Beneath a Weeping Sky

TWELVE

Sunday, April 21st

Graveyard Shift

2204 hours

“Are we done yet?” yawned Anthony Battaglia, rubbing eyes with the heels of his palms.

“Don’t do that,” Sully said.

“Do what?”

“Yawn. Don’t do it. You’ll get me started.”

Battaglia sighed. “This is never going to work. We’re wasting our time.”

The two officers sat in a gray 1978 Chevrolet Caprice, affectionately dubbed “The Gray Ghost” by the officers in the patrol division. The Ghost was the only civilian vehicle currently available to patrol for use in any undercover operations. Parked along the curb at Corbin Park, they watched Katie MacLeod walk around the park, feigning a workout in the cool, wet air.

At least it stopped raining, Sully thought.

The park ran about six blocks long and two across, making it a natural place for joggers to get in a run. Detective Tower sat alone in a small Toyota truck on the opposite corner of the park. With this configuration, MacLeod never left the sight of at least one cover team.

“Why won’t it work?” Sully asked, suppressing a yawn.

He had to admit he had his own doubts, but he was curious why Batts thought so, too. He watched as MacLeod approached a modest copse of trees near the far end of the park. That was a worry spot, according to Tower, given the rapist’s methods. If he was going to make a move on a woman in this park, the detective had told them that his bet was on that small treed area.

“There’s only about six billion reasons,” Battaglia answered.

“One for every person in the world, then.”

“Huh?”

“One for every-oh, never mind,” Sully shook his head. “Just give me some of those reasons, my brother.”

“I will, my brother.” Battaglia held up a finger. “First off, we’re sitting here in the Gray Ghost. Every criminal in River City knows this is a UC vehicle. This car is so burnt, charcoal pieces fall off as we’re driving down the street.”

“True,” Sully conceded. “But this guy probably isn’t your typical doper or thief. He might not know it’s an undercover ride.”

Battaglia snorted. “Everyone knows the Gray Ghost. And even if by some strange chance this maggot didn’t, how hard is it to figure out that two guys sitting in a car like this for any length of time are cops on a stakeout? Even an Irishman could figure it out.”

“Oh, tha’s a fine funny jest,” Sully said in thick brogue. “You’re a laugh fest. So what’s your solution?”

“To the car problem or the two guys problem?”

“Either.” Sully shrugged. “Both.”

Battaglia took a deep breath and let it out. “Well, Tower’s a dick, right?”

“I thought you said he was an asshole.”

“Haw, haw, haw,” Battaglia guffawed. “I meant detective. He’s an investigator.”

“Duh.”

“So, duh, maybe he could talk to his detective buddies over in Narcotics and get us a decent ride that isn’t like driving around a neon sign that says ‘cop’. I mean, come on. Some of those guys are driving Mustangs and BMWs.”

“Not all of them.”

“Bull crap. It’s like frickin’ Miami Vice over there. Plus they’ve got extra cars they’ve seized.”

“Those are the cars they use for undercover buys, right?”

Battaglia shrugged. “So?”

“So I’m sure they don’t want them getting burned off in a patrol operation,” Sully pointed out.

Battaglia’s eyebrows flew up. “A mere patrol operation? Well, I suppose not, but last time I checked, this was an investigative operation, headed up by a detective and commanded by the Major Crimes Lieutenant, so-”

“Okay, okay.” Sully raised his hands in surrender. “Even so, according to you, we’re still going to look like two cops sitting here, no matter what we’re driving.”

“That’s easy.” He pointed toward MacLeod as she emerged from the other side of the treed area. “She’s past the red zone.”

Sully grunted. Maybe Battaglia was right about this being a waste of time.

“So you solve the two guys problem like this,” Battaglia continued. “Get me a woman partner.”

“Oh, I’m sure Rebecca would be totally cool with that happening.”

Battaglia shrugged, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “Rebecca doesn’t have to know every little thing I do.”

A spark of anger flared in Sully’s stomach. “Now you’re just being an idiot.”

“What? How?”

“You’d step out on your wife? That’s stupid. And with someone here at work? That’s even stupider.”

Battaglia raised his hands in a placating gesture. “Easy, Irish. I’m just saying that if it was a man and a woman sitting here, it might look like a date or something. That’s all.”

“It might look like a couple of folks committing adultery, too.”

Battaglia laughed. “I suppose it might. But either way, Mr. Rapist Asshole isn’t going to pay too much attention, is he?”

Sully scowled. “Not nearly as much, no.”

“When did you get so Ten Commandments, anyway?”

“I’m not. Rebecca’s a good woman, that’s all.”

