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CHAPTER 17

Corbett didn't return to the station right away after his visit at the Kincaid's. The pictures in the house and the way they felt made him realize that he couldn't live with himself if he didn't try to do something. Even though he knew that it might cost him everything, there was no way that he could let the Kincaid girl die.

He had to take care of a few things first, though.

He took a side trip to a grocery store that he'd seen driving down. Inside, he stopped to pick up a case of canned food and some other odds and ends - batteries, flashlights, lighters, and a carton of cigarettes.

He walked out with all of it in bags and tossed it in the trunk. While it was open, he pulled out something that he'd never thought he'd have to use. A silver bag the size of a plastic grocery bag that a friend had given him a long time ago was stored in a pocket of his duty bag, and he pulled it out. He withdrew his tablet, turned it off, then put it in the bag, and then he did the same thing with his phone. With the bag closed, it should block any signals that the electronics would be sending.

He pulled out of the parking lot and started driving to the south side of town. There weren't too many places that he could go that didn't know him, or that he could be sure that he was out of range of Lewis' goons. The south side, though, was the seedy, wretched part of town. It was also about the only part of town that still had pay phones on the corner. Some sort of initiative had been proposed not too long before that wanted to finally remove all the phones, but the residents had made such a demonstration that it fell very short of what it needed to pass. A lot of the people that lived in that part of town didn't even have phones in their homes, so sometimes it was the only way that they could call for help.

Not that any help ever really came down here. Some of the neighborhoods had been blacklisted, and cops and firefighters wouldn't ever respond, no matter what the call was. Some brave medical techs sometimes banded together to run a call or two into the slums, but for the most part the people down here were on their own.

As he crossed the bridge over the river that separated the normal part of town from the undesirable part, he noticed a car behind him. It was an old, beat up station wagon that had the hood tied down with about a pound of duct tape, and it really didn't look out of place for where he was headed, but what it was doing on the other side of the bridge, he couldn't say, and something about it made him keep a close eye on it as he drove.

His route took him deeper into the slums and when he looked back into his rear view mirror, he saw the same car following him even through all the winding turns. Trying not to be too obvious about it, he sped up, still staying close to the speed limit, and he started making right turns, moving randomly around the blocks, taking the first right, then another right two turns down, then again until he was back on his original street heading the same way he was.

The car wasn't back behind him and he started to relax until he took another look in the mirror. The junker was back and Corbett had to assume that they knew he was onto them and they didn't care. It was time for some drastic measures.

He thought back to his days on patrol. He'd spent a good deal of time in the not-quite-blacklisted parts of the slums, and he still knew the place by heart and his mind reached back to where he could go. It only took a minute before an idea crept into his head. A grin lit his face and he pressed down on the accelerator, not caring any more if he was being obvious or not.

Another few turns and many blocks later, he could see the junker behind him keeping up and he waited until the very last minute to hang a left into an alley. When he drove through the slums as a young rookie cop, he started to learn that some of the businesses and the tenements kept their dumpsters in exactly the same spot every single day and they'd berate the poor trash men who dared to move it even a foot from where it was.

He was counting on that when he turned into the familiar alley and he wasn't disappointed. He widened his turn to avoid the first dumpster, and then turned sharply to miss the second. He knew that he only had a split second before he had to turn the wheel hard to the other side, and it had to be precise or he'd hit the third, but his timing was still absolutely perfect and he cleared the third without even a scratch on his rear view mirror and he was out the other side of the alley onto the next street over. As he turned down the street he heard the squealing of locked up tires and a crash behind him and he mashed the accelerator to the floor and sped down the road, taking another turn before anyone could get out of the pursuit car and see where he went.

Heart beating high in his chest, he finally eased back down until he was back beneath the speed limit. He wasn't worried about getting pulled over out here in the slums, but he'd always worked hard to maintain a good relationship with the people that lived down here. Too many of the officers considered this area of town to be a punishment posting and they treated the residents like trash. It made all of them suspicious of cops, but one thing that he noticed while he was assigned here was that the folks who lived down in the south side tended to look at people as individuals, and they didn't judge every single cop by the actions of the bad ones. He'd made some friends that lived here and he still kept up with them on occasion. And right now, he was counting on someone's friendship.

