"I tell people I'm an army of one."
"I bet," Frank said with a slight nod. "What do you want?"
"I need a statement from you as to what you saw."
"I saw was a truck T-bone a police vehicle and critically injure a fellow officer."
"Did the police vehicle pull out in front of the truck and impede its path of travel?"
Chief Tovarich leaned forward intently to hear Frank's reply. Frank looked directly at him and said, "That's all I saw."
The Highway cop circled around Frank to look where his car was parked in front of the bar. "Were you in your vehicle when the crash happened?"
"Yes."
"So you had an unobstructed view as this police vehicle pulled in front of the truck?"
"No."
"No?"
"I didn't see the police vehicle pull in front of the truck."
"What did you see?"
"I wasn't looking."
"What were you looking at?"
"My phone. I heard the crash and ran out of my car."
"May I see your phone?"
"No."
The officer scribbled a few notes and said, "So what did you see then?"
Frank waved his hands at the automobile wreckage and said, "I saw ponies and butterflies. The fuck do you think I saw?"
"I meant, what did you see when you looked inside the vehicle?"
Frank turned around, getting nose-to-nose with the cop, glaring up at him. "I saw a man I've worked with for fifteen years dying in front of me. Happy now?"
"Was he wearing his seatbelt?"
"What?"
The highway cop stared back at him, not moving. "I said, was he wearing his seatbelt when you first went to check on him?"
Frank glanced at the telephone poles along the street behind Donoschik, checking quickly for any surveillance cameras. He tried to remember if he'd seen an in-car camera in the unmarked Taurus as Tovarich pulled up, but couldn't risk turning to look. "Everything happened so fast, I'm not sure. I don't recall."
Donoschik looked back at his Chief, who closed his eyes and shrugged. He turned back to Frank, "You know we can get that tested, right? We can have his shirt analyzed for seatbelt fibers and stress on the material to see if he was actually wearing it."
The medevac lifted off the ground from behind the bar, its powerful rotors chopping the air and kicking up clouds of dust and gravel in the parking lot. Frank covered his eyes as he watched the helicopter ascend and said, "Your kids must be real proud when you tell them you work with a bunch of guys who risk it all on a daily basis just so you can drive around in your Nazi uniform writing hard-working people two hundred dollar tickets. What a hero."
Donoschik smiled thinly and said, "What I do is save lives, sir. We'll talk more about this later when your memory clears up a little."
A dark Jeep with municipal tags rolled slowly past the roadblock, turning toward Chief Tovarich. The Chief turned around and held out his hand to welcome them and shook his head in a slow, theatrical display of exasperation. Two men got out of the Jeep, surveying the wrecked police vehicle carefully. The shorter, fatter one lifted his sunglasses and bent down to peer inside, "And you say he's alive?"
"For now, Mr. Jones," Tovarich said. "We've got our fingers crossed that he'll pull through. Luckily, myself and the administrative officer were right up the street and able to get a medevac here immediately."
"Thank God for that," the second man said. Frank recognized him as Mr. Frederick, the other half of the newly elected Township council. He felt acid boiling in his gut as Frederick held out his hand toward the Chief and said, "I want you to know how much we appreciate being informed of this and letting us come out to see the crash."
Tovarich feigned surprise, "But why wouldn't I? This is a township vehicle, and you are the township supervisors. I pride myself on communicating with all our public safety committees. I've even issued badges and ID cards to the supervisors for circumstances like this."
"We should look into getting that," Jones said thoughtfully. He looked at Frank and the rest of the men standing in the parking lot. "Were they all here when it happened?"
"They came running out of the bar when it happened."
Frederick checked his watch and frowned, "It's not even noon. They were all in there drinking?"
Chief Tovarich looked at the wrecked police car and nodded solemnly.
Jones looked at Mr. Frederick and muttered, "What a goddamn mess. What the hell do we do now?"
