Tough Customer

CHAPTER 4

DODGE SET TWO CAPPED FOAM CUPS OF COFFEE ON THE counter.

The cashier smiled at him. "Is that it?"

"How about throwing in those doughnuts, gratis?" He gestured to the clear acrylic box, which in the morning was filled with fresh bakery goods. At this hour of the night, all that remained were one glazed doughnut with sprinkles and one with chocolate icing.

"Un-uh, no way."

"You won't sell them. They're dried out. See the cracks in that chocolate?"

"The last time I gave you something for free--that Eskimo Pie, remember?--I got in serious trouble with the boss."

"Come on, Doris," Dodge wheedled. "He's not here." He winked at her. "I'm not gonna tell on you."

"He's an A-rab, you know," she said in an undertone. "He'll call it stealing and cut off my hand or something."

"Pretty please? With sugar on it?"

"Oh, shoot." She glanced at the security camera. "At least pretend to pay me for them."

"You're the best, Doris."

"And you're full of shit. I haven't forgotten that you promised to take me dancing."

Grinning, he said, "I'm taking lessons."

"My ass."

Out the corner of his eye, he caught the flash of headlights on the patrol car parked in front. "Gotta go. Don't bother sacking the doughnuts. Just set them on top of the coffees."

She did as he asked, and, as he backed out the door, balancing the cups and doughnuts, she said, "I'm holding you to that date."

Dodge's partner had kept the engine running. He reached across the front seat and pushed the passenger door open. "We're on."

Dodge tipped the doughnuts off the cups and onto the console. "You get the sprinkles, I get the chocolate."

"You got the chocolate last time."

"Sue me." Placing his coffee cup in the holder, he buckled his seat belt. "I'm the one stealing from the A-rab, and one of these days I may have to make good my promise to take Doris dancing. What've we got?" he asked as he fixed the plastic lid on the coffee cup so his partner could drink while he drove. He'd already sped from the 7-Eleven parking lot and turned on the emergency lights.

"Domestic."

"Damn!" Dodge, like most cops, hated responding to domestic disturbances because the offenders often turned their rage onto them. Cops got killed that way. He bit off half the stale chocolate doughnut. "Who called it in?"

"The alleged victim."

"That's good. Means he hasn't killed her."

"Not yet," Jimmy Gonzales returned grimly.

Gonzales looked more Anglo than Dodge did. When they'd become partners, Dodge had asked where the Hispanic name had come from. Gonzales had shrugged and said, "Dunno. Must've been a Spanish or Mexican gene in the deep end of the pool."

"Did the caller say her name?" Dodge asked him now.

"Nope. Disconnected after giving the address. No answer when the dispatcher called back. The house is a rental."

Gonzales was a good partner, reliable, always enjoyed a joke, but knew when it was time to shut up and focus on the job. As now, while they covered the short distance from the convenience store to a tidy house on a quiet street in a middle-class neighborhood.

He pulled the squad car into the driveway and left the lights on. He and Dodge alerted the dispatcher of their arrival and got out. They were watchful and wary as they approached the house. Dodge was particularly skittish about the windows overlooking the front yard and the exterior lighting, which seemed to him as bright as spotlights on him and Gonzales.

They made it to the porch without being shot at or threatened, and he counted that a good sign. When they reached the door, Gonzales stood aside, his hand on his holster. Dodge raised the brass knocker and tapped it loudly several times. "Police. Is there a problem in there?"

The door was pulled open immediately by a man who, Dodge would guess, was in his late twenties. His shirttail was hanging out, but his clothes looked expensive. He was good-looking and clean-shaven, although his black hair looked like it had been recently groomed with a gardening tool. His whole aspect was one of agitation.

He divided a look of disgust between the two officers. "I can't believe she called the police."

"Where is she?" Dodge growled.

"She's all right. She got upset--"

"Where is she?" Dodge asked with menace, emphasizing each word.

The man hitched his thumb over his shoulder. "Bathroom. End of the hall, right-hand side. She's locked herself in. Can you turn off those damn lights on your car?"

Dodge didn't deign to answer. He pushed past the man and crossed a neat living room, stepping into a dark hallway. He heard Gonzales telling the son of a bitch that the emergency lights stayed on and asking if an ambulance was needed. "Hell, no!" the guy exclaimed. "I didn't hurt her."

"Maybe I'll call one anyway," Gonzales said.

"I'm telling you, she's fine."

"What's your name?"

"Jesus."

"Are you cursing or being a smart-ass?"

That's all Dodge heard. He'd reached the end of the hall. He knocked on the bathroom door. "Ma'am? This is Police Officer Dodge Hanley. Would you open the door, please?" He tried the knob. It was locked. "Ma'am? Are you all right? Can you hear me?"

