Played: “Sometimes you never know who is playing who, until the damage is done." (8 page)

“Yes.”

“And you did tell Officer Renny to call me in on my day off—the only day I can visit my daughter—to come down here to the station because you have a problem so sensitive that only
I
can handle it. Is that right?”

“No…I mean, yes,” she replies, even more flustered than before.

Cools, childless, considers it his responsibility to persuade people to think twice about coming in here and fabricating stories to get even with coworkers or unfaithful lovers, or to exploit another person’s misfortune. But with Amberly he is getting a good vibe: although she does too many drugs, she is a reliable source of truthful information. So he gives her a hand gesture that offers her permission to speak and says, “Let’s hear what you have to say.”

“Well…I didn’t say that I wanted you to miss your daughter…not exactly. I just…I just wanted to—”

“But I did come down here on my visitation day, did I not?” he asks sharply.

“Yes, but—”

“So whatever you have to tell me, tell me now!”

“Okay, it’s like this. I was…I mean, I was only doing a favor for a friend. And then when I heard the story of Joshua calling the radio station last night…I think…I think maybe I made a mistake, but I did what she asked me to do. We do it all the time; it’s no big deal really…I guess, or not…I don’t know.”

Cools begins to breathe more quickly and shallowly—partly because he wants to know what she does, but mostly due to his lack of patience for female psychobabble.

“You do
what
all the time, Amberly?” he asks, pressing her.

“You know, make sure no one gets hurt or into trouble with boyfriends, and then last night I heard the news…then I called my friend, Justin, and…and he sent me a clip with the radio recording of the thing that Joshua did…and then I knew I was in trouble, real trouble.”

She starts crying, but he unsentimentally pushes her further. “Why do you think you would be in trouble, Amberly?”

“Because…you see, Kimberly…she wasn’t there when you called. I…I was just covering for her. Kimberly had this other guy she sees, and you know, I didn’t know you were really a cop; the boyfriends get creative sometimes to find out things. So I told you she was there, but she wasn’t there. And that was the day Joshua did his thing on the radio…and now I think he did something, because the guy, you know…the guy she was seeing—he came into the bar later that same night, and he was looking for her, and nobody’s seen her since.”

“Oh shit!” Michelle screams so loud it can be heard in the interrogation room, where Cools is now out of his chair, pacing back and forth, mumbling to himself.

“How could I be so fucking stupid!” he spits out.

“Am I in trouble…I didn’t…you know, I didn’t want to…I mean, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You have to believe me…I just—”

That is all Cools hears before escaping into the hallway, where Michelle meets him, so shocked she’s speechless. He grabs her by the arm and makes his way straight for the stairway, so they can talk privately, incoherently cursing under his breath along the way. “How could…I took the word of a stripper named Candy—fucking Candy? I must have lost my fucking mind!”

Once they’re on the cold staircase, securely away from any cameras or eavesdroppers, Michelle says, “So now I’m interested.” Cools looks to her for anything, hoping she can piece something together that makes sense. Instead, she berates him. “What the hell does this mean, Brad? Did that little prick kill his wife on radio and make fools of us? And then we gave him close to a week to get rid of the evidence? How is that possible? How?”

“I don’t know Michelle, but we better talk to Captain,” he says, sensing a wicked storm of no mercy falling his way for the mother of all fuck-ups.” He leads a straight course to Captain Jackson’s office, foreseeing future headlines: Top Cop Lets Psycho Killer Go! Detective Cools Fooled by Local Stripper! Was Kimberly Still Alive?

Thirty seconds later they burst into Captain Jackson’s office. Sitting across his desk is Detective Fredo, also known as JFK (Jack Fredo, the Kiss Ass).

“Hey! Hey! Hey!” their captain shouts.

Cools holds up his hands, saying, “Captain, we’re here on about a nine and a half on the Richter scale.” Then he points to JFK and asks, “And this is?”

Captain Jackson restrains his annoyance at the bombardment and replies cynically, “It’s about a two.”

“Out! Get the fuck out—now!” Cools orders JFK, who scurries out of the room. After the door shuts, he frantically lays it all down while pacing back and forth in front of Michelle, who is ignoring the display considering the implications.

