Exquisite Justice

by Dennis Carstens

  * * *

  “Come in,” Damone said to his guests. Monroe had greeted Jalen and Kordell in the office parking lot and escorted them to Damone’s second-floor conference room.

  “Please,” he continued after handshakes, “have a seat.”

  The three of them each took a chair at the table, and Damone started off.

  “I’m sorry this took so long. I guess you’re looking for an endorsement,” he politely said with a pleasant smile while looking at Jalen.

  “Well, yes,” Jalen replied. “You seem to have a good deal of influence around the city. I believe your endorsement would be a big help.”

  “Absolutely! I’ll do whatever I can to help you get elected. This city needs a strong, capable black man as its mayor.”

  The three of them continued for another hour. They discussed events Damone could help with and he promised fund-raising and other contributions he would make. When they finished, as Jalen and Kordell were leaving, Damone assured them his election was a foregone conclusion.

  Kordell had driven less than a block from the meeting place when he said, “That was easy.”

  “A little too easy,” Jalen replied. “We haven’t received the real bill, yet.”

  “What, you mean you don’t believe he is only interested in civic improvements?” Kordell asked with a touch of obvious sarcasm included.

  “I don’t know what to believe, but all this ‘brother this and brother that’ talk seems a little phony,” Jalen said.

  “It does, indeed,” Kordell agreed.

  Four

  Philo Anson sipped his Wild Turkey on the rocks while standing at the end of the bar. Philo hated bourbon. He would rather be sipping a quality Cognac than suffering through what he considered hillbilly piss. But if he was going to be the star reporter he knew he was, he believed he had to act like one. The hard-drinking, tough guy reporter seeking the truth. In public, especially in this bar a block from the Star Tribune building, bourbon it had to be.

  Philo was a twenty-eight-year-old reporter with the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Fresh out of UW-Madison, he had scored a decent job with the Wisconsin State Journal, a very good paper. Philo had stayed for three years. His writing was a little better than excellent and he knew it. In fact, his ultimate dream was to be a Pulitzer winning novelist. Pretty much the same as every other print reporter. Most of whom would try to write a novel, realize how hard it is after fifty or sixty pages, then give it up. When the three years were up, still twenty-five, he scored a job at the Star Tribune, another step closer to the New York Times. He had two more years to go to meet his goal of the Times by age thirty.

  “Hello, Philo,” he heard a familiar female voice say.

  He turned his head as a woman slid onto the bar stool next to him. Her name was Raina Harris. Raina was an on-scene reporter for a local TV station. She was also someone Philo had been trying to bed for a couple of months,

  Philo preferred black women. As a card-carrying, progressive liberal, it showed the world how hip, open-minded, and progressive he truly was. Contrarily, he also believed treating black women like whores was what they wanted. Philo had heard this from a friend. Another card-carrying, progressive liberal. Raina, far above Philo’s reach, knew Philo was more than hot for her. Raina had been playing her own game for a couple of months.

  “Courvoisier,” Raina told the bartender. “And yes, on his tab.”

  “So, when are you going to let me give you the time of your life?” Philo asked while the bartender fetched her drink.

  “Are you sending me and my girlfriend to Paris?”

  “Very funny,” Philo smiled. “I know you’re not gay…”

  “How do you know I don’t like a little variety in my life?”

  “Anytime you want to do a threesome, I’m available,” Philo said.

  “I’ll keep it in mind. Don’t wait for me.”

  “Hey, Philo,” a man said behind him and slapped him a little too hard on the back. The man took the stool on the opposite side of Philo and held up his glass to signal the bartender.

  “Hellooo, Raina,” he suggestively said.

  “Hello, Wayne. How are the wife and kids?”

  “Who?” he asked trying to look confused.

