Just In Case - 1. Just In Case

Just in Case

I stood looking out the front window, waiting for a sign of Stephan’s car. As I smiled as I thought to myself that it had been two months that we had now been together. It wasn’t easy, but our relationship was something we both worked at.

We weren’t even living close when we started dating. Lucky for me, he found a job a lot closer. When the time came for him to move, I met him at his new place and helped unload the truck and get him settled in. That was when Stephan moved to Charles City. After that we became a commuter couple. One weekend he would come to stay with me in Davenport, and the next weekend I would be driving over to see him. Needless to say he was due at my place any minute, and I couldn’t wait.

My cellphone went off just as I heard a car pull into my driveway. I looked at the message and couldn’t believe that this was happening right now. It was a text message from my partner saying we had a murder scene to be at, and I needed to be there ASAP. When I saw the address I knew it wasn’t very far from home, so I would have a few minutes with Stephan before I had to leave. It was times like this I hated being a cop. I opened the door before he could knock and pulled him into a hug, giving him a deep kiss to show him how much I’d missed him.

“Hey babe, I sure have missed you.” I bit my lip and wouldn’t look him in the eye as I pulled him into the house, taking his bag from him, and walking down the hall to my room.

“TJ, what’s wrong?” I stopped as I noticed Stephan had stopped following me. I turned and saw him leaning against the wall with a crooked smile on his face.

I sighed and waved him to follow me as I began to explain.

“I just got called to a crime scene. I’m so sorry, but I’ve got to leave in the next few minutes.” I wrapped my arms around him with my nose in the crook of his shoulder and took a deep breath. Just being in his arms calmed me down, and I knew everything would be ok.

“It’s ok, hun. You go do what you need to do. It was a long drive, so I will probably just relax on the couch. If anyone can understand about you being called out it would be me since I’m also a cop.”

“Thanks for being so understanding.” I gave him a quick kiss and grabbed my jacket. ”There’s plenty of food and beer in the fridge. Make yourself at home. I don’t know when I’ll be home, but I’ll try to be back as quickly as possible.” I gave him another quick kiss and headed out the door.

When I pulled up at the crime scene I saw my partner Mike already talking to a couple of people, who I assumed might be witnesses. I flashed my badge to the officer trying to keep people away from the crime scene tape. Once allowed to enter I walked over to join them in the mouth of the alley.

“What do we have here?” I asked Mike as I scanned the alley. It was long and narrow, between two business buildings. I didn’t see any windows looking into the alley, but I couldn’t help to notice the body. The forensics team was collecting evidence and the victim was a well-dressed man in a gray suit, lying face up, his head tilted away from me.

“Thanks for your time; we’ll be in touch if we need anything else. If you remember anything please give me a call,” Mike said as he handed them his business card before they turned and walked away.

“Hey TJ, glad you could make it,” Mike said. “Victim is thirty-three-year-old Joshua Bevins. The victim was shot in the chest. Officers Barrera and McGraw were first on the scene.”

I noted where Mike was pointing, and we walked over to the two officers who were already noting their impressions for the reports.

“Hey, can you repeat what you found for my partner?” Mike nodded at me.

“Yes, Detective. First off, the only people on scene when we arrived are the two men who found the victim as they walked by, but there was a casing found fairly close to the body.” Officer Barrera checked his notebook before he spoke again. “Very little blood splatter. There appears to be a tire mark just in front of where the victim was standing.”

“We took pictures and measurements. The team is going to run it and see if they can figure out what kind of car might use them,” McGraw added quickly.

“Thanks.” I nodded at the two beat cops as I nodded at the beat cops, looking up at all the apartments on the other side of the street. My mind raced trying to figure out how someone could be killed and no one noticed. “Do a canvas of the apartment buildings, and see if you can find someone who maybe heard a shot or saw something,” I said.

“Yes, sir.” Officer McGraw and his partner gathered up a few other cops and started their canvas.

