Chapter 11

Deckard eyed Detective Yaddow and plotted all the ways he could murder the guy, were he not a law-abiding citizen. They stood in a conference room, eyeing the monitor where Perry and the sketch artist huddled over her laptop with the tenth iteration of the Fox-face sketch.

Yaddow curled his lip. "You have to admit your little friend has been damned close to useless. No ID on any of the photos, and that sketch looks like the bad guy in A Bridge Too Near, just with glasses on."

"Maybe Fox-face does too."

"Hah. Your little mail-boy changed his mind twenty times."

Deckard had to admit Perry had been less than decisive. "He spotted the guy in the hallway and gave us a chance to find the bomb before it took out Justice Campbell. Again. And he's not that little."

"Aw." Yaddow patted Deckard's arm smarmily. "Did I insult his widdle feelings?"

"Touch me again, and you'll regret it."

Yaddow was smart enough to take a step back. "I'm just saying, we've spent two hours on him and come up with nothing. Time to cut the kid loose and move on."

Zamora said from across the room as she entered. "To what, Yaddow? You got ideas? Because I'm all ears."

Deckard wasn't Zamora's biggest fan, but at least she didn't stand around uselessly and insult people. He turned to her with a degree of relief. "Do you have any pull with OSA? There's superhero stuff tied up in this case, and I really could use an expert opinion."

"I already asked them about those notes you put into evidence. The vanishing ones." She said "vanishing" matter-of-factly, and when Yaddow sneered, she rounded on him. "You know what? I have a job for you. Go run back through all the media accounts of the BigTree trial and compile a folder of every shot that shows spectators gathered outside the courtroom. See if the same guy shows up on more than one day."

"That's a needle in a haystack," Yaddow complained.

Zamora patted his arm with almost the same gesture he'd used on Deckard. "But it's your needle. Go."

Since she was Yaddow's superior, he had to bow out and head off to put time in on his screen. Zamora sighed when he was gone. "No idea how he passed the detectives' exam, or what I did wrong in a past life to be saddled with him."

Deckard wasn't spending another thought on the fool. "Did OSA have any info on the notes?"

"Not a lot. SPAM apparently manages supes in some kind of loose organization, does some training, and sends them information, but no one agrees on how that works. The name April is associated with SPAM, but accounts of her appearance vary widely, from four-foot-eight and elderly, to six-foot-three and stunning."

"That sounds impossible."

"Yeah. Most likely there are several people running around using the name April. Or, I guess, this is about supes. Maybe her superpower is to look like different people."

"Would make her one hell of an undercover agent," Deckard mused.

"And impossible to find." Zamora frowned. "What did you say Peregrine's power was? Changing the colors of things?"

"Yeah. He turned my dog's bed to royal blue."

"Hah. Pretty useless power. Although not the worst I've heard. There was one guy who could make ice cubes appear out of thin air."

"Ice cubes."

"Yeah. Small ones." She and Deckard stared at each other. Zamora shrugged. "Supes. They're like a whole other dimension, and most of it's fricking weird. I hate when supe stuff gets mixed up in our cases."

Deckard watched Perry on the monitor wipe his forehead with one hand and lean toward the artist again. He was trying so hard. Deckard wasn't a fan of the weird and superpowerful screwing with his job either, but he couldn't wish Perry wasn't part of his life. "There has to be someone who liked BigTree enough to commit murder to avenge him. We just need to locate them."

"Working on it," Zamora said. "In the meantime, we've put out the story that Justice Campbell will be staying with a good friend on a private island. If Fox-face tries to go after him there, we have a good shot at catching him."

"Is Campbell actually on the island?" Deckard figured it was a trap they'd set, and the judge was tucked away safe somewhere else.

Zamora grinned. "Need to know, Deckard. Need to know."

Well, it wasn't as if Major Crimes wanted his help on that end. "At least, with luck, we won't have to evacuate the Hoffward again." The residents had not been pleased.

"Amen to that," she agreed.

Motion on the monitor caught Deckard's eye, and he saw Perry rise and move out of camera range. "Looks like Crawford's done. I'll go collect him."

"How much faith do you put in that sketch?"

Deckard thought about how Perry's image had started out and the changes he'd seen each time they'd checked back. "Not much. Hair color. Glasses."