The Chief folded his arms and touched his lips with the tip of his finger, pausing before he said, "Gentlemen, I have no intention of overstepping my bounds here. I do have some experience in these matters, however. There's the press, the insurance companies, the public concern, all will need to be addressed in a way that properly positions your township in the best possible way."
The two supervisors looked at one another, until Frederick said, "We'd be grateful for any advice you can offer, Chief. What do you have in mind?"
"For instance, if it is against your township's policy to operate a police vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, it may limit your exposure and place responsibility back on Officer Iolaus."
"I'm not sure if that's in there," Jones said. "We'll have to check."
"Or, if you have a seatbelt policy and Officer Iolaus was not wearing it, it would eliminate the taxpayer's financial burden of his medical expenses."
Frederick frowned, "I'd hate to seem so callous after the guy was just hurt so badly."
"That's why you have to know how to play it," Tovarich said. He leaned closer to the men and said gravely, "The unfortunate reality of command is that we are responsible for the good of the people, gentlemen. The taxpayers rely on us to put the needs of the community above the individuals working within it."
Jones lowered his voice, "I suppose if he was doing something wrong and got hurt, it's kind of his own fault. At the very least, it's our duty to investigate it."
Chief Tovarich nodded silently and headed back toward the wrecked police car, taking note that both of the supervisors were soon mimicking him and nodding along as well.
Frank O'Ryan yanked the steering wheel hard, screeching his rear tires sideways against the smooth cement runway of the hospital parking lot. There was a marked Manor Farms Township Police Department car already parked in a handicapped spot with HIGHWAY PATROL scrawled across the back quarter panels. Frank raced across the lot for the elevator, hammering the button until it finally lit up and dinged. He scanned the list with his finger for the Trauma Unit's floor and pressed the button, stepping back to watch the numbers light up in sequence.
The elevator opened, giving way to a stark white hallway with bright fluorescent lighting. Frank hurried for the heavy double doors marked No Admittance at the end of the hall and rang the buzzer impatiently until a nurse looked up from the main desk and waved for him to go away. Frank slapped his gold Detective badge against the glass and mouthed, "Let me in!"
The doors automatically unlocked.
He thanked the nurse as he hurried past her, peering into every room on either side of the hallway, waving to the old people on ventilators and families surrounding comatose people and saying he was sorry for disturbing them. He crossed a corridor and flinched at the sight of Corporal Donoschik standing there, speaking to one of the hospital's emergency surgeons. Frank immediately ducked out of sight and spun to see Anne Iolaus sitting by herself at the far end of the halls, her face dark with rivers of watery black makeup spilling from her swollen eyes.
Frank hustled down the hallway and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close to his chest. "It's going to be okay," he said. "I promise you."
"Is he going to die?" she bleated. "No one will tell me anything. I just want to know. We've got a baby, Frank. I need to know if she won't have a father."
"Shh," Frank whispered. "Don't talk like that. I was there. I talked to Jim before they took him away, and he was fighting. All he could talk about was the two of you."
Anne covered her face with her hands and tried to breathe, "I can't believe this happened. Why now? Everything was going so good."
Frank put his arm around her and sat her back down. "Did anyone say anything to you?"
"The doctors haven't even come by yet. The only person I saw was some police officer from Manor Farms who said he was investigating the accident and wanted to talk to me."
Frank's face twisted in disgust, "What the hell did he want?"
"I have no idea. All he did was leave me sitting here with Jim's things and told me not to touch anything."
"Things? What things?"
"This bag," Anne said. She reached under her seat and pulled out an open paper grocery bag. "I can smell the blood. Oh my God," she whispered. "I can smell it."
Frank leaned over and looked in the bag, seeing Iolaus' bloody shirt. His head shot up as he searched the walls and ceiling until he found a black domed security camera sitting directly above them. There was a bathroom just five feet down the hall, directly under another one of the security domes. Frank looked back down at the bag and quietly said, "You know, if somebody doesn't put cold water on that shirt, the blood won't come out."
