Way of the Wolf: Shifter Legacies 1 (22 page)

“There’s nothing we can do about that. All we can do is keep working the evidence. When the next body turns up, we’ll know.”

“I
hate
this.”

“It’s the nature of the beast. We catch serial killers when they make a mistake. So far he hasn’t made even one.”

“Not quite. Karen Sykes survived.”

“Our only witness, but even with the description she gave us circulated by the newsies, no one has come forward.”

Chris shook her head absently. “That still amazes me. How can a guy look like he does and not be recognised? He’s an albino! I mean, I can’t even go down to the local deli without someone recognising me as
that cop on the news
. He has to eat, right? He must have a job, neighbours… friends?”

Cappy rubbed tired eyes. “I don’t know, Chris, but someone knows him. There must at the very least be a neighbour—someone who is protecting him because he or she just knows it’s all a mistake and their albino friend must be innocent. Such a quiet sort, they’ll say. Never hurt a fly. Helps take out the garbage.”

“Yeah.” She stood and made to leave. “I’ll keep you informed, Cappy. I’ll leave you to tell Jacob about his case.”

Cappy nodded and turned his attention back to the reports he had been reading.

Chris returned to her desk to brood. She idly played with the keyboard of her computer and then shoved it aside in annoyance. She was waiting for another murder she realised. She
needed
another murder to catch Ghost. It made her mad as hell knowing that without another body on the ground they wouldn’t catch the bastard. He could stop at eight and never be caught, but he wouldn’t do that. She hoped he wouldn’t and that made her feel guilty. Another hooker would die, and she would be glad because it would give her another chance to get him.

No, he wouldn’t stop until she stopped him. She usually had a sense of these things. It was sometimes spooky how she could get inside a perp’s head, but Ghost was different. She couldn’t read him. She couldn’t get a sense of what he was thinking except for the obvious compulsion to kill blond hookers. Maybe he had a wife, maybe she was blond. Or maybe his mother was a hooker and she was blond, or maybe his sister was. Maybe, maybe,
maybe!

“Goddess, I need something concrete!”

“Try one of these,” Baxter said gesturing at his lunch. He was sitting at his desk across the aisle scarfing down ham and cheese on rye. “I swear this cheese must be as hard as concrete.”

“Heh,” she snorted.

She rummaged in the drawer of her desk and pulled out a street map. She stared at the eight red crosses not really seeing them but rather seeing the pitiful remains of the Ghost’s victims in their places. She had done this so many times now that she didn’t really need the map anymore. She could see the damn thing in her head.

The map was creased and worn where she’d folded it and refolded it trying to make it cough up some answers, but she just couldn’t see it. She flipped open the little electronic notebook that she kept with the map. It had notes taken from reports the task force had assembled on the victims and their deaths. Cappy had given them Interview Room 4 to use as an incident room, and ordinarily she would have made use of it, but Raz and Matt were still with Radthorne over at Valley College. John was attending the autopsy of Jenny Lovett and Chris was happy to leave him to it. She had attended the others with him, but Cappy had wanted to discuss Jacob’s case and her report. She was grateful for the excuse not to go. She had seen enough autopsies to know they gave her bad dreams for nights after.

So then, the task force, such as it was, was otherwise occupied and the incident room was empty. At least out here she had company. Besides, she knew all the data the room contained intimately well. She had helped compile it. She watched Baxter eating and contemplated picking a fight with him. If she snatched the apple from his lunch, he was sure to get upset. No, she didn’t have the energy to fight. All she wanted to do was pound the street for an hour or two like her uniform days. See the sights, chat with old acquaintances, and breathe the pollution for a while. John would go ape-shit if she went alone though. Her eyes narrowed and she quickly swept the map and notebook into the open drawer. She locked it and rose to her feet.

“Hey!” Baxter snarled. “Give me that!”

Chris held the apple out of his reach. “I’ll trade you for it.”

“Gimme it before I hurt you.”

“Nuh-uh, the apple for an hour of your time.”

Baxter grinned. “I knew that you secretly lusted after me. I knew you couldn’t hold out forever.”

She snorted and tossed the apple to him, and then sat on the corner of his desk. “Want to go bust a few heads with me?”

Baxter beamed. “What a charming offer. Is this a date?”

“In your dreams. The others are all busy and I’m going stir crazy in here. We could walk around some dark alleys, maybe hassle some pimps, a few pushers—”

“Hookers?” Baxter said eagerly.

“There might be one or two early risers, yeah,” she said with a grin. It was early yet for the lot lizards to be out, barely after one in the afternoon and most worked nights. “What do you say?”

“I say: lead the way.”

“Great.” She grabbed her jacket from the back of her chair.

They made their way out to the parking lot. Chris instinctively headed for her car and Baxter went along. Everyone knew she got nervous when others took the wheel. They climbed in and she pulled out of the lot and into traffic to head south. Karen Sykes had been attacked and pulled into an alley while walking along South Union Avenue. She headed that way without even planning it.

“Can I ask you a question?”

She glanced at Baxter. “Sure.”

“Why didn’t you pull me into the task force?”

“No reason. I already had John on the Patsy Jordan thing with me. When more bodies started turning up and we knew that we had a serial on our hands, Cappy told me to take Raz and Matt.”

“Cappy told you, you’re sure?”

“Sure I’m sure. Baxter… Dave, what’s this about?”

He didn’t comment on her use of his first name. He watched traffic behind them in the door mirror for a long moment in silence then said, “I’m thinking of retiring.”

She swerved a little. “You’re kidding!”

“No.”

“But you’re too young!”

Baxter grinned. “Thanks, but I’m heading for forty. I wouldn’t stop working. I’d just retire from the force.”

