by Chris Culver
“You don’t need to do this. The riots are winding down and cooler heads are prevailing. Something good may even come out of this. Your shooting got people talking. That’s a good thing.”
“I’m glad Dante’s death isn’t in vain, but that doesn’t change anything. I’m done.”
Bowers squinted. “Did you read your orders?”
In fact, I had read them so often I had them practically memorized. “Yeah.”
Bowers stood up, walked around his desk, and then moved his jacket so he could sit down. “Have a seat so we can talk about your new position.”
“I’m done, and I’m tired. I’d rather just go home.”
The humor and patience left Bowers’ eyes. “Sit down, Ash.”
I sighed and sat. “Fine. What now?”
Bowers leaned back in his chair. “You’re not an idiot.”
“Thank you,” I said, crossing my arms. “I guess.”
Bowers didn’t blink. “Your new position pays eighty-five grand a year and has a pension. It’s a good job. You’ve got two kids and a wife to support. You’re not going to do better in the private sector.”
“This isn’t about money,” I said, shaking my head. “I can’t do this anymore. I’m tired of being mistrusted, and I’m tired of playing departmental politics.”
Something I said must have been funny because Bowers smiled and snickered.
“Whatever you’re doing, you’ve never played departmental politics. You may think you’re a scalpel cutting through bureaucratic red tape, but you’re more like a blowtorch glued to a can of gasoline.”
“Do you have a point, or did you ask me to sit so you could insult me?”
Bowers didn’t say anything for a few seconds, but then he stood, walked to his window, and stared out. “Back when I started this job, the bad guys carried revolvers and our department had its own biker task force. In your entire career, you ever investigate a biker gang?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head.
“The world’s changing. We don’t always get along, but I trust you. You’ve never given me a reason to question your motives or your ability.”
“Just my judgment,” I said, quickly.
“Yeah. I’m not going to lie to you. You’ve made some bad calls,” said Bowers, turning and nodding. “But you made them for the right reasons. That matters.”
Funny, but it didn’t seem to matter that he had tried to have me fired for those bad calls.
“What are you saying?” I asked.
Bowers walked around his desk and sat on the edge, just a foot or two from me.
“After your hearing, I talked to Dennis Parker, the point man on the review board. Leonard Wilson offered to hire his kid if he voted to fire you. He also said that Leonard offered to sponsor Frank Wong in his country club for his vote. Sandra Messenger wouldn’t admit that he offered her anything, but she changed her mind about you pretty fast after a lunch appointment.” Bowers paused for just a second. “Of course, Leonard didn’t outright say he was buying their votes, but everybody knew. It was quid pro quo.”
“Leonard doesn’t play fair,” I said. “I warned you a while ago.”
Bowers looked down at his feet, put his hands in his pockets, and began to rattle his keys. “He’s got a lot of supporters, but he hasn’t said what he plans to do with them.”
“It’s not going to be good no matter what it is,” I said.
“That’s why I don’t want you to leave,” said Bowers, looking up. “This department has a lot of good people in it. We argue about how to get there, but we all want the same thing: a safe city. Sometimes, a blowtorch glued to a can of gasoline is a better tool than a scalpel.”
“You’re not making a very strong case for staying,” I said, shaking my head.
“You’ve put fourteen years into this department and city. You wouldn’t have done that if you didn’t care about it.”
I unfolded my arms and shrugged. “If you want me to stay, why’d you give me this assignment? I’m hardly even a cop.”
“Leonard Wilson had us locked down pretty tight, so we gave you what we could. You’ll make out of it what you can. Based on your track record, I think you can find work of your own.”
I held up my index finger and then began counting off. “I don’t have a staff, I don’t have a budget, I don’t even have a clear mandate to do anything. I’ve hardly got a job.”
“But it is a job. You’re a cop,” said Bowers, his voice remaining even. “Take a couple of days off. Spend some time with your wife and kids and then come in on Monday. We’ll talk more about your new assignment.”
I looked back out the window, thinking. “Last week, Kevin Havelock asked me to investigate Leonard Wilson. He have any say in this?”
