by Brian Ewing
He heard a sigh to his right and looked over to see Ama sleeping in a chair, curled up with a blanket you wouldn’t give to your pet to lay on. It reminded Sisto of the rug lining people have on their vehicles and it looked to have the same thread count of comfort as well.
“Ama.” Sisto spoke, the coarse lining of his throat causing him to not recognize his own voice for a moment.
The sound of her name broke through her sleep, causing her eyes to pop open and look over to the bed.
“Oh my god, you’re awake. You have been out for hours.”
“What time is it?” Sisto asked.
Looking at her watch, she said, “Five in the morning.”
Damn, Sisto thought. He had been out for eight hours.
“Thanks for not letting them stick a tube in my dickhole,” Sisto relayed with utmost sincerity.
Ama put her hand over her mouth in an attempt to contain her laughter.
“No problem. They figured you would be up before you pissed yourself again.”
“What?!”
“It’s okay, you were drugged and hammered.”
Un-fucking-real. Sisto shook his head.
Trying to push the image of himself out cold in a puddle of piss, Sisto changed the subject. “So, Bell called you or something after he found me at C.O.S.?”
Her eyebrow arched, but catching the question on his way back in from the common area with a coffee in hand, Bell answered, “Ama is the one that called me, Buck-o.”
Sisto looked towards the door to see Bell. He brought his coffee over to a chair lined against the wall behind Ama’s and grunted as he sat himself down.
“Bell.”
“Ama called the department and told them she needed to speak to me after finding evidence on the Carson Vinnova case.”
Sisto surprised, looked at Ama.
“I was printing out those files on Michael Dyer. His background, financial records, divorce papers, things like that. I noticed in his financial records lots of purchases around downtown restaurants and coffee shops. I decided to hack one of the surveillance videos at the corner of a coffee shop he had been going to recently. His receipts always seemed like it was more than just himself he was paying for. I thought we may luck out and catch him with Carson.”
Sisto was impressed.
“So, you saw him leave the coffee shop but instead of Carson, he was with Laura?”
“Right. Of course, I didn’t know it was Laura until the third video I hacked, where she had parked right in front of the shop and I was able to get her plates ran.”
Sisto couldn’t make the connection.
“After realizing it was Laura Saunders, founder of the Circle of Survival support center, I figured I would check out her financials to be thorough. I had heard of the name of that place before and remembered you said you were a regular at a support center, but didn’t put two and two together until it was almost too late,” Ama explained.
“Something in her records let you know she was involved?” Sisto assumed.
“She was really good about scrubbing her digital trail. It ended up being something simple. She put a document she had sent via Fed-Ex to Brooklyn on her credit card. That led me to follow the tracking number, which led to a PO Box owned by Jackie Vinnova.”
“Jackie is dead.”
The statement almost made Bell spit his hot brew out of his mouth.
“What the fuck? Jackie Vinnova is dead?”
Sisto nodded. “Carson admitted it to me on his deathbed. Two months now. The family had made a cover story to keep the strength of the organization intact until they could appoint his successor.”
“Wouldn’t that have been Carson?” Bell asked.
“Too unstable.”
Ama seemed to agree. “From what I found online, his daughter Lenora is just as ruthless and just as smart as her father. If I were a betting woman, I would expect to hear her name in the future.”
Running his hands through his hair, Sisto groaned, as he was starting to have all the aches and bruises his physical body and mental muscles had endured the last week catch up to him.
“Ama, I don’t have the words,” Sisto started.
“Sisto, you don’t . . .”
He raised his hand to cut her off.
“I owe you my life. If you didn’t do what you did, calling Bell, I wouldn’t be here.”
She reached out and grabbed his hand. He grabbed back and squeezed.
“Bell,” Sisto said. “I don’t even know what to say to you.”
“I got a few ideas. Something like thank you is a good start.”
Leaning his head back against the flat pillow, he closed his eyes a moment, then sat up and looked at Bell again, “You did alright, old man.”
“Old man, my dick,” the vulgar poet replied.
“Jesus Christ,” Ama spoke with repulsion.
“Sorry,” Bell said bashfully.
Sisto had been released that afternoon after there had been no indication of anything worse than a concussion. Bell went home to get some sleep while Ama helped Sisto by stopping back at the apartment for a fresh pair of clothes. Sisto approached the front desk to sign his waivers and started looking around at the staff. He saw an orderly that had a pervy grin to him. Sisto made note to stop back when he was feeling better and accidentally bump into him, to see if The Reels would show any injustices done to him upon his arrival at the hospital. Glaring at the entire staff, trying to isolate any nervous twitches, rapey eyes, or any other tells to indicate they may not have been up to date with the Hippocratic oath, he saw nothing definitive. He shifted his stare to Ama, who unbeknownst to him had been reading him like a book and noticed his involuntarily protection of his hand covering his junk. She shook her head, wrapped her arm through his, and walked him out to her car.
Sleeping most of that afternoon on the couch, the next day approached way too quick. He received a text the night before from Bell, saying he would be sending a uniformed officer to get him at eight in the morning for his eight-thirty meeting with Captain Jenkins. Sisto had slept through that text and only received it upon him waking up to a buzz on his phone from Super Dave.
