Abuse of Power Read online

  “Maybe some other time.” Rachel headed to the back of the house to tell Joe goodbye. But when she came out of his room, her daughter grabbed her hand and pulled her into the bathroom. Relenting, Rachel sat down on the commode. “What are you going to do to me?”

  “Be still,” Tracy said, a handful of pencils in her hand. “I’m going to give you some eyebrows. All redheads need to wear eyebrow pencil and eye liner. If you don’t, you look washed out.”

  “How do you know these things?” Rachel said as her daughter used a light brown pencil to fill in her eyebrows.

  “I watch the fashion channel,” she said. “Close your eyes. Mom. I’m going to give you some liner, then put on some mascara. When I’m finished, you’ll look like a model.”

  “Please,” Rachel said, recalling how Carrie had given her makeup sessions so long ago. “I’m not in the mood for this tonight, honey. Where did you get the money for this stuff, anyway?” She picked up one of the pencils off the counter. “When I worked at Robinson’s, pencils like this cost almost ten dollars.”

  “I buy them at Woolworth’s,” she said. “You can get a dozen pencils for ten dollars if you know how to shop. Look at yourself now, Mom. See how pretty you look.”

  Rachel glanced in the mirror, then quickly looked away. “I’m not in the market for a man, Tracy,” she said. “Is that what this is all about?”

  “Why not?” her daughter said, scowling. “Dad’s been dead for three years. Before that, he was sick all the time. Maybe if you married a rich guy like Carrie said—”

  Rachel shook her head. They were getting desperate, all right. “I’ve got to go,” she said, rushing out of the house.

  Rachel timed her entrance into the squad room to the very last minute, waiting outside the door until she heard the sergeant begin speaking. She stepped in and was looking for an empty seat when Ratso stuck his foot out and tripped her. Falling onto her knees, Rachel heard several of the men laughing. She stood and glared at Ratso, who had an idiotic grin on his face. For the first time, she saw why Grant had chosen his nickname. When he smiled, his teeth protruded and he looked just like a rodent. Did he fondle her as well? The thought made her shiver with repulsion. Deciding to forget about finding a seat, Rachel stood along the wall in the back of the squad room.

  When the sergeant called her name during roll call. Grant gave her a devious smile, then stood and grabbed his balls in a mocking gesture. Rachel flipped him the finger.

  Once Sergeant Miller had stopped speaking, she walked to the front to pick up her unit keys, purposely stepping on his foot. “Oh,” she said, “I’m sorry, Sergeant. Did I step on you?”

  “Damn,” he growled. “You’re as clumsy as an ox, woman.”

  “Oh, really?” she said, smiling in satisfaction.

  “Hey,” he said, jerking his head toward the comer of the room, “get over here.”

  “What?” she said, staring up into his rugged face. Gravity and too many slugs of Jack Daniel’s were making his face sag. “Are you going to threaten to have me fired for stepping on your foot?”

  “You better knock off the bitchy attitude, Simmons,” he said, a slight wheeze rattling inside his chest. “I won’t tolerate insubordination on my watch, especially from a ditsy broad like you. We’re here to work. Now get your ass in gear and do your damn job, or your next performance review will be even worse than the last one.”

  “What happened this morning wasn’t right,” she said. “I just want you to know that I hold you personally responsible. I’m not going to report it, but I’m not going to forget it.”

  “Get over it, Simmons,” Miller snapped, turning to speak to one of the other officers.

  Rachel quickly exited the squad room. So much for the happy family, she decided. If the events on the beach were what it took to become a part of their team, she would just as soon remain an outsider.

  The first few hours of the watch passed uneventfully. Rachel rolled for backup on a family disturbance on the south side of town at 11:16. By the time she and Ratso arrived, the couple had stopped fighting and things seemed to be under control. Rachel spoke to the wife in the kitchen while Ratso stepped outside to talk to the husband. Bonita Cervantes was a curvaceous blonde with an inch of black roots showing at the base of her scalp. Her husband, Jesus, was dark and muscular, his biceps decorated with tattoos. A thin stream of blood oozed out of the comer of Bonita’s mouth, and her lower lip was swollen.

