Rise of the Dunamy (12 page)

23

U
pon entering the precinct and getting everything set up at her desk, Sofia made a quick call to Lucian to check on the status of the man from the first crime scene that morning. Normally, she would have walked down to the morgue so she didn’t miss an opportunity to flirt with Lucian, but her legs wouldn’t allow that today. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes as she waited for the call to go through.

This was the first time she had actually called Lucian’s phone since they normally texted one another or spoke in person, and his ringback tone caught her off-guard. Her chest heaved gently as she laughed to herself about the classical music that was playing in her ear. It was a piece she was not familiar with that featured a soft, slow violin solo. The melody had nearly carried her off to sleep when Lucian’s sultry voice interrupted the beautiful composition.

“Well, hello there beautiful.” Sofia had to jerk her thoughts back to the present and collect herself for a moment before she was able to respond.

“Hey…” She responded weakly. Her voice had already grown hoarse from not having spoken since her conversation with Bishop as well as the near-sleep-experience she had just encountered. She cleared her throat sharply before continuing. “Hey, Lucian.”

“Good Lord. Are you just wakin’ up?” He replied jokingly.

“Oh, no. I’m just a little tired.” Sofia was still struggling to wake up, but couldn’t help smiling as she spoke to Lucian.

“I tried to tell you to go to sleep last night. You work too hard to stay up that late.”

“You stayed up later than me…” Sofia caught herself as she began to raise her voice playfully. “ You stayed up later than me, and you got up earlier,” she replied in a hushed voice.

“I’m used to it. Plus, I don’t really work all that hard. I’m my own boss and can take a nap if I need one.”

“Oh stop. You never sleep.” Sofia joked.

“Anyways, I imagine you’re calling about the dude from this morning?”

“I am. Did you find anything?”

“Oh, just that his blood alcohol content was nearly twice the limit. It’s hard to be sure from the beating he took, but there are some signs that he may have been in a car wreck recently. Some glass shards in his skin and a little bit of a burn on the facial tissue that’s probably from an airbag.”

“Wonderful. Considering the way these guys operate, we probably need to be on the lookout for anyone hurt in a car accident in the past twenty-four hours.” She said with a sigh. “Alright, thanks Lucian. Have you gotten to the other two yet?”

“I’m headed there now, sweetness.” Sofia glanced over towards Bishop to make sure he couldn’t see her grinning. He was sufficiently busy with his own phone conversation, giving her ample privacy to finish her conversation.

“What time you comin’ to see me tonight?” Lucian asked confidently. Sofia snapped her head back over to make sure Bishop was still busy with his call before answering.

“I will be there as soon as I swing by my place for a second,” she replied in a firm, quiet voice. Lucian laughed loudly on the other end at her attempt to hide their conversation.

“Sounds good. I’ll see you in a bit. Goodbye, gorgeous.” Just as Sofia was about to reply, Bishop chimed in loudly.

“Who’s that? Why are you bein’ all quiet?” His brash interruption startled Sofia, causing her to jump.

“Okay then, Lucian. Thanks. Sounds good. Talk to you later…. tomorrow. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Bye.” Her awkward end to the phone call was far more embarrassing to her than how red her face had gotten. She didn’t want anyone at the precinct knowing what was going on with her and Lucian and didn’t appreciate Bishop drawing attention to her conversation or her actions.

“Why do you feel the need to be so loud when other people are on the phone? Did I scream at you while you were on your call?” Sofia replied angrily.

“What’s your problem? I was just asking who you were talking to.” Sofia found it impossible to believe that he had no idea who she was talking to and thought he was trying to draw attention to her.

“It was Lucian,” Sofia said sternly.

“Oh. What did he say? Did he see our dead guys?” Bishop asked, still unaware that the nature of the call had been mostly personal. Sofia took advantage of the opportunity to direct the conversation towards Lucian’s findings. Shaking her head to rid herself of the frustration Bishop had caused, Sofia passed along the information.

“The victim was drunk… Really drunk. Twice the limit. Lucian thinks the victim was in a car accident earlier in the day.”

“Oh yeah? Probably killed some innocent people to draw our guys’ attention,” Bishop huffed beneath his breath. Sofia felt the urge to fight him on the issue, but she couldn’t muster the energy. She let out a heavy sigh as she leaned back in her chair, placing her arm over her eyes.

“I’m done for today,” Sofia called out to Bishop.

“It’s five ‘til. What’s the hurry?”

“I’m exhausted.”

“Oh, so you’re not headed to Lucian’s after you pop by your place for a second?” Sofia snapped her head towards Bishop to see him smiling at her.

“That is no one’s business!” She exclaimed quietly as she looked around nervously.

