This was apparently not going to be an “easy” one.
“So someone screams through the light like a bat out of hell,” Ramon theorized, “skids to a stop, tosses Devin to the sidewalk like he’s nothing and pops him in the head.” He shook his head and folded his arms over his chest, squinting at his partner. “Is it just me, or does that not make a whole lotta sense?”
“Not just you,” Jill agreed. “Let's hope traffic cams paint a clearer picture for us.”
CHAPTER 3
It was another hour before traffic cam footage became available; in the interim, Jill had informed Captain Daniel Richards, leader of the Seventh Precinct, about the preliminaries of the case. Richards' face had fallen upon learning the victim was a 17-year-old black boy, and Jill couldn't help but wonder if that was a case of racial solidarity or if it was because the case triggered less-than-pleasant memories. Knowing Baltimore the way she did, Jill guessed it was probably a bit of both. Downtown had already called him several times wanting an update, which Jill found odd. They almost never called that often so soon after a body dropped -- not even in the case of famous victims.
Still, that was a problem Richards had to deal with, not Jill. So she strode from his fishbowl of an office to her desk, where a blank white dry-erase board stood. Plopping herself into her chair, Jill queued up the traffic cam footage just as Ramon joined her with matching mugs of freshly-made coffee. Only “fresh” was a misnomer for the coffee in their break room. Sludge was likely a more appropriate term.
“You ready?” she asked.
“To see a kid get his brains blown out?” Ramon shook his head. “Not especially.”
With a click of her mouse, Jill pressed play. The grainy black-and-white footage began to roll, though for the first several minutes there was no activity of which to speak. Only one car had crossed the intersection, and the silent rhythm of the traffic lights was almost enough to lull Jill to sleep. But just as her eyelids grew heavy, a large white van with no markings screeched through the intersection, nearly teetering onto its side before skidding to a stop. Four black-clad figures burst out of the front doors before the biggest among them yanked open the rear of the van and pulled Devin out. When they saw him toss the teenager onto the sidewalk, it was clear he wasn't conscious.
Ramon frowned in disgust. “The fuck did they do to him?”
When the man pulled the gun and shot Devin in the head, they both flinched.
“I could go the rest of my life without seeing that ever again,” Ramon muttered under his breath.
“So we're dealing with four assailants,” Jill explained, jotting notes to herself in a yellow legal pad, “all wearing masks and gloves. Unmarked white van. So... how did Devin wind up in the van in the first place, and what happened to him while he was in there?”
“Judging by the way the van took that light?” Ramon shook his head. “He probably went for one hell of a ride.”
The word ride triggered something in Jill's brain and she sprung out of her chair before grabbing the red dry-erase marker and approaching the whiteboard. In block capital letters, she wrote out the words Rough Ride before stepping back, capping the marker, and giving Ramon a knowing look.
Ramon read the words before staring at the frozen feed. “You sure?”
Jill shrugged and returned to her seat. “It fits.”
Rough rides were a bit of legend in the Baltimore Police Department, and not in a flattering way. Over the last three years -- longer, if some lifelong citizens were to be believed -- certain Baltimore police officers had been accused of snatching people up off the street and throwing them into the back of vans that were less than safe. The people allegedly taken on these rides were almost always black, and these rides always resulted in at least life-altering injuries. The route was always different, and previous cases had seldom resulted in anything other than lawsuits settled out of court, but the stories were well-known.
“Jill,” Ramon began as he approached the board, “think about this. Think about what you're saying here.”
“Oh, I'm well aware.” Jill folded her arms and stared at the board, twirling the marker in her hand. “My father is the poster child for cop gone bad.”
“But this is different. First of all, we have no way of knowing if those are cops. At least not until we ID the van or ballistics come back on the bullet. And even that might not prove anything.” Ramon sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Secondly... I mean... if you're right? If that's what happened here... we just got our next Mike Brown.”
