Chapter 85

Maybe it was the fact that they were sitting in the middle of a bunch of cops. Maybe it was that, for some reason, she immediately trusted her, but Nikki was finding it difficult to keep from telling Teresa about her investigation. Well, not telling her all about it, but at least hinting that something was going on. In the end, the fact that she was pretty damned sure someone was gunning for her helped keep her lips sealed.

Their dinner conversation was light. Some office politics and polite inquiries into Teresa’s investigations. Nikki eventually wanted to make detective, probably homicide, and was eager to hear what Teresa had to say on the subject. Teresa, for her part, was easy to talk to -- although Nikki often found herself distracted by other, far less professional thoughts. She found Cordoba’s looks exotic and extremely enticing, which made her miss Scott and the mansion even more.

Time flew as the talk ranged across all sorts of topics. Finally though, Teresa leaned forward.

“I want,” she said in a very quiet voice, “ ... I want to tell you about what happened at the Whitestone mansion.”

“Nemetodunum,” said Nikki.

“Huh?”

“It’s the name of the mansion,” she said. “Nemetodunum. I think it’s Celtic.”

“What does it mean?”

“Umm ... I’m not sure of the exact translation, but it’s a kind of fortress.”

Teresa nodded slowly. She might have suggested a Temple, but after what had happened to the cops who’d searched the place -- never mind the invading Tankers -- fortress might be more appropriate.

“Hmm. Well, I want to tell you about that, but I don’t want to do it here,” she continued. “Too many possible ears.”

“Okay,” said Nikki. “Where?”

“I guess either of our places,” replied Teresa. “What would make you more comfortable?”

“I’m good with either,” shrugged Nikki.

“Your place it is, then,” smiled Cordoba.

As she drove, Nikki wondered what Cordoba had in mind. Did she want to just talk, or did she feel the same level of sexual tension as Nikki did? Or was Nikki just horny and seeing interest where there wasn’t any. She sighed.

Once back at her place, Nikki got them some wine. The fact that they both had to work in the morning had somehow slipped their minds.

“So,” said Nikki after sitting down, “what really happened?”

“Hmm,” said Teresa, her dark eyes fixed on Nikki. “I’ll make you a deal. You tell me what really happened on Friday, and I’ll tell you what really happened on the raid.”

Nikki cocked her head to one side and thought about it.

“Okay,” she shrugged, “but there’s not much to tell.”

Teresa nodded, then proceeded to tell Nikki how the ‘raid’ had gone. How the only one there had been Ken and how the cops had found absolutely nothing. Also, how so many of them had gotten hurt or had totally freaked out.

“That’s really weird,” mused Nikki. “I’ve walked all over the back area without shoes on...” or anything else, she didn’t add, “and never had a problem. Are those guys just klutzes or something?”

“I don’t know,” replied Teresa. “Ted and I were also back there a few days before, and we didn’t have any problems either. But it wasn’t just the back yard. It was the entire place. No one searching the inside got physically hurt, but I’ll bet you couldn’t pay any one of ‘em enough to set foot inside that house again.”

Nikki shook her head. The mansion was ... strange at times, but nothing like what Teresa was describing. For her part, Teresa had more than one reason for telling Nikki what had happened. She wanted to see how the other woman reacted. Did she know about the Goddess that was so powerful there? Did she know about the power that Ken wielded? Just how close was she to them?

“Well, they’re probably lucky that Jane wasn’t around,” said Nikki. “She doesn’t like cops all that much, and with good reason, after what Burt did to her.”

“I’d heard something about that,” said Teresa. “There was some kind of biker fight downtown and some civi got into it with Burt, I think it was.” Then she frowned. “I don’t remember there being an investigation about that, but Whitestone said he was going to sue the department after the raid that the Captain ordered. In fact, he is suing the department.”

Nikki nodded.

“Yeah, ever since that thing with Burt, the Captain has had it in for Ken.”

“I heard that they attacked some of the cops during the bar fight, which was one reason why I was initially okay with the raid.”

“No,” said Nikki shaking her head, “that’s not what happened at all.”

“Oh?”

Teresa wondered if anything was as it seemed when Whitestone was involved.

Nikki’s lips tightened.

“The raid was a setup. The bar was owned by one of the guys in the Hawkes. Have you heard of them?”

