Delta Stevens 2: Storm Shelter (6 page)

Delta inhaled a resigned sigh. When she and Alexandria Pendleton first met, they weren’t exactly on the same side. Alexandria needed a clear case in order to convict the cops who were running a drug ring that had killed two officers, and Delta handed her one. Well . . . it was-n’t spit-and-polished clean, but it was enough for Alexandria to go on. Alexandria had gone for the maximum sentence and got it. In Delta’s book, Alexandria Pendleton was a heroine.

“Look, if I can help Alex out, then I will. Besides, this last murder is our business now. It happened on our beat, and we’re involved in it whether or not we want to be.”

“Involved? Interesting choice of words.”

Delta grinned. “You know what I mean.”

“Why, Delta Stevens, if I didn’t know you were so crazy in love with Megan, I’d think you have a crush on our renowned District Attorney.”

Delta felt her face flush hot. “don’t be stupid. I owe her a big favor, that’s all. I believe in paybacks.”

“I remember.”

“You may remember, Jan, but you can’t possibly know the debt I feel for the way she put those scum away. She asked for the max, and she got it. Not only did she get it, but she kept me out of it as much as possible. I put my career on the line to find Miles’s killers and she made sure I still wore a badge when the trial was all over. I owe her for that.”

“I just don’t like how you act when you feel you `owe’ someone. From what I understand, she did her job well when she prosecuted those cops. But Del, that’s what the good citizens pay her to do. She didn’t really do anything out of the ordinary.”

Thinking back to the warehouse, where she was supposed to have been killed, Delta shivered. Not Jan, not Alex, not anyone except Connie, Megan, and Gina knew to what extent her involvement was in setting the dirty cops up to take the fall. Alexandria didn’t just do her job, she had done it exceedingly well. For that, Delta would be eternally grateful.

Before Delta could respond to Jan’s comment, the radio interrupted.

“S1012, we have an S-100 at 137 South Pope Street. What’s your 20?”

Jan replied that they were one minute away from the address given and that they’d take the call.

An S-100 meant that a silent alarm had gone off, and there was the possibility of catching a burglary in progress. It also meant that a backup unit had been dispatched as well. The call, while not entirely devoid of danger, usually meant that the units arrived after the damage had been done. It was rare that cops walked into a burglary-in-progress and actually caught someone.

Delta turned the interior lights on while Jan rifled through the personal address book she always carried with her. Glancing over at the tiny notebook, Delta shook her head. Jan was the only cop Delta ever worked with who carried around the names and type of stores on their beat. Each entry was listed alphabetically and cross-referenced by street and street number. It was a pretty comprehensive guide to the merchants they frequently dealt with. Jan used it as a means of better preparation whenever they rolled up to an address. She would flip through her book and announce the name and type of business before getting out of the car. Knowing her routine by heart, Delta slowed down and waited for Jan’s pronouncement.

“It’s that little hunting and sporting goods store called Omega’s.”

Delta winced. It wasn’t the safest place to catch a thief. “Oh, great. Just what we need: to face a perp who is better armed than us.”

Jan smiled. “Aren’t they all? Geez, just the other day, Hayward had to take out a thirteen-year-old who was carrying.”

“I heard. Is the kid going to make it?”

Jan nodded. “Until the next time, I suppose.”

Delta knew the fears Jan carried with her, having children growing up in such a hostile and exceedingly violent society. Jan had been in tears when trying to explain to her children why that truck driver had been beaten up on television during the Rodney King riots when he hadn’t done anything. Her kids did not understand.

It was times like those that Delta did not envy motherhood.

Turning her attention to the call at hand, Delta grabbed both her baton and her flashlight.

“If there’s someone in there, Del, let’s take him out early. I don’t like the idea of being in a gunshop with some whacko.”

“Got it.”

Pulling into an alley a half a block away from Omega’s, Delta and Jan hopped out of the car. When Delta came around to Jan’s side, Jan handed her the shotgun.

“A gal’s best friend,” Delta whispered, turning her radio on low.

