Rise of a Phoenix: Rise of a Phoenix (22 page)

Then together they climaxed with an earth-moving crescendo. She turned, her eyes unable to focus. Then they kissed, and she fell back against the hard tiled wall, her arms bracing herself against the walls of the shower until as her legs felt weak, and what felt like small electrical shocks buzzed through her body. Her eyes opened to see Steel’s firm naked body. She looked at his firm chest muscles and saw what appeared to be a tattoo of a strange bird.

With a start, she sat up and looked around in a panic. Where the hell was she? She leant over and found the light switch. She blew out a sigh of relief. She was in bed—alone. She looked around the room then her head fell down onto the pillows.

What the hell was that,
she thought to herself? She grabbed a pillow from the other side of the bed and put it over her head to hide her shame.

FORTY-ONE

The next morning McCall sat in the ME’s office with Tina and described the recent goings on over a cup of coffee bought from the store round the corner. McCall often came down before the day had started to play catch up if they had chance, before somebody died early and ruined the whole ‘ease into the day’ thing. The two girls had known each other a long time and been through a lot together, so it seemed only right every morning or sometime after work, that they got together and just talked. About nothing in particular, just anything that wasn’t work. This was girls’ hour and they both needed it.

But this time they did talk about work. Tina wanted to know the ins and outs of what she had heard about the other day; she found that the drawback with being closeted down in the ME’s office was that she missed all the chatter and gossip.

“God, Steel really pisses me off sometimes,” Sam growled as she spoke his name. “I mean he shows up out of nowhere and messes up crime scenes.”

“Saved your ass two or three times,” Tina butted in, then hid behind her coffee cup as McCall shot her a disapproving look.

“Comes and goes like he owns the place, sits at my desk and bothers me,” Sam went on, trying to fake her anger. “I can’t believe I actually had a dream about the son-of-a-bitch the other night.”

Tina spat out her coffee and stared at her friend with a ‘do tell’ look on her face. McCall then realized her mistake and looked away trying to look innocent.

“What sort of dream?” asked Tina in a slow meaningful tone.

“Um, nothing, forget it—it’s not important.” McCall blushed, cursing herself for letting slip the fact that she’d had an erotic dream about the man.

“Come on, what sort of dream?” Tina pressed her until she looked at McCall’s expression and the penny dropped.

“Oh my God! You had that sort of dream about him? Okay, I want details.” So saying, Tina made herself comfortable and prepared to hear the rest.

McCall then felt obliged to reveal the explicit details of the dream, making her friend’s mouth drop open in surprise.

“What does it mean?” asked McCall, hoping to get some deep insight into the meaning of this kind of dream.

“I know what I think it means, but what do
you
think it means?”

McCall shot her a look of reproach. “Well maybe it was the excitement of the shoot-out. Or, I mean we have been through a lot together, so maybe...” she fumbled her words, trying to find some other explanation for the experience.

“Really? So you’re going for PTSD.” Tina gave her another long stare.

McCall paused for a moment before replying, as the thought ran through her head. “Yeh, that sounds good to me.”

Sam smiled while Tina laughed at the idea and drank her coffee.

FORTY-TWO

Steel had got in to work early. The night before had been a good one, probably one of the best he had had in a long time. He put the coffee machines on in anticipation of a couple of sore heads, and after making himself a coffee he moved to the white board and looked over the evidence. As he perched himself on the edge of McCall’s desk and sipped the fresh coffee, his gaze was redirected to the map board. The loud DING from the elevator disturbed his concentration; he smiled as Tooms and Tony crawled in, looking a bit worse for wear.

“Morning,” he shouted, making them flinch slightly at the loud noise in their hangover-sensitive ears.

“The coffee is ready.” They replied by raising their hands, and made their way to get some refreshment. After topping up their cups they joined him at McCall’s desk.

“You guys okay?” he asked, amused, whilst sipping his coffee.

“Us? Never better, man, and you?” replied Tooms, shifting his sunglasses around to screen out as much light as possible.

“Fine, fine,” Steel said as he stared at the two boards.

