Under a Raging Moon (23 page)

ELEVEN

Thursday, September 1st

Graveyard Shift

2215 hours

T-Dog checked that both pistols were loaded with full magazines and a round in the chamber. Everything had to be perfect. Morris was getting very touchy lately, as their nightly searches for the cop came up empty. He assured Morris that it was only a matter of time before luck would take a hand and they’d find him. He’d been rewarded with a slap upside the head and a ten-minute tirade. Now, he remained silent while Morris groused.

“Gonna get that cracker bitch motherfucker,” Morris muttered as he sipped from his forty-ouncer. “To-
night
!”

T-Dog didn’t respond, but handed him the small black .380. Morris shook his head. “Gimmee the other one, dumb motherfucker.” He reached out as T-Dog handed him the one with the brown grips. “The poker gun, too.”

T-Dog handed him the small, two-shot derringer, which Morris liked to carry at card games.

Morris snatched it from his hand. “Stupid fuckin’ Wonder Bread,” he said. “Wannabe motherfucker.” He shook his head at T-Dog and slipped the guns into his pockets.

T-Dog swallowed the insult dutifully, raging at it inside. Man, he was a brother. He hung with the ban
g
ers. He kept their secrets, he did their dirty work. What did it take to be accepted?

Stroking the smooth metal of the pistol’s slide, T-Dog found his a
n
swer.

Friday, September 2nd

0049 hours

Woodenly, Stefan Kopriva patrolled his sector. Five days had passed since Karl Winter’s funeral, and the impact of the shooting on the depar
t
ment had not subsided. His death had not officially been pinned on Scarface, though every officer in town remained convinced it had been the elusive robber who shot Winter.

Kopriva reviewed the facts that Major Crimes finally gave to patrol at that evening’s roll call. The license plate of the car Winter stopped came back to a 1972 Ford Maverick, but the tire marks at the scene suggested a much wider mid-to-early seve
n
ties car, like a Caprice or something similar. So, either Winter put out the wrong plate when he made the stop or more likely the plates had been switched. No shell casings were found at the scene. One of the bullets that struck Winter had been recovered. Forensics stated it was a .38 caliber, the weapon formerly used by every cop in Amer
i
ca.

The only other clue was a driver’s license at the scene belonging to Carla Dunham. River City PD showed no record of her locally, and her Depar
t
ment of Licensing address was in Seattle. Her picture circulated at the roll call tables. She was the best lead they had, but the detectives had been unable to locate her. Now they were asking for help from the patrol offi
c
ers.

Business continued as usual. The calls just kept coming. Burglaries, DV’s, accidents, drunks. People co
n
stantly asking about the shooting.
Did you know the cop who got shot?

Scarface had been busy, too. Three more robberies since the night of the shooting. Strangely, he had not hit on the night of the funeral; som
e
thing Kopriva didn’t know what to make of, if anything.

He remembered Katie at the funeral and her sculpted beauty. She hadn’t cried, remaining strong in the presence of her brethren police officers. She’d caught his eye and held it for a long time while the bugler’s notes floated over them. He hadn’t been able to read her face.

He should have spoken with her. Hell, he wanted to. He’d wanted to be with someone very badly that night. To make love frantically with someone, and especially with her, to prove he was still alive. Maybe that was why he hadn’t spoken to her. They’d had enough bad timing already.

He stopped at an intersection just in time to see a car bust the light northbound. He watched it go. The driver, a single Hispanic female in a two-year-old compact, didn’t even notice him in the marked police vehicle. She looked like a worker bee to him. Kopriva saw no other cars in the area. He let the car go, turning southbound and continuing his patrol.

0234 hours

“Was that him?” Morris asked as they passed a police car.

“No,” T-Dog answered. “That was some bitch.”

“Are you sure?”

T-Dog nodded.

“Man, you are a no-finding motherfucker, you know that?” Morris took a slug from his forty-ouncer. “Couldn’t find your dick to piss with it,” he muttered.

T-Dog ignored him. Morris would treat him differently after they found the cop. They’d take care of business. And then it was down to Compton. He’d come back, beat in and proud.

0349 hours

It had been a slow Thursday night, now a slow Friday morning. Units made stops all night long and most cleared with no citation. That usually meant the car they’d stopped was a civilian car instead of a criminal car. Most patrol officers didn’t bother writing normal citizens for minor infra
c
tions. You could tell when pickings were poor, though, by the number of those stops and clears that came across the radio.

Calls for service were also very few and tapered off co
m
pletely around two in the morning. At three-thirty, units began to request sevens. Radio had no reason to refuse and by three forty-five, the first unit had checked out at Mary’s Café for breakfast. Most of the Adam Sector cars quickly followed and after a short time, most of Baker, too.

That left three cars in each sector still on patrol. Down in the radio room, Janice Koslowski felt no alarm at the thinness of patrol. She could have run the whole north side with two cars tonight, much less the six that were still out there. As long as at least one car stayed in service on each side of Division, she didn’t see a pro
b
lem.

0353 hours

Thomas Chisolm heard the sevens begin and decided to stay in the field and shag any calls that popped up. He’d stopped at some Mexican drive-through around midnight and eaten slowly while sitting up at Haven and Illinois, gazing out over the Looking Glass River and the southern half of the city. He loved that view, but now the burrito sat in his stomach like lead shot.

