Edge of the Heat 5 (3 page)

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J
erry stood in the living room of Sara’s apartment, his hands fisted at his sides and his jaw locked tight. He couldn’t believe that an hour ago he had thought that the police officers showing up meant everything was OK. As he watched Officer Blalock dust for fingerprints and Officer Ferris take pictures he heard his teeth grind together. He tried to relax his jaw but as soon as he did, he lost what little control he had. He started saying out loud the thoughts that were scraping his brain raw.

“So this is it? This is all you guys are going to do? Take fingerprints and pictures?”

Officer Blalock turned around, his thick neck scraping his collar.

“What do you think we should be doing, Mr. Mansko?”

That
Mr. Mansko
burned Jerry up a little. He had been friendly with Blalock years ago when he’d seen him on calls, but ever since the incident in which Norman Foster had shot him and tried to run him over, and he had shot Norman back, too many of the cops suddenly snubbed Jerry, or pretended not to know him. Jerry didn’t understand this at all. Foster had been a
dirty
cop, for God’s sake. He was a disgrace! Idly, Jerry wondered if Blalock had been friends with Foster.

“You should be out looking for Sara!” Jerry practically yelled.

“Oh yeah, where should we look for her?” Blalock asked contemptuously.

Jerry squeezed his hands tighter still, trying to keep a lid on his anger. “You could start by looking around the apartment building. What if somebody dragged her off when I got here? What if she fought them and there’s sign somewhere outside?”

“It doesn’t sound to me like she was here when this happened.” He gestured to the bloody walls and the couch. “Otherwise, why would they do it? You don’t leave a message for someone who is right in front of you.”

“I know, but what if she walked in on them. I told you that someone was here when I got here! Your assumption could be getting her killed right now!”

Blalock shrugged. “Look, we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing. When the detective shows up, he’ll tell us if there’s anything else he wants done.”

“There’s a detective coming out now?” Jerry glanced at his watch. Almost 1 in the morning.

“Yeah sure, he’ll be here eventually.” Blalock turned back to his work.

Jerry stomped out of the apartment, half afraid to leave, because what if they didn’t let him back in? But if he didn’t leave, he was more afraid that he’d speak his mind and eventually get thrown out, like they had just thrown out those reporters.

Fuck it. If they won’t do what needs to be done, I’ll have to
.

He walked to the parking lot and saw the camera crew and reporter from WYAZ setting up in the parking lot. He cursed inwardly, knowing they had seen him in the apartment when they pointed the camera in there and plied the officers with questions. Quickly, he turned on his heel and headed around the building. He’d check the parking lot after they left. He cast his eyes from ground to building to off in the distance. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but he figured if it was obvious enough he would figure it out. He watched TV.

He reached the grassy field in the back of the building and began walking across it. His plan was to walk back and forth, back and forth, from here to the bordering trees and fence, just to see if he could find a clue.
A clue
.
Like on Bones
. Suddenly he felt completely inept again. He probably wouldn’t know a clue if it bit him on the ass. He was going to try though. For Sara.
Someone should be doing something
, he thought.

He dug for his phone, and as his fingertips reached it, it vibrated.
Sara
.

He pulled it out but the screen said it was Craig, not Sara. Confused, he punched the answer button.

“Hello?”

“Jerry, we just saw you on TV. What’s going on? Is your date OK?”

Jerry’s shoulders slumped and he struggled to say something. “Craig, oh man am I glad to hear from you. I don’t know if Sara is OK. She disappeared from the party and when I came to her place to check on her someone had painted the place in blood.”

Craig sucked in his breath. “What do you mean, painted the place in blood?”

Jerry took a deep breath and explained everything he had seen. “Craig, I took some pictures on my phone. I can send them to you.”

“Ok, good idea. Do you want us to come down there?” Craig said.

Jerry thought about it. He sure would like to have Craig down here. But he and Emma were leaving for their honeymoon in the morning. He didn’t want to ruin that.

“Could you do anything?” Jerry asked.

