An Empty Hell Read online

  Around 6 p.m., there came a knock at the door. Donne took the gun and went to answer it.

  NOTHING INTERESTING happened on road trips, Herrick thought.

  At first, he called his assistant to cover practice. He also called his buddies on the force to make sure there was a police cruiser outside for the entire practice, and then another hour beyond that. They reluctantly agreed after Herrick promised to take them all out for drinks during the Final Four.

  Then he called Sarah. He expected her not to answer, after she hadn’t responded to his text. Maybe he’d said something wrong the night before, the alcohol garbling his mind, but nothing stuck out to him, and he certainly wasn’t blackout drunk. She hadn’t said anything either, nothing that he found offensive.

  The phone rang three times. She could be in a meeting, or in her office. The rules were so strict on cell phone usage during school hours that he figured she could just be ignoring him. Hadn’t been that way in the past, but it seemed this would be the way it was. What had changed between them?

  Sarah didn’t answer.

  “I’m going to be away this afternoon,” he said.

  He paused. What would Sarah want to hear in a message like this? Herrick took a deep breath, and tried to force the adrenaline in his bloodstream out of his voice.

  “The players are gonna be okay.” He filled her in the on the covered practice. He didn’t say anything about the fact that a psychopath had threatened her and the team.

  She hated when he did this. Any time he caught a case and had to run off and leave the practices in the hands of someone else, she let him hear it. The kids needed him.

  “It’s part of the job. It can’t be helped. Hopefully, when I get back, this will all be over.”

  The GPS prompted him to merge left and he did. He watched twenty minutes quickly tick off the ETA of his trip. He must have avoided traffic somewhere.

  “I just want to say I had a great time last night,” Herrick said.

  Pregnant pauses were the worst part of phone calls. If only he could see her face, and try to read her body language when she listened to the message.. He wished she was on the other end of this call, talking to him. He passed a car on the left.

  “Maybe we could do another happy hour.” He tried to put a smile in his voice, and as he said the words, he worried he’d pushed too far.

  “I’ll call you when I get back.”

  The line went dead, and Herrick stuck with satellite radio and the drone of the GPS voice for the next five hours.

  DONNE POINTED the gun in the man’s face. The man—what did he say his name was? Herrick?—was spouting something about going back to New Jersey. Meanwhile, he had an ASP nightstick on his hip. Donne wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t going to let this guy beat him to death.

  Something about Herrick seemed legit. He was calm, no sweat, no nerves. Not the kind of tremor that signaled an assault anyway. Donne watched his eyes and saw that they didn’t waver. They didn’t look for an opening. He stayed calm, even with a gun aimed at him.

  Then he said it.

  And Donne agreed.

  Things were incredibly complicated.

  “I don’t think you’re a bad man, Jackson.” Herrick had his hands jammed in his pockets. “I’ve talked to a lot of people about you. Your brother-in-law. Artie. Leo Carver, and they say—”

  Donne felt the air go out of the room and his throat go cold.

  “You talked to Leo Carver?”

  Herrick nodded and licked his lips. “Yes. His name came up so I tracked him down.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Come back with me to New Jersey, and let’s sort this out.”

  Donne said, “Like hell. I hadn’t heard Carver’s name in years, and now it’s come up twice in twenty-four hours.”

  He held the gun tight. If this guy twitched funny, all Donne had to do was squeeze.

  THE MOMENT he couldn’t take it anymore.

  It was three in the morning, and he wanted to firebomb something. His brain was buzzing with ideas of what to do next. Who to go after. Jesus Sanchez was always an easy target. They could make a run over there, bust him up some, and take his stash.

  Bill Martin was all for it, his eyes red rimmed and his nose running. It must have been a special night. Usually, Martin was in check, keeping everyone in line.

  Leo Carver sat back, arms crossed.

  “Let’s see what Alex brings back,” he said.

  “Alex sucks at this, he’s going to bring back—downers probably.” Donne rubbed his chin. He bounced his knees. His cell phone buzzed for the fourth time that night.

  “Don’t mess with Alex,” Martin said. “He’s a good egg.”

  Someone laughed, but to Donne it sounded like it came from far away in an echo chamber.

  His cell phone buzzed again.

  “Come on, Jesus is always good for more coke. And he’s probably got a case of Smirnoff Ice in the fridge. We’re all off tomorrow,” Donne said.

  “Be cool,” Carver said again. “Take it easy. We push too hard, we blow it. And we’re having too much fun with blow to blow it.”

  Another laugh. Donne looked to his left but couldn’t find the source. The room tilted and then righted itself. Like he was on a goddamn boat. His cell phone buzzed again. Maybe it was Alex Robinson.

  Donne checked it.

  Jeanne.

  Where are you?

  Six times in a row.

  He quickly wrote back working. Hit send. Tapped his fingers on the table. Ran his hand through his hair. Whistled a tune. Waited for Alex.

  Martin’s cell phone went off next to him. He checked it, put the phone back in his pocket, and stood up.

  “Well, gentlemen, it’s been real. But I think I’m going to use some personal time.”

  Carver laughed. This time Donne knew it was him.

  “Oh yeah? Got a date?”

