The Penitent One (Boston Crime Thriller Book 3) Brian Shea (good book club books .txt) 📖

"Arms out like an airplane. Do it now," Barnes barked.

Lumpkin complied.

"Slowly," she added.

His ungloved hands crawled across the snowpack, the knife a safe distance away.

Kelly stepped on the blade, making it impossible for the man to get to it in case he had a change of heart, which, under the circumstances, Kelly seriously doubted would happen.

"Put your hands at the small of your back," Barnes said, her voice even but her words commanding.

The man complied. The fight had left him completely.

Kelly nodded to Barnes, a silent confirmation that he was moving in. He then holstered his weapon and unsnapped his handcuffs.

Kelly snapped the cuffs on the man who had just tried to pull a knife on him, who had made the critical error of bringing a knife to a gunfight. Seconds later, Wendell Lumpkin was in custody, and the knife he'd used to murder Jason Palmer was lying in the snow less than seven feet away.

"What the hell is all this about?" Lumpkin said.

"You're under arrest for the murder of Jason Palmer."

"What?" Lumpkin asked, now realizing that his initial reaction of preparing to run when he first saw the detectives had been right.

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present prior to or during any questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided to you at no cost. Do you understand the rights that I've read to you?"

Lumpkin nodded.

"Let me hear you say it. Do you understand the rights that I have just advised you of?" Kelly asked, leaning in close. "I want to hear you say it."

"Yeah, I understand, but I ain't talking to you," Lumpkin said.

Kelly pulled the man off the ground and sat him on the icy curbing. He removed his radio from the clip on his belt and called into headquarters, radioing for a caged car to come pick up their perp.

Less than fifteen hours after Jason Palmer was murdered, Kelly and Barnes had their man in bracelets, ready to face prosecution for murder.

Kelly couldn't help comparing the ease of this case with the stalemate of the red card hanging on his murder board. He hadn't even had time to make Palmer's red card, and yet Benjamin Tomlin’s and Danny Rourke’s killer remained at large. And it still gnawed at him like an itch he couldn’t scratch.

16

For the first time in a long time, Kelly arrived at work just before the official start of the day, crossing the threshold into Homicide a minute shy of 8:00 a.m. Jimmy Mainelli had actually beaten him to the office. Kelly couldn't remember the last time that had happened, or if it was a first. He had allowed himself this bit of reprieve from his normal pace and the relentless effort he put forth on a daily basis, the extra couple hours sleep a reward for bringing Wendell Lumpkin to justice so swiftly. The eighteen hours of work that it took to accomplish that feat also contributed to his exhaustion. The extra sleep had been needed for his body’s physical recovery from the adrenaline dump.

Kelly had replayed the brief seconds it took to apprehend the transient murderer. Lumpkin’s ability to get the blade out before they gained control had haunted him. And it would for a long time to come. Kelly was his own worst critic, hypervigilant when it came to assessing the good and bad of everything he did. It started as a patrolman and only intensified when he obtained his detective shield. After every suspect takedown, whether with SWAT, Narcotics, or Homicide, Kelly conducted his own after-actions review, focusing on any possible mistakes so they wouldn't be repeated the next time around. He applied that same critical eye to the cases he worked. And while to everyone else, Wendell Lumpkin's arrest was as smooth as they come, he knew deep down those final few seconds were anything but. If Barnes hadn’t been there to quickly counter the knife with her gun, the end result might have been entirely different. That thought kept him up late into the night.

Once asleep, he'd managed to sleep more soundly than he had in a long time. Catching a homicide suspect had an amazing effect on his psyche. He compared it to winning the Golden Gloves Championship in his boxing career.

As Kelly entered Homicide, he saw Barnes removing her jacket and realized she too must have taken a little bit of extra time this morning. Normally she was his counterpart on the-early-bird-catches-the-worm mantra.

She gave him a smile, simple and genuine, nothing more to it. Mainelli peeked his head up from behind the cubicle wall that divided their squad’s four-desk cluster. He wore a wide, shit-eating grin, obviously pleased to have beaten the early riser to work.

Before Mainelli could offer a jab at him, Kelly held up his hand and shook his head sluggishly from side to side. He bypassed his desk and went straight into the break room for a cup of coffee. Kelly, happy to see the pot already full, grabbed a mug from the open shelf and filled it, adding two scoops of sugar and a dash of cream from the fridge before slowly ambling back toward his desk.

He passed by the sergeant's office and was surprised to see Superintendent Acevedo sitting across from Sutherland. Acevedo wasn't accompanied by his normal entourage of lieutenants and ass-kissers. Kelly recognized the only man seated beside him. With his clean-cut, Marine-like haircut graying at the temples, and the dark suit and tie he wore, Paul Halstead, the sergeant assigned to BPD's Internal Affairs Unit, looked more like a bank manager than a city cop.

Kelly's heart skipped a beat. Why was IA meeting with Sutherland? His mind immediately raced to replay last night's arrest. Everything was within the protocols. He didn't step on anybody's toes. Although he knew Acevedo's son, Tony, had been gunning