School of Fish

by Amy Lane

  Tage frowned. “But you just asked me—”

  “I did. But Ellery and me, we’re it. Someone walks up to you in the yard, in your cell, and says, ‘How’d it go with the lawyers,’ you tell them we’re full of shit and you’ll probably be in for life. It’s not true!” he added hastily as Tage’s face registered his horror. “But you have a face like an open book, kid. I need you to not let anybody read you who doesn’t need to. Can you do that for me?” While he was speaking, Herrera and Ellery slid back into the room but remained quiet.

  Tage didn’t notice them. He swallowed, throat working. “We do not share our souls here,” he said weakly.

  “Good. You keep that up. No soul sharing.” Jackson smiled at him kindly. “I’ll tell your father you are okay.”

  Tage’s lower lip wobbled, but he nodded.

  “And you keep your eyes open, hear?”

  Jackson glanced up at Herrera to make sure she wasn’t going to give him crap.

  “Infirmary tonight,” Siren said. “Cramer, you can accompany him there and make sure the nurse on duty has him in the infirmary cell. I’ll have a number for bail first thing tomorrow.”

  The naked hope on Tage’s face hurt to see. Jackson pinned him with a no-bullshit gaze.

  “We’ll be here at eight with a suit,” he said. “But in the meantime, I don’t give a shit who asks—what’s your answer?”

  Tage’s eyes stayed focused on Jackson’s face, but they could both see the guard in his peripheral vision. “My lawyers are shitty. I’ll be in jail for life.”

  Jackson let out a long breath. “Deal.” He looked at Ellery and then leaned forward, just far enough to keep his voice low. “Don’t eat anything tonight.”

  He pulled back, and Tage’s eyes were enormous. “Da,” he said numbly.

  And then the guard said, “Time to go. Infirmary?” He looked at the ADA.

  “Yes,” she responded. “Please escort Mr. Cramer and the prisoner there, and then Mr. Cramer back.”

  “I’ll—” Jackson began, but Herrera shook her head.

  They both sat suspiciously as the guard unlocked Tage’s manacles from the table and then escorted him, chains hobbling his thin ankles, out of the room, Ellery on his heels. Jackson watched them go helplessly and then sagged in his seat.

  “God, that kid had better be alive in the morning.”

  Siren Herrera regarded him evenly from those sharp brown eyes of hers. “What makes you think he won’t? And make it quick. I just pulled the infirmary card.”

  “Kid was terrified. Wouldn’t say anything. I got two words from him, and when I got the first one, I looked up and the guard was practically in my pants. His cousin, Sascha, was on the inside for three years, stolen property. He had contacts who were supposed to keep Tage safe, so where did he get those bruises?”

  Herrera blinked. “Okay, so we’ve got a terrified kid who may or may not have decapitated—”

  “His brother and sister have been kidnapped and trafficked,” Jackson said bluntly. Those were the words on the legal pad. Kids sold. “We’ve got a name—one I have to run—and contacts I need to talk to. We have a place to start, but none of it is any good if that kid doesn’t make it through the night. And even if we get him off scot-free, the odds of him being safe until we get these people arrested and in prison are not great. But he’d rather be gunned down in the street than killed in his cell, Ms. Herrera. Trust me.”

  “Do you have a suspect for this killing at least?” Herrera asked. “I can’t go to my boss with nothing.”

  Jackson pulled his phone. “This kid. Sergio Ivanov. Police just issued a BOLO for him in the matter of Sean Kryzynski, the police detective who was knifed outside our office after trying to steal this exact file,” Jackson told her. “Did Ellery tell you that?”

  Herrera shook her head. “No. Are you sure it’s this one?”

  “Well, someone stormed the damned public defender’s office this morning, looking for a file that was going to us. We had a choice between two files, but the other one led to this one, so I’m pretty sure this one’s it.”

  “What’s the other one?”

  Jackson shook his head. “Nope.”

  “Nope?” Herrera laughed, a little shocked. “You can’t withhold evi—”

  “This kid’s a target, Siren, and he might not make it through the night. That other guy in the folder is not. And he won’t be unless—”

  “Unless someone hears his name,” she muttered, proving she wasn’t stupid.

