Then there was Joanie the cheetah, whom Dez left alone with Cella and Dee-Ann in an interrogation room while she went to get a soda. Gone from the room ten minutes, tops. But by the time she got back, Cella had the cheetah pinned to the floor, basically throttling her with those always-bruised fists, while Dee-Ann was going through Joanie’s purse for no other reason than, “Just curious what a cat keeps in a purse.”
Needless to say, Joanie ran back to her old precinct.
So Gentry had once again brought up Crushek. “He’s a bear. You’ve worked with him before. He’s a bear. Smith and Malone can’t just pin him to the ground, nor does he carry a purse because he’s a bear... .”
And it had sounded very reasonable to Dez. Hey. She was flexible. After living with a man who sported a mane and a constant sense of entitlement, Dez felt certain she’d do great with a bear. Based on what she’d seen on Animal Planet documentaries, they were real easy to get along with as long as you didn’t leave food lying around and didn’t startle any females with cubs.
Now, however, Dez was starting to think she’d been wrong about all that. Or, at the very least, she shouldn’t have assumed that grizzlies and polars were just different-colored versions of each other. Because, man, was Crushek a cranky asshole!
“Are we just going to keep standing here and knocking?” he suddenly demanded, making Dez grit her teeth. It was the trick she’d learned in the Marines so that she didn’t pull her gun on people who irritated the shit out of her. “We have a warrant,” he needlessly reminded her.
“Yes,” she replied, trying not hiss like Cella sometimes did. “But maybe you haven’t realized where we are—”
“You mean Staten Island?”
“Yes,” she said again. “A street in Staten Island populated completely by bears.”
“Is that why you brought me? Figure I could make things easier for you with the bears?”
“That is not why I brought you along, but can you just let me handle it?”
“Whatever.”
Deciding to get away from him, Dez said, “You stay here. I’ll go around the back.”
“Fine.”
Dez waited until she’d pulled open the back gate before rolling her eyes to the sky. Who knew one flippin’ bear could be so damn difficult? God, how did Conway manage to put up with Crushek for so long?
She walked to the back door and banged on it with her gloved fist. While she waited a moment, she readjusted her Kevlar vest. Honestly, they didn’t even try to make these things for women with tits bigger than a B-cup, something Dez hadn’t been since she was thirteen.
The door opened a bit, a woman peeking around it, eyes squinting at Dez. “Yeah?”
“Mrs. Martin?”
“Yeah?”
“Detective Dez MacDermot. We have a warrant to search your house.”
“This ain’t a good time right now.”
“Warrant, ma’am. Doesn’t need to be a good time for you. Just open the door or it’ll be torn off its hinges.”
“By you?”
“Not me, because I would just set it on fire.”
The woman sniffed and pulled the door open, standing to her full height. God, she was at least six-four. Definitely a She-bear.
“Is it just you?” the woman asked.
“Why do you ask?”
“Just curious if I’m going to have a bunch of ham-handed cops tromping through my house.”
Dez peered at the woman for several seconds. Moving slowly, she placed her hand on the gun in her holster and took several steps back and to the side. “Please step out of the house, Mrs. Martin.”
“Why?”
With her right, Dez gripped her weapon; with her left, she dropped the warrant paperwork. “Because I told you to get your ass out here.”
Grinning, the sow took a step out of her house. “Or what, full-human?”
Using her right hand, Dez raised her gun, pointing it at the sow’s head.
“You better be a very good shot, Detective.”
“I’m one of the best. But I wouldn’t waste the bullets.”
Dez pulled the trigger on the bear mace she held in her left hand, hitting the sow in her sensitive nose. Screaming and cursing, the sow covered her face. Dez shoved her gun back in its holster and pulled out her baton. She flicked her wrist, the baton extending to its full length, and swung at the sow’s knees. Something cracked and the sow dropped, still screaming, definitely still cursing.
Dez was reaching for her titanium cuffs when she heard the roar. Mace raised, she spun toward the male grizzly running at her from the other side of the house. She wanted him to be closer before she hit the trigger, but he didn’t even get ten feet within range before the boar went flying, shoved off his feet by Crushek.
“Go to your gun!” he barked.
She dropped the mace and again reached for her weapon. A Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum with custom grip that took her six months to qualify on. She’d just started to turn, hearing the heavy footsteps running up behind her, when Crushek wrapped his hand around her head and yanked her behind him. She heard shots ring out. Other than Crushek taking a couple of stumbling steps back, he was silent.
The footsteps were now moving away from them and Dez went around Crushek. “Are you okay?”
The polar jerked his shoulder. “Just hit the vest. Come on.”
He started off.
“I need to cuff her.”
Crushek raised his hand and slapped the grizzly sow’s back between her shoulder blades. She’d been trying to get to her feet, but she went back down, out cold.
Shrugging, Dez ran after Crushek as he stalked across the Martins’ yard. He walked to the detached garage, stopping at the wood door. He lifted his arms chest height, palms out, and rammed them forward. The door snapped off its hinges, careening inside, and Crushek went in after it.
Both hands on her weapon, Dez followed the bear inside. The big garage door was open and the inside was empty except for a piece-of-shit Chevy.
“We follow?” she asked about the bear they could see running off down the street.
Crushek didn’t answer. He simply lifted his head and sniffed the air. Following his nose, he moved to the car. Sniffed around it. With a little snarl, he gripped the car under the front grille, raised it, and flipped it up and off, knocking it out of the garage.
Trying really hard not to be impressed, Dez walked over. The pair of them stared down at the metal door built into the floor. Crushek reached down, gripped the ring, and tugged. Twice.
He motioned Dez away with a jerk of his head and stood right next to the door. He sort of jumped forward and down, big hands ramming into that metal door, power coming from those shoulders and arms. Mouth dropping open, Dez took another quick look around to make sure they were still alone, then watched the polar hammering away at that solid metal door, over and over until it bent and buckled under him. Off the hinges, the door fell into the open hole and Crush stared into the darkness.
He lifted his gaze to hers and Dez now jerked her head. “Go.”
Crushek jumped down while Dez stayed put, her gun still up, finger on the trigger. A few minutes later, Crushek came back up, a little canister in his hand.
“What’s that?”
He shrugged, lifting the top. Sniffed it and frowned. Then he stuck the tip of his pinky into the contents and brought it to his mouth. He tasted it, dark eyes rising to meet hers.
“Well?” she asked.
“Honey.”
Dez couldn’t help gasping, annoyed. “They tried to kill us for honey?”
Crushek grinned, something she wasn’t sure she remembered ever seeing before. “Honey infused with cocaine.”