Chapter Eighteen #2
“You know what I’ll think about when I think of Arnold?
” Gonzo asked harshly from the back of the room.
When no one replied, he said, “How I marched him into a slaughter because he was pissing me off with his complaints about the cold and the long shift and how he had better things to do than sit outside Besozzi or Androzzi’s house waiting for him to come home.
I’ll remember how I basically blackmailed him to shut the fuck up with his complaints by telling him he could take the lead with our perp when or if he came home.
I’ll remember how excited he was that I was finally letting him do something other than tag along.
I’ll remember that his last words were ‘I’m Detective Arnold, MPD,’ before he was gunned down.
I’ll always remember the sound of the blood gurgling in his throat as he struggled to breathe and how I let the guy who did it get away because I was too fucking shocked to react the way I’ve been trained to.
That’s what I’ll remember.” Leaving his stunned colleagues behind, Gonzo stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
Freddie stood up, clearly intending to go after his friend.
“Let him go,” Sam said.
“But—”
“Let him go.”
Freddie sat back down, crossing his arms over his chest, his distress apparent.
“Gonzo is blaming himself for what happened,” Sam said.
“He’ll probably always blame himself even though he knows, in his heart of hearts, that he isn’t responsible for Detective Arnold’s death.
Androzzi is responsible, and until he’s brought to justice, Gonzo has no one else to blame.
We need to stand by him and support him the way he’d support us if the situation were reversed. ”
“Lieutenant Holland is exactly right,” Farnsworth said. “In fact, I was going to ask Skip to talk to him. He went through a similar thing when his partner was killed a few feet from him.”
“That’s a great idea, Chief,” Sam said. “I know my dad would be more than willing to do anything he can to help Gonzo through this. I’ll set it up.”
“Before I leave you all to get to work,” Farnsworth said, “I’ll remind you that my door is always open.
If there’s anything I can do for any of you, please come to me.
Please ask for help if you need it. I’m not looking to any of you to be a hero in this situation.
Now, Lieutenant Holland and Detective Cruz are going to work on the list of missing people that Hill requested.
I need the rest of you to report to the Inaugural Task Force for tomorrow’s assignments.
As much as we want to take a pause to grieve for Detective Arnold, we have a very big day to manage tomorrow, and we’ll do so with all due attention.
And then we will turn our sights on ensuring that Detective Arnold receives a funeral befitting his service to this city. ”
“Thank you, Chief,” Sam said. “I know I speak for all of us when I say we appreciate your support and your sympathy.”
“Carry on, everyone,” Farnsworth said. “There’s nothing else we can do but carry on.”
He left the room with Conklin and Malone. For a long time after the door shut behind them, the others were silent.
“To echo what the chief said,” Sam said, “I’m also here for anyone who needs me. Tomorrow will be a bit nuts with the inauguration, but otherwise, I’m all yours.”
“I still can’t believe it’s happened,” Detective Gigi Dominguez said.
“None of us can,” Tyrone said. “I keep expecting him to come busting in here asking what he’s missed.”
The others nodded in agreement as a few dealt with tears.
“All right then,” Sam said, “let’s get back to work. There’ll be time, later, to give into the grief. Now is not that time.”
“Yes, ma’am,” they muttered one by one as they got up to leave the room.
“I need a minute,” Sam said to Freddie, “and then we’ll get to it.”
“I’ll get started.”
Sam went into her office and shut the door, taking a deep breath to ward off the emotions that were piling up inside.
Between the chief’s heartfelt words and Gonzo’s outburst, her nerves were stretched to the breaking point.
The phone on her desktop rang and she pushed herself off the door to answer it.
“Holland.”
“It’s Malone.”
“Didn’t I just see you?”
“Sam…”
“What?” Oh God, what now?
“Mitch Sanborn was found dead in his cell this morning.”
Sam sat down hard, reeling in shock from the news Malone had delivered. “How?”
“He hung himself with a bedsheet.”
“How was that possible? Don’t they have him on suicide watch?”
“Yes, but he chose his time wisely and did it at shift change when he knew the guards would be otherwise occupied.”
Sam ran her fingers through her hair as the implications piled up, one on top of the other.
Jeannie would never get her day in court, her chance to put away forever the man who’d stolen so much from her.
Sam would never get to testify against the man who’d caused her to lose her baby last year. Her baby—and Nick’s.
“Sam? You okay?”
“Just thinking it through. I need to tell McBride…” Pausing, she looked up at the ceiling. “God, what a coward. What a fucking coward.”
“That he was, but we already knew that before today, and I’ve got to hope he’ll get what’s coming to him in the afterlife. And not for nothing, this is like a huge admission of guilt. Why would he kill himself unless he knew he was going down for what he did?”
“But will that be enough for Jeannie? After what he did to her, will that be anywhere near enough?”
“I don’t know, Sam. That’ll be for her to decide, I suppose. You want me there when you tell her?”
