Ring of Silence Read online

  Table of Contents

  Ring of Silence

  Blurb

  Copyright Acknowledgement

  Trademarks Acknowledgment

  Dedication

  Thursday 3:15 P.M.

  Thursday 3:18 P.M.

  Thursday 4:27 P.M.

  Thursday 5:37 P.M.

  Thursday 5:52 P.M.

  Thursday 6:34 P.M.

  Thursday 7:09 P.M.

  Thursday 7:21 P.M.

  Thursday 7:37 P.M.

  Thursday 7:58 P.M.

  Thursday 8:28 P.M.

  Thursday 8:48 P.M.

  Thursday 8:59 P.M.

  Thursday 9:16 P.M.

  Thursday 9:43 P.M.

  Thursday 10:21 P.M.

  Thursday 10:58 P.M.

  Thursday 11:31 P.M.

  Friday 12:14 A.M.

  Friday 12:37 A.M.

  Friday 1:07 A.M.

  Friday 1:27 A.M.

  Friday 7:38 A.M.

  Friday 8:18 A.M.

  Friday 8:57 A.M.

  Friday 9:17 A.M.

  Friday 9:47 A.M.

  Friday 10:01 A.M.

  Friday 11:17 A.M.

  Friday 11:35 A.M.

  Friday 12:02 P.M.

  Friday 12:15 P.M.

  Friday 12:32 P.M.

  Friday 12:45 P.M.

  Friday 1:15 P.M.

  Friday 2:07 P.M.

  Friday 2:14 P.M.

  Friday 3:15 P.M.

  Friday 3:44 P.M.

  Friday 5:31 P.M.

  Friday 6:52 P.M.

  Friday 7:31 P.M.

  Friday 8:27 P.M.

  Friday 10:29 P.M.

  Friday 11:28 P.M.

  Friday 11:59 P.M.

  Saturday 1:05 A.M.

  Saturday 1:00 A.M.

  Saturday 6:17 A.M.

  Saturday 7:03 A.M.

  Saturday 8:38 A.M.

  Saturday 9:03 A.M.

  Saturday 9:35 A.M.

  Saturday 10:35 A.M.

  Saturday 12:12 P.M.

  Saturday 1:05 P.M.

  Saturday 2:15 P.M.

  Saturday 3:15 P.M.

  Saturday 3:49 P.M.

  Saturday 4:22 P.M.

  Saturday 5:17 P.M.

  Saturday 5:51 P.M.

  Saturday 6:30 P.M.

  Saturday 7:17 P.M.

  Saturday 7:30 P.M.

  Saturday 8:47 P.M.

  Saturday 10:05 P.M.

  Saturday 11:15 P.M.

  Fourth of July 4:31 P.M.

  Fourth of July 11:04 P.M.

  About the Author

  MLR Press

  Ring of Silence

  A Paul Turner Mystery

  Mark Zubro

  www.mlrpress.com

  Blurb

  We all saw the video of the Chicago cop who shot the kid sixteen time while his colleagues stood and watched. What would happen if Detectives Paul Turner and Buck Fenwick in a similar scenario showed up ten seconds before the firing started. In Mark Zubro’s twelfth book in his Paul Turner, gay police detective series, they’d do the right thing and put a stop to it. But that would only be the beginning of the intrigue, danger, and death that surrounds them in a ring of silence as they try to solve a mystery and do the right thing for themselves, their families, their colleagues, the community, and the rule of law.

  Copyright Acknowledgement

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright 2017 by Mark Zubro

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Published by

  MLR Press, LLC

  3052 Gaines Waterport Rd.

  Albion, NY 14411

  Visit ManLoveRomance Press, LLC on the Internet:

  www.mlrpress.com

  Cover Art by Melody Pond

  Editing by Neil Plakcy

  Print format: ISBN# 978-1-64122-015-6

  eBook format available

  Issued 2017

  This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment. This eBook cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this eBook can be shared or reproduced without the express permission of the publisher.

