Protective Behavior

by L A Witt

  I passed Officer Russel the bag. “There you go. Everything the paramedics took from him is in there.”

  Officer Russel smiled. He looked like Your Friendly Neighborhood Policeman. “Thank you very much, Doctor… Campbell, is it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Great, great. You have a good night, sir.” He glanced at the clock on the wall and chuckled. “Or a good morning, I guess. It’s almost eight a.m.” He nodded to me, then walked out the door. Officer DeMarco followed, without bothering to smile.

  I didn’t watch them go. I had to spend a few quiet minutes questioning my own sanity first. I needed to get out of All Saints, but I didn’t want to go home yet.

  Honestly, what I really wanted was to go to Mark’s again. It wasn’t like he was waiting for me to rejoin him—I knew he was an early riser and he’d be at work by now—but that wasn’t the point. I wasn’t feeling up for sex anymore, I just wanted to see him. I wanted to sit down on a couch next to him and drink a beer and watch some shitty show, or lie down in his bed and feel his body next to mine, listen to the sound of his lungs and the beat of his heart, and know that everything was all right. I wanted to see him smile that perfect, quirky little smile that looked like it was a surprise to him every time.

  I wanted him to tell me what to do now. I mean, I was withholding evidence from the police—undoubtedly he’d tell me to turn it in. But Martin had seemed so incredibly scared of them, and so sure that it was a cop who shot him. And hell, he would know, wouldn’t he? I needed to check the phone, maybe find JJ.

  Essentially, I needed to commit a crime. Fuck.

  I wasn’t going to get anything accomplished if I stood around like a zombie all morning. I did my paperwork and got through the handover, went to the locker room and got a quick shower and a change of clothes, then drove out to one of the lakes on the north side of the city. They were all manmade, part of the cooling process for the power plants up here, but their artificial beginnings didn’t keep ducks and geese and a hundred other kinds of animal from making them their homes. It was nice, and there were a few trails that made for good running.

  I shouldn’t be running. I should be in bed, but I was wired and anxious and the only thing that took me out of my head when I was like that was exercise. I put Martin’s phone—an older generation iPhone that I still hadn’t mustered the nerve to really look at yet—into my jacket pocket and started to run.

  I didn’t stop for almost an hour.

  I ran until the endorphins stopped flowing, until my body felt as battered as my mind. I ached from head to toe, had a headache the size of a localized tornado brewing behind my eyes, and desperately needed coffee. I ran until no one else was around, no people or dogs, then stopped, gasping, and leaned against a tree until I was breathing normally again. It took longer than it should have.

  I sat down on a nearby stump and pulled out Martin’s phone. Here goes nothing. I turned it on—it wasn’t locked. The camera app was open, and the last thing recorded was a video, but the screen was completely black. Probably filmed from inside a pocket.

  I didn’t want to listen to it. I had to, though.

  I pressed play, and as I listened my heart slowly turned to ice in my chest.

  Chapter 7

  Mark

  “That’s all I remember.” Officer Jill Gale wrung her hands on the table between us, and didn’t look at me. “I was trying to keep an eye on the passenger, and lost track of what Officer Malone was doing with the driver.”

  I watched her, my own hands folded on the written statement she’d made about her partner’s behavior during the traffic stop. As the silence dragged on, she wrung her hands harder, and from the way she seemed to vibrate all over, she was probably tapping a heel on the carpet beneath the table. I stared. She twitched. I stared some more. She pushed out a ragged breath.

  I opened my mouth to press, but then she blurted out, “I mean, I heard him threaten to tase the guy, and I heard the taser start up.”

  “Was Mr. Franklin behaving in a way that warranted use of a taser?”

  More twitching. A lot more. “I… I don’t think so?” She finally looked at me, her expression full of panic. Sweat was beading along the edges of her hair. “Like I said, I was busy with the passenger.”

