Powers (38 page)

Deena traded glances with Walker and then stood up once more. “Everybody but those who care about the truth. No, screw that. I still have one last ace to play, and I'm going to get the
real
truth right fucking now.”

Cross rose to meet her, lifting a finger and jabbing it at her face. “I'm warning you on this. I can't help you here, Deena, if you choose to make it a thing. This comes from Washington—even the commissioner's hands are tied. You open your mouth, you leak
anything
 … your ass lands out of this precinct and maybe in federal jail.”

Walker pushed away from the window. “Least she'll have company.”

Enki looked up. “You going rogue on this, too?”

“Already did,” he retorted. “Remember? No badge or gun, no license to cop. And yet everyone on that square saw me race out of that building. No way the commission doesn't toss me into some kind of superprison.”

“Oh, that,” Cross said, distractedly reaching into his drawer. He retrieved Walker's gun and badge and placed it on the desk. “Congratulations. You're hired. Again.”

“Cap?”

“In light of your actions during the recent investigation, and due to the incriminating evidence piled against the late Aaron Boucher, the commission has decided, well…”

“To give back a job they never should have taken in the first place?”

“You solved a long-standing and embarrassing open case. You saved the lives of countless people in the line of duty. Everyone is satisfied in allowing you to continue performing the duties of a homicide detective. Mazel tov. You still get paid shit.”

Walker gave the captain a nasty look. He started to speak, thought better of it, and reached down to take his personal effects. Enki patted him on the arm and smiled, but he didn't return it in kind.

“What?” Enki asked. “Isn't this what you wanted?”

Walker shook his head. “I'm not sure that
I'm
satisfied in allowing myself to continue performing the duties of a homicide detective.”

Cross slapped both palms against his face and wiped his eyes. “For Christ's sake, what the fuck now? Would you just take the win, enjoy being right for once in your miserable goddamn life?”

Walker pursed his lips. “But I'm not right, Cap. None of this is. Joe was Liberty—he was guilty, same as me.”

“You?”

“Guilty due to inaction. Guilt by association. Sure, Boucher may have been the killer, but you can't say that either one of us is completely innocent.”

Cross slammed a palm down on the desk, rattling his tablet and several sheaves of paper. “Dammit, Walker—leave it alone. That's a goddamn
order
. Welcome back. You've got open cases, same as the two of you. Get out of my office, and don't speak a word of this to fucking
anyone
. You understand me? You don't have to like it, but if I read about this in the papers or hear word one from PNN, you'll be walking a beat in Des Moines.”

The detectives nodded, biting their tongues. Walker handed Enki her crutches and helped her hobble out the door. Deena followed, closing the door, glaring at Cross one final time. She found the captain's head lowered into his hands, elbows resting against the desk. His fingers were hooked into claws, and she realized that the dejected cops weren't the only ones being forced to swallow a line with a smile. She gently shut the door and turned to follow her partners.

Enki limped to her desk, and Deena helped situate the injured cop. Walker seethed and fidgeted nearby, glancing at the captain's office, shaking his head in disbelief. The din of the bullpen rose and fell about them, a handful of lawyers packing up cases and infinite perps protesting their innocence to a mob of unfazed policemen. Names and crimes were bandied about like trading cards, particular interest being paid to notable masks and abilities. Detectives filed reports as clerks gathered research, and despite her having helped bring a high-profile case to its close, no one paid much attention to the foul mood that had settled about Enki Sunrise's desk.

“Complete and total bullshit,” Deena said, resting her ass on a vacant chair. She toyed with her cell phone, staring at the files containing Waldo's testimony.

“Look,” Enki suggested, “at least Boucher gets blamed for his crimes, right? We got Liberty in the end.”

“No, we didn't. Not yet, anyway.”

Enki rested her leg on the desk. “Whaddya gonna do? They're all dead. You're going to defame an icon just so you'll sleep better at night?”

“The world needs to know!”

