Compromised (4 page)

Gus grinned weakly although he was still sniffling.

I smiled at him lovingly before turning back to the doctor and verbalizing what they were both afraid I’d ask. “But my career as an NYPD detective is over, isn’t it?”

Dr. Efram took a moment before answering, but then he had no choice but to give me the bad news. “It’s hard to say,” he said in a serious tone. “But it’s a distinct possibility.”

“Yay!” Ma cheered.
“They said you could go home tomorrow. Doesn’t that make you happy?” In all, I’d been in the hospital almost two weeks and just couldn’t wait to leave.

“Sure,” I replied without enthusiasm.
Home to what? I won’t be a cop anymore.
The decision might not be made official for months, but it was just a matter of time. Even if I were allowed to return to the force, I’d be chained to a desk somewhere and would never see action again. The department would control my environment and make sure that I wasn’t a hazard to myself or anyone else.

A cop with a seizure disorder was like a pilot with a history of hysterical blindness. No one would put their life in the hands of that pilot, and no cop would be able to trust a partner like that out on the streets. A cop has to have confidence in his partner, and a ticking time bomb doesn’t inspire confidence. Everyone would be watching and waiting for me to have a meltdown and go to pieces. You can’t be out on the streets under those circumstances.

“I’ve been cooking for days,” Ma said. “I made every dish you can possibly think of. I know you haven’t eaten with gusto, not with the dreck they feed you in here. I even baked a cheesecake with pineapple and a graham cracker crust just the way you like it.”

“That’s sweet of you, Ma. Thanks.” I wanted to sound more excited about all the yummy dishes she had prepared, but it just wasn’t in me. I took a deep breath and filled my lungs with air before turning to look out the window.

The next thing I knew, Ma had plopped down on the bed. She patted my leg. “Did I tell you about Angie Messerole?”

I looked at her and gauged that she was exerting herself emotionally in order to pique my interest. “The widow on the top floor of your building?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How’s she doing? She hasn’t looked well since her husband, Rocco, died.”

“You should see her now,” she said. “She took the insurance money and did a complete makeover.”

“By makeover, I presume that you don’t mean hair and makeup, do you?”

“Head to toe, Stephanie. She did it all—the boobs, the butt, liposuction, tummy tuck, her eyes, her teeth, her nose . . . She’s unrecognizable.”

“That’s what my friends call a Mrs. Potato Head makeover.”

“Ha!”

“Does she look good?”

“She looks
amazing.
She looks like a movie star.”

“Good for her. She deserves a second chance at romance. I hope she meets a nice—”

Ma snorted.

“What’s that about? Does she have one of those Wayne Newton faces that looks as if it’s made of plastic?”

“No.” She chuckled. “I already told you that she looks great.”

“What, then?”

“She’s got a girlfriend,”
she screeched. “Do you believe it? It took twenty-five years of marriage for her to figure out that she doesn’t like a penis? How does that even happen?”

I shrugged. “Maybe it didn’t.”

“What? What are you saying?”

“Maybe she liked coochie all along.”

“But her marriage . . .”

“Just saying.”

“No. I don’t believe it. Either you like men or you don’t.”

“Some women go both ways. More than you’d imagine. How do you explain that?”

“It’s just a diversion, Stephanie. People get bored, and they try new things. Trust me. Your mother knows what she’s talking about.”

“If you say so.” I rolled my eyes, then noticed someone standing in the doorway. I knew who it was instantly. “Are you Haruki?”

He nodded. Haruki was Yana’s brother. I’d heard that he’d flown in from Japan for the funeral. “I hope I’m not interrupting,” he said politely.

“No. Please come on in.”

Ma got off the bed and greeted him as he entered the room. “I’m so sorry about your brother. I’d only met him a few times, but he was a very nice man.”

Haruki bowed as was tradition in Japan and many other places in the Far East. “Thank you so much.”

It was still an effort for me to move, but I managed to stand and tie my robe. He extended his hand but I wasn’t having it. I probably embarrassed him when I hugged him, but . . . it was just something I needed to do. “Yana and I were very close. I’m . . . I’m so very sorry. There was nothing I could’ve done.”

“I know that, Detective Chalice. I know that you were shot first and were unconscious when my brother was hit.”

