Rushing In Page 3

  “Don’t most handcuffs that are sold at shops like this one have a safety release?” Bradley asks.

  I stare at him, wondering how he has this knowledge. “I… guess. I’m not an expert on handcuffs.”

  “I don’t know. I saw you handcuff that guy the other day, and it was just a flick of the wrist,” he says.

  “You mean when I dropped the handcuffs before kicking them under the table and had to drag the man over to them?” I ask.

  He starts laughing as he nods. “Yes! That one.”

  Of course he was watching. “I do that to make the people I’m arresting loosen up. They relax, and then when they try something, I’m like a cheetah.”

  “Oh, I can see it.”

  “I know, right?”

  “Sleeps a lot, unsocial around others… yeah, definitely.”

  I shake my head. “I used to think you were nice, but now I’m realizing that you’re evil.”

  He grins at me. “Thank you.”

  We watch as Jamal walks out of the store without giving us anything concrete.

  “So he bought handcuffs, appeared to be texting someone, and was alone,” I say.

  “Hmm…” Bradley taps his finger on the desk. “Let’s swing through a drive-through and grab something to eat. While we do that, let’s figure out if he’s been active on any of his social media sites. He could have been messaging someone through one of those.”

  “Sounds good,” I say as we head into the main part of the store. Ace and Wilder are there, holding a phone between them.

  When Wilder sees us, he passes the phone to Ace and heads over. “Did you find anything that’ll help?”

  “Not much, but thank you so much for taking the time to help us,” I say as I shake his hand.

  “Of course. If you need anything else, don’t hesitate to return. We’ll help in any way we can. We were just talking to another one of our employees, but she doesn’t remember seeing him either,” Wilder says as he shakes Bradley’s hand.

  “Here’s my number in case anyone thinks of something,” Bradley says as he passes it over.

  “Let me give you mine,” Wilder says as he hurries over to the counter and jots it down before passing it over.

  While he’s doing that, I glance over at the row of books, but they’re too far away for me to see much of anything. I really don’t need to know what Bradley was up to. In fact that’s pretty nosy and rude of me to even think about.

  We turn from Wilder and head back toward the door, and that’s when I see a mannequin wearing a very modified version of a police uniform. I stop in front of it. “Maybe if you were wearing this when you interrogated people, they might be more willing to talk,” I explain to Bradley before wondering if I would be the only one willing to talk about anything. I’m pretty sure he could convince me to tell him my bank account number if he was wearing that.

  “They probably wouldn’t even hear anything I was saying because they’d be too busy wondering if my junk was going to fall out of the bottom.”

  I snort. “You’re awfully optimistic,” I say.

  He grabs a pair of the shorts and holds them up to himself. “Am I?” They’re so ridiculously short that nothing would be able to hide inside them.

  I laugh because I’m not sure they’d even stretch down to his thighs. “You’re right. Even if you had a little nub, it’d be showing.”

  “Hold on, I never said I had a nub.”

  “A little baby carrot would fall out of those,” I say as I head to the door, and Bradley rushes after me.

  “Just for the record, I’m not carrying around a baby carrot. I’ve got, like, a squash in there,” he jokes while trying to keep a straight face.

  I snort.

  “It’s actually tragic.”

  “Sounds depressing.”

  “I cry about it some nights. When I was a child, I’d kneel at the foot of the bed, clasp my hands, and pray, ‘Why, God? Why’d you give me such a huge penis?’”

  “That must have been traumatizing.”

  “Probably not as traumatizing as giving birth to a cat, but it’s up there.”

  I glare at him as I stop by the side of the car. “Alright, Mighty Schlong, get in the car.”

  He starts laughing as I get in and he follows suit. “Just because I don’t want you spreading the rumor that I’m in love with myself and like to talk about my squash, I want to clarify it was all a joke.”

  “Really? I thought you were being serious.”

  He shakes his head. “I just give up. I’ve embarrassed myself enough.”

  “That’s alright—join the party.”

