Falling On the Sword (2 page)

Locke chuckled and shook her head. “Yeah, that’s good to know in everyway that isn’t.”

“
Still not too late to admit this ain’t for you.”

Locke glared at him. He was just like the rest of them, thinking that the only reason that she got this job was because of her father. They didn’t know. None of them knew that she hadn’t taken a single one of his favors since she got out of his house. It’s not like he was really her father anyway. Oh sure, she got half of her DNA from him, but how could he be a father when he had spent ten months out of the year in Washington DC or on the campaign trail. She couldn’t even remember the last time she saw him or even spoke to him on one of her birthdays. He missed her basketball and softball games, her graduations. He practically threatened to disown her after he found out that she was using her law degree to join the police force.

It didn’t matter to her that her coworkers thought that she was using her position in the police force to pad her resume for when she eventually ran for office. All of her pleas that she had no intentions to go into the family business fell on deaf ears. But she would show them. They would find out on their own, what she already knew, that she was good police.

Carter examined the miniscule holes punched into the wall. About one foot off the floor, three of them were sprinkled with splotches of blood, but one was by itself, higher than the others.

Carter pointed at them. “Killed here and moved?”

“
No, it looks like they hit him with a lamp then shot him a few times in the chest here, but he didn’t die. He tried to crawl away. I just can’t figure out the hole in his hand. Torture?”

“
Superman,” Carter said.

“
Huh?”

Carter held up his hand and looked at her as though it were obvious. “He tried to pull a Superman.”

“
You can keep saying that but geeks were still uncool when I grew up so I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

“
You are aware of a superhero called Superman right? I mean shit there was a movie about him that came out this year.”

“
Yeah, I don’t really watch tv or movies.”

“
Really?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Shit, you are gonna be one fucking boring partner.”

“
Whatever. What does this have to do with the bullet wound in the hand?”

“
So there’s this eighty year old character named Superman who pretty much everyone knows about except you.” Carter shook his head, stood, and stuck out his arm with his palm up as though he were one of The Supremes. “And he’s bulletproof. Can catch a bullet in the palm of his hand. Looks like the vic tried to pull a Superman.”

Locke nodded, finally getting what he was talking about. “Oh okay. I see. It goes through his hand and hits his body somewhere else.”

“
Right. We’re really gonna need to fix this not knowing pop culture shit. Do you at least know Star Wars?”

“
That those movies with Natalie Portman where she’s this intergalactic queen right? Yeah I actually like those.”

Carter stared at her with his mouth open. “What the fuck? Seriously?”

“
Yeah. I liked that Jar-Jar guy.”

“
What the fuck?” He turned his back to her and wandered around the room. “I can’t even look at you right now.”

Locke studied the other wreckage of the room. The floor was covered in bits of mirrored glass in amongst shards of green porcelain from the broken lamp.

After a few minutes, Carter asked, “Why do I get that self-defense vibe?”

“
It probably would have been if the coupe de grace wasn’t a contact wound to the forehead.”

“
Damn. I was hoping to be home before ten. It doesn’t matter anyway. The Councilman is going to hold this one over the Commissioner’s head. We’re gonna need to lock someone up.”

“
That’s what the Lieutenant said too.”

“
I’ll let you handle the politics. Those heartless bastards get my goat. Beside you’ve probably got way more practice with that shit anyway.” Carter crossed the room to a black wooden nightstand. Framed photographs rested next to a digital alarm clack. He picked one of them up. As soon as he looked at it, his demeanor changed; he breathed hard and shook for a moment.

“
These your suspects?” he asked, holding up the picture of a large man in his late fifties wearing a cheap brown suit and a young woman dressed in a black graduation cap and gown. Their smiles seemed natural. A banner that said UPENN CLASS OF 2009 hung on a brick wall behind them.

“
Yes,” Locke said.

Carter looked at the blood on the floor and then back at the father and daughter. “Oh fuck me.”