The implication was clear. And Jill suddenly understood why Richards was fielding all those phone calls.
CHAPTER 4
Fifteen years ago...
The first thing Paul Andersen did upon waking up every morning was fix himself a cup of coffee. The coffee maker had already whirred to life by the time he shuffled into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and wearing a loose-fitting robe. He blinked sleep out of his eyes -- what little sleep he had managed the night before -- reaching up to grab a mug from the cabinet before noticing his wife sitting at the table reading the newspaper. Her own mug steamed in front of her, and the smell of bacon cooking on the stove began to pull him out of his daze.
Pouring himself his first mug of the day, Paul scrubbed a hand over his face before taking the empty chair to Janice's left. She immediately grabbed for his hand, like she had every day they had been married, and he gave her a lazy smile when his fingers laced with hers.
“You tossed and turned all night,” she said, finally tearing her eyes from the paper. “Rough case?”
Hissing at the first sip, because Paul insisted on taking his coffee black and as strong as possible, he cradled the mug in his free hand. “You could say that.”
Quiet mornings like this were a godsend; with Jill and Brian having spent the night at a friend's house, Paul and Janice had a night to themselves for the first time in months. Janice had plans for the previous night, but the look on Paul's face when he got home told her those plans weren't going to happen. But she understood the reality of the job, the fact that working Homicide sometimes drained her husband physically and emotionally, so she had simply cooked dinner for them and convinced Paul things would be better with a solid night's sleep. Only he didn't sleep well. She didn't need to see the look on his face to know that.
“Is this the case?” she asked, showing Paul the front page of that morning's Sun.
Paul's heart skipped a beat when he saw the school photo of a smiling teenage boy on the front page. The light in young Carlos Grainger's eyes was a far cry from his cold, lifeless body lying on a metal slab in the medical examiner's lair. He knew it would only be a matter of time before the press caught wind of this case; Paul was angry it wasn't in the immediate aftermath of detectives finding the body just north of Camden Yards. No, there had been nary a peep about the murdered 16-year-old boy when they made ID and notified his next-of-kin.
But now that they had a pool of suspects -- high-powered suspects, at that -- the jackals were all too happy to come out of hiding.
This wasn't journalism; this was a circus.
“Sources have told the Sun that Carlos Grainger's murder is likely a case of police brutality,” Paul read, pausing to take another swig of coffee. “Officially, the Baltimore Police Department has no comment, with the case on-going, but those talking to the Sun and requesting anonymity have insinuated that the 16-year-old Grainger fell victim at the hands of two police officers who had stopped him on the corner of Pratt and Greene. The officers in question have not been identified, and no one from the Department has been willing to go on-record.
“Requests for comment from the detectives working the case have not been returned.”
Setting the paper back on the table with a sigh, Paul pinched the bridge of his nose before downing half of what was still in his mug. Not only had the media caught wind of the case, Baltimore's flagship paper had taken to painting the issue as a matter of police misconduct. Incompe
tence at best, maleficence at worst. The last sentence in particular angered Paul, making it sound as if he and his partner, Daniel Richards, were derelict in their duty.
Never mind all the hurdles that had been placed in their way.
“Yeah,” he muttered with a sigh. “That's the one.”
“So is it true?” Janice squeezed Paul's hand. “Did cops kill that boy?”
As a rule, Paul didn't normally discuss his cases at home. At least, not in great detail. Most of them were too gruesome for polite conversation, and he tried his damnedest to not bring his job home with him. A work-life balance was of paramount importance to Paul, and even when he used to tell Jill about his daily crusades, he kept things vague. Not to protect her -- his daughter was always so insistent on knowing the details -- but because when he walked through that front door, he was no longer Detective Andersen. He was just Paul.
“Babe,” Janice said, “talk to me.”
