The RH Factor
By Swellison

"Talk about a waste of time," Henri Brown grumbled, getting into the front passenger seat of Rafe's gleaming white Beemer. He slammed the door and Rafe winced from the driver's seat.

"Sorry," the African-American said, knowing his partner's strong protective streak where his wheels were concerned.

"Maybe the next witness will be more forthcoming," Rafe said, starting the car and pulling into the traffic.

"Maybe," Henri didn't sound very convinced as he idly scanned the passing scenery. "Hey, turn right at the next light!" he ordered, unexpectedly.

Rafe smoothly executed a right turn and they drove down a street bordering one of Cascade's many neighborhood parks. Henri spotted an empty parking space along the street. "Pull in there," he instructed.

Rafe parked his car and inspected the area for evidence of wrongdoing. His eyes fell on a certain, inanimate but life-sized object. "Oh, no," he objected while Henri extracted the throwaway camera that Daryl had given him from the glove box.

"C'mon, Rafe. That cow has your name written all over it."

"Shouldn't we be interviewing that witness, Mrs. Berlinger? Captain Banks wouldn't approve of us sluffing on the job."

"It's lunchtime, by my watch. Besides, this won't take that long, anyway. Let's go." Henri left the vehicle and Rafe reluctantly joined him. They walked several yards into the park.

Henri stopped a few feet from the artistic creation and glanced skywards, measuring the sun's position, then opened the camera and looked at the cow through the viewfinder. The cow was smartly painted in a black men's suit with white pinstripes. A wide red power tie and white dress shirt were visible from the head-on view, with thin strips of white shirt exposed and properly cuffed on the fore-hooves. Henri glanced down at the cow's plaque and read the name aloud. "Armooni: A Sharp-Dressed Cow."

He motioned to his partner, carefully standing a few feet away from the cow. "C'mon, Rafe, get in the picture. As you said, we haven't got all day."

Rafe stepped hesitantly over to the cow and stood to its right, so that the bulk of the cow was between them.

Henri put the camera up to his face and stepped back a couple of feet. "Loosen up, man. This isn't a mug shot."

"I am loosened up. Take the damn shot and let's go."

Henri looked through the camera lens and shifted his focus slightly, then lowered the camera, shaking his head. "That's not right. You need to be in front of the cow."

"Why?"

"Because I said so. Look, this is important to Daryl, he needs good photos for his project. Whatever's worth doing at all is worth doing well, as my Mama would say."

"Oh, all right." Rafe stepped in front of the cow, stiffly posed.

"C'mon, Rafe, enter into the spirit of the thing. Give me that GMoo look!" Henri said from behind the camera.

Rafe's scowl dissolved as he started to laugh. "You asked for it," he said, unbuttoning his stylish gray Armani suit jacket. His left hand pulled back the left side of the jacket, revealing his precisely tailored white shirt and red silk tie, as his hand rested on his hip. He assumed his best imitation-Ellison pout and Henri clicked away madly.

"That's it! Keep it up!" Henri encouraged, snapping away.

Rafe threw his head back and froze in a calculated model's pose, then switched poses. He slid off his jacket and slung it casually over his right shoulder, holding it by the collar with two fingers. Henri chortled and continued to shoot pictures.

"That's enough, H!"

"Huh?" Henri paused, about to click again.

"We need the rest of the roll for YOUR picture, Mr. Photographer." Rafe smirked and stepped towards Henri. "Now, we need to go see a woman about a streaker."

"We lead such boring lives," Henri grinned as they walked back to Rafe's car.

"Well, it's all your fault, you know," Rafe said amicably as he settled into the driver's seat.

Henri banged the passenger door shut. "My fault?"

"Yes, if you hadn't made that crack at the meeting---"

"C'mon, man. Hairboy admitted he got the idea from the Internet, how was I supposed to know that the Captain was treating it seriously? I mean, the Internet! You know how reliable a source that is."

"Of course I do, everyone does." Rafe started his Beemer and pulled out into the street. "But if you kept quiet, maybe the Captain would've given Ellison and Sandburg the job of tracking down the streaker, instead of us."

"C'mon, Rafe. You don't buy Sandburg's theory that the streaker's involved in the robbery, do you?"

"We-ell, he did choose to streak across the park at the same time the robbery went down. And it's early April, kind of chilly for your average Joe streaker, wouldn't you say? The guy ran past the bank, in the opposite direction of the robbers, who took off at the same time in their getaway car. And we've got more descriptions of the streaker than the getaway vehicle, that's for sure."

"Yeah," Henri said, sourly. They had interviewed three witnesses so far, and the description of the streaker was scanty, to say the least: average white guy. He had never given much thought before about how much of a suspect's description involved what he was wearing.

Ten minutes later, Rafe parked in front of a modest, single-story house. He checked the address against his notes, and then he and Brown got out of the car and approached the white brick house. A medium-sized middle-aged woman with iron-gray hair answered Rafe's ring. "Yes?"

