Thorns & Oranges

A Rose After All

"What about him?"

"As I've stated, I know the two of you were involved. What bothers me is how you got together in the first place. Every police officer is told not to get involved with the people they arrest because it could taint the case. If someone they know needs to be arrested, they have to step down and let someone else do it." He cleared his throat, his hands wringing a napkin in front of his face with his elbows propped on the table. "So I went back over what happened that night, like you suggested."

"And?"

"It's complete bullshit. It's only supposed to look reasonable to a glancing eye but if studied a bit, none of it makes sense. At least none of the parts concerning you."

"How so?"

"No cop would stop long enough to help someone who was overdosing, not in a raid. Apprehending the intended target is always believed to be more important. Unless..."

"They see someone who is in clear need of medical attention," I whispered. "I know. It was explained to me."

He nodded. "So that leads me to question what you were really doing in the warehouse that night. You weren't in the drug trade, your Thorn was. Your brother basically kept you separate from everything. It was like you were in the gang without actually being in the gang. At least that's what the docia Organized Crime has on you says. The only time you were involved was when Marco specifically asked for you and that stopped after he turned the Thorns over to your brother. You're a person of interest in several crimes but there was never enough evidence to implicate you in anything. You're like a ghost in the system, you're there but not really."

"My hands are dirty, Houston. Don't ever believe otherwise."

He shook his head in a fraction of disbelief. "Before I got to know you, even in the small measurement that I do, I would've believed that. Considering I saw you lying in a hospital bed for a couple of hours after receiving a beating and upon waking up, you bolted. That was uncharacteristic of you by the way. You don't seem like one to bolt. You face things head on."

"It's a character flaw. They tried to work it out of me in rehab but it didn't take."

"They tried to rid you of the behavior that got you into the mess you were in."

I sighed and scratched my head, fully intending on saying something but every word I tried to speak would stick in my throat, unable to leave my voice box. When he figured out I wasn't going to say anything, he continued.

"I read between the lines."

"And what did you find?"

"Nothing. Not a damn thing and Gutierrez wasn't very forthcoming."

"You went to the Chief." I nodded. "Smart."

"Talk to the guy who filed the report in the first place. That's how I was trained, that's how we were all trained. He asked me to close his door when I respectfully dropped the file on his desk. He was rather tight lipped about it, told me he respected me as a cop and as a man but told me to let this one go. It wasn't a bone I should chew on until it was gone but something I should bury in the back garden so no one could find. Now, I know the Chief. He's a good, fine, upstanding man. He doesn't go out on a limb for anyone, least of all criminals."

I smiled, wanting to cut the tension without fueling the fire he was stoking. "I'm not a criminal. I've never been charged with anything."

"That night you were, at least that's what the report says but there was no record of you going before a judge or a deal with the DA. The only record steaming from that night was a hospital admission of a Jane Doe and even that was blacked out almost completely because she was a minor."