Marrying Mike...Again (23 page)

Sandra introduced herself to Delilah and Daniel. They told her they didn’t have a car, and while their uncle could come give them a ride, they didn’t know if he could get through the streets. Sandra went back over to the EMTs. They could fit one person into the back of the ambulance; that was it.

She returned to Mrs. Forge. Why didn’t Annie ride in the ambulance with her son? Sandra would call Mrs. Forge’s brother and get him to come pick up the children as soon as possible.

After a moment, Mrs. Forge nodded. Thinking about the logistics had calmed her some. She trembled less as Sandra dialed the uncle and made arrangements for him to pick up his niece and nephew.

“We’re going to take good care of you,” Sandra repeated to the shell-shocked woman. “We’re going to help you through this.”

The front of the crowd was shifting again, a fresh grumble turning into a collective roar. Sandra turned to see Officer Brody being lifted onto a backboard. Even from this distance, she could see that the officer was seriously hurt. And it frightened her that the crowd didn’t seem to care.

Keeping her features composed, she patted Mrs. Forge’s hand one last time, then headed over to Officer Brody.

The young man was strapped in, a blanket placed for privacy. The EMTs had already sliced away his pants, exposing a horrible array of pellet holes peppering his upper legs. The trauma looked bloody and intense, and yet Sandra knew the officer was lucky. At a close enough range, loaded with the right kind of shell, a shotgun blast could rip straight through a Kevlar vest.

Other officers knew it, too. They wore grim expressions and looked out at the crowd with growing animosity.

“We’re trying to help one of their own and they won’t let the ambulance through. What does that tell you?”

Sandra searched immediately for the source of the voice, but all the men turned away, protecting their own. Then the police radios buzzed to life. Windows shattering over on thirteenth. Report of a car on fire, and a theft in progress. Requesting immediate assistance.

Sandra closed her eyes. It was starting now. She had gotten the mayor’s permission to request full state backup. No one knew it yet, not even her own men, but soon helicopters would take to the sky with huge searchlights. Armored vans would pull up and disgorge SWAT officers in full riot gear. Tear gas would be fired if necessary. Rubber bullets if worse came to worst.

And some people would fight back. Angry, drunk, who knows why. Little skirmishes would take place all over the city, and Alexandria’s police department would win. The civilians were right—the cops were better equipped. But who would really feel the victor in the morning? Who would really come out ahead?

On the ground, Officer Brody’s breathing grew more labored. The EMTs moved in and Sandra somberly withdrew.

Mike and Rusty were waiting for her.

“Sidebar,” Mike muttered, and swiftly drew her behind the ambulance.

“You hear about the shooting?” Koontz asked, his eyes darting from side to side. They were closer to the yellow tape here, the murmurs of the crowd harder to ignore.
Cops, can’t trust ’em, look at what they do, shooting at kids. Bet if he was white, he wouldn’t be spread out on the pavement. No, no, they only use bullets on us black folks…
Koontz hunched further in on himself. His face was covered in sweat.

“What about the shooting?”

Koontz glanced at Mike. Mike broke the news. “We talked to the partner, Officer Wallace. They were on routine patrol when they came across a group of kids beating up another teen. When they pulled up, however, some guy broke out of a building and started running. They gave chase. Next thing they knew, the kids were running after them, shouting and yelling. Things got a little tangled. Then Officer Brody opened fire.”

Sandra peered at her two detectives, not getting this. “They were under attack, so Officer Brody discharged his weapon?”

Koontz shifted again, definitely unhappy. “Wallace didn’t see a weapon.”

“Oh, no.” Now she was getting it.

“He was behind Brody,” Mike said, “so maybe Brody saw something Wallace didn’t. But we’ve paced out the scene, inch by inch. We can’t find a shotgun anywhere and the sixteen-year-old beating victim swears none of the kids drew down. They were drunk, they were unruly—”

“And they were unarmed,” Sandra finished for him. “Wonderful.”

“Cop got spooked,” Koontz said. “Late at night, this thing going on with Vee. Everyone’s got the heebie-jeebies. It was only a matter of time.”

“Speaking of which—” Mike said dryly.