  Raina laughed as Philo said, “What do you want, Wayne?” Like most of his colleagues, Wayne, a Star Trib reporter himself, did not like Philo and the feeling was mutual. Mostly because Philo would backstab his own mother to get ahead. Philo justified every bit by reminding himself he owed it to the profession. The world needed Philo to escape the backwater of flyover country. For the benefit of civilization, whatever he did was not only allowed, but moral, ethically correct and virtuous.

  “Steal any stories lately?” Wayne asked.

  “You don’t need to worry about it, Wayne. Proctor will never assign anything to you that anyone else would want,” Philo replied. Proctor was Vince Proctor, their boss and city editor.

  “Oooooh,” Wayne purred trying to feign being insulted. “Please stop, Mr. Pulitzer. You’ll hurt my feelings.”

  Raina, who had been listening with a smile openly laughed at this. “Be nice, Wayne. Someday you’ll be working for him.”

  “Seriously, Philo,” Wayne said. “I actually want to congratulate you on your story about police brutality. It was good. Well-written.”

  Philo turned his head to look at the man and saw a sincere expression on Wayne’s face.

  “I mean it,” Wayne said. “It was good.”

  “It was good, Philo,” Raina chimed in. “I thought it was well done. How much of it was true?”

  Philo looked at her with a mischievous look and a twinkle in his eyes. “Why, all of it, every word, of course.”

  Raina poured down the remnant of her brandy and stood. She draped the strap of her purse over her shoulder and said, “You lie well, Philo. I know for a fact that story was ridiculously embellished.” She bent down and whispered in his ear, “I’ve been sleeping with one of the cops you trashed, you lying asshole.” Raina stepped back and said, “Bye, Wayne. Thanks for the drink, Philo.”

  As she walked off, Philo sipped his drink with a stunned look on his face.

  “What did she say?” Wayne asked.

  “She said she was hot for my ass and wanted to do a threesome with another girl, a friend of hers,” Philo replied.

  Wayne laughed then finished his drink. He set the glass on the bar and said, “You do have quite the imagination, Philo. Thanks for the drink.”

  Two hours and four snifters of Cognac later—he could not take any more hillbilly piss—Philo tossed a hundred-dollar bill on the bar. Thanks to very successful dairy farming parents who kept him on an allowance, money was not a problem for Philo. More than a little buzzed, Philo went out to his car, a two-year-old Jag and headed for home. Again, thanks to mom and dad, the Jag and his luxury Edina condo allowed Philo to maintain a certain style.

  Philo drove West on Fifth Street alongside the light-rail tracks. He took a left on Fourth Avenue, running a red light to do it, for the run south to the freeway entrance. As he passed by the big government center building that straddled Sixth Street, the light on Sixth and Fourth Avenue began to change. Instead of stopping the way he should have, he punched the gas, and the Jag jumped to fifty as he blew through another red light. Except for this time, he did it right in front of an MPD squad car heading East on Sixth waiting for the light.

  “Nice ride, Em,” Officer Mike Pascal said to the squad car’s driver.

  “No, kidding,” Sergeant Emily Logen replied. “Hit ‘em,” she said to her junior partner. “Let’s go have a chat with him.”

  Logen hit both the lights and siren as Pascal roared down Fourth. They caught up with Philo on Tenth, before the freeway ramp. Even with the roof bar lighting up the night and the siren shrieking, Philo did not notice them until he was a mile down the freeway past the Lake Street exit.

  Most city cops hate pulling someone over on the freeway, especially at nig
ht. Too many drunks out and the shoulder of a freeway can be a dangerous place. Fortunately, being a weekday and fairly late, traffic was relatively light.

  While Mike Pascal stood at the back of the car, his hand on his gun, Em Logen went to the driver’s window. She held her flashlight in her left hand, her right on her gun. She shined the light on Philo’s face who stared at her through the window.

  Logen tapped the flashlight on the glass and politely said, “Shut off the car and put the window down, please, sir.”

  Philo shut off the engine and buzzed down the window without realizing her body cam was on. The smell of alcohol hit Logen in the face as Philo arrogantly said, “Do you realize who I am? I’ll have your ass for this. This is retaliation pure and simple. You’ll be sorry you ever met me.”

