Authors: Bernard Schaffer
"It's what I do when I'm confronted by douchebags who think they're hot shit," Frank said. He walked past Donoschik to get into the front door and closed it behind him before hurrying up the steps. He grabbed his keys off the table and quickly removed his station keys from the key ring, then headed back down to the porch. "Here," he said, opening the door and holding them out.
Donoschik was
standing in the street, holding his phone up to his ear as he nodded and said, "Yes, sir. I understand." He dropped the phone in his pocket and said, "The Chief is ordering you to provide me with your phone for twenty-four hours so that it can be verified you do not have any sensitive departmental information hidden on it."
Frank held up his finger, "One, he cannot issue an order to me through an officer of equal or lesser rank to me. Two, he cannot seize my personal property unless he has a warrant. Period."
"Fine, then we'll get one."
"Sounds good.
I'll be here waiting."
"What are the passwords to your computer?"
"You have a pen?" Frank said. He waited for the officer to pull out a pen and his notepad and leaned over to say, "ManorFarms, one word, underscore, SuxCock. One word. It's case sensitive. Nope, wait. I changed it the other day."
Donoschik stopped writing and looked up at him. "What is it really?"
Frank snapped his fingers, "ManorFarmsSuxBigFatHerpesInfestedDick. That's it. No underscore. My bad."
Donoschik clicked his pen and slid it back into his pocket, "We'll have our tech guys take care of it without your help then. See you in a few hours with the search warrant, Frank. Since there's guns in the house I guess we'll be bringing a SWAT team. I hope your kids like the taste of tear gas."
Frank lunged at him, trying to claw out his eyes, but Donoschik instantly produced a Taser and held it to Frank's chest, pressing against him with its green plastic doors that would burst open with sparking needles at the slightest squeeze of the trigger. Frank looked down at the electricity weapon and stopped moving.
"How bad do you want this day to be, O'Ryan?" Donoschik said.
"If you pull that trigger, you'd better run for your life, asshole, because I will break your neck when I get up."
"Always such a tough guy," Donoschik
sighed. "You know what I don't understand about you? You used to be one of us. When you shot that little nigglet after he killed Joe Hector, after you took a round to the knee, you were like some kind of hero. Then you got mixed up with that maniac Ajax and all his horseshit and somehow you went wrong. Became a bad badge. What the hell happened to you? Don't you realize that if you'd just keep your mouth shut and go along with the program, you could be the next Lieutenant? Hell, you could even be the next Chief. Even after all this, you could come back. Just take your lumps, keep your head down, and pretty soon all will be forgiven."
When Frank didn't respond, Donoschik holstered the Taser and said,
"I'll be back with that warrant. Act like a gentleman and we'll go easy on you."
Frank watched him get into his unmarked car and drive off, not realizing that Dawn was standing at the front door watching him. "How long do we have before he comes back with the search warrant?" she said.
"Forever," Frank said. "Search warrants can only be issued for criminal investigations. Unless they're going to charge me with a crime, they're just wasting their time. This is what happens when you give people who write traffic tickets for a living the responsibility of doing actual police work."
"You're in real trouble this time, aren't you."
"Yep," Frank said. "But I came this far, so I can't turn back now."
"Can you do me one favor? Can you please call Marcus?"
"Why?"
"Just tell him what's going on so there's someone else
aware of what's happening. Someone who knows the law just in case things go sideways on you."
"Sideways?" Frank said. "Since when do you speak
police
?"
"I've been married to a cop long enough to pick it up. When you're out there bustin' skells, I'm getting twenty-fives with all the local moms
before going ten-nineteen to make dinner."
"I think my head just exploded," Frank laughed.
"So you'll call Marcus, and not just say you will?"
"I'll do it right now."
Dawn leaned up and kissed him on the lips, "I'm proud of you. I always have been."
She turned and walked back up the steps to the porch, looking back slightly to make sure Frank was looking at her backside.
He was.
Marcus laughed when Frank told him about the department's threat to get a search warrant. "I wish some dumbass judge
would
sign that search warrant. Shit, Frank. How many zeros would you want in your check?"
Frank rubbed his head and squeezed his temples to try and stop the pressure building up beneath his skull. "Am I insane here, or do these maniacs have no idea what they're doing?"
"It's typical, man. They're so used to people saluting them and jumping when they say, they forget they have to play by the rules. I just hope they fire you."
"Gee, thanks," Frank said.
"I'm serious. These townships fire people left and right without any good reason and then get their asses handed to them in court. It's fun."
"For you maybe, but not if I'm the one not bringing in any money and paying some attorney fifty thousand dollars to get my job back."
"Frank, I'm hurt you would think that," Marcus said. "For an old friend like you, I wouldn't charge more than forty-five thousand. Forty-eight, tops."
Frank laughed and shook his head, "I can't
believe this is happening. This is not the way I expected to end my police career."
"Let me ask you a question. Do you really want to go back and work for those people?"
"No," Frank said. "I might not be sure about a lot of things, but I don't want to work for them."
"Do you really give a shit about being a cop anymore?"
The questions rang deep within Frank like a division bell.
He
thought of his father, how he'd come home on meal breaks when Frank was a kid, always sharply-dressed in his uniform and set his enormous police radio on the counter near enough to hear what calls came out. How he'd listen to all his father's funny stories about the other cops and pranks they pulled just to keep themselves amused during the long, droning hours.
That was a different time,
Frank thought.
