The Sins of a District

by Alexander Whittle

  “Sir!” shouted another officer just by the tree line, Ellis and Richards both looked, “Over here!” shouted the officer. As the two rushed over they saw the silver van that Harry had arrived in parked underneath the cover of the trees. They switched on their torches as they viewed either side of the van inspecting it. The van shook suddenly. It alarmed them as they both un-holstered their service issue weapons and converged on the stern of the van where the backside door was. On the count of three they ordered the officer with them to open the van for them to look inside. At first nothing much was visible, they shone their torches further in the find Christy Walker bound and taped lying on the floor. Richards immediately holstered her weapon and climbed in to check on the girl. She cut through the rope Harry was using to transport her that bound her hands together, then she peeled back the duct tape that covered her mouth preventing her from screaming or escaping. Christy instantly grabbed on to agent Richards’ jacket and held her, Richards reciprocated.

  “Get me a doctor!” she called out, “It’s OK, everything is going to be fine,” Ellis let out a gasp of relief that the girl had been found safe, sound and relatively unharmed if not for a little dirt on her clothes.

  “Sir, we just ran the plates, its registered O’Neill,” said the officer with them, as he whispered in his Commissioner’s ear. Ellis acquiesced and patted his subordinate on the shoulder, before walking away.

  “Ellis where are you going?” Richards asked him,

  “Someone has to talk to the press, be the face of what happened in the city on this night, which falls on me. Someone also has to explain how one of our own was responsible and how another is in critical condition because of it.” Ellis replied as he strode out of the trees and regressed towards the memorial.

  Chapter II

  There was an all too familiar bleeping sound as Ryan awoke the next morning in a private room and a nice soft bed at Howard University Hospital. The metronomic bleeps brought him from his deep slumber which he had been in for several hours. He was surprised to find himself waking up in a warm bed, the last feeling he felt was the cold night and the freezing marble on his back as he lay wounded with his life hanging in the balance due to his former partner. There was a small plate of rather off putting food placed on the swivel tray next to his bed, it wasn’t going to be touched anytime soon, Ryan had a feeling and a taste of sickness in his throat that wouldn’t go away. As he breathed in and out gently he was met by a sharp pain and the ever uncomfortable feeling of a tube that had been fed through his nostrils and down the rear of his throat. A nurse then entered, she immediately looked and Ryan and smiled before walking towards the window of the dark hospital room. She pulled back the curtains much to the patient’s annoyance,

  “What happened?”

  “Please Mister Mathers, try not to move too much. You will risk ripping your stitches, we wouldn’t want that now would we?” the nurse sarcastically asked the wounded hero, who had just rescued the darling girl who was abducted. The curtains in window to the private room were open, and the sun magnified forcing Ryan to shield his eyes. The nurse paid no attention to his requests to pull back the curtain as he sat up, the nurse then forced him back down to a lying position. No one had given Ryan any information about what had happened, whether the girl had been found, or whether the evidence had been taken seriously by Ellis, if he had even received it yet.

  Ryan was made to jump when his doctor ripped open the partition and suddenly entered in the room,

  “Now Mister Mathers, you’re a lucky man. If the EMT’s arrived any later then you wouldn’t have made it, I would count my blessings if I were you,” said the doctor as he smiled holding Ryan’s chart in his hands. “You were in surgery for five hours, are you finding it hard to breath?”

  “Yes,”

  “That’s because the bullet pierced the top of your right lung Mister Mathers, you will have to take it very easy for the next few days. No more chasing bad men through the park,” the doctor jokingly added.

  Ryan didn’t care much for his efforts at making his patient laugh, what Ryan went through the previous night was no joke. If the doctor ever had to shoot a former friend dead then he would know. As the doctor left the room he waved over to someone, it was April, his daughter had come to visit him.

  “You came to visit me this early?”

  “Dad, are you kidding? I’ve been here all night,” she said kissing her father on the forehead.

  “Where is your mother?”

  “She isn’t here…”

  “Oh,”

  “But she is coming, she was up in Pennsylvania visiting her sister for the weekend when she heard the news. Just about everyone we knew heard the news, the phone has been ringing off of the hook, and you’re a hero!”

  “I’m a what?” said Ryan with a scratchy voice as he adjusted the tube poking from out of his nose. April picked up the remote for the small television carefully balanced on the wall mount attached to the ceiling.

