The Poet (Samantha Jazz)

“Go home, Chucky,” Lang orders. “It’s late. We got this.”

His spine is stiff, chin hard with stubbornness. “I’m staying, and it’s ‘Chuck.’”

“Don’t you have a family, man?” Lang asks.

“Had,” Chuck says. “She and the kids left me. Like everyone else in the building. Did you know that statistically law enforcement officers have a divorce rate of fifty percent? In some high stress sectors, it’s sixty to seventy percent.”

“Don’t let anyone tell you that you are not the King of Good Times,” Lang says. “The pleasant shit you share is just motivational. And aren’t you like twelve?”

“Lang,” I scold.

He shrugs. “I’m the keeper of the real. You know it.”

“Thirty-five,” Chuck snips, looking at me. “And I’m the keeper of the real. I’m the facts guy. I’ll stay. The job is all I have.”

“We need you fresh,” I say. “Go home. Rest. And the good news is that the captain is getting us help. The good kind that isn’t wet behind the ears.”

It takes some effort, but we finally persuade him to head on home.

Half an hour later, Lang and I are both working while inhaling sandwiches from one of our favorite takeout spots. Lang busies himself calling moving companies, the late hour throwing him roadblocks, while I read through the case file, looking for anything I missed. I’m presently putting off the security feed review, with good reason. I need to be focused, homing in on tiny details when I review it, and I’m not in a place that allows that hyper-focus right this minute. Food and Lang’s loudmouth cursing at those roadblocks is not the way to achieve that goal.

I go through an inventory of everything collected at the crime scene, and the poetry books found in and under the seats are of particular interest. I can almost imagine The Poet picking one up and judging the material. I make a note. We need the forensics results on those books as a priority, and I’m not beyond pulling the missing cop card to get it done.

Roberts is missing, and with a twist of my gut, I know we won’t find him alive. I frown with a thought and catch Lang between calls. “I just can’t put two and two together on Roberts. He did resign.”

“By phone.” He scrubs his jaw and leans back in his chair. “Sounds fishy to me. Maybe he had a gun to his head.”

“But he applied for a job in Houston. So he resigned and he applied for a job in Houston? Surely he talked to the Houston office himself at some point?”

“Seems like at some point he would, even if the captain made the initial call.” He leans forward and grabs his phone. “I’ll call Houston and do an information grab.”

I sit there and wait, eager to find out what he learns. The answer is not much. He tries Roberts’s new captain and the HR department. “Everyone’s gone,” he says. “We’ll hear back tomorrow.”

I nod, but this whole Roberts situation feels off. I don’t doubt that he’s dead or, if we’re lucky, in hiding. There’s no body. There’s no poem. The Poet left that poem because he’s proud of that murder; it feels justified to him. Roberts’s situation just doesn’t logically add up to The Poet.

Chapter 36

I sigh in resignation and refocus on my work, dialing the crime lab, only to land in voicemail yet again. Of course. It’s late.

I decide I’ll start my day tomorrow by swinging by there, at which time I’ll shoot a little fire under a few backsides. I’ve just finished off the last of my sandwich when Lang curses and stands up. “This is getting me nowhere. I’m going to stop by Roberts’s ex’s house. They have a love/hate thing. She might know something helpful.”

“Are you going to freak her out?”

“Yeah, maybe,” he concedes. “But the truth is that at this point, if he’s dead, there’s no saving her that hell. Right now, there’s still hope.”

I heave a leaden sigh. “Right. Agreed.” Though I know, we both know deep in our guts, that there is no hope. There is just justice, served by us, and if we have our way, served quickly. “Call me and let me know what happens.”

“I’m coming back here to take you home. I’m sleeping on your couch.” He winks. “Don’t worry. I won’t get naked.”

“No. I don’t need a babysitter, and please stop saying the word ‘naked.’”

“You said it first in the car.”

“Stop.”

His mood shifts, sobers. “Roberts is proof we’re all vulnerable to the bad guys.”

“And I am prepared.”

“You think he wasn’t?” He doesn’t give me time to reply. “There’s no coming back from cyanide. If you’re not here when I get back, I’m coming over. Come on, Jazzy, I’ve slept on your couch before. All jokes aside, I’m a gentleman.”

“I know you. I trust you, but I have a patrol backup.”