FicWad

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Part X: Bennigan and Strife


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Wolfwood took a sharp right turn, past the security booth, waved to the chubby security officer inside, and then felt a sense of relief as the familiar sight of his parking spot came into view.

What surprised him was the figure standing beside it. Wolfwood raised his eyebrow, shook his head, and then shut off the engine. The concerto music stopped blaring when he opened the door and then shut it gently.

"What are you doing out here?" Wolfwood grumbled.

"Nothing special."

Vash was all smiles as he came to stand next to Wolfwood.

"You know, you've got a real strange sense about time," Wolfwood said, lighting a cigarette. "I can't find you when I need you and then I pull into the parking lot and you're just /there/."

"Just figured you'd need some help carrying things is all," said Vash with a shrug. "And a friendly ear."

Grey smoke wreathed around Wolfwood's head as he leveled a considering look at Vash. "And did I tell you I had things to carry?"

"Is this door unlocked?" Vash asked, ignoring the question. He opened the back door of the car and started lifting out the photo albums that Lisa Morgan had given Wolfwood.

Wolfwood gave up. He dropped his half-finished cigarette onto the ground and then stomped it out with his foot. Then he opened the front door again and retrieved the photo off the seat, holding it carefully. Once everything was retrieved from the car, he pressed the autolock on his keychain and took a few of the albums from Vash. With their arms full, they strode towards the elevator that would take them into the station.

Vash leaned over to look at the photo on top of Wolfwood's stack of photo albums.

"Is this what you had to show me?"

"Yeah, recognize the girl?"

"That's Kelly and Angela, Picasso's ninth victim. So that's why I had to get out all those files? They knew each other."

"It's more than that, take a look at the building in the back," Wolfwood said. They had come to a halt in the parking garage before the elevators. He pushed the button for the second floor and waited while Vash thought.

"It's a hotel," he said. "It's the hotel Angela visited right before she died. And if Kelly stayed there, too..."

The elevator came and they stepped inside. Wolfwood shrugged. "It's not much of a lead, but it's something. I'll take what I can get. God knows I don't want to do this for another summer."

Vash looked at him for a long time. Wolfwood deliberately ignored him and the expression on his face--a mix between concern and something else--and stared at the numbers as they lit up. The elevator, he decided, was far, far too small.

Once out of the elevator, the quiet of the parking garage ended and the chaos of the station began. The detectives were jostled and knocked into as they tried to navigate through the crowded clustering of desks and bodies with their arms laden. Wolfwood got the oddest feeling that the entire station was staring at him, but tried not to think about it. He had work to do, which meant he needed to get through the insanity that was the police station on a busy afternoon first.

A couple of prostitutes, each of them in a strange assortment of animal prints and hot pink, winked at Vash while one of them ran her tongue around her lips suggestively, eyeing Wolfwood hungrily.

"Hey, I got a thing for detectives," she said. "You look hung. Can you go all night?"

Midvalley was the arresting officer. He sat behind an overloaded desk and shuffled through some papers then shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Sure he can, lady. And don't forget the handcuffs with him, either. Hear he's got a thing about 'em." He laughed at this and gave Wolfwood a playful look.

"Funny, funny," Wolfwood sighed. He sounded like someone who had heard the same kind of joke over and over and now couldn't even be bothered to care.

Vash was giving him concerned looks again, so Wolfwood picked up his pace and wrestled his way through the bustle of the station until he was before his office door. It took a bit of work to get the door open, but he managed after a few moments.

He and Vash set the albums on top of the filing cabinet beneath the windows. They both stared at them for a moment. There were so many of them, all in different states of age and cleanliness. One of them had a big stain on the front as if someone had spilled a glass of water on it and then let it sit for a long time before noticing. Some of them had covers that were barely hanging on.

He wondered if he flipped though the pages, if he would find Picasso somewhere, staring up at him. Would he pass right by him and not know? Had he ever passed him on the street, in the grocery store, in line at the post office and simply let him walk away?

