Inconsolable

Part 3

Nature versus nurture. Orin Bradley wasn't sure where he stood. Was the problem that parents these days were doing a shitty job of raising their children, or were kids just born self-absorbed, uncaring and stupid? It had to be some combination of the two.

Bradley changed the channel from a documentary on climbing Mount Everest to the local news. Then he turned the sound way down and went back to grading papers.

The common thought among high school students, and probably students everywhere, was that a poor class average was a reflection of the instructor's ineffectiveness. But that simply wasn't true. That was just a scapegoat for their own ineptitude.

Bradley couldn't help it if he was trying to educate a room full of dummies. And it didn't help that he was only the substitute teacher. Not only was he saddled with the difficult responsibility of cracking through years of compounded ignorance, but he had to do it all before the permanent teacher came back, and he had to overcome the fact that none of these children took him seriously. They didn't think the compositions he assigned would show up on their final grades, so they slacked-off and shitted around all class period. Bradley took it very seriously. He marked another red-penned F.

Being a teacher was depressing. He set aside the papers and dragged himself off the couch, going to the kitchen to throw a frozen dinner into the microwave. It was a little cool outside this afternoon, but the sun was shining. He went to the window and peered out. He put his hands on the window frame and pressed against it, feeling the stretch in his shoulders and biceps. Sure, he was staring down at a trashy alley, but it was still a view, and the sun felt warm in a crisp fall way as it shone in past the brick walls and smudged windows of the city. No matter how crappy the world seemed, there were still some things in life that felt good. A moment of peace like this, that was one of them.

The microwave beeped out the end of its cycle, but Bradley didn't move from the window. Something at the head of the alley had caught his eye. A police cruiser...two...and a couple unmarked cars. They pulled up in front of his building, and Bradley licked his lips. Something was going on.

Bradley kept an eye on the window until the police disappeared around the front of the building. Then he slipped his socks and tennis shoes on and pulled his yellow windbreaker down from the hallway closet. He went to the kitchen and opened the silverware drawer.

"Hi, baby," he whispered, tucking his gun into the back of his jeans. It pressed up cold against the sensitive skin at the small of his back.

The heavy knock at his door came sooner than Bradley expected. He hurried over to the TV and switched it off.

"Police, Mr. Bradley. Open the door."

He went to the window and slid it open.

"Orin Bradley, we have a warrant for your arrest."

He put one leg out onto the fire escape, then tucked his head through and brought the other leg out. As he fumbled his way down the rusted ladder, he heard his front door slam open. They'd probably broken the door off its hinges. His feet touched pavement, and he stood there for a moment trying to decide what to do next.

In his haste, he'd forgotten to close the window behind him. They would see it right away and know he'd gone down to the alley. He glanced around at the dumpster, open on one side. There were upset cardboard boxes strewn all around the alley and old vegetable crates from the Chinese restaurant next door. He stood in the shadow of his apartment building. There was nowhere to hide, but at the same time, he worried that if he left now, he'd never make it back. What about his dinner in the microwave? What about the compositions? He looked down the alley, then back towards the street. If he tried to explain, they would never understand. They thought he'd done something wrong.

Suddenly, there was simultaneous motion at the window and the head of the alley.

"Caine!"

"Freeze!"

There was a cop at his window with a gun trained on him, and two more cops were moving towards him from the street.

"Orin Bradley," the woman cop shouted, "you're under arrest! Put your hands on your head."

Bradley reached behind him and pulled out his gun. He got off two shots in the general direction of the street before he turned and tore off down the alley.

Peter returned fire. "Stupid fuck, don't make me chase you," he muttered, taking off at a sprint.

"He's headed for the wharf district," Mary Margaret yelled up at Fisk, who already had his radio out. "Get us some backup!" She ran after her partner.

"Peter, this is stupid." Mary Margaret had her gun drawn in one hand, and the fingertips of the other rested lightly on the back of her partner's shoulder. She let him lead her down a long, cement corridor inside the old power plant. It hadn't operated in two years, since the city finished building the new plant across town, and the halls were now silent, cold and empty.

They should have waited for backup, but she hadn't wanted to let Peter go in alone. She'd watched him chase Bradley through an old and rusted service door that stood halfway open, as if the place were just waiting for somebody to intrude. It felt like an omen, and she hated it, but she followed anyway.

Every moment Mary Margaret spent with him, Peter's impulsiveness must have been rubbing off. She hoped his recklessness wasn't catching, too. She pressed the palm of her hand against the fabric of Peter's jacket, to make sure he knew she had him covered. He was her partner. He needed her. There was nothing reckless about that.

"We lost him," Peter said. He slowly moved deeper into the dank building, running his hand along the side of the wall. The cement felt porous and slimy. The air was wet and stale from the large reserves of water that used to power the massive turbines, but that now stood stagnant and dirty, trapped inside huge reservoirs.

