Police Brutality (Hazard and Somerset: A Union of Swords Book 2)

by Gregory Ashe

  Hoffmeister took out a chewed-up Bic and a checkbook with a vinyl cover. “Can you swing me three days?” he said, shaking the pen to get the ink flowing. “Just until payday?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  DECEMBER 17

  MONDAY

  12:24 PM

  AFTER FINISHING THE PAPERWORK, Hazard waited until lunch before he drove to the Wahredua police station. He cruised the parking lot, checked the cars he saw against the officers he knew, and then decided now was as good a time as any. Most importantly, Somers’s black Mustang was gone, and that really made all the difference.

  He found a spot a block away, parked the minivan under the bare branches of a maple tree, and walked to the station. In the lobby, George Orear was on duty at the front desk, his pudgy hands arranging and rearranging the copy of the Wahredua Courier, in its full, four-page, black-and-white splendor, on the desk in front of him. His hair was neatly combed and had so much shine that Hazard thought the man might be using floor wax. Orear didn’t even look up when the door chimed; he just kept squaring the pages of the newspaper.

  Hazard walked straight past the front desk, shoulders back, head up.

  “Excuse me,” Orear said, “excuse me, you can’t just walk back there.”

  But Hazard had already cleared the lobby and was heading deeper into the building.

  Behind him came scurrying steps. “Excuse me, sir. Hey, buddy, I’m talking to—oh. Hi, Hazard.”

  “Hi, George.” Hazard looked at Orear’s hand until he dropped Hazard’s sleeve.

  “How’s it going?”

  Hazard stared at Orear.

  “Somers isn’t here,” Orear said.

  Hazard kept staring.

  “You know the department has strict rules about civilians wandering around the station.”

  “Civilians,” Hazard said.

  Orear shrank a full inch.

  “I don’t remember anyone caring if Foley’s wife came back here to pick up his gym bag from his locker.”

  “Well, you know, Mary Margaret’s married to Foley. Legal spouse.”

  “I don’t remember anyone caring if Moraes’s girlfriend came back here to drop off a birthday card.”

  “It was a special occasion.”

  “No. It wasn’t. Nobody gave two fucks. It happens every day, Orear. But I’m here to pick up a credit card Somers left in his desk, and you’re giving me static. So: what the fuck?”

  Orear shrank another inch.

  “Ok,” Hazard said. “It’s a gay thing. I’m going to have the ACLU all over this place.”

  “It’s not a—now, listen, Hazard, that’s not—” Orear jammed his hands in his pockets and waddled back a step. “I just stopped you to say hi, you know?”

  Hazard crossed his arms.

  “That’s all. Just to say hi. Good seeing you, Hazard.”

  Hazard pulled a little more air into his lungs, chest expanding, arms riding high over his pecs; he was being an asshole, a voice said inside his head. That voice sounded a lot like Somers. And it also sounded highly amused.

  “Great seeing you. Really great.”

  With a soft snort, Hazard continued his route into the station. He bypassed the bullpen, empty except for Miranda Carmichael. It still blew Hazard’s mind that Carmichael was a detective now; she wouldn’t have been his first choice. But she was diligent, and she didn’t make the same mistake twice—as far as he knew, anyway. Right then, she had her back to Hazard as she was typing one-handed, her other hand holding a tomato-and-cucumber sandwich that filled the air with its smell. Lots of onion. Lots of vinegar.

  Hazard wished he had the willpower to keep from looking at his old desk, but he couldn’t help himself. He and Somers had shared desks that were pushed up against each other, so every time Hazard glanced up from the screen, he could see Somers. At first, it had been annoying: he’d look up and see Somers grinning at him, practically a puppy dog, like all he wanted was to be best friends. Then, later, as their relationship had shifted, it had been one of the few pleasures in Hazard’s life. To look up, to see Somers’s forehead furrowed as he read a file, to see the little crook to his head when he was focusing extra hard, to see him bend all his resources toward whatever obstacle he was facing. A few case files sat open on Somers’s desk, weighed down by a coffee mug. The other desk, the one that had been Hazard’s, was an abomination.

