Wade could see that something was wrong before they reached the curb in front of the station. The sidewalk was sparkling, the glow of the streetlight reflecting off thousands of glass shards.
He got out of the car and looked around. The Pancake Galaxy was closed, the lights off. There wasn’t a single person on the streets.
He walked up to the station, the glass crunching under his feet, and surveyed the damage.
The front windows were shattered, except for a few large, jagged panes either still clinging to the frame or caught between the wrought iron bars.
The counter had taken the brunt of the assault, shielding the computers on the desks and other equipment from damage. But there were bullet holes everywhere.
Charlotte stepped up beside him, her hand on her holstered gun, ready to defend herself.
Without a word, he unlocked the front door and went straight for the gun locker, opened it up, and removed a shotgun. He returned to Charlotte, handed her the weapon, and locked up the station again.
“What are we going to do?” she asked.
“What has to be done,” he said wearily.
Wade drove straight to Headlights in silence and parked out front. There were half a dozen cars in the parking lot and nobody on the street. He kept the motor running.
“Get behind the car and cover me.” He grabbed the shotgun and got out. She got out too.
“Whatever you’re about to do, I’m sure we shouldn’t be doing it,” she said as they passed each other in front of the car.
“It’s the only thing we can do,” Wade said. “Are you ready?”
“For what?”
“To back me up if people come out shooting,” he said.
She took her position behind the car, drew her weapon, and nodded. But he could see that she was frightened. It was one thing to draw your gun on a shooting range at paper targets, another on the street against real people.
Wade turned, raised his shotgun, and aimed it at the neon sign shaped like a naked woman. It struck him as a unique piece of sleazy Americana that added a bit of character to the neighborhood. It was a shame to lose it.
He pulled the trigger, blasting the sign apart in a shower of sparks and broken glass.
The front door of Headlights flew open, and Wade spun around, aiming his shotgun into the six furious men who stood there, fronted by Timo, who was already giving him his ready?for?his?close?up snarl.
“This is getting tiresome,” Wade said to Timo. “How many times are we going to have this dance?”
“You are dead,” Timo said.
“So you’ve said. You can only kill me once.”
“You are all dead,” Timo said, staring past him to Charlotte, who held her gun steady. “Duke loved that sign.”
“It would still be there if someone hadn’t shot up my police station,” Wade said. “Think about that. Duke will.”
The snarl on Timo’s face faltered.
“Everybody back inside,” Wade said. “And close the door behind you.”
They did as they were told.
“You’re driving,” Wade said to Charlotte.
She holstered her weapon and quickly got into the car. He backed up, his gun trained on the door, and got into the car. The instant he was inside, Charlotte sped off, peeling rubber.
“Slow down,” Wade said. “You’re making it look like we’re fleeing.”
“What you just did was totally illegal,” she said, practically yelling at him. It was the adrenaline. “You could lose your badge for that.”
“You think they’re going to report me?” Wade asked.
“I might,” she snapped.
“Do whatever you think is right,” he said.
“I would, but I don’t want lose my fucking badge on my first fucking week on the fucking job.”
It seemed to Wade that whenever Charlotte got really angry, she was stricken with a mild case of Tourette’s syndrome. He found it endearing.
“That’s a sticky dilemma,” Wade said.
She glared at him. “You’ve faced off with that guy before, haven’t you? It’s how you got all of those guns you had me take downtown.”
“He shot my car, so I shot his.”
“My God,” she said. “You’re behaving like children.”
“We can’t afford to look weak,” Wade said, “or we will never establish our authority.”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “You’ll be dead long before that becomes an issue.”
“It was just a threat,” he said.
“This tit?for?tat game can only escalate,” she said. “It won’t end well.”
Wade knew she was right, but he also knew that there was no other way. Someone had to quit. Or die. It was how things were, and always had been. Evening the score was the oldest brand of justice that there was, and in the absence of any other kind, it was better than nothing.
It eventually restored the balance, which was a kind of peace.
An imperfect peace, but peace nonetheless.
They went back to the station and swept up the glass without speaking a word to each other. There was nothing they could do about boarding up the space left by the windows until morning.
After a snack of candy bars and coffee, they went back on patrol, cruising around the neighborhood in silence and without trouble until daybreak, when they returned to the station.
