Authors: J.D. Cunegan
CHAPTER 35
It took a full hour before Jill was able to change out of her black leather and into something resembling normal clothes, partly because she couldn't find anywhere in the Seventh Precinct with enough privacy to guarantee no one would walk in on her. Not that modesty was much of an issue with her, but if someone who didn't already know her secret stumbled into the bathroom or the locker room while she was still at least partially leather-clad and hadn't yet had the chance to apply her skin graft... well, that was a surprise from which she wanted to spare others.
Ultimately, Jill wound up returning to her apartment -- and she was far too adept at slipping off the fire escape and into the window to her bedroom. After shedding both the leather and the armor, Jill opted for a black t-shirt with the small Orioles logo on the left sleeve and a pair of jeans. Fortunate that her captain was not much of a dress code stickler, Jill pulled her shoulder-length brown hair into a tight ponytail before starting the slow process of applying the skin graft.
The graft had been a gift from Joel Freeman, her superior at the Army, after her discharge. He had been a good man -- before betraying her, anyway -- but such outward gestures were unlike him. Still, she had to laugh at the memory of the note he had scribbled along with the gift, over how he had explained that the skin graft was so Jill didn't go around scaring everyone like some feminist Terminator. The sad part was, before that newspaper writer coined the name
Bounty
, “feminist Terminator” was the closest thing Jill got to having a code name.
As skin grafts went, this one was second to none. When Jill applied it correctly, it looked as if her face was no different than anyone else's. One of the last remaining pieces of tech courtesy of Dr. Trent Roberts, the skin graft also gave her left eye the same green hue as her right. The skin tone matched perfectly, and the graft itself extended far enough that the light scarring where metal met skin was no longer visible. At first, applying the graft had been a pain in the ass, but the months and years had allowed Jill to apply it without looking into a mirror half the time.
Her mind ran with the idea that there might be another vigilante in the city, and that this one was helping the four officers. She didn’t know whether to believe it, and she also didn’t know whether to inform the others. So for right now, Jill decided she was better off sticking with what they did know. They could deal in hypotheticals later.
As soon as the elevator doors opened to drop Jill off at the Homicide floor, she called out: “Murder board, status update!”
By the time Jill got to the white dry-erase board, Detectives Watson and Stevens had already beaten her to the punch. Off her quizzical glare, Stevens hitched up his pants. “Your boy's at the morgue, gettin' the ballistics results from J.”
Jill nodded once. “I'd mock him for not checking in, but that'd make me a hypocrite. Where are we?”
“Forensics confirmed that the van we found is the one that was used the morning of the murder,” Watson explained, grabbing the red marker and using the end of it to point at all the different bullet points outlined on the whiteboard. “We've found traces of Buckner's DNA in the rear compartment, along with the colonel’s, and the GPS data from the 'black box' told us everything else.”
“What about DNA from our suspects?” Jill asked.
“Negatory,” Stevens conceded. “But the fact that you found them takin' the good Colonel for a ride's a pretty nice consolation prize, right?”
“Yeah, like busting Capone for tax evasion,” Jill muttered with a roll of her eyes. The elevator dinged again, and when Jill glanced over her shoulder, she saw Ramon stepping out of the car and making a beeline for their makeshift gathering by her desk. He waved a piece of paper above his head before stopping and wearing the same shit-eating grin he always wore when he was about to share some case-breaking news.
“Spill, Ramon,” Jill ordered with a sideways grin.
“First of all,” Ramon glanced at Stevens, “J says you might wanna hold off until payday to take her out for drinks, cause she's gonna drink you under the table.”
Stevens scoffed and slipped his thumbs into the front belt loops of his pants. “We'll see about that.”
“Second,” Ramon gulped in a deep breath, as if he had just ran from the parking lot, “Ballistics came back, the bullet came from Carter's gun.”
Stevens frowned and stared at the surveillance still tacked onto the board, the one that showed a man much broader than Carter pulling the trigger. “But that ain't Carter.”
“Doesn't matter, we got probable cause.” Jill jotted down the new information on the white board before capping her marker. “Where are we on Downs’ attacker at the hospital?”
Watson glanced down at the file folder in his hand. “Security cam footage came up empty, but we’re running financials on every doctor and nurse who works on that floor. If someone got paid to mess with the colonel’s dosage, we’ll find out.”
“Good.” Jill grabbed the receiver from her desk phone, pressing a button before waiting. “Hey, Brian, is Ramona there?”
