puked. Owen stepped up and saw what was there. Limbs. Legs and feet. An arm. The core of the body had been chewed up and eaten. There wasn‘t even a face. All of it pulled apart like jerky by the hungry dogs. Owen backed away from it and looked around. The dogs were long gone.
JOHN GALLAGHER SMILED as he pushed the shitbag up against the chain link. The guy looked antsy and sweaty in his green parka, and that made Gallagher happy. Few things were as satisfying as watching the eyes of some screwhead when he realizes his world has turned instantly to shit.
Gallagher had been with the Portland Police Bureau for sixteen years, the last eight as a detective with Homicide Detail. And nothing topped working homicide. Ninety percent of the job was braindead boring but the other tiny percentage of piecing together murders and tracking down perps was unlike anything else. The methods one chose to pursue the job were key and John Gallagher led more with his guts than his head and that had consequences. His internal file was stuffed fat with reprimands, warnings and final warnings about his aggressive methods but all of that was balanced against a clean closure rate. The complaints and threatened lawsuits from banged-up suspects were silenced by a clean evidence trail that pinned the son of a bitch to the wall. Just like this shitbag in the parka.
“Hey man, we just wanna talk”, Detective Roberts said, holding up his palms. Roberts was older than Gallagher, clocking down this side of fifty. Cautious and methodical. He hated working with Gallagher and the feeling was mutual. Fourteen hours earlier, they had been at the hospital, looking down at a woman who had died shortly after arrival. She had been beaten and tossed down a flight of stairs in some godawful tenement in No Po. They went to work looking for the woman‘s boyfriend and voila. Now the part Roberts hated, playing peacemaker off Gallagher‘s wolverine schtick.
“Wasn‘t me.” The man in the parka clucked his teeth with impatience. “Go piss on somebody else‘s life.”
“We will, chief”. Gallagher pushed him one more time. “Soon as we‘re done pissing all over yours”.
“Fuck you.”
Parka Man walked away. He bumped Gallagher‘s shoulder on the way and that was all it took. Gallagher smiled. Oh Christ, thought Roberts.
Gallagher kicked the man‘s knee out and he collapsed inward. Parka Man hit the sidewalk bald, found Gallagher‘s knee on his throat.
“Fucking kill you, bitch”, was all Parka got out before he choked.
“See, a bitch is why we‘re here, chief.” Gallagher jammed his knee into the man‘s windpipe. Still smiling. “You put your woman in the hospital yesterday.”
“Fucking told you. Wasn‘t me.”
“How original.”
“Easy, Gallagher.” Roberts scanned the alley for onlookers. “There‘s people around.”
Gallagher ignored him. “Your woman died in hospital yesterday after you stomped her face to hamburger. You know what that means, chief?”
The man seethed through clenched teeth. Gallagher hauled him up. “On your feet, asswipe.”
Parka Man sprang, cracking his skull into Gallagher‘s nose. Blinding pain.
Roberts flinched, then reached for his service issue. Too slow, too old. The man barreled into him like a tackling sled. Roberts hit the ground hard and Parka Man stomped on his guts then ran. But he didn‘t get far, hit full freight by Gallagher. Face to the pavement. Gallagher pummeled the guy mercilessly until he curled into a ball to protect himself.
Gallagher let up, caught his breath. “Roberts”, he hollered, “you want a turn?”
No response. Detective Roberts was still on the ground and he wasn‘t moving.
LIEUTENANT MIKE VOGEL was trying to get off the phone but the damn thing kept ringing. He had big, meaty hands with thick fingers and his cell phone looked like a kid‘s toy in his big mitt. How he pushed those little keys correctly was anyone‘s guess. Vogel was a monster with Popeye forearms and a huge trunk. With his shaved head and permanent scowl, he still looked like the wrestler he was twenty years ago. He was spry and agile for such a big guy and back then, the old-timers in the amateur leagues all agreed he was the best thing to come out of Multnomah county in a long time. His professional tag was Bone Slab Vogel, which he prided himself on. It had a nice horror movie ring to it.