“When they gave me my badge,” he began, “I took an oath. Protect and serve, do everything in my power to make sure justice is served.” He stared into his coffee mug, the thumb of his free hand trailing along the rim. “When all else failed in this job, that was my guide. Follow the truth, get the answers. But now... road blocks everywhere. And they're being put up by people who took the same oath I did.”
“But why?”
With a shrug and a sneer, Paul finished off his mug. He had a theory, but he wasn’t exactly in the mood to vocalize it just yet. “That's what I wanna know.”
CHAPTER 5
Present day...
“So what do we know about our victim?”
Jill's question was posed to a mostly empty bullpen, though her team -- Detectives Gutierrez, Stevens, Watson, and Blankenship -- was huddled around the white dry-erase board by her desk. Though Ramon was her assigned partner, the other three were all capable investigators and incredible people in their own right. Detective Stevens was abrasive in his own way, but his attention to detail was second-to-none. His physique -- still burly even if it had trimmed slightly -- and background in college football led some to believe he was a step behind the others mentally. It was an assumption he often used to his advantage.
Hitori Watson was a bright mind and a capable investigator, and his partner, Whitney Blankenship, was known in the bullpen as the Numbers Guru. She could take bank statements or anything else that would make other detectives' eyes glaze over and make sense of them within an hour -- sometimes sooner. But right now, Blankenship's eyes were red and puffy; she had taken the news of Devin Buckner's death harder than anyone else, and for good reason.
“He, uh,” Blankenship began, staring at her hands cradled together in her lap, “he was really bright. Didn't always apply himself in school, but...”
Watson squeezed Blankenship's shoulder and gave her a nod of solidarity. “Juanita found a surgical scar on his left knee.”
Blankenship nodded. “He tore his ACL playing basketball almost two years ago. He had finally gotten full range of motion back in his leg.”
Jill capped the red marker that had written what they knew on the board to this point. It wasn't much, and there was still too much empty space for her liking. “Whitney, I'm sorry for the loss of your nephew, really. But... you're gonna have to step away from this case.”
“I know,” Blankenship said with a sniffle. “I just... you need to know who Devin was.”
“Next to who did it,” Stevens said, arms folded over his chest, “that's the most important question to ask.”
“We know how he died,” Jill added, giving everyone a moment to further digest the disturbing traffic cam footage they had all seen by now. Even with the resolution on the video as low as it was, the image of that teenage boy's head exploding when the bullet tore through his temple was one none of them would forget any time soon. Even the thought of it in hindsight made Jill squeamish. “Maybe if we know how he lived, we might have a better idea of why he was targeted.”
“He hit a rough patch,” Blankenship explained, “after the injury. His grades slipped, he started getting into trouble.”
Stevens cocked his head to the side. “What kinda trouble?”
“Drugs. Weed, mostly. He was down on himself and a couple classmates decided to pray on that.” Blankenship shook her head. “He's got a juvy file.”
Jill nodded. “Ramon, submit a request to have that file unsealed.” She turned to Watson. “Anything on the assailants?”
“Not yet,” the detective known affectionately as Hi said. “All we've got right now is body types, and that's not much to go on.”
“Which means the van might be our best bet,” Jill added.
“Or the bullet,” Stevens interjected. “I'll check with J to see if she's made any headway on that.”
Ramon cocked a sideways grin. “Yeah, I bet you will.”
The laughter was welcome, even if it was light and a little forced. Ramon had teased Stevens about his affinity for Juanita in recent months. On the surface, Stevens and Juanita made a strange pairing, but it worked, and Jill was glad that her partner wasn't playing the part of the stereotypical overprotective sibling. He knew what kind of man Earl Stevens was, and if he was good enough for Ramon's older sister, then he was good enough for him.
“Alright,” Jill said, “we all know what we have to do. Let's go do it.”
As the small group broke, detectives returning to their stations to bury themselves in the minutia, Blankenship stuck around for a few moments. Jill set down her marker and pulled her colleague into a light hug. Blankenship's arms lingered around her shoulders for a long while, and when they finally broke the hug, Blankenship grabbed Jill by the shoulders and sniffled.