THREE

On the top floor of The Roundhouse at One Franklin Plaza, Gabriel Carter stood outside of interrogation room one with his hand on the door handle. Through the tiny window, he saw the hulking bear of a man handcuffed to an aluminum table. The beast leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. Carter sighed and looked at the white board, reading the names of all the city’s homicide victims, trying to remember all the reasons why he was a murder police.

“
You want to take the dad?” Locke asked. She stood behind him, trying to look over his shoulder. “And I’ll take the girl?”

“
No. Just hang out here a second and keep an eye out for Hardy.”

“
Why?”

“
I said so.” It came out much harsher than he had intended. “Just trust me, okay? I’ll see what I can get out of him.”

Locke nodded her head, but she wore a disappointed look on her face.

When she turned toward her cubical, he opened the door and stepped into the room, slamming the metal barrier shut.

The man looked at Carter. “Oh Christ Carter, am I glad to see you.”

“
The fuck happened, Rak?” Carter took the steel bracelet off his hand.

“
He was beating my little girl,” he said, rubbing his wrist.

“
Who pulled the trigger?”

Jerry Rakowski sat silent.

Carter shook his head. “If you want me to help you, you’re gonna need to tell me what happened.”

“
I did it,” Rakowski said.

“
You did what? I need to hear the words.”

“
I shot him. He was beating my baby. So I shot him.”

Carter stared Rakowski in the eyes. “How’d Alisa know Councilman McCullough’s kid?”

“
I don’t know. How ever kids meet people these days?”

“
You ever meet him?”

“
No. She said she was seeing someone, but you know how kids are.”

Carter sat across the table from his friend. “Okay then. What happened?”

“
I’m sitting at home watching the Phils get their asses kicked on the tube when Ali called. She was crying and scared. Said she locked herself in the bathroom, but she didn’t think it would hold. I could hear the banging coming through the phone. Asshole busted through, and he just started screaming. I dropped the phone, grabbed my old backup piece, and hauled ass to her place.”

“
How’d you get in?”

“
I have the spare set of keys.”

“
Okay. What happened when you got there?”

Rakowski’s lip quivered. He looked away from Carter. “He was hitting her. And I-I wasn’t even thinking. I just drew and fired. Fifteen years patrolling this city, ten more in Narco, I never once let one loose. Not once. But when I saw that, I just kept pulling the trigger until it went click.”

Carter bit his tongue and shook his head. “I’ve known you how long now, and you gotta lie to me like some fucking yo.”

“
I’m not lying.”

Carter stood from his seat. “Fuck you, Rak. I grew up in the goddamn country. I know what fucking bullshit smells like.” He turned his back to him and walked toward the exit. “I get lied to all fucking day. I gotta get lied to by my friends now.”

“
I’m telling you, I killed that kid.”

Carter stood at the door. “I’m gonna go see what Ali has to say about this. So how about when I come back, you lie to me with some goddamn respect.”

FOUR

Susan Locke waited at her desk and pretended to do paperwork. She couldn’t shake the feeling that this case was going to end badly. As Carter approached, she glanced up from her desk. “What did he say?”

“
Nothing much. But he didn’t lawyer up yet.”

“
What do you say we rattle the daughter’s cage? Or do you want me to sit out on that too? I am primary, you know.”

Carter didn’t say anything. He just walked toward the second question room. At the entrance, he stopped and looked back at her. “You coming?”

She jogged to the doorway.

“
I know you want to pounce, but let me go in there first and lay some ground work. Weaken her defenses a bit. Then you show up with some coffee, or some food, and we do the whole bait-and-switch thing. I’ll leave and you pull the old Jedi mind-fuck on her. You understand that?”

“
You’re the Sturm und Drang. And I’m Florence Nighingale? “

“
What? “

“
Good cop, bad cop.”

“
Yeah. Good cop, bad cop. She won’t know what hit her.”

“
Sounds like a plan.”

