The Next Generation: The Legacy (Book 3)

Chapter 7 - Ben the suspect.

Chante

The city looked different at night. More ominous. It put me on higher alert, and I was almost jumpy after my second cup of coffee. My body felt so damn confused. It was used to being in bed at this time of night! We made three more arrests and one of the suspects wasn’t at the address they had given. He was supposed to be under house arrest and had broken the conditions of his parole, according to our witness.

Campbell said he would send the file back to the detectives to find the guy, which frustrated me a little. I was hoping we could do some cop stuff and find him ourselves. Things, however, quickly became difficult when we arrived at the house where our last suspect for the night was supposed to be. Shots rang through the night air, and we had to take cover behind our car.

“Ben, don’t make this more difficult than it has to be!” Officer Campbell shouted, but the shots that barely missed us were probably the answer that he wasn’t going to come easily.

“Ben, if you come out now, I can still help you. As soon as those other cars arrive …” Campbell sighed as we heard sirens in the distance. We called for backup as soon as the first shot rang through the air. They pulled up behind us and rushed out to find out if we were injured.

“Ben, this is not going to end very well for you if you don’t give yourself up now. I can still help you.” Campbell tried one last time. If we couldn’t get the suspect out of his house, things were going to turn into a huge thing.

“What do we have?” One of our sergeants arrived, indicating that things had already escalated. They only showed up when a senior officer was needed.

“Ben Jones. He shot at us as we arrived. We haven’t been able to find anything out.” Campbell sighed and Sarge nodded. We didn’t know if he had hostages with him or how much firepower he had. A couple of minutes later, S.W.A.T arrived, and we were moved further back, so they could discuss the situation with our sergeant.

“Now what do we do?” I frowned, feeling so damn out of place. I wasn’t built to just stand around. I wanted to get in there. I wanted to make sure the guy inside the house wasn’t harming anyone else.

“We wait. Swat will probably get a negotiator if there are hostages.” He crossed his arms over his chest. I could see that he didn’t think this was going to end well. We hung back as the higher ups tried to get Ben out of the house without incident. He just shot at them as well and hadn’t said one single word since we arrived.

“What if it’s not him in there?” I frowned. “What if it’s someone else?”

“Whoever it is, they are shooting at police. They are either going to jail or leaving that house in a body bag tonight.” He shrugged. Our sergeant called us over to where everyone had gathered. It was the early morning hours, but the shooting woke some of the neighbours and people were starting to gather behind all the squad cars. It wasn’t a safe situation by any means! While Swat prepared to breach the house, Campbell and I had to do a little crowd control.

I could hear the ruckus going on as officers screamed while going through the house. Moments later, a young man was brought out onto the front lawn with his hands cuffed behind his back. Swat reported on what they found, which unfortunately meant we would be hanging around there for a while longer. There were all sorts of contraband in the house that had to be logged as evidence.

In the meantime, we put up police barriers as the crowd outside the house had grown. When the scene was finally cleared, we loaded Ben into our squad car and drove him to the station. He had not said one word, which I found incredibly strange. Usually, suspects are one of two things when they are picked up. They were angry and blamed everyone on everybody but themselves, or they proclaimed their innocence vehemently.

Ben didn’t say a word.

Freddie

I can’t even remember the number of times I had arrested Ben over the past couple of years. He never seemed to learn, which was frustrating. He was an intelligent guy from a fairly okay neighbourhood. He could have gotten out of there if he really wanted to. He could have made a better life for himself. Sadly, he fell into the wrong crowd at a very young age and never seemed to learn his lesson.

So far, his stints in prison have been fairly short, but tonight he was caught with the hard stuff. He had every possible thing in his house that you shouldn’t have. This time, he went away for a long time. I walked into the viewing room just as the detective walked into the interrogation room. Chante had gone home after our shift ended, but I wanted to find out if Ben was going to talk.

He wasn’t the kind of guy that would rat out his gang mates, but now that he was facing a long jail time, I was hoping he would try to save himself. The detectives tried to get him to talk to them but when he finally spoke, he only asked for a lawyer and a glass of water. Everyone in the station already knew Ben well enough to know he wasn’t going to talk, but we had to try.

He was taken back to holding and I went home. The house was so quiet when I walked in. I had a couple of hours before my next shift. Enough time to take a shower and grab some dinner. My thoughts drifted to my young rookie and how eager she was to do the job and I had to smile. My smile faded when I thought about her father and the damage he did. As I moved around the kitchen to make some food, I thought about Cat and Miller and everything that had happened.

I seriously needed a housemate! If I kept going back to those days I would drive myself insane!