Charlie-316

by Colin Conway

  A little ahead and to his left, a tawny, medium sized dog sniffed the grass of a front lawn, then curl into the unmistakable tuck of getting down to business. The dog gave Garrett a pained expression, as if pleading with him for a little privacy.

  Garrett looked away, focusing on the road ahead of him again.

  The Chevy turned the corner up ahead and slowly drove toward him. It drifted across the middle of the road onto his side of the street. Garrett slowed to a halt, waiting. He forced himself to relax, preparing to jump out of the way.

  He didn’t need to, as the truck stopped, and the driver’s and passenger’s doors opened. It was definitely the same truck that had passed him at the beginning of his run, right down to the Idaho plates. Garrett immediately realized they had birddogged him the entire morning.

  Both were white and young, early twenties, in jeans and work boots. The big one wore a Union Jack T-shirt with cut-off sleeves. His arms were sculpted in the gym. The other wore a camouflaged T-shirt and carried a club. He needed the weapon due to his size. He was small and thin. Camo walked with the cockiness of someone twice his size.

  Garrett pulled out his ear buds.

  “Ain’t you gonna run, boy?” Camo asked.

  Union Jack laughed and rubbed the knuckles of one fist into the opposite hand.

  Garrett tossed his phone to the ground.

  Camo and Union Jack looked at each other and then moved to triangulate Garrett. He didn’t wait. He moved between them both with decisiveness, striking Camo twice, with a stiff left jab in the face, and a reverse punch to the mid-section, doubling him up.

  Garrett looked over his shoulder as he kicked backward. Union Jack who had been surprised by the sudden attack was stepping forward when Garrett drove a heel solidly into his groin. He dropped immediately.

  Garrett faced a hunched over Camo again, grabbed his head and brought his knee up into it. He was so amped up that he didn’t hear or feel the nose smash. His entire focus was on the club clattering to the asphalt. The little man slumped to the ground.

  As Union Jack struggled to stand upright, his hands covering his groin, Garrett stepped to the side. He took in a deep breath and then kicked the big man in the side of the knee. Union Jack screamed as his leg folded sideways. He tumbled to the ground clutching at his knee. Garrett straddled him, the big man’s eyes wide with pain and fear. He grabbed the Union Jack shirt to lift his head off the ground and punched him in the face. When it didn’t get the desired result, Garrett slugged him again.

  “Fuck you, motherfucker!” he yelled down at his face.

  The big man’s eyes rolled back into his head. Letting go of the shirt, Garrett dropped him to the ground.

  When he stood, his ragged breathing slowly returned to normal. Garrett watched the two men laying on the ground and realized the anger was finally gone.

  He picked up his phone, put his ear buds back in, and jogged home.

  Chapter 18

  Cody Lofton sipped his coffee and watched as people occasionally walked by. He sat in the little outdoor area behind Atticus Coffee, enjoying the early morning quiet. The coffee shop was a short walk from city hall, but discreet enough that anyone who mattered wouldn’t easily see him. A white letter-sized envelope sat on the small metal table between the two chairs. He placed his coffee on top of the envelope when not drinking.

  The morning sun was still rising, and the day would soon be hot. He’d arrived a few minutes early to claim a seat in the shade, placing his guest in the sun. It was a smaller version of the play with the press conference in front of city hall.

  However, she was already five minutes late. He wondered if she did it on purpose, just like he chose the seating arrangements. His habit for promptness was well-known.

  Lofton smiled, hoping that her tardiness was indeed on purpose to needle him. It was these little games that he enjoyed. My pawn for your bishop, he thought. How could he move the pieces about the board? Often, he didn’t know what results he would get. He just wanted to move the pieces. More importantly, he wanted to make people move.

  Lofton grew up poor. He never talked about his family and no longer visited them. His parents were still underprivileged, never achieving what they should have in this life and that disappointed Lofton. He watched his parents scratch and claw for a living, always being foolish with what little money they had, and always at the mercy of someone else. As a child, Lofton promised himself that one day, he would be someone who never was at the mercy of others. He went to college on a scholarship for disadvantaged youth, studied and learned, worked and left. School wasn’t play time. He was preparing for battle. Now that he was in the thick of things, he couldn’t be happier. His time was now.

  The door opened, and Spokesman-Review reporter Kelly Davis walked outside, a cup of coffee in her hand. She spotted Lofton and nodded. “It’s a beautiful day,” she said, sitting at the little metal table, her eyes immediately flashing to the white envelope.

  Davis raised her hand to temporarily block the sun from her eyes. She reached into her purse and pulled out a pair of sunglasses. When she put them on, Lofton noticed they were an inexpensive no-name brand. The thought of her living on a budget made him smile.

  “Sorry, if I kept you waiting,” she said.

  “I wasn’t waiting. I was enjoying the sunshine.”

  “Sure,” she said with a disbelieving smirk. “You’re as high-strung as they come, Mr. Mayor in Waiting.”

  “Chief of staff,” he said, coolly.

  “You can fool some of the people, right? I’ve got my eyes on you.”

