Heroes Often Fail

NINE

2053 hours

Officer Katie MacLeod walked past the sergeant’s office toward the roll call room. The door was closed but through the door’s glass window, she saw Lieutenant Saylor and Sergeant Shen talking with the Major Crimes Lieutenant. Shen looked up and noticed her pass by. He gave her a barely perceptible nod.

Once in the roll call room, Katie walked to the Baker Sector table to choose a chair. Seating wasn’t assigned, but police officers were creatures of habit and slaves to seniority. Everyone had their own chair around the table and it was a major event if someone broke the seating chart rules.

“You about done with that, Matt?” she asked Matt Westboard, choosing an empty chair and sitting down. He was reading the daily intelligence flyer from a three ring binder that contained the last several months worth of bulletins.

“No,” Westboard said, pretending to ignore her.

“Good thing there’s pictures on those flyers,” Katie teased. “Otherwise, it’d be a quick read for you.”

Westboard glanced up at her, then around the room. Satisfied that there were no ears that might be offended, he jabbed back. “The only pictures today are from the ad for your 1-900 number. Unfortunately, they’ve been blacked out in places-“

Katie threw her pen at him and caught him square in the forehead with the cap end of her plastic Bic.

“Whoa, MacLeod!”

“You should watch what you say, Westboard.”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s all fun and games until someone gets an eye put out.” He picked up the pen and put it in his breast pocket. “If you think I’m giving this back to you, you’re nuts.”

“Keep it,” she said. “I’ve got plenty.”

“Plenty of callers, huh?”

Katie flashed her middle finger at him.

Westboard feigned shock. “Not a very lady-like gesture.”

“Are you finished with the flyer or not?”

Westboard slid the binder across the table to her. “I’m only giving you this to avoid having knives thrown at me next.”

Katie pretended to ignore him and scanned the flyer. It consisted of noteworthy events and arrests made recently, outstanding wanted persons of some notoriety and unsolved crimes. It was an accomplishment of some measure in the patrol division to make an arrest that found its way into the daily intelligence flyer.

As she read, other members of her platoon drifted in and took their seats. Anthony Battaglia sat immediately to her left. She could smell his cologne, which wasn’t unpleasant, just a little too strong. Connor O’Sullivan sat directly across from O’Sullivan.

“You done with that flyer yet, Katie?” Battaglia asked her. He spoke with an intentional hint of a New York accent. Sometimes he and O’Sullivan spent their entire shift with Battaglia speaking in a thick New York Italian accent while O’Sullivan used a barely decipherable Irish brogue.

Katie slid the binder across the table to him.

“What am I, chopped liver?” O’Sullivan asked her.

“You gotta ask for sumpin’ to get it, Sully,” Battaglia said, upping his accent a notch.

“Oh, really?” retorted O’Sullivan in Irish brogue. “Well, will ya listen to the guinea over here with all the answers to life’s many mysteries?”

“Do you guys ever quit?” Katie asked.

“Never!” O’Sullivan said. “Never quit until the English are driven out and Ireland is free of tyranny!”

“Stupid Mick,” Battaglia muttered.

O’Sullivan smiled.

Battaglia smiled.

Simultaneously, they extended a middle finger at each other.

Katie laughed in spite of herself.

“You ever going to choose a seat, MacLeod?” Officer James Kahn asked, sliding into his self-assigned chair. Katie imagined that he’d been sitting in that same plastic chair so long, it probably bore the impression of his buttocks. “Every time I come to roll call, you’re in a different seat.”

Kahn was still looking at her, so she tilted her head from side to side and said in her best ditzy voice, “They’re all so nice, I just can’t make up my mind.”

Everyone except Kahn broke into a smile. He stared disapprovingly at her for a minute, then turned to Battaglia. “You done with the flyer?”

“I’ve got dibs,” Sully said.

“Screw your dibs,” Kahn said. “I’ve got seniority.”

Sully opened his mouth to reply, but the door to the roll call room swung open and Sergeant Shen and Lieutenant Saylor walked in together. Shen took his position at the head of the Baker Sector table and Saylor stepped up to the podium. He addressed all three platoons.

