James Conway: In Cold Blonde

Syd and Ryan had been partners for eight weeks and sleeping together for four. They were in that wonderful pheromone-induced infatuation phase where they could barely keep their hands off each other.

It had been lust at first sight for Ryan. Whatever lizard brain criteria had been hardwired into Ryan for a sexual companion, this perky, freckled-face redhead was it. He literally got a hard-on the first time he shook her hand. Oh, shit, he thought. She’s going to be trouble. He did everything he could to be business-like and professional around her. But they spent twelve to fifteen hours a day together; sitting across from each other in the Hollywood Division Homicide bullpen, sitting next to each other in their city issued Crown Vic, working the files together, conducting interviews, eating, brainstorming, and all the time, Ryan fantasized about her.

It must have been the same for Syd, Ryan realized, when late that fateful night four weeks later, they found themselves alone in the bullpen. Ryan went into the file room to return a murder book, and when he turned around he was nose to nose with Syd.

“I can’t stand this,” she whispered.

“What?”

“The game we’re playing. Pretending to be totally professional when all we want to do is rip each other’s clothes off and fuck like coked-up porn stars.”

Don’t do this, he thought. Be professional. You don’t sleep with your partner.

“I should warn you,” she said, her lips now brushing his. “I’m prone to multiple orgasms and I love anal sex.”

Game. Set. Match. Ryan kissed her. They practically swallowed each other. They were naked in seconds and as Ryan entered Syd for the first time, he thought that doing something this wrong shouldn’t feel so unbelievably good.

Back in Ryan’s apartment, Ryan said, “Department policy states that partners aren’t allowed to fondle each other’s genitals.”

Syd stuck her head out the bathroom doorway, toothpaste foaming at her mouth. “I remember doing a lot of things to you last night, but by no modern definition would any of them qualify as fondle.” True, Ryan thought. Sex with Syd was frantic, almost desperate. Always fantastic.

“I’ve got a good feeling about this one,” she said ducking back into the bathroom. “This’ll be the one that makes us famous.”

That was Syd’s one blind spot. Ambition. It had carried her in record time from street cop to Vice and now to Homicide. But she didn’t want to just be a good cop; she wanted to be a famous cop. And that kind of ambition could be dangerous.

Ryan’s right hand worked the stick as he steered all original 271 horses of his red ’65 Mustang through the hairpin curves etched into the mountainside of Coldwater Canyon. They’d stopped at Syd’s studio apartment and she’d changed clothes; now back on the road, Ryan relished the pre-dawn drive. The top was down, and though the temperature was only in the upper forties, typical for early May, the heater was blasting, modulating the chill enough so they could still savor the sweet, invigorating morning.

“Does it get any better than this?” Syd asked, her red hair whipping around her head. “A pre-dawn expedition into the belly of the beast, a fresh crime scene bursting with clues, a sprawling city hiding a cold-blooded murderer, intent on escape, but doomed because the world’s best homicide detectives are on his ass.”

Ryan smiled. “World’s best homicide detectives?”

“Hey, we’re undefeated. In eight weeks we’ve investigated four murders and solved them all.”

True, Ryan thought, but they’d been lucky. Two of the killings had been a murder/suicide — a bitter ex-husband finalizing the divorce with a .9mm bullet to his wife’s chest before blowing out the back of his skull. Another was a gas station robbery/murder, caught on a security camera — the tape was aired on the local news and the doer was ID’d by a heartbroken mother turning in her drug-addled son. Number four was a bit more challenging, a UCLA co-ed found dead, raped and strangled in the bathroom of her apartment. They spent four hours at the crime scene, working with SID collecting evidence, talking to her roommates, the neighbors. When they first arrived, Syd noticed a guy sitting in a battered blue pick-up, parked a half block north of the apartment. She pointed him out to Ryan. The guy in the pick-up stuck around for about twenty minutes, then left. Two hours later Ryan noticed him parked a block south of the apartment. Killers often return to the scene of the crime, so maybe. Ryan didn’t dare risk approaching on foot — the suspect would see him coming and boogie. So he radioed for backup. The cops sealed off the street and then two black and whites swooped in trapping him. The suspect gave up without a fight. He was a convicted sex offender, released just two weeks earlier, working the neighborhood as a handyman. He’d arrived to do some work for the landlord, met the co-ed who excused herself to take a shower and well, the son of bitch couldn’t help himself.

So, Ryan and Syd were four for four. Not bad for a Homicide department with just a thirty-four percent clearance rate. But with two out of every three murderers going free in the city of Los Angeles, Ryan knew it was just a matter of time before the odds caught up to them.

“You got any gum?” Syd asked.

“Check the glove box.”

Syd popped it open, started rummaging around. “I hope you also have hand sanitizer in here because this is disgusting.” She pulled out a grease-stained Taco Bell wrapper, a balled up Wienerschnitzel bag, a crushed Starbucks coffee cup, a half-eaten chocolate glazed Krispy Kreme, and a wadded up McDonalds napkin.”

“In there,” Ryan said. “The gum’s in the napkin.”

Syd peeled the napkin open. “It’s already been chewed. You’re offering me used gum?”

“Think of it as a symbol of our intimacy.” Ryan laughed. Got you, he thought.

Syd looked at him, at the smug smile, and then she peeled the gum off the napkin, popped it in her mouth and began to chew.

“Yuck,” Ryan said. “That’s disgusting.”

“I’ve had your tongue, ear, fingers, toes, balls and cock in my mouth. This is nothing.”

That was the thing about Syd; Ryan never knew what she was going to do next.

She stuffed the detritus back in the glove box, and then noticed something. She pulled out a wrinkled lottery ticket. “I didn’t know you played the lottery.”

“I don’t.”

“Then what’s this?”

“A lottery ticket,” Ryan said, confused. Then a memory flooded back. One he wasn’t very proud of. One he didn’t want to tell Syd. “Oh, yeah, I remember,” Ryan said, and then lied. “The jackpot was like forty million dollars or something so I took a flier.”

She checked the date. “It’s almost six months old. You ever check to see if it won?”

“No. I forgot all about it.” That part was true.

Syd read the numbers, “14 19 20 23 36, and a mega of 18. Any significance to the numbers?”

Ryan didn’t know, and then remembered, “No, it was a quick pick.”

“Well, today may be your lucky day.” She flipped the glove box closed. “A murder and a shot at unimaginable wealth; like I said, it doesn’t get any better than this.”

The Havoc parking lot had been taken over by the LAPD; yellow police tape and portable floodlights surrounded the Porsche, uniformed officers kept a few gawkers behind hastily erected LAPD plastic barricades. Two SID technicians worked the inside of the car. The Scientific Investigative Division was the LAPD’s version of CSI. They dusted the car for prints, collected fibers, and bagged anything that might be considered evidence. Ryan and Syd joined Lieutenant Hanrahan and Liz Kettle, one of the L.A. County Coroners, outside the open driver’s side door.