The Lieutenant kept a picture from his glory days, framed and hung on his office wall. Twenty-two years old with a full head of hair, spandex pants and lace-up boots, the whole deal. His press kit photo, Bone Slab posing for the camera with muscles flexed and fury in his eyes.
There was another picture of Bone Slab Vogel floating around the offices of Central Precinct. This one showed Bone Slab shaking hands with Hulk Hogan himself. Big smile, oiled biceps and locks flowing. The problem was the shiny pants Bone Slab was wearing at the time. No word of lie, they were bright red with sequins. His manager‘s idea. Someone in the Homicide Detail had found this photo, framed it and now it moved mysteriously through the office. Sometimes it hung in the main hallway, other times in the kitchen, always askew like it had been hung quickly. A couple times it hung in the men‘s room on the main floor and once in the women‘s bathroom, where it remained undisturbed for a month. Vogel would gripe about it, threatening to smash it but then it would disappear for a while again, waiting like some phantom to reappear in some other location.
Four months after that photo was taken, Bone Slab Vogel was wrestling an unschooled amateur in Tacoma when everything went bellyup. Bone Slab took a boot to the kidneys and landed wrong. The amateur launched himself from the turnbuckle and dropped on him full tilt. Two broken cracked vertebrae and Vogel never stood straight after that. Four months convalescing and three months smoking bongweed and killing time. An uncle stopped by to talk him out of his funk. He suggested becoming a cop. Do something good.
“Come on. You‘re gonna miss it.” Detective Latimer hovered in the doorway, waving at his Lieutenant to shake a leg. Latimer was a Homicide veteran and a stickler for punctuality. He personally had hung the picture of the red-sequined Bone Slab a dozen times.
Lieutenant Vogel flattened the phone to his collar bone. “Can‘t you do it without me?”
“You gotta bring the cake out,” Latimer said. “Not me.”
Vogel snuffed, then finished his call. He hated these things; birthdays, promotions and retirements. The retirements most of all now. Two detectives, one Homicide, the other Fraud, had both clicked over into retirement and needed to be replaced. And here he was unpacking a cake to celebrate the last day for yet another cop. Detective Alex Papadopoulos was a solid workhorse that Vogel didn‘t want to lose but Papadop‘s wife was ill and he‘d crossed the early retirement line three years back. So Papadopoulos needed to take care of his family and now the Lieutenant was down three bodies in one unit. Not good.
The Ouzo melted the bottoms of the Styrofoam cups. Toasts were made, the Lieutenant said a few words and Detective Papadopoulos got choked up. The retiring detective said a few words himself, admitting that he was dreading what the day after would bring. How does one not go to work after grumbling about it for thirty years?
After the cake was gone, the Lieutenant took him aside and asked about his wife. Papadopoulos said they were taking it one day at a time. The man was scared, that was plain enough. Who wouldn‘t be? Vogel knew that Papadops had a huge family but he reminded him that he had family here too and if there was anything they could do, just call. Papadops thanked him
Both men‘s eyes became dewy and both became ashamed but, thank God, someone was already tugging at the Lieutenant‘s sleeve with a problem. It was Bingham.
Detective Bingham pulled him away to speak privately. Whatever it was, he didn‘t want to spill it in front of everyone else and ruin the party. Bingham was young for a detective and good looking to boot. His nickname around the office was the Panty-Atomizer. Poof.
“What is it?”
“Roberts is in the hospital,” Bingham said, keeping his voice low. “Not sure how serious it is.”
“What happened?”
Bingham shrugged. “He was with Gallagher.”
Gallagher. Vogel gritted the name between his molars. He was going to murder that son of a bitch.
