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

by Gregory Ashe

  “No, he’s working.”

  “Damn it. I can’t get him to answer. You’re consulting on the Hoffmeister case—did I get that right?”

  “I—”

  “Because we’ve got Donna May Plenge over here, raising hell like you wouldn’t believe. I can hold her, or I can send her over, but I thought the Wahredua PD might want to talk to her tonight.”

  “Who?”

  “Donna May. Oh, Lord. The one calling herself—here it is. She’s calling herself Savanna Twilight.”

  “Hold on to her,” Hazard said. “I’ll be right there.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  DECEMBER 19

  WEDNESDAY

  7:26 PM

  STANDING ON THE FROZEN STREET, Hazard debated: was it faster to jog the rest of the way to the sheriff’s department, or backtrack and see if Somers had left the keys?

  He ran back to the station and found the keys in the top drawer of Somers’s desk. No note. Nothing. The son of a bitch had just left them, knowing Hazard would come back for them. The realization turned something inside Hazard, tightened a part of him that hadn’t needed tightening. He slammed the drawer so hard that the monitor toppled over.

  In the Mustang, he drove toward the sheriff’s department. It was located on Jefferson, near City Hall and several other city and county buildings. Hazard parked and hurried inside.

  “—can’t do this,” a woman was screaming in one of the back rooms. A civilian receptionist at the desk, whom Hazard recognized but couldn’t name, waved Hazard toward the hallway. The shouting continued: “I know my rights. I’m not some stupid little girl who can be pushed in the back of a car anymore. Walt Hoffmeister tries to pull my panties down and stick his little willy in again, I’ll bite it off.” Shrieking laughter followed. “I’ve got teeth down there, you know that. I’ll bite his little willy off, and then Walt won’t ever get to stick it in anybody.” More shrieking laughter came from behind the sheriff’s door as Hazard hurried toward the office. Then something crashed inside the office, and the laughter changed into screams. Hazard opened the door at full speed, bursting into the room.

  The woman Hazard had known as Savanna Twilight lay on the floor, tangled with the chair she was cuffed to. A few papers had spilled from the sheriff’s desk, drifting down now while Savanna—Donna May—jerked and twitched and scraped one leg along the floor. Her eyes were huge, the pupils dilated, and they swiveled constantly. Sheriff Engels, an older man with trim, white mustaches, sat behind the desk and watched; he was worn thin, like paper erased too many times, and Hazard thought what he always thought when he saw the sheriff now: he was watching a man die in slow motion.

  “Meth?” Hazard said, turning his attention back to the girl the sheriff had called Donna May Plenge.

  “Seems so.”

  “How’d you know who she is?”

  “Brian Raymie recognized her. He grew up outside St. Elizabeth, pretty rough childhood. Like her, I think.”

  Donna May was screaming for help, thrashing now. Somehow she had gotten one of her legs hooked through the arm of the overturned chair.

  “She’s local?” Hazard said. “How the hell did everybody else miss that? Jesus Christ, she was in a holding cell overnight.” But then he looked again at the young woman: mixed race, dark skin, and what Engels had described as a pretty rough childhood. That could have meant anything. It could have meant drugs and rape before she left grade school. It could have meant she never even went to grade school.

  “I’m keeping her overnight,” the sheriff said. “I understand she’s out on bail, so I’ll send her back to you boys tomorrow.”

  “Not me,” Hazard said automatically, his attention still fixed on Donna May.

  “You know what I mean.”

  Hazard ignored him. Donna May had stopped screaming, and now she panted for air, her eyes still roving, fingers picking at a spot on her jawline already red from worrying. She looked nothing like the woman who had usurped the tree lighting ceremony and demanded Hoffmeister’s death. She looked nothing like anybody now—barely even a person, mostly a machine burning off fuel.

  “Why does her name sound familiar?”

  Engels rocked forward, his seat squeaking at the movement, and held out a file. “She’s got a juvenile record. Nothing serious, but, well, you can see for yourself.”

  Hazard glanced at the file—misdemeanors, but plenty of them. Then he glanced again. The arresting officer, again and again, was Hoffmeister. He met the sheriff’s eyes.