He heard the snick of the lock, then the door was opened. She was petite, reaching no higher than his collarbone. The guy who'd met them at the door was about Dodge's height, over six feet. Without even knowing the circumstances, Dodge already wanted to kill him.

The overhead light shone on reddish hair. Her head was bowed, and she was holding a folded, wet washcloth against the side of her face like a compress. She was fully dressed, but her clothes and hair were in disarray, as though she'd struggled.

"Ma'am, do you need an ambulance?"

She shook her head, then lowered the compress and tilted her face up.

When she did, Dodge felt his whole body expand and levitate as though it had suddenly been inflated like one of those Thanksgiving Day parade balloons. Then her eyes tethered him and slowly he resettled, but he still didn't return to normal. He retained that sense of buoyancy.

"I'm all right." Her eyes were the color of sherry, and if aged whiskey generated sound, it would be exactly like her voice. "I should have called back, told the operator there was no reason to dispatch the police, but Roger had taken the phone away from me, and I was afraid..."

"To leave the bathroom," Dodge stated, finishing for her when she foundered.

She lowered her head again and reapplied the compress.

"What's your name?"

"Caroline King."

"Is he your husband?"

"Boyfriend."

"Whose house is this?"

"Mine. I mean, I lease it."

"He live here, too?"

"No."

"Does he pay the rent?"

Her head came up quickly, and Dodge could tell that his implication had affronted her. "No. I do."

He was glad to know it and didn't apologize for asking. Instead, he gestured at her upper cheek. "Mind if I take a look?" She removed the washcloth. At the outside edge of her eye socket, the skin was red and beginning to swell. "We'll get you to the emergency room."

"There's no need for that. Really."

"Okay, but let's get some ice on it." He stepped aside.

She went past him, down the hall, and into the living room, where her abuser was seated on a sofa, being questioned by Gonzales. Upon seeing her, the guy shot to his feet. "Do you see, Caroline?" he shouted at her. "Are you enjoying my humiliation?"

"Okay, Mr. Campton. Calm down."

"Don't tell me what to do." He shoved Gonzales with both hands. "Do you know who I am?"

"I sure do." Before the offender could react, Gonzales spun him around and pushed him facedown on the sofa. In seconds the man's hands were shackled behind him. "You're the guy on his way to jail."

The cuffed man began screaming a litany of curses aimed at Gonzales. Unfazed by the insults to himself and his lineage, he asked Dodge, "She okay? Do we need an ambulance?"

"I don't think so. Just shut him up."

Caroline King had hastened from the room. Dodge followed and found her in a compact kitchen, where she had planted her hands on the edge of the counter to brace herself against it. "Will he be arrested?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Will he go to jail?"

"Oh, yeah," Dodge said, relishing the thought.

She turned. "There'll be trouble over it. His family has money. Significant money. A battery of lawyers."

Dodge didn't give a rat's ass. "Have you got some ice in here?" Without waiting for an answer, he opened the freezer above the fridge and removed an ice tray. He shook cubes into a cup towel he'd found folded on the counter. He twisted the towel to hold the cubes inside, then passed the makeshift ice pack to her.

She took it and pressed it against her eye socket. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

He pulled a chair out from under the dining table and remained standing beside it until she sat down, then he took the second chair. He removed a small spiral notebook and pen from the pocket of his uniform shirt. He wrote down her name. "What's his name?"

She hesitated, then said quietly, "Roger Campton."

Dodge wrote down the name and put a question mark beside it, wondering why it sounded familiar. She seemed to read his mind. "He's part of the Campton Industries family."

Holy shit. As she'd said,

Significant money.

This kitchen, the house, the neighborhood itself, were strictly middle class. Pridefully well maintained, but hardly opulent. Again, his puzzled expression must have given away his thoughts.

She said, "You're wondering how Roger and I met."

He gave his head a noncommittal bob.

"He introduced himself to me at a Christmas party at his parents' house last year."

Dodge's eyebrows shot up. "You were a guest?"

"Server. I was working the holiday season for a caterer. It was a moonlighting job."

This told Dodge several things about her. She was a single working woman on a budget that required moonlighting to make ends meet. She paid her own way and wasn't too proud to admit it. Her slim prettiness had caught the rich boy's eye, which wasn't surprising. Nor was it surprising that she would want to hook up with a Campton heir, all that dough, and what it represented.

Right now it represented a black eye, which made Dodge's insides roil with anger. Why would a woman, who appeared to be self-sufficient otherwise, put up with that?

"Has he done this before?" Dodge asked.

"Never."

"Never to you, or never to anybody?"

"Never to me. I don't know about anybody else."

Dodge made himself a note to check on that. "What set him off?"

She raised her shoulders, and again Dodge was struck by how delicate her frame was. "We were having an ordinary quarrel, a difference of opinion, and he flew into a rage. I've never seen him like that before." She wet her lips. "But he's been under a lot of pressure lately."

