Falling On the Sword (3 page)

Alisa raised her eyebrows and cracked a slight grin.

“
See, I still got it. Used to work in a diner back in high school. I could guess the way a person drank their coffee just by looking at them. I was right about ninety percent of the time, too.”

Alisa laughed out loud.

“
What?” Locke asked.

“
Nothing,” Alisa said, shaking her head. “I just find the thought of the daughter of a US Senator working a diner funny, is all.”

“
Oh.” Locke couldn’t hide her disappointment.

“
I guess it’s not as strange as the Senator’s daughter becoming a police, though, huh?”

“
How did you know that?”

“
They had a picture of you in the Alumni newsletter.”

“
You went to UPenn, too?”

“
Class of ‘09. Go Quakers.”

“
Yeah, that’s right. I saw that graduation photo you had in your bedroom. You know the one I’m talking about? The one on your nightstand with you and your dad. You two sure looked happy.”

“
It was a happy day,” Alisa said.

“
So then how are you doing this evening, Miss Rakowski?”

Alisa pushed out her jaw and gave an expression that only a true Philadelphian could give. “How do you think?”

Alisa glanced at Carter and shut her mouth so quick that it was as if he had told her to, but when Locke looked at her partner all she saw was him standing from his seat and heading for the exit.

When Carter closed the door, Locke said, “You should hold yourself lucky though. Most of the time in that situation, it would have been you that was cold slabbed and toe tagged. But just speaking as a woman, I’d like to tell you that you did a good job. That’ll show the bastards who think it’s okay to beat on a woman.”

Alisa picked at her fingernails.

“
Why don’t you tell me about it?” Locke asked. “I’m sure by the end of the tale I’ll be giving you a standing ovation. I mean, he gave you a simple choice: him or you. It’s not like you did this out of malice. Not with premeditation.”

Alisa sighed and looked toward the concrete block wall.

“
What? You don’t want to talk to me, anymore?”

Alisa took a sip of the brown bile.

“
Okay. Just give me the satisfaction of knowing that the bastard didn’t think you had the balls to pull the trigger. He was standing there, telling you all the things he’s going to do to you when he gets that gun away from you. And all the while you’re standing there chuckling inside your head, because you’ve got him dead-to-rights. You’re looking at a dead man. He just didn’t know it yet. It was like you were his personal God. You held his life in your hands.”

Alisa yawned.

“
What did he do when you let off that warning shot off? Did he laugh at you? He think that instead of being gutless, you were incompetent? Did he think you didn’t know how to shoot? And then when he said something about the broad side of a barn, you just let him have it. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.”

Alisa’s eyes met Locke’s. She looked as though she were about to unleash the hounds, but she calmed and leaned back in her seat.

Locke smiled, knowing this girl wasn’t going to break easy. But that was okay. It was more fun to break a challenge.

SEVEN 

Carter entered interrogation room one. Rakowski was pacing. “What did she say?”

“
Sit down,” Carter said.

He did. “What did she say?”

“
She did it.”

“
What?” He slammed his palms on the table. “I did.”

“
No, you didn’t.”

“
She tell you that?”

“
She didn’t have to.”

Rakowski closed his eyes.

Carter sat across from him. “So, let me tell you what really happened. You were sitting at home watching the Phils game when Alisa called you, I believe that. But when you get there McCullough’s already leaking from five holes. You think he’s dead. Hell, I would too.” Carter yawned and scratched his head. “So you and Alisa start working out your story. But there was one big problem: son of bitch ain’t dead yet. Now this is the part that I can’t figure out. Which one of you blew out the fucker’s cerebellum?”

“
Does it matter?” Rakowski drew in his eyebrows. “Way I remember it, Brutus stabbed Caesar first and Cassius stabbed him last, but they’re both burning in the hottest ring of hell.”

“
Freezing,” Carter said.

“
What?”

“
The hell for traitors is frozen.”

“
Freezing, burning, whatever. They’re both in hell, right?”