  “It’s a matter of trust,” Jackson said. His eyes darted outside, where Ellery and the guard had disappeared, Tage between them. “We trust that you’re going to do your best to keep that kid alive. You need to trust us that we’re not going to let a killer go free.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. “He probably weighs 110 pounds,” she muttered. “He… he doesn’t belong here.”

  A tiny part of Jackson relaxed. “Then let’s work to get him out.”

  She nodded. “Human trafficking. This is such bad news.”

  “You are telling me. God, how are we going to get those kids?”

  She scowled at him. “Two kids? That’s all you’re worried about? Two kids?”

  “No. I’m worried about all of them, dammit, but these two kids I know, and these two kids I can do something about. You tell me how I fix the whole damned world and I’ll do it. But I can’t. Two kids. What used to be a happy family.” He breathed harshly against the tightness in his throat. “Sometimes that’s where we have to start.”

  “Do we even know the names of these kids? There’s nothing in the police report.” Herrera closed her eyes wearily. Jackson knew Ellery’s hours; he was pretty sure Herrera’s were comparable. Ten-hour days and work on the weekends. Welcome to the glamorous life of the ADA.

  “Sophie and Max,” Jackson said, remembering the way Tage had played with them, teasing them, giving them things to do to make their cousin Sascha feel like moving into Jackson’s old duplex was a cause for celebration. “Their family is pretty tight. Tage’s not going to say a word until he knows they’re safe.”

  Herrera nodded. “They lie to us, you know.”

  Jackson looked at her quizzically. “Who lies? About what?”

  “We’re told that the people who come through those doors into the jail usually have no family, are abusers, nobody will miss them. And some of them—” She shook her head and shuddered.

  “Some of them really are monsters,” Jackson agreed. He’d seen the psychopaths, the conscienceless, the abusers, the monsters. One or two of them had been cops, but by no means all of them.

  “They are indeed,” she murmured, and then, echoing his thought to the word. “But not all of them.”

  Jackson thought of that kid, his narrow shoulders, the fragile way he’d held his jaw. “No,” he said gruffly. “That’s why we’re here.”

  She nodded and gave him a grim smile. “It’s easy to forget that.” They both saw Ellery through the wire-embedded glass, stopping to talk to the guard by his side, and Jackson stood and gave in to the urge to stretch and yawn.

  “Long day?” she asked.

  Jackson shrugged. “First day back.”

  “From vacation?”

  Jackson blinked at her. Sometimes he had to remind himself that not everybody Ellery met was classified as a friend. Ellery wasn’t great at small talk with colleagues.

  “Medical leave,” he said, waiting to see if she knew about him and Ellery or not.

  “That’s funny,” she said, frowning. “Ellery said his partner had been out on medical lea… oh!”

  She blinked at him, the expression dispelling some of the arctic coolness she projected by mere virtue of her cheekbones.

  He batted his lashes prettily. “Not what you expected?”

  She raked him up and down with her sharp black eyes. “Let’s just say I’m personally disappointed.”

  It was Jackson’s turn to blink. Wow, how had he missed the signs? “Wel
l, that’s flattering, and a year ago I might not have been such a disappointment.”

  Her full lips curved into a smile. “What happened a year ago?”

  Jackson’s eyes flickered to Ellery, the way the sharp brows snapped down in the middle because he was displeased, the strong, bony jaw, the lean mouth that could be mobile and full with kisses and humor.

  “Oh,” Herrera said again. “I guess there is someone for everyone.”

  Jackson ignored her, watching the guard’s posture, his hands clenched at his sides, the ugly expression of distaste on his face.

  “Excuse me,” he murmured, stepping through the door and into the guard’s personal space.

  The guard’s clumsy swipe at his head wasn’t exactly a surprise. Jackson dodged back neatly and was dismayed when the guard’s loose fist whooshed past Jackson and into Ellery’s jaw.

  Ellery wobbled on his feet, and Jackson caught the guard’s hand as he yanked it back, and twisted the man’s arm behind him, forcing him to lie facedown on the floor.

  “Herrera!” he barked, relieved when he heard her coming from the conference room.