“Listen up,” he said, and the conversation died down. He handed several sheets of paper to one of the officers at the Adam sector table. “Here’s a few stolen vehicles and some fresh warrants that I’ll pass around. The main thing I want to go over tonight is the kidnapping of a little girl earlier today.”

There was a low murmur throughout the room. Katie leaned forward and listened carefully.

Saylor continued, “Some of you may have seen something about it on the news. At about 0830 this morning, six-year-old Amy Dugger was abducted from the area of 4800 N. Waterbury. The suspect vehicle was a full size blue or brown van. The driver was a black male, very large. The guy who grabbed her was a Hispanic male, jeans and yellow shirt. He wore a full face mask, had a Mexican accent and a tattoo on his right elbow of a spider web.”

“There’s an original idea,” Kahn muttered loudly.

Saylor looked up. “As of now, this little girl is still missing. There haven’t been any ransom requests made. We’ve teletyped all Western States police agencies and there’s been some news coverage already. Detectives Tower and Browning have been assigned the case. They would appreciate you stopping anything out there that resembles this description.”

“That might ruffle a few feathers, El-Tee,” Thomas Chisolm said from the Charlie Sector table.

“I don’t really care, Tom,” Saylor said. “There’s a little girl missing.”

“I agree,” Chisolm said. “I’m just saying, there will be feathers ruffled.”

Saylor looked out at the assembled officers. “Let me be clear. If you see a van matching this description, stop it. Be polite. Be professional. But you stop anything moving that matches this description and then let me and the administration worry about the fallout. Like I said, there’s a little girl missing.”

There was a collective murmur of agreement.

“All right. Carry on, then,” Saylor said. He left the podium and exited the roll call room.

The sergeants began their platoon meetings.

“If you have any problems like Chisolm mentioned,” Sergeant Shen told Baker Sector, “just call me. I’ll try to deal with it before it becomes a complaint. Like the lieutenant said, be professional and be polite. But dig. Any questions?”

There were none.

“Okay,” Shen said. “Make sure you read the stolens and warrants that are floating around and let’s hit the streets.”

The group stood almost in unison to leave.

“Katie,” Shen said. “I need to see you in the office, please.”

Katie’s face flushed slightly. “Yes, sir.”

Shen nodded and left the table.

Battaglia made an “ooh” sound.

“Think you’re in a wee bit o’trouble there, lass?” O’Sullivan half-sang.

Katie ignored them and followed Shen.

“Hopefully he’s going to talk to her about picking a goddamn seat and sticking with it,” Kahn said.

In the sergeant’s office, Shen was already doing paperwork. He looked up when Katie entered. “Guys give you a razzing?”

She shrugged.

Shen smiled. “They like you. You know that, don’t you?”

Katie shrugged again. She considered Westboard a friend, though they didn’t associate off-duty. Battaglia and O’Sullivan were like twins, but they seemed to tolerate her at least. Kahn definitely did not like her.

“I’m serious,” Shen said. “Cops only tease other cops if they like them.”

“Did I do something wrong, Sarge?”

Shen’s eyebrows raised slightly in surprise. “Wrong? No. Is that why you think I called you in here?”

She turned over her palms and shrugged.

Shen shook his head. “No, you’re doing fine, Katie. I have a special assignment for you tonight, that’s all.”

“What kind of assignment?”

“It is part of the kidnapping detail,” Shen told her. “Officer Giovanni is assigned to the victim’s family. He needs to be relieved.”

“Doing what?”

“Being there in case there’s a ransom demand. Or if the family thinks of something important.”

Babysitting, Katie thought. And who better to baby-sit than the girl on the platoon?

“You look disappointed,” Shen said.

Katie disguised her expression. “No, sir.”

“All right, then,” Shen said, handing her the address on a slip of paper. “Go ahead and head straight up there to relieve Giovanni. He’ll relieve you at 0700 hrs tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, sir,” Katie said and left the office.

