The World in Reverse (17 page)

Nicola turned the television off. “I’ve seen enough.”

She spun around in her chair. “But Nicola we need to watch this to prepare a sound rebuttal through our channels,” Ivy said, going into work mode.

“I don’t want you involved in this, Ivy. How many times do I have to tell you?” he said, turning around to face the counter to hide the sheer anger in his face. He clutched the marble end with his hands until the white in his knuc
kles began to show and bowed his head.

Ivy stood up from the table and looked over her children, who watched on confused and mortified. “Babies, will you excuse us?” she said softly with a painted on smile. Walking over to Nicola, she put her hand on his back and led him into the adjoining entertainment room.

“Nicola,” she said, taking his face into her hands. “Nicky, you have to let me help you. I can,” she pleaded.

He shook his head. “No, I don’t want you anywhere near this. Everyone who gets close is going to get burned.” He slipped her hands into his own as he tried to talk softer.

“I’m your wife. If anyone should be standing beside you…”

“I know you mean well. I do, but you don’t understand what’s happening here. This isn’t something that can be cleaned up with a media statement and news conference. This isn’t something that’s going to just go away.”

“You don’t think that I don’t know that?” she asked, eyebrows spiked. “But you can’t go at it alone. Now, I can…”

His stance was now protective. “Ivy, you’re my wife,” Nicola said, eyes blazing, voice in command mode. “I’m responsible for you and for my sons. And I’m telling you that you are not to get involved. I don’t want one camera in your face and I don’t want one statement out of your mouth. I don’t want anyone to know who you are. Do you understand me?”

Ivy blinked hard.

“Do you?” Nicola growled. His voice rose. He wanted an answer now.

Ivy’s eyes watered at the sheer roughness of his tone. He hadn’t spoken to her like that in so long until she had forgotten what his truly angry tone sounded like.

Shaking her head, she stepped back away from him. “You’re a real bastard, you know that? You put us in this position and then you turn around and tell me that I can’t do anything about it? That we can’t defend ourselves? That we can’t tell people that I’m not married to a racist bigot like everyone is accusing you of being? Yes, I understand you. You’re setting this entire family up for failure,” she said, turning away from him.

Nicola was left speechless. Swallowing down words meant for a harsher audience, he humbled himself.

“Ivy, I'm doing this for your own good,” he said, reaching out for her.

Her shoulders went slack as she heard the pain in his voice, still her temper flared with irritation. The conflicting emotions made the room too small to stomach. “Have you ever given consideration to the fact that you can’t know what our own good is without allowing us to weigh in on it?” she asked, shaking her head. Walking away from him, she headed up stairs to be alone where she could cry in peace.

Nicola pounced down on the side of the sofa and wiped his tired face. “I know what’s best,” he answered her. “And as long as I keep you safe, I don't really give a damn about being a bastard.”

It was a sign that he was truly angry. Nicola only talked to himself, answered others and formulated plans audibly when he was beyond himself, and only one woman could do that to him.

Drive him crazy.

Make him question everything.

Make him regret.

He heard her feet upstairs as she stomped into the bedroom and slammed the door.

That only meant one thing for him.

The damned couch.

As he heard a slap of a small hand against bare skin from the kitchen, one of his sons began to cry. He was about to go in and check on the boys, who were known to break out in fights, when the doorbell rang.

“Really?” Nicola growled.

Stalking through the hallway to the front door, he peered out to find Johnson, una
nnounced and unwelcomed again.

He opened the door quickly. “You know that if you get caught here, then your ass is just as suspended as mine, right?” Nicola asked, pulling him in and looking around outside before he slammed the door.

Johnson looked towards the direction of the kitchen as he heard a child crying. “Is everyone okay?”

“I forgot, you don’t have kids,” Nicola said, locking each metal latch on the wooden door back. The clicking sound of steel echoed down the hall. He rolled his eyes as he turned to Johnson and led him towards the noise. “If they aren’t screaming, crying, laughing, eating or making a mess, then normally something is wrong.”

Johnson raised a brow. “Sounds like fun.”

He could not keep the obvious sarcasm out of his voice. He listened closer and realized that he heard multiple cries coming from what sounded like a football team of children.

They walked into the den, where Nicola took a seat in his favorite reclining leather chair. Johnson sat across from him on the sofa and pulled out the card that Amway had given him.

“The Director told me to give this to you,” Johnson said, looking at the name on the back of the card one last time.