  “It doesn’t mean she’s telling the truth,” the sheriff said. “But I’m not saying she’s lying either.”

  Grunting, Hazard glanced back at Donna May. “No, I’ve heard her name somewhere else.”

  “She’s still got family in the area. I called, but nobody wants to—”

  “Jesus Christ. Her brother.”

  Engels frowned and waved for the file. “I didn’t talk to the brother. I think it was the—”

  “No. God damn it. Her brother. We were out at Slick’s, and somebody told us that Hoffmeister had knocked her brother around. Cost him a few teeth, I guess. Sounded like the typical bullshit that goes on out there, so I didn’t think about it any further. But I don’t like coincidences.”

  “Doesn’t sound like enough reason to kill a man,” Engels said.

  Hazard tapped the file. “This is.”

  “Wait until you see what she was driving.”

  Hazard blinked and straightened. “What?”

  “That’s how we found her. She was driving about twenty miles an hour, taking out mailboxes on Route 4. Come on.”

  He walked Hazard out of the office, leaving Donna May still tangled in the chair and panting, and led him through the back door and into a fenced lot behind the building. Then he pointed to a large tow truck, the red paint scraped away on one side, the doors pitted. Hazard checked the door: unlocked. He did a quick inventory of the tools, the wire rope, an external electric winch that looked like a backup in case something went wrong with the main towing apparatus.

  “Fuck,” he said, slamming the door.

  Because now he had to tell Somers.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  DECEMBER 19

  WEDNESDAY

  11:11 PM

  IN THE DARK CAR, SOMERS WINCED as his phone vibrated again. He dismissed the call and kept his focus on the double-wide trailer ahead of them. They were back along a gravel road they had followed off Route 17. They had gotten here easily using the address that Tonda’s intended victim—mary_sue123 was the only name he had for her—had provided, and a quick records search had only revealed that the trailer belonged to a man named Darnell Kirby. Either mary_sue123 was a relative of Darnell’s, or her mother was renting the trailer from him.

  “You can answer it,” Dulac said.

  “And my phone will light up the car like the Fourth of July.”

  “No, dude. You put it under your shirt like this—”

  “I don’t need to answer the phone. Hazard is fine; he’d send me a text if he really needed to talk.”

  “Ok, but, like, it’s really easy. The other night, I was in bed with this skinny little film student, and then this other film student, the one I really wanted to shred, he started snapchatting me, so I had to kind of turn on my side so I wouldn’t wake up the first one, but I did wake him up, and he kind of thought I was giving him an opening, so then we had to go at it all over again, only he wanted the other film student to come over too, so—”

  “Silence is better.”

  “Bro,” Dulac said. “This is, like, important.”

  Somers put a finger over his lips.

  “I can tell you in a whisper.”

  “No whispering. No sex stories. This is a stakeout.”

  And then Dulac had to do a lot of huffing, shifting in his seat, yanking on his seatbelt.

  Somers thought he might actually have to kill himself. Or his par
tner. It was a toss-up.

  “Fine.” Then, after a controlled breath: “In a whisper.”

  Dulac was adjusting the vents. Up, down, side to side. Finally, he muttered, “No, bro. It’s totally a stakeout. I get it. I mean, we’re at the dark asshole of nowhere, and nobody can hear us, and we’ve been here for hours, and you told me I was a fuckboy and I just am trying to figure out my fucking life so I can get old and have boring old man sex like you and Emery do and be happy, but, fuck it, it’s a stakeout, so I won’t talk.”

  Somers pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes until he saw spots. Then, in a strangled whisper, he said, “No, I want to hear.”

  “Ok, so, like, I was right there, right, and this film student, the first one, he saw the snaps the second one was sending me, like, really hot stuff, like, this guy was playing with himself, you know, and sending me snaps of it, and he saw it and he was like, ‘Is that Richard?’ And I was like, ‘Dude, you know Richard?’ And he was like, ‘Dude, we’ve been fucking around since freshman year, of course I know Richard.’ And I was like—”

  Somers groaned.