  “Here, look!” she said pointing the remote at the screen. The television flickered on and a news reporter appeared in the middle of an address to the public,

  “…She was found late last night in Ash Wood Park, we go live now to our reporter on the scene,”

  “Thanks Tom, yes that’s right I am here at the gruesome scene where one elderly detective was shot in the line of duty as he successfully found and rescued Christy Walker, the daughter of the city councilman who had been abducted and missing for several days. Details are still to be released to us on who the ID of the suspect was but we can expect that sometime today,” said the reporter as she ended her report which prompted April to switch the screen off again.

  “See!” she shouted excitingly at the idea of her father being a recognised hero rather than a drunk and an incompetent.

  “Elderly?” Ryan asked as April laughed.

  * * *

  While Ryan was resting from his gunshot wound in the hospital, a few miles away at the police station, Christy Walker was giving her statement to agent Richards. She had the break room cleared, the idea of placing her in one of the interrogation rooms to hear her tell her story could have been a bad idea. Christy had spent the last four days in a cramped space, and the rooms they question suspects in leave little to be desired in the way breathing room. She had been cleaned up and given fresh clothes but she still shook slightly as the shock of the previous four days events hadn’t yet worn off.

  “She has already been through so much,” said Eli Walker, looking on from outside the room.

  “It’s OK they should be done soon, anyway she said she needed to do this in private,” replied Ellis who had just arrived that morning who was standing next to him. The two couldn’t hear what was being said but agent Richards suddenly stopped writing in her notepad, she looked up at Christy and lowered her head almost in sympathy. Richards stood up and walked over to the door and stepped outside of the room

  “You need to hear this,” she said to Ellis,

  “Hear what?” Walker demanded to know,

  “I’m sorry sir this is a confidential matter,” she told him excluding him from information about his daughter. This did not make Eli very happy, he was already angry having to wait outside during her examinations and when she was giving her accounts, this didn’t help matters. Richards and Ellis began to walk towards the Commissioner’s office,

  “We may have a problem, she said that during her captivity she heard O’Neill mention the words payback, and revenge all about her father Eli Walker. At one point she even mentioned that she was going to be exchanged for something from Eli,” Richards spoke softly as the two entered Ellis’ office. His mail was left in a small stack on his desk, he hadn’t yet noticed the larger brown envelope on the underside of the stack, and it was only a matter of time.

  “So you’re thinking Eli had some kind of a deal with O’Neill that went south?” Ellis asked as he took a seat in his chair,

  “Yes, I think Walker knew that O�
�Neill had his daughter!” Richards accused Eli of being ‘in on it’

  “That’s a stretch don’t you think? I have known this man for twenty years and yes he can be an arrogant son of a bitch at times but he would never entertain the idea of his daughter being put in harm’s way just to help a shady business deal,” Ellis said as he rebuffed Richards and any other ideas she may have had about Eli Walker’s motives.

  “I just don’t think O’Neill was working alone,” Richards replied, she left the Commissioner’s office. Ellis didn’t feel like doing much work that day, he was more concerned about how to handle the press as well as one of his own who was still in the hospital. No matter how he spun it to the reporters, the fact that she was found safe would take a back seat if they ever got a hold of the news that it was a higher ranking cop that was the culprit. He began to sort through the mail in the centre of his desk, reading the fronts of them and tossing them aside, until he reached the larger brown one. Ellis was sceptical about what might be inside and opened it straight away, the front cover of the report was handwritten. He had read too many of Ryan’s police reports from the days when he was in charge of the district to not recognise his handwriting on the front of the envelope. This made him even more intrigued as he ripped open the top fold and tore the seal. He was stunned when he examined the contents, Richards was right and so was Ryan, there was something going on between Harry and Walker, and now Ellis knew. The only man with the courage to act on it, arresting the father of recently returned Christy Walker could be seen as a poor show from the police department, but Eli was a bad man, who was partly responsible for her kidnapping it seemed. If he hadn’t had pushed O’Neill around so much then it wouldn’t have forced him to take his daughter away. Eli drove him to this, and he should also pay.

  Back in the break room Eli had quickly jumped in while Richards and Ellis had stepped out to have a word with his daughter. She didn’t acknowledge him at all, she also knew he wasn’t what he seemed. Harry had told the girl about her father’s dealings in the past, and how he had a girl murdered in an attempt to better his political career, how he framed Wayne Peterson and ultimately led to his death. But most of all, how he pushed and pushed Harry O’Neill so close to the edge that he eventually fell off emotionally, which led to her abduction. This was something that even though she was glad to be free from captivity, she could never return to live with such a man, even if he was her father.