"That's what I was afraid of. Oh well, the kid saved us from two potentially lethal explosions. I can't complain if he has no eye for detail."

"He's not a kid." Deckard regretted the words before they were out of his mouth. Zamora was sharp as a tack.

She eyed him. "Two decades younger than you or me."

"Only one decade for me."

Her smile had a wicked edge. "Rubbing in a lady's age never goes well."

"What lady where?"

She punched his arm, hard, but said, "That's true," and looked more pleased than anything. "You go collect the twink, then. I have an island trap to perfect."

He settled for, "Good luck."

"You, too. Let me know if Perry gets any more love notes from SPAM." She laughed. "Things I never thought I'd say. And take care of him, Deckard. The judge may be Fox-face's prime target, but he's not the only target. Our perp's killed three times, that we know of, and your boy has foiled their plans twice."

Deckard had thought the same thing, more than once. "I'll keep an eye on him."

He headed down the hall and met Perry coming out of the conference room rubbing his eyes. "Oh, hey." Perry gave him a sheepish smile. "I don't think I was much help. The more I thought about how the guy looked, the less sure I was."

"Don't worry about it. We'll put together a montage of the best security camera shots and run with those."

"Probably safer."

Another conference room door farther along opened and a stocky, balding man strode out. He spotted Perry, straightened his shoulders, and stomped over. "You!" He tried to poke Perry in the chest with a meaty forefinger, but Deckard intercepted his hand.

"No touching."

That earned Deckard a ferocious glare before the man focused back on Perry. "You're fired. You are so fired!"

"What did I do?" Perry blinked at the guy.

"You… you… another evacuation!"

"Perry had nothing to do with another bomb in the Hoffward Building," Deckard pointed out. "If that's what you're implying."

He got a withering look before the man added, "We're in an At-will state. I can fire you for… for wearing those faggy purple sneakers if I want to."

"I had permission." Perry tucked one foot behind his other ankle.

"And if an employee were LGBTQ, that'd be homophobic discrimination," Deckard pointed out. "Not protected."

"I don't need a reason. You abandoned the residents' mail unsecured in a hallway to run around the building."

"Chasing a bomber!" Perry protested.

"You abandoned a sacred trust. You're fired. Don't come back to work. You'll get a week's pay in place of notice, as agreed in your contract. And good riddance." The guy jerked his weak chin up and hustled off down the hallway. They stared after him as he yanked open the door to the stairs and headed down.

"Sorry if I made that worse," Deckard offered.

Perry huffed a weak laugh. "When the first words out of his mouth were, ‘You're fired,' I don't think there's much room for worse. I was glad you were here. He didn't yell half as much as usual."

"You need a better job."

"Yeah. Finding one will be a trick, though. Since he'd be my main reference."

"Ah. That's not great." Deckard laid a hand on Perry's shoulder in support. "Still, you're smart and attractive and think on your feet, and you have guts, too." Not everyone would've chased a possible bomber down those stairs. "There must be a dozen businesses that could use someone like you."

"Guess I'll find out." Perry bit his lip. "I was going to catch a cab back to work, but it looks like I'm free for the rest of the afternoon."

"I'm not sorry you won't continue working in that building," Deckard admitted. "They're moving the judge out, but the bomber might not know that. I worry he might escalate from small devices to larger ones to take down the entire Hoffward, and you could get badly hurt." Or killed.

"Ooh, you like me."

Deckard nudged Perry gently. "Of course I like you. I'm letting you stay at my house, aren't I? With my dog." And in my bed. He didn't mention that elephant in the room.

"You said, ‘another bomb' and ‘small devices,' so there was a new bomb, huh?"

"Forget I said that. Show-off. I already said you were smart."

"That's not what I—" Perry grinned. "You're distracting me. It's not working. I want to know what Fox-face did."

"No, you don't." The bomb inside the decorative papièr maché urn left by the judge's apartment with a fine-wire trigger to his door had been more of the same, explosives and glitter, moderate radius. What if Perry had been the one standing there when the door opened, delivering mail or something? Deckard forced himself not to reach for Perry again. "You want to come hang out with Nix in my office, since you don't have to work?"

"That's a decent consolation prize." Perry followed Deckard as he strode off toward the elevator.