DETECTIVE ROBERTS LAY in a hospital bed in with his left leg elevated, the kneecap shattered. He‘d injured that same knee when he was seventeen playing for the Lincoln High Cardinals. That was 1975, when Ford was President and American helicopters were being pushed into the Gulf of Tonkin. Shattering the same knee thirty five years later, Roberts was screwed. What the hell was he going to tell his wife? Work would be the worst. He‘d be chained to a desk and the only thing Roberts hated worse than paperwork was computers. And all of it because of one fucking prick.
“Gallagher.”
“Pardon me?” The nurse leaned over him to check the ECG, her boobs at eye level. He smiled at her. “Nothing”.
Roberts forced his eyes away and cast about for something else to look at. He caught sight of a face looking in through the window. Roberts raised his fist, middle finger straight up.
GALLAGHER WATCHED THE nurse fuss over Roberts. She was pretty. When Roberts flipped him off. Gallagher waved back, all friendly like. “Fuck you too, hoss,” he said.
“I should snap your neck in two.” Lieutenant Vogel came up the hallway and looked down at Gallagher. He probably could too, one handed. Gallagher was solid and built to punish but the Lieutenant stood five inches over him and outweighed him by a hundred pounds. To Gallagher, Vogel always resembled that bad guy in the Spiderman cartoons. Not as dapper as the Kingpin of crime, but Vogel was a tank who could drop anyone. With or without the red sequined tights.
“Once, just once, I want to find you in the hospital with your head stomped in. Not your partner.” Vogel‘s nostrils flared wide, something he did when he was mad. “What happened?”
“Asshole tried to rabbit. Put Roberts down pretty hard.”
“And you had nothing to do with it, izzat it?”
“I was trying to collar the shitbag.” Gallagher looked back in on his partner. Former partner, whatever. Roberts looked old, hooked up to all those machines. “How was the party?”
“Good. Too bad you missed it.”
“We were on our my way when we spotted douchebag in the parka.” Gallagher looked back at his boss. “Did Papadops have a good time?”
“He wondered why you were AWOL.”
“I‘ll catch up with him later, say goodbye properly.” Gallagher chucked at Roberts. “What are you gonna do with him?”
“What can I do? Bench him for the duration. Which he‘ll hate.”
“Yeah, well. Life sucks.”
Vogel felt his stomach turn to ice, that same feeling he used to get before he laid the boots to someone in the ring. “What the hell am I gonna do with you?”
“Quit saddling me with partners. Let me work alone.”
“What you need is a goddamn leash.” Vogel unwrapped a piece of gum, tossed it in his mouth. “And a psychiatrist to boot. When‘s the last time you talked to the staff therapist?”
“Don‘t. I will eat her alive.”
“How about early retirement? Think of it as a favor to me.”
Gallagher chinned the nurse in Roberts‘s room. “What are the chances she‘s single?”
THE PETTYGROVE BAR and Grill was on Stark Street, just off Second Ave. It had been a cop bar since the very beginning and that would never change. Situated two blocks from the site of Portland‘s first police precinct, the Pettygrove was the first watering hole a cop came across after a shift. The interior was dark, the wood mahogany and although smoking was verboten in bars since the nineties, the smell of it clung to the walls like a phantom cloud. The pictures on the walls were all of cops. Newspaper photos mostly, going all the way back to grim faced sheriffs in big moustaches.
Gallagher came in through the side door and scanned the room. Papadopoulos held court at a central table, flanked by detectives who had ended their day early. Gallagher ordered a round for the table and paid up. As he waited, he looked over at the now retired homicide detective. Papadop had been Gallagher‘s first partner when he moved from Assault/Injury to Homicide and he remained a mentor after all this time. Papadopoulos had a gentle way about him, not the hard shell most cops had. Not like Gallagher either. People talked to Papadop, opened up and spilled the beans. The old man was genuinely interested in people and what they had to say, no matter what they‘d done. Their sob stories and their improvised justifications for their heinous acts. Gallagher couldn‘t stomach it but he learned from the old man that if you just let people talk, they‘ll gladly hang themselves on the rope you trail out to them.