“Does it?” Enki looked skeptical. “I mean, yeah, people were sad when they learned Monroe died. But when they found out he was a
traitor
? I mean, I've never seen some dude burned in effigy before this week, is what I'm saying.”

“Wait,” Deena posed, “so, you're saying we should spare everyone's feelings?”

“Let it alone, Deena.”

She looked up. Walker was staring off into space, scratching the back of his head with one hand. “You're good with this?” she asked her partner. “You're fine with lying
again
 … with keeping
more
secrets for douche bags that ruined your life?”

“I'm not ‘good' with it, no. But I can't fight it, either. It's like all the rest—Chicago, the bureau, Wolfe. It eats away at me, but what can I do about it?”

“You can—”

He turned to her now, earnest and red. “No, I can't. I feel totally hollow inside, Deena. Guilty for what I let Monroe get away with, angry with myself for not doing more. Like I didn't do with Z or Triphammer or any other Power I let use his abilities for personal gain … or avoid using them because he or she simply didn't give a shit.”

Walker leaned down, whispering to his partners. “I should have given a shit. I should have done something back when I could. But now … now what can I do? If I speak, if I tell people the truth, I'll just end up hurting them. And I've hurt too many people already, including the people I love.”

He'd glanced at Deena for that last bit, and she snorted in reply. “Me? You feel bad for me?”

“Yeah; I hurt you. Aaron hurt you. Your dad hurt you. I don't want to add to anyone else's pain, okay? My job is to keep that from happening. I'll call this the win they want me to believe it is.”

Deena stood up and got right into her partner's face. “You think I'm in pain? Dude…” She waved her arms around, taking in the bullpen. “I'm numb to all this already. I'm beyond fucking pain.”

She stepped away and walked to the middle of the aisle, narrowly avoiding impact with a passing clerk. “This ‘win'? I'm hollow inside, too. I have new contempt for the man I called my father. Now I can add to it the man I'd idolized—a guy I'd have been happy to avoid seeing for another ten years. The man I looked up to, who was, in actuality, a vigilante-murdering-Powers psycho with stained, conflicted principles. Oh! And one of his victims? Yeah,
that
guy
also
helped kill a mess of people … and
I can't bring him to justice
. So tell me again:
How
is this a win?”

Enki watched the byplay, concern spreading across her face. She reached out to Deena but was too far away to take her hand or touch her arm. “Hey,” she said, attempting to verbally step between the partners. “Come on … it may not be a win, and I know it's close to the heart, but we finally closed the Liberty case. That has to mean something, right?”

Deena screwed up her face and shook her head. “No, not to me. Not anymore.”

Walker raised an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

“Means I'm done. Been saying all week that I need to talk to Cross about it. But I … this was it, Walker. I'm finished with this shit.”

“Yeah, you keep saying that. But you always come back. After the virus, and after Chicago. You always end up back behind the badge.”

She grabbed his shirt, crumpling it in her fist. “Don't you see, though? I used to have a reason. Something … someone was always out there, pushing me. Inspiring me. First Waldo, and then when he let me down, Aaron. Even though Aaron had been a grade-A asshole and walked away, I still believed him to be a
good cop
. That's what brought me back … that and the drive to keep the peace, do the right thing. And now?”

“Now?”

“Now I'm finished. Someone else can keep the peace. You do what you want, but once I go deal with the last piece of this, I'm
done
.”

Enki opened her mouth, about to pose arguments, but Walker sighed before she could get started. He hung his head and rubbed his eyes with two fingers. Walker was battered and tired—they all were, the last three days having taken an exhaustive toll. The drone of the bullpen washed over the trio, and Enki waited for Walker's measured response. Finally, the former hero lifted his eyes and stared at his smaller, younger partner.

“You do what you want,” he told Deena. “I won't stop you. In fact, if this is what you need, I'll support it. I'm your partner, but I'm also your friend.” He reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder. “If you're done, I'll stand by that.”

Surprised, Deena dumbly nodded her head and then clasped Walker's hand with her own. They stood there, and Enki watched them closely, unsure what to say.