  “She’s fucking around behind my back,” Jesus told Ratso in the front yard, agitated and angry.

  “I see,” Ratso said. “How did you discover this?”

  “I caught her, man,” he said. “I followed her to a motel and caught her fucking some dirtbag biker dude from the bar up the street.”

  “Did you strike her?”

  “Yeah, I belted her,” Jesus said, clenching his fists at his sides. “She was cheating on me, man. She’s my damn wife. I can’t let the bitch humiliate me like that. Shit, the whole neighborhood probably knows she’s screwing around on me.”

  “Go stand beside the police car,” Ratso said, tilting his head toward his unit parked at the curb.

  “Are you going to arrest me?”

  “I need to confer with my partner,” he explained, opening the door to enter the house. Pulling Rachel aside, he said, “Does she want to swear out a complaint?”

  Rachel shrank away from his touch, trying to clear her mind of the incident on the beach and concentrate solely on the task at hand. “She’s afraid of him, but I’m trying to talk some sense into her.”

  Ratso shot the woman a look of disgust. “She was unfaithful.”

  “So?” Rachel said. “What difference does that make? It doesn’t give him a right to beat her.”

  Ratso dropped his eyes. “She is his wife. She disgraced him. He was only doing what any man would do.”

  “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Rachel said, a muscle in her eyelid twitching. “That he has the right to punish her? What is she? His possession? Is that the way you see it, Ratso?”

  “This is a personal matter between two married people,” he told her. “We have no right to interfere.”

  “I don’t know where you grew up,” Rachel told him, “but in this country, a man is not allowed to beat his wife no matter how many men she sleeps with.” The incident at the beach again passed through her mind and her anger intensified. “Do you believe in taking advantage of an unconscious woman as well? I’m disappointed in you, Ratso. I thought we were friends.” Remembering how he had tripped her at the watch meeting, she gave him a quick jab in the side with her elbow. “Next time you trip me, I’m going to whack you with my baton.”

  Rachel walked off to talk to Bonita again. Ratso stared at her back, seething. A few moments later he walked outside onto the porch and kicked a clay pot, cracking it into several pieces.

  “What are you doing?” Jesus yelled from the curb. “I paid good money for that pot.”

  Ratso stomped down the sidewalk to his unit. “Get out of my way,” he said, lashing out with his arm and knocking him aside. While Jesus mumbled profanities, Ratso climbed into his car and sped off.

  When Bonita Cervantes refused to swear out a complaint, Rachel knew there was nothing more she could do. She handed the woman her card and cleared, driving back to her assigned beat.

  Pulling off onto a tree-lined street, she killed the engine and closed her eyes. The police radio made it impossible for her to fall into a deep sleep. She didn’t believe in sleeping on duty. All she wanted to do was rest. Some of the men who worked residential beats like the one she covered went so far as to drive to their homes, relaxing in their easy chairs in front of the TV while they monitored their calls over their portable radio.

  Because it was a pleasant night, she left the window rolled down, thinking the fresh air might revive her.

  Never would Rachel have dreamed that she would one day be driving around in a police car, a gun strapped to her side
. The picture Mike Atwater had tried to portray in the courtroom had not been entirely accurate. It was true that the kidnapping had been a monumental event in her life. For years after that awful day, Rachel had been afraid to step outside of the house unless her mother or one of her sisters was present. Her fear had imprisoned her, taken her voice away. She winced, recalling the many times during that year that her mother had slapped her.

  As her thoughts drifted, she could see the small house in San Diego clearly. She recalled the sound of the kitchen cabinet opening and shutting. Her mother kept a bottle of vodka hidden behind the cans of soup and vegetables. Before the kidnapping, she had drunk only during the day when the girls were at school. Because Rachel would not leave the house, the school system had been forced to provide home tutoring for her as well as a speech therapist. While the tutor worked with Rachel in the living room, her mother sipped vodka in the kitchen out of a teacup. As soon as the tutor left, she would tear into her daughter.