I looked down at the body of Mr. Bevins. He was well dressed in a grey suit with a matching tie. A wedding ring was the only jewelry I could see. His dark brown hair was matted with garbage from the alley. I could see the monogrammed briefcase at his side. I was happy I didn’t touch the body because it was just a moment later the medical examiner arrived and began his investigation.

“I’d say he has been dead for maybe two hours, based on the liver temperature. I’ll know more once I get him back to the morgue.” Johnston lifted the hand of the victim’s hand and studied it for a moment. “Bag the victim’s hands until we get back to the morgue,” He said to a crime tech before he continued his observations, “There appears to be no defensive wounds on his hands. He has a bump on his head, but that’s probably from him falling to the pavement.”

“Thanks, doc,” I said as his assistants placed the victim in a body bag and on the stretcher to take him back to the morgue.

Mike flipped his notebook closed and slid it in his inside jacket pocket, as he said, “TJ, let’s run Mr. Bevins and see if we can find him in the system, but first let’s go to his home address and notify the next of kin. I noticed a wedding ring on his finger.”

I nodded, and said, “All right, let’s stop at the precinct and drop off one of our cars before we head to his house.”

***

We pulled up at 4806 Terry Street, and it seemed to be a quiet suburban area. He had a two story blue house. You could tell the yard was well taken care of and someone spent a lot of time gardening because there were rose bushes planted to the left of the front steps. It appeared Mr. Bevins lived a quiet life. This was the part of the job I hated because I would be disrupting that quiet life. I wasn’t really surprised it was so quiet considering it was around the normal dinner time.

Mike knocked on the door, and we waited for it to be answered. I heard someone walking towards the door but was shocked when the door opened. There stood a brown haired man in his thirties.

“Can I help you?” he asked with a look of confusion on his face.

“We’re looking for the spouse of Joshua Bevins,” Mike said gruffly.

“I’m his husband, Derick Bevins. What’s going on?” He tilted his head to the side; I could see the worry and confusion in his eyes.

“I’m Detective Willis, and this is Detective Jackson. Would it be possible for us to talk inside?" Mike nodded and clasped Derick's arm.

"Oh." Derick seemed at a loss for a moment. "Please, come in." He stepped back and waved us into his home.”

Derick led us into the house after he closed the front door behind us. The hall was neat and held a small table with keys on it and a mirror above. He paused as we entered the living room. The room seemed inviting, done in shades of blue and grey, with silver accents and pictures scattered everywhere. Derick gestured for us to take a seat on the dark blue sofa, while he sat in one of the matching dark grey wing chairs directly across from us. He sat and watched us carefully, his arms slowly wrapping around his waist.

This was the part of the job I hated. Came with the territory, but it never made this any easier. I took a deep breath before I began to speak. “Mr. Bevins, I’m sorry to inform you but your husband was shot in an alley just off of Main Street.”

I noted the surprise in his eyes right before he let out a god awful wail before he started to sob uncontrollably. “He can’t be dead; he’s supposed to be home any time now. There has to be some mistake.”

“I’m sorry to say this, but according to his I.D. found at the scene. Is there anyone that you could think of who would want him dead?”

“No, everybody loves him.” He sniffled as he grabbed some Kleenex sitting on the coffee table.

“What type of work did he do?” Mike asked.

“He’s a corporate attorney.”

“Was he working on a big case recently?” I asked as I looked around the room. I noticed several CiCi paintings on the walls.

“Not that I know of; he tried really hard not to bring his work home with him.”

“Does he have a home office?” Mike asked.

“Yes, we share a home office.”

“May we take a look?” asked Mike.

“I guess, but he kept his case files on his laptop he took to work, that way he would have everything he needed if he did have to bring his work home.” Derick stood and led us down the hallway into their home office, that was painted a pale blue and had two large desks sitting on either side of the room from each other. He pointed to the desk on the left and said, “That’s his desk that he used.” I noticed that it was neat compared to the other desk in the room that seemed to have papers strewn all over the surface of the desk.

“Thank you, Mr. Bevins,” Mike said as I walked over to the desk and started to go through it.

