Picking up where we left off
Bill got up, showered, and left for therapy. It had been three days since…since the man nearly killed him at the Used Car Lot. Captain Reno said to take time off to get his head on straight. Time…Time was his enemy not his friend. He kept seeing the perpetrator’s face…the six inch knife…and hearing his partner calling his name.
‘Bill, talk to me,’ said Dr. Delmonico. ‘I’ve known you and Joe a long time. The two of you have been through a lot together. He had your back and you’ve had his. I’ve helped both of you profile many suspects. I understand you’ve been through a trauma. It’s the same type of trauma that soldiers go through in battle. It’s called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. But, Bill, I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me,’ said Dr. Delmonico.
‘What do you want me to say?’ he responded angrily.
‘What do you feel now? What did you feel then?’
‘Frightened. Damn it, I was scared shitless. I panicked when I couldn’t get my gun out of my waistband and the killer was standing there, over me, with a six inch kitchen knife, ready to stab me.’
‘Rationally you knew your partner, SWAT, and another detective were there. But you can’t help how you feel staring into the face of a man who wanted you dead,’ said Dr. Delmonico.
‘I’ve been in tight situations with Joe before but this time I felt utterly alone. Logically, I knew Joe was there but I was face to face with the killer of two innocent men. This guy had nothing to lose in killing me. He lost his family and he blamed others for his loss. I could have been number three. My wife would have been without a husband and my kids would have grown up without a father. All of that was going through my mind.’
‘Joe killed the suspect,’ stated Dr. Delmonico.
‘I heard Joe call to the suspect to drop the knife and when he didn’t, Joe shot him three times. He fell to the right of me. Then Joe stood over me in the showroom calling my name. I couldn’t even answer him. I was paralyzed with fear. Jesus, I had never been that scared.’
Pausing and looking at Bill, Dr. Delmonico sat back in his chair and asked, ‘So where do you want to go from here.’
‘What do you mean?’ Bill retorted.
‘If you go back to the Major Case Squad, you go back to the same type of cases that you and Joe have been investigating for years. Murders…mostly, but deranged, fucked-up people doing irrational things, nearly all of them murderers and them needing to be imprisoned for a very long time.’
‘I know that, but how do I get over this fear?’
‘Maybe you don’t. Maybe you have to learn to live with it and move on.’
‘That’s your answer?’ shouted Bill.
‘Did you expect me to do a dance that will free you of your fear? It doesn’t work like that, Bill. Getting over trauma takes time. You have to look inside yourself and decide if you want to continue to be a detective with the Major Case Squad.’
‘Police work is all I know,’ replied Bill emphatically.
‘There is always desk duty,’ stated Dr. Delmonico
‘I’d die if I were chained to a desk.’
‘Then by being in the field, you will run the risk of being in a situation like the one you were in, AND, this is the really important part, you have to be ready to go back and face whatever the situation is, because you are no good to anyone if you have it in your head that you or your partner may get shot. Then you will be lost, maybe forever. You can’t second guess yourself. It has to come from the gut. It needs to be automatic. Los Angeles needs good detectives. Joe needs a partner he can rely on. But you have to be sure you can do the job. We can continue to meet whenever you need to but first you have to make the decision if you want to go back,’ replied Dr. Delmonico.
‘There’s no decision to be made. I was born to be a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department and uphold the law. I need to go to the range, practice handling my gun more, and do whatever it takes to become the old Bill Kelby.’
‘Sounds like a great start. How about we meet the same time on Friday? You can update me on how you did at the range and how you are dealing with your feelings. Maybe you need to give Joe a call. I’m sure he’s concerned.’
‘I will. Thanks Dr. Delmonico. I’ll stop by the station and I’ll see you here at 10 a.m. on Friday.’
##
‘I want some pictures taken over here,’ said Joe to the Crime Scene Investigator. ‘And I want a cast taken of these footprints and the animal prints.’
‘Animal prints?’ asked the CSI technician.
‘Yeah, because if the white rhino didn’t do it, then I need to figure out what animal did. Is it another four-legged kind that could have done it or maybe the two-legged kind?’
Joe walked around the perimeter of the crime scene looking for clues while Marlene followed him soaking up every little nuance of what he was doing. In the bushes, he saw something shiny and went over to it. It looked like a candy bar wrapper. Joe yelled to the CSI tech to take a picture of it and bag it. He gingerly walked around the area where the wrapper was. Another shoeprint was found. This time it appeared to be a man’s shoe, size 12 or 13.
‘Cast this, will you?’ asked Joe. ‘When will you have the evidence processed?’ he said to the technician.
‘Come by the lab this afternoon and I will have something for you then.’
‘Thanks.’
Joe and Marlene headed for Administration building. Joe had it in his mind that the suspect was a tall man with large feet but that profiling has been wrong before. It could be a shorter stockier man who just happened to have big feet. Unfortunately that could be the entire zoo staff for all he knew. It didn’t mean he did the crime, but he might have seen something because he was there. It could be he came to feed the rhino and saw the dead man and ran off or it could have been the killer.
