The Thrill of the Chase (Mystery & Adventure) (11 page)

Sheldon shook his head, but he looked disinterested in the question – almost annoyed by it. "No. I told you, he didn't tell us
anything
– only what to do, where to do it, and how much we'd get for the job."

I twisted my face into a grimace. "Well that certainly makes things more complicated. Now we have a potential
two
gangs, both operating beneath the same boss. There's these three that hit Miles, and the other gang that hit Mendoza."

Slyder blew smoke out his nose, making me think forcibly of a dragon. "No word of any other thefts yet," he grunted simply.

I removed my fedora and scratched my scalp. "Yeah, but now when we do, we'll have to wonder which group it was… Unless we detain either of these two goons that Greg here told us about."

The kid sat up straight, very real fear shining in his youthful eyes. "You can't tell them that I snitched on them! They'll fucking
kill
me! That's the kind of men they are!"

I didn't doubt it, but Sheldon's safety and fear weren't my biggest priorities at the moment. Just the same, I reassured him, but not just to calm his anxiety. "I'm not telling them anything, kid. They'll be answering
my
questions – not the other way around."

There was complete silence as I stuffed my hands in my coat pockets and looked around the moonlit room one last time. "Alright, I'm through here."

The other cops in the room seemed distinctly pleased by that pronouncement, but I was too exhausted and too preoccupied to really care.

Slyder gestured to two of his officers. "Take him to the car."

They each took one of Sheldon's arms and helped him stand. He didn't struggle this time: he finally seemed to realize that any resistance would have proved fruitless.

"Hold up," I said suddenly, and the trio stopped in the doorway. All three of them turned to face me apprehensively as I crossed the room and came to stand before Sheldon.

"Thank you for your assistance, Greg," I said in earnest. "I apologize for my frustration, and I hope you can forgive me for it."

He said nothing, and his eyes were hard.

I cleared my throat to unstick it. "If we find out that you really
didn't
have anything to do with this woman's death, then I'll make sure that you only get charged for B&E. Okay?"

After a moment, he nodded mutely, and then the cops ushered him out of the room. The officers behind me seemed to collectively release their breath. That didn't mean the tension in the room was gone, but with one of the reactive components successfully removed, it was suddenly more bearable.

The bomb had been defused, but it still deserved cautious treatment.

Slyder wiped sweat from his palms onto his pants. "Quick thinking there, Stikup. He might have gotten away if you hadn't been paying attention."

I shrugged like it was no big deal, but I was grinding my teeth in agitation. "Sure, Chief. It's what I'm paid to do."

Suddenly he was angry again – and rightly so, I suppose. "But you weren't paid to rough the kid up!" he snapped, putting his face very close to mine. "I don't know what you were thinking – you can'tscrew with the criminals! Like it or not, they
are
human beings, and they
do
have rights."

For a moment, he stared at me, obviously raging inside, and then he exploded: "Jesus
Christ
, Stikup! If I were you, I'd be praying to God that he doesn't get a good lawyer! You know they can revoke your license for that, right? Criminal abuse is a felony, too."

He gave me a look that in no way caused my growing resentment to die away and pointed a finger in my face. I could smell his cigarette as he put that finger into my chest, nearly shouting: "I know you're not really used to this, but you've got to fucking
control
yourself. No one gives a
damn
what you think, okay? One more display of this righteous pastor shit and you're off the case. You got it? I don't think I need to tell you that you're only here because Dempsey didn't want some stupid theft case to gum up the whole force. I
will
file complaints, do you understand?"

I forced a painful smile, then held up my hand to show how it was shaking – voluntarily, of course. "Yeah, Chief. No coffee in me. Apologies."

After a very baited silence, Slyder sighed wearily and tossed his spent cigarette into a waste bin that stood by the bookshelf. "Fuck," he growled, fighting to put away his frustration. "Get the hell out of here, Stikup. We'll update you on any information we find. I
do
want you to come back in the morning, however, to check everything over again."

"Sure, Chief." I turned to the lieutenant. "If you find anything on the body, I want it. Anything that don't belong to her – blood, fingernail fragments, anything… I want it DNA'd and the information faxed to me. Got it? And keep this crime scene set up for me
exactly
as is. Don't touch anything."

She nodded once, although her eyes told me she wasn't happy in the slightest with my performance. But at the moment, I didn't give a shit.

"Of course," she said hesitantly. "Anything to help."

I turned on my heel and left the room.

Chapter Six

Instead of going home, I headed back to the office. It was 5:20 by the time I left the Daniels house, so there was no sense in going home, regardless of the fact that I was thoroughly exhausted.

The drive seemed to take a lot longer than fifteen minutes it had previously. By the time I arrived back at the office, I had picked apart the entire instance, detail by detail. And after evaluating my own performance, I was furious with myself for being unable to control my anger, and not a little humiliated at the results. Here I was, trying to be professional about this whole affair, and goddamn it all if I hadn't gone and effectively destroyed that ruse. Granted, I wasn't used to working murder cases, but that was no excuse for flying off the handle.

But it wasn't Greg Sheldon's attitude that had sparked the fire within me. It had nothing to do with the irritating actions of the police officers who had randomly ended up on the scene. It wasn't related to the late hour or the lack of any substantial leads and information. It was the all–too–recent memory of the victim, Daniels, lying prostrate on the floor, never to rise again. It was the knowledge that an innocent creature had been violated and slaughtered in such an ungodly way. It made me question mankind and curse the day God had ever created such despicable creatures.

