Our dispatcher didn’t sound nearly as concerned as I felt, though. Judging by the low energy in her voice, she must’ve been one of the older switchboard queens, a veteran who’d grown accustomed to ignoring our Chief’s hysterics. She came back across the air with a loud yawn. “Go ahead, Unit 1.”
“Yeah? Huh? Control, can you hear me?”
The dispatcher paused for a long moment, probably trying to make it seem as if she was adjusting her headset volume. “Unit 1, I read you loud and clear. Go ahead, sir.”
“Control, check me out at Shadowmoss Plantation. I’ll be speaking to the complainant myself, but you can have that Team 4 unit 63 here with me.”
“Unit 1, I copy.”
There was another long moment of silence before Chief Greene piped up. “Control, did you copy? I’m out with the caller.” I swear, it was almost painful to listen to the conversation, knowing that the ravages of old age must have crippled the man’s hearing along with his mind. Either our Chief was a only few small steps away from total deafness, or he’d stepped out of his cruiser without remembering to click on his walkie-talkie.
“Unit 1, that’s affirmative sir. We copy.” The dispatcher exhaled a deep, calming breath, then called my number once again. “414, you read on that 86? Unit 1 is already out with the complainant, he’ll be standing by to 63 with you there.”
Her unspoken message was for me to hustle it up, so I tossed my blue plastic bubble light up in the dashboard and reached down to toggle the siren switch. A long line of cars peeled off in sequence ahead of me, every fifth or sixth driver panicking to the point where they actually crossed over into oncoming traffic. In actuality there was no need to hurry since I was bound and determined not to get stuck writing the incident report, but my pace was still a crisp one, since by that point my mission had shifted into simple damage control. Left to his own devices, there was no telling just how many good, honest citizens our Chief might offend. Countless residents had already endured the man’s unique blend of reverse racism over the past two decades, and as a beat cop, I did feel a certain level of responsibility to shield others from his insanity. Moments later, I spotted Chief Greene’s slick black Mercury coupe parked up on the shoulder, so I cut off my strobe lights and snatched up the radio. “414 copies, Control” I grunted. “Check me out with Unit 1, but keep that other unit en route.”
I eased my own cruiser up on the grass next to his, the beat-up, baby blue Crown Victoria looking even more humble than usual beside the Chief’s late-model ride. I left the blue light spinning as I stepped out, gingerly picking my way around the steep irrigation ditch. On its surface, Shadowmoss Plantation seemed like a decent enough subdivision, this wide patch of forest land which had been reclaimed so that white folks could raise their kids in suburban splendor, but it was obvious that the place was getting on in years. Shadowmoss had been one of the first big blocks of land in West Ashley to get snatched up for development, a move which had kicked off a trend of bland cul-de-sac neighborhoods and their accompanying strip malls. All the subdivisions out on this side of town seemed to feature the same boring, pre-fabricated style of houses, which effectively transformed miles of prime deer hunting land into a sea of anonymity and traffic. Most of the nuclear families who’d pioneered the area during the nineties had aged since then, and I got the impression that all these neighborhoods were feeling some kind of growing pains. As these families had gotten older, their cute little children had grown into teenagers, and Team Four’s crime rate had risen on a strikingly similar curve.
I strolled over and posted up behind the Chief, who was locked in a deep conversation with one of his fellow senior citizens. I pegged the white guy as a retiree, if only because of the fact that he didn’t have anything better to do in the middle of the day then to call the cops and complain. The dude was decked out in a set of bright white orthopedic shoes and a coral pink polo shirt, the latter smartly tucked down into a pair of grey Sansabelt pants. He wore his trousers high, the elastic waistband drawn up just beneath his armpits, and I couldn’t help wondering if the style impacted his breathing. The man carried himself just as officiously as a rookie cop wearing his brand-new uniform, so I strongly suspected that I was looking at the head of the neighborhood watch. I stood there in silence, politely waiting for a break in the conversation before stepping past the Chief with an outstretched arm. “Good afternoon sir, and thank you very much for calling. Mike Larsen, Team Four investigator. How can I be of service?”