Down in the basement, she exacted some measure of revenge by refusing to tell any of her sector-mates what the sergeant had wanted, no matter how wildly they speculated. She stood waiting for a car to come in with her patrol bag at her feet.

After a few minutes, the heckling died down. Westboard wandered over and stood next to her. “You okay?” he asked.

“Fine,” she said sharply, and immediately regretted it.

Westboard waited a few seconds, then asked, “Something the sergeant said?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Boyfriend trouble?”

Katie glanced sideways at him, wondering if he knew about her and Stef. His expression was open, though, and without guile.

“No.”

“Family?”

“No. Matt, I’m fine.”

He nodded slowly, then asked, “Problems with the 1-900 phone line?”

She gave a small laugh. “Yeah, that’s it.”

“I figured,” Westboard said.

Swing shift rolled into the long basement sally port and parked in a line. The graveyard officers waited a few minutes for the swing shift officers to de-plane.

“You wanna get coffee later?” Westboard asked her.

“Can’t,” she said, picking up her bag. “I got stuck on a babysitting detail.”

Westboard’s brow furrowed in confusion, but Katie ignored him and took the nearest vehicle. After conducting a swift pre-flight check, she strapped her patrol bag into the passenger seat and pulled out of the basement.

Without thinking, she sound-checked the siren and air horn and checked the emergency lights. Everything worked fine.

The drive up to the Dugger residence was a quick one. The after-work rush hour was long past and the traffic was thin. She pulled up behind Giovanni’s marked car and got out. As she walked up the sidewalk to the house, she saw Giovanni’s face peering out the kitchen window at her. He met her at the door.

“Hey, MacLeod,” he said in a whisper. “Welcome to baby-sitter central.”

2209 hours

Thomas Chisolm drove slowly around the lower south hill neighborhood, watching for any blue or brown vans, whether moving or parked. Each time he came across one, he ran the license plate, then had the dispatcher check the registered owner. If the R.O. was a black male, he made a note of it. He planned to drop off the list to Detective Browning in the morning.

After the third or fourth license plate, the dispatcher figured out what he was doing. After the seventh or so, she was sick of him doing it. Chisolm didn’t care. Dispatchers came and went. A little girl was missing.

When he heard his call-sign come over the radio on the main south side channel, he was reasonably certain that the data channel operator had told the south side operator to make sure he went to the next call.

“Charlie-143, Charlie-145?”

Chisolm clicked his mike.

He heard Charlie-145, Officer Bill Lindsay, answer up with his location. As usual, he was far south and away from the crime-ridden areas of their sector.

Chisolm shook his head in disgust. It wasn’t that he had anything against rich people getting a ticket-in fact, the idea somewhat appealed to him-it was just that whenever Lindsay was called, he was deep south. That meant that he wasn’t going to be there to back anyone up very quickly.

“An unwanted guest, downtown at the State Theater,” the dispatcher said. “Complainant is the theater manager, who says a white male in his forties entered without a ticket and is refusing to leave. Description of suspect available.”

“Disregard the description,” Chisolm said into the microphone. He considered going Code 4 and disregarding Lindsay, but decided against it. He’d let the lazy bastard drive downtown and do a little police work for a change. He was next up on the detective’s promotional list and would soon get made, anyway. Then he’d be able to duck work even more effectively.

“Copy Charlie-143,” the dispatcher said. Chisolm imagined her and the data channel operator slapping a high five.

There was a short silence on the radio. Chisolm knew Lindsay was waiting, hoping someone offered to go in his place or that Chisolm would go Code 4. After a short time, he came on the air.

“Charlie-145, copy,” he said in a dejected voice.

Chisolm smiled to himself.

His smile faded as he headed downtown. He was reasonably certain that it was a drunken bum who had wandered in to the business. Downtown was full of winos, due to several outreach centers being located there. There were three competing churches that gave out sandwiches and bible verses on different days of the week. The transient population generally behaved themselves when they were in the outreach centers because to act up was to get booted out. However, once the doors closed for the evening, it was time to get liquored up and sleep in an alley or under the freeway. The luckier ones found their way into the Detox center, which was also conveniently downtown.