  “Was the passenger behaving belligerently?” I pointedly turned a page in the report, and Officer Gale swallowed. “There’s nothing in your statement to indicate that she needed restraint or any kind of extra attention.”

  Officer Gale winced. She looked like she was on the verge of tears, which didn’t surprise me. That happened when someone was backed into a corner and had to decide whether to tell the truth or double down on the lie.

  I wasn’t uncompassionate about it. I felt for her. In this city and especially in this precinct, the code of silence among cops was not something anyone took lightly. Not after dozens of our own had gone to prison for being dirty. “Snitches get stitches” had become the law of the land, which made my job infinitely harder. Not that getting cops to testify against other cops had ever been easy.

  And asking a petite rookie—one who was already facing the uphill battle of proving her mettle as a cop—to turn on her FTO? Well, it was never fun, and these days, it was like getting blood from a stone.

  “Officer Gale.” I closed the folder and looked at her across the table. “I get why you want to protect him. He’s your partner and your FTO. I was a rookie once too—I get it.”

  She eyed me suspiciously.

  I went on, “But I’ve got a citizen with a cracked skull and a broken jaw, two witnesses who say Officer Malone went hands on unprovoked, and body camera footage—your body camera, Officer Gale—corroborating those statements. Which means you were facing Officer Malone when all this went down.” I inclined my head. “So I’m going to ask you again, and this time it goes on the record—did Mr. Franklin physically or verbally threaten Officer Malone before the altercation turned physical?”

  Her gaze dropped. Then her shoulders did. Finally, she sighed. “No. It was… It was unprovoked.” And just like that, the dam broke. Some tears slid free, but she mostly kept her composure as the truth tumbled out: “He’d been in one of those moods all day, you know? Where he’s pissed at everyone and everything, and on the way out at the beginning of shift, he said something about how when he’s mad at the world, ‘cleaning up some trash’ always makes him feel better. He said we were going to write a ton of tickets that day, so he had me drive us down to one of those neighborhoods that’s really poor and has a lot of…” She hesitated. “You know, a lot of people who aren’t white.”

  I nodded.

  She took a breath. “And we just started making traffic stops left and right. Over stupid things like broken taillights and… you know, shit we’re supposed to ticket people for, but he was coming at people almost like these were felony stops.”

  I stiffened. “Did he pull a weapon?”

  She shook her head. “No. Just… He was just really aggressive.”

  By the time Officer Gale was finished, I not only had a sworn statement that Officer Malone had assaulted the victim without provocation, but that he’d been racially profiling and harassing people for hours leading up to the incident. Coupled with the other witness statements and the body cam footage, this was damning testimony. I’d submit my recommendation to the review board this afternoon, and I suspected Officer Malone would be less than thrilled with the results.

  Officer Gale left, and I sighed into the silence of the conference room. I felt for her. She’d been a star at the academy, and she’d been knocking it out of the park as a rookie. She would’ve made an excellent cop. Maybe she still would, but admittedly, I had my doubts. The rest of the force would never forgive her for turning on her FTO, whether or not he deserved it, and even if she went to another city, that kind of reputation could follow someone to the ends of the earth.

  Good luck, kid.

  I left the conference room, intending to refi
ll my coffee before continuing to my office. Instead I was waylaid by my boss, Lieutenant Bridges, who I hadn’t even realized was in the building today.

  “A word?” she asked dryly.

  I suppressed a sigh. I hadn’t had nearly enough coffee to be facing down Bridges, especially when she had on her irritated face. Not that I had much choice. So, I led her into my office and closed the door. As I sat behind my desk, I asked, “What’s up?”

  She took a seat and absently pushed her long, dark braid over her shoulder. “Your name has been coming up quite a bit lately down at City Hall.” Cutting right to the chase, as per usual.

  “What else is new?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “How about the part where there’s a lot of concern that you either have a vendetta or you’re erring on the side of ruining cops’ careers.”

  I blinked. “How do you figure?”

