Miles to Go Read online

  Connie stood, reached into Delta’s locker, pulled out a bulletproof vest, and handed it to her. “Not at all. It’s a good idea for you to take some time for yourself. And when the time is right, you’ll know it in your gut. Lord knows, we never find love when we’re looking for it. It has to sort of sneak up behind you and catch you by surprise. That’s the Greek tradition.”

  Delta grinned, pretending she understood the allusion.

  “Look at me and Gina. I was alone for nearly five years before I met her.”

  Delta groaned. She didn’t want to wait that long to find someone who wanted to share peanut butter and waffles while playing JEOPARDY on television. At times, the house seemed so lonely that she preferred to work overtime instead of going home to the kittens. Even that was beginning to get old.

  “And you two met at a car wash.” Delta threaded her arms through the vest and pulled firmly on the velcro latches before pressing them down. It felt like a fourteen pound girdle.

  “Exactly. Can’t say either of us were looking for a lover. I mean, come on. A car wash? Hardly a place I would consider romantic.”

  Delta and Connie laughed, sharing the memory of the incident when Connie had to help Gina pull up the top of her convertible just before the car wash started. Delta had heard her tell the story a dozen times.

  “Love comes to us from mysterious angles, my friend.”

  “Well, I hadn’t actually entertained the thought of going out, but Miles has been giving me a hard time about spending so much time alone.”

  “Screw Miles! He’s been giving everybody shit lately.”

  The comment prompted Delta to stop dressing and turn back to Connie. “What makes you say that?”

  “Lord, Delta, he’s been a pain in the ass around here all week. You should have seen him last night. After you left, he was fussing and fighting with one of these computers until I thought he was going to bust it.”

  “What was he doing?”

  Connie shrugged. “I don’t know. He didn’t seem to want to talk about it. I do know that when Taggart approached him, Miles jumped up and told him to mind his own damn business. It was weird. What’s eating him?”

  Lacing up her shiny black shoes, Delta turned the question over in her mind. It took a lot to make Miles angry and even more to make him act aggressively. Whatever he had going on was clearly beginning to eat away at him.

  “He’s just tired, that’s all. I don’t think he’s been sleeping well.”

  Connie shook her head. “No. There’s more to it than that. Last night wasn’t the first time he’s used the computer after work. He’s after something, isn’t he?”

  “I wish I knew. If you hear anything, let me know, will you?”

  “In a flash. Well, hon, I’ve chatted long enough. I haven’t put Eddie to bed yet, and I’d better before the Captain sees the great game I’m making.”

  “Eddie” was Connie’s pet name for her computer. As long as Delta had known her, Connie had given her computers names and often referred to them as if they were human. At first, Delta thought she was a bit eccentric, but once they became friends, she found the quirk of her nature endearing in its own way.

  Connie had come from a family of five children in the southern region of San Diego. Once her older brothers realized she had a knack for remembering numbers and calculating figures, they would take her to town and earn the family money by betting people. When Connie was almost sixteen, someone had written to M.I.T. about her mathematical prowess, and she found a scholarship offer waiting for her when she graduated from high school. When she returned home from college during the Christmas break of her final year, she found that her oldest brother had been killed during a gang war which he had nothing to do with. Collateral damage. After that, she’d always said, it was inevitable that she then decided to put her considerable talents to use in law.

  “Yeah, you’d better put that silly machine to sleep. Captain catches you and he might pull your plug.”

  “Oh, he’d like that now, wouldn’t he?”

  Watching Connie breeze out the door, Delta shook her head. She had been the first real friend Delta found on the force, until they had partnered her with Miles. And what a partnership that turned out to be.

  More times than she could remember, they had stopped a crime as it actually happened and made major collars. Those were the most satisfying busts, but Miles was right—ninety percent of the time, they arrived after the crime took place. For most other officers, that percentage would be low, but Miles lived for that other ten percent.

