The Witness Wore a Puppy Tail, chapter 7 (Patreon)

Walking into the precinct with Robert and Steve, Ken tried to ignore all the looks cast his direction. When Steve had said he’d change, Ken had expected him to put on something subtle and subdued. He’d thought the man would avoid making a spectacle of himself. Instead he had on a red, glittery muscle shirt that showed off a huge peacock tattoo that covered his whole arm and shoulder. Subtle was not the first word that came to mind.

For two years, Ken had been one of the few white faces in his world, and he’d hated how he stood out. He would have given up his first born child to avoid making a spectacle out of himself, but apparently Steven had more in common with Robert.

Ken logged them both as witnesses and checked the roster for interview rooms and suspect reconstruction artists. He would need Captain Jenkins to authorize the latter, but he reserved interview room 7B while the desk officer checked Robert’s and Steve’s identifications and had them sign in.

“I’m usually coming in through the other door,” Steve said. It took Ken a second to realize he meant that he was normally getting booked.

“Cops. They’re assholes most of the time,” Robert said. He might have meant to reassure Steve, but most of the officers in the area turned to glare at him. Most men would have quailed under the force of that much hostility, but Robert didn’t seem to notice. He was not what Ken normally thought of when someone said submissive male. Of course he’d never been part of any gay community, so everything he’d known had come out of a porn film. Ken had found dating women easier, so that’s the side of the fence he usually stayed on.

“It’s not the cops that pass stupid laws—it’s the politicians,” Steve said. He and Robert followed Ken to main stairs. The squad room was on the second floor, but Ken did not want to get trapped in an elevator with these two. The potential for disaster was looming too large, especially when Ken was having trouble maintaining a professional distance from Robert. 

“Hatred of politicians is a safe subject for everyone to bond over,” Robert agreed. “Just don’t mention political parties. If you go insulting social conservatives, you’ll probably offend Detective Square.”

Ken gritted his teeth. At least Robert’s shittier side made it easier for Ken to ignore any physical attraction.  Far easier. The second Ken reached the second floor, he could see Captain Jenkins waiting for him outside the squad room door with his mouth twisted into an unhappy expression. Ken’s stomach sank.

“Isn’t that your captain?” Robert asked. Ken didn’t bother answering. When they closed the distance, he introduced his two guests, although he suspected the front desk had already given Jenkins their names.

“Captain Jenkins, this is Robert Millan and Steve Sulley. I was going to take them down to one of the interview rooms,” Ken said. If he was going to piss off the captain, it was best to get all the cards down on the table. Jenkins didn’t react well when his detectives kept him in the dark or played games with the regulations. However, Ken was seeing a transfer to traffic control in his near future.

“Were you?” Jenkins’ tone was dry enough to stop a flood in its tracks. 

“Mr. Sulley was attacked nearly a year ago. He got a good look at his attackers, and I’m hoping it’s the same three who are responsible for the more recent attacks.” Ken hoped that the captain would soften a little if Ken could dangle a lead in front of him. He didn’t.

“Officer Clarke,” the captain called to one of the passing patrol officers. “Will you please show Mr. Sulley to Interview Room 7B?”

“Sure, Captain.”

Jenkins gave Steve a kind smile. “Mr. Sulley, an artist is going to be in to see you in a few minutes. She’ll walk you through the process.” The captain had definitely gotten a call from the front desk, and Ken was grateful that he was going to run with the lead.

"I said I'd go with Steve," Robert protested.

"You stay here with your boyfriend. I'll be fine," Steve said. He patted Robert on the arm and then turned to follow Officer Clarke down the hall. Jenkin’s eyebrows went up, and Ken was starting to regret his alliance with Robert. It wasn’t working out the way he had planned.

“We are not dating,” Robert said with such horror that Ken was fairly sure he should take offense.

“I assumed not,” Jenkins said. “Detective, can I speak with you in my office?”

Ken wondered if he was going to need to update his resume. “Of course,” he said. When Jenkins turned to the squad room, Ken turned to Robert. “Go to my desk and stay.” He emphasized the last word and poked a finger in Robert’s direction.

"Woof," Robert said sarcastically, but at least he headed over to Ken’s desk where he threw himself down into the guest chair with all the grace of a fat man belly flopping.

Jenkins stood at the office door while Ken came in.

