“Just getting up to speed,” Rebecca replied neutrally, eying the one chair piled with copies of the Journal of Forensic Pathology and concluding it would be safest to remain standing.

“In the two months you’ve been gone, Frye, I haven’t gotten senile. And the only open case I can think of that you might be interested in is a double homicide that someone would like to see forgotten.”

“Two dead cops,” Rebecca said softly, her expression darkening. “Jimmy Hogan and Jeff Cruz. I have to ask myself, why hasn’t the department been turning the city upside down to find out who killed them? Every day while I lay up there in that hospital bed I waited for someone to come and talk to me about it. One of the Homicide dicks to question me, to fill me in, or to ask me about Jeff’s cases. Nothing.”

Flanagan nodded as she leaned back in her chair and regarded the tall cop steadily. “I know that Cruz was your partner, but maybe you didn’t know him as well as you think.”

“Don’t play games with me, Flanagan. If you’ve got something to say, spit it out,” Rebecca said, her tone lethally cold. She respected the CSI chief, and over the years had grown to like her, but Jeff Cruz had been her partner. No one came before him in her allegiance; no one except Catherine.

“I’m not the enemy here, Frye,” Flanagan pointed out in what was for her a reasonable tone. “You may not realize it, but those homicides are open cases on my books, too. Even if they weren’t cops, I’d want to find the perp.” When Rebecca didn’t reply, but merely regarded her with a flat opaque gaze, she exhaled slowly and continued. “There’s been some not so quiet speculation that Jimmy Hogan was dirty. He’d been working underground in the Zamora organization a long time. He had no family, no real friends, and even his bosses didn’t always know what he was doing. His files are so thin you can see through them.”

“Yeah. He was a perfect undercover agent. For that he gets this from us in return?” Rebecca commented bitterly, expecting no reply. Where is the famous solidarity of the Thin Blue Line now? Bastards.

“But he did call Jeff Cruz. More than once.”

“They were training partners when they got out of the academy. Then Jimmy went to Narco and Jeff to Vice. But they had history.”

“That may be it, Frye. I’m just telling you what I’ve heard.”

“So what’s the theory?” Rebecca asked tiredly. “That Jimmy went bad, enticed Jeff with—what? Money? Jeff and Shelly lived in a starter home, for Christ’s sake. He drove a ten year old Mustang.”

“Did you get anything solid from Hogan’s Intel?” Flanagan asked, ignoring the questions no one could answer.

“Not much,” Rebecca admitted. “Supposedly, he had gotten on to something involving the chicken trade. He was going to feed us some names. He never got the chance.”

“Or there wasn’t anything there to report, and Jeff’s meetings with him were a front.”

“If that were the case, why would Jeff have even bothered to tell me he was meeting Hogan?” Rebecca countered. “He could have done it all under the table.”

“Maybe Jeff was hedging his bets and covering all the bases. Maybe he figured if things went south with Hogan, he could always claim he was working Hogan for information, and just pretended to be rolling over.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Yeah. I agree with you.” Flanagan had the uneasy feeling that Frye was about to fold. Her face was unusually pale, even considering her normally light Nordic coloring, there were faint beads of sweat on her forehead, and her breathing was a bit jerky. In fact, she looked like hell. The criminalist got up and moved around to the front of her desk where she might have a prayer of catching the detective if she dropped. Suggesting that the cop sit down wasn’t an option. You didn’t tell Frye to take it easy. “Look, Frye. All I’m saying is that’s there’s a lot going on around their deaths that none of us understand. As far as I can tell, Homicide has backed way off it, and the brass aren’t going to be real happy about anyone stirring it up. So—be careful who you talk to, and don’t trust anyone.”

Rebecca leaned a shoulder against the doorframe, wondering if it had suddenly gotten warmer in the small space. A river of sweat ran between her shoulder blades and she had to blink several times to clear her vision. “I want to see the autopsy reports and your crime scene files.”

“I can’t give them to you.”

“Damn it, Dee.” She pushed away from the wall so quickly, Flanagan actually held out a hand to ward off a blow.

“Jesus,” Flanagan breathed when Rebecca halted a few inches from her. “I don’t have them. The whole file was pulled.”

“Who has it?”

Flanagan shrugged. “It says Homicide. I suspect it’s IAD. You know they’d be looking into any officer related death. That’s SOP.”

