Flash Fiction Challenge #69
Twenty minutes later we reached the park. I could already see the flashing of blue lights and an emergency vehicle. The street had already been taped off, my mind moving to the worse possible scenario. We quickly got out the car and approached the perimeter, the officer on scene recognizing us and holding the tape up for us to pass. I saw several more officers, CSI who were already taking notes, one photographer and.....
“The detectives haven’t made it yet,” said Brent canvassing the area like I was. It meant that we had made it early and could make some sense of things before the detectives tried to pull some type of rank on us and booted us out. He headed over to the CSI unit to try and glean some information. It was a subtle hint at giving me space to approach the actual crime scene itself.
Ten feet away I saw a white sheet and the medical examiner crouched over it, writing notes into a notebook. My heart pounding in my chest, I made my way over. “They have you out here too Newton?” I asked on the approach to not surprise her.
Olivia Newton looked up from her notebook, obviously still deep in thought, but paused when she saw me. Her expression swiftly shifted from surprise to disappointment, the exhaustion in her eyes and creases around them being very telling. “Hey Charlie. I see you actually were called out.” She stood up to face me.
“Seems like everybody knows what’s going on except for me.” I couldn’t hide the irritation in my voice any longer. “Be straight with me Newton, what’s going on?”
She simply sighed. “I’m like you, I hate beating around the bush. So I’ll go ahead and let you see.” She bent back down at the head of the sheet and pulled it, revealing a familiar face. It was indeed Gabriel Downs.
My heart plummeted into the deepest recesses of my stomach.
Gabriel Downs had been a fourteen year old kid that I had caught shoplifting out of a local gas station a few months back. It was outside my jurisdiction but I stopped to fill up at the pump. He seemed a lot like what the news would paint. Young, impulsive, and no manners. But there was an intelligence in his eyes that sparked something in me. I gave him a ride to his home in the passenger seat of my car instead of in the back in handcuffs. His mom was extremely grateful. His grandmother and aunts even more so. He had a caring family but lacked direction. Everyone was so busy trying to make ends.
I stopped by at least once a week to check on him. I don’t know why I did it. Something just told me to keep coming back. My intuition had been correct on the intelligence. With some focus he could breeze through Geometry and History and English. He just needed a bit more constructive attention. Marissa said that he just lacked a male role model. I made sure to never wear my uniform when I came over and kept it casual. Soon enough, his grades started improving. He was playing on his school basketball team (those days at the gym had been helpful) and was even considering volunteering in a mentoring program himself. Before I knew it, I kinda started to see him as another son. Two days ago I missed stopping by his house because I was working an additional shift for the overtime pay; and now this.
I could feel my eyes starting to well up. What in the world would I tell his mother? Olivia watched on in concern, not sure what to say.
“Don’t worry Officer, we have it from here.” A voice from behind brought me out of my head. I turned to see two men, dressed very casually. Both had on bomber jackets, but the one on the right wore a loose white polo with blue jeans. The one on the left, who had spoken, had a red and blue button up with khaki’s. Plain clothes officers, definitely the detectives. I could smell the douchebag in the air.
I wiped the tears forming in my eyes away, quickly trying to regain the situation. “Do you have to puff out your chest at every crime scene Caldwell?” I hadn’t missed the subtle jab at simply calling me officer as if I didn’t have a name.
That’s Detective Caldwell. You have some years in. I figure you would get with the program by now,” said Caldwell looking past me to the body. He eyed Olivia. “I got the cliff notes on the way down here with Bobby, motioning to the silent man beside him. What do we have here?”
“Definitely more than a hit and run,” Brent came from behind to approach the group. “CSI is flagging this as a homicide. Not a 10-57 by any means.”
I looked back surprised. How in the world had they come to that conclusion?
“That’s conclusive to what I found,” Olivia agreed. She peeled back a page of her notebook. Gabriel had all the injuries indicative of a collision with a car, but there was something else. Three stab wounds in the abdomen. They appear to be older than everything else.”
“You’re saying he was stabbed and then ran over?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Gabriel stayed to himself and didn’t really have any friends. Who would do this? Was it random?”
“You know the deceased?” Caldwell asked, surprised at this. No one had told him. I quite enjoyed him being clueless. But I knew I had comply with his questions for the sake of the investigation.
“He was previously a perp in a minor shoplifting. I let him off cause he seemed like a good kid. Met his family and I’ve stayed in touch to check on him.”
“Interesting, because I have some conflicting information that I received.” Caldwell must have called into the precinct for someone to run a search on him on his ride over.
“I know that he’s been arrested prior but it was mostly petty crimes.”
“What about gang affiliation?” said Caldwell in a knowing way.
I paused at this accusation. I had never heard anything about Gabriel being in a gang. Did his mom know? What about his grandmother? Did they keep it from me to ensure that I kept coming around and didn’t distance myself or turn him in? My thoughts were racing at the new information and it must have shown on my face.
“Looks like you didn’t know him as well as you thought Charles.” Caldwell loved being the one in the room with the most information.
“So this was some type of retaliation?” Brent brought us back on track.
“The puncture wounds were jagged, done in a struggle. They were not expected. Some type of fight had to have occurred first. Then the stabbing and then the hit and run.” Olivia chimed in.
“We’ll correspond with CSI and get their report. We’ll pay the family a visit in the morning. Hey Bobby, see if CSI will email us the files,” said Caldwell, sending Bobby off without a word.
“I’m getting in on this,” I said, taking a step towards him.
“I don’t recall asking for your help or needing it; and I definitely don’t want a guilt tripper muddying up my work.”
“I know the family personally. They’re not going to talk to police. But they will to me. Or do I need to file an injunction with the Sergeant for you obstructing the case?” I knew Caldwell’s picture in the dictionary was next to brown nosing and didn’t want any type of negative marking on his record or to be on the bad side of the Sergeant. He would have to bring me along. His face was already saying yes, albeit extremely reluctantly.
“Fine, but you follow my direction. I’m overseeing this. You know how seriously the precinct takes gang related cases. We’ll be working around the clock non-stop. If it goes deep, we may have to call in ATF. May force you to have to unholster that weapon. You sure you want it?”
Caldwell’s word rang deeper than he was aware of. There was nothing I wanted more than to head back home and curl into bed next to my wife and my soon coming son. I wanted to take the next three days off and enjoy spending my time with them.
But Ms. Downs wouldn’t get that opportunity. Her son was never coming home and I had to explain that to her tomorrow somehow. I was delving into a side of police enforcement that I never had before and it could get ugly. Marissa’s words of being there echoed in my mind but I couldn’t shake the feeling of responsibility I had for this kid who wasn’t given a proper chance. His father hadn’t been in his life to steer him properly. But I planned on being in mine; and I would do whatever it took. But first that meant doing right by the mother who had tried as hard as she could with the circumstances handed to her.
I looked back at Caldwell, my decision internally made but now it would be verbalized. “I’m in.”
I love taking earlier written work and polishing it off. My attempt at a two-part crime thriller.
Explanation of the flash fiction challenge is HERE.
