Chapter Eleven
Outside the townhouse of Giuseppe Besozzi in the Manor Park neighborhood, the day had grown dark while Gonzo and Arnold waited for their person of interest to return home.
They’d been there three hours so far without a sign of him.
The last time Gonzo had business in this neighborhood, he’d nearly been killed.
Being back here again brought back the insanity of that day.
“How much longer do we gotta stay here?” Arnold asked for the twentieth time, or so it seemed to Gonzo.
“Until he gets home.”
“But our shift ended—”
“Our shift ends when I say it ends.” Gonzo would love to get the hell out of there. He was hungry, tired and needed to pee, but they weren’t going anywhere until they spoke to Besozzi.
The radio crackled to life. “How much longer are we going to wait, Sarge?” asked one of the Patrol officers who was providing backup.
“Until he comes home,” Gonzo snapped back.
What was with these people? They weren’t killing time out here.
They were looking for a potential suspect in multiple homicides who had made people afraid to walk on city streets.
This wasn’t just another day at work. This could be the break they’d been waiting for, and they were damn well going to wait until he got home, no matter how long it took.
Arnold let out a loud burp.
Gonzo rolled down the window to let in some fresh air.
“Kinda cold to have the window down,” Arnold said.
“Kinda gross to have to smell your burps.”
“You’re in a foul mood today, boss man.”
“I want to catch this bastard, and I’m no happier than you are to be freezing my balls off waiting for him to come home.”
“We could turn the heater on for a while.”
“We’re going to run out of gas if we do that, and besides, idling is bad for the environment.”
“Freezing to death is bad for my health, but if you care about the environment more than you care about your partner…”
“Will you please shut the fuck up? Just shut up and watch for our guy. If you sit there with your mouth shut until he comes home, I’ll even let you take the lead with him.”
“Really?”
“Yep, but you gotta shut up about the cold and the time and how hungry you are and every other goddamned thing. You got me?”
“I got you.”
“How about you tell me how you’re going to approach him so we’re ready.”
“I’ll say, ‘Mr. Besozzi, I’m Detective Arnold, Metro PD. My partner Detective Sergeant Gonzales. We wondered if we might have a few minutes of your time.’”
“Excellent. And then what?”
“Hopefully he’ll invite us into his nice warm home where I’ll ask him about his meltdown with Griffen and Smoltz and where he was the night Enright was stabbed.”
“He might get mad at the implication.”
“I expect that he will. I’ll say that we’re looking to rule him out, and if he has an alibi, we’d be happy to speak to that person.”
“That’s good. Keep it friendly for as long as you can.
You’re going to want to dig in on the Griffen and Smoltz thing so we can get a sense for how mad he was about what happened with Enright and the firm.
He’s going to ask if they sent us to him, and you’ll want to say that no, they didn’t send us, but his name came up in the investigation into the stabbings and we wanted the chance to speak with him. ”
Arnold rubbed his cold hands together and breathed into them, trying to warm them. “How will I know if I should arrest him?”
“You tell me.”
“If he gets confrontational, refuses to answer questions, says something incriminating.”
“Any of those things, but don’t jump the gun until he gives you probable cause.”
“Got it. I can’t believe you’re letting me do this.”
Gonzo rolled his eyes in the dark. Had he ever been so green? If so, it was such a long time ago now that he no longer remembered. “Don’t fuck it up.”
“I’ll try not to.” He was quiet for several minutes. “You won’t let me fuck it up, will you?”
“I’ll jump in if need be.”
“Good.”
Arnold was blessedly silent for a long time, holding up his end of their deal. “Could I ask you something that has nothing to do with when we’re getting out of here?”
Though he was young and green and still had a lot to learn about being a detective—and a man—he was a good guy, and Gonzo owed him his life. On the day that Billy Springer shot him in the neck, Arnold had applied pressure that kept him from bleeding out in the street. “Yeah.”
“You think the LT is coming back?”
“What’s a matter? I’m not good enough?”
“How to answer this without losing my job…”
“Haha. Yeah, I think she’ll be back. Maybe not right away, but eventually.”
“Can’t imagine the job without her in the office barking orders at all of us.”
“Barking orders… Got to remember to tell her you said that.”
“You’d better not!”
Gonzo began to laugh, stopping only when he saw movement on the corner of the block. “Heads up,” he said to Arnold and then into the radio to alert the Patrol officers backing them up. “Let’s go.” He had to remind himself to hold back and give Arnold the lead as promised.
