Unfinished Business - Barbara Seranella (9 page)

She knew about both worlds now, she thought, as she
hooked up her gauges to the fittings on St. John's air-conditioning
unit and attached the outgoing hose to her evacuation pump.

"What does that thing do?" he asked.

"Sucks out all the air and moisture. This will
also tell me if you have a leak."

St. John turned on the air compressor, and they
waited while it built up enough pressure to operate the evacuator.
The compressor's noisy pumping made small talk impractical.

She waited until the AC gauges showed fourteen inches
of vacuum, then she closed the valves. She drew a finger across her
throat and pointed at the compressor.

He shut it off and the air was filled with an abrupt
silence. She looked for Asia, feeling a sudden, terrible panic. Asia
was still where she had been moments earlier when Munch looked. But
isn't that what they always say? I only looked away for an instant.

"Now what?" St. John asked, meaning his AC.

Without turning to him she said, "I want to wait
about five minutes, make sure the system holds a vacuum." Asia
wandered over and sat near them on the platform steps. The big dogs
lay panting at her feet. Brownie was in her lap. Munch thought about
Diane Bergman, still not quite believing her death was real, that
she'd never see her again. Then she thought about Robin Davies and
how shitty it felt to have your peace of mind ripped off. Also, how
relatively easily somebody could do that to you. "I need your
help with something else."

"Oh?"

"A woman who lives near the station, a customer
actually. She was assaulted." Munch looked at Asia. The little
girl didn't appear to be paying attention to the conversation, but
Munch knew from long experience that little ears never closed. "She
was personally assaulted. Guy told her he'd come back. She's living
like a prisoner in her own home. I told her we could help her. "

"You mean like provide protection?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of getting
involved in the case."

"You were, huh?"

"Yeah. I mean, you could put in a word, right?
Make sure she doesn't just get swept aside."

"What's your part in this?" he asked.

"I like her and she's really hurting. Just let
me introduce you to her. And you're going to need me there when you
guys talk. At least at first. I told her to call me tomorrow morning
at work."

"Did she make a police report?"

"Oh yeah, she got assigned a case number and
everything."

"Who's the detective?"

"Peter Owen/'

St. John made a noise through his teeth, like steam
escaping.

"
Do you know him?"

"Yeah," he said with a disgusted tone, "I
know him."

"What? Isn't he any good?"

"He's about to retire. I tell you, once these
guys pick a date, they should just pack their shit and go." He
cast a guilty glance over to where Asia was sitting, but the little
girl hadn't reacted. She was too engrossed in her mission to teach
her new best friend Brownie to shake hands. "Most of these
old-timers don't have a life outside of the department. They don't
know what they're going to do with themselves. All they do all day
once they know they're leaving is talk to other retirees."

"Kind of like an inmate fearing his release
date?" she asked.

"Exactly. Guys get institutionalized. They start
running scared, too, like getting superstitious, even if they never
were before. Half of them die within five years of leaving the job.
That's why I'm never going to quit."

"Where does this leave Robin?"

"Probably not in very good shape. I doubt if
there's been any follow-through. It's like this: 'Big case, big
headache; small case, small headache; no case, you figure it out.' "

"Great."

"I'll make some time tomorrow to swing by and
talk to her."

"Thanks. I know she's feeling pretty desperate."

"I'll meet with her, but there might not be
anything I can do. I hope you didn't promise her anything."

"Only that you were a great guy."

"
Yeah, I'm a sweetheart," he said, his lips
puckering in distaste.

"You are," she said.

St. John climbed aboard the Bella Donna and fired up
the diesel generator. It belched out black smoke from its exhaust and
then leveled out to a steady knocking idle. Diesel engines always
sounded like they had a rod knock. They smelled bad, too, like oil
and gas burning at the same time. Diesel-engined automobiles had been
another reaction to the so-called gas shortage, and she hated the
things.

Charging the AC system took another ten minutes.
Miraculously everything seemed to work.

"There you go," Munch said, picking up her
tools. She turned in Asia's direction. "C'mon, honey. It's
getting dark. Come inside."

"I'm hungry," Asia said.

"I ordered us a pizza," St. John said.
"Should be here soon."

"You did?" Munch asked. "Is Caroline
coming over?"

"Not tonight. She had meetings at work."

Munch felt a little thrill. So it would be just the
three of them. Playing house. Down, girl, she told herself, he's not
the one.  Fifteen minutes later the delivery guy showed up with
the food. He didn't seem to have any problem finding the place. St.
John had probably used the service a lot in the last year when he had
been separated from Caroline. He paid the guy and must have given him
a generous tip, judging from the bounce in the kid's step as he left.

They carried the pizza inside.

Munch brought out three plates from the kitchen and
as many paper towels. She poured Asia a glass of milk and got a Coke
for herself. St. John popped himself a beer.

Munch tore off a slice for Asia and set it down in
front of her.

"Ah," Asia said, raising her right hand
with her slim, brown forefinger pointing skyward. "
Domo
arigato
."

St. John raised an eyebrow.

"Don't ask," Munch warned.

He ate two slices before broaching the subject of the
threat Munch received. "Have you, uh, come up with any likely
candidates for your situation?"

"I've thought of a few, but they're all pretty
thin."

He made each of the dogs sit and then rewarded them
with pizza crust. "I'll see what impressions the lab can get off
the paper."

Asia banged her milk glass down on the table. "You're
acting like I'm not even here. What are you guys talking about?"

"Rescuing fair damsels in distress, m'lady"
St. John told her. Then he grabbed her hand and kissed the back of it
with a flourish.