The Chief turned on his heels, finally troubling himself to acknowledge my presence. He looked me up and down as if I must have been guilty of something, his dark brown eyes going back and forth between my unshined loafers and the conspicuously large ketchup stain on my collar. The Chief’s show of obvious disapproval amounted to an awkward public shaming, and the sound of his rasping voice only added to the tension.
“Who’s that? Huh? Larken, is that you?” The Chief reached an arm around to the back of his worn blue blazer, coming back up with a two-foot-long black polymer nightstick. He held the weapon up between us, tapping the business end against my sagging chest in a steady, rhythmic beat. “Don’t you think you’re missing something there, young man?” he asked, each of his words punctuated by a thump from the violent metronome.
I held back a groan, mentally kicking myself for not having remembered to loop my trusty old tie back over my head before I’d jumped the call. For some reason CPD’s command staff seemed bound and determined to make their beat cops as uncomfortable as possible, which meant that the neck noose was a strict uniform requirement. I normally suffered the indignity just long enough to make it through morning roll call before ducking out to the parking lot and slipping it delicately back up over my head, preserving the knot. Thanks to a minimalist wardrobe of two dress shirts, one plain white and one light blue, I’d managed to get by wearing the same red-and-blue striped tie every day since being transferred over from Foot Patrol.
Chief Greene, on the other hand, was dressed to the nines in a pair of seasonally appropriate wool pants, a white oxford shirt and a dark blue tie featuring the CPD logo. It was a sharp, professional appearance, one that very effectively concealed the man’s incompetence. There was absolutely no way for me to compete with his crisp appearance, so I did my best to edge a little closer over towards the complainant.
The wrinkled old septuagenarian jumped forward, grasping my hand with a shaky, arthritic one of his own. “Larsen, eh? Well, isn’t that something! Gus Larssen here, pleased to meet you!” He pumped my arm up and down with a vigor that defied his years, those thick veins along his wrist shaking with enthusiasm. “Say, son. You think maybe you and I might be relatives? Who knows what the family trees might have looked like back in the old country, you know? Your people are Scandinavian, right? Mine too. I can tell by the slope of your nose, you see? Birds of a feather, eh?”
I glanced to the side and spotted a flock of Canada geese settling in along the grassy median, effectively taking charge of the small overflow pond near the neighborhood’s entrance. And even though the birds couldn’t have been nesting very long, the water was already visibly suffering their presence, with streams of long, green turds floating in between the spotlight bulbs and the fountain jets. I swear, the main gate had probably been designed to be aesthetically pleasing, meant to create an impression of luxurious comfort within, but years of neglect had left the painted wood ‘Shadowmoss’ sign looking weatherbeaten and worn down. Layers of paint were peeling away from the wood trim, and the small median seemed to be covered more with tall weeds than with actual grass.
Personally, I suspect it was the neighborhood’s run down appearance which was responsible for souring the Chief’s mood. I watched closely as his eyes narrowed, focusing in on the pesky seasonal migrants, his face masked in a stare of pure hatred. He wrinkled his nose in disgust, clearly bothered by all those puddles of bird poop spread across the asphalt. “Birds of a feather? Huh. Say, those geese over there...they remin
d me of something... but for the life of me, I just can’t remember what.”
My blood ran cold as a sharp shock of fear ran through my body. The Chief’s mumbled words, seemingly incoherent to Gus Larssen, were all it took to shoot me back in time to my days as a rookie patrol officer. I felt a cold bead of sweat forming along my hairline, and I willed myself to resist the urge to wipe it clean. I could tell Chief Greene was only seconds away from recalling the key details of a decades-old prank, so I seized the moment to derail his train of thought. “Uh, Chief? I know you’re an incredibly busy man” I stammered. “Why don’t I take it from here, okay? Free you up off this call. After all, I know you’ve probably got more important matters to attend to back at 75. Right?”
