MAX KRISTEVA JOGGED UP THE STEPS AND PUSHED OPEN THE DOOR TO THE Ward County Sheriff's Department, skipping the numerous desks inside and heading for the hallway at the other end of the building. He had to get upstairs to help Deputy Scott fill out his report on what had happened at the crack house. He had the feeling none of them would be taking this very well, Scott especially; they'd known each other for years so Scott had half expected something to happen, but not what actually had. Neither had Kristeva.
"Hey, Max." Deputy Tracy Hatcher, or "Hatch," as everybody called her. [Note--looks like I didn't complete that sentence.] As far as they were concerned she was just one of the guys. Kristeva turned on his heel to look at her.
"Chief Bowen's in with the sheriff," she said, wagging her eyebrows. "They both wanna see you. Right now."
Kristeva winced and turned away, sighing to himself as he made his way down the hall. He considered taking the stairs but decided being prompt would be being prudent, at least at this time; he stepped up to the elevator and pressed the button, tapping his foot as he waited for the doors to open. When it arrived he got inside and leaned against the back wall, staring up at the ceiling and taking deep breaths. The doors shut and the elevator whirred; he could barely feel it moving. As it went up he wondered why the hell they couldn't at least make them a little bigger. [Note--another big hint right here. In the more recent novels, Kristeva never uses elevators.] He nearly bounced out the doors when they opened again, spitting him out into another hallway. Sheriff Rhoades's office was downstairs; however, he knew that if Bowen was there they'd be up in one of the interrogation rooms. Waiting for him.
The door was partially open as he approached. He could hear three voices inside; the one he didn't recognize was much higher pitched than the others, and appeared to be arguing about something. Kristeva paused with his hand ready to push the door all the way open. He listened.
"...Too much trouble for all our departments," the high-pitched voice was saying. "I'm sure, after all the legal suits you two'll be getting, you'll agree."
"I'm sure you know all about legal suits," Chief Bowen's voice said.
"Oh, with your men's reputations? I sure do. First you get your Lieutenant Kincaid. He wouldn't even still be working for you if it weren't for his Four P testimony. Now you've got some loose cannon with a few loose screws bobbing around in his head, dunking my client's head in the toilet--"
His lawyer. Kristeva sighed again. This was going to be a great day already, he could feel it. Just like he felt the headache coming on right behind his eyes. [Note--Kristeva tends to get migraines, so I think this would probably be on one side of his head rather than between the eyes. Unless, of course, it's just a headache.]
"Maybe your client needed his face cleaned," another voice--Kristeva realized with some surprise it was the sheriff's--said.
Bowen chuckled.
A pause; Kristeva could envision the lawyer gaping at the two policemen with disbelief. "Oh. I wasn't aware the police had a sense of humor that they were aware of. In that case I should get going. Oh, and another thing. If that detective of yours lays one hand on my client I swear both he and you'll be out of here faster than you can say 'To protect and to serve.'"
"Tsk tsk. He still has to interview the scuzz, remember?"
A snort. "And I'll be in the same room watching every single move he makes. Have a nice day, Chief, Sheriff."
Kristeva stepped forward, pushing open the door. He stuck in his head to see the lawyer stumble back into the room as it hit him in the chest. Chief Bowen and Sheriff Rhoades both looked up; something that might have been humor glinted in Rhoades's eyes. Kristeva hadn't worked with him for about a year now; still he treated the detective as one of his own. Chief Bowen just raised his eyebrows.
"Sorry," Kristeva said, looking at the lawyer. In the back of his head he had visions of the guy slamming back into the table and out the window. Little shards of glass falling around him like confetti.
"Detective," the lawyer said, almost sneering. He brushed himself off as if tainted and slipped around him, out the door. "Have a nice day."
"You too," Kristeva made sure to call after him, before turning back to the others.
Sheriff Rhoades stood up and went to the door, casting him a look as he left. Kristeva barely looked back at him. Chief Bowen gestured to his empty seat.
"Sit down."
Kristeva hesitated a moment before doing so, locking his hands in his lap and staring ahead. When they made eye contact he didn't waver. Bowen locked his own fingers, leaning on the table. It was a long time before he spoke.
"What the hell was that that happened over on Laneview?"
Kristeva shrugged. "One of the suspects was resisting arrest."
"Isn't it true that he wasn't resisting anything till you grabbed him?"
The barest flicker of a frown passed over the detective's face. "Not true. I went to retrieve the drugs he tossed in the toilet and he bolted. I had to grab him."