“Oh relax. I checked. Nobody’s paying us any attention.”

“I don’t care! Don’t talk about it around here! Please, Bishop.” Sofia hated the idea of the men around the office talking about her personal life. She had heard how they talked about Lucian’s love life, and she had no intention of being the object of those discussions.

“Fine. Calm down.” Bishop agreed as he dismissed her with a wave of his hand.

“Thank you,” she replied as she scanned the area one last time to make sure no one was eavesdropping. After looking over her surroundings as inconspicuously as possible, Sofia gathered up her things and headed for the door.

“Have fun.” Bishop called out across the room. Sofia glared at him as she backed out the door.

24

A
s another morning rolled around and Sofia rushed to get ready for work she found herself struggling with a feeling she never thought she would have. As her relationship with Lucian continued to blossom, she found herself growing angry whenever she had to leave him to go to work. She realized that her frustration was with leaving Lucian and not her job, so she was always able to cast aside her frustrations and get her mind ready for work by the time she arrived, but it was still a very strange feeling for her to arrive at work and not be excited to be there. As she strolled in towards her desk this morning, she heard the other reason she was none too excited about being at work.

“Oh, good, you’re here. I’m ready to get going so we can catch some of these assholes that are ruining our city.” Sofia knew what Bishop was up to, but decided to play along.

“Awesome! Get your stuff and let’s stop these guys before they eat some more people. I’m glad to see you’re ready to solve this case, Bishop.”

“Oh… Wait… Nope. I meant I was ready to catch some of the real criminals. You know, like the guys we keep finding dead all over town.” Bishop sat back in his chair, folding his hands behind his head, sending a clear message that he didn’t plan on going anywhere. Sofia fumed to herself for a moment before Bishop continued. “I mean, what are we talking about here? We’ve got eleven dead ex-cons who were up to no good, right?” Sofia sighed deeply as she stared at him. “So, eleven dead drains on society. The one drug dealer they took out would have affected hundreds, or probably thousands of lives and more than likely would have been responsible for a number of deaths. I just can’t believe that you won’t, for one second, consider that these cannibal guys are saving lives.”

“They are taking lives, Eric! I can’t believe that you are forgetting that fact!” The blood surged through Sofia’s face as she began to raise her voice. She had refrained from allowing herself to say the words, although she had been thinking them for weeks. The fact that she now realized how alone she was in searching for these men was only fueling her anger, so she stopped holding back and allowed herself to scream the words that she hoped would point some of the other officers in the right direction.

“I know how you feel about this, and you don’t get to decide which lives are more valuable or important than others! We protect, and we serve! That is what we do, and we do it for everyone! Try not to forget that, Mr. High and Mighty.”

Bishop never flinched. He never so much as looked up from his paper during her entire rant, which was not the case for everyone else within earshot. Most of the department was now looking towards Sofia. She had hoped to see some shame in their faces as they realized that she was right about everything, but the most common expression that she saw was one of disbelief at her inability to understand their point of view.

“Not what you were looking for, huh?” Bishop asked smugly as he turned the page of his paper, pausing only long enough to glance up at her for a moment. “Look, Kid, we all know the job and we all do it the best we can, but you haven’t seen it as long as we have. It makes you hard. It makes you hate. I’m not gonna sit here and pretend like I’m not going to continue looking for these guys. That’s my job, I get that.” He eased towards her and lowered his voice just above a whisper, “I’m just thinking that maybe these guys could clean a little more scum off the streets before we get too serious about findin’ ‘em.”

Sofia was not at all surprised at what he was thinking, but she was shocked that he had finally said it out loud without even acting as if it was a joke.

“And what if someone innocent dies while that’s going on?” She asked in a hushed voice, “Can you live with that?”

Her harsh whispers had little effect on Bishop, who again simply glanced up at her as if to say, “Do I really need to answer that?” He cut his look short before replying, “You’ve seen the same thing I have. They aren’t going to kill anyone that doesn’t have it coming. Seems to me that they have a better eye on these people than we do. I mean, that jackass who wrecked on the playground would never have been on our radar, and they got him the first time he slipped up! Bishop was referring to the drunken victim they had found. His car was later located abandoned a few blocks away where it had been driven into a tree in the center of a playground. While no evidence from the scene indicated any additional victims in the accident, the fact the car had ended up in a location where children could have been harmed only fueled the anger of her fellow officers. At least, we think it was the first time. Hell, he was out for a few weeks; he could have been responsible for God only knows what since getting’ out.” From the look on Sofia’s face, Bishop realized what thought he had just put into Sofia’s head. “Craaap!” He moaned in a low, deep voice.

