On The Beat (Goosey Larsen Book 3) (2 page)

But as luck would have it, the serial bank robber actually chose the NBSC as his next target. Curly was in his usual position, of course, head down on a stack of invoices and drooling over a check register. The suspect passed a note to the cashier which demanded a large withdrawal in small, unmarked bills, no dye packs please. The robbery itself was quick and quiet, so Curly just kept right on sawing logs. By the time a clerk could finally run in and wake him, the thief had fled out the door and was making a hasty getaway on foot. Curly might have still had a shot at the guy, but unfortunately there was actually another team of plainclothes detectives eating lunch at the Pizza Hut across the street. Those guys heard Curly’s distress call over the radio, so of course they used that as their excuse to race out of the restaurant without paying. The cops piled into an unmarked patrol car and burned rubber out onto Sam Rittenburg Boulevard, hoping to get in on the action. I guess they were just victims of bad timing, since Curly had waddled out of his bank in time to see a late model Ford Crown Victoria smoking past. He caught the tag number, called it in to dispatch and not ten seconds later a half-dozen patrol cars had pulled up to block in the one unmarked car. It ended up being a picture-perfect felony traffic stop, with all the plainclothes cops held at gunpoint until some poor supervisor could get there and sort out the mess. And as for the actual robber? Well, both he and the bag of money vanished into the woods behind the Village Square apartments. The suspect was never ID’d so I’m assuming the case is technically still open, but oddly enough all those robberies came to a sudden halt.

Chief Greene called Curly’s behavior “dereliction of duty”, and the caper earned him a one-way ticket down to foot patrol. It was an embarrassing incident, sure, but certainly not the most shocking act of negligence in the storied history of CPD. No, it actually took Curly another three months to solidify his reputation with a lifetime sentence to Team Seven. See, Curly’d been desperately looking to get back into the Chief’s good graces, and his strategy was to seem like a hard worker by becoming a one-man citation machine. Illegally parked cars, open containers of alcohol, even elderly jaywalkers found themselves on the receiving end of his wrath. Curly kept himself busy if not really productive, at least until that one day when he wrote up two fourth graders on South Battery for running their lemonade stand without a business license. The Internet wasn’t a thing back then so it took nearly a week for the story to make national news, but the blowback from being featured on 60 Minutes was all it took to convince Curly that he should never again trouble himself with actually enforcing the law.

At that point, any other cop would have probably cursed their luck, thrown in the towel and sent their resume out to all the private security companies. Not Curly Wilds, though, the man who couldn’t afford to make a career change. Between his high-living wife, the six kids he knew of and his perpetually overdue car note, moving on to another job would have most likely involved filing for bankruptcy. But as it turned out, Curly simply had no sense of self-pride. In the end discovered contentment by staying quiet, keeping his head down and focusing on his life’s true calling: making money hand over fist.

I polished off the last swig of my Coke and chucked the can over the edge of the garage, flashing Curly what I hoped was one of my more charismatic smiles. “So, tell me again, bro: How did you manage to make it down here to foot patrol, anyway?”

He shot me an evil glare. “Haw! Get stuffed, Larsen! You of all people should know that no cop ever lands this assignment without pulling off a major-league boner. Yeah, I might have drifted away for a couple minutes at the worst possible time, but your stunt last fall took the cake! But hey kid, I just gotta know– how did you manage to miss the department’s annual inspection, anyway? I mean, damn! Damn! I know if
I
was the one getting the Officer of the Year award, and having it presented to me by ol’ Chief Greene his’self, I’d at least make some kind of effort to set my alarm clock the night before!” Curly leaned back in his beach chair and roared with laughter. The move caused his beer gut to shake in a violent fashion, stretching the leather stitches on his duty belt dangerously close to their breaking point.

My cheeks warmed as the blood rushed to my face. It was true, I might have accidentally slept through the previous year’s annual inspection ceremony, but I swear it wasn’t my fault! I actually had set my alarm clock before going to bed the night before, but the electricity had cut off sometime during the night before on account of some little misunderstanding over an unpaid bill. And wouldn’t you know it, Chief Greene didn’t even bother listening to my side of the story! I think that guy must get some kind of private kick out of holding those dress inspections, when all the cops have to get gussied up in our Sunday best just to stand in formation for three straight hours. The Chief isn’t normally what you’d call a kind man, and he’s definitely not accustomed to being stood up. What’s more, and I’ll be the first to admit this, my oversleeping excuse was really a little weak since the awards presentation had been scheduled for four o’clock in the afternoon. Really, I had no one but myself to blame for sticking my neck out, but who could’ve known that my first arrest in five years would bring down a serial arsonist? Yeah, all things considered I’d probably gotten off pretty easy with only a transfer. Surprisingly enough, the Chief hadn’t even tried to take away my one stripe over this latest snafu. I think he must’ve known the devastating effect that a pay cut would’ve had and decided against hitting me with a fourth demotion. Good thing, too, because I think that would have been a CPD record. It was common knowledge to all us cops that the Chief was going senile in his old age, but it seemed as if he might be getting a little soft too.