  “Bro, this is the best part. He was like, ‘Tell him to come over.’ And I was like, ‘No way, man.’ And he was like, ‘Seriously, we’ve done it before. We’re both total sluts, and you’re hot.’ And I was like, ‘No way, man. Thanks, though.’” And then, at the end of this stunning narration, Dulac dropped back in his seat and spread his hands.

  “Ok?” Somers said.

  “That’s, like, totally proof, right?”

  “What?”

  “That I’m not a fuckboy.”

  Somers groaned again.

  “I’m serious, bro. Like, I’m not ready to have somebody strap my ankles to my walker just so I can get boned like you and Emery do, but, like, I’m totally not a fuckboy.”

  “What was his name?” Somers said.

  “Huh? Which one?” And then Dulac flinched; even in the dark, Somers could see the blush starting. “I mean, uh. Richard. Yeah, it was Richard.”

  “No, Richard was the second one’s name.” Somers shook his head. “Tell me you didn’t.”

  “I said no.”

  “But tell me you didn’t.”

  “Bro,” Dulac said with a kind of breathy desperation. “Bro, they were film students. You know how much porn those guys watch? And the things they let me do—”

  “Nope. We’re done. Back to quiet time.”

  Covering his face with both hands, Dulac collapsed back onto the seat.

  “And you are definitely a fuckboy,” Somers said. “Just for the record.”

  “Dude!”

  Ahead of them, headlights swung around the corner. Light picked out flecks of quartz in the gravel, turning the road into a flutter of reflected sparks. For a moment, it looked like the car stopped, and Somers wondered if they had somehow given themselves away. But then the lights rolled forward again, stopping when they were even with the trailer. They shut off, and Somers blinked into the darkness.

  In the winter night’s silence, the sound of the car door opening reached Somers clearly. Then footsteps crunched across gravel. When a man’s outline reached the steps that led up to the trailer, light from the porch revealed a mop of curly hair. Somers was willing to bet the tips were frosted orange.

  “Did he bring Old Milwaukee?” Dulac said, squinting as though he could read the label on the six pack that Tonda carried.

  “He’s arranging sex with a minor and he’s raped multiple girls.”

  “Yeah, and we’re going to put the fucker away for that. But, like, that’s a trash beer, dude. Have some class.”

  Somers actually had no idea what to say to that, so he just focused on not losing his mind.

  Tonda rapped on the door. He was taller than Somers had expected, wiry, and dressed in a track suit. He looked like most of the white trash assholes who were still young enough to avoid a beer gut. Tonda rapped again, then he seemed to say something, and then he tried the door. It swung open.

  As soon as he stepped inside the trailer, Somers was out of the car, running. He could hear Dulac just behind him, the gravel cracking in the cold stillness. The air burned clean in his mouth like peppermint. Somers took the steps two at a time, careened around the porch railing, and hit the door as he turned the handle. It flew open, and he tumbled into the trailer.

  Then he froze, trying to process what he saw in front of him.

  Tonda had stripped out of his clothes, and he knelt on the floor, naked, his thin chest pimpled with the cold. His hands were behind his back, cuffed. He looked confused, and his arousal was visibly fading.

  Standing over him was a man who might have been taller than Hazard and looked like he weighed twice as much. He was wearing denim overalls and a flannel shirt, and right then he was sliding the barrel of a shotgun into Tonda’s mouth. He had paused in the act of snapping a picture on his phone.

  Glancing up at Somers, Overalls said, “Well, God damn it.”

  Somers had his Glock out, the butt smacking into his hand as he swung up and drew a bead on Overalls.

  “Police. Drop the shotgun.”

  “It’s not loaded,” Overalls said.

  Tonda tried to say something around the barrel of the gun.

  “Shut up,” Overalls said to him.

  “Drop it,” Somers said. “Right now. Or I drop you.”

  “It’ll break his teeth if I do that.”

  Dulac burst through the door then, cheeks red, his service weapon already in hand. He cleared the room and then glanced at Somers.

  Somers jerked his head at the hallway.