Sandra closed her eyes. After the last announcement, she’d seen this one coming. “The shotgun blast. If the kids were unarmed, then who shot Officer Brody? Enter Toby Watkins.”

“Shot came from that abandoned building,” Mike said quietly, pointing up to a hollow-eyed window. “Downward trajectory. That’s why it caught Officer Brody in the legs. Too bad. A couple inches higher, the vest would’ve absorbed the spray and he’d be home free.”

“I don’t think Toby Watkins is a shy kid anymore,” Koontz muttered. “I think he just came of age.”

“When the news teams get a hold of this—” Sandra sighed.

“Too late.”

Koontz looked up. When Sandra followed his gaze, she saw that the buzzing coming from the sky wasn’t the rescue chopper. It was the Channel 4 news team. Denied the streets, the reporters had gone airborne, too.

“We’re in trouble. Look, talk to Lieutenant Hopkins. Someone get Wallace down to the station,
fast
and round up as many of the kids involved as you can find. We need statements from everyone and we need them
out of the way
of the press. If one of these kids starts talking, we’ll get rumors circulating fast, and then we’ll have a justifiably angry mob on our hands.”

Koontz looked at Mike. He muttered something low under his breath. It sounded like, “drop gun.”

Sandra’s eyes grew wide. She knew about drop guns. They were extra hand guns, generally recovered from a crime scene and never entered into the evidence log that cops would carry as backup pieces. Subject turns out to be reaching for his wallet instead of a weapon when you opened a fire, well
drop-gun
the scene. Look, the perp was carrying, after all.

Sandra shook her head, her voice coming out fierce. “Koontz, mess with my crime scene and I’ll take your badge.”

“Makes for better press,” he countered levelly. “Kid has a rap sheet.”

“For heaven’s sake, it was a shotgun blast. How are you going to explain a seventeen-year-old kid in jeans and a T-shirt magically producing a shotgun, let alone a shotgun that only one witness—Officer Brody—managed to see? The whole thing will reek of cover-up, and then we’ll have not one, but two crises on our hands. Officer Brody made a mistake. It happens. Now we take responsibility for that and we move on. It’s the only way to feel better.”

“Who feels better? The kid? The mother? Hey, Officer Brody has a weeping mama, too.”

“Officer Brody is a cop. Risk and injury is part of the job.”

“Absolutely. And stopping to help a black kid getting punked up by a bunch of brothers was also part of his job. Anyone out there talking about that? Anyone out there talking about how this whole thing started? Officer Brody tried to help a sixteen-year-old kid who had no business being on the street at two in the morning anyway. Now, look at what happened to him.”

Koontz stormed off.

“You’re going to have to control him,” Sandra said at last to Mike. “You don’t want me interfering? Then you
do
something about him.”

Mike nodded.

The hospital’s helicopter finally arrived. On cue, the ambulance sirens roared to life. The crowd rumbled, but at the sight of Mrs. Forge’s son passing through the doors, even they grew silent. An officer removed the yellow barrier. The ambulance pulled forth.

The crowd parted and just for a moment, it seemed everything would be all right.

Then somebody shouted, “If he dies, I say we kill ’em all. Kill the pigs, kill the pigs, kill the pigs!”

Mike’s arms went around Sandy instinctively. They stood together as the shouting gained momentum, then the first state police helicopter flashed its powerful searchlight and blazed across the sky.

Chapter 12

B
y six that morning, the streets of Alexandria had finally been brought under control. Small street gangs were rounded up and juveniles processed. Fires were extinguished and some property recovered. Store owners began boarding up shattered windows and filling out insurance forms. The mayor instigated a city-wide curfew to extend through the week.

Officer Brody’s condition was upgraded to stable. The seventeen-year-old shooting victim, Charles Smith, aka Ice Tray, was also listed in good condition. The sixteen-year-old was treated and released.

Life returned to normal, just in time for the morning commute—except for the burnt-out cars still smoking on the streets, the sidewalks littered with shards of glass and the scared mothers who kept their children home from school that day and the next.

At six-thirty, Sandra finally returned to her house, covered in soot and badly in need of a shower. She did not think she had ever felt so tired, yet in twenty minutes, she would be returning to the station. Vee had yet to be located. Word was out that a white Alexandria cop had opened fire on a group of unarmed African-American youths. City leaders were crying for an update. What was Alexandria’s police department doing? How could they let a thirteen-year-old run the city? And what would they do now to keep the east side safe?