“
She's in a meeting with the mayor. Why?
”
“Because we're ready to file charges.”
CHAPTER 36
Having gotten off the phone with the DA’s office, Jill decided she needed a jolt of caffeine. She actually wanted something stronger, but seeing as how she was still on the clock, coffee would have to do. She smiled to herself when she walked into the break room and saw Ramon at one of the high-top circular tables, chatting with the teenager he had befriended a few days prior. Mitch had just lost her grandfather to a murder, and it appeared Ramon was the only one who gave a damn.
Which was an issue, because the murder happened in someone else’s jurisdiction. She made a note to have a chat with the captain over there when this was all over, give him hell for pulling a detective from another precinct while they were in the middle of a case of their own.
Adding two spoonfuls of sugar to her coffee, Jill couldn’t help but overhear the conversation the two were having.
“Paulson ain’t been back since the day Grampy was killed,” Mitch almost whispered with a shrug that did little to hide the disappointment she was trying not to show.
“Has
anyone
been over there?” Ramon asked.
Mitch shook her head. “Just uniforms bustin’ chops.”
Jill joined the pair, giving Mitch a soft grin before taking the first sip from her mug. Still too hot for her liking. One of these days, she would learn to wait a few minutes.
“I vaguely remember Paulson,” Jill mentioned, both hands wrapped lightly around her mug. “I think he was an officer back when my dad was Detective.”
Mitch clutched a mug of hot chocolate in her hands, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. “Was he an ass then, too?”
“Pretty much.” Jill stirred her mug with one of those tiny wooden sticks that otherwise would've been good for nothing more than staking insect vampires. At least, that was what 9-year-old Brian Andersen would've said. His imagination had been quite vivid as a child, almost as if he had inherited some of their mother's creative vision. But the older Brian got, his creative instincts slowly died... and now, he lived in the same black-and-white world Jill did. If Jill was being honest with herself, she missed that side of her brother.
“Look,” Jill added, stealing a glance at Ramon, “I understand if you don't trust me.”
“Nah, you seem cool.” Mitch gave a one-shoulder smug and added a tiny marshmallow to her mug. “Ramon worships you, so...”
The male detective ducked his head as a hint of red crept over his cheeks, clearing his throat and taking a sip of coffee. Jill couldn't help but laugh at her partner, who at times was as much of a boy as he was a full-grown man. His boyish nature was endearing, because this was a job that hardened and jaded the best of them, and the longer he could keep his childish idealism, the better off both he and the precinct would be.
“He's just saying that cause he broke his habit of puking at crime scenes,” Jill teased, arching a brow when she brought her mug to her lips.
As expected, Mitch laughed. Ramon opened his mouth to object, but instead placed a hand on the teenager's shoulder and his smile turned from sheepish to genuine. “I think that's the first time you've laughed since we met.”
A brief silence fell among the three, and Jill couldn't help but feel the weight of Mitch's loss on her shoulders. She had never heard of Mitch or her grandfather before Ramon had mentioned them, but her partner's insistence on being there for Mitch, even as he was knee-deep in his own murder investigation, re-affirmed her belief that Captain Richards had saddled her with the best possible partner. Ramon was selfless as they came, but he wasn't afraid to stand up when it came down to it. That he stood up to Joel Freeman and slapped the cuffs on Jill's former commanding officer was as impressive as anything else she had seen from him. Managing to keep her secret this whole time was even more remarkable.
“I'm sorry the police are failing you,” Jill offered. “Both you and your grandfather deserve far better than what Detective Paulson has given you.”
“We're kinda used to it,” Mitch said with a shrug, pulling on the sleeve of the gray UCLA hoodie she had
borrowed
from Jorge. “Part of town we live in, cops don't do shit.”
“Still no excuse.” Jill took another sip. “I wish there was something I could do.”
“I heard about Devin,” Mitch muttered, staring at her still-steaming mug. “On the news. They sayin' he was a pothead, that he was a dropout.”
“If he was a dropout,” Ramon interjected with an edge to his voice, “why was he about to enroll at Morgan State?”
“And even if he
was
a dropout,” Jill added, “that doesn't justify what happened to him.”
Mitch's dark eyes rose to look into Jill's, and her heart broke at how much hurt and mistrust was etched onto the teenager's face. Mitch was far too young to be facing such realities. Unfortunately, in some parts of this city, hard lessons were taught early. “So it's true, then?”
