Chapter 1 of Players
Late Tuesday afternoon, the Robbery Unit of the Portland Police Bureau, Detective Sergeant Ryland Nelsen called Summer Ziegler into his office. He didn't ask her to sit down, so she stood in front of his desk, straight-backed in a cream blouse and black skirt, waiting for him to finish studying a custody report. She'd dressed for a court appearance that had eaten up most of the day, and she'd been working late, finishing paperwork. She wished now that she'd gone straight home at the end of the shift, because she was dead certain that her boss was about to hand her yet another petty errand.
He took his own sweet time with the report, reading both sides, saying at last, 'Do you believe in karma, Detective Ziegler?'
'As in fate?'
'As in be sure your sins will catch up with you.'
'I believe it would make our work a lot easier if karma caught up with all the bad guys.'
Ryland Nelsen dropped the report on his desk, leaned back in his chair and laced his hands behind his grey buzz cut. 'Cast your mind back to last December. You arrested a young woman name of Edie Collier.'
Summer thought for a moment. She tried to boost a couple of cashmere sweaters from Meier and Frank, the store detective challenged her, she made a run for it. I was cruising the area, helped chase her down. She got thirty days' county time plus two years' probation.'
'She got county time for shoplifting? All my arrests should go up before that judge.'
'She was already on probation for another shoplifting offence, plus she had a bunch of priors. She pled guilty at arraignment and the judge told her he was going to give her a short, sharp shock, stick her in jail over Christmas in the hope it would straighten her out. But I guess it didn't.'
Summer also guessed that Edie Collier must have gotten into something much more serious than shoplifting if she had come to the attention of the Robbery Unit, which investigated thefts involving use of a weapon or threats implying the presence of a weapon; mundane property crimes like shoplifting were handled by uniformed police and precinct detectives.
'I don't know if it straightened her out or not,' Ryland Nelsen said. 'I do know that a couple of fishermen stumbled across her in woods way the hell south of here, near Cedar Falls. Ever been there?'
'I've driven past it.'
'On the I-5, like me and a million other people. Anyhow, Edie Collier was badly injured from some kind of fall, and she died before the paramedics could get her to hospital. The local police are treating it as a suspicious death. They identified her from fingerprints and found out that her last known address was in Portland, and their Sheriff put in a call to the Chief's office, asked if someone in the Bureau could inform her parents and persuade them to make the trip to Cedar Falls for formal ID and disposition of the body. And, well, the request bounced down the chain of command to the officer who last arrested her.'
'Me,' Summer said, with a falling sensation.
'You,' Ryland Nelsen said, pointing his forefinger at her and cocking his thumb gunwise. 'During your time in uniform, were you ever asked to do a next-of-kin notification?'
'No, sir. We left that kind of thing to detectives.'
'And just three weeks ago you got your detective's badge . . . See what I mean about karma?'
'I'm beginning to get an idea.'
'Breaking the bad news is never easy,' Ryland Nelsen said. 'And in this case, if it turns out to be manslaughter or murder . . . '
He paused, waiting for Summer to complete the thought.
She said, 'The parents will be suspects. I'll need to take someone with me, in case they say something relevant.'
'I'm certain the Cedar Falls police would handle it themselves if they thought her parents had anything to do with her death. But having someone there to witness what goes down when you break the bad news, it's a sensible precaution. Do you have anyone in mind?'
Summer's mentor, Andy Parish, had rolled out an hour ago, at the end of the shift. Only Dick Searle was still at his desk, but he was busy, his phone caught between his shoulder and jaw while he typed something into his computer, and Summer barely knew him -- they'd exchanged about a dozen sentences since she'd started work in the Robbery Unit. She could ask Ryland Nelsen to help her out, of course, but she didn't want her boss standing at her back and believed that she was expected to show some initiative. Well, the custody report she'd typed up after she'd arrested Edie Collier was on the desk right in front of her. Although it was upside down, she could read Edie's home address easily enough, and an x'd box further down the form confirmed that it was the address of her parents . . .
She said, 'Her parents live out by Southeast Foster. I have a friend in the precinct who can help me out.'
'Sounds like a plan. Don't think that I'm handing you this because you're presently lowest of the low on the thirteenth floor, by the way. It's because you knew the girl. Are we clear on that?'
'Yes, sir.' Summer was pleased and apprehensive. Pleased to be given a chance to prove her worth; apprehensive because she knew that this little job could be trickier than it seemed. She remembered exchanging words with Edie Collier's stepfather outside the courtroom. He hadn't been a big guy, but he'd definitely had a bad attitude. She said, 'Do you know what she was doing out in the woods?'
Ryland Nelsen shook his head. 'Let the local police worry about that. All you have to do is inform her next of kin of the unfortunate circumstances, and aim them toward the Sheriff's office in Cedar Falls. Okay?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Personally, I don't believe in karma or predestination or the rest of that bullcrap,' Ryland Nelsen said. 'But there's definitely an appealing neatness to this, don't you think?'
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