Jesus. He was gonna miss the old man.
They‘d finished the round and Gallagher ordered again. Papadopoulos protested, saying he had to get home but yet didn‘t move when the drinks came in. Of the cops at the table, all of them had been schooled by Papadop and none wanted to see him go. Latimer and Bingham subdued when Gallagher sat down, the party mood dampening. They didn‘t like Gallagher and Gallagher just grinned at them, liking it that way.
“You really know how to kill a mood, huh?” Detective Sherry Johnson had five years under her belt and she hardly ever smiled. Johnson never said a nice word about anyone, cop or crook. For this reason, Gallagher liked her. It didn‘t take much to wind her up and watch her tear on a rant about how she‘s up to her eyeballs in assholes and does anyone have a rope to pull her out.
“We call that Irish charm,” Gallagher said. He distributed the drinks from the waitress‘s tray.
“Irish charm? I thought that was being shitfaced.”
“That too.” Papadopoulos lifted his drink. “Opa!”
Gallagher looked at the old man. “You really going through with this? What are you gonna do with all that free time?”
“Anything I want to. That‘s the point isn‘t it?”
“You gonna leave me with these knuckleheads?”
Johnson snorted and ordered him to go fuck himself.
Papadopoulos laughed and said, “Don‘t be a hard ass, Johnny. You could learn something from these knuckleheads.” He mopped at a spilled drink with a coaster. “What happened with Roberts today?”
Gallagher went into the story, exaggerating his actions as heroic and minimizing his own stupidity at violently provoking the perp in the first place. He wrapped it up by passing the buck onto the Lieutenant, claiming Vogel should know better than to anchor him with partners. Who needs them?
“You do, that‘s who.” Papadopoulos leaned in, man-to-man like. “The best thing you can do is partner up with someone exactly opposite of you. They‘ll catch the things you miss. Make you a better cop too.”
Gallagher rolled his eyes. “You‘re drunk.”
“Yes sir.” Papadops leaned back, completely content. “But I don‘t have to go in to work tomorrow. Do I?”
DETECTIVE LARA MENDES stood inside Super Fast Travel, a tiny travel agency and wire transfer place on the 4300 block of Sandy Boulevard. Broken glass crunched under her foot no matter where she stood. The front desk was trashed, everything swept to the floor. Two smaller desks behind it were untouched. Lara scoured the floor for anything useful, anything left behind by the assailant. Her hair swung loose and she tucked it behind an ear but found nothing in the broken glass on the floor. She hadn‘t really expected to. She looked over at the woman sitting in the chair and wiping her eyes with a tissue. She had been assaulted, which was why Lara was here. Lara had worked the Sex Assault detail for three years now and although she hated to admit it, it was wearing on her.
Irena Stanisic sat in a hardback chair that Lara had uprighted for her. Her left eye was beginning to swell and the blood on her lip was gelling. Four of her press-on nails had been torn off. She realigned her torn skirt, smoothing the fabric down under shaky hands.
“This is my fault,” Irena said. “I kept meaning to upgrade the security, get one of those buzzer lock thingies for the door. But I kept putting if off, you know? And now look at this.”
“This wasn‘t your fault, Irena.” Detective Mendes knelt eye level with the woman. “No way, no how.”
“Can I go home now?”
“Officer Rhames is going to take you to the hospital,” Lara said. “You need that eye looked at. And they need to run a rape kit too. I‘m sorry.”
“God.” Irena shuddered at the thought of it. “I just want to go home.”
“I know, but it just takes a few minutes. And we need it. Oh, and do me a favor, don‘t wash your hands until then. The nurse will scrape under your fingernails. Okay?”
Irena looked at her hand. “What fingernails?”
Lara patted the woman‘s arm and straightened up, feeling her knees click. Lara was thirty-six but days like this made her feel older. Eleven hours into her shift and she was bone tired but there was still work to be done. She stretched, trying to wring out the sore spot in her lower back.