He paused, frozen in confusion, before finally giving me a slow nod, but those beady brown eyes of his were still locked in like laser beams on the avian intruders. “Yeah... yeah. Why don’t you do that, Larken. And hey, be sure to look out for those geese while you’re out here. I mean it, son. Don’t turn your back on them for a second. Nasty things... mean, and vicious too!”
I eagerly nodded my understanding, sending my chin bobbing up and down like a deep-sea fishing bobber riding the waves. “Got it, Chief. Will do.”
But instead of immediately taking to his car, the Chief just stood there rambling. “Filthy creatures, absolutely disgusting” he mumbled. “Leave a trail of crap everywhere they go. It’s a damn slip hazard.” Finally, after an awkwardly long pause, the Chief let out a sigh and wandered off. The man shuffled slowly along, giving the impression that he might have been moving in some kind of a dazed trance. He was still holding the nightstick down low at his waist, with the weapon’s tip dragging along the asphalt. The two of us, Mr. Larssen and I, both watched, stunned, as our city’s top cop lurched his way over to the cruiser, slumped down inside and gave the air horn a few long bursts before pulling away. It was a bold move, peeling out into rush hour traffic without so much as a cursory check of his blind spot, but I figured the Chief probably had heavier matters on his mind than mere traffic safety. We watched him go until the car finally disappeared off in the distance, the rear blinker flashing a steady rhythm of left turn signals as an unfastened seatbelt hung loose outside the driver’s side door. Its stainless steel buckle sent up a thin shower of sparks each time it scraped against the pavement.
Mr. Larssen shook his head in sincere wonder. “That Rufus T. Greene, let me tell you what. He’s his own man, for sure. I remember back when he first took the job down here in Charleston, we all thought that fella was a little touched in the head. Maybe even a little light in the loafers, if you get what I’m saying?”
I was starting to drift off into my own thoughts, and didn’t bother to respond.
“Most folks thought that boy might have had a little sugar in the gas tank.” Mr. Larssen reached out to tap my shoulder with his wrinkled fist. “Sweet, you know? One of them queers.”
I nodded, more because the gesture seemed expected than from any actual interest in continuing the conversation. “Is that right?”
“Sure as shit. Crazy as a loon, we thought.” He paused for a moment before shaking his head. “Truth be told, I’m still not sure the man’s all there. One thing I know for sure, though: that fella’s either a hundred percent crazy, or else he’s just plain fearless.”
I raised a hand to my mouth, doing my best to conceal the snicker that was sneaking its way past my lips. “Yeah, the Chief is definitely... unique, all right. Man’s got no fear of nothing, except birds I mean. Did you see the way he took off running once that mama goose gave him the hairy eyeball?”
The old man snorted. “Can’t say as I blame him, you hear? Them geese are nothing but trouble. Airborne terrorists, leaving bombs everywhere. This time of year the flocks run around this neighborhood like they own the damn place. Tearing up people’s lawns, leaving those disgusting green streaks behind when they’re done. Just last week there was a flock down by the school bus stop, nipping at all the kids and chasing them babies out into the street!” Mr. Larssen glanced down at my chest, searching for the spot where the uniformed officers wore their name tags. The move was a dead giveaway that this man was a frequent caller, one of Team Four’s more prolific complainants.
“Larsen. Mike Larsen. But why don’t you call me Goosey? Everybody else does.” My mind, already hampered by a chronically short attention span, was wandering over twelve years back in time to my training days, that forgettable period when I was nothing more than a lowly boot rookie posted out on James Island. I managed to last until my final day of field training before finally getting pegged with a nickname, but in fairness, that wasn’t entirely my fault. Team Three was the quietest of all the patrol areas, especially back in the day before the city of Charleston went on a growth kick and started annexing all the rural areas. During those twelve weeks of riding shotgun, the only thing I really learned was that a group of bored cops is a recipe for disaster. My Field Training Officer was a mean old crust of bread named Artie Mistle, a skinny beanpole of an officer with only one more year left on the job, and that dude always stressed the importance of avoiding calls for service. Artie’s main priority was to keep his butt safely parked in the driver’s seat, only bothering to leave the car when he needed to eat, smoke, or pee. After working in such close proximity to the guy for so long, I came to the conclusion that Artie’s only redeeming quality was his talent for pulling off such artful pranks. I swear, that guy was an absolute legend when it came to setting hotfoots during roll call, at least on those evenings he bothered to show up.