"Mrs. Pauline Berlinger? Cascade PD, ma'am," Rafe said, flashing his badge. "I'm Detective Rafe and this is my partner, Detective Brown. May we come in?"

"Certainly, officers," Mrs. Berlinger said, leading them into a spick-and-span clean living room, furnished mostly in Early Americana. "I suppose you've come about that man in the park."

"The streaker, yes, ma'am. Can you describe him at all?" Henri pulled out his notebook and pen, waiting.

"Young hooligan!" Mrs. Berlinger snorted. "Exhibitionist."

"You said 'young', Mrs. Berlinger, how old do you think the man was? Or was he a teenager?"

"I really couldn't say, detective. I didn't get a good look at him, I was concentrating on the cow."

"The cow?" Rafe asked.

"Yes. South Park has a herd of seven cows, part of the Cow Parade. I was getting pictures, for my scrapbooking." She picked up a brightly colored photo-developing envelope from a polished mahogany desk and started thumbing through the photographs. "I just got the film back this morning. I may have a photo of your er, streaker...there it is!" She passed a 4 x 6 color photo over to Brown.

Rafe and Brown examined the picture, dominated by a cow statue, painted dark blue with gold and yellow ones, I's, i's, un's and uno's randomly scattered all over the cow. The cow's rear end half-blocked the naked torso and legs of a non-descript Caucasian man, jogging towards the right.

"It's called 'Ones In a Blue Moon'. I really like the names those artists come up with, don't you?"

Rafe and Henri stifled laughter. "Yes, ma'am." Rafe managed to say, straight-faced.

"Oh." Mrs. Berlinger fingered the last photo from the packet, and then handed it over to Brown. "The ones made a distinctive pattern on the cow's rump, and I was trying to capture it on film...."

Brown and Rafe glanced at the last photo. It was a close-up of the cow's rump, with a bunch of gold ones forming a spiral on the cow's flank, near its tail. Also in the shot was the fully revealed streaker, in a side profile from halfway above the knees to mid-chest.

Mrs. Berlinger coughed, and turned slightly pink. "I don't think you can use that for er, identification purposes, detectives."

"You'd be surprised, ma'am. H, look at that mark on his right buttock. It could be a tattoo, or even a birthmark." Rafe addressed Mrs. Berlinger, "Could we keep these photos for awhile? And the negatives? We'll return them to you when we're finished."

"Certainly, detective." Mrs. Berlinger handed a strip of negatives over to Rafe. "Keep them as long as you need to."

* * * * *

Rafe parked his car along the street at the northern edge of Cascade's uninspiredly named South Park. He reached across Henri, still in the front seat, to grab his camera from the glove compartment. "Let's go."

"Why are we here?" Henri grumbled, getting out of the car to follow Rafe into the park.

"We're checking out the scene of the crime," Rafe said, surveying the park for the "Ones In a Blue Moon" cow. He spotted it and they briskly walked towards the cow. Henri paused by the cow and then looked to his left, finding the First Cascade Bank on the other side of Meadows Road, bordering the park almost four blocks from their current position.

Rafe withdrew the photos from his jacket pocket and eyed the rear end of the cow, comparing it to the close-up rump shot. "Hey, run past the cow, H. I want to get a picture, see if I can capture the same angle as Mrs. Berlinger."

"What are you trying to do, re-enact the crime scene? Why?"

"C'mon, H, I'm not asking you to streak, or anything. I'd just like to duplicate the streaker's circumstances on film, see if we can deduce anything from it."

"You're beginning to sound like Hairboy."

"That's appropriate, isn't it? Since this is essentially his lead we're following. Now, get on the other side of the cow, and when I say 'now', run past it." Rafe held the camera up to his face and sited on the cow's rump, while Brown took up a position on the opposite side of the cow, close to its head. "Now!"

Henri ran alongside the cow, and Rafe clicked the camera as his partner ran past the cow's derriere. Henri pulled up and walked back towards Rafe, who was examining Mrs. Berlinger's close-up shot again.

"Hmmm, maybe he wasn't running full-out. Why don't you just jog past this time? For comparison."

Henri rolled his eyes, but took up his stance on the opposite side of the blue, yellow and gold painted cow, again. He waited while Rafe put the photos back in his pocket.

"Now!" Rafe said and Henri obligingly jogged past the cow, while Rafe got another picture. Then Henri rejoined Rafe, who was looking at Mrs. Berlinger's pictures again.

"Good enough, Rafe? Or do you want me to do it again, at a speed halfway between jogging and running? So we can get it just right."

Rafe grinned. "You mean loping?"

"Hey, you're making me sound like a horse!"

"Actually, more like Goldilocks. You know, too fast, too slow..." Rafe gestured encouragingly with his camera. "Just right?"

"You owe me, partner. Big time." Henri once more walked past the cow's head then turned, waiting for Rafe's signal to start his last run.