He felt disgust for some, pity for others. Most claimed to be Vietnam vets and most were lying. As a veteran of that war himself, he took considerable exception to those false claims.

As he pulled up in front of the State Theater, a kid about nineteen in a faux tuxedo and a red bow tie stood impatiently out front.

“Charlie-143, on scene,” Chisolm told Dispatch.

“Copy,” the dispatcher said.

“Charlie-145, I’m still a long ways off,” Lindsay said, a last minute plea for reprieve.

Chisolm switched on his portable radio as he turned off the police car and stepped out. No other units answered up to rescue Lindsay. It was still early in the year, but his sector-mates were wise to Lindsay’s games.

“Are you here for the trespasser?” the kid in the tux asked.

Chisolm glanced up at the marquee for a moment, then back at the kid. “Huh?”

“I’m the manager,” the kid said. “I called the police for a trespasser. He’s inside.” He pointed. When Chisolm didn’t respond immediately, he dropped his arm. “Are you here for that?”

Chisolm shook his head. “Nope.” He pointed up at the marquee. “I’m here to see Dances With Wolves.”

Confusion swept over the manager’s features, headed toward panic. “But I’ve got this guy inside…”

“Relax, kid,” Chisolm said with a smile. “I’m just pulling your leg.”

The manager gave him another confused look, then relief took over. “Oh. Okay.” He smiled. “You had me going there.”

“I gathered. You’ve got a transient inside?”

“Uh, yeah. Well, a guy, anyway. I don’t know if he’s a transient or not.”

“Does he stink?”

“Huh?”

“Does the guy inside stink?”

The manager shook his head.

“No? Well, maybe he isn’t a transient, then.” He reached inside and grabbed his flashlight and slid it onto his belt. “Let’s find out.”

The manager led him to the row of glass doors, past a bug-eyed girl in the ticket kiosk and into the lobby. Two teenagers in mock tuxedos with black ties stood at the snack bar watching them.

There was no sign of anyone else in the lobby.

Chisolm looked at the manager and turned up his palms.

The manager swallowed and turned to the employees at the snack bar. “That guy in the army jacket-where’d he go?”

The boy behind the counter shrugged, but the girl pointed. “He said he was going to find his baby. I think he went into three.”

The manager looked at Chisolm. “Three is our smallest screen. It’s this way.”

Chisolm held out his arm. “Lead on.”

The manager turned and strode purposefully away. Chisolm followed.

As he walked, the manager looked over his shoulder. “We show second run children’s features on this screen.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. So maybe the guy is looking for a runaway kid or something.”

“Did you ask him?”

“No, sir. He wouldn’t tell us why he wanted in. He was just talking constantly about finding his baby and not listening to a word that I said. That’s why I-“

As they rounded a corner, Chisolm saw a pair of doors at the end of a short hallway. One was swinging open and a bearded man in his forties limped out.

“Where’s my baby!” he shouted at the manager.

The manager froze, which allowed Chisolm to stride past him.

“Hey, partner,” Chisolm said. “What’s going on?”

The man’s eyes were frantic and when they lighted on Chisolm, it was several moments before a flicker of recognition for his uniform registered in them.

“Shit,” he muttered.

Chisolm ignored the profanity and closed space with the man. Once he was an arm’s length away, he gave the man his most disarming smile. He knew that when he did that, the thin white scar that ran the length of his face stood out.

“What’s going on tonight?”

The man swallowed and glanced nervously over his shoulder. “Nothing,” he muttered.

Chisolm kept his smile up, but watched the man’s hands. They hung limply at his sides, visible and empty.

“Well, there’s something going on,” he told the man, “because the cops are here.”

That brought a rueful grin from the man. “True enough,” he said.

“What’s your name, friend?” Chisolm asked. He could smell the faint odor of alcohol on the man, but not the rotten, permanent smell that most transients carried. And although the bottoms of his jeans were dirty, he didn’t have the days upon days of dirt look about him.

