June 19 1998 Jordan Road
No two people reacted to bad news the same way. It didn't matter what the psychology textbooks explained; to efficiently categorize the coping process seemed to be cosmically impossible. You expected one thing when you dropped the bomb on someone, and occasionally they would behave in a way somewhat similar to your expectations. Yet just as often, the strongest person would collapse like a long abandoned barn under heavy snow, and the most fragile wisp of a soul was barely moved at all.
Victoria Connor, for all her nerves and frazzled hair, took the news surprisingly well. It might have helped that it was Joe who told her. Despite his bluster, the man could be more eloquent then a preacher when it came to speaking to a victim's family. And yet when it was all over he could walk away and crack a bad joke just out of their earshot. Go figure.
Would things have been different for her mother if Joe had been the one to inform her that her youngest daughter was dead?
"Lindstrom."
One hand crept up to the long scar on her cheek. It was invisible under a thick spackle of concealer, but there nonetheless.
-Would Dad have survived his grief?-
"Hey, Earth to Lindstrom!"
She dropped the hand to her lap and turned to her partner. "Yeah?"
"I asked you if you heard about Tremmain."
A blank stare, "Tremmain?"
"Ford's partner," Joe explained.
Irene shook her head.
"Irons suspended him."
She arched her eyebrows, but said nothing.
"Findlay from the rat pack hauled him upstairs yesterday morning. I hear he's gone for six months."
"Wow," she said, uninterested.
"He must have done something real thick. The union wouldn't even go up to bat for him."
"Hmmm,"
Joe spun in his seat to face her. His thick, expressive eyebrows were furrowed with concern. "What gives, Lindstrom? You haven't said a thing all morning." A sliver of a smile formed. "Did Forrest Gump keep you up all night?"
She laughed in spite of herself. Why did she like Joe Gutierrez again? Her partner had guessed right. She had been up most of the night, though Forest Speyer had nothing to do with it.
"I think I'm coming down with a cold." It was half truth; Joe could spot her lies from across a stadium.
"Tell me about it." He cast a withering glare at the grey clouds that stretched out to infinity. "All this cold and rain is no good for a person. I had the chills all night after our trip out in the woods."
Irene had no intention of discussing what had happened that first morning of their day shift. "This rain is supposed to last until Friday morning." she said, changing the subject back to the weather, doubtlessly the most innocuous of topics.
"Good weather for the big game on Saturday." Joe said nodding. "We're gonna tear the Hose Heads a new one."
She smiled in anticipation and nodded her assent. The RPD and the Raccoon Fire Department's rivalry was the stuff of local legend. That contention was especially widespread in the various sports leagues in which they participated. Softball was no different, and Irene relished putting those arrogant Neanderthals in their place.
The smile disappeared from her face as she glanced down at the crumpled Chevy Celebrity that lay at the bottom of the ditch beside their cruiser. What had started as a routine Eleven Twenty-Four, investigating an abandoned vehicle, had quickly escalated into a single vehicle rollover involving a stolen car. Said vehicle had an interior covered in blood, four obliterated side windows, and no bodies.
So here they sat, waiting for the cavalry to arrive, backup officers to direct traffic, the Traffic Accident Reconstruction officer, EMTs, the ident unit, and of course, Grady's tow truck.
The blood bothered her, it could have been from a broken nose, and maybe the perps had fled the scene. Though, it could also mean that someone was wandering around the woods with their brains leaking out of their ears. She didn't know and was anxious to find out.
She took her eyes away from the sedan and let them trail up the rain-washed highway. She could just barely make out the Gordon's Creek Bridge. She wondered if the police tape they had strung across the cut line was still there. Detective Silverman had finished his investigation of the scene yesterday, and the bodies were still in Geezer Thomas's cooler, waiting for their autopsies.
She sighed and wiped at the mist on the windshield.
"Thinking about it isn't going to bring them back, Irene." Joe said in an unusually soft voice.
The only time Irene's partner called her by her first name was when she had either done something very right, or very wrong. Had she been so transparent with her thoughts?