“I know. I married her.”

“I know. I was there.” Sully pointed to his chest. “Best man, remember?”

“I do,” Battaglia said, “though right now you’re acting more like you were the maid of honor.”

Sully fell silent. He knew Batts loved his wife, but he sometimes thought his partner took her for granted. He hadn’t figured out yet if that was because Battaglia actually did take her for granted or if he himself put Rebecca on too much of a pedestal. He figured it might be some of both. In any event, Battaglia and his wife seemed oblivious to his feelings and he intended to keep them that way.

“Check this out,” Battaglia said in a slightly lower voice.

He pointed, and Sully followed his gesture. A pair of men in dark clothing had appeared out of an alley and walked quickly to the edge of the park. After looking left and right, they turned and strode purposefully in MacLeod’s direction.

“Did Tower say anything about this guy having a partner?” he asked Battaglia.

Battaglia shook his head. “Nope. But what would that asshole know?”

Sully didn’t answer. The pair was less than two blocks away from MacLeod’s location. With both sets of people walking toward each other, the distance closed rapidly.

Battaglia lifted the portable radio to his lips.

2206 hours

“Adam-122 to Ida-409, you seeing this?”

Tower pressed the mike. “Affirmative.”

“You want us to move on them?”

He clicked the mike again. “Negative. Let’s see if they make a move.”

There was a pause, then an abrupt click in response. That was Battaglia’s way of telling him that he and O’Sullivan didn’t agree with his decision. Tower didn’t care. Instead, he focused on Katie’s exercise-walk gait as she rounded the corner of the park and turned to face the oncoming duo.

He wondered briefly if it were somehow possible that there were two rapists. He’d read cases in which rapists had partners, but they were rare. Especially when you factored in that it was a serial situation. Most partner jobs were spontaneous and had a definite alpha male forcing the issue.

Still, the purposeful stride of the two men in dark clothing concerned him. Were they planning to rob her? Or had he and Renee made a colossal error in analyzing the evidence?

He pressed the transmit button on his radio. “-409 to Adam-122.”

“Twenty-two,” came the clipped reply.

“See how close you can get,” he instructed, “but stay darked out.”

2207 hours

“Copy,” Battaglia said, then tossed the radio over to Sully. He put the car in gear and gave the accelerator a light nudge, sending the Gray Ghost rolling forward.

“Flip a U-ie,” Sully told him. “Come in from behind them. Otherwise, they’ll spot us and know something’s up.”

Battaglia waited until they reached the intersection where Howard Street ran into the park. Avoiding the brake pedal, he swung the car in as tight a circle as he could, turning around and facing the other direction. Without hesitating, he accelerated to the far end of the park. He made the turn northbound without braking and without chirping the tires.

“They’re about thirty yards apart,” Sully estimated. He lifted his small binoculars to his face and peered through them. The motion of the car made him jiggle too much to get a clear picture through the glasses.

“You think they’re going to rob her?” Battaglia asked him.

“I don’t know.”

Battaglia grunted in response. He turned west and pointed the Ghost directly at the pair of walking men. He accelerated as gently as possible, easing the car up to speed.

“Get right up on them before they have a chance to attack her,” Sully ordered.

“Tower said to wait-”

“I don’t care,” Sully said. “I’m not waiting until they club her over the head or something.”

Battaglia shook his head. “She sees them. She’ll be fine. Let’s wait until they make a move.”

Sully took a deep breath and let it out. He knew Battaglia was right, but it rankled him to put MacLeod in that kind of danger. Then again, she was a cop. She had to see them approaching, as they were within twenty yards now. Besides that, she had a gun in her fanny pack.

“Okay,” Sully agreed. “But get close.”

“What do you think I’m doing?”

“Imitating Driving Miss Daisy.”

Battaglia didn’t bother to reply. He let off the gas and put the car in neutral, allowing it to roll forward at fifteen miles an hour. “It’s like a Stealth Chevrolet,” he whispered to Sully.

Sully smiled absently. “It’d be nice if it came equipped with missiles, because these two are going to bolt as soon as they spot us.”

“One for each of us.”

“And MacLeod gets dealer’s choice on who she wants to chase.”

“Where the hell is Tower?” Battaglia groused. “Is he some kind of chicken or something?”

Sully didn’t answer. He watched as the two men closed the gap between them and MacLeod.

Ten yards.

Now five.

Three.

2208 hours

When the first man reached for her fanny pack, Katie twisted forcefully away. She turned her left side toward him and pulled her Glock.

“Police!” she shouted, pointing the muzzle into the face of the more aggressive of the two. “Don’t move!”

