Chapter 22 REDRED, BLUEBLUE
“Dispatch we’ve got a confirmed DOA at a bar. Requesting backup”
The rain lashed against the window of Duke’s car. The wipers fighting a losing battle against the downpour.
Each rain drop sounded like stones were being thrown at his window, threatening to break through the windows.
Duke sat inside the car and stared blankly out the windshield, his grip tightening and weakening around the steering wheel his knuckles turning pale white.
The radio crackled again, the static biting through the quiet gloom of the patrol car. Duke started at the dashboard but didn’t answer the dispatcher immediately.
He couldn’t.
Inside the small, confined space of the cruiser, the ghost f his argument with Mitch was still screaming at him, the guilt he tried to bury growing each passing second.
Duke exhaled, the sound shuddering in the cold air. He wanted to scream. He wanted to drive the car into a wall, or better yet, drive until the city lights were just tiny specks in the rearview mirror.
But then, the radio cut in again, sharper this time. “Detective Duke, do you copy? 10-4?”
Duke grabbed the mic, his voice dropping into that practiced, gravelly calm he used to hide the fact that he was barely holding it together. “Copy, Dispatch. Responding. ETA, twenty minutes.”
Duke killed the transmission before dispatch could reply. The mic clattered against the dashboard, a sharp, metallic sound that did nothing to settle the vibration in his teeth. His jaw ached from clenching it.
Mitch had been his partner for ten years, his brother and friend for twenty.
Twenty years of patrol, coffee and quiet camaraderie, all currently dissolving in the acidic heat of a disagreement over things that couldn’t be measured with a tape or a breathalyzer.
Duke slammed the cruiser into gear, the tires losing traction on the slick, wet asphalt of the side street before they bit into the road. The car lurched forward, an obedient beast responding to his aggression.
He drove hard, the city passing by in a smear of grays and blacks. The rain outside was relentless, a vicious downpour that turned the streetlights into blurry, bleeding neon orbs.
Every pulse of the overhead light bar; red, blue, red, blue, painted the interior of the cruiser in disorienting, rhythmic flashes.
It felt less like a police patrol and more like he was trapped inside a migraine.
He was a cop. He was the one who brought order to the chaos.
He was, he is the one who stood between the average citizen and the danger a city as big as his brings.
If Mitch has decided to forsake his responsibilities and the oath he swore to when he received that badge to go chase some random voodoo nonsense he has no way of proving, then so be it. That was his suicide note. Duke wouldn’t sign it.
He couldn’t.
He pulled up to the bar three minutes later, skidding into the curb with a spray of murky gutter water.
The scene was already a cacophony of disaster.
Even through the lashing rain, the scene was illuminated by the cruel, white strobe of camera flashes. Journalists were already swarming the perimeter, hovering like maggots over fresh meat, their lenses telephoto-snouts pushing past the yellow tape.
The local patrol units were struggling, their shouted orders being drowned out by the thunder and the distant, hysterical sirens of an ambulance.
Duke parked, killed the engine and sat for a moment. He breathed in the smell of the interior; stale coffee, gun oil and the strange, sweet scent of his own lingering adrenaline.
He stepped out, pulling his jacket tight against the chill steeling his resolve.
He was the law, a detective and he was walking into a fire he didn’t quite know how to extinguish. But he is going to find a way.
He pushed past a camera man who stumbled back, startled by the sheer weight of Duke’s presence. That’s when he bumped into him.
The kid that started all this mess, Noah Ware.
He rushed past him, tears streaming down his face and the black man that was always with him in tow.
A young officer was about to chase after them but Duke stopped her.
“Don’t bother. When needed, I’ll get them to the station. Rather than chasing after them brief me on what I just stepped into.” Duke advised, scratching his brow with a sigh on his lips.
“But sir-” The officer started but was cut off by Duke “Just do as I say.”
“We received a 911 call approximately one hour ago from the manager of the bar. Initial report indicated a possible deceased individual discovered in the restroom of the bar. Responding patrol arrived in minutes and confirmed a male subject, later identified as Leo Mendoza, 23 years old, Asian, university student, found unresponsive in a bathroom stall. Scene was immediately secured and EMS was requested, but the subject was pronounced deceased on site.”
Duke pushed back the tape and walked through before asking “Who found him? What did those in the bar at time of the discovery have to say?”
The female officer trotted behind him and answered “According to witness statements, the decedent was not part of the gathering.”
“What gathering?”
“A group of his course mates were having one before the body was found. It was them who coincidentally discovered the body. They stated that they had no prior arrangement with him and were not aware of his presence at the location until discovery. Further background checks and interviews confirm they last had direct contact with Leo at the end of the previous academic semester. Since then, he had not attended classes or communicated with any of them. He was officially reported missing one month prior to this incident. No recent communications, sightings or digital contact have been established between the decedent and the group or family since the disappearance report was filed.”
“Who exactly found the body again?” Duke asked now arriving the bathroom. The crime scene photographers seemed to be taking final shots with some of them already packing up.
“One of the two that ran out” The officer answered “Noah Ware. There’s a contradiction his statement though sir”
Duke turned to the officer pulling his eyes from the scene “What do you mean by a contradiction?”
“Well, according to him, he spoke with the victim a few hours ago. He mentioned that the victim was the one who invited him to the gathering and had a conversation with the victim before entry to the bathroom. The staffs stated that they have no recollection of the victim entering the establishment, at the table the victim’s course mates sat and the victim wasn’t sighted in the bathroom by other visitors till Noah found it.”
What more did I expect from anything Ware related Duke swore in his mind. “And CCTV footage is yet to be available?” The officer nodded and Duke squeezed the space between his brows and sent her away.
He turned to the ME on scene and asked “Tom, tell me you have something”
Tom, still looking intensely at Leo’s corpse answered “No I do not. There are no obvious trauma. No defense wounds, no signs of a struggle in here. Scene is clean. Body’s fresh, time of death looks recent. Nothing jumps out as cause of death at this stage. We’ll need a full autopsy and tox to say more.”
Tom stood up from where he squatted and turned to Duke and said “I must add, it is eerily similar to the body from the ally except there are no strange marking on it. Duke, just like the other one, I have never seen anything like this.”
Duke swore loudly this time, “Just my fcking rotten luck.”