AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Hey, Banks.”
I spare a polite smile for a colleague. Thompson. Thompkins. Thomas? Jesus, I don’t even know. I don’t actually care. But I present a pleasant front and put in the minimum effort required to make my way toward a pension and retirement.
I work the cases that land on my desk. And often, I volunteer myself to a little police department an hour from here when they need the manpower because hell, at least I know their names. At least I give a shit about that little town and the people in it.
I pull out my chair when I reach my desk and tap the framed family photograph of Gord, Violet, and Tilly back before he died. He’s my good luck charm. Or maybe my companion. Someone to talk a case through with now that my partner after him is living it up in a hospital for the abusive and deranged.
I draw a deep breath as other detectives wander in, and a new shift begins; then I hit the power button on my computer and wait for the old machine to fire to life.
My phone bleats in my back pocket, a text message chime I’ve set for only one person in my life, so while my emails load and case files expand, I take out my device and find my mom’s name on the screen.
Just like I knew I would.
Phones trill around me. Cases roll in. Once upon a time, I’d have been the first to answer. To throw my name in the ring and hope for a juicy case. But I ignore them all now and hold out hope for a peaceful day instead.
Swiping my phone screen and maneuvering to the text chat, I click on my mom’s name and snigger when I find the little video she pulled off the internet of fainting goats. She’s new-ish to smartphones. Her 2009 Nokia flip phone, valiant in its efforts, finally gave out last month and forced her to find something else. First, she discovered emoticons. Now, the mini videos. Which means my inbox is always pulsing with these little messages of ‘I’m thinking of you’.
“Have a good day, Mom.” I speak and type at the same time. “Be careful with traffic. There’s some conference in the city this week that’s gonna disrupt things and back the streets up.”
Hitting send, I set my phone down and scan the long list of emails that fill my tiny computer screen. Some from the DA, pushing forward on a case I actually put effort into. Another from the crime lab, confirming a fingerprint match of a guy I figured broke into a little old lady’s home.
I don’t give many shits about the crimes committed against ‘the man’. Ya know, the ones that harm a multimillion-dollar business that’ll get an insurance payout anyway. I don’t care about unpaid tickets because the city fucking sucks anyway. I don’t care about shoplifters, but only the ones lifting life’s essential items—bread, milk, diapers, formula? Go for it. I’ll close my eyes and wait.
But some thug asshole breaking in and hurting an old lady for money to fund his next hit of snorting powder? Yeah, I’ll follow that up.
My desk phone trills, alongside everyone else’s, but I ignore it a moment longer and scan the reports I requested from the morgue on a DV case where the woman never made it out the other side. Her children would go live with him, if her ex isn’t convicted.
Not happening.
So I make a note to contact victim’s services and get that prick away from the kids, while I absentmindedly reach across and take the phone from the cradle on my desk. Bringing it back, I tuck the piece between my ear and shoulder and work on drafting an email. “This is Detective Drake Banks,” I murmur, disinterested. “How can I help you?”
“My name’s Detective Archer Malone,” the dude announces. His voice is hard. His anger palpable. But I’ll be damned if his name doesn’t pique my interest most of all. Straightening in my chair, I take the phone in my hand and scowl as he adds, “I’m calling from Copeland City PD.”
“Alright…” I sit back in my chair and hitch one leg up to rest on the other. “How can I help you, Detective Malone outta Copeland PD?”
“I’m from the homicide division, and I’ve got a body here that kinda points toward you.”
“Yeah?” A grin crosses my lips and leaves me momentarily entertained. “I have an alibi.”
He chuckles, his hard exterior breaking away to reveal something a little friendlier. “Lorenzo Lombardo is a twenty-six-year-old banger who pushes product and makes coin working for someone we’ve only just realized operates out of our city.”
Powder. It’s always the fucking drugs when folks call me.
“So you got a new distributor in Copeland and think that’s my problem?”
“Not typically,” he counters, hard again. “But we’ve been on this case two days now, and names are starting to pop up. Lorenzo was knocked off by a guy we believe to be Marcos Buchannan. We also have security footage of Gavin Stevens shooting off rounds in a restaurant within minutes of the murder.”
“Gavin Stevens?” Adrenaline thuds through my system as I shoot up tall and lower my foot to the floor. My head shakes side-to-side without my conscious decision to move it. “Why the fuck is Gavin on your side of the country? And how long has he been there?”
“Well… we kinda figured you’d be interested once I dropped a couple of names.”
“Ya think? Gavin shot at me, Malone. And he worked for some bad motherfuckers over here a few years back.”
“You sayworked, like it’s past tense. That’s where we’re getting ourselves a little muddled up. Because I’m led to believe it’swork. As in, he currently works for those motherfuckers.”
“Who?” My cell bleats with another text, but I ignore it for something bigger. Something huge. “Who picked him up and put him to task? Because Vallejo is—”
“Alive,” Malone cuts in before I can finish. “I have a police report right here in front of me, and I have your signature, as well as that of Special Agent in Charge Henry Banks, and about two dozen others that all vouch for Vallejo’s early demise.”
