When We Were Married Ch. 06A

They were keeping him occupied so I continued.

"Actually, the biggest hole in your plan is the simplest and it's the one that could send every one of you to prison, or jail, or just to another job.

"Say you destroy the recorder and maybe it malfunctioned tonight and there is no record in my office. Then all of you have to decide if you're going to lie for Smith.

"If you lie and agree with Smith that I pulled out his throwdown piece, the first question from everybody is going to be – why did I pull out a throwdown that NOBODY knows anything about when I've got a perfectly usable Glock that everybody at my office knows I'm carrying and which I've been trained by our people how to use? Maybe you can explain how I pulled out a hidden throwdown, but it's going to stink to high heaven.

"Of course, you could forget about his throwdown and fire my Glock after I'm dead and that would make for a simpler story. Of course, that still leaves you with the question of how I got shot in the back while attacking Smith

"But that's not your REALLY big problem. Suppose you decide to hang together and lie for Smith.

"Get real. Twelve men are going to keep a secret that could send people to prison.

"You're cops. You know that's not going to happen. Some one will get drunk, or get an attack of conscience.

"And then it won't be just being kicked off the force. It will be conspiracy to aid and abet first degree murder. It will be being an accesory after the fact, and they'll probably nail you for accesory before the fact because they won't believe a word you guys say.

"All of you, every one, will spend ten, maybe twenty years in prison because Edwards will make an example of you."

I stopped and took a deep breath, wondering if my world would end in the next second.

"And even if you tell the truth and they don't charge you for letting a man be murdered in front of you, like Smith said, you're you're going to be laughing stocks in your own world. No cop is going to respect 11 guys that let one guy with a gun buffalo them.

"The story ever gets on the street, and it will, expect to find a lot of bad guys trying you. But you won't be on the street.

"Austin Edwards doesn't love me, but you can't let cops go around killing prosecutors. Bad for business. He'll pressure Knight and before too long you guys will be gone."

It was so quiet I could hear men shifting positions in their chairs, their asses stuck by sweat to the plastic. I could them breathing. Smith sounded like he had asthma, couldn't catch his breath.

I pointed to the table and said, "They have napkins here, Shawn. Maybe you ought to dry your hands. I imagine you're sweating pretty badly right now. I wouldn't want your fingers to slip."

Why I said that, I don't know. I don't think I have that big a death wish. I think it was just so after he killed me, the cops might tell my kids that story. They would remember me as not being afraid, able to say something cool in a tight spot.

Unfortunately, as I pointed to the napkins the overhead fluorescent lights had sparkled on the Fleur-de-Lis ring. I didn't want anything that would make me want to live so badly right now.

"Those are the biggies. But I would understand you guys backing him up. You are brothers, after all. Yeah, and brothers in blue are loyal.

"Martinez, I know your wife will understand. I saw her at that FOP picnic. God, she is hot. Those tits and that ass, and really pretty. When they send you away for a few years, and your own guys start hitting on her in a few months, I know she'll be faithful. She'll understand. When she's alone in your bed night after night and getting horny, she'll understand the duty a cop has to a fellow officer.

"And when she can't stand it and one of your 'brothers' or some civilian is fucking her one night, she'll feel guilty because your first duty wasn't to her, it was to your brother officer.

"How many of your wives will be that understanding, I wonder? Will live with empty, cold beds because they know your first duty wasn't to them, but the brothers in blue."

I wondered if I'd have enough time to get the rest out.

"And James, maybe your wife will be one of the loyal ones. But I saw your daughter at that picnic. Really pretty for a 13 year old. Too bad daddy won't be around to be a male presence in her life and put the fear of God into all those horny 17 and 18-year-olds that will be trying to make babies with her."

James was a black officer about the size of a refrigerator. I wondered if he'd go for his Glock or just try to take out Smith with his bare hands.

"With any luck, you'll be a grandpa when you get out, something to look forward to."

"You are a dead man, Maitland. Walking and talking, but dead."

"I know you're going to kill me, Shawn. And your life is going to end here tonight, one way or the other. It's a shame. You were a good cop. I think you're a good man who made a bad mistake. Mistakes happen. But you won't face up to what you did and pay the price.

"We have to pay for our mistakes."

I stood there and waited for the sounds I expected. I really had no idea if his fellow cops would actually kill him to save me, and even if they fired on him, he'd probably kill me anyway.

I should have been terrified. I pray to whatever God is out there, but I don't really believe. I think when I close my eyes that's it. The 'me' that wakes up every morning will be gone, like a candle blown out by the wind.

I can't make myself believe in the fairy tale of a gracious heaven where I'll be re-united with my father. I wish I could. It would make things a lot easier.

Thinking of my father, I wondered what went through his mind in his last seconds. Undoubtedly he'd had time to hear the creaking and thundering of rock and timber giving way and he'd been a miner long enough to know what it meant. A second cave-in in that weakened shaft was it. No more rescues.