  “I saw that,” she said, lunging for the phone on the wall. “Herrera, Conference Room Two. We have an incident. Repeat, an incident. We need a supervisor here stat!”

  Jackson was pressing most of his weight on his elbows into the guard’s back as he struggled, but he managed to check Ellery out from his position on the floor.

  “Counselor, how you doing?”

  “Ou. Ch,” Ellery managed, rubbing his jaw. “How do you do that for fun?”

  Jackson let out a weak laugh. “Mostly I duck. Sorry about that. He wasn’t really focused—I didn’t expect it to get to you.” Jackson put some more weight on the small of the guy’s back. “Why did you do that?” he asked, right as a group of really angry men with guns, Tasers, and billy clubs came charging down the hallway.

  Siren Herrera stood in front of them, hand out, in what was a balls-out act of bravery.

  “Your man swung on a civilian,” she said. “We can resolve this in-house, or we can press charges, but we’re not doing a thing until you get him in hand so Mr. Rivers here can stop restraining him.”

  The group of five men slowed to a halt, and the leader eyeballed Jackson as he struggled to keep his perch on top of the much bigger guard.

  “The actual fuck, Mayer!”

  J. Mayer—or that’s what it said on his nametag—turned his head and rested it on the floor. “He got in my space,” he muttered.

  “He was threatening Mr. Cramer,” Jackson retorted. “His body language, his raised voice—I was trying to de-escalate the situation, and he swung.”

  “True story,” Herrera said, backing him up. Jackson sent her a grateful look, and she gave him a hard nod. “We saw their argument from the conference room, but—” She turned to Ellery. “—I’m afraid we don’t know what it was about.”

  Ellery was still rubbing his jaw, and Jackson saw a mild swelling already erupting.

  “Could somebody get this asshole so I can get him some ice?” Jackson demanded, and immediately two of the other guards were at his side. Jackson slid off and waited for them to cuff Mayer before moving away completely.

  “I’ll go get an ice pack,” said a younger guard, smaller, with dark hair, dark eyes, and skin of the palest clay color.

  “Thanks,” Jackson said, as M. Garcia took off for the infirmary.

  “Great, now that that’s taken care of,” the lead guard said, “what exactly happened here?” He was an older man, retirement age, with thinning brown hair, a mustache, ruddy skin, and piercing blue eyes. His nametag proclaimed him to be J. Codromac, and he looked both Jackson and Mayer over with a canny gaze.

  “Officer Mayer and I were talking about our client,” Ellery said, wincing as he spoke. “Mr. Dobrevk was in Mayer’s custody when he received a beating that bruised his face and ended up with Mr. Dobrevk having to spend the night in the infirmary. I wanted to know where those bruises came from, and Officer Mayer was more concerned about his sterling reputation than his prisoner’s health and welfare.”

  “For the last time, I don’t know what happened to that punk kid,” Mayer burst out, still facedown on the ground. “This isn’t a day care. People get hurt!”

  “Seventeen-year-olds who weigh a hundred pounds apparently do,” Jackson retorted. He looked at Ellery. “Is the boy okay?”

  “The medic was very surprised he hadn’t seen Tage yet,” Ellery said, glaring at Mayer.

  “Mr. Mayer assured us he’d been seen to,” Herrera said, surprised.

  “Kid was fine,” Mayer snapped. “Was just a little bit of a roughing up.”

  Jackson’s eyes narrowed in speculation. “Which he didn’t get at the hands of the prisoners,” he said, because Sascha’s contacts had put a “no touch” order on Tage.

  Codromac’s eyes widened too. “Help him up,” he said to the other guards, and Jackson scrambled out of the way as they hauled him up by the armpits. Once he was there, Codromac searched Mayer’s face with those shrewd blue eyes while Mayer stared through his skull.

  “Go home,” he said. “Come in tomorrow. Let’s hope that kid’s okay.”

  “But—” Mayer began.

  Codromac just shook his head. “Three weeks retraining, no prisoner contact. You’re in the video room. Would you like to try for a suspension?”

  Mayer growled, his face red with helplessness. “I can’t,” he said. “I just… I have to be here.”

  The words, the phrasing, the “have to.” Jackson opened his mouth to ask “Why have to?” but Codromac beat him to it.

