Posted by Derby on July 24, 2000 at 23:21:48:
In Reply to: Operation New Prometheus, cont'd posted by Derby on July 24, 2000 at 23:04:46:
OPERATION NEW PROMETHEUS
by Derby
Part 3: Black Queens Are Wild
After showering the blood off, getting dressed, and collecting her four spent cartridge cases from Kimberly's room, Gina left the house and drove to the outskirts of the city. Finding a suitably isolated service station with an outdoor phone, she parked and phoned in an anonymous report of the murders at the Ainsworth house. They'll probably figure it for a crank call, Gina groused to herself. But on a murder squeal they'll send somebody to check it out eventually. At least I tried to be Miss Good Citizen.
She dug another four quarters from her purse, dialed the Department's number, and asked for Deirdre.
The receiver spoke. "Sims here."
"Deirdre, this is Gina. How you, girlfriend?"
There was a long pause. "Gina?" Deirdre's tense, hushed voice contained none of its usual bantering tone. "What the fuck you think you're doin'? You got an arrest warrant out on you and you're callin'me?"
Oh Christ. "Arrest warrant? What for?"
"Murder, girlfriend. Tacoma PD was all over us just an hour ago. Regina Elizabeth Jefferson, wanted for the murder of Juli Chen and Anne Kaufman."
"What? Anne Kaufman's alive, Deirdre. I just talked to her..." -Gina glanced at her watch - "two hours ago."
"Yeah, but this here warrant says an hour and forty-five minutes ago you made her into a hood ornament for a Chevy four-by-four."
Gina looked at her watch again. If Deirdre was having this phone call traced, they would have a lock in about eight more seconds. She took a deep breath and decided she trusted Deirdre. "Deirdre, listen to me. I did not kill Anne Kaufman. I killed Juli Chen, all right, but that was in self-defense. I spent this whole morning telling Tacoma homicide about it, and they let me go free and clear. Nobody said anything about arresting me."
"I believe you. But honey, why don't you just turn yourself in? If you stay at large, it'll only look worse for you. Come home to mama right away and you'll be cleared for sure."
"No can do. Deirdre, I've had two people try to kill me today. I went to visit Ainsworth's family. Somebody killed them too. And now Tacoma PD changes their tune and wants me for murdering two people I didn't murder. Somebody higher up doesn't like me. How long do you think I'd last on the inside, girlfriend?"
There was another long pause. "So what are you gonna do?" Deirdre finally said.
"I don't know. Do me a favor, will you? Run every database you've got and see if you can find anything about Mary Ellen Nespory. Some kind of programmer or software engineer, former address in Tacoma, current address unknown."
Deirdre sighed. "Damn, girl, I hope you're telling me the truth. Okay, I'll do it. How do I contact you?"
"Don't. I'll call you. Thanks. Oh, and Deirdre? Just about everybody I've talked to or tried to talk to today is dead. So watch your ass, okay? I don't know who else I can count on."
"Come on, Gina, I'm an old office dyke. I can take care of myself."
"You're not that old. Just be careful. Bye now." Click.
Gina sighed and thumbed open the battered phone book hanging from the pay phone, looking for the nearest rental car agency, and found one at 6th and McClellan. Then she went through her car hastily, grabbing her map, some extra clips for the Glock, her reflective shades, and anything else she could think of she might need. Afterward, she went into the station itself. Looking at the customers in the aisles, her gaze settled on a handsome white man in shirtsleeves and tie, with short black hair, narrow cheeks and a smooth, square jaw. She swaggered up to him with exaggerated casualness.
"‘Scuse me, friend. Were you headed to McClellan Boulevard by any chance?" Gina purred the question, tilting her head and hooking a thumb under her shoulder strap.
The man paused, considered, and lied. "Why yes, I sure am, miss."
"Could you be a dear and give me a lift? My transmission's blown." And I don't want to drive to McClellan in a car that every goddamn cop in Tacoma must be looking for by now.
"Sure. Don't go anywhere, just let me pay for this." The man paid for his merchandise, held the door for Gina, then led the way toward a blue Ford Bronco.
Surprised at how easily her plan had worked, it suddenly occurred to Gina that she didn't want to put out for this man. Gina had nothing against sex, not even against sex with a stranger; hell, she had done it before. But sex was something she had always done because she wanted it for its own sake; because something about the man's face, or his hands, or his voice, or his demeanor lit that special fire between her legs. She had never used sex as a mere tool to manipulate someone into doing what she wanted, and she realized she didn't want to start now. The idea made her feel unclean.
