Inheritance

by Joe McKinney

  “It’s already done. You’ve got a charge to keep.”

  “Take it back. Daddy, please. I don’t want this.”

  “This thing picks its own time and place. It’s my job to give this to you, to channel it into you. Death can’t stop me from doing that. You have a charge to keep, Paul, and so do I. Make sure you’re ready.”

  And then he was dead, his chest sagging like a tire going flat, his sightless eyes still staring into Paul’s.

  Six years later...

  Chapter 1

  Paul Henninger sat in the roll call room of the San Antonio Police Department’s Eastside Service Area Substation with eighty other cops, nervously waiting out the final minutes before the lieutenant in charge of the shift came out of his office to deliver his briefing.

  Paul had just completed nearly a year of training to become a cop. First, the standard seven month course of study at the San Antonio Police Department’s Training Academy, where his instructors had taught him the legal stuff he needed to know to be a street cop in Texas, and then a seventeen week on-the-job training program where he’d been assigned to a Field Training Officer, an FTO, who was supposed to have taught him everything he needed to know to survive as a San Antonio street cop. Tonight was his first night without an FTO, the umbilical cord cut. Now he was in that phase of his career known throughout the Department as “breaking out,” time to prove he had what it took to be one of San Antonio’s finest.

  He remembered what his instructors at the Academy had said. You build your reputation early. Make sure it’s a good one, because it’ll follow you the rest of your career.

  Good to know there isn’t any pressure to perform, he thought.

  That night’s worksheet was posted on a bulletin board on the front wall next to the lieutenant’s office. Paul had read it on the way in, while he was milling about, waiting for the shift to start, trying to look like he belonged there. From the worksheet he learned that his new partner was a guy named Mike Garcia, and watching from his little corner of the room, he tried to sneak a look at the nametags of the other officers as they entered the room.

  So far, he hadn’t seen anybody named Garcia.

  About the only thing he had noticed was an occasional officer glancing over at him, smiling wickedly as they crumpled up sheets of paper into hard little balls. It made him feel like somebody had tied a raw steak around his neck and tossed him into a bear cave.

  His hands were moving in his lap, and for a moment, he could almost feel the cool greasy slide of baling wire in his fingers.

  He stopped, arrested by the thought. Why did I think that? Baling wire? I haven’t touched that since...

  Chilled by the sudden memory of his father and the stick lattice sculptures he used to make, Paul reached into his pocket and took out the Barber fifty cent piece his wife Rachel had given him back in college, when they were dating. He rolled it back and forth over his knuckles, dropped it into his palm, and made a few passes over the coin with the other hand, making it disappear and then reappear again. It was a nervous habit, something to do with his hands. Something to take his mind away from unpleasant memories.

  The lieutenant, a lean, balding man named Richard Green, emerged from his office and limped to the podium at the front of the room.

  The laughing and paper crumpling stopped.

  Green went over a couple of points from the Daily Bulletin as a few stragglers hustled in and took their seats, then he started reading the roll.

  Paul kept an eye on the officers around him, waiting to see who would answer up when Green called Mike Garcia’s name.

  “Barris,” Green said.

  “Here, sir.”

  “Seles.”

  “Here, sir.”

  “Stokes.”

  “Here, sir.” Laughing from the other side of the room.

  “Collins.”

  “Present.” More laughing.

  “Garcia.”

  The laughing stopped and the entire opposite side of the room answered “Here, sir” all at once.

  Lieutenant Green just shook his head and smiled. Next he called Paul’s name and said, “You’re riding with Mike Garcia. That’s him over there.” He pointed at the jokers along the opposite wall.

  “Right here,” said a big white guy, and raised his hand.

  “Shut up, man,” said a black female officer. “You ain’t even Mexican. Right here, dude. I’m Mike.”

  Soon the whole room was at it.

  Paul tried hard to smile.

  The lieutenant cleared his throat and said, “Henninger, it’s customary for the new guys to come up here and introduce themselves.” Green stepped away from the podium, gesturing for Paul to take his place.