In the end, Sandra cheated and showered for a whole fifteen minutes. She needed the hot, stinging spray on her face.

She’d no sooner stepped out of the shower than her phone rang. It was her mother.

“Oh, my God, Sandra. Are you all right? We’ve been watching the news. Horrible, just horrible. Please tell me you weren’t downtown for all that.”

“Good morning to you, too,” Sandra said.

“Is it true there were riots? We saw pictures of cops with shields and plastic masks chasing groups of hoodlums through the streets. It looked like a Third World country or something. My God, we made the national news with this!”

“The situation is now under control.”

“Sandra, I have to be honest about this. You are scaring the living daylights out of your father and me. Tell us you’ve changed your mind. Come back to your father’s company. Really, enough is enough.”

“I’m not going back to Daddy’s company. But thanks for the offer.”

Her mother, however, remained undeterred. “Sandra, be realistic. You’re a young, intelligent woman. You could have any job you want. Certainly you could do better than, than…
this.
”

“Than managing crises that affect the whole city? I think not.”

“Would you like to get into politics?” her mother spoke up brightly. “That would be nice.”

“I would like to do exactly what I’m doing, Mom. But really, thanks for calling.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone. Sandra sighed and began toweling off. She didn’t know why she bothered with these conversations. Her mother wasn’t going to understand. She was still struggling with the concept of women in the workforce, let alone in the police force.

Her mother said abruptly, “It’s because of
him,
isn’t it?”

“I make my own decisions.”

“Oh, no. You would never have gotten interested in policing if it hadn’t been for Michael Rawlins. He’s the one who got you into this. And now what are you doing? Risking your life, giving your father and me heart attacks just so you can be closer to some blue-collar—”

“Stop it. Stop it right there.”

“Sandra! I am your mother. I will not—”

“You are my mother, and I love you. But finish that statement, and I will no longer be your daughter. I mean that.”

She managed to stun her mother into silence. When Melissa Aikens spoke up again, her tone was genuinely hurt and defensive. “I don’t understand.”

“I know, Mom. I know.” Sandra closed her eyes. She was curt, she was weary. She shouldn’t be having this conversation right now. Yet, on she went. “Mom, I love him.”

And her mother, God bless her, said, “Oh, no!”

“Oh, yes. Listen to me. I know you don’t understand me or my life. You’ve never liked Mike, and you certainly don’t want me in law enforcement. But those are the things I want, Mom. And I’m a good chief of police. Not that you can tell by looking at the news clips this morning, but on the other hand, I’ve gone days now without having
Bitch
written on my nameplate.”

“What?”

“And you know who’s helped me with all of this, Mom? Mike. He’s been at my side, helping me learn the ropes, helping me understand the department. I really think this time, we might be able to make things work. At least I’d like to try.”

Her mother made a strangling sound. Then she put her hand over the mouthpiece and yelled, “Howard, come talk some sense into your daughter.”

Sandra shook her head. Seconds later, her father was on the phone. “How are you, dear?”

“Tired. Late for work. Not in the mood for this.”

“We saw the news,” her father said somberly. “It looked like a terrible scene.”

“It was a rough night, but everything is fine now.”

“Your mom worries, you know. I do, too.”

Sandra didn’t say anything. After a moment, her father sighed heavily. “You’re not coming back to Security, Inc., are you, young lady?”

“No, I’m not. And since Mom’s going to tell you this next, I’m reconciling with Mike.”

Sandra could hear her mother in the background again. “Is she coming back to work, Howard? Is she making sense now?” Her father hushed her.

“Are you sure about this?”

“Yes.”

“It’s only been a few days, sweetheart.”

“I’m not so sure that’s true. It feels to me that we’re finally having the conversations we should’ve had four years ago. Instead, we walked away. I think we were too hurt and inexperienced to know what else to do. But we’ve had four years to turn things over in our minds. Four years to realize that while we did have problems, we’re even more unhappy without each other. I think we really were meant to be together. Now we just have to figure out how to make things work.”