The man’s eyebrows shot up. Surprise flashed across his rugged features.

“Chto?” he asked in a guttural tone.

“Don’t you move!” Katie repeated. “Show me your hands!”

The man’s surprise melted into a cold smile. “Okay, yeah,” he said, raising his hands slowly.

A blur of movement came from his right. Katie jerked her pistol in that direction, but a crushing pain exploded at her elbow. Her gun flew through the air and fell clattering onto the pavement beside her. She cried out and staggered back a step. Before she could recover, the man who’d struck her glided forward, his eyes intense. His leg flashed out, catching her in the upper thigh. A shockwave of pain blasted down to her toes and upward into her chest. Her air left her. She sank to her opposite knee, struggling to keep her hands up.

Without hesitating, both men bounded away.

* * *

“Jesus! I told you!” Sully yelled. “Go, go, GO!”

Battaglia gunned the engine and fired up the headlights at the same time. The two shadowy figures scampered off to the north. As soon as they hit the north curb, they split up and ran in opposite directions.

“I got this one!” Battaglia shouted, pointing at the one running west. He slammed on the brakes, jammed the car into park and leapt from the driver’s seat in foot pursuit.

Sully scrambled out of the passenger seat and sprinted toward where MacLeod knelt, holding her leg.

“Are you okay?” he leaned down and asked her.

“Fine,” she said through gritted teeth. She reached for her gun, picking it up off the asphalt. “Go.”

Another set of headlights flashed on, bathing her in a yellowish glare. Sully glanced up at the lights, then straightened and raced eastbound after the second suspect.

* * *

Tower watched the attack on Katie in horror. For a moment, he froze in place. Then a pair of headlights flooded the scene in front of him and spurred him into action. He started the Toyota’s engine and hit his own headlights.

O’Sullivan was leaning over a kneeling MacLeod. He glanced up in Tower’s direction, then dashed away toward the northeast.

Tower cursed at his own hesitation. He dropped the small truck into gear and tore up to MacLeod’s location. As he arrived, the young officer stood up, clearly favoring one leg.

“Are you hurt?” Tower asked, slamming the truck door and walking toward her.

Katie laughed ruefully. “I think my pride just took a serious beating.”

“How’s your leg?”

Katie tested it gingerly, limping for several steps. She grimaced each time she put weight on her left leg.

“It’ll be fine,” she told him through a pained expression.

Tower brought his portable radio to his mouth. “Ida-409 to Adam-122. Update.”

There was no response.

“Adam-122, an update!” Tower barked into the radio.

Katie reached out and grabbed his wrist. He met her eyes and she shook her head. “Can’t you hear it?”

Tower’s eyes narrowed. “Hear what?”

2209 hours

“Police!” Battaglia yelled with each exhale. “Stop!”

The man in front of him didn’t slow or pause. With each stride, he seemed to pull farther away.

Battaglia renewed his effort, forcing his legs to pump harder and faster.

The suspect seemed to sense his advance and answered with a burst of his own.

You son of a bitch.

“You better quit running!” Battaglia yelled. “If I have to catch you, I’m going to kick your ass!”

Instead of slowing down, the suspect seemed to find an extra gear. He sprinted forward along the sidewalk, slowly widening the gap between them.

Battaglia pushed on, his breathing labored, his lungs burning.

* * *

Sully stretched out his stride, trying to eat up as much ground as possible with each step. The suspect in front of him was shifty, cutting through two yards and over one fence already. He ran in a zig-zag fashion, almost as if he expected Sully to start firing rounds after him.

“Police!” Sully yelled for the third time. “Stop!”

The suspect’s only reaction was to hop over a four-foot chain-link fence and sprint for the alley.

Feeling much lighter in civilian clothes than his usual uniform, which came complete with duty belt and bulletproof vest, Sully vaulted over the fence easily, barely needing to use his hands on the top edge.

The suspect turned back westward once he reached the alley. Sully momentarily lost sight of him behind a garage. Without pause, he sprinted after the dark figure.

* * *

“Hear what?” Tower asked her again.

“You’ve lost your patrol ears,” Katie told him. She limped over to the Gray Ghost and leaned inside the passenger seat, fishing for something. When she removed her hand, Tower immediately recognized what she held.

The portable radio.

Tower frowned. “You mean…”

Katie nodded. “Yeah. They’re out there chasing bad guys in the dark without backup and without a radio.”

2210 hours

“Goddamnit!” Battaglia yelled. “Where the hell did he go?”

He slowed to a walk, trying to listen for sounds of movement in the alley. The only noise that filled his ears was his own deep, ragged breaths.