##
No promotions ever. All I have to look forward to is cleaning animal cages and look at what that bastard did? That idiot kissed ass and got a promotion. I’m as good as Johnny was with the animals if not better. I should have been promoted too. Well I showed them. I’ll show them all. Let them think the animals killed the cage cleaner. Johnny wasn’t the only one who deserved to be promoted. I applied for multiple positions. I love hanging out with the animals but I’m tired of picking up poop. Twenty years of cleaning the enclosures. Let the new kids do it and get their hands dirty but they don’t want to. They went to college. They got Vet Tech degrees. Well, they should start at the bottom and work their way up like I did. I’m tired of getting a raise, saying I did a good job, but no promotion. Maybe I should have killed the head of personnel, not an animal cage cleaner like myself. Well, it doesn’t matter now. What matters is that I should get the open position. It’s rightly mine. It’s time to plan the next murder if I don’t get it. I’ll kill them all if I have to, to get what’s rightly mine.…
##
‘So?’ asked Joe to the Zoo Administrator, ‘Had there been any death threats against the animal enclosure cleaner?’
‘Johnny…nah…couldn’t ask for a nicer guy. He was about to be promoted.’
‘Promoted? To what?’ asked Marlene.
‘To Assistant Vet Technician. He had been around here forever and knew more about the animals than the Techs with degrees. Sometimes they would ask him what was wrong if an animal wasn’t eating or pooping, and he would know. There wasn’t anything the guy didn’t know.’
‘So, why was a guy who was so well-loved have someone murder him?’ asked Joe.
‘I said, Well-loved by the animals,’ replied the Administrator firmly.
‘You mean the two-legged kind not so much?’ asked Joe.
‘Your words not mine.’
‘Come on…cut the crap. Was he or wasn’t he liked by his co-workers?’ replied Joe.
‘No…he wasn’t.’
‘Were there threats?’ asked Marlene.
‘Not exactly.’
‘What the hell does that mean?’ said Joe.
‘Management loved him…coworkers not so much. Animals were really happy with him. He could make a sick animal eat and/ or poop by coming over and giving medicine unlike some of the techs who go by the book and when an animal doesn’t react, they don’t know what to do.’
‘So Johnny got promoted to technician and you think another employee, maybe another cage cleaner, could have offed him because this person was jealous?’
‘Hard to say…he kissed a lot of butts to get the promotion. The zoo isn’t too keen on promoting people without degrees on experience alone, so the other enclosure cleaners were not happy to see him get promoted. All they had to look forward to were the yearly raise and increased benefits. For them they would always be picking up poop.
‘There was no other job they could promote to?’
*’Since it’s a city job, they would have to wait for an opening in another department and test for it like anyone else. The only thing that would go with him was his seniority.’
‘It sounds like anyone that walked on two legs hated him,’ said Joe.
‘That about sums it up,’ replied the Administrator.
‘Envy...the oldest motive to kill,’ said Marlene.
##
‘Let’s go back to the office and see what CSI people have for us,’ said Joe.
It was quiet on the ride back. Marlene wasn’t sure what to say so she just blurted out, ‘You could talk about a Dr. Delmonico about profiling this person….Are you interested in consulting him?’
‘Sounds like a great idea.’
##
‘Good afternoon, Joe.’
‘Good afternoon Dr. Delmonico. This is my partner, Marlene Jones. She’s filling in for Bill until he gets back,’ said Joe.
‘I think we met on another case. It had to do with a man killing prostitutes and emasculating Johns.’
‘Good memory, Doc.,’ said Marlene.
‘Well what can I do for you? I hope it is something less problematic.’
‘’fraid not, Doc. So how common would it be for someone to get so angry that another person got a promotion they would kill them because of said promotion?’
‘Enraged, the word is ‘enraged,’’ emphasized Dr. Delmonico. ‘It can cause a normal person to lose perspective and do something he normally wouldn’t do.’ I wonder who else he envied. I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes right now. Are you sure there aren’t any other motives? Maybe the guy was a gambler and killed for owing the wrong people money. Or he used drugs and he owed these people money to continue his habit.’
‘We have already considered this and it definitely isn’t anything like you suggested,’
‘What kind of person was he? Nice, abrasive, wonderful, hateful.’
‘The animals loved him. People, not so much.’
‘So he pissed off people. What, he had an attitude?...How much of an attitude can you have picking up animal poop?’
‘An attitude could have been, ha ha, you dumb bastards. I’m being promoted. Nah, nah, no more poop picking up for me. All you guys are ever going to be are enclosure cleaners.’
‘So, he was obnoxious. He bragged. I’m not a pooper scooper any more. You are. Ha, ha for you. So assume this caused the person to snap. He couldn’t deal with his job anymore and rather than leave and look elsewhere which is what a normal person would do, he took his rage out and killed the person he was in competition with. He could think now he can have this job or now he’ll have to kill again to secure his position in case anyone else would be considered over him. You need to draw him out.’
‘Draw him out?’
‘Yes, draw him out. Someone on the outside needs to be promoted to the position. This guy won’t be able to handle the frustration and will be drawn out to try to kill again. I know someone but I have to see if he’s willing to do it.’