As they approached the darkened building, Delta heard a clattering sound from around the corner. Kneeling down, Delta swung the shotgun around the damp brick edge and sighted a shadow running away from the back entrance of Omega’s.

“Damn!” she cursed, handing the shotgun to Jan. “I’ll go.” And in an instant, Delta was off, her thirty-six inch stride propelling her toward the shadow bolting away from her.

“Police!” Delta yelled, knowing that it made absolutely no difference to the retreating thief. The law prohibited cops from shooting at a fleeing felon. Only cops in movies could pull out their weapons and blast a hole in the back of some sleazy crook. Real life law enforcement was vastly different than what the public saw on television. She either had to catch him or forget it. As he scaled the six-foot alley wall leading to the main boulevard, Delta knew she would probably have to forget it. Once in the thick of things, he would blend right in.

And then, quite suddenly, he stopped when he reached the top of the wall, turned toward her, and threw a shiny, metallic object at Delta. Then he clambering over the top and out of sight.

“Son of a bitch!” Delta muttered, barely catching a glimpse of metal before diving behind a trashbin.

Pulling her revolver, Delta sped around the bin, aiming her .357 at the top of the wall, but he was gone. She hadn’t even heard him land on the other side.

“Gone. Damn it!” Reholstering her sidearm, Delta pulled her radio from its case and gave what description she could of her would-be assailant and the direction she thought he headed. Pulling her flashlight off her belt, Delta searched for the object the perp had thrown at her.

As the light swept in front of her, the object glistened beneath the rays from the heavy six-cell flashlight. Raising the light to eye level, the object shone brightly against the dull, splintered side of the fence surrounding the trash cans. Mesmerized by the gleam, Delta stepped closer for a better look.

“I’ll be damned,” she said, eyeing the six-pointed Chinese star stuck in the wood. It was a very sharp, very impressive-looking weapon used by martial arts experts in the Orient. Delta hadn’t seen one since her Academy days.

Taking a handkerchief from her back pocket, Delta wrapped it around the star and tugged hard, pulling the star from its cutting grip on the aged wood.

She then entered the back door of the shop. The lights were on and Jan was taking notes from a man in stocking feet and bare chest. The man was kneeling down, stroking the dead Doberman, and shaking his head every now and then as he answered questions.

Jan stopped taking notes long enough to fill Delta in on what she’d heard so far. “He lives a few blocks away and has an audible hook-up to the alarm. Apparently, he’d been robbed a couple of times before he got the alarm and the dog.

Delta nodded, feeling her heart bang heavily against her chest as the adrenaline coursed through her veins like she’d overdosed on caffeine. It had been awhile since someone on the street had attacked her, yet the feeling was always the same.

“Anyway,” Jan continued, “When he got here, he found the back window open and the dog dead. He doesn’t think anything was stolen but won’t be sure until he does a final inventory.”

Squatting down next to him, Delta touched the dog’s ear. “A pet?”

The man shook his head. “Not really. Still, you spend ten, maybe twelve, hours a day with an animal, I guess you kind of start caring more than you know. I hope whatever killed him didn’t hurt him any. I’d hate to think he suffered.”

Delta studied the man. A Marine tattoo on his right arm and a possible shrapnel cut across his left brow suggested to Delta he was a veteran of some war, probably Vietnam.

“Sure was a beautiful dog,” Delta remarked as she stood and leaned against a sign announcing a 50% clearance sale.

“Yes, he was.” The man rose, pulling his sagging pants with him. “What kind of a creep comes into a store, kills a dog and leaves without taking anything? I mean, all of my antique swords are still in the case, none of the more expensive knives are missing. I’ve got some valuable stuff in here, and it doesn’t look like he took a thing.”

Delta and Jan exchanged glances.

“Maybe he didn’t have time,” Jan offered.

Delta looked at Jan out of the corner of her eye. Turning to the owner, Delta showed him the Chinese star. “You sell these?” Looking at the star, the shopkeeper shook his head. “No way. They’re illegal, and I run a clean business.”

Delta smiled. “I’m sure you do, Mr. . . ”

“Ein. Matt Ein.”

