Capital Punishment Read Online Free

know that, Mike?"
    I pulled the phone from my ear and looked at it. I knew I was going to say something I would regret. So I pressed the "end call" button and leaned against the car again to wait for the cops to arrive.
    It didn't take an hour. It took an hour and fifteen minutes. Not that it mattered.
    "Just so you know," the cop said as soon as he walked up, "we're not gonna find who did this."
    "Wow, that's the spirit," I replied in disbelief.
    "We might get your stuff back," he went on. He was older than me, with some stripes on his sleeve and a mustache on his lip. But whatever passion there might have been in his eyes twenty years earlier was long gone. "If they dumped it in a nearby trashcan. That's usually what they do if it's stuff they can't pawn or trade for drugs."
    "It was my briefcase," I said.
    "Oh yeah, we'll get that back," the cop nodded. "That'll be in the nearest dumpster. What was in it?"
    "My netbook," I started.
    "That's gone," he announced, disturbingly undisturbed. "What else?"
    "My planner."
    "Electronic or paper?"
    "Electronic."
    "Yeah, that's gone too. Anything else?"
    I thought for a minute, still stunned by the officer's apathy. "Three tickets to Saturday's Yankees game."
    His eyes finally lit up with something close to interest. "Oh yeah? Good seats?"
    "Uh, yeah," I stammered. "Right behind third base."
    "Those must have been expensive."
    I could feel the acid dump into my stomach at the thought of Derek taking my kids to the amusement park with my money. "Yes, they were."
    "Well those are gone too," he shrugged.
    "Wha—?" Now that made no sense to me. "Can't you just—?"
    But my question was interrupted by my phone ringing. I was so flustered I actually answered.
    "Hello?"
    "Mike, it's Janie." Her ears must have been burning. "Don't hang up on me again. We really need to figure this out."
    "This is a really bad time," I started. "I'm standing here with a cop and—"
    "A cop?" Janie barked. "You called the cops on me?"
    "On you?" I was confused. "No, of course—"
    "Jesus, Mike, it's one weekend. It's not like you always drop them off on time. But I don't go calling the cops."
    "No, it's, my car, the tickets," I tried, but I couldn't string a sentence together.
    "Derek said you'd be an asshole about this," Janie went on, "but I stood up for you. I told him—"
    "Derek said?!" I forgot all about the cop and my car and even the Goddamn tickets. "Derek said?! That mother fucker has the gall to take my fucking kids to the fucking amusement park on my fucking weekend and then put you up to ask me to fucking pay for it?! And then he's got the balls to say I'm gonna be an asshole about it?!"
    The cop, who had turned away to inspect the gravel, couldn't help but look back at me.
    "Don't you get angry at me, Michael," Janie hissed.
    She always called me Michael when she was about to lecture me about how I failed to meet her standards and expectations. Like I was a little boy.
    Before she could say anymore, I said through gritted teeth, "We'll talk later," and hung up.
    I closed my eyes and waited for the rage to subside. It didn't. But it was interrupted.
    "I'm divorced too," said the cop. I wasn't surprised.
    "Congratulations," I quipped. "I don't really want to talk about it. I shouldn't have answered the phone. Sorry. What about my car?"
    "Well, like I was saying," he shrugged off my declining to discuss our similar marital status, "there's not much we can do."
    I remembered what I was going to say before my phone rang. "Can't you just go to Saturday's game and arrest whoever's in my seats?"
    He shook his thick head. "Nope. That won't work. Just because they're in your seats doesn't mean they stole it. They could've gotten them from the thief."
    "What about possession of stolen property or something?" I suggested.
    "Sorry, that won't work either." He didn't seem particularly sorry. "You gotta prove they knew the tickets were stolen. They'll just say they bought 'em from some guy named Johnny, don't