##
‘Thanks for coming back today, Bill and talking to me. How do you feel?’ asked Dr. Delmonico
‘Pretty good. I went to the range and shot my gun, and practiced putting it in and retrieving it out of my waistband and holster.’
‘Good. Now I want to run something by you and before you tell me to go and stick it, I want to throw you back in the action. You trust me, right?’
‘Yeah, I guess.’
‘Joe and Marlene are working on a case. They need someone no one has seen to go in undercover and pose as a person who has come from another zoo and is going to be promoted from an animal cage cleaner to a Vet Tech. They believe the person who killed the victim became enraged that the victim was being promoted over the killer. We need to test the theory.’
‘You want me to be the pigeon AGAIN.’
‘Basically…yes.’
‘No offense, Doc., but I think you’re nuts.’
‘You want to be cured of your fear. Correct? I call this facing your fear or baptism by fire. It would be set up like the Used Car Lot case only more so. You would be assigned an animal cage to clean. The announcement will be made that you are getting the deceased person’s job because of your stellar record at another zoo. The place will be swarming with SWAT plus Joe, Marlene, Roberts, and other Major Case Squad detectives. Then it becomes a wait see game.’
‘I’m sorry Doc., but I can’t do this.’
‘If you don’t do this, you may never do field work again. This assignment will help you face your fears or maybe you want to sit behind a desk for the rest of your career.’
‘You know that’s not true.’
‘Then you need to do this,’ replied Dr. Delmonico.
‘I…don’t…know,’ stuttered Bill.
‘If you don’t do this, you will regret it for the rest of your life.’
‘Okay, let me talk with Joe, get the low down on the case, and go from there.’
‘I can’t ask for anything more.’
##
Bill walked into the Major Case Squad room. They came over and shook his hands and was greeted warmly by all the guys, including Captain Reno, Joe, and Marlene.
‘I understand you need a pigeon again,’ said Bill looking at Joe feeling dejected.
‘Yeah and I’m sorry. We need to flush the guy into the open. You know your cover,’ replied Joe wishing it could be him and not his partner.
‘Couldn’t you have gotten me a position of authority? Do I have to clean animal enclosures?’
‘Hopefully no but you have to make it look like you are.’
‘Look I’m not thrilled being at the zoo in the first place. The kids like it. I can’t stand the smell,’ replied Bill with his eyes already running at the thought of all the bad smells at the zoo.
‘Don’t take your allergy meds and hopefully you won’t smell anything,’ said Joe trying not to smile.
‘Funny…very funny. I’m not laughing.’
##
Bill wore a mic taped to his chest just under his uniform. It was a hot spring day and he was sweating buckets from the heat and being so nervous. He had a water bottle with him and took a few gulps.
‘Bill, testing one, two three,’ said Joe.
‘I read you,’ replied Bill.
‘Roberts, you there?’
‘10-4.’
‘Peters, you there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Captain Reno?’
‘I’m here.’
‘SWAT Captain?.’
‘Yes, SWAT is in place. Five officers are all over that cage like stink on sh…, well you know.’
‘You know, SWAT Captain, that was almost funny,’ said Bill.
‘Bill,’ said Joe, ‘We need you to walk around, hum, chew gum, look like you are picking up animal doo doo. I’ll get the administrative guy to approach you to make the official announcement but the news already went around through out the zoo. If our killer is going to try to knock you off, it will be now.’
##
Son of a bitch. They are promoting a person from another zoo. Well it’s time he bites the big one too. And they assigned him Misty the elephant. Ha. I’ll get her all riled up.
##
It’s my pleasure to announce our newest member of the staff. Mr. Bill Kelby. He will be promoted from Animal Enclosure Cleaner to Vet Tech. He will be taking Johnny’s place. We are deeply saddened about what happened to Johnny. Of course our white rhino will have to be put down for being aggressive. Such a pity.
##
Thank you Administrator O’Hanion. I hope to do the zoo proud.
Just then, Misty rose up on her two back legs screaming. She was being hit in the butt, and head with darts. The pain was too much. Misty started to stampede. Bill Kelby pulled the administrator out of the way, saw the perpetrator, and shouted, ‘Halt, Police.’
Jensen, the perpetrator, screamed, ‘Screw you, screw all of you. That promotion was supposed to be mine.’ With that, he lunged at Bill with a large knife similar to the one he faced at the Used Car Lot.
Bill heard Joe scream, ‘Halt, Police.’
Joe responded with, ‘Go, Go, Go,’ but this was Bill’s shoot. SWAT couldn’t get a shot off. Joe ran to his partner with Marlene and Roberts behind him.
Bill aimed his gun and fired twice hitting the guy in the chest and abdomen. The guy fell down, killing him instantly.
Joe got to his partner out of breath just as Bill lowered his gun. He said, ‘You okay partner?’
‘Yeah, I’m better than okay… I’m back.’
About the author
Since becoming disabled in 2015, Maxine took up her passion for writing. She has been published several times in the Los Angeles Daily News, The Epoch Times, Nail Polish Stories, DarkWinterLit, BrightFlashLiteraryReview, OtherwiseEngagedLit, CafeLit, Maudlin House, and TheMetaworker.com.
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