6
Late that night, Lucas had finished writing his checks at the dining room table; one stack of papers neatly separated into his categories for filing and another of envelopes with his checks and stubs inside. Just needed a few more stamps for a couple of envelopes and then he'd be able to get them out in the mail tomorrow. Thursday. The day Elle and her group met in the evening for their weekly shot at previewing/breaking his latest game.
He hadn't been down there in more than a month now; but even so, somehow it hadn't been feeling like much of a draw for him. Not lately, anyway. He'd had his mind on other things and the thought of World War II scenarios playing out in Europe in the '40's just didn't seem to hold his attention at the moment.
Maybe he'd get himself motivated enough to run over and put in an appearance at least, for Elle. Since she'd asked. There wasn't much he wouldn't do for her. He and Elle had always been close, closer than family in ways.
She'd offered him some exceptionally good counsel over the years, too, trained so well in clinical psych. Elle had always seemed able to crawl into their heads – help him anticipate what to think next when he'd hit a brick wall with them. Especially the really sick ones – the depraved, the indifferent, the psychos out there who'd made it their mission to prey on the public. Elle had made all the difference in some of his most desperate cases.
What the hell was happening out there? Like they'd all been let out of some place-of-the-damned, and it was just a matter of time before each started popping like popcorn out of a hot pan. And each one like finding a needle in a Twin City haystack. How to find them? And how many innocents were going to die, needlessly, before they could get to the psycho?
All under the scrutiny of a public gripped with fear and a Press hungry for all the salacious detail they could squeeze and wheedle out of the cops on the streets.
Then, too, there were men like Lucas – dark, capable men who just kept pounding the case until they'd finally found or made an opening. When the case had finally started giving up its secrets to him and the others.
There'd be a sense of things starting to change, finally. Sometimes suddenly, sometimes way too slowly, but definitely changing – and he'd know they were closing in. The momentum had changed. Close, though, was often the time when things turned most dangerous for all of them. When the perp, pressured, started making mistakes and they were on him hard – when he could feel them coming. That's when things could go hot really quick and bad things could happen. Where the number of notches on his gun might drift up higher. Desperate men did desperate things, and he couldn't just stand by and watch.
Lucas grabbed a beer out of the fridge and padded barefoot out to the living room. He dropped onto the couch and then swung himself around so his legs could stretch out. Hadn't put much of the furniture back, so the room still looked and sounded a little barren. Echoed a bit with his steps. He glanced around him at the results.
Insurance hadn't even come close to covering the cost of repairs, at least not in the way he'd wanted them done. Some of the walls were shot full of holes after the Crow hit. He'd stalked them through the house, shooting as he went – even down through the floors into the basement. Those floors had been gorgeous before, the kind of oak you just didn't see anymore. Shot full of holes after, even splintered in sections – ruined they'd said – but no way Lucas was gonna let them talk him into replacing the floors with 'new product', whatever that was.
He'd checked around and found a guy who'd work with him. Board by board, for a price, he'd chop out the damaged ones and then feather in the new ones, out of the same-era oak, stain-matching the replacements and refinishing the surface with a smooth, clear, low-gloss poly.
Labor costs alone had killed his budget. And finding the oak? – that was its own labor-intense, budget-busting challenge. After a cross-state search, his guy had come up with the oak, but the boards had to be pulled out of a demo job on a public school forty miles away. More labor to get it out, plane it down, feather it in, before the staining and refinishing were done.
Now though, after all the drama, the pleasure had finally come. When his eye scanned his floors, when morning sun reflected in its rose-colored glow off the wood, only he could tell where the damage had been. And only barely so. Character, he called it. A little patina on the perfection of the wood. His heart was happy.
Worth it, Lucas had told himself. Worth all of it. A little piece of his former life, reclaimed.
Around midnight he'd started dozing on the couch. Same pattern every night. He'd feel sleepy, start dozing, couldn't keep his eyes open, then as soon as he'd headed in to bed, nothing. Like he'd chased the sleep away. He'd toss and turn all night, and the clock tortured him minute by minute with its slow, painful march to morning.
