Pernicious (38 page)

         
Bob and Tasha stood as one.

         
“Not you, Kelvis.”

         
Tasha followed Captain Franklin, humming as he walked, to the commissioner’s office.

         
Commissioner Pruitt stood before a tall window, staring down at Markham Street. He was a short, corpulent man with a full head of red hair that Tasha suspected was a rug. He was wearing civilian clothes. Khakis shorts, tennis shoes and a gray sweatshirt emblazoned LRPD SOFTBALL.
      
“Have a seat,” he offered cordially, not turning.

         
Tasha sat down in one of the folding chairs facing his desk.

         
“Captain Franklin,” he said, “you may be excused.”
   
When he left, Commissioner Pruitt turned to her. His expression seemingly pleasant: “What is your fucking problem?”

         
Tasha held his gaze, his blue eyes intense.

         
“Young woman, do you realize the enormity of your actions? What potential legal problems you’ve exposed us to? A minority woman files a complaint and minutes later the subject of that complaint viciously attacks her. Can you imagine how that would play in the press?”

         
“No, sir, I cannot imagine.”

         
He gave her a long, hard stare. “You can’t justify foolish, immature behavior. As an officer of the law you’re expected to maintain restraint. The basics they taught you in cadet training, do you remember any of that?”

         
Tasha did not answer.

         
He went back to the window. “I see in your file you worked your way to the top. A commendable record…shot to shit!”

         
“Sir, you care to hear my side of the story?”

         
“No, I most certainly do not. Your future as a law officer rests solely in the hands of Perry Montgomery. Is she related to you?”

         
“No, she isn’t.”

         
“If she files a charge against you, and I do believe she will, you won’t be able to work as a school crossing guard. What the hell were you thinking?”

         
“May I be excused?” Tasha asked.

         
“As of now you’re on administrative leave, indefinitely, without pay. There will be an internal investigation and you’ll get the opportunity to present your case. Yes, you are excused. Turn your badge and weapon in to Captain Franklin before you leave.”

         
“Sir, my weapon is at my apartment.”

         
He turned again, shaking his head. “On duty, no weapon! Out-fucking-standing!”

         
Tasha stood quickly, head held high, shoulders squared, and marched out. In the hallway her knees buckled and she half-stumbled and half-ran to the women’s restroom. She did not quite make it inside the stall, vomiting on the recently mopped bathroom floor.

                                     
Chapter 20

         
Neal’s first time riding in an ambulance. He didn’t like ambulances. Twenty years ago, Roy Wilkins and he were on the same teeny league baseball team and Roy opted to catch a pop fly with his face instead of a glove; an ambulance was dispatched.

         
Neal watched in horror as two paramedics loaded Roy onto a stretcher, rolled him into the monster with loud, rotating lights on its head and drove away.

         
Now Neal was inside the monster, feeling as if he, not his wife of three days who lay prone on a gurney, was in trouble.
 

         
Perry, however, seemed more concerned with the mouse-sized knot that had swelled below her left eye. She kept patting it gingerly with two fingers.

         
“Don’t irritate it,” Neal told her.

         
“Honey,” Perry said in a tone Neal thought was more for the paramedics’ ears than his, “do I look ugly?”

         
Neal clasped her hand in his and rubbed it. “You look wonderful.” Perry patted the knot again. “It’ll go down in a few days,” Neal assured her. Her eyes welled up, and he thought she would cry.

         
“I was just thinking,” she said, blinking back tears. “What if something happened to me? You would be all alone…Kiss me, Neal.” He kissed her forehead. “Honey, I can’t stomach the thought of you not having enough to live on if something…” A single tear escaped her eye and rolled down her face.

         
Perry closed her eyes and grimaced. “If I survive this I’m going to ensure you’ll always be financially secure.” She opened her eyes and looked at him. “I promise you. It’s the least I can do.”

         
Maybe, Neal thought, I read her wrong.
Here she is lying on her back in an ambulance and all she’s worried about is me going broke. Yes, she’s a little eccentric…dingy, really. But her heart is in the right place. Money makes everybody a little goofy.

         
“I love you,” Perry said. “With my heart and soul, Neal, I love you.”

         
“I love you, too.”

         
“Neal, sugar, now I think about it, an insurance company will probably insist we sign a joint policy, considering we’re married. You don’t have a problem with that, do you?”

         
“No, I don’t.”

         
“They’ll probably require a blood and urine test. That wouldn’t be a problem, would it?”

         
“I don’t think so.”

         
At the hospital, Neal declined to go inside. “I’ll just wait out here,” he told Perry. He disliked hospitals more than ambulances.

         
Forty minutes later, Perry came out, on her own two feet, wearing a plastic neck brace.

         
“Let’s go, Neal.”

         
“You all right?”

         
“Not really. The doctor prescribed painkillers. He said I came within inches of being stomped to death. Inches!”

         
Neal doubted this but said nothing.

         
Perry waved at a parked taxi. “I hope this erases any doubts you had about your ex’s sanity?”

         
Neal didn’t want to engage in that conversation again.

         
Perry said, “Tasha Montgomery is tripolar. Three types of nutty.” She squeezed Neal’s arm. “Your son would be much better off with us.”

         
Neal jerked away. “Derrick?”

         
“Yes, Neal. Think about it. With us he’ll have a stable home. Look at his current situation. He lives with his mother, who’s crazy as a road lizard, and she leaves him at home alone. Can you enjoy life knowing your son is a few miles away, alone, subsisting on syrup sandwiches, while you and I are living like queens and kings?”

         
They got into the taxi.

         
“Police station on Markham,” Perry told the driver. To Neal: “Just think about it. Okay? In the meantime I’ll call my lawyer and get the process rolling.”

         
Neal moaned and massaged his temples. “Tasha will kill me!”

         
“Would she really? If she were truly concerned about Derrick, she’d put him in summer camp or something, instead of locking him in an apartment all day. I think she’ll be glad you took him. She’ll be free to do as she pleases.”

         
The cab stopped and Perry handed the driver a twenty. “Neal, I’ll be back in a few minutes. Get my change.”

         
“Why are you going back in there?” Neal asked, though he already knew.

         
“I’m going to press charges.”

         
Neal waited by the Mercedes, his head aching full throttle.

         
Fifteen minutes later Perry came out, looking satisfied. “You ready?”

         
“I’m ready. Let’s go home. I have one helluva headache working.”

         
“One more stop, then we’ll go home.”

         
“Where?”

         
“The insurance company.”

         
Perry parked in front of the Premier Palace Insurance Agency, in a strip mall on Mabelvale Pike, next door to an archery shop.

         
She unsnapped the neck brace and threw it in the backseat. “Damn thing itches.”
 

         
Neal was no longer there, his thoughts had drifted to his high school days, when he was the star forward on the Parkview Patriots basketball team, before he busted his knee, when his most pressing concern was which cheerleader he’d choose to accompany him to the motel after the game.
  

         
His mind was in that motel when Perry introduced him to the obese insurance agent with a long nose and yellow teeth.

         
When Perry handed the agent a stack of papers and told him that she and her husband desired a joint life insurance policy, Neal’s mind was on Rebecca Kirpatrick, the redheaded co-captain of the cheerleader team.

         
Just when Rebecca started to slap him silly with her implant-enlarged forty-two’s, Perry nudged him and said, “Sign it, Neal.”

         
“What?”

         
“The papers.”