Precinct 11 - 01 - The Brotherhood (18 page)

Boone was still white-hot with rage, now directed at himself. Watch Commander Lang, in his heavily decorated dress uniform, glared at Boone.

“I know you’ll have to write me up for that,” Boone said, imagining his career being flushed down the toilet.

“For what?” Lang said, a tight-lipped smile growing. “Somebody call the EMTs. This unfortunate cyclist has fallen off his bike and hurt himself.”

By the time the ambulance arrived, the rider had roused and asked what had happened. “What happened?” an officer said. “You almost killed a kid in the crosswalk back there. You’re lucky we didn’t shoot you dead.”

The cyclist felt his chin. “One of you guys pop me? I’ll have your job.”

“That alcohol I smell?” the cop said. “We’d better administer a field sobriety test, hey?”

“I ain’t been drinkin’, but I’m hurt, so I can’t walk no line.”

“Then you’d best shut up and let the EMTs check you over.”

“Let me drive,” Jack said as he and Boone returned to the squad. “I gotta check those brakes anyway.” They had cooled and seemed to be operating normally. As he pulled back into traffic, Jack said, “Well, I’ve seen you act more professionally.”

Boone held his head in his hands. “What if somebody taped that? It’ll be all over the news, and I’ll be dead meat.”

“Nobody taped it.”

“This day and age? Somebody with an iPhone could have got it from anywhere.”

“Worst-case scenario: you take a little heat, few more days off. Grieving widower who recently lost his own toddler goes nuts when a cyclist almost hits some kids. Everybody’ll understand.”

“Not everybody.”

“Don’t worry about it until you have to. Nobody on the scene’s gonna say anything.”

“That doesn’t make it right. What if it does come out and some tape shows the watch commander standing right there and then not even reporting it? I don’t want to cost him his job.”

When they got back to headquarters at the end of the shift, the watch commander asked to see Boone.

“Boss, I’m sorry,” Boone said as he sat across from him.

Lang waved him off. “You got to be careful is all. The public doesn’t go for that kind of stuff, and if it somehow gets out that this happened, well, you know . . .”

“I get thrown under the bus.”

“Well, it would be on you, yes. And I’d have to come up with some reason why I wasn’t proactive about it when it happened. Can’t say my back was turned. I coulda caught the guy when you drilled him. That was sweet, by the way.”

“Can’t deny it felt good, but I know it was wrong.”

“And you and I both know it may be the only justice this guy gets. You know what we did back in the day?”

“No, what?”

“You know that elevator down in the garage that goes up to the jail? It didn’t always have that electric eye that stops it from closin’ on people. The old ones had a rubber bumper that would make the door slide back open when it ran into anything or anybody. Well, we wondered what would happen if that went missing.”

“You didn’t.”

“We did,” Lang said, chortling. “The judges and the courts want to slap these guys’ wrists? Well, somebody’s gotta make ’em pay. We’re puttin’ a bad guy in the squad, you know how we do it today. We put a hand on top of his head, ’cause with his hands cuffed, he can’t steady himself getting in. So we guide that noggin so he doesn’t bump himself on the roof, right? Well, we did the same back then, only it wasn’t to keep him from hurting himself; it was to make sure he did. Nothing serious. Just a bump he can’t rub.

“Then we’d get him into the garage downstairs and head for the jail elevator. Only just as we’re crossin’ the threshold there, we’d remember something we forgot and hesitate. And here came that door. Only when it hit the guy, it didn’t open back up, it just squeezed him between itself and the frame until we could figure out how to get it back open. ‘Oops! Sorry, dude! My bad!’

“A few days later we’d see the guy get a slap on the wrist, probation or community service or something or other, and we’d know he at least got some street justice.”

“Didn’t bother you that he might have been innocent?”

“Innocent? The bad guys we pick up? You know better’n that, Drake. Anyway, I’m not talking about guys we didn’t catch in the act, you know. Like the guy you coldcocked today.”

“I still feel bad about it.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I don’t.”

Lang mashed a button on his intercom and asked his secretary to check on the health of the cyclist. A couple of minutes later she came in with a note and whispered to him. When she was gone, Lang leveled his gaze at Boone. “Well, would you get a load of this?” he said.

“I’m listening.”

“Our guy was bluffing him about smelling alcohol. Turns out it must have been vodka, because none of us smelled it, but he was way above the legal limit. Otherwise he’s fine healthwise, except for a sore jaw. Reminds me of when you dropped that domestic abuse guy, the one with the knife. You ought to go into prizefighting.

“Anyway, we got us a real bad guy here. No operator’s license. Warrants on him from Tennessee and Wisconsin. Wanna know what for?”

“’Course.”

“DUI, DWI, reckless endangerment, grand theft auto, and armed robbery.”

“Seriously?”

“There’s more. Wisconsin state police like him for the murder of that teen girl last summer, the one found in the woods off the interstate.”

Boone shook his head.

“We’re going to inform the press,” Lang said. “You’re going to get credited with the collar. And you and I are going to go pick him up at the hospital and hold him here until downtown comes for him. He’ll be in County by tonight. You got your dress blues in your locker?”

“Sure.”

“My driver and I will be out back waiting for you. Be quick. This could make the six o’clock news.”

It hadn’t crossed Boone’s mind to ask which hospital, but it shouldn’t have surprised him when they pulled into Presbyterian St. Luke’s. He exhaled loudly and covered his mouth.

Lang turned. “I wasn’t thinking, Drake. You gonna be all right?”

“Yeah.”

“You want to wait out here? You don’t have to go in. They’ve already got him cuffed and ready to go.”

“As long as we’re not going in through emergency.”

“Nope. In and out through the back. I want to hurry because I hear the press is on their way, and we’d rather they film us going into the station.”