A different world.
He thought about the last time he'd seen Vic alive,
standing at the edge of the woods, tears streaming down his face as he stared into an oblivion that could not be escaped. Frank had pleaded with him,
“Just get away from it then, Vic. Quit. Go find something that makes you happy. I’ll help you look.”
“And do what? Stock shelves? Ring a register? The only thing I’m qualified to do is make a seventy-five
-year-old feel good enough about raping a child that he confesses to it. My whole life is a sick joke, Frank, and I’m done. I’m just done.”
And that was it. His mentor cracked and surrendered to darkness.
"I'm just done,"
the last words he ever spoke to Frank.
I'm not,
Frank thought.
I might be finished doing police work but I'm not done.
"I just want to take care of my family and live a decent life," Frank finally said.
"Ok.
I can work with that. I have a client who was arrested for possession with intent to distribute narcotics. This is a good kid who has a scholarship to Arcadia next year, but the arresting cop is making his first drug bust and he's got stars in his eyes. If you look the reports over and help me shoot holes in the case, and testify as an expert, I'll hook you up with my good friend Doctor Lassoff."
"You want me to testify against another cop?"
"As an expert witness, Frank. Experts to it all the time. They
have
to in order to maintain neutrality. It's a lucrative thing and with a few of the right connections, you'll be making money hand over fist."
"But still not as much as I make now," Frank said. "I've got a mortgage and car payments and everything else to cover. I can't quit the PD."
"That's where Doctor Lassoff comes in. You won't have to."
"How do you figure?"
"Did you ever have someone look at your knee?" Marcus said. "I mean really, really look at it after you got shot?"
"Just the workman's comp doctors who cleared me to go back to work."
Marcus chuckled, "Son, you say the word and we'll bend those bastards over and make them squeal."
"I'll need to think about it," Frank said. He hung up the phone as a set of headlights turned from the street onto his driveway, heading toward his house. Frank jumped off the couch and peeked through the curtains,
his heart pounding as his mind raced through the scenario.
They'll put me in handcuffs to secure me while they search,
Frank thought.
They're going to handcuff me in front of Dawn and the kids and keep an officer standing over me the entire time.
Rage made his hands shake and they did not stop even as he realized it was just one car coming toward his house, and it was much too small to be a SWAT truck.
He opened the front door as Reynaldo Francisco parked his personal car and got out. "Hey, Frank. You okay?"
Frank nodded, trying to calm himself. "I half thought you were Donoschik coming back with a search warrant. He threatened to do that."
"He tried," Reynaldo said. "Spent all day trying to convince the DA's office to approve one, but they wouldn't.
Junior kept running around threatening to come up here with four officers and just take the phone. Chief Tovarich was ready to pull his hair out, he was so mad."
Frank smiled at that and began to relax. "Anything else happen today?"
"Your office is trashed. There's a big box down there with all the things from your desk and your pictures in it. I tried to grab it for you but the Deputy Superintendent told me you had to come get it."
"None of it's that important," Frank said.
"Junior took over every open investigation in our department. His first instructions were to close out as many as possible. Ones with pending arrests were immediately forwarded to Manor Farms CID so they file charges."
"He's fudging the numbers," Frank said. "Trying to have an immediate effect on our clearance rate."
"And there's a ticket quota. Not anything official, of course, but we're adopting the Manor Farms 'standard traffic enforcement performance' of thirty tickets per month. Anybody who doesn't get that many is subject to discipline."
Frank sighed and clapped his hand on Reynaldo's shoulder, "You're still young, buddy. Do yourself a favor. Keep your head down, do what they tell you, and start applying to other departments as soon as you can."
"That's what I thought at first too," Reynaldo said. "But then I wondered, what would Frank do?"
Frank looked at him with strange amusement and said, "He'd pop off at the mouth and almost get fired is what he'd do. Don't do what Frank would do, Reynaldo. That's
not even a good idea when Frank does it."
"Ah, maybe if you do it in a way people know about," Reynaldo said. "But not if you're careful.
And sneaky."
Frank watched Reynaldo go to the trunk of his car and remove his black patrol bag, stuffed with latex gloves, a ticket book, a box of pens, and a manila envelope. The younger officer removed the manila envelope and handed it to Frank, smiling broadly. "What did you do, Rey-Rey?"
"I acted like a S.J.N.E.P.O.A.D. should act, sir."
Frank opened up the envelope and saw all of the reports from the Burgorff's investigation into Freddie Phelps. There were all of the reports from Jessie Pincher's death investigation and the subsequent interview with Paul Moses. Driver's license photos and criminal history reports of all the actors involved. "You stole the Burgorff's case?" Frank said.
"No, no. Not steal it. I
saved
it."
Frank handed it back toward Reynaldo and said, "You stole this fucking thing. Go put it back. Let Deputy Superdipshit close it out and forget it, bud. It's a dead issue."
Reynaldo slapped the envelope angrily out of his way, "No, it is not a dead issue! There is a bad man doing bad things to children and the only people who can do something about it is me and you. We both took an oath to protect and serve, and I'm not letting some asshole come into my police department and stop us from doing it."
Frank sighed and lowered his head, "Someday, you are going to realize that you can stop guys like Phelps, and the next guy
after him, and the next guy
after him
, but there's always someone else. It never ends. It's like standing on the beach at the edge of the water trying to fight the waves. At some point, it's just not worth it, Rey-Rey and you have to live your life."