The suspect had managed to get almost a block between the two of them before cutting into the alley. Battaglia walked down the dirt alley, looking left and right for hiding places, just in case the suspect had gone to ground.

But he knew that isn’t what happened.

Nope, the guy didn’t stop and hide. He just outran your fat, Italian ass.

Battaglia sighed. He wasn’t fat. And the son of a bitch was fast. Carl Lewis fast. Hell, he was The Flash fast.

The residential alley was quiet except for the sounds of his own breathing and the thud of his boots on the hard packed dirt and gravel. He thought about stopping and calling for a K-9 to track the suspect, but he knew it was useless. He didn’t have a radio to call for patrol units to set up a perimeter. Without a hard perimeter to contain the suspect, the K-9 track was useless. Even if the dog caught the scent, the suspect’s head start would never be overcome. He could keep running for an hour and they’d never catch up. And as fast as this guy motored, five minutes was all he needed to be halfway to China.

Battaglia continued his lonely walk down the dark alley.

* * *

The suspect reached the end of the alley and turned south. As he cut to his left, he slipped on a patch of wet grass and tumbled forward onto the sidewalk. Sully heard him grunt in pain. Before the man could scramble to his feet, Sully was on top of him.

“Down on your stomach!” He ordered as he grabbed the suspect’s arm at the wrist.

“Yob tvaya mat!”

Sully didn’t know what that meant, but from the tone he figured it wasn’t compliance. The thin man slipped and turned underneath him, trying to escape.

“Police! You’re under arrest!” Sully barked at him, refusing to release his grip on the man’s wrist.

The suspect answered by rolling onto his back and throwing a punch at Sully’s head.

* * *

“Take the car,” Tower instructed Katie, “and go after Battaglia. I’ll try to find O’Sullivan.”

Katie nodded. She slammed shut the passenger door of the Ghost and limped hurriedly around to the driver’s side.

Tower returned to his truck, reversed the engine and headed off toward the northeast.

Katie’s leg throbbed as she adjusted the seat to reach the pedals. She was grateful that the Ghost was an automatic. Operating a clutch right now was probably not an option.

She put the car into gear and flipped around to go after Battaglia.

* * *

The punch whizzed by Sully’s face, grazing his cheek and temple.

A shot of anger exploded in his chest. First this guy attacks Katie, then he runs from them and now he was going to punch him?

“Enough of this shit,” he growled at the suspect.

He slipped to the side, drew back his knee and drove it into the man’s buttocks. The man grunted in surprised pain, but managed to throw out another punch toward Sully. This second punch was a wild one and came nowhere near hitting him.

“Stop fighting!” Sully shouted. He slid to his left and fired his opposite knee. This one thudded into the soft tissue below the rib cage.

The suspect howled in pain. He curled his body into a fetal position.

Sully transitioned quickly into an arm bar, controlling the man’s elbow as well as his wrist. Using his leverage, he forced the suspect onto his stomach. Once he had that accomplished, he shuffled forward and lowered his left knee across the back of the man’s neck. Now he controlled three points — the head, the elbow and the wrist.

He’d won.

Propping the elbow against his right knee, Sully fished in his belt-line for the handcuffs hanging half-in and half-out of his jeans. He was grateful to find they hadn’t fallen out in the chase or during the brief struggle.

Like every other time he’d won a foot pursuit or a fight, the clicking sound the cuffs made when he ratcheted them onto the suspect’s wrist was like a symphony to his ears. As the second cuff clicked into place, a pair of headlights turned the corner and illuminated the two of them.

2212 hours

Katie found Battaglia trudging up the middle of Howard Street, three blocks from the park. If the lack of a prisoner didn’t tell the story of what happened, the sour expression on his face would have.

She slowed the Ghost, pulling up next to him. Without a word, Battaglia opened the door and dropped into the passenger seat in a huff. He slammed the door and stared straight ahead.

Katie didn’t say a word. She drove to the next block, turned and headed back toward the park.

“Goddamnit,” Battaglia muttered, staring out the window in sullen anger.

“Don’t feel bad,” Katie said, her leg still throbbing with each heartbeat. “At least you didn’t get your ass kicked like me.”

Battaglia sighed. “I guess this is the loser car, then, huh, MacLeod? All passengers must have gotten their ass kicked or been outran by a suspect?”

“I guess so.” She was quiet a moment, then said, “I hope Sully and Tower have better luck catching their guy.”

“Sully is the reincarnation of Bruce Jenner,” Battaglia said. “He’ll catch his guy. Besides, he went after the slow one.”