  “You’re so much more fun than Davies. She liked to talk about knitting kittens alllll the time.”

  “Knitting and kittens?”

  “No, she’s allergic to cats so she had to knit her own kittens.”

  “Oh my god. That’s… depressing.”

  “I’m not making fun of her… at all,” he says while trying to keep a straight face.

  “Imagine being allergic to the one thing you love the most and having to knit it in order to love it. You’d basically have to knit yourself a penis.”

  “I don’t love my penis more than anything!” he says.

  “Huh… I guess I’ve been getting a strangely wrong impression of you,” I say as I pull out my notebook and glance over it. “Back to our job that we’re supposed to be working on…”

  “Right. Let’s check out his social media in case he posted something today.”

  “Okay, I’ll ask Tanner if he can give me Jamal’s usernames,” I say as I pull out my phone and see that I have a missed text from my father.

  Dad: Have you turned into a prince yet or are you still an ugly frog?

  Me: What are you going on about?

  Dad: Didn’t know if you pinned him to the ground and forced him to kiss you.

  Me: You are mean and heartless.

  Dad: Are you sure? Because I’m the one happily married and you’re, what? Thirty-two and have no one?

  Me: I’m twenty-nine.

  Dad: That’s just as sad.

  Me: I wish you had another child so you could ruin their life instead.

  Dad: But you’d still be my favorite.

  Me: Really?

  Dad: To torture.

  I ignore him and call Tanner as Bradley goes through the drive-through. When Tanner doesn’t answer, I look over at Bradley. “If you’re concerned your friend is missing, why wouldn’t you have your phone on you?”

  “Good question,” Bradley says as he pulls into a parking spot and hands me a burger. As we eat, we pull out our laptops and nose through whatever social media sites we can find that belong to Jamal.

  My phone beeps and I pick it up, expecting Tanner, but I see that it’s a message from Ronda who works at the station, texting to tell me that there have been no John Does at any of the nearby hospitals. I give Bradley this information before calling Tanner again, but he still doesn’t answer.

  “Do you find that concerning?” Bradley asks as he finishes up his burger and tosses the wrapper in the bag.

  “Slightly. I suppose he could be in class.”

  “Oh, that’s true… let’s give him a few more minutes.”

  That’s when the phone rings, and I recognize the number as Tanner’s.

  “This is Officer Michaels,” I answer.

  “Officer, we found Jamal. Someone beat him up, but I don’t know what happened,” he says as quickly as he can.

  Chapter Four

  “Alright,” I say as I put Tanner on speaker. “Tell me everything that happened. You said someone found Jamal?”

  Tanner takes a deep breath before continuing, but his voice keeps catching, telling me he’s really upset. “Yes, this lady found him in an alleyway. She thought he was dead, but when she walked up to him, he came to. He had her call me and pleaded with her not to call 911. But when I got here and saw how bad he was, I talked him into letting me call for help. That was ju
st a couple of minutes ago. We’re waiting for the ambulance now.”

  “Okay, can you tell us where you’re at? We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

  “Yes! Please! He didn’t want me calling anyone, though. He wanted me to just take him home, but he’s really hurt.” His voice shakes as he talks.

  “You did the right thing,” I assure him.

  “Okay, good. Umm… off Baker Street. We’re in an alley between the bakery and that bar… I don’t remember the name of it. But it’s just down the block from our house.”

  “Okay, we’ll be there in about five minutes. Has he told you anything about what happened?”

  “He just said some guys jumped him… he doesn’t know. I… I should get back to him. He’s calling for me.”

  “No problem. Go back to him,” I say.

  He hangs up, and I turn to Bradley, who says, “Well… I guess we know where he’s at. That’s a relief. Bad things don’t happen around here very often, but you never know.”

  “That’s very true. I’ll radio it in so they know someone found him and tell them that we’re headed to the location.”

  “Sounds great,” he says as he begins to drive. I reach out to the dispatcher and let her know we’re headed to the scene.