  “Because you’ve been consistently finding in favor of those who’ve put in complaints against officers and detectives. Recommending disciplinary action far more than recommending dismissals.”

  “I wasn’t aware there was a quota system in place here.”

  “There isn’t, Detective Thibedeau,” she said through her teeth. “But after the debacle with you trying to take down Detective Ruffner, only to realize he was innocent, followed by you missing the misconduct of dozens upon dozens of dirty cops, well, what can I say?” She shrugged tightly. “It’s difficult not to take your latest track record as either an attempt to make up for your previous poor judgment, or settling a score with the remaining cops who have accused you of ruining careers.”

  I shook my head and exhaled. “It’s nothing like that. I take each case as it comes. Period.”

  “Mmhmm.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “What do you think? You believe all the scuttlebutt at City Hall? Or do you believe I’m the same cop I’ve been since I started working for you?”

  Lips pressed so tightly together they nearly vanished, she watched me for a long, uncomfortable moment. “I’m not drawing any conclusions. I just need to be sure you’re doing what you say you are—analyzing each case as it comes, objectively and independent of any other cases you’ve worked.”

  “You know I am. I’m not my dad, Lieutenant.”

  “Oh, I know you’re not. I’ve never had any fear of you being a dirty cop, Detective. I’m far more concerned about you being an Internal Affairs vigilante.”

  I laughed humorlessly. “Your concern is noted, but you have nothing to worry about.”

  “I certainly hope not.” She inclined her head. “But everyone else knows your father was dirty too, and plenty of them have wondered out loud for a long time if you’re taking out that betrayal on every cop in town. That on top of you being wrong about Ruffner and all those cops working with Crawford—I admit, it’s difficult for me to convince them all you’re not abusing your power over something personal.”

  “I’m not abusing my power,” I growled. “Have any of my cases been kicked back? They’ve all moved forward per my recommendations. Or does everyone believe I’ve got enough people in my pocket to make sure my nefarious vigilantism gets carried out?”

  “Point taken. But tread carefully. If someone does have reason to question one of your cases, they could go back and question any or all of them.”

  “Duly noted.”

  With a curt nod, she rose, but she paused before heading for the door. “What’s your status on the Malone case?”

  I glanced down at Officer Gale’s statement, then met my boss’s inquisitive gaze. “I just finished interviewing his rookie. Once I’ve had a chance to go over the evidence again, I’ll submit my report. Probably by end of day today.”

  “Good.” She nodded sharply, and without another word, left my office.

  For a moment, I just stared at the door she’d shut behind her. I’d known ever since things had blown open with Mayor Crawford’s drug ring—largely staffed by dirty cops all over the city—that I would never win any popularity contests in this city. No one in the ranks would take anything I said without a whole lot of salt. I just hadn’t anticipated the higher ups questioning me or my integrity. The fact that I’d recommended disciplinary action against a number of cops lately wasn’t a testament to my biases. It was a testament to what the garbage cops in this city thought they could get away with.

  Not on my watch, scumbags.

  I rolled my shoulders and skimmed over the statement Officer Gale had written. I’d have Erin type it up for me if she wasn’t bogged down, and I could—

  “Hey, what are you doing here?” Erin’s cheerful voice pulled my attention toward the door.

  “Just, um… Is Mark in the office?”

  Ryan? My blood went cold. What the fuck was he doing here? Sure, I’d been disappointed when he’d had to bail last night, but he was not bringing this into my office. What the hell?

  “Um.” Erin hesitated. “I think so. Let me check.”

  My heart pounded. What was he thinking?

  Someone tapped on the door.

  “It’s open.” I tried not to let my resignation into my voice.

  Erin peeked in. “Hey, Ryan’s here.” She glanced over her shoulder, and when she met my gaze, she looked worried. “He says it’s urgent.”

  I sat up. “Uh. Okay. Yeah. Let him in.”

  So help me, if he’s coming in here with a giant public apology and flowers or some shit, I will—

  But when Ryan walked into my office, all those thoughts scattered.