He took the long, circuitous route to a tenement building, ensuring that he wasn't being followed again, and then parked the car a couple blocks away and looked out the window at the building. It was a five story building with the siding coming loose in many places. The roof looked like it was a good snow storm from caving in, and even from the car, he could see that it would leak in a hard rain. The shingles were peeling and falling to the ground outside. Some of the windows were boarded up and others just showed the signs of many years of wear. He knew that the buildings were owned by some of the people in the West Hills, the neighborhood the Kincaids lived in. The people there were so concerned about money and appearances of their own places that they didn't give one whit for the people that lived in their shoddy rental units.

Not that they ever really knew what was going on in the buildings, anyway. They always hired a management company, and there were only so many that would manage a property in this part of town, so they got to step back and say that they didn't know what the company was doing while they got the monthly income that came along with renting out fifty or sixty units.

He got out of the car and pulled the bag with the cigarettes out of the trunk, and then he walked hurriedly down the street, keeping his eyes on the alleyways and the abandoned storefronts. Then he crossed the street and almost jogged to the door, where he scanned the names on the mailboxes just outside, finding the one he wanted. He was going to press the button on the wall to ring the buzzer, but when he went to push it, he noticed that there wasn't a cover plate, and the wires inside were mostly hanging out with some missing. Apparently the copper scavengers had hit the outside of the building.

He tried the door and it opened. Security was going down a little since the last time he'd been out here, and he wondered if there was something he could do to help his friend here with the building. But the thought was quickly pushed out of his mind by the smell that assaulted his nose when the door opened.

Just inside the door were three transients, covered in lumpy grey clothing and blankets, and it smelled like they hadn't bathed in most of their lives. They also looked as if they hadn't even bothered to get up to use the restroom. Corbett covered his nose and walked by them to the stairs, trying to breathe through his mouth and not pay any attention to the horrid stench that was making his eyes water.

He took the stairs two at a time up the four flights to the third floor. Even with the time that he spent behind the desk, Corbett was pleased with his level of fitness. He never wanted to be one of the desk jockeys with the gut so big that it hung out over their belt. He still worked out every day, and he made it to the floor he wanted without even breathing heavily.

Another door opened to a long hallway with doors lining both sides. The smell wasn't nearly as bad in the hallway, and he breathed a sigh of relief when the door closed behind him. The walls in the hall used to be white, but after years of neglect by the manager, they'd turned a sooty, nicotine-stained grayish yellow. The doors were in the same state. Most were closed, but from a quick glance, some of them couldn't stay closed and others hung open on the little security chains. Smoke drifted through some of the open doors, and Corbett could smell the distinctive tang of tobacco and other, less savory things.

He started walking down the hallway and as he passed, curious eyes looked out of some of the open doors, and he could see the telltale flickering from the peepholes in other doors that said people were curious about him. He smiled at a little girl that peeked around one of the doors, but the girl just stared at him.

The apartment he was looking for was at the far end of the hallway, and by the time he got there, a series of slammed doors had already announced his arrival. The door opened just as he stepped in front of it, and a suspicious wolf muzzle looked out through the cracks. The man looking at him from the doorway looked a lot older than he was, and the lines beneath his eyes told of experiences that had aged him prematurely. When he smiled, most of his teeth were missing and the ones he still had were stained yellow.

Corbett smiled a friendly smile and held up the carton of cigarettes in front of him.

The wolf sniffed loudly and blinked at Corbett a moment before recognition dawned on his face. He let out a wheezy laugh, followed closely by a rheumy cough.

"By the gods, it's Ricky! Ricky C." The wolf laughed again and let the door open on its hinges while he hobbled inside. "Heard some dude shot you in the nuts, Ricky."

Corbett laughed and walked into the apartment on the man's heels and closed the door behind him, turning to make sure that it latched. "Nope," Corbett said, "I'm still whole. Just got promoted is all. How's life been treating you Jimmy?"

Corbett looked around the apartment as he spoke, and he could see that nothing had changed since the day he met old Jimmy. He'd responded to a medical call in this very apartment, and when he showed up, he'd found the door forced and the old man lying unconscious in a little pool of blood. Two punks from down the hall were looking for money or meds, and they figured the old guy probably had the meds, and might even have some money somewhere. When they found out he didn't, they beat him senseless and left him to die.

Corbett had held Jimmy's head in his lap until the medics arrived and took him to the hospital. As the old wolf walked away from him he could still see the scars where the docs had stitched his head back together once all the bleeding in his brain had stopped. The fur hadn't grown back over those patches and they stood out like mange.