The pair rode in silence for a block. Then Katie said, “Bruce Jenner isn’t dead.”

“Huh?”

“Bruce Jenner is still alive.”

“So?”

“So you can’t have a reincarnation of someone who is still alive. That’s not how it works.”

“Whatever,” Battaglia said, shrugging away her comment. After a second, he shook his head to himself. “That son of a bitch was fast.”

“Kicks like a mule, too,” Katie added. She reached down and massaged her bunching quadriceps.

“You all right?”

“Hurts like hell,” she said. “But what’s worse, these guys weren’t even who we were after. They’re not rapists. Probably just a couple of crooks who saw an opportunity to rob someone.”

“Assholes,” muttered Battaglia.

2249 hours

Tower stood in the small observation room next to Katie. Both stared through the one-way glass at the slender man seated in the interview room. Under the light, his features were clearly Slavic.

“He looks Russian,” Katie guessed.

“Safe bet,” Tower said. “There’s been thousands of them pouring in to River City since the fall of the Soviet Union.”

“We’ve noticed it on patrol,” Katie told him. “All across the boards, too — witnesses, victims and suspects. A noticeable increase in contacts with Russians.”

“Well, this one is definitely in the ‘suspect’ category. The question is, of what?”

Katie shook her head. “He’s not a rapist. They went for my fanny pack. It was a straight up robbery.”

“Which one went for the bag?”

Katie pointed at the man in the interview room. “He did. The one that got away is the one who kicked me.”

“Did he say anything that made you think he might be after more than money?”

“He didn’t say anything at all,” she answered. “He just reached for my fanny pack. It was a robbery, not a rape. Besides, you never said anything about The Rainy Day Rapist being a team.”

Tower shrugged. “This isn’t an exact science. I could be wrong.”

“You know you’re not.”

“I could be.”

Katie snorted lightly. “You’re wasting your time.”

“I’m paid by the hour,” Tower said. He squeezed Katie on the shoulder and left the observation room. As he stepped through the doorway, he almost bumped into Lieutenant Crawford.

“Sorry,” he murmured.

Crawford ran his hand through his thinning, tousled hair. “See me in my office after your interview, Tower.”

“Yes, sir.”

Tower took three hurried steps to the interview room door. At the door, he took a deep breath and put on his game face. Then he turned the knob and went in.

The man looked up at the sound of his entrance. His face was calm, despite the small scrape on his cheek and the smudge of dirt on his forehead. His eyes fixed Tower with a hard, appraising stare.

Tower sat down opposite him. For a long minute, the two men looked intently at each other from across the small table. Neither blinked.

“What’s your name?” Tower finally asked.

The Russian did not speak. His flat expression radiated a cold hatred back at Tower.

“Do you speak English?” Tower asked.

“Da.”

“Then answer my question. What’s your name?”

A small smile curled at the edge of his thin lips. “Do you know that I could refuse to tell you? Or give you any name I wish? You would never know difference. You not have my fingerprints.”

Tower matched his smile with his own. “Let’s start over. You know you don’t have to talk to me, right?”

“Da. Of course.”

“And that you can have an attorney, if you want?”

The Russian snorted. The line of his mouth went straight and hard, all hint of the smile gone.

“You don’t want an attorney?” Tower asked.

“In my country,” the Russian replied, “we have saying. God, he want to punish mankind, so he send lawyers.”

Tower allowed himself a small grin. “I think we just found something to agree about.”

The Russian did not return his smile, but instead shook his own head. “I no need lawyer. I do nothing wrong.”

“Well, since you know so much,” Tower said, “do you know that I can hold you until I do identify you? Even if that means sending your prints back to Moscow?”

The Russian shook his head again. “No. Is America. You will set me free.”

Tower chuckled. “Hate to break this to you, pal, but that isn’t how it works. Even here in the Socialist Republic of Washington, we can hold people who commit felonies until they’re identified.”

“What is felony?”

“A crime,” Tower said. “A serious one.”

“What crime? I get scared because girl point gun at me and then men chase. You should arrest her, not me.”

“She’s a cop.”

The Russian blinked. “She is cop, this girl with gun?”

“Yep.”

He shrugged. “But I no do nothing. She is one who points gun at me. Crazy, this girl.”

“What’s your name?” Tower asked again.

The man considered, then shrugged again. “Is fine. I no do nothing wrong, so I tell you.”

“Thank you. What is it?”

The Russian drew himself up in his seat. When he spoke, his voice had a touch of pride in it. “I am Valeriy Alexandrovich Romanov.”

“Your name is Valerie?”

