Delta Stevens 1: Taken by Storm (6 page)

“ Yes. They’ve probably dumped it someplace, but we’ll find it. We’ve got every available officer on the lookout.”

Delta nodded. When a cop was killed, every precinct, every station, every officer would bust their collective humps to bring the murderer in.

Captain Williams moved behind his desk and used his asthma inhalant that was lying next to a report. “We also have a double-barreled shotgun, and something about the killer having strange eyes.”

This comment puzzled Delta. “Strange eyes?

Williams nodded. “That’s what you said to one of the paramedics when they arrived on the scene.”

Delta tried to remember, but couldn’t even remember having spoken to the paramedic. It all happened in one huge red blur.

“Can you give us a sketch to go by?”

“I can try.”

Pressing a chubby finger on the intercom button, Williams called for Jonesy, the police artist, who strode through the door only seconds later.

Jonesy sat next to Delta and smiled kindly. He was a mousy-looking guy, who probably got all A’s in high school and college. But he was as good an artist as any.

“Take your time, Stevens. There’s no reason to hurry. Whenever you want to start, just talk it through and ignore what I’m doing.”

Delta forced her thoughts back. Both spotlights hit him the second the doors flew open. But had she really seen him? She remembered, vividly, how the gun glistened in the light. Did she even get a look at his face? Wasn’t his face covered up? Delta shook her head. “I don’t know, Captain. It happened so fast.”

Jonesy gently touched Delta’s leg. “That’s natural, Stevens, to think you never saw his face. Most victims of violent crimes usually block that out for a time because it makes the crime that much more personal. For some, it takes days, even weeks, before their protective subconscious let’s them remember. It’ll come back to you.”

“We don’t have that kind of time,” Delta growled, more at herself than at Jonesy.

Jonesy smiled and patted her leg before picking up his charcoal. “Then why don’t you just tell me what you do remember seeing, and we’ll work from there.”

Delta inhaled. “The weapon. As clearly as if it was in this room.”

“Good. Did you see his hands on it?”

Delta strained to remember. Something about his hands ... “Not his hands. I don’t remember his hands. But I do remember seeing something ...” Closing her eyes, Delta mentally allowed her eyes to travel up the barrel of the gun, past his hands, until they rested on his shoulder. Something was on his shoulder. “He had a tattoo on his shoulder.”

“Excellent. Can you describe it?”

“It was partially covered up by a black, or was it blue, tank top. He was wearing a dark colored tank top.”

“Good. That’s very good.”

Delta looked to Captain Williams, who was smiling slightly.

“And part of the tattoo was covered up by his shirt. It could have been a snake, or a dragon, or anything. I was really too far away to see.”

“Could it have been a birthmark?” Jonesy offered.

Delta nodded. “I guess. It was big enough to see, but I couldn’t get any detail.”

For the next thirty minutes, Jonesy went over color, sizes, shading, shapes, everything that he could glean from her words and fuzzy images.

At last, setting his board down, Jonesy patted her again.

“That’s great, Stevens. You’ve done really well so far.”

Delta forced a grin. “What next?”

“The most important part — his face.”

Here, Delta drew a blank. She couldn’t even come up with the color of his hair. No matter how much Jonesy prodded, Delta couldn’t get a picture of it.

“I think that’s enough for now,” Williams said after nearly an hour.

“No, Captain, I have to keep trying.”

Moving his large girth from behind the desk, the Captain shooed Jonesy out the door and sat where Jonesy had been sitting.

“Look, Stevens, how many seconds would you say you had a clear view? Two, maybe three?”

Delta bowed her head and nodded. She felt like a failure.

“Given your pretty detailed account of the tattoo, odds are, you did-n’t even have the chance to look at his face. Anyone seeing a shotgun barrel poking out at their partner wouldn’t see anything else either. So stop feeling as if you’ve blown it. You did everything you could do. And . . . you’re still alive. That’s the number one rule about this job. You know that.”

“But—”

“No buts. I know how bad you want this bastard, but if you’re going to be of any use to us, to Brookman, we need you to be fresh.” Go home, get some rest. Take a Jacuzzi, have a brandy, and hit the sack. I’ve been there, Stevens, and believe me, tomorrow is just the beginning. I.A. wants to see you first thing in the morning.”

Delta stared down at her hands. The prospect of going home to an empty house compounded the fracture that ripped through her heart and poured a sour light on the loneliness she felt the moment Miles’s life energy was snuffed from his body. Slowly, painfully, the tears burned her eyes once more.

“Now you go home and rest. Whatever you do, no matter how tempting it may be, don’t get drunk. A hangover tomorrow will only make things worse.”

“Yes, sir.” Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, Delta left the Captain’s office and stepped into the vacuum of the outer offices. In an instant, Connie was at her side.

“You okay?”

Delta shook her head. “I don’t think I’ll ever be okay.”

Guiding Delta to her desk, Connie gently pushed her into her chair. “Gina has the hot tub warmed up, the extra bed made, and clean pajamas next to the fire. Come home with me.”

Sighing gratefully, Delta nodded. First Sandy left her and now Miles forever. God, she wondered, would she ever feel whole again?

The doors swung open as if violently kicked from within. Standing on the platform of the van, the huge, bare chested man with ape-like arms wheeled the silver double-barreled shotgun into plain view. When he smiled, a silver tooth glistened like the shotgun. In an instant, the mouth of the gun belched a fireball, orange and yellow, as large as the sun itself, lifting Miles up and driving him hard into the ground.

“Miles!” Delta screamed, as the ape-man turned to her, still looking through the sights of the monster weapon. Indecision tormented her as she reached for her own service revolver. Resnapping her holster, Delta stared at the spectre before her as he smiled wickedly, and his eyes . . . what was wrong with his eyes?

“No!”

