Chapter 2
Chapter Two
The prowler refused to give his name.
Or say anything.
He just sullenly stood while Boyd booked him and pushed him into the back of the patrol car, her hand on the back of his head to protect his skull. Once he was in the car, he slouched down and tucked his chin into the collar of his hoodie.
“Gardner bet me a sub at Bertinelli’s that you were on a wild goose chase,” she said as she slammed the door. “So thanks for dinner.”
Cloister didn’t look up from checking Bourneville over as he chuckled. She was leaning against his shoulder, idly chewing on a knotted T-shirt rope, while he crouched to check between her pads.
“Get the Fancy Reuben,” he said. “It’s the most bang for your buck.”
Boyd wrinkled her nose. “I’m vegan.”
This time Cloister looked up. “Does Gardner know?” he asked as he lowered Bon’s paw.
“Yeah.”
“They don’t have any vegan options at Bertinelli’s,” he said.
For a moment, Boyd looked genuinely aghast at the discovery, mouth slack and eyes wide.
“Bastard,” she said with an annoyed scrunch of her face; then she gave an alarmed look at Cloister as she remembered herself. “I mean, how funny.”
The flat delivery made Cloister laugh softly as he ran his hand up Bon’s leg, fur rough as it went against the grain. When that check didn’t turn up any hidden injuries or tenderness, he gave Bon’s shoulder a “you’re good” slap and braced his hand on the warm concrete to push himself up.
The eye-watering jab of pain that stabbed from his wrist up to his armpit as the just-healed joint took his weight took him off guard. His elbow wobbled under him, and he bit back a “fuck,” but he managed to scramble on up to his feet.
He exhaled, slow and controlled, as he rubbed his wrist. Bourneville moved away from him and shook her head violently, whipping her toy back and forth so it slapped the sides of her face. Slobber splattered over the sidewalk, and Boyd took a fastidious step back, bumping into the car.
“Get the Fancy Reuben anyhow,” Cloister said. “Give it to Mel.”
Boyd started to say something as she wiped the toes of her boots on the backs of her legs, stopped, and looked thoughtful.
“Huh. Good idea,” she acknowledged. Then she glanced over the front lawn of the house they’d just left, where Gardner was trying to placate the residents. It didn’t seem to be working too well.
The taller of the two householders, an older man with cropped blond hair, waved his arm back at the building behind them.
“We have a security system,” he said indignantly. “How the hell did he even get into our house? Forget that, why haven’t you dealt with this any of the other times we called?”
Next to him, his partner grimaced and put a hand on his arm. Whatever he said was low enough that it didn’t carry, but Gardner gave a nod of approval.
“That’s probably the way to think about it, sir,” he said.
The older man shrugged his partner’s arm off.
“Don’t pay any attention to Miles. That’s bullshit.
He’s spent the last month jumping at shadows over everything going on in the neighborhood.
We deserve to feel safe in our beds! The beds we were literally just in when your deputies kicked our doors in. ”
That seemed to be far enough for Miles. The auburn-haired man glanced around self-consciously at the flicked-on lights in their neighbor’s houses and grabbed his partner’s arm again. This time, whatever he said worked, and he dragged the other, still muttering, man with him into the house.
“We pay your wages,” the man tossed back over his shoulder in one last volley. “Literally. Do you know who I am? You have a mortgage? I could pull it like that.”
He snapped his fingers, and then the door slammed behind him. A second later, the prowler smacked his fist against the door of the patrol car, hard enough to make Boyd jump at the noise. They both looked at him, but he just slouched down more and rubbed his hand.
Boyd stepped away from the car and twisted her mouth. She crossed her arms. “You think they’d be grateful. We stopped a home invasion in progress.”
Cloister traded a look with Bourneville over the heavy lifting that the “we” in that sentence was doing.
Or he would have done, if she hadn’t been occupied with tearing his old T-shirt to shreds.
He shouldn’t have expected anything else.
Working with Javi on the last few cases had just spoiled him—a human partner caught on much quicker when he wanted to be snide.
“Like the man said, the public pays your wages,” Cloister told Boyd as Gardner headed back their way.
She almost rolled her eyes, but just about stopped herself.
Cloister let the abortive exasperation pass unremarked on.
“If you expect anything else, you’re in the wrong line of work. And it’ll show.”
She didn’t look receptive to the lesson. It didn’t matter. She’d either learn or flame out. That was up to her.
Gardner joined them.
