Figure Eight

by Jeff Nania

  I answered the basic questions: name, rank, address, assignment, and that was about it.

  Things started downhill right after that with Martin Dumbass asking, “John, it is clear that you violated department policy in not handcuffing Mr. Gonzalez, but we have more important issues on the table here than that, so how about we just agree that this policy was violated and come back to that later. We need to hear about the shooting. The press is already calling, and we need some answers to put them at ease.”

  “John, were you at the Gonzalez Market today?” asked Kuehnin.

  I thought about the seemingly harmless question and then took the fifth and asked for a lawyer. I knew this was going to be bad. I didn’t need my big mouth to make it any worse.

  I was put on administrative leave with pay pending the outcome of the investigation.

  I doubted a lawyer could do much. The facts of the case were crystal clear. I had taken a suspect into custody and led him from the scene unhandcuffed. In the process of violating this department policy, I forgot about the loaded gun on the floor behind the counter, where I explicitly told the suspect to place it. I walked the suspect outside and left the scene unsecured. Angelina Gonzalez, a probable rape victim, had come out of the back room where she was hiding, picked up the gun, walked to the door of the store, and fired one round at Damien Callahan, the man who allegedly raped her. I, in turn, drew my weapon and fired two rounds striking Angelina Gonzalez in the chest. Callahan was in surgery at a local hospital for his arm and broken teeth. Angelina was dead, and I was the one who killed her, in a split second stealing all her life’s possibilities.

  It was almost six in the morning before I caught a ride back to the precinct from one of the central cars. My chauffeur was a buddy of mine, Eddy Gilmore.

  “Bad break, John. Sounds like the shoot was good, but a bad deal how it went down. That Callahan is a real piece of work. He’s got a sheet a mile long. Done some time. I’m sure this will get worked out.”

  I got in my car at the precinct and started the ten-minute drive home. On the way, I tried to listen to some music, but quiet seemed like the only thing I could stand. As I pulled into the driveway, my cell phone rang. It was a reporter from one of the newspapers. He asked if I wanted to comment on the events and the “tragic death of the Gonzalez girl.” I threw my cell phone against the garage wall.

  My house seemed like a refuge. I closed the door and locked it. For the thousandth time, I wished I had a dog. Someone to come home to that was always happy to see me. No place for a dog in the city. Maybe one of these days I’d buy a place in the country then get a dog or two.

  I am not much of a drinker, but that day seemed like a good time to start. The only thing in the house was a bottle of whiskey I had gotten for a Christmas gift a few years before. Whiskey it was. I looked out the window and drank until I passed out on the couch.

  3

  Cabrelli

  I woke up about 11:00 a.m. to someone pounding on my door.

  My head was fuzzy from the whiskey, and I made the mistake of answering. Another reporter—a slick haired, capped teeth, talking head I recognized from a local TV channel accompanied by a camera crew. “Officer Cabrelli, I am Edwin Bailey with Channel Three. We’d like to talk with you.”

  He was in his mid-forties with dark brown hair and glasses. He wore a short-sleeved dress shirt with a red power tie. The heat was making him sweat through his carefully applied on-screen makeup. In his hand he held a small recorder. One of his feet was close to my door as if he was about to make sure I wasn’t going to close it. I lived in a small three bedroom house then with two concrete front steps. His other foot was on the step below kind of bracing himself. His camera crew guy stood just beside him filming and recording everything. I was immediately aware of my unbrushed teeth, whiskey mouth, messed up hair, the fact that I was wearing the clothes I had slept in.

  “I don’t have anything to say right now. The department is still looking into things, and I’m kind of tired,” I said.

  “Officer Cabrelli, are you aware that there have been statements made to us and others that say you acted inappropriately, and, as a result, Angelina Gonzalez is dead, and Damien Callahan is severely wounded? People are blaming you for what happened. We are here to give you a chance to respond.”

