Previously In Bad Pennies
About two years ago former lovers, Josh and Paul robbed Paul’s employer, a process server named Cooper, of almost $300,000. Josh suggested they run off together. Thinking it’s too dangerous, Paul insists they must go their separate ways.
Paul moves to Olympia and gets a job as a bail bondsman and stays at his friend, Byron’s place. Josh stays in Tacoma and meets a woman named Erica. Their relationship, though only months old, has been a source of joy for Josh.
After getting help from help from his unscrupulous bounty hunter coworker, finding Josh, Paul shows up at Josh’s condo and tells him they should run off together.
Josh refuses due to his relationship with Erica and the fact he just found out that she is pregnant with his child. Paul leaves. Erica and Josh go for a drive where he tells her everything. She drops him off at the police station insisting he turn himself in for his crimes.
Josh didn’t know how long he’d been sitting in the empty room handcuffed to a table. As if he’d escape. It’d been hours. He had walked through door on his own, but apparently leaving would require someone’s permission. Not that it mattered. Hell, nothing mattered. Everything was fucked.
In the time since they had processed him, stuck him in a holding cell, then stuck him in this room, Josh had decided one thing: he wasn’t going to make it easy for them.
Erica’s instructions were to ‘Talk to me when you’ve dealt with your criminal shit’. That did not necessarily mean confess everything, throw himself at the mercy of the court, and accept whatever prison time they gave him. No one did that. The smart move? Lawyer up. Don’t say a word until a lawyer shows up. What lawyer? A public defender? Might as well confess. Paul had a lawyer friend. What was his name? Rick?
When the detective finally walked in, Josh’s first thought was that this had to be the Good Cop. She had large, kind brown eyes. Her spiky hair, quizzical face, and youth made her look more like a student than a cop. She wasn’t more than ten years older than Josh. They probably sent her in here to make him feel comfortable that way he’d let his guard down and then they can scare him with some grizzled old veteran. Wasn’t that how it worked in the movies?
“Hi, Josh, I’m Detective Pandy,” she said, using a handcuff key to uncuff him from the table.
Pandy. Even her name sounded harmless. Josh rubbed his wrist even as he told himself not to show her anything. She sat down in a chair across the table from him.
“Sorry about that. You shouldn’t have been cuffed in the first place. You came in off the street and we haven’t charged you with anything.”
Josh began to stand up.
“So I’m free to go?”
“Sure,” Pandy said. “Go, but before you do, I’ve got just two questions for you.”
“Okay.”
“I saw video of you being dropped off here. Who dropped you off?”
“My girlfriend, Erica.”
“She’s cute,” Pandy said. “Hard to tell from the video, but I think she might have been crying. What’s that about?”
“I’d told her something she didn’t want to hear.”
“What’d you tell her?”
Josh wasn’t more than six steps away from leaving the room. He took a step past her and she grabbed his arm. Not like a cop would grab it, but like a concerned friend might.
“What’d you tell her?” Pandy asked again.
Josh took a step back. Pandy let go of his arm. He’d been ready to simply deny any knowledge of anything and let the wheels of ‘justice’ slowly turn. But her questions had him thinking about Erica and the baby and the whole clusterfuck his life was turning into and all of this kept him from thinking of a good lie to tell the detective.
“I told her about a crime. She dropped me off here to deal with it.”
Pandy’s eyes lit up like a kid at Christmas.
“Oh, this sounds interesting!” she said, a bit too happy. “Sit and tell me all about it.”
Josh looked at Pandy. This room exhausted him. He hadn’t meant to blurt out what he did and tried to find a way to take it back. He sat back down. He had to admit he felt a bit of relief in saying what he had. Should he just tell her everything? Erica would say yes. Paul would say absolutely not. What would he say?
“I’m not a murderer or anything like that.”
Pandy smiled. “Of course not.”
“Or a rapist or a creep.”
“Josh, if you don’t mind my saying, you don’t strike me as much of a criminal at all.”
“I’m not.”
“You just happen to know about a crime.”
“Yes.”
“And Erica thinks it’s important enough that she drove you straight to the police department so you could tell us about it and here you are not telling us. What’s up with that?”
Josh didn’t want to be here. He wanted to go home and patch things up with Erica. But how? He was just going to get in more trouble here. This was a bad idea.
“Can I- Can I go?” Josh said tentatively.
Pandy leaned back.
“You’ve been able to leave this whole time. You haven’t because you have something to tell me. Whatever it is isn’t easy. But you’re not the first burdened person I’ve talked to. I’ve got a trick. You want to try it?”
Josh’s brow furrowed.
“It goes like this,” Pandy said, toning down her excitement. “You just talk. Forget about whatever it is Erica wants you to tell me and just start talking and we’ll see what comes out.”
“That sounds like a good way to get in trouble,” Paul said.
“Tell you what,” Pandy said. “I’ll tell you something I didn’t plan to tell you. And then if you feel like it, you can tell me something. The cuffed to the table bit? Kind of my fault. I didn’t tell them to cuff you. It’s just the synchronicity was uncanny. I swear I was looking you up and ready to drive over to that condo on Proctor that you’ve got and pick you up for questioning when it turns out you’re already here. So I told them to hold onto you until I got here.”
“Why?”
“I think you know why.”
Josh hung his head. How much did she know? Was she just playing with him? Should he ask for a lawyer?
“I don’t,” Josh said without looking up.
“Paul Martin.”
“Who?”
“Josh,” Pandy snapped her fingers next to Paul’s head. “Hey! It’s not time to lie yet.”
This made Josh look at her again.
“I know you know Paul. Paul came to see you not long after I talked to him. I know that because I had him tailed. What I don’t know is how you know him and which one of you is the one I’m after. I think you’re here to help me with that. Erica knows you’re a good person and she brought you here because she knows you want to do the right thing. Tell me what you need to tell me so you can get back to her.”
Pandy leaned towards Josh causing him to reflexively lean closer as well. She made it sound so simple. He wanted it to be that simple. His feelings for Paul, deny them as he might, still existed. He’d mounted a successful effort to convince himself that his refusing Paul and pursuing Erica made sense. He felt love for both Paul and Erica, but regardless of his feelings, Paul couldn’t be trusted. Still. Refusing to run off with Paul because of trust issues was one thing. Giving him up to the police was quite another.
Josh said nothing.
“Like I said, I already talked to Paul,” Pandy began. “He told me his version of events and that’s all I have besides the evidence which doesn’t look good for you. But if you ask me, I think there’s another version of this story. One that only you can tell. Do you trust that Paul’s story isn’t completely self-serving while throwing you under the bus? Is he that good a friend?”
Pandy let that hang in the air. Josh breathed in slowly, counted to four, then breathed out, counting to four again. He went through the motions of calming techniques he knew, but he was far from calm. Would Paul really betray him like that?
“When I was in high school my dad beat the shit out of me when I came out of the closet,” Josh said.
“I’m sorry,” Pandy said sounding genuinely concerned rather than annoyed at the seeming change of topic.
“The only person in the world I could turn to was Paul Martin who dropped what he was doing and picked me up. We’ve been friends, lovers, strangers, and everything in between. You’re asking me if he’s a good friend? He’s probably the best friend I’ve ever had.”
“So you’re a thousand percent sure he didn’t tell me anything about you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“You haven’t arrested me.”
“Yet,” Pandy corrected.
“Yet,” Josh agreed. “Can I walk out that door?”
“Try it and find out, but it’d be a lot better for you if you told me your side of the story first.”
NEXT: How the robbery really happened.
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