“And do what?”

“I’d find something to do.”

Goddess, he was serious! She stared hard at the road ahead trying to see Baxter doing something else with his life and just couldn’t. Baxter behind a bar flashed into her thoughts, but the familiar suited figure polishing glasses didn’t work. In her mind’s eye he threw down the glass and pulled a police issue stunner. Now he looked right. Baxter was…
Baxter!
Who would she fight with when she was bored? John was good, but he couldn’t banter with her like Baxter could. He was too serious. Baxter had been a permanent fixture in the department since before she came on the scene. He couldn’t leave. She wouldn’t let him.

“Did I do something to bring this on? I’ll promise not to steal your candy anymore.”

He chuckled. “You couldn’t keep a promise like that, Chris.”

“I would try real hard.”

“It’s not you, or anyone else in the department.”

Not in the department. That meant outside it then. “Is it Mary Pat?”

Baxter nodded. “When I got shot last year,” he said still watching the mirror. He frowned. “When I got shot, Mary Pat freaked. I shouldn’t have told her, but I was wearing my vest right? So no big deal I thought. Wrong! It was a huge deal to her. I had a walloping big bruise over my heart. It took weeks to fade and every night she cried in the bathroom. She doesn’t think I know, but I could hear her over the sound of the shower. She got over it, but I see her looking at me sometimes as if she can still see that bruise through my shirt.”

“Oh that’s nothing,” she said, trying to make light of it. “Women look at guys just as much as guys look at women.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We’re just usually more subtle about it. A guy gets fixated on your tits, right?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Baxter said self-righteously. “I only look at my wife’s tits.”

“I’ve caught you looking a time or three.”

“Never happened.”

“Has too!”

“Has not!”

Chris snorted. “Have it your way, Baxter, but we know.”

“We?” Baxter said a little nervously.

“Women’s Union of the Republic.”

“Oh, them.”

“Right. So, men fixate on your tits and their brains leak out of their ears. They don’t even know they’re doing it. Women don’t do that. We have bigger brains. When we look, we get everything in one glance and file it away for later. We don’t need to stare usually. Mary Pat is just lusting after your body. She didn’t ask you to retire did she?”

“No, she wouldn’t do that.”

“There you are then.”

“Seriously Chris, I think my time’s up.”

“You haven’t told Cappy have you?”

“Not yet,” he said with a frown. “You think I should?”

“No!” she gasped, and then more calmly, “No. Don’t tell him. If you tell him you’ll be relegated to a desk! He’ll have to find someone from outside to take your place. Goddess knows where from. I certainly don’t and I doubt he would either. With Lou gone, we can’t lose you too.”

“We?”

“Me and the guys,” she said, looking at him as if he were dense. Her eyes narrowed as she thought of something. “When did you start thinking of retiring?”

“I told you—”

“No, I mean when did you seriously start thinking about it? It was around the time Lou got his promotion wasn’t it?”

Lou Debono had been Baxter’s partner for years before he was kicked upstairs. Lou was Captain of his own station now.

Baxter turned to her angrily. “If you think I’m jealous—”

“I don’t!”

“—then you don’t know me at all!”

“I said I don’t think that! Settle down. I’m just trying to understand that’s all. You know we’re short handed. Cappy has been yelling about it for years! We need you, dammit!”

“And Mary Pat needs me still breathing!”

“I told you what I think about that.” She would have a chat with Mary Pat when they all got together over the weekend. It was her turn to bring the chips, she remembered. She would have to stop off and get some on the way home. “Mary Pat knew what she was doing when she got hitched to your wagon. Her dad worked the streets for almost forty years! She knows what it is to be married to a cop. What, you think she doesn’t know her own mind when her mother brought her up in a cop’s house?”

“She knows but—”

“But what?”

“She’s pregnant again.”

“Oh.” Her mind went blank for a second. “Is it money?”

Baxter shook his head. “Junior’s college tuition is covered and he’s raring to go.”

“Takes after his dad.”

“Yeah,” Baxter said with pride. “He’s already found an apartment to share with his buddies and a little part time job for extras. I’m not worried about him. Beth and Carla have years to wait yet. It’s not money.”

“I can always do with more money.”

“Me too, but this has nothing to do with that.”

She wasn’t sure she believed him. She would have a private chat with Mary Pat over the weekend. The barbecue would be crowded with all the guys and their families along. It shouldn’t be hard to spirit her away for a minute or two.

“You’re just feeling old, Dave. What you need is a snot-nosed kid for a partner, someone to make you run after him. That’ll get you back into condition.”

“Says you. I work out three times a week and my times are better than ever.”

“Still can’t shoot straight though.”

Baxter was frowning at the mirror again and didn’t seem to have heard her.

“I said you still can’t shoot straight.”

“Take the next right,” Baxter said in a distracted voice.

“Why?” she said, already making the turn.

Baxter was watching the mirror intently. “Change lanes.”

She did that while watching her own mirrors for manoeuvring cars. “Is it the black Ford?”

“Yeah. I think we have a tail. I saw him pull out after us when we left Central. Take a left.”

She did and was rewarded by a black Ford, the same one, following her. She tramped her foot on the brake and the car skidded to a stop. In a heartbeat, they were out of the car with their guns pointed at the Ford’s windscreen where it had skidded to a stop. Cars beeped horns at them and swung wide around the obstruction they caused.

“Get out of the damn road you freaks!” a driver yelled as he sped by, his engine roaring.

“—goddamn road hog!” another driver yelled leaning on his horn.

Chris ignored them. “Police! Hands… show me some hands… out the window! Do it now!”