  Martin nodded. “Something like that. Don’t get too crazy.”

  He buttoned his jacket, nodded toward Carver. He squeezed Donne’s shoulder. And then he was gone.

  Donne sniffled. He scratched his nose. Tapped his foot. Wanted to run a lap or two. Something. Do something.

  Alex Robinson burst through the door with a bag of coke and two cases of Coors Light in tow.

  Donne lost three days.

  When he came to, he dragged himself home. He found Jeanne at the kitchen table. When she saw him, she burst into tears, but didn’t run to him. He went to her and tried to give her a hug, but she leaned out of the way.

  “I thought you were dead. I talked to Bill. I kept calling work. They told me you were fine, just busy. You didn’t answer your phone. How many texts did I—”

  “It’s dead,” he said.

  Jeanne shook her head. “I thought you were.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No,” she said. “That doesn’t cut it anymore.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m leaving. Until you get your shit figured out, I’m gone.”

  For the first time, Donne noticed a bag at her feet.

  “I was working.”

  “Like hell. You told me you had three days off coming up.”

  “I couldn’t help it. Duty called.’

  Jeanne laughed. “Partying called. Figure your shit out. Get cleaned up and get out of there.”

  Donne fumbled for words. Jeanne got up, picked up the bag, and stepped past him.

  “Don’t go,” he said. “Please. I need you.”

  Jeanne opened the door. “Then where the hell were you the past three days? Where have you been?”

  “I love you.”

  The door closed, and she was gone. Donne sat down at the table and stared at the clock on the wall. The second hand snapped forward in rhythm. Donne listened to it click and, for the first time in months, felt time pass.

  After six minutes and twenty-three seconds, he went and found his landline phone. He dialed IAD. He told them he needed to talk.
r />   It all moved very quickly after that.

  “THAT SUIT looks big on you.”

  The Internal Affairs guy leaned against the table. Donne sat back and spread his hands.

  “It’s what I got.”

  “How much weight have you lost?”

  Donne rubbed his face and didn’t say anything. The room they sat in smelled like old cigarettes and burnt brownies. The walls were bare and wood sided. The floor was slick tile. A vending machine for soda and one for candy stood against the far wall.

  “You should eat something.”

  And puke all over the place?

  “What’s the temperature in the courtroom?” Donne tapped a quick ditty on the table while he asked.

  “The air conditioner is on. It’s comfortable.”

  “Not too cold?”

  IAD spread his hands. “I don’t know. Why?”

  “It’s going to look really weird if I start sweating on the stand and it’s fifty degrees in there.”

  IAD took a deep breath. His name was Duggan, but Donne didn’t want to think of him by name. He just wanted to get this over with and get back to his life.

  “We talked about this. We had this conversation already,” IAD said.

  Donne tapped more beats on the table. His foot bounced in sync with the rhythm.

  “You’re doing the right thing. Those five guys out there? Complete assholes.”

  “They were my team.”

  The door opened and a guy wearing a uniform held up five fingers. Three hundred seconds until Donne’s life changed. The guy let the door swing closed.

  IAD said, “They were your team. You woke up; you’re saving your own ass. Judging by the amount of blow we found? You’re saving your own life.”

  He needed to get back to Jeanne, that’s all there was to this. Fix things with her. Doing this, making life right again, would help.

  “I know what I’m doing,” Donne said.

  “So then go over it with me. When the lawyer asks who was behind all this you say…?” IAD rubbed his neck.

  “Leo Carver.” Donne sighed. “What did Chief say about him? He’s been here forever.”

  “Carver came over from New York City,” IAD said.

  Donne shook his head. “Came back from New York to run the New Brunswick Narc squad. He and Bill Martin came up together, walked the beat together. Carver got another opportunity to go to the city, Martin worked homicide for a while. Then after the mob stuff, Carver came back. To help his city, he said.”

  “I don’t need the history lesson,” IAD said. “I need you to finger Carver as the ringleader. Martin’s turn is next week. The rest? Fuck them, they can get off lightly. But you can put the top guy away, and you’ll get your promotion. Your honorable discharge as it were.”

  Donne shrugged his shoulders and felt the jacket sag against them. How much weight had he lost? It’d been one meal a day, maybe. Nights awake waiting for them to come for him. Waiting for the end. But he was still here. His stomach never growled anymore. Forcing food down felt like he was swimming upstream.

  IAD leaned over. His breath smelled rancid. He put a hand on Donne’s shoulder, but Donne shifted and let it slide off.

  “You have to take care of yourself, Jackson. You were a good cop once. This will help you be one again. We can’t have this department running like that. You know the saying, the one from the Academy: ‘Imagine the headline.’”

  Donne said, “We actually made the headline.”

  “And now you can make a better one.”

  The door opened again, and the same guy came back.

  “It’s time,” he said.

  IAD put his hand out to help Donne stand, but he ignored it. IAD was giving directions or last-minute advice, but it was all white noise. Donne turned toward the door and started walking. Everything in him felt light and full of electricity. His brain flashed through the last three years: raids, coke, beers.

