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“What percentage of all cops were like that?”
“I don’t know, maybe fifteen, twenty percent of the ones I knew. Trouble was, those were the ones I seemed to get partnered with or put to work for.”
“So you left and went to law school?”
“First I testified against my partner; after that it was easy to leave.”
“I’ll bet. What did your partner do?”
“He beat a man to death with a baton.”
“And you saw it happen?”
“I was driving. He told me to stop alongside a guy walking along the street. I stopped. My partner got out and started hitting the guy in the head. By the time I got there, the guy’s brains were on the sidewalk. I asked my partner why he’d done it, and he said the guy hadn’t paid off. He’d apparently been taking a cut of the guy’s drug sales.”
“What did you do? Immediately, I mean.”
“I arrested him, cuffed him, threw him in the back of the patrol car, took him down to the station and booked him. A crowd gathered at the booking desk—a crowd of cops. The shift was changing.”
“What did they do?”
“They locked me up.”
“On what charge?”
“Murder, of course; my partner fingered me for the killing.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t much fun.”
“And how did you get out of that mess?”
“Fortunately, a lawyer—a public defender—saw them lock me up and called Internal Affairs. I’ve had a soft spot for public defenders ever since. IA got there before somebody killed me. Fortunately, also, there was a witness to the event on the street—a teenaged Cuban girl. She backed me up, and eventually, after nearly a year on administrative leave, I testified, and my partner got a life sentence.”
“What kind of life sentence?”
“The kind that makes parole possible after ten years.”
“And how long ago was this?”
“Twelve years ago. He’s out.”
“Any idea where he is?”
“He’s in Miami, working for a security company run by an ex-cop. Cops take care of their own, you know.”
“They didn’t take care of you.”
“I wasn’t one of their own, and they knew it.”
They were quiet for a little while.
“I’m hungry,” Holly said. “You want another beer?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
She gave him some dishes and napkins, then got them both another beer.
