Amber Alert
"You okay?" Karen asked as she looked Jim over. He looked ruffled, his jacket not quite straight. She leaned over and lifted his pant leg. "Your socks are odd again."
"Damn! I'm tossing them all and buying just black," Jim sighed. "Is it obvious?"
"No. I had to look."
"Well, I wish you wouldn't. Anything else?"
"Just re-settle your jacket."
He did.
"Perfect." Karen brushed imaginary lint off his jacket and opened the back door for Hank. "Christie not home?"
"Yes, she was just… in a hurry." The last thing Jim wanted to think about was Christie. Again this morning she had rushed out of the apartment, saying she couldn't talk. The washing had come back from the laundry with the socks unpaired again. He'd complained and she'd grabbed two and said they matched, throwing them at him as she ran out the door. He hated to admit it, but her primping had been useful. At least he had always known he would look okay stepping out the door. But these days she seemed to avoid giving him any sort of helping hand. She'd even suggested he hire a book keeper. "I haven't done the bills for – oh ages," she explained as she tossed back her coffee. When he'd suggested they have dinner together, he could have sworn she was laughing, though she said she wasn't. "Should I cancel my dinner? What are you cooking?" He gave up.
Jim pulled his mind back from the moment. "She's going for a promotion."
"Good for her," Karen said as she and Jim got into the car. They were headed out to canvass an area where two small children had been reported missing in the last 24 hours. The area was once a prosperous business and shopping area, but had fallen on hard times and there were plenty of squatters, un-contracted rentals, and short term tenants.
They arrived well before Tom and Marty. Karen described the dead end street. "Narrow street, two abandoned cars – no wheels."
"Runs North South?" Jim asked.
"Yeah," Karen was surprised.
"Feels cooler, I'm guessing the buildings are tall, no sunlight?"
"That's right. It looks like they used to be shops and small businesses but have been closed down. Some single some double story, but it's pretty dark here." Jim heard Karen turning her head to look as she spoke. "Also newspapers on the windows, that sort of thing. Not somewhere I'd like to bring up a kid."
"The people who live here probably don't have a choice," Jim reminded Karen half turning behind him. "Is that Tom and Marty?" The footsteps were unclear, perhaps still around a corner.
"Yeah, they got two patrols with them." Karen smiled and started introductions as the men walked up. She handed out photographs of the missing children. Then she turned to Jim.
The case had been assigned to him and he now briefed the uniformed officers, "So far we have no standard MO. One child disappeared in a market, the other where she was playing with her big brother and some children outside the house, the next street over. Canvass there yielded nothing."
"Why we here then?" Officer Riley asked.
"The children playing in the street saw only one person we have not been able to identify and check; a male. Apparently they saw him walk into this street and not come out." Jim waited but there were no more questions.
"We'll do the north side, Officer Riley. Why don't you and your partner start at the other end and we'll meet in the middle? Marty?"
"We'll do the same on the south." Marty gestured to the other uniformed pair to begin at the other end of their row of dilapidated tenements which looked more likely to be residential than the one's on the north.
Jim and Karen headed for the first door in a long line of doors up the street.
Tom and Marty crossed the road to begin. Riley and Rodriguez moved on ahead, and Karen and Jim went to the first door. "Jeez, there's a demolition order still stuck to this door," Karen said as they walked up the stairs.
"Some of these buildings fight demo orders for years before they get knocked down." The step under Jim's feet started to crack and he stepped quickly up to the next one. "I doubt this one can fight off another one."
"Hello?" Karen knocked and called. The first door pushed open at her knock; a dry dusty smell wafted out. Karen stepped over the threshold, Jim close behind her. "Old shop. Looks empty," she said, noting the dust thick on the floor, undisturbed.
Jim sneezed. "No footprints? Signs that things have been moved?"
"No." Karen left his side and checked behind the counter.
"Hello? Anyone in here?" Jim called out, his voice echoing off the walls. "Small place. Any doors?" he asked quietly.
"Yeah, just one." She guided him over and opened the door. A small kitchen filled the space, again covered in dust, most of the appliances blackened.
"Fire?" Jim wrinkled his nose.
"Yeah," Karen answered, "It's empty."
"Alright, next."
The second door never opened at all. Doors three to nine were opened by tenants but none recognized the children.
At the next door, a child of about seven years answered and stood looking at the two detectives, her thumb in her mouth, her eyes wide. "Hi, we're looking for these children, have you seen them?" Karen held out the photographs.
The kid grabbed them from her hand and ran inside calling, "Mom!"
"Shit. She grabbed the photos," Karen explained and Jim gave a small laugh.
