by Frank Zafiro
“Last night’s scene was handled perfectly by patrol units. Just like then, first officer on scene is in charge. I don’t care if it is the newest recruit we got. Until a sergeant or myself can get on scene and be briefed, the first one on scene is site commander.”
Saylor glanced down at his notes. “The clerk evidently pulled a gun, so maybe Scarface won’t kill unless provoked. But who knows, so be careful.”
Saylor moved briskly through the stolen reports and several other less important administrative items, then turned things over to the sergeants for their platoon meetings. He turned and strode from the room.
At the Adam Sector table, Sergeant Shen repeated Saylor’s warning. “I would rather this guy get away than one of you get killed,” he said. “Do what you have to do, but be careful.”
The Adam Sector troops nodded in response.
Shen pointed to his right. “For everyone who doesn’t know him, this is Officer Jack Willow, who just graduated from the Academy. He went to the Seattle Academy on the west side of the state and not ours, so be patient with him.” Shen grinned as the group chuckled. “Welcome aboard, Officer Willow.”
Jack Willow cleared his throat. “Uh, thanks, Sergeant.”
Willow’s FTO, Officer Aaron Norris, sat to the recruit’s left. “Don’t get too used to his face.” He offered a sly smile. “They sent him to the axe-man first, so I could save the department some money in the long run.”
“Hey, what’s your shirt size, kid?” James Kahn asked. “I’ll buy it off you cheap when they send you packing.”
Everyone chuckled, except for Willow. His face bore the plastered on smile that rookies being hazed have shown the world since cops became cops.
“All right, enough,” Shen said with a grin. “You’ll give the boy a complex.” He dismissed the platoon.
In the sergeant’s office, Saylor waited for Shen. “I’ll be at a meeting for the early part of the shift. Hart is forming some sort of task force, and I’m supposed to give my input.”
Shen remained politically silent.
“I’d say I wouldn’t be long,” Saylor added, “but the Captain will be there. You know how Hart likes the sound of his own voice when he’s trying to impress a boss.”
Shen struggled not to smile. “Call me for coffee when you’re clear?”
“You got it.”
2140 hours
Katie MacLeod drove slowly along the residential street, glancing around, her eyes never still. Everything she saw registered in her mind, but being pre-occupied, it had little impact on her. She felt out of sorts. Embarrassed, actually. It hadn’t really been fair of her to slip out of Kopriva’s bed like that and slink home without a word. It made her feel like a slut.
But what was she supposed to do? She’d been upset and he had comforted her. It’s not like he took advantage, but things might not have happened if she hadn’t been so upset about breaking up with Kevin.
“Oh, who are you kidding?” she said aloud. She and Kopriva had always had some sexual tension. She’d just never acted on it because the situation was never right.
So what to do now? Katie sighed. She liked him. She would like to see him, but things had moved so fast. Then she ran out on him. Who knows what he thought about her now?
Besides, cop-on-cop relationships were difficult at best. Most of time, the stress from the job made the relationship twice as stressful. Of course, the flip side was that you had someone to talk to who actually understood.
Maybe she should buy him a cup of coffee and explain that they should just stay friends. That’d be the smartest thing. And the safest. After all, they had a good friendship and romance always seems to mess that up.
But she couldn’t do that, could she? Not with the feeling in her stomach right now. All that pent up emotion ever since the Academy had burst free and she couldn’t just put the genie back in the bottle.
More doubt crept in to Katie’s mind. Pent up emotion? Or rebound? Some of her affection for Kopriva was real, she knew that, but maybe the intensity came from being dumped. Possibly. Probably. Hell, she knew it did.
Katie sighed and tapped the steering wheel. She was on the rebound and acted like a slut with a decent looking guy who happened to be nice. The guy had a chance to get laid and took it. No harm done, but no great love affair, either, she realized.
Cut it off, Katie. Just cut it off before it ruins—
“Adam-116, Adam-112,” the dispatcher’s voice broke into her thoughts.