Had he thought of me and my mother? Had he had any second thoughts at the last minute about the cost of his last decision? Had he regretted that he wouldn't see me grow up, not being around for his grandchildren? I was already regretting not seeing what Kelly and BJ's children would look like, what my two children would be like as adults.

But I couldn't do anything different than what I'd done. Every step, everything I'd done in my life had led me to this moment. And I could wish I'd done things differently, never lost Debbie, but I knew I wouldn't have done things differently unless I'd been gifted with foresight and just never took the SA job.

Thinking of Debbie made me think of Aline, and of all the images that I carried with me the one that flashed into my mind was her standing in the night rain and the darkness in the forward tower on the Bonne Chance looking back at me across a hundred feet as we rode the white caps. If you could love someone before you knew them, I had.

And as she was darkness, Debbie was the light. The picture that was in my mind as I heard the first gunblast was Debbie smiling at me as I walked in the door of our home one day – I don't remember when. I remembered my heart hurting with the knowledge that this woman loved me. Thinking that I'd never see that smile again, I wasn't too unhappy about the way things had gone.

Sometimes, dying is easier.

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Debbie pulled her 350Z into the parking lot at the front of the long, one story building marked with a big FOP sign. The police scanner had crackled with terse messages with numbers and codes unlikely to be understood by civilians, but she knew that a half dozen police cruisers had been scrambled and would be pulling in any second. The Under-Sheriff and Zone Commander were on the way in separate cars because someone had reported that Shawn Smith, drinking heavily and armed, was on his way to the FOP Union Hall.

Frantic calls to any of the officers known to be at the FOP meeting, and to FOP President Phil Howser, had gone unanswered. One tense voice let discipline slip and growled, "What the hell is the matter with those guys. Why aren't they answering?"

Another had answered, "Not good. Get the hell over there."

Then another voice with an air of command had ordered both of them to switch over to another, private, police channel. It hadn't had to order them to shut up. That was understood.

Somehow she had beaten them all and when they questioned her, the only answer she'd be able to give them was female intuition. As an educated woman, a professional, she'd always scoffed at stories of female intuition, of hunches about children or loved ones in danger. There simply was no scientific proof and nothing close to anything like a scientific theory that could account for such supernatural information.

Even if it couldn't be explained, how else could she explain why she'd left her home to race to a building with no reason to expect any danger.

However, inside her, she couldn't deny it. When she heard that Bill had shown up there, even before knowing that Shawn Smith was also headed there, she'd simply known she had to go. Maybe it was nerves, fear for her ex knowing the animosity most cops had for him, residual guilt over how she had hurt him. She could not have foreseen that Smith would show up, but it might have been a fear in the back of her mind.

As she took her first steps toward the building across the carefully maintained lawn that fronted Atlantic Boulevard the thought came to her – how the hell would she explain to Bill showing up if Shawn Smith wasn't in there. What if nothing more was going on than a spirited debate over the wisdom of filing charges against Smith.

She knew he would look at her and he'd KNOW.

He had been so clueless for so many years, but when he wanted to, he could look into your soul. As Lew had told her months before, he had never looked into her and sniffed the odor of a decaying marriage and her lust for another man, but it had been because he had trusted her.

And when he looked into her eyes he'd see past the lies and the defenses she had put up and would see something else, and he would misunderstand.

She wasn't still in love with him. She had given that up the morning she had called and told him she wasn't in love with him anymore. But...as he had said to her, you can't turn off love that easily, or caring, or affection - whatever word you wanted to use.

She knew now you could hate someone, or at least be angry enough to want to hurt them badly, and still love them, or the memories you had of them. That was all it was. The memories of a better time when they had been young and she had been center of his life and not an afterthought.

She heard the gunfire erupt from the long low building in front of her and even through the walls of the building, the shouts of pain and fear.

In one timeless moment she had a vision. She knew it was a vision and it felt like a true vision, not just a dream-like picture in her mind's eye. She was standing with Kelly and BJ dressed in black and looking down into an open casket. His face was still and calm and composed. He really looked as if he were only sleeping.

She had leaned over and pressed her lips against his and knew then that he was gone and never coming back.

She wanted to scream. This wasn't fair. No matter what had happened, no matter what she had done to him, no matter what he said, no matter how many times he pushed her away, he would always come back to her.

He had told her one night not long after they married and she had told him of the nightmares that had started coming in which he had died after the fight in the frat house instead of recovering, "That will never happen, Babe. I will always come back to you. No matter what. No matter where I am, I will always come back."

Only he had lied and left her behind.

Then she was racing across the damp grass, kicking off her shoes in an instant, running as the hot tears of a young girl streamed down her cheeks.

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Author's Note: Once again I'll apologize for the delay in posting. I'd hoped it wouldn't take so long, but I ran into editing problems. I want to thank 'curiouss' for coming to my rescue and editing the text enough to get it posted. I hope the people who've been following the story enjoy the latest chapter.