Page 7

By the time Lou Jerard drove into the alley, Roni was leaned against her car, her arms folded, as she watched him with unblinking eyes. When he got out of his SUV and made his way to her Mustang, looking put upon the way he sounded on the phone, it took all she had to contain herself.

“Okay I’m here. What you need to know?”

“What’s in that report?”

“What happened is in that report.”

“So you admitted to killing that kid for nothing?”

Jerard hesitated. He didn’t think Roni had it in her to do that to him, but you couldn’t put anything past people nowadays. “What is this,” he asked, “a set up? Your ass wearing a wire?”

“You know I wouldn’t do that, Lou, come on. We’ve been partners for seven years.”

“Yeah but ain’t nothing like this ever happened before. Prove it.”

Roni frowned. “Prove what?”

“That you ain’t got no wire on.”

Roni shook her head. “I don’t believe this. As if I’m the one killed that kid.” Then she held out her arms.

Jerard walked over to her and checked out the locations: her chest, her belly, her butt, her legs and ankles. Getting a good feel-up she could tell. But there were no wires, no cameras. “Where’s your phone?”

“In the car. You wanna check that too?”

“Yeah,” he said.

She opened her car door, grabbed her cellphone, and handed it to him. When he saw that it was turned off, he relaxed. And handed it back to her. “What’s with the double guns?” he asked her as she placed her phone in her coat pocket.

“You never know what a man you thought you knew might do to protect himself.”

“Okay, what’s the deal with you? What’s with you and this case? Cap told you we had to come up with the same story or we’re all cooked. Me, you, and Mulvaney. I signed already. Mulvaney signed already. But your ass still out here acting stupid. Over some got damn drug-dealing thug.”

“He was not a drug-dealing thug and you know it. So quit lying on that boy. He stole a phone. That’s his only crime as far as we’re concerned. That was why we were chasing him. And even when he decided to spit, Lou, you didn’t have to shoot him!”

“Nobody spits on me and live.”

Roni frowned. “What kind of bullshit answer is that? And that spit didn’t even touch you anyway. It hit me. But did you see me pulling out my weapon?”

“You didn’t have to. I handled that shit for both of us. Why are you so worried about it? We all get on the same page, that’s the end of that. We got brass behind us. What’s your problem, Ross?”

“The way you handled it. That’s my problem. You didn’t have to call in Mulvaney. You know how crazy he is.”

“He’s a fixer. He fixes things.” Then Jerard smiled. “The way he grabbed your gun out of your holster and shot that crackhead was boss.”

“He wasn’t a crackhead and you know it, Lou. Stop calling him names. He’s Michael Bridges.”

“He ain’t nothing anymore,” Jerard said with a grin.

Roni shook her head. “You disgust me.”

“I’m just fucking around, Ross. You know how I am. I didn’t mean to kill the kid. But shit happens. What was I supposed to do?”

“You could have called Cap. You didn’t have to call Mulvaney. Because when Mulvaney grabbed my gun and shot an already dead Michael, he implicated me in shit I had nothing to do with. And I’ll bet that report is all about me firing my weapon when I didn’t fire shit at that kid!”

“You’re worrying about nothing, Ross.”

“Nothing? So that report doesn’t claim that I shot Michael Bridges?”

“It says Bridges tried to take your weapon. There was a struggle. Then I shot him at the same time your weapon went off and you shot him too. It implicates both of us.”

“But I didn’t shoot him!”

“I know that and you know that. I shot him. He was dead before Mulvaney got there. But Mulvaney grabbed your gun and shot him, too, so that we can have a stronger motive than him spitting on me. That’s why he staged it like he did. What’s so wrong with that?”

“You don’t see what’s wrong with that? Your ass that stupid now?”

“My ass stupid? My ass didn’t go to internal affairs, now did it?”

Roni paused everything and stared at her partner. “Who told you that?”

“Don’t you worry who told me. You’re supposed to meet with them tomorrow. Is that what this is about? You need to know what’s in that report so you can tell a different version?”

“So that I can tell the truth, Jerard. The truth!”

“Keep on with your bullshit and your ass is gonna end up shot in the back by one of your colleagues. Nobody’s gonna work with a snitch. I know I’m not.”

“I’d rather work with a snitch than a murderer,” Roni said.

But Jerard was so offended that before she could say another word he slapped her hard across her face. “Say it again bitch!” he yelled at her.

But when he slapped Roni, she wasn’t trying to say anything more. That temper she was notorious for took over and everything she thought to say were in her anger.

She kicked Jerard in his balls with the tip of her high heel, causing him to bend over in excruciating pain, and then she began punching him and punching him until he was on the ground. He couldn’t believe how ballistic she was going on him. He’d never seen this side of her.

But then again, he’d never slapped her before either.

Still in agony, he reached out his hand trying to defend against her blows, but she wasn’t trying to let up. “You gonna slap me?” she kept yelling at him. “Your ass gonna slap me? Slap this, bitch!” She was beating him senseless. “Slap this bitch!” She even got down on her knees beating on him.

When it was obvious he was going to continue to get his ass kicked, he gave him. “Okay okay!” he yelled at her. “I’m sorry for slapping you, alright? I’m sorry!”

It was only then Roni was able to come back to herself and stop herself. He was bleeding now, which made clear to her that she had gotten her point across. She stood back up.

