scarlet city - chapter four - bordertown
Cristina scoffs as the bar erupts into chaos. “Oh, for cryin’ out loud,” she groans. She hates boxing and hates the way people get when a match doesn’t go their way. It’s worse than baseball. Ceferino Garcia just knocked out Fred Apostoli in seven rounds, winning the world middleweight title and making a quarter of the room very happy and the rest very, very broke.
As a glass breaks somewhere in the corner, she shakes her head and looks up at the ceiling. It’s times like these she wishes Emerald City had a security team that consisted of more than just her, the busboy, and a couple of baseball bats. She ducks as a chair flies over her head to crash into the bottles and glasses behind her.
At least the outcome doesn’t change how much she’s getting paid tonight. Cristina punches a young kid trying to vault over the bar, not caring that he’s probably just trying to hide. Altman takes the same amount for all bets, regardless of who actually wins, and passes a percentage on to Cristina. Because of the stakes of the fight, she’s going home with enough money to pay rent for the next year.
Amid the crashing of glass, sickening thud of fists into soft body parts, and general yelling, she makes out Shepherd doing a damn good job of not getting hit at the end of the bar. She doesn’t particularly like the guy; something about his attitude never sits right with her, not to mention his hair. But he’s great at patching up Burke so she puts up with his occasional presence at the bar and the annoying girlfriend that sometimes comes with him.
“These guys,” he gestures to the chaos in the room, “are gonna need me in an hour,” he observes once Cristina fends off a few more goons looking for breakable ammunition behind the bar.
“Go,” she says, knowing the hospital will need him in one piece, “drinks are on me.”
“Tyler!”
With a sigh, the beat cop stops and turns toward the sound of his name. “Reed,” he says flatly, not at all pleased to see his ex-girlfriend jogging to catch up with him. Rumor has it that she’s now editing the crime desk at the Times and her interest in talking to him can’t be anything good.
“Is it true? One of Montgomery’s girls got killed? And the Chief’s pulled all of you to work on it?” Before she’s even caught up with him, Reed has her notebook and pencil out.
“Why don’t you read your own newspaper, Adamson?” He glares at the paper boy on the corner, dumping an entire stack of the next day’s papers in the garbage; reading upside down, Tyler catches Apostoli Champion Again! in the headline in the trash. He sighs: he’s out five dollars.
A crash echoes halfway down the street and fighting sprawls out on the sidewalk. Tyler rolls his eyes. He’ll be at the station, booking all of them for assault, long after Ambrose’s has stopped serving breakfast. He gestures for the kid to take his papers and run on home. “Come back when the sun’s up,” he advises.
Reed sighs, posture slouching, and ignores the brawl behind her. “Come on, Tyler. Throw me a bone here. None of the precinct guys are talking and getting within shouting distance of Burke and Duquette is impossible. My editor’s on me to run this story and all I got from Dandridge is that a Violet Turner showed up on his boss’ slab with her throat slit. Percy tells me that Turner was one of Montgomery’s girls and lunch gossip at Ambrose’s is that Webber has everyone working on the Ripper case.”
Tyler blinks at the nickname for the murderer, wondering how internal police designations made it into the public, but recovers quickly. “Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out.” A car squeals around the corner with a peal of a siren and stops just short of the fight; four cops tumble out and begin making order out of chaos. Satisfied that he won’t have to deal with that, at least until his shift is over and they need someone to take statements, Tyler glances over his shoulder, anxious to get back to work. They may have a violent murderer and bar brawls on their hands, but someone still needs to make sure the rest of the city doesn’t fall apart.
“Please? I can’t run this without a source. You guys got anything?”
“Nothing I can tell you, Reed.”
With a huff, Reed flips her notebook closed and stuffs it back in her bag along with the pencil. “Yeah. You’ve got nothin’ on this guy.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“I’m not a moron, Tyler. I’ve been working around cops for years. I’ve broken your secret code. Get back to work.” She turns on her heel and walks off into the rainy night.
Tyler stands and watches her. He has half a mind to shout after her, tell her to wait and that he’ll walk her home, but he knows that she can take care of herself and that she’d probably kick him if she thought he was suggesting otherwise. He sighs, partly because things always end this way between them now and partly because she’s right. He doesn’t even have to do any of the dirty work, doesn’t have to see the bodies or read reports or talk to potential witnesses. All he has to do is walk the now-empty streets at night and remind any stray single women that it’d be in their best interests to get inside. He waits until she’s disappeared into the shadows before resuming his course.
