Color of Justice (3 page)

Danny put his gun away, then asked Erik to hold his legs. Erik grabbed them and Danny slid down the wall onto the floor. He got up and helped Erik inside.

“First team in,” said Danny.

“Standing by,” came the reply. “We'll let you know when we breach the door.”

Danny took out his weapon and made his way to the stairs. Erik raised the riot gun and followed.

“Now what, Danny boy?” said Erik.

“We go up, call in the team, and hope nobody makes us kill them.”

“Not the best plan I ever heard, but let's do it.”

Suddenly, they heard voices from above them. Erik and Danny froze where they were and listened. They heard a muted cheer.

“Somebody playing tonight?” Danny whispered.

“Pistons-Cavaliers,” said Erik.

“Let's move, they might all be into the game and we can catch them off-guard.”

Danny and Erik slowly crept up the old wooden stairs, careful not to make too much noise. He got to the door at the top of the stairs and found it open. He peeked inside. The basement door led to a kitchen. It was messy, and Danny smelled the odor of spoiled food. Danny heard the game being broadcast from a room on his right and assumed their targets were in there watching the game.

Danny was about to go through the door, when he heard a woman's muffled cry.

“Shut da fuck up, bitch!” said a man's voice.

Danny heard the sound of someone being struck, then laughter.

“Ow!” yelled the same man. “Yo, dis bitch kicked me! I got somethin' fo' yo' ass…”

This was followed by a muffled scream from the unseen woman.

“Shit,” Danny whispered.

“Fuck,” said Erik. “Call the shit in.”

“They'll kill her. They ain't got nothing to lose at this point.”

“Danny, don't be fool—”

“Back up, then hit the door in five,” said Danny, adding “Get my back.” And Danny had no doubt that Erik would. Danny rushed into the kitchen, his gun out in front.

Danny saw the flash of the kitchen with its dirty walls and sink filled with broken dishes and pots. It was about ten strides to the room where the killers were watching TV.

Danny entered, yelling that he was a cop, and demanding that they all hit the floor. He heard Erik behind him and the first explosion of the battering ram hitting the reinforced front door.

Two of the three killers were only about twenty or so, and one of them held a kitchen knife in his hand, bloody from having cut someone. The third was older, maybe thirty and hard-looking. He was obviously the leader. In the far right corner was the girl. Danny could see just a hint of her, but he couldn't look because he would have had to take his eyes off the men.

The young man with the knife dropped his weapon immediately. The other man was unarmed. He raised his hands into the air.

The leader sat by a chair with a Uzi in his hand. He had it pointed at the bleeding girl. He saw Danny and both men froze. Slowly, the leader stood up. He looked at Danny quickly then his eyes darted back to the girl.

“Hold up!” yelled the leader. “Or that's it for her ass.”

Danny kept his gun trained on the leader as the battering ram hit the door again, like thunder. The leader was startled for a second, but he never took the weapon off the girl.

“Go ahead and cap her,” said Danny.

Erik kept his riot gun on the other two men, but he wanted to jerk his head around at Danny's statement.

“Put y'all's guns down and I won't shoot her,” said the leader.

“You trippin',” said Danny. “This ain't about her. Are
you
ready to die?”

Slowly, Danny started to move toward the man, never taking his eyes off his face. Danny could see in the man's eyes that he was the real deal, a killer. But Danny couldn't put his weapon down, even if it meant the girl caught one.

“You got five seconds to drop that gun,” said Danny. “Your choice, walk out or get carried out.”

Danny waited as the leader thought. He wasn't too bright and Danny knew the simple alternative in his hand was one the leader understood. These drug boys were all about bullshit macho. This fool was going down for murder with little hope of ever getting out of prison. So Danny knew he was thinking that if he fired on a cop maybe he could go out like a man and that might be worth something to the sorry-ass story that was his life.

The leader looked down the barrel of Danny's gun, then into his eyes. He took in a sharp breath, then lowered the gun and dropped it. Danny walked over and forced him to the floor where he quickly cuffed him.

The cops hit the steel door again, and it popped its hinges and fell inward. Two more detectives poured into the room.

Erik yelled that he had the two unarmed men covered. Danny read the leader his rights, then let two uniformed officers take him away. The other two members of the crew were carted off as well.

The cops searched the place and found drugs and about five grand in small bills. Dealers always
had small bills. The girl they'd kidnapped turned out to be the leader's cousin, a girl who'd stupidly threatened to go to the police about what he was doing. Everyone there was sure they had saved her life.