But aside from stirring up a righteous hatred in my gut, Daniels' murder fixated my resolve unerringly on bringing the murderers to justice. Even if the result of my actions earlier that morning would prove to be my removal from the case, I solemnly vowed that I would still do everything within my power to bring the murders to justice. I felt no obligation to Miles or Mendoza despite the fact that I was technically under their employ: I just wanted to get retribution for what Sheldon and his buddies had done, if only to atone for the death of one innocent woman.

Not that anything will really make that right.

Despite the fog clouding my mind, I remembered to lock the Anglia before heading inside. On rubber legs, I made my way to the room at the end of the hall, my sanctuary. After lighting a fire in the fireplace, I flopped onto the sofa, still wearing my coat for the added warmth.

For a long while, I lay there, wide–awake. All I could do was think.

Before leaving the scene of the crime, I had briefly questioned the neighbors – the Dudsons – who had originally heard the commotion. Frank Dudson, a light sleeper, claimed to have been aroused by the sounds of a car outside. While he was using the restroom, he had heard the screams coming faintly from next–door, at approximately 1:30. According to Frank and his wife Sherry, the struggle must have been a violent one for them to have heard it so clearly.

I tossed my notepad onto the coffee table and laid my head back against the sofa's armrest, watching the ceiling grow lighter as morning crept steadily into the room. Frustration and lack of sleep were joining forces to give me a severe headache – not to mention the punch to the jaw I'd received.

Slyder and the Swedesboro CSI had gotten to the scene of the crime at about 2:00, roughly twenty minutes after Sergeant Cready had gotten the information from their DA, Seth Chauncey, that the case was under SPD jurisdiction and called them in. At 2:05, Slyder had called me over to get my hands dirty, about an hour before Cready's cops would return from their search for the getaway vehicle. According to the sergeant, they had scouted 55 from exits 20 to the merge with the Expressway, an expanse of roughly fifteen miles, but had not met with any success. They had put out the alert over all police channels about the vehicle and its dangerous occupants, but no one had seen a suspicious red Ford with no tags and a smashed driver's window at any time that night.

My swirling thoughts eventually surrendered me to the slumber of necessity, and I awoke to the smell of coffee at 7:00 on the dot. I blinked mist from my eyes and raised my head from the arm of the sofa, somehow feeling less rested than I had before nodding off.

Jill stood next to the coffee table, a gorgeous sight to wake up to, juggling a mug, sugar, and a bottle of CoffeeMate in her hands.

"Good morning!" she said, smiling and oblivious, setting it all down on the coffee table. "You looked like you were sleeping kind of restlessly. Are you okay?"

Swallowing the sour taste of sleep, I unwound my tie from around my neck where it had been attempting to strangle me. I always have had bad taste in ties.

"As far as I can tell," I replied sleepily, and began shrugging my shoulders free of the trench coat. For some reason, I was sweating – even though the fire in the hearth had burned itself out some hours ago and the room had returned to the approximate temperature of a refrigerator.

Jill smiled, almost amused, regarding my appearance. I probably looked like hell, the complete antithesis of her. "I tried waking you up when I got here, but you wouldn't come around, so I just let you sleep. I figured you needed it after last night."

Blearily wondering what she knew about the previous evening, I let my head fall back onto the arm of the sofa and covered my face with my hands. "Well, thanks for that," I said through my fingers. "You worry about me too much, you know that? That's supposed to be my mother's job."

"Well, she's not here right now. Being your secretary, I'm next in line." She indicated the mug and cream as I dragged my fingers down my cheeks, pulling my lower eyelids with them. "I made you coffee. Obviously. I hope it came out alright – I was trying to do six things at once."

I swung my legs over the edge of the sofa and sat up slowly, blinking back a wave of dizzy exhaustion. "Anything you make comes out alright, Jilly," I grunted, covering a yawn, and then froze. I usually only called her that in my thoughts, and it was almost strange to hear the name come out of my mouth.

She didn't seem to pick up on it – that, or she didn't mind the pet name. Maybe she even liked it.

"I don't know about
that
," she replied, rolling her eyes. "I can think of some things I'd like to improve." For a long moment, she stood there, chewing her lower lip and watching me as I fought to fully bring myself to consciousness. "You really don't look good, Chance. If you need anything else – Advil, food, whatever – just let me know."

"I'll take you up on the head drugs," I said immediately, unwilling to let her know my hidden anxiety. After all, it was more than weariness that was making me look like shit.

She still looked concerned when I didn't elaborate, and I found myself immensely grateful for the simple fact that she cared. Had she known that there was something on my mind, she would have begged me to tell her – not because she was nosy in any way, but because it would help
me
to talk about it, something she knew just as well as I did. But I didn't want to put that responsibility on her shoulders. Asking advice was one thing – confiding in her, another – but exposing her to the horrors of a murder was something else entirely. Of course, there was the possibility that I simply wasn't giving her enough credit. Maybe I was protecting her when she didn't need it, and maybe she would even have resented it had she known. After all, she was a big girl, and sweet though she was, she certainly wasn't naïve. She knew all too well how harsh the world could be.

So stop trying to be her father.

I suddenly remembered that she was still standing there. "Oh – sorry." I scraped a hand over my jaw, which was certainly purple and swollen. "Yeah, I'll just take some Advil when you get a chance."

Maybe then I could stop acting like a zombie.

Jill rolled her eyes in mild annoyance. "I might have a hard time finding some in that nightmare medicine cabinet, so if I'm gone too long, send SWAT after me."

She left the room and I cupped my face in my hands, fighting the urge to just flop back on the sofa and fall back to sleep. With so much on my mind that I
didn't
want to think about, it would take no effort, and I would be out in seconds.

You've got a long day ahead of you,
I told myself grimly, peering through my fingers at the floor.
You need to focus.