Behind the Badge (19 page)

CHAPTER 46

Stanley Erikson's desk was little more than a sea of yellow legal pad paper, loose sheets strewn about the surface along with a stack of pads and far more empty coffee cups than he could count. Other than the computer monitor and the mouse to his right, there was nothing visible on Stanley's desk. Even the wedding photo he kept next to his computer had been swallowed up by weeks, if not months, of notes, theories, speculation... all of it revolving around Bounty.

He heard what the others at the
Sun
said about him, the things they muttered under their breath when they thought he was out of earshot. How he was nothing more than a conspiracy nut at this point, how losing out on that Pulitzer five years ago had left him so jaded and desperate that he was chasing proverbial ghosts. A member of the photography staff had even called him Alexander Knox. The reference hadn't been lost on him, and Stanley was all too quick to remind said editor that crazy Mr. Knox had actually been right about Batman all along. The only problem was, Stanley didn’t have a Vicki Vale encouraging him and propping him up the whole time -- mostly because his wife Patricia also thought he was nuts.

Thing was, Bounty’s existence was common knowledge; she had even addressed the city herself on more than one occasion. Stanley's editors weren't asking him to provide them with proof of her existence. This wasn't a case of sticking a camera on top of a building and letting it snap a few shots as she leapt from rooftop to rooftop. No, the higher-ups were desperate to find out who she actually was. It had become something of a pissing contest between the
Sun
and the
Times
... one that ratcheted up a month ago when the
Washington Post
decided it wanted to play ball. Congressional scandals apparently didn’t hold the appeal they used to.

Everyone in the Baltimore-Washington corridor's journalism world was searching under every rock trying to figure out who Bounty was, and Stanley was under the distinct impression his job rode on whether he was the one to discover her secret. Every time the phone rang, Stanley hoped it was that hot tip.

Every time, he was disappointed.

The cursor on his computer’s word processing program mocked Stanley. He hated writing stories like this, but he had been tasked with penning the front page story, to go above the fold, detailing Ramona Parish's assassination. Because according to Stanley's editor, that was exactly what her death was. So now Stanley had to craft roughly a thousand words to describe a violent death people likely already saw on live television. Eyewitness accounts were pointless for that reason, and there was little reaction after the fact, because everyone scattered when the shot rang out and the cops weren't talking.

Everyone knew what happened. Hell, chances were, video of the fateful moment had already gone viral. It was shocking and morbid, two things that would guarantee its quick spread across the internet. Never mind the fact that a person had just been killed. Never mind that two children were now without their mother and an elderly couple had to watch helplessly in their living room as their daughter had her brains blown out.

When his smartphone went off this time, the bars of
Don't Stop Believing
far too loud for the newsroom, Stanley scrubbed a hand over his face, fingers rubbing against a week's worth of graying stubble. “Erikson,” he answered in a croaking voice, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut. He had been staring at computer screens for too long.

“
Stanley Erikson
,” a low, gravely voice greeted. “
I believe I have some information you'll find most interesting
.”

Stanley rolled his eyes. “If this is about Bigfoot, I'm hanging up.”

“
I know who the vigilante is
.”

Another roll of the eyes, because this was far from the first time he had taken calls like this. The vast majority of them were people yanking his chain, playing practical jokes on him. A few of them were earnest people who thought they had the correct intel, but it turned out they didn't. Still, if Stanley ignored this caller and it turned out they had actual information that was actually viable... he tossed the pen in his free hand onto a stack of papers and sighed in frustration.

“Just don't waste my time.”

“
Trust me, Mr. Erikson, this will be anything but. Bounty is a cop.
”

“A cop,” Erikson repeated with an arched brow, shaking his head. “You mean to tell me someone who already has a badge and a gun decided to become a costumed vigilante on top of that?”

“
That's exactly what I'm saying.
” The voice went quiet for a moment, and if it weren't for the occasional static on the other end, Stanley would've thought the call had disconnected. “
Andersen.
”

“Ander...” Stanley's voice trailed off, the true recognition of the name sinking in. He sat up straighter in his chair. “Andersen. As in Jill?”

“
One and the same
.”

“You realize I have to vet this.” Stanley began jotting notes onto a scrap of paper, knowing full well he wouldn't be able to read what he wrote later. “I mean, for all I know, you're just some crackpot hiding behind a voice distorter pulling my leg.”

“
What if I provided proof?
”

Okay,
now
Stanley was interested. “Proof.”

“
I can tell you not just who Bounty is, but I can provide to you --
exclusively --
her entire origin story.
”

“What, you mean there's more than her former cop father who wound up being a serial killer?”