“You gave them your file?” Her tone was incredulous. No one got a hand on Flanagan’s files. Impatiently, she swiped moisture from her forehead and considered taking off her jacket. She moved back a step, putting distance between them, searching for some air.

“Fuck, no,” Flanagan said, her composure cracking at last. “The bastards raided my files. I don’t know how, but the data are gone.”

“Don’t you—keep copies, or something?”

“My reports are all computerized, Frye. Supposedly the system backs up automatically. Except it didn’t, or someone is lying to me. All I know is that I can’t find them, and the idiots who are supposed to know something about this can’t tell me jack shit.”

Rebecca looked around the office. Motioning with her head toward a computer nearly buried by stacks of folders and reports, she asked, “Is that where you input all your final data?”

“There and substations in the various lab divisions. Serology, Toxicology, Prints—they all enter their findings under the case file number and it gets stored that way.”

“But one way or another, it’s all generated down here in your section?”

“Yes.” Flanagan could see the wheels turning. “Why? You any good with this kind of thing? I tried but nothing worked.”

“Not me.” Rebecca said with a short mirthless laugh. “But I might know someone. I’ll let you know.”

“There wasn’t much in the file anyhow. There was precious little evidence from the scene. I’ve got a few of my hand written notes from the first walk through. You’re welcome to see them, and I’ll tell you anything I can.”

“Why get involved?” Rebecca asked, her tone not critical, merely curious.

“Because it’s my job.”

Their eyes met in a moment of perfect understanding, and for the first time Rebecca smiled. “Thanks, Flanagan.”

“Don’t mention it. Oh, and Frye?”

Rebecca raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Watch your back.”

“Yeah. I’ll do that.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

CATHERINE UNLOCKED THE door that opened into her office from a hallway off the main corridor and crossed the room to her desk. Normally, her patients exited through this door so that they did not have to go out through the main waiting room and running to other patients who were waiting. It also allowed her to come and go without seeing her patients before or after the session. She glanced at the clock on the opposite wall and saw that it was 5:28 pm. Sighing tiredly, she settled into the high backed leather chair behind her desk and picked up the phone. Dialing the extension for her secretary , she closed her eyes briefly.

“Yes?” Joyce asked.

“Is my 5:30 here yet?”

“Yes,” Joyce answered. Right on time and looking like she’s about to face a firing squad. She smiled faintly at the serious-faced young woman sitting across from her and was rewarded by a brief lift of her surprisingly full lips in return.

“Good. Give me a minute, and then tell her to come in.”

“Anything I can get you? I put fresh coffee on.”

“No, thanks. I’ll grab a cup between this one and the last one.”

“Very well.”

A moment later, Catherine’s door from her waiting room opened and her 5:30 appointment walked in. “Good evening, Officer.”

“Hi.” Mitchell settled into her customary spot, the right hand leather chair of the pair that faced the psychiatrist’s desk. As she sat, she plucked at the thighs of her sharply creased trousers to minimize the wrinkling. Her back did not touch the upright portion of the chair.

“I see you’re in uniform, so you are still working, I take it?”

“More or less,” Mitchell acknowledged. “I’m getting paid. No street duty though. It’s a desk job, more or less. “

“And I assume you find that frustrating?”

“Well, until this morning I would have said so, yes.”

Catherine raised a surprised eyebrow. “Really? I got the impression you considered anything other than a street assignment almost a disciplinary action.”

Mitchell smiled. “Most cops like to think of themselves as street cops. After all, that’s where the action is. That’s where you make your stripes. The only ones who don’t want street duty are the ones who come to law enforcement with the intent to be administrators. They’re the MBAs who want to be commissioner someday and the lawyers who can’t find jobs, and hope that a year or two of police were will give them a step up into the prosecutor’s office. They only put in enough street time to fulfill their basic requirements before angling for something that will get them an administrative position.”

“So most officers would find your present duty undesirable?”

“Well…” she still wasn’t entirely certain how much you should reveal to the psychiatrist. She felt a lot safer talking to her then she would have to the departmental shrink, but there was no telling how much of what they discussed would make its way back to her division commander or into her personal file. Still, it felt good to be able to talk to someone. Carefully, she continued. “The duty Sergeant gave me an assignment that I’m sure he thought would just take me off the streets and put me somewhere where everyone could forget about me. Usually when they want to bury someone they move them to the property room, which is an assignment that most people get when they’ve been disciplined but can’t be fired or older uniformed officers who are approaching retirement and want something easy to do. He probably figured if he did that it would have been a little obvious. Then if I complained to my union rep it would have made things touchy. So he posted me to what he thought would be a dead-end duty, but I think he figured wrong.”