Katie reached for the microphone. “Adam-116, go ahead.”
“Adam-112, go,” came Chisolm’s calm voice.
“Adam-116, Adam-112, a domestic at 2114 W. Swanson. Complainant is a neighbor who wishes to remain anonymous. Complainant states that the man and woman who live at the address have been yelling loudly for the last fifteen minutes. We have no listing for the occupants of that address. 2114 W. Swanson, a domestic.”
“Copy.”
“Copy.”
Katie drove quickly but carefully to the call, using Belt Street, a residential arterial. Every time she went to a domestic, she felt a brief pang in her stomach, even after three years of police work. She remembered her mother screaming at father and how the police never came no matter how loud the screaming became. Things were different in today’s world, thank God.
She arrived at the house before Chisolm, parked a ways off and approached. The house, a small blue cracker-box, sat on a tiny lot. The scraggly upkeep of the lawn and the 1976 Monza parked out front screamed rental to her. She slipped through the fence gate, hoping there were no dogs or dog piles in the small yard. Once on the porch, she moved quietly to the side of the front door and stood next to it, listening. She couldn’t hear any yelling inside, though there seemed to be some movement. She waited for Chisolm to arrive.
Katie stared at the crack in the porch, following it as it spider-webbed across the entire porch. This house had seen some hard years. She wondered what the people inside would look like.
She heard a creak of leather and looked up to see Chisolm standing behind her at the foot of the steps. She forced herself not to jump in surprise. Chisolm grinned, his portable radio in his hand. “Adam-112, on scene,” he said in a muted tone, then slid the radio back into its holder on his belt.
“Pretty sneaky,” Katie whispered.
“Silent and Invisible Deployment,” Chisolm quoted from the Patrol Procedures Manual, still grinning.
Katie motioned toward the house with her head. “No talking inside. Just a little movement.”
Chisolm nodded. “A house this size, rolling over in bed would shake the whole thing.”
He stepped onto the porch and knocked on the door. There was a long pause, then a male voice asked, “Who is it?”
“Police,” Chisolm said in an authoritative voice. He gave Katie a wink. “Open the door, sir.”
Another pause and a muffled, “shit.” Then the door opened and a white male stood inside the entryway. The first thing Katie noticed was his size. The man towered over Katie by almost a foot and had several inches on Chisolm. She guessed him to be six-foot-three, at least. It wasn’t his height that struck her, though. The man was obviously a body-builder. His shoulders were thick and broad. A white T-shirt hugged his muscular chest. Cut off sleeves revealed bulging biceps and massive, veined forearms. One arm bore the faded blue color of a jailhouse tattoo.
Great, Katie thought. A ripped, wife-beating ex-con.
“Come on in,” he said, his voice neutral.
Katie and Chisolm entered the small house. “Who else is here, sir?” Katie asked.
“Just my girlfriend.”
“She lives here with you?”
“Yeah.” The man’s voice remained neutral.
“What exactly is going on tonight, sir?” Katie asked him.
A shrill female voice broke into the room. “I’ll tell you what’s going on here. He beat the shit out of me, that’s what!”
Katie turned to see a b
londe-haired woman about five feet tall standing in the doorway to the bedroom. She couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds.
“I’ll talk with her,” Katie told Chisolm, and moved toward the woman. As she drew closer, she immediately noticed a red handprint on her right cheek. “Let’s talk in here, ma’am,” Katie said, motioning to the bedroom.
The woman stomped into the small room. Katie followed.
“What’s your name, ma’am?”
She crossed her arms. “Julie. Julie Krivner.”
Katie jotted the name into her pocket notebook.
“Date of birth?”
“What does that matter?” Julie’s voice rose shrilly. “I’m the victim here. Are you going to arrest that animal out there?”
Katie maintained an even voice. “Ma’am, we’ll do a complete investigation and if an arrest is in order, we will make it.”
“That sounds like cop bullshit to me.”