SD: Sisto, I got your number from your apartment application. I got a fucking cop down here waiting for you. Hurry up, you are scaring the tenants.
Sisto made note to himself to get his number changed after visiting SCPD. He stood up, mouth-washed in the bathroom, and grabbed his jacket as he left in the same clothes he had been in since leaving the hospital. Locking up, he took the stairway down and breathed in the beautiful minerals that saturated the encroached airspace. He knew he should have taken the elevator, but he wanted to set his routine back to normal as quick as possible, and Sisto hated the elevator. Pulling the heavy, hydraulic-assisted door open, he walked through the lobby to see Super Dave waiting in the center with his arms crossed, looking like a hall monitor that tattled on the kids smoking in the bathroom and waiting to see the principal chew their asses out. Next to him was a familiar man in blue, built like a goddamn wall.
“Officer Wallace.”
“Sir, I mean, Mr., um, Sisto,” Wallace corrected himself.
Thanking Wallace for the black and white escort, he stepped out in front of the employee entrance of the SCPD building, within the gated parking structure. He had a feeling in the pit of his mind that it may be the last time he would be invited in a professional capacity into the building. Sisto walked past the intersection where one could go to the floor full of blues getting debriefed for the morning shift, the right where the classrooms were for new tactics or protocols being executed, or straight ahead to the detective’s hub. Continuing straight, he glanced at an elderly patrol woman manning the station. Sisto knew he would probably be stripped of the identification card soon enough, so with one last thrust of power, he grabbed the wallet to present it to the little gremlin woman. To his dismay, she raised her hand and blew him onward as if he had worked with her for decades. If he had been asked to sta
y on, there would be an uncomfortable conversation he would have to partake in with Captain Jenkins about getting Tangina from Poltergeist replaced with someone a bit more alert.
His nerves grew a bit more edgy as he entered the detective’s hub. He looked at his phone, which stated it was eight-twenty-five. While he was a creature of habit and felt he should go to the breakroom and get a coffee and pastry, he stomach was in knots and not ready for that level of normalcy until he heard what Captain Jenkins had to say. He saw Bell, head down, writing out something on a notepad, and started towards him. In the distance, a detective he had never seen before stood up and started clapping. Sisto looked behind him to see what he had missed. Turning back to look, another detective joined in, then another, and then another. The whole floor stood up and was clapping for some ungodly reason. Sisto walked up to Bell, who stood up but refrained from cheering with his fellow cohorts.
“What the fuck is this?” Sisto whispered.
“You took down a brutal killer, kid. Word travels fast.”
Sisto looked around and felt like a phony. How could he celebrate a victory, knowing one desk remained empty because he was not quick enough to put the pieces together? Sisto raised his hand and nodded his head, not to accept the gratitude but to try and get the praise to simmer down. It made him very uncomfortable.
“I was supposed to make you give me a statement yesterday, so after you are done talking to Capt, we got some business to take care of before you leave,” Bell stated.
“Has Jenkins been looking for me?”
“Sisto!” An impeccably timed shout from the back office called to him. He looked and saw Captain Ross Jenkins, a mean old goat, built like a scrappy street kid that grew up into a scrappy street man, flag him towards the office.
“Good luck, kid,” Bell muttered.
Not knowing how to take that, he closed the distance on the floor and walked up to the door that was propped open with the name Capt. R. Jenkins posted on it. Jenkins was already back in his chair by the time Sisto was at the doorway.
“Close the door, son.” Jenkins said, making Sisto feel like he was about to get a life lesson about the birds and the bees from his father.
Closing the cherry wood door, he sat down in the fall-toned, brown leather chair and looked at the man he was assuming was about to deliver the verbal beating of the century.
“Mr. Sisto,” Captain Jenkins started.
No way was Sisto going to interrupt the man to argue about a suffix.
“Captain.”
“We have to clear up a few things, so we are on the same page.”
“I understand,” Sisto said.
Jenkins sat with his arms folded, leaning back in what seemed like a very comfortable leather computer recliner chair.
“You realize the last year and a half you have caused me more headaches than I can count?”
Fuck me, Sisto thought. Here we go. Hope you enjoyed the power while it lasted.
“I did not. But I can imagine what people say.”
“Imagine? I thought you read minds or some shit?”
“Wrong superpower, sir,” Sisto said, instantly regretting the words that escaped him.
“Is that what you think you have, son? A superpower?”
“Not at all, sir. It seems to be the misconception of what others assume.” Sisto recovered himself.
Nodding to signal the response was an acceptable answer, Jenkins continued.
“Cami fought tooth and nail to have you on as a paid consultant. You aware of that?”
“Yes, I did. Cam, Detective Caden, was an incredible asset to SCPD. She did a lot of good for the people of this city. She did a lot of good for me.”
The last sentence stung Sisto in the heart to admit.
“You know why I called you down here?” Jenkins asked.
Sisto supposed he had. “I assume with Detective Caden no longer with us, you have made a decision to revoke my consultant status.”
The old gumshoe let an insincere laugh escape, scaring Sisto as the sharp “ha” echoed across the room.