  He walked through the door into a long white hall. A man wearing corduroy pants and a shirt with a hole in the elbow sat on a bench and stared at him. Donne stared straight ahead, walking toward the double doors at the end of the stretch.

  Thirty-four paces.

  That’s how long it took him to get to those doors. The bailiff held the door. Donne walked through it into the courtroom. The judge stared at him. Thirteen jurors stared at him. The DA. The defense attorney.

  Leo Carver didn’t. He stared straight ahead toward the empty witness stand. Donne caught a glimpse of a stoic Bill Martin in the audience. He was bouncing his knees. Donne wondered if he was thinking about when his trial would come.

  The room was frigid, and sent a shiver through his body. As far as he could tell, he wasn’t sweating. Air was coming into his lungs evenly. The static in his ears settled down.

  Donne swore to tell the whole truth, and then strode to the stand.

  THE CHAIR was leather and creaked when Donne shifted his weight. There was enough whispering in the room to cover the sound when he leaned back and took a deep breath. He folded his hands on his lap to keep from wiping his face or giving off any other kind of poker tells.

  The lawyer—Lester Russell—from the prosecution stood up, tugged at his lapels, and sniffled. Donne rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck. The judge tapped his fingers. Bill Martin got up and left the room.

  Russell looked over the jury, and then turned to Donne.

  “Mr. Donne, can you explain your time on the New Brunswick Police Department’s Narcotics force?”

  As far as Donne knew, he was the last witness. The key to the prosecution’s case. Russell was part of the DA office, one of their rising stars. Russell always seemed to have had one coffee too many, bee-bopping and bouncing his legs as he worked. When he first met Donne, his hands never stopped going, rat-a-tat-tatting off the top of his desk

  Today, however, he seemed to be the opposite. Dark circles under his eyes. Hair slightly out of place. Donne wondered if he’d been up all night prepping.

  Donne said, “I’ve been a member of the Narcs for the past three years. We started when Leo Carver came back from New York. It’d been all over the news. The mayor’s kid had ODed and died on crack, and then two more Rutgers kids did as well. The mayor wanted the New Brunswick drug problem halted, at any cost. They brought Carver back and paired him with Bill Martin, assembling a team. We worked in pairs. Me and Bill and Carver and Robinson, and Henderson and Moore. We broke up some of the rackets.”

  Donne kept his eyes trained on Russell, even though he could feel heat from Carver’s eyes burning into him. He didn’t want to shift his glance away, and tried not to fidget.

  “When you signed up for the Narc Division, what were your goals?”

  Donne broke the glare and looked down at his hands. Back up again. “I wanted to do the right thing. Put away criminals. Clean up the streets.”

  “And were those goals achieved?”

  Here was the tricky part. For the most part, the Narc Division did their part—achieved their publicly stated goal. They just skimmed off the top at the same time. He needed to sell the jury on that. These guys—the underlings—weren’t bad. They just got greedy. Basically, he had to keep his own neck as clean as possible.

  “We did,” he said. “We put the bad guys away, just like we were asked. We cleaned up the streets.”

  “Was that all you did?”

  “Objection!” The defense attorney stood up.

  The judge frowned at him and said, “Overruled.”

  “No,” Donne said, after the judge asked him to answer the question. “That’s not all we did. We also had a lot of fun.”

  There was a murmur from the jury box.

  “Care to explain?” Russell prompted.

  “We partied. We drank beer. Well, Bill liked Scotch. We did coke, a lot of coke, smoked weed.”

  Russell nodded. “The Narc Division—the one tasked to clean up the New Brunswick drug problem—partied and did drugs? That’s ironic.”
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  “Objection!”

  “Sustained. This is not the place to opine, Mr. Russell.” The judge stared Russell down. “A question perhaps?”

  “Where did you get the drugs that you partied with?”

  “The evidence locker,” Donne said.

  “Is that legal?”

  “No.”

  “So, why do it?”

  “We wanted to party. Most of us were young.”

  “How did it start? Just because you were young doesn’t mean you don’t know what is right and what is wrong.”

  Donne took a deep breath. Now they were getting to the meat of the issue.

  “We were told it was okay. We watched our boss do it. In fact, we were pushed to do it.”

  “Pushed? How?”

  Donne remembered sitting in the undercover car he and Martin used, under the lone streetlight in an alley. They’d just busted up one of the local bit dealers, called the beat guys to bring him in. It wasn’t the biggest case, but it was something, so Martin told him they were going to celebrate. He passed Donne a joint, one he’d taken off the dealer.

  “It was a right of passage. It proved you were a part of the team. Blood brothers. If you all did it, none of you would turn on your brothers.”

  “Were your bosses the ones who forced this upon you?”

  The question was meant to set up Martin’s trial later, as well as take care of Carver.

  Donne nodded. “My boss did. Yes.”

  Russell didn’t catch the phrasing.

  “Can you say who they were? And if they’re in the courtroom, point them out to us?”

  Donne’s stomach did a back flip. He turned to see Leo Carver shooting daggers his way. Carver barely moved.

  It felt like time was ticking by at the speed of a sloth.

  Donne pointed at Leo Carver. “Leo Carver made me do it.”

  Carver barely shifted in his chair. Russell put his hands behind his back.