Curly noticed the sour look on my face, and for some reason he took it as a signal to keep jawing away. “Well, just use this assignment as a life lesson, kid: Hard work never gets you nowhere. You went out there and busted your ass to take down a nutjob who’d been torching houses for how long? Five, six years? And look where you ended up.” He swept his fat black arm out in front of him, drawing my eye towards all the low rooftops laid out before us. “Sitting on top of a fuckin’ parking garage and waiting for it to get dark, all so’s you can chase bums around in circles and run them poor boys from one streetcorner to the next. You know, the only reason we’re even posted down here at all is to make sure the city’s precious tourists don’t get harassed.” He spat with disgust, launching a bubbly loogie out over the edge of the parking deck. “Oh, Lawd! God forbid something happens to one o’ dem bee-yoo-ti-full tourists!”

I gave him another smile, a genuine one this time. “We’re on top of the world, Curly. Top of the world! What else could a man ask for?”

His belly shook again as he laughed at our shared predicament. Finally, after he’d caught his breath, Curly let out a long sigh and began the process of twisting and churning his way up out of the folding chair. His movements were slow in the making, and it was obviously a significant effort for him to bring his body back upright. Curly’s never been much of a fitness nut but in all fairness, the dude had only been carrying about seventy or eighty extra pounds before he picked up that case of the gout. Ever since his sick leave ran out, it almost seemed like his metabolism had simply ground to a halt. Without the benefit of any kind of diet or exercise regimen, Curly’s body had taken on the consistency of soggy toilet paper. “That’s the spirit, kid” he said. “Me, I’m outta here. I got the evening shift at the Teeter in thirty minutes.” Curly pointed towards a combination bike lock that was coiled around the stairwell railing. “And hey, don’t forget to lock up my beach chair whenever you head home tonight. Any of them damned bums would just love to get their grubby mitts on it. The combination’s the same as my phone number: 9-1-1.”

I rolled my eyes as I slid down into his chair, the seat still nice and warm. I kicked my feet up on his cooler, hoping he’d forget to load that into his truck bed. “I got your back, Curly. Be safe out there, and keep a close eye on the produce aisle. There’s enough fruits and nuts running around this city already.”

Curly ambled over to his truck, yanked the door open and somehow managed to pull his thick frame up into the cab. “You got it, Loosey Goosey! The Market’s all yours for the night, my man. Try to hold things down for me, huh?”

I gave him a nod of assurance as I leaned back further, closing my eyes in relaxation as I listened to that big V-8 engine firing up. The engine purred with a mean growl that echoed in the air long after Curly had sped down the garage ramp, racing his way towards the exit. After a long, blissful moment of solitude, I kicked my feet off the cooler and fished around in the icy water in search of another Coke. There were half a dozen cans of diet mixed in among the ice cubes, but I chose to leave those for Curly to enjoy the next day. After all, that guy needed to lose weight way more than I did. After another long, refreshing swig of syrupy goodness, I reached for my radio and clicked it on. “714 to Control” I called in, trying to keep my voice smooth and mellow, doing my best to start my shift off right by getting in good with the dispatcher.

“714?” she answered in the form of a question. Her voice was thick, black, and husky, and it was a safe bet that her body probably looked the same way. “Go ahead sir?”

“Check me 08 the shift, please. I’ll be in the Market ‘till zero-two-hundred.”

There was a long pause before she finally answered up again. “714, I copy. Be advised, you’re on the wrong channel. Go to channel one, please.”

My face went hot and I could almost hear all those patrol jerks across the river in James Island and West Ashley having a real good laugh at my expense. Without bothering to answer her I flicked the radio knob over to channel one, repeated my message and then cranked the volume down low so I wouldn’t have to hear the response.
Yeah, so much for starting the shift
off right,
I thought
.