"What is he doing here?" Jenkins walked around his desk and carefully sat. The unnatural stillness made all the hair on Ken’s arm stand up.

"It's complicated, sir," Ken started.

"Uncomplicate it."

“I took your advice to follow him, only I asked if we could share a car.” Ken shrugged.

“You shared… a car? You shared a car?” Jenkins seemed slightly broken, which was not a good sign.

“Sir, I believed Millan could get me a lead, and he did. Five minutes into talking to Mr. Sulley, I realized that he fit the victim profile, and his affect suggested that he was a victim rather than an investigative lead, and I would have that if not for Robert Millan.”

“I am seconds away from taking you off this case.”

“Sir!”

“No!” Jenkins leaned forward. “You listen to me. You are championing a minority group that you see targeted unfairly. You are sending up red flag after red flag to your superior officers. Does this sound familiar?”

Ken stomach churned. “This isn’t the same.”

“Isn’t it?”

“This isn’t Sudan. It isn’t Eritrea or Chad.” Ken’s temper frayed at the edges.

“Or Niger?” Jenkins asked. “The details might be classified, but I’m looking at your face right now, and I’m wondering if you’re trying to work this case or if your head isn’t still back there.”

Ken wasn’t there—he had left behind the low, dust-red houses and the mountains worn dull like an old pencil. He’d washed away the sand that drifted in great clouds that made the sky and land blur together and the mud walls with satellite dishes propped up with the ribs of those tough bushes that dotted the landscape. That wasn’t the world he lived in, and he couldn’t save those people. Hell, in the end, he hadn’t saved himself. The women had done that.

“With all due respect, sir, that is not the issue.”

“Then why the hell are you suddenly so willing to break every regulation on the books?”

“You told me to follow him. I chose to modify that suggestion to avoid further confrontation.”

“And would you have done that with any witness on any other case?”

“If I was working against the clock like I am here, maybe,” Ken said. He was a rule follower at heart, but he had limits to how much he could take.

“Then maybe it’s not just this case I need to worry about,” Jenkins said in a softly-worded threat.

“Sir.”

Jenkins held up a hand to stop Ken. “I get it. I respect the fact that you’re a protector at heart, but a detective’s work is about gathering evidence. We don’t always get to save the world. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you aren’t trying to fix your past. Maybe you’re just too caught up in your psychology classes and seeing serial killers when we’re really looking at a group of idiot teenagers.”

“They’re targeting people they consider undesirable. It’s a hate crime,” Ken said. He would not have anyone—not even the captain—dismiss this case as a fucking juvenile prank.

“Yes, it is,” Jenkins agreed. “And I am worried about the fact that you could be right about this escalating. But you cannot tilt at every windmill. And you absolutely cannot endanger the conviction rates of this department because you have contaminated every witness you find. There is a time for bending the rules; now is not it.”

“Will it be time when we have bodies?”

Jenkins sighed. “Probably not. And we may have bodies in this case. That will not be your fault or my fault or the system’s fault. We are all doing the best job we can, and the only blame will be on the suspects. However, if you continue acting like a cowboy, the DA is going to lose so much evidence that anyone we catch will walk away with a pass. Is that what you want?”

“Of course not.” Ken sat and rubbed his eyes. “And I know Sulley is useless on the stand now, but he’s a drag queen with an arrest record in a shiny red muscle shirt. Do you really think the jury was going to take his word about an attack that happened a year ago?”

Jenkins reached into his desk drawer and brought out a folder. “The fact that you thought that through is the only reason I’m giving you a written warning instead of a suspension.”

Ken nodded. He deserved as much since he’d broken more than a few regulations in the last day or so. Hell, he’d take the discipline with a smile if it meant that he got to keep the case.

“Where do you plan to take this case from here?” Jenkins asked as he started filling in the blocks at the top of the triplicate discipline report. Ken had no illusions—this was a test. He needed to make sure he colored inside the lines or the captain would pull him.

“I’m going to see what I can get from the Sulley reconstruction—run it through the database and then take it over to the juevie officers and see if anyone recognizes them.

“Sulley was attacked a year ago. The odds are that you won’t get a useable likeness.”

“Maybe not, but if he can give details—race or age for example—it could keep me from chasing bad leads down a rabbit hole.”