  Dulac, Somers’s new partner, had taped a pride flag to the side of the desk, and a tiny pride flag was taped to the back of the monitor. But that wasn’t what made the desk an abomination. It was the sign that Dulac had hung on the side of the desk, just below the pride flag, where anybody passing through the bullpen could read it. Huge letters. No mistaking the message.

  Somerset and Dulac: The New Power Couple.

  Hazard changed course. He let himself into the bullpen; Carmichael was still at her computer, her back to him. When he reached the desk, he peeled away the tape and folded the sign. Then he shoved the folded paper into his jacket and reversed course. Carmichael hadn’t even shifted in her seat.

  His path took him past the coffee station, where he filled two styrofoam cups, slipped two of the non-dairy creamers and two packets of sugar into his pocket with Dulac’s asinine sign, and gave a quick glance to make sure nobody was watching. Then, he grabbed the set of keys from the pegboard above the coffee station and headed toward the back.

  Thank God, he thought, Wahredua was still a small town. Thank God most of the people still had a small-town mindset. Thank God that meant leaving a spare set of keys. Just in case.

  One of the keys opened the jail door. Leaving the door ajar, Hazard returned the keys to the pegboard, picked up the two cups of coffee, and checked again. Still nobody except Carmichael munching her sandwich. He hurried down the hall.

  The Wahredua jail rarely held anything more interesting than a drunk who needed to sleep it off. Leonard Bint, for example, was a frequent flyer, spending so many weekend nights in the tank that they had stopped locking the cell door, and Bint would let himself out after he cleaned up in the morning. But occasionally, Wahredua PD had to hold someone on something more serious, and almost always those people were held in the cells at the far end of the jail. The cells at the front were for easy access: guys—and a few gals—who’d be in and out, or kids who needed a scare.

  In the backmost cell, Hazard found who he was looking for.

  At the tree lighting ceremony, Hazard had gotten only a brief glimpse of the woman as she rushed the stage, and that glimpse had really only taken in the camouflage jacket and the cadet’s cap. Today, he had a better chance to study her. She wasn’t white; he could tell that much right away. But he couldn’t tell what her background might be. Mexican, possibly, with a lot of indigenous ancestry. Or Pacific Islander. Or Asian. He didn’t know that her race mattered, but then again, he didn’t know that it didn’t. Her dark hair was cut short, shorter than Hazard’s. Her eyes were so glossy that they looked liquid.

  “Who the fuck are you? And why the fuck are you staring at me?”

  Lifting one of the cups, Hazard said, “I brought you coffee.”

  “I don’t drink coffee. And I asked you a question.”

  Hazard set one of the cups on the ground and sipped at his own, black. He hadn’t missed the cheap, burnt taste of stationhouse coffee. But he took another sip and wondered if somehow, in some crazy way, maybe he had.

  “Are you so fucking inbred that you can’t understand what I’m saying?” The woman launched herself off the cot, pacing toward the bars and then spinning and pacing the other direction, eating up all the available space in three strides and coming back at Hazard again. “Well? What the hell?”

  “Let’s start with names.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ. What’s with you guys? We’ve been through this. And I’m not—” She stopped mid-pace. Her eyes came up to Hazard again. “You’re not a cop.”

  He sipped the coffee.
r />   “So what are you doing here?”

  He tilted the cup at her.

  “Fine,” she said. “Pass it over.”

  Handing her the second cup, he said, “I thought you didn’t drink coffee.”

  “I don’t drink anything cops give me.”

  “Because they might poison you?”

  “They’ve done it before.” She gulped coffee greedily. “They’ll do it to me if they have a chance.”

  “No food,” Hazard said, “no drink. Until?”

  “Water from the sink. I can go a long time.”

  “Smart.”

  “Not my first rodeo, hayseed.”

  “Be careful if they put you in a different cell.”

