The Archangel Drones (10 page)

Jacob was still pale, half of his head wrapped in bandages. One arm was in a sling, numerous scrapes and cuts thick with some sort of salve. The kid opened his eyes, focused, tried to smile, and then grimaced in pain. “Mom! Dad!” he whispered in a hoarse voice. “Oh God, am I glad to see you.”

Sandy wanted to hug her offspring, but couldn’t seem to figure out where to apply the embrace without inflicting pain. She bent and kissed his cheek, rubbing the unbandaged side of his head. Gabe took his turn next.

After the reunion was completed, Gabe introduced Mr. Barlow, who up until that point had been observing the family’s exchange with a keen eye.

“Hello, son,” the lawyer said. “I’d offer you my hand, but I don’t think that’s a good idea right now.”

A few minutes later, they got down to the nitty-gritty. “I need to know what happened, Jacob,” the lawyer prompted, pulling a pencil and pad of paper from his briefcase. “Tell me everything you can remember.”

Jacob recounted the drive home, joking with Manny, and then the appearance of the policeman in their rearview mirror. “I thought he was going to ram into my bumper,” the kid confided. “Then he backed off and just followed us.”

“Did he have on his emergency lights?”

“No, not until we turned into Manny’s neighborhood and came to the first stop sign. After I pulled through, his blue and red lights came on.”

The lawyer scratched away at his pad, suddenly changing the tempo of his questions. “Why didn’t you stop?”

“I did… well… I went another block or so because Manny was late getting home. I thought the police just wanted to check my temporary tags. Wasn’t any big deal.”

Again, the lawyer scribbled before asking his next question, “How far was it between the moment when the policeman turned on his lights and when you stopped? Really, Jacob, this is important. I need to know the truth, exactly how far?”

“Less than two blocks,” the kid said honestly. “Just over a block, maybe?”

Adam nodded, “Okay, so then what happened?”

“I asked Manny to get my insurance card out of the glove box. The policeman turned on some extra-bright light, and then the next thing I know, he’s screaming for me to get out of the car. He’s pointing a gun at me.”

“Was Manny in the glove compartment when he walked up?”

“No, she never had time to open it. She was just sitting there, trying to shield her eyes from the blinding lights.”

On and on the questions continued, Sandy and Gabe standing, then sitting, but always trying to stay close to Jacob’s side. Gabe knew enough to realize Adam was testing his son, several of his inquires repeated with a slightly different wording.

After thirty minutes of grilling, the lawyer returned his pad and pencil to the briefcase, and then looked up. Drawing the interview to a close, there was only one rhetorical question left to ask Jacob. “So you have no idea why this officer pulled you over?”

Jacob managed to turn his head slightly and then replied, “Yes, sir. I think I
do
know why he stopped me.”

All three of the adults in the room perked with attention, the boy’s revelation catching them by surprise. “I accidentally hit him with a basketball during the city championship game just a few days ago. I didn’t mean to… but I blocked a shot, and it bounced off the guy’s shoulder. I thought for a minute he was going to stomp onto the court and scream at me.”

“What?” Adam said, coming upright in his chair. “You’ve seen this officer before? You couldn’t have been paying attention to him for more than a second at the game. Are you sure?”

“Yeah, pretty sure it was the same guy. After halftime, he marched out onto the court and grabbed one of the other team’s players. I was watching, scared he was going to say something to me next. Anyway, he grabbed this kid’s shirt, and I thought he was going to arrest that player.”

“Did he?”

“No, he talked to the kid for a minute and then let him go. Kind of freaked us all out, but then I forgot about it until I saw him walking up to my car last night.”

Out came the pad of paper again, the attorney frantically scribbling another paragraph’s worth of notes. After he had finished, he peered up and said, “I’ll let you rest now, Jacob. Thank you for answering my questions. One last thing – if the police come back and try to talk to you, tell them you want to have me present for any questioning. Here’s one of my cards. I want you to keep it on your bedside. Don’t say a word to anybody except your parents or me about all of this. Not the nurses, doctors, police, or anybody. Clear?”

“Yes, sir. Am I going to go to jail?”

“No, Jacob. You’re not going to jail. You just worry about healing. Your parents and I will take care of the rest.”

Adam rose to leave, Gabe automatically following the attorney out into the hall.

“Well? What do you think?” the anxious father asked.

“Your son was given what the cops commonly call a ‘tune up.’ Why, I’m still not sure, but I can’t help but think it might have had something to do with the basketball game, or something that happened that night. In the real world, the police operate under the premise that if you run from them, they can do whatever they want and get away with it. Clearly, with your son’s injuries, their retribution got out of hand. I don’t believe Jacob was trying to evade them, but like so many things involving law enforcement, the cops are given a lot of latitude when it comes to making that judgment call. I can’t tell you much more without reading the police report.”

“Have you seen the video?” Gabe asked.

“Video? This is the first I’ve heard of any video.”

“Chip filmed the cops beating Jacob in the street. I’ve not seen it yet, but I’m told it’s very disturbing.”

