Grinning, I can tell she’s seeing the but I’ve got coming. “He left Garden City and went to the State Police.”
“And? I mean it’s not unheard of for people to transfer.”
“He’s got exemplary reviews and commendations now,” I say with a shrug of my shoulders.
“Maybe he just didn’t get along with Dickers then.”
“Yeah… but maybe he was drummed out because he wasn’t the right breed of cop Dickers wanted,” I say and pull up another file.
“Patrolman Alvarez. He’s had how many write-ups? How many disciplinary actions against him? And yet, he was trained by Dickers. Dickers even gave him glowing reviews,” I say, pointing at the screen.
“One bad apple theory,” Sophia says, and I can tell she doesn’t like that phrase at all.
“One bad apple doesn’t spoil the whole bunch,” I say. “But when there’s over fifteen?”
Pulling up file after file, I point out the red flags as they pop up, and then I start showing her the information Simon sent along with his conjectures.
“He’s formed a little unit of psychos, Sophia,” I explain. “Just like my family, but his are on the right side of the law.”
“And you guys are on the bad side,” Sophia counters.
“Same coin, Sophia,” I say then pull up Trent’s file. “Ignore the name and tell me if your dad would have kept this guy on the force.”
“It’s Trent, he’s not some… bad cop,” Sophia says with an exasperated roll of her eyes.
“Then look at his file,” I insist and push the laptop into her hands. “Look at all of it. Then look at anyone else you can think of. Tell me what you see.”
Getting up from the couch, I approach Fluffers and smirk. Reaching down, I give her a little rub over her ears before moving off to the bathroom to relieve myself of all the coffee I’ve been drinking.
Glancing back at Sophia as I walk, I do notice she’s drinking water out of a bottle.
Hmm, I wonder if that’s because she thinks I might be right?
Sophia raises her voice to get my attention when I walk back through the living room, heading to the kitchen after relieving myself to start on lunch. “James.”
“What’s up?” I ask, walking back over to where she’s sitting. “Grilled cheeses for lunch?”
“Um, sure. Let me ask you something,” she says, staring down at the screen. “Why do you have all this information about the precinct?”
“Honestly?” I ask and look into those eyes that have haunted me like a specter for so long.
“Always be honest with me, James. Even if it will hurt me, always tell me the truth. I want you to promise it,” she says.
And I can feel that lying to her or failing to tell her the truth, could be the one thing that might tear us apart.
I know everything about Sophia there is to know, and I knew this would be something that came up eventually. She wants the truth. She doesn’t like the little lies and half-truths of the world.
“We’re looking into them because when we were tailing the Russians that night your father died, he was working with us. Your father was working with us and his orders were ignored. Ignored to the point that he was murdered on our doorstep,” I say and sigh quietly.
She starts to talk, but I shake my head at her.
“Listen, Sophia, your father was on the take. He wasn’t a bad cop, but he was on the take with us. I don’t know many city officials who aren’t, it’s the way of Garden City. We pay to keep ours safe and in return we take care of the issues that are darker and crueler than us. Like the Russians who tried to take you girls,” I explain.
“But he was a good cop,” she whispers.
“Actually…” I say. “He was one of the more honest ones, and dangerous because of it.”
“What do you mean?” she asks as I move to sit closer to her, putting my arm around her shoulders.
Tucking her into my arms, I rest my head on top of hers and try to formulate my thoughts on her dad.
“Your dad,” I say, “didn’t want to be one of those guys who looked the other way, and we didn’t need him to be. We kill people. We kill a lot of people. But we never hurt children and rarely women. We have hard rules on women and children. The Russians… they don’t have the same rules as us. Each and every woman in the family has been affected one way or the other by the Russians or groups like them that want to take control of the city.
“Your dad wasn’t stupid. He knew we have our ears further to the ground, and he knew we would do what we wanted regardless of whether he could arrest us or not. He also knew we could do things he couldn’t. We don’t sling hard drugs here. We no longer run prostitution rings. And we are very active in going after anyone who does that shit on our turf,” I explain, knowing she needs to hear this shit because it will come out eventually with her being my better half.