I found a day planner and saw that he had had a dinner meeting at six p.m. with J. White, but found no files or notes on his current case he was working on. I glanced at Mike and shook my head to let him know that I hadn’t found anything except for the planner.

“Mr. Bevins, can we take this for evidence? We’ll get it back to you as soon as the case is solved,” I asked.

“Yeah, if it can help you find out who killed him take it.” I grabbed it as evidence and put it in an evidence bag

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Bevins. We’ll be in touch if we have any further questions.” We shook hands with him before we headed toward the front door.

***

“What did you think of Derick Bevins?” Mike asked as we were on our way back to the precinct.

“My gut says that he knows more than he said, but he was surprised when we notified him of his husband’s death.”

“I feel the same. We can look at the victim’s day planner and see if we can find any patterns of who he was meeting with. The tech guys will be going over all the evidence for hours. If we’re lucky they might have some information for us by morning.” Mike shook his head and shot me a look. “Tell you what, bud; I’ll drop you off so you can get your car. We can begin to go through Joshua’s contacts in the morning by going to his office. I know Stephen was due into town today. Go home and spend some time with him. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Thanks Mike; I really appreciate that.”

***

We pulled into the parking lot, and Mike dropped me off at my car. I was grateful to him because I felt really bad about leaving Stephan at my house alone right after he got there. I looked at my watch. I had gotten late,[CN1] but I hoped he would still be up when I got home.

When I got home I saw that the living room light was still on. I quickly parked in the driveway and hurried into the house.

“Hey, babe, I am so sorry I had to leave like that as soon as you got here,” I called as I walked into the living room where Stephan was curled on the couch watching TV.

He patted the couch next to him and said, “It’s ok, I completely understand the drawbacks of your job. Am I disappointed you’re going to have to work this weekend? Yes, I am, but I completely understand, and I’m not offended in any way. I know that if you could, you would spend all your time with me. I’m just happy to get to see you at all this weekend.”

“Thank you for being so understanding.” I leaned into him and cuddled on the couch.

“How’re you doing?” Stephan wrapped his arm around me and he pulled me closer to him.

“I’m good considering I just caught a murder case.”

“I know you’ll catch whoever was responsible.”

“Thanks.” I laid my head on his shoulder and wrapped my arm around his waist.

I was so comfortable with him like that, that I fell asleep. I woke to him gently shaking me. “Babe, let’s go to bed.”

Stephen helped guide me to my own bedroom, I was that tired. I slowly stripped to my boxers, watching as Stephan got rid of his clothes too. The bed felt like a cloud as we both climbed into my king-sized mattress, meeting in the middle. Stephen stretched out, and I curled up next to him, using his chest as a pillow, where I promptly fell back to sleep.

***

The delicious smell of coffee drifting into the bedroom woke me. I lifted one eyelid half-opened eye and glanced at the clock. Eight AM. I immediately of Stephan. I really just wanted to spend the day with him, but work needed me. Mike would be at the station house waiting to continue with our case. I was so tempted to tell Stephan to go home, but I was selfish and wanted him to stay. It was nice coming home to him. I just wished we could have more time together. He walked into the bedroom, wearing a pair of loose sweatpants that barely clung to his waist, with tray which he set on my night stand as I sat up and scooted up the bed until my back was against the headboard.

“Good morning, baby.” He winked as he sat on the edge of the bed.

“Mornin’.” I picked up my coffee and took a sip. “Damn you got it just right, baby. Thank you so much; you shouldn’t have gone to the trouble.” I noticed there were two plates both with some bacon, eggs, and an English muffin. I was happy for the chance to eat with him because we don’t get to do it very often.

“It was no trouble; I like taking care of you. What time do you need to meet with your partner?”

“We didn’t set a specific time, but I should head to the station soon.”

I settled the tray over my lap and dug into my breakfast. I layered my bacon and eggs on the muffin. I bit into my custom breakfast sandwich and moaned in delight. It was so good. I couldn’t stop eating until every bite was gone

“I wish I hadn’t been called in on this case. I really wanted to spend time with you this weekend because I have missed you so much this week.”