“Only the name,” said Teresa. “From what I’ve heard, they aren’t bad, as these gangs go. Ted and I have never had any direct contact with ‘em.”

“Well, anyway, a bunch of guys from the Tankers...”

“ ... now those assholes I’ve heard of.”

Nikki nodded and continued, “Well they came into the bar and started a big fight. Then all of a sudden, the Tankers disappear and in comes the riot squad, beating the hell out of everyone. After gassing the place, of course. Anyway, Burt nailed Jane in the head, badly. He almost killed her. Worse, they just threw everyone in the wagon for transport and they dumped her with everyone else in holding. If I hadn’t come along and called an ambulance, she would have died. Funny thing though -- none of the Tankers were ever caught or charged.”

Teresa frowned.

“That doesn’t sound right,” she said. “I thought you said they started the fight?”

“They did,” said Nikki, “but somehow they all managed to get out before thing got things under control.”

“Not one Tanker got caught?”

“Not a one.”

“That’s not even possible,” said Teresa. “Something fucked up is going on there.”

You have no idea, thought Nikki. Of course, she had no idea either. At least, no idea why. Only who and what.

“Yeah, you got that right,” said Nikki.

“Okay,” said Teresa, curling her feet under her, “now give. What really happened on Friday?”

Nikki sighed.

“Well, Ron and I were on patrol and this guy grabs a purse off this woman standing almost right next to the squad car.”

“Seriously? That was stupid.”

“Hmm. Well, by the time I got out of the car, she was nowhere to be seen, and Ron was down the block going after the perp. I figured that once we had the purse, we could find her to give it back, so I went after them.”

“Okay,” said Teresa.

“Yeah, I know,” said Nikki. “That right there was weird. Someone grabs her purse and the woman just disappears? With a cop car sitting right there? You’d think she would have yelled for help.”

“Right.”

“Well anyway, it wasn’t something I was thinking about right at the moment,” said Nikki. “So we follow this guy into the building, and we hear him upstairs, so we go up. Ron got nailed as soon as we stepped into the room. Turns out there were three of em.”

“Three?”

“Yeah,” said Nikki slowly. She really didn’t want to go into details of the fight. “I didn’t have a lot of time to think because we got into it, and I managed to fight ‘em off. Guess they freaked and bolted. Ron wasn’t too bad so we went back downstairs.”

Teresa said nothing for a moment and Nikki shifted uncomfortably under the other woman’s stare.

“What?” she asked. “You wanted me to tell you what happened. That’s what happened.”

“Pretty much all of that was in the report,” said Teresa. “I want to know what you didn’t put into the report.”

“What makes you think there was anything more to it?”

Teresa wondered if she should tell Nikki what she’d overheard. She wondered if she should tell Nikki that Ron made her uneasy. Probably not though -- the guy was her partner and she had no concrete proof that he’d done anything wrong.

“I uh, kind of overheard Mitchell and Burt talking this morning,” Teresa admitted carefully. “They didn’t say anything much, but I heard them say Ron thought it looked like they were going after you.”

That was a lie, sort of. They’d said Ron thought the guys were pros, not that they were going after Nikki. But if they’d been pros and going after the both of them, Ron would have been dead.

“Ron said that?” asked Nikki with a frown. “Huh. He never mentioned it to me. Besides, it doesn’t make any sense -- why would someone be coming after me?”

“I don’t know,” replied Teresa with a slight frown. Nikki was hiding something, but Teresa didn’t think this was the time to push. She changed her expression to a grin, “You piss anyone off lately?”

“I’m a cop,” replied Nikki, “I’m always pissin’ someone off.”

True to her word, Nikki did describe in more detail what had happened, still glossing over how intense the fight had been and completely leaving out the part where she’d been hit with the Taser. Her story seemed to satisfy Teresa and the two ended the evening not long after. Teresa returned to her apartment wondering what Nikki was into while Nikki lay in bed wondering why, if Ron had thought those men were after her, he hadn’t said anything to her, but rather had confided in two cops she knew were dirty.

But she knew Ron, and never for a second did she think he bad. She’d never seen him during any of the times she’d been watching the Captain’s crew, and he didn’t seem to hang out with any of them.

And besides, Ron had always been pretty protective of her, so maybe he just didn’t want to freak her out.

