Byrd held out his keyring, with a distinctive disk on it. “Fifteen years sober,” he said. “The GBI helped me become a drunk, but I had to sober up on my own.”
The Trooper gave a nod. “My dad was a drinker,” he said. “That’s why I bust my ass chasing drunks.”
“Good to know,” Byrd said as he watched the driveway. The Trooper was putting his test away and trying to figure out what he had gotten into.
Byrd saw the Lincoln Town Car approaching, with the Honda he had seen following close behind. Byrd immediately recognized the driver of the Lincoln as his Lawyer friend. “If you want to make this night worth something, you might stop this Town Car coming our way. I sat with that man and saw him drink the better part of a bottle of expensive Scotch whiskey.”
“Really,” the Trooper said as the car rolled by.
“And to make it an even sweeter deal, he’s a Lawyer.”
They both watched the cars turn onto the access road beside the hotel. The Trooper hustled back to his patrol car and didn’t even bother to turn off his blue lights. He revved the Dodge Charger and quickly caught up with the Lincoln, cutting the Honda off. The Lincoln driver pulled off to the shoulder.
The driver of the Honda didn’t even slow down. When the Honda driver saw the Trooper stopping the Lincoln, he hit the gas.
Sitting in his Tahoe, Byrd watched as the trooper approached the car and gestured at the driver. When the Lincoln driver didn’t respond to his orders, the Trooper pulled the Lawyer in the expensive suit from the car. Byrd was sure the odor of alcohol coming from the car would be strong. He watched the Trooper struggle with the Lawyer briefly, before he placed him in handcuffs. In moments, the Lawyer was in the back seat of the blue-and-gray Charger. Byrd smiled a grim smile. “This ain’t my first rodeo,” he said out loud.
He imagined the name-dropping the Lawyer was doing to the Trooper. The veiled threats that the Trooper would lose his job. He watched until the Lawyer’s car was on a flatbed wrecker and then pulled his truck into gear and started to drive away. The Honda was nowhere to be seen, cutting his losses for the evening.
As Byrd navigated north toward his home, he thought about what the afternoon and evening had really been about. It wasn’t a stretch to think that the meeting in the bar was to give the Lawyer some insurance. Use his connections to get someone who was a potential witness out of the picture. He most certainly had already looked at the old GBI case report.
No, he thought, this meeting had been intended to be insurance. A GBI Agent arrested in his government car under the influence of alcohol would be a poor witness against a long serving Judge. The hundred dollar bill to the Bartender had been worth every penny. The Bartender had kept the orange juice and waters coming all afternoon. Just like he had asked. And the Bartender had made the Lawyer’s drinks doubles.
He knew the Lawyer would use every avenue he could to get the charges dropped. And he might succeed. But there is an old rule in law enforcement, Byrd remembered: You can beat the rap, but you can’t beat the ride.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Phillip W. Price is a North Georgia native. Price was sworn in as a Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) Agent in 1978, after serving with the Canton Police Department and the Georgia State Patrol. He served through the Miami Vice days and many special assignments, including the 1996 Olympic Games. In 2006, he retired as a Special Agent in Charge (SAC) with the GBI. Price is currently employed with a Sheriff’s Office in Georgia. He has served as a city police officer, a deputy sheriff, a state officer, and a special deputy US Marshal. Price is a forty-six-year veteran peace officer still living in North Georgia. This is his first novel.
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