Boredom quickly set in after that. Even though I made a sincere effort to glance through the rumpled News and Courier that Curly had left behind, it only took a few minutes for all those tiny lines of newsprint to start blurring together. My head began to throb and the only remedy I could think of was to kick the beach chair all the way back into a full recline. My body was aching and crying out for a rest, so I obligingly eased my eyelids down in an attempt to satisfy it.

2.

“Control to 714!”

My eyes popped open instantly, a result of the swift reflexes I’d developed from years of law enforcement training and experience. Dusk was already settling in over the city and down below, the streetlights were coming on one by one. I stood up, walked over to the edge of the garage and gave my head a quick shake to clear the cobwebs. Beneath me, pedestrians were strolling along Church Street in small groups, all of them sharply dressed and heading for the bars along North Market Street.

My radio squealed with a single high-pitched wail, our emergency alert tone. The noise was so irritating that it left me with no choice but to give the speaker my full and undivided attention. “Control to 714! Calling 714, Officer Larsen!”

I knew the dispatchers must have been trying to raise me for some time since that alert tone is generally reserved for actual emergencies like a violent crime in progress. Hands fumbling, I rushed to shake my walkie-talkie free from my duty belt. Once I found it and raised it to my lips, I took one last second to compose myself before mashing the talk button. “This is 714, Control. Send it.”

There was a long pause on the other end before my arch nemesis finally came back across the airwaves. I could tell from her shaking voice that she was absolutely furious at my delayed response. Yeah, deep down inside her somewhere my dispatcher was probably at least a little relieved to know that I wasn’t laying face-down in a ditch, but none of that compassion seemed to carry over into her voice. The only emotion I picked up on was the icy undertone of her thinly suppressed rage. “714. I copy, you’re 04. What is your 20, sir?”

I glanced back over the edge of the garage as I searched for the nearest street sign. “Corner of Cumberland and Church. Whattya got, Control?”

There was another long pause as she sucked in a deep, calming breath. I got the impression that the old hen might have been much more accustomed to bossing officers around than to being questioned by a lowly patrolman. “714… respond to Scarlett O’Hara’s, 98 South Market Street, in reference to a 29 that occurred within the past two hours. Complainant is Mister Duke Regan. He’ll meet you in front of that location.”

I let out a groan of disgust at the prospect of having to do some actual investigative work during my shift. I couldn’t possibly imagine what kind of crap might have been stolen from the biggest tourist trap in the entire City Market but whatever it was, there was no way a little break-in would be worth the time it took to write a report. Scarlett O’Hara’s was nothing more than a cut-rate souvenir shop, the kind of place that sells ceramic ashtrays and overpriced local-flavor cookbooks that people give as gifts but never read. To make matters worse, the thought of having to deal with Duke Regan in person was almost more than I could bear. Even though Regan was kind of a big deal around Charleston, I saw him as just another snotty rich guy who never passed up an opportunity to remind you of just how important he was. He’d made his first couple millions in the real estate game, and since then he’d gone on to become one of the biggest land speculators in the state. The way I’d heard it, most of Regan’s loot came from a bunch of shady deals that ended up displacing a lot of black people from their tribal homes in the ghetto. After he’d snatched up those dirt-cheap houses and invested in some quick renovation work using teams of illegal Mexicans, Regan would turn around and flip those same tenement houses for a huge profit. All these new money white folks coming down from up north always seem to be searching for a vacation home in the downtown peninsula, so Regan was happy to overcharge them for a hideaway with no backyard in an “up-and-coming” neighborhood. It was gentrification at its finest, made possible through the magic of American capitalism.

Before I could come up with an airtight excuse for not picking up the radio call, my dispatcher piped up once more. Her voice sounded even more impatient and grating this time, almost as if my irritatingly slow response was preventing her from focusing on the Days of Our Lives reruns. “714? You copy?”

I keyed the microphone on my handheld radio. “I copy, control. I’m en route.” My tone of subservience seemed to satisfy the evil harpy since there was no further response from her end. With a sigh, I slid the walkie-talkie back into its holder and began shuffling my way over to the stairwell. I’d tried my best to avoid it, but it’d finally come time to hit the beat and actually go to work. After a moment’s debate, I decided to head down the stairs instead of walking around to take the elevator like I normally did. Taking the stairs wasn’t too much physical exertion, at least not on the way down and besides, it was a good way for me to drag my feet a little longer. My boots made thick, shuffling noises as I lumbered along, the sounds echoing downward off the narrow concrete walls. Even though I was feeling kind of low, I made sure to whistle a loud tune as I went along, my way of giving any nearby winos an advance notice to clear out before I rolled up on them. The city’s parking garages were usually great places to hide out during a shift, except for the fact that all the bums tended to think the same way. See, one of the biggest downsides to policework is the fact that you’re pretty much forced to deal with some unsavory characters from time to time, although it’s been my experience that the more you can avoid these types, the less likely you are to have to make any piddling misdemeanor arrests for trespassing or public drunkenness.

