Campanelli: Sentinel Page 2

  The cruiser Williams had checked out from the motor pool was the same make and model as Campanelli’s, only twelve years older and far more run down. It rattled and squeaked as it rolled out of the parking lot and onto Eighteenth Street, but otherwise it was in good working order.

  The drive was extremely short as the District One Station was across the street. Frank realized that he had forgotten to eat anything and hoped that the meeting would be short. He pulled a cigarette from the pack in his jacket pocket and lit it with his chromed NYPD lighter, a souvenir from another lifetime. Campanelli commanded the window to drop a few inches. The air and the smell of tobacco invigorated him, but only momentarily. Underneath his professional façade, he was exhausted and he knew that it showed.

  The car turned left onto State Street and pulled a “U” turn in front of the District One building and parked. The two detectives got out and headed inside. Once on the second floor, they took a right turn out of the bank of elevators and knocked on their Chief’s office door. Frank opened it when he heard Vanek’s voice and stepped in.

  “Frank, Marcus,” Dmitri Vanek greeted. They returned the sentiment with low spoken ‘good mornings’. The Chief did not need to invite them to sit, for they knew from many such meetings that it was simply expected. “Frank, you look awful.”

  “Oh? I’m not fooling anyone, huh?” he replied lightly from his slouched position. He went through the motion of straightening up, but the change of posture did nothing for him.

  Vanek smirked. “I want you to know that from the two CAPS-Link recordings I’ve received from two other officers, Marcus’s being one of them, that last night’s shooting incident appears unavoidable. I’ll have to ask you to forward yours, Frank.”

  Frank brought the listing of his implant’s files into view and found the recording. Retitling it, he saved the file and linked his implant with Vanek’s. Once done, he transmitted the copy to the man sitting on the other side of the desk.

  “Thank you,” Vanek said and nodded. “This is just a formality, Frank. Like I said, you’re in the clear.”

  Campanelli did not so much as nod. He simply held Dmitri Vanek’s gaze as he rubbed his stubbly chin.

  “I take it you’re feeling guilty?” Dmitri ventured. Receiving a blink in response, he forged on. “I can’t tell you how to feel. Just know that I understand it. No cop I ever met goes out there intending to put a bullet into an innocent man, but remember Campanelli, Sam Whethers was not an innocent person. He was unarmed, yes, but a criminal nonetheless.”

  “What about Antony?” Campanelli inquired with a croak in his voice.

  “Once I get these implant recordings of Jimmy Antony’s intent to kill to the DA, we’ll just get the bail revoked and take him back into custody.”

  Frank nodded as the Chief of Detectives passed his eyes over the two men. There was much fatigue in the face of Campanelli while it appeared that Williams, a much younger man and genetically improved by the military, was unaffected by the long hours.

  “Chief,” Frank spoke up with a little more fire in his manner, “where is Sarah Whethers this morning?”

  “Oh,” replied Vanek as his pupils danced over the text his implant projected onto his lenses, “the daughter. Well, if you two wish to pay a visit or whatever, she was processed into juvenile hall this morning. She’ll be processed into the foster care program. But, I urge you both to not get involved,” the Chief sat back into his big chair and it creaked loudly over his sigh. “What is not commonly known is that the detention center is being hit with various forms of influenza. They’ve had a lot of deaths over the past few months.”

  Frank and Marcus looked to each other in alarm. Both detectives were very aware of the rising number of cases of influenza in the general public and the low availability of Perpetuamivir, the world’s most successful and complete influenza vaccine. They also understood that the last people in line for the inoculations would be prisoners. What they failed to realize, as it simply had not come up before, was the low priority of juveniles in the city’s care.

  “We’ve got to get her out of there!” Frank exuded with suddenness as he sat forward.

  “Frank,” Vanek insisted, “she’s not your problem.”

  “Then how come I feel it is?”

  “It’s a natural reaction, believe me, I understand, Campanelli.”

  “Please, Chief,” Frank pressed with an effort to suppress further emotional outbursts, “we have to put her in a home, quickly. She’s only seven years old.”