For her part, Teresa was unable to sleep, tossing and turning. Finally, she gave up and started to aimlessly putter around her place. It took a while but she realized she was setting things up for a spell. Once she realized that, she went right to her purse and removed a small evidence bag with a hair in it. A hair she’d gotten from Nikki’s brush. Centering herself, she began to cast a Circle.

Captain Harrison’s day started out quite good. His bitch of a daughter was away for two weeks at the in-laws, and his wife had woken up horny enough that he’d been able to get his rocks off without her whining about foreplay. On the drive to work he got a call. He didn’t recognize the number or the voice, which gave him three names, one of which belonged to the guy who’d owned the Taser. That was all the voice said before the line went dead, but once he was in the office, it didn’t take long for him to discover that those men had all turned up dead in the last twenty-four hours. The police had been notified, but it seemed as if each had had rather unfortunate accidents, and one of them had apparently been dead for days before he’d been found. Interesting.

Unfortunately, his day went rather drastically downhill from there, starting with his ten A.M. meeting with the mayor. The annoying prick made it clear in no uncertain terms that Harrison had fucked up by going after Whitestone, that his department had fucked up by not providing Whitestone’s wife with medical treatment, and that this lawsuit was making the LA police (even though they weren’t strictly LA, the rest of the country neither knew nor cared) look worse than they already did and that he, Harrison, would immediately cease and desist all contact or investigation of any sort. And, in fact, if he, the mayor, discovered that anyone from Harrison’s precinct had even given one of those people a fucking parking ticket, Harrison would be back walking a beat!

This did not play well with Harrison. Not at all, but he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut and agree with the mayor, and even going so far as to apologize. The Mayor wasn’t an idiot though, or at least not too much of an idiot, and waved him off, telling him he didn’t want to hear so much as a peep out of Harrison’s precinct and that if required, Harrison would make whatever apology was necessary to Whitestone to shut the guy the hell up and make him go the fuck away.

Harrison hadn’t been back in his car for five minutes before he got a phone call from a friend in the Bureau. They’d known each other for a long time, although neither of them advertised their friendship. It was better no one knew because the types of information they passed back and forth were quite beneficial, and sometimes very lucrative, to their various interests -- many of which were not legal.

The call was short, but not sweet.

“Hey thought you’d want to know that a certain gang down there has a plant.”

“I need to keep my guys out?”

“Not that kind of gang,” was the reply. “Tankers.”

“Shit.”

“Yup.”

“How long?”

“A few months. She’s goin’ by the name of Betty.”

“Is it something I can take care of?”

“Only if you’re very careful,” replied the voice. “They’re looking into human trafficking, so this has attention from high up. Way high up.”

“Got it. Thanks.”

Harrison swore as he tossed the cell onto the passenger’s seat, then swore again. This was bad. Very bad.

While Harrison himself wasn’t directly involved in any of the white slavery shit, he was certainly associated with it. He took money to give the Tankers and their people a measure of protection from being discovered. It didn’t take much, a word here or there letting them know how to avoid a sting or investigation and it made him a lot of money. The rest of the crew and, of course, Father Bob, had no idea that the Tankers were involved in that. Well Bosh did -- that fucker might as well be a gang member himself at this point. But Harrison was involved more than enough to get his ass canned and jailed.

As he drove back to his office, he was deep in thought. There were a number of ways he could deal with this. He could tell Bobby about the woman and let him take care of it, but he didn’t trust Bobby to keep his mouth shut if he was caught. Hmmm. There was another asset he could put into play here, but if he did, well ... it definitely would be time for him to relocate, although it would mean he could tell Bobby.

Harrison hadn’t been at his desk for more than five minutes when there was a knock on his door and Mitchell came walking in.

“Gotta minute?”

“Sure,” replied Harrison, not that he really wanted to talk to the guy. He figured that Mitchell was probably going to make sure he knew about the men Father Bob had taken care of.

“We might have a problem,” said Mitchell after closing the door.

“What kind of problem?”

“Internal.”

“That Weston chick?”

“No,” replied Mitchell, “at least, I don’t think so. We got an IA plant nosin’ around.”

“Why?” frowned Harrison.

“That, I don’t know,” replied Mitchell. “But a friend of mine said that one of the lab rats is IA.”

Harrison threw his pen on the desk and leaned back. This day just kept getting better and better.