Nicola took the card and flipped it over. Reading the name, he released a long exhale and nodded. “Okay,” he said, biting down on his lip.

“What the fuck does that mean?” Johnson asked, intrigued.

Nicola looked at his watch and stood up. Walking over to the small bar carved into the corner wall and poured himself a shot of Gentleman’s Jack.

Johnson watched his partner as he poured a second shot. “Hey, I’m not opposed to an early morning drink. Don’t get me wrong. But I at least like to know what I’m drinking to.”

Nicola brought the shot glasses back to his chair and sat down. Passing one to Johnson, he raised it. “Here’s to a great fucking career.”

Drinking the alcohol down quickly, he res
ted his head back on the chair.

Johnson was even more confused now. After taking the shot, he put the glass down on the coffee table beside him and rested his elbows on his knees. “Your career? I don’t understand. What does Tate mean?”

“Lt. Craig Tate, a damned fine cop, lost his job after he beat the shit out of the State Senator’s son. Keep in mind that this cokehead had it coming, but the powers-that-be went after his job, and there was nothing that he could do. After the police department fired him, he tried to sue and get his job back, but the guy was just out on his ass. He lost his pension and everything. End of story. End of career.” Nicola smacked his lips together and gave a crooked half grin. “Amway just let me know what I’ve thought all the while. They are going to fire me.”

Johnson’s face mirrored his disbelief. Shif
ting in his seat, he quipped his mouth to say something but was lost for words. Taking a deep breath, he ran a hand over his head and looked at Nicola. “So, what are you going to do, man?” His voice was low and even as to not alert anyone who might pass by the doorway.

That was the million-dollar question for N
icola. What was he going to do? For the first time in his life, he felt like an outsider to the only thing that he had truly felt a part of outside of his family. The Memphis Police Department had shunned him.

“I have to take things into my own hands,” Nicola said finally. His eyes glinted with ma
lice.

16

At near dusk, Carmen closed the back door of her Jeep Cherokee after her daughter, Laila, had slowly slipped out with her teddy bear. Locking hands, they walked up the long drive to her father’s house. It was Thursday night, and her mother had planned their normal bi-weekly dinner to get everyone together for something other than police work.

With Deputy Director Magnelli and Carmen both on the police department, their schedules conflicted on a regular basis, so Sunday dinner had long gone out the window. But Mrs. Ma
gnelli was getting older and wanted to be around her family more, especially with her granddaughter growing so fast.

It had taken some finagling, but she had go
tten them to agree, despite their differences, to cancel all plans once every two weeks to see each other and catch up on things outside of the police department.

As soon as Carmen opened the front door, she inhaled the aroma of a feast slaved over by her mother for hours, maybe even days before. Her daughter, happy to see her grandparents, went running, while Carmen slipped her purse on the knob of the entryway door and made her way back to the den where the family was congregating.

She came into the den, dragging slowly to the couch. Laila was already giggling and twisting into her grandmother’s embrace. “Hey, you guys,” she said, leaning over to kiss her father’s forehead. “What are you old people up to?”

He looked up and grabbed her with one arm. “Hey, princess,” he said, happy to see his daughter. “Just getting older, I suppose.”

“Ma,” she said, walking over to kiss her mother, who was already in the throes of hugging her granddaughter.

“Hi, sweetie,” Mrs. Magnelli said with a smile.

“Dinner smells good. I can’t wait to dig in,” Carmen said, looking over at Collin. “What brings you out?” she asked, eyes narrowed.

Collin was the black sheep of their small family–an indiscretion from her father’s early years on the force.

“Just figured that I’d come out and see you guys,” Collin said, standing up from the chair in the far corner.

“I can grab a chair from the other room,” Carmen said, bidding him to sit back down.

“Don’t be silly. I don’t mind,” he said, offering the last seat in the room. “I’m good. I was just going to the bathroom anyway.”

Excusing himself out of the room, Collin could feel his stepmother’s eyes on his back. She still hated him after all these years, resen
ted him for existing.

Carmen took the seat and looked over at her father with a what-the-hell glare on her face.

Without acknowledging his daughter’s unstated question, he scratched under his double chin and growled. “Well, now that we’re all here, we can probably start dinner. I don't want to keep everyone out all night, Bobbi,” he said to his wife.

Mrs. Magnelli nodded and stood up. Taking her granddaughter’s hand, she smoothed out her skirt and went to put out the last of the food on the table.