“Like investigation? No. I might be able to look around, but if I actually found anything I’d have to go get a cop to collect it. There’s no reason for the FBI to come in there and take over or even help. The chief is actually still pretty touchy about me and Hawk. We’re investigating 4 more of his officers right now,” Craig said, regret in his voice.

Jerry thought furiously. “I understand. The cops are doing squat though! They have been in the apartment for over an hour taking fingerprints and pictures. Like inside the apartment is the only place to investigate.”

Craig was silent for a moment. “I’m sure they’ll get outside eventually, but it sounds like they don’t think Sara is in any danger right now.”

“Yeah, they don’t think she is or they just don’t care,” Jerry said.

“The law moves slowly,” Craig said cryptically. “Listen Jerry, Emma wants to know if you want us to come out.”

Jerry was about to say yes, but he couldn’t bring himself to ruin their honeymoon. “No. Get some sleep. They’ve got a detective coming. Maybe he or she will find something.”

Craig hesitated, and then said OK and hung up.

Jerry continued his search of the lawn, and found nothing but a few candy wrappers swept against the fence by some forgotten wind. He looked across the short chain-link fence at the quiet road that lay beyond and wondered if the person who did this had left their car on the shoulder over here for a quick getaway. His eyes could make out several tire tracks criss-crossing over each other in the dust.

Sighing, he turned around and headed back for the building. He walked up the far stairwell, his eyes glued to the ground, looking for red droplets or anything that might be something.

Back on the second floor he heard a new voice coming from Sara’s apartment.
The detective
?

Quietly, he stepped into the doorway and stood, listening to what the detective was saying. “When you are done, do a sweep of the building and the grounds. I’ll do the interviews myself. I’ll want the pictures and the fingerprints and the results of your sweep sent to me before you go off shift.”

“Yes sir,” one of the cops answered, still taking pictures of the couch.

Oh good
, Jerry thought.
This guy actually seems to care
.

Jerry studied the back of him. He was wearing a suit, even though it was almost 2 in the morning. He couldn’t have been over 5 foot 8 inches tall, and his build seemed slight for a police detective. His brown hair was neatly trimmed high above his collar.

The detective must have felt eyes on him, because he slowly turned around and glared at Jerry. His mousy face reminded Jerry of Norman Foster for some reason, and Jerry felt his mouth grimace in displeasure.

“Who are you?” the detective demanded.

“I’m Jerry Mansko. I called you guys to come down here.”

The detective nodded as if he expected this and stepped toward Jerry, causing him to back up so the detective didn’t run into him. “Let’s walk and talk.”

“Mr. Mansko, please tell me everything that happened from the beginning.”

Jerry relayed his story again, not bothering to keep his fear and frustration out of his voice.

When he was done, the detective stopped walking and faced him. “I see. Thank you Mr. Mansko. You may go home now.”

“Go home? But what are you going to do?”

“My job, Mr. Mansko.”

Jerry put his head back to the sky and barked out a laugh. He felt like wringing his hands in frustration. This wasn’t the first time it had seemed to him like a police officer was ignoring something that could mean life or death for a woman he cared about. “Your job, detective, that’s great. But what does that mean? Are you looking for Sara? I want to know what is going to happen next.”

The detective’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, we will look for Miss Acosta, and I will contact you if I need any more information from you, but until then, go home and sleep, and know that the Westwood Harbor Police department is doing everything it can to investigate the crime of vandalism in Miss Acosta’s apartment. If she doesn’t show up in another-” He looked at his watch. “-Another 21 hours we will consider her to be a victim of a crime and start actively looking for her too. But we won’t know where to start looking until we finish our investigation here. So put away your outrage and your thoughts that you know better than we do, and go home. I will do m- I will do what I have been trained to do.”

Jerry’s eyes widened as he listened to this speech. He didn’t know this detective - he’d never seen him before. And he couldn’t believe that he was being ... being bulldozed like this.

“What’s your name?” he spit out.

The man reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out a card. Jerry took it. Detective Jon Gagne.

