Absolute Devotion Ch. 10

"What do you mean?"

The police officer pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket, unfolded it, scanned it quickly, sighed and then answered my question. "We have reason to believe that after you punched Ray Mundo in the nose that further acts of violence were perpetrated upon his person and that he never left this apartment on his own power."

"Why are you here telling us this? Isn't this something Detective Haggerty or Detective Cheap Suit would normally be telling us?"

"I'm here in their stead."

"In their what?"

"Stead. I'm here in place of them."

"Why?"

"I was in the neighborhood."

"You said you were tied up for hours with a home invasion and were supposed to be here earlier."

"I may have said that, yes."

"I think you need to leave. Erica is innocent of Ray's murder and you already have the killer in custody."

"He escaped custody this afternoon."

"How?"

"I'm not at liberty to say, other than to say that he did. He is on the loose and we believe someone is helping him to get out of town."

"Erica didn't help him escape."

"We believe he tried to escape because he is innocent. In my experience, guilty men never try to escape from jail, the guilt weighs them down too much. An innocent man will be lighter in his conscience and be able to flee with greater ease."

"Is that really true?" I asked, very much surprised by this revelation.

"Yes, and this is why we are looking at Erica again for Ray Mundo's murder."

"None of this seems to be on the up and up to me, but I'm not all there."

There was a loud banging on the door to the apartment. I went and opened it to find Detective Cheap Suit and two other uniformed police officers standing there. When combined with the officer who had already arrived, Jimmy's equation was complete. It was the detective and three cops, just like he told me.

"What's going on?" I asked the detective. "What's going on?"

"We need to take Erica into custody," he told me.

"I thought you were coming over tomorrow night?" Erica said after coming out of her room wearing a tight white t-shirt and pink fleece sleep shorts. She looked very sexy and I was getting extra hard looking at her.

"Things changed," Detective Cheap Suit told her. "We need to take you in, tonight."

"Take me in? I thought you were just going to question me again?"

"We have evidence," the detective said. "We have evidence that puts you at the scene of the crime, where Ray Mundo was thrown into the water."

"What kind of evidence?" Erica asked.

Detective Cheap Suit held up a gold ankle bracelet with Erica's name on it. "Are you missing something?" he asked.

"I was wondering what happened to that," Erica said and put her hands up on her face and made an expression just like the kid from the 'Home Alone' movie posters.

The detective had Erica put her hands behind her back and he secured her wrists with handcuffs. Then, just as he was about to lead her out of the apartment, and just before she took the sneakers I offered to she wouldn't hurt her beautiful feet walking outside barefoot, she said something.

"Is there any way we can make a deal here?"

"What do you mean?" Cheap Suit asked her.

"Well, you've caught me. You've found the evidence that can put me away for a very long time. I don't have anything to lose. Is there any way we can make a deal here?"

Detective Cheap Suit, whose name was actually Detective Rosewood, began rubbing his chin thoughtfully with his hand. The three police officers began doing the same, and for a couple of minutes they all appeared to be lost in thought, trying to determine a way to resolve the situation at hand to everyone's benefit.

Rosewood then walked behind Erica and unlocked her handcuffs and removed them. He turned towards me and motioned for me to turn around.

"I didn't do anything," I pleaded.

"You assaulted Ray Mundo. You confessed to that much."

"I didn't kill him!" I cried out.

"Turn around."

With tears in my eyes, I turned around and allowed Detective Rosewood to cuff me. Because of my cast, they had to do some "adjustments," but they weren't satisfied. Rosewood told one of the officers to go out to his car and bring back "the serious shit."

I stood there, wild eyed and confused, while Erica went over to the couch and sat down. The officer came back in with a menacing set of manacles and chains.

"What the hell is that?" I asked.

"You are a very dangerous felon," Rosewood told me. "We can't take any chances. You already assaulted one man, and possibly killed him, so we have to follow procedure."

The officer, who I learned was named Officer Bill, attached manacles to my ankles and then drew the chains behind my back and secured them to the handcuffs. I was barely able to move in small, shuffling steps, if at all. Then Officer Bill forced me down into a kneeling position on the floor.

"Why don't you confess to killing Ray Mundo," suggested Detective Rosewood as he lit a cigarette and began smoking.

"We don't smoke in the house," I told him. "Sometimes Erica has a cigarette, but she smokes it outside."

Rosewood sighed. "If you confess to killing Ray Mundo we won't have to arrest Erica. With the evidence we have, the only way she can escape prosecution is if someone else confesses to the crime."

"I thought someone else already confessed," I told him.

"He escaped."

"And that invalidates his confession?"

"Pretty much."

"I don't understand how that is possible."

"Did you go to law school?"

"No."

"Then shut up. Either you confess to the crime and allow us to take you in or we'll arrest Erica and put her in the holding sell with those two old ladies."

"Which two old ladies?"

"The ones who assaulted her at the tennis match. They escaped and were recaptured and they are in a holding cell right now at the station."

"How many people escape from police custody in this town? What do you have, a revolving door on your jail cells?"

Rosewood smacked me across the face with a leather glove. "Don't get smart with me, tough guy."

I'd never been called "tough guy" before and it allowed me a moment of happiness in all the chaos surrounding me.

Erica got up and dropped down on her knees beside me. She looked up at Detective Rosewood, her beautiful blue eyes tearing up, and pleaded for my life.

"Please, Detective Rosewood, don't take my sweetheart to jail. I couldn't bear it."

"We don't have a choice, either you or him."

"What if there was another way?" Erica asked.

"I don't see any other possible way, but I'm open to suggestions."

Erica was kneeling to my right and Detective Rosewood was standing to my left. As I waited, wondering if there could possibly be another solution, Erica crawled on her knees towards Rosewood and began unbuckling his belt.

"I'm starting to see a potential alternate solution," laughed Rosewood maniacally.