“Nyet. Valeriy.” He pronounced it slowly. “Vuh-LAIR-ey. You see?”

“Here in America, that’s a girl’s name.”

Romanov shrugged. “Many things different between America and my country.”

“Yeah?” Tower asked. “What do they do with rapists over there?”

“What is this word? Rapist?”

Tower raised his hand and made a circle with this thumb and forefinger. Then he lifted his middle finger and thrust it in and out of the hole he’d created.

Romanov’s eyes narrowed. “You think I try make sex on this girl?”

“Didn’t you?”

“Nyet. I no do nothing.” Romanov shook his head. “I no need to do that. I get woman when I want. Many woman.”

“Well, it ain’t about the sex, pal,” Tower told him. “It’s about other things. Like being angry at women. Or being an inadequate. You know, stuff like that.”

Romanov glared at him. “I no do nothing,” he repeated.

“If I run your name through Interpol, what will I find?” Tower asked him.

“Go find out,” Romanov told him. “I no tell you shit.”

“I’ll bet you’ve got a record over there, Valerie.”

“Valeriy,” Romanov corrected.

“I’ll bet that record will tell me a whole lot of interesting things, Valerie,” Tower continued, ignoring his correction. “I’ll bet you’ll have a whole slew of indicator crimes like weenie waving, minor assaults, the whole gamut.”

“What are these things you say?” Romanov asked. “Negavahru po angliscky. I no speak English much.”

“You understand me perfectly well.”

“Nyet.”

“How many women have you attacked here in River City, Valerie?”

“I no do noth-”

“How many did you rape?”

“Nyet. You think I do that, then you more stupid than I first think.”

Tower watched Romanov while they spoke. He knew the Russian was lying about the attempted robbery, but everything he saw told him the man was being truthful about the subject of rape.

Which I already knew, Tower thought to himself. No victim mentioned accents. None mentioned a second suspect. He was wasting his time.

“Maybe you’re right,” Tower told Romanov. “Maybe I am stupid. Maybe you aren’t a rapist. But I saw you try to steal that fanny pack.”

“Nyet. Is not true.”

“I watched you reach right out and try to take it. So did three other cops, including the ‘girl’ you tried to steal it from. Now, are you going to sit there and deny that?”

Romanov gazed back at Tower, his countenance flat. “I no do nothing,” he said.

Tower sighed and stood up. “Well, then I guess you’ll like it here in America, Valerie. Because we throw innocent people who ‘no do nothing’ into jail, too.”

The corner of Romanov’s mouth twitched into a smile. “I very scared at U.S. jails,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “So much worse than Russia.”

Tower waited a moment longer, but could think of nothing to say, so he turned and left the room.

2310 hours

Katie sat in the women’s locker room, her leg propped up on the long bench that ran down the center of the aisle. Her locker stood open, a calendar depicting a lighthouse displayed on the inside door.

I’d like to be there right now, she thought. Yaquina Head Lighthouse, on the coast of Oregon. Surrounded by fog. The smell of salt water in the air. A brisk wind making you glad that the door to the lighthouse was so close.

Of course, she probably couldn’t climb the stairs right now with her throbbing quadriceps. She kneaded the bunched muscle and grimaced in pain. She’d trained in defensive tactics ever since the academy. That repertoire of kicks included one very similar to what the Russian suspect had used on her — a hard, low blast to the quadriceps. Although she’d taken those shots in training, it had never been full force. Usually, she knew it was coming and had time to turn her leg or retract it defensively. There’d been soreness, but never the kind of cramping, pulsating pain this kick had wrought.

A loud knock came at the locker room door. A moment later, the door nudged open a crack.

“All females decent in there?”

Katie grinned. The gravelly voice of Thomas Chisolm always made her feel better. “It’s all clear,” she called back.

The door swung open. Thomas Chisolm strode into the room. He spied Katie in her gym shorts and averted his eyes. “Jesus, MacLeod, you didn’t tell me you were half-naked.”

“Don’t be such a prude. They’re workout shorts.”

Chisolm kept his head turned, but stole a glance at her out of the corner of his eye. “All right, then. I’m just a stranger to what goes on in the women’s locker room. Never know what to expect.”

“Oh, it’s pretty much what all you guys imagine,” Katie said. “When we’re not standing around naked and rubbing lotion on ourselves, it’s a big lesbian love-fest.”

“Save that for Giovanni,” Chisolm said. “Or Sully and Battaglia. They might just believe you.” He looked around. “It is nice in here, though.”

“You want the full tour?”