"What kind of pressure?"

"Business. He and his father have been having disagreements. Roger takes them to heart."

"What did you do or say that caused him to slap you?"

"I said something to the effect that his father had more experience and that perhaps in this particular instance Roger should give him the benefit of the doubt."

"You took his old man's side against him."

She lowered her head, addressing the tabletop. "I guess that's how it sounded to Roger."

"Doesn't excuse him from slapping you."

"No."

"Are you going to stay with him?"

She raised her head and looked at him with surprise. "Of course."

Dodge watched her, said nothing.

She licked her lips. "I'm sure this was an isolated incident, Officer. Roger lost his temper. Flew off the handle. It could happen to anybody who's under stress."

He shook his head decisively. "Most people are stressed one way or another. They don't hit. Only somebody with a violent streak does that."

She set the ice pack on the table. The cubes were melting, dripping through the cloth. She stood up. "My cheek feels much better. The ice helped. I'll be all right. Don't let me keep you from your other duties."

Reluctantly Dodge replaced his pad and pen in his pocket and followed her back into the living room. Through the windows, they saw Gonzales pushing down Campton's head, none too gently, and guiding him into the backseat of the patrol car. "Will he be charged with a crime?" she asked.

"He'll be accused of assaulting a police officer," Dodge replied. "Whether or not the charge sticks isn't up to me or to Officer Gonzales." He paused, then added, "You've got a better shot at him. You could file an assault charge. I urge you to."

"I promise to think about it." Because she avoided his eyes when she said that, Dodge figured it was an empty promise. "Thank you for responding so quickly," she said.

"No need to thank me. That's what we're for."

"I know, but thank you anyway." She gave him a tremulous smile, and he knew that, as soon as he left, she'd start crying. She was barely holding it back. "Good night, Officer--" She gave her head a small shake. "I'm sorry."

"Hanley. Dodge Hanley. Good night, Ms. King." He tilted his head toward the police car, where Roger Campton sat fuming in the backseat. "He won't be out before morning at the earliest. We'll be slow to get the paperwork done. But keep the doors locked anyway."

"I will."

He hesitated on the threshold and looked at her for several moments, but he couldn't think of anything to add to what had already been said. He didn't have a valid excuse for sticking around any longer, so he bobbed his head good-bye and turned toward the patrol car.

"So what I was thinking," Gonzales was saying, "is that we ought to volunteer."

Dodge, who'd been woolgathering, brought his partner into focus. Their shift had ended a half hour earlier. Now they were seated on opposite sides of a booth at Denny's, where they were having breakfast before going home.

"What?"

"You haven't been listening, have you?" Gonzales used the handle of his fork to stir sugar into his coffee, then sucked it off before applying the tines to his huevos rancheros. "Your mind's still on that broad."

"What broad?"

His partner guffawed. "Don't play dumb. The little one? Red hair?"

Angrily Dodge speared a chunk of potato and put it in his mouth. "She wasn't a broad."

Gonzales grinned. "Sure are touchy about her."

"Drop it."

Gonzales shrugged good-naturedly and picked up the subject where he'd left off. "I was saying we should volunteer for that task force they're pulling together to catch that bank robber." He plopped a strawberry into his mouth and chewed vigorously. "What do you think?"

"You read my mind."

"Yeah?"

Dodge had been thinking about it for days, ever since he'd heard about the task force. For more than a year, an armed robber had been plaguing area banks. During the last robbery, a bank guard had been shot. He was still recovering from a serious wound. It was feared that, if the culprit weren't caught, someone would eventually be killed. The perp had grown bolder with each robbery, and now his holdups had taken on a taunting attitude, as though he was enjoying his celebrity, having a whale of a good time, and thumbing his nose at the police in the process.

Working with several law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, Houston PD was determined to catch him. They had a list of possible suspects comprised of felons convicted of similar robberies who had served their sentences or were out on parole, but there was no evidence connecting any of them to the current crimes. The robber could be one of them or a new and clever crook on his debut crime spree.

Bottom line, the authorities really didn't have anything. Thus, the task force.

With the ink on his sheepskin from Texas Tech barely dry, Dodge had joined the HPD. His goal was to make detective and ultimately Homicide as soon as possible. He had the innate skills for crime solving. He just needed to pay his dues in the rank and file, get some seniority, and distinguish himself.

He'd been thinking that this task force might provide him an opportunity to prove himself a notch above the rest. If he got one of the coveted spots on it and impressed his superiors, it would speed his way toward achieving his goal.

"I put my name on the sign-up sheet yesterday afternoon."

Gonzales looked crestfallen. "You did? Oh."

Dodge smiled at him. "I put yours on there, too."

Gonzales beamed. "Good. Great. We'll both look more handsome out of these uniforms."

"Whoa. A lot of cops want on the task force. We haven't been selected yet."

