The Betrayed

by David Hosp

  “We got a real scumbag here, Fritzy,” Cassian said to the desk sergeant, pushing Washington hard into the front edge of the high counter.

  “What’s on the menu for him?” the graying, deliberate officer on the other side of the counter asked.

  “Let’s start with possession with intent to distribute.” Cassian held up the bag of drugs in the evidence pouch. “Toss in a little trespassing, a touch of parole violation, a dash of conspiracy, and top it all off with a heaping helping of attempted murder of a police officer.”

  The desk sergeant raised his eyebrows at Washington. “You got a lot on your plate, son,” he said.

  “That’s bullshit!” Washington protested.

  Cassian smacked him in the back of the head. “We’ll figure out what’s for dessert once we’ve had a chance to chat.”

  “Sounds like a swell date to me,” Fritz replied. “Before you settle in for the duration, though, Reynolds wants to see both you and Train in his office.”

  Cassian nodded. “That’s fine. Just have Minnelli and Johnson process him and stick him in one of the interrogation rooms, okay?”

  “Will do.”

  z

  When Train and Cassian entered Reynolds’s office, they were disappointed, though not surprised, to see Chief Harold Torbert seated in one of the chairs in front of the captain’s desk.

  “Train, Cassian,” Reynolds began, “I believe you know Chief Torbert.” He raised his eyebrows to warn the detectives that the meeting might not be pleasant. Reynolds had a manner of communicating nonverbally that way. He was popular with his men, who recognized that he’d risen to his position as a result of his police skills, rather than political prowess. He was a pragmatist, but his loyalties remained with his men, and they returned that loyalty in kind.

  “Not well,” Train said. “I think we’ve met only once.” He offered his hand reluctantly.

  Torbert was short and heavy, with an oily complexion and a toupee that looked as though it had been a decade at least since it had fit his scalp. He was an adept pencil pusher with little street experience, and he’d always made it clear to those beneath him that the chief’s office was nothing more than a brief stopover on his way to political office. “Sergeant,” he said in a voice that came more from his nasal passages than from his chest or throat. His hand felt boneless and slick to Train, who had to work to keep from wiping his own hand on his trousers when he took it back.

  “The chief stopped by to get an update on the Creay murder,” Reynolds said. He rolled his eyes again.

  “That’s right,” Torbert agreed, settling his flab back into his chair. “I understand we got a fingerprint at the scene.” Train noted the man’s use of the word “we,” as though he’d actually had some role in the investigatory process.

  “We did,” Train said.

  “And?” Torbert pressed.

  “We just picked up a suspect. Jerome Washington; a small-time dealer with a history of B&Es.”

  “Excellent, excellent,” Torbert said excitedly, rubbing his hands together. Train thought he heard them squish. “It’s good to see that we’re working this so quickly. I’m sure you’re aware of the importance of this matter; she’s from a very prominent family—and a reporter to boot.”

  “Yes,” Train said. “I can see how her murder would be more important than others.”

  Torbert nodded his wattle up and down, missing Train’s sarcasm. “Exactly, exactly! We have to make it seem as though we’re making progress.”

  “Or,” Cassian interjected, “we could actually make progress.” Torbert glared at him. “It’s just another way we could go.” Cassian shrugged.

  Torbert stared at Jack for another moment, but clearly felt no need to introduce himself to the junior detective. “Of course, of course,” he said. “Real progress. But you can see how important perception is in this particular case, as well. This Washington person, he’s in custody?”

  “He is.”

  “Good, good. I’ll have our PR people draft a statement for immediate release.”

  “Hold on, Chief.” Reynolds held up his hand to quell the outbursts about to fly from Train and Cassian. “If I may suggest it, we haven’t even interviewed Washington yet. A release is probably premature, and it could cause us problems down the road if we’re wrong.”

  “Yes, yes, of course.” Torbert waved a dismissive hand at the captain. “We’ll keep it very general and noncommittal for the moment, and of course we’ll wait for the detectives’ input once they’ve had a chance to work the young man over a bit.” He smiled, revealing sharp little teeth.

