“He wondered why you were AWOL.”
“I‘ll catch up with him later, say goodbye properly.” Gallagher chucked at Roberts. “What are you gonna do with him?”
“What can I do? Bench him for the duration. Which he‘ll hate.”
“Yeah, well. Life sucks.”
Vogel felt his stomach turn to ice, that same feeling he used to get before he laid the boots to someone in the ring. “What the hell am I gonna do with you?”
“Quit saddling me with partners. Let me work alone.”
“What you need is a goddamn leash.” Vogel unwrapped a piece of gum, tossed it in his mouth. “And a psychiatrist to boot. When‘s the last time you talked to the staff therapist?”
“Don‘t. I will eat her alive.”
“How about early retirement? Think of it as a favor to me.”
Gallagher chinned the nurse in Roberts‘s room. “What are the chances she‘s single?”
THE PETTYGROVE BAR and Grill was on Stark Street, just off Second Ave. It had been a cop bar since the very beginning and that would never change. Situated two blocks from the site of Portland‘s first police precinct, the Pettygrove was the first watering hole a cop came across after a shift. The interior was dark, the wood mahogany and although smoking was verboten in bars since the nineties, the smell of it clung to the walls like a phantom cloud. The pictures on the walls were all of cops. Newspaper photos mostly, going all the way back to grim faced sheriffs in big moustaches.
Gallagher came in through the side door and scanned the room. Papadopoulos held court at a central table, flanked by detectives who had ended their day early. Gallagher ordered a round for the table and paid up. As he waited, he looked over at the now retired homicide detective. Papadop had been Gallagher‘s first partner when he moved from Assault/Injury to Homicide and he remained a mentor after all this time. Papadopoulos had a gentle way about him, not the hard shell most cops had. Not like Gallagher either. People talked to Papadop, opened up and spilled the beans. The old man was genuinely interested in people and what they had to say, no matter what they‘d done. Their sob stories and their improvised justifications for their heinous acts. Gallagher couldn‘t stomach it but he learned from the old man that if you just let people talk, they‘ll gladly hang themselves on the rope you trail out to them.
Jesus. He was gonna miss the old man.
They‘d finished the round and Gallagher ordered again. Papadopoulos protested, saying he had to get home but yet didn‘t move when the drinks came in. Of the cops at the table, all of them had been schooled by Papadop and none wanted to see him go. Latimer and Bingham subdued when Gallagher sat down, the party mood dampening. They didn‘t like Gallagher and Gallagher just grinned at them, liking it that way.
“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?”
THREE
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.