“Kevin,” he said.

“Kevin?” Chisolm noticed his hair was uncombed and his eyes seemed a little unfocused. He began to wonder if the guy was more of a Signal Forty-eight, a mental.

“Yeah. Kevin.”

“Kevin, what’s the deal here? The manager said you came in looking for someone.”

Kevin shot the manager a dirty look, the kind reserved for snitches.

“Who’re you looking for, Kevin?”

“My baby,” he mumbled.

“Boy or girl?”

“Boy,” Kevin said. “Three months old.”

Chisolm raised his eyebrows. “Three months old and he walked in all by himself?”

Kevin’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t make fun, motherfucker. It’s a serious matter.”

Chisolm forced his smile to remain in place. “Fair enough, Kevin. What’s your baby’s name?”

“What do you care?”

“It’s my job to care. Besides, who doesn’t care about kids?”

Kevin grunted.

“What’s your boy’s name?”

“Kyle.”

“Okay, good. Nice name. Who’s Kyle with tonight?”

“His whore mother,” Kevin said, his voice rising slightly. His fists clenched and unclenched.

Chisolm ignored the epithet. “What’s her name?”

“Cindy the Fucking Whore.”

“Does she have a last name, Kevin?”

“Harrison.”

Chisolm tilted his head toward the manager, keeping his eyes on Kevin. “Son, I want you to go to the front of the theater and tell your concession clerks to tell my partner where I’m at when he comes in. Then I want you to find Cindy Harrison for me. Got it?”

“Yessir,” the manager said, his voice breaking. He turned and scuttled off in a rush.

Chisolm turned back to Kevin. “You’re a little upset about something, huh, Kevin?”

“It’s not your business.”

“Most days, you’d be right,” Chisolm said. “But unfortunately, not today. Not here in a public place. Now I’ve got to figure out what’s going on and solve the problem. That’s my duty.”

Kevin shook his head and said nothing.

Chisolm examined his olive drab jacket. “You buy that at the Army-Navy Surplus store on Division?”

Kevin’s eyes flared. “Hell, no! This is my jacket. I’ve had it since Parris Island.”

“Marine?” Chisolm asked.

“Yeah. Seventy to Seventy-one.”

“Well, then Semper Fi,” Chisolm said.

Kevin fixed him with a suspicious look. “You were in the Corps?”

“No. Army.”

“Really?” Kevin’s voice was full of doubt. “When?”

“Sixty-nine to seventy-one.”

“In the Army?”

Chisolm nodded.

“You go to the ‘Nam?”

“Mekong Delta.”

Kevin considered him for a long moment. “I was in Saigon. Except when I was out in the bush.”

“Which was all the time, I bet,” Chisolm guessed.

“You know it, brother.” Kevin smiled in spite of himself, but the smile quickly faded and was replaced by suspicion again. “What unit were you with?”

“S-F,” Chisolm said.

“Special Forces? Really?”

Chisolm nodded. “Two tours.”

“No kidding?” Kevin nodded his head in appreciation. “Most of the Army guys I came across were pussies, but you Green Berets came through for us a few times.”

“Marines saved our asses a few times, too.”

The two men stood quietly for a minute. Chisolm hoped that he’d made enough of a connection with the man to keep him from drifting off into suspicion and anger again.

“What can I do to help you here tonight, Kevin?”

Kevin stared at him for another long moment, then shook his head clear of his reverie. “Not a fucking thing,” he said. “I’m here to get my baby back from the whore that took him from me.”

“You know Cindy is here at the theater?”

He nodded. “I saw her walk in when I rode by on the bus. She’s here.”

“You two married?”

“Not anymore.”

“How long have you been divorced?”

“You’re a nosy fucker, aren’t ya?”

Chisolm smiled. “Peril of the job, I suppose.”

“Well, it’s none of your business. None of this is.”

Kevin started toward Chisolm and tried to walk past him.