  “We may also want to look into other leads,” Cassian pointed out.

  The smile disappeared from Torbert’s face. “What other leads?”

  “Well, for example,” Train began, “we’re gonna want to talk to the victim’s ex. And we’ll want to rule out anyone else in the family as well.”

  The chief shook his head back and forth, an agonized expression on his face. “Out of the question, out of the question. You clearly don’t know who we’re dealing with, here.”

  Reynolds cleared his throat. “Chief, we can’t soft-pedal this thing just because of who the victim is.”

  Torbert pressed his hand against his chest, as though wounded. “Soft-pedal? Who said anything about soft-pedaling? I just want us to focus on the most promising lead so we can move the investigation along as quickly as possible. That’s clearly this Washington person. And if that also means that for the moment we can avoid upsetting one of the most powerful women in the District—a woman who is shattered by the loss of her daughter, by the way—well then, I suppose that’s just our good fortune, isn’t it?”

  The three police officers in the room looked at one another in silence. “She got to you, didn’t she?” Train said at last.

  Torbert spun on him. “Pardon me, Sergeant?” His beady little eyes narrowed angrily.

  “Mrs. Chapin. She said that she’d use her contacts to spare her family any inconvenience or embarrassment. She got to you.”

  Torbert stood up and turned to Reynolds. “Captain, I trust this matter will be handled in the most complete and efficient manner possible. Please have the detectives give you their input for the press release as soon as they’re through with Mr. Washington.” With that he left the room, not even pausing to acknowledge Train and Cassian on his way out.

  “I feel dirty,” Cassian said after the door closed.

  “Just make sure you wash your hands before you eat,” Reynolds agreed. “I wouldn’t want you two catching the virus that turned him into whatever he is.” He sighed heavily. “Unfortunately, one of the things he is is my boss. It’d certainly save me a pretty big fuckin’ headache if you could close this one out quickly.”

  Cassian looked at Train. “You hear that, Sarge? We wouldn’t want a little thing like a murder to cause the captain any headaches, would we?”

  “Heaven forbid.”

  “You boys know what I mean. Get it right. Just get it right quickly, if possible. And let’s run out the Washington lead first to see where it goes.”

  “Don’t worry, Captain,” Cassian said in a nasal impression of Torbert. “We’ll handle this in the most complete and efficient manner possible.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  JEROME WASHINGTON SAT in the dingy interrogation room, eyes straight ahead, hands clasped together, silently waiting. He didn’t look into the one-way mirror behind which he knew the police were sitting, watching him—measuring him. He’d played this game before. It seemed a game he’d been born playing.

  As outwardly calm as he was, his mind was racing, running through the various scenarios he faced at the moment. He was still on probation, and just by being at the crack house, he suspected he could be violated—sent back to finish out another eight months of his original sentence. That would be bad, but he could handle it.

  The bigger issue involved the drugs that had been found under the chair when Train and Cassian had b
urst into the house. They were his. The cops knew it—hell, everyone knew it. The only question was: could they prove it? He’d taken the drugs out of his pocket and tossed them under the chair when he’d heard the police come through the front door. Anyone with any sense knew that drugs lying under a chair would last all of five seconds in a crack house. Still, with all of the traffic the place got, it might be difficult for the police to prove they were his beyond a reasonable doubt. The only danger was that they might be able to pull a fingerprint off one of the bags, but Jerome thought that was unlikely.

  If they could tie the drugs to him, Jerome knew he was done. The rocks were well over the amount needed for a conviction under the federal “drug kingpin” laws. That meant he could be sent away for good—and that was simply unacceptable. As much as he’d learned to handle prison, he had no intention of being there for the rest of his life. He’d rather take the whole world down than spend his days rotting on the inside. He had to play the game, and he had to find out what the police had.

  The door swung open and Train and Cassian walked into the room. Jerome focused on Train. He was the more senior of the two, and he’d been a legend in Jerome’s old neighborhood. D-Train: the greatest high school football player to ever stalk the fields at Kennedy Park; the standout at Virginia, who’d been predicted to be a top draft choice to the pros before his knees gave out; the young man who’d dealt with the adversity and, unlike so many other college athletes banking on a lucrative pro career, had gotten his degree; the cop who’d returned to the city to fight a losing battle on the streets in and around his old neighborhood; the man who’d arrested Jerome three years earlier on a bullshit B&E charge. At least they hadn’t been able to tie Jerome to anything else at the time.