Plus, anyone could tell you that Lucas wasn't much use to anyone 'til 1 or 2 in the afternoon, even on a good day.
He'd always thought of himself as more of the cleanup guy, showing up late after all the eager-beavers had been out there all day, sifting and running down the group-think from the night before. He'd sit in on the meeting with them, pasty and hungry in the bullpen before they could leave for home, listening in while the crew recited it all. Their Chief, Daniel, presided. Del and Anderson, Sloan, and a contingent of the street cops were there, strain in their faces, like his.
Lucas was known for listening with a different kind of tuning to the ear than everyone else. Little wisps of sound collected in his head and they started condensing into something substantial while the stories tumbled out. Invariably, something nobody'd thought of before would pop out of his mouth. They'd all stare at him for a moment, and then at each other.
Jesus! How did he do that, they were thinking. Then somebody'd chime in with something else, and then another idea would pop up after that, and pretty soon a whole day's worth of work rolled out in front of them. Sessions like that kept the interest up in these guys, and Lucas knew from experience that once interest had started to wane, the case'd die, too. And he just couldn't let it happen. Not on these kinds of cases. They'd gotten under his skin, and all through his brain, steaming him from the inside out, like a thick oven-pudding. Had to finish the case. Couldn't help himself.
By six in the morning he'd given up and rolled out of bed. Ungodly time of day, morning. None of his network of informants would be caught dead out there at this time of day. Only the eager-beavers, swilling coffee and heading out in the company cars to look for answers. His network were creatures of the night, and therefore, so was he.
Boiled some water in the microwave and dumped in a spoon of instant coffee powder. Debatable which was worse – the coffee in his kitchen or the swill down at the office. Milk, sugar, cream – nothing ever helped – so he sipped it black today. Even a long shower didn't help wake him up. So he dressed in a better cut of clothes then, to make up for the lack of functioning brain cells. At least he'd look good today.
Dumped himself in his car and purred out of the garage and down to the ugliest building in the Twin Cities. Who? Why? Every time he looked at it, the same questions rolled to mind. Lucas thought of it like some liver-colored monstrosity someone had left in the way, downtown. And no matter how they'd tried to change it through the years – add to it, move things around, it never seemed to help. Best thing to do, in his opinion, was to 'doze it, like with a full-on fleet of bulldozers. Put it out of its misery, and theirs, too.
Quentin Daniel looked like the local butcher at your grocery shop. A big man, with a serious front-porch on him, love-handles, and rolls of fat down the back of his neck that dripped over the top of his collar, flat-cut crew cut, and a chubby face. Only the sharp blue eyes gave away any hint of the shrewd that lay inside that impressive brain of his. Hadn't done any field work for twenty years, but Daniel knew his way around local politics and solid details from computer-generated reports better than most. Had his office walls decorated with black and white photos of him shaking hands with all kinds of dignitaries, politicians, and so on. A calendar, and a painted picture were usually mixed in up there, too. But Lucas noticed that the walls were nearly empty when he arrived, just after 7 in the morning.
"Jesus, Davenport, I thought you'd look better'n this after a month away. Look like crap, if you ask me." Lucas closed his eyes and shook his head.
Daniel opened a newish-looking humidor he had prominently-displayed on his desk corner, and pulled out a thick brown papery cigar, which he drew slowly across his face under his appreciative nose. He looked at the thing, and then winced and put it back in the jar, pressing the cover down with both of his meaty hands.
"What're you doin' around here, Davenport, and at this hour a the day?" Lucas scratched at his jaw with his fingertips. Daniel pointed to a chair, and Lucas dropped down into it, glancing around at the mess on the walls.
"Love what you've done with the place." Daniel scowled and waved a hand in the air.
"Gettin' some work done around here. Long time comin'," he groused.
Lucas sat back in his chair and moved his eyes over to Daniel, who lowered himself down into his own. They had an uncomfortable minute of silence then, where Daniel and Davenport met eyes but didn't speak. A lot went back and forth in the silence between them, but neither one wanted to go there.
