Overkill (7 page)

“I know who you are,” the girl said.

“I’m Rufus the Police Dog.”

“Uh uh. You were bad. Willie Stubblefield told me you’re the lady cop who beat up a spect and he had to go to the hospital.”

Marty’s first impulse was to correct her by telling her there was no such thing as a spect. It was a
suspect
she’d beaten the hell out of. Get it right before you go shooting your mouth off, kid.

Stumped, Marty glanced toward where she’d last seen the teacher, only to realize the woman had flown the coop. Probably in the teacher’s lounge smoking a cigarette. She turned back to the class, and to the little girl. Brat, she thought and looked down at her notes.

“For today, I’m Rufus the Police Dog.” She scanned the children’s faces, wondering which boy was Willie Stubblefield, wondering how her boss would feel if Rufus drew down on him. Knowing that wouldn’t go over well with the chief, she decided the correct course of action was to let it go.

“Does anybody know what to do if a stranger offers you a ride?” she asked.

A dozen hands shot up. Marty didn’t call on the little girl with the pigtails.

She was midway through the program when movement at the door snagged her attention. She glanced over to see Clay and the teacher watching her with unconcealed amusement. Knowing they couldn’t see her face, she grinned.

“That’s it for today, guys.” She woofed. “Does everyone remember what Rufus the Police Dog says?”

“Run Away, Shout It Out, and Tell a Grown-up!” came a chorus of voices.

Gathering her notes, Marty headed toward the door. Mrs. Combs giggled and stuck out her hand. “Thank you, Rufus.”

Marty thought about growling, but touched the teacher’s hand with her paw and headed toward the door. The chief moved aside to let her pass. In the hall, Marty removed the costume head and tried not to think about what it had done to her hair.

“Not bad for a cop from Chicago,” Clay said.

Marty held up her paws. “Don’t get any ideas about making this a permanent thing.”

“Aw, come on. You’re a natural.”

“I’ll become a natural pain in the ass if I have to do this much longer.”

“Sorry about the suspect comment.”

“Par for the course,” she said. “Kids hear talk from their parents. They repeat it.”

“She didn’t hear it from me.”

Realization stunned her to silence. “That’s your little girl?”

Marty could tell he tried not to grin, but he didn’t do a very good job of it. The kid wasn’t merely his daughter, she was his pride and probably the love of his life. For a split second, Marty found herself inexplicably charmed.

“She’s kind of outspoken,” he said.

She gave him a closer look, realizing the girl had the same gray eyes. The same direct way of speaking. The same thin mouth that could go from smiling to snarling in the blink of an eye. She stared at his mouth, wondered what else it was capable of, and quickly banked the thought that emerged.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said.

“I’ll talk to her about it tonight.”

“She wasn’t exactly stating an untruth,” Marty pointed out.

“No, but she’s old enough to know what’s appropriate and what’s not.”

Marty didn’t know the first thing about kids, so it wasn’t like she could offer an opinion. Instead, she concentrated on shedding the Rufus costume. “Anything in particular bring you here?”

“You.”

She stopped what she was doing and looked at him. “I’m not in trouble again, am I?”

“I don’t know. Are you?” When she had to think about it, he chuckled. “Jesus, Hogan, associating me with your being in trouble is getting to be a learned response with you, isn’t it?”

“It’s that Pavlov’s dogs thing, I guess.” She glanced at the uniform and chuckled. “No pun.”

“I came by to see your presentation.”

“Oh,” she said and did her best to hold back the blush that crept up her cheeks.

“I needed to pick up Erica, anyway. This is her last class of the day.”

Marty sensed there was something else coming her way, but for the life of her she couldn’t figure out what.

“I wanted to remind you about the rodeo this weekend.”

She made an attempt to cover the fact that she’d forgotten, but he was too quick. “Uh, I’ll be there.”

“You forgot.”

“I wrote it down.”
Somewhere.

“The whole department is going.”

“Oh boy. Definitely don’t want to miss out on seeing the guys.”

He frowned. “In any case, we’re going to cheer on the kids, eat some hot dogs, drink some beer later. I thought you might like to join us.”

“You’re not going to make me wear this goofy costume or ride a cow or something, are you?”

He laughed outright. “Not unless you want to.”

“I don’t.”

“Probably a good thing.”

“In that case, I’ll be there.” Marty folded the costume and proceeded to stuff it into its canvas bag.

“Where are you headed next?” Clay asked.

She glanced at her watch and frowned. “Rufus stint at the Rotary Club.”

“You’ll knock ’em dead.”

“Somehow I don’t think Rufus is going to be quite the hit he was here.”