Danny and Erik were congratulated by the team leader, a cop named McDonald, whom everyone called Big Mac. Danny and Erik mumbled responses, each of them not wanting to discuss their feelings in public about what had just happened. Soon, Big Mac moved on, and almost immediately, Erik turned to Danny.

“Do I even have to say it?” asked Erik.

“No,” said Danny. “I know I was wrong, but we only had the one chance. That girl was—”

“One of the things I hate about this job is the random chance that I might get my balls blown off,” Erik said, ignoring Danny. “I don't need your ass increasing that shit on me!”

He was mad and Danny knew that he was in an indefensible position. Even though it had all turned out okay, they had to go out again tomorrow, and the next day, and Erik was not pleased about that.

“I'm new at this,” Danny said. “You know that.” It was a lame-ass excuse and he regretted it as soon as he'd said it. He'd been a cop too long to have that be a legitimate excuse.

“Look, I'm just upset now, man. So, don't talk to me for a while.”

“How long?” asked Danny.

“You still talkin', dammit,” said Erik.

Erik walked away and Danny didn't try to stop
him. His partner was totally right. Danny had had no right to force him to follow into that situation. Even though they might have saved a life, Danny had put others in peril. What Danny did was heroic, but to your partner, it was screwed up. Danny was much more reckless than Erik, and they were still getting used to one another.

Danny went out the front door into the night. He breathed in the cool air, and tried to clear his head. Erik was on a cell phone, probably talking to his wife and kids. Now Danny really felt like shit.

Danny watched as they loaded two of the killers into a squad car. The leader was put into a different car so they could get conflicting stories if anyone talked. Danny sighed as he realized that he'd have to spend all the next morning filing reports on the incident.

Erik finished his call and gave Danny a look that was not nearly as angry as he had expected. They didn't speak, but Danny could tell his partner had already started to forgive him.

Glancing up into the dark sky at the hanging half-moon, Danny imagined the other part of it from its visible half. The stark white divided against the blackness of the eclipsed part seemed to fill the night sky. He broke away from the vision and the obvious thoughts in his head. Then he went back to his job, happy that no one had been killed this night.

There's an old joke that God invented liquor so the Irish couldn't take over the world. This would have been true in Danny's family many years ago. His father, Robert Thomas Cavanaugh, was a hard-drinking cop with a fiery temper and little concern for his family. Danny had inherited his father's strength, but his temper had come along with it, a familial mixed blessing.

These were the things Danny thought of as he raised his hand to knock on the door of his parents' house on the east side of Detroit. The neighborhood was nice, having fought off encroaching criminality over the last ten years. Being home brought back memories, some great, others awful. Danny felt his gut tighten as he heard someone walking toward the door.

Robert Cavanaugh opened the door and glanced up at his son. Robert was going on sixty-five and was slowing down. He'd developed a bad habit of crouching when he stood, and the last few times
Danny had been by, he was always in his pajamas, as was the case today. Still, Danny saw the handsome, straight-arrow cop with the square jaw and reddish hair who used to strut around as if nothing could touch him.

Danny remembered when his father had taken him to his new school that first day so long ago. He'd glanced up at him and his father's head had been framed by the morning light of the sun, creeping around the edges of his policeman's cap, almost godlike. That was always Danny's picture of what it meant to be a cop, something powerful, beautiful, and mysterious.

Robert pulled his plaid green robe around him, mumbled something like a hello, then walked off. Danny followed him inside.

“Wha'sup?” Danny asked.

“You don't have to come over every day,” said Robert. His Irish accent was just barely detectable. It was a sign that he was upset when you could discern it in his voice.

“I worry,” said Danny. “You live alone now.”

“I can take care of myself,” said Robert. He produced a .38 special from under his robe, then just as quickly, it was gone.

Robert moved into the kitchen. Danny went after him for a few steps, then stopped and looked at the pictures in the room. His mother's face stared at him from all directions.

Lucy Cavanaugh had died about a half year ago. She'd taken a bad fall down the stairs, struck her head, and never woke up. It had hit his father
hard. Robert seemed to age twenty years inside of a month. He'd dropped twenty pounds and his disposition was as bad as it could be, not that it had ever been all that good to begin with.

Danny had been devastated, too. He and his mother had not gotten along very well and she'd passed before he could make it better. Since her death, he'd been haunted by her demise, dreaming of her falling to her end with him powerless to do anything.

Danny's parents had been having a rough go of it before the accident. They argued about everything and didn't speak for days at a time. He could never figure out how they could be married for four decades and still have problems. His parents had just had a fight when Lucy fell down the staircase. Now she was gone, and neither Danny nor his father could ever set things right with her.

