“At least there’s heat and hot water,” my brother quipped.
But the Sarge was suddenly serious.
“How’s the investigation going?” he said. “I’ve got to feed the beasts at City Hall soon. The Adams, parents of victim Brian Adams, have been pressuring the Mayor for results and he’s been knocking on my door,” he said, shaking his head.
I felt bad for our boss. That’s the thing about moving up the management ladder – you barely get a chance to do any actual police work, instead spending all your time managing superiors.
“We got a big break,” said my brother, unzipping his backpack. “We found this.”
And out came an unidentifiable shape wrapped in plastic.
“What the fuck is that?” asked our boss, perplexed.
“Hold your breath,” warned Bryan. “Best to blast the AC, open the windows.”
And my twin set the package on the Sarge’s desk, carefully unrolling our precious cargo. Because despite its gory exterior, it actually contained key evidence. The plastic fell apart to reveal a dead cat, semi-thawed and decomposing, its eyes unseeing, set in an eternal unblinking stare.
“God almighty!” raged our Sarge. “This better be good, you’ve just stunk up my office.”
“Just give it a sec boss,” I chimed in, as my brother continued with the honors. Because now he’d snapped on a pair of gloves and was pulling the cat’s abdomen apart … to reveal five packets stuffed with white powder.
“Oh shit,” breathed Collins. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Probably, yeah,” smirked my brother. “It’s likely heroin or cocaine, packaged conveniently into a dead animal where no one would think to look.”
“How did you get your hands on this?” asked our boss.
My brother shrugged. “Luck, more than anything. Our lab partner fainted during the dissection and we ended up having to do a weekend make-up. During the make-up, there must have been some mix-up when it came to the specimen and we got this instead,” he said, gesturing to the dead cat.
“Shit, who’s transporting this stuff?” said the Sarge, a disgusted look on his face. “I mean, what the fuck, are they killing animals to use as couriers?”
“My guess is no,” I said. “You can order these things on-line, they’re shipped straight to the school. My guess is the dealer is connected to the school in some way, intercepting the cats without anyone noticing, and then stuffing them full before retrieving the goods for final retail.”
“It’s gotta be that fucking science teacher,” growled our boss. “Grimes did you say his name was?”
“Nah, it’s not Grimes,” I said confidently. “No one running a drug ring could be so dumb as to accidentally lose track of goods the way this dealer did.” And I meant it. There had to be at least 5Gs worth of pure cocaine in there.
“So it’s someone else then,” mused our boss. “Any other leads?”
“Still working on it,” I said promptly. “Give us some time, we’ll crack it Sarge,” I said confidently.
“Well speed it up, I can’t keep City Hall off our backs for much longer,” said our boss. “Two weeks max and I’ve got to say something.”
“We’ll have it solved by then,” my brother chimed with assurance. “Trust us, we have a secret weapon,” he winked.
And I knew he was referring to our girl, our lover, our everything … Callie.
14
Callie
My lovers strode in the door, confident, their pace unhurried, warm grins for me as they set down their backpacks.
“So how’d it go?” I asked anxiously. “Was someone available to talk with you? What did you think?”
Truth is, I was kind of anxious about the twins going to the precinct. On the one hand, I absolutely respected Bryan and Blake’s decision to apply to the Academy. There’s nothing sexier than a man in blue, and my lovers have the intellectual and physical chops to be police officers. But on the other, I was concerned about the danger. As rookies on the force they’d be assigned to the toughest beats, patrolling housing projects, the Tenderloin, places where random gunshots still rang out at night.
“It was great,” said Blake easily. “There were a couple guys off-duty, they were only too happy to spend a couple minutes shooting the shit about their jobs.”
“What did they say?” I asked anxiously. “Did they tell you what the hours are like, whether you’ll have a gun, all that kind of stuff?”
That’d made Bryan laugh.
“Of course we’d have guns, honey. Even SFPD doesn’t expect you to go out there unarmed, like a volunteer neighborhood watch or something. In fact,” he said, leaning forward, “Small arms weapons combat is probably going to be my favorite module.”
And I smiled tremulously. Again, I was happy for the boys because they were going to make an honest living doing something they clearly had the aptitude for. I just didn’t want them getting hurt.
“Okay,” I said softly. “Just so long as you’re sure.”