  Paul hesitated. He looked around the room, uncertain what to do.

  “Just tell us what you did before you became a policeman,” Green said.

  Feeling dizzy and embarrassed, Paul got up from his chair and went to the podium. He looked out at the sea of faces before him, all those hard-faced cops who weren’t smiling anymore, and blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “My name is Paul—”

  But he never got the chance to finish. As soon as he opened his mouth the entire room erupted with waded up paper balls, all of them flying at his head. Cat calls of “Shut up, boot!” and “Sit down!” came from every direction.

  When the pelting was done, Green put a hand on his shoulder and silenced the room with a wave of his hand.

  “All right,” he said. “You guys get to work.”

  The room turned into an exodus as all eighty officers stood up at once and made their way towards the back door that led out to the parking lot. Paul nodded and smiled like an idiot as a long line of officers paraded by him. He shook hands with most of them and forgot their names as soon as they said them.

  And at last an officer stopped in front of him and said, “Hi, I’m Mike.”

  Paul searched the man’s plump, smiling face, half expecting another round of jokes. But when that didn’t happen he nodded and shook the man’s hand.

  “Paul Henninger,” he said.

  “Damn,” Mike said, “you’re a big one, ain’t ya? What are you, about six-four, two-thirty, two-forty?”

  “Two-thirty,” Paul said.

  Mike whistled.

  “Yeah, well, if we get into any fights, I’m gonna let you take it.”

  But looking at Mike, Paul got the feeling he didn’t need much help when it came to fighting. He was probably five inches shorter than Paul, and Paul probably had thirty pounds on him at least, but Mike carried himself like a brawler, the Hispanic version of a tough Irish beat cop. All it took was one look into Mike Garcia’s eyes and Paul knew there was grit there that he himself didn’t possess. And though Mike’s smile was friendly, Paul could still tell he was being summed up by an experienced street cop, that his measure had been taken.

  He knows I’m scared shitless, Paul thought.

  Lt. Green said, “Paul, when you’re done getting my roll call room cleaned up, you and Mike need to see your sergeant.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mike handed him the trash can. “I’ll see you in there,” he said, and pointed to a room next to the Lieutenant’s Office.

  “Okay,” he said. “Thanks.”

  “Hurry it up, though. I wanna go eat before it gets busy. Friday nights, we don’t eat early, we won’t get to eat at all.”

  After picking up the paper balls, Paul made his way to the Sergeants’ Office. Mike was sitting across from a heavyset, ruddy-faced man in his early fifties. Two other sergeants shared the office, but they didn’t bother to look at Paul. All of them were focused on an angry, gray haired man who was glowering at the sergeant next to Mike.

  “I don’t care if they are good workers,” the man said. He was a detective. Paul could see that now. He wore a blue golf shirt tucked into neatly pressed jeans. A silver detective’s badge, with its distinctive black stripe across the front, just above the badge number, was ho
oked over his brown leather belt. He didn’t seem to be wearing a gun, though. Not even the little short-barreled Glock 27 favored by so many of the detectives Paul had seen.

  The man was definitely angry.

  “They screwed up a murder investigation,” he was saying.

  “No, come on, Keith,” the sergeant next to Mike said, and Paul figured the uniformed sergeant must be Stephen Garwin, who was listed on the worksheets as Paul’s section supervisor, his new boss. “That’s a little harsh, don’t you think, Keith? Collins and Stokes are good cops. Maybe they made a mistake, but I hardly think that’s—”

  “A mistake?” the detective blurted out. “A mistake? Sarge, you gotta be kidding me. You’ve read the same reports I have, right? Those two idiots charged into that house without a warrant, without anything even remotely close to probable cause, pulled my suspect out of his own house, and proceeded to kick his ass on the front lawn. His entire neighborhood saw it. You say they’re good cops, but from where I’m standing, it looks like some staggeringly sloppy police work. His lawyer is already pressuring the DA to drop the charges. And you know what? It’s starting to look like that’s gonna happen.”

  “My men did get a warrant, Detective Anderson.”