“
Mr. Erikson, you have no idea.
”

Chapter 47

If Jill was being honest with herself, she hoped against hope that she would run into the other vigilante again. The stunt he had pulled -- in broad daylight, no less -- had shifted the city’s focus away from police brutality and started a whole new debate with regards to the role vigilantism played in the city. Only it wasn’t really a
new
debate; it was the same debate the city had already had ad nauseum with regards to her. But more than anything, that masked man was responsible for four dead bodies. Bodies that were still submerged somewhere in the Chesapeake Bay. As far as Jill was concerned, adding to the total of dead bodies wasn’t the way to solve anything.

She understood there were many in the city who were fine with what the masked man did. For the first time since anyone could recall, cops who had killed an unarmed citizen because of the color of their skin had paid a price for it. It wasn’t a conviction or a firing or a jail sentence or anything socially acceptable, but the four officers in question would never hurt anyone ever again… and for some, that was enough.

Just not for Jill.

But as expected, the other vigilante was nowhere to be found. She wondered if he had a name. She wondered if there was someone pulling the proverbial strings. Such was likely, and Jill had a sneaking suspicion of who that might be, but she was actively not letting herself think that far… mostly because she was so physically and emotionally exhausted at this point that she didn’t want something else creeping up on her. She just wanted all of this to be over. She just wanted her life to return to something resembling normal, even though she realized that was fleeting.

But that dramatic, final showdown with Gregor was coming… likely sooner, rather than later. Jill wondered if Gregor siding with her on this case was just an attempt to throw her off, make her see him in a slightly different light before he pulled the wool out from over her eyes.

That wouldn’t have surprised her in the least.

Once again holding vigil over the sidewalk where Devin Buckner was killed, Jill dropped to a knee and traced her fingers over the pavement. The sound of a gun being cocked stopped Jill in her tracks, and she held her breath expecting to hear the gunshot. But no shot came… until she turned to look over her shoulder.

The force of the blast knocked Jill back several feet, the concussive force of the trigger being pulled ringing in her ears even once it registered that she was physically unharmed. The bullet had hit square against the metal eyeplate on the left side of Jill’s face, then ricocheted who knew where. But Jill’s vision was blurred, and she struggled to get back to her knees as the ringing in her head briefly intensified.

Her nerves were also shot at this point. Her mind flashed back a couple months, when a bullet barely missed her BPD-issued vest and somehow found itself near her liver. Being shot and undergoing surgery for it had been one thing; to have her secret broadcast without her knowledge and to later be attacked in her own hospital bed was something altogether traumatic in its own right.

So one could forgive Jill if having a gun pointed at her, if hearing the trigger being pulled, still made her jumpy. A black mark on the eyeplate aside, though, Jill was none the worse for wear.

“Get up,” an unfamiliar voice ordered from behind. She heard the gun being cocked again. “I know you’re not hurt. Get. Up.”

Reluctantly, Jill got back to her feet, taking a few moments to gather her bearings more before turning around to face her attacker. She frowned when she didn’t recognize the bearded man standing before her, wearing a black winter cap and a bulky overcoat. His red beard and blue eyes stuck out even in the overcast night.

“Hands in the air,” he ordered, though the gun in his grasp quivered. “You reach for that sword and the next one’s going in your gut.”

She did as asked.

“Good.” The man’s eyes narrowed. “Now… where’s Detective Paulson?”

Jill’s frown deepened, and her arms almost lowered. But she kept them right where they were when she watched the man’s fingers flex around the gun. The left side of her face was still warm from the impact of the gunshot, and Jill briefly wondered if the infrared mechanism inside her head was broken.

“Still in police custody,” she said. “What’s it to you?”

“Yeah, I heard you was workin’ with the damn cops,” the man practically snarled, taking two steps toward Jill. The tough guy act was almost convincing, aside from the shaky hand. “The fuck’s gone on in this damn city since I got run out? Hm?”

“Who are you?”

It wasn’t Jill’s best strategy, but there weren’t a lot of options for her so long as there was a weapon trained on her. The red in the man’s beard looked a little too deep, like the guy had been coloring his hair. And if he was all bent out of shape over Paulson being in police custody… Jill had a theory as to who it was, but she was hoping against hope this guy was actually dumb enough to tell her.

“Name’s Brady,” the man surprisingly obliged.

Sam Brady. Of course. Paulson’s old buddy and fellow crooked cop. The two had allegedly committed the murder of an unarmed teenage boy named Carlos Grainger, and her father had been the one to catch the case. All Paul Andersen got for his troubles was a concussion, bruised ribs, and missing out on what would be his only shot at a promotion. All because Brady and Paulson were protected by the “Blue Wall.” Paulson had moved onto bigger -- but not necessarily better -- things, and Brady wound up run out of the BPD for something else entirely.