Danny's mother had never approved of his life. He was unmarried and living in sin with a woman, a black one at that. Lucy didn't say much about Vinny's color, but Danny knew it bothered her as it did most people. On the other hand, Robert, for all of his flaws, didn't have a prejudiced bone in his body, a rare thing for a cop.

Danny walked past the long staircase and tried not to think of his mother tumbling down them. He went into the kitchen and found Robert Cavanaugh sitting at the table eating a breakfast of leftover pasta and orange juice.

He wanted to say so much to his father, but every time he tried to talk about Lucy dying,
Robert clammed up, becoming sad and angry. Maybe it was better not to talk about it, he thought. The two men had only each other. There was Danny's brother, but the family had dropped contact with him years ago. No one tried to find him for the funeral. Hell, no one even knew if he was still alive.

Danny wanted to discuss it. His mother's death bothered him greatly, and it was more than the normal reason. There was something not right about it, something that tingled the police instincts he'd inherited from his father.

“I've been thinking about Ma lately,” said Danny.

Robert didn't respond. He looked over his plate at Danny with an annoyed expression.

“I've been having this dream about how she died.” Danny knew he was treading on dangerous ground, but he'd never gotten anywhere with Robert by pussyfooting around.

“You know how she died. We all know, Danny,” said Robert pointedly. “So what's your problem?”

“I don't know if what the medical examiner said was right, you know—”

Robert's face contorted into mild anger. “It's too early for that shit,” snapped Robert. “For God's sake can't you ever leave it alone! Fuck, just fuck it!” Robert grabbed his juice and stomped off, mumbling.

Danny listened as his father stomped-cursed his way into the other room. He poured himself a glass of orange juice and said nothing more. He
just sat for a while, waiting. Then when he felt Robert had calmed down enough, he went into the living room. He took a moment, watching his father, his mind flooding with memory. Danny kissed his father on the top of the head and headed out, leaving the pain and memory of his mother behind.

 

“How are you feeling today, Danny?” asked the therapist.

“I'm cool,” said Danny. He settled into the big leather chair and let it envelop him.

The therapist was Dr. Donald Gordon. He was the department psychologist and a former detective. A white man of about forty or so, he had a medium build and was beginning to lose his salt-and-pepper hair.

On Gordon's desk was a picture of him and his wife of fifteen years, Patty, and their daughters. When he got his degree, he'd left the department after ten years to be a shrink, but he'd been drawn right back into the game a few years later.

“So what's on your mind?” asked Gordon.

“I visited my father again today,” said Danny. “He still won't talk about it.”

“How does that make you feel?” asked Gordon.

“It's fucked up.”

“You said that you had questions about your mother's death, that everything didn't fit. You still feel that way?”

“I'm a cop. Nothing ever fits for us.” Danny was trying to get away from the discussion, but Gordon was right. The death of his mother was
something he thought about each day. Lucy had descended those stairs thousands of times and never had she slipped. Sure she was old, but she was in good shape. He didn't like to think about it because if she didn't slip and fall, then the alternative was too terrible to imagine.

“I only bring it up,” said Gordon, “because you always do at some point. Let's see if we can get to the bottom of it this time.”

Danny had successfully completed an anger management course, but it was strongly suggested that he see the department shrink in order to solidify his hold on a gold shield. Danny's history of overzealous law enforcement was not a help to his career. These days, a violent white cop in a black city like Detroit was a lightning rod for trouble of all kinds.

Danny didn't like the idea of seeing a shrink. Crazy. It was an old notion, but one that hung on in the blue-collar world he lived in. A man took care of his own problems, and he certainly didn't go to a doctor and whine about them. And yet Danny was finding comfort in his weekly visits. Gordon was laid-back and knew the police game well enough never to need explanation. It was like having another partner, or at least that's what he kept telling himself.

“Okay, Doc,” said Danny. “If my mother didn't fall down those stairs then my father…he was the only other person there. They had been having trouble, fighting a lot.”

“Your father, Robert, the
cop
?” Gordon said with emphasis.

“Yeah, he'd know how to do something like that.”

“Like what?” asked Gordon. “Say the words, Danny. It's the first step to dealing with this.”

“He'd know how to kill someone and make it look like an accident,” said Danny with a hint of sadness in his voice.

“Do you think he did it?”

Danny thought long about his father. Robert Cavanaugh was a hard man, tough and uncompromising. He'd shot two men during his tenure as a cop—one of them died. Yes, he could do it, but
why
was the question.

