When Cops Collide: Someone Dies

By Marty RicKard

His name is Charles Thomas McKinley. Everyone calls him Mac. He's been my partner and best friend on the St. Paul police force for twenty years. Charisma oozes out of Big Mac like goo from a jelly doughnut. He could have doubled for John Wayne, only he's bigger and tougher. Yeah, Mac is made from gunmetal, but the big jerk also has a soft side when you get to know him.

Here's my dilemma: we've got this dead girl whose body shows up on a cold snowy night. Mac's in charge of solving the case. He does a fine job, finds the killer in a few weeks: a guy named Willie Claymore, the girl's live-in boyfriend, who confesses to the crime.

The only problem is Claymore didn't kill the girl, Mac did. Yes, my friend, the big cop that I've loved for twenty years, killed her, and the evidence against Mac mounts every day.

I'm trapped in the middle, between my partner, a guy I love, who is more like a brother to me, and Willie Claymore who is piss foam--a skinny, unemployed, Black Rastafarian, with a bad attitude and maybe twelve teeth, tops. What did it matter if he rotted in prison for a crime he didn't commit?

But I am a cop, a good cop. I would never let an innocent man spend his life locked up if I could help. Yeah, I love Mac, but he killed that girl and pinned it on Willie Claymore. Now I had to confront him. What would Mac do?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 17, 2024
• ISBN: 9798887316215

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Chapter 1: Cops Aren't That Lucky

Chapter 2: Big Lovable Mac

Chapter 3: Break Out the High Heels

Chapter 4: Holding Hands with a Dead Girl

Chapter 5: Her Face Read like a Novel

Chapter 6: Jesus, She Smells

Chapter 7: The Marriage Nightmare

Chapter 8: Strong as a Cowboy Boot

Chapter 9: Perfect Dumpster

Chapter 10: I Loved Mac

Chapter 11: Panic Again Then Fire

Chapter 12: Mac Isn't Happy

Chapter 13: Sally-O Is Dead

Chapter 14: Abortion…Killing Babies

Chapter 15: Big Baby Boy

Chapter 16: Life + Life = Life

Chapter 17: Even When I Wake I'm Dead

Chapter 18: Back from Death

Chapter 19: Jac Vanishes

Chapter 20: From Boy to Man

Chapter 21: Be Sure to Mention the DNA

About the Author

cover.jpg

When Cops Collide

Someone Dies

Marty RicKard

Copyright © 2023 Marty RicKard

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2023

ISBN 979-8-88731-620-8 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88731-621-5 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Chapter 1

Cops Aren't That Lucky

It appeared to be a slam dunk.

Beautiful blonde cocktail waitress stabbed to death. Body dumped in wooded park. Live-in, druggy boyfriend arrested. Boyfriend confesses and goes to prison.

Case closed, right?

Wrong!

I hadn't been involved in the investigation in the beginning, but I remember thinking that it all came together too quickly—too easily. Cops aren't that lucky; things don't work that smoothly in the real-life world of a cop.

There were times when I wished I had kept my big Irish nose out of it. After all, Willie Claymore did confess. And Willie Claymore was piss foam—a skinny, unemployed, Black Rastafarian, with a bad attitude and maybe twelve teeth, tops. What did it matter if he rotted in prison for a crime he didn't commit?

But I'm a cop—a damned good cop—and one morning I had an unusual visitor who made an impression on me. This visitor sucked me into the case like a cat hair into a Kirby. The more I studied the evidence, the more it smelled like a carp under the couch. So I got into the investigation up to my eyeballs. The truth: Willy Claymore did not kill that girl. He couldn't have killed her. He was in Oklahoma when she died.

I believe the girl was killed by a cop and not just any cop. She was killed by my partner, the officer of the year in 2006 and 2007. The guy in whose hands I entrust my life every day out on the job. How will he react when I confront him? Will he square with me? Admit what he did? Or will I get an accidental bullet in the spine while we are checking out some remote alley in the dark of night?

I can't believe my partner would shoot me, but I didn't think he could kill that girl either.

Chapter 2

Big Lovable Mac

It was the color of the dead girl's nightgown that first triggered my bullshit button. Something in my brain linked that color to my best friend.

His name is Charles Thomas McKinley. Everyone calls him Mac. Charisma oozes out of Big Mac like goo from a jelly doughnut. He could have doubled for John Wayne, only he's bigger and tougher. Yeah, Mac is made from gun metal, but the big jerk also has a soft side.