“Did Camille tell you anything about a meeting the department was involved with along with the mayor?”
“She mentioned that her and Bell had a meeting last week, yes. But she didn’t say anything to what it was about.”
“Mayor Maitland is up for re-election next year and has decided to start building his campaign early by setting programs in the community to keep the citizens safe. The first meeting was a month ago, where the mayor asked for input from the detectives around all the precincts on what they could implement to make the streets safer.”
Sisto nodded, because he felt he should, not because he had any idea why the hell Jenkins was giving any of this information to him.
“Last week we turned in all proposals. Camille submitted a proposal and the mayor took a shine to it.”
Sisto kept wondering when Jenkins was going to ask him for his identification card back, but just kept nodding.
“You ever hear of the phrase ‘any publicity is good publicity’?”
Sisto started to get a feeling he had misjudged entirely the intention of the meeting he was involved in at that moment.
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“Camille proposed that creating an experimental team, a task force—dedicated to using the resources of detectives and civilians with special skillsets—could open up avenues and results that the department had never seen before. She had amended her proposal upon the mayor’s approval last week, stating she could handpick the team she wanted to run it. With Detective Caden taken from us, we had to find a detective willing to take on the daunting task of running the unit. I called you in here today because your name was on that list.”
“I’ll do it,” Sisto blurted.
“I don’t think you really have what it takes, son. I didn’t call you down here to offer you the job. The mayor has a tickle in his pants that the media sensation known as Tom Sisto can be a part of his special task force. I am here to advise you to decline the offer.”
Kick to the balls as that was, Sisto understood the man’s reservations.
“Captain, I know that I am not one of you guys. I know I attract more attention than you would like most of the time. I started consulting because I wanted to help people, help this city. I one hundred percent understand why you don’t think I can do it. Respectfully though, sir, you don’t know shit.”
Jenkins squinted at Sisto, trying to see if he looked hard enough, where Sisto in his right mind would talk to him like that.
“I want your respect, sir. I will do whatever you think is fair to prove it. You want me to go through the police academy or something?”
“Yes.” It was Jenkins turn to blurt a statement.
“What?” Sisto asked, unsure if the captain was unable to read sarcasm.
“Yes, Mr. Sisto, that is exactly what I want you to do. You want to be a part of my department? You show me you can go through what they go through.”
“You will let me be a part of the task force while I go through the academy?”
“I don’t know how soon the mayor will implement this into action, but we have a new class of fresh faces starting up in three weeks. I give you my word I will let you do both, academy during the day and task force when you are not in training. If you do not pass the academy, however, I expect your resignation from all aspects of SCPD. Are you here for show or are you up for the task?”
Sisto thought about where his life had been a year and a half ago, then eight years ago, and realized he had gone through enough in that time to break a person past the point of recovery. That was all Sisto needed to back his confidence, solidifying his choice.
“I will surprise you, Captain.”
“You already have, more than once today, Mr. Sisto.”
Captain Jenkins pulled out a folder and gave it to Sisto.
“This is paperwork I need filled out and returned as soon as possible for the mayor. Confidentiality agre
ements, waivers, stuff like that. On your way out, you need to stop at the desk sergeant’s area and tell them I need you on the roster for the next group of cadets. Questions?”
“You said Caden handpicked her team. Now that she is . . . Who is running the task force?”
Standing up to walk him out the door, the captain replied, “It’s all in the paperwork. Get it back to me ASAP.”
Sisto took the folder and walked out feeling a sensation he wasn’t sure he would ever feel again after the recent events of Caden and Craig’s demises. He felt joy. He felt excited at the opportunity. He opened the folder to see a list of names printed on the front.
Camille Caden, Detective First Grade
Calvin Bell, Detective Second Grade
Dakota Mitchell, Detective First Grade
Toby LeNard, Forensic Analyst
Jordan Wallace, Police Officer II
Reese Culpepper, Police Officer I
Winter Pierce, Ex-FBI Cyber Analyst, retired (civilian)
Tom Sisto, Crime Scene Consultant (civilian)
Ama Navarro, Financial Analyst (civilian)
Fitz Ackerman, Consultant (civilian)
Sisto knew about half the names on the list but knew, if they were handpicked by Camille, they were all essential, possessing a skill that no other could replace. He was pleasantly surprised to see her amended list had Ama added to it. Camille Caden had had ten minutes of interaction with Ama, but she was born with good instinct. She was very responsive to her gut feelings and must have either seen the potential or believed in Sisto enough to try and recruit Ama to help in building a better city. The page of names also held sorrow for him, as he ran his finger over her printed name. Looking at the list, Sisto assumed being the highest ranked officer and former partner to the proposer of the task force, he would be serving under Bell. What a fucking thought. He looked up after seeing Bell’s name to see the old bastard’s smug grin from across the fleet of desks. He had known, probably since the week before, that Caden was setting this up for all of them. Bell, the prick bastard he was, had let Sisto sweat going into the meeting. Asshole, Sisto thought. Sisto smirked back at the man and shook his head as he headed towards the breakroom for a well-deserved coffee and pastry.
