She and her partner, Chris Cox, had gone to a high-rent apartment complex off Judiciary Square to serve a warrant on and arrest one Drago Kovac. Kovac had immigrated to the U.S. from Serbia when he was nine, become an American citizen at fifteen, and become a car thief shortly thereafter. He wasn’t very good at his chosen field at first. Kovac was caught and convicted of grand theft auto twice before his eighteenth birthday. After that, he wised up and got sophisticated. He formed an auto-theft ring that worked the Miami-to-Boston corridor, boosting in-demand cars, chopping them up for parts, and then selling the parts over the Internet.
Kovac was now twenty-seven and operating his illegal enterprise from his luxury flat on Third Street in DC. Aaliyah, looking for spare parts for her Ford Explorer, had happened on one of his websites, which offered “gently used” parts for a third of what other sites and stores were asking. When she learned the company and Kovac were based in DC, one thing led to another, and then to a year of additional investigative work.
“We had him,” Aaliyah said. “I mean, this was a major criminal operation. Millions of dollars, and we had him dead to rights.”
“So you go to Kovac’s apartment building to serve the warrant,” I said, pushing her toward the awful truth.
“Yes.” Aaliyah sighed. “We went in at the exact same time arrests in this case were supposed to go down all over the East Coast. Synchronized, you know?”
But unbeknownst to Aaliyah and her partner, several warrants had been served early. When police in New Jersey went through the front door of a Kovac chop shop, one of his men got off a text warning of the raid.
“Seconds before we reached the tenth floor of his apartment building, Kovac and his men left his flat,” Aaliyah said. “Cox saw them at the far end of the hallway and ordered them to the ground. They ran, and when we pursued, they shot.”
“They definitely shot first?”
“No question,” Aaliyah said, a smolder of the old fire in her eyes. “Surveillance cameras back us up.”
“Okay. Kovac and his men shoot first. Then what?”
That glowing ember died in Aaliyah’s eyes. Her neck muscles went taut as piano wires before she said, “Then it all became a nightmare.”
Provoked into a gun battle, Aaliyah and her partner followed protocol and returned fire. Her first shot hit the meat of Kovac’s thigh. Her second and third shots missed the car thief, who, howling in pain, lunged into the stairwell.
“I was in pursuit when the wailing started behind the door at the end of the hall,” Aaliyah said, and she broke down sobbing.
I knew the rest. She and Cox caught and arrested Kovac and two accomplices, but at an unfathomable cost. The bullets that went wide of the car thief had gone through the door of the apartment belonging to the Phelps family—Oliver, a young, successful attorney; Patricia, a young, successful physician; and their twins, four-year-old Meagan and Alice.
Alice had been playing in the front hallway. The nanny had rushed to get her at the first shot.
“What are the odds, Dr. Cross?” Aaliyah asked, still weeping bitterly. “What are the odds of wounding the nanny and killing the girl?”
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18
AFTER AALIYAH POURED out her anguish, her grief, her guilt and despair, she pulled her feet up under her on the chair, wrapped her arms around her knees, and stared off into the distance.
“In the end, I’ll always be the cop who killed a child,” she said hollowly. “No matter who I was before or who I become after, that’s who I will be.”
“To who? You?”
“I pulled the trigger, Alex. That’s what they’ll write after I die.”
“I empathize with the pain and regret you must be feeling, but you don’t know what the future holds for you. None of us do.”
She blinked slowly, said, “There is a way to know your future for certain.”
That got my attention and concern. “Have you thought about that, Tess?”
Aaliyah took a big breath and then shook her head. “No. Not really.”
“Not really?”
“Not at all. I’m just trying to find a way to process this, you know?”
There was little conviction in the detective’s voice, and she appeared preoccupied.
“Are you sleeping?” I asked.
“Some days it’s all I do.”
“Self-medicating? Alcohol? Drugs?”
“Honestly, I wish they’d work, but they don’t, so I don’t.”
“When does the civil suit go to trial?”
Aaliyah continued to avoid eye contact. “I don’t know what they expect to get from me. This has already cost me everything.”
I continued to watch her, thinking about the flat affect in her voice and expression, the defeated way the detective was holding herself, and some of the statements she’d made, especially talking about herself in the past tense.
“Tess, I think I’d feel more comfortable if, for your own safety, we take you somewhere to get a proper, in-depth evaluation of your current condition.”
Aaliyah raised her head for the first time in many minutes, gazed dully at me, and said, “I’m nowhere near the padded room.”
“Given what you’ve been through, suicidal ideations are cause for serious concern, Tess. This could be a medical issue that—”
“No one’s putting me in a psych ward,” Aaliyah said, getting to her feet angrily. “Least of all me.”
“Tess—”
“Sorry,” she said, heading for the door. “I thought I could trust you and I was wrong. Good-bye, Dr. Cross.”
After a long look at the situation I came to a decision, grabbed my jacket, went outside, and hailed a cab.
CHAPTER
19
WE PULLED UP in front of the DC Police Union building twenty minutes later. I paid the cabbie, went inside, and asked to see William Roth.
Did I have a meeting set up with Mr. Roth? the receptionist asked. No. Had I tried to call him? I’d thought it was a dire enough situation to come down to talk with Mr. Roth in person. It wasn’t until I told him it might be a matter of life and death that he called upstairs.
Mr. Roth was in an important meeting, the receptionist told me after hanging up the phone.
“You didn’t explain the gravity of the situation. Call back.”
The receptionist rolled his eyes, snatched up the phone again, and dialed. “He says break into the meeting. It’s that important,” he told someone.
The receptionist waited, waited, and then hung up and said, “Go on up, third floor, second door on the right. Roth’s not happy.”
“I don’t care,” I said, and I took the stairs up.
I knocked on the door and then entered an anteroom with a very irritated secretary at her desk. “Mr. Roth has been working for this meeting for six months,” she said.
“Would it matter if someone you cared about was in danger?”
“Well,” she said, flustered. “I suppose so.”
“Where’s Roth?”
“Roth’s right here,” said a flushed, bald man who appeared in the open doorway behind the secretary. “This better be good. I’ve got people at the table I never expected to—”
“It’s Tess Aaliyah,” I said, walking past the secretary into Roth’s office. “You’re her rep, correct?”
“Aaliyah?” Roth said with mild disdain. “Dear God, what’s she done now?”
“You sent her to me this morning for an evaluation. I believe she’s depressed and possibly suicidal.”
“No,” Roth said, taking a seat at his desk. “I saw her last week. She was bummed but knew it wasn’t her fault that the little girl was playing in the front hall before the shooting started.”
“I don’t think Aaliyah cares. About anything. Which can be chemical, and which is why I need your help getting her into a psych ward for three days so she can be evaluated by medical professionals.”
“You want me to commit Aaliyah?” Roth said incredulously. “No, absolutely not. Even if I had that authority, and I don’t, absolutely not.”
“Aren’t you supposed to look after her, represent her?”
“In the shooting, yes, but this? No.”
“The depression and suicidal thoughts followed from the shooting,” I said firmly. “She needs help. More than I can give her.”
“You tell her that?”
“I did.”
“What did she say?”
“That she was upset but fine and nowhere near the padded room.”
“There you go, then,” Roth said, getting up. “I have a meeting to run.”
I blocked the door and said, “You don’t care about Aaliyah’s well-being?”
“I care,” Roth said. “But if you want her in a psych ward, convince her doctor or someone in her family to recommend it. Or get the department to make it a stipulation of her suspension revocation. Any way you try to do it, though?”
“Yes?”
“Expect her to fight.”
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