"The shirt's ruined," Anne said. "Who cares? They can have it. I'll bring him new clothes."
"That's bad luck. Cops are always supposed to leave the hospital in the shirt they came in with. It's like a sign, saying you're bigger and badder than whatever put you in there."
"It is?"
"But if nobody gets some cold water on that blood it won't work and you know, in cases like this," his voice trailed off. "Every little bit helps."
"You really think I should?"
"I would want Dawn to do it for me."
Anne Iolaus snatched the shirt out of the bag and raced down the hall with it and shouldered her way through the bathroom door. Frank heard the sound of the water tap opening up, followed by angry, frustrated scrubbing. He slid the paper bag back under the chair with his foot and sat back in time to hear the squeaking sound of hard, rubber-soled boots coming down the sterilized hallway. He looked up at Corporal Donoschik and said, "Any word?"
"Nothing yet. What are you doing here?"
"I came to sit with Jim's wife, since she was left here all alone."
Donoschik looked down the hallway, "Where is she?"
"Bathroom."
Donoschik bent down under her seat and retrieved the paper bag, pinching it between his fingers like he was afraid to touch it. He peeled the bag open and looked down, releasing a strange guttural noise of disbelief just as Anne Iolaus came out of the bathroom holding her husband's wet, bloody shirt. "I got as much as I could out," she said.
Donoschik shivered with anger. He stormed toward her and wrenched the shirt out of her hands, "What the hell are you doing? I told you not to touch that!"
Frank leapt out of his seat, shouting, "Stand down, asshole. Who the hell do you think you're talking to?"
Donoschik clutched the soaking wet shirt in his hands, "This is evidence! I could arrest you for tampering with evidence right now!"
Frank's eyes widened in disbelief. "Wait, that shirt was evidence?" he said, gasping in alarm. "Anne, was the bag sealed shut with evidence tape?"
"No," she sputtered.
"Did you have to break into someplace where it was being secured?"
"No, it was sitting under my seat."
Frank looked back in disbelief at Donoschik, "You mean, you left evidence sitting around for anyone to compromise? How does that maintain a chain of custody? In fact, now that I think about it, when I walked up I saw that bag but you were nowhere around. Is that what they teach you that at highway school?"
Donoschik shot forward, jabbing a finger in Frank's face, "You piece of shit! Everything I heard about you is true. You mark my freaking words, O'Ryan, you're about to enter a world of misery! A world of misery!"
Donoschik's voice had risen to near-hysteria and Frank looked at the doctors and nurses standing by their doors, all of them staring at the scene with increased concern. Frank smiled sheepishly at them and lowered his voice as he leaned closer to Donoschik and said, "At least it's a world where I know how to properly secure evidence, right?"
Anne Iolaus opened her mouth to talk, but Frank squeezed her wrist to keep her quiet. They both watched the red-faced highway corporal slam the wet shirt into the paper bag and spin on his boots, the fast-paced squeak-squeak-squeak diminishing in his wake. "Do I even want to ask what the hell that was about?"
"Nope."
"Am I going to be in any trouble?"
"Nope."
"Are you?"
Frank sighed, "Yeah, well. What else is new?"
In the world of strip clubs, there's a sliding scale that ranges from upscale joints to low-rent dives. Upscale joints charge door fees and offer things like discounted buffets to their clientele. They bring in porno actresses for special promotions. Mostly, their girls are stuck-up escorts dressed in gaudy specialty outfits who think guys are actually there to watch them swing around a pole and show off their fancy dance moves. That, or for some poor sucker to get lured into the Champagne Room for a clumsy rub-and-tug, thinking the guy is going to wet himself at the chance to even be close to such an exquisite goddess.
Screw that, Frank thought. He preferred the dives. Sure, in a place like Stretchmark Sally's you had to deal with the odd forty-five-year-old biker chick with frosted hair and faded tattoos swinging around the pole like a man in a monkey suit, but hey, at least they were friendly. They tried harder. He threw down a fifty on the bar and said, "Two shots of Jack and a Miller Lite."