  “Yeah, after they searched the place. After.” The detective stared about the room, a look of righteous incredulity on his face. He looked like he was begging someone else to acknowledge how wrong all of this was.

  Sergeant Garwin crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m gonna stand behind my men, Detective Anderson.”

  The detective scoffed at him. “That’s great,” he said. “That’s really great, Sarge. I’m sure the jury that acquits this slime ball is gonna be thrilled to know you stand behind your men.”

  “Now just a minute, Detective.” Garwin looked offended. Not angry, Paul thought, offended. That seemed strange to him. He was trying to sound angry. But Paul could sense that his ire wasn’t really up. The detective waited for Garwin to go on, a challenging sneer on his face, but Garwin only blinked at him.

  He’s backing down, Paul thought, not believing what he was seeing. Sergeant Garwin looked almost impotent, like he knew he was arguing on the wrong side of the issue but was too proud or too committed to back down now.

  The detective must have sensed the same thing, for he huffed impatiently and turned away from Garwin.

  Paul was amazed. He had never seen anyone, even a seasoned detective, as this Keith Anderson no doubt was, take such an attitude with a uniformed sergeant. In the SAPD, the sergeant was the front line supervisor, and Paul had learned to hold them in fear and awe in the short time he’d been on the Department. Anything a Patrolman or a Detective needed, as an employee of the City, had to go through a sergeant for approval. They were the ones who disciplined you when you screwed up. They were the ones who wrote your merits when you did a good job. They approved your vacation, investigated your car crashes, did your performance evaluations, and sometimes showed up at the major scenes you were involved in to fix a situation that had gone completely wrong. They were the brass gods of the street, the Department’s guiding hand, and Paul would no sooner take a disrespectful tone with one than he would slap a tiger across the snout.

  “Frankly,” the detective said, waving his hand in the air like all of this was pointless now, “I don’t know how I’m gonna do damage control on this one. I had Hector Avalos on four murder counts.” He held up the appropriate number of fingers. “Four. But your men screwed it up, Sarge. Thanks to them, this case has just taken a major nose dive, and I want to know what you’re gonna do about it.”

  “I told you,” Garwin said. “I’m gonna—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Anderson said with another dismissive wave of his hand. “You’re gonna stand by your men. I heard you.”

  Why wasn’t anybody doing anything about this? Paul wondered. There were three sergeants in the room. One of them should have been chewing this detective’s ass by now. But it wasn’t happening. They were all just sitting there, taking it.

  And then Mike spoke up. “Detective Anderson, I hate to say it, but I think you’re full of crap.”

  The detective wheeled on him. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. You don’t have half the case on Avalos you claim you do. You’re just pissed that a bunch of patrolmen got the probable cause you couldn’t find.”

  “You mean the probable cause they found doing an illegal search?”

  “There was no illegal search.”

  “Like hell—”

  “Yeah, like hell. I know. I was there.”

  Anderson’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh yeah? You were there, were you? So I have you to thank for this mess as well, huh?”

  “It was a legal search.”

  “You call kicking down a man’s door without a warrant, tearing his home apart, then beating him to a pulp in front of his neighbors a legal search? Please, explain that to me, Officer Garcia. I’m dying to know.”

  “They heard a girl screaming. That’s why they made entry.”

  “A girl?”

  “You read the reports. Cynthia Avalos, Hector’s daughter. The one he was beating the shit out of when Wes and Collins showed up. She had a black eye, a busted lip. You saw that right?”

  “Yeah, I read that in the report.” Suddenly Anderson’s tone had softened. He was looking at Mike now, interested despite his anger.

  “They thought someone was being assaulted. So, they entered.”

  “The girl denied anything was going on.”

  “Of course she did,” Mike said. “She’s fourteen. What do you expect her to say, especially when we took her daddy away from her?”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying Wes and Collins went inside to prevent the imminent consequences of family violence. Once inside, they saw the guns, they saw the stuff Hector Avalos had stolen from the Best Value Pawn robbery. It still had the tags on it. It was a no brainer. Wes and Collins knew right away what they were looking at.”