“How well does that asshole think we get paid?” he asked sourly as he tucked his notebook into his belt. “A fucking mortgage in this town? I’d be lucky. Or crooked.”
“I own my home,” Cloister said mildly.
Boyd looked impressed for all of a second before Gardner snorted.
“Don’t you live in a trailer?” he said.
“Yeah,” Cloister said as he took a few steps backward down the street. His patrol car was still on Buckthorn and Gardner, and Boyd had to get their prisoner down to booking. “But it’s an Airstream, so…”
He trailed off with a shrug and a smirk before he turned to go. Bourneville gave her toy one last furious, grumbling shake before she caught up with him, loping along at his side with the toy hanging out of her mouth.
“Two days?” Tancredi checked. She narrowed her eyes at him skeptically. “You passed your PAT two days ago, and they already cleared you to go back on duty?”
When Cloister nodded, she made an aggrieved noise as she stripped her jacket off and shoved it into her locker.
“Sorry?” Cloister said as he glanced away.
Tancredi huffed at him as she pulled a battered old jean jacket off its hanger. Badges sparkled on the collar.
“Why?” she asked as she pulled it on. “It’s not your fault.”
She said that, but somehow it still felt like it was.
Cloister unbuttoned his shirt. The dry cleaner’s best efforts with starch had given up hours ago; it was limp, sweaty, and still had smears of ruddy dust on the elbows and hem.
He shrugged it off his shoulders and shook it down his arms before he balled it up in his duty bag to take home with him.
“OK,” he said.
“It’s still not fair,” Tancredi went on as she ran her hand around the back of her neck to flick her hair out of the collar.
“You get fast-tracked back on duty after you were hit by a car. Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for a slot to open up, and even when I pass, my rep says it can take three weeks before the department even gets around to making their decision about letting me get back to work.
I’ve got to apply to join the FBI this year before I age out, Cloister.
I should be out there building up a track record for solid investigative work, showing initiative, and closing interesting cases while demonstrating I’m bilingual.
Instead, I’m stuck behind the equipment desk logging ammo, bodycams, and vests.
And, while we’re on the topic, do you know how bad old Kevlar smells? It reeks.”
Cloister glanced down at his own vest, still strapped down tightly over his T-shirt.
He hooked his fingers into the collar and pulled it away from his chest so he could lean down and get a sniff.
It didn’t smell sweet—the sweat that stained his T-shirt was definitely on the turn between fresh and sour—but he didn’t think it was that bad.
“Yeah, I didn’t notice when I had to wear one either,” Tancredi said. “I do now. There’s something growing in some of those. There’s got to be.”
Cloister snorted as he yanked the Velcro strips loose and shed the vest. “I’ll check for the washing instructions,” he said as he shoved it into his locker.
“And if it makes you feel any better, they only pushed me through approval because of Bon. If I’m benched, she’s benched. They wanted her back on the street.”
Tancredi went “huh” and reached into the locker for her backpack. She shrugged it on, straightened the straps, and finally looked up to narrow her dark brown eyes at Cloister.
“So what you’re saying…let me get this right,” she said tartly, her fingers pinched together in front of her as she talked. “What you’re saying is that the San Diego Sheriff’s department, my employer of record for nearly a decade, values a dog more than they do me?”
That felt like a trap.
Cloister held his tongue as he bent down to grab his trainers from the bottom of the locker.
They definitely had smelled better, but they were far enough away from his nose that he wasn’t going to worry about it.
The answer to Tancredi’s question was “yes.” Nothing against Tancredi, but Bourneville was a good dog, a better K-9, and got significantly better publicity whenever she made the news.
She’d cost more, too.
But that wasn’t what Tancredi wanted to hear.
“No?” he tried as he pulled his shoes on.
Tancredi looked annoyed, so probably not the right answer.
Before Cloister could try and dodge the buzzsaw a second time, the door to the locker room banged open.
Gardner limped in. His face was like thunder.
There was a faint whiff about him, and one of his boots was missing.
He stopped when he saw them and glared, breathing heavily.
“Don’t ask,” he said gruffly.
Tancredi held up her hand to ward that accusation off. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” she assured him.
There was a pause as Gardner looked at the two of them, his lip curled in a disgusted sneer. He reached up to pull a chunk of…orange peel?…out of his hair, made a disgusted noise, and stomped off toward the showers. Tancredi watched him go until he was out of earshot, then turned to Cloister.