John Steel Collection - Books 4-6

Chapter 7

Doctor Colby Davidson walked into the 11th Precinct feeling full of mixed emotions. The last time he had worked with the Homicide division, it had nearly cost him a lot. His six-foot, thin frame was draped in a two-thousand-dollar blue pinstriped Armani. The tap of his black Christian Louboutin shoes was dulled by the noise of the precinct’s lobby. The sound of the bustle made his body tingle. Uniformed cops yelled at criminals who refused to do as they were instructed, crying women who had been mugged or lost their kids, ringing cell phones just added to the chaotic melody. The desk sergeant’s phone was ringing off the hook, while he gave ‘directs’ to a woman trying to give a missing person’s report.

Davidson smiled as he revelled in the chaos. He believed that most of these problems could have been stopped if the wrongdoers had seen a good shrink. He stood in front of the elevator and pressed the call button. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the dull aluminium fittings on the elevator’s exterior. He combed a long-fingered hand through his greased back brown hair and smiled at what he saw. His face was long with a thin roman nose and pale skin, his deep-set large eyes were pale blue, with a menacing touch to them. He wasn’t a handsome man, but he held a strange allure.

The elevator opened, and he stepped inside and turned to face the heavy steel doors just as they were closing he sported the kind of wicked grin you would expect to find on a Cheshire cat.

As he rode the elevator, he noted the pungent mix of smells, most of which he decided not to try and think about what they could be. It stank of cleaning fluid, vomit, piss, body odour, not to mention the unknown ones. The box came to a stop with a shudder, and the doors slid open. Davidson lost the grin as he stepped out on to the department floor. Familiar faces looked up from their desks, watching him as he stepped off the elevator and stopped to look around the room. The other detectives remembered him.

He wasn’t welcome.

Davidson headed for McCall, whom he had spied from the elevator. Steel was with her in a small conference room, along with another man he did not recognise. As he walked across the busy floor of the bullpen, people stopped and stared, remembering what had taken place the last time he had worked a case, what his brother had done – the man that was now known as Mr Williams. The doctor knocked on the door and then stood in the doorway, almost as if he was waiting for a friendly invitation to step inside.

“Doctor Davidson, good to see you again,” McCall said with a smile. They shook hands while Steel stood behind her with his arms crossed.

“Hello there, doctor, good to see you again,” Steel said, then paused and moved closer for a better look. “It is you – isn’t it?” he added jokingly.

“And if it wasn’t, do you think I would say so?” Davidson replied with a smile. Steel laughed and shrugged as if to agree with the statement. Davidson turned towards John Doe and smiled a greeting. “Don’t worry, it’s a private joke,” he explained to the amnesiac man. “Someone once impersonated me.”

“Yeah, your twin brother did,” McCall pointed out. “A guy who was, let’s face it, a little off,” McCall said diplomatically.

off“A little off? Really the guy was a bloody psychopath,” Steel butted in.

offJohn Doe just sat there with a bewildered look on his face, up until the point when the doctor approached to shake his hand.

“Sorry for ignoring you, sir. I am Doctor Colby Davidson,” he said, stretching out a pale palm. John Doe just stared up at this strange-looking man, noting his tall thin body, his long fingers, and that face. But it was the large blue eyes and the mouth that wore the most terrifying smile he had ever seen. Naturally, red lips curled up at the sides in a menacing grin, exposing rows of pearly white teeth. John Doe just stared, hypnotized by the doctor’s unnatural smile. He imagined a shark having the same expression just before devouring someone.

that face“Doctor Davison is a psychiatrist,” McCall explained. “He is here to hopefully help you with your memory.”

John Doe’s face looked almost shocked at the revelation that this guy was here to help him, and not to kill Batman.

“Don’t worry, he is good at what he does,” Steel said, trying to sound convincing. “We worked together before, a long time ago.”

The man with no name seemed calmer at Steel’s reassurance, but there was still something about the newcomer that he didn’t like.

“Right then, shall we get started?” Davidson said, placing an aluminium briefcase onto the desk. He stood in front of a chair as he unpacked a block of plain pieces of paper, a large yellow jotter pad, and a tape recorder. He took out of his pocket a gold pocket watch and placed it onto the table. Steel stared at the watch. Memories of that first case came flooding back.

“What’s with the watch, doc?” Steel asked, slipping his hand under his jacket to the small of his back.

Davidson picked up the watch and dangled it brieflyso that it swung back and forth in a pendulum motion.

“It’s so that I can hypnotise him and take him back through his thoughts,” Davidson said with a straight face.

“Really? You can do that?” John Doe said, seeming uncomfortable at the idea.

“No, I am only joking. My watch is in the shop getting serviced. I bought this because … You know, I don’t really know why. I just liked it.” Davidson grinned and placed the watch back down. Steel saw the fear in John Doe’s eyes, and he felt sympathy for him: being stuck in a room with this guy was enough to drive anyone nuts.

“You know I don’t know what is worse. Having amnesia or having to see the good doctor,” Steel joked as they walked out, leaving the two men alone. McCall slapped Steel on the shoulder then shook her hand in pain.

