It Needed Doin' - John Corso

"Where's Senior come in?"

"A few minutes later, Mattolo comes running in, stops, makes threats, and Corso pulls his gun out and empties his magazine into him."

"Then Corso is shown holding his daughter, crying and talking to her, and not able to wake her up. A couple of minutes later, the uniforms show up. Corso never let his daughter go or got out of the bed, until he was cuffed. He didn't fight, Matsuda says he was out of it."

"Holy shit." Palumbo mutters. I agreed.

"We're still missing a few pieces, and I want them so we don't have to fuck over Corso for this. Go get his story, and finish this." Chief tells us, no room for doubt in his voice.

"We've got some, if he's telling us the truth." I say.

"Get all of it." Chief says. "Go."

++++++

"John, I'm sorry for that, but we've got some news for you." I say, sitting down in front of John Corso again.

Corso looks at me, wondering what I'm going to say.

"Your daughter is awake. She's okay." I tell him, smiling. "She was drugged, but not raped."

Corso looks at me, like he can't believe what he's just heard. I can't blame him.

"She's okay?" he asks. "She's okay?"

"She is." I answer. "She's in the hospital, awake, and under observation. She was drugged."

"I thought that must be it." Corso said, tears appearing. "Thank God!"

Corso took a minute, thanking his deity, and babbling a bit. He'd earned that.

"Shawn is okay too." I said after he was coming back from his moment. "He's in the same hospital. He's got some damage, he aspirated some blood, but he's going to be okay."

"Aspirated?" Corso asked, not understanding the word.

"His nose was broken, and his mouth was taped shut. He was handcuffed, hands behind him. It looks like Junior hit him, restrained him, threw him into a closet and left him. He inhaled some of his own blood. It's not good for you, but he'll be okay."

"He's okay?"

"He'll be fine." I assure him.

"Junior beat my kid?" I could hear the anger coming back in Corso's voice. "He did that to my daughter?!"

Palumbo gives him a calming smile, no longer behind me, he's beside me, kneeling to look Corso in the eye.

Corso leaned over in his chair, and softly pounded his fists against his thighs, while muttering 'Thank God they're okay' over and over.

I reached over, and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Corso looked up at me, and he seemed relieved. He gave Palumbo a look, and Palumbo nodded in assurance.

"John," I broke into his moment with. "... we need to finish this interview. We need some details."

"Yeah?" John asked, sitting up and wiping his cheeks with his forearm. "Yeah, okay. I can do that."

Corso sniffs, smiles, and re-launches his story. He sounds happier now. Less burdened, maybe.

"Okay, did I mention getting to the house?" he asked. I nodded yes.

"There was a couple of extra cars in the driveway. I figured that Jean and Mattolo both parked inside, and I didn't recognize these two. I parked on the street, got out, and went to the door. Thinking about it, I don't think I closed my car door. Did I close the door on my apartment?... huh..."

"I get to the door, and I start pounding. Nothing. I keep pounding, and nobody is appearing. The lights are on, and there's cars here. I made a decision."

"I picked up a landscape brick, and heaved it through the big window into the living room. I knew this would set off the alarms, but I didn't care. When I'd lived there, I'd contracted that Secsys company. We'd had the windows and doors wired, lights start flashing, and alerts go out, police, phone. Whole kaboodle. It made Jean feel safer, especially when she was pregnant with Shawn."

"I climbed in, the lights are flashing inside. Next thing, these two big kids come running through the living room, and out into the garage. I'm standing there yelling, wondering if I should chase or look for Shawn, and I see the garage door go up from the door they left open. Then the kids are jumping into their cars, and my decision was made for me, I thought."

"I pulled the taser, and went to Shawns room. Along the way, I passed Jeanie's room, and saw the door was gone. Nobody was in there. Shawn's room door was open, the doorframe at the knob was ripped out, bits of wood on the floor. I looked in, nobody."

"I'm hearing some guy yell from the bedroom, something about getting back or he's going to kick their asses, so that's where I went next."

"I step into the doorway, and I swear, there's Mattolo, from back in High School. I mean... it's him. He's standing next to my little girl... and... she's naked, and I can see she's tied down, on the bed. Mattolo starts yelling at me, telling me something like I need to get the fuck out. Threats. I wasn't paying a lot of attention to him just then."

"I stepped in, and Mattolo came around the bed, his finger aimed at me, shouting. So, I hit him with the taser. I wasn't in the mood to fuck with him, my little girl was right there!"