But on that particular midnight shift, even though the two of us had gone and checked in service like always, I could tell he had something special in mind. I was driving, and normally Artie would have already been passed out asleep on the back bench before I’d even put the car in gear, but that night, for some reason he chose to sit upright in the passenger seat. As I backed out of the parking space behind the station, I caught a glimpse of that evil grin on his face. “Pull it around by the gas pumps, kid” he snarled. “And fill it up.”
I did as he said, despite the fact that the tank was already at three-quarters. And even though our normal midnight shift routine involved nothing more than parking for ten straight hours, by that point in my training I’d learned never to question my FTO’s instructions. I was still one more evaluation form away from being cut loose, free to patrol all by my lonesome, and with each passing shift I could almost taste that independence. I wasn’t about to ruin my chances for anything, not even if Artie told me to be his getaway driver after he’d knocked over a liquor store. My head was off in the clouds as I worked the fuel pump, my mind already plotting out just how much fishing I might accomplish in my first ten hours without proper supervision, so I guess I just didn’t put two and two together when Artie jimmied the lock on the mechanics’ bay. He was only inside the garage for a minute or so, sliding back down in his seat before I’d re-holstered the nozzle.
Once out on the road, Artie landed a sharp punch on my shoulder as we cruised across the Ashley River Bridge. “Hang a right here, kid” he growled, gesturing at the Highway 61 turnoff, rather than our usual Folly Road route. “Gotta hit a quick area check out in West Ashley before we land in our own beat.”
I nodded, signaling for a lane change before coasting across the dotted white lines. I eased my shoulders back and settled in for the ride, knowing that Artie Mistle would only reveal our destination once he was damned good and ready. We drove in silence like that for another ten minutes, me stopping at all the red lights even though the streets were nearly deserted. Finally, once we’d passed the last clear sign of civilization, that Piggly Wiggly grocery store out by Church Creek, Artie came to life once more. He jerked his head to the right and barked, “Turn here! Cut your headlights off, then park it up by that first cross street. See? Right over there.”
I did as he said, pulling our black-and-white Chevy Caprice gently up onto the grass before stomping dow
n on the emergency brake and cutting the engine. In the rearview, I spotted two more sets of headlights as the cars slowed down, rounded the corner and coasted to a stop in line behind us.
Our dome light flashed on as Artie popped the door and stood up, showing a surprising level of energy. “Get out.” His gruff manner left no confusion that this was not a polite request.
I followed Artie’s lead and walked around to the trunk, joining up with the rest of our patrol squad there: Chuck “Slipper” Johnson and our fearless leader, Sergeant Jim Cobb. Big Jim cut a slightly slimmer figure back in those days, but not by much. He was too busy loading carbohydrates to say hello, eating slice after slice of Wonder Bread straight from the bag. A trail of crumbs drifted down from his jaw, powdering the front of his swollen blue uniform shirt. As for Slipper Johnson, he just stood there next to our boss, hands tucked away in his pockets like the dude was far too cool for this late night meet up. Even though old Slipper had only joined CPD a couple of months before I did, you’d have thought by the smug look of seniority on his face that the dude was a salty old vet.
“Here you go, rookie.” Artie flung a keyring my way, and I reached up to snag it. “Big shift for you, huh, kid? Last night of field training. According to my performance evaluations, there’s only one more thing left to do before you get cut loose.”
I shrugged, still trying to play it cool, even though I was really starting to feel the pressure by that point. “Whatever you say, boss.”
Property Damage Page 2