  Delta felt differently. She wanted to be the one called to a woman’s house after a rape. If she couldn’t have stopped it from happening, at least she could be there to lend some feminine support. If she couldn’t stop someone from robbing the little old woman down the road, at least she could hold her hand and tell her that they would do everything they could to get her belongings back, and make sure the perpetrator wouldn’t strike again. She loved the human element most of all. And, if they could possibly stop a crime in progress, then that was a bonus.

  Finally buckling her belt, Delta turned and looked at herself in the full length mirror suspended on eight screws across the room. She had lost weight since the breakup, and her large frame had appeared gaunt until she put on her vest.

  Adjusting the last of her gear, Delta sighed. With nearly twenty pounds of gear on, she felt more comfortable than when she wore only her street clothes, which now hung loosely off her.

  “I’ve got to start eating more,” she grumbled, staring down at the new notch she was using on her belt. “I hope Sandy finds the ten pounds I lost.”

  Checking her weapon and her ammo one last time, as she always did, Delta started out the door.

  “’Bout time Stevens. Captain is chewing the burnin’ end of the cigar waiting for you.”

  “What does he want?”

  “Dunno. But you’d better get your butt in there. He’s asked for you twice.”

  Delta inhaled loudly, anticipating trouble. Captain Williams was not one to call her in and ask how her life was. He was more like the principal who called kids in only when they were in trouble. Rifling through her short term memory, Delta searched for anything she might have done during the week to prompt the summons.

  Delta closed the door to the Captain’s office softly behind her after entering. The room always reminded Delta of a cave. As always, the only light came from the Captain’s desk lamp, creating long shadows up the back wall behind the desk.

  “You wanted to see me, Captain?”

  The large, broad shouldered man looked up from his report and stared at her. A slow grin crept across his face. “Have a seat, Stevens.” Laying his report aside, Captain Williams ran his meaty hands through his thick salt and pepper hair before locking his fingers behind his head and leaning back in the chair. Delta believed that posture was the ultimate in truthful communication, and when this particular man was aggravated with someone, he would fold his bands in front of him and rest his chin atop his massive knuckles. Delta read this particular posture as harmless and not offensive.

  “You’ve been turning in some excellent reports, Stevens, and that collar you and Brookman made two weeks ago was a fine catch.”

  Delta nodded, already waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Thank you, sir.”

  “You and Brookman have been working very well together for quite some time now, haven’t you?”

  “We manage, sir. Some days it works, some days it doesn’t.” Delta knew what happened to partnerships that became too complacent and comfortable. It was erroneously believed that partners who got along too well weren’t on their toes as much as those who argued now and then.

  “Except for a few glitches here and there, you’re managing nicely.” Lowering his hands until they were folded against his broad chest, the Captain leaned forward against the desk. “Stevens, I’m all for partners sticking together and showing loyalty, but there are times when it can be extremely
detrimental to one partner’s health. Are you following me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ve been listening to the hubbub around the station, and I’ve watched Brookman very carefully lately, and he appears to me to be missing a step.”

  “Missing a step, sir?”

  “Yes. You know, he’s been edgy and looks exhausted. What I’m needing to know, is whether your partner is moonlighting.”

  “Not that I know, sir.” Delta leaned forward, very aware that her body language told him that she would not be cowed into snitching on her partner.

  “I ask you this because some of the men were questioning whether or not he’s up to par. Know what I mean? My concern is for your safety, as well as the others in this station. ”

  Delta licked her lips and chose her words carefully. “If you have a question, sir, why not ask Miles? I’m sure he’d tell you what you need to know.”

  Captain William’s eyes narrowed. “I have. He tells me he’s having trouble at home, but then, I’m sure that isn’t news to you.”

  “No, sir, it isn’t.” Delta lied. “He’s just having a particularly bad week this week, that’s all.” Delta felt sweat form on her palms.

  “Then you have no concerns that he might be burning out on patrol?”

  “No, sir, I don’t.”