“Mr. Besozzi?” Arnold flashed his gold shield. “I’m Detective Arnold and this is my partner—”
A shot rang out, and Arnold went down, nearly knocking Gonzo over on the way.
Besozzi turned tail and ran. Gonzo pulled his weapon and got off a couple of rounds as he screamed into his radio.
“Officer down.” Somehow he managed to get off the address to Dispatch before dropping to his knees next to his partner, who’d been shot in the face.
A gurgling sound came from his throat and quickly became the worst sound Gonzo had ever heard.
“God, Arnold, hang in there,” Gonzo whispered, cradling his partner’s head in hands wet with blood. “Don’t you dare die on me, do you hear me?”
Pounding footsteps behind them indicated the arrival of the Patrolmen.
“Go after him!” Gonzo screamed at them. “Don’t let him get away!” Into his radio, he again said, “Officer down! Get a bus here! It’s bad. We need more backup. Suspect is in the wind.”
The gurgling sound from Arnold continued until it stopped.
“Goddamn it!” Gonzo cried. “Don’t you dare fucking die!” He broke down into sobs that he tried desperately to control as he unzipped Arnold’s coat and pressed his ear to his partner’s chest, hearing no sign of a heartbeat. “No, please no.”
The EMTs had to pull Gonzo off his partner so they could tend to him.
“He’s gone.” Gonzo wiped freezing tears from his face. “He’s dead.”
One of the EMTs put a stethoscope to Arnold’s chest to listen. He looked up at his partner and shook his head.
A short time later, screaming sirens preceded the arrival of additional officers, the Medical Examiner and Crime Scene detectives that would record every detail of the shooting, right down to the clothing Arnold had been wearing.
Gonzo stared down at his partner’s mangled face, thinking about how he’d let him take the lead and now he was dead.
“Sergeant,” a familiar voice said. “Gonzo.”
He couldn’t bring himself to look away from Arnold as Deputy Medical Examiner Byron Tomlinson zipped him into a body bag. Ten minutes ago they’d been arguing about the cold, and now his partner was dead.
A hand landed on his shoulder, making Gonzo flinch.
“Gonzo,” Captain Malone said. “Come on. Let’s get you back to the house so we can talk it through.”
“I’m going with him.”
“They’re taking him to the morgue.”
“I’m going with him.”
“Okay. I’ll meet you there.”
“Did Patrol get our perp?”
“I haven’t heard anything yet.”
“We need to call everyone in. I want our entire squad, the FBI, the Marshals’ fugitive response team. I want everyone.”
“Already being done.”
“This is a crime scene,” he said, gesturing to the sidewalk that was covered with Arnold’s blood.
“It’ll be treated as such. I’ll see to it myself.”
“Someone needs to call Sam.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“I’ll be the one to tell his family,” Gonzo said. “No one but me.”
“Of course.”
As Tomlinson and his team wheeled Arnold to the Medical Examiner’s truck, everyone on the scene came to a halt and stood at attention, paying their respects to their fallen brother.
Two patrol cars moved into position ahead of the ME’s truck and two more would follow, escorting Arnold home to headquarters.
Satisfied that the proper respect was being paid and steps were being taken to catch the man who’d killed Arnold, Gonzo followed the gurney bearing the lifeless body of his partner into the ME’s truck for the ride to the morgue.
Nick came down on top of Sam, his hands and lips seeming to be everywhere at once until her senses were completely overwhelmed. The aroma of coconut from the scented candles took her back to the blissful days they’d spent on their honeymoon in Bora Bora.
He cupped her breasts and pinched her nipples until she gasped from the painful pleasure.
She grasped a handful of his hair and dragged him into another tongue-twisting kiss. “Nick.”
“What, honey?”
“I want you right now. I can’t wait any longer.”
“I suppose we can go slow next time.”
“Mmm, yes, next time.” Sam had been ready to explode for hours by the time he finally pushed into her, filling her in every possible way, like only he ever could. “Don’t go slow.” She dug her fingernails into his back, making him groan as he began to move.
“Samantha, God I’ve missed this. I’ve missed us.”
“Me, too. I love you so much. You have no idea how much.”
He lifted her legs so he could go deeper. “I do. I know. I always know.”
The new position took her right to the edge, and then he sent her flying by pressing his thumb to her clit at exactly the right moment.
“There it is,” he whispered. “Nothing like the real thing.”
Even in the midst of an epic orgasm, he made her laugh. Her laughter died on her lips when he withdrew from her, turned her over and positioned her on her hands and knees. When he surged back into her, riding the last waves of her orgasm, she realized she was the only one who’d come.