Chapter Sixteen #2
“Not without backup and not without CSU,” he said of the Crime Scene Unit detectives who would pore over the place looking for clues that could blow their case wide open.
“Call for backup and CSU then.”
“You giving the orders now?” the captain asked with a small smile that told Gonzo he was joking. But he made the call for backup and turned the car around.
They’d be returning to the place where Arnold had been killed. He’d have to see the blood on the sidewalk and remember the horror that was still too fresh in his mind. Gonzo had the time it took to drive across the congested city to prepare himself to be there again. It was nowhere near enough.
“From what I hear, neighbors are going crazy over another cop being shot in their quiet little corner of the city,” Malone said after a long period of silence. “Stuff like this doesn’t happen there.”
“Chris and I looked at a place out there before I was shot.”
“Of course you already knew, despite what happened with Billy Springer and now this, it’s not the kind of neighborhood where shit like this usually happens. You know that because you’ve been on the job for twelve years and you know this city inside out.”
“What’s your point?” Gonzo asked because with the captain, there was always a point.
“Just that if you’d been down in Southeast rather than leafy Northwest, you might not have let your partner take the lead.
You probably would’ve thought, in the back of your mind, that he wasn’t ready to take on the kind of stuff we see down there.
But up here… This is the nice part of town, the kind of place you’d want your own family to live. ”
Gonzo understood and even appreciated what the captain was trying to do, but it didn’t do a thing to dull the relentless guilt. “He was pissing me off.”
“Arnold?”
“Yeah. Bitching and moaning about the cold and the time and the fact that we were off duty hours ago and still watching Besozzi’s place.
So I made him a deal—stop the bitching and he could take the lead.
I was irritated and that’s what drove the decision.
I wish I could say I did it because of where we were, but it was about shutting him up. ”
“Whatever the reason, you know the area. You know most of the time, someone isn’t going to shoot a police officer in the face when that officer approaches, shows his badge, gives his name.
In Manor Park, most of the time, a resident would say, ‘Good evening, Officer. How can I help you?’ Don’t tell me you didn’t know that because you did.
That information is so deeply ingrained in you that you couldn’t not know. ”
Gonzo tried to wrap his head around what the captain was saying, but all he could see was Arnold lying on that cold sidewalk, blood gurgling in his throat as he struggled to breathe.
“Stop blaming yourself,” Malone said. “The person who killed Arnold was the guy with the gun, not you. Keep telling yourself that over and over and over again until it sinks into your thick skull.”
As Malone turned onto the block where it had all gone down, Gonzo instantly felt sick again.
But he forced himself to choke back the bile that surged from his empty stomach so he could focus on the job that needed to be done.
The scene was taped off, and someone had washed the blood off the sidewalk.
Thank God for small favors, Gonzo thought.
In the short time they waited for CSU and the FBI to join them, exhaustion engulfed him. The night without sleep caught up to him, and the rush of adrenaline that had followed the shooting suddenly wore off.
He rubbed his hands over his face, trying to get it together and find the focus he needed to get through the next few hours.
A knock on the window startled him. Christ, he was jumpy. He recognized the CSU commander and reached for the door handle.
“You don’t have to be part of this, Gonzo,” Malone said. “I can take it from here if you need to step back.”
“I’m fine. Let’s go.” As he ducked under the yellow crime scene tape and walked up the sidewalk to the house, he pretended not to notice that in addition to being exhausted, he was also lightheaded from the lack of food. Though the thought of eating brought back the nausea.
He accepted a pair of latex gloves from Malone and followed the captain into the house. Gonzo wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but it wasn’t a well-furnished, comfortable residence with magazines on the coffee table, art on the walls, a big flat-screen TV and plants in the window.
“I wasn’t expecting it to be so lived in,” Malone said.
“Neither was I. Clearly, he’s been here a while, whoever he is.”
The CSU detectives swooped in and began combing through every corner of the townhouse, starting in the basement and working their way up. They dusted for prints on every surface, including the walls.
Gonzo began to see double as he watched them.
Malone signaled for a Patrol officer. “Please take Sergeant Gonzales home. He’s off duty until tomorrow morning.”
“Captain—”
“That’s a direct order, Sergeant. You’re no good to any of us if you keel over.”
“I want to hear any updates the same minute you hear them.”
“You have my word.”
Since that was as good a deal as he could hope to get, Gonzo went with the Patrolman who held open the passenger door of the cruiser for Gonzo, as if he were addled or elderly or something. “Thanks,” he muttered before the door closed.
The Patrolman got into the driver’s seat. “Where am I taking you?”
Gonzo gave him the address.
“I want to say… I’m sorry about your partner. Mine threw out his knee late last year, and I miss him like crazy, so I can’t imagine… Well, I’m sorry.”
“Thanks.” Gonzo leaned back against the head rest and looked out the passenger-side window, hoping the young officer wouldn’t feel the need to fill the silence with idle chatter the way Arnold always had.
Tears burned his eyes, and he closed them tight to keep from bawling his head off in front of a junior officer.
The next thing he knew, the Patrolman was gently shaking him awake. “We’re here, Sarge.”
“Thanks a lot for the ride.”
“No problem. You hang in there.”
Gonzo nodded to him and got out of the car, eager to get inside the safety of the home he shared with Christina and Alex. As he approached the door, he remembered that his keys were locked in his desk at HQ, so he pressed the buzzer to their apartment.
“Yes?” Christina asked over the intercom, her tone cautious and guarded.
“It’s me.”
“Oh thank goodness.” The buzzer sounded to admit him.
Gonzo trudged up the stairs, the overwhelming exhaustion a reminder that he wasn’t yet back to full stamina after his own shooting.
Christina waited for him at the door to their apartment and threw herself into his arms. He wrapped an arm around her and lifted her to walk them inside, kicking the door shut behind him.
“Tommy, God, I can’t stop crying. I’m so, so sorry.”
Wrapped up in the arms of the woman he loved, Gonzo stopped trying to fight the tears that had been threatening all day.
The grief, exhaustion, disbelief, rage and despair combined to reduce him to a sniveling wreck of a man.
He wasn’t proud of the way he broke down, but there wasn’t a damned thing he could do to stop it.
Christina led him into the bathroom, helped him remove his clothes and joined him in the shower where she washed his hair and body while he stood numbly under the water. It could’ve been freezing cold for all he knew. Then she toweled him dry and tucked him into bed.
“Need you,” he whispered.
“I’m here.”
He reached for her and she got in bed and snuggled up to him.
“I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.”
“Alex.”
“I called your parents and they came to get him for a few days. I wanted to be able to focus on you. I hope it was the right thing to do.”
“It was. I don’t want him to see me like this.”
“Tell me how I can help.”
“You’re helping more than you know by being here.”
“You saw his parents?”
“Yeah. His mom was so happy to see me until she realized Malone was with me.” He shuddered. “It was horrible.”
She wiped tears from his face.
“Should’ve been me, Chris.”
Christina propped herself up on an elbow. “What do you mean?”
“I let him take the lead because he was pissing me off. I told him if he shut up about the cold and the late hour and everything that I’d let him take the lead.”
“Oh, Tommy. It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known.”
“That’s what everyone has said, but still. I never let him take the lead, and the one time I do…”
“It was his time to go, baby. It’s as simple as that.”
Gonzo knew she was right. He knew everyone was right. He hadn’t shot Arnold, so it wasn’t technically his fault. But it would be a very long time, if ever, before he would stop blaming himself for his partner’s death.