-Don't answer. Just pretend like you never heard him-
"We've got company." he said, mercifully curtailing their conversation.
Irene checked out the side-view mirror. A Traffic Services patrol car had drawn up close behind their cruiser. The driver turned on his warning lights, and the entire car shifted several inches on its springs as its lone occupant exited.
-Oh boy, here we go- She thought to herself upon realizing who the day shift TAR was.
A shadow fell across the two cops as Sergeant Janowitz's frame blocked off Joe's window. A moment later, his moon face was peering at them through the rain streaked glass.
"Excuse me, son." A large patch of fog formed on the window, obscuring his mouth, jowls and chins. "Aren't you a bit young to be driving a police car?"
Irene groaned as Joe rolled down the window; she wasn't in the mood for this.
"Jesus Christ, Walt." Gutierrez growled in mock disgust. "You get fatter every time I see you."
Walt Janowitz leaned past Joe, frowning at Lindstrom.
"Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you and your son to exit the patrol… Oh shit! Lindstrom, Gutierrez! I'm sorry." He pulled back and grinned at Joe. "How are you, short stuff?"
"Cram it up your ass, you dumb Polak." Joe said, unbuckling himself and grabbing his forage cap.
"I'm sorry Jose, but that's no way for the help to speak." He took a few ponderous steps back, allowing Gutierrez to get out of the car. "If you don't watch your tongue I'll have no choice but to give the INS a call."
"Oh I'm not worried, Senor." Joe puffed his chest and glared up at the overfed accident reconstructionist. "Like you'd ever find INS in the phone book."
Janowitz switched targets and eyed Lindstrom. His face was as serious as an executioner's, but his eyes were laughing.
"Honestly, Lindy, how do you put up with this mouthy little spic?'
Irene had no intention of playing cheerleader to their pissing contest. She ignored the Sergeant's question and pointed over at the wreck.
"We've got a good crash for you Sergeant." She spoke with a friendly tone but didn't smile. Walt Janowitz was a smart cop, but lazy and long overdue for retirement. She didn't like him very much.
"Nineteen eighty-eight Chevy Celebrity, discovered as it sits by a commuter out of Latham six thirty this morning. Larch PD calls the RO, one Helen McIvor of Latham. RO checks on the vehicle, and reports it stolen from her residence."
Janowitz frowned, interested.
"Twin tire marks forty yards from the vehicle seem to indicate an emergency stop and subsequent loss of control." she continued; it felt good to be on top of things. "We did a quick scan of the tire marks, there doesn't seem to be any indication of an impact with another object. No roadside debris, no animal carcass."
"No dead bodies." Janowitz interrupted with a small smile.
Irene shook her head. "No fatalities,"
The Sergeant quickly assessed the crash scene, muttering notes to himself under his breath.
"How long before we get some more bodies up here? I want the westbound lane blocked off so I can get some measurements of those skids."
"We've got two more PCs Code-two." Joe answered. "We're thinking they're about ten minutes away. Ident is on its way to get some prints, so don't go mashing your big ham hocks all over the evidence."
"Is that what stolen means?" He scoffed and turned to Lindstrom. "You learn something new every day, huh Lindy?"
Irene smiled and laughed obligingly. though as soon as the Sergeant turned his back to her, she dropped the smile and rolled her eyes. She glanced over at Joe, who smirked and winked at her. He knew exactly how his partner felt about certain people. She wished he couldn't read her like that.
"Help me with my stuff, Jose."
"Get you own gear, you lazy fucking goldbrick." Joe said, as he began obediently following Janowitz to the rear of the patrol car. "I don't get paid like a TAR Sergeant, so I don't do TAR work."
"Didn't you write the Sergeant's test?" Janowitz asked.
"Yeah, four months ago. I passed it, now I'm just waiting for the red tape to clear."
"Red Tape? You'll never see your chevrons. Irons would never promote a Mexican."
"He had no problem promoting a blockhead Pole with bad breath. Besides, my parents were Panamanian not Mexican, you ignorant son of a bitch."
"There's a difference?"