Bowen looked at him. "And shove his head in the toilet?"
Kristeva felt anger welling up in his chest. He forced it back down to below his throat so it wouldn't come surging out. "He hit me," he said, managing somehow to keep his voice level. "I felt I had to restrain him somehow."
"And this included shoving his head in the toilet."
Kristeva bit the inside of his mouth to keep it shut.
Bowen sighed. "You could at least lie."
"I don't think that would exactly be a good career move, Chief."
"Well if this suspect-bashing doesn't stop you're going to be making a career move whether you want to or not." Bowen reached over for some loose papers at the end of the table, picking them up and straightening them out. "I've arranged for you to meet somebody. Her name's Dr. Katherine Applegate. She's a psychiatrist."
Kristeva felt something twist in his chest. He was sure it showed on his face.
"Now I'm not going to force anybody to do anything," Bowen said to him, meeting his eyes. The detective was looking like a deer caught in headlights. "Hence you don't have to get into anything you don't want to. However, I think it would be in your best interests to see her. I'm asking you to at least go this once. Just so you can meet her. After that everything is your own choice." He sighed when Kristeva's expression didn't change. "Look," he said, leaning forward as if taking the detective into his confidence. "I'm not the only one. Some of the others have been noticing how you've been acting lately. Kinnie. Hawthorne. DelBora even. I don't know if it's the job or some stress problem or what, but I think it would be best if you took care of this thing before it goes too far."
What thing? Kristeva let his breath out through his nose and forced his face to stay neutral. Bowen sat back, unsure if this was acceptance or another bad sign.
"When," Kristeva said.
Bowen sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Day after tomorrow. Ten a. m. At the clinic, of course. [Note--apparently they don't have a police shrink here.] It's all set up so you don't have to worry about it."
It's all set up so I have no choice in the matter.
Bowen looked up at him when he stood. "Like I said, it's your choice," he repeated himself.
"No," Kristeva said quietly, shaking his head. "I don't think it is."
This time Bowen bit his lip, knowing any kind of response would probably be a bad idea. Kristeva turned for the door and was turning the handle before he said, "Wait a minute."
The detective turned his head back.
"I meant to tell you this morning, before that nice bust," Bowen said. "You're going to be getting a new partner. He should be showing up sometime today."
The twisting feeling in his chest again. The ache in his head had grown stronger. He stared at Bowen for a moment, considering what he should say, before realizing that there wasn't really anything he could say. At least, nothing useful.
Bowen could tell the strained smile he gave wasn't real in the least. "Great," Kristeva said, pulling open the door and leaving the chief behind.
Kristeva lost track of how long he'd been sitting at his desk, leafing through news clippings taken from one of Lieutenant Kincaid's files. He'd used [sic] to keep them in a folder in his desk. Now since they'd had the Ritual Crimes Unit set up they'd been kept in a folder in a file cabinet in one of the back rooms that they'd employed specifically for that purpose. Many of the clippings were from the local Minot papers and surrounding areas, some from further away in Bismarck and Mandan, a few from California and New York. He took note of the ones Kincaid had written on. There were usually only two words scribbled down. He briefly read through the headlines and scanned the stories, simply for something to do. [Note--very mild spoilers for Minot and Four P in the following headlines.]
POLICE OFFICER PLEADS GUILTY TO MURDER, ATTEMPTED MURDER
ACCOMPLICE IN CULT HOMICIDE FOUND GUILTY, SENTENCED TO LIFE
SPECIAL TASK FORCE ON RITUAL CRIME FORMED
POLICE SEEKING SUSPECTS IN ATTEMPTED KILLING OF TROOPER
20-YEAR-OLD UNIDENTIFIED SKELETON FOUND BENEATH ROAD
[Note--this is somewhat inaccurate. This skeleton was found in Four P, which takes place in 1997; according to the timeline of events, the character this skeleton belongs to was killed in 1982. So the skeleton would be closer to fifteen years old.]
Next to all of these articles Kincaid had written in red, "FOUR P."
Kristeva barely had to read them. He'd read them enough times already. He didn't know if Kincaid could recite them from memory like he could. He wouldn't have been surprised. But he wasn't sure about it either.
He sighed and shut the folder and pushed it aside. There was another desk facing his, but it was empty. No nameplate, no papers, no framed photos of pets and family. Not that he had any of his own. He hadn't been married nearly long enough to collect a whole lot of pictures. And that had been before he'd been transferred to the city post. [Note--prior to his entrance into the series, Kristeva was married for approximately three months before the marriage terminated in divorce. Too many more details would be too spoilery; sorry.]
