Do You Want To Play: A Detroit Police Procedural Romance (5 page)

ON SUNDAY, I wake up to my cellphone vibrating. My hand has to wander across my bed stand until I accidentally knock the phone onto the floor. I yank my covers off and set my feet on the carpet. I pick up my cellphone. It’s Tobias. It also happens to be 6:44 a.m.

“Hello?” I mumble.

“Turn on your TV. A news channel.”

“Good morning to you too.”

“Turn. On. Your. TV.”

I shuffle into my living room, rubbing my eyes. I find the TV control in between the cushions of my loveseat and I click the Power button. The TV flickers on and I scroll down to Channel 10 News. A man in a black suit and a puke-brown tie stands in a playground.

“This is where young Tiffany Fletcher found the white balloon that had gotten stuck underneath this slide. When she grabbed the balloon, she was shocked to find that a skull and crossbones was drawn on it. She ran to her mother, Amy Fletcher, who took the balloon and found a note attached to its string. One side of the note states
To: Detroit Police, 10th Precinct
. The other side says
Play my game. You have three lives—two of them are not your own. For the first level, place $10,000 in a black suitcase with a Master lock on it on a plane to New York City. Do it tonight using the flight that leaves at 11:15 p.m. at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport. If you fail to do this, you will lose a life
.” The newscaster faces the camera with a somber face. “It is currently unknown how the Detroit police intend to react or if the person who left this threat is a danger to the whole city.”

“Lauren?”

I realize the phone is still lingering near my ear.

“You think this is the PVP killer?” I ask.

“They showed the balloon earlier,” he says. “It’s definitely the same drawing as on the balloon that was tied to Aubrey Morrison’s wrist. Some patrol officers are going down there now to start looking for evidence.”

“It could be a copycat…”

“We never showed the balloon to the public,” he says. “It’s him.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Catch this son of a bitch.”

“No, I mean…are we going to give him the money?” I ask.

“Lauren, you’ve been in the station. Does it look like we have $10,000 hanging around?”

“We have to do something,” I say.

“We will,” he says. “We’ll fill a suitcase with newspaper, send it on its way, and tell the NYC people to stake out the baggage claim there.”

“What do we do?” I ask.

“Wait until the New York City cops return with our killer,” he says. “Maybe gather some evidence while we wait to make sure that we have this guy by the balls.”

“Charming,” I say. I hear paper crinkle on the other side of the phone.

“Unless you want to stay home on your Sunday,” he says. “I can take care of everything here.”

I groan. “I’m coming. Don’t be an ass.”

“It’s how I was born,” he says. “I can’t help it.”

I hear a click as he hangs up. I throw my phone onto the coach. Sunday may be a blessed day after all.

~~~~~

I yawn as Tobias and I wait for the New York City police to call. The flight landed at 1:15 a.m. our time and it’s 1:20 a.m. now.

“What do you think the New York police are like?” I ask.

“Probably pretentious assholes,” Tobias says, circling anything important in the autopsies of the killer’s victims.

“So, you’d fit right in,” I tease. He pretends to glare at me. I glare back. The phone rings. We both reach to grab it, but I have quicker reflexes. His hand ends up lying over my hand on the telephone, but he quickly withdraws it. I pick up the phone.

“Detroit police, 10th precinct,” I answer.

“Yeah,” a gruff voice says. “The suitcase isn’t here.”

My face must betray my confusion because Tobias takes the phone from me.

“Hello?” he asks. His eyes shift back and forth as he listens. “That’s impossible. Our people had it checked at the airport. Were you there the whole time? Are you sure nobody took it?…No, I’m not questioning your team’s capabilities, I just don’t see how the killer could have taken the suitcase…look, can you just check the airport’s surveillance cameras? We need this guy caught…Yes…okay, tha—”

His nostrils flare and he slams down the phone.

“He hung up on me. Who does that?” he snaps.

“You do,” I say. “This morning. To me.”

He slams his fists down on the desk as he stands up.

“Maybe he works at the Detroit airport somehow,” I say. Tobias shakes his head.

“There’s no way,” he says. “Airport jobs are too unpredictable and he always kills at night or early in the morning. He has a menial job like the rest of us.”

“I’m sure some airport jobs have normal schedules.”

He picks up the phone again, his finger hovering over the buttons. He takes a deep breath and looks over at me.

“Could you look up Detroit Metropolitan Airport’s number
please
?”

I take out my phone and search for the number on the Internet.

“If I had known that missing the chance to get a serial killer would make you polite, I would have—”

“Lauren.” He looks over at me, his knuckles white from gripping the phone.

“Sorry,” I say. “I joke when I’m stressed.”

I squeeze his hand that rests on his desk. I’m surprised, and happy, that he doesn’t pull his hand away.