“No, I don’t think so, but thanks for offering. I’ll take care of it.”
“All right then. Let me know how it goes.”
Sam put down the phone and dropped her head into her hands, trying to organize her thoughts before she spoke to Jeannie. The detective had been counting down the days until the trial for the man who’d abducted and raped her last winter during the investigation into a call girl ring in the District.
Sanborn, once head of the Democratic National Committee, had free-fallen from grace after they were able to prove he’d not only abducted and assaulted Detective McBride, but he’d killed two of the immigrant women who’d been part of the call girl operation.
After preparing herself to testify for months, Jeannie had been disappointed when the trial date had been postponed to late January.
Now this.
Gathering her hair into a ponytail, Sam twisted it and secured it with a clip.
Then she took a series of deep breaths, trying to calm her own emotional reaction to the news before she shared it with Jeannie.
Sam would never forget her pursuit of Sanborn and how she’d been forced to tackle him to the ground, taking his elbow to her abdomen in the process.
She’d never forget the searing pain deep inside as her body began to reject the baby she’d wanted so badly.
Despite frequent, vigorous effort over the last year, she never had conceived again and had all but given up hope that she ever would.
With her emotions already raw from the loss of Arnold, she simply couldn’t allow herself to revisit that horrific day, too. If she went down that road, she wouldn’t be able to function, and she needed to function for Jeannie’s sake and for the sake of those who were depending on her for leadership.
Sam stood took another couple of deep breaths and went to open her office door. “Detective McBride, could I have a moment please?”
Jeannie popped up in her cubicle and came into Sam’s office, notebook in hand.
She was a fine, competent detective who’d worked hard to recover from the horrors Sanborn had inflicted upon her in a windowless room where he’d chained her to a bed and repeatedly raped her.
When he was through with her, he’d dumped her in an alley with a message for Sam that she’d be next if she didn’t drop the investigation into the call girl ring.
Thinking about what she now needed to tell her friend and colleague, Sam broke out in a cold sweat as Jeannie took a seat in her office.
“Everything okay, Lieutenant?”
“We’ve had some upsetting news.”
“Not more upsetting news.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“It’s… It’s not Michael, is it?” she asked of her fiancé.
“No, no.”
“Oh thank God. What then?”
“There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m going to put it out there. Mitch Sanborn killed himself in prison this morning.”
Jeannie gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. “He… He…”
“Killed himself. With a bedsheet.”
“That miserable fucking coward bastard!” Though the words were spoken fiercely, tears rolled down her cheeks. In a whisper, she added, “That fucking bastard.”
“Yes, he is.”
She wiped her face angrily. “I’d begun to look forward to testifying, to having my day in court, to making sure he paid for what he did to me and the others, not to mention what he took from you.”
“I know. I was looking forward to it, too. More than I’ve ever looked forward to testifying against anyone.”
“And now we’ll never get to.”
“It’s hard now to see this as anything other than the cowardly act that it was, but it also spares you from reopening wounds that have begun to heal. If you think of it that way, perhaps you’ll find it easier to cope with this news.”
“Perhaps.” She looked up at Sam, her normally soft brown eyes gone fierce with rage. “But I was looking forward to nailing his ass.”
“I understand that even more than I would have before everything happened with Stahl.”
“What am I supposed to do now? I don’t know what to do with all the rage I’ve been carrying around with me. It’s been keeping me going until the trial.”
“It might be time to let it go now. He’s gone, and he can never hurt you or anyone else again.”
“That’s not enough for me. That’s nowhere near enough. He’ll never be convicted for what he did to me, so people will think that maybe it didn’t happen or that he might’ve walked away after the trial.”
“There was no way he was going to walk, which is why he did what he did.”
“You and I know that, but the rest of the world doesn’t.”
“There’s nothing stopping you from talking about it now that he’s gone and there won’t be a trial.”
“No, there isn’t.”
“You’re going to be inundated all over again with interview requests when this news goes public.”
“I suppose I will be.” A spark of defiance replaced the tears in her eyes, which was a huge relief to Sam. “I believe I’ll be accepting one of those invitations this time around.”
“For what it’s worth, that’s what I would do.”
“It’s worth a lot. Thank you, again, for standing by me through all this. Your support and friendship has helped me survive it.”
“Your own strength and determination got you through.”
She stood to leave the office. “I need to call Michael. He should hear this from me.”
“Go on ahead. In fact, take a few hours to go talk to him in person. I’ll let Malone know where you’ve gone.”
“Thank you. I’ll take you up on that.”
“Jeannie.”
The beautiful young detective turned back to face her. “Yes?”
“I want you to know that I so admire the way you’ve handled yourself through this whole thing. You haven’t let it ruin your life. You’re stronger now than you were then—and you were pretty damned strong before. Don’t let this be a setback. Okay?”
She offered a small smile as she blinked back new tears. “I won’t.”
“Okay then.”
Jeannie left the office, closing the door behind her.