“The man spends money like it’s going out of fashion. Someone like that in his position is ripe for turning, if that’s what you need.”
“You think he’s corrupt?”
“I didn’t. I don’t know now.”
“What do we do?”
“You know what, Joseph? I’m going home and having a soak in the tub.”
“You’re going home?”
“Yes. I need to clear my head. I reckon you should do the same.”
*
Joseph rarely got home before Dziko, so her pleasant surprise and mild confusion at him being there wasn’t unexpected. That he had gone to the effort of making dinner for them both surprised and impressed her even more. Or at least surprised her. As he looked down at the sad plate of meat and two veg in front of him, he yearned for something more flavoursome. What Dziko could do with a meal was alchemy. Completely out of his reach, even though she had patiently tried to educate him on what spices and flavours worked well together. Try as he might, he’d never been able to come up with anything approaching her standards and so he’d simply given up, reverting to the safety blanket of boiling and grilling. Not that he cooked often.
Dziko didn’t seem to mind. She ate happily, a smile on her face as they talked over the table about her day. He hadn’t wanted to burden her with his straightaway. When she had asked why he had come home early, he had simply said that he would tell her later. He hoped that she’d forget. She didn’t.
“What happened with you at work today? I don’t remember the last time I saw you home so early.”
Joseph still hadn’t prepared an answer. “A strange day,” he admitted.
“Care to tell me more?”
He didn’t, but he knew he would. “We had a suspect, someone in custody. But we had to release him.”
“Was he not the man you’re after?”
“I don’t know. We don’t know. Our boss thinks not, and that’s all that matters. It all leaves us with nothing really to go on, though.”
“You’re not making progress?”
“It’s hard to say. Every time we get told something, it seems someone else tells us the contrary.”
“Like what?”
“About our victim, even the people around him. It’s just so hard to know what’s true when it all feels so contradictory.”
Dziko hummed and leaned back, contemplating what he said. He loved her for it. Police officers often found it hard to talk to their partners. He couldn’t give her all the details he wanted to. Sometimes he knew he let things slip. Like the stuff he’d said about the Scotts. That had been a mistake. But every officer had those lapses, when the job became so much that little bits came out. He hoped he did as well as anyone when it came to keeping back the pertinent stuff. To Dziko, the depth of the information didn’t matter. She would take whatever morsel he gave her, ruminate on it and provide something that she hoped would help him. It almost always did.
“Come with me,” she said, standing up.
He followed her into the living room, where she sat on the couch and beckoned for him to kneel in front of her.
“Sometimes,” she began, “we forget what it is we’re trying to do. What are you trying to do?”
“Catch a killer,” he replied, hoping that it was the answer she was looking for.
She shook her head. “No. You see, you’ve forgotten. You’ve allowed your focus to become singular. You’ve forgotten just what it is you’re there to do.”
“I don’t understand.”
“There are some police in America, I don’t know which ones, I remember reading about it somewhere, though. They came up with a slogan. To serve and to protect. Something like that.”
“Los Angeles,” Joseph said eagerly.
“If you say so. But think about that. To serve,” she insisted. “And protect.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Who do you serve? Who do you protect?”
“Everyone.”
“Exactly. You don’t just catch a killer. You serve the people and you protect them. You can’t protect Gerald Trainer anymore. He’s dead. But you can serve him. Serve his legacy. And you do that by listening to the people who knew him. Serving them. Not the people who speculate or gossip. But those who truly knew him. Remove all that noise and focus only on serving and protecting.”
“It’s not always that easy,” he bowed his head, not wanting to argue, but knowing he had to at least try and explain his predicament. For all her good intentions, Dziko didn’t understand the pressure he faced. “I can’t just do what I want. I have people in charge that I answer to.”
“You think you serve them?” she laughed.
“Well, yes. Don’t I?” he asked hesitantly.
“Hmm.” Saying nothing else, she stood up and walked out of the room. Joseph waited, wondering where she had gone. Barely a minute later, she returned. As she sat down, he noticed that she had put on a pair of black knee-high boots.
“You think that a police officer’s duty is to serve the higher-ups. To serve the bosses. To be a good little boy and do as he’s told. Let me tell you now,” she curled her right leg out towards him, the tip of the boot hovering a couple of inches from his face. “If you want to be a bootlicker, that’s fine. But you don’t lick the boots of the bosses. You serve the people. Now, lick.”
Joseph leant forward without question, his tongue reaching out to the boot. Deep down inside he knew that another person, someone more ‘normal’ than him, might have had questions about what they were doing. Why they were doing it. The thought of licking someone else’s boots would be too much for some people. It would be humiliating. Not for him. Humiliating was something that you didn’t want to do and he wanted to do this. Not because he enjoyed licking boots or liked the taste of leather. He wanted to do it, because Dziko had told him to do it. There was no question. No wondering about how the boots would taste, or how he must look. He simply leaned forward and licked, enjoying the moment, if not necessarily the flavour.