“You’ve been working out again, haven’t you?” she joked, but all the while, she undressed him in her mind’s eye. Suddenly she shook her head to stop the unclean thoughts before they started. They headed for Tony and Tooms, who were in the break room, draining the last of the coffee from one of the machines. McCall had a lot of questions, and Steel could sense her eagerness to ask them. As they entered the room, Steel walked in front of McCall and headed for Tony.

“So, Tony, we spoke to a work colleague of your girlfriend, or should I say your ex-girlfriend,” Steel said bluntly. Tony looked blankly at him at first, then the look of confusion was replaced with one of clarity.

“I tracked down her sister, Brooke,” Tony replied. “The captain asked me if I would break the bad news to her, thought it might be better coming from someone who knew her.” Tony sighed deeply and closed his eyes tightly for a second, thinking back to the conversation, remembering how she had cried down the phone at the news. Tony didn’t want to admit he had asked Brant if he could do it, feeling it was his responsibility to do so as her boyfriend. Tony had found Brooke’s number on Amber’s cell phone, which she never locked. “She cried for a while. Then she asked me how I knew her sister, asked me all sorts of questions about us, probably trying to avoid the inevitable conversation, I guess. We talked for a while, about her Amber’s past, her friends from before, her boyfriends. It seemed kinda weird; it showed me how much we didn’t know about each other,” Tony shook his head in dismay.

“Tony, you were only going out for a short while, it takes time to really know someone, and sometimes, even then you don’t know them as much as you thought,” Steel said, his face was emotionless, but his words were bitter. Everyone looked over at Steel, wondering who he had been talking about.

“Did you learn anything new?” McCall asked, her gaze glancing back towards Steel who stood motionless with his arms crossed.

“She was seeing a guy before me, they had dated for about a year, Brooke said the guy was a real dooshbag, used to smack her around, treated her like garbage, they broke up about six months ago,” Tony explained, massaging his knuckles as though he had thoughts about doing to this ex-boyfriend what the asshole had done to Amber.

“Did we get a name on this charmer?” Tooms asked.

“His name was Tony – Tony Russo,” Tony said, leaning back in his chair. After hearing Tony Russo’s name and getting his description, Tony knew that the coincidence was going to come back on him, from how Brooke had described him, Tony and the asshole could have been twins. Amber had a type, which didn’t make Tony feel any better. “Brooke lives and worked in D.C. However, she said she’d be on the first flight out,” There was a sadness in Tony’s eyes as he explained what he had found out. McCall smiled and touched him on the shoulder.

“You OK?” McCall asked, sensing something new was gnawing at him.

“I have made that phone call so many times, but that was the hardest,” Tony said, looking up at McCall. She nodded, then smiled at him and turned to Steel, who was staring at the murder board next to her desk.

“Any luck with the roommate?” she asked, looking at Steel for a moment before turning to face Tony and Tooms. The British detective’s thoughts were a million miles away from the rest of them. His imagination was conjuring up images of what may have befallen the missing woman.

“The roommate was Tara Burke, as we thought. She is twenty-six, five-seven with red hair,” Tooms read from his pad. Steel stood still staring at the board, unmoving and not uttering a word, but Tooms knew that he had taken everything in.

“Do we know where she worked?” Steel asked after a short while.

“Bob’s Diner. It’s in Harlem,” Tooms explained, handing McCall a yellow post-it notes with the address on. McCall looked at the piece of paper for a couple of seconds as if to memorise the address. Then she opened her leather folio case and placed it onto the blank A4 pad inside.

“OK, you two take the ex-boyfriend, and we’ll take the diner,” McCall said, suddenly looking at her watch. It was nearly half-three, and she knew they were going to hit traffic on the way back. She shrugged. It wasn’t as if she had anything better to do.

“Shall we go, Detective?” Steel said, raising an arm towards the elevator.

“Yes, we shall, and ‘WE’ are probably driving again,” she growled as if to make a point. “Seriously, are you saying you don’t have a car? Or does it have to come with a chauffeur?” she joked.

John Steel smiled and shook his head. “Oh, don’t worry, Detective, I have a car, and I can assure you, you will want to play,” John quipped.

Sam McCall walked off towards the elevator, shaking her head.

“No thanks, I got my pony.” Her voice almost purred, and Steel laughed to himself. McCall and Steel stood at the elevator. Behind them, the boys were busy trying to locate the ex-boyfriend. As they stood in front of the heavy steel doors, Steel looked up at the LED display that showed that the elevator box was one floor above them.

“I hope this isn’t going to take long. I have dinner plans,” Steel said, giving a quick smile from the corner of his mouth as he bounced off his heels.

“Sorry if work is getting in the way of your personal life,” she growled. “You could always quit, then you would have plenty of time for your bimbos.” Although she was joking, she was still somewhat jealous that he had a personal life that didn’t include her. The doors slid open, and he stepped inside and leaned against the back wall.

“And you’re doing what tonight?” His words were playful, but they left a bitter sting. McCall stepped in after him but said nothing. She had to wonder though, what was he going off to do tonight? Dinner and dancing? Or chasing down the people responsible for his family’s murder. Whatever it was, he would be having more fun than she would be having tonight.