I've seen him weep, and I've seen him out of control with anger—like one night last summer when we carried that broken little girl out of the house down on Cleveland.

Look at her, Jimmie. He sobbed. What is she? Eight? Maybe nine? Her eye is gone.

Stay cool, Mac.

I'm going back up there and kill that son of a bitch.

You're a cop, Mac. That's not your job.

When they bring him down, put the bastard in my cruiser. Let me transport him, Mac said.

No.

*****

I love Mac like a brother. I've worked with him for twenty years. Helped through tough times, like when he and his wife, Carol, lost their perfect little girl the month after she was born. Jesus, they were crushed. And when they learned they could never have another child, I didn't see Mac for a month. He sat in a dark room at home. Jack Daniel's stock price doubled that month, and Mac almost lost his job. But finally, he pulled himself together and got back to work. Work helped him get his brain off his problems.

I've been with him through Carol's health problems—admired him for staying with her, helping her, and protecting her. I was saddened and disappointed when he filed for divorce a couple of years ago, though I certainly understood. My heart was buoyed when they later reconciled, and Mac dropped the divorce action.

I tried, but I can't leave her, Jimmie. Mac's tears flowed. I love her, and once that love door opens, it never truly closes again. Never. I would do anything for her…and she would for me.

We both cried at the time, but now those words pound in my brain like a jackhammer.

And later, I testified at his discipline hearing. Mac punched Marty Anderson for calling Mac's wife a fuckin' loony bird. I told the commissioners that Marty Anderson got what he deserved. They agreed.

Yeah, I love Mac, but he killed that girl and pinned it on Willie Claymore. Now I had to confront him.

Chapter 3

Break Out the High Heels

Life is strange. I might never have known Mac was the killer if I hadn't gone with him to one of those phony lingerie shows two years ago. This is classic serendipity.

That day, Mac waltzed into the station, twirled around, sang, and laughed; he dropped tickets on everyone's desk.

Call your wives, boys, Mac sang out. Tell them to break out the high heels and candles and put on a little Sinatra 'cause their favorite cop is coming home hot and hard tonight.

Six or eight of the guys followed Mac and me to Duffy's after work.

An announcer described the skimpy outfits in seductive tones as the girls paraded on the bar, just inches from the customers' hungry eyes. The place was packed.

We should arrest these girls, I said.

Relax, Jimmie. They got clothes on. Mac laughed.

Okay, they did have clothes on, but you didn't need Superman's X-ray vision to see it all. The show was a sneaky way to circumvent the law against stripping in an establishment where alcohol is served.

The girls were young and clean and there wasn't an ounce of fat on the lot of them. The lingerie was nice, and you could buy any of the outfits at the booth in the back of the bar.

Then it happened. This gal comes out in the pewter outfit. She was blond, had coltish legs that were longer than OJ Simpson's trial, and wore six-inch high heels. But it was the color of her outfit that would cause the explosion in my brain two years later. It was the pewter color. It glistened and shimmered with reflected light as she moved. It was striking.

Now appearing on Duffy's bar this evening is the lovely Allison, the announcer said. Allison is wearing a simple shortie, with a slight flare at the hips, spaghetti straps, and no frills. The color is called pewter. The price is only twenty dollars. As I said, it's simple, but beautiful. Why not take something simple to bed with you tonight?

I take something simple to bed every night, but she doesn't look like that! one cop shouted.

Everyone laughed but Mac. His eyes were locked on that outfit.

Jesus, Jimmy, I love that color. That gets my motor racin', he said. You can have your blacks and reds and pinks and all those melon colors, I'll take that pewter.

Shit, Mac, in the dark, they all look the same. A fellow officer laughed.

Sex doesn't happen in the dark, Mac replied in a strangely serious tone. Sex happens in your brain. Give me pewter.

Then Mac began to chant it over and over until everyone in the bar joined in.

Pewter! Pewter! Pewter! Pewter!

They chanted until the charming Allison reluctantly gave up the stage to a girl in pink. Hell, I thought all the outfits looked good.

Several times that evening, Mac raved about the pewter color, and in the end, he bought the outfit and took it home. I wondered how it looked on his wife. He didn't say anything the next morning, and no one asked him for a report. After the Marty Anderson incident, Mac's home life was off-limits.

Chapter 4

Holding Hands with a Dead Girl

So early one January day, when sane people were sitting in their warm homes, reading the morning paper, a yuppie jogger needs to unload some expensive Starbucks cappuccino. He hikes in his fancy spandex tights down into the woods, below Linwood Park to piss. He