There, his mind was wandering again. What had he been thinking of? The empty desk. Nothing but an ink blotter and an empty in and out tray. He couldn't picture in his mind what it would be looking like tomorrow.
Why had Bowen gone and set him up with a partner? The chief knew he worked best alone. Scott had briefly worked close with him when he'd been at the county post, and that hadn't worked out too well. Kristeva had been too caught up trying to figure out every last animal killing that came their way, when Sheriff Rhoades had said they didn't matter that much. The detective hadn't listened. He still had copies of all those reports stashed away somewhere.
God, he really needed a break.
He stood up, stretched, and went to get a drink from the water cooler. Out of habit he cast a glance at Lieutenant Kincaid's office, where the blinds, as usual, were drawn. Kinnie didn't seem to like people looking in at him too much. Must be because he was paranoid. That was what everybody said about him, when he wasn't around to hear. Or, at least, used to say, before Bowen had found out and threatened the gossip-mongers [sic] with expulsion.
Kinnie was the reason Kristeva had been sent to work there in the first place. Sheriff Rhoades hadn't trusted Bowen's schizo--literally--lieutenant, especially after Kincaid had been allowed to continue working, and had headed the new Ritual Crimes Unit. [Note--recall how I've since changed Kincaid's diagnosis to PTSD.] Kristeva supposed he was a spy. The whole ploy backfired, of course, since the two detectives shared such common interests.
Now were they going to be sharing the same headshrinker? God, he hoped not.
He went back to his desk and sat down, attempting to shuffle the clippings back into a semblance of order, shoving the folder in his top drawer and pushing it shut. No, Kincaid's shrink was a guy. Bowen had named a woman. Well, that was wonderful, wasn't it? A lady shrink. Just what he needed. And a new partner.
He paused. He hoped it wasn't a lady partner.
This was going to be a long day, he figured.
Chance Devetko arrived around two. [Note--"Devetko" is, of course, one of my famous made-up names. I based it off of something I overheard on TV. That something was probably the name "Kmetko." Which is funny, because Steve Kmetko is gay. !] He'd been told to be there by three, three-thirty at the latest, just so he could be set up with his new partner, who the chief had warned him about already when they first met. He preferred arriving early.
The Minot police station wasn't as big as one would think it to be, considering Minot was a city of over 34,000 people. [Note--this one detail makes me think that PERHAPS at least part of the writing of this story dates to 2000, after I first went online--unless I managed to find out Minot's population in an encyclopedia or something. Hm. Which is possible, I guess.] He wasn't sure what his partner looked like. Chief Bowen had just given him some warnings about the guy which Devetko also wasn't too sure about.
"He's been under a little stress lately," Bowen had said. "And he might not be the best company in the world. I'm putting you two together because maybe you can calm him down a little. You seem levelheaded enough. But I wouldn't poke at him too hard. He can get a little nasty."
This had all been said with a straight enough face; Devetko could tell Bowen considered his detective to be a good one, though a bit frightening.
Was that good or bad?
He didn't think it was too good, considering Bowen had also told him the detective wasn't exactly in the market for a partner. Nevertheless, duty called.
All he really knew of him so far was what Bowen had told him--basically, to be careful--and that his name was Maxwell S. Kristeva. [Note--the "S" stands for "Sutherland." No, not after the actors!] Preferably known as Max or just Kristeva. He didn't seem to like his first name. Devetko mulled the name over in his head, trying to figure out what region it was from. It didn't sound familiar. He wasn't sure how to say it. So much for phonetics.
As soon as he entered he cast a look around the busy room. Most of the desks right now weren't frequented; a uniformed officer answered the phone here, or dropped a paper there; the detectives that were in sight were also busy walking around or answering phones. Devetko looked to his side and found one desk occupied, right beside him. He almost missed it. The detective there appeared to be typing up some kind of report. Devetko searched for the nameplate and found it: DET. MAX KRISTEVA. It had been pushed almost onto the opposite desk, as if the detective didn't much care for his identity to be announced to the world. [Note--yep...these two are opposites.] Devetko wondered if he'd lobbied to keep his full first name from being spelled out on the plate.
He moved towards the desk and tipped his head to the side, trying to catch the detective's attention. The detective glanced up at him only briefly--he had a toothpick sticking out of his mouth--before turning back to his typing, without even saying a word. [Note--recall the sucker stick that he preferred in Four P, and the toothpick he gnaws on in "A Crack Of Light."]