“Everyone loves Rufus.”

Marty had just dug her car keys from her pocket when her cell phone vibrated against her hip. Tossing Rufus’s head into the bag as well, she fumbled for her phone, snapped it open. “Hogan.”

“Hogan.”

Surprise rippled through her at the sound of Patrick “Peck” O’Connor’s voice. He’d been her sergeant back in Chicago, and a quiet supporter after the fiasco that had ended her career. Marty had wished he’d been more vocal in his support of her. He hadn’t, choosing his own job over hers, but she didn’t hold it against him.

She grinned. “Don’t tell me you called to tell me the suits have decided to reinstate me.”

“Uh . . . Marty.”

She knew something was wrong when she didn’t get an immediate raucous and politically incorrect comeback. “Peck? You there?”

“Goddamn it, Hogan.”

The initial fingers of uneasiness pressed into her, sharp nails of apprehension raking down her skin. “What’s wrong?”

“Rosetti is dead.”

Marty did the only thing she could and choked out a laugh. Surely this was a joke. Rosetti couldn’t be dead. She’d just talked to him a couple of days ago. Peck was full of shit. Playing a cruel joke on her.

“That’s bullshit,” she heard herself say.

“I wish it was.” He sighed heavily. “He’s dead. No one can fucking believe it.”

As if from a great distance Marty heard the canvas bag she’d been holding hit the floor, followed by her car keys. Her mind reeling, she leaned against the cool tile wall, denial taking her through all the reasons why this man would be lying to her. Revenge or some cruel joke prompted by the embarrassment she’d brought to the department.

But in some far corner of her mind, she knew no matter how far she ventured into denial, it wasn’t going to change what had been said. She knew Peck wouldn’t lie to her about something so serious.

“Are you sure?” she managed after a moment.

“Yeah.”

“My God. How?” she asked, imagining a car accident, a heart attack or maybe some dipshit gangbanger with a gun.

“You don’t want to know.”

“Peck, tell me what happened.”

A wheezing breath shuddered out of him. “Details are sketchy. The brass ain’t sayin’ much, but the cops who were on the scene are saying all kinds of weird shit. It’s bad, Marty. Worse than anything I ever heard in my life.”

“Bad like what? What happened to him? Was he murdered? What?”

For an interminable moment the only sound that came through the line was the sound of his heavy breathing. Peck was a big man. He was tough, too. Marty had never seen him show any emotion but anger. To hear his breath hitching like a scared kid’s frightened her more than anything he could have said.

“Here’s what I know. When he didn’t show up at home this morning after his shift, Eileen called in. She thought maybe he’d gone out for a beer with the guys. He didn’t. No one knew where he was. Some of the guys started looking. Making calls. A couple of hours later an anonymous call came in. Some foreign-sounding motherfucker. Told dispatch where to find him. Called him by name.”

Keenly aware that she was gripping the cell phone so tightly her knuckles hurt, Marty tried to relax her hand, but couldn’t. In her peripheral vision, she saw that Clay had noticed something was wrong and moved closer. He cocked his head as if to get a look at her expression, and she tried hard not to let the horror gripping her show.

“You know Rolly Martino?” Peck asked.

“No.”

“Well, he found Rosetti’s body about an hour ago.” His voice broke and he whispered a curse. “They cut him up. Into little pieces like a fuckin’ fish. I heard they tortured him. Tortured Rosetti, man.”

“Who?”

“No one knows. I’m looking at his caseload now. But this ain’t no normal shit, let me tell you. These sick fucks took their time with him, Hogan. They’re professionals. They hurt him bad and they did it for a long time.”

“Peck . . .” She choked out the name. “Why?”

“I don’t know, and no one’s talking.”

He was silent for so long, Marty thought he had disconnected. “Peck?”

“I gotta go. It’s all over the news up here. Cops are pissed and the brass are shitting their britches.”

“Call me if you find out anything more, okay?”

“Yeah.”

The line clicked.

Marty wanted to pretend the phone call had never come. She wanted to deny that one of the best friends she’d ever had was dead. That a part of her life she would always treasure was gone forever.

“What happened?”

Clay’s voice reached her as if from a great distance. Marty tried to clip the cell phone to her belt, but missed. She stared at her hands, unable to believe they shook so badly, unable to believe they were hers.

Peck’s words rang in her ears like the memory of a nightmare. Disbelief was a weight on her chest. She couldn’t believe he was gone. She
wouldn’t
believe it. Not until she flew back to Chicago and saw his cold dead body for herself.

What in the name of God had happened to Rosetti? Who was responsible? Why would they torture a cop?