  Train pulled a chair out from the table across from Jerome; Cassian hung back against the wall on the other side of the room. “Got some bad news for you, Jerome,” Train said.

  “What’s that?” Jerome scoffed.

  “Public defender’s office is a little backed up. Looks like it’s gonna be another five or six hours before they can get someone here to talk to you.”

  Jerome shrugged. “I did two years, Train. Think I can handle six hours.” He folded his arms. “Besides, where else would I rather be?”

  Train smiled. “Then I suppose you won’t mind if we keep you company for a little while, huh? Maybe talk a little?”

  Jerome knew he had to be careful. He’d been in the system long enough to know that, having asked for a lawyer, the police couldn’t ask him any questions directly—unless he agreed to talk. But he also needed to get whatever information he could from the cops in order to figure out where he stood, and he knew the public defenders that were assigned by the courts were often useless—aging hacks who were looking to collect as many fees from the state as possible by funneling as many clients as they could through the system, or wide-eyed idealists right out of law school who knew little about the law, and less about the realities of the criminal justice system. Jerome decided to try walking the tightrope.

  “You can talk about whatever you want, Train.” It was ambiguous, and might tempt the cops into disclosing what they had, without waiving Jerome’s rights.

  Train and Cassian shared a look before Train continued. “Looks like you got some problems, here, Jerome.”

  Jerome laughed. “Problems? Man, you don’t know from problems. You wanna talk problems? You’ve come to the expert.” Washington broadened his smile into a big goofy grin. The Man always likes to see the Sambo shit. No matter what color the Man happens to be, it shows I know my place.

  “You think this is some kind of a fuckin’ joke, Jerome?” Train looked pissed, and Washington wiped the smile off his face.

  “No sir, Sergeant Train, I surely don’t.” He had to play this carefully.

  “You know why we brought you in, Jerome?” Train’s face was serious.

  “Yeah,” Jerome said. “Somebody put they’ rock under my chair, an’ now you think it’s mine. I’m tellin’ you, I don’t know whose shit that is. You think I’m gonna be dumb enough to carry when I’m on probation?” He tried his best to look sincere. “I mean, I ain’t no saint, but I ain’t no idiot neither, right?”

  “The name Elizabeth Creay mean anything to you, Jerome?” Train asked directly.

  Washington racked his brain. What the fuck was going on? “No.”

  “How about the address 1141⁄G Street, Southeast? That ring

  2 any bells?”

  Washington shrugged. “I know where it is, if that’s what you’re askin’.”

  “Ever been there?”

  “Not that I remember. What the fuck you lookin’ for, Train? You wanna gimme a hint, and maybe this’ll go a little faster?”

  Train nodded at Cassian, and without a word his partner reached into his pocket and pulled out something wrapped in a plastic bag. He handed the bag to Train, and Train placed it on the table between him and Jerome.

  Jerome looked down and saw the distinctive skull and crossbones on the lighter in the bag. He frowned before he caught himself and evened out his expression. Train had already noticed his reaction, though.

  “It’s yours, isn’t it?” Train asked.

  Jerome thought for a moment before he spoke. “That wasn’t with the shit that was in the house,” he said finally.

  “Then what’s the harm in admitting it’s yours, Jerome?” Train encouraged him.

  Washington looked back and forth between Train and Cassian, wondering what was going on. He smelled a trap. “You think I’m fuckin’ stupid?” he asked.

  “Yeah, we do, Jerome,” Cassian shot at him from his perch against the wall on the other side of the room.

  “That’s funny,” Washington replied. He turned back to Train. “Your little white boy there’s funny. You teach him to be so fuckin’ funny, D-Train?”

  Cassian tensed visibly, but Train held up his hand to prevent a disruption. “You don’t want to be making enemies right now, Jerome. You’re in a world of shit, and you can only make things worse.”