"Mattolo sort of clenched up, and fell over, but he's still yelling. I wasn't prepared for that, and if he was yelling, could he fight the taser off? I didn't know, so I went over and gave him the bottom of my foot to his head. A couple of times, I think. He shut up. That was good enough right then."

"I checked Jeanie, and she wasn't moving or waking up. I started untying her, she was there with those padded manacles people use for fun sometimes, y'know? Both her ankles and wrists."

"She wouldn't wake up, and my heart... I could feel myself dying, it felt like. It was... I don't want to feel like that ever again."

"All I could do was hold my girl, and try to wake her up. So that's what I did."

He took a swallow of the fresh coffee we'd brought him. He was thinking as he did.

"Sometime later, Jeanie still wasn't waking up, and I heard someone yelling. Someone angry. Mattolo wasn't up yet, so it wasn't him. I was surprised when older Mattolo walked in, still shouting. This was the Mattolo I knew, and I realized I'd blasted his kid. I was okay with that."

"Mattolo stopped, saw what he saw, and just like his kid, he leveled his finger at me, and started moving toward me."

"I still wasn't interested, and I think I said 'No,' and... I don't know... I don't remember after that?" Corso looked confused now.

"I think... I think I shot him? I had my gun in my pocket, not even a holster... I shot him?" He was asking us, looking back and forth.

We couldn't answer him, and we both knew it. This was being recorded, and it was still an interview.

"What do you remember next?" I asked him.

Corso paused for a moment, his eyes scanning across the floor and back.

"I think... yeah, it was the hospital. I was in the hospital. I was cuffed to a bed, and there was like five cops... I remember a nurse handing me a cup of water, and telling me to drink slow. I think I asked where Jeanie was? Maybe..."

"I didn't feel like talking. I was just kind of numb. I remember telling a doctor-type I was okay, and pushing away his hand when he was shining a light in my eyes."

"Things are kind of fuzzy. I really remember talking to you guys, early. I'm sorry, I've forgotten your names?"

++++++

The footage came in. The Chief called us in to take a look.

It was close to what Corso said. Not exact, but it lined up.

We watched the bedroom cam first.

It showed Mark Mattolo Junior coming in, he was carrying the top half of Jeanie Corso, one of his friends had her legs. She was very unconscious.

They got her undressed, taking their time with her bra and panties. Junior let his hand linger in places, after they got her on the bed, and flipped her over. They were talking to each other, making comments about her looks, and taking shots from a bottle of vodka. One slapped her butt, hard enough to leave a red mark.

Then they attached the cuffs, which Junior pulled out of his parents closet. The bedframe was the anchor points. She was spread eagle, and the camera caught her vagina prominently.

None of the young men ever looked up at the camera, I don't think they knew it was there. It's hard to not look at it if something like this is happening, and you aren't practiced.

They continued their discussion, and Junior revealed that with the footage, after some editing, he'd be able to get Jeanie to sex-up the three of them, or he'd tell her he'd put the footage out in the school. He was only going to be there another year, and he wanted some fun before he left to get 'college pussy.' The other two laughed, thinking this would be cool. Then he pulled out his cellphone, and started taking pictures and video. "Pussy on tap."

Then Junior makes a shushing motion, and they stop talking.

"Ah, shit. It's her brother. Fuck." Junior said, then left the room.

The other two, left behind, talked to themselves, while one of them pulls out his cellphone, plays with it a moment, then places it somewhere out of sight, under the camera. Probably on the chest of drawers under the camera. That was the other footage. We'd see that after this.

A few minutes later, Junior comes back into the room. They discuss Junior finding Shawn, and how he 'shut the little fucker up,' and threw him into the closet. Again.

Then comes ten minutes of the three inspecting, but really... they were getting a good look at Jeanie. There was a lot of poking, and using fingers. They discussed what they were doing, laughing, occasionally taking a drink of vodka, and to my eyes, racking up charge after charge.

Then there's a subdued crashing sound, and the light from the hallway, a rectangle on the floor of the bedroom, starts blinking.

The young men stop what they were doing, and ask the relevant 'what was that?' questions, without doing anything.

Then a male voice yells out 'SHAWN' and you can see the trio start to get nervous.

A couple more yells of 'SHAWN' and the two who weren't Junior bolt.