  Lofton didn’t like that someone in the press already had suspicions of his mayoral aspirations. He’d have to watch himself more carefully in the future. His smile broadened. “I’m flattered that you’re watching me.”

  “Flirting won’t get you anywhere.”

  “Really?”

  “Everyone knows your proclivities toward the twenty-somethings, Cody. In your book, I’m well past my prime.”

  Lofton continued smiling, but this was another fact he didn’t like the world to know about him. Too much personal information was leaking out and he’d really need to pay attention to that going forward.

  “Why’d you ask me here?” Davis asked.

  Lofton dropped his smile and said, “Can’t a guy ask his favorite city hall beat reporter to coffee without it being suspicious?” There was no warmth or charm to it. He didn’t even try to sell it. Davis had zinged him with the comments about dating twenty-somethings and mayoral aspirations.

  “You’ve asked me to coffee exactly two times before. Both times were for specific purposes. I’m good with that. We have a …mutually beneficial relationship. Does that sound about right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Give it to me straight then. Why am I here?”

  “The Ty Garrett situation.”

  Davis nodded. “You mean the shooting of an unarmed victim?”

  “Suspect.”

  “How about we say citizen?”

  “No. Let’s not. Todd Trotter wasn’t a citizen. He was a criminal. He never paid taxes and never contributed to the general welfare of our community. Shouldn’t a person have to do that to be considered a citizen?”

  Davis sipped her coffee. “I get it now. You need my help to change the message.”

  Lofton turned away and watched a woman walking with a toddler. “I’m asking you to go easy on it.”

  Davis laughed. “Why? It’s national news now. Besides, how can I help? It’s not like the Spokesman is going to modulate the national perspective.”

  He turned back to her. “We need some help reframing the story and it has to start somewhere. I’m asking you to help the city. Your city.”

  “No,” Davis said with a shake of her head. “I’m a reporter. I have ethics.”

  Lofton sipped his coffee, waiting for her.

  Even through the sunglasses he could see her eyes flick
to the envelope on the table. “What’s in there?”

  “This is Todd Trotter’s record. Including his childhood arrest record.”

  “How do you have that?”

  The curiosity in her tone was unmistakable. He almost had her hooked. “He wasn’t a citizen,” Lofton said pointedly.

  “I can’t argue that point. It’s a birthright.”

  “Fine. He wasn’t a contributing citizen.”

  “Are you going to keep repeating yourself, or tell me something useful?”

  Lofton leaned closer to her, keeping his voice down. “This is what I’m being told. The traffic stop that Ty Garrett made was a good one. It was part of a larger, ongoing drug investigation in which Todd Trotter was a suspect. We couldn’t have that coming out as it would compromise the investigation.” He tapped the envelope. “Trotter is dirty. As filthy as they come.”

  Lofton let the lies flow easily. To him, Trotter was now a means to an end and there was no such thing as not speaking ill of the dead.

  “Is it true the gun is missing?”

  Lofton smirked. “No. The officers secured it right away. Can you imagine leaving a gun lying around in that part of town? Someone would snatch it up in a heartbeat and use it in another crime within an hour.”

  “That sounds vaguely racist based upon the part of town.”

  Lofton waved her accusation away. “Trotter was white. Lots of white people live in that part of town, too. I’m just saying the police have the gun.”

  “Why not announce it then?”

  “Again, this is what I’ve been told. The gun is very special,” Lofton said. “It’s unique. It also belongs to someone that’s part of the larger drug investigation. The police can tie that gun to them as part of a different crime. The chief doesn’t want to announce it and spook them. The police need to keep it quiet. That’s why it’s hush-hush.”

  He had planned this argument prior to the meeting. He really didn’t like it, but it was better than saying the gun was lost. Besides, he kept saying the chief and the police so when this blew back on him, and he knew it would at some point, he’d step out of the way and point it to the police department. He’d claim the ambiguous “they” gave him bad information. It was always important to have a contingency plan.

  “You’re telling me they’re letting an officer twist in the wind for a drug investigation?”

  Lofton nodded. “It doesn’t seem right, does it?”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I’ve advised the mayor to come out with this information,” Lofton said, careful not to say the truth. “They are advising him not to go public with it. The mayor didn’t really have law enforcement support in the last election and he wants to change that, so he needs to keep them happy. I believe we need to get some of this out there. Like I said. We need to change the national narrative. It’s bad for the city.”

  “And your officer.”

  “Him, too.”

  “Did the mayor ask you to do this?”

  Lofton smiled and shrugged, hopefully giving her the right impression without saying anything. He needed plausible deniability over everything now. He knew she had taken the bait with that question.

  Davis thought about it while she sipped her coffee. Finally, she sat her cup down and reached for the envelope.

  Lofton dropped his hand over it. “This is confidential. You never got it from me.”

  Her fingers tugged on the envelope, trying to free it from under his hand. He pressed down on it, securing it to the table.

  “My name never appears anywhere near this article,” Lofton said, his eyes serious.

  “I understand,” she said.

  Lofton lifted his hand, releasing the envelope to her. He stood and smoothed his tie. “Thanks, Kelly,” he said, walking away.

  She ignored him as she tore open the envelope.

