“Coffee’s better across the street. Come on,” Sanchez said and walked out of the office.
Now I’m a little slow sometimes, but it was obvious that he wanted to talk, and not in there. So I tossed my coffee in trash and followed him.
Sanchez walked across the street to the deli and went in. Since he wasn’t talking, I saw no point in going in with him. “I take mine black.” I leaned against a car and waited for him to come out.
“So, what are we talking about?” I asked when he handed me the cup.
“Lorenzo Copeland.”
“What about him?”
“Lorenzo Copeland is serving a life sentence for murder.”
“Okay,” I said and waited for the other shoe to drop.
“He murdered Officer Mike McDill,” Sanchez said and leaned on the car next to me.
“He was one of your guys, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, Gene, spill it.”
“What I’m about to tell you goes no further.”
“It’s just me, you, and the car.”
“About six months before it happened, McDill and his partner, Brown, busted a dealer named Bryce Tyler, one of Copeland’s people, for possession. He gives up everybody and we start building a case against Copeland. We get a warrant to search his apartment on Tyler’s word that Copeland is holding big weight. The dope was right where he said it would be, and they go to arrest Copeland and another character, whose name escapes me for the moment. The way I get it is that McDill hit Copeland in the face, and Copeland swung back. Brown pulls out his club and hits Copeland in the shin and he drops to his knees. Then both of them start hittin’ Copeland with their clubs and kickin’ him. Copeland grabbed McDill’s gun and shot him. Then Brown pulls his gun and shoots Copeland. The bullet hit him in the arm and he dropped the gun. When I got in there it was a free for all, my guys were kickin’ and hittin’ him with them clubs until I yelled, ‘That’s enough!’ after that, Copeland blacked out.”
“What happened, Gene?”
“We closed ranks.”
“The Blue wall.”
“McDill had a wife and three kids. So everybody’s statement left out the part about McDill hitting Copeland; and him and Brown beating him before he shot McDill,” Sanchez said and dropped his head.
“What about the other guy?”
“He was one of the star witnesses for the prosecution. He didn’t want any part of the murder charge, so he rolled on Lorenzo and did it quick. When he got on the stand he told the same story: Copeland grabbed McDill’s gun and killed him.”
“What’s happened to him and Tyler?”
“Tyler had a deal; so he testified in the murder trial against Copeland, and now he’s in witness protection. The other guy, I think his name was Chris Beck, he copped to possession and got five years.”