Captured in Death, page 19
Kenzie nodded, making a noise for Emily to go on.
“Trev was going on about him again, how he was screwing everything up and someone needed to kill him. Just shoot him in the head and get it over with.” Emily swallowed hard and kept going.
“I was trying to get him to settle down. Like, no one was doing anything to him and he could just enjoy himself… enjoy being with me, and not worry about anything else. He’d wrecked enough other good times by obsessing over this cop and everything he was doing. Just… have a little time together,” Emily said it in a coaxing voice, as Kenzie was sure that she had that night.
“But he wouldn’t pay any attention to me. I tried to take him away from there so we could go somewhere private. Another flop or someplace private. He was acting drunk, all jelly legs and stumbling around in the street, but he hadn’t had that much to drink.”
“Maybe his drink had been spiked?”
“I don’t know. I was with him, so I don’t see how it could have been. But he was all… agitated. Yelling about the stupid bent cop and how he was ruining everything. He grabbed me and shook me, and it scared me. I didn’t even know if he could see me anymore, or if he was seeing someone else. He wasn’t talking to me. I’m not sure what was going on. He hadn’t used. Hadn’t for days.”
“If he hadn’t used, maybe he was in withdrawal. People can hallucinate in withdrawal. Get very agitated. Lots of mood swings and paranoia and not understanding that people are trying to help them.”
“I don’t know, maybe.” Emily pulled her elbows in, hands still in her jacket pockets, holding her arms against herself like she was cold. Hunching down inside the jacket to hide from the world. “He was all sweaty and his eyes were funny. You would have thought he was on drugs, but it wasn’t that.”
Kenzie frowned, nodding. “And the whole time, he was complaining about the dirty cop.”
“Yeah. I mean, I hated the guy too, but I didn’t want to spend all of my time thinking about him, looking over my shoulder to make sure I wasn’t being watched.”
“Who was this cop?”
“I don’t know his name. Trev called him…” Emily looked away from Kenzie for a moment, rubbing her forehead and laughing weakly. “He called him Deputy Donut. I don’t know his real name. I always stayed away from him as much as I could. He didn’t wear a uniform, so I never saw his name badge or anything. It was always just Deputy Donut. Not to his face; he woulda killed anyone who called him that to his face. But they liked dissing him when he wasn’t around.”
“And he was with the gang unit? Not a patrol officer, if he didn’t wear a uniform.”
“I don’t know. I never asked anything about who he was or what department he worked with. Why would I? I didn’t want anything to do with the guy.”
“Why was Trevor so upset about him that night? What had he done?”
“I dunno if he had done anything new, or if it was just… overflowing from the rest of the times he’d caused Trev trouble. He was really angry, but I kind of thought he was just amped up about something else. It was all the usual stuff. Deputy Donut thinking that he could get away with whatever he liked. Ripping us off.”
“Had he taken something that day?”
“I don’t know. How would I know?” Emily protested, frustrated with Kenzie’s questions. “I was at school during the day. I went over, thinking Trevor and I could have some time together. You know, hang out, enjoy each other’s company. Instead, we’d had to do stuff with the gang, and then when everyone broke up to go their different directions, and I thought we could finally have some alone time, then Trev was going off the rails about Deputy Donut and how he’d ripped him off, and he was going to do something to get even.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think he, like, had a plan. He was just spouting off. Just because he said he was going to do something, that doesn’t mean he was. He said a lot of things.”
“Okay. And then what happened?”
40
Emily bent over, burying her face in both hands, elbows braced against her knees. This was clearly the crisis point. She had avoided going any further in her narrative because she didn’t like where it ended up.
Kenzie was quiet, giving Emily a chance to regain her composure.
Emily swore. “I could really use a drink. Do you have anything? I need something to take the edge off.”
“No. Sorry.”
Emily lifted her head. “Pills? You’re a doctor. You must be able to get some benzos or something, right?”
“I don’t have anything. Try taking some deep breaths. Count them out, nice and long.”
“I don’t want to breathe,” Emily muttered.
Kenzie caught Zachary’s amused glance toward them. He could obviously hear some of what was being said and sympathized with Emily’s irritation at being told just to breathe. Zachary probably had meds on him Emily would appreciate getting her hands on. Some nice strong anti-anxiety pills, for one thing. Zachary didn’t like to take them most of the time, but they were helpful in heading off a panic attack if he took them in time.
“You’re going to be okay,” Kenzie reassured Emily. “Why don’t you tell me what happened? Just take your time. Then we’ll figure out what to do.”
She sniffled and cleared her throat. “Then Deputy Donut shows up. The worst timing ever. He starts taunting Trevor and hitting on me. Saying he can take whatever he wants. You know, like he could have me too. He’d… some of the girls… you gave him what he wanted. What else were you gonna do? Get thrown in jail over some stupid, trumped-up charge? End up at the mercy of the COs and other inmates anyway? At least with Donut, it’s over fast and you can go on with your life and forget about it.” Emily shook her head, closing her eyes.
“So Trevor thought the cop was going to assault you?”