  Trademarks Acknowledgment

  The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Animal Planet: Discovery Communications, LLC

  Chicago Bulls: Chicago Professional Sports Limited Partnership

  Chicago Tribune: Tribune Media Company

  Chicago White Sox: Chicago White Sox, Ltd.

  Facebook: Facebook

  Google: Google Inc.

  Hyatt: Hyatt Corporation

  Instagram: Instagram, Inc.

  Kool-Aid: Kraft Foods Company

  LinkedIn: LinkedIn Corporation

  NRA: National Rifle Association of America

  Pinterest: Pinterest

  Snapchat: Snap Inc.

  Sun Times: Sun-Times Media Group

  Taser: Taser International, Inc.

  Twitter: Twitter, Inc.

  YouTube: YouTube

  For Barb and Jeanne. That old gang of mine. Thanks.

  Thursday 3:15 P.M.

  “This goddamn Taser isn’t working.” Fenwick shook it, then banged it against the brick wall they were walking next to. He glared at the electronic device. “God damn technology bullshit.” He shook it again, pressed the on button. Nothing.

  “Let me see it,” Paul Turner said to his partner. He was aware that Buck Fenwick’s technique of smashing at electronics seldom had the effect his partner desired.

  Fenwick and anything more technical than a manual typewriter had an iffy relationship at the best of times. Once, he ran over a recalcitrant phone with the tires of his car. Six times. Fenwick most often thought violence to an inanimate object would cause it to behave in ways he thought efficacious. Turner seldom intervened when Fenwick was at war with electronics. Today, he thought he’d give it a try.

  Fenwick handed him the Taser.

  They were at the beginning of a 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift on a hot June afternoon. They’d gotten a call of pursuit in progress. They’d been on foot only about a block or so away near the corner of Harrison and Canal. They chose to hurry over instead of trying to dash back to their car, parked a block in the other direction.

  They hustled forward. Outright running was precluded by Fenwick’s hefty bulk. They could hear sirens ahead of them and to their left. The wind of a predicted line of thunderstorms gusted in their faces.

  They rounded the corner of the building.

  Twenty feet in front of them, Turner saw Detective Randy Carruthers, feet spread wide, gun held in both hands, pointing it directly at them.

  Carruthers had recently betrayed Turner and Fenwick by providing information on a murder case to the Catholic Church. Turner had been waiting for the perfect moment to confront the squad’s most inept detective and now notorious traitor. Carruthers had been on vacation for a week after the events in question. It had only been a few hours since he’d been back on the job.

  Between Carruthers and them was a young African-American male who was standing still, facing Turner and Fenwick. Maybe seven feet from them.

  Carruthers screamed, “Halt, mother fucker.”

  In the seconds Turner had been on the scene, the kid hadn’t moved. His hands were up. The wind carried the boy’s screams of, “Don’t shoot. Do
n’t kill me.”

  Carruthers’s bellows mingled with the kid’s. Like an LP album stuck in a ‘stupid’ groove, Carruthers kept repeating, “Stop, motherfucker!”

  In between screams for his life, the kid began to blubber and cry, then started to choke.

  Turner saw Carruthers’s gun wobble then swing wildly. For a second or so, the man’s body gave a mighty twitch, but then he renewed his stance and gripped the gun more firmly.

  The kid’s body began to convulse from his own choking while trying to hold himself rigidly still so as not to be shot.

  In the few seconds that passed, Turner wondered where Harold Rodriguez was. He was Carruthers’s long-suffering partner.

  Carruthers started firing.

  Instead of standing around like police officers in other situations when a moronic and incompetent cop was firing pointlessly and murderously, Turner and Fenwick acted. They were not about to do an imitation of inert morons while someone committed murder. Not while they could do something about it. Pope or president, gang banger or fool, it did not matter who was firing. They had to be stopped.

  Fenwick rushed to the kid and tackled him, attempting to get him out of range of the wildly firing Carruthers. On his knees, Fenwick tried to yank the kid behind the nearest vehicle. In his mad haste to get the kid out of the line of fire, he managed to bang the kid’s head against the fender of a car. With his last shove, he yanked so hard that part of the kid’s shirt ripped. Fenwick lost his grip, and the detective’s momentum caused his own head to bash into the car’s headlight, shattering it.