Rafe got ready to snap another picture. "Now!"

Henri ran smoothly past the cow statue, his pace mid-way between running and jogging. He saw Rafe take his picture, and kept running in a straight line, way past the cow.

"Henri!" Rafe yelled after his fleeing partner.

Henri raised his right hand and jabbed his finger a couple of times, indicating the non-existent path in front of him, which he continued to follow at a steady pace.

Rafe shook his head in exasperation, and then ran after his partner, who had a significant head start. Rafe's faster pace soon narrowed the distance between them. When he had almost reached his partner, he bellowed again. "Hey! What's going on?"

Henri ran a few more steps, and then suddenly stopped. Rafe joined him seconds later. "Henri?"

"I wanted to see where I'd get, if I kept going in a straight line from the cow." Henri said. "Coincidence?" He indicated the small dirt parking lot enclosed by a low split rail fence that was directly in front of them.

"Doesn't Captain Banks always say there's no such thing as coincidence?" Rafe asked, studying the parking lot in front of them. He tried to visualize the streaker, arriving at the parking lot, and then--what? "So, your streaker gets here, jumps into a waiting car and drives away. Where did he put the car key? Unless he left the car unlocked, with the key in the glove box or something?"

"Hey, I know this is a good neighborhood, but nobody leaves their car unlocked, it isn't safe." Henri argued. "Besides, what's he going to do, drive off naked? It makes more sense if someone was in the car, waiting for him."

"Another accomplice, that makes our robbery gang seven men, if you count the streaker."

"Seven. That's a lot of guys to recruit for a single bank job."

"Maybe they didn't have to recruit, they were all members of some gang."

"Or at least shared a common interest," Henri added, thoughtfully, "Like marathon running, or jogging, or even streaking."

"Lots of possibilities, there, H. But I think our best lead is the tattoo from the photo." Rafe tapped his camera, grinning. "C'mon, let's get back to the office and see what develops." Rafe started walking back towards the Ones in a Blue Moon cow.

Henri groaned as he fell into step with his partner. "I can't believe you said that."

"Cheer up, H, we've killed two birds with one stone."

"More clichés," Henri grumbled, and then asked, "What do you mean by that?"

Rafe lifted his pocket camera higher. "I've got your picture for Daryl's photography assignment."

"What?! You're not using one of those photos you took of my torso for Daryl's assignment!"

"Why not? It's unique and different - should get the kid high marks for originality."

"No!"

Rafe smiled. "Relax, H, you're gonna blow a gasket." He tsked. "I was just teasing you. Your cow is here, though - it's on the other side of the park. C'mon." They walked past the Blue Moon cow and continued walking through the park, closer to the First Cascade Bank. On the way, they passed a few more painted cows that Henri vaguely recognized from Mrs. Berlinger's photos. Rafe suddenly stopped. "Henri Brown, this is your cow."

Henri glanced at the cow. She had a blue background with scattered gold stars and a moon over her rump, and assorted objects painted randomly over the night background. He checked out the cow's name, on the plaque between her hoofs. "Glenn Mooller - In the Moood." Startled, he began examining the cow more closely. "Wow, these objects on the cow, they're song titles!" He pointed to a pearl necklace painted around the cow's neck. "That's 'String of Pearls,' and that" he traced the outline of the state of Pennsylvania, then noted the numbers in bright green on top of it - "is 'Pennsylvania Six-Five Thousand.' This over here"- he jabbed his finger at a formal men's suit, next to a JNCT 5 road sign - "must be 'Tuxedo Junction.'"

Rafe identified one song, too. "Look at the train, with Chattanooga written in the smoke, that's 'Chattanooga Choo-Choo', even I've heard of that. But what's this at the rear supposed to be?"

Henri looked at the black silhouettes half-outlined in silver. The figure of a lady stood on a balcony, looking down at some men below. One man was apart, arm upraised, while a trio of musicians stood behind him, closer to the cow's middle. The silver quarter moon almost directly above the gesturing man provided the final clue. "'Moonlight Serenade' - and very nicely portrayed, too. I can almost hear the music."

Rafe stepped back from the cow and raised his camera. "Ready?"

"Wait a minute," Henri said. He stood in front of the cow, bending his knees slightly, his fingers poised to play Middle C on an imaginary saxophone. He wished he had his beret with him, it would have added the right decadent touch to his outfit of blue jeans, multicolored shirt and unzipped navy windbreaker.

"Air sax, I like it," Rafe approved as he snapped a couple of shots. "What else have you got?"

Henri changed his pose, dropping one hand and firmly pursing his lips, blowing an invisible trumpet. Rafe checked the viewfinder, and then clicked a couple more shots. Henri dropped his hands to his side and posed casually in front of the cow, a huge grin on his face while Rafe photographed him.

"Okay, partner," Rafe smiled as he lowered the camera, "Let's head on back to the ranch, er station and see what develops."

"Rafe!"

THE END