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The chief cleared his throat and sat down behind his desk. “Officer Perkins has some…interesting things to say,” he declared.
Caleb resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Really? Anything about the bastard being a serial abuser and deserving to be behind bars instead of home terrorizing his wife and kid? How did he get out?” Caleb demanded. “He assaulted a cop. He shouldn’t be—”
The chief raised a hand. “That’s not how Perkins sees it.”
“I don’t give a shit how Perkins sees it! He just learned how to wipe his own ass last week!”
“Hey!” Perkins protested.
Caleb didn’t even bother to look at him. “He assaulted me,” Caleb told the chief. “While he was high and drunk off his ass. He had a stash—”
“About that search,” the older man grumbled.
Caleb was rankled. “That was a good search!”
“Only by the hair on your nuts,” argued his boss. “Perkins says you practically forced your way into the house, intimidated the wife into agreeing, and then provoked the husband until he took a swing at you.”
“Intimidated her?!” Caleb said. His stomach lurched and he clenched his fist. “I intimidated her? Me? The guy who didn’t lay a fucking hand on her? Are you sure she wasn’t intimidated by the guy who’s using her as a punching bag every night? Jesus fucking Christ!”
“Perkins says—”
“I don’t care what Perkins says! I’ve got two more years on him and—”
Now it was the chief’s turn to get fired up. He slammed his palms down on his desk. “You should care! You should absolutely fucking care!” he shouted. “Because it’s not so much what Perkins has to say but who he’s fucking saying it to!”
Caleb whipped his head around to look at the younger man, who no longer looked as smug and self-satisfied as he did. He shrank back just a little in his chair. Caleb felt as though the little shit might be better served just getting the fuck out of the room entirely. An icy silence hung between them until Caleb finally said, “What did you do?”
“Me?!” the rookie squeaked back. “I didn’t do anything! You’re the one not following procedure! You’re the one using excessive force!”
“Excessive force?” Caleb snorted. “He had a knife to her throat! Or did you think you could just read from the Holy Book of Police Procedure and talk your way out of that one?”
“Not tonight!” the kid protested. “The first time.”
Caleb was genuinely surprised at that. “I barely touched him!”
“You threw him down the stairs!”
Caleb couldn’t believe this shit. Not that he maybe didn’t lay it on a little thick on some nights when it came to takedowns, but he absolutely had not pushed the asshole down the steps. “This,” he said in a gravely tone, “is complete and utter bullshit. And what the fuck did you do, diddlydick? You’re the reason he was out in the first fucking place. Am I right?”
The kid started to open his mouth, then pressed his lips together. Caleb looked at the chief, who sighed heavily and rubbed his forehead with a meaty hand. “The kid told the public defender,” he declared.
Caleb felt heat surge through his veins. The desire to beat the kid senseless rose up from the pit of his stomach.
“Who took his statement and ran with it to the DA?”
“Oh, Jesus,” Caleb groaned. He glared at the kid seated next to him. “What do you think?” Caleb asked quietly. “You think you can bypass years of slugging it out in the trenches? You think if you make inroads with the DA and Internal Affairs you’ll sail right into a detective’s shield and a big fat promotion?” Caleb leaned in and the kid leaned back. “There are no shortcuts, kid,” Caleb seethed. “They’re not going to give you a corner office with a view for turning on the rest of us.”
“This is not my fault!” the kid repeated. “This is all on you!”
“He shouldn’t have been out!” Caleb all but shouted.
“He should never have been in!” the rookie argued just as loudly, clearly defensive now that his motives had been called into question.
Caleb pinched the bridge of his nose, grateful to have something to do with his hands besides punching the little bastard. The kid would never get it. This was always going to happen. She was always going to end up at the edge of the asshole’s knife, or at the point of his gun, or at the brunt of his fists. In fact, the asshole might have done it the night Caleb arrested him, if Caleb and the rookie had just waved their fingers at him and left the scene.
“Out the door, Perkins,” the chief ordered. “We’ll talk later.” The older man’s tone suggested that talk would not involve patting the kid on the back and handing him a cigar.
The kid huffed out the door and shut it behind him, not quite slamming it.