  Logen calmly said, “Yes, sir. I’m sure that’s true. Now, I’ll need to see your license and insurance verification.”

  “Bitch,” Philo snarled just loud enough for the camera to pick up.

  He stumbled and fumbled around getting his license and insurance certificate. While he did this, Logen motioned for Pascal to join her.

  “Sir, have you been drinking?” Logen asked. Philo had handed her the license and insurance certificate. She gave them to Pascal.

  “I had a drink with dinner,” Philo admitted.

  This made Pascal smile and Logen opened the car door, stepped back and ordered Philo to get out. The officers led him onto the grass. He was stumbling, muttering and slurring his words. All the while, both cops’ body cams were recording and also the one on the dashboard of the squad car.

  “You run the field tests,” Logan told Pascal. “I’ll check for warrants and order a tow truck.”

  “Do you know who I am?” Philo asked Pascal several times while miserably failing each field sobriety test. He was putting on quite a show for the cameras.

  After the third or fourth time Philo asked the question, Pascal finally said, “No sir, I don’t know who you are, and I don’t care. Now, be quiet for a moment, please. I am placing you under arrest for driving while intoxicated. You have the right to remain silent…”

  Philo awoke in the morning to the sound of cell doors being banged open and closed. His head felt like a small bomb going off and his mouth tasted like loon shit filled swamp water.

  “What was his score?” Assistant City Attorney Aleisha Cotton asked.

  “Point one three,” Emily Logen replied.

  “And you want to do what, now?” Aleisha asked.

  The two women, along with Mike Pascal, were seated in a conference room in the courtroom where afternoon arraignments were being held. Along with a dozen or so others picked up the night before, Philo Anson was about to be arraigned. Unlike most of the defendants, Philo had a private attorney standing by waiting to talk to Aleisha.

  “We got the okay for this from our captain as long as it is okay with you,” Logen said. “This Anson guy is the asshole reporter who wrote that trash piece for the Star Tribune about police brutality.”

  “Oh, really? You want me to press for the death penalty?” Aleisha asked only half-jokingly.

  “It’s an idea,” Pascal replied.

  “His record is clean. We want you to offer him a deferred prosecution for a year if he agrees to go on a ride-along with cops, at night, four nights a week for two weeks,” Logen said.

  “The arrest is perfect. We got it all on film,” Pascal added.

  Aleisha took out her phone and said, “Let me check.”

  Two minutes later, having been given the okay, Aleisha Cotton left the conference room to talk to Philo’s lawyer. By 1:30 they had put the deal on the record for the judge and Philo Anson had set up several dates to find out what cops have to put up with every hour of every day.

  Five

  Sgt. Jason Moore turned his squad car left off Plymouth Avenue at the Fourth Precinct station house. Moore, a black man with twenty-four years on the job, was finishing his evening tour. In the passenger seat was the reporter, Philo Anson. This was Philo’s last night doing ride-alongs, his second with Sgt. Moore. Outwardly, Philo appeared to be chastened about his attitude toward cops. Inwardly, he was delighted to be done with this. Philo believed he was being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment for an article he wrote and because he had a couple of drinks.

  Philo had learned that the cops, especially on the two-night shifts, evenings and midnight to morning, dealt with a lot of domestic disputes. What he had not learned was that a large number of police homicides occurred during these encounters. Philo had also had his prejudice about inner-city black people solidly affirmed. To Philo, they were children, unable to control their most base instincts. This also confirmed his belief that because they were children, they were not really responsible for themselves, should never be held accountable and needed the government to take care of them. If Sgt. Moore had any inkling that his passenger was, like most elitists, a hard-core, liberal racist, Moore’s head would have exploded. Jason Moore grew up on these very same streets.

  Moore parked the squad car in the lot behind the precinct building. He turned in his seat and said, “Well, here we are. I hope you got an objective look at what we deal with.”