  After another gulp, she narrowed her eyes at him. “Why?”

  “If it were me, and you weren’t eating or drinking, just water from the sink in the cell . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’d wrap up some rat poison in cheesecloth, put it inside the cold-water line in a new cell, and let you drink as much as you wanted.”

  “Jesus.” She chewed the cup’s foam rim for a moment. “Jesus.”

  Hazard shrugged.

  “What are you? Some kind of lawyer?”

  “Do you need a lawyer?”

  “Fuck no. I already told those assholes that.” She chewed the cup again. “So who are you?”

  “I tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

  “Savanna Twilight.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “That’s my name. Who are you?”

  “Emery Hazard.”

  “Bullshit,” she said, echoing his tone.

  “My name is built out of traditional names; it’s slightly uncommon, but it’s not impossible. Your name is bullshit.”

  “That’s my name.”

  “That’s what your parents named you?”

  Shrugging, she said, “That’s my name.”

  And a fat lot of good it would do, Hazard knew, when he searched for her. He wondered if Somers and the rest of the Wahredua PD were running into the same problem; maybe her prints had turned up more information, maybe even her birth name.

  “What do you want?” she asked after another moment.

  Hazard leaned on the bars and drained the rest of his coffee. “Just to listen.”

  “Listen to what?”

  “You had a lot to say the other night.”

  “Who the fuck are you? Really?” But she didn’t sound mad; she sounded curious, maybe even fascinated.

  “The audience,” Hazard said.

  She went back to pacing; Hazard grabbed one of the cell bars. He couldn’t show how frustrated he was, couldn’t show his worry as seconds ticked past. Anything he did now would give her the upper hand. All he could do was hold onto the bar, his grip relaxed so that white knuckles wouldn’t give away the strain he was feeling. The last time he had interfered in a police investigation, it had almost shattered his relationship with Somers. He wasn’t ready to face that again. He ran his thumbnail up and down the bar, feeling the metallic chime more than hearing it. Uneven layers of paint made his thumb bump up and down; flakes of it gathered under his nail.

  “You know there’s a goddamn war, right?” Savanna spun toward Hazard. “You know we’re in a war, right now, you and I and everybody else in the whole country. Civil war. We’re fighting, every day, to decide if we’re going to become Nazi Germany or if we’re going to become a better version of who we are today.”

  Hazard fixed her with his gaze; he had learned early in life that people wanted someone to listen, that silence was powerful. He had mastered silence a long time ago.

  “It’s a war about ideas, right? Does my body belong to me, or does it belong to a man? Does it belong to me, or does it belong to the government? Is the U.S. the private sandbox of straight, cis, white boys? Or is it a cultural melting pot, where we welcome everyone, no matter our differences? Should the government take care of all people, or should it just protect the rich and the privileged from the consequences of their actions?” She combed fingers through her short hair. “It’s a war, and we’re all part of it. Some of us, we’re on the frontlines. Some of us are foot soldiers.” She laughed. “It’s fucking crazy, sometimes. I walk around, and there are so many people who are just . . . cows, you know? They don’t see what’s happening. They don’t even know what’s going on. Sometimes it’s like one of those dreams where you can’t speak or you can’t scream or you can, maybe, but nobody else speaks the same language. Do you know what I mean?”

  Hazard didn’t shift; he just watched her, his eyes meeting hers, and she flinched and nodded and turned away.

  “And this town. Don’t get me started on this town.”

  “What about the police officer?”

  “I came here, nowhere’s own asshole, because this town is all over the news. The murders. So many murders. And I realized there’s something wrong, something else going on. Nowhere has this many murders without something else hiding under them.”

  “Last year, the greater Chicagoland area had almost five hundred murders.”

  “This isn’t Chicago.”

  “St. Louis had almost a hundred and thirty.”

  “This isn’t St. Louis. This is a stupid, hick town with stupid, hick people who lose all their teeth to meth and fuck each other’s goats, but this isn’t a place where people get murdered.”