Chisolm sidestepped and grabbed onto Kevin’s wrist and elbow. In one smooth motion, he swept his foot forward with as much force as he could muster, intending to take the man to the ground. His foot made contact with Kevin’s calf. There was a hollow thunk and Kevin fell forward like a rock. His lower leg jutted out at against his pants in an unnatural angle.

Kevin grunted but didn’t cry out. He landed on his face and his chest and tried to roll. Despite being surprised at the injury he had caused, Chisolm followed through on his takedown by dropping his weight onto Kevin’s upper back, leaning his shin across the back of his neck.

He heard the man curse, but paid no attention. Chisolm was transfixed by the compound fracture he seemed to have caused.

In the next instant, his mind processed the plastic thunking sound he’d heard when his foot made contact.

It was a prosthesis, he realized. A fake leg.

Chisolm was relieved. He snapped his handcuffs on Kevin and patted his pockets and waistline for weapons. Inside his pants on his hip, he found a long hunting knife. He removed it and tossed it several feet away. Then he patted Kevin on the back.

“Easy there, Marine. It’s going to be all right.”

Kevin swore at him. Chisolm kept his shin across the back of the man’s neck and accessed his radio.

“Charlie-143 to -145. I could use your help here.”

“-145, copy.” Lindsay’s voice came through static. He was out of the car and using his portable radio. “I’m walking in now.”

“Copy,” Chisolm said and replaced his radio. He gave Kevin another comradely pat on his shoulder blades. “It’ll be just a few minutes and we’ll get you into a nice car.”

“You’re weren’t no fucking Green Beret!” Kevin yelled into the floor.

Chisolm ignored the accusation. “Your leg injury happen in country, Kevin?”

“None of your goddamn business, you lying sonofabitch!”

He gave Kevin another pat. “Just be another minute.”

Kevin let loose a stream of profanities, ending with “shit-eater.”

“I think the ‘Nam mighta left you beaucoup dinky dao, my friend,” Chisolm said softy. “And I’m sorry about that.”

“Shove it up your ass! Fake Army son of a bitch!”

Lindsay appeared around the corner, loping along at his usual lazy pace. When he saw Chisolm on top of Kevin, his eyes flew open and he trotted over.

“What the hell, Tom? This guy fought?”

Chisolm shook his head. “Just tried to leave before it was quite time.”

“Jesus, what happened to his leg?”

“It’s a fake.”

“Oh.” Lindsay cocked his head to the side, then asked, “Jesus, Tom, you beat up a one-legged man?”

“Faker! Liar!” yelled Kevin.

Lindsay stared for another moment, then asked, “Is he under arrest?”

“What are you, my sergeant? Just grab that knife there and help me get him out to the car.”

Lindsay looked briefly for the knife on the floor, found it and picked it up. He gave a low whistle.

“Rambo,” he said.

“Come on, Bill,” Chisolm said, breaking his reverie. He and Lindsay lifted Kevin into a standing position. Each took an arm and walked him toward the front doors. His prosthesis dragged on the floor as they walked and he hopped effortlessly along on one leg to keep up.

They walked past the snack bar. Both tuxedo-clad teenagers followed their progress with their mouths hanging open. When the threesome exited the front doors, the bug-eyed ticket girl joined the gawker’s club.

“He still needs a good search,” Chisolm said, leaning Kevin against the car at the front tire. The two officers set about searching him. They removed all of his items and placed them on the hood. They found no more weapons.

“What’s your last name, Kevin?” Chisolm asked. “Is it Harrison?”

The prisoner stared ahead and said nothing.

Chisolm flipped open the man’s wallet. He saw a veteran’s hospital identification card in the name of Kevin Yeager. It showed his service dates as 1970-71. Chisolm slid it back into the wallet.

After the search, they awkwardly stowed a subdued Kevin in the back seat of Chisolm’s car.

Chisolm handed the wallet to Lindsay. “Do me a favor and run him. In addition to any wants, I need to know if there are any mental entries. And look for protection orders or anything like that. This might be some kind of Domestic Violence or something. The female half might be named Cindy Harrison.”

“Now who’s the sergeant?” Lindsay tried to joke.

