Family Secrets Read online

  Morgan was piecing the details together as he stared at the gun. It was a black .38 caliber revolver. It was impossible to know if the bad guy had thrown the gun on the roof before he got shot, or if it flew out of his hands when he got shot and it landed up here.

  “Mike, get the hell outta here you can’t be around when I call Chief and tell him I found the gun.”

  Mike heart started beating faster feeling as if that was the best news he had ever heard in his life. They had found the gun. Morgan climbed down from the dumpster and pulled his cellphone out.

  Mike slapped the Captain’ s arm in what passed for thankfulness, he started walking away from the alley.

  Colby was not a big city, so it took him only about twenty minutes to walk to his apartment on the other side of town. He had left his squad car at the office when he got in with Morgan, now he grabbed his personal car keys off the bar and went to his car. The 1991 Chevrolet S10 was a junk truck. It had been neglected for way too long before Mike bought it for three hundred dollars at an auction five years ago. He went to the parking spot in the open-air lot that was attached to the apartment building and noticed it had a flat tire.

  Mike wanted to go somewhere, he felt he needed to get out and do something. A flat tire and a junk truck weren’t going to get him very far. He needed to do something. He put the truck keys in his pocket taking off walking for the second time that day.

  As he was walking, he was thinking of the suspect which allowed his mind to wander to other topics. He wanted to know who this young man was and why he decided to commit armed robbery in Colby, a place where most of the crime is of the non-violent nature except for domestic disturbances. Those were always dicey. Nothing said a person was in love with someone quite like beating on them until they lost their will to fight back. This wasn’t a domestic though. So, what was this? A simple hold up for quick cash by a drug infused maniac?

  The body would be sent to Lubbock for the autopsy since it was the biggest, nearest city with forensics capability, maybe then we would know if he was on drugs. The gun would need to be checked for fingerprints, hopefully that was the suspect’s gun. Mike forced that thought out of this mind. They found the gun, that is what he had wanted since this shooting happened. There was no car at Smith’s Market when he arrived on scene. That thought entered his mind in rapid fashion, and that meant the bad guy probably walked to the market. He dismissed trying to trace where he had walked from, because he had just walked all the way across town twice in less than an hour.

  His thoughts cleared as he realized where he was, he felt a bit of panic, he was in front of Smith’s Market again. He was standing at the curb staring at the plyboard window in a position where he could see a flurry of activity in the alley opening.

  Chief Tolliver seen him, shook his head in frustration and came walking towards him. “What are you doin’ here?” He sounded mad.

  “I was passing by.” Mike thought it sounded like a smartass answer, hopefully Chief didn’t take it that way.

  “Well, take my car back to the office and wait for me there. You hear me?”

  “I want to help here.”

  “Did you forget yourself Officer Collins, you don’t back talk me, son, you do as I say.”

  He took the keys to the unit and left the scene for the third time in less than twelve hours.

  4

  As the Chief and the Ranger walked into the lobby Mike checked his watch. Nearly six o’clock, sixteen hours since the call that was responsible for all this chaos. He had been waiting for about two hours and was feeling restless. As the duo entered the hallway walking toward the Chief’s office Mike fell in following.

  “You don’t need to be in here for this!” Murphy said as they entered the office and he took a seat in one of the chairs in front of the desk.

  Tolliver sat down in his chair with a sigh, “Wait a minute! Murphy, you forget yourself it seems. Officer Collins works for me, not you. I say he stays. You on the other hand, are here as my guest, so mind your manners, huh?” Tolliver offered the vacant seat to Mike with an outstretched hand as the Ranger looked on silently. Mike hoped Murphy was feeling as irritated as he had felt earlier this morning when Murphy had been rude to him.

  “Now, we found the gun, I guess you know that though?” Tolliver looked at Mike staring hard. They both knew what was left unsaid. The Chief knew about him being at the scene with Captain Morgan. Hopefully, Morgan would not get in trouble, but apparently the Ranger did not know that Mike had been at the scene. Mike stayed quiet as the Chief continued, “Now, we just need a name for this guy. Ranger Murphy here has drawn a search warrant for the phone, we’re just waiting on the judge to sign it and DPS will do their thing with it.”

