Chapter Two #2
Freddie’s leg bounced uncontrollably as he sat outside the chief’s office waiting to be called in.
Since Gonzo delivered the news, Freddie had wanted to call Sam to get her take, but he’d been trying not to bother her while she was on leave.
However, he sure would’ve liked to talk to her before this meeting.
“Detective Cruz?” Helen said. “You can go in now.”
“Oh, um, thanks.” He’d rarely been to the chief’s office without Sam, so he couldn’t remember if he was supposed to knock or walk in. As knocking was the safer of the two options, he raised his hand to the door.
“Come in!”
Freddie opened the door and stepped into the chief’s inner sanctum. In addition to Chief Farnsworth, Deputy Chief Conklin, Captain Malone, the new Internal Affairs Lieutenant Wilson and the department counsel, Jessica Townsend, were there. Holy shit…
Farnsworth gestured to the one remaining chair in the half circle in front of his desk. “Have a seat, Detective.”
When he was seated, Freddie glanced at Malone, hoping for some insight into what was going on, but the captain was staring at something behind the chief.
“We’re here to discuss the events of January 1st, in which Detective Cruz entered the city jail to confront an Andre Elliott, who’d been arrested earlier that day after assaulting a woman at a gym on Sixteenth Street.”
Freddie had been waiting for this for weeks now while at the same time hoping it would go away without any additional fallout. No such luck.
Reading from a paper he held in his hand, Farnsworth continued. “Mr. Elliott alleges that while he was in MPD custody, that Detective Cruz entered his cell and assaulted him, leaving him with injuries to his groin and face.” Farnsworth looked up at Freddie. “Do you know anything about this?”
Freddie had no idea what to say. Did he tell the truth or did he deny it?
It was his word versus Elliott’s. By placing his hoodie over the camera, he had made sure there would be no record of him entering or leaving the cell.
The sergeant on duty in the jail that night, Sergeant Delany, had looked the other way after Freddie told him what Elliott had done to Elin.
“Detective Cruz?”
“Before you reply, Detective,” Wilson said, “I should remind you that you have rights, including the right to request counsel, should you require it.”
“Am I being charged with something?” Freddie asked.
“Not at this time,” Wilson said. “But we reserve the right to pursue charges if we’re unable to resolve this matter internally.”
Fixated on the wall behind the chief, Freddie thought about the broken bones in Elin’s face, the violent bruises that were only now beginning to yellow, the weeks she’d been out of work and in pain.
Yeah he’d done it, and he’d do it again.
But somehow he didn’t think it would be wise to say that here.
“Let me make this simple for you, Detective,” Farnsworth said. “Elliott is demanding we take action internally or he will file suit.”
Freddie forced himself to meet the chief’s unflinching gaze. “What kind of internal action?”
“Nothing less than a suspension without pay of one week.”
Shit, Freddie thought, a week without pay will hurt, but a lawsuit would hurt more, especially with Melissa Woodmansee’s suit against us winding its way through the courts.
In the second he took to weigh his options, he thought about Sam and how hard she’d worked to build their squad into one of the department’s elite teams. Another lawsuit could undermine both their careers.
“Elliott has no way to prove that I laid a finger on him,” Freddie said.
“Lieutenant Archelotta brought a gap in the security film from that night to our attention the week after the incident in question. It appeared to him that someone had intentionally placed something over the camera, and when it was removed, Elliott was lying on the floor holding his badly bruised testicles and bleeding from his nose and mouth.”
Okay, that looked bad and helped to cement what he needed to do. “I’ll take the suspension.” This was the worst possible time, with Sam on leave and a knife-wielding lunatic on the loose, but what choice did he have?
“It will include an entry on your personnel file that could impair future advancement opportunities,” Malone said.
“I understand.” If he was never anything other than a detective, he could live with that. As long as he got to do the job he loved, he’d be fine.
“I hope it goes without saying, Detective,” the chief said, “that we in no way condone officers taking matters such as this into their own hands. It goes against everything we believe in, as a department, for members of our team, especially officers at your rank and above, to be doling out vigilante justice.”
“I understand,” he said again—and he did. From the second he left Elin’s bedside at the hospital, he’d known what he was risking by confronting Elliott. But even facing a suspension, he couldn’t bring himself to be sorry for avenging the woman he loved. “Is there anything else?”
“I’ll need your weapon and badge,” Malone said, holding out his hand.