They rode up to the fifth floor where the bomb squad worked. Deckard ushered Perry through the main room— ignoring his teammates' grins and raised eyebrows that threatened a lot of mockery coming his way later— and into the solo office he used as a perk of working with Nix. She jumped up from her bed and hurried over, her tail wagging. Her greeting to Perry was almost as eager as Deckard got.

"You can hang out here," Deckard told Perry, shoving out his desk chair with a foot. "I can't give you the internet password and don't touch the computer, but I have a charger in the desk drawer if you need it."

"Can I give Nix treats?"

"No." Deckard ignored Perry's pouting lip and Nix's big brown eyes. "I'll be back at the end of my shift, or sooner if I get a call-out with Nix." He hesitated, then pointed at his lower desk drawer. "There's a stash of Girl Pack cookies in there, if you need some mood-boosting."

"Ooh," Perry said to Nix, squatting to rub her shoulders. "He's giving me his Girl Pack cookies. I think he loooooves me." He didn't look up, but the rims of his ears flushed red.

Deckard settled for a gagging noise and a, "You know how to call me if you need to," before ducking out and closing the door. I don't love him, not even close. I'm sorry for him and I like him, and I'm sharing my cookies, not giving them. He reopened the door to call inside, "Don't eat all the cookies," before turning to the main room.

Wells raised her head from her terminal to pretend to whistle. "Baby Superman is your jam, huh?"

"Shh." Deckard threw a glance over his shoulder at the closed door and lowered his voice, hoping Wells would do the same. "More like Clark Kent. And it has nothing to do with my jam. He's an important witness who may be at risk."

"Yeah, you keep telling yourself that," Fong suggested.

"Do we have any actual work or is it just rag-on-Deckard day?"

"Isn't that every day?" Edwards asked, grinning behind his beard.

Jeffries broke them up by striding into the room. "All right, boys and girls?—"

"And neithers," Deckard spoke up. He took mostly-good-natured crap for being bi, so he wasn't shy about pulling his queer weight.

Jeffries threw him an annoyed look but corrected himself to, "All right, people. We have three more possible bombs called in. Work to do."

"Probability they're real?" Edwards asked, grin vanished.

Jeffries waved an impatient hand. "Who knows? Since the news broke about the Hoffward being evacuated again, everyone's running around like chickens with their heads cut off assuming any object bigger than a cigarette pack is going to explode."

"Ain't that the truth?" Fong grumbled. She'd been out on a false alarm call while Deckard had been getting Perry's statement.

"Fong and Edwards, portable X-ray One and the suspicious box; Wells and Ramirez, take Two and the abandoned backpack; Deckard, you and Nix grab a patrol officer for backup and take the third call, delivery center."

Deckard nodded.

"Locations on your phones. I'll take the van to a midway point. Give me the word if anything pans out."

Deckard hurried back to his office, yanked open the door, and froze at the sight of Perry with his cheeks stuffed like a chipmunk's, the last box of Thick Mints open in front of him.

At Deckard's arrival, Perry startled and whipped the box behind his back. "Y're back," Perry mumbled around a mouthful of cookies. He swallowed and said more clearly, "I, um, found the cookies. I missed lunch."

Deckard realized he had too. "Toss 'em here." He caught the package, stuffed two into his mouth, and tossed it back. "C'mon. Got called out." He took Nix's vest off the hook by the door as he spoke and she abandoned her hopeful pose at Perry's knees to run to him.

Perry came up to him, cookie box in hand, as Deckard knelt to harness Nix. "Where are we going?"

"I'm going on a call with Nix. You're going to a conference room." He might trust Perry, but he couldn't leave a civilian wandering around the squad's space unsupervised. "Come on." He straightened and hooked a hand around Perry's elbow to hustle him along. The warmth of Perry's skin under his fingertips made him want to pull Perry closer. Damn it. He let go and waved. "This way."

The main room had cleared out. Deckard ushered Perry and Nix to the door and made sure it locked behind them. The conference rooms were down on the second floor. Deckard avoided Perry's gaze in the elevator.

"I could be helpful," Perry offered as the car stopped on 2. "With your call, I mean."

"I doubt it." Deckard ushered him into the nearly empty bullpen. "Hey, I need a room for our witness to hang out. Comfortably," he added, because the rooms came with a variety of discomforts. "And someone to back me up on an explosives check."

