Behind the Badge (24 page)

“I'm tired of the battle,” she said, placing her badge into Richards' hand. “I resign.”

CHAPTER 55

No sooner did Jill leave Captain Richards’ office, acutely aware of the badge no longer clipped to her belt, than the doubt began to set in. It was, to be sure, a rash decision -- though Jill guessed anything short of retirement after almost forty years on the force would seem rash. But this case had pushed Jill to her limits and showed her just how much she was willing to put up with before fighting back. The last thing she wanted to do was fight criminals
and
those who were supposed to be in her corner. But the Bishop had made its intentions clear, and Jill decided she could no longer serve her hometown if those above her were going to impede her.

She felt the tears threatening to fall when she slipped into the elevator and trekked her way to the red Malibu she still called her own. But Jill hadn’t let them fall -- not because she was adverse to showing emotion, but because she was determined to remain resolute. She feared if she broke down, she would change her mind… and how would it look if she came crawling back into her captain’s office begging for her badge back?

For better or worse, Jill had made her proverbial bed.

Having left the precinct, Jill rounded the corner to duck into an alley that doubled as a shortcut home. The sun was high in the midday sky, and Jill had to shield her eyes from the brightness before the alley’s shadows enveloped her. Alleys were borderline cliché for her at this point, but the sooner Jill got home, the better.

That is, until the sound of a gun cocking from behind stopped Jill in her tracks.

Fighting the urge to roll her eyes -- because
of course
the hits weren’t done coming yet -- Jill rose her arms and slowly turned around to face whoever was holding her at gunpoint this time. When she saw the red beard and the blue eyes staring back at her, Jill huffed a laugh and shook her head.

“Tell me,” Brady said, cocking his head to the side, “how is it no one at the department’s put two and two together with you yet?”

“If you’re here for your friend, I’ve got news for you.”

“Oh, I know.” Brady shrugged. “All part of the plan.”

“Yet you threatened to come at me with Paulson by your side, so… what
is
the plan?” Jill shook her head. “All I’m seeing is a bunch of piss poor cops running around like chickens with their heads cut off.”

Brady took three steps forward, the weapon in his grasp trembling. He was trying to show anger, but his eyes were more fearful than anything. His hand was shaking worse now than it had been the other night, and for the first time, Jill wondered if there was a plan at all.

“Paulson shooting the DA, I get.” Jill lowered her arms and took a step forward of her own. “Devin Buckner’s murder made him pine for the good ol’ days, and when Ramona charged those officers with murder, he snapped. He reverted back to the officer who gave my father a concussion… only this time, he had a sniper rifle at his disposal.”

“Paulson was smart when he wanted to be,” Brady added.

“But what about the preacher?” Jill narrowed her gaze. “He swears up and down he didn’t do the preacher, but I don’t buy it.”

“That old fart wasn’t Paulson.” Brady’s upper lip curled into a disgusted sneer. “That one was me.”

“Why?”

Brady lifted his weapon again; now, instead of the barrel pointing at Jill’s chest, it moved to her forehead. Being held at gunpoint was old by this point, so in one smooth motion, Jill snapped Brady’s wrist and disarmed him. Cradling his gun in both hands, Jill emptied the clip and snapped the weapon in two before tossing the pieces to the ground.

“Let’s try this again,” she said off Brady’s stunned, teary-eyed look. “Why kill the preacher?”

“It was supposed to keep Paulson occupied,” Brady explained, his good hand curling into a fist as he cradled his broken wrist against his chest. “He was supposed to be so busy working the case that Buckner and the DA never showed up on his radar.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Bishop protected Paulson for decades,” Brady said. “Downtown didn’t wanna throw a war vet onto the streets, even if his record justified his firing. I saw the writing on the wall when Parish took over as DA, turned in my badge and moved to my grandparents’ farm. Paulson was a little more stubborn.”

“But something changed the Bishop’s mind,” Jill theorized.

“Last month, he called me in a panic.” Brady shook his head. “Apparently, things had gotten out of hand with a suspect in Interrogation. Punches were thrown, the suspect slammed their head on the table… it was bad. They threatened to sue the pants off of the department.”

“The Bishop wouldn’t protect Paulson with so much money on the line,” Jill said.

Brady nodded once. “The BPD is as frugal as it is ruthless.”

“Why tell me all this?” Jill pursed her lips. “And why use Paulson’s gun to kill the preacher?”

“Cause in the end, Paulson was a piece of shit,” Brady said with a shake of his head and tears in his eyes. “We both were.”

The frown on Jill’s face deepened. “What?”

“Because in a perfect world, you’re the sort of cop I’d like to be.” Brady shook his head. “Because as much as I wanna kill you right now, part of me wishes I could go back and do things over.”