  When we reach the alleyway, there are already police on scene and an ambulance is parked nearby. Bradley pulls up along the side of the road with his flashing lights on. We get out in time to see Jamal being wheeled out of the alleyway toward the open ambulance. One of the EMTs gives us a nod of acknowledgement as they wheel Jamal past us. When they turn the gurney, I get a good look at Jamal, who is covered in blood. His face is a mess of deep bruises, his clothes are dirty and torn. He’s shaking uncontrollably as the EMTs try to calm him.

  Once they slide him in, one EMT stays with him while another turns to us. “Afternoon, officers. The guy’s friend is right down there if you want to speak to him. They’ve currently told us nothing about what happened, but we do know his name is Jamal Wilson.”

  “Good to know. We’ll be by to see him in a bit. Thank you,” Bradley says. We walk over to Tanner, who is crouched in the middle of the alleyway, his head in his hands.

  “Hey, Tanner,” I gently say as we walk up.

  He jumps and quickly looks up at us with wide eyes that are red from crying. Bradley kneels in front of him as Tanner wrings his fingers that are covered in dried blood.

  “Are you alright?” Bradley asks.

  “Y-Yeah. I’m fine. Relieved he’s alright… upset he’s hurt. But he’s fine,” he says as tears begin to fall. He quickly stands up and turns away from us, like he’s embarrassed.

  “You want to head to the hospital? One of the other officers can take you while we see if we can find anything.”

  Tanner nods. “Yes… I want to go, but I can drive myself… I’m fine.”

  “It’d be very easy for them to drive you, and then we’ll meet you there when we’re done here, alright?” Bradley says.

  Tanner nods as he turns around, head tucked, and hurries away. Bradley looks back at me. “I’ll get him situated and be right there.”

  While Bradley does that, I contact the forensics team and make sure they’re headed here to assess the scene.

  I wait until Tanner is out of sight before walking over to where Jamal had clearly been lying. There’s blood at that spot, but it doesn’t seem to be anywhere else. Did he get attacked here? Or did someone leave him here?

  It’s hard to imagine a big fight broke out here when the ground and area show no signs of a scuffle. And no one came across him until noon? It seems strange to me.

  Bradley comes back after a few moments and helps me document everything we can and talk to the witness. Beyond finding him, she has nothing else to give us that Tanner hasn’t already given. It’s not unusual for cases like this to take a while to connect all the missing pieces, but it’s always disappointing when they’re drug out.

  “What are you thinking?” Bradley asks as we walk back to his cruiser.

  “At first, I was suspicious of Tanner, but if Tanner was involved, it would have worked against him to have talked Jamal into going to a hospital. He could’ve easily taken Jamal home since it sounds like he was adamant about not calling the police.”

  Bradley nods. “Now we have to figure out who Jamal’s trying to protect. There’s a reason why he didn’t want them involved.”

  We drive to the hospital and make our way to the waiting room where Tanner is sitting in a chair. He looks a little more composed, although his face is still horribly pale.

  “Need some water or anything?” I ask him.

  Tanner looks up and shakes his head. “No, that other officer got me a bottle, but thanks.”

  Before we sit down, someone steps up behind us. When I turn and see that it’s a nurse, she gives us a smile. Tanner has popped up beside me, and I know he must be anxious for news of his friend. “Jamal is doing well and said that he’s ready to talk to the officers.” She turns to Tanner. “Once they’re done, I’ll come back and get you and you can sit with him.”

  “Thank you,” Tanner says as he sinks back into his chair.

  She leads us down the hallway and through a door into the open area of the ER. Thankfully, Jamal seems to be fairly alone in his corner, so even though there are only curtains around us, we won’t be disrupting the other patients when we speak to him. He glances up at us when we walk in. The bleeding has stopped and he’s been cleaned up, but his dark skin already shows horrible bruising.

  “I’m Officer Howell and this is my partner, Officer Michaels,” Bradley says. “How are you feeling?”