“
Yeah. Your point being?”

Rakowski breathed in and let it out slowly. “But if nobody saw Brutus holding a blade on that March day when a cap was thrown into Caesar, then Cassius would have taken all the heat his own-damn-self.”

“
You’re not asking me, what I think you are asking me?”

“
She ain’t gonna make it in prison.”

“
And you are?”

“
Better than her.”

“
You can’t do this, we can call it self-defense.”

“
You think Councilman McCullough is gonna let that story fly?”

Carter shook his head. “How can you ask me to do this?”

“
How can’t I?” He tilted his head to the side. “I mean, what would you fall on your sword for? If not this? If not for your family? Then what?”

Carter stood from his seat. “I can’t do that.”

“
Sure, you can. It’ll be simple. You don’t have any witnesses. The evidence you got can be matched up to me. The gun’s in my name. It’s got my prints on it. So do the shell casings. You got my confession. The only thing that might throw it is the GSR.”

“
You want me to tamper with evidence?”

“
No, it’s not tampering if there’s no evidence to find. It’s not tampering if you don’t get caught. I forgot to tell her to wash her hands at the apartment. You can remedy that.”

Carter shook his head. “How can you ask me that?”

Rakowski leaned back. “Easy. You fucking owe me.”

“
I don’t owe you this.”

Jerry Rakowski stood from his seat and lifted his shirt over his head. He pointed at a large, jagged scar stretching across the left side of his stomach. “I believe you do.”

EIGHT

Locke finished her coffee. The Rakowski girl hadn’t said a word in almost fifteen minutes. In her frustration, Locke asked, “Do you like the coffee, at least?”

Alisa took a sip, and then shook her head. “Not really. What flavor is this?”

“
I think the bag said it was Hazel Nut.”

“
When did they stop making coffee-flavored coffee?”

Locke laughed, not because the joke was funny, but because she thought that this could be the opening she was looking for. She didn’t get the chance to attack though, because there was a knock at the door. Locke looked over her shoulder and saw Carter rapping on the window with the ring on his right hand. Carter nodded his head at her, and she exited.

Once the entrance was shut, Locke said, “Holy crap. She did it. She’s the shooter. I would have placed money on it that it was the dad, but I’m convinced that she’s the shooter.”

“
No, she isn’t. The father just confessed.”

“
What? No way in hell. I’m telling you, the girl’s our shooter.”

“
No, she ain’t. GSR will prove he’s our guy.” Carter walked to his desk and took something out of the top drawer, but Locke couldn’t see what he grabbed. He then crossed the room.

“
No,” Locke said, chasing after him. “I’m telling you. She’s the shooter. He has to be covering for her. I know it. I know it in my gut that she did the deed.”

Carter continued on his path without looking at her. “Just fucking give him the test, okay?”

“
I’m the goddamn primary on this case,” Locke said, not knowing where Carter was headed. She tried to follow him, but she stopped when he pointed to a small, blue sign that said MEN’S next to the door he was going through.

Carter disappeared into the room.

Locke scanned the office; it was empty. “Screw this.”

She pushed into lavatory.

Carter stood at the middle urinal with his back arched, his left hand between his legs, and his right holding a single-serving bottle of scotch over his open mouth. When he finished the alcohol, he tossed up a hook shot toward the trash receptacle; it hit the front lip of the can, bounced a few inches into the air, and landed on a bed of used paper towels.

“
Nice shot,” Locke said.

“
The hell? You get lost or something?”

Locke crossed her arms against her chest. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were screwing with my investigation.”

“
What’s your problem? I got you a confession. I cleared your red ball. And you get to take all the credit.” Carter finished his business, shook, and zipped up.

“
You got me a bullshit confession. Where’s the justice in that?”

“
Justice? This case ain’t about justice. It’s about turning a red name to black. That’s what we’re doing here.” Carter washed his hands. “If we found some nobody with five fucking holes in him in an obvious domestic-gone-bad, you think we’d be having this conversation? Huh? You think we would give a shit about any of this? Secretly we’d say to ourselves that justice was already served. We’d call it justifiable homicide, and we’d both be home by now. Well, at least, I’d be home and you’d be doing the goddamn paperwork.”