Wade got in his Explorer and drove to a lumberyard. He bought several sheets of plywood, strapped them to the roof of his car, and went back to the station, where Charlotte was using a knife to dig the bullets out of the front counter and drop them into evidence bags. It was pointless, but the right thing to do.
Wade began hammering the plywood over the windows inside the station while Charlotte busied herself with the latest issue of American Police Beat. She was pissed off and not hiding it well. He was nearly done with the job when Mandy walked over with two cups of coffee and surveyed the damage.
“It doesn’t look like you’re making a lot of friends around here,” she said.
“At least I’ve made one,” he said, taking the coffees from her.
“Yeah, but you can’t sleep with everybody.”
Wade looked over his shoulder to see if Charlotte heard the remark, but if she had, she wasn’t acknowledging it.
“Thanks for the coffees,” he said.
“I’ll put them on your tab,” she said and walked away.
Wade brought one of the coffees over to Charlotte and set it down on the desk in front of her as a peace offering and retreated to his desk.
They were still sipping their coffees in silence when Billy drove up, doing a slow glide as he passed the front of the station, then parked in back. He bounded in already in uniform and full of energy and enthusiasm. It made Wade feel all the sleep he wasn’t getting. He had to get more rest, but that would have to wait until he made some progress that day into Glory’s murder. He knew from experience that the best chance of closing a homicide is within the first forty?eight hours. After that, the chances of solving it drop dramatically. He couldn’t afford to sleep.
“Holy shit,” Billy said. “What happened?”
“We had a drive?by last night,” Wade said.
“I wish I could have been here last night to back you up,” Billy said. “I’ve never been in a shoot?out.”
“There wasn’t one,” Charlotte said. “We weren’t even here when it happened.”
“It was a warning,” Wade said.
Charlotte got up and dropped her coffee cup in the trash. “I’m out of here.”
“You’re that scared?” Billy asked her.
“No, I’m that tired,” Charlotte said. “My shift is over, remember? I’m going home.”
“On your way, I’d appreciate it if you’d stop by MTA headquarters and get the security?camera tapes from all the Blue Line buses that ran to Havenhurst on Monday.”
“You think you’ll see Glory on one of those tapes?” Charlotte asked.
Wade shrugged. “Either way, it’ll tell us something.”
“Who is Glory?” Billy asked.
Wade tossed Billy a set of keys. “The dead girl. I’ll tell you all about it while you drive.”
“Where are we going?”
“Havenhurst,” Wade said.
“That’s not on our beat,” Billy said.
“It is today,” Wade said.
Havenhurst was one step higher up the social ladder than Meston Heights. For one thing, there were actually a few hills there, all of them offering spectacular views of the Chewelah River. But the best properties were right on the river itself or along several man?made tributaries. They all featured huge mansions set back from the water by an acre or two of lawns, pools, gardens, guesthouses, and tennis courts.
The Burdett house was an English Tudor perched on a hill that sloped gently down toward the river, where they had a large matching Tudor boathouse and dock.
Wade parked the squad car in the cobblestone motor court beside a sparkling Bentley and a new red Ferrari.
The two officers got out. Wade turned to Billy, who was admiring the Ferrari as if it were a Playboy centerfold.
“Stay here,” Wade said.
“Gladly,” Billy said and stroked the hood of the car.
Wade went to the front door of the house, where he was met by a big?haired blonde woman in her fifties in a V?neck blouse and shorts. The angles on her face were unnatural, her lips were too plump, and her skin was too taut, all of which combined to make her look constantly stunned and ready to kiss something. She stepped out onto the porch, her big, hard breasts leading the way.
“May I help you, Officer?” she asked.
“I’m Sergeant Tom Wade. Are you Gayle Burdett?”
“Yes, I am,” she said. “Are you looking for a donation to the policeman’s ball?”
“I didn’t know we had a ball,” he said.
“It’s at the Claremont, down on the water, in the fall. It’s lovely. It raises all kinds of money for the department.”
“I’ve never been invited.”
“Maybe you haven’t sold enough raffle tickets to earn an invitation.”
“That must be it,” he said. “Actually, I’m here about Glory Littleton.”
Gayle stepped aside and gestured for him to come inside. “What has she done?”
Wade edged past her breasts into a grand marble foyer with two large sweeping staircases that framed the entry to the two?story great room and picture windows with an incredible view of the lawn, the dock, and the river. “What makes you think that she’s done anything?”
