I took the stairs up to my office, hoping Herb had gotten there before me and was waiting with a big cup of coffee, because I needed caffeine.
There was a person in my office, but it wasn’t Herb. And she didn’t have coffee.
“That’s my desk,” I said, pointed to where she was sitting.
The girl smiled. “I know. It’s your office.”
She was in her early twenties. Blond hair with pink highlights, in a short bob. Enough makeup to shame a gypsy fortune-teller. Multiple earrings. And a multicolored blouse that clung so tight, it looked painted on.
“I’m Roxanne.” She stood. Roughly my height, but slightly thinner in the waist and hips, and a cup size bigger. “Roxanne Waclawski. Call me Roxy.”
She offered a hand, a zillion sterling silver wire bracelets jingling at me.
I kept my hand at my side.
“Why are you in my office.” I added, “Roxy.”
She smiled big. “We’re partners!”
“I have a partner.”
“Captain Bains told me that I’m your new partner. Your old one died or retired or something.”
I spun on my Stevies and walked across the hall to Herb’s office. He was packing stuff into boxes.
“Herb? What’s going on?”
My partner looked at me with an expression halfway between pain and remorse.
“My transfer came through. I’m going to Burglary/Robbery/ Theft. No more Homicide.”
I felt like I’d been hit, like all the important people in my life were deserting me.
“Why?” I heard myself say.
“The stress. I can’t take it. Too many years of people trying to kill me. Or you. I think it’s worse seeing you in danger.”
“If it’s about yesterday-”
Herb set down the box, hard. The noise made me flinch.
“Yesterday was just an example. It’s been like this for a long time. I can’t take it anymore, Jack. I’ve seen too many dead bodies. Talked to too many crying relatives. I’m done.”
He pulled out his desk drawer and dumped all of the contents into the box. Most of the contents were empty food wrappers.
“Weren’t you going to tell me?” I asked.
“Bernice told me not to. She said you’d talk me out of it.”
“Of course I’d talk you out of it. You’re a Homicide cop. A damn good one. It’s in your blood. You can’t walk away from this.”
“I got less than ten years left in the Job. I’m spending them in Robbery. No crazed maniacs. No psycho killers. No lunatics poisoning the whole goddamn city. The next decade will be like a paid vacation.”
I walked around his desk and put my hand on his arm. Herb was practically family. I’d had partners before, but never one that I felt such a bond with.
“You saved my life yesterday, pulling me out of that house. If you go to Robbery, who’s going to save my ass next time?”
I said it half-joking, but his reply was so serious it stung.
“You’ll have to find someone else to save you next time, Jack.”
He gave me his back, pulling stuff off of shelves.
“I put all the task force stuff on your desk, which team is doing what. I’m sure Bains will assign you a new partner, if he hasn’t already.”
“He has. The paint on her isn’t even dry yet.”
Herb turned and managed a weak grin. “A younger partner, huh? I’d never put up with that shit.”
Maybe I was the one who reached for him. Maybe he was the one who reached for me. But the very next moment, two tough macho cops were hugging like relatives at a funeral.
“You’re going to make a great Robbery cop,” I said to his chubby neck.
“You can come with me. Think it over. No shooting. No dead kids. No serial creepos. And if the bad guy gets away, he won’t wipe out a preschool. The worst he’ll do is steal a BMW.”
“Sounds tempting. I’ll think about it.” But we both knew I was lying.
Herb broke the embrace, cleared his throat, and returned to the shelf. He came back with a cellophane package of Twinkies.
“Look at this.” He squinted at the package. “Date says 1998. They look good as new.”
“The best things in life never change,” I told him.
“Actually, Jack, sometimes they do.”
He tossed the package into his box. I didn’t think I had any tears left in me, but I felt them coming. I considered telling him about Latham, or about my father. Anything to make him stay.
Instead I said, “Call me when you get settled in.”
Then I turned around and walked out the door.
CHAPTER 15
MEANWHILE, BACK IN MY OFFICE, Roxy had once again appropriated my desk. She even had her feet up, her Skechers in the spot normally reserved for my morning coffee.
“That’s my desk.” I tucked away all of my pain in a private, secret place, where it wouldn’t get out until I allowed it, and forced a pleasant smile. “The next time I see you sitting at it, I’m going to roll you up into a ball and shove you back inside Cyndi Lauper.”
Roxy quickly removed her feet and stood up.
“Who’s Cyndi Lauper?” she asked.
“A girl who just wanted to have fun.”
“She sounds cool. Hey, while you were gone, Captain Bains called. There’s some big meeting happening downstairs that we’re supposed to go to. Conference Room A.”
“Are you really a cop, and not someone who just snuck in here?”
Roxy smacked her gum and grinned.
“I like you,” she said. “You’ve got attitude.”
I took the task force folder from my in-box. Roxy picked up her backpack-of course she had a backpack; how else could she carry her skateboard?-and followed me down the hall.
“I thought we were going to the conference room.”
“I need coffee.”
“Here.” She tugged at my arm to stop me, then reached into her pack and produced a twenty-two-ounce can of energy drink.
“I don’t want that. I want coffee.”
“This is sugar-free. And it has twice the recommended daily allowance of taurine.”
“What’s taurine?”
“I dunno. It kind of tastes like pee. But it has a real kick.”
The station coffee also tasted like pee, so I accepted the energy drink. The flavor wasn’t pee so much as carbonated bile, with a hint of salt. But my body instantly reacted to the caffeine, and I perked up a little on the way downstairs.
“Your outfit is so cool,” Roxy told me.
“Thanks.”
“I’m so going to wear stuff like that, when I get older.”
Captain Bains, Superintendent O’Loughlin, Special Agent from the Hazardous Materials Response Team Dr. Rick Reilly, the ubiquitous PR guy Davy Ellis, and several other people I didn’t know were seated around the boardroom table, in a heated discussion. Roxy grabbed the last empty seat. I was about to strangle her with her hemp necklace, but Rick stood up and offered me his chair, leaving the room to find another.
“Jack,” the super said, “this is Dr. Abigail Van Hausen from the Center for Disease Control, Major Phillip Murdoch from the United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, Dr. Sylvia Ng from the World Health Organization, and Dr. Wayne Astor, also from USAMRIID.”
I shook hands all around. Roxy did the same.
“I’m Roxy, Jack’s partner. Anyone need an energy drink? It’s got taurine.”
Everyone declined. Roxy removed a can and popped the top, taking a loud slurp.
“Has this become a DOD show?” I asked, eyeing the army guys.
The major answered, in a tone that was obviously military. “The Department of Defense is here to ascertain if the situation in Chicago is a threat to national security. Also, one of the victims at the diner yesterday was a dignitary from Japan, and we’ve been asked to assist in the investigation.”
I’d heard about the diner massacre while at the hospital with Latham.
Bains appeared unhappier than usual. “Six dead, four more in critical condition. We’ve confirmed it’s a Chemist attack-note found at the scene.”
He passed over a piece of paper in a large plastic bag and went into details about the time and place. The font was bigger this time, but matched the previous letter.
Two million dollars or I tell CNN what’s going on. The Chemist