Captain Jackson sits stock-still, digesting his detective’s tirade, almost more concerned for his friend than the dilemma itself, as Cools flails his arms about rapidly, answering most of his own questions, until the captain can’t take it anymore. “All right! All right—enough. Sit down, Cools, and be cool. Jesus, fuck, you get wound up, man!” Cools shuts up and moves to the chair his captain is pointing to. “Robertson,” Captain Jackson snaps his fingers, breaking her trance. “Robertson!”

“What?”

“Sit down next to your partner.”

They both comply without protest. Then Captain Jackson breathes vigorously through his nose, enjoying the first moment of silence since they’d busted into his office. The two of them look to him for orders, guidance. And both are equally caught off guard by his response.

“Listen up, the both of you; I’m not all that impressed with the story from your stripper. But I’m deeply troubled about what’s going on in here. Cools, you’re a cop. It’s a job. Let me say that again: it’s a fucking job! But you get so worked up I think you’re gonna have a fucking heart attack right here in front of me. Do you think I wanna see you have a fucking heart attack here in my office?” Cools says nothing. Then Captain Jackson bellows so loud Michelle’s body jerks in her chair. “Do you think I wanna see you have a fucking heart attack here in my goddamned office?”

“Okay, I get it, but I—”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, but I think we should bring him in!”

Captain Jackson pounds a heavy fist on his desk and then holds up his large hand, shaking his head to and fro, emphasizing the fact that he should say no more. Cools knows not to press any further. Michelle wouldn’t dare.

A few moments pass in palpable tension and complete silence. Then, Captain Jackson, the real cool one, begins to chart a course forward. “All right then. We’re gonna start being professional cops up in here. We’re gonna get a
grip
and begin to
slip
our way out of this shit. Do you hear me?” Both Cools and Michelle answer in humble unity.

“All right. Robertson, I want this Amberly to fill out a complete statement. I want her drug tested, and I want a lid on this shit—closed and sealed.” Michelle nods, so he moves his attention back to Cools. “And then…maybe we consider bringing him in for questioning. But I want total control; he’s already filing suit against you for the crater in his driveway, you know.” Cools sits up, positioning himself for more arguing. Captain Jackson, sensing his challenge, commences to talk louder, “It’s gonna go down like this: Joshua will say his beloved wife has run off with some other guy. And according to your witness, there
is
another guy, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“No buts, Cools. We’ll bring him in for questioning if that’s what you want, but you should know as well as I do he won’t say a damn thing. He’s gonna call his father and be riding home in time for lunch, leaving us with nothing more than we got now. And what exactly do you plan on asking him anyway?”

“I’ll get something. I’ll break him. You know I can.”

“Cools, think it through. This isn’t some street punk coming off a drug high that you can manipulate; he’s been through the system; his father’s a veteran attorney. You think he’s gonna just let our DA push through a search warrant on a missing persons? Plus, from what I remember, he never made even the slightest of mistakes, did he?”

“No, he was lucky, Captain.”

“Uh-uh,” he retorts, waving his finger in the air. “He didn’t get lucky, and you should know better. He played the system from arrest to early release with the efficiency of a skilled politician. He’s a slick trick, that one, and you know it!” Cools doesn’t respond, which gives Captain Jackson a second to gather his thoughts. He relaxes his large body back into his chair and sets the game plan in motion. “So we’re gonna get all we can from the stripper; we’ll put twenty-four-hour surveillance on our boy, and then we dig, we watch, and we wait, and we do what cops do. And most importantly we’re gonna keep this out of the fucking media; they’ll have a field day with this if this ever gets out! They’ve already been playing him and his creepy poem most every night.” He pauses for a second then addresses a more important matter. “Now, one more thing…Cools, listen up, sport; you’re one of my best detectives, and I need to know that I can count on you. So do not ever— ever!—give me unconfirmed information again. Is that understood?”

Cools lowers his eyes to the floor, replying, “Yes, Captain.”

“He’s right,” Michelle says, finally adding something. “We really don’t have anything except for a missing persons reported by a drugged-out stripper. And this way no one has to know that you, or we, screwed up.”

“Exactly, finally someone’s making some sense,” Captain Jackson says, tossing a smile to Michelle. “Now we need to get more on him. So contact Kimberly’s family members, talk to the boyfriend, dig through the garbage, follow him if you have to. And you really need to start listening to your partner, Cools. From what I get from her as well as some of the other guys around here, you have some anger issues, my friend; you need to slow down.”