Two middle-aged guys stood. The taller, whom Deckard vaguely recognized, said, "I'll take the call with you."

The other said, "Conference rooms this way," to Perry.

Perry turned to Deckard, eyes wide. "Be safe, okay?" Deckard had the sudden impulse to hug him and ease that worried look, so he was relieved when Perry then forced a grin and snarked, "And don't forget to listen to Nix. She's smarter than you are."

"Hah." Deckard tapped the box in Perry's hand. "Don't eat all the cookies." Whirling, he jogged down the stairs to the first floor with Nix at heel and the patrol officer following him.

He and Nix then spent an hour going through all the packages in the Mailway delivery center receiving room, while the patrol officer lounged in the doorway looking bored. Deckard heard his teammates report nothing exciting with the packages they'd X-rayed long before he and Nix were done with their sweep. Another call came through while he was still working, and Jeffries sent Edwards and Fong off again.

When at last they reached the end of the last array of shelves, Nix panted happily, looking up at him. "Good job." He handed down her food, squeaked her toy, then gave it to her to hold. She chewed on it, producing little noises, while he went over to the delivery supervisor.

"No explosives in here," he told the man."False alarm." One of the paradoxes of his job was being glad about doing a bunch of work for nothing.

The supervisor glared as if Deckard had been the one disrupting his business. "Can I let my staff back in to get to work?"

"Sure. I'm done."

"What about the phone call?"

Deckard shrugged. The caller had been anonymous. "Someone bored, someone making trouble. The detectives will look into it." Or someone who wanted a decent smoke break, he speculated, as the supervisor turned and began yelling at his employees to move faster, late, late, late, get their thumbs out of their asses, no breaks tonight, lazy slobs.

"Glad I don't work for that asshole," the patrol officer muttered as they got into the cruiser, and Deckard had to agree.

Was Perry's supervisor like that? Maybe Perry was better off out of that job.

Back at headquarters, he took the stairs to the second floor three at a time, Nix leaping at his heels. "Where's my witness?" he asked the general crowd as he reached the bullpen, not seeing the man he'd passed Perry to. "Young guy, dark hair." Sexy jawline.

A woman waved down the hall. "Crawford? Conference five."

When he opened the conference room door, Perry whipped his gaze up from the phone on the table in front of him, then grinned. "You're okay! I mean, you're back."

"False alarm." He bent and unharnessed Nix. "Off duty." Then stepped farther in and closed the door. "How are you? Not too bored?"

Perry waved his phone. "I went through those funeral photos."

His dad's funeral. Deckard moved closer and lowered his voice. "Anything useful?"

"Maybe? I found contact info for one of the older superheroes who attended. Boomerang."

"Boomerang?"

Perry shrugged. "He predates internet and cell phone videos so there's not a lot about him out there. I found an old interview that listed his real name as Leo Sadowski, searched out his number and called him. He said he hates cellphones but he'll see me in person as a favor to my father."

"That's great." Deckard hesitated. "You mean, see us, right? I don't want you going alone."

"I asked if I could bring my boyfriend." Perry colored. "He was bitching about government and taxes and the cops and I figured that might make him more willing. He said yes."

"Whatever works. I can play boyfriend." Easily. "How soon can he see us?"

"He said to come tonight."

"Seriously?" Deckard wanted information, but it'd been another long day.

Perry shrugged. "He said he might not live through the night, although he sounded pretty strong, so I think that's just him exaggerating. I said yes, because he laughed hard when I mentioned SPAM and April, so I think he knows stuff."

"Okay." Absently, Deckard picked up the open cookie box and slid the tray out. "Wait. You left me one cookie? The box was almost full."

"You were gone a long time and I was hungry. And they are Girl Pack Thick Mints."

Deckard chowed down the last one and tossed the tray into the trash. "Okay, understandable. We'll need to head back to my place first so I can change. Hard to play the boyfriend in a police uniform." And we should brush the black cookie crumbs out of our teeth.

"Of course." Perry waved his phone. "I have Boomerang's address and everything. It's about an hour from your house."

Deckard resigned himself to losing his nice relaxing evening with Perry, in exchange for talking to some eccentric elderly superhero. To be honest, as long as Perry was along, he wasn't too upset about another adventure in mystery-solving.