“How did you get into law enforcement?”
“Gina was a dispatcher with the Columbus PD. I finally landed a job waiting tables at a pancake house. At night, she’d come home and tell me about her day. I thought she had the most exciting job in the world. I wanted a job like hers. So I went back to school, earned my GED. A month later, she got me a job as a dispatcher at a substation near downtown. That fall, we enrolled in a criminal justice program at the community college. A year later, we were in the academy.”
He stared at her, realizing he was getting caught up in this. Getting caught up in her. Not a good frame of mind for a man who would be leaving in a few hours.
“What about you, Tomasetti?”
“I came out of the womb corrupted.”
Laughing, she reached for the pack of cigarettes. John wasn’t sure why it pleased him when she lit up. Maybe because it made her more human, a little less perfect and a tad closer to his own tarnished soul.
“So what did you do before you were a cop?” she asked.
“I was always a cop.” He rolled his shoulders to ease some of the tension creeping up the back of his neck. “I think this is where you’re supposed to ask me about what happened in Cleveland.”
“I figured if you wanted to talk about it, you would.”
She didn’t look away. That impressed him. Probably more than he would ever be able to tell her. “How much do you know?” he asked.
“The media version. I know they usually don’t get it right.”
“It’s an ugly story, Kate.”
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
For the first time in his life, he did. Kate had given him something he hadn’t had for a long time: hope. Made him realize he might not need the alcohol and pills to get through the day. The time had come to lance the boil, let the demons out, start the healing process. “Do you know who Con Vespian is?”
“Every cop in the state knows about Vespian. Cleveland’s version of John Gotti.”
“With a little Charles Manson mixed in.”
“Narcotics. Prostitution. Gambling.”
“He had his fingers in a lot of pies, but he dealt mostly in heroin. Big time stuff, including murder when it was convenient. Worse when he wanted to make a point. Vespian and I go way back to when I was a street cop. I busted him twice. He got off both times. Every narc in the city had a hard-on for him. But he was one lucky son of a bitch. Dangerous, too, because he was half fucking crazy.”
“Bad combination.”
“He got off on beating the system. I wanted to be the one to bring him down. Somewhere along the line, it got personal.”
Her expression sobered, and John could tell she knew the story was about to take a dark twist. “My partner was an old-timer by the name of Vic Niswander. Great guy. Good cop. Funny as hell in a politically incorrect way. Just became a grandpa. Four months away from retirement. We used to kid around about it, but he wanted to get Vespian before he left.”
Remembering, John smiled. But as his mind took him through the nightmare that followed, the smile made him feel as if he’d just bitten into a rotten piece of meat. “Vic and I had a snitch inside Vespian’s operation. I don’t remember where we found this guy. Just some dipshit junkie by the name of Manny Newkirk. Couldn’t think his way out of a bag. He’d spill his guts for twenty bucks. One night I set up a routine meeting with him, but I got sidelined. Kid stuff—frickin’ basketball or something—and I couldn’t make it. Niswander went in my place.” He blew out a breath to ease the pressure in his chest. “Someone ambushed them. Sons of bitches doused both of them with gasoline and burned them alive.”
John didn’t look at her. He couldn’t. Not with those ugly images running through his mind. “Everyone knew Vespian was responsible, but we couldn’t prove it.”
“But why burn a cop like that?” she asked.
“Vespian wanted information. And he got it.”
“What information?”
“My home address.”
Her recoil was minute, but John saw it. She knew what came next. “He went after your family.”
He nodded. “They broke into my house when I wasn’t there. Vespian and a couple of thugs. They raped my wife, raped my little girls, then murdered all of them. Burned them alive the same way they had Vic.”
Reaching across the table, she laid her hand over his. “I can’t imagine how horrific that must have been.”
“Some of the details never made the papers. The bodies were so burned, there was little evidence left. I didn’t find out about the rapes until I got my hands on Vespian.”
He couldn’t talk about what he’d seen when he broke through the line the fire department had set up. He wasn’t a strong enough man to voluntarily recall those horrific images. “The brass put me on sick leave. Somehow I got checked into a hospital. Fuckin’ psycho ward.” He tried to smile, but didn’t manage. “To tell you the truth, I barely remember.”