Chisolm ignored him and walked back into the theater past the bug-eyed girl. Inside, he found the manager standing against the wall behind the ticket booth. A dark-haired woman in her thirties stood next to him. She held an infant in her arms, bouncing him softly.

“Cindy?” he asked as he approached.

“Yes, sir,” said the woman. He detected a southern accent.

“Then this would be Kyle,” he said, indicating the baby.

“Yes, sir,” she said again, and paused to kiss the child’s head.

Chisolm waved the manager away. The kid reluctantly retreated, wandering slowly toward the snack bar.

“He can’t see me from out there, can he, sir?”

“No,” Chisolm said.

She let out a relieved sigh. “Thank the Lord. How did he even know I was here?”

“He said he was riding the bus and passed by as you were walking in.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Listen, Cindy, what’s the story here? Is he your husband?”

She took a deep breath and let it out. “Yes, sir, he was.”

“When did you get divorced?”

“Oh, we was never married.”

Chisolm gave her a puzzled look.

“We was common-law married,” she explained. “Seven years together.”

“But not legally married?”

“Not like in a church proper, no, sir.”

“Is he Kyle’s father?”

“’Course he is,” Cindy said.

“He made some references that made me wonder, that’s all.”

“He called me a whore, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, I think that was the word.”

“That’s on account of I left him, sir. I was afraid for my baby, so I left.”

“Afraid of what?” Chisolm asked, but he thought he knew.

“Of him,” Cindy told him. “He wasn’t seeing his doctor or taking his pills like he was s’posed to. He started saying crazy things.”

“Like what?”

Cindy squinted at him. “He was in the Marines, sir. In Vietnam. And sometimes, when he doesn’t take those pills, it’s like he just never left.”

“What would he say?”

“That I was a traitor and working for the VC. Or sometimes he said for Nathaniel Victor, whoever that is. He held a knife to my throat one night, right after I told him I was pregnant.”

“Did you call the police?”

“Why?” she asked. “He didn’t leave no mark, so it’d just be my word against his.”

Chisolm let that go, mostly because she was right. “Have you applied for a protection order with the courts?”

“No, sir. Should I?”

“I think so. What do you think he’s capable of?”

Cindy pressed her lips together and tears spilled out of the corner of his eyes. “You wanna know the truth, officer?”

Chisolm nodded.

“I think he’d just as soon kill me and take Kyle for himself. He’s just as sure as can be that I’ve got some boyfriend and that I’m trying to keep his baby from him. Last time I saw him, he yelled at me that he wasn’t gonna see his baby raised by no gook-lover.” She looked at Chrisolm. “That’s what he called the Orientals from over there. Gooks.”

“I’ve heard that word once or twice,” Chisolm said. Hell, he’d used it plenty in another world.

Tears streamed down her cheeks. “I don’t know what to do.”

Chisolm reached into his pocket and removed a crime-victim card. He asked Dispatch for a report number and when the dispatcher came back with the number, he scrawled it on the card. Then he handed it to Cindy. “There’s a number on there,” he said, “that you can call if you need a safe shelter. Also, there are directions on how to get a protection order. You should go get one tomorrow.”

“Okay,” she drawled, wiping her eyes with one hand. She gave Kyle a kiss on the forehead before asking, “What about tonight?”

“I’ll book him into jail and write a report,” Chisolm told her. “But he’ll see a judge in the morning and I’m sure they’ll let him out with little or no bail. If you get that order and he violates it, it’s a mandatory arrest and no bail.”

She nodded that she understood. “Maybe I ought to go back to Georgia,” she said. “But I think he’d just follow me there. ‘Sides, I got myself a good job here.”

“Get the order,” Chisolm said. “That would be my advice.”

“Thank you, sir,” Cindy said. “From me and from Kyle William.”

“You’re both welcome,” Chisolm said and gave her a smile. “Now go enjoy your movie.”

He left the theater and found Lindsay leaning against the side of his patrol car.

“He’s clear,” Lindsay said. “Got a couple of Forty-Eight entries from last year, though. Big surprise there. Oh, and no protection orders.”