You knew you were slumming when the bartender poured shots into small plastic Dixie cups. Frank watched him pour Jack just to their rim and as soon as it was set in front of him, Frank picked it up and swallowed it down. "Again," he said, swallowing the second one even faster. The warmth of the liquor spread throughout his body, instantly helping him relax. It allowed him to turn in his seat and look across the room to where the girls would emerge from the dressing room to head to the stage. The door opened and there she was, all of Heaven and Hell in one small, olive-skinned package.
The guys in the bar instantly alerted on the change in quality of the merchandise, turning away from the biker chick as she paraded up to them one by one and clapped her sagging tits together for a dollar bill. They ignored her and watched Ophelia grab the pole and start to rotate her hips, swinging her long dark hair in a wide circle as she caressed her chest. Frank watched her too, and waited, knowing it wouldn't be long.
Every stripper in the world knows you're supposed to make eye contact with the guys in the bar. It helps foster a connection they can exploit later, a way of making the slobs think she's interested and loosens their wallets. Most guys aren't interested in actually going home with a stripper, Frank thought. Not after actually talking to them for more than five minutes. But every guy wants to be the one she wants to go home with.
Ophelia wrapped her leg around the pole, giving the audience a clear view of her satin-covered crotch, and bent down just enough to see Frank staring up at her. Her head fired up as she spun away, and after that, she refused to look in his direction again.
Frank drank his beer and waited for the song to finish. He watched the guys all stare and drool and adjust themselves, waiting hungrily for their turn with her. Ophelia came down from the stage and walked right past him, heading for the next closest customer. Some kind of contractor. She wrapped her hands around his burly, flannel shirted neck and kissed him lightly on the lips, pressing herself close to his body, cooing as she reached down to squeeze his package through his jeans.
Frank looked away and held up his hand to flag the bartender. "Another shot and a beer please. It's gonna be a long night."
He was bleary-eyed and tired. Cigarette smoke felt painted on the insides of his eyelids and soaked into the pores of his skin. He waved the bartender off as he came up and said, "Just water. I'm done."
So
meone wrapped her hand around his shoulder and he turned in his seat. It was the biker chick. Frank picked up his last crumpled dollar and said, "Here. Take it."
She looked at the dollar and pouted, then pulled down the front of her g-string to show him the bare pad of wrinkled skin there. "Doesn't daddy want to feed the kitty?"
No, daddy does not, Frank thought. He dropped the dollar into her crotch and said, "Thank you, dear."
"Thank you, daddy," she said. She leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek and Frank shuddered. He was sick with himself for being there, for staying so long, for feeling so desperate. Fuck it, he thought as he pushed away from the bar. I'm going home.
"Is this what you meant by not doing it anymore? About being done?"
He stopped at the sound of her voice and looked at the door. It was just a few feet away. I almost made it, he thought. He turned to look at her, no longer dressed in her stripper getup. She was ready to leave, holding her imitation Burberry shoulder bag, wearing low-cut sweatpants and a sweatshirt. All of the harsh makeup was scrubbed off her face now, and she looked more like a college student. The natural, private kind of beauty that he preferred. "No," he finally said. "Not at all."
"So why did you come?"
"It's been a hell of a day. I guess I realized that the only person I could really talk to about it with, or even wanted to talk to about it with, was you."
Ophelia took a deep breath, "Do you want to sit down and have a drink?"
"Could we go grab some food and coffee instead? Go someplace normal?"
"Nothing about any of this is normal, Frank," she said.
"I know. But maybe it could be."
She eyed him suspiciously, "What does that mean?"
"It means I've been thinking. Really thinking. About my life. About you. It means I'm tired of lying."
He held the door open for her as they left the bar. He carried her bag for her like some kind of school kid. She reached for his hand and he thought, this is what it feels like to fall down the rabbit hole. This is what it feels like to let go.
Chapter Two
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