Warren Hammond: Ex-kop

No, I wasn't a believer yet, but I was on the verge of becoming her first convert.

“Why would he coerce her confession?” I asked. “Weren't you and Ian already partners then?”

“Yes.”

“So your performance records were already linked, which means he wasn't just trying to pump up his solveds. What other motive could he have?”

“That's what I want you to find out.”

“Listen, Maggie, let's cut the bullshit. If you want that promotion, just say the word. I'll take care of Ian.”

Maggie got in my face. “This isn't about that, Juno. It's not about what I want. It's about that girl who's going to get gassed for something she didn't do. How can you think I'd put a stupid promotion above that?”

“What do you expect me to think? The way I see it, Ian's going to steal that promotion out from under you, and you know you deserve it more than he does. I can't help but think that's why you're so ready to believe some woman you don't even know before your partner. Who knows who that woman was who called you? She could be the girl's aunt or something. That's hardly enough reason to believe Ian coerced that confession.”

I was glad Maggie's face was mostly in shadow. It cut down the glare she was sending my way.

“Maybe you just want it to be true,” I said. “That way you can throw some dirt on Ian and take him out of the running. Listen, if you want that squad leader job so bad, let's skip the goose chasing and take Ian out of it ourselves.”

Maggie came at me all righteous. “I don't work that way, and you know it. I wouldn't be going through this trouble if I didn't think there was a chance that the girl didn't do it. A good chance.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Maggie leaned in close, forcing me to tilt back in order to keep my brandy breath under wraps. “I never really believed she could've done this,” she said. “I interviewed her the morning she found her parents' bodies. I'm telling you, she was genuinely upset. I didn't think there was any way she was faking until Ian found the murder weapon with her prints on it. And then when Ian got her to confess, I went ahead and signed off on it even though I never really believed it. I should've trusted my gut. I mean, think about it. What kind of girl kills her parents? She'd have to be delusional. Don't get me wrong, she's your typical troubled teenager, but she's not crazy. There's just no way she could kill her parents, Juno. Do you see what I'm saying? I know she didn't do it. I just know it.”

I tried to reconcile Maggie's image of the Juarez girl with the one on the news. Where Maggie saw an innocent child, everybody else saw a manipulative little bitch. Maggie was way off on this one. “She confessed, Maggie. Leave it at that.”

“I know she confessed, but I'm telling you, Ian must've forced it out of her.”

I ran my hands over my face to keep from screaming at her. Sometimes she could be such a fucking Pollyanna. She was acting like it was some universal truth that children don't kill their parents. She had no idea that I'd spent most of my childhood fantasizing about different ways to kill my father. I would've done it, too, if a bad batch of shine hadn't beaten me to it. The SOB died in my mother's arms of methanol poisoning. Far better than he deserved. Even now, after all these years, I could feel my pulse quicken at the thought of my mother with black eyes.

Maggie let out a long exhale. “At least go talk to her, Juno. Get a read on her, then tell me if I'm crazy.”

Frustrated, I said, “Dammit, Maggie, why can't you just accept that she did it?”

“Teenaged girls don't just go off and kill their parents, Juno.”

“The hell they don't!” Niki wasn't much older when she went and did exactly that. I took a deep breath. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe her parents were abusive?”

“Don't you think she would've told us if they were? Why are you being so stubborn about this?”

I wanted to go home and drink myself to sleep. “I can't help you.” I started for the gangway.

Maggie stopped me, her hand clutching my arm. “Why not?”

“I just can't.”

Niki and the Juarez girl began to melt together in my mind, their stories intermingling. Emotions began to cycle through me rapid-fire-guilt, shame, anger, regret.

“I'll pay you,” she said.

Her words barely registered. In my mind, I'd flashed back decades. The sight of Niki's freshly slaughtered parents dominated my senses. I couldn't take this case. I couldn't handle it right now. It cut way too close to home.

Maggie said, “Did you hear me? I'll triple whatever the rags are paying you.”

I put my flask away. I didn't remember getting it out. Then I said, “You'll pay triple?”

I slipped as I stepped off the gangway. My camera went tumbling along with the tripod. I barely avoided the same for myself by grabbing hold of the rail. A circled group of hommy boys turned toward my commotion and quickly dismissed me, but one of them came over-Josephs. “Looks like you need a hand, Juno. Let me show you out.” He grabbed my elbow, tight.

I jerked my elbow free and snatched my camera out of a puddle. “I know the way.”

“What's your problem, Juno? I'm just trying to help you out.”

“I don't need any help.”

He took hold of my elbow again and put his mug in my face. “Neither do we.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

Josephs paused before answering. “I'm givin' you a courtesy, old boy. I don't know why that rich bitch of yours thinks you can help solve this case, but you're not a cop anymore, and you don't belong in our business.”

“I don't take orders from you, asshole.”

“Listen to me, Juno. We go back a long ways, so I'm tryin' to be civilized. We know we got a serial on our hands, and we're gonna find him. Last thing we need is for you to start dickin' around in this case, okay?”

“Save the tough-guy routine, Josephs. I turned Maggie down.”

His hand let go of my elbow and moved up to pat my shoulder-back to best pals. “Why didn't you just say so? Shit, Juno, you never change. Give you a choice between walkin' around a fire and walkin' through it, you walk through it every time.”

I reinforced the lie. “Killer's obviously an offworlder.” Holding my shaky right hand up, I said, “I've been burned once already by those bastards. No way I'm going back for seconds. I'm too old for that shit.”

“You still got sense, Juno. I gotta hand it to you, you still got sense.”

Taking a closer look at the group of hommy boys, I saw they had somebody closed inside their circle. “Who's that?”

“A camera guy from the Libre. We caught him snoopin' around, tryin' to get some footage. Ian's givin' him the biz.”

“Was he on the barge?”

“No. He never made it that far. They caught him as soon as he jumped down to the pier. What a dumb shit, thinkin' he could get through. You see all the cops around here?”

The cameraman was getting pinballed now. They were shoving him around the circle, bouncing him left, right… and now he was down. He looked like he was crying, but I couldn't tell for sure because of the rain.

Josephs laughed. “Look at that fat fuck. How much you wanna bet he's pissed himself?”

“Yeah.”

“Seriously, Juno, you wanna put some money on it?”

“How can you tell? It's fucking raining. His pants are soaked.”

“You can feel it. Piss is warmer than rainwater.”

“I'll pass.”

“One thing's for sure,” he said. “This case won't be in the news anytime soon.”

For Maggie's sake, I hoped he was right.

At this point, the camerman had gone fetal. Ian nabbed the poor sap's cam from the ground and popped it open. He slid the vid free and walked over to the pier's edge and then whipped the thing out into the darkness, making sure that what little footage the cameraman might have shot would never air. He came back into the circle and beanballed the guy with his own camera.