“Thanks,” Chisolm said, gathering up Kevin’s belongings and placing them in a large plastic baggie that he removed from his back pocket.

“You going to jail?” Lindsay asked.

“Yep.”

“Not the Psych Ward?”

“Nope.”

“He hit you or something?”

Chisolm shook his head and sealed the plastic baggie.

“What, then?”

Chisolm walked around to his driver’s door. “Theft.”

“Theft?”

“Yep. He didn’t pay admission.”

Lindsay snorted. “That’ll get dumped by the prosecutor in a heartbeat, Tom. It’s not even worth the time.”

“You finding many vans up south tonight, Bill?”

Lindsay’s mouth hung open in surprise. Chisolm slipped into the driver’s seat and started the car. He pulled away from the curb, leaving Lindsay in that pose.

Chisolm drove toward the jail. He glanced up into his rear-view mirror and saw that Kevin was staring at him.

“You did me ugly, brother,” Kevin said gruffly.

“Just keeping you out of trouble,” Chisolm said.

Kevin shook his head adamantly. “No way. You’re a traitor. You’re doing me worse than those rotten dinks ever did.”

“You’ve gotta listen to your doctor, Kevin. You’ve gotta take your meds.”

“He’s my goddamn son!” Kevin raged at him and slammed his face into the plexiglass shield between the drivers compartment and the back seat. The self-inflicted blow seemed to faze him momentarily. His eyes unfocused, then he leaned back and said nothing.

Chisolm drove the rest of the way to jail in silence, too.

0244 hours

Katie MacLeod stared at a picture of Amy Dugger on a swing, her black hair trailing behind her as she was caught sweeping toward the camera lens. She bore the irrepressible smile of youth, of innocence. It was a smile that didn’t know grief, didn’t know worry, didn’t know death or sex or tragedy. That smile just knew the pure joy of swinging back and forth with a parent watching.

The quiet tick of the clock on the mantle marked the slow passage of time for Katie. She had long ago given up wondering if she drew this assignment because of her gender. If it was true or if it wasn’t, she wasn’t mad about it any more. And, much to her surprise, she wasn’t bored either.

Kathy Dugger had finally drifted off to sleep on the couch, wrapped in a fluffy blanket. When Katie had suggested she go off to bed or get a larger blanket, the woman had refused. But she’d been considerate enough to tell Katie why. The blanket was the one Amy wrapped herself in when she watched cartoons on Saturday mornings.

Katie had struggled to keep her composure when she heard that and was barely successful.

Since Kathy had fallen asleep, Katie tried to move around as little as possible. Her leather gear creaked loudly when she walked or shifted in her chair. She’d made a pot of coffee and sipped cup after cup while reading the last three months worth of Cosmopolitan and Family Circle magazines. She took three compatibility tests in the magazines to see if Kopriva was her “true love” and all three told her something different. The first little quiz said he was trouble, the second put them in the “Might Make It” category and the third, from Cosmo, told her to “Jump his bones on the way to the altar!”

What about Stef, though? They had a nice thing, didn’t they? It was slow, it was simple, but it was nice. And it was exclusive. And fairly secret, she believed.

What more did she want?

For that matter, what more did he want?

Katie sighed and sipped her coffee. Those were her mother’s favorite questions, too. She pretended she didn’t care about the answers to them, but she knew she did.

She worried about Kopriva. She wasn’t sure he was going to recover fully enough to return to patrol. If that happened, what would he do? And how would he handle her still being on the job? He didn’t seem to be so macho that it would end up being a problem, but you never knew. Not until it happened. And it wouldn’t be the first time she’d run into problems with a man over her profession.

They were both only twenty-five, she reminded herself. Plenty of time to figure things out.

Plenty of time.

She stared at Amy Dugger’s picture and wondered how much time the little girl had left. Or if her time had already ran out.

The thought depressed her and she returned to her magazine. She read over the words, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Kopriva and about Amy. She wished for the clock to tick faster and for morning to come.