  Vanek sighed again and sat forward. The chair sounded relieved. “It isn’t like she’s being sent to Statesville,” he said lowly. The name had great impact. One of two maximum security prisons left in the state, Statesville had a mortality rate so high that to send a convict there was, in effect, a death sentence. Vanek was aware that his mention of the facility had quieted his Captain of Detectives, but not appeased him. Dmitri smiled and acquiesced. “I’ll make a few calls and see if I can’t speed things up for her.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Campanelli breathed.

  “On one condition.”

  “Name it.”

  “Take the rest of the day off. As a matter of fact, take tomorrow, too.”

  Frank sighed and sat back. The many cases that he had his eight homicide detectives assigned to were well under way. There had not been any request of him for several days, but Officer Albert Kelly’s murder was now a priority. The report on his shooting revealed that none of the guns found on the traffickers matched the one that had killed him. “Let me check on my people, make sure there’s nothing they need. We have to find out which one of Ignatola’s goons killed Kelly.”

  “No, Frank,” Vanek replied. “Let Williams do that.”

  “Hey, where’s my day off?” Williams protested jestingly.

  Dmitri smirked. “Check up on Frank’s people, do what you can to get the Kelly investigation going, then report to him…at his home, at a bar, at the beach…whatever. Then take tomorrow.”

  “Okay, Chief,” Marcus agreed, “thanks.”

  To Frank, he said: “I’ll let you know what I find out about the Whethers girl by this evening.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Campanelli answered sincerely.

  “Now, get outta here,” Vanek ordered, shooing his two underlings out of his office.

  ***

  It was not until the two of them were back in the rickety cruiser that Campanelli admitted his desperate need of nourishment and invited Marcus to breakfast. The car took them to “Tam’s Place” the diner on the corner of Eighteenth and Michigan. Frank had dined there religiously for almost two years, well before he had ever thought about dating Tamara, the owner. He had introduced Williams to the place a year prior and the ex-Navy Seal had finally gotten used to the fact that the place did not specialize in health food, though there were a few salads to choose from. As it was breakfast time, Marcus actually looked forward to his usual eggs and bacon, so much so that he beat Campanelli to the door, which he held for Frank.

  “Hi Frank! Hi Marcus!” Tam called from behind the counter.

  Both men returned the greeting and sat across from her. Frank loved the way Tam’s smile lit the place up; it had a habit of making him smile in response without even thinking about it. Her dancing blue eyes met with his full-service artificial lenses and right away, she could see the fatigue in Campanelli’s face. Tam’s smile faltered slightly as she picked up two plates from the chef’s shelf and she walked them to the two patrons seated at the window. Besides those two, another couple sat in the far corner.

  “It’s a bit early to be this empty,” Frank murmured to himself as he checked the time display.

  “Yes,” Williams said discretely once he looked around, “I wonder if that has to do with the latest outbreak of flu.”

  Tam returned and the two of them placed their orders. After submitting the choices to the kitchen, she asked in her best southern belle accent, “What in the world happened last night,
Frank?”

  “Just a late night, Tam,” Frank smiled.

  Tam looked to Marcus expectantly for his story.

  “A late one and a rough one,” Williams added.

  “Well, you look like hell, dear,” she proclaimed and placed her hands on the counter.

  “We lost an officer last night,” Campanelli explained as his eyes searched her face. Immediately, her expression changed from one of bemusement to genuine concern.

  “Oh, guys, I’m so sorry,” she said emphatically and turned around to retrieve the coffee pot. Pouring them both a cup full, she focused her attention on Frank. “Were you there when it happened?”

  “No. We showed up right after. Chased ‘em all the way out to DuPage before we got ‘em.”

  “Oh,” she uttered, making it sound a bit like a sob. “Are you hurt?”

  “No,” Frank said, taking her hand. “I’m just really tired.”

  “I swear, you two scare me to death,” Tam nearly exclaimed, “I don’t see you when you have to work late and I’m always expecting that midnight phone call.”