  Simultaneous to Fenwick’s actions, Turner aimed the Taser at Carruthers and jammed at the on button. The thing functioned and the wires flew straight for the idiot detective. The thin, electrified cables caught him on his left shoulder.

  The dumb son of a bitch fell to his knees but kept firing. His gun swayed in great arcs up and down and side to side, which meant even more people could be at risk.

  Turner heard Fenwick grunt and begin cursing.

  Then Turner saw Harold Rodriguez running up from the far end of an unmarked police car about thirty feet away. Rodriguez tackled Carruthers, whose gun skittered away.

  Turner noted that Rodriguez had Carruthers face down and was handcuffing the dumb shit’s hands behind his back.

  Turner made sure no one was near the cop’s gun which was eight feet from his left foot.

  Then he dropped the Taser and rushed to his partner.

  Thursday 3:18 P.M.

  In seconds, he crossed the few feet to Fenwick and the kid who was half under Fenwick.

  The kid was crying, blubbering, and repeating. “I didn’t do anything. Don’t kill me. I didn’t do anything. Don’t kill me.”

  Fenwick was holding his own left bicep with his right hand. He raged his unhappiness. “Dumb, mother-fucking son of a bitch. If he’s not dead, I’m going to kill him.”

  Turner saw red dampness spreading on the cloth of Fenwick’s shirt and dripping down to the pavement.

  Fenwick applied pressure to the spot the blood oozed from. Turner could see no visible wounds on the kid. He got out his phone, called in, identified himself, and then said, “Shots fired. Officer down. Ambulance needed Harrison and Des Plaines Avenue.”

  He knelt next to the kid and Fenwick. He placed a gentle hand on the boy’s shoulder. Up close, he thought the kid might be all of fourteen, short and scrawny. Several times Turner repeated “You’re safe now.” Until he saw the kid’s eyes stop fluttering back and forth. Turner asked, “Have you been shot? Hurt?”

  The kid caught his eyes. His panicky wailing and weeping became reduced to moans and hiccups. Perhaps it was Turner’s words or his calm demeanor that eased the kid’s fear.

  The boy whispered, “No. I think I’m okay.” He grunted and tried to wriggle out from under Fenwick. “Except this guy is kind of huge.” He gave up attempting to squirm from under the heavy-set cop and gave an abrupt shove to the part of Fenwick’s bulk that was holding the left side of his own body flush against the pavement.

  Fenwick bellowed. Turner was reminded of a water buffalo in pain. The kid’s movement had caused Fenwick’s wounded arm to mush against the pavement.

  Turner said to the boy, “Hang on for a second. My partner’s been shot. He probably saved your life.”

  Fenwick ceased roaring. Turner saw that his partner was trying to ease off his own shirt to examine his wound.

  Turner shifted so he was closer to his friend. Their eyes met. Fenwick asked, “Is Carruthers dead yet?”

  Turner looked over. Rodriguez and his prone partner were being surrounded by cops. Others were rushing towards them, guns still out. As Turner watched, he saw Carruthers struggle against his bonds.

  Rodriguez yanked on the cuffs and said, “Move again, dumb shit, and I’ll shoot you myself.” Rodriguez looked up at the assembling beat cops and said, “Make a god damn perimeter around the scene.” He pointed to Mike Sanchez and Alex Deveneaux, beat cops they’d all worked with many times. “Make sure no one touches any of the dash cams on any of the cars. Get as many guys to help you as you need. Anybody touches a dash cam, shoot them.”

  Sanchez and Deveneaux hustled away to comply. Others began ushering the crowd away. Turner heard one man in the crowd whose voiced carried to him. “That cop saved that boy. He’s a hero. So is his partner. I’ve got it all.” The guy held up his cell phone in one hand while pointing at the prone threesome with the other. Turner saw a forest of cell phones aimed at the scene from, it seemed, everyone nearby.