“I don't know,” said Danny. “I'm just a little fucked up about it, you know. My mother and me wasn't all that close.”

“And you never got closure?”

“No,” said Danny, laughing a little. “We never seem to get that closure shit down in my family.”

“Maybe thinking your father did something bad is just your own guilt about the accident, trying to blame someone else.”

“I wouldn't do that to my father. It's just that…he was supposed to take care of her. He didn't. That's all.”

“Then you have to talk with your father about it at some point,” said Gordon.

“I try,” said Danny. “My old man just won't let me go there. If I push, he'll probably try to kick my ass.” Danny laughed a little.

“I try to get people to take action to solve their problems,” said Gordon. “If you won't do any
thing about this then you have to stop punishing yourself with all these unanswered questions.”

“Shit or get my ass off the pot, huh?”

“That would be another way of saying it, yes.”

“Then let's forget about it,” said Danny. “I'll just let it all go.”

Gordon made a few notes in a book he always kept nearby. Danny watched him and knew that he'd lied about letting it go. He was playing out the scene in his head again. He saw his mother come out of the bathroom and walk to the stairs. He saw her lose her footing and tumble. He watched as she hit the bottom of the landing, twisting her neck, her head slamming into the floor. He saw his father running feebly after he tried to stop her fall, almost falling himself.

“I want to get back to why you came here,” said Gordon. His voice jolted Danny back into reality.

“Why I came?” asked Danny.

“Well, we've been here for a long time trying to get to the root of your problems with aggression. We got to a point where we decided that it had something to do with growing up in an all-black neighborhood. Then your mother passed and we got sidetracked.”

“I guess we did. What do you want to talk about?”

“Black people,” said Gordon.

“What about them?” asked Danny.

“You think being an outcast made you overly aggressive?”

“No,” said Danny. “It's not like that. I was ac
cepted eventually, it's more like…” He stopped a moment to collect his thoughts on this. These sessions were helping, but they challenged him mentally. He was good at being a cop, but talking about his feelings was crippling. “Black people are sick.”

Gordon's eyebrows raised. “How so?”

“Not sick like physically,” said Danny. “They're sick in the heart, down where we can't see it, can't touch it, down where if you want to help, you'd better have a damned good reason for asking, or it might be your ass.”

“Personal things?”

“Yeah, that's it, personal.”

“Why are you so comfortable talking about this?” asked Gordon. “I mean, I'm a white guy and it makes me nervous to analyze black people in such a generalizing way.”

“But I'm not a white guy,” said Danny casually. “That's what I'm saying. I mean, not really. I have that sickness in my heart, too. So, I'm really talking about myself.”

Danny had lived around black people since he was a kid. His father, Robert Cavanaugh, was a city cop, so the family had to live in Detroit because of the residency requirement. All his life, Danny had lived in the hardness of the inner city, in the heart of blackness. He knew all too well what he was talking about.

“So, you feel your anger comes from this sickness?” asked Gordon.

“Yeah. Only it's worse because of what I see in the mirror.”

Danny grew up on the east side of Detroit, in a ghetto fortress bounded by Six Mile, Dequindre, Conant, and a hole that became the Davison Freeway. He was forced to accept the ways of black people. He learned the rhythm of life, the philosophy and attitudes of the people, which manifested themselves in everything from a discussion of global politics to the proper way to cook a slab of ribs.

Danny had caught a lot of shit for this early on. Black people thought he mocked them, trying to have the best of blackness without the terrible burden. Whites thought quite simply that he was crazy, a crazy-ass white boy trying to be something he wasn't. But over time, people noticed it less and less.

“You certainly don't sound like a white guy,” said Gordon.

“Yeah,” said Danny. “I hear that all the time. But I don't understand that shit. I sound how I sound, you know.”

“So why do you think you had such a problem with your temper?” asked Gordon. “You think you have some kind of rage?”

“Not like the brothers have,” said Danny. “I'm not mad because I've been treated like shit by a whole country.”

Danny didn't think a guy like Gordon could understand how black people took their pain and pushed it into a deep place where it stayed just behind every thought, perception, hope, and fear. And how you did this until it became an insepara
ble part of you, like a psychological shadow cast by the cold, fucked-up light of the world. And there in the bosom of your deepest humanity, it became a fire, a power that propelled you over the obstacles of life and allowed you to find peace and joy even as you suffered. Gordon wouldn't understand how this was what it meant when they say black people have soul.

“How did you feel when all the other white families left your neighborhood?” asked Gordon.