  Their “thing” was a process in the police world called a phone dump, where a technician extracted all user information off the phone. Pictures, texts, videos, phone calls, and internet searches were all retrievable. You could trace someone’s life from when they got the phone to when it was analyzed. Most of the time it was effective enough to help an officer’s case, though sometimes there was nothing of value found if the user was savvy enough to cover his technological tracks.

  “I had some of your officers help me with the canvas of the neighborhood, turned up nothing. Nobody knows this guy.” Murphy said, as he placed a breath mint in his mouth.

  “Someone does, we just ain’t found the right someone.” Tolliver said.

  “DPS doesn’t have his prints in the system?” Mike question was directed to the Ranger, but he was interrupted before he could answer.

  The office intercom buzzed, and the voice came over the speaker of the chief’s phone advising someone was in the lobby to see him. Tolliver stood and went to the lobby to see who it was. He opened the door to the lobby seeing a man that looked old and haggard in overalls that had seen better days. Tolliver recognized the man and was startled to realize they were somewhat close in age.

  “George. How can I help you?”

  “My grandson didn’t come home last night. Ain’t heard from him today, either, wonderin’ if y’all heard something?” George Parks was the owner of Parks Hardware Store. It had been his father’s before and he was hoping to pass it to his son, but his son lived off somewhere else and rarely came to Colby anymore. Besides, the store, as local rumor had it, was struggling since the new, larger box store opened outside town about ten years ago.

  Tolliver invited him in leading him into the empty patrol room. Mike joined Tolliver and Parks as the Ranger took his leave.

  “I don’t recall you having a grandson living down here, George.”

  “He just moved down this past week, Chief, he left last night. Wearing a black hoodie thing the kids all wear now. His name is James Parks, he’s eighteen years old or so. I don’t rightly know exactly.”

  Mike caught the chief’s eye, but Tolliver gave no indication of noticing. The dead suspect was dressed like that and around that age. Mike suddenly didn’t like where this conversation was heading. Colby with a population of 10,000 or so people was too small of a town for coincidences.

  “Well, um, George, I’m gonna show you a picture. I want you to brace yourself now and tell me if this is your grandson.” Tolliver pulled from his shirt pocket a computer printout picture of the young man lying on the pavement in the alley. The image looked peaceful, like the he was sleeping, until you realized the young man captured in the image was never going to wake up.

  Mike watched as Parks’ eyes welled up and a tear started leaking from his eye, which he wiped away with one finger. I had killed his grandson, Mike thought, his felt his own eyes tearing up watching the old man.

  “Alright, I can call Pam to come down here if you want me to.” Tolliver said, referring to Pam Parks, George’s wife of nearly forty years. George had married late in life, nearly thirty-five but he had married right. The former Pamela Ann Goodson was twenty-three and feisty back then. Now age had taken a toll on both of them, George was mid-seventies, a
nd Pam, who was a decade younger but looked older than her husband, had had many health problems for many years. Surgeries and doctors had done their damage to her. She was rarely seen in town any-more.

  “No, B.J., I can drive myself. What happened to my boy?” His voice sounded normal as he had steeled himself against the feelings that were under the surface.

  “Well, he was robbing Smith’s Market last night, the responding officer gave chase and your grandson had a gun. Why you think he had a gun, and would do such a thing?”

  “Police killed my boy?” Parks sighed, after a long silence he said, “I don’t know why he had a gun. The officer is okay, right?” The questions came fast as Parks continued to wipe at a few tears that leaked out despite his efforts to remain stoic as he was coming to terms with these new facts.

  Mike stepped out of the room deciding he had had enough for the day. He knew the Chief would not tell Parks who had shot his grandson, that would come later, along with telling Parks the family would have to wait for the medical examiner to be finished before the body would be released for burial.

