Tim McGregor - Killing Down the Roman Line

“You really know how to kill a mood, huh?” Detective Sherry Johnson had five years under her belt and she hardly ever smiled. Johnson never said a nice word about anyone, cop or crook. For this reason, Gallagher liked her. It didn‘t take much to wind her up and watch her tear on a rant about how she‘s up to her eyeballs in assholes and does anyone have a rope to pull her out.

“We call that Irish charm,” Gallagher said. He distributed the drinks from the waitress‘s tray.

“Irish charm? I thought that was being shitfaced.”

“That too.” Papadopoulos lifted his drink. “Opa!”

Gallagher looked at the old man. “You really going through with this? What are you gonna do with all that free time?”

“Anything I want to. That‘s the point isn‘t it?”

“You gonna leave me with these knuckleheads?”

Johnson snorted and ordered him to go fuck himself.

Papadopoulos laughed and said, “Don‘t be a hard ass, Johnny. You could learn something from these knuckleheads.” He mopped at a spilled drink with a coaster. “What happened with Roberts today?”

Gallagher went into the story, exaggerating his actions as heroic and minimizing his own stupidity at violently provoking the perp in the first place. He wrapped it up by passing the buck onto the Lieutenant, claiming Vogel should know better than to anchor him with partners. Who needs them?

“You do, that‘s who.” Papadopoulos leaned in, man-to-man like. “The best thing you can do is partner up with someone exactly opposite of you. They‘ll catch the things you miss. Make you a better cop too.”

Gallagher rolled his eyes. “You‘re drunk.”

“Yes sir.” Papadops leaned back, completely content. “But I don‘t have to go in to work tomorrow. Do I?”

DETECTIVE LARA MENDES stood inside Super Fast Travel, a tiny travel agency and wire transfer place on the 4300 block of Sandy Boulevard. Broken glass crunched under her foot no matter where she stood. The front desk was trashed, everything swept to the floor. Two smaller desks behind it were untouched. Lara scoured the floor for anything useful, anything left behind by the assailant. Her hair swung loose and she tucked it behind an ear but found nothing in the broken glass on the floor. She hadn‘t really expected to. She looked over at the woman sitting in the chair and wiping her eyes with a tissue. She had been assaulted, which was why Lara was here. Lara had worked the Sex Assault detail for three years now and although she hated to admit it, it was wearing on her.

Irena Stanisic sat in a hardback chair that Lara had uprighted for her. Her left eye was beginning to swell and the blood on her lip was gelling. Four of her press-on nails had been torn off. She realigned her torn skirt, smoothing the fabric down under shaky hands.

“This is my fault,” Irena said. “I kept meaning to upgrade the security, get one of those buzzer lock thingies for the door. But I kept putting if off, you know? And now look at this.”

“This wasn‘t your fault, Irena.” Detective Mendes knelt eye level with the woman. “No way, no how.”

“Can I go home now?”

“Officer Rhames is going to take you to the hospital,” Lara said. “You need that eye looked at. And they need to run a rape kit too. I‘m sorry.”

“God.” Irena shuddered at the thought of it. “I just want to go home.”

“I know, but it just takes a few minutes. And we need it. Oh, and do me a favor, don‘t wash your hands until then. The nurse will scrape under your fingernails. Okay?”

Irena looked at her hand. “What fingernails?”

Lara patted the woman‘s arm and straightened up, feeling her knees click. Lara was thirty-six but days like this made her feel older. Eleven hours into her shift and she was bone tired but there was still work to be done. She stretched, trying to wring out the sore spot in her lower back.

“There was a gun,” Irena said. She looked up at Lara.

“The man who assaulted you had a gun?”

Irena shook her head. “No, he took ours. We keep one in the drawer.”

“What kind of gun? Make, size?”

“I don‘t know. It‘s silver and shiny. My dad got it for me.”

Lara perked up, hopeful. “Is there a permit for it?”

LARA MENDES STEPPED out to the street, dinging the old fashioned bells inside the doorway. Two blue and whites were up on the curb, the uniforms talking quietly amongst themselves. The dusty Crown Vic she snagged from the motor pool was parked further down. Leaning against it was Detective Kopzyck, a Captain America type with a toothy grin and tattooed biceps. His sleeves were rolled up even now, yakking into the phone. Kopzyck was a pill who had zero talent in the empathy department. For exactly that reason, the Lieutenant had partnered him up with Mendes, hoping something would rub off. So far nothing had. Kopzyck was arrogant and mouthy but Lara tolerated him without complaint. She hated complainers.

They did have one thing in common though. Both knew that Homicide Detail was hurting for active detectives and both wanted to cross the shop floor into that department.

Detective Kopzyck saw Mendes coming out and ended his call. “You get anything more out of her?”

“Maybe,” she said. “Hop in.”

Lara slid under the wheel, Kopzyck dropped into the passenger seat. She slotted the key into the ignition but didn‘t turn it over. “How did she describe her attacker?”

“White male, thirty to forty” Kopzyck shrugged. “Twitchy, face full of meth scabs.”

“He tossed the place after he attacked her. But there was little cash on the premises and less than twenty dollars in her purse.”

“He‘s a methhead looking for money. Big news.”

“He took a gun.” Lara looked out the window, her hand still on the key. “They kept one on site, he finds it and takes that. Why?”

“So he can jack some other poor fucker for cash.”

“Or he could just pawn it.” She looked at him now. “He‘s an addict on foot. How many pawn shops in the vicinity?”

“There‘s one down Sandy, Lucky something. But the dude who owns it, he‘s straight. Hell, dude calls us when something fishy comes in.”

“And the other one?”

“That dump further south from the Lucky, near the Sally Ann. That dude will move anything. What‘s his name, Hair something?”

“Herrera.”

MARTIN HERRERA SAT behind the mesh cage of Magic Man Pawn Brokers. One hand on a Slurrpy, the other clutching a remote. Mounted to his left were a bank of monitor screens. One was a security cam, broken, and the others played daytime TV and cheap porn. Herrera never got rattled. It was a point of pride, a line in his personal sandbox. Even with two cops shooting dumbass questions at him.

“I don‘t deal in guns,” He said, slurping on the straw. Bored. “You want a piece, the gun shop‘s round the corner.”

Lara stood before the cage. Kopzyck behind her, fiddling with the camera equipment. She looked the proprietor to the junk piled even higher behind the cage. Some of it tagged, most of it not. “I‘m just asking Mr. Herrera. I have a suspect looking to pawn a gun he stole four blocks from here. Quick money.”

Herrera shrugged. “Told you, nobody come in with a gun. In fact, no one ’cept you come in at all today.”

“Look at me.”

He dragged his eyes from the porn and tilted his head back to give the impression he was looking down at her. Mussolini used to do that, because he was short. He‘d seen that on the History Channel. “Yeah.”

Lara leaned on the counter. She could smell the guy from here, rank sweat and stale clothes. “I can always get a search warrant. We‘ll come back and toss the place. God knows what we‘ll find then. It‘s up to you.”