The comments Bishop made had only helped to push Sofia towards an idea she had been considering for the past few days. She believed that the reason no evidence had been located, and the reason the victim list was focused on ex-convicts, was because the cannibals they were looking for were police officers. Grabbing his can of snuff off of his desk, Bishop walked off to replace his depleted supply of tobacco, angry with himself for pointing Sofia in the direction he had.

Days earlier, Sofia had begun to look into the number of victims that had complaints against them that never resulted in arrests.

Every single victim had a record showing complaints that were later either dropped or never taken further for whatever reason. These were facts that very few people would know about, outside of the police force.

The corruption Sofia had seen in her local law enforcement in her village in Colombia had caused her not to trust the police and, occasionally, that crept back into her thoughts. Her experience with police corruption early in life made it very easy for her to believe that this sort of operation could have been orchestrated by someone within the police force. From the time that they started linking the jobs together, Sofia’s mind had gone to the possibility that it could be an inside job. She refused to allow herself to think that way as it was not abnormal for her mind to go there. Every time they came across a case like this, where evidence was scarce and the case was difficult, Sofia’s mind would instantly consider the possibility of it having been an inside job. She couldn’t help herself.

In her mind, she could still see the faces of the policemen that used to drive through the village, their arms loaded with gifts and money. Every other time these thoughts had come up, she dismissed them almost instantly. She had developed a deep level of admiration for the law enforcement officers in the States and knew that they always deserved the benefit of the doubt. The difference in this case was the level of involvement that went into the covering up of evidence as well as the analysis of each of the victims. Several of the difficult parts of the case could be more easily explained if this was all being planned and carried out by people on the inside. The fact that no DNA from the perps had been found at the scenes of any of the crimes had been bugging Sofia more than any other part of this case, especially since numerous weapons were fired just prior to a few of the murders.

Sofia believed that had a group of men appeared on the scene dressed as officers there would definitely be a decreased chance of any attempts at fighting back. Not wanting to confirm Bishop’s suspicions about what she was considering, Sofia decided to go bounce some of her ideas off of Lucian. Although she had just left him a short time before when they had arrived at work , and she had yet to begin any actual work on the case, Sofia headed off to see what Lucian thought.

25

E
ven though they were spending so much time together both at work and away from it, Sofia felt the same level of excitement when she entered the morgue that she had before they started dating. Although she wanted to burst through the double doors that led to his room, Sofia restrained herself each time she visited. She had considered the possibility that anyone could be in with Lucian at any time and she hated to think of how very unprofessional it would seem for her to do such a thing. So, she eased her way into the hallway to his room once more, pretending to focus on the paperwork that she had brought with her for exactly that purpose. Sofia was so caught up in her nonchalant act that she plowed into a young woman that was leaving the morgue. The force of the collision sent them both sprawling to the ground.

“I am so sorry!” Sofia exclaimed, believing that her ruse had been the sole contributing factor to the accident.

“No, no. It’s my fault.” The young woman replied. Sofia looked up from gathering her papers and realized that she had seen the young woman before. She was one of the women that came around regularly to see Lucian; she was one of his exes. Sofia froze as she looked at this beautiful woman in her tight red top and black microskirt. The girl may have been old enough to purchase her own alcoholic beverages. Her stomach churned as the possibilities of what could have been going on sped through her mind. The girl was speaking to her, but Sofia could hardly make out her words because of the roar of the blood rushing to her brain that filled her ears.

“I’m so sorry. I wasn’t paying any attention to where I was going.” The woman continued as she picked up Sofia’s papers. Sofia remained still and stared at the woman, unsure of what she might say if she opened her mouth. “I’m just a mess right now,” muttered the flustered young woman. From her frantic movements and hurried demeanor, Sofia could see that she was bothered by something. “I’m so sorry,” she said again, handing the atrociously stacked pile of papers back to Sofia.

“I’ve got to get going.” She quickly got to her feet and scampered off down the hall. Sofia held her poorly stacked paperwork in her hands and slowly proceeded towards the large metal double doors. The urge to turn around and walk out of the room was almost too much for her as she prepared herself for the aftermath left from whatever had just transpired between Lucian and that woman. She couldn’t stop the questions from running rampant through her mind.

“What was she doing here? Had she been wrong about what went on inside the morgue when those girls came to see Lucian? Was Lucian still seeing her on the side? How many others were there? Had Lucian gone back to these women because they weren’t sleeping together? He was the one that was holding out! She had been willing on more than one occasion and he had been the one that stopped things! If anyone should be looking for affection elsewhere it should be me!”