  Mike got in his squad car but didn’t start it, for the first time since the shooting he cried. Not silent tears like Parks’ had, but big, guttural moans and loud sobs that was even louder in the enclosed car. Mike thought about his first job he’d had in high school, he ended up working there until he went to the police academy. Parks Hardware.

  5

  Mike came awake slowly trying to remember what had happened last night. He had left the police department and driven home where he poured a shot of Jack Daniels from the bottle in his kitchen cabinet. Feeling tired and at odds with himself he only wanted one or two drinks to steady his nerves.

  He sat up on the side of the bed and a wave of sickness washed over him. The Jack Daniels bottle lay empty on the floor by the bed. That explained the underwater feeling in his head. Mike was trying hard to remember last night, he didn’t recall drinking the whole bottle of whiskey, then his thoughts locked on George Parks.

  Poor bastard, thought Mike, I killed the shit out of his grandson. He couldn’t remember which child of Parks that this grandson belonged to. George had a son, who never came around anymore, whose name he could not remember, and two daughters, Christine and Elizabeth. He had known them when he worked at the hardware store, but just in passing, they were all older than him. At his job at the hardware store, he would see the daughter, Christine and her young child, whose name he couldn’t remember either, around the store some. He never seen Elizabeth or the son. George was the main one he interacted with as his wife, Pam, was already in poor health. It had been twelve years since he had first started working at the store.

  Mike managed to shove those memories back into the past and stood up. Half an hour later he was showered and dressed heading out the door to go to the station. He was going to drive the patrol unit to the office this morning. He was not supposed to have the unit since he was officially on leave, but he had driven it home last night, besides his pickup still had a flat. Chief knew he had the unit anyway.

  He stepped out of his apartment into the bright warm sunshine and walked to where he always parked the unit, instead of a marked patrol car, he found only an empty parking spot. He lifted his head in a sign of frustration. The Chief had sent someone to get the car since he technically shouldn’t be driving it.

  An hour later Mike was sweating and covered in grease and dirt, but at least his pickup had four inflated tires. The lug nuts on the flat tire was rusted and hard to get loose. As he got in the driver seat of the pickup, he became frustrated and overwhelmed with the sudden feeling that nothing in his life would ever go right again. He fought the urge to cry again.

  He drove to the police department and pulled into the parking lot, he could see the Chief and the Ranger standing on the sidewalk in front of the building talking. Mike seen his patrol car and he parked next to it. He walked up to the two to join the conversation, he could tell that they were agitated about something.

  “Mike, Ranger Murphy here was telling me the District Attorney is gonna be presenting your case to the Grand Jury as soon as possible.”

  Mike pulse beat faster when he heard the words Grand Jury. It was a group of civilians who had the power to conduct hearings and determine if criminal charges should be filed. It was standard procedure, but it was a cause of panic now for Mike to hear officially that civilians who have never been in a situation like the one he was in now were free to judge his actions. It was the kind of thing that could change a person, and a career, forever.

  “I was telling the Chief here it should all work out now that we found the gun. It looks like the gun from the video, and the lab should have prints back today sometime. Even though your body camera only caught what happened at the front of the store, it didn’t show anything from the alley because of it being too dark, it should be okay. With where the gun was found it still looks as if you might have shot an unarmed suspect. But maybe different theories of how the gun got on the building will answer that. With all the evidence we have supporting your story, of you knowing he had a gun and being in the alley where you couldn’t see clearly, I wouldn’t worry.”

  Mike stared at the Ranger. Easy for him to say not to worry, “It ain’t a story, I don’t like referring to it as a story. It’s facts.”

  Murphy grunted and walked away as Tolliver watched, he then turned back to Mike. “You look like crap. Wanna eat breakfast, I think it would do you some good.”

