“I don’t know,” Higgins said in a way that indicated he did. “But he’s pissed, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Kurt said shit under his breath. Then he walked into Bard’s office. The chief glanced up in a single, abrupt movement. He appeared squat, munchkinlike behind the desk, and his face was pink, the way it always got when formidably angry. Before Kurt even had time to shut the door, Bard said, “What, no ten-gallon hat?”
“Huh?”
“Everybody’s got to be a cowboy, ain’t that right. That’s just what I need—another cowboy.”
Kurt’s expression turned jagged. “You mind telling me what’s going on? I don’t know wha—”
“Did you punch Lenny Stokes in the face today?”
Shit, he thought. Shit. All he could muster to say was, “Who, me?”
Bard slammed an open palm on the desk, so hard Kurt’s heels came an inch off the floor. “Damn it!” Bard yelled. “I fucking knew it! What’s the matter, didn’t God give you a brain like the rest of us? You’re supposed to be a police officer, and police officers don’t go around bashing citizens in the chops.”
Kurt slumped standing up. “Relax, Chief. Stokes won’t file a complaint.”
“Stokes did file a complaint. He called the Maryland Police Grievance Board, and they called the fucking state attorney’s office, and the fucking state attorney’s office called me, and those sons of bitches would just as soon put you on a ball crusher as say hello to you.” Bard grimaced as if he’d sipped flat beer; he waved circles in the air with his hand. “So that’s all that matters, smart boy. You and I know that Stokes is a liar and a thief and an asshole, but MPGB doesn’t know that, and they don’t care. All they care about is cops guilty of brutality.”
Somehow, Kurt produced some anger of his own. “Break it off in my ass then, huh, Chief? You don’t seem the least bit interested in hearing the other side of the coin. Don’t you want to know what Stokes did?”
“No!” Bard replied, his voice held to a sharp, spittling shout. “I don’t care if he pissed off the water tower. I don’t care if he dropped his drawers and shit in the street. I don’t care if he wagged his pecker in front of nuns! You don’t assault a guy just for being a fuck-up!”
“Chief, last night Stokes broke his wife’s wrist, gave her a concussion, bloodied her face like holy hell, and then kicked her out into the rain. When I found her, she looked like a glossy out of a textbook on violent crime.”
“Oh, I see,” Bard said, softening. He liked to pile on the sarcasm at timely moments. “Now I understand completely, please forgive me. Lenny Stokes beats up his wife, but model officer Kurt Morris decides to do things a little different this time. Instead of making an arrest, as the laws of this great country provide, what does model officer Kurt Morris do?” Bard jumped up from his seat, like a fat jack-in-the-box, and directly into Kurt’s face, he shouted, “He goes to Lenny Stokes’s house, knocks on his front door, and punches him in the fucking face!
Kurt feared the velocity of Bard’s rant might actually bowl him over. “All right, Chief,” he said. “You don’t have to blow a vessel just because I made an error in judgment. I admit it, I fucked up, okay? It won’t happen again.”
“Good.” Bard sat back down, the pink in his face dropping. His mustache looked like a bore brush in a pistol-cleaning kit. When he’d finally settled down, he said, “I made a deal with the state attorney’s office. They acted really reluctant about a nolle pross; I managed to talk them into it anyway, but there’s one condition, see? You only get the proseque if you demonstrate a ‘sincere motive.’ In other words, they know you’re guilty, but due to the questionable reliability of the plaintiff, Stokes, they’d rather not proceed with charges. Instead they want you to voluntarily submit yourself to disciplinary action. Of course, you don’t have to; you can take your chances in court. But if you decide not to take the disciplinary action, you can bet the back of your balls they’ll forget about the nolle pross.”
“What happens then?”
“Stokes sues you for everything right down to the last hair on your dick, for one thing. Plus, you’ll face state charges of police harassment, police brutality, dereliction of duty, and premeditated assault and battery.”
Blackmail, Kurt thought “All right, all right.”
“I knew you’d see things my way.”
“So it looks like Stokes gets off scot free.”
Bard glared incredulously. “Instead of dicking around and punching him in the face, why didn’t you arrest him?”
“It was domestic assault. I couldn’t arrest him for a misdemeanor not committed in my presence.”
“What did you do in the police academy, anyway? Circle jerk? All his wife’s gotta do is swear out a warrant request in Hyattsville. Then the county’ll bust him, charge him, and give him a court date.”
“She won’t press charges,” Kurt said.
“Why the fuck not?”
“I don’t know. I guess she doesn’t want to make a scene.”
“Then fuck the misdemeanor. If she wouldn’t swear a warrant, you should’ve snapped a few Polaroids and tried to get your own—for a felony assault. Any magistrate would go along with attempted murder if she was bashed up bad enough.”
“Chief, if I did that, she’d never speak to me again. She just wants to forget about it.”
Now Bard’s frown was squeezing his face. “Then that’s her problem, not yours. What’s the first thing I told you when you came onto the force? Never take your job personally. You do the same for your mother as you would for a schmuck you’ve never seen before. Otherwise you get in trouble, like the kind you’re in now… Shit, I’m already a man short ’cause of Swaggert, and now you gotta go fucking with local skillet-heads.”
Kurt felt like a high-schooler caught smoking in the lavatory. “So what’s the disciplinary action?”
“Five days suspension without pay, effective immediately. That’s the easiest I can let you off. Anything less and the state attorney’s office’ll be jumping in my shit for preferential treatment.”
Kurt felt disgusted, shafted, but most of all, embarrassed.
“And since you all of a sudden got some free time on your hands,” Bard said, “make yourself useful and run some errands for me. The county crime lab sent those fucked-up latents to state for further analysis. Tomorrow I want you to go to Pikesville and see what they have.”
Kurt nodded and turned, head bowed, but before he could leave, Bard added, “And look, Kurt. We’ve been friends for a good while, right?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“You have to keep in mind, I have a police department to run, and I got rules I have to follow. If you go stirring up any more shit with Stokes, I’ll have to fuckin’ fire you, friends or not.”
“I hear you, Chief. Loud and clear. I won’t go near the guy.”
“Make damn sure you don’t.”
— | — | —
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
John Sanders looked in the mirror for the first time in a year. Deep gouges channeled most of the left side of his face; the effect made him think of tooled wax. It was as though this part of his face had been sluiced away by a spade bit, and his identity as well. The largest scar ran wormlike from the corner of his lip to the back of his jaw. He could still make out the tiny ladders of stitches which formed crescents under his eye; it was makeshift repairwork, but at least he could still blink normally. That’s all that mattered. He supposed he just as easily could have lost the eye.