“It’s the truth.”
“I want him in arrested and I want him in jail now!” she shrieked.
“Relax, ma’am.”
“Relax?!” Julie’s voice exploded into a screech. “Don’t you tell me to relax. I was just beaten by that asshole in there. Now do your fucking job and arrest him!”
Katie struggled to keep her voice calm and held an open palm in front of the woman’s face. “Ma’am, that’s not how it works. We have to interview—”
“Oh, I see. You come in here and see his big arms and your little heart goes all mushy.” Julie put her hands on her hips. “You’re pathetic.”
Katie’s jaw clenched. “Listen to me! I don’t want your boyfriend. I am only here to investigate—”
“Oh, you don’t want him? So you’re a lez-bo, is that it? You probably want me, then.”
“No.” Katie said in a clipped tone. “I don’t. Now what happened here tonight?”
Julie shook her head. “Uh-uh. I don’t want to talk to any lez-bos.”
“Fine.”
Katie stepped out of the room. Chisolm and the body-builder both stared at her.
“Tom? You want to—”
“Sure.”
Jesus, everyone is interrupting me tonight. Katie strode toward the man as Chisolm brushed past her. She asked his name.
“It’s Steve.”
“Last name?”
“Marino. Like the quarterback.”
“You’re birth date?”
“November 22, 1967.”
“Do you work, sir?”
Steve nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I work construction as a laborer for Greenwood Builders.”
“Okay, Steve. What happened here tonight?”
“Officer, I’m sorry for the way she’s acting. She just—”
Katie interrupted, taking a brief pleasure in finally being the one to cut in. “It’s all right, Steve. Just tell me what happened.”
Steve took a deep breath and let out a huge sigh. “I can’t go to jail, officer.”
“No one said you were going to jail,” Katie said calmly. “We just have to find out what happened.”
“No, you don’t understand.” His voice had a pleading tone. “I’m on parole. If I go to jail for any reason, my parole will be revoked and I’ll go back to Walla Walla for three years.” He took another huge breath and let it out. Every muscle in his upper body tensed and released as he stared at the wall.
Katie felt a stab of fear. If he decided to fight, things could get ugly.
Just work the call, Katie.
“Steve, let’s worry about one thing at a time, okay?” She used her professional, but soothing tone.
“I can’t go back to the Walls, man,” Steve said. He trembled slightly and Katie watched his eyes tear up. “I’ll die before I’ll go back.”
“Steve? Take it easy, okay? It’ll be all right.”
Steve didn’t respond.
“Steve? One thing at a time, okay? We’ll work it out, you and me.”
Steve gave a nod.
“Good. Now tell me what happened.”
Steve let out another huge breath. “We’ve been together about eleven years. About nine years ago, I got in a bar-fight and killed a guy. They sent me up for first-degree manslaughter. I got nine years for that. Can you believe that? Nine years for defending myself in a bar-fight?”
“Sounds unfair,” Katie said calmly.
Steve looked at her, as if gauging her sincerity. Then he nodded. “Yeah. It was. I did six years as a model prisoner and made parole. Jules stuck by me the whole time. Or so I thought.”
“What’s that mean?”
Steve shrugged. “Lately, she’s been hounding me about everything. I don’t make enough money. She might have to go to work, says she’s tired of working after six years. She complains about the time I spend at the gym, too.”
“You spend a lot of time there?”
“Yeah,” Steve admitted. “Two hours a day, after work. But that is all I do. I work and I go work out at the gym, then I come home. I don’t go out drinking, nothing.”
“So why is she upset?”
“She’s not. I am.”
“Why?”
Steve let out another huge sigh. “I found out tonight she’s been sleeping with my best friend since I went away to prison. I pretty much caught them today.”
“You caught them in the act?”
He shook his head. “Not exactly. I wasn’t feeling too good today, so I skipped my workout. When I pulled up, my buddy was driving away from the house. When I came inside, she was still in the bed.” He looked down at his feet. “Plus, I could…the smell...it was in the air.”