~~~~~

Captain Ray Stewart tells everyone to be vigilant and not go anywhere that isn’t necessary. The killer threatened to take a life if his “level” wasn’t completed, and as soon as he sees that the suitcase doesn’t have any money, he will be pissed. We all know something is going to happen that we can’t control. This is making everyone a mixture of cranky and crazy, evident by the fact that I’ve watched Tobias pull out his hair, strand by strand. It’s made even worse when I arrive at the station and find the entrance swamped with cameras and newscasters with Tobias in the middle of it.

“Look, it’s an ongoing investigation,” he says. “We cannot release any new information yet because we are not stupid enough to show our hand.”

“Or maybe you’re not releasing any new information because you’re failing this city!” a newscaster shouts out.

“We thank you for your patience with the Detroit police department,” Tobias says, forcing a smile before walking into the station. The newscasters and cameramen look around, searching for new prey, when they see me. They rush over like a herd of buffalo—except with a lot more noise.

“What can you tell us about the case?” a newscaster in a bright yellow outfit asks as she shoves a camera near my mouth. “What was that threat about? Is it someone dangerous? Should the public take extra precautions?”

“The public should always be cautious,” I say. “But this person’s grudge is with the Detroit police, not the public.”

“If you could say anything to this person, what would it be?” another newscaster asks.

“I would ask him to turn himself in,” I say. I try to push past them, but it’s like wading through sludge.

“How dangerous is this person?”

“Have they already committed crimes?”

“Do you even
know
who it is?”

I reach the steps to the entrance door and turn towards the newscasters. “As soon as we feel that it is safe and in the best interest of the public, we will inform you of what we know.”

I walk into the station and their pandemonium fades as the doors swing shut. Tobias sits as his desk, rubbing his temple.

“Why don’t they ever believe that we are withholding information for their own safety and sanity?” he asks.

“I blame Watergate,” I say.

“Of course you do.”

“Has anyone looked at the airport surveillance?” I ask.

“I did,” he says. “I spent all night looking at it. There is someone who steals a black suitcase while the bags are being transported into the plane.”

“Someone steals a suitcase on the runway and no one cares?” I ask.

“Well, he was dressed as the baggage handler,” he says. “In the video, it shows our robber—possibly the killer—wheeling the cart out toward the plane; he takes the suitcase off and walks away with it. Twelve seconds later, the real baggage handler runs out.”

“Since you’re telling me all this, I’m guessing you didn’t figure out who it was from the footage.”

“Nope,” he says. “His face is mostly covered with a scarf, he’s turned away from the camera the whole time, and the footage is shitty. I scoured through the footage of every other place in the airport, but I don’t see anyone that I could definitely say was him. The only new bit of information we have is that this person was around 5’10”, and that’s not a definite. It’s hard to tell when the only comparison you have is an airplane.”

“Did you question the real baggage handler? How did this guy get the cart without the baggage handler noticing?”

“Apparently, our baggage handler likes to smoke and he was forbidden to smoke near the bags, so he was smoking at a different exit,” he says. I shake my head.

“This guy thought of everything.”

“He knows how to use people to his advantage. I mean, the package at the Greyhound bus station and now an airport? Next it’s going to be at a casino,” he says. His phone rings. He picks it up. “Hello? Yes, it is. Okay…do we know who it is?…Alright. Thank you. I’ll be down there in half an hour.”

He hangs up.

“There’s a dead body under the Monument to Joe Louis,” he says. “The dispatcher said that the woman who found him thought it might be a homeless guy.”