“Let me guess,” Jill said, “you found out your buddy was in trouble again and you just couldn’t help yourself.”

“On your knees,” Brady ordered with a flick of his wrist.

Biting back the sarcastic remark she desperately wanted to make, Jill slowly dropped to her knees, her arms still held up on either side of herself. The muscles were starting to get sore, the accumulation of abuse they had taken in recent days catching up with her, but she kept them still… anything to keep this man from again pulling that trigger. Brady’s nerves offered a potential opening, but Jill had to be careful nonetheless.

Brady approached, his nostrils flaring. He pressed the barrel of his gun into Jill’s forehead, gritting his teeth and letting the metal dig into her skin. Jill kept her gaze on Brady’s, never even so much as blinking.

“Been back in town for a while,” he said with a bit of a growl. It almost felt forced, like Brady was trying to convince Jill he was big and tough. “Long enough to know the Baltimore Police Department I used to know and love has turned into a shitshow free-for-all where criminals are allowed to roam the streets and cops are too pussified to do anything.”

Someone misses the good ol’ days…

“You’re a smart gal,” he continued. “So let me tell you a little story. See, back in the day, me and Paulson had this shit locked down. Ain’t no one in this town dared to do anything with us patrollin’ the streets. That Grainger kid? Sold crack outta his momma’s basement. Had a juvy file thick as a Tolstoy novel.

“And we got the prick. Put him outta this city’s misery once and for all. But then this goody-goody fuck from downtown had to get involved, and he brought that fuckin’ Affirmative Action captain wit’ him.”

Jill’s fingers twitched. She knew exactly who Brady was referring to, even if he hadn’t mentioned any names. Every instinct told Jill to bring this guy to the ground and dislocate every socket and joint he had. But with that gun burrowed into her forehead, she kept still.

“Fucker starts pokin’ around where his nose ain’t welcome. Andersen, I think his name was. Real insufferable bastard. Didn’t know when to quit. Even after we told him what the deal was.”

Jill’s jaw clenched.

“But time goes by and the Grainger thing blows over.” The pressure of the gun on Jill’s forehead lessens, but the gun was still pressed to her. “Josh and I get reassigned, but we’re still employed. Least, til that bitch DA gets to office.”

“Parish?” Jill kept her voice even.

“Yeah, that fuckin’ waste of space.” Brady’s lip turned into a disgusted sneer. “Bitch found out I was hittin’ my wife, decided she wanted to make an example of me.”

“Right,” Jill shot back, “God forbid the law apply to a cop.”

Brady grit his teeth again and smacked Jill in the temple with the butt of his gun. The blow sent her teetering to the side, but Jill never toppled over -- and where the skin tore, instead of blood, there was just more metal.

“The fuck
are
you?” Brady spat.

“The only hero this city’s got, apparently.”

“You wanna talk about the law?” Brady cocked his head to the side. “What about you? You runnin’ around, playin’ hero and dishin’ out ass whoopin’s? Can’t imagine the BPD would take too kindly to that.”

“They have other problems right now.”

Jill kept her gaze even, despite the anger burning a hole in her gut. Her fingers were threatening to curl into themselves, turning her hands into fists that could beat Sam Brady within an inch of his pathetic excuse of a life. The urge was as strong as Jill could ever remember experiencing, and though it scared her, in the heat of the moment she wanted that fix more than anything.

“I’m gonna find Josh,” Brady warned. “And I’m gonna get him out, and then we’re both gonna make sure you never stalk these streets again.”

Jill fought the urge to roll her eyes; yet another bad guy too busy talking about what he was going to do to actually do it. The pressure of the gun against her forehead was gone. Jill looked up in time to see that Brady was no longer standing in front of her. She couldn’t see him on any of the streets or sidewalks within her view, and Jill slowly got back to her feet.

Paulson’s friend was back in town, and hellbent on helping. The fact that Brady shot at Jill before uttering even one word told her all she needed to know about his motivations and what he was willing to do. She wondered if Brady had ever killed anyone; no one had specified whether Brady or Paulson had pulled the trigger on Grainger. He certainly had the look of someone who had taken a life before. What was worse, he had experience in making sure the system chugged along the way it always had. Brady was never an agent of justice; he was nothing more than a bully.

The only problem was, the bullies were starting to outnumber the heroes. Or maybe they always had, and Jill was just naïve enough to believe otherwise.

One thing was certain: this was nowhere near over.