"So?" Daniel tried again. Lucas shifted himself in the chair, leaning forward with his forearms resting on his thighs. His eyes tried to penetrate Daniel's.
"What can you tell me about this doc assigned to me?" Daniel stared back at him, and it wasn't a look meant to be pierced. Playing his cards close to the vest, Lucas thought to himself. Hmm. Daniel scowled.
"Don't have anything to say, and didn't have anything to say in the matter, Davenport. Never met the woman. The higher-ups wanted someone outside to come in, and they picked her, so she's here."
Daniel scowled at him again. Just a hint of something doesn't feel right here started prickling the back of Lucas' neck. He wondered why.
"So, you had nothing to do with it?" Daniel shook his head emphatically.
"Not a damn thing." Then, as an afterthought, "so, how you two getting along?" Daniel started to grin. Leer might have been a better word; thinking about the two of them, and Lucas knew where this was going.
"No, I'm not sleeping with her," and Daniel looked almost sad for him.
"Yet," he offered, and Lucas had to smile a bit then. Why mess with the start of a good story?
"So, how long is this gonna take? She seems to wanna get pretty deep into a lot of things," he said and watched Daniel's eyes again, carefully. After the shoulder-shrug, and nothing verbal in response, Lucas chalked another point up to the something doesn't feel right side of the ledger. Daniel was hiding something.
"Like I said before, you ruffled a lot of feathers with a couple a your stunts, and some people wanna see you thrown out on your ass, Davenport. I told you I'd come to bat for you if you'd decided to fight it before. Personally, I think ya did the right thing, resigning, and letting things cool down. You'll have a better shot at getting this turned around and back on the force this way. But ya need to play it straight with this doctor. She's got the creds, I heard, and if I were you, I'd take it as a sign there's some people in your corner, eh?" Daniel's blue eyes drilled into him, and he looked anything but like a butcher behind the counter now.
Lucas didn't say a thing. Just let the words sink into him and rattle around inside.
"Where ya stayin' now?" Daniel asked.
"At the house. Need to be around. I'm supposed to see her again Friday, tomorrow," he fumbled.
"Take it serious, Davenport, and you could get your job back. Maybe tweaked a bit, but better'n not." He scowled again at him and looked him up and down with his cop eyes. "You ain't the kinda man does well without a job, a focus like this, Davenport. You love it, in your own way. So don't screw this up, eh?"
Lucas didn't speak, again. After a long silence, Daniel stood up, and waved a hand like shaking a bug off him.
"OK, get outta here, then. You've taken enough a my time," he said, shaking his hand toward the door, like shooing him out.
Lucas stood up and glanced around the half-naked office again. Then he moved his eyes to Daniel's and they had another one of those wordless stares for a minute.
"Chief," he said, and turned away for the door. Daniel stared after him and watched him go.
"Jesus! Look what the cat drug in," Del said, turning to look at Lucas. "Heard you were around. 'bout time, ya slacker," and Del popped up to shake hands and juke with him.
Del was one of the narcs in the department. He looked the part, with long semi-stringy hair, yellow-green teeth, a vacant look that could come across his face for real, and clothes that'd put him in the lost-cause category for most people. He fit right in with the pushers, dopers, pimps and hookers, where he worked the streets. But, in spite of his looks, Del was a helluva cop. Lucas had developed something of a high regard for him, higher than he'd had when he'd first laid eyes on him. Honest mistake. Thought he was gonna have to haul him in for possession. But that'd been out on the street, before Lucas'd known he was a cop.
Lucas tipped his head at Del.
"Thought maybe we could get a couple a the guys from the team together for a beer or something," Lucas floated. Del looked a little pained for a moment, and then snapped out of it.
"Yeah, sure. When and where?" They went back and forth a few times, and then settled on a time and place to meet. Del volunteered to get the others, and then they'd all sit down and catch up over a few beers.
Lucas shook with him again.
"Take care-a yourself, Davenport." Del's beady dark eyes crinkled as he watched him go. "Jesus!"