As they climbed into the Bronco, she reached into her purse and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill, extending it to her ride.
"I'll pay for your gas," she said. Gas, grass, or ass - nobody rides for free.
The man pointedly ignored the money. Gina laid the bill on the dashboard as the Bronco pulled out of the parking lot.
"What's your name," she asked as they headed for the freeway.
"Carl," he answered. "What's yours?"
"Tammy," Gina answered with the briefest hesitation.
They made desultory small talk for a few miles. Gina commented on the number of farm vehicles on the road; Carl told her there was an agricultural convention in town today. After a long silence, Gina abruptly felt Carl's hand touching her thigh, right below the hip. Gina tensed in surprise, then relaxed. After the way I came on to him in the gas station, I guess it won't kill me to let him cop a feel or two, she thought. And the hand felt good through her sheer dress. She glanced at his face. He really was a fine looking man.
The hand rubbed back and forth, working gradually inward, gently massaging the toned, sinewy muscles of her thigh. Gina's heart accelerated. If she was going to stop him, now was the time. But those strong, probing fingers felt really good. She wasn't certain anymore that she wanted him to stop.
Carl's hand was right in the crease of her thigh now. Gina took a deep breath, grasped Carl's wrist, and gently but firmly placed it on the seat. Carl looked at her with anger in his eyes for a moment. Then he sighed, reached for the dashboard, and pocketed the twenty. Gina settled back in her seat, wondering if she'd done the right thing.
Then she saw the big twin-cab Chevy 4x4 outside the window behind Carl's head. Its windows were rolled down, and the driver's dark brown hair danced in the breeze. It was a white woman in her twenties wearing a green crop top. Matching speeds with the Bronco, the woman raised a big pistol with an extended magazine and aimed it through her open window.
"Carl, duck!" Gina screamed, throwing herself flat on the seat of the Bronco.
Carl didn't duck. His startled reaction was to look at Gina, and the first bullet hit him in the back of his head. The slug did indescribably nasty things to his face as it emerged.
Gina grabbed the steering wheel as the Bronco's speed slackened. With a strength born of adrenaline and many years of pumping iron, she grabbed the faceless thing that had been Carl, pitched it through the window, and scrambled into the driver's seat. She jammed on the brakes as the woman in the 4x4 tried to draw even for another shot, and slammed the Bronco into the side of the twin cab. The vehicles bounced off each other violently; Gina found herself on the shoulder skirting perilously close to a five-foot deep ditch. Seeing that the truck had overcompensated and fallen behind, Gina accelerated, hearing the woman in the 4x4 fire again and miss. The truck was catching up with the Bronco; fumbling in her purse, Gina found her Glock and flipped the safety off as she leaned out the window, aiming not for the driver but for the front tires of the approaching 4x4. Two shots blew out the right front tire; four more disposed of the left. Gina saw the woman drop her huge handgun to fight the wheel for control of the pickup. Gina viciously rammed the Bronco into the truck again. The driver lost control and veered off the road into the end of a guardrail at better than sixty.
The pickup driver wasn't wearing her seatbelt, and when the truck hit the guardrail she promptly went headfirst through the windshield. The safety glass was well designed; she suffered only minor scrapes and cuts as she went through it. The woman flew through the air, silky smooth bare arms waving wildly, green crop top fluttering, blue jeaned legs and cowboy boots spread wide apart. An empty hay baler was passing up the left lane, and the woman, still conscious, could see the long, wicked tines as she hurtled toward them. Her exposed belly struck right on the point of the long central spike, impaling her slender body on the thick steel shaft. The collision of her chin against the truck bed knocked her out, but not before she had felt every inch of that five-foot steel bar skewer through her guts.
As the driver of the hay baler pulled over onto the shoulder and got out of his cab to stare in amazement at his grisly passenger, Gina didn't slacken her speed for a moment. The odds, she reflected, were getting worse. At least three drivers had seen the crash, and while they probably couldn't identify Gina, they sure as hell could identify the Bronco. But there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it except drive on, hope the eyewitnesses demonstrated their usual unreliability, and ditch the Bronco as soon as possible.