“There was a gun,” Irena said. She looked up at Lara.
“The man who assaulted you had a gun?”
Irena shook her head. “No, he took ours. We keep one in the drawer.”
“What kind of gun? Make, size?”
“I don‘t know. It‘s silver and shiny. My dad got it for me.”
Lara perked up, hopeful. “Is there a permit for it?”
LARA MENDES STEPPED out to the street, dinging the old fashioned bells inside the doorway. Two blue and whites were up on the curb, the uniforms talking quietly amongst themselves. The dusty Crown Vic she snagged from the motor pool was parked further down. Leaning against it was Detective Kopzyck, a Captain America type with a toothy grin and tattooed biceps. His sleeves were rolled up even now, yakking into the phone. Kopzyck was a pill who had zero talent in the empathy department. For exactly that reason, the Lieutenant had partnered him up with Mendes, hoping something would rub off. So far nothing had. Kopzyck was arrogant and mouthy but Lara tolerated him without complaint. She hated complainers.
They did have one thing in common though. Both knew that Homicide Detail was hurting for active detectives and both wanted to cross the shop floor into that department.
Detective Kopzyck saw Mendes coming out and ended his call. “You get anything more out of her?”
“Maybe,” she said. “Hop in.”
Lara slid under the wheel, Kopzyck dropped into the passenger seat. She slotted the key into the ignition but didn‘t turn it over. “How did she describe her attacker?”
“White male, thirty to forty” Kopzyck shrugged. “Twitchy, face full of meth scabs.”
“He tossed the place after he attacked her. But there was little cash on the premises and less than twenty dollars in her purse.”
“He‘s a methhead looking for money. Big news.”
“He took a gun.” Lara looked out the window, her hand still on the key. “They kept one on site, he finds it and takes that. Why?”
“So he can jack some other poor fucker for cash.”
“Or he could just pawn it.” She looked at him now. “He‘s an addict on foot. How many pawn shops in the vicinity?”
“There‘s one down Sandy, Lucky something. But the dude who owns it, he‘s straight. Hell, dude calls us when something fishy comes in.”
“And the other one?”
“That dump further south from the Lucky, near the Sally Ann. That dude will move anything. What‘s his name, Hair something?”
“Herrera.”
MARTIN HERRERA SAT behind the mesh cage of Magic Man Pawn Brokers. One hand on a Slurrpy, the other clutching a remote. Mounted to his left were a bank of monitor screens. One was a security cam, broken, and the others played daytime TV and cheap porn. Herrera never got rattled. It was a point of pride, a line in his personal sandbox. Even with two cops shooting dumbass questions at him.
“I don‘t deal in guns,” He said, slurping on the straw. Bored. “You want a piece, the gun shop‘s round the corner.”
Lara stood before the cage. Kopzyck behind her, fiddling with the camera equipment. She looked the proprietor to the junk piled even higher behind the cage. Some of it tagged, most of it not. “I‘m just asking Mr. Herrera. I have a suspect looking to pawn a gun he stole four blocks from here. Quick money.”
Herrera shrugged. “Told you, nobody come in with a gun. In fact, no one ’cept you come in at all today.”
“Look at me.”
He dragged his eyes from the porn and tilted his head back to give the impression he was looking down at her. Mussolini used to do that, because he was short. He‘d seen that on the History Channel. “Yeah.”
Lara leaned on the counter. She could smell the guy from here, rank sweat and stale clothes. “I can always get a search warrant. We‘ll come back and toss the place. God knows what we‘ll find then. It‘s up to you.”
Herrera just smiled. “Good luck getting probable cause. Now if you don‘t mind, you‘re scaring away my business.”
“Hey, does this work?” Kopzyck held a dusty Pentax.
Lara held her tongue. She turned and headed out the door.
Out on the street, Kopzyck caught up to her at the car. “You know he‘s gonna ditch that gun soon as we drive away.”
“Yeah, probably.”
