Free Listen by Rene Gutteridge

others kept them from swinging punches. He carefully wrote down what he’d heard, but there was such a ruckus he wasn’t sure he was going to get any more quotes.
    He glanced across the street and noticed Frank talking to a man. They wrapped up their conversation, and Frank headed to his truck. Damien decided he’d better get there too before a full-blown riot took place over who flirted with the man who beat his wife.
    “Dad?”
    Damien turned as he heard a young voice, much like his daughter’s. A teenage girl shoved her way through the crowd.
    The man Damien saw Frank talking to rushed over to her. “Come on, Gabriella. Let’s get you inside. You don’t need to see this.”
    “Dad, what’s going on?”
    Their conversation faded into the crowd noise as they tried to make their way to the house.
    “You’re a jerk!” someone yelled.
    Damien and Frank both turned around.
    A man, presumably Tim Shaw, was being led away in handcuffs. His head hung low, and he never looked up, not even once he was in the cruiser.
    Damien scribbled more notes. Behind him, he heard a man say, “Come on. Let’s go home. I want to see this Web site they’re talking about.” The crowd began to disperse.
    Frank unlocked his truck and climbed in.
    “What a night,” Damien said, joining him.
    Frank started the engine.
    “Heard he beat his wife half to death.”
    Frank backed up, swerving around cars and people, into a driveway so he could turn around. “You better get your facts straight. He threw a remote control and it hit her.”
    Damien smiled. “Can I quote you on that?”
    Frank didn’t laugh. He just drove.
    “So you believe him?” Damien asked.
    “I don’t know. I’m just telling you what he told me.” Frank turned left on Arberry Street.
    “Where are we going? My house is that way.”
    But Frank didn’t answer.

 
9
    “Frank!”
    Lineup was about to start when Frank’s name was hollered through the headquarters.
    It cut Gavin off as he bemoaned missing some real police action last night. “You should’ve called me! I would’ve wanted to be there. I—”
    “Frank! Now!”
    Frank looked at the kid, who was shaking his head like he’d just heard the news of a relative’s death. “We were off duty. I went in as a favor to the captain.”
    “Frank!”
    “Looks like he appreciates it,” Gavin said in a flat tone.
    Frank sighed and lumbered down the hallway to Captain Grayson’s office. The door was wide open, so he walked in. “Angela?”
    She stood straight, just to the left of the captain’s desk, her arms crossed tightly in front of her slender body. The light pink jacket and skirt, matched perfectly to her lipstick, were not doing much to make her scowl look any softer. Her glare hit Frank like sunlight beaming off a mirror. He knew he was in trouble but with whom? Her or the captain?
    “Frank, sit down,” Grayson said.
    “You stay right there!” Angela barked, pointing her finger at him.
    The captain skittishly ducked.
    Frank froze, unsure what to do. He tried a small smile. “I’m glad you’re okay. I was worried.”
    “Worried? How can you be worried?”
    Frank glanced at Grayson to get a read on him. Yep, he was fuming. “It’s not like you to not be at home. Then work. And then last night, not at home. Again. And—”
    “You came by my house last night?”
    “I was with Damien,” Frank said with a shrug. “I just thought I’d check on you, and when you weren’t there, I, um . . .”
    She grabbed a piece of paper out of her purse and waved it in the air. “A missing person report? Really? Really?” She crumpled it up and threw it at him. It hit his chest and dropped to the floor, where he was looking anyway. “Do you know how humiliated I am? I’m at work, a professional place of business, when two cops show up this morning and start asking me all these questions.”
    Frank tried to keep it in but couldn’t. “Where were you?”
    Angela gasped. “You’re an idiot! I