Blood continued to surge through her veins as her mind was flooded with thoughts of what Lucian had been doing. She quickly rounded the corner with a scowl on her face and stormed down the hallway. As she approached the door, Lucian’s voice began reverberating off the walls, and what she heard only caused her to become angrier. He was singing! He was singing some stupid song that he was undoubtedly making up, something he did when he was especially happy. As he reached one of his beloved high-pitched portions, Sofia made her way through large metal doors of the morgue.

As Lucian came in to view, her anger subsided moderately as she expected to find him dressing himself or basking in the glow of his conquest or at least putting on his clothes. Instead he was standing at one of the tables performing an autopsy, half of what appeared to be his hoagie sandwich rested on the paper cloth that covered the cadaver’s lower half. Sofia’s abrupt entrance caused Lucian’s head to snap up from his cadaver, and although she couldn’t see his mouth through the mask, his eyes smiled at her.

“Hello beautiful,” came his deep muffled voice from behind the thin, paper barrier. A look of surprise came into his eyes as he noticed the disheveled papers. Pulling his mask down to reveal a curious smile he asked,

“Was your excuse this time that you needed me to help you stack up your papers? If so, we’re gonna need to work on getting you some better excuses. I mean, they are detectives.” Sofia had told him how silly she felt going down there all the time and about the various different reasons that she was always giving everyone, but at that moment it was the furthest thing from her mind.

“No.” She muttered, looking down at the mess that she was holding. “This is because some woman just ran me over as she flew out of here like she had been doing something she shouldn’t have been.” She made little attempt to mask the contempt in her voice as her Colombian accent began to shine through. Lucian leaned forward against the metal table.

“Yeah, sorry you had to see that.” He sighed, looking down at the table. Sofia couldn’t contain herself and blurted the first thought that came into her mind.

“So you’re not denying it!” Her face became more intense with every word, never realizing the absurdity of what she was asking.

“Denying what, exactly?” He asked with a knowing grin. “That the woman that you just ran into in that hallway was in this room? No. I don’t deny that the person you just saw coming from here was just in here. I would actually like to go on the record as saying that that woman was just in here.” Realizing that she had jumped the gun with her question, and that maybe she was further along in the argument in her head than in reality, she began again; this time much more directly.

“What was she doing here?” She demanded, her accent in full Latina swing.

“She comes here a lot. We went out a few times, and she comes by to visit from time to time. Until today, I usually just listened to her go on and on about what she had been up to.”

“Until today?” She asked angrily.

“Oh, yeah. Today I asked if she could quit coming by; I told her that I thought it might bother my girlfriend.” Sofia’s cheeks felt as though they were on fire due to the amount of blood in them, only now it remained out of pure, gut-wrenching embarrassment. Dropping all of her papers on the table in front of her, she hid her face in her hands. “Oh God, no.” She muttered to herself. Lucian came around his table and approached Sofia. Pulling one of the nearby stools from an examining table, he sat down in front of her and waited patiently for her to look at him. It had become painfully obvious that Lucian knew what she had been eluding to, and was trying to give her an escape. Finally, after a few minutes of hiding, she peered at him through the cracks between her fingers.

“Do you hate me?” She whimpered.

“Very much the opposite.” He whispered back at her. “I just thought it might make you uncomfortable for those girls to be coming in here, so I’ve been asking them to stop.” Sofia was mortified, but opened her hands to meet Lucian’s kiss as he leaned in to greet her.

“Those girls are your friends. I can’t let you do that.” Although she felt horrible that he was doing it, she truly didn’t want them around. She hoped that he wouldn’t call her on her bluff but knew that she couldn’t allow him to do such a thing without at least pretending to show some concern.

“I have plenty of friends, and now I have you. Don’t worry about it, I’m good with it. Hell, I’m great with it! Do you have any idea how much that crap slows me down? I don’t need people stopping in here all day buggin’ me.”

Sofia raised her eyebrows slightly, but Lucian didn’t even allow her the time to comment on what he had just said before correcting his statement.

“At least with you, you let me keep working. Not only that, but you usually talk about work so I’m not missing a beat.” Lucian was truly a master of covering his tracks whenever he misspoke.

“Oh, so you mean….they just came in here and talked to you?”

“Well, yeah. Tell me you didn’t believe what those guys have been saying? Is that really what you thought I was like?”

“No! Well, not until just a minute ago…I just got a little jealous,” she said weakly, mortified once more by her earlier actions.

“Well, that’s a little saddening. I mean, this is a morgue… That’s disgusting, don’t you think?”

“Yeah…I just didn’t know what to think. And we haven’t really talked much about that kind of stuff.”

“What stuff?”

“You know…Our exes…Sex stuff.”