  “Speak,” Frances had shouted, slapping Rachel hard across the face. “There’s nothing wrong with you. The man didn’t rape you. All he did was touch you. You can’t stay here in the house every day. How can I teach my students?”

  Rachel’s mother had been an accomplished pianist. Prior to the kidnapping, the house had been filled with music. Every afternoon, Frances would sit down at the piano and play for her daughters. She knew the score of almost every Broadway musical. Carrie would memorize the lyrics and belt out the songs while she sat next to her mother on the piano bench. Rachel would twirl around the floor, pretending to be a dancer. Susan was the only one with an interest in the piano. Frances was a stern teacher, though, and Susan had finally given up, realizing she could never play to her mother’s satisfaction.

  After Nathan Richardson swept through their lives, the music stopped. With each day the house seemed to get darker and the family’s finances leaner. Frances stopped wearing makeup, then stopped getting out of bed in the morning, leaving Rachel to fend for herself until the tutor arrived. Knowing her daughter derived a small amount of pleasure from sitting in front of the living room window and watching the other children play, her mother insisted the drapes be kept closed.

  The only thing Rachel had to look forward to were the weekly visits from Sergeant Larry Dean.

  Yes, the man had become her hero, her savior, the only person who had managed to break through her wall of silence and get her to communicate again. But the thought of emulating him and becoming a police officer had never once crossed her mind. She had sought employment as a police officer out of financial need, not idealism.

  Without realizing it, Rachel had her arm dangling out the window. While she was lightly dozing, she felt something sticky and wet on her hand. Bolting upright in the seat, she was certain she’d been stabbed and the warm liquid she felt was her own blood.

  What she saw was a huge black Labrador standing by the window of her police cruiser. The animal had been licking the salt off her skin. Either that, she thought, or the beast had been humping her arm, “Great,” she said, rolling up the window and engaging the ignition. In a twenty-four-hour period, she had not only been accosted by a gang of horny police officers, but a Labrador had tried to have his way with her as well.

  Just then she heard the dreaded tone signal and cursed under her breath, spinning the volume knob as high as it would go.

  “3A3, 4A2, 2A2, and 5A,” the dispatcher said. “Units respond to a report of juveniles fighting on the comer of Main and Fairmont across from the Majestic Theater. Approximately twenty juveniles are involved. One individual is reportedly armed with a gun. Respond code three.”

  Grant was the first to acknowledge the call. “Station one,” he shouted into the radio, his siren blasting in the background. “Can’t you give us a description of the juvenile who’s packing? It might keep us from getting shot out there.”

  “No can do,” the dispatcher said. “We received the report from an anonymous caller. Like it or not, this is all we’ve got.”

  Rachel flipped the toggle switch for her red lights and sirens, and started rolling code to the area. She checked in with the other officers responding, asking them to advise her of their approach routes. More than one unit rolling code to the same location was extremely dangerous. A few years back, two units had been involved in a head-on collision under similar circumstances. Both officers had been killed instantly.

  When she arrived in the area of Main and Fairmont, she saw approximately twenty juveniles assembled in the street in front of the old theater. Beer bottles were flying through the air, and rowdy youths were yelling and shouting. Some of the kids were wearing Oak Grove letter jackets, and she spotted several Simi Valley jackets as well. Evidently it was some sort of school rivalry. She saw three police cars parked at the end of the block near the Heritage Bank and quickly came to a stop behind them. Leaping out of her unit, she pulled her nightstick out. She saw Jimmy Townsend wrestling with three youths and raced over to assist him.

  Grabbing one burly male by the back of his shirt, she tossed him to the ground and straddled him, then flipped him over onto his stomach, pulled his hands behind his back, and snapped on the handcuffs. A few feet away, she spotted Grant kicking a boy wearing a yellow shirt. Directly across from them, Ratso had another teenager on the ground and was furiously slamming his head into the pavement. Rachel had heard about Ratso’s temper, but she had never seen it firsthand. “Look at Ratso, Jimmy,” she shouted at Townsend. “The kid’s going to be brain damaged. I think I saw blood coming out of one of his ears. As soon as you get your man hooked up, you better get over there and stop him.”