  “Apparently, it is.”

  “That’s when I realized.” She came up to the bars, and her eyes caught the fluorescent light, so glossy they seemed to glow. In another age, they might have thought she was in ecstasy, seeing God. In another age, they might have stoned her for a witch. “The police.”

  “What about the police?”

  “They know. And I know. That’s enough.”

  “Not for me. What about the police?”

  “Do you know a woman died in police custody just a few months before? Technically, she was in a hospital, but still. She was a proud defender of progressive rights in this part of the world. Her mentor was killed too—by law enforcement. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Imagine how many voices the police have silenced in order to keep this place quiet, controlled, locked into its shitty little Mayberry existence.”

  “You think the police are murdering people in this town and then covering it up?”

  She suddenly seemed to come back to herself, her eyes shifting as she took in the jail around her. “I think I’ve said enough.”

  “What about Hoffmeister?”

  Retreating, she got her back against the far wall of the cell. “Who are you?”

  “Why’d you name Hoffmeister in particular?”

  “What are you doing in here?”

  “Trying to be a fucking audience. Talk about Hoffmeister.”

  She shook her head.

  “You think he’s part of this conspiracy? Is that what it is?”

  Laughter and raised voices came from the front of the station; time was up.

  “You don’t even know, do you?” Hazard stepped back from the bars. “Jesus, what a waste of time. Somebody else sent you down here, somebody else put those words in your mouth, and here I am wasting my fucking time trying to—”

  “He’s an example. What he did to that man, crippling him, beating him almost to death—that’s a symbol of what’s wrong with this town. He’s going to walk away from it; his cop buddies will make sure of that. And we’re going to make sure he pays for it, one way or another.”

  “Who’s we?”

  Her face looked hollow in the shadows.

  “What does that mean, one way or another?”

  More voices.

  Swearing under his breath, Hazard left the jail.

  Gray Dulac was waiting in the hall, leaning against the door that Hazard had intended to use to slip out of the station. He had his arms across his chest. So many goddamn freckles. And that constant expression of choirboy
innocence. Add one more detail—a straw hat, maybe, or a long piece of grass between his teeth—and the image would have been perfect.

  “Well, hi, Emery.”

  “Fuck off.”

  Hazard tried to step around him, but Dulac straightened, blocking his path.

  “You’re probably here to see Somers.”

  Hazard peered over Dulac’s shoulder; at the end of the hall, men and women moved slowly, still sluggish after lunch. Still, the station was getting busy, and it would soon be impossible to get out without seeing more people he knew.

  “It must be a surprise,” Dulac said, “because he didn’t tell me you were coming by.”

  “My boyfriend tells you everything?”

  “Oh, yeah. Everything. John-Henry and I are really close.”

  It was the way he said everything. It was the way he said John-Henry. It was the way he said close, like it was in the dictionary right under fucking.

  Hazard moved without thinking; he had a handful of Dulac’s collar before he realized it, yanking the detective towards him, lifting enough to pull Dulac off his heels.

  “Whatever you’re about, I’m not buying the act. I don’t buy the freckles and the aww shucks. I don’t buy the best buddies routine. I don’t even buy the fuckboy persona. I know you’re partners with my boyfriend. I know what that means. Do your fucking job, and John will do his, and other than that, stay the fuck out of my life and the double fuck out of my boyfriend’s.”

  Dulac’s soft smile didn’t shift. He just dangled there in Hazard’s grip, dark eyes studying Hazard. “John-Henry is my friend. My mentor, I guess. Kind of a personal idol. I really, really look up to him.”

  “Great. He’ll eat that shit up like creamed corn. But stay away from him off the clock.”

  Those dark eyes sparked, and then Dulac laughed. “Holy Christ. You’re jealous.” Hazard just tightened his grip on the collar; his knuckles dug into the soft flesh of Dulac’s throat, but Dulac didn’t seem to mind. He was still laughing. “Oh my God, you really are.”

  “Stay away from us. I’m not going to say it again.”