“You’re here, she didn’t show up to clean yesterday, and she’s one of them.”
“Them?”
“Those people down there,” she said, waving her hand in the general direction of downriver. “You know who I mean. The ones who will pimp their mother for crack.”
“Oh yeah, those people.”
“But she’s always been great with us,” Gayle said. “I could leave my jewelry out when she was dusting and not worry about a thing. Was I wrong?”
“She didn’t commit any crimes-at least not that I know of.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“She’s been murdered,” Wade said.
Gayle gasped and put a hand over her mouth. Her eyes were already very wide, so he was grateful for the gasp-otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to detect any shock or surprise on her face.
“Oh my God,” she said. “The poor girl. Ethan needs to know.”
She took a deep breath to calm herself, then marched off behind her chest. Wade followed, noting that her ass had been reshaped to match her breasts, or perhaps it was vice versa. She looked like she had a pair of basketballs implanted front and back.
Gayle led him through a kitchen, which was large enough to run a restaurant, and on through the dining room, which was large enough to entertain a government, and then out through a set of French doors to the brick patio, which was large enough to hold a high school graduation.
There was another grand stairway, this one outside and made of stone, that spilled onto a cobblestone path that led down to the dock, where Ethan Burdett was in their twenty?foot, vintage?style, mahogany?and?fiberglass runabout, leaning over the side and scrubbing a black smudge off the gleaming, piano?key?white hull with a rag.
Ethan was in his fifties and tennis?court fit, wearing a white yacht skipper’s cap, polo shirt, chinos, and Top?Siders without socks. Wade wondered if the attire was a legal requirement of boat ownership.
Unlike his wife’s, Ethan’s tan was natural, rather than applied, and the closest he’d been to a plastic surgeon was writing one checks. Wade thought Ethan would be a perfect actor for one of those Cialis ads, the ones that always ended with both couples sitting naked in separate his?and?hers bathtubs in a rainforest.
Gayle spoke up, her voice shaking. “Ethan, I have terrible news.”
Ethan glanced at Wade and assumed the worst. “Oh shit, which one of our cars did my son total this time? Tell me it’s not the Porsche.”
“It’s about Glory,” Gayle said. “She’s been killed.”
Ethan blinked hard, took off his hat, and sat down on one of the pleated leather seats that matched the color of the hull. “Jesus. What happened?”
“She left home to clean your place and ended up dead and dumped at the King Steel factory,” Wade said. “Did either of you see her yesterday morning?”
“I was stuck in an arbitration all day with a room full of lawyers,” Ethan said, then glanced at his wife. “Did you see her?”
Gayle shook her head. “She never showed up. I tried calling her cell, but she didn’t answer. I was furious about it. The house looked like such a dump after the weekend and we had the Wittens coming for dinner. I had to do the cleaning myself.”
Wade glanced back at the dump. It was a palace compared to anything in Darwin Gardens or even the tract?home sprawl of New King City.
“When did Glory start working for you?”
“About a year ago,” Ethan said. “She was part of the crew that cleans up my office at night. I was impressed by her work ethic and her positive attitude. She really wanted to make something of herself and I wanted to help her attain that goal.”
Gayle wiped a tear from her wide eyes. “I was cursing her all day for not showing up, and all that time, God only knows what horrors were being inflicted upon her. I am such a bitch.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, honey,” Ethan said. “Think instead about all the good things you did for her. We enriched her life in so many ways. You treated her like another member of our family. We all did.”
“Really?” Wade said. “So how many of your relatives clean your toilets and take a bus home to Darwin Gardens every night?”
Gayle stiffened up, pulling her shoulders back and aiming her breasts at Wade as if they were cannons. They certainly looked like they were loaded with large cannon balls.
“Are you implying that what happened to Glory is our fault for not inviting her to live under our roof? Maybe we should invite the gardener and the pool man to live with us too.”
“He knew what I meant,” Ethan said to his wife, then stood up and faced Wade. “I’d like to know why a simple patrolman is asking questions about a homicide. Isn’t that a job for a detective?”
“Yes, it is,” Wade said. “And the fact that I’m the one who’s here proves that Glory isn’t being treated like a member of your family at all.”
He turned and walked away.