Chisolm shook his head. “Nah. I didn’t come to compare digs.” He reached into his back pocket and removed a small jar. “I brought you some magic juice.”

Katie squinted at him. “Magic what?”

Chisolm approached and swung his leg over the bench, straddling it at her feet. “Sully said you took a hard kick to the leg?”

Katie pressed her lips together. “Yeah, so?” She wondered if the two of them were yukking it up over the girl getting her ass kicked. Well, at least she hadn’t let the guy get away in a foot pursuit.

Chisolm pointed to her propped leg. “This one?”

Katie nodded.

Chisolm settled onto the bench. He twisted the top off the small container and dug his first two fingers inside. When he removed them, his fingers were coated in a thick gel.

“What is that?” she asked him.

“I told you,” Chisolm said with a grin. “It’s magic juice. Now, where did that bastard kick you?”

Katie shook her head. “No way, Tom. You’re not putting that stuff on me. Not without telling me what it is.”

“Calf or quad?”

“Quad,” Katie said, “but what the hell is that?”

Chisolm fixed her with an amused look. “You don’t believe in magic, MacLeod?”

“No.”

“How about secret medicine?”

“No.”

“Wow.” Chisolm motioned toward her quadriceps. “Does it hurt?”

“Yeah,” she admitted.

“Throbs? Tries to cramp up?”

“Both.”

Chisolm proffered his gooey fingers to her. “That’s what the magic juice is for.”

Katie hesitated, then said, “All right. I trust you.”

Chisolm smiled. “Good.” He held his fingers out toward her hand.

Katie shook her head. “Uh, no. I don’t want to touch that stuff, whatever it is. You do it.”

“Fair enough,” Chisolm said. He reached toward her leg. Just before touching her, he paused. “This might hurt a little.”

“Hurt? But you never said-”

Chisolm smeared the thick yellow goop over the skin of her quadriceps. The cool sensation made her gasp lightly, though it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Then Chisolm dug his fingers into her muscle, rubbing in the ointment.

Katie exhaled sharply. Jolts of pain zipped from her leg outward through her entire body. All of her muscles tightened up. She gripped the sides of the bench with her fingers and let out a quiet curse.

Chisolm said nothing. His strong fingers kneaded her leg muscle, the roughness of his skin scraping and sliding across hers. The two remained silent while the veteran officer worked in the ointment. The coolness spread across her entire outer thigh. She could feel the sensation seeping into the muscle.

Katie noticed that Chisolm focused on her leg with the clinical distance of a family doctor. She wondered for a moment how many of the other men she worked with would be comfortable rubbing medication onto her leg without making it into something more. How many of them would be able to do something like that and then not run off to the rest of the platoon to spill the secret like some kind of schoolboy?

To be fair, she wondered how many men she’d feel safe enough with to let herself be touched? And were there some that she might react to with a hand on her leg? More than one kind of reaction, she decided, depending on who it was.

The last thing she noticed before Chisolm drew his hands away was that he had studiously avoided the inner thigh.

“There,” he said, twisting the cap back onto the container. “Give it about ten minutes to dry before you put anything over the top of it.”

Katie gazed down at her leg. The skin bore a yellow tinge. The cool sensation seemed to be shifting into something warmer in the brief seconds since Chisolm’s touch.

“You want to tell me what it is now?” Katie said. “It’s starting to get warm.”

“Good,” Chisolm said. “It should feel like a heat pad for a few hours.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Chisolm slid the canister back into his pocket. “Well, let me put it this way. Do you remember when you were a kid and had a stuffy nose? Your mom probably put some of that vapor rub stuff on your chest before you went to bed, right?”

“My dad usually did stuff like that,” Katie answered, “but yeah.”

“Well, this is sorta like a Ben-Gay version of that. With a little aspirin mixed in.” Chisolm shrugged, then added, “And a couple of herbal remedies I read about a few years ago.”

Katie looked at him in wonder. “Wow, Tom. I never figured you for a medicine man.”

Chisolm grinned broadly. Katie noticed that the thin white scar that ran from his temple to the corner of his mouth faded into his laugh lines a little when smiled like that.

“Once you hit forty, MacLeod, you look for relief anywhere you can find it,” he said, lifting his pant leg and wiping the excess gel on his own lower calf. “See?”

“Old age and Russians that kick like Chuck Norris,” Katie said. “An odd combination for a cure, even if it is magic juice.”

Chisolm faked a scowl. “Who’s old? I said forty.” Then he smiled and tapped Katie lightly on the shoulder with his left hand. “Rest up, MacLeod. We’re back at it tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” Katie said, her gratitude genuine. “And I will. See you tomorrow.”

