Brent Sinatra: All of Me (25 page)

Then Marcus scrunched up his face again.
 
“I hated that man for the way he was always
hurting my mom,” he said.
 
“But I didn’t
want him to die.”

“I know you didn’t, son,” Brent said with anguish in his
eyes, and pulled him into his arms.
 
“I
know you didn’t.”

But then he knew there was more work to do. He stood his son
up, got up himself, and walked out of the unlocked cell holding his son’s
hand.
 
The jailer, who had heard the
entire story, did not bother to stop them.

When they made it downstairs, Denise ran to Marcus, and
Marcus broke free and ran to Denise.
 
Charles, Jenay, and Makayla stood to their feet.
 
Makayla moved over by Brent.
 
Brent placed an arm around her waist.

“What’s next?” Makayla asked him.

“What’s next?
 
A murder
charge.”

“Oh no.
 
For Marcus?”

“Not for Marcus.
 
For
Denise.”
 
Everybody looked at Brent.
 
“Denise will be charged with the murder of
Mark Stravinsky.”

“
What
?” Charles and
Jenay spoke in unison.

Denise stopped hugging her son and looked at Brent.
 
“
What
?”

“You killed that man.
 
And what’s worse, you killed him and framed your own son.”

She looked at Marcus, with terror in her eyes.
 
“What is he talking about?
 
What did you tell him?
 
What did you tell him, Markie?”

“I told him the truth,” Marcus said.
 
“I told him the truth!”

Denise was horrified.
 
She glanced at Brent, as if she was hoping he didn’t hear Marcus, and
then she looked back at her son.
 
She had
to salvage this.
 
She had to get out of
this.
 
“What truth?” she asked him.
 
“That you killed Daddy?”

Marcus looked at his mother.
 
“The real truth,” he said.
 
“You
killed Daddy.”

“But I had to do it, Markie, you know I had to!
 
Daddy was mean to me.
 
You saw the things he did to me!
 
How could you betray me?”

But just as Denise asked her son what had to be a rhetorical
question, a still-wobbly Ira Stockton arrived downstairs, with aid from Eddie
Rivers.

“I’m pressing charges!” Ira yelled at Brent.
 
“I want that man arrested for nearly killing
me.
 
I want that man arrested for
attempted murder!”

Eddie looked at Brent. “He claims you pushed him down the
stairs, boss.
 
What say you?”

But as soon as Eddie asked that question, Makayla saw
something out of the corner of her eye.
 
When she turned and looked outside of the police station’s wall-to-wall
picture window, and realized that what she was seeing was a rapid-fire rifle
protruding out of a car, with the scope pointed directly at Brent’s head, she
screamed
Nooo
and pushed Brent down,
causing herself to fall too.

But just as she was pushing Brent down, the gunman moved his
aim to his real target, and started firing in rapid succession.

As glass shattered and bullets sailed, everybody was pushing
everybody else and getting out of the way themselves.
 
Charles pushed Jenay down, and got down
himself.
 
Brent reached up and grabbed
Marcus just as Denise was pushing Marcus to the ground.
 
But Marcus was the main target and bullets
were flying in his direction.
 
But because
of Brent and Denise, none of them hit Marcus.

And then the car sped off.

“Everybody okay?” Brent asked as he stood up and looked from
Makayla to Marcus to his parents.
 
They
all looked fine.
 
Then he pulled out his
gun and, along with Eddie Rivers and some of their men, ran outside.

But inside was horrific too.
 
Because, although the Sinatras were fine, Ira Stockton had been hit and
was down, and Denise had been hit too, and was bleeding to death.

“Call an ambulance!” Jenay cried as she ran to assist Denise.

Charles ran to Marcus, and pulled him out of harm’s way,
while Makayla ran to Ira.
 
But Ira was
already dead, and Denise, her eyes already glazing over, was barely hanging on.

“You’re going to be just fine, Denise,” Jenay said as she
removed her jacket and placed it under Denise’s head.
 
“You hear me?
  
You’re going to make it.”

But Denise wanted her son.
 
She was barely audible, but she was asking for Marcus.

Jenay looked at Charles.
 
Marcus looked up at his grandfather.
 
He allowed Marcus to go to his mother.

Tears were now in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” Denise said to
Marcus.
 
“I wanted him to stop, but I did
it wrong, son.
 
I did it wrong.
 
But you’re going to be okay.
  
Brent will take care of you.
 
He’s your father and you’ll stay with
Brent.
 
Brent will take care of you.
 
He’ll look out for us.”

It wasn’t lost on Jenay nor Makayla that Denise said
us
.
 
But it didn’t matter any way.
 
Shortly after she said it, she died.

But outside of the station, the chase was on.
 
Brent and Eddie jumped into Brent’s truck and
instead of following the gunman’s car, they went in the opposite direction.
Because Brent knew Jericho too well.
 
He
knew that the gunman could turn as many corners as he wanted to turn, but
eventually he would have to turn onto Devonshire Boulevard to get out of town.

They headed for Devonshire.
 
Brent drove speeds in excess of eighty miles per hour, without the
benefit of his dashboard siren because he didn’t want to announce his position,
as they made their way to cut the gunman off at the pass.

And it worked, with mere seconds to spare.
 
Because as soon as Brent’s truck flew through
the alleyway and onto Devonshire, the gunman’s car was just about to fly
past.
 