  “I don’t want to … I’m not going to,” I said.

  The reporter kept pushing, telling me that there was talk of bringing charges against me for reckless homicide. I tried to close the door, but he put his foot in the way. I asked him to leave me alone, but he just kept pushing.

  So in my smooth Cabrelli way, I told him and his camera boy that if they didn’t get off my porch, I would shove the camera and microphone up their asses. I pushed the reporter backward and closed the door. It became prime time news footage.

  I turned on the TV to see what they were saying. I caught the end of an interview with a local radical community leader. He was talking about yet another outrage perpetrated against his hard-working community. They would not be satisfied until John Cabrelli was brought to justice. Cabrelli deserved the most severe punishment allowed by law: the death penalty (which the state doesn’t have). In twenty-four hours, I went from just doing my job to people calling for a needle in my arm. Little did they know, I was already dead. I had died the minute I shot Angelina Gonzalez.

  The next few weeks went from bad to very bad to much worse to absolutely horrible.

  Damien Callahan, with priors for sexual assault, burglary, and possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, became the press’s new hero of the year. The autopsy showed that Angelina was three months pregnant. DNA positively identified Callahan as the father. His lawyer cleaned him up, dressed him up, and paraded him in front of every news camera he could find.

  Damien, the punk, told the story of how he and Angelina had been boyfriend and girlfriend. They’d had a falling out when she discovered she was pregnant. He went to the store to try and talk to her father and borrow some money to take care of her until he could get a job. Her father became angry and pulled a gun threatening to kill him, all while he was trying to explain to Mr. Gonzalez that his intentions were honorable. He wanted to care for Angelina and the baby. His only hope was that they could work things out. Then this cop, John Cabrelli, showed up. After he convinced Mr. Gonzalez to put down the gun, he hit poor Damien in the mouth for no reason and then said to him, “You deserve to die.” (For what it’s worth, I didn’t say that although the possibility exists that he is a mind reader.) His lawyer went into how we would never know if Damien and Angelina could have had a happy life. A gun left by a cop in reach of a distraught woman had ended his dreams. The bullet fired by little Angelina Gonzalez had left Damien permanently disabled, and now he would never be able to work. The brutal blow from Cabrelli disfigured his face. Callahan was due compensation, and the lawyer would file suit for damages, but no amount of money could ever bring back Damien’s Angelina.

  The community as a whole was outraged. The department was keeping a pretty tight lid on things but, as always, there were leaks. They demanded a statement from the department or me. The question was no longer if I’d be charged with a crime, but what crime I would be charged with. My lawyer, Laura Davis, was doing a pretty good job. She arranged for cops to be stationed at my house to convince the now daily press visitors to leave me alone, but they still kept a 24/7 vigil across the street from my house. It was no longer just Channel Three; it was CBS, NBC, and ABC. All wanted a piece of old John. The day of reckoning was coming. I only left the house to go to HQ for interviews with investigators or to buy booze and groceries. When I did that I tried to go late at night, cut through the backyard, and disguised myself with sunglasses and the now several week old growth of beard. People still looked at me.

  At 5:30 one afternoon, Laura the lawyer came over. “John, we need to talk. First let’s turn on the six o’clock news.”

  I did. It was bad. The department had released my per
sonnel file to the press. My commendations were never mentioned, but my reprimand for comments and actions involved with a certain gang gun battle years before were relived time and time again. Here was a police officer that condoned urban gang violence as a way to control crime. An obvious bigot and a dangerously violent man. A threat to society. The reporter from Channel Three was now being interviewed, having witnessed John Cabrelli’s violence firsthand. The reporter had inside information from reliable sources that Cabrelli was to be charged tomorrow with various crimes, possibly even being criminally responsible for the death of Angelina Gonzalez. Mr. and Mrs. Gonzalez were also interviewed; they did not know how they could go on. The death of their only child had destroyed them. They wanted to sell their store and leave the state and stay with relatives. They did not call for my head, even though they of all people certainly deserved to do so most.