She stepped away from Clay, only to realize the outer fringes of her vision had grayed. Reaching for the wall, she leaned. Her stomach knotted, and for a moment she feared she might be sick. She could feel her heart pummeling her chest, her breaths rasping from a throat that was suddenly parched.

“Hogan. Come on. Take it easy. Talk to me. What happened?”

The dizziness passed. Numb with horror and grief, she finally looked at Clay. “Rosetti,” she croaked. “My partner. He’s . . .” She couldn’t say the word. All the while, in the back of her mind she desperately hoped Peck had made a mistake. That he’d called her prematurely. That she would receive another call any moment letting her know that all was well.

“Your partner from Chicago? Was he hurt? What?”

“Killed.” She put her hand on her forehead and pressed hard with her fingertips, trying not to imagine Rosetti suffering a terrible death. Even though they hadn’t talked often since she’d moved to Caprock Canyon, just knowing he was in Chicago, keeping the criminals on their toes, was a huge comfort.

“Murdered,” she whispered.

He stared at her with those hard gray eyes. She couldn’t imagine Clay Settlemeyer offering platitudes. But that was what people did when someone died.

“That’s tough. I’m sorry.” As if realizing there was more happening than she was saying, he tilted his head, forcing her gaze to his. “What else?”

“I don’t have details. I guess it just happened. But it was bad.”

His eyes held hers. Within their depths she saw him trying to read between the lines and decipher what little information she’d given.

“Tortured,” she forced out.

“Jesus.”

Marty wanted to cry. She wanted to rant and scream and throw things. Why the hell did Rosetti have to be dead?

She looked at the floor, saw the canvas bag and stooped to pick it up. She couldn’t believe that just a few minutes earlier, she’d been worried about something as trivial as wearing a silly costume. Now her best friend was dead, and she would never have the chance to tell him how much he’d meant to her.

“I have to go.” Blinking back tears, she reached for the bag. “I can’t do the Rotary Club.”

“I’ll have Dugan cover for you.” He took the bag from her. “You want me to drive you home?”

Marty didn’t want him to. She didn’t want to share her grief. Her rage. Having been raised by males, she saw grief as a private thing, not to be coddled or fawned over or even acknowledged. But while she had been raised by males, she was a woman with a woman’s heart. Right now, that heart was breaking.

“No,” she said, her voice coming surprisingly strong.

He never took his eyes from hers, a man looking for a lie, a denial, and getting both. “You sure?”

Unable to speak, she nodded.

He handed her the keys he’d picked up off the floor.

Marty gathered the shattered remnants of herself and fled.

SIX

Marty couldn’t cry. On the short drive from the school
to her house, she tried. Anything was better than having so much turmoil building inside her with no escape. But it was as if a giant fist had been jammed down her throat and snatched her lungs from her chest. The sensation was so powerful, a choking sound tore from her lips as she unlocked the door and stepped into the living room.

She wasn’t sure why she’d come here. She hated the place—hated just about everything about Caprock Canyon—but this was her only refuge. More importantly, this was the place where she could get information. And a drink.

Closing the door behind her, she went directly to the spare bedroom, pulled the laptop from its case. While the computer booted up, Marty went to the kitchen. The bottle of vodka taunted her as she walked by the table. She was tempted to drink straight from the bottle, but opted for a glass. This time, she poured nearly to the rim, drank half of it straight down, then refilled.

She couldn’t stop thinking about Rosetti, about the people who loved him, the people he’d left behind. She thought of his wife and four grown children, and she knew this would leave a huge gap in their lives. Rosetti had taught her everything she knew about being a cop. He’d taught her even more about being a person. The kind of person she wanted to be. Sure, he was a bigmouth. He cussed too much and smoked like a chimney. But he was the kind of person you could trust with your life when the chips were down. He’d been good inside, and Marty had loved him like family. How could he just cease to exist?

In the living room, she turned on the television, hoping for news. She surfed the channels, but found only the usual mindless afternoon fare. She tried Peck’s number, but got instant voice mail, telling her he was probably on the phone. She imagined most of the cops in the city were jamming the phone lines. The rest were already out trying to catch the son of a bitch who’d killed one of their own.

She wanted to be there so badly she could taste that heady need for revenge. She was one of them; Rosetti had been her partner. But Marty knew she couldn’t go back. This wasn’t about her. Her showing up now would only shift the focus and risk turning everything that happened in the next days into a circus.

Rosetti deserved better than that.

She tried two other cop friends, but neither answered. For an instant, she considered calling Rosetti’s wife, but she knew Eileen had enough on her hands. Marty needed information. The kind of information that came from cops.

