“You got it.”
2140 hours
Katie MacLeod drove slowly along the residential street, glancing around, her eyes never still. Everything she saw registered in her mind, but being pre-occupied, it had little impact on her. She felt out of sorts. Embarrassed, actually. It hadn’t really been fair of her to slip out of Kopriva’s bed like that and slink home without a word. It made her feel like a slut.
But what was she supposed to do? She’d been upset and he had comforted her. It’s not like he took advantage, but things might not have happened if she hadn’t been so upset about breaking up with Kevin.
“Oh, who are you kidding?” she said aloud. She and Kopriva had always had some sexual tension. She’d just never acted on it because the situation was never right.
So what to do now? Katie sighed. She liked him. She would like to see him, but things had moved so fast. Then she ran out on him. Who knows what he thought about her now?
Besides, cop-on-cop relationships were difficult at best. Most of time, the stress from the job made the relationship twice as stressful. Of course, the flip side was that you had someone to talk to who actually understood.
Maybe she should buy him a cup of coffee and explain that they should just stay friends. That’d be the smartest thing. And the safest. After all, they had a good friendship and romance always seems to mess that up.
But she couldn’t do that, could she? Not with the feeling in her stomach right now. All that pent up emotion ever since the Academy had burst free and she couldn’t just put the genie back in the bottle.
More doubt crept in to Katie’s mind. Pent up emotion? Or rebound? Some of her affection for Kopriva was real, she knew that, but maybe the intensity came from being dumped. Possibly. Probably. Hell, she knew it did.
Katie sighed and tapped the steering wheel. She was on the rebound and acted like a slut with a decent looking guy who happened to be nice. The guy had a chance to get laid and took it. No harm done, but no great love affair, either, she realized.
Cut it off, Katie. Just cut it off before it ruins-
“Adam-116, Adam-112,” the dispatcher’s voice broke into her thoughts.
Katie reached for the microphone. “Adam-116, go ahead.”
“Adam-112, go,” came Chisolm’s calm voice.
“Adam-116, Adam-112, a domestic at 2114 W. Swanson. Complainant is a neighbor who wishes to remain anonymous. Complainant states that the man and woman who live at the address have been yelling loudly for the last fifteen minutes. We have no listing for the occupants of that address. 2114 W. Swanson, a domestic.”
“Copy.”
“Copy.”
Katie drove quickly but carefully to the call, using Belt Street, a residential arterial. Every time she went to a domestic, she felt a brief pang in her stomach, even after three years of police work. She remembered her mother screaming at father and how the police never came no matter how loud the screaming became. Things were different in today’s world, thank God.
She arrived at the house before Chisolm, parked a ways off and approached. The house, a small blue cracker-box, sat on a tiny lot. The scraggly upkeep of the lawn and the 1976 Monza parked out front screamed rental to her. She slipped through the fence gate, hoping there were no dogs or dog piles in the small yard. Once on the porch, she moved quietly to the side of the front door and stood next to it, listening. She couldn’t hear any yelling inside, though there seemed to be some movement. She waited for Chisolm to arrive.
Katie stared at the crack in the porch, following it as it spider-webbed across the entire porch. This house had seen some hard years. She wondered what the people inside would look like.
She heard a creak of leather and looked up to see Chisolm standing behind her at the foot of the steps. She forced herself not to jump in surprise. Chisolm grinned, his portable radio in his hand. “Adam-112, on scene,” he said in a muted tone, then slid the radio back into its holder on his belt.
“Pretty sneaky,” Katie whispered.
“Silent and Invisible Deployment,” Chisolm quoted from the Patrol Procedures Manual, still grinning.
Katie motioned toward the house with her head. “No talking inside. Just a little movement.”
Chisolm nodded. “A house this size, rolling over in bed would shake the whole thing.”
He stepped onto the porch and knocked on the door. There was a long pause, then a male voice asked, “Who is it?”
“Police,” Chisolm said in an authoritative voice. He gave Katie a wink. “Open the door, sir.”
Another pause and a muffled, “shit.” Then the door opened and a white male stood inside the entryway. The first thing Katie noticed was his size. The man towered over Katie by almost a foot and had several inches on Chisolm. She guessed him to be six-foot-three, at least. It wasn’t his height that struck her, though. The man was obviously a body-builder. His shoulders were thick and broad. A white T-shirt hugged his muscular chest. Cut off sleeves revealed bulging biceps and massive, veined forearms. One arm bore the faded blue color of a jailhouse tattoo.
Great, Katie thought. A ripped, wife-beating ex-con.
“Come on in,” he said, his voice neutral.
Katie and Chisolm entered the small house. “Who else is here, sir?” Katie asked.
“Just my girlfriend.”
“She lives here with you?”
“Yeah.” The man’s voice remained neutral.
“What exactly is going on tonight, sir?” Katie asked him.
A shrill female voice broke into the room. “I’ll tell you what’s going on here. He beat the shit out of me, that’s what!”
Katie turned to see a blonde-haired woman about five feet tall standing in the doorway to the bedroom. She couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds.
“I’ll talk with her,” Katie told Chisolm, and moved toward the woman. As she drew closer, she immediately noticed a red handprint on her right cheek. “Let’s talk in here, ma’am,” Katie said, motioning to the bedroom.
The woman stomped into the small room. Katie followed.
“What’s your name, ma’am?”
She crossed her arms. “Julie. Julie Krivner.”
Katie jotted the name into her pocket notebook.
“Date of birth?”
“What does that matter?” Julie’s voice rose shrilly. “I’m the victim here. Are you going to arrest that animal out there?”
Katie maintained an even voice. “Ma’am, we’ll do a complete investigation and if an arrest is in order, we will make it.”
“That sounds like cop bullshit to me.”
“It’s the truth.”
“I want him in arrested and I want him in jail now!” she shrieked.
“Relax, ma’am.”
“Relax?!” Julie’s voice exploded into a screech. “Don’t you tell me to relax. I was just beaten by that asshole in there. Now do your fucking job and arrest him!”
Katie struggled to keep her voice calm and held an open palm in front of the woman’s face. “Ma’am, that’s not how it works. We have to interview-”
“Oh, I see. You come in here and see his big arms and your little heart goes all mushy.” Julie put her hands on her hips. “You’re pathetic.”
Katie’s jaw clenched. “Listen to me! I don’t want your boyfriend. I am only here to investigate-”
“Oh, you don’t want him? So you’re a lez-bo, is that it? You probably want me, then.”
“No.” Katie said in a clipped tone. “I don’t. Now what happened here tonight?”
Julie shook her head. “Uh-uh. I don’t want to talk to any lez-bos.”
“Fine.”
Katie stepped out of the room. Chisolm and the body-builder both stared at her.
“Tom? You want to-”
“Sure.”
Jesus, everyone is interrupting me tonight. Katie strode toward the man as Chisolm brushed past her. She asked his name.