A minute or so later, during which time Junior is looking nervously back and forth from the door to Jeanie, one time looking like he was starting to undo a handcuff, things changed. Junior suddenly focused on the door, but we couldn't see what was going on there.

Junior changed his bearing, going to aggressive. It was an act, you could tell if you knew what to look for, and Palumbo and I did. The kid was scared. He pointed his finger at someone and asked 'Who the fuck are you? Get the hell out of my house! Get out before I fuck you up!' and then he came around the bed from the far side from the door, and started toward whoever was there.

He was just lengthening his stride, when there was a flash, and then there were two pronged wires in Juniors chest. Junior went rigid, his hands clenching in front of his chest, and he toppled sideways. He spun slightly as he fell, his chest hitting the bedframe, he bounced slightly, then he was on the floor. He was screaming in pain, and that's when John Corso walked into view.

Corso walked in, and told Junior to 'shut up,' which he didn't do. His eyes were on Jeanie the entire time, it looked like. He told Junior to shut up one more time, and when that didn't happen, he stepped up, and stomped on Junior. Once on the high shoulder, and once on the head. Junior went limp and quiet.

John Corso dropped his taser then, he'd been discharging the entire time, stepped to the bed, and he asked his daughter if she was okay. He touched her face, then held his hand under her nose. Then he got busy, undoing the cuffs holding her. He talked to her the entire time, telling her she was going to be okay, then asking her, begging her, to wake up.

Once she was unshackled, he lifter her up a little, slid himself under her, drew her to him, and held her. All the while talking and begging. He was rocking back and forth as he did so, Jeanie was limp in his arms.

I'm no stranger to seeing and feeling desperation, and this was the real deal. This was a father dying inside.

This went on a bit, and the Chief was merciful, he fast-forwarded, sparing us.

Then Mark Mattolo, Senior, appeared in the camera view.

Mattolo looked pointedly at his son, on the floor beside the bed, but made no move toward him. He focused on John Corso.

"You stupid fuck!" Mattolo yelled, his finger leveling at his son. "Did you do that?! That's my future! What did you do?!"

John Corso wasn't interested. His world was too small at that moment.

"DEAD!" Mattolo shouted, now pointing at Corso. "I'm going to kill you!"

John Corso noticed this, sort of. His head tilted a little, and his left arm stayed cradling his daughter, but his right hand moved.

It wasn't the smoothest draw I'd ever seen, but it was quick. Corso never trained his central vision on Mattolo, who had stopped advancing as soon as he saw Corso clear the gun.

What was smooth was how Corso hit the safety, aimed almost without looking, and snapped off the first shot. It caught Mattolo high, it looked like the left pectoral, and the shot man spun slightly.

The next shot caught Mattolo in the shoulder, which was occupying the same space that his pec had been a moment earlier.

Mattolo fell sideways, the round pushing him, and Coroso's gun tracked him, Corso himself still watching him, at best, out of his peripheral vision.

Corso emptied the magazine of nine rounds at his long-time enemy, never looking at him fully.

When the last round found it's target, and the gun let him know it had no more to give, John Corso dropped it from his outstretched hand, where it landed on the bed. Then he once again used both arms to hold his little girl, and asked her again to wake up.

He promised her that if she woke up, he'd take her and Shawn away from there.

Seven minutes later, two uniformed police entered the room, weapons drawn.

++++++

The cell cam footage matched up to the overhead camera.

It seems Mitchel Wright, owner of the phone and cornerback, wanted some video of his own. He'd propped his phone on the dresser, video app on, so he could have his own memories.

Once the techs on the scene had the phone in hand, they learned who owned it, and did a search of names online, filtered to local Hish School football.

It took thirty seconds to identify the other perp.

Then Matsuda called in to the Chief, and gave him a fast summary of what he'd found, and what was happening.

++++++

John Corso was being held until morning, but it was in protective custody.

One of the perps had been rounded up. Mitchel Wright was still at large, having failed to return home that night. His parents were worried. He wasn't answering his phone.

In the morning, John Corso was taken to the hospital, where he was reunited with his children.

I wasn't there, but it's not hard to guess how that went.

++++++

Jean Mattolo was taken into custody, and was assigned a public defender. She was largely unresponsive, she'd gone into shock herself, supposedly.

I didn't quite believe it. I'd seen catatonia faked before, and this looked like an act to me. Not being a medical doctor, my opinion didn't count, preferring to err on the side of procedure. She was put into the secure wing at the hospital.