Desperate, she finally dialed another officer she’d ridden with for a short time and got him on the first ring. “Huffman,” she began.

“Hogan?” He sounded surprised to hear from her.

“I’m calling from Texas. I just heard about Rosetti. Is it true?”

He blew out a curse. “No one can believe it. There’s some bad stuff going down.”

“I’m trying to find out what happened.”

“No one knows much.” He paused. “But I’m hearing some god-awful stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Like some fucking gangstas got their hands on him and tortured him to death.”

Oh, Rosetti,
she thought and closed her eyes. In the distance she thought she heard the low roar of an approaching wave, then realized it was inside her head. The world around her swirled and went silent as the water tumbled her, ground her into sand. “Did they catch the bastard?”

“As far as I know we don’t even have a suspect yet. Most of us think it’s gang related. I mean who else is going to do that kind of crap to a cop?”

Marty didn’t want to ask, but she did. “What did they do to him?”

“Aw, Hogan, you don’t want to know what I’m hearing.”

She did; cops always needed to hear the truth, no matter how horrific. Before she could ask again, she lost her breath and paused to catch it.

“Why Rosetti?” she asked. “He was a street cop. He didn’t have much to do with gangs.”

“I don’t know. Some of the guys thought it might be the mob. But those guys have pretty much been dismantled.”

“Will you call me if you find out anything?”

“Will do.”

Marty disconnected, knowing little more than she had before calling. Leaning forward, she put her face in her hands and swallowed the sob stuck in her throat. “Rosetti, you shit. How could you do this?”

Feeling despondent and alone, she straightened and looked around the room. She didn’t want to sit here and do nothing, or God forbid get drunk and feel sorry for herself.

But she knew that was exactly what she was going to do. Marty wasn’t proud of it, but she could feel herself being sucked into the black abyss. A fighter jet spiraling down to the ultimate crash and burn.

Moving to the sofa, she set the laptop on her thighs and called up a search engine. She picked up her glass and drank half without coming up for air. The alcohol burned all the way down to her stomach, but she didn’t let it slow her down. She could feel the pain pressing in on her, like a giant fist squeezing her chest. Marty didn’t want to hurt. She didn’t want to feel anything. At the moment, she wasn’t even sure she wanted to be on this earth.

Outside, the wind picked up, groaning as it whipped around the eaves. She’d once read that the sound of the incessant prairie wind could make people go insane. Listening, she believed it.

She typed in “Steven Rosetti” + “Chicago Police” and hit Enter. Four reputable news sites returned hits. She selected the first link and began to read.

Marty pressed her hand over her mouth, clicked and braced.

Disbelief and grief and a terrible sense of outrage gripped Marty with such viciousness that she couldn’t breathe. Furious, she brought her fist down on the laptop, then flung it across the room.

“No!” she screamed.
“No!”

Choking out sounds she didn’t know she was capable of making, she put her face in her hands and wished she could cry.

 
Clay waited until after dark to drive by her place. He
didn’t know what he’d find when he got there. A cop who’d lost a partner. A person in need of a friend. A woman broken into a thousand pieces by grief. He wasn’t exactly her friend, but he knew she didn’t have anyone else in Caprock Canyon. Sometimes, the next best thing had to do.

He parked curbside, shut down the engine and watched the wind push a tumbleweed against a chain-link fence. He wasn’t surprised to find the house dark. He knew how grief worked, and how different personalities responded to it. He didn’t know Hogan well, but figured she was a leave-me-alone-or-I’ll-rip-your-head-off type. Her grief would be a dark place. Still, he hesitated, wondering if approaching her now was territory he wanted to breach. But as much as he didn’t want to admit it, he was concerned. The least he could do was check on her and make sure she was all right.

He got out of the Explorer, took the sidewalk to the front door and knocked. He waited a full minute, then knocked again, harder. When that didn’t produce an answer, he tried the knob—and found it unlocked.

The crime rate was low in Caprock Canyon, but Hogan knew better than to leave her place unlocked. Opening the door, he stepped into the darkened living room. He was in the process of making a mental note to scold her for being lax on her personal security when he heard a creak from across the room. On instinct, Clay put his hand on his gun. With his left hand he fumbled for the light switch, flipped it on.

Marty sat cross-legged in a ragtag recliner. She wore gray sweatpants with a drawstring waist and an over-size T-shirt with Chicago PD emblazoned in blue. Her eyes were haunted—and dry, he noted. But her face was ghostly pale.

She took in the sight of him as if he were a stray dog that had come to her door in the midst of a rainstorm. Her feet were bare, and he was surprised to see her toenails painted the color of a seashell. She didn’t seem like a toenail-painting type, but then he imagined she was full of all sorts of surprises.