“Wouldn’t change anything.” Jill shrugged. “The good ones always get the short end of things around here.”

“Shame what happened to your daddy.”

Reaching out, Jill grabbed Brady by his collar, lifting him up off the ground and wrapping her other hand around his neck. The glow of infrared seeped through her skin graft. “You’re as responsible for that as anyone else.”

“So kill me.” Brady shrugged. “Give me what I deserve.”

Was that what this was all about? Was Brady after something other than revenge or loyalty to his former partner? Was all of this anger and bravado a front? Sam Brady didn’t play like the fall-on-the-sword type, but in the span of two nights he had gone from gung-ho revenge kick to wanting to die. Was he unstable, or was this all just some scheme of his? She assumed his presence had been about helping Paulson and making sure justice was never served -- never mind the fact that the four officers who killed Devin Buckner had already been dealt with. Part of Jill wondered if Brady was the other vigilante, but the body type wasn’t the same.

“You know I won’t do that.” Jill shook her head and put Brady back on the ground. “Why attack me the other night?”

Instead of answering, Brady reached down to his ankle with his good arm, pulling another firearm out from under his pants leg and bringing the weapon to his right temple. Jill took another step forward and reached out to grab Brady’s good wrist. Whatever anger and fear that had been in Brady’s eyes when he first cornered her in the alley were gone, and his blue eyes were dull and lifeless. His trigger finger trembled.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” she pleaded. “Mr. Brady, put down that gun…”

“I’m a dead man no matter what,” Brady muttered as nonchalantly as he could, even as tears slipped from his eyes and down his cheeks. “Just... apologize to that preacher’s family, will ya?”

Before Jill could say anything else, Brady pulled the trigger. The shot rang out and echoed in Jill’s head, and she recoiled when she saw the bullet burst out through the other side of Brady’s head. His lifeless body crumpled to the pavement, blood and brain matter splattered all over the ground and the nearby wall. A flock of doves flew off amid the commotion, and Jill could only cover her mouth and avert her eyes.

Chapter 56

Two hours after Jill had turned in her badge, and she was right back at the Seventh Precinct. Holed up in the conference room next to Captain Richards’ office, Jill sat in one of the swivel chairs with her knees tucked under her chin and a dazed look on her face. A steaming mug of coffee sat in front of her, but it went untouched. Jill was in no mood for coffee, not when the only thing she could see was Sam Brady blowing his brains out over and over again.

It made no sense; two nights prior, Brady had shot Jill in the face and made it known that he was a force to be reckoned with. Now, not only was Joshua Paulson dead -- from a cyanide capsule -- but now Sam Brady had also offed himself after a fit of remorse for past sins. If Brady was so remorseful, then why attack Jill the way he had? Unless he had hoped the vigilante would take care of him and save him the trouble of offing himself. He had begged for her to kill before doing the deed himself.

Hitori Watson and Earl Stevens walked into the conference room, and Stevens locked the door and closed the blinds. They each sat across from Jill without saying a word, before Stevens leaned forward in his seat and flipped open the over-stuffed file folder he had been carrying.

“Everything Brady told you was true,” he began without his usual bluster. “He left the department not long after he and Paulson were transferred, cause the DA’s office was looking into accusations he was beatin’ his wife.”

“None of this makes any sense,” she said in a voice that was barely above a whisper.

“Three days before Mitch’s grandfather was killed, Brady flew into BWI from Gulfport-Biloxi,” Watson explained. “He had received a call from Paulson the day before saying he needed some help.”

The frown on Jill’s face deepened. She wrapped both hands around the mug, but only so she could feel the warmth. “What kind of help?”

“Apparently,” Stevens added, “news of Devin Buckner’s murder got to him and he practically soiled himself.”

All Jill could do at this point was shake her head in disbelief. She had closed her eyes, but in doing so, she was bombarded with the disturbing images of Devin, Ramona Parish, and Brady -- all of whom were now dead because of bullets to the brain. It was as close to a coincidence as one could get, and Jill’s stomach churned at the thought of it all. Three lives blown to hell, and for what?

“Every time one of these murders went public,” Watson said, “everyone would rehash all the murders that came before. Maybe Paulson finally got to a point where hearing Grainger’s name made him confront some things he wasn’t all that proud of.”

“But still,” Jill countered, “to make him call up his buddy who was complicit in the whole thing and talk him into coming back to town?”

Stevens slipped a sheet of paper from the stack in front of him, sliding it across the table in front of Jill. “We finally got Devin’s juvy file. You’re lookin’ at the arrest report from when he was busted for weed. Check out who arrested him.”

Jill cursed under her breath and ran a shaky hand through her hair. “Joshua Paulson.”

This time, Watson frowned. “But Paulson works Homicide.”

