32. Korine
32
KORINE
“W hat’s the plan?” Sydney asks once we’re parked outside the Pulsboro Police Department. She turns off the engine and waits my answer. “There is a plan… right?”
I spend a few seconds watching police officers and town residents trudge in and out of the front doors of the station. A familiar sense of uncertainty expands inside my chest like a balloon filling with air.
“Sort of,” I answer eventually. “It’s not so much of a plan as it is a hope and a prayer.”
Sydney frowns. “This doesn’t sound good. Korine, you might want to rethink this. We don’t need to give them any more ammunition against Cash.”
“You can wait out here if you want.”
I hop out of the truck and start a fast stride across the parking lot. Several paces behind me, Sydney rushes to catch up. My thoughts focus on what lies ahead, tuning out everything else around me. I can’t spend time trying to convince Sydney of what I’m about to do. The longer I wait, the greater the chance I’ll lose my nerve.
A middle-aged man with hairy whiskers sticking out of his ears sits behind the information desk. The same man who had tried to dismiss me the time I’d been here weeks ago to report Ken’s abuse. His gaze flicks up from behind his readers the way it had before, his expression stiff and unwelcoming.
“Yes?”
“I’m here to see Captain Vargas.”
The man’s lips bend into a sardonic kind of smile. He doesn’t bother referencing his computer or picking up a phone to call the captain. He merely mocks me with his prolonged, dry-blinking stare, and then clears his throat.
“The captain’s unavailable,” he says. He furls the newspaper in his hands, then goes to return to his place in the article he’s reading.
I reach over and snatch it away before he can. “Did you hear me the first time? I need to see the captain.”
“He’s unavailable.”
Again, he makes no attempt to check. No effort to even pretend he respects my request. He half rises from his chair and steals his newspaper right back.
Frustration boils over inside me, melting away the last ounce of patience I have left. I spring forward without warning and slip past the information desk, through the waist-high door flap that leads into the rest of the station.
The desk clerk yells after me, but it’s too late—I’m darting fast between a maze of desks to the puzzled stares of several officers on shift. A few seem to recognize me, sharing glances among themselves. One stands up to intercept me.
Lieutenant Gillard holds out his arms to coral me away from my destination. “Korine, this is not the time for hysterics?—”
I duck under him and scurry the rest of the way to the door marked Captain Julian Vargas . When I try the knob and discover it’s locked, I bang a fist against the glass cut out in the door.
“I’m only going to tell you once more. Stop that or you’ll be arrested!” comes Gillard’s voice.
The door pops open. Captain Vargas is on the other end, vexed lines etched onto his face. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“We need to talk. Right now. I won’t take no for an answer.”
One of Vargas’s brows cocks higher than the other. “You don’t get to dictate that type of thing around here. You don’t get to dictate much of anything at all. Get out of here and we’ll pretend you never showed your face.”
“You’ll see me. Privately,” I say, undeterred. If anything, my tone’s grown more brazen. I’ve lifted my chin, meeting his gaze with fire burning in mine. I’m still sporting bruises on my face. Bruises his officer once again caused. “Unless you want everybody to find out what a dirty cop you are. Publicly .”
A tumult of a dozen different voices breaks out. All the officers under Vargas’s charge murmuring to each other about what I’ve said.
Their gossip, so sudden and unmistakable, forces his hand. He tugs at the collar of his button-up uniform shirt, his tongue poking at the inside of his cheek. If he weren’t so tan-skinned, something tells me he’d be flushing red right about now.
“Alright,” he grinds out. “Fine. Five minutes. Get inside.”
It’s only as I hurry past the threshold of his office that I notice I’m not alone—Sydney’s off a few feet to the side, having followed me into the station. I double back to grab hold of her arm and bring her along with me.
“I don’t think so. You said just the two of us,” Vargas immediately protests.
“She’s my backup. You’ll excuse me if I don’t exactly trust the Pulsboro PD after everything I’ve been through. Which is what we’re about to talk about.”
Vargas’s glare hardens. His grizzly white beard can’t disguise the way his jaw’s clenched up. He gestures at Sydney to shut the door and then at the seats across from his desk. Dropping into his own leather chair, he folds his arms over his Santa Claus belly.
“Spill,” he says. “What’s it that you want? Why’re you here?”
I inhale a quick breath to collect myself and then go for it. My hope and prayer that I’d mentioned to Sydney earlier in the truck.