  Food was the last thing he wanted but Mike began walking beside the Chief as they crossed the street and walked a block to the Colby Diner, which was known for their breakfast and lunch specials. It was Chief Tolliver’s favorite place in town to eat breakfast. “You may not want to worry too much about the Grand Jury, it will all work out.” That’s what everyone keeps saying, Mike thought.

  He said nothing so the Chief continued, “You did a good job, Mike, nobody but the bad guy got hurt, and if he hadn’t acted so foolish, he would be in our jail right now and not in the morgue.”

  They entered the diner and found a table to sit at. There were only two other customers in the diner due to it being after the time most people are at work. The small room was overrun with cooking smells that made Mike want to puke and order one of everything on the menu at the same time. Mike appreciated the Chief’s words and knew he was right, but he still felt uneasy. They ordered when the waitress came, and in no time, they had breakfast in front of them. They ate in silence, neither feeling any more needed to be said.

  After eating they left the diner and walked back toward the department, they saw Captain Morgan coming out of the police building and watched him wave at them. He stood waiting for the two men to approach him.

  “Chief? You think it would be alright if I borrowed Mike here for a bit?”

  Chief nodded and kept walking leaving Mike with Morgan, they got in Morgan’s pickup and he pulled out of the parking lot. Mike wanted to know where they were going but decided not to ask, he would soon find out anyway. As he drove Morgan started explaining some things he had found out. James Parks, or as Morgan referred to him, the dead guy, was the son of Toby Parks. He was from Dallas where his parents had lived for over twenty years. Toby was on his way from Dallas to meet with Morgan, who had called him last night to tell him the news about his son. Morgan was hoping to find answers to why Parks was in Colby and why he would rob a business.

  In the meantime, Mike had other things on his mind. He half listened as Morgan talked, but he didn’t feel the need to respond. Instead, he was thinking of George Parks and his family situation. Toby. Now that Morgan mentioned his name Mike remembered it. Toby had left Colby and Mike was unsure if he had ever visited since. The one daughter and her kid still lived around Colby and George was often seen with the grandkid doing various things around town. Mike thought back to when he worked at the hardware store. He could not remember a time George had ever spoke of Toby, not even in passing.

  “Y
ou listening?”

  Morgan was staring at him waiting for a reply. They were parked in front of a house that Mike realized was the Parks’ house which sat at the edge of town. The Parks’ property was on a single lane dirt driveway that turned off the city street to wind its way to the house. The Parks had lived in this same house since they married. When Parks had it built it was not in the city, but the city had grown around it. The house was a single-story wood frame that could have used a coat of paint and some carpentry work. It appeared the roof needed replaced too. That’s the way it was, hardware guy’s house always needed repair and the mechanic’s car always needed fixed, Mike thought.

  They got out and walked to the door and knocked. A thought struck Mike that Parks may not be receptive to seeing him this close to shooting his grandkid, then he remembered Parks didn’t know which cop had shot him. He was about to tell Morgan he would wait in the pickup when the door opened.

  It was a young lady probably late teens, her face was puffy as if she had been crying recently. She looked tired and deeply saddened. Mike had the feeling he was responsible for that look.

  “Ma’am, I am Captain Morgan with the Colby Police Department. Is George around?” Mike noticed Morgan had not introduced him.

  “He’s here. Please, wait.” Her voice was quiet and soft. She shut the door leaving the two officers standing on the porch.

  After what seemed five minutes the door opened again, and George Parks stepped outside onto the porch closing the door.

  He stared at Mike but said nothing to him instead he nodded his head at Morgan.

  “Mr. Parks, George, I’d like to understand some things if you could help me. Why did James rob the market and what was he doing in Colby in the first place?”

  Parks looked at his worn and scuffed boots and sighed, “I don’t know why he was here. He ain’t visited since he was in little britches. He moved in last week and has been out of sorts since. He didn’t say what he was here for. I tried calling Toby in Dallas, least I think that’s where he’s living. I didn’t get an answer. I just don’t know, Jim, I just don’t know.” His words came at a such a slow pace Mike feared he would forget what he was saying and just remain silent.