“Why don’t you help me, Laila?” Mrs. Magnelli said, trying desperately to keep her attention on the one positive thing in her life at that moment. She gratefully held on Laila’s small hand and walked out of the room, hoping not to run into Collin as she headed into the kitchen.

When Carmen was sure that her mother and half-brother were out of ear shot, she pushed towards the end of her chair and whispered loudly. “Daddy? Why is he here?” she asked.

Her uncle and aunt kept quiet, though their faces told her that they too knew the strain Collin’s presence presented.

“He called and said that he wanted to see us,” Mr. Magnelli answered without lowering his voice. “The boy is part of this family.”

“I never said he wasn’t, but Mom…” Carmen looked over at the doorway again. “Mom is going to throw a fit later and you know it.”

“Your mother will be fine,” Mr. Magnelli said, voice sterner now. He stood up from his reclining chair and turned off the television.

Carmen curled up her lip and dropped the conversation. “If you say so,” she added as one last stab at him.

“I just said so,” Mr. Magnelli said, shaking his head.

Rolling her eyes, Carmen threw up her hands and followed her father out of the room. Quietly, they walked into the dining room where all the food sat waiting on them.

“Mom, this looks great, but you didn’t have to fix so much,” Carmen said, pulling her chair out.

“I’m going to take some over to the McKinney’s tomorrow. Albert has been sick for a week now and poor Marge is exhausted from taking care of him,” Mrs. Magnelli said, setting a final dish on the table.

“You’re a saint,” Carmen professed sincer
ely. She looked over at her father and hoped that he knew the same. Her mother slaved day-in and day-out to give him the best home life that she could. Traditional to her very core, her mother, Bobbi had been devoted to her father since the day that they were married. And still their marriage had been rocky, mostly because her father had a wandering eye…among other things.

Collin entered into the dining room with a smile on his face, looking at the food on the table.

“Looks great, Mrs. M,” he said, pulling out a chair.

“Thank you, Collin,” she said, making he
rself smile. “Well, let’s not stand here looking at dinner. Honey, why don’t you say the prayer so we can eat.”

Mr. Magnelli
quickly bowed his head, wanting to get this night over with quickly. “Let us pray,” he said, making the sign of the cross.

***

There uncle and aunt announced their goodnights as Collin thanked Mrs. Magnelli after dinner for pouring him a cup of coffee as he sat with his father and sister at the dinner table, full and ready to end the evening. With her granddaughter behind her, she quickly excused herself to the kitchen to start the clean-up process that always took the rest of the night.

Unbuttoning his pants and resting back in his chair at the head of the table, Mr. Magnelli looked over his children and did what he no
rmally did after Thursday night dinner. He divulged confidential information with them in the hopes that they could use it somehow to further their careers. It was the way that family on the police department did things. Shared. It was an old custom, but a tried and true one.

Despite his promise to Director Amway, D
etective Johnson and Lt. Thomas, he clasped his hands together, twirling his thumbs around each other and sighed, preparing to get into the details that only three men should have known.

“So, have you all run into any leads that might be helpful with the Baby Boys Case? As you’ve heard, it’s all the Director in his infinite incompetency can think about, like there is no other crime in the city.” He said it with the true disgust that he had for the darkie. Amway was too young for the position that he had been assigned to and way to inexperienced. The job should have gone to him. And he may no qualms about saying so in private settings.

Carmen cringed. She liked Director Amway and more than that, she respected him. “I don’t think that’s all that he cares about. I think that’s what the city is urging him to make a priority and rightfully so, Daddy,” she said, picking up her coffee mug and blowing the contents thoughtfully.

Mr. Magnelli pursed his lips together at his daughter’s statement. She continually stayed neutral regarding most of his statements co
ncerning MPD leadership and would not take a hard stance on the things that he most worried about, specifically her buddying up to some of the darker fellows on the force.

He had heard rumors through his many spies, although his daughter had never uttered a word. Ever since she was little she had been a pacifist. He blamed it solely on her mother and her treat-everyone-equally philosophy on life. If the woman had been on the force as long as he had, then she’d know better. There was no such thing as equal treatment or equal rights. Ever
yone was judged according to their rank, in life, in their jobs, in their community and the lower a person rank’s was, the more they paid for their choices.