“Email me a copy of the video as soon as possible, please. In the meantime, I’ll let the district attorney know I’m representing your son. They’ll most likely schedule an arraignment soon. I’ll go in front of the judge, plead Jacob not guilty, and see if I can get him released on his own recognizance.”

Gabe watched his new ally exit down the hall, his confidence returning. The check they’d written for a retainer was going to hurt, as were the hospital bills. For a moment, he wondered if the county was going to foot the bill for Jacob’s medical costs, but quickly dismissed the notion. So far, the local government hadn’t exactly performed like a well-oiled machine, and he doubted they’d ever see a penny.

The nurse soon shooed them away, having given the parents an extra 30 minutes after normal visiting hours to remain with their son. The gesture wasn’t lost on a thankful Gabe and Sandy.

They drove home in silence, both of them processing and reprocessing recent events in hopes of organizing their thoughts and implementing a plan. When the passing landscape began to look familiar, Gabe announced, “After I drop you off, I’m going to head over to Chip’s house and watch that video. I think I can handle it now that we know Jacob is going to be okay.”

“I want to go,” his wife responded sternly. “He’s my son, too.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, hon. Chip said it was pretty rough, and the last 24 hours haven’t been a picnic. Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I’ll be okay. I want to go.”

Gabe knew enough not to attempt further discouragement, his 20 years of marriage having taught him that Sandy was a kind, big hearted person. But, when the woman made up her mind, she was a stone pillar of resolve, and any attempt to change that was wasted energy.

After calling Chip to make sure it wasn’t too late for a visit, they bypassed their own neighborhood and proceeded to Manny’s house. Seeing the still-parked Honda in the street initiated an unsettling bout of cold chills in both parents. Despite Chip having hosed it down twice, the street still contained dark splotches that both parents believed were their son’s blood.

Amanda met them at the door, all smiles and warm welcomes. After refusing a cup of anything to drink and a quick update on Jacob’s status, the exhausted parents waited while Chip left to retrieve his laptop.

Manny and Amanda couldn’t watch. Out of necessity, they’d watched the video once before, and that was enough. Each of them tried to convince Sandy it was a bad idea, but Jacob’s mother wouldn’t budge.

“It’s a little shaky at first. I was freaking out and not paying much attention to what I was filming exactly,” announced Chip as he flipped open the computer’s screen. “Here we go.”

The video was only three minutes long, but it was the worst three minutes of Gabe and Sandy’s life. Hearing Jacob scream, plead for mercy, and howl in pain while a circle of big men pounded, kicked, and sat on their son was off the scale horrible. On three separate occasions, Sandy had to turn away, tears streaming down her cheeks. Manny was quick with tissues and a reassuring touch on the shoulder.

Visions of Jay flashed through Gabe’s mind, the day he first drew breath, his proud son beaming in a little league uniform, the look on the boy’s glowing face when he made the 8
th
grade basketball team.

Another groan and screech of agony was emitted from the miniature speakers, recognizable immediately as sound coming from Jacob’s distressed throat. Suddenly Gabe could smell Jacob as a newborn… could envision his engaging Christmas morning toddler smile… flashed back to his junior high trumpet solo… a lifetime of memories made even more bittersweet by the knowledge that his son had been violated, and he had been powerless to help. He had to just sit there and watch his own flesh and blood be sadistically tortured.

Gabe thought his chest was going to explode, his temple visibly pulsating with every beat of his broken heart… his anger turning into bile. For a bit, he had difficulty breathing. Watching those three minutes of footage constituted the worst experience of his entire life.

On and on, the video streamed, the parents unable to turn away, yet praying for it to end.

The room was silent after it finished, Sandy’s sniffles and Gabe’s heavy breathing the only sounds. Finally, the husband reached for his wife’s hand and squeezed it tight.

Gabe’s voice was ice cold when he finally spoke. “Thank you, Chip, for letting us come over. My attorney asked that we email him a copy of the video as soon as possible. Could I trouble you to send us both one?”

“Sure, be glad to. I don’t know what happened out on that street, but it was wrong. It reminded me of those movies when the Nazi Brown Shirts burned and beat the Jews in Berlin back in the 30s. It was so… so… brutal and unnecessary. I hope you sue the pants off those cops.”

After the goodbyes were completed, Gabe and Sandy drove off, the car filled with nothing but the hum of the tires. Several minutes passed before Gabe reached for his wife’s hand, the gesture accepted with a warm smile. “For the first time in my life, I want to kill,” Sandy confessed in a low voice. “I’ve never felt anything like this. If those policemen were in front of me right now, I would try to end their lives. What is happening to me, Gabe? What is going to happen to us?”

“We’ll be fine,” he answered calmly. “It’s Jacob I’m worried about.”  

“District attorney’s office,” the lady answered.

“Hi, Susanna, this is Adam Barlow. I need to speak to whomever has been assigned the Jacob Chase file.”

“One moment, Mr. Barlow, I’ll see if it’s been logged yet.”

Adam could hear the indistinct click of keyboard buttons, the background noise generating a vision of the administrator checking her computer screen. “That would be Assistant DA Grossman. I’ll connect you, sir.”