  “You’re scarin’ me, Train,” Washington scoffed. He wasn’t about to lose his bravado. The truth of the matter, though, was that Train was scaring him. “Look, you an’ the DA wanna waste your time tryin’ to make possession stick in front of a jury, you go ahead, but the fact is the shit under the chair wasn’t mine, an’ you can’t prove it was. You can lie an’ say that torch was with the shit, but you an’ I both know it wasn’t.”

  “This isn’t about the drugs, Jerome. You’ve got much bigger problems than that.”

  “You wanna tell me what other problems I got?”

  “Let’s try murder. How’s that work for you?”

  Jerome thought Train was joking for a moment, but as he stared into the huge man’s eyes, he could tell he was serious.

  “What the fuck’re you talkin’ about, Train?” he asked cautiously. This was a development he hadn’t anticipated.

  “That’s right, Jerome,” Cassian confirmed, tossing a manila folder down on the table. “Oh yeah, you’ve hit the big time, scumbag.”

  Washington looked from the folder lying on the table to Train and then back again, unsure what to do.

  “Open it, Jerome,” Train said. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

  Washington reached out his hand hesitantly. He looked one more time at Train, who nodded his head. Then he flipped over the cover to the folder, looking down at the images inside. “Goddamn!” he exclaimed, making a face that hovered between revulsion and fascination. “Some white bitch had a bad day, fo’ sure.”

  The pictures were in color, and the image of Elizabeth Creay screamed out from the glossy eight-by-tens, her face barely recognizable from the burns, and the wounds to her neck and abdomen having pooled blood onto the mattress.

  Train sat back in his chair. “Look at her, Jerome,” he said quietly.

  “I’m lookin’,” Jerome said, though his eyes were focused on Train.

&nbs
p; Train leaned back in his chair, and he spoke slowly. “Her name was Elizabeth Creay, Jerome. She had a daughter, you know that? Fourteen years old. Did you know that it was her daughter who found her like this? That’ll fuck a person up, but I guess you never really cared about that, did you? As long as you got the money for your fix, right? How much did you take off her, maybe a few hundred dollars? Maybe another thousand for the computer and whatever else you could carry away? What’s that, Jerome, enough to get high for a week or so?”

  “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talkin’ ’bout, man!” Jerome insisted.

  “Bullshit, Jerome,” Cassian barked. “This girl lived at 1141⁄G

  2 Street—less than two blocks from the shithole where you’ve been hanging out for months, where we picked you up today, and where your boy in the other lockup tried to put a hole through Sergeant Train’s chest. That’s your shack; you run it, from what we hear on the street, and nothing happens in that neighborhood without your say-so. The murder looks like a burglary gone wrong—the kind you made your name with.

  And then there’s this.” Cassian picked up the plastic bag with the lighter in it.

  Washington rubbed the back of his neck, looking venomously at Cassian, who was holding the bag in his face. “What about it?” he demanded.

  “We found it right next to Elizabeth Creay’s body, and do you know what? It’s got your fingerprints all over it.” Jerome Washington’s eyes widened and he muttered something under his breath. “That’s right, shithead,” Cassian continued. “How hard do you think it’s going to be to get one of your homies to confirm that this lighter is yours? Nice little skull face on it and all—it’s pretty distinctive.” The room was silent for a moment or two as everyone looked at the pocket torch, still resting between Train and Washington.

  It was Train who finally spoke. “I’d like to help you here, Jerome. I really would. This is a serious mess you’re in. D.C.’s federal jurisdiction, and between the rock under your chair and the way you burned the woman, the feds will probably want to take over and go all the way with you. You’re not just looking at jail time—you’re looking at the needle.” Train rubbed his hand over his bald head. “I don’t want to see that. I don’t want that for your mother. We knew each other growing up. We’re from the same neighborhood. I want to see if we can save your family the pain of going through an execution, but the only way to be sure is for you to come clean on all this now.” He leaned forward and looked Washington in the eyes. “If we’re gonna save your ass, you’ve got to start talking to us. Tell us what happened.”