Give me a chance

Chapter 4

"So, I guess the first thing we need to do here is talk about what happened with your father," Rose said. "Was he involved in any of this?"

"No, no my father was a good man. He was killed because of what he knew about David and his organization. He had been investigating them for a while, privately of course. He knew he had to have all his ducks in a row before he could go to anyone and tell them about what David was doing. The night my father was killed, David had come to the house to ask my dad about why he was asking around about a shooting where David had been the responding officer. Apparently David had responded to a call for backup on a standard traffic stop that ended up being a major drug bust. The first officer had called and said that there was heroin or cocaine or something and a lot of cash. When David got there he called in and said that the two suspects and the officer were all dead. The two suspects were handcuffed and lying on the curb. They figured that the officer was still searching the car, which is why they would be sitting on the curb. And the officer was dead in the suspect vehicle. All the money and drugs where gone. It was assumed it was a third party who had happened along the bust. The officer had been shot with his own weapon. The weapon was gone too.

"They investigated and David was cleared. A couple of months later, my dad found a bunch of money and a couple of baggies of cocaine in the shed underneath the tools. He never said anything to anyone about it. My dad loved David. I mean, when he joined the Rangers, you couldn't get the smile off his face for months. He was suspicious about it though. I think my dad started asking around about this, moreso because he was determined to find out that David was innocent of this then to bust him. That's when he started to find evidence of other things. Bigger things. Things that involved people in high places. Many of them in law enforcement.

"This was right around the time that I was realizing I was gay. It wasn't any secret that my father disapproved. We hadn't spoken in months. One night I was out drinking with some friends and I stated doing that 'I want to fix every problem in my life right this minute' thing people do when they're drunk. So I went over there. I heard them yelling in the shed, so I walked over there and went inside and that's when I saw it. David..." Rosie stopped then, needing a minute to let the memory pass so as to continue. Then she looked up and said, "David shot my father."

They stopped talking for a minute. Rose took hold of Rosie's hands and said, "Do you need to stop Rosie? Take a break?"

"No, if I don't do this now, I may never finish. So, I screamed and David turned around and saw me. I started to run and he caught up with me, and dragged me back in the shed and pointed his gun to my head and walked me over to where my dad was. Then he bent down and took my dad's gun and put that gun to my head and handed me his and told me to fire a shot into the haystacks. I said no at first, and he said, 'I just shot our father, do you think that I won't shoot you or Harley?' So I did."

"So now there's your prints on the gun and gunpowder residue," Rose said shaking her head. "Son of a bitch. So I'm assuming he's wearing gloves?"

"Oh yeah. Then he took me out to the house and made a phone call. He tied me up and gagged me and left for a minute. About, maybe ten minutes he came back in with another guy and I heard David tell him to take me somewhere no one could find me until they could figure out what to do. So this man starts to walk me out to the car and I heard another shot and David screamed. So it was about three days later that David came to where I was hidden and showed me a document that Harley had been made ward of the state. He also said that they were involved with some people who could be in some serious trouble if there were to be an investigation into my father's death. He told me that my father had managed to compile some very damning evidence against some people in very high places. Then he said, you're going to confess to this or Harley will die. There are people here involved that would kill her this minute if I told them what happened. That there were people in this so deep that his arrest warren wouldn't even finish printing before someone would get to her. If you don't believe me than think about this he said: Why are you still alive?"