"Max Kristeva?" Devetko said.
"Kristeeva," the detective corrected his faulty pronunciation, otherwise not responding. [Note--I actually have no clue how it's really pronounced.]
"Chance Devetko." Kristeva stopped typing long enough to shake Devetko's hand and return to the report. "I've been assigned to work with you."
"Really," Kristeva said.
Okay, Bowen was correct already. He really didn't seem to want a partner. He didn't seem to even want a conversation.
Devetko tried plain obviousness. "All right, I suppose this is where I'm supposed to sit."
Now Kristeva looked up at him and made eye contact. The look on his face was carefully guarded, and Devetko could see both distrust and mild humor in his eyes. The toothpick bobbed once or twice as he chewed on it. "You're getting situated already."
Yep, he's going to be impossible. Devetko suppressed a sigh and pulled out the chair, sitting down and checking out the desk's drawers. He was surprised to find a folder in the top one, and he pulled it out with a questioning look.
"Congratulations," Kristeva said. "You've found our first case."
Devetko opened the folder and found a complaint report about some dead animals being found on someone's property. He gave Kristeva another "You want to let me in on something?" look.
"I deal a lot in the used animal parts business," Kristeva said, pulling the report out of the typewriter, crumpling it up, and tossing it away, "and now it looks like you will too. But let's get something straight first. You said your name's Devetko. What is that? French?"
"Polish," Devetko said. He added, a little derisively, "What kind of a name is Kristeva?"
"Scandinavian," Kristeva answered him promptly, as if used to the question. [Note--I am GREATLY humiliated by that line there. Kristeva is actually a Bulgarian name. But I didn't know that at the time and it took me FOREVER to find the answer (online, as it turned out). I thought it might be everything from Russian to Scandinavian to Baltic to Indian!! There's a mildly amusing running joke, BTW, concerning the similarity between his name and his next-door neighbor's name, which I forget at the moment but which also starts with "Krist-." They're always receiving each other's mail. Another mildly amusing thing is the name of Kristeva's older sister, Chrissie, or Christina. Christina Kristeva! *LMAO*] "Let's get one thing straight. Chief Bowen assigned you to partner with me, and I suppose there's nothing really I can do about that, so the two of us are going to be working together in at least some contexts. But don't think I'm going to be some kind of Siamese detective with you hanging off my hip all the time."
It was certainly a weird comparison. Devetko bit the inside of his mouth to keep away a smile. "All right. I never said I wanted to be with you twenty-four hours a day, anyway."
Kristeva paused at that one. Devetko wondered if maybe he should've bit his tongue this time. But instead the trace of a smile tugged at the corner of Kristeva's mouth, and he inserted a new report, bending over the typewriter again as if to hide his face. "What do you want me to call you? Chance? Devetko?"
"Either's fine." Devetko wasn't going to be picky about his name. "I've been called both."
"All right, then I'll call you Dev. That's something you haven't been called."
Devetko bit the inside of his mouth again. There had been someone who'd used [sic] to call him that, a long time ago, but that person was gone now, and he wasn't about to bring any of it up. [Note--this person was "Page" (first or last name unknown), Devetko's first (and as of the time of this story, last) boyfriend, who in college was killed in a car accident.]
"Fine. What do I call you?"
"Anything you want, as long as it's not Maxwell."
"Fine. Then you're Max."
This time Kristeva did smile at him, an annoying, almost snide smile, which looked even snider with that toothpick. "Look at this, Dev. We're making friends already. Maybe we will be a good team."
Only if you want us to, Devetko thought, but he didn't speak. [Note--and now some info since that's it. Don't let the bitchy beginning fool you; in the later novels, these two DO make a great team, with Kristeva being the impulsive, intuitive one, and Devetko being the levelheaded, rational one. Though, as time goes by, the two of them do start to take on the other's qualities. They play a REALLY good game of good cop, bad cop. Kristeva is also the first person, besides Page and family, whom Dev comes out to; the exchange goes something like, "I'm gay." "Whatever floats your boat." *LOL* Dev is ALSO the one who first catches on to what exactly is going on with Kristeva (recall his eyes changing color earlier on), and helps hide his secret at first by playing along with it. There's another scene in an unwritten story when Detective Justin Reichert (also gay) and Devetko's later boyfriend, Stan Brooks (who has given Dev a ring), are horsing around or acting stupid; Kristeva (remarried to his ex-wife) turns to Devetko and says, "If it were legal you'd marry me, right?" To which Dev promptly responds, "Definitely."]
[Story incomplete]
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