Bradley hadn't had much of a lead, but he was fast. Once inside the building, Peter had had to stop and wait for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. He didn't want Bradley to have that advantage over him. When Mary Margaret rushed through the door, he'd grabbed her arm and pulled her back next to him in a little recess in the wall where they wouldn't be sitting ducks if Bradley was still near enough to take any more shots at them. He'd let her catch her breath, then they started moving down the hall.

They came to the end of the corridor, where it branched off in two new directions. Peter pressed his back against the wall and gripped his gun, preparing to throw himself around the corner, when he sensed movement down by his feet. He jumped slightly as a large brown rat scuttled over his boot and down the hall in the direction they'd just come from.

Mary Margaret smiled wryly, patting Peter twice on the arm. "You okay there, Princess?"

"Skalany..."

"Great. And me without my stash of cheese." She peered around the corner, assured herself the hall was clear in both directions, then started walking again. "I knew I brought the wrong purse to this party."

Peter followed.

Somewhere there was a generator still running. They could hear the echo of its hum throughout the building, and at the middle of each hallway a weak emergency bulb still burned where the wall met the ceiling. They were deep inside the plant now, far enough in that they could forget it was day outside, the darkness was so smothering.

"This is a huge building, Peter," Mary Margaret sighed, coming to a stop. "We're not going to find--"

Suddenly, gunfire cracked and echoed through the hall, and both detectives ducked.

"Hold it, Bradley!" Peter shouted before Mary Margaret could even tell what was going on. He suddenly took off running down the hall.

Skalany spun around and watched Peter disappear around another corner. Never a boring moment, she thought, taking off once again in pursuit. If she'd known she was going to be doing so much running, she would have worn more appropriate shoes. Her feet pounded hard against the cement, and she rounded the corner just in time to see Peter slam into and then through a heavy metal door. *I'm so going to regret this.* She braced herself as she ran, not slowing down, and rammed the door open with her shoulder. She burst into the room and suddenly found herself clutching at a waist-level iron railing. She would have toppled over it and down a twenty-or-so-foot drop to a dark reservoir below, had Peter not grabbed onto her coat and pulled her back.

The door slammed shut, and they found themselves in a huge, long room with a deep, water-filled trough running down the center. A five-foot wide walkway ran down both sides of the room, but didn't connect. It felt like standing in a giant sewer or drainage tunnel, and it smelled a little like one, too. Mary Margaret crinkled her nose. They stood with some sort of work station behind them. There was a control box with a worn number pad on it hanging from the wall, and a few thick cords of plastic-enclosed wire ran from the box, up the wall and across the ceiling, where they hooked into a strip of circuitry that ran in either direction down the middle of the ceiling.

"Where are we?" Mary Margaret asked.

"Where's Bradley?" Peter countered.

"Good questions, both," a voice answered.

Orin Bradley stood on the other side of the room, leaning with both hands against the railing. He smiled when Peter drew his gun, pulling his own from the back of his pants.

"Give it up, Bradley."

"Or what? You'll shoot?" His smile faded, and he shook his head slowly. "I didn't do anything. You'd be killing an innocent man."

"You fired on two police officers and resisted arrest." Mary Margaret's eyes narrowed. "What else have you done, Bradley?"

"It's Orie, lady."

"It's Detective, ass hole," Peter bit back, his gun still trained on Bradley's chest.

"Well, guess what, Detectives. That door you came through..." He reached behind him and pressed a button on a control panel similar to the one behind Peter and Mary Margaret. They heard the sound of a heavy latch sliding through metal. "...I just locked it! Looks like you're stuck in here, unless you're gonna swim across. That water's probably nice and deep and diseased."

"You mean *we're* stuck in here."

Bradley smiled again and went to the door on his side of the room. "See, that's the super cool part about this locked doors thing. Yours is, but mine's not!" He threw open the door and ducked out of the room, a bullet from Peter's police-issue deflecting harmlessly off the doorjamb as the door slipped shut.

Mary Margaret turned instantly, making sure they were really locked in. Bradley was right, so she moved to the control panel and started pressing buttons. "One of these has to open this door," she muttered.

"Or some combination," Peter replied, eyes scanning the room for options. There didn't seem to be any. "You're never going to find the right one."

"Well, what the hell else do you suggest I do?"

Peter didn't answer for a moment. He eyed the cords connected to the box. Then he said, "Help me tear one of these down."

Mary Margaret stopped her fumbling with the buttons and turned to look at her partner. He quickly went to the wall and started yanking on the cord. "You're going to electrocute yourself."

"No, I'm not," Peter grunted, pulling hard. The cord broke free from the control panel. He pulled again, testing the strength both of the wires and of their connection to the ceiling. Then he looked at Mary Margaret and said, "I'm gonna tarzan over to the other side."