“I’m not alone in wanting you back at IMPD,” said Bowers. “And I’d say the placement of your office one floor from Leonard Wilson’s wasn’t a coincidence.”
I looked back at Captain Bowers. “So you really want me to stay?”
“I want you to do what’s best for you and your family,” he said. “I also think we both know what that is.”
And I did know. I couldn’t lie and say I wanted the job solely to make the world a better place. Starting a legal practice in a new city without a guaranteed income terrified me. Maybe I had resisted my new position with the department at first because I needed to hear somebody still valued my service. Or maybe I was just being stubborn. I don’t know. All I know is that I still wanted to be a cop. It felt right.
Bowers and I talked for another five minutes, but we didn’t say anything of substance. I told him I’d see him on Monday, though. Afterwards, I drove to my sister’s place and met my wife and kids in the kitchen. My brother-in-law and sister must have been at work. Both Kaden and Megan were drawing at the kitchen table, while my wife stood over them, her hands on their shoulders. I smiled at the scene. Sibling rivalry had only come to our house in the last few months, so if Hannah touched one of them or said something nice to one of them, she had to touch or say something equally nice to the other or a fight would break out. I liked to see them getting along.
When I walked in, Megan turned around first, but then Kaden followed. My son had seen me just a few hours earlier, but he got off his chair and ran to me anyway, his arms outstretched.
“I drew a cow,” he said.
“That’s great,” I said, wondering what had motivated him to draw a cow of all things in the world. “What did your sister draw?”
“A unicorn,” she said, holding up her picture. I took it from her outstretched hand.
“That is the best unicorn I’ve seen today,” I said.
“Is it better than Kaden’s cow?”
My son’s cow drawing consisted mostly of a couple of amorphous blobs, but it was brown, a cow-like color. As much as I wanted to praise my daughter’s unicorn, I had yet to see one in real life, giving me little to compare it to.
“They’re both equally wonderful,” I said, putting her picture in front of her. “But I especially like your unicorn’s pink fur.”
She smiled from ear to ear and went back to her drawing. I turned to my wife. She mouthed hey. I stepped close to her and felt the warmth of her torso through my shirt.
“How’d it go?” she asked.
I looked at her and then at the floor. “How would you feel about staying in Indianapolis? We’ll lose the deposit I put down on that office in Evansville, but I can get out of the lease.”
She put a hand on my chest and then leaned in to kiss my cheek. “I’ve been looking at houses. How do you feel about moving to Carmel? It’s a little pricey, but they have some nice neighborhoods. The schools are good, too.”
“You never thought we’d leave, did you?”
Hannah smiled and then winked. “I thought it best to consider all the possibilities. You’re a police officer. That’s who you are, and I didn’t think you could walk away from that.”
I looked at the breakfast table, a
nd both kids looked up at me expectantly. I shook my head. Life wouldn’t always work out perfectly, but no matter what happened in the future, I knew we’d survive and pull together. That’s what families do.
“I choose to be a police officer. It’s my job, but it’s not who I am,” I said, reaching out for my wife. “More than anything else, I’m a dad and your husband. And I wouldn’t change that for the world.”
Like Ash Rashid and Measureless Night?
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chris Culver is the New York Times bestselling author of the Ash Rashid series of mysteries. After graduate school, Chris taught courses in ethics and comparative religion at a small liberal arts university in southern Arkansas. While there and when he really should have been grading exams, he wrote The Abbey, which spent sixteen weeks on the New York Times bestseller’s list and introduced the world to Detective Ash Rashid.
Chris has been a storyteller since he was a kid, but he decided to write crime fiction after picking up a dog-eared, coffee-stained paperback copy of Mickey Spillane’s I, the Jury in a library book sale. Many years later, his wife, despite considerable effort, still can’t stop him from bringing more orphan books home. The two of them, along with a labrador retriever named Roy, reside near St. Louis where Chris is hard at work on his next novel.
He can be reached by sending an email to: [email protected]
