Frank Zafiro - Beneath a Weeping Sky

Katie wondered briefly why the Captain wouldn’t have explained things to Saylor in greater detail, but she long ago gave up trying to figure out how the Byzantine world of the brass functioned. Instead, she wondered if ‘they’ meant Detective Tower or if it meant the Captain and Lieutenant Crawford. Whoever it was, she wondered if ‘they’ were right.

“Are you all right, MacLeod?” Saylor asked.

Katie broke away from her contemplation. She nodded. “I’m fine, sir. Just happy to be back to normal.”

Friday May 9th

0721 hours

Day Shift

Where the hell are you, you fucking bitch?

He watched the police station from up the street. It’d been easy to find a slightly different location to park every day. At first he’d sat patiently, sipping his tea and pretending to read the newspaper while he watched the parking lot where the officers parked. He’d spotted the bitch cop’s Jeep on the first day, but it hadn’t moved since. He’d even checked on the weekend, but the Jeep sat there the entire time.

Sitting off her house was out of the question. Not after he’d spotted the two idiot cops up there that day. He’d driven by twice since, taking care not to turn onto her side street. Both times, he was able to pick out a surveillance vehicle. The one time he was certain the house was no longer being watched, a thrill shot through his body like raw adrenaline. He’d parked a block away and crept down the dark alley behind her house. Carefully, he entered her back yard. There was no activity inside the house. The same lights were on as before. He peered through the sectioned glass window of her back door, but saw nothing. And her Jeep wasn’t out front, either.

He wanted to smash the small glass panes of her door. He wanted to go inside and find her. If she wasn’t there, he wanted to wait for her. He ached for it, like a tooth throbbing in his head. But he forced himself not to. He had to wait. He had to be patient.

Headlights appeared up the street, then winked out. A gray Chevy Caprice rolled to a stop a few houses away. Two shadowy figures sat in the front seat.

He quickly lowered himself into a crouch. He waited for a moment to see if they’d spotted him, but neither door opened. Once he was sure, he crept back to the alley and headed back to his car.

Now, sitting in his car in the early morning hours, he ground his teeth together in frustration. He was tired of waiting on this fucking bitch. Obviously, they’d been hiding her from him, which enraged him all the more. If she didn’t show in the next couple of days, he was done waiting. He’d find some other worthless snatch, lay the whammo on her and carve her up like a Christmas goose. That was more than his worthless father ever did, so the son of a bitch would have to be proud, wherever he was. He’d have to know who the better man was.

More than that, if he nailed someone else, they might just take their eyes off of their precious little girl cop.

Then he’d take care of her.

He smiled.

“There it is, Katie,” he whispered in the stillness of his car. “If you don’t show by the end of the weekend, next week is going to be very newsworthy.”

He imagined the news lady, that plastic-faced talking head Shawna Matheson, reporting his deeds to the Joe and Mary Six-Pack crowd that made up the majority of River City. He could see her affected look of contrived gravitas. He could hear the emphasis she’d place on key words in her video report to make her audience listen more closely. It would be so slick, so Hollywood, and yet he knew he’d love it.

Maybe after Katie, he should go after that Matheson bitch. That’d make headlines.

That’d make him quite the man.

He’d be the Rainy Day Killer.

Or maybe the River City Killer. That’d be even better. Maybe after he took care of that Matheson snit, he’d give that reporter lady another call. Maybe he’d tell her how he wanted to be referred to. And she’d make sure it happened, or else she’d find out what the whammo was all about.

He realized he was gripping the steering wheel in two fists and forced himself to relax. It was nice to dream, but the difference between him now and him when he was younger was that now he made his dreams become reality. He wasn’t fantasizing about the whammo anymore. He was living it.

The door to the police station opened. Several male officers filed out, along with a female. He peered closely, but it wasn’t the one he was looking for. It was some blonde. He settled back in his seat. The floodgates were opening now. The graveyard officers would be flowing out for the next ten or fifteen minutes. Katie hadn’t been part of that exodus, though. He wasn’t sure if that meant she wasn’t working at all, or maybe she was on a different shift. Still, she wasn’t using her Jeep or staying at her house. They had to be protecting her, no question.

He ground his teeth, rubbed his palms on his slacks and waited.

Five minutes later, his faith was rewarded.

Katie MacLeod exited the glass doors of the police station. The sight of her caused him to take in a sharp breath. Excitement buzzed through his limbs. He leaned forward, almost expecting it to be some other woman that just looked like her.

No. It was her.

He stared at her as she made her way directly toward the Jeep. Her stride had a confident bounce to it that made his stomach burn. Gone was the slouch. Gone was the meek shuffle. She strode along like everything in world was right. Like she was in control of everything around her. Like she was the queen of the whole goddamn world.

“Oh, I’m going to fix that,” he whispered to himself. “I am going to fix that to day .”

0746 hours

Tower sipped a fresh cup of coffee and rubbed his eyes. He felt tired, but refreshed at the same time. On the one hand, he knew he’d had far too much wine last night. And probably too much Stephanie, too, if there was such a thing. He was sleepy and hung over, but in the midst of that, he felt a level of relaxation that he hadn’t experienced since all of this rapist business started.

When he came into the office this morning, he didn’t dive straight into the pile waiting for him. Instead, he’d poured a cup of coffee and wandered around the General Detectives bullpen, shooting the bull with the detectives there. It felt good to argue about something as meaningless as whether the Seattle Mariners were going to have a good season or not.

He avoided Major Crimes, even though he felt like he owed Browning a thank you. There’d be time for that later. He didn’t want to risk running into Lieutenant Crawford and having his good morning spoiled.

Now, seated at his desk, took another sip of the coffee and reached for his pile of registrations. The top one was the printout from the previous night. He scanned it.

“Jeffrey Goodkind,” he whispered. “Time to eliminate another lucky soul from suspicion.”

He noted the address on the registration. It was nowhere near MacLeod’s house, where the vehicle had been spotted. In fact, the address on the registration put him down near Corbin Park.

Tower read the address again.

It was very near. Ten blocks away, in fact.

He swallowed, feeling his pulse quicken.

Careful, he cautioned himself. It’s probably just a coincidence.

A coincidence. That was probably it. How many registrations had he checked? Eventually, one of them was going to be registered to an address near Corbin Park, right? River City wasn’t Los Angeles. It was bound to happen.

Tower checked his license plate list. Next to Goodkind’s plate, either O’Sullivan or Battaglia had jotted down the location where the vehicle had been parked and the time. They’d spotted the car a block away very near the beginning of their shift.