Chapter VI
Despite the fact that he had been ordered not to show up for work, Owen made his way to the precinct. It wasn’t consciously his original intention, but there had never really been any doubt. From the council building, he’d headed toward Broadway and started downtown. Two blocks later, he’d known where he was going. He could have taken the train, but chose instead to walk. It would take a little longer, but he’d be better able to gather his thoughts. The truth was that he needed to see it at that very moment. He needed to be reassured that his dedication to the police force was not only genuine, but justified.
When he reached the area around the precinct, he immediately began to see people he knew. Some of them said hello while others simply walked by. That was fine. Owen didn’t have many friends at work. He was accustomed to the faces, as were they to his. In the squad room, however, things were dark. The familiar people all around him seemed to have morphed into different beings altogether. Some looked at him with sympathy, but most eyed him with disdain.
Sergeant Ryan was leaning over a secretary at a computer terminal. He must have felt the disturbance in the room because he looked up, searching for the source. When he found Owen, his expression became mysterious. He said a couple of more words to the secretary and then crossed the room like the condemned.
“What are you doing here, Keefe?” he said in a low voice.
Without a real answer, Owen said, “I wanted to find out when I should report next.”
“The duty roster gets posted online every week. You know that.”
Owen looked past Ryan, but he didn’t know what he was looking for. It wasn’t as if he had a buddy who was going to come to his rescue.
“You’re right,” Owen said. “I was just nearby. I’ll go home and check.”
He was just turning away when he heard a raspy voice call out, “Is that Keefe?”
Turning, Owen saw his captain ducking his head out of his office. In Owen’s experience, Jackson Walters was a good man. In the twelve years since he’d been captain, he’d never once shown Owen any undue prejudice. In fact, he’d even come to Owen’s defense once or twice. His disposition of assignments was fair. If he didn’t like you, he told you to shut the hell up and get out of his face. He had never done so with Owen. Walters was aging badly, though. Years of smoking had caught up with him. His dark brown skin was wrinkled from his lips to his forehead. He had a head of close cut salt and pepper hair and his hooded eyes made him look as if he was always on the verge of falling asleep. His teeth were yellow. Thin as a rail, Owen wondered how the man could find the strength to get out of bed in the morning, let alone run a precinct.
Finding the dwarf among the bustling humans, he beckoned him over. Owen stepped past Ryan, saying excuse me as he went. It was meant to sound sincere, but for some reason it didn’t. He found his way to the captain’s office and went through the door, closing it behind him as Walters instructed.
“Sit down, Keefe,” Walters said as he took his own place in the aging chair behind his desk.
Owen took one of the chairs across from him and waited.
“I hear you went to see Evelyn Van Deign today.”
Not knowing whether this would work for or against him, Owen fell back on the truth and nodded.
“Slippery bitch,” Walters commented absently. “But then again, aren’t they all?”
Owen remained wisely silent. This seemed to take Walters off guard and he was silent as well. Perhaps he was trying to generate a sense of camaraderie between them. It was too much of a stretch to believe that he was trying to draw Owen into saying something incriminating. Still, Owen refused to comment.
Walters took a deep and sad breath. Reaching off to the side, he grabbed a green folder. Owen caught a glimpse of the label with his name on it before the captain slid it over to him.
More papers?
“What’s this?” Owen asked.
“It’s a choice,” Walters answered blandly.
To Owen, that didn’t sound very promising. Reaching for the folder, he opened it up and saw the papers within. They were all filled out and approved. All he needed to do was turn to the last sheet, sign, and he would be retired.
He looked back up at his captain, his expression reflecting the complete confusion of emotions within. “What kind of a choice is this?”
“You can stay if you want, but I doubt it will be good for you. Or you can sign these papers, collect your pension, and take whatever offer Mrs. Van Deign made you.”
“What offer?” Owen snapped. “I didn’t say anything about an offer.”
Walters shook his head. “You didn’t have to. She didn’t call you all the way to her office to tell you she tried to make you a detective.”
