“After the accident, he was a lot different. It was like he got his innocence back or something. But I couldn’t forget what he was like before. I was never able to forgive him.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“We all make mistakes.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you ever think you made the wrong choice? That you should’a just stuck to the academic world?”
“Sometimes. I think everyone second-guesses their career at some point. It definitely would’ve been easier on my marriage. But there was something about it. I don’t know. It was like a cave. People in academia seclude themselves. I think they do it on purpose. They don’t want to know what’s going on in the real world or deal with its problems. They want to work on theories and leave the application out of it. That never settled well with me. I’m not a Marxist by any means, but he had a point when he said that philosophers just want to interpret the world when the point is to change it.”
“My mom always pushed me to become a nurse. She thought that being a cop was only for men. She was really one of those people who thought men do some things, women do others, and that’s the way we’re born. I hated that because she would never come to my baseball games or wrestling matches.”
“You wrestled?”
“Hell yes, I wrestled. I kicked ass at it, too. If they had a women’s wrestling team at UNLV, I would’ve definitely been on it.” She suddenly looked disturbed, as though an unwanted thought had pushed its way into her mind. “You seem like a really nice guy, Jon. I wish-”
“Officer Jon.”
Stanton looked up and saw Tyler walking toward them. He looked worse than he had yesterday, as if he’d already aged. His skin was green and sagging, and he had dark circles under his eyes. He sat down at the booth without being invited to do so and leaned his head back against the cushions.
“Do you want something to eat?” Stanton asked.
“Yeah, man. Definitely. I’ll take a burger, some tacos, and fries.”
Stanton called the waiter over and ordered. After the waiter left, Stanton waited a few moments before speaking again. “What was it you wanted to talk to me about, Tyler?”
“Freddy. First off, man, you can’t bring my name into this. I’m fuckin’ serious. They will cut off my balls and feed ’em to me.”
“We never met. I promise you.”
“Brody and them, they was the ones that did Freddy.”
“They killed Fredrick Steed?” Mindi chimed in. “Why?”
“They was paid to do it. A lotta money, I guess.”
“Who paid them?” Stanton asked.
“I don’t know. Brody talked to ’em. They didn’t tell me until they was gonna do it ’cause they knew we was tight. When you spend time in a cell, you grow tight like we was. Freddy wasn’t bad. He didn’t deserve to go out like that. Check this out, though-they made me record it.”
“On what?”
“My cell phone.”
“Do you have it here?”
“Yeah.” He pulled out his phone and fiddled with it for a few seconds. He turned it toward Stanton.
The screen was dark at first. An interior light came on, revealing a figure in the driver’s seat of a car. His hands were tied to the steering wheel with a thin rope, and a piece went around his neck and wrapped around the car seat. Even though his eyes were bulging from being choked and his cheeks were puffy and red, Stanton could see the countenance of the little boy from the video he had watched.
Brody came into view. “You see what happens when you fuck with the Brotherhood?”
He poured lighter fluid over Freddie’s face then emptied a gas can over him. Freddie was suffocating from the fumes and coughing violently. Brody threw the can into the passenger seat and pulled out a book of matches. Freddie pleaded through his coughs and wheezing. Brody grinned and threw a lighted match into the car.
The intense light from the flames made the screen go white. Freddie’s muffled screams were audible. Stanton could hear Tyler swearing, yelling, and crying. The video ended.
“You stood by and watched while they did that to your friend?” Mindi asked.
“There was like twenty people there, and everybody’s got guns. What was I supposed to do?”
“You were supposed to stop them. You’re a coward.”
“Mindi,” Stanton said softly. His eyes locked on hers briefly; she exhaled loudly and sat back in her seat, folding her arms. “Tyler,” he said turning toward the young man, “I need your phone.”
“What for?”
“I need to authenticate the video and make copies. I’ll get it back to you as soon as possible.”
“What am I gonna do without a phone? I need my phone.”
Stanton pulled the phone out of his reach. “I’ll pay you for it. Enough to get a new phone, but I need to take this one with me. It’s evidence.”
“Well, I ain’t gonna be in trouble, right? I mean, I came to you guys and brought you the video and everything.”
“I’ll do everything I can to protect you.”
“That don’t sound like I’m not getting in trouble. You promised you’d keep my name out of it.”
“No prosecutor is going to pursue a case against you for-”
“Pursue a case against me!” he shouted. “Fuck you. You fucking said you wouldn’t say my name.”
“I will do everything-we will do everything we can to protect you. If I have to, I’ll find another way. I keep my promises.”
Tyler stood up and pushed his middle finger into Stanton’s face. “Fuck you!” He stormed out of the restaurant just as his food arrived.
“That went pretty well,” Mindi said.
Stanton tucked the phone into his pocket. “He’s going to have to testify in court against Brody. They’ll need him to lay the foundation for the video.”
“He’s not going to like that.”
“If they’re smart, they’ll give the case to the Feds to prosecute under RICO. I’ll bet Tyler knows everything about their drug trafficking and prostitution rings. The Feds’ll give him immunity and a new life somewhere else. He can start over.”
“There’s no starting over for them, Jon. He can be a meth addict in Billings, Montana, as easily as Las Vegas.”
“It’ll at least give him a chance.”
She shrugged and took a bite of Tyler’s burger. “So, what next?”
Stanton took out some cash and left it on the table. “Take it with us. I need to see your captain.”
35
Parr was sitting at his desk, filling out a report, when Jay knocked on the door.
“Come in,” he shouted. No one came into his office without asking first. He had established that rule the day he’d been made captain.
“Cap, we got a hit on the home invasion in Cal’s case.” Jay sat down across from him and flipped through a file until he found the document he was looking for. “Seryoga Melikov. Thirty-three, a Russian immigrant with a rap sheet longer than my cock.”
“That wouldn’t take more than a couple charges.”
Jay smirked and went on. “Lives in Trenton, New Jersey, and-get this-flew out to Las Vegas the day before he broke into Cal’s house. We got him on a Delta flight. There’s even a video of him almost punching out one of the female desk attendants at the terminal because they bumped his flight a few times and were rude to him. He got cited for disorderly conduct and threw the citation in the trash before boarding his plane.”
“Sounds like a peach. What else?”
“Got a few strong-arm robberies. We talked to his girlfriend-well, his ex-girlfriend. He put her head through a glass door, and she dumped him after that. She said he’s an asshole with a gun. Apparently, he slept with the thing.”