Irene groaned again. She was cold, she was tired, and there was no way she could tolerate their ass-grabbing all morning. Hopefully backup would show soon, and Janowitz would have someone else to entertain. She grit her teeth and walked over to the other two.
Sergeant Janowitz had popped the trunk and began emptying it of it's contents. Out came his cameras, two metal clipboards full of various forms, a large tape measure, boxes of chalk, a rangefinder, plastic sheeting, evidence bags. Everything necessary to deduce with a fair amount of accuracy what had precipitated and followed a traffic accident.
-Traffic incident, actually-
They had drilled that into her head at the Police Academy. There was no such thing as a traffic accident. The word accident implied a set of circumstances outside of human control. In reality, most incidents, were caused by at least one person's inattention or carelessness, and not by an act of God. And therefore the RPD responded to traffic incidents, not accidents.
With arms full of Janowitz's gear, they picked their way down to the crumpled sedan.
"Nice crash, eight points." The Sergeant said as he chuffed for breath like her father's old Farmall tractor.
They stopped at the abandoned vehicle, depositing some of the equipment on the wrinkled hood. Janowitz stuck his head inside and gave a low whistle. He crammed one catcher's-mitt sized hand into his jacket pocket, pulled out a handheld voice recorder and began making notes. Like most veteran RPD, the Sergeant had long abandoned writing notes while on scene. The ever present wind and rain played havoc on paperwork. The smart cops adapted, the thick cops got reamed out for keeping shoddy records.
-Rain and wind, wind and rain. Why do people live here?-
Irene eyed the dreary tree line. She had yet to fully adapt to Raccoon city' constant wet weather and grey skies; it was possible that she may never. It seemed strange to her that the locals were never bothered by it. It never rained this much in Wyoming, granted it got colder in winter. As she watched, the mist and trees further down the road begin to flicker blue and red; she could hear the hiss of incoming traffic.
"Here's our backup." she said.
"Go get them set up okay?" Joe answered. "Walt figures these guys were pitched from the wreck. I want you to radio the precinct and get them to notify all the surrounding hospitals to watch out for admissions with broken bones and lacerations. If these guys are running, they're running hurt."
"Running is the wrong word for what these punks will be doing." Janowitz mumbled as he snapped a photo of the driver's side.
Irene quickly and efficiently instructed the two squads to block off westbound traffic and made her way back to her own patrol car to relay Joe's message. She had her doubts that the perps had fled the scene, though. Cell phone reception was terrible through the mountains, so they couldn't call for help. It was possible that there had been a second car.
-Possible, but not probable. They're somewhere in those woods-
She gulped and watched Officers Hall and Ryman drive past her, stopping a few yards before Gordon's Creek bridge. If the perps were hurt and in the forest, whatever had killed the Connor family was in the same area. Would they be sent into the woods after them? How many more bodies hid in the rain and the grass and the trees? How many waited for them? For her?
-Stop it-
She sighed, pulled off her cap and straightened her hair. What was wrong with her? That hadn't been the first time she had dealt with dead bodies. It couldn't have been Madison Connor that was bothering her; she had handled kid DOA's before. There had been that Buchanan boy, run over on his bike, that young family in their Honda Civic, trapped and burned to death.
-There was Ann-
"Stop it." she whispered. She needed to get a grip. Gutierrez and Janowitz were making their way toward her. She reset her cap and climbed out to meet them.
"HQ will relay the advisement, EMTs will be here any minute." She kept her eyes off her partner.
The other two nodded. Janowitz handed her a large spool tape measure and a box of chalk.
"Let's go take a look at those tire marks." he said.
They had been at the tire marks for less than a minute when the Sergeant bent at the waist with a groan and called them over. "Hey, I thought you guys said there was no debris up here. This sure looks like fucking debris to me."
He snapped a quick photo and scooped up a grey plastic sliver, the size of Irene's pinkie finger. "Does this look like it came from the grille of an eighty eight Chevy Celebrity?"
She would have to take the TAR's word for it, but did not doubt the man.
"So that means that there was a collision." Joe said.