“Blake Cash is being wrongfully held in police custody.”
“Blake Cash is detained and will be formally charged. He not only engaged in a dangerous high-speed chase, he brutally assaulted a police officer. That’s besides the other charges he has pending for driving under the influence. As we say where I come from, the cows have come home to roost.”
“He never drove under the influence. Ken and his partner, Coates, framed him.”
Captain Vargas rolls his eyes. “Conspiracy theories won’t be entertained.”
“Ken kidnapped me. He beat me. He pulled a gun on both me and Blake. Anything Blake did in retaliation was self-defense .”
“Then I’m sure that can be determined in a court of law.”
“Not good enough,” I say. “Particularly when the man who terrorized me is scot-free.”
“If you mean Stricklin, he’s laid up in a hospital bed on suicide watch right now. Thanks to your biker boyfriend and his club that caused nothing but trouble for the precinct and town.”
“And will charges be brought up against him?”
“That is not a matter that will be divulged to you. Stricklin’s been put on a paid leave of absence pending further investigation.”
My fingers dig into the denim fabric covering my thighs. I lean forward in my chair, my eyes narrowing into distrustful slits. “In other words, he’s going to go away for a while ’til you can clean up his mess. Then, when it’s all said and done, he’ll escape the ordeal unpunished.”
“Korine, listen?—”
“No, captain, you listen!” I snap. My voice shakes from the frustration bottled up inside me. I can feel Sydney in the chair next to me almost reaching out as if to calm me down. But I push on, focusing on what I need to do. “I have been beaten… repeatedly. I have been harassed and threatened by one of your officers. I have been held at gunpoint and taken hostage. I have had to undergo emergency medical treatment for my injuries. So has my mother, who was fed the wrong medication at the behest of that same officer.
“When I came to you to file a report, I was told to shut up. I was told to go away. You tried to bury the dirt that one of your officers was an unstable, homicidal woman beater because you didn’t want to look bad. You chose to preserve your career and paint a fake perfect perception of your precinct at the cost of my safety. And everyone else’s safety too—tell me, captain, how would the rest of the town feel if they found out their police captain was covering up the fact that one of his officers fractured his wife’s ribs and took her hostage at gunpoint?”
A nervous laugh rattles out of the captain. He sits up from his more relaxed position in his leather office chair and sputters out a couple nonsensical words like, errr and uhhh. Then he peters off into silence when he seems to realize he has no explanation.
“I have the photos, captain,” I say. “Date stamped.”
“Well… err… that can be… any time… that doesn’t prove…”
“What if I told you I have an audio recording of the day I came in to file my report?” I ask sharply. “I have you and Gillard on audio—the sound clear as can be—covering up for Ken. The local news station’s, what, three, four blocks away? Maybe I’ll head over after our little chat. I’ll turn over my photos and audio files. What do you think, Sydney?”
Sydney’s as stunned as Vargas is, though she instantly backs me up with a keen nod. “Sounds like a plan. I’ll drive you myself.”
“Great. Let’s go.”
“Korine,” grunts Captain Vargas through clenched teeth. “Hold on a minute. You can’t really believe you’re going to hang this over my head. You think I’ll comply because you claim to have some audio recordings?”
“You can call my bluff, captain. Please do. Your career to jeopardize.” The look I give Sydney communicates it’s time to go. We get up in unison and turn in the direction of the door.
The captain only waits another second before he’s rushing to call us back a second time.
“I can’t magically get the charges dropped,” he says. “It depends on many variables, including the district attorney?—”
“You flex some of that Pulsboro Police Captain power you have. You find a way… if you don’t want what we’ve discussed going public. Figure it out and make Blake Cash a free man again. Or kiss your career goodbye.”
I leave him on that note, letting his office door swing shut behind us. We stride through the rest of the precinct to the hushed stares of the officers on the precinct floor. Gillard in particular stands out among the others, looking paler than usual, like he senses he could be in deep trouble too.
Sydney holds off until we’re in the truck before she sings my praises. “You had them shook! Where did all that boss energy come from?”
I blow out a breath, my hope and prayer feeling affirmed. “Maybe I channeled my inner biker.”
She winks. “We all have one.”
“We?”
“Old ladies,” she says, starting up the truck. “You’re one of us.”
“Remember what you told me about being strategic? Why do you think I even recorded my conversation with them the day I tried to file a report?” I grin at her. “I took your advice.”