Gina drove on until she found a bridge over a stream. She pulled the Bronco over, waited for a moment when traffic was light, and drove it slowly and carefully over the shoulder, down into the ditch, then down to the streambed. While there were broken bottles and graffiti in plenty, she was relieved to find no people there. Getting out of the Bronco and assuring herself she was hidden by the bridge, she stripped off her clothing. The white dress and beret were thoroughly splattered with Carl's blood; she threw them into the current. As she stepped into the water and proceeded, soapless, to rinse the blood from her body, she watched mournfully as the garments floated away. They had been one of her favorite outfits.
She emerged naked and dripping from the water like some African Venus. Shaking droplets from her hands, she flipped open her compact and looked herself over carefully with the mirror to be sure all the blood was gone. Then she checked her map, estimating that she was six or seven miles from the car rental agency. It would be a bit further than her usual daily run, but well within her abilities.
Gina carried her running clothes in her purse, for the spandex shorts and top took up almost no space, and she changed into them quickly. But her sneakers were back in her motel room, and covering the distance in her pumps was out of the question. She had no choice but to barefoot it. It would be very rough on her feet, but she knew South African runners did their marathons barefoot, and if they could do it, so could she. Placing the pumps in her purse and snapping it shut, she began her pre-run stretching routine. She cut the warmup exercises as short as she dared and made her way up the embankment, breaking into a run as soon as she reached the roadside. She had spent maybe ten minutes by the stream.
After about a mile and a half the road merged into urban territory. Gina kept to the grassy medians, sidewalk strips, and lawns wherever she could, and she accepted the bone-jarring pavement of the sidewalks when she had to with muttered breathless curses.
As she ran, it struck her that while the police hunted her for two murders she hadn't committed, her list of real offenses was growing. First tampering with evidence, now leaving the scene of an accident. Though she hadn't had any choice about commandeering the Bronco, failing to turn it over to authorities could even be construed as grand theft auto.
It began to dawn on Gina that her life was never going to be the same from this day forward. The road ahead might lead to prison, or to violent death, or even to a fugitive new life in another place with another name, but it could never lead back to her old job and home. Whether she survived or not, whether she evaded capture or not, she would never again be Lieutenant Regina Elizabeth Jefferson, the Department sniper, the respected police officer, the woman who ran 75 laps at the YMCA every morning at seven, the one who ate dinner every Monday night with Keith at Howard's Diner or the Cocina de Mayaguez. That Gina was dead, just as surely as if Juli Chen had shot her through the head that morning. Every puff of air from Gina's hard-pumping lungs was another shovelful of dirt thrown on the coffin of her past. She felt frightened, but also liberated. There was nothing behind her any more to look back at, nothing to concentrate on but what was here and now, the business of getting through this day alive and free.
After about an hour, she caught sight of the car rental agency four blocks away, and slowed to a walk, pausing to put her pumps back on. Gina's feet had taken a pounding and were slightly swollen, so the pumps squeezed painfully. She walked deliberately slowly, so by the time she reached the doors of the building, her breath had slowed almost to normal, though her nearly-chocolate skin was still shiny with sweat. She put on her reflective shades as she walked in, the better to disguise her face.
The previous year, Gina had done a short undercover job and had been issued the false identity of "Tammy Coburn." The Department had issued her a falsified driver's license, social security card, license plates, and most importantly of all, a credit card. Due to bureaucratic foulups, the Department had not demanded these items returned after Gina's undercover stint was over. Now Gina walked up to the counter and presented herself as Tammy Coburn. It was not an ideal cover, since a dozen people at the Department knew the false name, but it was better than nothing. In fifteen minutes, she was behind the wheel of a Dodge Stratus, rented for a week.
Two hours later, Gina was a hundred miles south of Tacoma, paying with the Tammy Coburn credit card for a modest room in a roadside motel. Once safely locked in her room, she took a shower and washed her running clothes as best she could, acutely aware that she had nothing else in the world to wear. Hanging the spandex up to dry, she put fresh antiseptic on the little puncture hole that Juli Chen had left in her side, and gingerly replaced the Band-Aid that covered it, annoyed at the thought of how conspicuous the pale pink dressing was on her dark skin. Why can't they make Band-Aids for black folks? Taking her pistol from her purse, she made sure the chamber was loaded and the safety on, then put it under her pillow. And she fell into bed and was asleep at once.