  “Fine,” he says, not looking fine at all.

  “Can you tell us what happened?” he asks.

  He starts to nod but winces and promptly stops. “I was… heading to work. I was trying to leave, but the car wouldn’t start, so I thought I’d just walk to the bus stop. It’s not that far away.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything to Tanner?’

  “I didn’t think it was a big deal when the bus stop is right down the block like not even five minutes away. So as I was heading there, this group grabbed me from behind and one of them asked for my wallet. I was… I was being stupid. I tried to fight them off because I had all my money for the week in there, you know? It was really stupid… and they kicked my ass and took my wallet anyway. I think they hit my head really hard because I passed out… I don’t even remember anything else until that lady was standing over me. I asked her to call Tanner because I couldn’t find my phone.”

  “You left your phone in the car,” I say.

  “I did? Fuck. I saw it was the last bus for the night, and I must have forgotten it when I took off. Did they take my wallet?” he asks.

  “I’m not sure, we’ll have to ask a nurse,” Bradley says.

  “I should’ve just let them have it.”

  “Did you see who the attackers were?”

  “No, it was dark and they had masks on… like those ski mask things. I can’t tell you anything about them. I think there were four of them… but I don’t know,” he says as he closes his eyes.

  “Jamal?” Bradley asks, but he doesn’t answer.

  “Why don’t we let him rest while we talk to the doctor,” I say.

  “Yeah, sounds good.”

  The doctor tells us what he can about Jamal’s injuries and confirms that he didn’t have his wallet on him when he came in. When we’re done speaking with him and checking on Tanner, we head back to the car and get in.

  “Hmm…” Bradley says as he sits down.

  “Something’s fishy?” I guess, since I’m feeling it as well.

  “That’s an understatement, but there’s not much we can do at this point. He’s been found and he’s safe. We’ll give him some time and see what else we can get from him.”

  “I agree.” I also feel like we’re missing something big, but if Jamal isn’t willing to talk at this point, there’s no sense in trying t
o force him. Especially when he might open up after he’s had some time to process what happened.

  ***

  I’m sitting at my desk when my father claps me on the back. “Good job this morning,” he says.

  “Thanks… although I’m not sure we did much,” I say.

  “Of course you did. Just because you weren’t the one who found him doesn’t mean you didn’t do all you could.”

  I smile at him. “Thanks.”

  “I’m also proud of you.”

  Now I’m wary because he has that shit-eating grin on his face. “Why?”

  “Because there were no sexual harassment complaints filed against you.”

  “Who would file a harassment complaint against me?” I ask.

  He glances over at Bradley, who is hunched over his computer looking like a god, even as he spills coffee onto his pants. He’s so godlike he just glances at it and doesn’t even bother to wipe it up.

  That’s when Dad sticks something in front of my face. I jerk back in surprise before realizing it’s a handheld mirror and I was shocked by the look of my own face.

  “Look at your expression and now ask me again why someone would file a complaint against you,” Dad says into my ear.

  That’s the moment I realize my father literally either brought a mirror or found one to make this joke.

  I slowly turn to look at him as he cackles. “I can’t wait until I can put you in a retirement home,” I growl.

  “Your face,” he cries. “Look at it! Even you were horrified by it!”

  “I will pick the worst one in a city hours away.”

  He’s laughing too hard to even hear me. “Oh, that was the best joke I’ve ever made.”

  “Where they’ll put all your food in a blender and you’ll have to drink it.”

  Dad is too pleased with himself to care about any of my future plans. “I had to ask quite a few people before I found this too. I probably had better things to do, but sometimes inspiration just hits me.”

  “Oh, look at the time. My shift is over. I’m going home and may never return.”

  “That’d be sad. Who would I have to pick on? Ooh, Bradley’s walking over here. Fix your hair. You look like a mess; it’s no wonder why you’re still single.” He licks his fingers and starts smoothing my hair down just as Bradley walks up with a rightfully confused look on his face.