“So you think that will be better for me? Taking favors from an elf?” The anger was starting to get through now. Was Walters really offering him a choice or was he just thinking about how much easier it would be to run the precinct if the controversial dwarf were out of the way?
Owen was about to say something else when the door to the office was thrown open and Jessica Church stalked in.
“Hey, Jack,” she greeted the captain angrily. “Do you want to tell me what the hell is going on?”
Walters leaned back in his chair and it creaked in sympathy. He wasn’t even angry at her intrusion when he asked her what it was that had upset her.
“It’s my caseload. You know that!”
“Come on, Jess. You’ve got the same load as everyone else.”
“And no goddamn partner, in case you haven’t noticed. And that’s another thing. Where the hell is Travis’ investigation?”
“What investigation?” Walters shouted. It was the first time he had raised his voice.
Owen, sitting numbly in his chair was wondering when his own situation had been downgraded in priority. Then again, when had the needs of a dwarf ever taken precedence over the needs of anyone else?
“You’re joking, right?” she shot at him. “Van Walls’ father is going to try and get Travis executed and we’re not going to find out who was behind the whole thing?”
Walters shook his head. “Jess, you’re crazy. It’s bad enough we have one dead elf. You want to go and hunt for some other phantom elf that might have put him up to it? I’ve got news for you. They allowed the drug screen and Troy Van Walls was well fucked up. There was enough acid in his system to make him believe that every dwarf on the planet was not only trying to kill him, but that they were going to do it with sunshine and rose petals.”
She fumed there for a moment, teeth gritted, eyes blazing. But she didn’t say anything. Instead, she turned on her heels and walked out, slamming the door shut behind her so hard that the glass pane rattled within its frame.
“Jesus fu…” Walters began when he saw Owen signing the retirement papers. “Did I miss something?”
Owen nodded, placing his gun and his badge on the desk. “Lots of things, I think. You’re okay, Captain, but thanks for nothing all the same.”
He got up and hurried out the door. Once on the squad room floor, he scanned it for Church, found her just as she was about to head out toward the elevators.
“Church!” he cried loud enough so that everyone in the room heard him, she included.
She turned and looked for him. He was coming toward her quickly, waving his arms.
“What do you want?” she snapped when he was close enough to hear. She was still angry, but not angry at him.
“Do you really think there was someone else, another elf maybe?”
She looked down at him quizzically, probably wondering about his motive for asking.
“I just retired,” he told her.
“Congratulations.”
“Yeah, whatever,” he said. “I’m starting my own private detective agency.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Yeah. I’ve already got my first case. My
client is paying me two hundred grand plus expenses.”
She laughed mirthlessly. “What are you trying to solve, the meaning of life?”
Shaking his head, he said, “Who put Troy Van Walls up to a genocidal rampage.”
She stopped laughing. She was just looking at him now, trying to determine whether or not he was messing with her. When she didn’t say anything, he gave her the pitch.
“I was thinking about calling the agency Keefe & Church.”
Her brow knitted in confusion. “You’re joking, right?”
He shook his head. “Look, we don’t really know each other, but I figure this’ll help us both out. Having a human as a partner will help me generate some more business after we solve this case. Right now our interests are the same and you don’t seem to have any special bigotry towards dwarves so I’m willing to take a chance on a partnership.”
“Who’s your client?”
“What?”
“Your client. Who’s paying you the two hundred gees?”
“Evelyn Van Deign,” he said.
She nodded, not in the least bit surprised. It wasn’t that she could have possibly guessed the identity of the elf, but the fact that the client was an elf was as obvious as it could be.
“Are you sure you want to get into bed with an elf?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I’ll do the job she’s paying me to do and then make my own way. Or we will.”
She stood there for a couple of more minutes, considering her options. Owen didn’t know what was going through her head, but at the end she looked him up and down, sized him up so to speak. When she was done, she marched back toward Walters’ office without a word but with clear intentions. Owen smiled.
She was inside for all of three minutes.
“Okay, Keefe,” she said as Walters appeared at the door behind her. He looked flustered and angry. “Let’s go. I want to meet our client.”