Page 13 of Booking Burke
“You got it.” Eli headed toward the door.
It wasn’t as bad as Burke feared. “Yes, thank you, Chief Jackson.” The hand on his shoulder held fast.
“You know, Burke, it’s your job as Eli’s partner to watch his back and help keep him safe.”
“Yes, sir.” Burke was going to do everything in his limited power to protect Eli from harm.
“That applies on duty, as well as off.” Cisco shot a pointed stare at each of them before turning and walking out of the room.
“I guess that means the cat’s out of the bag.” Burke shook his head.
“Cisco met his future husband on the job.” Eli wore a wistful look.
“Is he a cop too?” Burke wore a curious look.
Eli snorted. “No, Luca was breaking the law at the time. Cisco had been the responding officer on scene.”
“The situation with me and Luca sounds pretty similar.” Well, but for the fact that he was Cisco’s fiancée and not some ride along partner/lover.
“Yeah, just like. Luca was drinking too when Cisco caught him.” Eli started to laugh.
“What’s funny about that?” Burke wore a curious look.
“Ask me that question again someday.” Eli shook his head. “Come on. Let’s go find you a vest.”
Twenty minutes later, wearing a bulletproof vest that fit far better than the one Eli strapped on him last night, Burke was keeping a sharp lookout for the shooter as they patrolled their assigned grid.
“I’m not exactly a student of crime. Unless it counts to know every episode ofForensic Filesby heart.” Burke turned to Eli. “Why do you think the shooter did what he did?”
“Could be a lot of reasons. The shooter could be suffering some kind of mental illness. He could have been broken up with or was served divorce papers and the woman he shot reminded him of that ex. He could be an attention seeker, wanting his name and face all over the news so that no one would ever forget his name.”
Burke pondered what Eli said. All of those reasons made sense, as disturbing as they were. Unfortunately, until they had a name to track down, none of those potential triggers did them any good.
“Why are you set on becoming a cop?” Eli asked the question out of the blue.
After the way Eli spilled his guts last night about his ruined wedding and his best friend, Burke knew it was his turn to share. “My parents fought all the time. Usually, they’d get drunk and yell at each other until one or the other passed out. One Friday night when I was ten years old, their fighting went beyond just yelling at each other. I was hiding in my room when I heard a thump coming from the kitchen. My mother stopped yelling stopped after that. Instead, I could hear my father repeating the same words over and over, ‘Oh, fuck! She’s dead! She’s fucking dead!’ He must have said it twenty times before I tiptoed out of my room to see what he meant.”
“Jesus, Burke. Was your mother okay?”
“I didn’t know at the time. She was lying face down on the kitchen floor with blood pooling around her face. I ran for the phone and dialed 911. My father had stopped shouting when he heard me on the phone with the cops. The officer who came to the house, John Rodriguez, was so good to me. Gave me a fake badge and a pep talk I’ve never forgotten.”
“What did he say?” Eli sounded genuinely curious.
“He told me the standard stuff about staying in school and respecting my parents. But just as they were rolling the gurney with my mother strapped to it out of the house and frog-marching my father out in cuffs behind her, he knelt down in front of me and told me that I had the power to rise above my raising. That the life my parents had chosen for themselves didn’t have to be my own.”
“Damn, that’s a pretty heady discussion for a ten-year-old.”
Burke nodded. I never forgot those words. It wasn’t too long after my mother got out of the hospital that the fights started up again. Dad had thought he’d killed her. She ended up with twenty-five stitches on the side of her head.” Burke drew a line down the side of his face with his finger. “But nothing had changed. I decided that I would be the change. I’d break the cycle. Until the night you stopped me for drunk driving.”
“What are you saying?”
“I knew booze was the root of my parents’ issues. Maybe they still would have fought if they weren’t drunk, but it was my guess the fights wouldn’t have been as frequent or as violent. I decided I wasn’t ever going to touch the stuff.”
“But you did.” Eli’s voice was gentle.
“A beer here or there over the years, mostly to fit in with the other guys. Being gay was bad enough, I didn’t want to look like an even bigger pussy by not drinking with them too.” Burke shook his head.
“Peer pressure is a bitch.” Eli sounded as if he spoke from experience.