He held his hands out, palms up. “Where you going? Let‘s toss the place now and get what we came for. That fat fuck won‘t say shit.”
“Don‘t start with that. Let‘s go.”
“Jesus, Mendes. Unclench already. Sometimes you gotta get creative with the probable cause. Drop a dimebag on his floor and bingo. We toss this dump and find our popgun.”
“And have it blow up in our faces when his lawyer smells a rat? No shortcuts, Chris. No dirty busts.”
“Think outside the box, Mendes. For once. You gotta adapt as the situation changes.”
Lara dipped back into the car. “No. I don‘t.”
Chris Kopzyck pointed an index finger to his head and mimicked blowing his brains out. Lara lowered the passenger window and leaned over. “Are you riding with me or do you want to adapt your way back to precinct?”
A WEIRD BUZZ thrummed through the fourth floor cubicles of Central Precinct. Lara felt it all the way back to her desk. She figured it was a good bust or maybe a clean confession issuing from the interview box. Maybe it was just another office party like the one yesterday, a retirement sendoff in Homicide. A retirement in Homicide meant there was a vacancy. She shook it out of her head and hunkered down to write up the incident report and witness‘s statement.
Twenty minutes later Kopzyck buzzed her cubicle and asked if she could send him her report so he could sign his name to it and send it off. She said no and he started bellyaching about how much he hated writing them and her reports were always done so well. When she still refused, he went into a long complaint about time management and pooling resources. Lara couldn‘t take anymore so she packed up her work to take home.
“You guys hear what happened?”
Detective Latimer leaned an elbow on the cubicle wall, looking at them like a schoolyard kid with a big secret.
“You got laid?” Kopzyck turned the page on his newspaper.
“Roberts got hurt. He‘s in the hospital.” Latimer handed her a card. “Sign this.”
“Is he okay?” Lara opened the card, saw the signatures crisscrossed everywhere and looked for an empty space to sign. “What happened?”
Latimer told them what he knew and Lara passed the card on. Kopzyck shook his head and laughed. “Gallagher. What an asshole.”
Latimer took the card back and moved on, hunting down more signatures. The floor was quiet, the lull before the shift change. Lara packed her homework and Kopzyck drifted back to his desk and they spoke no further. Both were thinking the same thing; one more drop in the unit. Someone‘s getting moved up to Homicide.
Kopzyck headed out, not bothering to say goodbye. He wanted a drink at the Pettygrove. See who was there. Maybe he‘d learn more about what happened and if the Lieutenant had anyone in mind to fill the vacancy. He knew he had a good shot at it. Lara Mendes? Not a chance.
OWEN COULDN‘T TAKE anymore. It had been two days since they shot that dog near the bridge. Two days since they saw that thing in the weeds. He had watched the news, listened to the radio and skimmed the newspaper. No mention of a body found by the river.
Run. That‘s what Justin had said. Owen wanted to call 911 but Justin said no. Just get the fuck out of here. They didn‘t do anything wrong. This was not their problem. Somebody else will find it. Just book.
Owen did what he was told. He didn‘t talk to Justin the next day nor did Justin call. He played PS2 and didn‘t leave the house. He kept checking the news, expecting the police to kick down his door any minute. He imagined the cops digging the bullet from the dead dog and tracing it, all CSI-like, back to him. He peeked out the windows, expecting to see a SWAT team creeping up to the house and bursting inside.
But they didn‘t. Nothing happened and that was worse. Maybe the cops found it but didn‘t call the press. They were sneaky fucks like that. Maybe it was still out there.
Owen got his bike and rode it down to the river. He just wanted to take a look. He rode off the bike path into a dirt rut and glided into the shadow of the bridge. Everything was dark. No flashing lights, no cops, no yellow police tape.
It was still down there. Waiting to be found.
He turned around and pedaled home as fast as he could, as if that thing out there would rise from the muck and come after him. He shut his bedroom door, snatched up the phone and just held it for a long time. Justin would kill him. Fuck him. He punched 911.