“What you and Mulvaney did was wrong,” she said to him, still angry. “You killed that kid for stealing a phone. A got damn phone! And Mulvaney implicated me in your crime. But I’ll be damned if I’m going out like that. I’ll be damned.”

She stared at him longer. She was so disappointed in him that it angered her even more. But she began walking around toward her driver side door.

But when she heard movement from him, her instincts kicked in and she quickly turned around. Only she turned around with both Glocks in her hands. And her instinct was right. Jerard had pulled out his weapon and was about to aim and shoot.

“Try it motherfucker. I dare you to try it. We’re light up this bitch together. I may take a hit, but you’re gonna take several hits. Try it.”

Jerard saw that look in her big eyes. She wasn’t playing. Who was this person, he wondered. Just one slap did all this ?

Apparently it had because he immediately dropped his gun and raised his hands in surrender.

And Roni put her guns away too, got in her car, and sped away.

Only she didn’t go back home trying to figure out how she was going to clear her name. She went to an all-night diner four blocks away, went inside, and sat at the table where her friend, Journalist Gus Rogers, was seated.

“You call me out here this time of night and you’re late?”

She took the throwaway cellphone out of her coat pocket and slid it across the table. “I had to compile the evidence first.”

He smiled. “Good old Roni. I knew it had to be business.”

Roni looked at him puzzling. “What else was it going to be?”

They shared a long stare. Gus was an attractive black man who had a smile that lit up a room. Lit up Roni’s heart for a minute, but just not long enough to stick. Not his fault. Hers. That was why she looked away from him and back down at the phone, sliding it even closer to him. “There’s your evidence.”

Gus finally blinked. She still had that effect on him. And then he picked up the phone. “Evidence of what?”

“Remember that shooting earlier today behind the Crasson projects?”

“That killed the Bridges kid? Of course I remember. It was our lead story on the six o clock news. Why?”

“Listen to the tape.”

“What’s it gonna tell me?”

“That my precinct captain, and my partner, and Detective Charlie Mulvaney are trying to cover up the truth.”

Gus perked up. “You got video to prove it?”

“Mainly audio.”

“How did you get that?”

“I called my partner on the phone I use exclusively for work and told him to meet me at the crime scene. He did. He figured I might be wired so he frisked me, which I knew he would do because I wanted him to. That’s when he asked to see my phone. I handed it to him. When he handed it back, he was relaxed again. I was just good old Roni to him again. So he started talking immediately. As I was putting my phone back in my coat pocket, I turned it on video, got a quick shot of his face to prove that he was the voice behind the conversation, and then put it back in my pocket so that he’d remain relax. And keep talking.”

“Which he did.”

Roni nodded. “Which he did.”

Gus was getting excited. “And you’re telling me you recorded the entire conversation?”

“That’s what I’m telling you.”

Gus smiled and shook his head. “They already have a version out. They’re already saying he tried to steal your gun and you and your partner had to take him out. The family’s calling bullshit on that, saying the kid wouldn’t harm a flea, but the brass is sticking to their story. And refusing to let you and your partner talk.”

“I was there. It is bullshit. That’s why they won’t let me talk.”

“Have you signed off on the police report yet?”

She shook her head. “No, and I’m not going to either.”

Gus looked worried for her. “That could cause you problems down the line. You know that, right?”

Roni nodded with pain in her eyes. She knew it. “That one moment in time, when Jerard made that crazy decision to pull out his weapon, was the end of the career I thought I was going to have. My ass didn’t do anything wrong, but I’ve got to suffer for what he did. For what they did. And talk about suffering. The kid stole a phone, Gus. Just a phone. That’s bad, but to die over a got damn phone? And his mother.”

Gus nodded too. “She was devastated.”

“Just devastated,” Roni agreed. “So yeah. Everything’s changed.” And she was tired of talking about it. “It’s all there,” she said, motioning toward the phone as she began to stand up.

But Gus touched her hand and stopped her. She looked at his hand and then looked at him. They met when she was a brand new rookie cop in the NYPD. They dated a few times early on, but she still had Brax on her brain and didn’t allow it to go anywhere beyond a surface relationship. And it fizzled out. But she knew him as a good, honest man who just might have treated her right had they bothered to give it a go. But she looked down at his hand for a reason. It had a ring on it.

“It’s all there,” she said to him again, and then she eased her hand from beneath his hand and walked away.

Regret filled Gus’s eyes as he watched her leave. He loved his wife, but Roni would have been his dream come true. She was smart, she was sassy, and she wasn’t at all self-absorbed with her beauty like every pretty lady he’d ever met had been. She didn’t even think she was all that beautiful: that was how little it meant to her. What man wouldn’t want a woman like that?

But she was honest enough with him to admit that she had her sights set elsewhere, although she wouldn’t tell him where, and when all was said and done she wanted somebody else more. That was the bottom line. They still hung out, eventually became friends with benefits, but he needed more than that. Much more. And that was why he left his queen behind and married a consolation prize. To this day he still didn’t believe he had the courage to do walk away. But he did what he had to do for his own wellbeing.

But he was no lover boy anyway. He was an award-winning, crack investigative journalist who knew how to move on. He immediately played the video she had given to him, which did show a quick glance at her partner’s face, and before it was finished he was running out of that café while phoning his news station with an urgent alert. They had breaking news.