It Should Be a Crime (19 page)

It was Parker’s turn to finish her drink. As the amber liquid burned a gentle path down her throat, she contemplated whether she felt used for the events of their first encounter. Would it even matter if they had never met again? If Morgan had been one of her usual one-night stands, she would have been resigned to never seeing her again. But fate had dealt them a curious hand, throwing them into this situation of juxtaposed power and intimate connection. She pushed the empty glass aside and reached for the new one, taking another swallow. The mellow haze of the alcohol allowed her to admit to herself she did feel used, but she was strangely proud she had been available when Morgan needed her.

A comfortable silence enveloped them as Parker negotiated her own feelings about their chance encounter and where it had taken them. They were one of only a few occupied tables in the bar and the waitress was exercising excellent diligence in her ability to anticipate their needs without interrupting either their words or silence. Parker’s nod ordered their next round. She sensed her heart-to-heart with Morgan was in its infancy.

Morgan proved her correct. No sooner had she licked the sugar rim of her new glass than she posed a question for Parker.

“What is a star homicide detective doing working in a bar and going back to school?” Morgan almost winced as she delivered the words. She felt duplicitous. She did know part of the story from Ford, and Parker had to know Morgan would have ready access to courthouse gossip. But she didn’t know the whole story, and she sensed the complete tale held the key to unlock the mystery. Parker was an enigma in so many ways. She was earnest and hardworking, yet she had chucked an entire career and was building a new life for herself from the beginning. It had to be hard to go back to school with students much younger and compete again for accolades she should have already earned from life. Top it off with the fact Parker worked in a bar and lived in a house with roommates. There were indeed many layers to Parker, and Morgan wanted to see more than what was visible on the surface.

Why?
she asked herself.
Is it because we slept together? Has it been so long since you had a one-night stand you feel as if you have to get to know the person you were with so you can justify the relationship, however fleeting?
Despite the nagging questions, Morgan knew the reason for her need to know came from a deep place. Once again she was struck by the force of the connection she felt with Parker, whose body she had thoroughly known but whose heart she had barely glimpsed. She hung on Parker’s answer.

“Star homicide detective, huh? You might want to review the evidence, Counselor. This here detective was fired from the force.” Parker’s expression was cold, but sadness clouded her eyes.

“Can you tell me about it?”

Interesting phrasing, Parker observed. Sure, she was capable of recounting the story of how her stellar career had crashed and burned. She knew Morgan’s question was more probing than a simple inquiry about whether she could tell a tale. She wanted to know if Parker had the fortitude to survive the telling. Had time and distance severed the emotion surrounding the collapse of her aspirations? She wasn’t sure, but she wanted to share her story with Morgan and she wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was simply because she had asked.

Parker met Morgan’s patient gaze and answered, “Yes.”

Morgan waited.

“I don’t want to do it here.” The flat words were tinged with a plea. Parker had not told her story in its entirety to anyone. Some knew the details, but only because they had lived it with her. She had no idea how sharing her experience would affect her and she did not want to wind up blubbering in a hotel bar.

Morgan slid from her chair and motioned for Parker to wait. She sought out the waitress, ordered another round, and asked that the drinks and the bill be sent to her room. Returning to the table, she lifted her jacket from the back of her chair, shrugged into it, and walked away from the table, signaling Parker to follow.

She squelched her desire to hold Parker’s hand, to put her arm around her waist and pull her close. Once in the elevator, she pushed the button for her floor, resisting the urge to jam the car between floors and exercise the physical yearning stirring in her core. She sensed Parker needed some distance for what she was about to relay, and the feelings she had for Parker outweighed the needs of her body. Idly she wondered at her shift from lust to yearning. She pushed the thought away, but the feeling lingered. What she felt in this moment for Parker was vastly different from anything she had ever felt before, with Tina, with anyone. Protective, empathetic, caring combined with infatuation, affection, and craving to form a new emotion for which she had no words.

You are falling in love.

