“Noticed the paint’s peeling outside,” I mused.
“That’s what I get for hiring that yahoo’s crew outta Lawlerville. Did a shit job with shit paint because they don’t give a shit. Pardon my French. None of them live here to be embarrassed by watching their half-assed work flake away.”
“Bet some motivated young labor could get the job done for you for the cost of materials.” I nodded toward the hallway.
Big Nicky’s smile was slow. “Huh. You might be right, Chief. Nothing like a little manual labor to keep you out of trouble.”
I hooked my thumbs in my belt. “That option sits well with you, I’ll talk it over with their parents. I have a feelin’ they’ll be amenable.”
“I’m feelin’ pretty amenable myself,” he said.
“Then I’ll get ’em out of your hair and we’ll work it out with the parents.”
“Appreciate that, Chief.”
I found Grave standing guard over the boys, frowning like a terrifying specter.
“All right, gang. I’ve got a one-time offer for you that’s gonna save you from a lifetime of grounding and me an acre of paperwork…”
Grave and I trooped the boys out the back and into my SUV to keep the gossip mill from getting any hotter. Piper greeted the troublemakers with nervous peeks between the seats.
We ran through the situation with Toby’s and then Kyle’s parents. Punishments were doled out, community service and official apologies agreed upon.
“My dad ain’t home,” said Lonnie, the remaining member of the felonious trio in the back seat. “He’s workin’ a double.”
Piper wagged her tail from her perch on Grave’s lap.
“I’ll get a hold of your dad at work,” I told him.
Lonnie stared out the back window, looking mournful. “He’s gonna kill me.”
That crust of tough wasn’t as thick as he thought it was.
“He’s gonna be mad. But mad means he cares,” I told him.
“I fucked up.” The kid winced. “Sorry. I mean screwed up.”
Grave and I exchanged a look.
“You ever set fire to your daddy’s shed with fireworks you stole from your drunk neighbor?” Grave asked him.
“No! Why? Someone say I did?”
“You ever get busted for fighting four guys on the playground just because they said your brother was an asshole when they weren’t wrong and your brother was an asshole?” I asked.
“No. I only have sisters.”
“Point is, kid, we all fuck up,” Grave said.
I met Lonnie’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “What matters is how we handle things post-fuckup.”
“Wait. You guys did all that?”
Grave smirked. “And more.”
“But we learned that raisin’ hell gets old and the consequences of bad decisions last a hell of a long time.” Lucian came to mind. I’d wondered over the years what path he would have followed if he’d had it easier in the beginning. One thing was for sure, he never would have ended up behind bars at seventeen if someone had given him a chance. “That goes for life and women and everything in between.”
“You should be writin’ this down, kid. This shit’s gold,” Grave told our passenger.
After dropping Lonnie off at home and calling his father at work, I sprang for sodas at the Pop ’N Stop. I parked in the school zone to scare the shit out of speeders…and to annoy Nolan, who stuck to my ass like glue in his black Tahoe.
Grave took off his KPD cap and rubbed a hand over his bare scalp. “Got a minute?”
That was never a good sign.
“Problem?” There was a reason he hadn’t wanted to have this talk at the station, I guessed.
“Dilton.”
And there was the reason. Tate Dilton had been a rookie patrol cop when I’d taken the helm from longtime chief Wylie Ogden whose decades of good-ol’-boy “leadership” had left a stain on the department.
Dilton was what I labeled a “jock” in the profession. He wanted the adrenaline, the pursuits, the confrontations. He enjoyed showing off his authority. His takedowns were more aggressive than necessary. His citations were lopsided with him coming down harder on people who rubbed him the wrong way personally. He also spent more time in the gym and at the bar than he did at home with his wife and kids.
I just plain didn’t like him.
Clearing out the entire department when I took over hadn’t been an option, so I’d kept him on, invested time trying to mold him into the kind of cop we needed behind the badge. I partnered him with a solid, experienced cop, but training, oversight, and discipline only went so far.
“What about him?” I asked, reaching for my drink so my hands had something to do.
“Had a few issues with him when you were laid up.”
“Such as?”
“He was a dog off the leash while you were on leave. Roughed up Jeremy Trent for public intoxication in the parking lot after the high school football game couple of weeks ago. Unprovoked. In front of the guy’s kid—defensive tackle—who got in Dilton’s face along with half the team. Rightfully so. Things woulda gotten real messy if Harvey and a couple of his biker buddies hadn’t stepped in.”
Fuck.
“Jeremy okay? He press charges?”
“Laughed it off. Paid his fine. Pair of bruised knees and some road rash as souvenir. Didn’t remember a damn thing after sleepin’ it off. But there would have been a hell of a lot more to remember if it had gone any further.”
Jeremy Trent had been captain of the baseball team and beat out Dilton for homecoming king their senior year of high school. They’d had more than a handful of run-ins over the years ever since. Jeremy was an affable guy who worked for the sewer authority and drank too much on the weekends. He thought he and Dilton were friends. But Dilton still seemed to think they were in some kind of competition.
Grave’s mouth was tight as he stared through the windshield.
“What else?”
“Tried to take a traffic stop too far. Real nice Mercedes SUV goin’ just a hair over the speed limit on the highway. Just got passed by a souped-up pickup going about twenty over the limit. Dilton ignores the truck driven by his drinkin’ buddy Titus and pulls over the Mercedes instead. Black driver.”
“Goddammit.”
“Dispatch flagged me as soon as Dilton called it in. Had a bad feeling about it so I headed out with Bannerjee. Good thing too. He had the driver out of the car and cuffed, was yellin’ at the wife who was recording him on her phone.”
“Why’s this the first I’m hearing about it?”
“Like I said, you were laid up. And you’re hearin’ about it now cause last night he was overheard running his mouth at that shithole bar Hellhound talkin’ bout how he’s gunnin’ for chief since you can’t do the job.”
Grave pulled no punches.
“I’ll take care of it,” I said, putting the car in gear and scaring the hell out of seventeen-year-old Tausha Wood when I pulled out behind her pickup truck.
“Now?” Grave asked.
“Now,” I said grimly.
A day ago, I wouldn’t have had the energy for this shit, but I’d woken up with a mostly naked Lina pressed up against a mostly naked me. It was more powerful than any prescription I’d tried.