A huge woman in a Hawaiian print mumu arrived at the door. She threw the photos at Karen, who scrambled to catch the flying cards. "What's this about? I ain't got no money to be giving charity for no little kids." Her voice rose until it matched the loud floral print of her dress. "I got enough to worry about with my own kids, so you can jus' take your emotional blackmail photos and get yourself outa my doorway."
She leaned forward to poke at Karen with a large finger. Karen leaned back into Jim's space to avoid being prodded.
Jim moved in front of Karen protectively and held out his badge. "Excuse me ma'am. We're from the 8th precinct, Detectives Bettancourt and Dunbar. We are asking door to door if anyone has seen these children. They have been missing for several days now."
"You ain't collectin' for no charity?" The huge woman scowled at Jim in his dark glasses, standing in her doorway like he had a right to be there.
"No. We are looking for lost children. Perhaps you heard on the radio or saw on TV that they were missing?" Jim was patient. He took off his glasses, folded them and slid them into a pocket. It often took people quite a while to let go of who they thought you were before they listened to whom you said you were. "Could you look at the photograph my partner is showing you again?" He gave her his most charming smile and gestured to Karen who was stowing the photos in her jacket.
The woman's mouth formed a big "O" as she bounced between staring at his eyes and responding to his smile. "Oh, Oh, I'm sorry officer. I… I… you know we always get people asking for charity or answer a marketing survey, or to change our phone over - like anyone who lives in this dump got money for phones."
Jim smiled and nodded toward the photos.
Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Karen held the pictures out again. "Could you have a look now and tell us if you recognize these children?"
The woman bent over the photo, squinted, and looked up again. "Jus' wait there while I get my glasses."
"Could your child come take a look, too? Perhaps he saw them?" Jim added as the woman swept down the hallway.
"Jasmine! Jasmine!" The woman's voice was shrill as she called for her daughter.
Karen gurgled and Jim turned to her, eyebrows high. "Did you just giggle?
"She's like a cannon ball in the hallway, she fills..." She held her hands wide in the doorway, brushing his arm. "The whole thing -like a whale going down a missile tube."
"Missile tube? Where do you get all these submarine analogies, Karen?" Jim was perplexed. "This has to be the third one this week and it's only Monday?"
"Submarine? Oh, well, I dated a submariner recently, I guess it rubbed off." Karen sought to change the subject. "That look of yours has become pretty useful, Jim."
"What look?" Jim asked innocently.
"Don't pretend you don't know. That, "I'll just take off my glasses and you can look into my dreamy blue eyes and melt" look that you just used on that poor woman.
"Poor woman?"
"She's about the size of a whale and I bet no man has tried to charm her for years. You're taking advantage."
Jim gave an exaggerated shrug, continuing to feign innocence.
A sharp, unexpected elbow in his side and he gave up. "Hey, if it makes things go easier –why you complaining?"
"Just don't ever try it on me."
"I would never do that." He was sincere; he knew it wouldn't have a chance with her. "Besides you have one too."
"What a 'melt the female' look?"
"No, for guys, you know, the one you used on Stephan Sherman on Friday. What did you do? He would have cooked his children to win a smile from you."
Karen blushed. "Nothing? I… I just… nothing."
"Are you blushing?" Jim's grin stretched wider.
"No. I'm Puerto Rican, we don't blush." She needed to divert this conversation. "Anyhow, I gotta learn to schmooze the ugly ones like you do though. That's hard."
"Just don't look at them," Jim said in a completely reasonable tone.
"You idiot."
Jim thought he heard a smile in Karen's voice. "You doing the melt the male thing?"
"Shh," Karen cautioned. The huffing and stomping suggested the human missile was back.
"Jasmine, look at the pictures the nice policeman is showing you. Do you know these children?"
The child sucked her thumb and gazed at Karen who took the photos from Jim and held them out. "She doesn't recognize them, Jim."
"And you, Ma'am? Do you recognize the children?" Jim prodded.
The big woman pulled the photos from Karen's hand and held them at arm's length, squinting and closing one eye. "No, can't say as I do. Pretty children though, someone must be missing them. Whose are they? When you gonna find them? You think they dead already?"
The woman's questions streamed from her mouth unendingly. Jim imagined missiles issued from a whale and going in all directions.
"Thank you, I'll take those now." Karen pulled the photos from her grasp. "We really need to keep going, I'm sure you understand."
"No recognition?" Jim asked as the door closed forcefully in front of them.
Karen snorted. "Even with her glasses she was pretending she could see the end of her arm. You could ID them better I think."
TBC