“
But it wasn’t some abusive douchebag that got dead. “

“
Exactly, that’s the whole point of this fucking mess. It was Rick McCullough, Jr. So the Councilman wants his fucking pound of flesh. We’re gonna give it to him. He’s gonna like it. And this is all gonna go away. And then we’re gonna sit by the phone and wait for the next body. Maybe this time we’ll get a real victim.” Carter wiped his wet mitts on the legs of his jeans and buried his empty airplane bottle deeper into the trash.

“
So what? You’re making up your own rules now?”

“
Fuck, what would you have done in that girl’s situation? Let the fucker choke you to death?”

“
I wasn’t in her situation so I don’t know. It’s not the point. She killed a guy. Maybe it was justifiable, maybe it’s not. That doesn’t matter. We are going to call it against the law. And I am going to go back into the Box, give her the GSR, and read her Miranda, and then I’m gonna give my report to the DA, because that’s the fucking job.”

“
Why are you fighting me on this? We have a confession. We have a gun registered to one Jerry Rakowski. We have his prints on it. His GSR test will come up positive. Why do you want to go after the girl, too? Hell, she’s the real victim in this.”

“
Why? Because she pulled the trigger. You can’t call them back after they’re fired. She broke the law, now she’s going to have to man up to it. What? Are we just going to start making up the law as we go along, now? This guy here’s guilty, but not that guy over there. We’re going to start picking and choosing who we arrest? Handing out warnings for homicide?”

Carter rubbed his chin. “Please don’t do this.”

She threw her arms out to her sides. “Why do you care?”

“
I made a promise.”

“
To who?”

“
I owe Rak my life. He’s calling in the favor.”

“
You know these people?” Locke put both her hands over her head. “Christ, that’s ethically wrong on so many levels. They could have your badge for this. Hell, you’d probably be sharing a cell with him.”

“
I want you to listen to something, okay? Those people out there are practically-no, they are my family. We don’t share any blood, but we’re kin. That old man in there he was natural fucking police. Natural.”

“
So where do you come into this?”

“
He was my TO. We partnered up after that. One day, we chase this fucking clocker doing a re-up into an abandoned walkup on Freemont. We split up and I was able to corner the prick on the second floor. Kid takes the G-pack and tosses it at me. I don’t know why, but I catch it. And when I look back, he’s pointing a goddamn Mac-11 at me. I freeze up. I see his finger tense up. I’m thinking I’m dead. Game over, man. But just as he points and sprays, Rak comes out of nowhere and pushes my ass out of the way. He takes five to the stomach. The piece of shit fucking vest only stops one of them. Rak spends the next three months in ICU at University. Almost a year pissing and shitting in a bag after that before they can fix his bowels completely. I failed him once, I ain’t gonna do it again.”

Carter sighed. “The Councilman doesn’t need both of them. All we need to do is have Alisa wash her hands. There’ll be no evidence tying her to the crime.”

Locke put her hands on the door handle. “You know what my TO told me,” she said, not looking at Carter. “No matter what you do, never compromise your ethics, always do the right thing.”

“
Sometimes doing the right thing, ain’t doing the right thing.”

“
What? That’s your logic in this? That’s what you think is going to change my mind? Fuck you for asking me that.”

She exited the bathroom.

Carter called out after her. “You think this is easy for me?”

She made a beeline right toward interrogation room one. Jerry Rakowski looked disappointed to see her.

“
Okay, Mr. Rakowski, you want to confess?”

“
Yep. I did it.”

Locke leaned in closer. “We both know that’s bullshit. And while I commend you for what you’re trying to do, your daughter’s still the shooter. The only thing you’re doing is setting the both of you up to take the fall. There’s nothing I can do. You were a police; you should be able to understand that.”