“Ah, fucking hell,” he grumbles, as he springs from his seat; he turns his back on them and glares out the plate glass window.

Then, after a few uncomfortable seconds, Michelle takes a chance and recites in a girly voice, “I’m a good little girl…and I don’t want to be…you know… in any trouble or anything.” Captain Jackson looks at her, confused. She begins again, using the same voice. “I just…you know…cover the girls who have…you know, boyfriends and husbands…but I’m a good little girl, Detective.”

Cools, still with his back turned, tries ignoring her.

Now getting the joke, Captain Jackson asks, “Is that how she talks?”

“Yes,” Michelle snickers.

They share a laugh together until Cools responds by admitting he could hardly contain himself in the interrogation room, and all at once the three of them start laughing hysterically.

“I gotta get a look at this one,” Captain Jackson says.

“Oh, you’re going to like her, Captain,” Michelle laughs out in a tone that tells him she’s a hottie.

He looks to Cools, who, with his expression, verifies Michelle isn’t kidding. He can also see the energy is now running in the right direction and decides to add to the joviality, asking, “Did you see JFK scuttle his butt outta here?” This sends the trio over the edge, and they laugh like they haven’t in years, each of them adding witty comments on the spectacle until they’re exhausted.

Finally Captain Jackson brings their meeting to a close. “All right,” he says, clapping his hands together, “sounds like I’m gonna do an extended interview with Little Miss Innocent, while you two are gonna hustle up the dirt on our boy Joshua. This creep isn’t gonna make fools out of us, not on my watch—you better believe it. Now, I think you should start with the boyfriend: find out who he is, where he is, and interview him right away.”

“Okay, boss,” Cools replies.

Likewise Michelle agrees and gives the captain an assuring smile to let him know she’ll be taking good care of her partner. They all inhale a refreshing breath of air to reorganize their minds before Cools and Michelle are off in search of Kimberly’s lover. The laughter served its purpose, to soothe their demons for the moment. Still, for Cools there is, just below the surface, an underlying sense that life-altering events are soon to take place—an uneasiness that makes you feel like you need to run, that you won’t make it through the day, that today, for some unknown reason, you should be extra careful while crossing the street.

.

Chapter Nine

T
he deputy mayor of Tacoma sits alone in his master bedroom, uncertain as to what will come next in his existence. His skin is pale, with dark circles below his eyes. There is an eerie stillness that shrouds his thoughts as he makes a call.

His call is answered.

“My name is Trace Friesen. I have a beautiful, caring wife. I live in a beautiful home with my children, and I have a promising career. I’ve been preparing my run for governor, and yet today, I am here with a loaded gun in my hand.”

The listener on the other end is Maggie, a student at Washington State University. There she studies psychology and volunteers in her off time as a suicide lifeline operator—this is her day off.

“Sir, what you’re doing right now is the best thing you can do for yourself: reaching out. And I will help you through this; we
will
get through this together.”

“I’m not asking for your help, Maggie,” he says in a monotone voice. “I only call to clarify my reasons to someone. I already wrote a letter to my friends and family, saying that I am truly sorry to have let them down. But I just feel the need to talk to a person first—my notion of a confessional.”

“Okay, I will do that for you, but first I ask you to do something for me: tell me why you are sorry. Why do you think you have let them down?”

He tries clearing his mind in preparation to tell the short and sweet answer. “I am a married man in love with a dancer—a stripper, to be more correct—and I believe her to be dead. She was murdered by her insane husband. And I have been torn in days past, watching it unfold on the news, hearing others mention it continually, knowing it would catch up to me sooner or later.”

“Are you talking about that creepy guy—Joshua something?” Maggie asks.

“Yes,” he replies, disgusted that everyone everywhere knows him.

Then Maggie hears a change in his tenor from anguish to pent-up anger. “I’ve entertained thoughts of killing him, praying deadly misfortune his way… He used to beat her…And I did nothing! Anyway it’s all over; I just received a call from a detective from the Seattle police department. At this very moment, he and his partner are en route to come question me. I have just lost everything— my profession, my beautiful family, my dreams of running for office, and the woman I love!”