“And how are you doing this morning?” Dana asks. She is bouncing around and clapping like a teenage school girl. I hate zombie school. It is like she is full of adrenalin, or something.
“Just great. You got to meet the other zombies over breakfast?” I avoid asking how the meeting went. It is pretty clear already, and I really don’t want to know.
“Do you know Eric Gunner. Have you met Eric Gunner? You need to introduce me to Eric,” she is speaking more rapidly than usual. I can’t find the airtime to answer her questions. She puts a hand to her chest and exhales. “I’ll bet he is a wild-man in the sack.”
“Okay,” this is more information than I need this morning, time to change the subject. “We received print results overnight from yesterday’s perps. Our favorite lumberjack doesn’t have a record, but the shooter does. Theft, assault. Not a career criminal, just a wayward youth. Stayed out of jail – apparently he had good legal representation. Not too much more on his rap sheet. His name is John Middleton, and we have a recent address.”
“Let’s go find us some more bad guys,” Dana is already on the move.
Oh boy. I’m going to have to keep up today.
The address on file looks like it is for both John and his parents. I’m not looking forward to this meeting. The parents had been informed already, but according to police regulations, I’m going to have to reveal my very personal relationship with their son.
We arrive at John’s home. It has a nice picket fence around it, and is part of a good neighborhood. This is not the location of your typical criminal upbringing.
I knock on the door, notice a female figure within, and call, “Mrs. Middleton, it’s the police.” The woman arrives at the door and looks through the window. Dana and I show her our IDs. “Mrs. Middleton? I’m Detective Stack, and this is Detective Light. We are truly sorry for your loss. May we come in to ask a few questions?”
She opens the door, and motions us inside. We walk into the living room where she says, “Please sit down. My husband is travelling on business. I’m the only one at home.” She doesn’t offer us anything; she may already know that a cop has killed her son.
“Mrs. Middleton, before we get into our questions, I need to inform you that Detective Light and I were at the scene when your son was killed.”
Tears start to well up in her eyes, and I can see her shake a little with rage. She looks closely at Dana’s tattoo.
“You devil worshipping zombie bitch,” she practically yells at Dana, “what did my beautiful son ever do to you?”
Dana is unmoved, and does not reply.
I answer her. “Ma’am, I’m the one who shot your son. I returned fire after he fired two shots at me, narrowly missing, as he started to shoot again. Your son tried to kill me.”
She regains her composure, grows quiet and dabs a tear in her eye. She turns away from me.
“Perhaps I should excuse myself,” I say and leave the room, glancing meaningfully at Dana on the way. I stay within partial visual range, a ways behind Mrs. Middleton in the kitchen, in case I need to intervene. I browse the items stuck on the fridge – just your average suburban household.
“Mrs. Middleton, we’re trying to learn more about the people that put John up to this. Can you help us?” Dana is surprisingly warm in her delivery.
“You can call me Jane,” she says. Jane looks at Dana’s tattoo a second time and crosses herself with the religious movement. I think Dana scares her – she is trying to keep it together without appearing afraid.
I’ve seen this response before – it often works to our advantage in gaining information. This is why I revealed I was the shooter early, and left Dana with her. It’s hard for people to concentrate on lying when they think there is a monster in the room with them. As long as Dana stays tactful, we should be able to learn something here.
“Jane, thank you,” Dana replies. “We believe that John had fallen in with a zombie crowd. Would you know anything about that?”
Jane looks visibly shocked – clearly she doesn’t know this. “No. That is unlikely. He would have told me if this was the case.”
Sure, John would feel comfortable telling his religious zombie-fearing mother that he is now hanging with zombies. Not likely.
“Has anything about John’s behavior changed recently?” Dana avoids telling her than John was a zombie when he died. Good for her, this poor woman had suffered enough in two days – she would learn this in due course.
“I don’t think so, but John hasn’t been living here for the past two months. He’s been working and living with his friend Craig. Craig was so kind to get him a job. John lost his job almost six months ago and had been looking ever since. He moved in with us while he was getting back on his feet.”
Dana asks a few questions about Craig, but Jane doesn’t know much about him other than some basics – she had met him a couple times and has his phone number. No last name or address. From her description he could be Mr. Axe, but we don’t have enough details to go on.
She also doesn’t know anything about his new job; John was going to tell them later, “After he learned more about it himself.” Once he came up with a good alibi, I figure.
Dana stands up from the sofa. As a final question before we leave Dana asks, “Is there anything else you think we should know about for our investigation?”
Jane pauses then says, “Well, it’s nothing important, but John hasn’t been coming to church with us since he moved. I didn’t expect him to, living downtown and all.” I expect he didn’t feel welcome, being a zombie and all. Dana asks and she gives us her church’s name.
“Thank you Mrs. Middleton – Jane,” Dana gives her a sincere smile, “you’ve been very helpful.” Not really, I think. We let ourselves out, thanking her again. Jane does not say goodbye.
In the car while I’m driving, Dana calls in with Craig’s phone number – asking the police desk to work it over for any other details. While she’s on the line with them, they tell her about some new information just received from the harbor-master.