And were these photos the lead they needed to finally catch him? If so, it was going to take time and energy he wasn't sure he had to spare. Wolfwood stood there for a while, thinking about all the work they now had to do and was pretty sure Vash, standing beside him, was thinking the same.

He was proved wrong when Vash asked, quietly, "Don't you ever get tired of the jokes?"

Wolfwood hadn't been expecting the question. Especially not from Vash. Vash was the one person he could trust to never mention it, never bring it up. The fact that he had hit him like a punch to the stomach. He suddenly felt very tired.

"Hell, I don't know," he said, rubbing at his face with more force than necessary. "People are gonna joke, right? I'm not gonna stop them."

Vash waited a moment before saying, "But they don't understand. They don't know what you went through. They don't know the whole st--"

"They don't need to know the whole story, Vash," Wolfwood interrupted, turning to look his partner in the eye. They stood there for a stretched, uncomfortable moment, looking at each other. Vash's eyes were just as serious as Wolfwood's and neither one would look away.

"It's in the past, Vash," Wolfwood said. He could feel his anger rising to the surface, knew at any second that he would snap and start to yell at his partner.

Vash looked away first. "No, it's not. Not for you. And that's the problem, isn't it? You won't let go and it won't let you go."

Wolfwood felt his breathing deepen, felt his fists clenching at his sides. "Shut. Up."

Vash looked at him with a sad expression on his face and said nothing for a moment and then, "I'm going to get us some coffee and then we can start on the files. I left them on your desk like you asked. Need anything while I'm out?"

Wolfwood shook his head. He watched as Vash walked stiffly away, but didn't move from the spot before the window. The glow he had had from talking to Milly was now completely gone. Her number was a warm reminder in his pocket, but it didn't fight the chill that held him. It was the same chill, mixed with something that he refused to acknowledge, that had tortured him for over three years.

He didn't like it, but wondered if he could go on without it. And Vash was a living, breathing reminder of it all. He'd never be able to forget as long as his partner was alive.

He still hadn't moved when Vash returned with two paper cups of coffee. "Well," said Vash, "looks like the files will have to wait: the chief wants to see you."

Wolfwood still couldn't speak to his partner, wasn't sure how he was going to be able to work with him at all today. He moved to the door, only nodding his understanding when Vash said, "I'll get started on all of this, see if I can find anything."

Wolfwood hardly noticed the noise of the station as he drifted through it, like a zombie, like a ghost. And here it was, the office of the chief. He gave the secretary a weak smile.

"He's expecting you, detective," she said and then gestured towards the door. Wolfwood didn't imagine the sympathetic look on her face.

He took a calming breath at the door. Stepping inside was like going to his own funeral. He was already angry enough.

The office was not tidy. It never was. The cleanest thing in the place was the windows and only because a crew came and scrubbed them once a week. The rest of the room was coffee stains, wads of tissue scattered here and there. One wall was a hectic collection of wanted posters, some of them of criminals that had been caught months ago. They overlapped and crowded in on each other, the opposite of the wall in Wolfwood's office, which was a neat, chronological arrangement. He turned away from it quickly to look at the man who stood behind the cluttered desk, arms crossed and face stern.

"Have a seat," said chief Bennigan.

"No thanks, chief."

"Have. A. Seat."

Wolfwood sat, all too aware of the heated bubbling beneath his skin. This was going to get ugly. He was in no mood for this today.

"It's very good of you to come," said another voice. Wolfwood hadn't noticed it when he entered, but a short figure was standing in the shadows near the shuttered window. Wolfwood squinted into the darkness to see their face.

"This is Strife, she's with PR," said Bennigan. He gestured and the woman moved from the shadows. Wolfwood stood to shake her hand.

"Wolfwood," he introduced himself. "Officer Strife?"

She smiled. "Please, call me 'Meryl.' It's an honor to meet you, detective."

Wolfwood waved this away and sat, offering the seat beside him to Meryl. It wasn't his office to be offering seats, but it was fun watching the vein pop out on Bennigan's neck.