Jill watched as the door to the break room swung open. She knew exactly what Mitch meant. “Yeah.”
Jill's posture straightened when she saw a well-dressed woman in her early fifties enter the break room, a dark gray pantsuit matching with the shoulder bag slung over her right arm. Her black hair was cut so close it was almost a crew cut, and her blue eyes were as icy as Jill had seen in a long while.
“Deputy Commissioner Baldwin,” Jill greeted as she stood.
“Detective Andersen?” Janet Baldwin arched a brow and lifted her chin, as if she were apprising Jill from below her nose.
“That's me.”
Mitch shot a questioning glance Ramon's way. The detective shook his head in response before tilting his head to the side. They both grabbed their mugs and slipped out of the door on the other side of the break room, giving Jill and the deputy commissioner the room to themselves. As soon as the door shut, Baldwin rested her shoulder bag on the circle table and folded her arms over her chest. “I hear Jeff is gonna be okay.”
“Appears so,” Jill chose her words carefully, uneasy as to why Baltimore's second-in-command would be paying her a visit. “Upgraded to fair condition.”
“I'm glad to hear that.” Baldwin sighed. “But you should know… he won't be pressing charges.”
Jill frowned in a mixture of confusion and anger. “What?”
“No charges,” Baldwin repeated.
“That... no, that makes no sense,” Jill insisted. “His intel helped us break this case. Screwed up as it sounds, what they did to him was our second big break. The colonel's testimony could be key in putting those four behind bars.”
“It would also jeopardize his career.”
“Funny.” Jill folded her arms over her chest and approached Baldwin, narrowing her gaze. “That didn't seem to be an issue for him before.”
“That was before he was almost killed.”
“Did your pet lawyer get to him, too?”
Baldwin frowned. “Who?”
“Lori Taylor?” Jill shook her head. “Stormed in here to break out the officers, saying she was on the BPD’s payroll.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Detective.” Baldwin’s posture tensed even more, as if that were even possible. “I’ve met every lawyer who represents this department, and Lori Taylor is not one of them.”
Well, wasn’t
that
something… Jill studied the deputy commissioner's body language: the tense posture, the hunched shoulders, the constant need to lift her chin whenever their eyes met. Something tugged at Jill's gut, a sensation she often had when she was on the verge of a big break or when she found herself in a situation that didn't feel right. This felt like it had the potential to be both of those things, and Jill pursed her lips with a single nod.
“With all due respect, ma'am,” Jill began, “if you've got something to say, just go ahead and say it.”
“You have been warned, repeatedly, to tread lightly on this case,” Baldwin explained.
Another frown from Jill. “I have? Mystery lawyer aside, everyone’s been pretty
rah-rah
about it.”
Baldwin sucked in a deep breath as her jaw clenched. “I don't care if you have the highest closure rate in the city, Detective. You have repeatedly demonstrated reckless behavior and a complete disregard for the way things are done in this department.”
“So the fact that I want justice for Devin Buckner is a bad thing?”
Baldwin's shoulders slumped ever so slightly; she was a black woman, and she understood exactly the gist of what Jill was trying to say. Even as the second-highest in terms of rank within the BPD, there were people she had to answer to, and Jill couldn't help but wonder if this little visit was requested by someone else. The commissioner? Maybe the mayor? Or the governor, perhaps? Baldwin stunk of false bravado, as if she didn't really believe the tongue lashing she had been ordered to give.
“You know what I had to swear to when I got this?” Jill asked, grabbing the badge from her hip and waving it in Baldwin's face. “To protect and serve, uphold and defend the law. I was not hired to kiss ass, and I was not hired to look the other way while other cops abused their authority because they haven't yet joined the 21st century. A kid is
dead
, and it is up to me and my team to make sure the people responsible pay for it.”
The left corner of Baldwin's mouth crept upward as she unfolded her arms and unbuttoned her blazer. She studied Jill, her eyes working up and down before her shoulders relaxed and she gave a terse nod. “Stubborn doesn't quite do you justice, Detective. I kind of admire you for it.” She grabbed for her bag again, slinging it over her right shoulder. “Tell me, Andersen... you're scheduled to take the Sergeant's exam, correct?”
Jill blinked and deflated. “Three weeks from now.”
“Hm.” With another nod, Baldwin turned to leave the break room, but she stopped when she reached the door. Turning to glance back at Jill, the sideways grin on the deputy commissioner's face was gone. “Good luck with that.”