Do You Want To Play: A Detroit Police Procedural Romance (12 page)

“THERE IS SPECULATION that the murders of Captain of Police Ray Stewart and Officer Lionel Richardson were committed by the serial killer known as the PVP killer,” a newscaster says as he stands in front of the police station. “The Detroit police department refuses to give any answers. The police, who have a long history of being incompetent and letting murderers walk free, are clearly out of their depth, but the FBI has also been seen strolling in and out of the 10th precinct, so could it be that they can’t even catch this killer?”

“How can they even call this news?” I ask Lauren as we sit on her couch. “They haven’t said anything factual yet.”

“Well…we haven’t caught the killer,” she says. “That’s true.”

“You’re not helping,” I say. She puts her hand on my knee.

“You know what will help?” she asks. “Liquor.”

I laugh. “I’ll go get some.”

“It’s in the pantry,” she says. I get off the coach and walk into her kitchen. As I get the whiskey out of her pantry, I notice a ripped strip of newspaper. I kneel down to pick it up. It’s from the Sunday comics. As I’m kneeled down, I see part of the drywall under the shelf is sticking out, and it’s too precise to be caused by old age. A cold draft grazes against my arm. I try to push the fractured wall back together again, but something solid keeps it from closing. I pull the broken part away from the rest of the wall and put my hand behind the drywall.

“Tobias?” Lauren asks. “Did you find it?”

“Yeah,” I call out. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

My hand wraps around something cold and hard. I pull my hand out from behind the wall to find a semi-automatic pistol.

Looking at it more closely, I can see that it doesn’t have a serial number on it. It’s also a Smith & Wesson double-action. It looks like a .45, which is the kind of gun Geoffrey Black, Aubrey Morrison, and Captain Ray Stewart were shot with.

The obsession with serial killers. Making the connection that the serial killer was posing the murders like video games. She happens to come around two months after the killings begin and she happens to want to become part of the 10th precinct. The serial killer getting into her apartment. The death of the FBI agent right outside of her apartment. The article she wrote supporting the PVP killer. The way she insisted that she had to be part of the investigation of the PVP killer even when I refused to take her as a partner—she was keeping tabs on the investigation.

The fact that she already had a juvie record, in which she tried to murder someone.

I walk out to the living room. Lauren is smiling until I set the gun down on her coffee table.

“What are you doing with this?” I ask. She tucks her hair behind her ears.

“It’s for protection,” she says. “That’s what happens when a small town girl moves to Detroit.”

“It doesn’t have a serial number on it.”

She shrugs. “I got it from my grandfather after he died.”

I stare at her. She tilts her head.

“Why are you questioning me? Why did you even take that gun from the pantry? I have the right to bear arms.”

“I wanted to fix a draft,” I say. “And you have the right to bear arms as long as the gun is registered. Is this registered?”

“Why do you care?” she asks. I get my utility belt and take the handcuffs off it.

“Walk over to the wall and put your hands on it,” I say.

“What?” she blurts. “Are you kidding me? You’re arresting me for owning an unregistered gun?”

