Chapter Forty
CHAPTER FORTY
Lincoln / Present
T here’s ink sprawled across every section on the piece of paper except for the solid line at the bottom waiting for a signature. It’s pristine still, the pen having passed over it three different times as Dr. Lucero fills out the other information above it.
Then he sits back in his chair, his bushy brows furrowing as he moves his gaze from the paper to the computer screen where last week’s scan results are pulled up.
He sighs.
It’s a heavy sound—the kind that people release when they’re about to tell you something you don’t want to hear. And I know what that’s going to be even before his drawn-out sigh, “Lincoln…”
The permanent ache in my arm is a constant reminder that I survived that day when Conklin didn’t. I woke up with it this morning and let it ground me on the short drive to the doctor’s office for my physical.
I know the moment his body turns to me, and those eyes fill with sympathy that the scans seal my fate. He doesn’t need to say it, and I don’t want to hear it.
Not the apology or the glass-half-full bullshit to make me feel better. What I want to hear isn’t going to be said, which is a theme that I’ve been getting a little too much of lately.
But maybe that’s a good thing. It’s a healthy dose of reality about what comes next. What comes…after.
An hour later, I’m walking into the back entrance of the station when I see Beaugard coming out of his office with the lieutenant and another investigator following behind him. The paper in my hand feels heavier because of the weight of the words printed on it, but I almost forget about it completely when my boss gives me a sudden chin dip.
I stand taller, waiting until the two people he was meeting with walk in the opposite direction.
As soon as I approach him, he says, “They’re doing it for Conklin.”
I don’t give a fuck who they’re doing it for as long as it’s getting done. “They’re going to move forward with the investigation?”
“We’re not taking lead,” he tells me quietly. “The feds have apparently had their eye on Del Rossi since his partner was put away. They know a hell of a lot more than we do. But the information Conklin put together is going to help fill in the pieces.”
“If they’ve been sitting on it for this long, what makes us believe they’re going to make a move? Because a cop died? Because they want to look good to the public?”
He pulls me into his office. “They’ve been trying to infiltrate Del Rossi for a while, Hawk. But you know this shit doesn’t unravel overnight. It takes time to build a case. I spoke to the lead detective assigned to it at the FBI, and they want us to tag along to execute the search warrant. Double the manpower means the quicker we get results. They’re not going to sit on this. Whatever the reason may be, you should be grateful it’s happening.”
I’ve been around long enough to know when people are telling you what you want to hear. I’m not keen on sitting around twiddling my thumbs until I get the phone call that it’s time.
My fingers slide over the paper in my hand, reminding me of what’s at stake.
I hold out the paper I spent twenty minutes filling out after getting home from the doctor. It’s the same form that Beaugard gave to me at the hospital.
Hesitantly, he takes it. “What is this?”
That day, it felt like he was giving up on me. I took it personally, feeling what little hope I had at a full recovery draining. I’d been in so much pain back then that I didn’t know how I was going to get through it. I refused the pills. Refused to open up. I’d wanted one thing.
To go back to work.
Not half-time.
Not as a goddamn paper pusher.
I wanted to be out there with everybody else, making sure the crime scenes were secure and the interviews were being done the right way. I wanted to be part of the action, not behind the scenes, watching everybody else get praised.
I needed that in my life.
It was all I had.
But now…
What comes after?
“You told me over a year ago that I could submit for medical retirement if I needed to. That there was no shame in that after what happened.” Even though I can taste the shame on my tongue, I know this is the only way.
To leave on my choice.
Not anybody else’s.
Beaugard’s eyebrows shoot up as his gaze darts from me to the paper. “You told me that it would be a cold day in hell before you even considered this.”
What does he expect? “The devil works at 99th Street, Beau. And I hear it’s pretty fucking cold there.”
He lowers the form. “This doesn’t change your involvement in the case, Hawk. You know that, right?”
Doesn’t it? “If the feds are taking over, they can call me as a witness. They’d be stupid not to when they find something.”
“ If ,” he corrects. “If they find something.”
“They will.”
His eyes narrow. “Do I want to know why you’re so sure?”
“Because Conklin died for the cause. If he didn’t think Volley was worth getting ahold of, then he wouldn’t have gone that day. He wouldn’t have compiled all of those papers and connected all the dots. But he did. And it always led back to Del Rossi.”
Beaugard’s lips press into a thin line.
I turn and head down the hall when he says, “I think there’s something you should know.”
“What?”
“The guys were called out to an unattended yesterday morning,” he begins, tucking a hand into the front pocket of his slacks. “Alleged overdose.”
What’s new? “Someone I know?”
“Michael Welsh.”