  “Stupid punks,” Townsend snarled, wrenching his suspect’s hands behind his back and then shoving him onto his face on the ground.

  Someone tossed a beer bottle at Grant Cummings, barely missing his head. He growled like an angry bear, leaving the boy wearing the yellow shirt and rushing off to find the youth who had tossed the bottle.

  Rachel knew they needed more manpower. Four officers were not enough to handle twenty teenagers.

  “Station one,” she said on her portable radio, panting and out of breath, “we need more units out here. We’ve got a mini-riot on our hands, and we’re getting pelted with beer bottles.”

  While she listened to the dispatcher try to free up more units, a beer bottle smashed into the back of her head. For a few moments she was certain she was going to pass out. Blood spilled down her forehead, trickling into her nose and mouth. She reminded herself that head wounds always bleed profusely, and that the wound was probably less serious than it appeared. Feeling the cut with her fingers, she decided it wasn’t deep. Looking around, she saw that Ratso was dragging the dazed looking young man he had been beating to his police unit. Grant had a boy wearing an Oak Grove letter jacket by the arm and was about to handcuff him when someone called, “Look out! He’s got a gun!”

  Whirling around, Rachel saw the boy with the yellow shirt that Grant had been kicking earlier. He was standing, chest heaving, with a gun in his hand. Grant seized the juvenile he was about to cuff by the shoulders and pulled him in front of him, using him like a shield. Almost in the same instant, the youth in the yellow shirt squeezed off a round. The boy Grant was holding jerked as the bullet struck him in the chest. Grant dropped the injured boy to the ground, whipped his gun out, and returned fire. Shots were popping all around.

  Rachel unholstered her weapon, but the juveniles were rapidly dispersing, running from the area in a dozen directions. The boy who had fired the shot was on the ground. She couldn’t tell if he had been hit, or if he’d just dropped to the ground for cover.

  “Send an ambulance,” she screamed into her portable radio, racing to the injured youth and kneeling beside him. “We have one kid with a gunshot wound to the chest. We may have more injuries. I can’t tell yet.”

  The boy appeared to be in his mid to late teens. He had sandy blond hair and an oval face. His eyes were open and he appeared to be
conscious, but Rachel had no doubt that his injury was serious. A trickle of blood oozed out of the corner of his mouth. A singed hole was burned into the front of his letter jacket. Blood was gushing out of the hole and pooling around him.

  “It’s going to be okay,” she told him, unzipping his jacket and ripping open his shirt so she could get a better look at the wound. She tried to keep the panic out of her eyes and maintain a calm, steady voice as she stared at the small, dark hole made by the bullet. “Try to relax if you can. The more you fight it, the worse it will be. The ambulance is on the way. You’re going to be fine.”

  “Mo-mom,” he stammered, his eyes flashing with fear. “I can’t…breathe. Please…help…me.”

  Rachel leaned over, cupping the side of his face with her palm. He was only a few years older than Tracy. She picked up his clammy hand and squeezed it, using her free hand to support his head. “It’s okay, honey. Hold on. Be strong. You can do it.”

  She heard a gurgling noise inside the boy’s chest. His eyes opened wide, and he almost raised himself to a sitting position. A second later, his body shook violently, and he fell back. His eyes remained open, but his hand went limp and his head rolled to one side.

  After listening for a pulse and hearing nothing, Rachel frantically pried the boy’s mouth open and began administering CPR, ventilating and then compressing his chest. The wound was so close to his sternum and there was so much blood, her hands seemed to sink into his flesh. She kept repeating what they’d taught her at the academy. He’s already dead. You can’t hurt him. If you do nothing, he’ll be dead forever.

  She didn’t know how long she’d been administering CPR when she felt a paramedic’s hand on her shoulder.

  “You’re exhausted,” the paramedic said, trying to pull her away. “Let us take over now.”

  Still on hands and knees, Rachel moved aside. The paramedic continued the compressions for a few more moments, then stopped. “He’s gone,” he said. “I think the bullet punctured a lung, and he drowned in his own fluids.”