Katie didn’t know what to say. She waited for him to continue.
After a moment, he said, “We avoided each other for about an hour, but eventually we started arguing. She blamed it on me. I told her she was a whore.” He looked up at Katie. “I didn’t mean it. Or maybe I did. I don’t know. She flew off the handle and started kicking me and hitting me. Then she called me a faggot. She said I probably liked it in the pen because I could have all the guys I wanted. Stuff like that.”
“She hit you?”
Steve nodded.
“Did she leave any marks?”
Steve gave her a look. “She’s five-foot, ninety pounds. What do you think?”
“I have to ask.”
“No. No marks.”
“All right. Then what happened?”
“I got mad. I have a bad temper. It takes me a while to get mad, but when I finally get there, I just explode. When she started saying that stuff about being a faggot, I just lost control, you know? I mean, I fought guys off for six years. I never got broke.” He pointed to the tattoo on his forearm. “See that? BSC. It stands for Brotherhood of the Southern Cross. I had to hook up with the asshole, Aryan bikers to stay alive in there. You think it’s easy being around those racist bastards?”
Katie shook her head. “I doubt it.”
“It ain’t easy at all,” he told her, “but it kept me from having to deal with a lot worse shit. I never punked out to anyone, not in six years.” He shook his head again. “After all that, then she goes and calls me a faggot?”
“I can understand that making you mad. Did you hit her then?”
Steve nodded. “Yeah, I did. I slapped her.”
“Once?”
“Yes. Just once. I even used my left hand.”
“Did anything else physical happen?”
“No. She ran into the bedroom, and I sat down in the chair. Then you guys showed up.” Steve’s shoulders slumped and he looked at the floor.
“Katie?” Chisolm was at her elbow.
There was nowhere else to move so they could confer privately, so they had to speak in codes.
“What do you have, Tom?”
Chisolm glanced at Steve, who was still staring at his shoes. He then tapped his cheek and motioned to Julie. “One-Edward,” he said quietly, using the radio clearance code for an arrest and booking. He nodded toward Steve.
Katie nodded. “Same here.”
Steve looked up at them. His calm demeanor was slipping. “Look, man. I know the law. You’re going to arrest me. But I told you, if I go to jail, my parole is revoked. I am not going back to the walls. No way.”
“Steve,” Katie soothed, “maybe your parole officer will give you a break.”
“That prick? Not a chance.”
Katie noted the intensity of Steve’s words. She considered requesting further backup, but didn’t want to tip him over. She sensed Chisolm’s presence behind her.
“You belong in prison!” Julie piped up from the bedroom doorway. “Faggot woman-beater.”
“Be quiet!” Katie told her.
“Don’t tell me what to do in my own house, you dyke!” Julie shot back.
Katie turned away from her. “Steve, listen. I know you’re not a criminal. Don’t be one now.”
“I’m not. I’m not a criminal,” Steve said, his voice tight. He stood up straight, his arms rigid.
Oh, Jesus, Katie thought. He’s getting ready to fight.
“I know you’re not,” she kept trying. “You were only defending yourself six years ago. And tonight, you just lost your temper for a minute.”
“I can’t go back,” Steve said, not listening to her. He swayed slightly with adrenaline. Katie could sense Chisolm moving forward slowly. She dropped her hand to her side, wrapping her fingers around her baton.
“Steve, listen to me. You can’t win—”
“You can never win!” Julie yelled. “You’re a goddamn loser, and you belong in prison, faggot!”
Katie shifted her legs as casually as she could, assuming a defensive stance and hoping it wasn’t obvious. She didn’t take her eyes off of Steve. His jaw clenched and his eyes darted from Julie to Chisolm to Katie and back to Julie again. His hands balled into fists. His breath came in ragged, whistling gasps. Katie wondered briefly if they would have to kill him.
“You.” Chisolm’s deep voice was deadly as he spoke to Julie. “Be quiet.”