It hurt a lot more than he’d expected to turn over his gun and his prized gold shield to the captain.
“Is there anything else you’d like to say, Detective?” Farnsworth asked.
“What will Elliott be told, and will the suspension be made public?”
“He will be told that you’ve been disciplined internally, but no further details will be made available to him or the media.
It will be treated as an internal personnel matter.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Faith Miller has agreed to drop the conspiracy charges against Elliott in exchange for his silence.
He’ll only be charged for the assault on Ms. Svendsen. ”
Freddie’s mind whirled with implications. Stahl had hired Elliott to beat up Elin so Freddie would be out of the way dealing with a personal matter when Stahl went after Sam. It killed him to hear that Elliott wouldn’t be charged for partnering up with Stahl.
“That doesn’t mean the media won’t ever catch wind of it,” Malone added. “They won’t hear it from us.”
“You understand that viable charges are being dropped in the case against Elliott because of a choice you made, Detective,” Farnsworth said, visibly displeased.
“Yes, sir.” He wasn’t proud of what he’d done, nor did he like being the subject of the chief’s displeasure, but he was not going to apologize—ever.
The deal was the best he could hope for under the circumstances.
Hopefully, Elliott was smart enough to know better than to defy the terms of his agreement with the U.S.
Attorney. The assault charges were enough on their own to make sure he’d be locked up for a while. At least he’d better be.
Freddie stood on watery legs. “Thank you.”
“Detective,” Malone said. “You’re a rising star in this department. Be careful letting your emotions get the better of you. I’d hate to see such a promising career derailed by self-inflicted wounds.”
“Yes,” Freddie said, swallowing, “sir. Thank you.” He made his escape and kept his head down on the way back to the detectives’ pit. At his cubicle, he shut down his computer and grabbed his keys.
“Oh, hey,” Gonzo said. “You’re back. What’s the deal?”
Freddie zeroed in on the still-healing gunshot wound on Gonzo’s neck, a reminder that things could always be worse. “I’ve been suspended without pay.”
Gonzo’s mouth fell open in shock. “What. The. Fuck.”
Freddie remained stubbornly silent.
“The thing with Elliott. The thing you won’t talk about. It’s come back to bite you in the ass.”
“Something like that.”
“Goddamn it, Cruz. This is the last fucking thing I need with Sam already on leave.”
“I know. I’m sorry to cause you added stress.”
“But you’re not sorry about what you did to land in this situation.”
“Nope.”
“I hope it was worth it.”
Freddie thought of the way Elin’s gorgeous face had been bruised and broken by Elliott’s fist. What Freddie had done to him was the least of what that guy deserved. “It absolutely was.”
“I don’t know that I care for this new edgy side of Freddie Cruz. It’s not like you to behave this way.”
“I’m not expecting it to become a habit, Sarge,” Freddie said, in a rare use of his close friend’s rank.
“See that it doesn’t. How long is the suspension?”
“A week.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“I’ll be a phone call away if you need me, and all my notes are up to date. If I can help with the investigation, call me.”
“Yeah, I will. Have you talked to Sam at all?” Gonzo asked.
“Here and there. You?”
“Same. Does she seem weird to you?”
Freddie nodded. “Suppose it’s normal after what happened.”
“I guess.”
What remained unsaid between them was that it was anything but normal for their lieutenant and close friend to stay away from work for any reason other than debilitating physical injury—especially when they had a hot new investigation going on.
Even when she’d been badly injured, they’d had to fight with her to stay home until she recovered.
“She’ll be back,” Freddie said with more confidence than he felt. “When she’s ready.”
“I hope so. You’d better get out of here before the word gets out about the suspension. You don’t want to be around for that.”
“No, I don’t. I’ll call you.”
Freddie left the pit and headed for the morgue exit, hoping to make a clean getaway.
If there was any upside to the suspension, it was a week alone with Elin since she was still on medical leave from the gym.
As he drove home to their apartment in the Woodley Park neighborhood, it occurred to him that they should go somewhere, get out of town while they had the chance.
Before he did anything, though, he needed to talk to Sam. He placed the call and hoped she’d pick up. The last couple of times he’d called, she hadn’t answered or replied to his voicemail messages or texts.
“Hey,” she said, sounding breathless. “What’s up?”
“Oh, hey.” He’d been prepared to leave yet another voicemail message.