Hunter Mattolo was taken by Child Services. He was pretty unhappy I was told.

Mark Mattolo, Junior, had a broken clavicle, a badly bruised scapula, a broken zygomatic bone and the maxilla bone to match it... commonly known as 'the cheek bones.' The concussion was sort of anti-climactic. He woke, cuffed to his bed, and in a bad mood.

++++++

Once the overhead camera footage was checked, that opened the way for the rest of the contents of the server to be checked.

It seemed the Mattolo's liked 'Naughty Teacher' role-play. It was obvious both Jean and Mark Senior knew about the camera, they'd refer to it in videos, while they played. The server wasn't set to be connected to the internet, this was their own private collection of kink.

Nothing illegal about that.

++++++

Shawn Corso's phone was found under his bed.

He'd thrown it there, the first time he'd heard Mark Mattolo Junior kick his door. He had been afraid that he'd get a beating from Junior if he was found with it.

He hadn't realized that the drunk teen was going to assault him, breaking his nose, just for annoying him.

After abusing the ten-year-old, Junior then handcuffed him, wrapped duct tape around his head and mouth to keep him from talking, and threw him into the closet which he then locked. Like he'd done a dozen times previously.

++++++

"Okay, I think that one went right," the Chief said at the follow-up briefing. "We corrected a mistake the courts made, we rescued some kids, caught some bad guys, kept a dedicated father out of jail, and none of us got hurt. I'm good with it."

That was the general idea for all of us.

Now if the ADA didn't fuck it up, it would be all-around good.

Family Court was going to get dragged through the mud over this one.

++++++

I stood out on the tiny landing of my apartment, in my sweats, and watched the traffic on the street below me.

The John Corso case was on my mind, not just for what it was, but because it had set off alarms in my head and heart.

Sucking it up, I picked my phone of the edge of the wall, and hit dial for my ex-wife's number.

It rang, and rang, and on the fifth ring, the line went active.

"Yo," said the voice I didn't want to hear.

"Lamarr." I said into the line.

"'Ey, Damar, wassup bro?" said the man I once called friend, back when we ran together as kids.

"Can I talk to Shawna?" I asked, not feeling like I needed to be polite to this guy.

"Nah, bro. She ain't talkin' to you." Lamarr laughingly told me.

I had to take a couple of breaths.

"Put her on, Lamarr." I told him.

"Ahh, listen atchoo, getting' that bass on. Well, more bass." Lamarr laughed. "She don' want to talk to you. Anyway, I got her phone, y'know?"

"Put her on." I said. "Or I'm comin' over, you feel me?"

"Nah, you ain't doin' that, and I don' feel ya." Lamarr said, a bit more serious now. "You still a cop, you divorced, and this ain't your weekend for DL. You ain' gonna go against the court, and risk that nice little snitch-ass job."

So far, Lamarr was right.

I had more rules keeping me away from my ex-wife and son than a civilian.

DL, Damar Lord Freeman, my eleven year old son, was starting to turn into a hood-rat.

My ex, Shawna, after divorcing me, had taken up with my 'old bro' Lamarr.

As kids in school, we'd hung, and been bros for a few years. Lamarr and Damar. Yeah, we heard about that.

I'd had parents who kept me on a tight leash, and refused to let me get trapped by stereotypes, our money situation, and what people thought were our limits.

Lamarr had a drunk 70's-was-my-best-time father, and a ho of a mother.

He went streets, I went to school.

You can guess what happened.

Now Lamarr was a weird thing... he was a banger who made good... basically a gangster who got away with it, and learned.

You have no idea how unhappy I was when I found out Shawna had hooked up with him. Then they were living together.

It wasn't long after that, my son started developing an attitude. He got worse with time.

Two months ago he was caught on a theft charge. He'd been stealing cheese crunchies from Wallyworld. When the cops who responded tried to do their job, DL had given them a lot of attitude, claiming they couldn't do anything to him, because he was a minor.

DL was wrong.

Shawna blew the whole thing off, saying he was just being a kid. I wasn't so sure. He was sounding more and more like Lamarr. Doing the things Lamarr did. I remembered those things.

"Let me talk to DL."

"Naw, bro. Down Low don' wanna talk to you neither." I was told. "He don' like your cop attitude. You should ease up on my little man, he's jus' bein' a kid."

"Your little man'?" I asked, my voice turning hostile, which I'm sure amused Lamarr.