I smiled sadly. Yana was a rookie detective the lieutenant had assigned to me. He’d emigrated from Japan and had carried with him the rigidness and formality his parents and culture had instilled in him. I had made it my job to get him to loosen up. He was a good student and was learning quickly. I’d even taught him the fine art of police partner banter. “Your brother called me Stephanie. I hope you’re comfortable calling me Stephanie as well.”

“If you’ll call me Harry.”

“Of course I will. Yana was a good partner and a close friend. He was one of the most sincere people I ever met.”

Harry nodded again. Like his brother, he seemed very formal and traditional. “Thank you. It warms me to hear this because there is a Shinto proverb that reads, ‘Sincerity is the single virtue that binds the divine and man in one.’”

“That’s a lovely saying.”

“I wanted to wait until you were fully recovered before visiting, but I have a flight back to Tokyo in the morning. I’m only allowed a short period of bereavement.”

Harry was a law enforcement officer in Japan. In what capacity, I wasn’t sure. “I’m really so happy that you stopped by,” I told him. Yana used to speak of his brother with great fondness. From what he’d said, he and Haruki had been very different growing up. Yana had been very serious and focused, whereas Haruki was more of a free spirit, a wild child.

“I think Yana would have wanted me to tell you that he liked and respected you very much. He said that you were a very good teacher.”

“He didn’t need very much teaching. Yana had good instincts, and that just can’t be taught. What happened that night . . .” A lump formed in my throat. “It all happened so quickly. From what I was told, the second shot came within seconds of the first. There was nothing he could’ve done to avoid it.”

“Would it be all right if we exchanged phone numbers and e-mail addresses? I would like to hear when my brother’s murderer is apprehended, and how he will be punished.”

“Of course.”

Harry presented his card with two hands and a polite bow. I fished in my purse, and when I found my business card, I presented it in the same manner.

My hands were relaxed and steady as I leveled my Smith & Wesson 2213 at the target and squeezed the trigger.
I was firing the small-caliber handgun because the doctor was worried about the potential trauma from the kick of a more powerful weapon. The feel of the single-action trigger was like a homecoming, and the small holes my rounds made in the paper target were like old friends who were excited to see me again. It was the first clip I’d emptied in what felt like an eternity. I had three more lined up and waiting. I couldn’t wait to go at it again.

Gus smiled at the demonstration of accuracy and pulled the side of his Peltor shooter’s muff away from his right ear. “Like getting back on a bicycle, right?”

I pulled off my muff, placed it on the sill, and ejected the clip. “I love you, Gus, but you don’t have to pat me on the bottom all the time.”

“I don’t,” he protested.

I gave him a stink-eye warning. “It’s hardly the best shooting I’ve ever done.”

“One day at a time, Steph. You haven’t held a gun in your hand in over a month. I’ll bet it feels good, though, doesn’t it?”

“It’s the only thing that still makes me feel like a cop.”

“But you are a cop.”

“Yeah, in title only. We both know there’s no way I’ll ever work another case again.”

“You don’t know that.”

I fired off stink-eye warning number two. “Believe me. I know it.” We were at the Westside Rifle and Pistol Range, which Gus and I referred to as the 20/20 because the address was 20 West 20th Street. I was firing one of my own guns at a private range and not my service-issue Glock at the NYPD range. It wasn’t an apples-to-apples comparison, but the experience made me feel a little bit like my old self. I’d been looking forward to firing a gun for almost two weeks, ever since the doc told me I could give it a whirl if I stuck to my daily dose of Dilantin and didn’t experience any new seizures.

“Let’s drop the lame-o attitude and see if you can tighten up your grouping with the next clip.”

“Yeah. Let’s see.” I slapped the next clip into the gun, pried my muffs apart, and placed them over my ears. I grinned at Gus, extended the gun, and fired off a single round.

“What the?” Gus seemed confused until I reeled in the target and put my finger through the hole I’d just made, right through the perp’s junk instead of one of the kill zones. He cringed.

I sneered at him.

“Guess that’s my cue to take off.”

“It is indeed.”

“Carry on. I’m going to grab a soda. Want one?”

“No. I’m good.”

“All right. Come find me when you’re done circumcising targets.”