  Anderson was nodding, as though pieces were falling into place in his mind, connections were being made.

  “Okay,” he said, waiting for Mike to go on.

  “They did a protective sweep,” Mike said. “They searched the house for other people who might be present to destroy evidence, and then they got out of there. When I arrived, I instructed them to get a warrant based on the things they saw during their initial entry, which was made under exigent circumstances. Everything’s above board. It’s a legal search.”

  Anderson worked his jaw around like he was chewing gum. “Yeah, but that’s not in any of the reports,” he said.

  “I don’t know why,” Mike countered. “I turned in my report. It was all there, just as I told it to you.”

  “Well, I don’t have it.”

  “Reports get lost,” Mike said. “Those folks from the Records Unit are notoriously sloppy.”

  Slowly, a smile spread across Anderson’s face. “You think maybe you could make sure that lost report gets to Records? That could, uh, potentially salvage this case.”

  “Yeah,” Mike said. “Sure. I bet I have a copy somewhere.”

  “Alright.” And with that, Anderson spun around and nearly ran into Paul’s chest. He looked up at Paul, who was easily a head taller than the detective, and scowled. “Excuse me,” he said, his tone implying that it was Paul who had done something wrong.

  Paul stepped out of the way and let the detective pass.

  He looked back at Mike, a What did I do? look on his face.

  Mike gestured toward the chair opposite Sergeant Garwin with a quick nod of his chin. He turned to Garwin and said, “Well, that sucked.”

  The female sergeant behind him laughed.

  Garwin didn’t say anything, but it was obvious that Mike’s joke had broken the tension in the room.

  “Paul,” Mike said, “this is Sergeant Stephen Garwin. He’s in charge of the Forty-four Section, so he’s our direct supervisor. Over the
re is Sergeant George Catton—he runs the Forty-two Section. And that’s Sergeant Gloria Naylor. She runs the Forty-three Section.”

  The other two sergeants nodded to him and Paul nodded back. Then he shook hands with Garwin, who seemed to have already recovered his wits. His back looked straighter, his shoulders squared, and suddenly, he looked like one accustomed to command. He was a different man, definitely, than the one who had just stalled out in front of Detective Anderson.

  “Good to meet you, sir,” Paul said.

  “You too, bud. Welcome to East Patrol.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You married, Paul?” Garwin asked.

  Paul hesitated. His mind was still on the scene he had just witnessed, but it seemed like Sergeant Garwin had forgotten it and was now intent on interviewing him.

  Paul forced himself to readjust. “Yes, sir,” he said. “For about a year and a half now. My wife’s name is Rachel.”

  “Outstanding,” Garwin said. “Marriage is a wonderful thing. I liked it so much I did it four times.”

  Paul blinked at him, and both Garwin and Mike laughed.

  “I’m trying to catch up with Mike here,” Garwin said.

  Paul looked at Mike, who shrugged.

  “How about kids?” Garwin asked.

  “None.”

  “That’s okay. Where’d you come from, college or the military?”

  “College,” Paul said. “UTSA.”

  “Major?”

  “Criminal Justice.”

  “That figures. You play ball?”

  “Yes, sir,” Paul said.

  “What’d you play?”

  “Linebacker.”

  “You any good?”

  “I was okay, sir. Not good enough to go pro, but pretty good.”

  “Well, the fact that you played college ball is still pretty impressive. I like it when my officers can take care of themselves.”

  Paul nodded. “I hope to do just that, sir.”

  “I’m sure you will, bud. There’s only a couple things I ask.”

  Paul waited.

  “First off, don’t be late to roll call. I hate that. Secondly, turn in good reports. Mike here will help you with what I want. And if you screw up, admit it. I really hate it when officers don’t accept responsibility for their actions. That’s big with me. I get enough of that stupidity from the public, so I definitely don’t want it from my own officers. Besides, if you do screw up—and it’s gonna happen, believe me—I can help you out of it as long as you tell me the truth up front. If you lie to me...well, don’t do that, okay? If you lie to me, I’ll hang you out to dry.”