Once I was finally down at ground level, I slid out onto Church Street and headed over towards South Market. Even though the March evening air was quickly starting to cool, I could still feel tiny beads of sweat building up on my forehead and beneath my arms. The physical exertion of walking was already taking its toll, and I knew it wouldn’t be long until rivers of salt water began flowing from my pores. As I slowed my pace, I happened to catch a glimpse of the tips of my boots as they peeked out from beneath my gut with each stride, and my chest swelled with pride at my incredible change in physique. My slimming waistline was a direct result of the huge increase in physical activity since the transfer, and it was also my single biggest point of professional pride. On some long nights, I’d even walked as much as a quarter-mile during a single shift! It was the most exercise I’d done since high school but even still, I knew there was no point in overdoing it. I knew good and well what it meant to be the owner of a thirty-six year-old body. At my age, a pulled muscle or even a torn ligament was only a single misstep away. Besides, there was simply no need for me to go full-on and try to compete with those weightlifting, healthy-eating young rookie cops we seem to keep hiring. Honestly, I guess I just no longer feel the need to prove myself to anyone.

When I finally turned the corner, South Market Street looked deceptively calm. There were no signs of any kind of disorder, only a single white dude holding down the sidewalk in front of Scarlett O’Hara’s. He was slickly dressed, wearing a light gray business suit with thin pinstripes as he stood with one leg propped up on the steps. The guy kept checking his watch impatiently, so I walked forward to meet him as my eyes swept across the alleged crime scene. There was a notable absence of any broken glass, which was normally an early indication that a burglary call was going to turn out to be some kind of bogus complaint instead. I threw my brain into high gear trying to channel all the experience I’d gained during my days as a property crimes detective, struggling to recall all of those magical loopholes which would allow me to shitcan the case without taking a report.

The man spotted me approaching and forced his lips together into a grim smile. “Are you here for me, Officer?”

I looked up and down the street with a slow, exaggerated turn of my head. “Well sir, you tell me. You’re the only other person on this street, so I sure hope I’m in the right place. What’s going on?”

My surly attitude didn’t quite faze him like I’d hoped. Instead, he walked towards me with an outstretched hand as if he was expecting me to shake it or something. “Duke Regan. I own Scarlett O’Hara’s.”

I glanced over at the store’s plate glass windows, which were stacked floor to ceiling with dozens of T-shirts. They all seemed to be cheap screenprinted jobs, each one bearing a similarly lowbrow slogan which might hold the most appeal with a customer base of fifteen-year old boys. One of the classier designs read, “Charleston: A drinking town with a historical problem”, and I couldn’t hold back a chuckle at that. I turned back to look directly at Mr. Regan, both of my hands stowed safely inside my pants pockets so as to send a clear message that I wouldn’t at any point be shaking his. “I’m sorry to hear that.” Regan stood up straight, shifting his neck to meet my stare. One of his eyebrows was cocked at a curious angle so I made sure to add a “sir.”

He swallowed. “Ah…yes. Well. Would you care to come around to the back of the store? It looks like the bulk of the damage was done there.”

I let out a groan, but my professional demeanor forced me to keep it at a respectable volume. “Sure, why not? I mean, I guess it’s my job, right?” I followed him back down to the streetcorner, re-tracing my steps towards the parking garage while I used the time to pump him for more details. Asking questions was always a good investigative strategy, since projecting a false sense of interest helps to build rapport. “My dispatcher said there may have been a possible break-in at your store? What makes you believe that?”

Regan shook his head from side to side. His shoulders were slumped forward, a defeated posture that brought my attention down to his shoes. They were an expensive pair of cap-toed wingtips, jet black with a fresh shine. I’d have put them at about three hundred bucks in the Dillard’s store, easy. “I’m afraid there’s no ‘possible’ about it, Officer” Regan said. “I was minding the shop for a few hours this afternoon in place of the manager, who’d requested time off for a doctor’s appointment. I personally locked up at closing time, six o’clock, before heading off to meet my wife for dinner at Tristan’s.”