I gave him a thumbs-up and reeled the target back out.

Gus cupped his balls and slinked away.

Gus was sitting alone at a table, refilling a clear plastic cup with Coke. He smiled when he saw me approaching. “How’d you do?”

“Not bad for a rookie. Thanks for giving me a little space.”

He shrugged. “Ah, it’s kind of a personal thing. You know, just you, the gun, and the target. I figured I’d only be a distraction.”

“I think I scared you off with that crotch cutter I fired off.”

“Yeah.” He chuckled. “That too.”

I placed my lockbox on the table and sat down. “Mind if I take a sip?”

He shook his head. “No caffeine, remember?” He pulled a bottle of water out of his backpack and handed it to me. “Drink up.”

“There’s nothing quite like the smell of a discharged weapon in the morning.”

“My mother always told me to look for a girl who preferred the fragrance of nitroglycerin to Chanel Number 5.”

“She’s a wise woman. Anyway, I needed a little independence. You and Ma have been fussing over me like worried hens. You don’t even leave me alone with Max.”

“For the time being. Eventually everything will get back to normal.”

“If only that were true.”

“Babe, let’s not go there again. Let’s just make the best of it. You know what they say. When life hands you lemons, you have to make lemonade.”

“I hate that expression. Whoever made it up was probably one LSD trip short of a total mental breakdown.”

“You’ll be okay.”

“But I won’t be a cop.”

Gus grabbed my hand. “Hey, whatever you are or aren’t is good enough for me.”

I forced an accepting smile. “Love you, babe.”
But will it be good enough for me?

Despite the NYPD’s best efforts and the generous rewards offered by the City of New York, the Patrolman’s Benevolent Association, and the Detectives Endowment Association, Yana’s murderer had yet to be found.
And the trail was growing colder every day.

The doctor finally agreed to let me use a computer. He was concerned that the rapid eye movement and hand coordination associated with computer usage might trigger another seizure, but I had been seizure free for almost a month and was granted a maximum of thirty minutes’ usage per day—not a lot of time, but I have crazy-fast fingers on the keyboard.

The first thing I did was log in to the NYPD mainframe and pull up the report on the shooting. More than a month had passed since my partner had been murdered and my future as a New York City cop possibly robbed from me. I was determined not to wait this one out a minute longer. I was on paid leave until a final decision could be made concerning my fitness to serve as one of New York’s finest again, so I was not official, but that didn’t matter to me in the slightest. I was ready and determined to track down Yana’s killer.

My current short-term memory was intact. I could remember the events of each and every day that had passed since I left the hospital, but the day the lights went out . . . well, that period of time was still a mystery, a dark void within which a portion of my past was buried. Somewhere along the line, a sniper had picked off Yana and me from long range. There was such a painful and desperate ache within me to remember, to recall the moments before the homicide took place, and put a face on the shooter. The memory was denied to me, a locked vault I was unable to open.

I knew from reading Yana’s recovered notebook and mine that we had just come from interviewing the parents of Serafina Ramirez in their apartment. The report said that our car had been recovered about half a block away, next to an abandoned lot, so it was a safe to assume that we were walking back to the car when we were hit. Ballistics placed the shooter on the roof of the tenement building we had just come from. We were about a hundred yards from the building when the first shot was fired.

If the investigator’s theory was correct, I was hit first, then Yana turned and took a fatal shot in the chest. Residents had reported hearing only two gunshots. The shooter had fired off two rounds in rapid succession from a .30 rifle.

Thank God the shooter had used small rounds. Had the bullet been larger, even after ricocheting off the sidewalk, it might’ve taken off half my skull, and then it would have been lights out forever.

“Oh, no you don’t.” Gus had crept up behind me and was looking over my shoulder. “You can’t do this, Steph. Do you want to get better or not?”

“Of course I want to get better. What kind of question is that?”

“Well, then prove it,” he said hotly. “You think this is good for you? You think it’s good to get yourself all worked up? You’ve been complaining that we don’t trust you enough to leave you alone with your own child. Do you want that to change, or do you want to trigger another seizure? The doctor told you that you have to stay quiet and well rested. He warned you about what might happen if you got too worked up. Remember what he said? A cerebral aneurysm—want one of those on top of everything else?”