“Good God, why would we!”

“I just thought that was typical stuff to…”

“Why on Earth would that be something you want in your head? Me with another girl? I mean, unless that’s….”

“No!”

“What gets you…”

“No Lucian.”

“Going. I mean if you want me to tell you about…”

“Stop please.”

“Alllll my sexual encounters…”

“Lucian stop.”

“I could go on and on and on…”

“I get it! You can stop!” Lucian finally relented. Removing the latex glove from his own hand, he took Sofia’s hand and looked directly into her eyes.

“We don’t need to do that. The most important thing about me that you need to know is that I’m not a cheater. I find no use for it and have no desire to do it. We’re together because of everything that has happened to us at this point, so it was worth it. As far as the other stuff is concerned, I’m no saint and never pretend to be one. I know what I like, and I like you.” He kissed her hand and backed away from her as he joked, “Plus, you know, practice makes perfect.”

“Stop it!” She shouted, smacking her leg and scrunching her face in displeasure.

“I’m sorry! I just mean you will benefit…from all my experience.

“Lucian!”

“Kidding!....But seriously…You’ll enjoy yourself.” Sofia tried to keep from smiling because it was truly frustrating, but he was just too irresistible.

“Now, what brings you down here today?” Here was another place were Lucian reigned as king. He had completely let her off the hook for her little jealous outburst. This was one of his traits that she was all too happy to take advantage of each and every time that it was available.

“Uh…” She stammered, struggling to get her thoughts back on work.

“I recognize that folder.” He said as he strolled back over to his autopsy and shoving a large bite of his hoagie into his mouth. “More thoughts on that one, huh?” The words would have been difficult to decipher for someone that hadn’t become so familiar with someone so unafraid to speak with mouth full of food. The folder was easy to spot. Sofia had written notes all over the cover in various different colors of ink. She had a habit of making her notes as they came to her, and she often found herself without paper. Bishop had gotten on to her several times for doing it, but that never stopped her. Sofia looked at the atrocity that was once her case folder.

“Oh, right! I had to come and talk to you about it because there’s no chance that Bishop is going to even consider it. You tell me what you think.” She began attempting to reconcile the papers in the correct order as she began.

“So, you know that I kind of considered that it was an inside job from the beginning. Well, I pretty much let that go until today.”

“What happened today?” Lucian asked as he replaced his paper mask and resumed his work.

“It was something that Bishop said. He mentioned how much effort was going into the selection of these victims and how some of them were pretty low-level criminals but that our guys knew that and were watching them.”

“Mmm hmmm.” Lucian bobbed his head in agreement as he inspected his corpse.

“The only way for these guys to know these things is if they are getting information from someone on the inside. Now, it doesn’t necessarily have to be being run by someone on the inside, there really doesn’t even have to be a great amount of work being done on the inside, but there is definitely some inside work going on somewhere for these guys to know everything that they know.” Sofia was very pleased with herself as she finished her explanation and smiled to herself as she finished straightening her papers. This was the first potential lead on this case to date, and she knew that she would be the only one in the department to follow up on something of this nature. Between their loyalty to one another and their admiration for the work that these vigilantes were doing, none of the other officers would even consider making such a move.

“Gotta be careful with that one. You know if you’re wrong and you make a big deal out of investigating other cops, you’re done.” Lucian stopped working for a moment and looked over to her. “I think it could be the right idea, but you’ve got to be super careful. Know what I mean?” Sofia knew all too well what he meant. The common perception among police officers for the internal affairs investigation squad was nothing short of hatred. They were seen as rats, or even cannibals by some. They were willing to go after the guys that were out there every day seeing the worst of the evil that people were capable of doing. Sofia had always seen them as the part of the police department that her country had always lacked. The police police. She knew that their job was just as important as what she did, and in many ways more difficult. Although she had a healthy respect for what they did, she had never considered doing what they did. It wasn’t until then that she realized that if she didn’t handle this angle with the right amount of care, joining them may be the only option she had left.

“Yeah, I probably need to make sure that I throw out some different ideas in front of Bishop. I think he had a pretty good idea of what popped into my head earlier.”

“Uh, yeah!” Lucian exclaimed. “I would definitely make sure he was way off my scent before going ahead with that. Bishop would be the absolute worst person to let find out. I love the guy, but you know he loves to talk.” Lucian was absolutely right. Sofia would have to make it very clear that she was pursuing an entirely different idea when she was around Bishop in order to keep him from knowing what she was up to.

“I better get back and start working on him now.” Sofia glanced around the room quickly as she made her way towards Lucian, scanning for any living bodies. She stood beside him, her lower lip set to full pout.