  He was white, and it wasn’t just because he hadn’t shaved and had dark circles under his bloodshot eyes. He didn’t look like he’d come off a two-day bender—he looked like something had rattled him right to the core, and given the things he saw in any given shift at his job, I was almost afraid to ask.

  “What’s wrong?” I came around the desk. “What’s going on?”

  “I, um…” He toed the door shut behind him, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath as if he were trying to pull himself together. When he opened them again, he looked slightly calmer, but that didn’t say much. “I’m sorry to show up at your office, but I didn’t know who else I could talk to about this.”

  “About what?” I gestured at one of the chairs on front of my desk.

  As he took a seat, the shakiness in his knees made me even more nervous about this. He’d always seemed so pulled together, and I was pretty sure no one lasted working in an emergency room without superhuman shit-togetherness.

  Running an unsteady hand through his hair, he said, “Christ, I don’t even know where to start.”

  I sat on the edge of my desk and tilted my head. “How about at the beginning?”

  “Okay. Okay.” He sat back and took another deep breath. “Something weird happened in the ED. Toward the end of my shift, this patient comes in.” He flailed a hand at his own chest. “Gunshot wound. Bleeding out fast. He was shot in the back, and he, uh… He didn’t make it.” Ryan shifted in the chair. “But while he was still conscious, he had his phone in his hand. The paramedics tried to get all his personal effects and clothes off his person, but he just would not let go of that phone.”

  I nodded, but didn’t speak.

  Ryan drummed his fingers rapidly on the armrest. “And right when I’m in the middle of trying to get this kid stable so he can go to an OR, a couple of cops come in. Fucking walk right into my trauma bay and start asking about his personal effects.”

  “While he’s not even stable?”

  Ryan nodded. “I threw them out and told them I’d deal with them after I saw to my patient.” He exhaled hard and looked up at me. “The thing is, the kid got real scared after that. He said they shot him, and he all but shoved the phone into my hands. He told me… told me there was a recording of what happened. And a contact… Someone who had a video of what happened. Gave me a name. JJ.”

  I rested my hand beside me on the edge of the desk. “Where is the phone now?” The way he broke eye contact made my stom
ach clench. “Ryan…”

  He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “The cops… They were so fucking eager for his things, especially that phone, but the way he looked at me when he gave it to me, I…” Shaking his head, he looked in my eyes again. “Yeah, I know, legally I should’ve given his phone to the cops along with his personal effects. But man, my gut told me…”

  I fought back a groan of frustration. “Do I even want to know where the phone is now?”

  To my horror—but not surprise—Ryan pulled a smartphone out of his pocket.

  I exhaled. “Oh fuck…”

  “I know. I know.” He put up his other hand. “But Mark, you need to hear what he recorded. And then… Then I don’t know.” His voice was as shaky as his hands now, his eyes welling up as he spoke, but this wasn’t the cornered guilty party response I’d provoked from Officer Gale. He went on unsteadily, “That’s why I brought it to you. If anyone knows what to do from here, it’s you, but please, at least listen to what’s on here and… Do something.”

  An entire career’s worth of following the law and protocols to the letter made me want to break out in hives over this. Anything on that phone would most likely be inadmissible in court; if a defense attorney determined that the chain of custody hadn’t been properly established, or that Ryan had compromised the integrity of the evidence by handling the phone after the victim gave it to him…

  But at the same time, a man was dead, and Ryan had heard something that had driven him to my office.

  I swallowed. “What’s on the phone?”

  Ryan thumbed the button, then tapped the screen a couple of times. He adjusted the volume, tapped the screen again, and set the phone on my desk beside me.

  The screen was dark, and the sound was mostly muffled, but I could make out the words well enough.

  “You recording? C’mon, man, he’s almost to the door.”

  “I’m recording. Be cool. Be cool.”

  There was silence for a moment.

  “Can I help you, Officer?”