But Brent’s truck collided with
the car’s rear end, spinning the car so out of control that it flipped several
times and landed broadside up.

But that didn’t stop the gunman.

He crawled out of the car and began to make a run for
it.
 
But he was no match for Brent.
 
Brent jumped from his truck, ran after the
gunman, and caught him within fifty yards of the accident.
 
He jumped onto the gunman’s back and tackled
him to the ground.

By the time Eddie made it up to them, Brent had his knee in
the small of the man’s back and was pulling out his handcuffs.
 
But the gunman was a mystery to both he and
Brent.
 
Neither one of them had ever seen
him before.

Brent cuffed him.
 
As
Eddie frisked him, Brent asked the obvious question.
 
“Who are you?” he asked.

The man looked at Brent with pure hated in his eyes.
 
“Shane,” he said.
 
“Shane Joffee.”

Eddie was shocked.
 
That wasn’t a common name, at least not in their neck of the woods.
 
“What the fuck?” he asked.
 
Then he looked at Brent.

“Are you related to Chief Joffee?” Brent asked him.

Shane shook his head.
 
“Chief Joffee, you call him.
 
As
if you respected him as chief.
 
When it
was you who lied on him, set him up, and then took his job!”

But Eddie would have none of that.
 
“Your father was fired by the mayor and Brent
was hired by the mayor.
 
What are you
talking about?”

“They lied on my father and then forced him out.
 
And my father never was the same again.
 
He became a drunk.”

“He was already a drunk,” Eddie said.

“He became a drunk,” Shane said again, “and lost
everything.
 
He moved to Silicon Valley,
where I worked and lived, and I tried to give him a good life, but it wasn’t
good enough.
 
He felt like a
failure.
 
He felt as if his world was
taken from him when they removed him as chief.
 
Two months ago he committed suicide.
 
He died.
 
All because of you,” he
said to Brent.

Brent knew he was guilty of a lot of things, but Chief
Joffee’s suicide was not one of them.

But Shane kept talking.
 
“I had to make that right,” he said.
 
“But not easy for you.
 
I had to
make it hard.
 
But they all failed.
 
Every single one of them.
 
Neal Grassley was paid to kill your
girlfriend.
 
But he was wallowing in his
sorrows and tried to kill himself instead.
 
Then Clem Michaels was hired to take your baby sister out.
 
But you beat his stupid ass to the punch and
killed him before he could do anything.
 
Then pretty boy Bobby Sinatra was on the list.
 
And Walter Pierce had him in his
crosshairs.
 
It was all arranged.
 
I knew his death would set you back.
 
But his foolish girlfriend had the nerve to
run over that innocent hooker and force my guy to back off.
 
So Walter backed off.”

Brent remembered how Marcus had mentioned that name.
 
“Who’s Walter?” he asked.

“He’s my private investigator, that’s who.
 
At least, he
was
my investigator.
 
But
only after he finally did something right.
 
He owed me that much.
 
After he assisted
Denise with the moving of the body from my limo to that motel, his services
were no longer needed.
 
Besides, he had
failed in everything else anyway.
 
Killing him was the easiest thing I ever did.”

Police sirens could be heard and police cars began to
arrive.
 

“How did you know these people?” Brent asked.
 
“How did you know Neal Grassley, and Clem
Michaels, and Denise?”

Shane smiled.
 
“You are
so dense.
 
I told you how.
 
I hired an investigator who did, guess
what?
 
An investigation.
 
He found your vulnerable points.
 
And when he found out you had a child, then
that became the focus.
 
It was Marcus all
along.
 
But I wanted you to suffer
first.
 
I wanted you to find out you had
this son, this little boy, and then see him in all kinds of trouble.
 
Then it was going to happen.
 
Because I know all about the Sinatra machine
in Jericho.
 
It destroyed my father.
 
I knew it wouldn’t allow Marcus to pay.”

“Why would it?” Brent asked.
 
“He didn’t commit any crime.”

As officers piled out of their patrol cars, Eddie motioned
for them to stay back.
 

“He didn’t kill Mark Stravinsky, that’s true,” Shane
said.
 
“But that’s not the point, is
it?
 
He confessed, and you still shielded
him.
 
That’s the Sinatra machine.
 
That’s the same machine that destroyed my
father.”

Shane wanted to talk about his father, but Brent wanted to
talk about Shane’s crimes.
 
“Who killed
Stravinsky?” Brent asked him, even though Marcus had already told him.
 
“You?”

“Denise killed her husband.
 
Gladly.
 
Walter Pierce found out
just how abusive the man was to Denise, and it was an easy sell after
that.
 
She came up with the plan to kill
him.
 
I came up with the plan to put the
blame on little Marcus.”

“Why try to kill little Marcus,” Brent said, “if your plan
was working like a gem?
 
Denise leaked to
that Boston reporter the fact that Marcus had confessed.
 
She recorded the confession.
 
Why would you try to kill Marcus when
everything was finally going according to plan?”

“Because that was never the plan.
 
I wanted you to sweat a little, think this
thing is going in one direction, then I wanted to change directions.
 
But I had to get rid of Denise, and I had to
get rid of Marcus.
 
They both could
expose me.
 
That was one reason. But for
a man to find out he has a son, and then for that son to be murdered right
before his very eyes would have been the punishment I ultimately sought for
you.
 
That was the main reason.
 
Then I would feel as if I properly avenged my
father’s death.
 
Then I would feel
vindicated.”