  Williams leaned back once more and rested his hairy paws on the arms of the wooden chair. “While I value your opinion, Stevens, I think it’s always best to play it safe. I am going to have to consider putting him behind a desk for a few weeks until he straightens out whatever’s going on in his personal life. At present, he could be a liability to you.”

  Delta blinked. That would be the worst possible thing for Miles right now. If Williams put him behind a desk, Miles would go nuts. “Sir, I have to say that I don’t agree with that de—”

  “I understand your reservations, Stevens, but I won’t have an officer on the streets who isn’t functioning at a hundred percent. Would you?”

  “No, sir, I wouldn’t. But even on his worst day, Miles is the best beat cop around.”

  Captain Williams nodded. “You’re a good partner to him, Stevens. But unless he straightens up or takes some time off, I’m afraid I’ll have to yank him.”

  “I understand.” As Delta reached for the brass knob, she turned back to see Williams pushing down on a medical inhaler. “Sir?”

  Captain Williams held the asthmatic’s medicine in his chest for a moment before exhaling. “Yes?”

  “Miles has never put my life in jeopardy, and I hope you realize what a good cop he is. Putting him behind a desk, even for a week, would be a terrible waste.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that, Stevens, but I appreciate your honesty.” As the frosted glass door clicked behind her on her way out, Delta felt a ball of anger tighten in her stomach.

  “You okay?” Connie asked, clicking out of her Math Monster computer game.

  Delta nodded, still feeling the clamminess of her palms. “Does Captain Williams ever give you major creeps?”

  Connie nodded. “Often.”

  Wiping her hands on her pants, Delta glanced over to office door, seeing the frosted outline of the the burly man still sitting at his desk. “Me, too.”

  “Are you in trouble?”

  Shaking her head, Delta gained a better grip of the fiery ball burning in her gut. “Not me. Miles.”

  “Uh oh. Big trouble?”

  Delta nodded. “Big trouble. And it’s the last thing Miles needs right now.”

  “I don’t suppose—”

  “Not a chance. Williams never really listens to what we have to say. His mind was made up before I went in. I’m not even sure why he bothered talking to me at all.”

  For a moment, the two women looked at each other in silence, before Connie flicked off her computer screen. “If he gets a burr up his royal ass, Miles is screwed.”

  Delta nodded. “I know.”

  “Fat Man might just take him off the streets, you know.”

  “I know,” Delta replied as she stared through the glass at the Captain. In the darkness of his office as he hunched over papers, he reminded her of the Quasimodo high atop Notre Dame, hanging on with one hand and drool coming out of his mouth. “Con, do you ever wonder whose side he’s really on?”

  * * *

  Tonight, Delta decided, she would get some answers from Miles. Up until now, she had been able to keep sightings of his drowsiness and restlessness to herself. But people were starting to take notice, so it was time for her to pull her head out of the sand and deal with it. If he couldn’t be honest with her, then maybe the Captain had been right, and maybe whatever Miles had going on was hazardous to her. Delta knew she couldn’t go on protecting him indefinitely, especially when she didn’t know what she was protecting him from in the first place. Signing out a radio, Delta slid it casually into the leather holster, adding even more weight to her overloaded belt.

  “Ready?” Miles asked, dangling the keys from his fingertips at eye-level: his signal to her that he didn’t want to drive.

  “Sure.” Taking the keys, Delta’s gaze tried to penetrate through his eyes, as if it were possible for her to read some mysterious message in his subconscious thoughts.

  “Come on, pardner,” Miles drawled in his phony John Wayne accent, “Let’s go get us some bad guys.”

  Carefully watching Miles’s every movement, Delta cocked one eyebrow at him. He appeared in better spirits than he’d been in a long time. His gait had a new lightness that set her at ease as he acted like his usual cocky self.

  “You must have had a nice day,” Delta commented, starting the engine. The overhead clock read 6:05, but the darkness had already started settling in.