Jerry didn’t trust himself to speak. His heart was pounding again, but this time in anger, not fear. He knew he needed to cool off a little bit before he tried again to have a conversation with this man.

“Thanks,” he forced out. He gave a half salute with the hand that was holding the card and turned on his heel, heading away from the detective. He walked to his car to sit and think about what had just happened, and what he could do now.

After Jerry’s blood had cooled, he tried to wrap his head around what was going on. He fished a notebook out of his trunk and began to write down a sort of timeline, trying to remember exactly what had happened when. He wrote down what he had seen in the apartment and his impressions of both of the police officers and the detective. Something told him this case wasn’t the big deal to the police department that it was to him. His heart sunk at the thought. If his FBI friends, Craig and Hawk, were investigating this case, he bet they would have found something already.

As he finished writing, movement caught his eye. He looked up to see Detective Gagne getting into a black suburban parked a row over.
He was leaving
?

Jerry jumped out of his car and ran to head off the detective.

“You’re leaving?” Jerry asked.

“Yes, there’s nothing more I can do here until morning. I’ll be back at 6 a.m. and start knocking on doors. Even then I’m sure I’ll wake plenty of people up.” The detective’s sour face indicated this was the worst thing he could think of.

Jerry wanted to say a dozen things. He wanted to grab the detective and force him back to the apartment to wake people
now
. His blood steamed and churned as he bit his lip again and again. But more than any of that, he wanted Sara to show up and say “What’s going on?” Actually, he wanted Sara not to have left him this evening. Realizing that, his anger deflated and a pounding headache took its place. Instead of going off on the detective he said the only thing he could think of. “See you at 6.” He turned and went back to his car.

In his car, he reclined the driver’s seat and pressed a hand to his beating head.
What a fuckup this was
. Jerry closed his eyes and calmed his breathing. He certainly wasn’t leaving, but maybe he could catch a few hours of sleep before 6. He looked down at himself. He was still in his tuxedo. He dug around in the back of his car until he found his spare clothes he always kept back there. He did a quick change in the darkness of his front seat, set an alarm on his phone, and then promptly fell asleep, using his tuxedo jacket as a pillow.

In his dreams, he chased a train endlessly. Right before he woke up, he realized the train was actually going around in a big, stupid circle.

T
he alarm on Jerry’s phone woke him at exactly 5:45 a.m. The sun was up already and the birds chirped endlessly in the small trees lining the parking lot. Jerry’s headache was gone, but his eyes burned and he had a crick in his neck from sleeping in his car. Massaging his neck, he pulled the seat back forward and looked around to see if Detective Gagne’s black suburban was in the parking lot. It wasn’t. Jerry fished his keys out of his pocket and started his car. He needed a bathroom and something to drink and he had less than 15 minutes to find it.

After a quick trip to a gas station down the street he pulled back in to the parking lot, feeling a bit better. He stepped out of his car and leaned against the hood, waiting for Gagne to show up.

He didn’t show until 6:45. He parked in the stall next to Jerry’s car. As he got out of the car, Jerry bit back his impulse to ask him where he’d been. He was a cop. Things probably got busy.

Detective Gagne strolled to the sidewalk and took a left, heading into the building. Jerry ran to catch up with him. “Uh, Detective, I know this probably isn’t protocol, but do you think you could let me listen in on your interviews?”

Gagne raised an eyebrow at him. “No.”

They rounded the building and Gagne started up the stairs. Jerry followed. “Look detective, I’m really worried about my friend, and I’m just going to come back and try to talk to these people again anyway. Wouldn’t you consider having a little professional courtesy or a little sympathy?”

Gagne didn’t even slow. “No,” he said again.

Jerry shook his head in frustration.
Damnit
!

Gagne reached the second floor and walked to the first apartment he came to. It was 2F. Gagne knocked on the door and waited. He knocked again. Finally, a frail, female voice called out. “Just a minute.” Jerry smiled. He bet that was his chest pain patient from a couple of years ago. She would talk to him for sure.