  “Tam,” Campanelli began as he squeezed her hand, “it goes with the job. Look, let’s just talk about somethin’ else. Okay?”

  She nodded vigorously and briefly, shaking the blonde tendrils of loose hair around her face and the knot of it atop her head. Tam smiled, but it lacked conviction. Frank was happy to see it nonetheless.

  “I have the rest of the day off,” he announced and took a sip of coffee. “Tomorrow, too.”

  “Really?” she brightened genuinely.

  “What say we go to the movies?”

  “Sure! Tonight?”

  “Maybe tonight. I’ll see what’s playin’.”

  Though Tamara Billingsley was well into her forties, she could pass for a teenager when she was happy. Giddily smiling and showing her impeccably white teeth, she clapped her hands and hopped in place. Marcus, who had come to know her well over the last twelve months, imagined that she had been no different when she was seventeen. Looking to Frank, he could see from the way he was enjoying her reaction that his partner loved her. Campanelli rarely smiled, but when he did, Tam was usually the reason.

  Frank noticed his partner’s scrutiny and the smile disappeared. Williams turned and saw that Tam had bounded around the counter and into the kitchen for something. When Marcus turned back to Frank, he received a hard stare of expectancy.

  “Something amuses you?” Campanelli drilled.

  “Uh, no. It’s just that she’s happy.”

  “So why you starin’ at me?” Frank went on, turning his stool so that his entire body now faced his partner.

  “Uh,” Marcus stammered. Though he was much larger than Frank, who stood barely five feet, eight inches, there was something intangibly solid about the older man that just got to him. It was not fear that he felt and it was not simply a matter of respect, though Williams had seen his partner involved in some scuffles over the past year, so he knew how absolutely crazy Campanelli could become when provoked. To make matters worse, it was hard to know when the man was kidding. “Damn it, Frank!” he settled on, crossing his arms exasperatingly.

  Frank uttered a short laugh and smacked his partner on the arm.

  It was not a long wait for the food and once the two had finished, Campanelli had Marcus drive him home. Tam was to stop by Frank’s for dinner later that evening.

  Marcus dropped him off at home and as he ambled up the stairs to his residence, Frank felt the fatigue in every muscle at each step. It was ten thirty in the morning and despite the nearly six hours of sleep that he did get, he was as tired as if he had been awake for twenty four hours.

  Entering his condo, he laid his sport coat over a dining room table and placed a cigarette in his mouth as he removed his tie. Lying that on the kitchen counter, Frank shuffled to the bedroom and, deciding that he was too tired to even smoke, placed the cigarette and lighter onto the nightstand. After quickly removing his shoes, he dropped onto the bed and promptly fell asleep.

  ***

  Two and a half hours later, the stuffiness of the room awakened him. Uncomfortable, Frank rolled out of bed and went to the window. Opening it, he found the air was close to the same temperature, but there was a soothing breeze beyond it. He changed into a simple t-shirt but kept his slacks.

  Frank puttered around the house for a time, opening windows and cleaning this thing and that. With the sliding patio doors opened, the breeze, which now bordered on a stout wind, cascaded through his living space, cooling it in nature’s indelible efficiency.

  He stood at the patio door, taking in the clean air and becoming utterly refreshed in its comfort. It was at that moment that his mind revisited the previous night. The vision of Sam Whethers’s surprise at being shot came to his mind’s eye. The man had stood completely still for several seconds while Jimmy Antony, the man that had run behind Sam and used him as a shield, dove for cover behind his vehicle. Whethers, bleeding heavily from his upper chest, stared at a point up in the sky with his mouth wide open in anguish. Then, Sam Whethers collapsed onto the tarmac in a crumpled pile of humanity like a marionette with its strings cut.

  It was at that point that Linda, Sam’s wife screamed. That moment hung there in Campanelli’s mind in perfect, natural clarity. It was a portrait of a man dying by his gun, lying there in front of him as a woman howls in horror.