  Kicking the door shut, Dulac moved down the hallway. Doors clapped open as he searched the trailer.

  “Drop it,” Somers said again.

  “How about this? I put it down really slowly. I don’t want this guy suing me for dental implants, all right?”

  Tonda whined around the mouthful of steel.

  “Buddy,” Overalls said, “you’re lucky they showed up. You weren’t going to like where this was going next. All right, all right. I’m putting it down.” He raised the hand that held the phone, and then he slid the other hand up until it was cupping the barrel near Tonda’s mouth. Easing the steel out from between Tonda’s teeth, he lowered it to the ground. Then, both hands in the air, he stepped back.

  “Phone over there,” Somers said. “Then get on the ground.”

  Overalls tossed the phone. Then, lowering himself to his knees, he said, “I threw my back out a few weeks ago, and—”

  “Down, motherfucker.”

  Grumbling under his breath, Overalls went down the rest of the way, yelping as he settled onto the ground.

  “You too,” Somers said, planting his foot in the middle of Tonda’s back and forcing him down. Then he slid the shotgun toward the door.

  Dulac’s footsteps moved up the hallway, and then he emerged into the cramped living room. “Clear.”

  Somers nodded at Overalls, and Dulac cuffed him.

  “Can I just talk to you guys?” Overalls said. “Before this gets out of hand?”

  “Pretty wild party you’ve got going on,” Somers said, “fucking his mouth with your shotgun. When was it going to get out of hand?”

  “It’s not what it looks like.”

  “It looks like you were fucking his mouth with a shotgun,” Dulac said.

  “Ok,” Overalls said with a sigh. “Maybe it is what it looks like.”

  “Which one do you want?” Somers said.

  “Dude,” Dulac said. “Gross. I’ll stick with him.” He thumbed at Overalls.

  Somers added his own cuffs to Tonda’s wrist, asked Overalls for the keys to the other set, and removed them. Then he led Tonda outside. As soon as they reached the bottom step, Tonda took off running. Naked. Barefoot. On gravel.

  Somers watched him go. Tonda went down after five yards. Then he was up again, scrambling to his feet. He made it mayb
e seven yards. On his third try, he must have gotten a really sharp piece of gravel underfoot because he yelped and swerved and crashed headfirst into a tree.

  “Jesus Christ,” Somers muttered as he strolled after him. He dragged Tonda upright and marched him back to the car. Tonda, woozy now, stumbled on the loose stones, and he was covered in scrapes and bruises—lots of them in sensitive spots. Somers loaded him in the back of the unmarked car they had brought, threw a blanket over him, and told him to stay.

  Tonda blinked blearily, as though trying to focus on Somers. “He was—he was going to—”

  “Yeah, well, you deserved it. Don’t bleed on the seats. Don’t puke on the seats. Don’t piss on the seats. Don’t move, either. If you so much as fucking shiver, I’m going to let Overalls in there finish what he started.”

  Then Somers slammed the door and went back to the trailer.

  Dulac was sitting on the couch, watching Overalls, who was still cuffed face down on the floor.

  “Any trouble?” Somers asked

  Dulac shook his head.

  “Let’s talk,” Somers said. “You ready to talk?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Together, they helped Overalls onto his knees and then to the sofa. His face was flushed behind a beard, and he crinkled his eyes when he glanced at Dulac and then at Somers. Then he looked back at Dulac and blushed a deeper red.

  “Are you Darnell Kirby?” Somers asked.

  “I don’t have to answer that,” Overalls said, setting his jaw.

  “For Christ’s sake,” Somers said. “We walked in on you shoving a shotgun down a man’s throat. You might want to think about helping yourself.”

  “Fine,” Overalls said. “Yes, I’m Darnell Kirby. I own this place, and I did not consent for you to—”

  “Stop right there. Where’s the girl?”

  “What?”

  “The girl, fuckface,” Dulac said. “Where’s the girl that Tonda was meeting?”

  Darnell stared at them a moment, and then he started to laugh. It was a low, easy, belly laugh. “Oh my God. Were you spying on him or something?”