  “Oh, for sure, Sergeant,” Philo replied. “Who do you think killed those two young men?”

  There had been a shooting tonight and two black men in their late teens or early twenties were dead. They had been found in an alley barely a mile from where Moore was now parked. It was obviously an execution type slaying. Both victims were found face down in an alley with two small-caliber bullet holes in the back of their heads.

  “Hard to say,” Moore replied as he removed his seatbelt. “Gang violence has been down, which is what this looks like. Odds are pretty good we’ll never find out since no one ever sees anything when it comes to these things.”

  “That’s quite an assumption, isn’t it?” Philo asked. “To automatically assume they were in a gang.”

  By now the two of them were walking toward Philo’s car and the precinct house.

  “How do you know it wasn’t a white supremacist out hunting down young black men?”

  Moore stopped and looked at Philo with an incredulous look on his face. He shook his head and continued walking.

  “Well?” Philo asked again.

  “They were wearing gang colors.”

  “So, it could still be a white supremacist,” Philo insisted.

  Moore laughed, looked at Philo, smiled and said, “I guess it could be, anything’s possible.” He then shook his head at the absurdity of it.

  It was almost midnight when Philo drove away from the Fourth Precinct. He was desperate to stop for a drink but too keyed up. It would have to wait until he got home. Instead, he drove downtown and straight to the Star Tribune building.

  For the past week, during his ride-along punishment, he had been working on a story about it. His editor was hot to get it and because of its length was making it a three-part series. The first part would run in two days, Sunday’s edition. Then the two-part follow-ups would run Monday and Tuesday. Philo had about another three thousand words to add to finish up. More importantly, he had a front page, above the fold headline story for Sunday to kick it off.

  Damone Watson was normally a late morning riser. His activities required odd hours, especially late-night hours. Sunday morning at a quarter past ten, Damone came out of his third-floor bedroom, cinching the belt of his silk robe around his waist. The woman who had kept him company during the night was gone.

  “Good morning, Lewis, Monroe,” Damone greeted his aides.

  Both Lewis Freeh and Monroe Ervin were standing by the dining room table. By itself, this was a bit unusual. While Monroe poured his boss a cup of coffee, Damone looked at both men.

  “Okay, what’s up?” he asked as he took his seat at the head of the table.

  “The paper,” Lewis said pointing at the morning edition of the Star Tribune.

  Damone picked up his cup while
reading the headline blazing across the entire front page.

  White Supremacists Suspected in Slayings

  Damone set down the cup, picked up the A section and began to read the story. The first two paragraphs were brief reviews of the execution-style murders on the Northside of two young black men Friday evening. The bodies of Kolby Simmons, age 19, and Ja’von King, age 18, were found in an alley off of North 18th Street. Both were executed by shots to the back of the head.

  The reporter claimed a police source confirmed that it could be the work of a white supremacist, possibly more than one, stalking young black men. Caution is advised in the…

  Damone started laughing as he continued to read. When he finished the story, he folded the paper back to its original form and set it on the table.

  “Okay, who is this source that this reporter is quoting?” Damone asked, barely containing his laughter.

  “Who knows?” Lewis shrugged. “There’s another big article with it. This reporter, Philo what’s-his-name, did a court-ordered ride-along with the cops and he wrote up a story about it.”

  “What does he have to say?”

  Monroe replied, “He was ordered to ride-along to get a look at what the cops have to deal with. This reporter is some hanky-wringing liberal who hates cops.”

  “According to what he wrote, he still hates cops,” Lewis added.

  “Really?” Damone said. He then took a moment to stare past the two men in thought. He then said, “We’ll have to keep that in mind. A reporter like that could be useful.”

  That evening a crowd of about two hundred people—about half black, half white—were marching through the streets of downtown Minneapolis. Ten or twelve of them were up front holding a large ‘Black Lives Matter’ sign. Every local TV station had been informed of the march ahead of time. There were camera crews from each of them filming the small, but raucous protest.