The name straightens my spine. “Why do you say ‘alleged’?”
“Because they didn’t find any new track marks on him, for one. We know he’s a repeat heroin user. There hasn’t been one time we’ve arrested him where we didn’t find needles. For two, they found him dumped on the side of an exit ramp. He suffered severe road rash and multiple broken bones.”
Somebody dumped his body from a moving vehicle. The question is, did they do it before or after he was dead? “How is it being treated?”
“We’re waiting on toxicology reports, but they’re expecting to find a cocktail of drugs. If I had to guess, someone needed to quiet him before he talked to us again. The day was coming, and they knew it.”
I don’t tell him about Georgia’s warning.
There’s no point now.
“Thanks for telling me.”
“If the feds do interview you and you tell them the truth, you do realize this could end in you getting a rip, right? They could decide that you intervening in this case damaged the investigation. They could take away your pension.”
Yeah, I kind of figured already.
“It’s for Conklin,” is all I tell him.
What do I have left to lose anyway?
*
My fists rap on the office door three times before tucking my hand into the front pocket of my jeans in wait. There isn’t any stirring behind the thick wood, or voices drowned out by the insulation of the old building.
Knocking again, I check my watch and glance out the entry window to see some late spring flurries in the sky.
It’s as I’m walking to the side exit that I hear a surprised, “Lincoln?”
Lincoln.
Not Mr. Danforth.
When I turn, I see Theresa Castro walking toward me with a bag draped over her shoulder and a coffee in her hands.
“Is everything all right?” she asks, stopping in front of me with concern pinching her expression.
It’s been twenty-four hours since Michael Welsh was found dead, and I put my notice in for work. After I left the station, I didn’t go to The Barrel or Marissa’s house or even my parents’ place to heed a distraction.
I went to see Conklin.
Because he was the one person I always confided in without feeling judged. We thought alike, which made our superiors nervous. They considered us loose cannons.
And they were right.
“If I needed you to sign the paperwork saying I was cleared to go back to work today, would you?”
The question arches her brows.
“It’s a simple yes or no answer, doc.”
She reaches into her bag and pulls out her keys, sidestepping me to undo the door leading directly from the hall to her office. “It’s never that easy, and you know it.”
Using her hip to push the door open, she stops at the threshold and studies me. “There are always other factors to take into account. You’ve made exceptional progress.”
There’s more she wants to say. “But?”
“But,” she adds with a soft smile, “there are things we still haven’t discussed. The root of the reason you’re here.”
I lean against the wall. “ You were the one who wanted me to start from the beginning. That’s eight years of history to unravel.”
She lowers her bag to the table beside the door. “Do you know who Robert Penn Warner is?”
I shake my head.
Her responding chuckle is light. “He might have been one of the authors you made one of your friends write about in high school to avoid those dusty books you loathed so much.”
The quirky comment cocks my head. “Touché, doc. So he’s a writer.”
“A Pulitzer Prize winner too,” she adds, taking her glasses off and folding them to hold in her hand. “He once said that history can give us a full understanding of ourselves so that we can better face the future. I’m paraphrasing a little, of course, but you get the context.”
“So, the answer is no,” I say, not that it matters anymore.
“The answer,” she replies easily, “is that you haven’t finished telling me your story yet. Only then will you be ready to move forward in life.”
“For a better future?”
She nods. “For a better future.”
Wetting my lips, I look out the window as the snowflakes fill the air. “I put in my notice at work, doc.”
For once, Theresa Castro seems speechless.
“Conklin used to say that I should focus on the present because it was the only way to make sure I built a good future for me and Georgia,” I say, shaking my head. “But I thought I was doing that all along. I wanted to make sure she was free from her father’s control, and instead, I pushed her right back into his arms.”
“Everybody has the ability to choose,” she says after a moment of silence. “Each one of you—Conklin, Georgia, and yourself—made choices that led us to where we are today.”
“But what if we were lying to ourselves the entire time we made those choices to make ourselves feel better about them? What if I wasn’t really doing it for her but for me?”
Her words that night at the diner struck a chord that I’ve held on to a little too tightly.
“History isn’t history without the truth.”
“Which author said that?”
Her lips twitch. “Abraham Lincoln.” She looks up at the clock on her wall. “My next client isn’t supposed to be here for another hour and a half. I came in early to do some work. But if you’d like to talk…”
There are a lot of places I could be today.
But there’s a weight on my chest I need off.
I walk inside and let her close the door behind us. “I don’t know if I lied to myself about being in love with Georgia or if it was real. But you know what I realized the other day?”
“What?”
“In eight years, she never said she loved me.”