Page 107 of Road Trip
Sergio shrugged his shoulders.
“I heard him and some of the other OGs followed the cop who put his homie in prison. They followed him out of town and they beat him up and tried to set him on fire.”
My ears got fuzzy, like someone was blasting white noise. I swallowed hard and knew if I looked at Abra I would fall apart. I heard her whisper to Sergio to continue.
“My stepdad’s sister works at the department. She’s like a dispatcher or something, and she told them when the cop was leaving. They scare her into getting them information sometimes. I’ve seen her old man beat her up if she doesn’t tell them what they want to know. Anyway, she called the house and the next thing I know, he’s gone. When he came back a few days later, he started acting really weird and paranoid. He would take off sometimes and be gone for a day or so. Finally, he came home a couple days ago and told Mom he took all the money out of the bank, that he had to run. She freaked out and told him he couldn’t do that, he couldn’t leave us with nothing. He cussed her out and knocked her around. I tried to get him to stop, but he’s bigger than me. He hadn’t hit me in a long time. He hasn’t been back, and now that I know what he did to my sister, if he comes back, I’m going to kill him.”
Kara stepped in and spoke to him, but I had kind of checked out. Someone in dispatch. A woman, afraid to not give them information.I interrupted Kara’s questions and said loudly, “Who’s his sister, Sergio? Who is the woman who works in the department?”
He blanched a little. I guess my voice came out a little harsher than I’d planned. And I noticed I was leaning on the table.
“Kelly,” I heard Abra say, but I needed to know.
“Who is it? You need to give me her name.”
The kid got over his shock and narrowed his eyes at me.
“Graham,” Kara warned.
“Why? So she can go to jail, too? What about her kids? Nah, man. I ain’t tellin’ you. I’ve said all I’m going to—”
“Graham! This interview is over.”
Before I could stop myself, I was standing in front of the kid with my hands splayed on the table. “Look, I know you have people to protect, but that cop they tried to kill? The one they beat up and poured gas all over? That was me. The only reason I’m still standing here is because that woman sitting next to you found me and saved my life. So I understand you have people to protect, but so do I, and she’s one of them. These people have been following me around. What if they think she can identify them? Is that what you want? For another woman to get brutalized like your mom?” I don’t know where the words were coming from, but it was imperative that this kid tell me what he knew.
The room was quiet when I finished my rant. I stepped back from the table and took a deep breath. Abra still had her hand on the kid’s arm, but her eyes were on me and I could see how upset she was by my behavior.
“Officer Graham, I need to see you out in the hall.” Kara needed to pull me out of this interview, I knew that, but I couldn’t make my legs work.
I stared him down and hoped he though about what I said. I felt Kara touch my arm, but I held up a hand for her to give me a minute.
“Sergio, you can help a lot of people out right now by not protecting your stepdad. You can also protect his sister. If they’ve got something on her and have her giving out protected information, she’s going to be in a lot of trouble unless she cooperates. There might be something we can do for her. But you have to tell us, man. We need to put an end to this.”
Kara’s hand on my arm was more insistent now.
“I’m going to have to leave this interview,” I said in a low voice. “My partner will be taking over.”
I turned to leave the room, still seeing red.
I heard the boy say something in Spanish.
“Sweetie, you can trust him,” I heard Abra say. “You trust me? You can trust him.”
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Kara snapped at me. “You and your little dyke girlfriend are going to fuck up this whole investigation.”
I felt a shock at her words. “What did you just say?”
“Which part? The part where you need to get the hell out of here or the part where you let your little pet lesbian be in on this? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“What is wrong withyou?You leave my girlfriend out of this.”
“Yeah. Your girlfriend. We’ve got mutual friends. I know all about her.”
This was not the time to get into this. She was trying to piss me off on purpose so I’d mess up, I could feel it. My heart was pounding even harder. I stepped closer to her, looking up because she was a darn Amazon. “I’ll call the lieutenant right now, but you have to let Abra stay. The kid won’t talk without her there.”
“I don’t have to do shit. I’m not putting my badge on the line for you.”
See, this was the difference between a good cop and some cop just trying to work her way up the chain without having any loyalty to the officers she worked with. I was so grateful I’d had the experience of working with Manny because I knew what a real partner did.