  “John, tomorrow the department wants us in at 8:00 a.m. They have completed the investigation, and they want to tell what they are going to do. I don’t have to tell you that things don’t look very good. But this is interesting. Under normal circumstances, Internal Affairs would hold a press conference with the D.A.’s office and announce criminal indictments, grabbing the spotlight, as the champions of justice they are. For some reason they want to talk to us first. It could be a good thing. Just in case, I’ve brought a property bond for you to sign. You’ll have to put up your house as surety, but at least you should be able to make bail.”

  Laura picked me up and just about ran down two reporters that stood in front of the car trying to get pictures.

  I could tell she was ready for war, dressed in a knife-sharp creased black suit with a red shirt. Her dark hair tied up on her head. She was built sturdy and compact and walked with a determined confident step as we entered the very same building that a few years before had been where I started my career in law enforcement and had filled me with a sense of belonging, of having my place, having a purpose. Today the feeling was different; I was filled with dread, and it was all I could do to walk up the steps. One foot after the other. I tried to fill my head with positive thoughts, but all I could think of was, “They can’t shoot ya, and they can’t eat ya, so it could be worse.”

  Laura kept trying to keep my spirits up, telling me that if I was to be charged they would have a hell of a time getting a conviction. She would pull out all the stops. This wasn’t negligent homicide—it was a mistake made in the heat of a very tough situation. The gun was left there only for a few minutes, not a week. Failure to secure my prisoner was at worst a three-day suspension. I was a decorated officer, not some stumble bum. She would call character witnesses to refute the allegations of racism. I was a good cop caught in a bad situation. Unfortunately, the more she talked, the more I became convinced that she thought I was going to fry.

  On the way to the conference room, we ran into lots of the troops. They patted me on the back and said words of encouragement, but it all seemed hollow and useless. My life and its future was waiting for me behind the door of conference room GR17. I just wanted to go in and get it over with. The punishment could not be near as bad as the waiting. Whatever they gave me I deserved, and I would take it without a whimper. I had earned this, all of my own accord.

  They could never do anything that came close to the pain I felt every day, seeing the face of Angelina Gonzalez every time I closed my eyes. Her little smile, her big brown eyes. The look on her father’s face when he saw his daughter fall to the ground. Sometimes I felt like the needle would be a preferred alternative. Sometimes the pain got so bad I thought about ending it all and blowing my brains out.

  We walked up to the door and were met by the inscrutable ace detective, Martin Dumbass.

  “Attorney Davis, you and your client may have a seat over there on the bench. We aren’t quite ready for you yet.”

  Laura jumped all over him. Her face was hard, her jaw set, green eyes as hard as stone, “You said eight. It’s eight, and we are here. If you guys think we are going to wait around for you to get your act together, then you are mistaken. This travesty starts in five minutes, or we are gone.’’

  “Well, how about we just arrest him right now Ms. Davis and save us all a bunch of time?” Dumbass sneered.

  That took the wind out of Laura the lawyer’s sails. They were going to charge me. Dumbass had said as much. I was going to trial. I was screwed.

  We waited for almost half an hour before the door of GR17 opened. My precinct commander, Bill Freise, stepped out. He couldn’t look me in the eye, a very bad sign.

  “John, you and your attorney can come in now.”

  We walked into the room and it looked like a convention, with no fewer than ten people seated around the table: Jim Boyle, the D.A. and his assistant, Chief Jerry Nolan and his assistant, two captains, two detectives from homicide, and last but not least, Captain Herbert Kuehnin and Detective Martin Dumas. No one was smiling except Dumas, and I have often attributed his smile to simple-mindedness.

  The chief directed us to two chairs opposite the crowd. It was clear he was going to run the meeting. He always did. I liked the chief; he was a straight shooter. He had a little bit of a John Wayne complex, but a little bit of that is good. I also knew he liked me. He had often called on me in the past for special assignments in my area. I never let him down, mostly because I found special assignments to be fun.