“I’ve missed you too, but it’s the nature of our jobs. We can’t control when someone is going to kill somebody.”

“I know, but it doesn’t make it any easier to leave you today.”

“I’ll be here when you get home, and we can spend some quality time together then.” He kissed me on the forehead and grabbed the tray before he took it out of the room.

I knew I needed to get up and take a shower so I could head in to work.

***

Like I figured, Mike was already at the station waiting for me. “Sorry I’m late.” I sat at my desk across from him.

He took a sip of his coffee before he nodded his head at me. “You’re not late. I did some checking into the victim’s financials and noticed there was a recurring charge at the Ramada Inn on Main. He went there every Friday afternoon.” He handed me the papers he had on his desk in front of him.

I shuffled through the pages as I thought out loud, “I wonder if his husband knew this. It would definitely give him motive to kill him.”

“Yeah, but why not just divorce him?”

“Ah ha,” I pulled papers out of what Mike had handed me and said, “There was a pre-nup agreement. Plus there is a life insurance policy with him as the sole beneficiary that totaled $500,000. That’s plenty of motive by itself.”

“Yeah, but he was completely surprised when we told him of the shooting.”

“Or he could be that great of an actor. I say we get his boss to meet up at the vic’s office and go through the files that we can, but my gut is saying the perp’s the husband.”

“Let’s go by the hotel as well. Maybe someone will remember him and be able to tell us who he met there every week.” Mike grabbed his jacket and we headed out to the parking lot.

“There should be some security videos; we need to get those also.”

***

We were on our way to the hotel when we got a call of a robbery at the 7-11 on Cherry Street with shots fired and one possible fatality Since we were close we responded to the call. When we got on scene I heard a gunshot from inside the store. The car barely was in park before we were out of it. We carefully made our way to the front door.

Something must have startled the man inside because the next thing I knew I was on the ground with a hole in my right shoulder.

I vaguely heard another blast as Mike shot the robber before he called for backup and a bus. The pain in my shoulder absorbed my attention. Time seemed to freeze but suddenly there were Paramedics standing over me and asking all sorts of questions. I saw Mike following us as they began to load me into the ambulance.

“Call Stephan,” I told Mike before I passed out.

***

I don’t know how long I was out, but I woke to a beeping noise and the sound of someone crying. I slowly opened my eyes and looked around me. There were all sorts of machines and wires running toward me and my arm. It didn’t take long for me to realize I had to be in a hospital. Hearing the sobbing coming from my other side I turned my head to find Stephan was sitting beside me, holding my hand. I tried to move and pain exploded sharply before it slowly became bearable reminding me I’d been shot. I took slow breaths to try to breathe through the pain. I grimaced for a moment before I moaned and licked my lips.

“Shhh, babe. I’m ok,” I croaked as I squeezed his hand.

“Oh God, I almost lost you. I couldn’t bear it if I had.” He jumped out of his seat and leaned over to kiss me on the lips. He leaned his forehead against mine and I felt drops onto my cheeks from his silent tears.

“I don’t plan on going anywhere any time soon; I have too much to live for.” I reached with my unoccupied hand and searched for my call button. When I found it I pressed it and waited for a response.

“Why didn’t you wait for backup to arrive like you’re supposed to?”

“There was only one gunman inside, and I thought we could handle it by ourselves.”

“There are plans to have backup for a reason.”

“I know and I’m sorry I scared you, babe.”

The door opened and the nurse walked in. “It’s good to see you’re awake. How are you feeling?”

“I hurt like a bitch. How do you think I feel?” I knew I was being an ass, but I was in pain, and I’m not that nice when I’m hurting.

“Babe, calm down. She’s here to help you.”

She looked at Stephan and gave him a smile in thanks. “You have a pain pump here, so push this button and it will deliver your pain medicine,” she explained as she pointed to the push button was next to my hand.

“Thank you.” I pushed the button and waited for the medicine to kick in.

She walked out of the room just before the doctor walked in carrying my chart. “Good morning, Detective Jackson; I’m Doctor Bell.” He looked at Stephan and asked, “Could you step out for a minute?”