“Before you do that,” Walker continued, “before you walk into the captain's office and lay your badge on the table … first you have to walk an old man to see the body of his poor, dead son.”

Deena looked up, tears streaming from her eyes. Walker placed the other hand on her opposite shoulder.

“First you have to show Aaron's body to the judge so he can confirm it, and by doing so, condemn it.”

 

32

December. Wednesday night. 7:55
P.M.

A father sat by the corpse of his son, head lowered, hands clasped in his lap. Eyes closed, lips pursed, he breathed deeply and evenly as two detectives kept a respectful distance. The body was covered up to the chest, naked and cold, lips tinged blue from having been stored in a locker for the better part of two hours. It lay in a bag, zipped down and strategically positioned so that the father couldn't see the damage inflicted on his poor son's torso.

Judge Kenneth Boucher sighed once and then lifted his eyes to meet those of Deena Pilgrim. He looked away, the pain too great to maintain eye contact. Before he did, she noticed that tears clung to his glasses, twin trails coursing down his weathered cheeks. She started to speak, keeping her voice measured and soft, using discretion and restraint in retelling the events of the past three days. The judge listened patiently, taking in the details, nodding every now and then as if unsurprised to be hearing the story of his son's final days on Earth. Walker glanced from Deena to Boucher, back and forth like a tennis match, gauging the old man's reaction as the case unfolded. Deena confirmed that Aaron had been Liberty, eliciting yet another knowing nod, and revealed that the partners—and the federal investigators—knew about the secret conspiracy between Aaron, Waldo, and the Citizen Soldier. The judge's son had killed Joseph Monroe, Malachi Crane, and the remaining members of the original Human Front. He'd poisoned Waldo Pilgrim and attacked both Walker and Deena during the course of his carefully executed swath of betrayal. Deena explained that Aaron had undertaken the recent actions in service of one thing, in her opinion: eliminating any connection to the original Liberty killings through the use of secret powers.

“See,” she continued in the silence of the station morgue, “all Aaron had wanted to do in the first place was clean up
your
record. That's why he'd worked with Waldo and Monroe … he didn't care about the money. He cared about
you
. But … I think he also felt disgusted by it, which is why he hated my father—not to mention the Powers—and was eventually forced to leave Atlanta.”

The judge kept his own counsel. He stared at Aaron's body, sorrowful and humble, barely glancing in either detective's direction.

“Or so he wanted us to believe. Isn't that right, Ken?”

The judge looked up again as if being dragged from a harrowing daydream. Rheumy eyes bored into Deena's own. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

Ken seemed confused and disoriented—which was fair, having just been presented with his son's corpse. But Deena's tone, her determined gaze, set him on edge, and he straightened his back. Walker was confused, too. He glanced in Deena's direction, but his partner held out a hand, gesturing for the larger detective to wait.

“Waldo,” she continued, “laid out how he and Monroe used the gang war as a cover to not only remove certain … threats but also managed to clean up
your
spotty record. They freed criminals you convicted in order to kill those you hadn't. They did that before Aaron ever even got
involved
. Before he began tying up the loose ends as Liberty, killing those they'd released. Was it coincidence, Ken, that Waldo's and Monroe's enemies … the people they freed, the people they killed … were also your own?”

The judge finally spoke. His tinny voice, choked with emotion, echoed against the freezer compartments and reverberated throughout the room. “I'm not sure I like your tone, Deena.”

She headed toward the compartment on which lay Aaron Boucher. “I know. I don't like it, either, but that's my problem. Once I open my mouth, it's hard to stop. Someone closed my mouth a few hours ago, keeping me from singing this song, but see? I have it on the cloud.” She retrieved her phone from a pocket, holding it out so Ken could see. “Every detail, explained by your former friend—my father—and confirmed by APHD in a sworn affidavit by my request. But I'm sure you know the details, Ken. I'm sure you know what I'm driving at.”