  Chapter 19

  Clara Garrett stared intently at the television, hanging on every word that came out of the mouths of the assembled panel. She was tuned into a local channel, but the host had made a big deal from the outset that this discussion was being aired on several national channels, including MSNBC and FOX.

  The host was a Spokane institution, a man Clara had known from the time he was a young reporter covering events at city hall. She treated him with the same respect as all other media personnel during her tenure as a councilwoman and eventually as council president, but she never trusted him. He always seemed to care more about whether his hair looked good than if he reported accurately.

  His producer had assembled a foursome that Clara could scarcely believe were in the same room at the same time. Pastor Al Norris had somehow been corralled into appearing on this show, and she found herself simultaneously disappointed and glad to see him there. To the pastor’s right sat a white man with a military haircut. Anger seemed to radiate off of him. On the pastor’s left was retired SPD Sergeant Sam Gallico, a bitter and vocal critic of the department. Clara was glad there were some watchdog organizations and self-appointed citizens in place for checks and balances, but it was her opinion that even when he was right about something, he took it too far. To the far left was DaQuan Parrish, who she recognized as perhaps the most prominent black activist in the city. While she believed Parrish was fighting the good fight, her preferred method was peaceful and diplomatic. Parrish was much more confrontational.

  “Are you saying that this shooting is being treated differently than other shootings SPD officers have been involved in?” the host asked Gallico.

  “Of course, it is,” Gallico said. “This Officer Garrett is one of the department’s golden children. I have no doubt that the administration will pull out all the stops to protect him.”

  “What do you base that on?”

  “Twenty-five years of experience in the belly of the beast,” Gallico intoned.

  “Could you be more specific?”

  “Sure. They’re already going full out to protect Garrett. The chief won’t even confirm his identity. Everyone knows who the shooter is, but the big man won’t tell the truth about that. What else do you suppose they are hiding? The fact that this victim was shot in the back? Or that there are rumors that he was unarmed?” Gallico shook his head. “This is dirty from jump city, and it is typical. Typical SPD.”

  “I think there’s a bigger question here than possible police corruption,” the man with a military cut said. Clara noticed the pair of small metal pins on his collar, one United States flag, one Confederate flag. The name Alan Krakowski flashed below him. “For the last decade, every time a white police officer has shot a black criminal, it has resulted in a massive uproar from black people in this community, and in this country. Now we have—”

  “Excuse me,” Parrish interrupted.

  “Let me finish,” Krakowski snapped. “Now we have a black officer shoot an unarmed white man in the back, and we get nothing but silence from those same people who were jumping up and down before. I’d like to know why.” He turned to stare angrily at Parrish.

  Parrish wasn’t intimidated. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For being so very typically white,” snapped Parrish. He turned to the camera. “This is just another example of white privilege in America. Black men have been dying at the hands of corrupt police for generations, and it seems that only black people care about that. But let the police shoot a white man, and suddenly we have a problem?”

  “The problem,” Gallico said, “is more about the fact this man was unarmed and shot in the back, not that he was white.”

  “I beg to differ,” Parrish said, the words rolling in a smooth tenor. “The shootings I’m talking about have been every bit as questionable as this one, maybe more so. What we have here, if you ask me, is another instance of white people taking from black people. You have a history of it. You’ve got slavery, first and foremost. Our freedom. Now you’re taking our culture, too.”

&
nbsp; “That’s ridiculous,” Krakowski interjected.

  “I agree. It is ridiculous. Ridiculous that you would appropriate our music, our heritage, our heroes. Now, you’re trying to take our legitimate pain from us and acting like it’s yours as well, just because for once, a white man has died at the hands of a black cop instead of the other way around.”

  In the brief silence after Parrish’s statement, the host prompted Norris. “Pastor, would you like to join the conversation?”

  Pastor Norris cleared his throat. “I don’t claim to speak for all of black America, but I will speak for much of black Spokane. I suspect my words will resonate with a majority of white Spokane as well.”

  “Don’t count on it,” snarled the white man.

  “I allowed you to speak,” Norris said, firm but polite. “Please do me the same courtesy.”

  “Say something meaningful then and speak for your own people.”

  Norris shook his head sadly. He held out a hand toward the man. “Now, see, this is what the problem is in our city, our nation. Too much tribalism. We are all one people, under God.”

  “Please, Pastor,” the host said. “This is an interview, not a sermon.”

  “You invite a preacher on your show, you might as well expect a sermon,” Norris said. “I’ll answer the question. Tyler Garrett grew up in East Central. His father was destined for great things before his life was cut tragically short, and his mother took up the mantle after he passed. She was one of the greatest citizens of this city, and she raised that boy right. After he went to college and joined the police, he returned to East Central, to make his old neighborhood safe. He is a good man, doing noble work in a noble profession and all of you are rushing to judge him before any of the facts are in. You should be ashamed of yourself, all of you.”

  “I’m not the one who should feel any shame,” Parrish said. “I’ve got two hundred and fifty years of history helping me judge.”

  “The only shame in this situation,” snapped the other man, “is that an unarmed white man was shot in the back, and you and all of your people seem fine with it, as long it was a black man that did the shooting.”