“I don’t know. I guess so. I don’t know if he would have. It seemed like what he really cared about was getting Trevor’s goat. I don’t know if he heard all of what Trevor was saying about him and wanted to get back at him. I just don’t know what he was after.”
“And then…?” Kenzie didn’t want to lead Emily, but she wanted to hear the rest. This was what she had come for. And Emily wanted to get it off of her chest. Kenzie was sure Emily would not have come if she didn’t want to tell her story.
“It was just… like… a standoff between them. An argument.”
“Did it get physical?”
Emily shook her head. “Stupid Deputy Donut pulled a gun and pointed it at Trevor’s head. Told him that if he didn’t do what he was told and quit bellyaching about it, he was going to get his head blown off. Trevor laughed. He could barely stand. Looked like he was going to pass out any minute. He said Donut couldn’t push him around, couldn’t make him do anything he didn’t want to. What was he gonna do, arrest him? For talking?”
“And what did he say about that?”
“He pulled the trigger. Just like that, no more arguing. Trevor said that he wouldn’t, that he couldn’t do anything, and he pulled the trigger. And…” Emily choked up. “Trev just went down.”
Kenzie didn’t have any trouble picturing it. She had seen the photo. Mercer lying there on the pavement with a bullet hole in his forehead. She shook her head in horror.
“How did you react? What did you do? That must have been terrifying.”
“I just… I don’t even know. Maybe I screamed, maybe not. I think I said something to him. Swore, tried to hit him or take the gun away. I wasn’t… I didn’t know what I was doing. Didn’t know what to do. He kept telling me to settle down. Slapped me.” Emily shook her head. “Like, maybe that works on TV, but I can tell you in real life, someone slapping me across the face just makes me want to take them on. You don’t slap me.”
Kenzie nodded.
“He said… he said he would take care of everything. I just had to stay quiet. If I didn’t want to get popped too, I’d better keep my mouth shut. He could make both of us disappear, and people would think we had just run off together. No one would even look for us.”
“So you listened to him.”
“What was I supposed to do?” Emily demanded.
“You did what you had to to survive.”
“He went to get… I don’t know, a tarp or something. I didn’t understand what he was doing. That’s when I took the pictures.” Emily swallowed. She looked around her as if she’d never seen the mall before, hadn’t even known where she was. Eyes wide and startled to find herself there.
Kenzie supposed she had been so deep in the recollection that it was disorienting to return to the present.
“If he did something to me too… I didn’t want anyone to think we had just run off together. I wanted everyone to know we were dead, not running off to New York to start over or something like that.”
“So you sent the picture out to all your friends.”
Emily nodded. “I wanted… I don’t know what I wanted. I was just going on instinct. I got outta there. Went home to bed.” She turned wondering eyes to Kenzie. “I don’t know how I could just go to sleep! I shouldn’t have even been able to sleep. Not after seeing that.”
“People shut down after something like that,” Kenzie reassured her. “It doesn’t mean that you weren’t upset by what happened. Devastated. It’s just your brain’s way of dealing with something overwhelming. It wasn’t because you didn’t feel anything; it was because you felt too much. Too much emotion, danger, stress, not knowing what to do next. That’s why you slept.”
“I slept all weekend. Not just like… sleeping in in the morning and getting up late. But I just slept right through. I’d wake up to go to the bathroom, maybe check my messages for a minute, and then crawl back into bed and… go back to sleep again.”
Kenzie nodded understandingly. “And he didn’t come to your house? Did he know your name or where you lived?”
“No, I don’t think so. I don’t know if he even knew my name. Trev just called me Em or Babe most of the time. And I would tag with the letter M. So he wouldn’t have known it was short for Emily.”
“And the rest of the gang, they didn’t know that either?”
“No. It was just me and Trevor. He’s the reason that I…” She shrugged uncomfortably. “I got into the gang stuff with him because that was what he was into. But I wasn’t in it before that.”
41
Kenzie thought through the story. It would need to be verified, of course. She needed to call Sergeant Campbell and Detective Saul to tell them of the developments. They would not be happy to find out they had a dirty cop in their ranks. And not someone who had stopped at harassing the young gang members. He hadn’t broken the law just by stealing drugs and guns from them. Or by coercing the girls to do what he told them to. He had murdered one of them, apparently in cold blood.
Who was he? Was he working for someone else? Was he even part of the Roxboro police department, or some other city, state, federal, or private organization? People sometimes mistakenly classified everyone who looked remotely like law enforcement as being cops when they were not. If “Deputy Donut” was not in uniform, Emily probably only knew he was a cop from what others in the gang said.
“What did this guy look like?” Kenzie asked. “Could you identify him? Do other people in the gang know his real name?”
Emily wiped her eyes. “I don’t know. He was a cop. White guy, middle-aged, not some young rookie. Dark hair and eyes. I guess I’d recognize his picture.” She sniffled. “I don’t know his name, but some of the others might. But I don’t know if I’m going back there.”
“Does your mom know where you are? Are you staying with a friend?”
“I haven’t told her. I’ll let her know… sometime. When things have blown over.”
