AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Ok, get your reports typed up and on my desk.”
The detective steps away. I quickly follow, grabbing his attention as he entered the apartment building.
“Excuse me, detective?”
When he turned around, he let out a small huff, instantly getting my back up. He’s giving me the impression this is just all too inconvenient for him; you know his fucking job.
“Yes?” His tone was already impatient.
I blink a couple of times, trying to word my question in the best possible way.
“Would it be ok to head to the hospital? See how the victim is getting on?”
His brow creases, and he eyed me suspiciously. To my surprise, after a couple of seconds, he agreed.
“If she says anything, make sure you note it.”
Turning on his heels, he headed up the stairs, eventually out of sight.
With my initial report typed out, I cleared it with the captain and headed to the hospital with officer Randle.
Stepping into the dimly lit hospital room, I immediately removed my hat. I found myself just staring down at her, my heart almost breaking at the unbelievable cruelty someone has inflicted on such a young girl. I couldn’t tell you how long I was looking at her, but a nurse gently placed her hand on my shoulder, pulling me from my trance. As I jumped, she apologized.
“I’m terribly sorry officer. Are you ok?” Her kind eyes searched mine for a moment before looking back to Pamela. “She’s going to make it. She’s going to need surgery to repair the fractures to her face, her arm.”
“The emotional fractures?” I whispered softly as the tears fill my eyes.
The nurse stepped aside, pulling a chair towards the bed, and gestured for me to sit. A warm smile spreading across her face.
“With kind officers like you, anything is possible.”
I continued to visit Pamela each day through her recovery, even once she had been discharged from the hospital. I learned she was twenty-two from Baltimore, and her big dreams of becoming a Broadway star led her to New York. She told me her employer, Luca Bernardi, had led her to the apartment. She’d begun dancing at one of his clubs six months prior to earn some money while she auditioned for theatre work.
The night she was attacked, Luca had asked her to attend a party with him. She was so thrilled as he was such a well-known businessman, or so she thought at the time. She didn’t learn about his connections to the crime world until after her attack. He hides it well in the beginning as not to scare vulnerable victims away.
But it turned out to be a lie. When she got there, she was force-fed drugs and shoved into a room, Luca repeatedly raped her, and when she tried to get away, he beat her. Several other men were there, but she couldn’t identify them. By this point, she was in and out of consciousness. She’d been put through that hell for three days before they all up and left.
When one of them realized they had killed Lisa, they all fled. They didn’t even bother to check Pamela. Either they didn’t care or just assumed she would eventually die anyway. Once she’d been found, the crime scene reckoned it had been seventy-two hours since the property had been abandoned, but there was no DNA, all those people in and out, and not one scrap of DNA to be found.
The entire thing never sat well with me; it gnawed away like a disease eating away at my insides. It was then I realized, no matter how much you abide by the law, how hard you try to serve and protect those around you. Sometimes, that just isn’t enough.
The trial was horrendous, but I went to support my friend, and I had to give evidence as the first officer on the scene. Luca’s mouthpiece began to try and spin it that I was sleeping with Pamela and that somehow this was all some conspiracy to frame him, but no one bought it. Firstly, it wasn’t true and second, there was no motive for either of us.
Each time Luca looked over to Pamela, and that snake-like smirk slithered over his face, it took everything in me not to walk over and put a bullet right between his eyes in front of everyone. Each passing day, I hated him more and more, but I knew revenge would need to be down the line. Anything so soon after his acquittal would be suspicious, and accusations would be flying through the NYPD like fireworks on the fourth of July.
Unfortunately for us, Luca had so many brushes with the law, that killing him would be too suspicious. For a while, I wondered whether he fucking knew someone was plotting to kill him, so with his constant arrests, he would be visible to everyone looking into each accusation of prostitution, drugs, racketeering, and the NYPD couldn’t just forget about him. He was like a disease that wouldn’t go away.
Forcing myself into the moment, I step back inside the courtroom. Glancing to my left, I spot Luca and Elijah deep in conversation. However, neither look fazed. They’re smiling and laughing with each other, and I feel my teeth begin to grind again. Flexing my hands, I slide into a seat at the back.
With my eyes focused on the judge’s chair, I take a deep inhale, trying to calm the erratic beating of my heart. The time feels like it’s being dragged through the mud, but as soon as those words are uttered, the gasps and shock spread through the courtroom.
“Not guilty”
My head falls against the wall, and I stare at the ceiling. Bracing myself forward, I hold my head in my hands when my arms eventually fall into my lap. I watch as Pamela is escorted out of the room by her friend. She doesn’t look my way, the tears streak down her face, and she shakes with uncontrollable rage in that moment, I truly feel I and the rest of the NYPD have let her down.
I watch Luca and Elijah congratulate each other, huge grins plastered across their faces as they leave the courtroom and likely out towards the waiting press. Luca flashes a smirk my way as he strides out the door.
Once the room clears, sat in the same seat, and I’m unable to move. This was my first time in a courtroom as a cop. We did everything right, and still, he wasn’t convicted. Instead, Pamela was practically carried out by her friend in tears, whilst the criminal walked out of here a free man. A free man who can carry on as though nothing ever happened, and he can start all over again.
