Chapter 5

“When is state sanctioned police violence going to stop?” Jerome Bradshaw, a popular local TV personality shouted out to the viewers in the audience. The crowd leapt up in their seats, the camera spanning back and forth at a sea of faces.

“LaJuan Homer, Terrance Park, these are young men were involved with Officer Ramone Sanchez. LaJuan’s mother is still looking for her son and he’s nowhere to be found. Terrance is dead.”

Bradshaw gave the appearance of being overwhelmed, his voice cracking while still maintaining eyes contact with the camera. “I’m sorry, ya’ll. Sometimes, I just don’t get why we sit by and do nothing when our children die. My heart aches.”

The TV host sucked in another breath. “Terrance Park is dead. Killed by Officer, no, we’re not going to call this child killer, officer—no, wait.”

Was Ray the only one seeing the light of glee enter the man’s eyes? He could tell the moment the man mentally said, “Aha!” In fact, Bradshaw’s bore a malevolent glow as he announced. “We’re going to call him, Murderer Sanchez.”

The camera was jostled about as people jumped up and clapped. “Murderer! Murderer!”

“Tomorrow, we’ll know whether or not Murderer Sanchez is going to get off scott free. He killed Terrance Park and all we have are excuses from the police department. They’ve clammed up so tight their buttholes can’t—well, I won’t finish that one. This is public TV.”

Ray cursed as the crowd sniggered. He was glad someone found this amusing.

Pictures of LaJuan Homer and Terrance Park came onto the massive screen behind the talk show host. Interesting, they’d only used older high school pictures showing stills of smiling faces. Did anyone remember where these little punks were when he, supposedly, had accosted them? At two in the morning in the dark of an alley. Did they show the tattooed tear drops on LaJuan’s face suggesting either he’d kill people or he’d been in jail? Did anyone have a clue that Terrance Park had terrorized the local neighborhood with his gang called Death Stars?

At least Matthias Dayton, his lawyer, had enough good sense to point out these things during the trial. Conveniently, the media had kept those details out of the news. When they did mention it, it was only in passing.

“Murderer Sanchez, you need to—”

Blood pounded in Ray’s ears as his vision blurred. In a sudden fit, he yanked the empty bottle of whiskey off the table and flung it at the flat screen TV. The screen cracked but the picture remained. He scowled as the bottle clanged and landed on the floor undamaged. He cursed. Those plasma TV’s could take a better hit nowadays.

He scrubbed his face with his hands.

He’d been in a dark hole for the past four months of his life.

Jessie hadn’t left him just to protect Dylan. That, at least, he could have understood. She’d removed herself from his life. His eyes glimpsed at the folded paper on the table. Drops of whiskey had dotted its surface.

“Dissolution of marriage...”

Seventeen years. How could all they had shared be gone with a single phrase? “Dissolution of marriage...”

Nothing scorched his soul as much as when he saw those papers. Not the hate mail. The death threats. He’d fallen to the floor when he received those papers, all the strength gone out of his legs.

He loved Jessie! She was supposed to be his ‘forever girl’. But, she had succumbed to the media machine of hate and propaganda. She might as well have been co-hosting the TV show with Jerome Bradshaw.

Dylan had, at least, reached out to him. His son had inherited that sense of loyalty which wouldn’t allow for total desertion. Ray remembered the last call he’d received where Dylan simply said, “I don’t know what to believe anymore, Dad.”

Remembering Dylan’s last remark forced tears to trail down his father’s cheeks. The tears Ray had managed to contain until his heart was pierced by his son’s uncertainty.

“Me too, son,” Ray wailed in the silence of the room. “Me too.”

He didn’t know what to believe either. A woman marries him for better or for worse. When it gets hot, she leaves. The people he’d sworn to protect because he wanted to be an everyday hero are now calling for his head?

What did he have to believe in anymore?

Sobs took over his body. The alcohol he’d imbibed had stripped away his self-control. The rickety wooden chair he sat in suddenly broke. Ray clattered to the floor like a bag of bones.

Ray curled into the fetal position on the floor, still sobbing.

From the distance, he heard the front door unlock. He heard the squeal of its hinges; heard the subtle footsteps; heard the click of the lock back in place; heard the deliberate footsteps against the wooden floor as someone made their way to where he lay.

The footsteps stopped near his head. Was it the robot coming to kill him? If it was then he’d happily accept his fate. He closed his eyes and wished for death with every cell in his body.

When he finally opened his eyes, his vision was blurred. He was still able to make out the gray-suited man with dark curly hair gazing down at him.

Death wore a cloak, not a suit.

“Go away, Matthias,” Ray moaned. “Leave me like everyone else has.”

“Leave you?” He saw his lawyer glance over at the table and reach over to pick up the divorce papers Jessie had sent. After a brief moment, the man said, “Damn.”

Perhaps it was the way he said it, so matter-of-fact, that it made Ray wipe the moisture from his eyes. Jessie wanted a divorce. Stuff happened that you can’t always control. Get off the ground and deal with it.

He got up on unsteady feet as the alcohol messed with his equilibrium. He wondered if he’d have a pounding headache to accompany the handcuffs which were sure to be clasped around his wrists tomorrow.