Page 11 of Gypsy's Lady
***
Jesus. It seemed life had twisted back around on itself, because here Doug was pounding down an alleyway again, gasping for breath, yet things were entirely different. He rounded a corner to find the dead-end nook ahead of him populated by a wild-eyed man brandishing the lid of a garbage can asa shield.
The man’s tie was askew, his jacket hangingcrooked, but even that wasn’t enough to mask the quality of the suit andaccouterments. His mouth,however, was pure trash. “I can pay. I have money. You don’t want to do this.” He might have been panting and wheezing, but his eyes were shining with arrogance as he stared straight at Doug. “I can make it worth your while.”
Doug paused only a moment to takein the sight.Then he stutter-steppedand reached to grab the man by the arm. Twisting it in a practiced move, he whirled and slammed the suit-clad man against the wall. Doug pressed close, pulled the man’s wrists to the middle of his back with a yank, and without responding to the man’s statements started, “You have the right to remain silent…”
Forty-five minutes later, Doug closed the door on a cruiser and tapped the roof twiceas he stepped back, watching as it drove off into the darkness. Taking a deep breath, he turned and was not surprised to find his captain standing there.
The man he had just arrested and had whisked away for booking was not a small man in state politics. No, Brinkley Sullivan was reported to be in line for a state-appointed position that would allow a significant amount of grooming for a near-futureWashington slot. Something Sullivan had been angling for over the last dozen years. Doug tried to tell himself the captain’s presence was because he’d want to be there from the beginning, even knowing it for a lie.
“Sir.”
Without speaking, his captain turned and looked up the street at the disappearingtaillights, then back to Doug, his eyebrows lifting in an arch. “You arrested Sullivan?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You arrested Sullivan.BrinkleySullivan.”
That was less of a question and more a statement, the manseemedto need repetition to seat the information in his brain. Doug still obliged with a response. “Yes, sir.”
“You arrested Brinkley Sullivan. You know who he is, right?” Doug nodded. “JesusfuckingChrist. You do have a career death wish. I wondered, but this is…this takes thecake. You arrested Brinkley Sullivan.” He shook his head, looking down. “Jesus fuckingChrist.”
“He killed a fourteen-year-old girl. After he paid a pimp to tie her to a bed so he could rape her.”
“He admitted that?” Doug lifted his chin. The captain frowned, then his mouth twisted sideways. “Before or after you Mirandized him.”
That was a critical question, and Doug couldn’t live with himselfif heweren’topen and honest. “Before.”
“So, he didn’t confess.” Hands on his hips he stared at Doug. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Uh, yeah.Hedid. He wasn’t in custody when he talked about it. It’s admissible.” The information was, in fact, admissible, but not how Doug had found out about the man. That had been courtesy of the girl’s brother’s friend. “I read him the rights after I caught him.This was after he tried to evade arrest, which will be added to the list ofcharges,because I want to make the case he’s a flight risk.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
The sentiment followed Doug through the next hours and days as he struggled to keep the case on track. To keep the focus on the dead girl, where it belonged, and not on the interrupted life of an up-and-coming political powerhouse.
He was not successful.
***
“That’s what he said when you arrested the man?” Winger’s head swung back and forth in shocked disbelief. “Jesus fucking Christ?As if the worst thing he’d seen all day was that dickweed bent double and shoved in the back seat of a goddamned police car?”
Doug upended his shot, throwing the alcohol to the back of his throat. He swallowed convulsively, without tastingit. “Yup.” His voice was gravelly, raw from drink and arguing. His head was already pounding,andhe reached up to rub the back of his neck, fingers tangling in his hair. He was about a month past needing a haircut, and tonight he didn’t give a shit, the tickle along the collar of his shirt reminding him of better days. “And now that dickweed is back in his house in Indy with his wife and twokids, one of which is a little girl only a year younger than the one he raped and murdered.” Silence surrounded him,andhe looked around at the men sitting near him. “Fuck, did I say that?” Winger nodded. “I’m so fuckin’ pissed. I had everything lined up to keep him inside. He confessed, I arrested him, got the evidence in order, and the judge still signed his bond papers.” Doug picked up theshot glass, forgetting it was empty. He tipped it up and then stared at it in annoyance. “Dixie, gimme another one.”
“He’s got a little girl?” Winger’s question surprisedhimbecause it came from a different angle than before. Doug looked to see his friend had found his feet and was now staring down at Doug. “That dickweed has a little girl, and they let him go home to where she lives?”
“Sick,right?” The clink ofglassmade him look down. There was an amber-filled shot glass on the bar in front of him. He picked it up and tried toupendit, swallowing air when it was plucked from his hand. “What the hell?”
“Don’t get drunk.” A hand fellheavilyon his shoulder. “Dixie, no more for Lawman.”
“Why?” Doug tipped his head back and watched as his friend drank the shot down.
“Because Ineed you to go home under your own power. And stay there.” The last was added as an afterthought. Winger followed it with a definite order of, “Stay away.”
Doug’s chest clenched, the pain of rejection stinging deep. “The fuck you say?” He lurched to his feet. “Kicking me out now?”
Winger stood there and stared into his eyes for a minute, then nodded slowly. “Yeah, kicking you out. This way you’rehome safe and sound.”