He turns, movement at the edge of his vision catching his attention. A man walks out of the alleyway across the street and rushes in the direction Tyler was headed. The man vanishes before Tyler can get a good look at him, melting into the shadows and darkness afforded by a burned-out gaslight and a new moon. Tyler jogs across the street, hoping that it was just another drunk needing a piss. An unsettling feeling in the bottom of his stomach tells him that it wasn’t.
“Oh my God,” he says. The gaslight at the opposite end of the alley provides just enough light to illuminate the features of a dead woman on the ground, her throat slit from ear to ear. Blood shimmers on the cobblestones below, one of the few places in the city that hasn’t succumb yet to modernized roads. Tyler gags and steps out of the alley. He looks up and down the street.
It’s deserted.
Callie exhales sharply and runs her fingers through her hair. “You want to eat, Grey? Then you work.”
Meredith crosses her arms and leans angrily against the doorframe. “You gonna promise me I’m not gonna end up dead?”
“You really think you’re the first girl to walk in here and ask me that?” Callie lifts an eyebrow in disbelief. Meredith is, at minimum, the sixth girl today to ask Callie to make that promise. She’s tired of hearing it. “Can the attitude, Grey. We’re not paying you to stay inside.”
“I’m not the only one who’s thinking of picking up a waitress pad until this guy is found, Callie. Any time Addison wants to give us some actual muscle instead of Stark and Marlowe, we’ll shut up and do our jobs. Those two guys couldn’t hold off a drunk monkey.”
Callie snorts. It’s true, but they’re the only spare guys right now; Addison has everyone else busy either doing normal work or trying to do what the cops aren’t. “Okay, fine. You’re stuck with Stark, but you pair up with Rose.”
Meredith frowns and taps her cigarette into the ashtray on the bookshelf. “I don’t do that.”
“Fine,” Callie says nonchalantly, leaning back in the worn suede armchair, “work solo.”
With a disdainful look, Meredith stabs out her cigarette and storms out the door.
“Look, Addison. I don’t know what to tell you.” Arizona brushes her arm across her forehead, wiping away beads of sweat; despite being refrigerated, the morgue always gets too hot. “I can’t find anything.” She looks down at the table in front of her and the body on top of it.
Lexie Grey, perpetual pain in the ass of every cop in the district.
And now very, very dead.
Addison exhales sharply. Lexie wasn’t one of hers, but her sister is. As soon as she heard, she’d dispatched Alex to break the news to Meredith. By her count, they have maybe two minutes before Meredith breaks down the door to the morgue.
“She’s my sister, Alex!”
Addison looks at the clock on the wall, frowns, and then glances at her watch. It must be slow. She makes a mental note to fix it later and steels herself for the emotional tornado that is Meredith Grey having a very bad day. At least she didn’t bring the boyfriend. The last thing Addison needs right now is to run into her ex-husband. Addison opens the door to save both Meredith’s tiny fists and the wood. “Meredith, I’m so sorry,” she says. It’s halfway sincere. Addison never liked Lexie, but Meredith’s always good for business.
Meredith brushes past Addison’s concern to see Lexie lying on the table. Arizona’s cleaned her up and done her the decency of pulling a sheet over Lexie’s body, but it’s still her sister on the table, dead, with her throat slit. Meredith hadn’t believed Alex when he told her that Lexie was dead; he had no reason to lie to her - and he’s not so crass as to make a joke like that - but she hadn’t believed him. Lexie may have been annoying, but she wasn’t stupid. They’d had lunch two afternoons ago and Meredith had made Lexie promise that she wasn’t going to work until this guy was found.
“I tried, Addison,” Alex says in his defense as Addison turns to him for an explanation. He’d been told to keep her away, that there was plenty of time to see the body, but not like this, not naked on an exam table. And he had tried, but Meredith is feisty and he’s pretty sure he’s going to have a black eye in the morning.
Addison waves him off and lets Meredith grieve for a few minutes before gesturing for Alex to drag her home; he has debts to collect from last night, she needs to talk to Arizona alone. When it’s just her, Arizona and Lexie’s body again, Addison speaks. “You’re not holding out on me, are you?”
“I swear to God, Addison. I’m not.”
“And,” Addison makes a face, not quite believing that she’s about to say this, “you’re not holding out on the cops, are you?”
Arizona shakes her head. “No. I’ve been over Violet, Lexie and the Stevens girl twice. Guy’s got some serious anger toward whores.”