"We will be. You for sure."

"Why me for sure?"

"It's bound to involve undercover work." Gonzales bobbed his eyebrows. "That's your speciality, partner."

Dodge cut into his rare steak. "Rumor."

Gonzales gave him an I-know-better look.

Dodge said, "All that gossip about me? It's bullshit."

Gonzales pushed aside his empty plate and leaned across the table. "That multiple murder at the strip club last month?"

"What about it?"

"There's nothing to the story that while the detectives were questioning the so-called eyewitnesses, you took the hostess of the club behind the building for a little one-on-one?"

"I was off duty. I just happened by. Got lucky."

"Lucky?" Gonzales scoffed. "I'll say. Within twenty minutes, she'd given up the shooter. You walked the detectives straight to where she told you he'd be hiding. There's no truth to that story?"

Dodge reached for his coffee cup. "I didn't take her behind the building."

"But you got her to give him up."

"Wasn't that hard to do." He grinned. "Not once I'd convinced her that a guy like that was no good for her, that she could do a lot better."

Gonzales was laughing, shaking his head in admiration. "Didn't you say that the solution to most mysteries could be found under a woman's skirt?"

"I never said that."

"You're quoted."

"Locker room talk." But Dodge's sly grin gave away the lie.

They finished their meal, divided the check, and paid out. As they separated outside the restaurant, Gonzales said, "Makes me feel a little better, knowing there's one woman you can't have. That redhead isn't gonna give up a superrich guy, even one who knocks her around now and then, for a street cop. You'll have to live without that one, Dodge."

Gonzales was proven right. When Dodge reported for duty that evening, he learned that Roger Campton had been released from lockdown before noon. His lawyers--plural--threatened a countercharge of police harassment, and Ms. Caroline King had declined to press charges. It was even said by the lawyers that she regretted having involved the police, that it was all an unfortunate misunderstanding, a mountain made of a molehill. Et cetera.

Dodge had figured that was the way it would shake out, but he didn't like it and couldn't leave it at that.

After his shift, he told Gonzales he didn't feel like breakfast and went instead to her house. He was parked at the curb in front of it when she came out to get her morning newspaper. He got out of his car and started up the walk.

"Ms. King?"

She shaded her eyes against the sun and regarded him warily.

"It's Officer Hanley."

She was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, no shoes. Compared with his size twelves, her feet looked like a child's.

"Oh. Hello. I didn't recognize you without the uniform."

"I just got off duty, thought before I went home, I'd come by, see how you're doing."

"I'm fine."

"You've got a bruise."

She touched the edge of her eye. "Not surprising. My skin is so fair, I bruise if you look at me hard."

"He did more than look at you hard." The statement was out before he could stop it, and he'd sounded tougher and more dangerous than the guy who'd slapped her. But he didn't apologize for what he'd said.

She seemed embarrassed, even apprehensive. "I didn't press charges."

"I know. I checked."

"Roger was mortified by his behavior. He'd had a shouting match with his father and took his residual anger out on me. Both have apologized. Roger has sworn that it'll never happen again. I'm confident it won't."

Dodge wasn't, but he didn't tell her that. "Everything's okay then?"

"Everything's fine."

He stood there, feeling oafish, searching for something to say to prolong the conversation but thinking of nothing.

"I need to..." She gestured behind her toward the front door, which she'd left standing open. "I'll be late for work."

"Oh, sure, sorry. I just came by ... you know, to check on ... things."

"I appreciate the follow-up, Officer Hanley. Truly. Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"Good-bye."

"Bye."

He stood there until she went inside and closed the door.

Dodge and Gonzales were interviewed separately for the task force. Dodge was appointed to it. Gonzales wasn't.

"Hey, Dodge, don't worry about it, man."

"My partner isn't good enough for their task force, they can fuck themselves." His language had been as raw as his mood ever since that morning he'd gone to Caroline King's house and heard from her own lips that everything was hunky-dory between her and Roger Campton.

So rotten was his disposition, people had begun avoiding him. Even Doris, the night-shift clerk at the 7-Eleven, had sensed he wasn't open to bantering about their dancing date. Their recent transactions at the cash register had been uncommonly stilted.

Gonzales, however, seemed immune to his temper. In response to Dodge's opinion of the task force, he said, "Look, partner, I appreciate the level of your loyalty, but don't mess it up for yourself. You wanted on this task force, you got on it. Do yourself, and me, proud."

Dodge continued to grouse and protest, but Gonzales wouldn't hear of him letting the opportunity pass.

"You've got two years of service on me. I'll get my turn," the younger officer said with confidence. "Show 'em what you've got. Kick butt."

He slapped Dodge on the back and was about to walk away when he stopped, snapped his fingers, and turned. "Almost forgot. You see the Sunday paper? Your girlfriend and the rich boy made it official. They're engaged."