"No shit," Janowitz scanned the roadway around them. Irene and Joe did the same.
"There's a bit of glass over here too." she said, pointing at the diamond shards pebbled through the passenger's side skid mark.
"That would be from the passenger side headlight lens." Janowitz said. "So, whatever they hit was big and hard enough to damage their car, and solid enough that it didn't break up on impact. Animal strike maybe? Probably a deer, the rain could have washed away the blood."
The accident reconstructionist quickly skimmed the eastbound shoulder with his small, intelligent eyes. "It's possible that the impact propelled the object into that brush over there. Lindy, you go check for an animal carcass. We'll get that bozo, Ryman in there as well."
"Hey Ryman!" Joe signalled the younger cop over.
A tractor-trailer breezed past, spattering them with dirty rainwater. By the time it had cleared, Officer Kevin Ryman had joined them
"Go check that ditch for roadkill." Janowitz instructed.
"You mean squirrels and skunks and stuff?" Ryman asked, deadpan as usual.
"A deer, smartass,"
"Hungry?"
"Get moving,"
The two cops crossed to the opposite shoulder. Despite the chilly weather, Irene felt a warm trickle of sweat beading her forehead, mingling with the road grit. What was it that she was feeling? It wasn't fear exactly, more a perception of dread. Further in the trees, a crow cawed and scrambled it's way into the air. Her father had insisted that crows were a bad omen and would fork the evil eye whenever he chanced upon a large group of them. He was full of his little fallacies: if the first winter calf was white, the winter would be hard, if his head itched, it meant wet weather was on its way. She was never sure if he truly believed the stuff or was simply keeping himself entertained.
She was well into the other ditch, sweating heavily. The bottom half of her slacks quickly dampened and were wicking cold water up her legs. She swallowed and wiped at her face. A patch of sweat prickled between her breasts and shoulder blades.
-Damn bulletproof vest, no wonder Joe never wears his-
Her feet kept pushing her forward, toward a spot of flattened grass. The crow called out, passing overhead.
-What is that?-
A shiny brown square was stomped into the mud. She bent over, realizing it was a billfold, filthy and waterlogged. She flipped it open with a pen, noting that it was still fat with money. One slot had an American Express card. The clear plastic identification pocket contained a current New York driver's licence belonging to a Victor Yendrowich, who was, according to the photo, a middle aged Caucasian with a round face and a thick moustache.
"I found something." she called out. Her voice sounded tinny, far away.
Twin beads of sweat rolled out from her hairline, her mouth had a salty, watery feel to it. She took a step back, assessing the trampled clearing. There were clearly shoe prints here. As a matter of fact there was a shoe here, a brown loafer submerged up to its laces in the bog.
She could hear Kevin Ryman drawing closer. Her back and chest were drenched as if she were standing in the middle of a Baker Creek pasture during an August drought. Once again, she could smell the fertilized soil, could hear the flies buzzing.
-Could hear Dad screaming-
Her stomach lurched. Her slacks were too dark, her hands were stained red.
"Lindy, you okay?"
The tall ryegrass was painted in blood, thinned by the constant drizzle. On one level this registered with her, on another she was ten years old, baking under the Wyoming sun as her father wailed into the dusty sky.
"Hey, Lindy,"
Kevin Ryman's hands grabbed her just as she was about to swoon. She turned to him, pale and bathed in sweat.
"I think I'm going to be sick."
"Notes from The Sherriff" Latham Weekly
Reminder to Lock Homes, Garages.
Sherriff Barnes would like to remind Latham residents that more traffic along County road 128 during the summer months means a higher likelihood of stolen property. A vehicle stolen from an unlocked garage earlier in the week is an example of...
AN. Thanks again to Artistic Masochist for lending me the awesome Liv Tremmain. I'm glad I can include him in the fun. Hopefully I got Kevin's character right. I haven't played Outbreak, so I'm just going off of the trusty ol' RE Wiki.
Oh, yeah, hopefully I'm not offending anyone with all the ethnic slurs. For the record I find Gutierrez and Janowitz's actions abhorrent.
Stay Tuned.
-C