Addison exhales sharply. “No kidding.”
Cristina glares at Burke from across the room. “No. I told you. I told you when we started dating and I told you when picked up Montgomery’s case. I’m not telling you anything I know from work. No.”
“Cristina…”
“Don’t Cristina me. I don’t know anything about this guy, alright? All I know is, he’s got people scared. Everyone. Cops, whores, dancers, everyone. And I got everyone asking me when you’re gonna do something about it.” She crosses her arms. She’s not angry, not really, but she’s about had it with hearing about dead hookers on a daily basis and being told that it’s somehow her boyfriend’s fault that they haven’t found the guy already. Plus, she spent all day cleaning up from the brawl last night and then had to work a full shift.
Burke sighs and falls into the nearest chair. “I’m sorry,” he says and closes his eyes.
“Excuse me?”
He opens one eye. “You heard me. I’m not saying it again.” He can’t help the smile that crosses his lips.
Cristina laughs. “Anything I can do? I can unleash my wrath on the city.”
Burke snorts. “That’ll scare him into hiding.”
Mark wakes with the movement on the mattress. He blinks away the vestiges of sleep and tries to make out the clock on the wall; he can’t see it - the moon’s hidden tonight behind a veil of clouds and rain - but he knows enough to know that it’s too damn early. A shadow catches his attention and he looks at the corner to find Addison standing by the window, wrapping a dressing gown around herself against the constant chill that’s taken up residence these past few months.
“What’s wrong?” He asks, voice quiet.
She startles and turns to face him, her features cast in shadow. “Ten, Mark.”
Even through shadow and night, Mark can tell she’s upset. Not scared; she isn’t a target and no man, insane killer or not, would dare to touch her. But unsettled, more than she usually is when the unexpected happens. He rises from the bed, a little chilly without a shirt, and silently walks over the hardwood floor to where she stands.
Addison reaches out and touches his chest, tracing muscles and scars; her fingers linger on a particularly jagged imperfection, a bullet wound from the war. He told her the story once, that he was young and stupid and hadn’t yet learned how to duck. “There’s a war on,” she says. There’s more weighing on her mind than just the ten dead women.
“I know,” Mark says and tugs her close. They’ve listened to the radio and read the papers. If they’re very lucky, Europe will take care of it. “I’m not going anywhere,” he says, reassuring her that if it comes to it, he won’t be running off to war again.
She snorts. She’s not worried about that; he’s too old to be at the front lines. “I have a bad feeling about this guy, Mark,” she says, changing the subject to something a little closer to home.
“Like in New York?”
She nods and rests her cheek against his chest. “Like in New York.”
Burke steps out of the elevator and pauses, instantly recognizing that something’s wrong. The precinct’s too silent, despite the number of people in it. He scans the room, looking for anything amiss.
And then he hears it. Behind the closed door of the Chief’s office. Judge Teddy Altman.
Yelling.
“What the hell happened?” He asks Hahn in a quiet whisper.
“Altman and Avery showed up about an hour ago, right after we released Lexie Grey’s name to the papers. Apparently ten dead working girls is something we should not have allowed to happen in our fair city. They’re not pleased that it’s taking us this long to figure out who did it.”
“I’d like to see them try,” Burke grumbles. His eyes land on Duquette, voice hushed as he talks to someone on the phone. The man looks like he hasn’t slept in days. He probably hasn’t. Burke takes a step toward his desk, but Duquette waves his hand and gestures for Burke to come over and wait a moment while he finishes the phone call.
“Alright. Thank you for your help. If I find anything, I’ll let you know.” Denny hangs up the phone and scrubs a hand over his face. “I hate to do this to you, but we gotta go talk to Montgomery.”
Burke’s eyebrow lifts almost clear off his forehead. “Excuse me?”
Denny looks around the room. All ears are perked up, hoping to catch a snippet of anything juicy. “Not here.” He leads the way out of the precinct and back out onto the street.
“That was Amelia Shepherd on the phone,” he explains once they’re out in broad daylight and anything overheard will be instantly forgotten. “She didn’t have much. Started out with the same thought we did: that it was Montgomery taking out the competition. Came to the same conclusion we did; Montgomery doesn’t kill the competition, she brings them into her own. And she wouldn’t kill her own girls. They never found anyone to pin them on, but she always thought that the murders were too clean to be done someone average. The guy knows where to cut to make them bleed as fast and as much as possible.”
“Sounds like the mob,” Burke says, sliding into the passenger seat of Duquette’s car. “She’ll be at the Archfield,” he offers.
