Free Collision Course (A Josh Williams Novel) by Joe Broadmeadow Page A

but I do know one thing. You will never use those words when referring to your wife again. Is that clear? If I ever hear you use that word about her again, lying on your ass will be the least of your worries. Is that clear?"
    Josh started to sob.
    Chris realized she made a mistake. She should have asked Josh first. There was something going she did not understand.
    "Josh, I'm sorry. I thought seeing her would help."
    Josh sat back down and buried his face his hands. "I don't know, I don't know." Chris sat down next to him and put her arm around him. "Talk to me Josh, maybe I can help."

Chapter 20:      Voluntary Confessions
     
    Joe McDaniel was tired. Ventraglia was just about broken, but he could not keep his focus on him. He worried about Josh.
    More often than not, it was the cops who really cared that ate their guns. It is one of life's ironies that the type of personality that made the most compassionate and effective cops made them the most vulnerable.
    Josh was one of them. He cared.
    He did things right.
    Did everything he could to give JoJo a chance to give up.
    Unless he found a way to cope, it would eat him alive.
    McDaniel found his own way; he wanted to point Josh to that. He was troubled knowing that he could not.
    Nightmares are personal demons, finding their own solutions.
    So he went back to doing what he did best, getting people to admit to things that they prefer to keep to themselves.
    With few exceptions, everyone possessed a trigger that compelled the truth, or at least a version of it. Sometimes it was a latent guilty conscience, sometimes, a misplaced sense of accomplishment.
    Often it was just weariness, McDaniel's stamina outlasting theirs.
    When Ventraglia started talking, McDaniel listened dutifully and wrote it all down. He made sure Ventraglia signed the Waiver of Rights form. Another detective witnessed the signature and filed it. He made sure Ventraglia initialed each line in the statement and signed it. He offered to add or change anything Ventraglia said needed to be.
    He also knew it was bullshit.
    The forensics told a different story. The cloned cell phone showing the calls to Machado and 911, the shotgun traced to a B&E McDaniel knew Ventraglia committed. However, it was enough to tie the moron into a felony murder wrap.
    All of which was recorded on the video camera, embedded in the wall of the interrogation room. The recording device, under lock and key in the Internal Affairs division, was inaccessible to anyone.
    Anyone, that is, except Joe McDaniel.
    When one has been a police officer as long as Joe McDaniel, you accumulate favors. Some of these favors cross generations.
    On a cool summer evening in 1971, an East Providence Police Officer spotted two young males in the back of a closed business. Getting out of the car and approaching them, he saw one of them drop a screwdriver. The officer grabbed the kid and pushed him against the wall, as he did this the second male jumped on the officer, trying to get to his gun.
    The officer, hanging onto the weapon with one hand, was fighting for his life. A patron of Bovi's came out, saw the fight, and went inside to call the station.
    Joe McDaniel was the first car on the scene, running to the officer he heard him yell, "They’re trying to get my gun, Joe, the fucks are trying to get the gun."
    McDaniel used his blackjack on the head of the kid on the officer's back, and then took out the front teeth of the other one.
    McDaniel pulled the toothless one to the ground and cuffed him. The other one was unconscious.
    A month later, Joe McDaniel went to court and convinced the prosecutor to drop the charges on the youths so they could enlist in the service. They both did, served in Viet Nam, and returned to start an alarm and video surveillance company.
    Flashing forward to 1985, the new police station was under construction, Joe McDaniel persuaded the owner of the company contracted to install the video cameras to provide him with a key to