Skalany blinked. "You're what?"

"You know, jump...swing." He rolled his eyes and, holding onto the cord, started to drape one leg over the railing. "Just close your eyes for a second, and when you open them again, I'll be on the other side."

"Sure you will. Flat against the wall."

"You're such a doubting Thomas." Peter wrapped the cord around his left hand a few times, then held on above that with his right.

"I'm a realist, partner." Mary Margaret knew there was nothing she could say or do to stop him.

Peter winked. "Once I'm over, I'll send it back for you."

"Wait a minute," Mary Margaret said, grabbing onto his jean jacket sleeve. "Aren't you afraid of heights?"

"Skalany, right now Bradley's either laughing his head off at us, or running far away. Probably both." He took a deep breath. "I'll just try not to look down."

"Excellent plan."

"Mm-hmm."

Peter brought his other leg over the rail and stood poised to jump. He tested the cord one more time, then pinpointed his desired landing spot on the other side. If he fell...well...he was a pretty good swimmer, and he didn't like this shirt and pair of jeans anyway. But he couldn't help it. He glanced down at the water. It looked thick, and black and deep. No telling who or what was living in it. He shook his head to clear the brief cloud of dizziness that had decended before his eyes. Then he took one more breath and jumped.

All of a sudden, the railing rushed forward to meet him, and Peter slammed into it, grabbing onto it with his free hand. He held himself there for a moment to catch his breath and orient himself. Then he pulled himself over and onto the walkway. When he turned around, Mary Margaret smiled and shook her head.

"Oh, ye of little faith," Peter grinned. He unwound the cord from his wrist, then wadded it up and leaned over to throw it back across to his partner.

He'd just released the cord when he heard Mary Margaret call out. But before he could turn, something hard hit him on the back of the head.

"Fuck you, Bradley," he muttered. Then he blacked out.

Peter woke up trapped in a cage with Orin Bradley. He felt heavy. At first the pain at the back of his head was disorienting enough that he wasn't surprised to be lying in a drafty corner while Bradley silently evaluated his condition from eight feet away. Then it finally started to come back to him, and he pushed himself up until he was sitting with his back pressed against the wall. He felt awkward...stupid, in a naked sort of way...with his head throbbing and Bradley watching him--gloating!--at the other side of the cage.

The cage walls, ceiling and floor were made of chainlink fencing. There was a chainlink gate in the center of one wall, but it was swung shut and apparently locked. They were still inside the empty power plant. The room they were in was dark except for what little light glowed through the grimy, nearly opaque windows lining the tops of the walls. A few of the panes had broken out, and the late afternoon sun funneled a cone of harsh light down onto the back of Bradley's head.

Peter looked up and realized they were very close to the ceiling. He noticed a system of pulleys and heavy steel cords connecting the top of the cage to the rafters. There was a catwalk six feet above them and far off to the left.

Suddenly, realization struck. Peter grabbed onto the metal floor and clutched at the chainlink so hard his knuckles turned white. He clamped his eyes shut and couldn't stop a low groan from escaping his lips.

"Oh, God, don't tell me."

Peter opened one eye and looked at Bradley, who sat with his legs drawn up and his elbows resting on his knees.

"You're afraid of heights."

Peter grimaced. "If I say yes, will you take us back down?"

Bradley shook his head. He nodded towards the gate and what looked like it used to be a small control box. The wires that ran from the box and connected to the machinery controlling the pulleys were severed and slightly frayed, singed.

"Broken."

Peter closed his eyes again in disbelief. "Where's my partner?" he asked quietly but urgently.

Bradley snorted. "What am I, her keeper? How the hell should I know? Last I saw her she was waving her gun around, screaming at me. I hate that. How can people honestly believe screaming ever accomplishes anything? It just pisses people off, you know? It sure pissed me off."

Peter swallowed the bile that had risen into his throat and shook his head a little to clear the haze. "So what are we doing up here, Bradley? You gonna kill me, too? Then what happens?"

Bradley frowned. "You keep saying stuff like that. You gonna kill me, Bradley? We've got a warrant for your arrest, Bradley. Freeze, Bradley! It bugs the frickin' shit out of me. I haven't done anything wrong."

Peter opened his mouth, but before he could get anything out, Bradley held up a hand. He was holding Peter's Beretta.

"I know who you are and everything," Bradley went on, shifting positions and causing the cage to slowly swing from side to side. He brought his legs under him and squatted, reaching into his back pocket. "Your badge, Detective Caine," he said, handing the wallet over. When Peter didn't move to take it, he threw it across into the cop's lap. "See, I don't want any trouble. I have better things to do than spend the day up here with you." He sighed. "Now, your gun...well...if I gave that back, you'd probably shoot me, wouldn't you? You cops're so trigger happy, you know that? God. I blink, and you're waving that thing at me. Besides, I like your gun better than mine. I think I'll keep it."

