Sidetracked by Dellani Oakes Part 28

“What can I do for you, Detective?” He had a smarmy, Southern drawl. Louisiana, she remembered from her research. His voice was higher than his bulk would indicate, and grated on her nerves.

“I’m looking into the murder of Wendy Hamilton. I believe she was women’s golf team captain for two years?”

“Two and a half. The other captain got sick mid-season and had to drop out. Wendy stepped up. She was good, best team captain I ever had.”

Was it her own interpretation of his relationship with Wendy, which shaded those words to sound like more? Perhaps, but the lascivious expression was on his face as he gazed at her. She didn’t miss the evidence of his lust in his pants.

“We can go in my office,” he suggested, holding out an inviting hand.

“No, thank you. I’m fine here. How well did you know Wendy?”

He shrugged nonchalantly. “Little bit better than the other players, why?”

“I think you knew here really well. I think, maybe, you knew her in the Biblical sense.”

“Excuse me? What are you saying?”

His attitude and body position changed abruptly. Vanessa saw rage in his eyes, but refused to back down.

“I’m saying that you were having an affair with Wendy Hamilton.”

“You bitch!” His right hand twitched. “You’re twisting my words!” His hand came up, ready to backhand her.

The door behind him burst open and Mendez was there, grabbing the offending hand. Pulling Bullock’s arm around his back him, he slammed the coach’s face into the nearby metal table.

“Got your cuffs?”

“Always.” She pulled them out of her jacket pocket and snapped them on Bullock’s wrists as she read him his rights. “Sorry about this, Officer Mendez.”

“No problem, ma’am. Lemme get coverage for the kids, and I’ll walk this piece of human shit out to your car.”

“I can wait.”

He made a call to the office. A very harassed looking principal hustled out of a nearby building.

“I’ve got this,” he panted. “Go. Jesus!” Closing the doors quickly behind him, he called out to the students, “Nothing to see here! Back to what you were doing!”

“Where’s your car?”

“Right out there.” She pointed to the parking lot. Her car was about three spots away from the door.

Mendez perp walked Bullock toward it.

“Won’t the alarm go off?”

“Nope.” He held up a security card. Sliding it in a card reader, he waited for it to beep and opened the door. “Resets automatically. That was dumb, Bullock. Even for you. You philandering slime.”

“You can’t talk to me like that! I have a witness!”

“I don’t hear anything,” Vanessa said, clicking her remote on the car. “Thank you, Mendez. Call me or come by later?”

“You bet. Word of this gets out, we might catch a break.”

“Let’s hope so!” Calling her station, she headed in with her prisoner.

“You can’t do this to me. I’m a pillar of the community!”

“Which is probably why you’ve gotten away with it so long.” Vanessa had swiped the record app on her phone. Placing the phone on the seat beside her, she waited to see if he’d incriminate himself.

“I didn’t do anything with those girls, that they didn’t want!”

Suppressing the impulse to slam on the brakes, making him rocket into the cage, she kept driving. Her best bet was to say nothing, or she would say something she’d regret.

“You don’t know a thing about me! You think you got something. You got nothing! I didn’t do nothing!”

It amazed Vanessa how much a Louisiana accent sounded like the Bronx. Her horrible ex, whose name she preferred to forget, had a similar accent, but his was Yankee born. Shadron was from New York City, Hell’s Kitchen, to be specific. The noise of the coach’s tirade flipped a switch to inner bitch and she did slam the brakes when she got to the light at US-1. Bullock smacked the cage behind her seat.

“Hey! You done that on purpose! You bitch! That’s brutality!”

“Yelling at me, cursing less than three feet away, is verbal assault. On a police officer. Which one of us is in more trouble? Hm? One of your rights is to remain silent. Might wanna give that a try.”

© 2018 Dellani Oakes

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