Owned (22 page)

“Uh huh,” I said, hoping he would.

He shook his head from side to side slowly.

“You sure you want to do this? There’s no turning back if this works,” he reminded me.

“I know daddy, I have to try. I have to,” I said, still pressing my palms together.

He turned and walked into the kitchen. It is very uncommon to find someone with a home telephone anymore. Most use cell a phone, and have no need or desire to have a home telephone. My father was one of the exceptions. As he turned and walked into the kitchen, I sat down in my chair.

He stood at the phone, with his hand on the receiver and looked at me. After a long, long time, he picked it up and dialed.

“
Chief, this is Gunner Parks. Hell, I don’t know three or four anyway. Great. Yes. She’s fine. As a matter of fact, it’s why I’m calling. Well, listen, there’s some things I need to tell you
,” he said, facing me with the phone to his ear.

He turned his back to me and spoke quietly. The rest of the conversation was too soft for me to hear.

As he walked back into the living room, he looked worried.

“You love him, don’t you, baby?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Daddy, you have no idea. I don’t even…” I got choked up as I started talking.

“I don’t even know how to describe it. I feel like if something happened to him, it would…” I couldn’t even finish my sentence.

“Feel like you’d do anything for him?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Obviously, you’d lie to protect him, that’s apparent,” he stood over me, looking down.

I looked down at the floor.

“Look up here, baby, this is important,” he said in a demanding tone.

I looked up into his eyes and began to cry.

“You’ll lie to protect him, won’t you?” he asked again.

I nodded and wiped the tears from my eyes.

“To protect him and the club.
Because you love him dearly,” he added.

I nodded and wiped my nose on the back of my hand.

“Wipe off those tears, baby and stand up,” he said.

I stood up, and as I did, he wrapped his arms around me. As he held me, I shook. I shook from fear, and from being full of love. I wanted desperately to love Erik. To show him how much I loved him. I didn’t
yearn as much to
be
loved as I did to
provide
love. I wanted to love Erik, and show my love for him as much as I could. I wanted to serve him and have him recognize my service. I wanted to love him, cook for him, learn how to bake, do his laundry, and have him be proud of me for doing what I did for him.

All I wanted was for him to be proud of me.

When he told me that he was proud, the words filled me. They filled me with a feeling that provided me with life. I could live off of that pride alone. Making the man I loved feel proud of me was all that I wanted from life.

“Baby, I believe that there’s one person, and only one that were
supposed
to be with, that we’re supposed to love with all of our heart. We may find others, and we may not. When we find that
one
person, we know it. There were a few before your mother that I
thought
I loved. As soon as I met your mother, I knew that what I had before was nothing more than an inflated affection. Once we find love, there’s no question about what it is that we have. Love occupies your soul and becomes part of your being,” he paused and squeezed me in his arms.

“Lying to protect the one that we love is a testament of the depth of our love for them. Lying is immoral, and not natural. It’s something that people like you and I will never do, normally speaking. But, to protect the one person that has our heart in their hands, we’ll sacrifice all that we hold dear to keep them from a moment of harm,” and my father began to cry into my shoulder.

“Aw, shit. I’m sorry baby,” he said as he lifted his head and wiped his tears.

“Well, you ready?” he asked.

I nodded and wiped my tears.

“I’ll wait here by the phone, just in case,” he said.

Nervous, I grabbed my wristlet and walked toward the door.

“I love you, baby,” he said, smiling.

“Daddy, I love you. So much. Thank you,” I said as I grabbed the door handle.

“Oh, damn. Almost forgot. His name’s Alec. Alec Jacob,” he said as I grabbed the handle.

I nodded, “Okay, Alec Jacob, I’ll remember.

“Baby,” he said as I opened the door.

I turned around.

“I’m proud of you, baby.
Damned proud. Probably the proudest I’ve ever been,” he said.

And I stepped through the threshold of the door a little taller than when I walked in.

KELLI.
“I already told you, because I had to work late,” I said again, mad that they kept asking the same questions.

“And you’re certain that it was Monday?” he asked.

I pressed my elbows on the table and looked up into his eyes, “One hundred percent, I’ve worked late
one
day this week.”

“And the time, ma’am.
How can you be certain about the time?” he paced back and forth across the room with his hands on his hips.

“Well, he showed up at 7:30, I know that because my father had just walked in and said, ‘aren’t you supposed to go to dinner at 7:30?’. I looked at my watch, and while I was looking, Alec was beating on the door,” I answered.

“And your father, was he standing there when you let Alec in?” he asked.

“Yes. Yes he was,” I answered.

“And then what happened?” he asked.

“I already told you, his tire was low on air,” I responded.

“We need more details, we need to go over this, and over it, and over it again, ma’am,” the detective said.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“I want the truth. No more lies. I know you’re lying to protect the club,” he said as he slapped the table.

“I don’t lie. And I don’t give a shit about any club. I don’t even know this guy. I’ve seen him once, maybe, besides the day he came in for air,” I said.

“Okay, again, what happened, exactly?”