“Guess that didn’t matter to him when he saw the kid lighting up a joint on a street corner,” Stevens said with a shrug. “It went even farther than that. Paulson felt some type of way when Devin didn’t get any jail time, so he took it upon himself to start following the kid around.”

Jill arched a disbelieving brow. “So the guy can’t be bothered to work homicides in his own jurisdiction, but he has no problem stalking a teenage boy.”

“Seems like.” Stevens took back the sheet he had given Jill, slipping it into the bottom of the pile. “That’s how the Fucktastic Four knew where to pick the kid up.”

Jill sat up a little straighter. Her detective instincts took over at this point, even though she could no longer officially claim that title. “And knowing the reputation Carter and his friends had, Paulson decided to exact a little vigilante justice of his own.”

Watson picked up the thread. “Not expecting them to actually
kill
him.”

Stevens nodded once. “And once Paulson realizes the kid took one to the temple, he freaks. Worried it’ll all link back to him, Paulson calls up his buddy and they hatch a scheme.”

“Voila, one dead preacher,” Watson added.

The light bulb went off in Jill’s head. “And then Paulson requests one of ours to the scene, pulling him away from Devin’s case and wasting his time.”

“But that still doesn’t explain why both Paulson and Brady killed themselves.” Watson scratched the back of his head before removing his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Brady was remorseful before he pulled the trigger,” Jill explained, averting her gaze.

“Paulson wasn’t.” Stevens shook his head. “Fuckwad was defiant as ever.”

A knock at the door interrupted the three. When Watson unlocked the door and opened it, Officer Greg Sorenson stuck his head in. “Those phone records you wanted for Brady came in.”

“Thanks, Greg.” Taking the manila folder, Watson shut the door before returning to his seat. He studied the first sheet in the pile, his brow furrowing the deeper into the page he got. The first several calls had been made to Paulson, which they already knew, but one call in particular caught Watson’s eye.

Jill cocked her head to the side. “What is it, Hi?”

“A week ago, Brady received a call from David Gregor.”

As it always did, Jill’s stomach dropped when she heard the name. Her pulse quickened and her mouth went dry. It was all Jill could do to keep her hands from balling into fists. As it was, she clenched her jaw, nearly biting her tongue in the process.

Stevens, meanwhile, reached for his phone and pressed it to his ear. “J, it’s Earl. Brady still on your slab?” He locked eyes with Jill, a knowing smile creeping onto his face. “He wouldn’t happen to have his phone on him, would he?”

◊◊◊

As luck would have it, Brady’s phone was still on him. Even better, there were five voicemails on the device. Four of them were of no consequence, but the fifth one was the one that told Watson, Stevens, and Jill everything they needed to know as to why David Gregor would get involved.

“
First of all, you’ve got a lot of nerve showing your face in this city again
.” This was as angry as Jill had ever heard the billionaire, and the edge to his voice made her visibly uncomfortable. “
Secondly… I know all about you and Paulson. What you did to Carlos Grainger all those years ago. I was content to let it all slide, but now that you’ve led Officer Carter into this mess… well, we can’t have that, now can we? You better clean up this mess, and clean it up fast… otherwise, I go public with what I know.
”

Watson glanced between the other two in the room. “What do you think he meant by
clean up this mess
?”

Stevens huffed a frustrated breath. “You don’t think he ordered the hit on the DA, do you?”

No… no way. Gregor wasn’t that stupid. Was he? Based on the evidence presented to her former crew, Jill had every reason to believe Ramona Parish’s assassination was the act of a lone wolf. Someone with a superiority complex and the arsenal to match. Gregor was a lot of things, but dim enough to hire a self-important hothead to assassinate an elected official in broad daylight and on national television?

Hardly.

Still, the fact that Gregor was behind the scenes of all this, pulling his own strings… it wasn’t necessarily surprising, but the fact that he had put forth such effort in making Jill realize he was on her side for all of this reaffirmed her earlier suspicions. Jill knew there had been an ulterior motive somewhere, and the voicemail he had left for Sam Brady all but confirmed it.

But Jill still had questions to answer. Even as Watson and Stevens kept bouncing theories off of each other, knee-deep in the minutia of their official investigation, one question kept bouncing around in Jill’s head:

What was Gregor’s connection to Officer Carter?

“Hold up,” Jill said. “Those pictures we found on Carter’s computer. The money laundering. As long as Carter was just taking money on the down low and letting product into West Baltimore, Gregor didn’t give two shits.”

Watson nodded. “But once Carter connected to a dead body…”

“He becomes a liability.” Stevens shook his head and cocked his head to the side, cringing when something in his neck popped. “Which explains why Richy Rich came out so strongly in defense of our victim.”

Jill gritted her teeth together. “Playing me in the process.”