Jenkins paused and leaned back in the chair. “A more recent victim would get you closer to your suspects.”

“Yeah, but Millan isn’t going to share easily. He didn’t even tell me Sulley was a victim. So if I want to find the rest of them, I might need to start haunting the gay bars.” Ken didn’t want to spend too much time there because he didn’t have a wife and a few kids to insulate him from the rumors that could start, but he sure as hell wouldn’t sacrifice the safety of the community to ensure his own privacy. He was a bastard, not a complete asshole.

Jenkins grimaced. He might be a solid captain who cared about his detectives, but he had a judgmental streak that made Ken uncomfortable. Ken leaned back and looked out through the office blinds. True to his word, Robert was sitting at Ken’s desk. Once again, the man was snooping into Ken’s paperwork, but this time he had actually opened the folder where Ken kept his returned essays. He liked to print them so he could study the professors’ grading styles before he had to write the final papers for the semester.

Jenkins walked around his desk and opened his office door. "Mr. Millan, would you be so kind as to join us, please?" Jenkins called in his best 'said the spider to the fly' voice. 

That must have startled Robert because he dropped Ken’s folder, and then scrambled to pick up the essays he dropped.

“Lovely,” Jenkins said in a half-whisper. 

“Sorry,” Robert said with an apologetic grin as he hurried through the door.

Ken just shrugged.

"Mr. Millan, we always appreciate the involvement of good Samaritans," Jenkins started, and Ken half-expected Robert to break out one of his self-righteous lectures on the failure of police to do their jobs. Instead he sat in the chair next to Ken as Jenkins continued, "But your refusal to share information is putting lives in danger."

"Do you really think I'm so stupid that I don't know that? Hell, I offered one of these guys a blow job if he'd just give you a statement." Robert had such an exaggerated sense of defeat that Ken couldn’t decide if he was serious or not. He looked over, and Jenkins met his gaze with such comical horror that Ken almost laughed. Considering that the captain still had the write up paperwork on the desk, that would not have ended well.

“There is no law that says you must keep your sources confidential,” Jenkins said after he took a moment to visibly recover from Robert’s words. “You know how important this investigation is, and how seriously Detective Hoffman is taking it. I’m asking you to give us the names of the earlier victims.”

Robert was already shaking his head. “Buddy, I wish I could. But I gave them my word that I would keep them out of it.”

“And if someone dies?” Jenkins asked.

All the regret and defeat vanished in a heartbeat and the more familiar simmering rage returned. Robert leaned forward and pinned Jenkins with a furious glare. “That is on you for being so fucking shitty to the gay community that gay men don’t trust you to make change for a one dollar bill. This department has burned bridges with African Americans, with victims of sexual assault, with the gay community, with the Asian community, with the immigrant community. Is there a minority you’ve met that you haven’t tried to screw over?”

“Hey,” Ken said. He didn’t get any further before Robert whirled around on him.

“Don’t you even start!” Robert shot to his feet, and his chair clattered to the ground. Ken still had his mouth open to speak when Robert charged past and exited, stage left. He move so quick he could have been a cartoon character.

Ken looked over at Jenkins. “He’s a little high strung.”

“Yeah. A little.” Jenkins sighed. “Go, try to smooth things over, but do not take him on any more investigative trips. Clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Ken agreed. He darted out of the office before Jenkins could change his mind. He wasn’t sure if he was still being written up or not, but he’d worry about that later. Right now he had a lead with Steve Sulley and a witness to calm down before the man could set fire to the precinct. That was the best day he’d had yet on this case. Even a formal reprimand couldn’t dull his relief at making even a small amount of progress.

Chapter 8: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-8-17856154 

Chapter 9: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-9-17964838 

Chapter 10: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-10-18290483 

Chapter 11: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-11-18463879 

Chapter 12: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-12-18561312 

Chapter 13: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-13-18583563 

Chapter 14: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-14-18835280 

Chapter 15: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-15-19009742 

Chapter 16: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-16-19049610 

Chapter 17: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-17-19064720 

Chapter 18: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-18-19083274 

Chapter 19: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-19-19142224 

Chapter 20: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-20-19153311 

Chapter 21, 22, 23: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-21-21192263 

Chapter 24: https://www.patreon.com/posts/witness-wore-24-21260957