There’s another delivery in port from the same shipping company as last time. Steve had given them his card and explained we were interested in any other deliveries from this company; they called his number to let him know.
As I turn us around in the right direction, Dana asks them to run up an entry warrant – ideally we’ll have permission by the time we get there.
While on route we discuss what we’ve learned about John from his mom, and we both agree that it does not seem like Jane is hiding anything. We hope that Craig’s number will turn up with more info.
“Tell me about your dad,” Dana says out of the blue, “I loved the inspiration session today. He created those, didn’t he?”
“Yup – good old Dad – the zombie emperor,” I joke. I’m not comfortable talking about him. He was a career cop – loved his job. His kids got considerably less time than the many, many criminals he put away.
I continue, “Dad was a beat cop for many years, then a detective and eventually Captain in narcotics. He had almost completed a master’s in psychology before he decided to become a cop. He was great at reading people – and became infamous in the department. People still say he can read minds.
“It was awful growing up with him; I couldn’t get away with ANYTHING.” This isn’t entirely true anymore, however. Working with zombies has taught me a few tricks. Dad doesn’t know about everything I have going on as a cop.
“When the opportunity arose to put a unit together for zombie crime fighting, he was the top candidate for the job. Sparkling arrest record, great leadership skills, ready for promotion, and relevant educational experience. It was his idea, eventually, to pair humans and zombies as interdependent teams with complementary skill sets.
“He poured himself into the opportunity. He spent weeks with that Dr. Zachman in Canada learning about and living with zombies under study.
“He really seemed to figure out what makes zombies t
ick. He was partially responsible for evolved zombies becoming proud of the term ‘zombie’, shutting down liberal politicians looking for a more PC name. He even won Dr. Zachman over to using the term.”
At first, zombies could care less what people called them. Once the name was turned into a source of pride however, the zombies were all over it, and the press certainly wanted to keep it. It stuck.
“The meeting today was invigorating,” Dana shares. “It made me want to be a better zombie cop.”
“Yeah, zombie school was made to have that effect. It also makes zombies better partners in action.”
We arrive and park at the harbor, while Dana receives a call about the warrant – it is being faxed to the harbor-master’s office for our use.
“Ok, let’s go see what this shipment is all about,” I practically jump from the car. I’m delighted to be doing anything other than talking about my dad.
We meet with the harbor-master, collect our warrant, and he takes us to the recently delivered shipping containers. He points out which collection is part of the same shipment.
“I’ve got a good vibe about this one here,” I joke to Dana as I knock on the wall. The harbor-master unlocks it with his universal keys, a bolt cutter and a pry bar. Dana watches the area in full alert mode.
It is fully filled with all the same types of food – Asian salted snacks, in all your favorite flavors. My heart sinks a little, a little too soon. In a moment it will turn out we get very lucky.
Dana grabs one of the massive cardboard barrels with the familiar labeling, and cracks it open. She lifts the lid off and spills its contents to the floor. Chips and bags of wasabi peas fall everywhere. One large package falls with a thud instead of a light crunch.
The big brick noticeably contains a large quantity of white powder. Dana picks it up, tears open a small hole, and smells. Smart cops don’t put strange white powder in their mouths anymore – that’s just in the movies.
“Smells like the real thing Rob,” Dana comments. “I’ll run a chem. test with my kit to be sure.” Isn’t she just full of surprises?
“Ok everyone, we’ve now got a crime scene here,” I speak to the group. “We need to tape it down and call in the experts for a full search and seizure.”
Dana and I walk out of the container, just as I’m placing the phone to my ear to call it in.
“Rob,” Dana stops moving and whispers to me. She is looking down the line of containers. Walking towards us is our friend from yesterday – the lewd kid in the red hoodie.
I stop to consider my options and the kid looks up, recognizing us. I raise my hand and wave, walking toward him – and he turns around and bolts away from us, taking a ninety degree right turn from the path he was on.
Dammit, why can’t people make being a cop a little easier? We just have a couple of questions!
Dana reacts like a wolf – sprinting way ahead before I’ve even thought to start running. She turns down the line of shipping containers that is closer to us, but one hop away from the path he is on.
I finally get my act together and start running toward him as well. I choose to follow in the path directly behind him, where I can see him. I don’t have zombie hearing after all.
After a short run, I’m almost a full lengthwise shipping container behind him. I’m not gaining on him, even with me flat out sprinting. The air is burning my lungs – I know I won’t be able to do this for much longer.
There I am, wishing I have a defendable reason to pull out my gun, so I start to reason with him – puffing out words with each breath.
“Please stop,” pace pace pace, “we just”, pace pace, “have questions,” pace wheeze.
He can hear that he’s way ahead of me, and he turns his head a quarter turn to answer me, smiling and gloating, “You need to go the gym more bro.”
Just at that moment, Dana steps out from the container he’s about the pass and clothes-lines him with her left arm.
“Whomp!” His body makes a hearty noise as it connects with the ground, the wind rushing out of his lungs. It dazes him briefly, but Dana is already on him, pulling him up by his jacket and setting him up against the container for questions.