“I want him here, Doctor.”

“All right.” He looked at what I assumed was my chart before continuing, “I imagine you’re hurting pretty bad. Good news is we were able to get the bullet out; very little muscles or tendons were seriously damaged. Thankfully there no bones hit by the bullet so that is something we won’t have to worry about. We did however; have to give you a blood transfusion because you lost quite a bit of blood. We were able to close up the wound without complications, so there will be some scarring, but it’s going to be a while before you can go back to work. Do you have any questions for me?”

“Yeah; how long will I be in the hospital?”

“Well, we need to keep an eye on the incision site to make sure there’s no infection, but you should be able to go home in a few days. However, you will have to do physical therapy to keep the function of that shoulder. You should have someone there to help because your range of motion is going to be affected for a while. You may experience some numbness and tingling in that arm which is to be expected.”

“I don’t live with anyone—”

“I can stay and help you for a while. I have some vacation time built up and I’m sure Chief Billings will understand,” Stephan interrupted me.

“I can’t ask you to do that,” I protested.

“You didn’t ask; I volunteered. In fact, I already spoke to Chief Billings, and he gave me the ok. He said to get better soon.”

“Thanks, babe.” I smiled softly as I started to drift back off to sleep.

I woke to whispered voices and I struggled make out what was being said before they realized I was awake.

“Stephan, let me know when he’s awake. We need to get his statement about what happened at the shooting.”

“Ok, I’ll give you a call when he wakes up again so that you can talk to him, Sir.”

“Go ahead and call then Steph, cause I’m awake.” I chuckled weakly.

I could finally open my eyes and I saw Stephan talking to Lieutenant Adams. They both turned to me with small smiles on their faces.

“TJ it’s good to see you. I have a few questions about what happened yesterday at the convenience store shooting.” Lieutenant Adams pulled out a pad of paper so that he could take notes.

“Ask away Sir. I will answer your questions as completely possible.”

“TJ, what do you remember to happen when you pulled up at the 7-11?”

“I heard a gunshot form inside and carefully made my way towards the front of the building. I thought I was out of sight but before I could get to the door there was another shot; this one hit my left shoulder. I remember Mike calling for a bus and backup and another gunshot before I passed out. I don’t remember much else before I woke up here.”

“Was there enough time for your partner to get into the store and kill the perp?”

“I honestly couldn’t tell you.”

“Ok I think that’s enough for now. If you remember anything else please give me a call.”

“Yes sir.”

“You’re going to be on leave until you are cleared medically and psychologically. I want you to be in top form when you come back. Santos and Miller are taking over your homicide case that you were working on. Take it easy and get well soon.” He exited the room, which left Stephan and myself in the room by ourselves.

***

I was released five days later. Stephan stayed by my side the entire time I was in the hospital, except for the couple of hours he left to get some more clothes.

About a week after I was released from the hospital Mike came by for a visit while Stephan made a run to Charles City.

Mike had a smile on his face when he said, “Hey buddy! Talked to Santos earlier today and the Bevins case has been solved. Apparently the appointment that the vic had every week was with a divorce attorney. Seems like he had caught his husband cheating on him while he was out of town. The husband, Derick, found out about the divorce and knew that if it went through he would be left with only what he brought into the marriage and that wasn’t very much. Plus with his husband dead he would receive the payout on the life insurance policy. It seems like Derick had hired his lover to kill the husband. When the deed was done Derick backed out on the deal, and his lover went to the police and turned himself in, along with an audio tape he had made of a conversation between him and Derrick while they plotted the murder.”

“Wow! Who would’ve thought? What’s the outcome on the shooting?”

“It was ruled a clean hit because I was defending you. I’m back on active duty and can’t wait for you to be cleared because they’ve got me with rookies and it sucks,” he whined.

Stephan and I set up a backup plan for when he went back to Charles City, and I was grateful for the friends I had on the force. Most of all, I was thankful for Stephan. His attention and careful treatment of me during that time when I was injured showed me how much he cared about me, and I just slowly felt my affection and love for him grow deeper.…