“
Now, when you talk to her just watch her body. Rule number one: everyone lies. She’s not going to tell us anything with her words, so don’t listen to what she says, but pay attention to how she says it.”

Locke nodded and then walked toward the break room. She stopped three feet into the area, because the empty glass bowl glared at her from where it sat in the coffeemaker. Nothing was more infuriating to a police than when someone broke the true cardinal-fucking-rule of the station: you kill the pot, you make another. The department depended on the precious black sludge. She wanted to shout, but she would have been the only one to hear it. So she cracked her knuckles and set to the thankless task.

FIVE

Carter leaned against the back wall of the box for a few minutes, watching Alisa sleep. Her head lay on the table’s cold aluminum surface, hair covering her face. He walked to her side and brushed the brown mess away. She had a bruise on her cheek, another on her forehead, and swelling around her neck.

Carter nudged her shoulder and said, “Alisa, wake up. I need to talk to you.”

She blinked a few times and yawned. Her eyes were puffy. When she saw Carter’s face, she smiled. “Gabriel.”

Kneeling down beside her, Carter held her hand. “Okay, Ali. We only have a few minutes, so I need you to tell me everything. And don’t lie to me. I can only help you if you tell me the truth. Okay?”

Alisa slowly nodded her head. She looked as if she were about to start crying. “Should I ask for a lawyer?”

“
No,” Carter said. “Just talk to me. Someone else comes in here asking you questions, you just give them the screw. Now what did I just say?”

“
Only talk to you.”

“
Only talk to me. It’s gonna be okay. Now was this the first time he hit you?”

Alisa looked away from him. She rolled up her left sleeve, exposing a batch of fading black and blue finger marks on her forearm. Then she pulled the collar of her sweatshirt to the side to show more old bruises.

“
Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“
Who was I gonna tell? You? My dad? You guys would just go off an do something stupid.”

“
Well, it’s a little too late for that, now ain’t it?”

Alisa’s eyes watered, and she held her breath.

“
Okay, calm down. Just tell me what happened. You tell the truth, and you’ll be okay.”

Alisa looked down at her hands. “He’s waiting for me when I get home. I put the key in the lock, and he comes up behind me and pushes me in. He starts screaming holy hell. Calling me this and that, and saying that I’m a slut. Then when he’s too out of breath to yell, he hits me. At first, he’s like shocked that he hit me that hard. I don’t want to wait around to see how hard he hits me next. So I run to the bedroom and lock the door.”

“
Then what happened?”

“
Well, I guess that kinda pissed Ricky off, ‘cause he broke the door in. He didn’t even look human. His eyes were black. He was breathing heavy. I tried to run past him, but he grabs me. And he-” She closed her eyes. “And he starts choking me. I’m thinking there’s nothing I can do. That I’m just gonna be one of those victims you read about in the morning paper. But then I stomp on his foot and I break loose from him for a second, just squirt through his grasp, and I grab a lamp. And I hit him as hard as I can with it. It doesn’t knock him out or nothing. I guess that only happens in the movies. But he fell on his ass. It gave me enough time to get the shoe box from under the bed.”

“
Shoe box?”

“
When I moved out, dad gave me his backup from his patrolling days.”

“
So you had the gun with you?”

Alisa bit her lip and nodded her head.

“
You shoot him?”

Alisa didn’t get a chance to answer, because there was a knock at the door.

SIX

Locke stepped into the interrogation room, holding two cups of coffee. “I thought you might like some caffeine. It’ll help you stay awake.”

Locke looked at Carter with a grin plastered on her face. This was the part of the job that she loved. There was nothing more fun than breaking a person. “I don’t know how you take it. Me, I like it with sugar. And when I say sugar, I mean sugar. There isn’t enough unless the spoon can stand up on its own. Right?”

Locke snorted out a chuckle. “But looking at you, I’d guess you were a cream, no sugar gal. Am I right?”