I looked at the ceiling, like I was trying to recall the events of that night. I looked down at the table. I looked directly into the detectives eyes, and I lied.

“He beat on the door. My father asked if I knew him. I told him it was a friend of my boy friend, Dr. Erik Ead. I went to the door to let him in. My father went back to his office. Alec came in and said his tire was low. I had him pull the bike back into the shop, and he did. I got a gauge, checked the tire pressure, and filled the tire with air. We went back into the office and sat and talked until I left to meet Erik. I left to meet Erik at 8:30. So, Mr. Jacob and I were at the shop…well, at the
office
together from 7:30 until 8:30,” I stopped and waited to see what he would say.

“So, you filled the tire with air?” he asked.

Here we go…

“Yes,” I responded, and waited.

“Why in the world would you fill a motorcycle tire with air when there was a perfectly good biker standing there?” he asked, his hands on his hips again.

“Obviously you’ve never been a girl,” I said.

“Not lately, answer the question, ma’am,” he said.

“Being a girl isn’t easy, especially around men. They never accept you for being anything but a girl. I work at a car dealership, a dealership that my father wants me to be president of in a few years. Men don’t accept women in situations like that very well. My father has taught me to take charge, and to not be afraid of doing manly things in the shop. To show Alec that I was savvy about the shop tools, and mechanics, I
wanted
to do it. He asked me several times, and I said ‘no’, that I wanted to fill it,” I said, waiting for him to ask.

I hoped he asked, and that I didn’t have to just offer it.

“Okay, how low was the tire, what was the pressure?”

Bingo.

“Fifteen pounds, sir. Fifteen pounds,” I smiled as I looked up.

“I’ll be back in a minute, get comfortable. You need a drink?” he asked.

“No sir, I’m fine, thank you,” I responded.

After about ten minutes, he
walked back in the room, and seemed angry.

“Alright ma’am, I have more questions. What tire, ma’am? What tire was low, front or rear?” he asked.

“Rear,” I responded promptly.

“You certain?” he asked.

“Positive,” I responded.

“Give me a few minutes,” he said.

As he walked out, I crossed my fingers.

And waited.

He walked back into the room in just a few minutes. He stopped and the end of the table, took a deep breath, and exhaled.

“I need your father’s phone number, I need to call him and ask a few questions,” he said.

“Okay, he should be home,” I said, trying to hide a smile.

After I gave him the number, he left for quite a while. When he walked back in, he had papers in his hand. He seemed a little nicer when he sat down. This was the first time he sat since this started.

“Kelli, I need you to fill this out. It’s a formal statement. It’s formal documentation of what you’ve told me this evening. Fill it out, and be as precise in your detail of this statement as you were in the verbal statement, okay?” he said as he looked up.

I nodded.

He handed me the paperwork and a pen.

I filled out the paperwork and slid it across the table.

“Well, that should do it, you’re free to go,” he said as he looked at the paperwork.

I stood up and grabbed my wristlet.

“Oh, the Chief said to tell your dad something,” he said as I was walking to the door.

I turned and faced him.

“He said thanks for the ride,” he said with a puzzled look.

“He said your father would know what he was talking about,” he said as he shook his head.

I shrugged my shoulders and walked out.

About a foot taller.

THE TRAIN.
Life. Black and white. We have right, and we have wrong. There is no gray. Since I was a kid, I have stood for what I
believed
to be right. If I believed it, I stood up for it. Against one, or against a nation, I stood proud of what I believed. For what was right.

War doesn’t make a man strong, nor does it weaken him. It transforms him. The person that we become when exposed to war is someone that we will remain being for as long as we live. There is no changing it, there is no turning back. We continue living, but we are amongst the dead.
The few who are truly unable to truly feel
real
emotion.

If you haven’t killed a man, it’s impossible to understand the mind of a man who has.

The walking dead.

“Fuck you.”

“At approximately 8:00 pm, Mr. Jacob, where were you on the evening…”

“Fuck you.”

“Listen, we have someone here that claims you were somewhere with them. If you were, tell us the truth. But, if you weren’t, and this is a pack of lies, you’ll fry for the murder and fry for tampering with an ongoing investigation. You know the evidence we have is circumstantial. One thing we do have for certain is the time of day. If this is true, it’ll clear you in this investigation. I need you to cooperate.”

“Fuck.”

“You.”

“I have no idea why you’ve been impossible to deal with. I can understand why you might have been earlier, but now? Just doesn’t make sense. You could be a free man. Why won’t you talk to me? Tell me where you were?”

“I hate cops.”

“Listen, you were a Marine. I was a Marine. The Chief was a Marine. Hell the department’s full of former Marines. It doesn’t mean I owe you anything, but Marines have tact,
and respect. Now there’s a girl in the other room that claims you went to her dealership to get air in your tire. Do you remember how much air pressure you needed? Did she tell you? She says she filled the tire, which I find hard to believe, hell she’s a girl.”

“Who were you with?”
I looked him in the eyes.

“The two-seven.
Haditha, a few other places.” he answered and then looked down.

“Fifteen pounds.”
I said, looking up in the corner of the room.