  “What’s wrong honey?” Eli asked her as she turned away, he could sense something was wrong as he looked up and saw Ellis approaching from further down the hallway. He was eying Walker as he was accompanied by two other officers in his entourage. When they entered the room Walker took a few steps back, he wasn’t sure what was about to happen. One of the officers pushed him up against the wall of the break room and held him securely while the other applied the handcuffs. Eli took one more look at his daughter who at this moment still couldn’t look her father in the eye as he was being escorted away. Nearly everyone in the station house stopped what they were doing to observe the drama. Ellis gave a repulsed look in Eli’s direction, the man whose life was finally pieced back together by the return of Christy, was suddenly all falling apart again. The head of the snake had finally been removed as Eli was going to pay for the many destructive things he had done in his miserable life. This had all began nearly twenty years ago with one man’s greed for wanting more, it would now end with him.

  Chapter III

  Seven days after the case on Christy Walker had been closed, as well as the Jane case, after Harry O’Neill had been killed, and Eli Walker was facing many inescapable charges, Ryan, Ellis and Claire were all sat at the bar in Mickey’s. A place the three of them hadn’t been in a while, they felt it would be fitting to hold Ryan Mathers’ final farewell there.

  “I can’t believe you’re retiring, you’re still a young man!” shouted Claire as she began to let loose, she was never one to go overboard, however this may be the final time she would gaze upon the young boy she met in the nineteen seventies that night in the police station, she had been playing the role of his older sister ever since that day. She made it clear to him that it saddened her deeply that Ryan was not only leaving the force but leaving Washington D.C.

  “I’m not a young man, I’m far from it!” Ryan shouted back as he tried to compete with the loud music that was being blasted through the speakers. No matter how much he would say that he was glad to be retiring, a huge part of him would always miss the force, it had been nothing short of his life for the past twenty-five years. Ryan also struggled to contemplate what he might do now in all of his spare time.

  “Where will you go?” asked Ellis, he slung back another drink and signalled for the bar keep to refill the glass immediately.

  “I’ve thought about California,” he replied, Ellis burst out laughing,

  “Ryan Mathers in California!? The land of relaxation and lovey people?!” the drink had clearly gone to Ellis’ head at this point, the three had been there for several hours now just chatting, like the good old days. “I am going to miss you Mathers that’s for damn sure, you see, you and me, we are old school, not like all these kids on the force today,” the Commissioner added as he wrapped his arm in a brotherly way around Ryan’s neck and tussled with his hair. Ryan smiled, he had never seen Ellis like this before and it made a nice change to all of the yelling and suspension threats he had thrown at him over the past several years.

  “April certainly likes the idea of staying with me in California, she’s started wearing tank tops and short skirts, and she’s already dyed her hair blonde. It’s all a far cry from what I’m used to, but she does look nicer and more like a young respectable girl should I must admit,” Ryan claimed as he sipped his water.

  “Oh c’mon man have a real drink!” Ellis requested of his detective,

  “I can’t, docs orders, not supposed to mix alcohol with such heavy painkillers,”

  “Well you really and truly have come a long way recently, the Ryan I used to know would snatch your arm off for a sip of the good stuff,” said Ellis. He climbed down from his bar stool and teetered towards the men’s toilets to relieve himself.

  “We have all come a long way…” Ryan thought,

  “Do you ever think about him?” Claire asked,

  “Not really, something I have just been able to push out,” Ryan replied, all too well he knew that there wouldn’t be a day that went by in the future where he wouldn’t think about that night with Harry in Ash Woods Park by the World War One memorial. Ryan reached into his pocket for the detective’s badge that he had carried for the last two decades, he thought about all the cases, all the paperwork, and all the time spent facing off against the roughest people imaginable. He then asked himself if he could, would he do it all over again, absolutely he immediately thought.

  “Well it’s midnight I should probably hit the road,” Ryan said as Ellis reappeared from the men’s bathrooms, and just about managed to make his way back to the bar stool where he was sat perched all evening.

  “So soon?” Claire pleaded with him, she would more than likely see him several times before he moved away in a few months, however there was something about that night that made everything feel like it was the end of their journey as friends, and they would not see each other again. Ellis stood up and embraced Ryan in a hug, something which shocked both he and Claire, Ellis never hugged anyone, the drink had made him a much more delightful person to be with, and not that people would condone him to drink heavily from now on. It was the perfect end to a less than perfect career in the police force for the once bright young upstart. He had come a long way and it was time for him to step aside, Ryan then embraced Claire in a hug and left the two by the bar. He walked out of the door making sure to take his badge with him on the way out as a constant reminder of just the end of one chapter in his life before he started the next one, free to do whatever he liked. Back in Mickey’s Ellis and Claire both raised their glasses to th
e detective and guzzled the contents, they placed the glasses back down onto the bar and Ellis signalled the bar man yet again and shouted,

  “One more!”