Chisolm winked at her, rose and left the ladies’ locker room.

2321 hours

Tower sat in Crawford’s office, rubbing his sleepy eyes. The heavy breathing of the Major Crimes Lieutenant irritated him, but he tried to hide his frustration.

“You sure hit a home run with that interview, Tower,” Crawford said sarcastically.

Tower shrugged. “I’m not much of a diplomat.”

“Why exactly is he in custody?”

“We tried to catch a trout and landed a perch.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

Tower rubbed his eyes again. “It means he didn’t do the rape, so we lost nothing there. And we have witnesses on the robbery attempt, so who cares what he says?”

“Nice attitude,” Crawford said. “This task force of yours is not only crapping out, but it is causing collateral damage.”

“Collateral what?”

“Collateral damage,” Crawford repeated. “First, you’ve got MacLeod cranking off rounds under the bridge at no one. Now you’re arresting Boris.”

“MacLeod’s thing was an accident,” Tower said in a low voice. “And the Russian tried to rob our decoy.”

“There was nothing accidental about MacLeod firing her duty weapon without cause. It was a choice.”

“It was a reaction.”

“It was a reaction that makes me wonder if you picked the right patrol officers to support your operation, detective,” Crawford snapped. “And when I get called down here in the middle of the night on a goddamn attempted robbery call, something is definitely wrong.”

“I’m sorry,” Tower said. “There’s only about two hundred thousand people in this city. Half are male. That leaves me one hundred thousand suspects. If you filter out non-whites and those too young or too old, that leaves about fifty thousand potential rapists. The odds that this particular guy will bite at our decoy aren’t that great.”

Crawford gave him a dark look. “I’m not interested in odds, Tower. I’m interested in results. You better figure something out.”

“I’m working on it,” Tower said.

“If you can’t handle it, I can put a homicide detective in charge,” Crawford told him.

Tower gritted his teeth. “It’s my case. It’ll make.”

Crawford sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Then what’s your next move?”

“We tried south of Clemons Park and it didn’t work. We’ll try to the north of it next.” He peered at Crawford through sleepy eyes. “What are you going to do about MacLeod’s A.D.?”

“Never mind. Concentrate on catching your bad guy.”

“I just don’t want that hanging over her, is all,” Tower said. “Distracting her.”

“If she’s distracted, replace her.”

“I don’t want to replace her. She’s good.”

“Good at what?” Crawford snapped. “Killing rats or getting robbed?”

“No,” Tower said, his voice tightening up. “She’s good at looking like a victim. She’s good bait.”

“Everybody has to be good at something, I guess.”

Tower clenched his jaw. Why does Crawford have to be such an insufferable prick every day of his life?

“Meanwhile,” the lieutenant said, “keep her focused or replace her. I’ll tell you what we’ll do about the A.D. after I meet with the Captain.”

“I thought this was your operation.”

“Watch it, Tower.”

Tower held up his hands in a peaceful gesture. “I’m just asking.”

“What you’re being is a smart ass,” Crawford snarled. “Besides, it is my operation. But MacLeod is Patrol, so I’ll let the Patrol Captain decide what’s to be done about her accidental discharge.”

Tower nodded his understanding.

And I’m sure the two of you will make that decision over a couple of stogies in his office. You prick.

“Anything else you want to say, Tower?”

“No, sir.”

Crawford nodded. “All right, then. Have there been any other developments in your case, besides the screw-ups by your task force team?”

“None,” Tower told him sullenly.

“No lab results? Nothing from Crime Analysis?”

“Nope.”

“Any tips?”

“Nothing credible.”

Crawford swore and rubbed his eye. When he’d finished, he looked up at Tower. He seemed to appraise the detective for a few moments, then said, “Go home and get some sleep. You look like shit.”

“Thanks, boss,” Tower dead-panned.

“I’m serious,” Crawford said. “Get some sleep.”

Tower rose from his chair. “I will,” he said, and left.

He planned to do exactly what Crawford ordered. He just wanted to stop by his desk and review the files once more. In case he missed something.

When he’d settled into his chair and switched on the desk lamp, he figured maybe he’d check for any Field Interview Reports from patrol, too. And he might as well check on a few tips while he was at it. Just in case.

He wouldn’t be long.

Fifteen, twenty minutes. Tops.

But it was almost three in the morning when he finally switched out the light at his desk and drove home on deserted streets. As he stood undressing in the darkness of his bedroom, he could hear Stephanie’s light, rhythmic breathing. He slid in next to her, kissed her bare shoulder and fell asleep in less than ten seconds.