Sitting up in bed, finding her pajamas soaked through with nightmarish perspiration, Delta reached blindly for the light on the night-stand.

Connie and Gina appeared in her room just as the light went on.

“Storm, honey, are you okay?” Connie knelt at the bed and held Delta’s sweaty hand.

“Oh God,” Delta said, wiping her wet forehead.

“You dreamt about it, didn’t you?”

Delta nodded, relieved she had not stayed home alone.

“Only this nightmare made me remember something. Something was different about his eyes. I don’t know what, but I remember them being . . . funny.”

“Was he wearing glasses?”

Delta shook her head. “I don’t think so. They were just different.”

Connie patted Delta’s hand. “Good. As time goes by, you should be able to remember more and more.”

Delta grabbed Connie’s hand in both of hers. “Thanks for letting me stay here tonight. I don’t think I could handle being alone.”

“Don’t be silly. I would never have let you go home alone. Stay here as long as you want.”

Gina nodded. “You want to come sleep with us?”

Wiping the sweat off her forehead, Delta grinned sheepishly.

“She’s serious, Del. We’ll pack you right in between us so those nightmares can’t possibly get to you.”

Taking each of their hands, Delta squeezed them. “You two are too much. But if I’m ever going to get a handle on the nightmares, I might as well start now. Thanks, anyway”

“Well, if they get worse or you don’t want to be alone, come into our room.”

“I will. Good night.”

As she watched Gina and Connie walk out of the bedroom, Delta pulled the covers up around her. She would get a handle on the nightmares, alright. It was reality she was worried about.

Captain Williams gave Delta the next two days off, although she spent one of them with Internal Affairs filing her report and answering a multitude of questions. They drilled her for hours, focusing on every minute detail imaginable. They kept coming back to why she had never drawn her weapon. To Delta, the questions were aimed at finding fault, and finger pointing, instead of at collecting enough information to go after the killer. Procedure was more important than outcome; tactical errors, if there were any, were their greatest focus; yes, they should have waited for backup, yes they could have pulled them over on a different, more well-lighted street, yes, they could have had their weapons drawn, and yes, she should have attempted to bring them down. But none of these answers would either bring Miles back nor would they aid in finding the mysterious blue van. She also hated being treated like a suspect instead of a victim. Her partner was dead. D-E-A-D. Instead of receiving sympathy, she and her actions would be used as an example of what not to do. Somewhere in the works, someone had forgotten to tell these guys that police work was people-oriented, not just facts and figures and product. Miles was just a sad statistic to these guys, and she knew it.

And she hated them for that.

When the barrage of questions finally ceased, Delta found herself preparing for a funeral she never anticipated going to.

“You hanging in there alright?” Connie asked, handing the mascara tube to Delta. In two days, Delta had been home just once, to feed the cats. She couldn’t bear being alone. When she was alone, she felt a combination of cold numbness and searing pain.

“By a thread. I’ll be fine until I see Jennifer and the kids.” Delta had called over to the house on three different occasions, but all three times, Jennifer fell apart and her mother ended up taking the phone from her. Delta knew that seeing the three of them huddled together like fawns lost in the wilderness would rip open whatever was left of the fragmented emotions inside her. Then, her tears would be, not for Miles, not for her own sense of loss, but for them. They had lost a daddy and a husband. Surely that hurt more than losing a friend. Or maybe pain was an incomparable emotion that couldn’t really be weighed against itself.

As their car rolled slowly past the church, Delta was struck by the number of blue, gray, and beige uniformed officers who were flooding into the small church.

“Death sure brings us out of the woodwork, doesn’t it?” Gina put her arm around Delta and pulled her closer.

Delta inhaled slowly through her nose. The last three days felt like she was walking in someone else’s nightmare and she couldn’t escape. It was as if she would awaken at any moment, to find things back to normal. But she knew better. And, she knew worse.

“Ready?” Connie asked, turning off the engine and unstrapping her seat belt.

“It all feels so unreal.”

Gina scooted off the seat and held the door open for Delta. “Not until you get back into the patrol car without Miles will this really hit you. You have a long grieving process ahead of you. This, I’m afraid to say, is really just the beginning.”

“The beginning? Don’t you mean, the end?”

Gina shook her head. Gina was the head nurse in one of the operating rooms at Mt. Glenn Hospital. She had a Bachelor’s Degree in psychology, and when she spoke, which was not often, people tended to listen. Delta was listening hard to her now.

“No, I meant the beginning. Funerals signify the transition for the living, not, as some believe, for the dead. They are an indicator for us to acknowledge that we are sending the individual off to a better place and that our lives must begin again, without them. Miles’s death is a time of transition for Jennifer, his children, his friends.”

“So it’s all about accepting a life devoid of his presence?”

Gina nodded. “Maybe not this very second, but in there, you’ll feel it working in you.” Gina tapped Delta’s chest. “You’ll feel the transition in your spirit as you learn that.”

Delta sighed. She didn’t feel like a new beginning.

“There’s Jennifer,” Connie said, pointing. “She looks awful.”

Delta took a deep breath and approached her. For long, tender, painful moments, the two women stood, not knowing what to say to ease the other’s pain, yet saying all that needed or could be said. A river of sorrow seemed to flow between them, yet there was a small comfort in knowing that they weren’t truly alone in their pain. Finally, Delta looked into Jennifer’s sad, gray eyes, and saw the same fear, same sense of loss, only deeper, more gaping; the river was much larger for Jennifer than Delta could even imagine.

Wrapping her arms around Jennifer, Delta held her. The moment they touched, the river broke free and Jennifer began sobbing.

Holding Jennifer close to her, Delta asked the father if there was someplace they could go to be alone. After showing them to his chambers, Delta sat down, still holding Jennifer, and said nothing.