Jimmy laughed again, and this time it bought on a full fit of coughing. When he finally stopped he flopped down on an old, battered recliner in the center of the dim room. He reached for a pack of cigarettes on the table by the recliner as he grinned at Corbett.

"Oh, you know. I keep on keepin' on, Ricky." He tapped a single cigarette from the pack and put it between his lips, then flicked a lighter and held the flame to the tip, puffing it alive with a practiced ease.

"I keep telling you to quit those things, Jimmy," Corbett said, knowing that the old wolf wouldn't take his advice anyway.

"Bah," Jimmy croaked with a wave of his hand. "Somethin's gonna kill me one day, Ricky. I ain't gonna be 'round for the big C to do me in."

"Kind of a fatalistic view," Corbett muttered, almost to himself.

"Nah, just realistic," Jimmy said with another croaking laugh.

"Well there's nothing wrong with your hearing."

Jimmy gestured to the couch and Corbett took a seat, setting his gift on the old wolf's end table before he did. He never worried about things in Jimmy's apartment. The man had been a partier and he had a hard life, but he'd cleaned up even before the night he was beaten, and he'd done a lot to get himself cleaned up. The apartment was dingy and the walls were stained, but what the old wolf could clean, he kept spotless.

The couch was old and it had Corbett sinking almost all the way to the floor through the cushions. He gave a start and tried to catch himself on something, and Jimmy laughed in his croaking voice.

"Forgot about the ass-eating couch, did you?" Jimmy said with another round of cackling laughs. Swirls of smoke curled around his head as he watched Corbett settle down into the couch and finally get comfortable. "Got promoted, huh? Well you're sure as hell not down here just for the scenery, Ricky. What's got you back in the hood?"

It took a minute, but finally Corbett found a comfortable way to sit on the couch, and the time that he spent in this apartment, helping to care for old Jimmy came back to him and made him smile. Sitting low with his legs crossed, he looked across the dim room to the wolf across, lit from the side by the single floor lamp beside the recliner.

"I needed someone I could trust, Jimmy," he said, looking at the old wolf's face. "I'm in kind of a pile of shit."

Jimmy didn't laugh at that, just took another drag on the cigarette and stared at the inspector while the smoke curled towards the ceiling, casting strange shadows on the walls.

"Well, you got that, boy," he finally said.

Corbett knew that Jimmy would be someone he could trust. After he had come back from the hospital, Corbett had made it a side mission to make sure that the man recovered, and he did everything he could when he was on his beat to get things for him and make sure that he got all his medications and took them on time. Made sure he had food, sometimes paying for it out of his own pocket. Something struck him about the old wolf, though he never figured out what.

"I know, Jimmy," he said.

"So what sort of shit you in, Ricky?" Jimmy asked.

Corbett sighed. "I don't want you involved too much, Jimmy. It's the sort of shit that'll end up on the vids, and not in a good way."

Jimmy stared across the space at Corbett with a jaded look in his eye. "Does it look like I give a damn about the vids, Ricky? I care about YOU, boy."

Corbett looked into the old wolf's eyes and he could see something akin to love burning inside. Still, he shook his head. "Well, I'm not going to tell it twice, so sit here, and you'll hear it, but I need you to be deaf for a little bit while I use your phone."

"My phone?" Jimmy asked.

"They're bound to be listening to all my stuff and I don't want my brains beaten in on the street because I stopped to use a pay phone. But no one's going to be listening to your phone, Jimmy."

Jimmy cackled again. "Yeah, not too many wanna listen in on my bellyachin'. All right, but you better tell me what the hell you're into, Ricky."

"All right, Jimmy, just sit there and listen. Just don't hear too much, okay?"

Jimmie nodded with a smile and stubbed out the cigarette, and then he reached under the table and brought out the old corded landline phone and passed it across to Corbett. While the inspector listened to the dial tone, the old wolf tapped out another cigarette and puffed it to life between his chapped lips.

Corbett watched him with a smile and then started dialing a number. It took a moment for it to connect and start ringing, and Corbett hoped that nothing had happened that would have made the number not work.

Two rings sounded in his ear and he hung up. Then he picked up the phone again and dialed a second number, this one subtly different than the first. A couple numbers off and another pair transposed. Three rings, one right after the other rang through the receiver, and again he hung up.

Jimmie was watching him with barely contained amusement that bordered in frustration. "Well you gonna let him answer or what?"

"It's a code, Jimmy. We worked it out years ago. It's twenty three, two rings on one phone, three on another. Means someone from the twenty third is calling."