“What you looking at?” asked Tooms as he took a sip from the coffee, his glasses steaming up as he did so. Steel smiled as he took notice of the hangover condition of his colleagues.

“Something’s bugging me but I cannot put my finger on it,” replied Steel, with a look of intense concentration as he stared. “I’m thinking that the homeless guys may have moved all of the bodies, but...”

Tony scratched his head as he tried to follow John Steel’s train of thought, finding it hard to concentrate.

“Wow,” Tony said at last, “so you think the homeless guys may have moved more than one body. Pushing those trolleys must have been a right bitch.”

Detective Steel suddenly stood up bolt upright and kissed Tony on the forehead. He then looked at the map board, taking note of the pins that showed the locations of the bodies. Using his two index fingers he appeared to measure something on the map, then turning suddenly, he raced up to Tony, saying: “You little dancer,” as he made for the elevator, leaving Tony to wipe his forehead, and try to make sense of it all.

FORTY-THREE

Tina and McCall were laughing and joking, and Sam felt more at ease with her friend, now she had told her about her secret erotic dream. She didn’t have to be back upstairs for a while, and if somebody had been unable to find her, she could just say she was checking something out. The door swung open and in rushed Steel.

“Well, speak of the devil,” said Tina with a large grin on her face. Steel stood for second, confused by the welcome.

“Well, Mr Steel, do you have a special mark on your right shoulder?” Tina asked, still smiling. His face registered surprise and McCall also detected something new in his expression: a look of being emotionally hurt. .

“You know, a tattoo?” Tina quickly worked in, noticing his distracted expression.

“Um, what? No. I have no tattoos, sorry. Why do you ask?”

McCall gave Tina a slap on the arm and shot her a nasty look.

“Never mind. Okay, Steel, you found me, what do you want?” McCall asked.

“Well actually I was after the good doctor.” He smiled at Tina, who could feel her cheeks turning to a nice shade of red.

“Oh, right,” Sam said, feeling hurt and embarrassed.

“Okay honey, what’s on your mind” Tina asked, and then continued sipping her coffee.

“You remember Miss Talbot? I want to know how much she weighed.”

Tina and McCall gave him a curious look. Tina searched through her notes.

“She was around fifty-four kilos. Why?” Both women moved in closer, intrigued by the question.

“Oh, just a little experiment I had in mind.” And after saying that he went straight out of the door.

The ME and the detective looked at each other for a moment, and then took off after him.

McCall and Tina burst out of the elevator and onto the homicide office floor. Tooms and Tony looked up from their desks to see the two women racing in like a couple of kids at Christmas, heading for the tree.

“Have any of you seen Steel?” asked McCall, who was slightly out of breath from the run.

“He was here earlier,” replied Tooms. “He just looked at the board and took off after Tony here mentioned something about shopping carts.

McCall and Tina rushed to the boards. As they studied the murder board, suddenly Tina yelped in excitement. McCall looked over as Tina pointed to a post-it that had been left on the map under the pin which pointed the location of where Marie-Ann’s body was located.

It was a simple note saying:
meet me here and bring Tina. J. S.
Sam and Tina looked at each other and said in unison “road trip,” and rushed off, leaving Tooms and Tony confused and upset.

“Never again, man, never again,” said Tooms, sipping his coffee and rubbing his forehead to try and ease his hangover headache.

FORTY-FOUR

The sun was high in the cloudless sky, flocks of birds darted acrobatically over the water in formation, and boats of all shapes and sizes cruised aimlessly up and down. Tina and McCall sat on a bench and enjoyed the coolness of their ice creams, pondering at how nice it was to be outside in the fresh air and not cooped up in an office, or staring at a corpse.

“Okay, where the hell is he?” asked Tina. She was enjoying herself but she did have other things to do. She looked at her watch for what seemed to be the tenth time.

“I don’t know, he’s probably sitting up on top of the building watching us.”

They laughed. McCall looked across the bay and breathed in the air as the fresh breeze blew from across the water. As they sat there a homeless man came and sat down next to Tina. She stared at him for a moment whilst edging away. He smiled but she did not. She studied him closely and suddenly her body shot backwards. Casting an angry glare towards him she yelled: “And where the hell have you been, you know you are late, right?” Her voice was bitter. The man looked shocked and surprised, and he looked behind him on the off chance someone else was there. There was no one.