Here is this diminutive woman, a mother of three, ten years my senior – and she runs circles around us then lifts a man above her head with her bare hands. My years working in the IAB has proven it again, zombies can do incredible things. Increased strength plus the innate ability to ignore most physical pain allows them to push themselves beyond human limits – at least for a while – before any permanent damage is done.
I bend over and wheeze, coughing and spitting up phlegm. Thank goodness this chase is over!
“Come on creep, we have some questions for you,” Dana takes the lead while I continue to noisily return from near-death. She pushes up his sleeves to look for tattoos – nothing.
“Am I under arrest, pretty cop?” This kid has cohones surprising for his age.
“How about you take a swing at me and I’ll let you know?” Dana sneers back.
The two continue their increasingly tawdry verbal abuse towards each other, but the kid doesn’t take the bait and try to fight her, escape, or break down and give in to her uttered assaults.
“Okay, okay Dana,” I’ve heard enough. “He’s a zombie all right.”
“Is that all you wanted to know? Shit, you cops are easy to please.”
“We’re not done with you yet, brainiac,” Dana is all through her best insults – and scraping the barrel.
She and I take turns asking him questions – some of which he answers, some he evades, and some he lies about. He works the harbor getting small hauling jobs – manual labor. He doesn’t “know nothing about no drugs.” And he claims he doesn’t “hang with other zombies.”
He doesn’t tell us how he became a zombie, although his full reply is much more colorful.
His story fits with the harbor-master’s perspective of him. We have nothing to hold him on, so after a few more fruitless questions we collect his name and info and let him go.
We stay at the harbor, taping in the area until the narcotics team arrives to do a full sweep of the shipment. One of the guys and I go way back.
He asks me, “how is the zombie marriage counseling business?” Ha ha. Funny.
“Not too shabby Phil. How’s it been babysitting crack-heads and daytime hookers?”
“Touché, Rob,” we embrace in a man-hug and slap each other on the back.
“We’ll take care of the crime scene Rob. I’ll let you know if we find anything interesting.”
It is almost time for lunch. Dana and I grab a bite at a great seafood place nearby. We go back to the office in the afternoon, discussing all of the info we have, checking in with Mac and Jake’s progress, planning our next move, and getting in the necessary reports for the past two days. I bounce our ideas off my captain – Captain McDowell – for suggestions.
And of course Dana tells her captain – Captain O’Neill – about her exciting capture of an escaping suspect zombie teenager earlier in the day, asking if Eric Gunner will need to interview her personally.
By the end of a very full day, we are clear on our next steps to pursue. It is time to pack it in.
* * *
“This is agent 6628, calling in from Seattle.” Dana was at her home alone. She had just dialed a number from memory on a second cell phone she pulled from a hidden compartment in her bedroom drawer.
“Connecting you 6628,” a woman’s voice on the other end of the line stated. There was a silent pause, then a click.
“Dana, thanks for checking in. What do you have to share?” The voice on the other end was now male, and to the point.
“Nothing much,” Dana reported. “I’ve finally made it into the IAB. I got lucky, and was partnered with Detective Rob Stack like we hoped. Thanks for pulling strings and getting me into the detective’s test when his partner died.”
“It was no trouble.” The voice waited.
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“I haven’t seen anything really important for my mission yet. Rob seems on the take – he pilfered some cash from a dead zombie perp – we had to take down two of them. I’ve personally seen and confirmed cocaine shipments into Seattle. Got real lucky and quickly found evidence of zombie turning as we suspected. That’s about it.”
“You’re right, the cash is unimportant.” The implication, by omission, was that the drugs and zombie turning were important, although expected.
“I’ll continue to keep you up to date with a call twice a week, as we planned. We’re following several leads.”
“Have you met his family or the other executive officers yet?”
“No, haven’t had the chance,” Dana replied. “I have learned some background info about his dad that we already knew.”
“You need to make this happen, and soon. The FBI and your country are counting on you Dana. We now have additional reason to believe there is serious corruption in Seattle, and we fear that the plans underway are genuinely evil.”
Chapter Three – Sin
Tuesday June 22, 11pm
A darkly clothed and masked figure walked aside a concrete wall in the grass until they found a shaded, poorly lit area to jump and climb over. They dashed forward and leaped at the wall, flexing their right leg against the wall and launching even further upward, effectively doubling the height they could reach in a single jump. They bound high and gracefully, carefully avoiding the jagged, broken security glass built into the tall perimeter fence before they dropped down on the opposite side.
It was the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, which contains many single family homes, dozens of apartment buildings, and a few enormous palatial homes originally built by the city’s founders – affectionately called the mansion district.
That particular well-shielded home is owned by Benito (Ben) Hernández, also known as Seattle’s Chief of Police. Ben and his wife were not at home – they were at a non-profit fund raising dinner with the Mayor and her husband. Ben and his wife have kids, both away at college – no longer living at home.
The figure slinked across the grass, occasionally taking refuge behind trees and bushes, avoiding well-lit areas. They climbed a tree close to the house, using a thick branch as a launching point to grab on to the home’s extravagant gables. From there, they inched across to a window sill and some exterior electrical piping – which they used to climb to the top of the window.