“Where are you staying? A friend? A shelter?”
Emily shook her head. “I don’t want anyone to be able to find me.”
“But I’ll need to be able to get ahold of you after I talk to the cops and make sure that everything is safe. If I bring you some pictures to look at, how will I find you?”
“Send them to my phone.”
Kenzie supposed that having Emily’s phone number gave her a way to communicate with the girl and for the police to trace her location, so she didn’t push it further. She didn’t want to scare Emily away. It was a big deal for her to be talking to Kenzie and knowing that Kenzie was going to go to the police when her boyfriend had been killed by a crooked cop.
“If he was working with gangs, then he was probably anti-gang unit or narco squad or something like that,” she suggested to Emily.
“Yeah, I guess so. I don’t know. I never asked. They knew who he was, but he wasn’t any beat cop.” She wiped at her nose with her sleeve. “What else would he be?”
“If he’s federal, he could be DEA. Or something else.”
“Long as I never have to see him again, I don’t care what kind of cop he is.”
Kenzie nodded. She tried putting a hand on Emily’s shoulder and, this time, the girl didn’t jerk away. Maybe she had become comfortable enough with Kenzie that she didn’t fear her anymore. Or maybe telling the story had just left her so exhausted that she didn’t have the energy to protect herself. Kenzie rubbed her back gently.
“You must be so tired. You were really brave to come here to talk to me today.”
“Rhys said you’re okay.”
“Rhys is a pretty special guy himself. You would think that with all of his problems, he would be focused on himself, but he always seems to be watching and worrying about other people.”
Emily gave a little laugh. “Yeah. Pretty amazing.”
“How well do you know him?”
Emily sniffled and rolled her neck, probably stiff after sitting hunched over. “I’ve gone to school with him since we were little kids. But I don’t really know him. Just… you know, always going to the same school, you know who people are. Especially if they’re like him. You know, special needs.”
“He has a lot of challenges,” Kenzie acknowledged.
“I’ve been paired with him for group work because they mostly mainstream him. He does some resource room work but, mostly, he’s in the regular classes.”
“How do group projects go?”
She shook her head. “He’s good at little cartoon pictures and lettering on posters. Finding pictures of stuff and research on the internet. But he doesn’t write stuff out and he can’t help with an oral presentation. Except, like, advance slides or use the pointer.”
At least she’d been able to find things for Rhys to do. Kenzie had often wondered what things were like for Rhys at school.
She didn’t imagine that everyone accommodated him quite so well. There would be those who just ignored him and didn’t involve him in a project at all or who complained to their parents about being paired with him.
“So that’s why you had Rhys’s number? Because you’d worked with him on group collaborations before?”
Emily hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. Because of that.”
“Yeah? So you texted about what you needed to do for the project…”
She shrugged.
“Why would you send him the picture of Trevor? Didn’t you know anything about his history?”
Emily blinked at Kenzie. “What do you mean?”
“You don’t know what happened to him when he was little?”
Emily shook her head. “I told you I’ve known him since we were little. What are you talking about?”
“About his grandfather being murdered.”
She continued to shake her head. “No, I don’t know anything about that.”
“He was shot in the head.”
Emily’s mouth dropped open. She stared at Kenzie. “What? Are you kidding me?”
“No joke,” Kenzie said, shaking her head. “His grandfather was killed the same way as Trevor Mercer. When you sent him the picture… and he kept getting it from others as well… he was very upset about it. He ended up in the hospital for a while.”
“Because of those pictures?” Emily swore and shook her head. “I never meant to do anything that would hurt him. He’s a nice guy, I wouldn’t do that.”
“I don’t imagine he was the only one upset by you broadcasting a picture of a murdered man to their phones. A lot of people would find that upsetting.”
Emily was immediately defensive, her voice rising. “Well it was upsetting to me to see it and to think that Donut might make me disappear too, so excuse me for trying to make sure that someone would know the truth!”
“Why didn’t you call for help? If you were afraid to call the police because of the dirty cop, why not call your mom? Or another trusted adult? A news reporter? There are better ways to get help.”
Emily just looked at Kenzie and shook her head. She had no trust in adults. It shouldn’t have surprised Kenzie that the only way she could think of to help herself, in the panic of the moment, had been to reach out to her friends, and that the medium had been a texted picture, their usual means of communication.
Kenzie just wished Rhys hadn’t been one of the recipients.
She put up her hands to indicate that she was backing off. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m just feeling protective of Rhys. You did what you could to protect yourself. And you’re still doing what you can to keep yourself safe. When you are in mortal peril, that’s the only thing you can think about.”
Emily pushed some of her long hair back over her ear, frowning at Kenzie. “Are you making fun of me?”
“No. I’m serious. When your life is in danger, you don’t think about anyone else or about the long-term consequences of your actions. You just try to survive.”
Emily didn’t say anything, obviously wondering where Kenzie got this bit of wisdom. Kenzie shrugged. She didn’t tell Emily anything from her personal experience. It really wasn’t the time, and she didn’t share those things easily.
42