  I was working overtime one night in a nice part of town and responded to a complaint of a loud party. It was a party with high school kids at different stages of intoxication spilling out across the lawn of a very nice house. As we were putting a stop to things, I heard a young woman giving one of the rookie officers a hard time. I turned to look and saw that the young lady in question was none other than Marisa Nolan, the youngest daughter of Chief Nolan. I interceded and tried to take Ms. Nolan away from the crowd. She would have none of it, and, as I tried to lead her away, she sunk her pretty white, brace-straightened teeth right into my arm. I hogtied her with plasticuffs, threw her in the back seat of my car, and took her home to one very grateful, but pissed off papa.

  It wouldn’t get me very far, but at least I knew that he didn’t have a grudge to settle.

  The proceedings were called to order by the chief.

  “John, I have decided to call this meeting because I feel that there are some issues we need to resolve. I have asked all the principals in the investigation to be present. Some of us share the same opinion of how this incident should be handled, while others differ. I am sure you find this format extremely unorthodox Attorney Davis, and I would not blame you for taking your client and walking out. As a matter of fact, I am not so sure that I wouldn’t recommend it. I want to assure you of one thing. I am not here to hang John Cabrelli. Regardless of what brought us here today, he has been a fine officer and a credit to this department. In my book, that means a great deal. Others,” the chief continued as he stared at Dumbass and Kuehnin, “feel that it has no bearing, but until somebody replaces me, I am the boss. I make that call. District Attorney Boyle has some additional comments.”

  Boyle looked up over reading glasses, his time worn, “seen too much eyes,” focused on John and Laura. “Attorney Davis and Officer Cabrelli, thank you for coming in. I too share the chief’s feeling about this meeting. At best it is unorthodox, at worst it is detrimental to our criminal justice system. I want to make it clear that the district attorney’s office has reviewed the very thorough investigation of this tragic incident. It is my opinion that you have some culpability here. Your actions regarding the striking of Damien Callahan and failing to secure the scene that resulted in Angelina Gonzalez retrieving a loaded firearm is inexcusable, possibly criminal. The failure to secure a prisoner is a department issue.”

  I had just heard some music: the words “possibly criminal.” Not definitely criminal, not we are going to charge you criminally, just “possibly criminal.”

  This was definitely not lost on my able counsel who kicked me under the t
able and immediately piped up, “Mr. District Attorney, do I understand this to mean that you have not yet decided to criminally charge my client?”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions, counselor. All it means is that we are still fact finding, and some questions need to be answered,” Boyle said.

  “That’s why you’re here, John, to answer some questions,” said the chief.

  “I have advised my client, who has been completely cooperative with this investigation, to answer no further questions. Continuing to question him over and over is just an attempt to confuse him and cast doubt on his version of the events. On behalf of my client, we respectfully refuse any further questions.”

  “I see,” said the chief. “And I understand. This meeting has come to an end.”

  As everyone got up to start to leave, I knew that this had to be over today, win, lose, or draw. So I said, “Chief what is it that you want to know? Ask me.”

  Laura looked as if she was going to deliver a calf right on the spot. “John be quiet. Don’t do this. This is a bad idea. I am telling you, as your lawyer, to shut your mouth right now.”

  “Sorry, Laura, this has got to be done. I’m ready for whatever comes. Chief, let’s all sit back down and you ask me your questions. I’ll see what I can do to help you out.”

  “Counselor, do you have anything further to say?” District Attorney Boyle asked.

  “My client does this against my advice. If he chooses to answer these questions, he proceeds at his own peril. However, I will remain present to protect him from himself in the best way I can.”

  I looked the chief right in the eye and said, “What is it that you want to know so badly that you have filled this room with every principal from the investigation so they could hear the answer? Ask me.”