Peter took a deep breath and tried to center himself. He stared over at Bradley. The man's face was twisted in shadows, and the light at his back cast an eerie white halo around his head. He was about 6'2", probably around thirty-five years old. When he turned, harsh light illuminated one half of his face. Peter could see a thin, pink scar running from just below the cheekbone down to the jaw.

"So," Bradley said, sighing. "What to do...what to do?" He shrugged. "I don't know how long I'm going to have to keep you here, do you? Like, when do you expect your comrades to bust in and pull your ass out of the fire?" He laughed. "I mean, that's what you guys do, right, Det. Peter Caine? You get yourselves into these impossible situations and have to take turns getting each other out. You know, I thought about becoming a cop once."

"But instead, you opted for murderer?" Peter said. All he had to do was stall. Backup was on the way, and then they'd finally bring this twist in. He should've been on this case to begin with. Fisk and Roberts were just too inexperienced. He wouldn't have botched the arrest. None of this would have ever happened. Bradley would already be locked away in a holding cell, waiting for somebody to write up the paperwork.

Bradley's smile disappeared. "Oh, that was pretty low. Even for a stupid cop who obviously doesn't have his facts straight."

"You're denying having shot Curtis Thompson, his wife and two children in their apartment two days ago?"

"Yes! How much more vocal do I have to get about this denial?" He stood up and threw his hands into the air. "I deny it!" he shouted into the rafters. "I deny it!" he yelled down at the floor. "I deny it!" he screamed out into the room. Then he stopped and looked back at Peter. "You know what, Pete--can I call you Pete?"

"You're the guy with the gun."

"You're so right, Pete." Bradley smiled again. "See, that's what I like about you. Didn't know there was anything I liked about you, did you? Well, there is. I like the way you talk to me. Well, you're kind of shitty, but that's an act."

"You should hear me when I don't have a concussion."

"That's funny."

Peter slowly started to push himself up the cage wall, until he was standing with his back pressed into the corner. "You know what's not funny," he said, taking a cautious step along the chainlink wall opposite the suspect. Bradley waved the gun at him slightly, and Peter raised both hands in submission, but he kept inching almost imperceptibly along the wall. If he could just get the gun back. "That massacre you committed two days ago in the Thompsons' apartment on Von Bey." This time Bradley didn't interrupt, so Peter continued. "Why'd you do it? Huh, Bradley? Do you get off on the blood? Enjoy seeing people in pain? Making them cry? You feel like you're in control? Like to have them begging you for mercy? Begging you not to hurt them? Begging you not to hurt their kids? It was that little boy's birthday, Bradley. That's some kind of present you gave him, you damn son of a bitch."

"Okay, hold it right there!" Bradley warned. He brought the gun up and aimed it at Peter's chest. "You don't know anything. What you just said, that's so screwed up. That is *so* screwed up."

"That's what I said. Did I not say that? I meant to say it. It's screwed up, Bradley. It's screwed up, and it's fucked up. It's twisted and sick, and you did it, didn't you?" He was yelling now, every muscle in his body tense and aching to strike out at this man holding his gun, holding all the power. "Didn't you stake out that apartment? You knocked on the door, let Curtis Thompson invite you into his home, and then you executed every one of them in their own diningroom. You made those two kids watch their parents die, then you shot them, too, you bastard!"

Suddenly, everything around Peter blackened, and it was just him and Bradley suspended in a horrid vacuum. He swore he could hear the echo of the gunshots, the mother's scream. He could feel the father's helplessness, and the children's confusion. He was angry. He was furious. And the man to blame was standing right there, staring at him with wide, shocked eyes.

"Did you touch them, Bradley? Did you put your hands in their blood? Did you like feeling the last bit of warmth and life draining out of them? Because you left something behind, Bradley. You left a perfect, bloody print on the door. That's how we found you. That's why we came to your apartment. That's why you ran. That's why you made us chase you. That's why you're going down for this murder, and that's why every time you deny having committed this crime, I get sicker and sicker to my stomach."

"What are you gonna do, cop?" Bradley demanded. He had noticed Peter's slow advance and now countered to the other side of the cage so that they stood directly across from each other, only the length of the cage separating them. "I've got your gun."

"I don't need the gun. I could fuck you up pretty good with my bare hands."

"Well, this is quite the little pissing contest we've gotten ourselves into..." Bradley clutched Peter's gun in both hands and stared at the detective, his face an equal mixture of fear, insolence and rage. Then the raw emotion dulled into an expression of indifference.

A fraction of a second before it happened, Peter knew Bradley'd made the decision. He braced himself as he watched Bradley pull the trigger.

BANG!

"...I guess I win."

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