“Among other suspicions,” I say. She stands up, glaring at me, and puts her hands on the wall. I pull her arm behind her back and lock her wrist in the cuff. The sound of the cuff locking seems to echo through the apartment.

~~~~~

IT’S DIFFERENT BEING in the interrogation room when you’re the one being questioned. Tobias sits across from me with his index finger tapping against his lips. He scratches his jawline.

“Can you tell me where you were the night of October 7th?” he asks.

“October 7th? That was almost a month ago. How am I supposed to know that?” I ask. “What does this have to do with the gun?”

“This isn’t your interrogation,” he says. “I’ll be the one asking the questions.”

“October 7th…” I say. “Isn’t that the day before Jeff Patton died?”

“Well, Jeff Patton was murdered around midnight,” he says. “So, it could be October 7th or October 8th”

“…You think I killed Jeff Patton?” I ask. “Why would I kill him? The PVP killer killed him. His PVP marking was there.”

“I’m sure that the PVP killer did murder him,” he says.

“Then, why are you questioning me?” I ask. “And asking me about October 7th?”

“Remind me why you came to Detroit,” he says, ignoring my questions. “And decided to work for the 10th precinct.”

“I can’t believe you’re interrogating me,” I say.

“Remind me,” he repeats.

“I knew there was a high rate of unsolved murders and I wanted to decrease that rate,” I say. “I thought this was a place serial killers would gravitate toward and I’ve always found serial killers interesting—”

“Right,” he says. “Let’s talk about your fascination with serial killers. Why are you so obsessed?”

“I’m not obsessed!” I say. “I just find them interesting. They are like a different species of human. They are humans without humanity.”

“So, you’re telling me that you aren’t interested in serial killers because you relate to them?” he asks. My breathing goes shallow and my cheeks burn red.

“Of course not,” I say. “Why would you think that?”

“Maybe because you stabbed another girl when you were thirteen,” he says. “And then changed your name.”

I feel like I’ve been slapped across the face.

“How do you even know about that?” I ask. “My juvie record is sealed.”

“The FBI is occasionally useful,” he says, his expression blank.

“Well, you know what my record doesn’t tell you?” I ask. “Motive. Do you want to know why I stabbed that girl?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he says.

“It does matter,” I tell him. “The motive always matters. A wife who shoots her husband because she wants his life insurance is a hell of a lot different than a wife who shoots her husband because he has beaten her for the last two decades. That girl was trying to stab me. She was trying to stab
me
because she thought I was trying to steal her boyfriend. I had my hands around her hands, trying to stop her from plunging the scissors into me, when her hands slipped…there was no longer any resistance against me and the scissors went into her chest. But the girls at the sleepover were more her friends than mine and they sided with her. Why would the police believe me? I wasn’t the injured one. My fingerprints were on the scissors. So, don’t tell me that motive doesn’t matter.”

His expression barely changes except for a slight muscle twitch at the corner of his lip.

“Ballistics is testing your gun right now,” he says. “Is there anything that you want to say to me before they tell me what they found?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I want to tell you that Anna was right to warn me about your emotional baggage. Our relationship is not worth your paranoia. You need help.”

“Well, sticks and stones may break my bones,” he says. “But words can be used to lie. You were hiding an unregistered gun. And people seem to die after they meet you.”

With my hands still in cuffs, I use my arms together to take a swing at him. My knuckles graze against his jaw before I stumble into the table.

“When they come back with ballistics,” I say. “You should just remember that motive matters. And that there is nothing you could say that will make this better.”

There’s a knock on the door. Ballistics.

Tobias opens the door and takes a step out of the room.

~~~~~

BENJAMIN, OUR FORENSIC analyst that specializes in ballistics, hands me a piece of paper. “That gun is a match to the bullets that shot Geoffrey Black, Aubrey Morrison, and Captain Ray Stewart.”

“Are you sure?” I ask.

“All firearms leave marks on bullets that are like fingerprints,” he says. “It couldn’t have come from any other gun.”

I shake my head. “I can’t believe it.”

He hands me the evidence bag with the Smith & Wesson in it. I flip it in my hands.

“This is crazy,” Benjamin says. “One of our own…”

“I can’t believe it,” I repeat. “Could the gun have been planted?”

He shrugs. “Any evidence could be planted…but the gun was hidden. How would anyone else know where the gun was hidden?”

I nod. I open up the door to the interrogation room. Lauren sits up straight. I put the gun down on the table.

“Explain,” I say.

“I can’t,” she says. “I told you everything that you need to know.”

“What?” he asks. “That whole story about why you stabbed that girl? That motive matters?”

“Yes,” she says.

“Then tell me your motive,” I say.

“I can’t,” she repeats. “You’re a detective. Figure it out yourself.”

Someone opens the door and a man in a black suit walks in.

“I am Miss Williams’ lawyer,” he says. “She will not be answering any more questions.”

Lauren raises an eyebrow. I grind my teeth.

The lawyer and I stare at each other until he turns away to look at Lauren. He leans down and whispers something into Lauren’s ear. She nods, understanding rippling over her face. I stand up.

