SWITCHING TARGETS
There wasn't ever going to be a good time for this conversation. There isn't exactly a Hallmark card for 'Hey, I want to defend the people who maybe tried to murder your girlfriend.' But among the bad times for broaching the topic, approaching an armed and angry Hardcastle at the gun range seemed among the worst of the worst.
"Uh, Chief?" Alex stopped a few paces shy of the Chief. "Hello?"
With a quick glance to his periphery, Hardcastle emptied his clip rapid-fire. The strobe of muzzle flare cast deep shadows over his face.
The clip empty, silence again stuffing cotton into their ears, Hardcastle engaged the safety, ejected the spent clip and slammed gun and clip on the counter before him.
"Dalkowski." He hit the target return button as he turned to Alex.
"I…I'm sorry about your…about Miss—"
"Whatever you came to say, say it."
Alex nodded, swallowed the lump in her throat.
"I want to expand the scope of our investigation into the attack on Miss Leslie."
Hardcastle yanked the paper target from its hook. The poor sap wore a ragged hole in his center the size of a fist. Hardcastle turned the target in his massive hands, stuck a finger through the lone bullet hole off-target, a tear in the shoulder.
"Distracted, there."
"Sir, please listen to me."
Hardcastle drew a long breath. Then, lighting quick, he swiped another target sheet and clipped it up. "You mind?"
Alex looked between the target and the man, unsure which, in this particular moment, was more fragile.
"Not at all."
Fresh target fluttering through the darkness to the end of the range, Hardcastle slid in a fresh clip and turned, shoulders over feet and arms ready before him.
"Sir," Alex said, "please… This may not be what you want to hear right now, but I don't think the Irregulars are guilty of attacking your…of attacking Miss Leslie."
Hardcastle grunted, doubletapped two shots. One to the heart, one to the head. "That'll teach the sumbitch."
Alex could feel him slipping away before her, the anger and the rage slowly building a wall. "Sir, please listen."
"Who, then?"
"Sir?"
"You don't think the three people, covered in Barbara Ann's blood, holding the weapon, a history of criminal acts, are guilty? Then who."
Alex could only shake her head.
"This have anything to do with Kagan visiting your office?"
Alex's heart stopped. Her stomach lurched up into her mouth. She braced herself against the counter to keep from falling.
"S-sir?"
"Before I was Chief, I was a beat cop, and then a detective like you. Even a hound dog put to pasture can't help but catch a scent." He fired off another salvo. The target fluttered from the force of impact, the hole in its heart growing like a cancer.
"There's too many inconsistencies." Alex stood firm. She pushed up from the counter, stood, like Hardcastle, shoulders over feet, legs strong. "I don't like how perfect the prints came back. I don't like that the thief at the jewelry store had his shoelaces tied."
Hardcastle clicked on the safety, tabled the gun and turned. "Shoelaces?"
"I know it sounds stupid. But Harris Kagan never—never—ties his shoes."
"I sure as shit hope you have something more than sloppy shoelaces when it comes time to sit on the stand, Detective."
"It's all too cute." Alex could feel the heat rising in her. "All the evidence is lining up exactly how we'd want it to. Witness, the prints…"
"You're saying you don't want the evidence to fit the crime? You should know by now, Detective, we don't live in some TV show, the first guess is usually pretty good."
"I know, sir, but I've got a gut feeling that something is off. I don't like it."
Hardcastle took up the gun again. He inhaled deep into his stomach, held it, and on the exhale fired. A black hole blossomed at the target's groin.
"You missed," Alex said.
"I didn't." Hardcastle laid the gun on the counter between them, turned to look his Detective in the eyes. "I love her, you know."
"Miss—"
"Barbara Ann. For a long time. And I'm here, I'm pumping this stupid fucking paper full of holes because I'm afraid if I go out there into the streets, if I'm called to the prison, I'm afraid I'll do something I can't take back. I didn't get here by being a hothead, by losing control."
"Sir, please, you have to listen to me—"
"Stop." Hardcastle put out a hand. "I am listening."
"But sir..."
"I get it, Dalkowski, that this...that being Sergeant Detective in some Podunk shithole isn't the end of the line for you."
"Sir?"
"Dogs and scents, Detective. It doesn't go away. But whether you want to run for Mayor, or whatever…know that you're a good cop. You were good on the beat. Only woman in the department, it would have been easy for the guys to walk all over you, but they didn't. They respect you. And I know a lot of the talk says you're detective because the Mayor needed a diversity hire to pad his credentials, but that appointment had to go through me. I'm the one who put your name forward after you passed the exam."
"Sir, I don't…"
"You were a good beat cop and you're even better detective. I think you're probably barking up the wrong tree, trying to find a scent other than the Irregulars. But at the same time, I trust your instinct. So if you come here to me, and you tell me your gut is wrong, that you want to widen the scope of your investigation, then I say okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay. We're both close to this, in our own way. But we're the same in that we both just want the truth." Hardcastle nodded and took the gun. Again facing the range, he squeezed off more explosions, more light, into the silent dark. "Don't make me regret this, Detective."
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