The inner voice was strong and sure and Morgan felt certain it was not her own. Love was a structured framework reached by agreement, not this heady, lust-filled passion over which she had little, if any, control. Love was sharing the mortgage, saving for retirement, swapping household duties by turn. The emotion enveloping her now held no room for such practicalities. Lust perhaps, but love? Not a chance. She shrugged away the voice’s declaration and unlocked the door to her room.

Parker followed Morgan all the way to the room without taking in a single detail of their route. She was numb. When room service arrived with a new glass of Scotch, accompanied by the rest of the bottle, the sight allowed her a small measure of relaxation. She was prepped to remain numb for the storytelling portion of the evening.

Seated on the couch, she sipped her drink and watched Morgan settle in. Slender feet slipped from designer sandals. Parker distracted herself by conjuring up a name for the pearlized copper color of Morgan’s toenails. Bronze seemed too plain. She remembered rifling through a victim’s medicine cabinet one night while the scene tech catalogued the contents. The nail polish names were endlessly creative: Cheer Me Up Cherry, Over the Top Orange. Maybe Morgan’s could be called Penny for Your Thoughts.

After an undeterminable length of time, Morgan settled in the overstuffed chair across from her, poured herself a Scotch, and waited. Parker knew this was her cue. She leaned back and closed her eyes, picturing the events in her mind as she told the entire story for the first time ever.

“We’d worked on the case for weeks without a break, and the killings were coming faster. Each body was found wrapped in plastic and dumped in the Trinity River. Days old, still buoyant, surrounded by cast-off debris. Young women, beautiful women, their bright futures and dreams violated, suffocated and abandoned. Skye and I had delivered the news to four families
and we were drained. Listening to their wails, their tears, their dashed hopes, I vowed we would bring this killer to justice, and I didn’t much care what form justice took. I had no idea my resolution would spell disaster.”

Parker paused. Already she could tell dredging up these memories was going to be harder than she imagined. She met Morgan’s patient glance, took a drink, and pushed through.

“Vice had been investigating this guy, a sleazy little man who got his rocks off looking at blondes in torture scenes on the ’net. Not your average S&M, but full-on brutal torture—fire, baseball bats, racks. They were convinced he was a key player in a child porn ring in North Texas. Turns out they were right, though we didn’t confirm it until it didn’t matter anymore. They had him dead to rights on obscenity, but they decided to hold out for more. Child porn is a sure trip to the pen. One image saved on the computer is all it takes to fuck up someone’s life for good.

“Turns out one of the women we found showed up in a picture streaming from this guy’s computer. Vice brought us the info, desperate to have us bring him in. Skye was all for it, but I didn’t want to spook him and made the call we should wait until we had more. We were working hard to connect this guy with the killings when next thing we know Vice tips us off. The guy’s booking a one-way to Rio and putting his house on the market. We didn’t have time to wait for the forensics, and we decided to take a chance on talking to him to see if we could turn up any leads on the killings. The investigation was ramping up and we had nothing except the lead on this guy. We were determined to follow it and nail the bastard. He had to know something, right?”

Morgan nodded, but Parker wondered if she truly agreed. Morgan had never worked the other side, hadn’t had a chance to learn frontline respect for a cop’s instinct. Parker pressed, desperate to earn Morgan’s respect even as she feared she would never have it.“Skye and I showed up at his house. We didn’t have a warrant, but sometimes these guys—sociopaths—enjoy talking to the cops, playing with us. As we rolled up to his place, Vice showed up as well, Detectives Morales and Ranell. I’m sure they were either watching his house or following us to see where our investigation was leading. Probably both.

“Sure enough, the guy, Edward Tucker, invites us in, dripping hospitality. He offers to serve us afternoon tea, complete with finger sandwiches and tiny cakes. Morales and Ranell left the questioning to us and Tucker was more than accommodating. He went on and on about how horrified he was to know the Trinity River Killer was still on the loose and gushed about the fear all young women in the city must be feeling to know this evil force had yet to be apprehended. He was very convincing and he knew it. I wanted to punch him until the sneaky gleam in his eyes died away.

“I didn’t hit him, but I didn’t live up to my gold shield either. I guess I’ll never be entirely sure of what happened next.