  He turned back to the kid. He asked, “What’s your name?”

  “DeShawn.” He put his hands on either side of his head and said, “And my head kind of hurts.” In another few seconds, he was puking softly. Turner cradled his head. He saw shards of headlight where Fenwick must have hit and a dent in the fender lower down where the kid’s head must have banged into the car. Turner couldn’t remember the sequence of how soon after a head wound one was likely to puke, and if said vomiting was a sure sign of concussion. What he knew for sure was that it wasn’t a good sign.

  Thursday 4:27 P.M.

  Fenwick grumbled. “The next person who says ‘fucking hero’ to me is going to get shot.”

  Turner said, “They don’t say ‘fucking’ hero. They just call you a plain old hero.”

  “Either one is going to die.” Fenwick shifted his arm and grimaced. “It’s bullshit. I was diving out of the way to save my ass. The kid came as kind of a bonus.”

  Turner said, “I don’t care what they label any of us. None of us died, for which I am grateful.”

  Turner and Fenwick were in a bay in the emergency room of City Center Hospital in Chicago. Fenwick was sitting in his T-shirt. He had a small bandage on his head where he bashed into the headlight. He had been seen to by a young intern who, after examining him, said Fenwick didn’t have a concussion. The intern had cleaned the head wound and placed a small bandage on it. He also said that Fenwick’s arm wound, although it had bled a lot, needed just a few stitches and was little more than a scratch.

  Fenwick had said to him, “I knew that.”

  The intern left to get antibiotics to prevent an infection.

  When he was gone, Fenwick went into full grumble. “You got to Tase Carruthers. That is so not fair.”

  “You saved a guy.”

  Fenwick shifted his weight on the examination table. It groaned in disapproval. Fenwick said, “If somebody tries to hand me a fucking medal, I’ll…”

  The intern bustled back in, needle and syringe in hand. He said, “This won’t hurt a bit,” and jabbed it into Fenwick’s unwounded arm.

  “No needles.” Fenwick gasped, swatting a big paw toward the injection, but it was far too late. Even those two words sounded weak to Turner. In seconds, Fenwick’s face turned stark white, his eyelids fluttered. He began to topple off the examination table.

  Turner, already next to him, caught his partner’s bulk and eased him onto his back.
/>   The intern looked from the syringe to Fenwick and back to the syringe. “It’s just antibiotics.”

  Turner said, “Maybe he’s allergic.”

  The intern shook his head. “I called up his chart from the records on the computer. It says he’s not allergic to anything.”

  Turner said, “Maybe he’s afraid of needles. You didn’t think to ask?”

  The intern gulped. “I guess I figured he was so big, and he kept talking tough, that it wouldn’t be a problem. I’m so sorry.”

  Fenwick pulled in several short, raspy breaths, opened his eyes, and with Turner and the intern’s help, struggled back to a sitting position. “What?”

  The intern blubbered apologies.

  Fenwick’s voice rumbled. “Go away.” The intern did. Fenwick looked at Turner. “You’re not going to let me forget this.”

  Turner said, “I shall wait a dignified amount of time and then, if it becomes appropriate, I may feel a need to mention your odd aversion to needles and injections. The problem is, you have such a host of oddities, this one isn’t all that outstanding.”

  Commander Drew Molton strolled in. “Where’s the fucking hero?”

  Fenwick asked, “You heard me?”

  Molton said, “I know you.”

  Turner knew that Molton was one of the few people Fenwick would tolerate such bold humor from. And really, did he have a choice? Molton was their boss and as far as they were concerned, the best Area Commander in the city. In the past, just being part of the Chicago Police department’s top brass had not saved many a fool from Fenwick’s acerbic wrath.

  The other person who Fenwick tolerated such humor from was his wife Madge. Much as he liked his partner and as well as he knew him, Turner didn’t take a lot of risks in trying to get away with such humor.

  As Fenwick often put it, “I’m the humor guy in this relationship.”

  The last time he said it, Turner had replied, “Would that it were so.”