Under a Raging Moon (2 page)

Payne scrambled out of the car, knocking his side-handle baton out of its holder. It clattered onto the pavement. Chisolm ignored him, continuing to scan from behind the curtain of light created by the patrol veh
i
cle’s spotlight, high beams and tak
e
down light located on the roof in the light bar.

Nothing.

Fifteen seconds of nothing on the air from Katie.

Then twenty.

Chisolm scowled. Radio should check on—

“Adam-116, an update,”
came the dispatcher’s voice.

There was a terrible moment of silence. Chisolm’s drew his gun and held it at the low-ready position. He saw Payne in his peripheral vision and watched the rookie mimic his stance.

“I got him, he’s running near the south fence.”
Katie’s voice was l
a
bored and tense.
“Westbound.”

“Copy. Westbound near the south fence. Baker-123?”

“I’m almost there,”
Stefan Kopriva replied.

Then where the hell were they?
Chisolm thought.

There!

He saw a figure, short and slender, running hard near the fence. The figure pulled up abruptly, probably noticing the lights. Chisolm drew a bead on the figure, trying to see his hands but unable to at this distance.

“Adam-112, I see him about mid-block,” Chisolm told R
a
dio.

There was a flash of light from the figure’s hand and a loud bang.

“Shots fired!”
called Katie.

Chisolm carefully aimed at the figure, but held his fire. The danger of cross
-
fire was too great. He would give Katie and Stef a few seconds to take cover, at least.

The suspect climbed the fence. He went over it military style with almost no effort, climbed rapidly up one side, swung over the top and then dropped to the ground in two quick, controlled movements. He landed in a crouch and immediately fired in Chisolm’s direction.

Chisolm ducked next to the wheel well, using the engine block for co
v
er. He heard the sound of shattering glass as the bullets struck the patrol car. He popped up and returned fire over the hood of the car, squeezing off three quick rounds. The muzzle flash took away his already minimal night vision. He scanned for movement but saw none.

“Adam-112 to -14, do you see him?” Chisolm keyed the mike with his left hand while keeping his pistol pointed where he’d last seen the suspect.

“We’ve taken cover here in the yard. We lost visual on him as soon as he fired.”

“Copy. -12 to Radio, he may have fled southbound.”

“Copy, southbound.”

Chisolm heard a moan from the driver’s side and glanced over. Payne was nowhere in sight. The spotlight was dark. Chisolm ran around the back end of the car and saw Payne collapsed on the ground holding his face. He could see dark blood next to him and seeping through his hands.

“Adam-112, officer down,” Chisolm spoke into his portable radio. “I need medics to my location.”

Radio copied his transmission as he knelt next to Payne, still keeping his weapon trained on the threat a
r
ea. “Payne?” He asked gently.

Payne moaned. “It hurts.”

Chisolm pulled Payne’s hand away from his cheek and saw the cut. It was two inches long and had pro
b
ably been caused by flying glass after the spotlight had been hit.

“You’ll be okay,” he said through gritted teeth, then keyed the mike. “Adam-112, injuries are a facial la
c
er
a
tion, not life-threatening.”

“Copy, I’ll inform medics.”

Chisolm stood by with Payne as a dog handler arrived on scene and began a track. He remained alert but at Payne’s side for twenty minutes during the track until it was called off. The K-9 officer advised that it was likely that the suspect had gotten into a vehicle at Sharp and Elm.

Medics, who had been standing off until the area was declared secure, arrived and treated Payne, who seemed to be slipping into shock. Chisolm watched as they wiped the cut with iodine and put a gauze pad against it to stem the bleeding, which had slowed to a trickle. An ambulance transported Payne to Sacred Heart Hospital for stitches.

As the ambulance pulled away, Chisolm picked up Payne’s gun and put it in his briefcase. The young o
f
ficer had not asked about it once. Chisolm felt sorry for him. Not only because he’d been hurt but also because it was very apparent that he was shortly going to have to recommend that Payne be fired.

What the hell,
Chisolm thought.
I was his teacher, his doctor and now I am going to be the axe-man. Bad night for us all.

Thomas Chisolm, despite being a fourteen-year veteran of the police department and former Green Beret with two tours in Vietnam, could not shake the sinking feeling in his chest as he kicked the shards of glass from the spotlight to the curb of the street. He couldn’t stop wondering how much worse it was going to get.

Saturday, August 13th

Day Shift

0554 hours

Officer Karl Winter made his way out of the locker room and toward the roll call room for his fifth day shift of the week. He walked past the sergeants’ offices and the lieutenant’s office to get there, but didn’t even turn his head. Despite their rank, he held most of his superiors in co
n
tempt. Besides, he remembered when some of them were rookies who could hardly keep from handcuffing the
m
selves instead of the suspect.

Officer Stefan Kopriva passed him on the way out of the roll call room. The graveyard officer had changed into plain clothes before finishing up his reports.

“Go home and get some sleep, kid,” Winter said.

“I will,” Kopriva said, his voice a tired croak. He slid his reports into the IN box, muttered, “G’night” to Winter and headed down the hallway.

Winter remembered those days well enough. Kopriva had three or four years on the job, and he’d spend quite a few more on graveyard before he gained enough seniority to bid another shift.

Not me,
Winter thought, and smiled inwardly. Nine months to go and he’d retire. Not long. Just like wai
t
ing for a baby to be born. Only the delivery would be a piece of cake and when it was over, he and Mary would sell the house and move up to the lake cabin where he planned to catch so many fish they’d have to re-stock the lake.

Winter’s thick mouth broke into a half-smile at the thought.