In the four days she’d been in Caprock Canyon, he’d never seen her hair down, and the unruly length of it curling around her shoulders added another layer of surprise. She had a lot of hair, and it made her look just a little wild. On the end table next to her, a cell phone and a nearly empty bottle of vodka gave him a pretty good idea of how she’d spent the last hours. A few feet away, a laptop computer lay upended on the floor. Several keys had popped from the pad, telling him it hadn’t landed there softly.

Before driving over, he’d made it a point to check the national news online. He wanted to know what he was dealing with, what he would be walking into. There was a lot of ugly information coming out of Chicago. Not only was a veteran cop dead, but his death had been long and extremely violent. When the cops didn’t release details, it was bad. Clay knew firsthand how close partners could get.

“You’re the last person I want to see right now,” Marty said in a voice that was surprisingly strong.

“I figured that.”

“I’m in no condition to talk to my boss.”

He crossed to the laptop and picked it up. “I’m not here as your boss, okay?”

She said nothing.

He carried the laptop to a scratched-up coffee table, set it down and closed the lid. “You okay?”

Instead of answering, she rose, quickly, with the grace and swiftness of a ballet dancer. Clay turned to see her snag the bottle of vodka and her glass and carry both to the kitchen. Sighing, he followed.

She set the glass on the counter and filled it. Staring through the window above the sink into the darkness beyond, she raised the glass and drank deeply.

“That’s not going to help,” he said.

“No, but it will get me through tonight.” She faced him, her expression cool and slightly defiant. “Do you have a cigarette?”

“I don’t smoke.”

“Rosetti used to smoke. His wife hated it, so he had to sneak. Sometimes we’d sit in the car, roll down the windows and steal a few puffs like a couple of teenagers.” She took another long pull of vodka. “I could really use a smoke right now.”

For the first time he noticed just how thin she was. Her shoulders were angular and slender. The drawstring pants hung over narrow hips and a flat belly. When she crossed her free arm over her midsection, Clay noticed other things about her, too. Like how pretty her hands were. That she wasn’t wearing a bra. That her breasts were the size of small fruits, her nipples tiny and pointed.

Suddenly, she wasn’t a cop anymore. She was a woman with a woman’s heart and a woman’s emotions rolled into a very attractive package. Despite the tough-guy facade, Clay saw the bottomless chasm of despondency in her eyes. He saw the deep well of vulnerability. He didn’t know what he could do about any of it.

For a moment the only sound came from the moan of the wind as it buffeted the house. Silence usually didn’t bother him. Tonight, it did. It was as if her grief were a living, breathing thing in the room with them. A vicious creature neither of them could trust or confront.

“I thought you might want to talk,” he said.

“Or maybe you thought I might do something stupid.”

“The only thing you’re doing that you shouldn’t be is drinking.”

She laughed, but it was a hollow sound. “If drinking myself into a stupor is the worst thing I could do to myself, I think neither of us has anything to worry about.”

Clay wanted to cross to her, take the glass from her and maybe dump what was left in the bottle down the sink. But he didn’t. He didn’t want to get too close. He knew that was stupid. She weighed little more than a hundred pounds soaking wet and was well on her way to total inebriation. But combine grief and alcohol and she was as unpredictable as a Panhandle storm.

He looked around the kitchen. There were no signs the place was lived in. No dishes in the sink. No residual coffee in the coffeemaker from the morning. No loaf of bread on the counter. “Have you eaten dinner?”

“You don’t have to babysit me.”

“I’m here to watch your back,” he said.

“That’s good, Chief. I like that.” She took another long pull of vodka. “But I still want you to leave.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that just yet.” Clay watched her and waited. For what, he wasn’t sure. But he was beginning to get the feeling that he was going to have to wait this out. That eventually the dam would burst. That the outpouring would be explosive when it did.

“I can’t believe he’s gone,” she said after a moment.

“Do they have a suspect?”

“No.”

“Cops pull together when it’s one of their own. They’ll find the person responsible.”

“I want to be there.”

“If you need some time off for the funeral, you’ve got it.”

“I want to find the son of a bitch who did it. I want to put my gun in his mouth and pull the trigger.”

“Hogan . . . Jesus.”

Her eyes met his. In their depths, he saw the extent of her pain, the depth of her misery. Her dark frame of mind. “What they did to him . . . You don’t do that to a cop.”

“A cop doesn’t take the law into her own hands, either.”

Her lips curved, but her eyes remained hard. “Gets them into all kinds of trouble, doesn’t it?”