“You want to investigate a homeless guy?” I ask.

“Sometimes a man needs some good old-fashioned murder,” he says. “I can’t keep chasing my tail with the PVP killer without needing a break sometimes.”

“Good old-fashioned murder,” I repeat. “That’s what you consider a break?”

“I take my breaks where I can get them,” he says. He grabs my coat and shoves it into my arms. “Let’s go. We both need this.”

~~~~~

The body under the Monument to Joe Louis—a fist suspended by a pyramidal formation—is draped by newspapers. Tobias reaches the body first. He lists the first newspaper off the man’s face and I see his body stiffen.

“What?” I ask. I walk up closer to the body. It is not a homeless man. It’s Captain Ray Stewart.

Tobias begins to wad up the newspaper in a frenzied rage, but I yank them out of his hands.

“Wait,” I say. “Look.”

Letters are cut into the newspaper. I spread it out to find a message:
1 life lost. 2 left.

“It’s the PVP killer,” I say. “This is retribution for failing at his game.”

A stream of profanity leaves Tobias’ mouth. He punches the steel frame of the monument so hard that I’m sure he must have broken his knuckles, but he only continues to curse.

I look over Ray’s body. There’s a single gunshot wound right where his heart is. I sit next to his body, cradle my head in my hands, and let the weight of the moment crash down on me.

WHEN LAUREN AND I arrive at work the day after Captain Ray Stewart’s funeral, Jasmine is sitting on the stairway with a box on her lap. The box is wrapped up in Sunday morning comics. She looks like a child more than ever with her eyes wide with fear, but her mouth is pinched closed with defiance.

“Well, it looks like your serial killer knows about me now,” she says. She holds the box out to Lauren. It has Lauren’s name and the police station’s address without a return address, like the CD-ROM envelope. Lauren carefully takes it, her fingertips barely touching it in order to not contaminate it with her fingerprints. Jasmine says pointedly, “No thanks to you.”

“Jasmine, he already knew about you,” Lauren says. “But I’m sorry you’re mixed up in this. How did you get this box?”

“I got a note,” she says. “It told me to go to the—”

“Greyhound station,” I interrupt. “You were blackmailed?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Is that what happened to the other guy? Are you guys just giving this serial killer people to harass?”

“No, Jasmine,” I say. I get out my cellphone. “I should call in a forensic analyst.”

“You really think he chose to leave fingerprints this time?” Lauren asks. I shake my head.

“No, but I’m going to have the analyst check under every piece of tape and every crease on this box,” I say. The forensic analyst—Jared Lambert—answers, half-awake. I tell him to get down to the police station, and hang up before he can answer.

“It’s okay, Jasmine,” Lauren says as Jasmine nibbles on her thumbnail. “This killer hasn’t hurt any of his contacts. It’s rare for a serial killer to do that. You’re the way he contacts the police without getting caught—he wouldn’t hurt you.”

“I don’t want to be controlled by anybody,” Jasmine says. She shakes her head. I could imagine this girl being my daughter or a younger sister. I shake the thought from my head. I can’t get attached. Lauren is already pulling more money out of her wallet—nearly twice as much as last time.

“Do you not use a bank?” I ask. “How are you not robbed on a daily basis?”

“Because I own a gun and a badge,” she says.

“Have you ever shot someone?” Jasmine asks.

“No,” Lauren admits.

“Well, shoot whoever this guy is,” she says. Lauren hands her the money.

“Get a nice hotel. One with a doorman,” Lauren says. Jasmine nods.

“Thanks,” she says. “Maybe the police aren’t so bad.”

“Good cop, bad cop,” Lauren says, pointing to herself and then at me. I shove my hand in my pockets. I can’t deny that analysis. Jasmine walks away from both of us. Lauren looks down at the box.

“That’s too big to be another video,” she says.

“I know,” I say. I sit down next to the box.

“What do you think it is?” she asks.

“Something irritating,” I say. “Mixed with a bit of the killer’s sexual frustration.”

“That sounds Freudian,” she says. I groan.

“Great. Not only is this guy killing people, he’s turning me into a psychologist.”

Then, the box begins ticking.

~~~~~