Moving the bad guy from the hospital to the car went without incident, and they beat the press. As the only place for the handcuffed man was in the backseat with Boone, he removed his Beretta and gave it to Lang’s driver. The cyclist sat staring out his window, refusing to even acknowledge Boone until they were within a block of district headquarters.

“Photo op, eh?” he said, turning. “Maybe I ought to tell the press what you did to me on the scene.”

“Feel free,” Boone said. “Before or after we tell them how close you came to killing schoolkids?”

The man shook his head and looked away again, his knee bouncing. What was he so hyped up about? Looking forward to sitting in a holding cell before his transfer to Cook County Jail?

By the time they got back to the 11th, satellite trucks from channels 2, 5, 7, 9, and 32 jammed the tiny lot. Jack Keller and a couple of other officers held back the crowds and directed Lang’s car up to the rear steps.

“I’ll lead the way, Drake,” Lang said. “You escort the arrestee.”

Lang waited briefly while Boone pulled the bad guy from the car and they started slowly up the steps. Boone’s antennae perked up as the cyclist tensed. This guy was about to pull something. He was cuffed in front, so he couldn’t easily try to get Lang’s weapon. And Boone was no longer armed. He held the man lightly, giving him all the rope he needed.

Reporters were calling out questions and cameras were taking it all in as they moved up toward the door. Then, just as Boone had suspected—and hoped—the man spun out of his grip and bounded down the steps two at a time. How he thought he could get past a cadre of officers, the press, and dozens of onlookers was beyond Boone, but criminals have never been known for their brains.

Boone put his right foot on the top step and launched himself into the air, coming down on the man’s shoulders just as he reached the pavement. They went down in a heap, the prisoner taking most of the impact on his nose. When he started screaming and swearing, he lifted his head and showed a bloody mess. The press captured it all.

Boone enjoyed watching the news that night, at both six and ten. And yes, the story was made more poignant by who was credited with the collar.

A few weeks later, Boone was feeling better physically, if not mentally. His workouts and his healthy, sparse diet had given him a feeling of fitness and strength and energy he had not enjoyed in a long time. He was still having trouble sleeping, but still also eschewing alcohol. When his longing and grief and depression overtook him, he would pace the little apartment.

Occasionally he would look at the list of verse references he had received from Pastor Sosa. One night he was pleasantly surprised to find that Francisco had sent one since he had last had his phone on. It was Matthew 6:21:

Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Boone sat with Nikki’s Bible. He had been wondering why, after all he had been through and suffered and was now struggling with, he never thought to pray. Did he not believe in it? Did he think God would do what God was going to do, regardless of what Boone might ask for?

This verse seemed to have nothing to do with prayer, yet it pricked Boone that if he truly treasured his relationship with God, he would be a man of prayer. Dare he try? What would he say? God knew how he felt about the tragedy, the loss, and the horror of it. Surely he needn’t tell the God of the universe what he already knew. But then, God knew everything.

Trying to talk to God certainly couldn’t hurt. How long had it been? Too long.

Boone set the Bible aside and bowed his head. “God,” he whispered, “I don’t even know what to say. Am I hopeless? Do you love me? Do you still care about me? Could you help me survive this? Could you help me understand it?”

As soon as he asked that, he knew the answer was no. What could even the Creator of the world impress upon Boone that would make him understand the unspeakable? Even Pastor Sosa had said there would be no understanding such carnage this side of heaven. He attributed it to a fallen, sinful world.

Boone finished, “Could you show me what it’s supposed to be like if I’m a man of faith? Amen.”

He felt such a fool that he wasn’t sure he would ever pray again. What was God supposed to do with that? He hadn’t known what to say or even how to say it. Boone guessed that what he really wanted to know was whether God wanted anything to do with him anymore. Did he dare pray that God would somehow show himself to him?

No, he did not dare.

12

A New Season

A couple of
WEEKS LATER
, Boone was driving on patrol with Jack in the passenger seat. Boone had been driving more lately, the idea being that when Jack was promoted, Boone would likely get a junior partner who would not be expected to drive.

They were cruising down West Harrison just after noon when the radio crackled and Keller was informed that Watch Commander Lang and District Commander Jones wanted to see him at the end of his shift.

“What do you think, Jack?” Boone said. “Is this it?”

“I’m way past hoping, but I can’t imagine what else they’d want. Wish me luck.”

Boone was about to when he saw a late-model BMW pull away from the curb a block and a half ahead, pass three cars at once despite traffic coming the other way, and head for the Eisenhower on-ramp at high speed. Too many cars were between him and the Bimmer to accurately gauge the speed, but it was clear the driver was exceeding the limit.

Boone flipped on his blue lights and raced through traffic in pursuit. Fortunately rush hour had not yet begun and Boone was able to use lane openings to close the gap and pull in beside the speeder. The driver quickly pulled over, and Keller called in the tag number.

The driver, a well-dressed, heavyset man in his fifties, opened the door.

Boone flipped on the PA. “Stay in the vehicle, please. With you in a moment.”

Dispatch reported no outstanding warrants, no reports of the car being stolen, and that the BMW was registered to a Dwayne White of Burr Ridge. Boone and Jack emerged, pulling on their caps. Jack took a position off the right rear taillight, his hand over the butt of his 9mm Beretta.

Boone slowly approached the driver’s window, pausing a foot or so behind the driver. “Operator’s license, please?”

The man handed out the card, which had a paper clip affixed to it. “Still live in Burr Ridge, Mr. White?”

“Yes, Officer.”

“What’s your work there?”

“Import/export. Do a lot of business in the city.”

“You in a hurry today, sir?”

“Yeah, late for a meeting. Sorry.”

“I appreciate your attitude and cooperation, sir. You were doing more than speeding there on Harrison. That was dangerous.”