The roll call room was unimpressive and square, with three large tables, one for each sector. Most of the shift was already present. Winter walked toward his seat at the Charlie sector table. He noticed several graveyard patrol officers at the back of the room, still working on reports.

“Milking the system, Chisolm?” Winter asked.

Chisolm looked up. The intense look on his face melted and he smiled at Winter. “Call me a dairy maid.”

Winter chuckled. “Nine months, Tommy.”

“Nine months and you drop that baby elephant you’re ca
r
rying?” Chisolm grinned.

Winter ran his hand over his uniform shirt, which was stretched tightly over his large stomach. “Ah, screw you. Nine months and I retire.”

“Oh, hell, Karl. You’ve been retired on the job for years now.”

“I say again, screw you. You’re just jealous.” Karl gloated. “What do you have left? Six, seven years? Ten?”

“
You’re
jealous.”

“Me? Why? Because I don’t get to work graveyard and live like a va
m
pire?”

“No,” Chisolm said evenly, “You’re jealous because I get to eat your wife but not her cooking.”

Karl exhaled heavily into the silence. No way he could top that one without sounding lame. Chisolm’s eyes danced m
i
schievously as he waited.

Finally Winter said, “Oh, go back to shafting the citizens out of their tax dollars, you O-T whore.”

Chisolm chuckled and returned to his report.

Winter plopped down into his customary seat at the Charlie sector t
a
ble. All around the room, insults and jokes flew across the room, while others discussed everything but police work. Cars, boats, sports and hunting were popular topics. The two rookies assigned to the shift sat rigidly in their chairs, speaking only when spoken to, obviously uncomfortable in the midst of so much seniority.

Will Reiser tossed a travel brochure to Winter. The words
Bienvenido a Cancún
were plastered above the picture of a smiling blonde in a bathing suit. The model walked along a sandy white beach next to a light blue ocean.

“Whattya think, Karl?” he asked. “A trip to Mexico good enough for a twenty-year anniversary?”

Winter thumbed through it briefly, nodding. It was a good idea. Police wives go through a lot in a twenty-year career. Will’s wife Patty deserved a trip like this. So did his Mary, for that matter.

“You bet. Good choice.” He slid the brochure back to him. Rookies co
m
ing on now had a new retirement system and had to do thirty years or until age fifty-five. He felt sorry for their wives.

Sergeant David Poole entered the room and sat wordlessly at the head of Winter’s table. He looked grouchier than usual. Winter didn’t find that surprising. Poole had made sergeant before Alan Hart, who was now a lieut
e
nant. Poole had helped Hart study and brought him along. Once Hart made sergeant, the two were bosom buddies. But after Hart made lieutenant, he suddenly became too good for a lowly three-striper and began dum
p
ing on Poole. Worse yet, Poole had become an effective, if reluctant, suck-up.

Lieutenant Alan Hart entered the room and talk quickly subsided. Wi
n
ter knew Hart thought it was out of respect for him, but in reality, no one wanted him to over-hear anything. In a profession of strong-willed men and women, Winter saw an awful lot of disagreement but there was one thing universally agreed upon: everyone loathed Lt. Hart. Even the boot-lickers who sucked up to him didn’t like him.

Hart was either unaware of this fact or didn’t care. He stepped up to the lectern and looked around the room slowly before calling everyone to order. “Listen up. Several stolen vehicles last night.”

Only the two rookies wrote in their notebooks as the lieutenant read off four license plates belonging to stolen vehicles.

Hart continued, “Has anybody seen Gregory Macdonald lately? Black male, hangs out down on the Block? Detective Browning wants to talk to him. Call him anytime day or night.”

He shuffled papers, skipping an irrelevant memo, then said, “Captain Reott is looking for volunteers for the Cops-2-Kids program. Two from each shift. Paid as overtime. Any volu
n
teers?”

Anthony “Gio” Giovanni spoke up, “Lieutenant, no one wants to do that because Channel Two puts you on TV.”

Hart’s eyes narrowed. “I have one volunteer. Thank you, Tony. Any ot
h
ers?”

No one even breathed.

“Okay, well, there will be a volunteer by roll call t
o
morrow or I will designate one. And Tony,” he turned to face the officer, “since Channel Two is paying for everything but your time on this project, don’t you think they deserve a little help with the publicity?”

Giovanni didn’t respond. Winter knew what the officer thought and figured he and everyone else in the room knew how difficult it was for Gio not to say it.

Hart held his stare for a moment then moved the memo to the back of the stack.

“Okay. Graveyard had another armed robbery tonight in Adam Sector. The 7-11 at Birch and Maxwell was hit. Suspect fled westbound. Officer MacLeod gave chase through the lumber yard at Maxwell and Elm. . .” Hart looked up and directed his gaze toward the back of the room. “Officer MacLeod?”

Winter turned to look at Katie, who looked up from her r
e
port. “Sir?”

“The suspect was armed?” Hart asked.

“Yes, sir. He displayed a black revolver.”

“Same description as the other Scarface robberies?”

MacLeod nodded.

“And you chased this man through a construction yard in the dark?”

MacLeod nodded again.

Hart looked around the room of assembled officers. “Let’s learn from this, people. Is it safe to pursue an armed robber alone into a dark construction yard? Or would it be better to set up a perimeter and wait for bac
k
up?”

“She had backup.” Chisolm stared coldly at Lt. Hart. The thin white scar that ran from Chisolm’s temple to his chin pulsed with hatred.

“Sir,” MacLeod said calmly, “perhaps this is something you would like to discuss with my lieutenant?”