He’d heard yesterday that Payne was reviewed by the Probationary Officer Board at Bates’s recomme
n
dation and fired. He hadn’t been lucky enough to see Hart since the announc
e
ment, but he didn’t care. The arrogant prick had been wrong and now he had to know it. He wondered briefly if he could force Hart to reinstate him into the FTO program and knew he would probably not have to.

Simply asking nicely would be enough.

Chisolm smiled and turned up the stereo as the Rolling Stones came on singing something about satisfa
c
tion.

0404 hours

Kopriva considered going to Mary’s Café, but he didn’t like the fact it was in the extreme northwest of town and almost all the city’s units were already there. The only other option at this time of night was the De
n
ny’s at Division and Wabash. He headed that direction until he heard Katie’s voice over the radio.

“Adam-116, I’ll be seven and paperwork at Division and Wabash.”

Kopriva frowned. He wasn’t ready to deal with Katie yet, if he ever would be. Not that hungry anyway, he decided to stay in service and drive around. He rolled down the window and turned up the stereo, trying to drive the foggy sleepiness out of his eyes.

Some coffee would be nice, though.

0406 hours

Chisolm stopped in a dry cleaning parking lot and backed his car right up to the windows. The lot was at the eastern edge of his sector here, but he could respond to any call quickly enough. Especially on a slow morning like this. He remembered the unofficial graveyard motto. “You know it’s a good night when you get to drive fast, point your gun at somebody and take them to jail.”

Well, he made a warrant arrest on a stop earlier that night, but it had all gone off pretty low-key. So he stood one-for-three. Of course, some officers were one-for-three as they ripped out of the basement sally-port and raced to the city pumps for gas.

Chisolm removed the folded burglary report from the visor above him. All that remained to do was to write a brief narrative, one he had written almost verbatim hundreds of times before.

Complainant left at 0700 hrs and returned home at 2200 hrs to find the front door forced open with some sort of generic pry tool. The residence had been ransacked. Refer to property sheet for missing items. Complai
n
ant had no suspects. No physical evidence beyond the damage to the point of entry was found.
End of report.

Chisolm still felt sorry for these people, even after all these years of taking similar reports. Most were law-abiding folks whose only contact with the police was when he showed up at their burglary, looking concerned but unable to do much. He wished he could do more, but most of the time he couldn’t.

So he wrote the report.

0409 hours

“That’s him,” T-Dog said.

Morris snapped straight up in his seat, where he’d been reclining glumly. His beer ran out an hour ago and the effects of the alcohol had worn off. He’d considered dozing, but didn’t trust T-Dog to spot their target. Maybe he’d been wrong about the guy, after all.

He saw the cop roll by slowly in his marked car. Sure enough, that was the motherfucker.

“Follow him. And not too close.”

T-Dog pulled in behind the police car, shadowing it from a block and a half back.

0410

Kopriva rubbed his scratchy eyes. The far southeast part of his sector was usually full of activity, but not tonight. Hardly any cars moved and the airwaves were dead. He pulled down Market and decided he would get his coffee at the Circle K at Euclid. He needed to stretch his legs.

0411 hours

“Remember, bitch, this ain’t no drive-by,” Morris told T-Dog. “I want to be sure on this motherfucker. So get your white ass out of the car with me and walk up. Got it?”

T-Dog nodded. The police car, now three blocks ahead, signaled and turned into a convenience store parking lot.

Morris reached down for the fifteenth or twentieth time and felt the cool metal of his .380.

“This is it,” he said, his voice high-pitched with excitement. “He’s stopping.”

0412 hours

Kopriva shut off his headlights out of habit as he swung into the Circle K at Market and Euclid. As he pulled up to the front of the store, just to the north of the doors, his mind did a double-take.

A short, slender white male with long black hair was hol
d
ing a gun on the clerk inside.

“Holy Christ,” he whispered and reached for his mike. “Baker-123, robbery in progress at Market and Euclid.”

Janice sat upright in her chair, dropping the novel she’d been reading. She punched the alarm tone broa
d
cast as she adjusted her headset, then cleared her throat before depressing the foot petal to make the city-wide broa
d
cast.

James Mace heard the loud, shrill tone burst from the small radio b
e
hind the counter.

“What the fuck is that?” he growled at the clerk.

“P-police scanner,” the terrified woman stammered.

A stoic female voice came over the radio.
“Dispatch to all units. Armed robbery in progress at Market and Euclid. Further information to follow.”

“You hit the fucking alarm?” Mace yelled, infuriated.

“No, I didn’t hit any—”

He raised the gun and fired twice, shooting the woman in the face. He didn’t even blink as wet scalp and skull splattered against the wall behind her. He grabbed the money and headed for the door.

Linda Anderson had waited tables at Mary’s Café for three years. Never before had she seen every cop in the place empty out for a call. Their sudden exodus forced her to slide into a booth to avoid being trampled as they rushed out and caused her to drop the huge tray laden with breakfast food, covering the floor in a mixture of eggs, bacon and French toast.

Kopriva stood behind the door of his patrol car, one leg on the pavement, and one leg against the doo
r
jamb. He wedged his back squarely against the car frame. That protected the majority of his body behind the cruiser’s engine block. The radio mike sat on the driver’s seat, within quick reach.