Chapter 14
When I came to the next time I was surrounded by cops; they filled my hospital room to overflowing. I cringed inside, flashing back to the day they took me from my family. I recognized a few of the veterans, seven years older now. But most of the cops in the room looked like rookies, their faces unfamiliar. There’d been a lot of turnover in the SBPD while I was away.
A lot of these Badges were smiling at me, which wasn’t reassuring at all. The only times I could remember members of law enforcement being happy around me had been when they were about to put me in a major hurt locker.
“Hello, Markus,” the cop with the most insignia said from a folding chair next to my bed.
He appeared extremely young to be chief; he also looked somehow familiar. He had a bear-like girth; he could probably use a little cardio work. He was wearing makeup, which was none of my business of course.
“I am Chief Jansen,” he said, palms together and fingers steepled. “How are we feeling today?”
His eyes roved my maimed face boldly, paying close attention to the bandages concealing my wounds. I looked away toward the corner of the hospital room where a lanky horse-faced woman perched on the edge of another folding chair, typing on a court recorder machine.
One cop aimed the mike of a tape recorder at me; another officer discretely clicked away with a digital camera, alternating his shots between me and the Chief. A third pointed a camcorder my way, making sure to include Chief Jansen in the frame as much as possible. I flashed then that Jansen was wearing the make-up so he wouldn’t appear as corpse-like as I was going to on the deposition video.
“We will have your statement,” the Chief said. “We have many questions. We are very interested in hearing what you have to say.”
“I want a lawyer,” I said.
Jansen pursed his meaty lips, and then smiled. “We can supply representation if that makes you feel more comfortable. But why do you even think you need a lawyer, Markus?”
My one remaining eye commenced with a nervous tic. Did he think I’d gotten a sudden case of amnesia? Did he think I’d forgotten that the last time I talked to the cops I’d done seven years for a crime I didn’t commit?
But keeping my mouth shut would’ve been chicken-shit and useless. I was in the fish bowl just like inside, I couldn’t make this a safe place just by playing possum.
“I’m ain’t copping to nothing, but obviously I was at the scene,” I said, as if grudgingly.
“Yes, you were. Forensics has put most of it together. That was an incredible fight you fought, a true work of art. We just need you to fill in a few of the blanks for us.”
“I’m not trying to play coy here, but let’s call a spade a spade: It was multiple homicide – not a ‘fight,’ as you put it. That’s a capital crime in most states, last time I looked.” I said.
Jansen’s mouth quirked. He looked around at the surrounding officers, gestured regally at the stenographer, the camcorder, and the camera.
“Your need to protect yourself is understandable,” he said. “For the record, we say the case will be closed as justifiable homicide.”
“I’d like to hear that from a higher authority than you,” I said.
Now the Chief appeared steamed. It was interesting to study the vein throbbing in the middle of his forehead, me keeping my face as stupid as I could while enjoying his discomfiture. He opened his mouth to say something I figured was going to be on the unfriendly side of things, to put me in my place as it were.
One of the cops approached the Chief, managing to catch Jansen’s attention even while simultaneously doing his best to be invisible. Jansen calmed down immediately, nodding to him as if doing a tag team handoff.
This new cop was tall and what most would call handsome, with broad shoulders, wavy black hair, and a uniform shirt tailored to accentuate his muscles. He seemed preoccupied with leather and cop paraphernalia; he was festooned with polished black straps and buckles, and had a lot more gear weighing him down than most of the other cops seemed to find necessary. He looked like a recruiting poster.
“Hi, Markus,” he said with a boyish, plastic smile. His eyes didn’t quite meet mine. “I’m Officer Rick Hoffman.”
He stuck out his paw and I touched it for a moment, then let go. He pulled out a cell phone and hit a speed dial number, waited.
“Hello, Mister Gallico?” he said. “It’s like we talked about, he needs to speak to you.” He held out the phone to me, and I put it to my un-bandaged ear.
“Who’s this?” I asked.
“This is Tom Gallico, District Attorney. Do I need to prove it?”
“No,” I allowed. “I guess you’re who you say you are.” Gallico had never spoken the times he was present during my courtroom crucifixion seven years before, but I recognized his voice from campaign commercials. Hell, I’d even voted for him.
“Well, Officer Hoffman said I’d need to talk to you, and it looks as though he was right as he is so often. I just want to tell you, Markus, we have no plans to file charges against you in this matter. In fact, I’ll cut right to the chase: If you did violate any laws on that day, I’m prepared to offer you complete immunity. Put Chief Jansen on again, please.”
I handed the cellie to the Chief and he listened as Gallico’s declamation issued tinnily from the ear piece. He handed the phone back to Officer Hoffman and looked commandingly around again at the stenographer, the camcorder, and the camera.
“Formally entered into the record, the subject in question is hereby offered full and complete immunity from prosecution for any actions performed that day at the school, in return for his present cooperation with this inquest, said offer authorized by Stagger Bay District Attorney Tom Gallico.”
He turned back to me. “Now it is in evidence. Satisfied?”
“Fully and completely,” I said, and started talking.
I tried to keep in control of my game, but it was harder than I thought to revisit the events of that day. The deposition might have gotten away from me a little bit in some parts; in a couple of places the words may even have poured from my mouth like a runaway freight train of verbiage. But at least my war face didn’t slip all the way – I was damned if I was going to show punk in front of the Man.
When I’d caught my breath after finishing my tale, I asked the Chief, “You going to tell me what it was all about?”
He gazed into the distance. “Those suspects you took, they had just robbed the First National Bank at Stagger Bay Center. One of the tellers hit the silent alarm and was shot dead for it.
“Officer Jerry Pino in Car A-11 responded while the perps were still inside, but they blasted their way out. You saw firsthand the weaponry they had – Jerry was outgunned, they took him too. Three customers and another teller were caught in the cross fire; the teller may survive.
“We wanted them bad, Markus. They were not going to escape us, and you cannot outrun a radio after all. But then they wound up inside the school in a hostage situation, and you went and involved yourself.”
“Have you identified them yet?” I asked, wanting to know something of these men I’d murdered.
“One of them had just been released from Pelican Bay; one of your classmates. All of them had records as long as my arm – a bit like you, Markus, before you reformed and became a law abiding citizen.” Jansen chuckled at his own joke.
“Only one of them was local, the one blown up by the grenade. Wayne Something, where did he live again?” the Chief looked around at his junior officers with brows raised.
“In the Gardens,” one cop contributed from where he leaned against the wall in the corner.
He said it like it was a phrase he wouldn’t use in mixed company. He punctuated it by spitting a brown dip- loogie into the soda can he held.
He wore a battered non-regulation Stetson cowboy hat, pulled down to conceal the upper part of his face like he was trying to sleep. He had one leg pulled up so the heel was planted against the wall under his butt, as if ready to thrust himself into action at a moment’s notice. He had a Colt.357 Magnum in his holster rather than the 9mm- auto most departments favored for a service side-arm, and I didn’t figure his down-at-the-heel cowboy boots for any part of a regulation cop uniform neither.
The Chief nodded at the cowboy-cop’s input, and then returned his attention to me: “Why did you involve