  “You and me, we need to discuss that,” he said quietly. “But right now, go change. No phone calls. Another word out of you and it turns into suspension without pay. You two, escort him to the locker rooms. Take his weapons.”

  Mayer looked like he was going to cry, but he nodded angrily, and the two guards at his side moved to do what was asked.

  Jackson opened his mouth to protest, and Ellery and Siren did the same. Codromac held his hand up with the authority of someone who had been wrangling people at their worst through one political upswing after another.

  “You three I will speak to outside,” he said.

  He escorted them through the confines of the entryway with the shaded trees in the front, taking a deep breath of the still-thick air of early evening. “You forget what free oxygen tastes like in there,” he said, and they nodded. Something about the man instilled respect—even in Jackson, who had probably just risked his life by taking out a guy in uniform.

  “So that guy’s crooked,” he said after a moment. “And I didn’t know. But I don’t think the union will do anything with him, not based on what we’ve got now. Suggestions?”

  Jackson looked at Ellery, who nodded and picked up the ball.

  “This case has a lot of Russian names in it,” he said delicately. Nobody liked to say “Russian mob.” Not in Sacramento, where the big players had been street gangs until the last ten years. But there was no denying the prevalence of Russian names here—or the tactics. Trafficking, police manipulation, the casual brutality against the young men, and the missing children. This wasn’t an ordinary street gang. This was damned serious.

  Codromac grunted. “I’m a stubborn bohunk, and I still know what that means,” he muttered. “I’m not excited that one of my men is tied to this, but you think I should keep him away from the Russian guys?”

  “Keep him away from the vulnerable guys,” Ellery said. “I think if Mayer had help, there would’ve been a partner who would have alibied him. That wasn’t the case here. Mayer may be dirty—and possibly being coerced—but he obviously doesn’t expect anybody to have his back. If you can’t get him out, just put him someplace he’s got more accountability and less time alone with people who can’t fight back.”

  Codromac nodded. “I will have a talk with our CDCR officer before I leave tonight.” He blew out a breath. “Won’t make
me real popular, but I retire soon. Figure I got all the friends I need. You law people”—he made a dismissive gesture, throwing all three of them onto the same side and into the same pot—“do what you need to do. I’m just a dumb bohunk, like I said. I’ve got no use for lawyers.” He paused and gave them all a hard glance. “Unless they’re saving some poor kid’s life who’s got no more reason to be in prison than I’ve got in a fish bowl.”

  Jackson had to work not to smile. As easily as he’d taken out Mayer, he thought he could sort of like this guy.

  “Watch out for him,” Jackson said, feeling a slight surge of protectiveness. “All animals get mean when they’re cornered.”

  “We’ll keep Mayer out of gen pop until CDCR is done with him,” Codromac agreed, and the lines at the corner of his mouth deepened. “That kid too.” This time he pinned Herrera with an icy gaze that belied his assertion of being a “dumb bohunk” who knew nothing about the affairs of lawyers. “Don’t know what your office was thinking. That there’s a fucking travesty.”

  Herrera nodded. “Yessir. Well, mistakes were made.”

  Codromac snorted. “Your superiors were taking advantage of a rookie is more like it. Give ’em hell, girl. You all go fix the world. I’m going to go read one of the broken bits the riot act, and let’s see if we can keep that kid alive.”

  And with that, the head officer at the county jail turned around and stumped away, average man, average height, a great deal more character than was first apparent riding his average shoulders.

  “I like that guy,” Jackson mused and then frowned at Ellery, who was holding the ice pack gingerly to his jaw. “Let’s get to the car, Counselor—there’s ibuprofen in the glove box.”

  Herrera frowned at them, the weariness Jackson had seen while they were waiting for Ellery’s return weighing down heavier on her than ever.

  “He didn’t have us file an incident report,” she said unhappily. “We should be up to our eyeballs in paperwork.”

  “A thing I plan to investigate tonight,” Ellery told her, probing at his jaw. Jackson resisted the urge to knock his hand away. Not here. Not now. “But Jackson and I have a stop we should make.” Ellery met his eyes. “Is he out of surgery yet?”