“Devin was a good kid. Even with the trouble he got in, Devin would never hurt a soul,” she whispered. “There's no one else I'd rather have on this case.”
Blankenship’s meaning was clear; this wasn’t just a case of Jill’s reputation within the department or the fact that her closure rate was among the highest in the city. What was left unsaid was clear as day: even if Jill the cop couldn’t find justice for Devin Buckner, perhaps her leather-clad alter ego could.
At a loss for what to say -- partly because she couldn't say anything out loud with regards to her double life -- Jill could only nod before watching Blankenship return to her desk to gather her things. The black woman gave Watson a quick one-armed hug before leaving the bullpen, and Jill found herself releasing a breath she didn't realize she had been holding. Jill was about to return to her desk when she heard the door to Richards' office open.
“Andersen,” he called, poking his head out from his office. “A word?”
CHAPTER 6
“Hey, where you goin', bruh?”
Mitch fumed in silence, hands stuffed in the pockets of her denim jacket. She crossed Wheeler Avenue on her way to the James Tabernacle Apostolic Holiness Church, where her grandfather served as minister. But the walk was not without its issues, particularly when Gomez and his crew were in the area. Gomez always smelled of alcohol, and his voice often carried far more than necessary. His boys went with him everywhere, and they never uttered an unkind word toward him.
In fact, every time Gomez said something, they were nodding away over his shoulder, muttering things like yeah and fo' sho. Mitch was convinced they wouldn't know an original thought if it smacked them upside the head. Gomez and his small crew were as insufferable as usual on this day, but even then... he knew better than to call Mitch bruh.
Or dude.
Or anything that reminded Mitch of the reality of her existence -- one she had battled for the last nineteen years, an existence only one person in her life truly understood. Or at least sympathized with.
Mitch kept walking, turning the corner onto Walbrook and wandering toward Ruxton. She did her best to ignore the screaming behind her, wishing she had one of those digital music players. Not that she had anything she wanted to listen to; she just needed to drown out the noise.
> “Hey, bruh! I asked you a fuckin' question!”
“Man, come on, Gomez,” one of his crew pleaded in an uncharacteristic show of restraint. “That freak ain't gonna talk to you.”
“Naw, man.” Gomez picked up the pace. “This bitch gonna face me like a man, whether he want to or not!”
It took every ounce of strength Mitch had not to turn on the balls of her feet and punch Gomez in the face. Just because he had his crew with him, that didn't mean Mitch was outnumbered. They were cowardly sorts, all things considered; she had seen them turn tail at the first sign of trouble more than once. Even if they didn't run, they might laugh if Mitch were to put Gomez on his ass.
Instead, she kept walking. The church was just up ahead.
“What's your deal, man?” Gomez's other friend chirped, and Mitch wondered where the bravado had come from. “Leave Mitch alone, man. Mitch ain't hurtin' no one.”
“Yeah, man... her gramps is good people. Don't wanna cross him.”
“Maaaaan, fuck that old-ass bitch!” Gomez yelled.
Last straw.
With speed Mitch didn't realize she actually had, she spun around and tackled Gomez to the ground. His two boys backed up when Gomez landed face-first on the sidewalk, whooping in a mixture of astonishment and amusement. Gomez grunted and grit his teeth before sneering over his shoulder. Mitch responded by punching him square in the nose.
“Talk shit about Grampy again!” she howled. “Go on, muthafucka, I dare you!”
Gomez snarled and tried to wriggle his way out from underneath Mitch, but she was heavier than he expected on top of him. “Get the fuck off me, bruh!”
“Or what?” Mitch challenged. “You gonna hit a girl?”
“You ain't no fuckin' girl!” Gomez countered, throwing his left arm back in an attempt to sock Mitch in the side of the head with his elbow. She leaned away from the blow with ease. “You one broken mothafucker, man...”
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