  Since he had shared the file of his implant’s account, everyone knew exactly what he had done. Campanelli wondered if they would perceive a shaking of his hand or a hesitation, even though he recalled neither. He considered watching the visual account of the shooting just to prove it to himself, but he refrained. He knew that he would hear if it were determined to be his fault. Vanek said it was not, Williams said it was not, but Frank wondered.

  After a few moments of inflection, he turned to the kitchen and retrieved his bottle of bourbon and a glass from the cabinet. He stepped out into the windy May day and reclined on his cushioned lounger. Pouring himself some, he sipped the bourbon at first to savor it and then downed the rest and poured another.

  Time heals all wounds but can never bring someone back from the dead, his mind composed without Frank’s conscious will. He thought that sentence again and again to burn it into his natural memory, drank from his glass and leaned his head back.

  The sun was peaking over the top of his home, washing the patio with its brilliant yellow glow. His implanted lenses reacted automatically and dimmed his vision to a comfortable level. Though, as he lay there taking in the heat, he decided to shut down the implanted network altogether. Darkness enshrouded him as the sun’s heat warmed his body, making the eastward wind even more comforting.

  In the long moments that followed, Frank’s thoughts eventually drifted to things less painful. He listened to the world going on around him as he blindingly reached out to the glass and put it to his lips. Once it emptied some minutes later, he left it so and drifted to sleep once again.

  An unknown amount of time went by him when he awoke to the droning roar of a rare commercial jet as it headed east. He could tell by the warmth throughout his body that he had absorbed much of the sun’s rays, though it had been tempered by the wind. Frank stood and steadied himself against the lightheadedness the bourbon had given him. Stepping into his home, he made his way to the dining room with a hand upon the kitchen counter. Finding the table, he located his coat and retrieved his blind man’s cane from within its inner pocket.

  He had been meaning to practice some more with the recently purchased item, but he had either not found the time or had been too embarrassed or proud to pull it from his pocket while out in public or anywhere near District One. Frank had found the used “RadarCane,” as it was marketed, at an antique shop and thought it would work well at times when his implant’s batteries went low. The nearly forty year old item was rather rare for some reason and, having been well put together, it functioned perfectly.

  Campanelli pressed the round butt
on at the hilt and the cane extended softly to its full length in a pair of seconds. Immediately, the cane emitted a low pulsating hum from the far tip, which indicated that the end was close to the ground. Holding it out in front of him and sweeping it left and right, the RadarCane issued high-tones, lower hums and growls to indicate the presence of items in the room. A higher hum told the user that an object was detected on the left and that tone became louder once the user stepped closer to it. Frank stepped to his left and forward, quickly finding the couch. On sweeps to the right, a low hum indicated the presence of an object there. As he went toward it, the growl became louder and, reaching out with his right hand found what he had expected to find, a dining room chair.

  The third tone was most important to Frank. Lifting the cane’s tip from the ground, the low pulsating hum quieted. Pointing the tip toward the wall somewhere out in front of him, the low ‘wows’ started up again, though far less so than when in contact with the floor. Campanelli took several steps toward the wall that he knew was there, sending the RadarCane’s pulsating tone well upward in volume. Touching the wall with the tip, the cane sent out a constantly repeating low tone, which was referred to as a collision warning in the manual. In a few minutes of playing about, Frank made his way throughout his condominium without so much as a bump to his hip, something he routinely did walking in and out of rooms with his eyes turned off.

  It was at this time that the door announced a visitor. Frank had not been expecting Tam until five, perhaps six in the evening. Even without his implant activated, he knew that it was not yet five as the first “L” train of the evening had not yet gone by along the tracks outside his home.

  “Who is it?” he called as he retracted the cane and activated his implant.

  “Umm, it’s Tamara,” she called from the other side. Unaware that Frank could not see her in the peephole but assuming that he was kidding, she careful annunciated her name and brought her face close to the tiny lens. “Tamara Billingsley,” she went on happily, “the girl you’ve been dating for a year.”