“Well, Mr. Ein, I’m sure you run a legit business, but can you tell me where I would be able to purchase one of these?”

Bringing Delta’s hand closer to his face, he studied the star. “Kids usually purchase stars from martial arts and mercenary magazines.”

Delta caught the hesitation in his voice. “But?”

Matt Ein shook his head. “But this sure isn’t one of them.”

“What do you mean?”

“Officer, that there is a real Ninja star, not one of those toys sold in those magazines. It’s an antique of sorts; you know, the ones the ancient Ninjas used to have. You can tell by the carved dragon emblem in the middle.”

Delta looked more closely at the star. She hadn’t noticed the dragon emblem on the other side of the star.

“Del?” Jan glanced at the star. “Where’d you.”

“He threw it at me,” Delta answered. “A real Ninja star, eh?”

Matt Ein nodded and pushed some stray hairs away from his face. “It sure is. Lucky for you the guy throwing it wasn’t a real Ninja. Legend has it they were flawless.”

Delta nodded. “A good thing he wasn’t.” Delta carefully wrapped the star in the handkerchief. “There seems to be a lot of antique weapons floating around the streets these days. Have you recently sold a dagger with gemstones on the handle?”

Matt Ein shook his head. “I don’t sell antique daggers, but I do collect them. If you have a picture, I might be able to place it for you.”

Delta nodded and watched as Jan wrote this information in her notepad. “Mr. Ein, are you sure nothing was taken from the store?”

“I’ve looked through every case, and they’re locked tight. Even the crossbows, which I don’t keep locked up, are all there.”

“Thank you. If you don’t mind, Officer Bowers will want to ask you a few more questions.”

As the mobile crime unit, or “dust-busters” as Delta referred to them, arrived to take prints, Jan pulled Delta aside.

“He threw that at you?”

“Yeah. Pretty ballsy, don’t you think? Rose up like a damned cobra and flung it at me. And let me tell you, that would have smarted like hell.”

“I’ll say. Those tips look like little razors.”

“And I’ll bet they cut like them, too.” Turning from Jan, Delta glanced over at a beautiful suit of armor standing regally in the corner. One arm lay quietly at the side, while the other was bent at the elbow palm up.

“Great armor you have here, Mr. Ein,” Delta tossed the words over her shoulder, not taking her eyes off of the shiny relic. She loved knights and chivalry and tales of King Arthur. A teacher in junior high school turned her on to Medieval lore. It was one of her good memories of her prepubescent days tangled in the web of her memory.

“Twelfth or thirteenth century?” she asked, feeling Matt Ein move beside her.

Drawing his hand up to his mouth, Matt Ein did not respond.

“Mr. Ein?”

Eyes wide, Matt Ein stared at the armor, transfixed. “He stole my ax. That bastard stole my ax.”

Delta looked over at Jan, who shrugged. “The knight was holding an ax?”

Slowly removing his hand from his mouth, Matt Ein shook his head, still staring at the armor. “Not just any ax. It was a double-bladed ax—a gift from my grandfather to go with the armor.” Plopping down in front of the armor, Mr. Ein laid his face in his hands and shook his head. “Anything. He could have swiped anything but the ax.”

Delta knelt beside him and laid her hand on his shoulder. Empathy whirled through her as she thought about the silver I.D. bracelet her grandfather had given to her and how she felt when she thought she had lost it. There was something special about gifts from grandfathers.

“You’ll get your ax back, Mr. Ein. Sooner or later, a relic like that will show up. don’t you worry.”

“I hope so. I took care of that ax as if the knight might use it any moment. I sharpened it when I first got it and I polished it once a week.”

“I know how you feel. We’ll do everything we can to get it back.” Turning to leave, Delta said a few words to the dust-busters dusting the glass cases. Then, she jumped back into the driver’s seat of the patrol car and waited for Jan to finish with her notes before starting the car. “A jeweled dagger, a Ninja star, and an ancient ax—two lives taken, no money missing, and no motive. Curiouser and curiouser.”