“Tucker excused himself to the kitchen. While he was gone, I talked to Skye about ways to break him, make him tell us something we could use to wedge open a lead. I was more concerned about cracking the case than following procedure—otherwise I wouldn’t have let him wander off. Next thing I knew, Ranell was whispering in Skye’s ear and I noticed his partner was MIA. I started to ask where he went, but before the words hit the air, they were blasted by the sound of gunfire. We drew our guns and ran toward the back of the house. I knew in my gut this was going to end badly.” Parker looked down at her hands, only mildly surprised to find they were shaking. She released the iron grip on the half-full glass in her hand and eased it onto the table, fighting the drive to drink it down. She had battled similar urges back then and she willed herself to do so again. At least until she could finish telling her story.

“Tucker wasn’t so cocky anymore. He was lying face down in a pool of blood, the back of his shirt ripped through from the bullet that snuffed his life. Morales was standing a few feet away, his gun still trained on Tucker’s body.

“I checked his pulse, but I knew it was pointless. I asked what the hell happened, but nobody had anything to say. Morales completely ignored me. He finally put his gun away and started frantically opening doors and drawers in the room. Ranell joins in and the two of them start tearing apart the room. Skye just stood there. She wouldn’t look me in the eye. My first instinct was to call in the shooting, but I ignored it. I wanted to know what the hell they were up to. Since Morales was ignoring me, I grabbed his arm and got in his face and yelled at him to tell me what had happened.

“Nothing could have prepared me for what he said. During my conversation with Tucker, he had decided to do a little warrantless searching,
hoping to find some evidence in plain sight so he could justify an arrest. While he talked I lost track of the number of ways I had disgraced my badge during the afternoon. I was so intent on engaging Tucker, I hadn’t even noticed Morales leave the room.

“He had found Tucker’s study, the room where we were standing. As I looked around, I could tell Morales thought he’d hit the mother lode. The room was full of computer equipment, complete with sophisticated webcams and high-speed disc-writing drives. Morales said he’d barely scratched the surface when Tucker snuck up behind him.

“Tucker started taunting Morales, telling him he knew what he was looking for and asking if Morales thought he was stupid enough, careless enough, to leave evidence lying around. He turned his back on Morales and reached in a drawer, all the while needling Morales about his inferior investigative skills. Tucker pulled something out of the drawer and raised it over his head, saying, ‘I know how to protect myself.’

“Morales heard his words and saw something shiny. He didn’t hestitate. He drew his weapon and fired point blank. The bullet hit Tucker in the back and kept on going, blasting out of his chest. Morales raced across the room and grabbed the shiny object out of Tucker’s hand. It was a CD. Wiping software. A hard-core program not sold in stores. Standard weapon for all serious child pornographers. There was no gun.”

“But he didn’t know that when he fired.” Morgan’s voice was gentle, her words couched in compassion.

Parker shook her head. “Maybe so. I would have found it a lot easier to believe him except for what happened next. Morales finished telling his story and went right back to searching the room. I finally managed to recover enough to make him tell me what he was doing. He acted like I was an idiot. ‘What do you think I’m doing? I just shot a guy in the back. A worthless piece of scum who deserved to die and I’m not going down for it. I’m sure he owns a gun and before we call this in, the gun is going to be in his hand, freshly fired. Now, you can help me or stay out of my way. Your choice, but shut up with the questions.’ He and Ranell went back to their search as if I wasn’t there.

“It was becoming clear these guys were on a mission and they weren’t going to tolerate anyone getting in their way. I looked at Skye, but she woudn’t look back. Her face was set and stern. I’d known her for years, and while I never questioned her ethics, I was well acquainted with her aversion to rocking the boat. Over the years, she had gone to great pains to keep her private life secret for fear an out lesbian would garner less respect on the force. She thought her sexual orientation was a closely guarded secret, but I’m sure all the guys she wouldn’t give the time of day to had no doubt about her preferences. She made up for her inability to emulate a straight woman by fitting in as one of the guys in a brotherhood that demanded unfettered loyalty.