"Shall I get you some coffee while you're here, too?" the chief said through his teeth.

"If it wouldn't be too much of a hassle," said Wolfwood. Bennigan slammed a thin finger onto a button on the phone. "Coffee," he barked into the speaker.

While they waited, Wolfwood took in the appearance of the woman called Meryl, who sat quietly beside him. She looked as if she had been born fully grown and prepared for office work. From her polished shoes to the precise cut of her suit, this woman meant business.

The secretary stole into the room, handed out coffee, gave Wolfwood an encouraging wink, and then stole away again. She shut the door very quietly as if she feared making any loud noises when the chief was like this.

Bennigan did not sit. Instead, he stood before the widows, silhouetted by the light that squeezed through the blinds. His back was rigid, his head down.

"Where have you been all morning, detective?" he asked in a calm voice that was deceptive.

"I went to speak with Lisa Morgan, the mother of the latest victim. Then I visited the crime scene again. If you needed me, you could have tried my cell phone."

Bennigan was silent. "Oh, real cute," he said after a time. "Your cell phone? When you should have been in your goddamn office? Cute."

He paused for a moment and then said, "But from your reports, I'm to understand that your clown of a partner already questioned Morgan's mother."

"That's correct, sir," said Wolfwood. "And don't insult my partner. It's not a good idea." He added, "Sir," belatedly.

Meryl stole a glance at him, her expression shocked, as if she couldn't believe he would speak to a superior that way.

"Oh...so we're tough enough to threaten me, then? Okay, okay. Fine." Bennigan gave a forced laugh and said, "And when, may I ask, has it been the policy of this department to question a victim's family multiple times if they're not a primary witness or capable of giving us anything useful to catch the fucking perp?" His voice had risen steadily as he spoke and Wolfwood could see Meryl stiffen in her chair beside him. He couldn't blame her. The chief was a big guy and his voice boomed like thunder, like explosives.

Wolfwood took another deep breath, but found it didn't help much. "With all due respect, chief, Kelly's mother requested to speak with me and it's just good manners to treat her as more than a one-time-use bit of information. If she needs to talk to me, I'll be there anytime. And she has provided us with useful evidence."

"Oh, has she?" Bennigan turned from the window then, snatched a pile of newspapers off his desk and threw them down before Wolfwood. "Well while you were getting your useful evidence, I've had to deal with /this/."

The front page showed a grainy image of an alley that Wolfwood was very familiar with and a few scattered images of victims past, girls who had died before he had even come to this department.

Wolfwood looked down at the headline:


PICASSO STILL ON THE LOOSE: "HE'S NOT HUMAN," POLICE SAY

Tuesday, The killer known as "Picasso" continues to elude police. The body of Kelly Morgan, 19, was found Wednesday in an alley near the July Business Plaza. Morgan's neck had been broken, though an anonymous source in the police revealed that the cause of death was a ruptured heart. "He's not human," said the source. "What Picasso can do is not normal. Morgan's heart...exploded." There were, apparently, no external influences that could have caused this reaction.

Polls have revealed that faith in the department's ability to capture Picasso has declined drastically. Some neighborhoods have begun forming task forces, citing their rights as citizens to defend themselves. Members of one such task force were arrested last Monday for attacking a man who they claimed "looked suspicious." Similar incidents have increased citywide, due largely to the fact that Morgan's death appears to be supernatural in nature.

When contacted, police officials gave assurances, promising that they were doing all they could to capture the serial killer. Picasso has been active for well over four years, killing during the summer and then vanishing during the winter months. The bodies of his victims are usually disfigured, as was the case with Morgan whose head was facing backwards.


Wolfwood flipped through the rest of the papers. Every headline, every top story, every editorial concerned Picasso and the fact that Kelly had died because her heart appeared to have burst on its own. The heart of a perfectly healthy girl.