Mr. Magnelli looked over at his son, a brooding, muscular mutt of
a boy with more genetic code than a database. Collin had become a cop to please him, but he had been born and raised in a lowly neighborhood off Jackson Avenue. His mother had lied to him when they were together, told him that she was older in hopes of getting her hoods buried deep down in him and being saved from her shot-gun home and waitress job.

It had almost worked. Her bright blue eyes and wide hips nearly convinced him to leave his Bobbi. Nearly. He was pulled back into his senses, however, by his father,
God rest his soul
, who reminded him that he was a Magnelli and the Magnelli men did not run off and leave their wives for non-Italian white trash.

He didn’t get out completely Scott-free, however. Collin had been born amidst an excruciatingly painful part of his marriage and a trying time on the force. The boy’s existence damn near cost him everything. And even after 29 years, his face was still a sore reminder of 18 years of child support, countless years of marriage counseling and still very little true trust between him and his wife. Maybe that was why he never legitimized him until after A
mylyn’s death when it was necessity.

Although it had been hard on Collin, Mr. Magnelli was glad and relieved when his mot
her, Amylyn, had overdosed on heroine. For the first time ever, he happily took the boy in and raised him for his last few years of high school before he quickly sent him to the military hoping that he’d never return.

Collin did, however, return. He came home after receiving a medical discharge and joined the police department.

Now Collin worked on the DEA task force - a job that he had to secure on his own. He was one of the MPD contacts on the team and a quiet worker bee. Collin was never lauded and praised or reprimanded. He simply stayed out of the way and did his job.

Mr. Magnelli, however, did every once in a while throw him a bone, in the form of good Intel, and he would in turn suck up all the information that he could get from his children.

He waited now for some response, but Carmen, normally the first to talk twisted up her lip and shrugged her shoulders. “I haven’t heard a thing, unfortunately. Are they going to put Agosto back on?”

Mr. Magnelli had no clue that his daughter was the one sucking up information for once. Nodding his head with a frown, he confirmed her suspicion. “Amway said that he’s out. The official decision won’t come down for a few days but the investigation is basically over.”

Collin’s eyes lit up. “Wow, they are really going to can him, huh?” He finally took a sip of his coffee. “Does he know it, yet?”

“I think Amway sent word through that ho
oligan mutt Johnson.”

“Why do you call him a hooligan?” Carmen asked protectively.

“Because he is. The damn boy has never heard of a decent suit. He always walks around in jeans and t-shirts, but he wants someone to take him seriously,” Mr. Magnelli huffed. “He’s the type, you know. He watched too many of those fucking Die Hard movies as a kid and thinks that he’s one of the cool ones.”

“He seems smart,” Carmen said with a frown. She tried to readjust her wording, wo
rried that her true emotions for her pseudo-boyfriend might show. “Everyone says that he’s worked his ass off on this case. He’s given 100 percent.”

“What is this
, a Friday night ball game. We’re not talking about a person’s personal best here. We’re talking about dead children and the possible connection to a drug dealer name Cane and his dead business partner.”

Collin’s eyes narrowed. “Rodney Cane?” he asked.

“I’m sure that you’ve heard of him,” Mr. Magnelli said, turning to Collin. “And I don’t have to tell you that this is confidential…”

“When have I ever said a word?” Collin i
nterrupted. “I just wonder if I might be able to get you some info on the guy.”

“Unofficially, Amway wants Johnson to bring him in and get some answers on his whereabouts the night the other dealer was killed,” Magnelli said. “Do you happen to know where he might be?” His eyebrow raised in sarcasm.

“I can definitely put a filler out and see if anyone might know,” Collin said with a pliable voice.

His father could not give an ill response to the boy’s suddenly cooperative nature.

“Do that,” Magnelli said, backing off. “It just might be helpful. But only tell me.”

“I get it,” Collin said with a smirk.

“This isn’t going to go over well on the force,” Carmen said concerned. “No one believes the man should lose his job. I mean sure, he should get some days cut…”

“He damned near killed that boy,” Collin interrupted.

“He kicked his ass. He didn’t almost kill him,” Mr. Magnelli said with little emotion. “Anyway, it is a damn shame, but there is very little that can be done about it now. It seems that Lt. Kat Steele is coming aboard to help iron things out.”

Carmen rolled her eyes. She hated Kat. “I wonder who she had to sleep with to get that job.” She looked at her father accusingly.

“Amway suggested her. So maybe he did,” Mr. Magnelli lied. “The city is at the point of a riot. If the administration doesn’t do something, then Memphis will turn on its fucking ear.”