I held back the urge to spit on the sidewalk. Tristan’s was one of those high-dollar white napkin places where only lawyers, bankers, and tourists could afford to eat. That place might have scored some high marks in all the area restaurant reviews, but it didn’t even rate a blip on my personal radar. I mean really, how good could a place possibly be if it doesn’t even have an all-you-can-eat buffet?

He went on. “Just as the entrees were being served, I realized that I’d left my Blackberry in the store! Naturally, I excused myself in order to dash back over here and get it, but when I arrived I saw this!” As we stepped around the corner, Mr. Regan swept his arm across the narrow alley that ran down behind the row of storefronts. Sure enough, the rear fire door to Scarlett O’Hara’s had been forced open and was hanging loose on damaged hinges. Judging from the pry marks left behind on the doorframe, it looked as if it had taken at least one big dude a couple attempts with a wrecking bar to force his way in.

Right about then, I found myself biting my lip in order to keep from commenting on the stupidity of owning an expensive cell phone. Personally, I’d finally gotten sick of Verizon cutting off the service whenever I forgot to pay the bill, so I made the smart move and switched over to one of those pre-paid jobs. The phone I used was nothing fancy, just one of those chunky base models left over from the year before, and its display screen was still cracked from that time I backed over it on accident, but at least it still worked fine whenever I could afford to load it up with minutes. More importantly, it was such a piece of crap that I wouldn’t be heartbroken if I ever accidentally left it behind at some bar when I was running low on cash and had to sneak out on my tab. But in spite of all these distractions, I still had a professional duty to attend to so I took a calming breath and tried to focus on the intricate details of the case at hand. “Yup. Sure looks like somebody broke in, all right.”

Mr. Regan balled his hands up into two indignant fists. He clenched them tight for a moment, causing his flesh to go white around his manicured fingernails. “Let me tell you, Officer, the whole thing just makes me sick! Absolutely sick! I work six, seven days a week, sometimes sixteen hours a day because that’s what it takes to build a successful business, and for what? For some lowlifes to come in and help themselves to whatever they please?” He waved one arm through the doorway, directing my attention towards several rows of shelves which had been turned over. Their contents had been viciously scattered across the laminate floor, and somehow this made all of his merchandise seem even junkier than usual. “Just look at it! The thugs who did this have probably never done an honest day’s work in their entire lives. Do you have any idea how much inventory must be damaged, not to mention whatever’s missing? Honestly, I simply have no idea how much of a loss I could be taking here!”

As I listened to him ramble on, the seed of an escape plan began to germinate inside my mind. “Please don’t tell me that you’ve already been inside the store, sir! That’s going to make it extremely difficult for our technicians to assess the damage, or even dust for prints! If the crime scene’s been altered in any way, it’ll be nearly impossible for us to catch these crooks!” I crossed my fingers behind my back while offering my most wide-eyed stare of sincerity. “To be quite honest with you, sir, I’m not even sure it’d be worth your time to file an incident report if you’ve already gone and contaminated the area.”

Regan fixed his gaze upon me once again. For some reason, the guy didn’t seem nearly as put out as I would have expected. A lot of those rich folks just aren’t used to being chastised by a lowly public servant, so it’s not unusual for them to get a little huffy whenever a cop has to raise his voice. “I apologize, Officer…” he began, pausing to glance down at my nametag for the first time. “…Larsen. I guess I’m just not very familiar with police procedures. I can assure you, though, that I only stepped a few feet inside the doorway. I haven’t touched a thing.”

I let out a loud sigh, then gave him a noncommittal nod as I reached for my radio. When the dispatcher finally responded after my third call, I asked her to send a crime scene unit to the store for photos. Mr. Regan looked a little more satisfied after that token display of law enforcement aptitude, but I wasn’t quite ready to surrender altogether. My notebook was still safely tucked away in my shirt pocket, since I was bound and determined not to take an incident report unless absolutely necessary. Asking for crime scene support early on in the call was simply a way to hedge my bets, since both of our night shift technicians lived way out in the furthest reaches of West Ashley. Those guys had a tendency to check in service from their living rooms each night, so requesting one as soon as possible was a way to guarantee that they might actually get up off the couch at some point. This way, even if I did get stuck babysitting a rubber-gloved geek while he did his thing, there was still a small chance I’d have enough time to grab supper somewhere before all the restaurants shut their kitchens.