He threw the stack back onto the desk. He'd had enough. "So you've got yourself a leak. Tough. So the people are scared; they have every right to be. You can't expect them to--"

"What I /expect/, lieutenant," the chief spat, "is that when our department is forced to accommodate some hotshot rookie with a fancy reputation and his even greener partner, that they can prevent things like this from happening."

Wolfwood clenched his fists. "Things like this? It's a newspaper, for God's sake, they'll write what they want!"

"Yes, but now we've got a ghost story on top of it all? I thought I made it clear that I didn't want the particular details of this murder released to the public. This case was high profile before, now we've got people thinking this sicko is some kind of...monster! This is your case, so this is your leak. You fix it, and you fix it good."

Wolfwood couldn't stop a bitter laugh from slipping past his lips. "Are you kidding me?" He stood, slamming his hands onto the desk before him. The stack of papers and books and the messy line of picture frames rattled. "I wasn't transferred here to make sure you came out smelling like a daisy. You've got a leak. It's not my problem. It's..." he turned and gestured towards the woman who had sat silently through the whole exchange. "It's her department's responsibility to handle things like this. I'm a detective."

Bennigan's eyes narrowed. "Yeah, you're a detective. But you're more than that, aren't you? You're the department's Golden Boy. You're the man who can solve it all. Look at /me/!" he said, spreading his arms wide. "It took me years to claw my way up from patrolman to sergeant. And then years and years of hard work later the bastards on high finally said, 'Okay, here you go, you can be a lieutenant now' and I thought that was fine. Just fine.

"I didn't mind that it took me fifteen years to do it and another five after that to finally become a sergeant and then another three to become captain and another four to become chief. I didn't mind. Because that's the way the world works."

He glared at Wolfwood. "But not for you. No, you did what nobody else can do. You went through the ranks like /that/," he said, snapping his fingers once, the sound loud in the quiet room. "You're what, 27 years old? And a detective lieutenant? That's impossible and you know it."

The two men exchanged scowls across the desk. "I've been a cop longer than you've been alive, boy. So you're the superstar," the chief said. "You deal with this shit."

"What do you expect me to do?" Wolfwood growled.

"That's where Strife comes in," Bennigan said, nodding his head towards the woman.

She stood, looking very small beside the men. "We, the personnel in PR, I mean, have been fielding even more questions regarding Picasso for well over a year now. And we've kept a tight lid on everything as we were requested to do," she said. "The leak is definitely not from one of mine."

Wolfwood had a bad feeling about this. He remembered very well his first month at this department when he had sent out quite a few letters, memos and requests indicating that any information regarding the investigating officers working on the Picasso case were to be kept out of the papers. He had had his reasons and he still stood by them. It was all too clear that things were about to change and that he wouldn't like it when they did.

"The problem is that...there are...some people who believe the public would like some reassurances. From someone they trust. It would have to be through a venue with a widespread audience. A press conference. An interview. Something like that. There are some officials who believe this would help lessen the public panic."

Wolfwood rubbed his face hard. "So what you're really saying is that the commissioner doesn't like me being on the payroll if I don't live up to my reputation and catch the big bad wolf? You want me to smile for the cameras and tell everyone it's going to be okay now because I'm around?"

She looked somewhat embarrassed and coughed into her hand. "It wouldn't hurt things to have the public know exactly who is working on this case. It would put some fears to rest."

"And what else?" Wolfwood said in a voice that was barely a whisper. His eyes were trained on the chief.

"You tell them that it was all a big mix up," the older man growled. "You tell them that Picasso is flesh and blood just like the rest of us. You tell them Morgan had her fucking neck snapped and nothing else. You show that million-dollar mug of yours as often as necessary to make the noise die down."

It took a moment to force his nails out of his palm. When he finally managed it, Wolfwood said, "And when I'm running around covering a leak that is your department's fault--something that never happened out east, just so you know--how am I gonna have the time to work on the Picasso case and the five other homicide cases I'm dealing with right now?"

The chief leaned close to Wolfwood, so close that Wolfwood could see the stubble on his chin and smell the coffee on his breath. A malicious grin spread across his face.