“Then I suppose we will all have to talk later,” I say.

~~~~~

I strike my thumb against my lighter’s spark wheel. The flame leaps up and lights my cigarette. I breathe in deep. I need to remind myself to exhale.

News programs from all over Detroit are aiming their cameras at Tom Powell, lieutenant of the 10th precinct. The various bright colors of the news anchors compared to the dark gray environment of Detroit reminds me of fall leaves clogging up a weakening river.

“Miss Lauren Williams was questioned for a case, but she has not been charged with anything. The 10th precinct is simply flipping over every stone. The Detroit police department is not going to protect their own if a crime was committed—we owe it to the public to treat our policemen the same way we would treat any other suspect. A small piece of evidence came up and we are making damn sure that nobody in our department is guilty. Let me emphasize that we are only being vigilant and honest to all of you.”

“What is she being questioned for?” a reporter yells out.

“That is not important,” Tom says. “I am not going to connect anybody to a crime simply because we have asked them some questions.”

“It has to be something disturbing then,” the reporter says.

“That’s enough questions for now.” Tom walks back into the station. The cameras shut off and the cameramen begin to pack up their gear. I watch the news crews scramble away, desperate to be the first ones to report to their station and give the most sensational news line possible. The truth may speak volumes, but money and hype screams a hundred times louder.

Lauren’s lawyer strolls up to me with one hand in his pocket.

“Do you have any more smokes?” he asks.

“No.”

“Aw, come on, Tobias,” he says. “I’m a prosecutor. I hate working for the defense. It’s damn hard to convince a jury that someone in a jumpsuit and handcuffs is guilty. I need the nicotine.”

“Yeah, Arnold, usually you’re on our side,” I say. “Why are you suddenly betraying the police by working for the defense?”

“She is part of the police,” he says. He shoves his hands into his pockets, a smirk on his lips. “I thought you were supposed to be good at your job.”

“I am,” I say. He laughs.

“Well, clearly, this case has clouded your common sense,” he says. “There’s a pattern that you’re missing completely.”

I scowl. “You shouldn’t even be talking to me. It’s pretty low, even for you, to try to manipulate me before the case gets to trial.”

“There is no case,” he says. “And if you weren’t being stupid, you’d know I wasn’t manipulating you. It’s the opposite, actually. I’m trying to steer you toward the truth, but I suppose I can’t expect too much from a cop.”

He winks and begins to saunter down the sidewalk. After he’s fifteen feet away, he turns around.

“I can see why she didn’t tell you the truth,” he says. He spins around and continues walking away. I drop my cigarette and crush it with the toe of my shoe.

~~~~~

The third balloon is black with the skull and bones drawn on with a white permanent marker. It’s been a windy day, so the balloon sailed throughout the city, plenty of people seeing it and trying to catch it, before it landed in Elmwood Historic Cemetery, snuggled down in the grass at the Veiled Lady monument’s base. In a moment of luck—for once—the 89-year-old woman who found it called the police before she called the news stations. A nearby patrol officer retrieved it and took it back to the station before the cameramen arrived. Even before the patrol officer returned to the station, everyone knew what the message was:
Level 3: Release Lauren Williams. Do not follow or track her. Erase any data of her in your system. If you fail to do this, you will lose your last life.

“You know what we could really use right now?” Jared, one of the forensic analysts asks. “One of Lauren’s insights. Oh, but wait. You accused her of mass murder.”

“I accused her of mass murder because there was evidence that she was responsible for it,” he says.

“Or…you’re a jerk who can’t commit and you thought, How can I end this emotional connection to this woman? I know. I’ll accuse her of mass murder,” he says. I glare at him.

“Can you just tell me about the balloon?”

“Well, I can tell you that it had enough air still in it that Lauren couldn’t have released it,” he says.

“Someone could have released it for her,” I say. “She didn’t deny the fact that she was the killer. That’s enough evidence for me.”

“Wow, you really don’t want to be wrong, do you?” he asks. “The only other notable characteristic about it is that it wasn’t originally a black balloon. Someone took the time to color it with black marker…which is bad, because finding someone who bought black balloons would be easier than trying to find someone who bought white ones. So, Lauren is still here, right?”

“We can hold her for 36 hours,” I say. “But we’ll be taking her up to Wayne County Jail soon.”

“How are you dealing with it?” he asks.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Come on, Tobias,” he says. “You really liked her. Now, I doubt it, but she could be the killer that you’ve been looking for this whole time. You have to be messed up over it.”

“I got my killer,” I say. “That’s all that matters.”

“You’re lying,” he says. “But that’s okay. You can be emotionally stunted if you want to be.”

He hands me photographs of where the balloon was found. The veiled lady, carved from marble, could be flying or lying down in a grave. Regardless, the most unnerving part is that you can’t see her face. She could be anyone and no one will ever know. Hidden in plain sight.

“So, are you going to release Lauren?” he asks.

“No.”

“Really? Because not doing what this killer says seems to have a bad effect on the population in Detroit,” he says.

“You don’t think I know that, Jared?” I ask. “But even if Lauren isn’t the killer, she could be a key to figuring out who is. We can’t release her.”

“You’re the boss,” he says. He begins to walk toward the elevator, but continues to talk. “By the way, next time we have a birthday celebration here, there’s not going to be any balloons. I’ll do confetti, even the party hats, but not balloons.”

“I’ll fill your lab with them every day,” I call out as he walks into the elevator. He grimaces as he pushes the button to go to the basement. I open the bottom drawer of my desk and pull out a flask. I put it to my lips, but then I remember I have to take Lauren to the county jail. I’ll be with another officer, but I’d prefer to be the one driving so I’ll be too occupied to have any kind of conversation with her.

I put the flask back and close the drawer. I’ll get drunk as possible after we drop her off. I’ll drink until I no longer have these feelings of confusion, betrayal, and most of all, doubt.

~~~~~