Denny shakes his head. “They figured out early on it wasn’t the mob.”
Burke glances sideways at the other detective. “I’m confused.”
“You must’ve been hit on the head real hard, Burke. Who’s Montgomery’s ex-husband?”
“Shepherd.”
“And he is…?”
“A doctor.” Burke blinks. “Son of a bitch.”
The mid-afternoon sun glints off the glass door as it opens and Addison looks up from her martini. She squints in the dim light and makes out the profile of two detectives; one known for getting himself injured, and the other who she had dumped at the hospital not seven days earlier. She chuckles to herself and nods for Callie to go find something else to do while she talks to them. “Gentlemen,” she says smoothly, “would you like a drink?”
Miranda silently takes orders for one iced tea and one lemonade and disappears toward the bar.
Burke stares after her. He’s no longer wearing the sling, but he’s obviously injured and she didn’t even so much as glance in his direction. He’s still dismayed that she betrayed him, but he supposes he can understand business and money.
“What can I do for you this fine afternoon?”
Addison’s voice calls him back to the present. “You can talk to us about Derek Shepherd,” Burke says, cutting through the hoops of bullshit she’d normally have them jump through.
Addison’s eyes narrow. “He’s my ex-husband, Burke. You know this.”
Burke nods. “Yes. Divorced six years ago in New York, citing irreconcilable differences. You took an internship with Murder Inc. and he did…what, exactly?”
“Let’s clarify a couple of things, Preston. First of all, I didn’t ‘take an internship’ with anyone. Meyer Lansky approached me in the hospital, said someone in his organization was having a baby but couldn’t leave the house because of…” she pauses to remember the exact phrasing, “‘unfortunate public opinion’ and needed me to come to her. I saved her life; her husband and his friends gave me a job that paid way more than the hospital could hope to match. And secondly, what my ex-husband did with his life after he moved all of his shit out of my house is of no concern to me.”
Denny leans back in the cracked leather booth and nods his thanks at Miranda. He sips at his lemonade. “So would it surprise you that two months after your divorce, prostitutes started showing up dead in Manhattan morgues?”
“I remember hearing something about that. What are you two getting at?” It doesn’t always work, but luckily playing dumb earns her a few minutes of reprieve this time. She turns everything over in her mind while Duquette and Burke lay out what little information they have in hope of earning themselves a case-breaking clue from her.
And then, suddenly, it hits her.
“Excuse me, gentlemen. I’ve just remembered that I have a dinner appointment this evening that I cannot reschedule. Drinks are on me.” She excuses herself with a polite smile and swiftly exits to the kitchen. “Call Alex,” she tells Callie, interrupting to woman’s conversation with the chef, “send him to Meredith’s.” She sweeps out the back door to where Mark is leaning on the black Chrysler, smoking and watching the sunset. “Hospital,” she orders. “Now.”
She checks the rearview mirror, but doesn’t notice the car following them.
“You sorry son of a bitch,” Addison says, gun cold in her hand. Her heels are silent on the pavement as she walks purposefully toward Derek, standing in the shadows of the alleyway behind the hospital. She exhales carefully, concealing her relief at finding him here and not on his way to his girlfriend’s apartment with the intent to turn her into a canoe. “You couldn’t let it go, could you? You killed them all in New York and you’re killing them all here.”
Derek snorts. “Glad you could join the class, Addison.” He pulls a butterfly knife out of his back pocket and flicks it open. The blade gleams in the lamplight.
Addison’s heart quickens at the knife. “I’m not a whore, Derek,” Addison spits out, “killing me doesn’t fit into your grand plan. That’s what this is, isn’t it? Redemption? Kill enough whores and Daddy will come back to life?”
It’s instinct, the way he balls his hand into a fist and punches. He sends her stumbling into the brick wall, blood from her cheek on his knuckles
“Derek Shepherd, you’re under arrest for the murder of Sydney Heron, Lucy Fields, Olivia Harper, Katharine Wyatt, Sadie Harris, Megan Mostow, Isobel Stevens, April Kepner, Violet Turner, and Lexie Grey.” Denny walks out of the shadows as he recites the list of dead women, names he’s committed to memory. He trains his gun on Derek’s forehead, fully intending to shoot if Derek so much as sneezes.
Derek turns to run down the alley but stops short, finding himself staring down the barrel of Burke’s gun.
“Drop the knife, Shepherd,” Burke orders.
It clatters to the pavement in defeat.
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