Trial and Error

Five

The cops cuffed Steve and slammed him facedown onto the hood of the cruiser. Water dripped down his legs into his Reeboks.

All that mattered was Bobby, and Steve couldn’t get to him. “C’mon, man. My nephew’s back there.”

“How many of you are there?” the bigger cop demanded.

“I’m not one of them!” Steve lifted his head. A hand slammed it back down. Steve’s eyes teared and his nose dripped blood. A fire burned deep in his shoulder. “Did you hear the gunshots? I gotta find Bobby.”

“Shut up.” The cop clipped the back of Steve’s skull with his Maglite. Just a practice swing. Steve decided he didn’t want to feel the real thing.

“Don’t they teach you in cop school that gunshots are bad?” Steve asked.

“Got other units there.” The cop was going through the soggy contents of Steve’s wallet. Seventeen dollars, a year-old Fantasy 5 lottery ticket, and his Florida Bar card. “You’re a lawyer.”

“Yeah, and you’re gonna need one.”

Steve liked most cops, even the ones who stretched the truth in their testimony, forcing him to cross-examine the crap out of them. They had their job to do, and he had his, which was to make them look like idiots or liars. Or both.

These two were young. One Hispanic, one black. Both with sleeves tight against bulging biceps.

Don’t they test cops for steroids the way they do ballplayers?

It was something he’d look into the next time some cop roughed up one of his presumably innocent clients. ’Roid rage.

“My nephew’s got a medical condition. So if you could be a pal and-”

“Shut up,” the Hispanic cop repeated. His partner separately questioned Darth Vader over by a scrubby palm tree. Steve couldn’t hear the questions, but several answers seemed to include the words “Gestapo thug” and “global corporate conspiracy,” sprinkled with mentions of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

Steve explained how Grisby called him about Bobby, how he drove to Cetacean Park, stumbled into an animal liberation raid, chased this yahoo in the wet suit, then saw a second Jet Skier, who’d already made it to the Bay with two dolphins.

“Another perp,” the cop said, sounding interested. “You get a look at him?”

Steve shook his head, water dripping from his hair. “Too dark. Too far away. He was herding the dolphins into open water, and that jerkoff was bringing up the rear.”

The radio in the squad car crackled, and the Hispanic cop ducked inside to take the call. When he emerged, he said, “Is it safe to assume your nephew’s not around forty years old, maybe two hundred pounds?”

“He’s twelve and built like a broomstick.”

“Good. Then he’s not the dead guy.”