"Yeah, right," Asia said, rolling her eyes,
an expression she had begun using before she could speak. Munch
wasn't fooled for a minute. Asia positively glowed when St. John
turned his full attention on her. It was hard not to. Munch wondered
once more what would have happened if St. John had stayed separated
from Caroline. In matters of romance, timing was everything. Still
holding the little girl's hand, he said, "Honey you know you're
not supposed to talk to strangers."

"Yeah," she said, the seriousness of his
tone making her drop her usual attitude.

"Even if that stranger has a cute little puppy,
or a bunny, you don't go with him or near him if your mommy isn't
around. Even if he or she says he knows your mommy you go tell a
teacher. "

Asia nodded solemnly. Munch felt a deep resentment
that this conversation had to take place. She didn't want Asia
growing up any faster than she had to.

"Draw me a picture in school tomorrow," he
said, letting Munch know he'd made the decision that Asia should
attend her classes.

"And with that, we
should be on our way." She shrugged at St. John and made the
universal hand symbol for "I'll call you tomorrow."

* * *

Munch was exhausted when they finally got home. She
made Asia wake up and walk under her own power. The little girl
weighed fifty pounds now, too much to be carrying anymore. But Munch
did bring in Asia's lunch box and knapsack of school supplies. The
front porch was dark.

"I have to pee," Asia whined.

"All right, we're almost there." Munch
shifted her load to her left hand and brought the key to the door
with her right. Typically, the phone started to ring.

"Shi-oot," Munch said out loud when the key
wouldn't go in the door. Even though this act of separating the door
key from the rest on the ring was a rote task she performed nightly
tonight she had selected the wrong key. By the time she got the door
open, the phone stopped ringing and whoever it was didn't leave a
message. She found that more disquieting than she wanted to admit.

The phone rang again. Asia reached for it.

"No," Munch said, with more force than she
intended. Asia jumped back. Munch picked up the receiver, tried to
give Asia a comforting smile, and said, "Hello?"

"
You have a nice house," the strangely
distorted voice said. It vibrated, sounding like the voice of that
robot in that old television show Lost in Space. The cadence was
slow, as if the speaker needed an extra moment to prepare each word.
"But you really shouldn't take the same route home every day."

She felt confused. Her mind grasped for a face, an
identity to attach to this person. "Garret?" she asked,
knowing immediately that she was wrong. Now the fear was setting in.
She flashed to a quick image of one of those cop shows where some mob
informant was being interviewed. You could only see the guy's
silhouette. He was always in a dark room, with a baseball cap pulled
low, and his voice electronically altered so none of the guys he was
snitching on could identify him.

"Not Garret," the voice said. "Not the
guy you fuck once a week."

"Who is this? What do you want?"

"Love. Understanding." He made a noise that
sounded like someone humming on helium. She interpreted it as a sigh,
especially when he added, "I'm doing the best that I can here.
You, of all people, should understand that. So back off, bitch."
 

Chapter 10

WEDNESDAY

S
t. John got to work at
six the next morning and went directly downstairs to the roll call
room. Stacks of file boxes filled one corner. Bulletin boards
displayed mug shots of the top ten predators currently at large in
the area.

He leaned against one of the room's support pillars,
near the front, close to the podium. Uniformed cops sat at the rows
of tables facing a small stage equipped with video equipment and
chalkboard. The scent of strong, black coffee filled the air. He
hated going to morning briefings, which were mostly for patrol
anyway. Things had changed so much from when he was in uniform. In
the sixties and seventies, the seating arrangement had been
determined by the hash marks on your sleeve. One for every five years
on the force. The old-timers sat in the back row, the rookies in the
front. There was one color: blue.

Then, with this eighties decade, had come the racial
polarization. Blacks sitting with their own, Hispanics banding
together.

Memos being handed out almost daily on the correct
wording to use. Negro or Neg. was no longer acceptable, nor was
Mexican. Latino was okay. Chicano was not. He rolled with it all.
Just as long as they got to keep catching bad guys.

But the newest trend was the most disturbing yet.
With the passing of new antidiscrimination laws, the department had
lowered its height requirements. This had also paved the way for more
women to join the force. In his day a guy was a dwarf if he was only
five foot ten. He'd wear built-up boots when he went on patrol. Now
everywhere you looked there were, as his less sensitive colleagues
referred to them, the C&R's: cunts and runts.

Truly, there was nothing more ridiculous than some
little coppette or midget with a special-order twenty-two-inch-waist
Sam Browne utility belt. Barely enough room to cram on all the
required gear: Mace, cuffs, ammo, holster, nightstick, Handie-Talkie
radio. The proportion of equipment to muscle was at a dangerous ratio
and equally ineffective, in his opinion. Like some little kid playing
dress-up cop.

The irony was that it was turning out that women made
better patrol cops than men did, especially when the situation called
for less than brute force. Coppettes were better problem solvers,
more prone to negotiation than intimidation, and they consequently
garnered fewer civilian complaints. And, boy, wasn't that the name of
the game, especially on the affluent West Side where every citizen
seemed to know the mayor and wanted special consideration. Only the
diplomats survived here.

The downside of this new order was that you couldn't
get through roll call without singing happy fucking birthday to
someone while he or she blew out the candles on a cake. It wasn't a
police station, it was a goddamn sorority. Everybody hugging,
announcing engagements and babies. He didn't even want to think about
Valentine's Day. It was going to be a circus. The watch commander,
Sergeant Flutie, brought the meeting to order and called on St. John.