"Oh, Golden Boy, I'm sure you can work that out. I've heard you don't mind putting in the extra work for your cases. Long hours. Hectic schedules. Hell, I've heard you're willing to do all kinds of things to catch the bad guy. Heard you don't mind dealing with a little pain to get things done, either. Heard maybe you even like it. Heard you like it quite a lot. All sorts of ways."

Wolfwood didn't know it was going to happen. Suddenly, his fist was in the chief's teeth.

He heard Meryl gasp and then stumble backwards into her chair. She scrambled out of it and stood across the room. Her eyes were wide with panic.

Bennigan went down. His torso slammed into the desk. He slipped on spilt coffee and blood when he pushed himself up, his arms shaking. The look on his face was a mix between fury and disbelief.

"I'll have your badge for that," he said. The blood on his teeth looked thick and vile.

Wolfwood turned and walked away, already feeling the bruises forming on his knuckles and the blood coating them.

"Yeah, you tell the commissioner you're taking my badge. You go ahead and tell him and see what he says." He stopped at the door. "Meryl," he said, but the girl was staring at the blood dripping from the chief's face and didn't react. "Officer Strife," he said with more force.

"Yes, lieutenant?" she gasped and whirled to face him. She looked terrified.

"Contact me when you're ready to do this," he said with the last shred of patience he could manage.

"Yes, sir."

He tried not to slam the door, but it rattled loudly anyway. The secretary jumped in surprise.

"Detective..." she began, but let it drop when she saw the blood on his knuckles and the splatters of it on his jacket.

He walked back to his office as if in a trance. Everything was a blur of light and sounds that were old and terrible but wouldn't go away and there was a taste in his mouth that he didn't like and his heart wouldn't stop and his mind wouldn't stop and Vash was right about everything: it wouldn't let him go, it kept coming, kept coming, kept coming.

"Hey, lieutenant. Detective!"

He stopped in the middle of the floor, turning to face the voice that had called him.

It was a young patrolman by the name of Evers. He was holding a couple dollars and looked like he was having a good time. There were two other cops sitting next to him, each one looking more cheerful than they had rights to look in a police station.

"Hey, detective, wow, where were you just now? You were, like, on another planet," Evers said and shared a laugh with the others around him. "Have you got minute? You're the only one who'll know the answer to this one, so d'ya mind helping us settle a bet?"

"What is it?" Wolfwood answered mechanically. He wanted to get away, but wanted to act normally, didn't want to arouse suspicions, to let anyone know...

"See, we were talking about serial killers, your speciality, right?"

Wolfwood tried not to flinch.

Evers continued. "And then someone asked this question, but none of us knows for sure. So, how many victims did the Leatherman Killer have before you caught him?"

Evers pointed to a stocky cop perched on the desk beside him. "Byers and me say 22, but," he pointed at another, sandy-haired cop who was eyeing Wolfwood with wide eyes and a goofy half-grin, "Craig here says we're wrong."

Wolfwood closed his eyes and forced the bile down his throat. The flashes came, brightly. Lights, music like roaring typhoons, bodies crushing together, crushing against him, the smell of sweat drying on leather.

The snap of a whip. Again, again, again.

He opened his eyes. "It was 21," he answered quietly.

"No way," said Evers. "I remember reading about this and it was 22. I'm sure I heard that somewhere."

Wolfwood shook his head. "No, it was 21," he managed.

The flashes worsened. The floor was too loud, too bright.

"You sure?" asked Evers, looking disappointed.

Wolfwood swallowed and said, "Yes. One of them got away," before turning and all but running away, pushing his way through the crush of bodies, frantic.

"Hey, watch it!"

"Detective, are you all right?"

"Detective, the commissioner's on the phone and he says..."

He ran.

He made it to the bathroom in time.

He vomited until there was nothing left in his stomach and then he dry heaved, sweat pouring down his face though his body felt ice cold.

And then he sat there, and sat there, leaning against the cool tile, trying to forget.

To be continued...