“Come on then, where have you been? Look it was you who invited us down here.”

The homeless guy now looked at her as if she was some sort of crazy person.

“Well, sorry I’m late, not that I remember stating a time, but sorry again.”

They looked round to see Steel with a shopping cart full of heavy-looking items. Tina’s jaw dropped and McCall tried to hide her laughter.

Tina and Sam got up and joined Steel, and the homeless guy lay down on the bench enjoying the warmth of the sun.

“So, detective, what’s the big experiment?” McCall asked, laughing. “Push the cart till we are tired?”

“Sort of, but he will be pushing it.” He pointed to the bench where they were greeted by an up-stretched arm and a dirty hand waving to them.

“I take it you have met, Jerry.” He smiled broadly as Tina wiped herself down as if she had something dirty on her clothes. They looked at the bulging cart he’d brought along. It was covered with flies and other insects swarming around.

“So what have you got there?” asked McCall. She frowned in distaste as if she didn’t really want to know but couldn’t resist asking.

“Oh this? I just killed someone and wrapped them up for this experiment. I mean if you’re going to do it you have to do it right.” He smiled, watching their faces.

“Yeh, really.” Tina was still brushing herself down as she spoke.

“Yes, really,” he replied, trying to sound serious, amused that for a split second maybe they actually believed what he’d said.

“Seriously, you thought I had actually done that? Please!” he said, pretending to sound disappointed in them.

“You’re a real bastard, you know that?” said Tina, smacking him on the shoulder. He bowed slightly as if to thank her for her comment.

Steel had found the homeless guy, Jerry, in an alleyway while he going through the garbage hoping to score some ‘disposable items’ as he put it. And now Jerry was about to help break the case, or so Steel thought.

“So, why him?” As Tina studied the man, he leant forward from his resting place and shot her an evil look.

“Now, I didn’t mean it like that,” she responded, returning the look, waiting for Jerry to lie down again. “What I meant was, why go for the small guy and not the thin one that you mentioned?”

Steel shook his head. He had already rehearsed the scenario carefully in his head, and after the brief encounter with the men he knew who to match with each role.

“No, George was the muscle, Eric was the brains,” Steel explained. On the mention of his friends’ names, Jerry sat up bolt upright.

“What do you want with George and Eric?” He sounded confused but McCall was quite sure there was an element of fear in his words.

“You know them?” asked Steel, surprised at his luck. The man nodded as he saw Steel return from the small coffee stall with a fresh doughnut. His eyes were transfixed by the pastry Steel held.

“Jerry, how do you know these men?” Steel waved the doughnut, and then clicked his fingers to snap the man from his trance.

“What? Oh, we did some moving jobs together.” Jerry smiled and edged closer to Steel, eyes fixed on the doughnut. Steel looked down at the pastry and realized that this was the key to getting him to talk.

“Moving what?” asked McCall, sliding closer to the man, making him feel a little edgy.

“Oh, I don’t know. Packages. Big ones, long ones—all sorts.” Steel had passed him the sticky prize which he bit into slowly, savouring every morsel of the doughnut.

“Did you pick up from the same place each time?” Steel’s interest was growing. He couldn’t believe his luck in finding this guy, and in the back of his head alarm bells were ringing. Yes, very lucky find, wasn’t it, he thought. Jerry had devoured the pastry and was dabbing his lips as though he was royalty.

“Sure. We would pick up from this old warehouse in the meatpacking district, a real spooky place, lots of dark rooms, but we got our stuff from the big store room at the back,” Jerry recounted as Steel passed him another doughnut, which he ripped from the detective’s hand.

“Jerry, can you take us there?” McCall’s words were soft and calming to his ears. He nodded, and attempted to get as much of the doughnut into his mouth as possible. Steel watched Jerry turn a nice colour as breathing became an issue, but finally Jerry swallowed hard and his large mouth was free to take in air.