Catherine laughed. “You’re going to have to do some translating for me here, Officer. The intricacies of police politics escape me.”

Laughing, Mitchell relaxed enough to lean back in her seat. “Me too, although I’m learning quickly. He put me on this new task force that’s just getting underway, probably figuring it would be nothing but a bureaucratic nightmare and all I would be doing is filing paperwork. Probably all I will be doing is filing paperwork, but I’m working with someone who almost anyone in uniform would give an arm or a leg to work with.”

“I think I see,” Catherine remarked. “So you think that might be an advantage to this assignment that no one appreciated, is that it?”

“Maybe. First of all, it’s an interesting assignment. Plus, several federal agencies are involved, so there’s a chance it could turn into something really big. If I can contribute something, maybe I can show that I’m not a screw up.”

Catherine didn’t reply, and her face did not show her consternation. There couldn’t possibly be two task forces like this at one time. Rebecca’s assignment. Attempting to redirect the conversation away from the specifics in hopes of avoiding any discussion of her lover, she asked, “So you’re not displeased with your current work situation?”

“No, not at all. The fastest way for someone to get promoted out of the ranks into the detective division is by assisting a detective with their case. And the detective in charge of the PD end of things is Rebecca Frye. You know her, of course, because you were involved with her during the Harker thing. If I can manage to make any kind of impression on her, it could actually end up helping my career.”

“Yes. Of course.” Catherine had known that her involvement in the serial murderer/rape case might come up with any of her patients. Unfortunately, it had been heavily publicized, and the dramatic ending had also been covered by the news and print media. Despite her attempts to downplay her involvement, her photograph had been displayed on television and in local newspapers and magazines. Nevertheless, anticipating that it would come up in session and actually having it presented to her were two different things. Still careful to keep her expression neutral, she continued, “I’m glad this new assignment hasn’t turned out to be a punishment.”

“Are you kidding? As soon as I get a better idea of how she’s going to run the street end of things, I’m hoping I can make myself useful. I’ve been working the Tenderloin for more than half a year. It could be I know some people who might give us some leads. But no matter how it turns out, any uniformed officer would pay money to work with her.”

I don’t doubt it. Except this is supposed to be desk duty for her. But I can’t very well bring that up, can I? Mentally turning that thought aside, the psychiatrist concentrated on her new patient. Mitchell’s entire demeanor had changed from one of quiet resignation to enthusiasm. It was clear how important her work was to her emotional state. And it was time to get back to that. “Our last session ended before you were able to tell me what happened in the alley that night. We need to go through it, and talk about what happened after, before I can sign off on my evaluation.”

“I know.” Mitchell’s expression became serious as she met Catherine’s eyes. She was ready to get it over with. Perfunctorily, she stated flatly, “There isn’t very much more to tell. I went down the alley—”

“Wait,” Catherine interrupted softly. She didn’t want a recitation; she wanted the remembrances. “It was dark, and you were alone, and your backup hadn’t arrived. There were sounds of a struggle, and you went to investigate, correct?”

Mitchell’s eyes darkened as Catherine’s quiet voice brought her back to the moment that was still as clear in her memory as the instant it had happened.

“I had my weapon out and my heart was beating so fast it was like a drum beating in my ears. I pressed my back flat against the brick wall and I could feel the uneven surface of the stones catching on the back of my shirt as I eased my way down the alley. I didn’t want him to know I was coming until I was close enough to subdue him, because I didn’t know if he had a weapon. It’s impossible to subdue a suspect hand to hand if you’re not within arm’s reach. If he has a gun and you can’t physically reach him, you’re dead. It was hard not to stumble over bits of trash and broken glass and rocks. I was certain I was announcing my presence with every step I took. The gun barrel was angled up—I was holding it beside my face in a two-handed grip, and I was looking past it towards the shapes that were just shadows moving in the little bit of light that filtered down from the windows high up above me. As I got closer I could hear him grunting, and she was…” Mitchell swallowed, trying not to remember the sound of a skull being slammed hard against a stone wall and the soft moan of pain.

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