  “As a matter of fact, I did. Jen and I went out to lunch and shopped around a bit until the kids came home from school. How about you?”

  “I kicked around the house, watched some soaps, and did some laundry. Not the most thrilling of days.”

  For the next ten minutes they drove in silence, with only the squawking of the radio making a sound between them. Delta turned the muster report over in her mind. The Sarge had informed the precinct of an unusually high amount of tampered coke and crack on the street, and much of it was beginning to filter into the schoolyards. Vice had yet to locate the exact source of what they knew to be a new, large shipment of the stuff having just landed in the area. Drug activity usually slowed in the winter as the cold kept people off the streets. But this year had so far been dramatically different. Already, a number of busts had occurred in an area that normally had very little drug activity; indicating a great deal more drugs on the street, and that for some reason, the pushers had been forced to expand their turf lines. Delta winced, remembering the bust she and Miles had made on a kid who had been pushing drugs in Miles’s kid’s school. She thought he was going to kill that kid, he was so incensed.

  “I also spent some time talking to Bassinger from Vice.” Miles’s voice interrupted Delta’s thoughts.

  “Oh?” She wished he’d get off this Vice thing and concentrate on what they were being paid to do.

  “He’s not as closemouthed as the rest of those guys. I got some pretty interesting information from him.”

  Delta swallowed hard. What in the hell was he up to?

  “Bassinger thinks the source of dope is coming from around our area, and borders Patterson and McKlinton’s beat.”

  Delta did not look at him, but stared straight ahead at the road. The bar she’d gone to last night was in Patterson’s beat; so was the Red Carpet. “Go on.”

  “This could be the one, Del.”

  Delta gripped the wheel harder. “Give it a rest, Miles. We’ll get to Vice sooner or later.”

  “Sooner is my preference. Come on, Del, you know that you’ve got to make your own path in this business. You can’t wait for the big busts to come to you. You have to create them. ”

  Delta turned slowly. “Is that what you’re doing? Creatin
g a big bust?”

  Miles said nothing.

  “Miles, do you realize how close you are to being yanked off the streets and thrown behind some god-awful desk?” Delta surprised herself with that bit of untethered honesty. And even more to her surprise, Miles nodded.

  “I haven’t been totally honest with you, Del.”

  “No shit.”

  “No, really. You know how badly I want to get to Vice.”

  Delta eyed a van driving suspiciously slow, and killed her speed to keep eyes on it.

  “I hope you haven’t done anything we’re going to regret.”

  Miles shook his head. “Just the opposite. I’m just taking care of us, that’s all.”

  Before Delta could respond, the dispatcher’s voice crackled their number.

  “S-10-12, what’s your twenty?”

  Miles picked up the mike. “This is S-10-12. Our twenty is 8th and Dryden.”

  “You have a four sixteen at 1900 South Bronte, and see the lady.”

  “Ten four.” Miles laid the mike back on the arm.

  A knot built in Delta’s stomach when she heard the address. 1900 South Bronte was next door to where she’d seen Miles last night. Whatever he was up to, he’d stopped hiding it from her.

  “What’s this all about?” she asked him as she turned left onto Bronte.

  Miles rubbed his hands together like a greedy miser about to strike it rich.

  “It’s a bit premature to give you any of the details yet, but this is the info I’ve been waiting for.”

  Delta looked at him sideways. “Is that her?”

  Miles practically jumped out of the car before she could stop it in front of a “no parking” sign. Miles slammed the door closed and leaned back through the window and smiled. “This won’t take a second.”

  The knot grew tighter as she watched Miles approach a young woman in her mid twenties wearing a red leather skirt and matching pumps. The long, slender legs and silky blonde hair draped over her shoulders would normally have Delta admiring them. As a woman, Delta filed the beauty deep in her subconscious. As a cop, she took a snapshot with her eyes and filed it with a red flag. Whoever this woman was, she sent the alarms ringing in Delta’s gut.