"The twenty third?" Jimmy asked, obviously confused, but after a moment his eyes widened and he looked at Corbett with a little hint of respect in his eyes. "Twenty third airborne?"

Corbett nodded. "Yeah. Six years." He held up a finger as he picked up the phone once again and dialed the second number again. Only one ring passed before a voice on the other end answered.

"Better be good or I'm hanging up," the voice said.

Corbett laughed. Behind the gruff voice, he could hear the curiosity, and he wondered just how many people had actually used that code before now.

"Beanpole, it's Pack Rat," Corbett said into the phone.

"Holy shit, man. Where the fuck you been?"

"Been busy, and you've been in the middle of nowhere. It's damn hard to get ahold of you, you know."

Duke Wallis, otherwise known as 'Beanpole' to the men he fought with, was one of Corbett's closest friends in the service. He got the nickname because he was almost seven feet tall and about as skinny as a flagpole. He was an amazing soldier and he'd been discharged with honors after he decided it was time to retire.

He was also one of the most paranoid men that Corbett had ever known. Since his discharge, he'd been convinced of half a dozen wild conspiracy theories. Contrails, black helicopters, government spying on its citizens were some of his most favored talking points about every time Corbett managed to get hold of him. Still, with everything Corbett had seen over the last few days, he was finding it hard to argue with him at this point.

"I'm pretty damn sure you didn't just call me up to chat, Pack Rat," Wallis said. That was one of his rules, no names ever used over the phone, no matter what. They used old nicknames from the service, names that even their commanders didn't know about. "What's going on?"

"Been watching the news?" Corbett asked.

"Lotta news, Rat. Want to be more specific?"

"Kincaid. Seven bodies at a party."

"Yeah," Wallis said, "I saw the report. They say some girl went nuts, stabbed everyone, yeah?"

"That's the one," Corbett said. "It's my case."

"Wow. Career maker, there. You calling to brag?"

"She didn't do it, Beanpole," Corbett said, "and I got myself in kind of a world of shit."

"All right, tell me."

Corbett started in, telling Wallis about everything that happened from the first call to the scene all the way through his meeting with Lewis. He didn't leave anything out, just told it as it was. Wallis remained quiet through the entire telling. As he was telling the story, Corbett could see Jimmy leaning forward in his chair interest plain in the old eyes while smoke curled up around his head.

"So you're figuring that the Lewis kid had something to do with it," Wallis said when Corbett paused.

"I'm dead sure of it, Beanpole. Lewis is throwing around his money and his weight around like I've never seen before. He's got the captain bought and paid for, for Christ's sake."

"So why not just roll over and do what he wants? Be a lot easier that way."

"What would you tell me if they were doing it to my Angela? Just have me sit and do nothing while they shot her like a dog?" Corbett's voice was angry and he snarled a little at the phone.

"It's not Angela," Wallis said. "What's this Kincaid girl to you?"

"What the hell happened to you, man? You were the one that kept us on the straight and narrow out country, and now you just want me to sit by and do nothing here?" Corbett nearly yelled into the phone. "I can't look at this girl without seeing my Angela. I have to do something."

"You know who Lewis is, right?" Wallis asked.

"Yeah, I know, Bean. But that doesn't mean that his son can just get away with killing seven people and pin it on some poor girl."

"He probably thinks so," Wallis said with an audible snort.

"Well he's wrong," Corbett said in a voice that brooked no argument. "Are you going to help me, or what?"

"Rat, you know I've always got your back. Even when you're doing something stupid like this. What do you need?"

Corbett started outlining what he wanted to do while Jimmy looked on and smiled. Finally when Corbett hung up the phone, the old wolf laughed.

"You're a crazy man, Ricky," Jimmy said when he finished laughing. "But you're a good one. I knew that when I first met you."

Jimmy's eyes burned with pride as he looked at Corbett, and the inspector couldn't keep his gaze.

"I'm just doing what's right," Corbett said as he looked away.

"There ain't many would, sittin' where you are, Ricky." Jimmy wasn't laughing any more, and his face was serious as he watched Corbett. "You gonna need anything from me?"

"Yeah, and I hate to ask it, Jimmy," Corbett started and he looked back up into the old wolf's eyes and he told him the plan. He wasn't going to finish what he needed to do in time for the trial, but as long as he did what he needed to do before they put Caitlin up against the pole, he could get her home to her family at least alive, if not completely whole.