The Sticking Place

by T. B. Smith

  Luke pounded harder and got no response. He knew his knocking was loud enough for Denny to hear him and assumed his roommate believed he’d eventually go away and get rid of whatever woman had showed up unannounced. Denny was wrong.

  Luke pulled the door open, pushed his way across the room and flipped the switch to the stereo down. “There’s some people from Homicide here to see you,” he said and walked away without giving Denny a chance to ask any questions.

  Denny stood robed in the living room within two minutes, rubbing his eyes. “You guys are from Homicide?” he asked. “Who died?”

  “Nobody’s died,” Berend said. “We need you to come down to the station so we can get to the bottom of what happened in the park today.”

  Denny looked at Luke, but spoke to Berend. “What’s Homicide got to do with anything?”

  “The Chief’s asked us to look into this thing for him. Don’t you work graveyard tonight?”

  “The Chief?” Denny asked incredulously.

  “Yes, the Chief,” Berend said. His lowered voice added gravity to his words. The added impact was unnecessary.

  “It’ll take me a few minutes to get ready,” Denny said.

  “Fine. Just go ahead and get into uniform. We’ll drive you to the station.”

  “I don’t need a ride,” Denny said.

  “You can ride with us,” Sgt. Farren said. “You can start your shift after we get through with a few questions down at the station. We’ll see to it your Sergeant finds a way to get you home in the morning.”

  Denny and Luke split off in opposite directions, Luke glaring over his shoulder at Denny as they disappeared into their respective rooms. He hoped his eyes conveyed the, I told you so message he wanted so badly to shout across the room.

  Luke despised anyone who victimized other people and he hated situations when he felt helpless. His brother Tuffy had made him feel that way often enough, but Tuffy was six years older and Luke had been too helpless to fight back in those early days, but not anymore. He’d long since vowed never again to let anybody abuse him or take advantage of anyone he cared about.

  Protecting victims was one of the main reasons he’d become a cop. But he’d let Denny down at the rally. Francie and Shimmer had manipulated his roomie into doing something stupid enough to jeopardize his career. To top it off, they’d seen to it that Luke got stuck with writing the ticket after their act of cowardice. That made Luke an unwilling Judas and the thought of it made the back of his head hurt and his stomach ache.

  As Luke heard the living room door slam shut, he pulled a folding chair from behind his desk and set it in the center of the room. He faced downward, lifted his feet to the front of the chair, stretched his arms out and started doing pushups. It was the only way he could stem the rage that was building toward Francie and Shimmer and all the other people who turned good people into dupes to further their own agendas.

  23

  “HAVE A SEAT FOR RIGHT NOW,” Lt. Berend told Denny. “We’ll be with you in a few minutes.”

  As Berend and Farren disappeared into an inner office, Denny glanced down at the front page of the San Diego Union. It carried the eye-catching headline, “Mayor Calls Incident Abuse of Police Power”. A grainy copy of Denny’s personnel photo rested under a larger picture of a beaming Aaron Goddson taken at Pillson’s swearing in ceremony. Next to the newspaper sat a familiar pink piece of paper judiciously placed at the corner of the receptionist’s desk. Denny stared at Goddson’s copy of the citation, mouth agape as Berend and Farren shuffled back in to usher him into the interrogation room.

  Third watch lineup was finishing up on the other side of the headquarters building about half a football field away, its officers filtering into the parking lot. “Anybody seen Durango?” Shimmer asked. “Where the hell is he?”

  “I saw him going toward the Homicide office,” Devree volunteered.

  “Homicide?” Shimmer said. “What the hell’s he doing in Homicide?”

  Devree glared at Shimmer. It clearly had something to do with the arrest at the park earlier in the day and Shimmer knew it as well as he did.

  Devree headed toward the suite of investigative offices on the far side of the courtyard and it looked to him like Shimmer was slinking away in the opposite direction; a hyena padding off toward a decaying animal.

  Devree couldn’t see anyone in the Homicide reception area as he looked through the glass, so he tried the door. It was unlocked.

  He popped his head in, looked around, and tip-toed inside, trying to overhear anything that might be going on behind the closed doors to the rear of the suite of offices and cubicles. He found the newspaper and Goddson’s copy of the Misdemeanor Release Citation on the table.

  The only reasonable conclusion seemed impossible to believe. The charges against Goddson must have already been dropped. How could Homicide drop the charges when they were still in the middle of the investigation, and if they weren’t in the middle of the investigation, why would they be interviewing the arresting officer? If they’d already determined that Denny had screwed the pooch, he’d be in the Internal Affairs office now, not Homicide. He slipped the citation beneath his shirt and hurried out to find an envelope and inter-office memo before rushing off to the locked press office.

  He couldn’t afford to get caught and he stood in the hallway, prancing around like he had to pee as he hurriedly scribbled an anonymous note on the inter-office form. “This is Goddson’s copy of his citation,” he wrote. “I found it in the Homicide office and it can only mean one thing. The Chief’s squashing the ticket before it goes to court.” He put the memo inside the envelope, sealed it and slid it beneath the door.

  “You should send someone over to your offices at police headquarters right away,” he told the Union’s copy editor over the phone. “There’s an interesting little something in an envelope inside the door.”

  It took Sgt. Farren a few minutes to remember the copy of the citation he’d left beside the newspaper. The beautifully staged touch had to make Durango spill his guts. The Chief hadn’t directly ordered any intervention in the arrest, but any knucklehead could see Coleman wanted the arrest to go away and wanted Durango to pay for his stupidity. Deputy Chief Browner had made that clear enough when he asked the Lieutenant to pick up the ticket.

  Farren stood over the desk without moving for a full minute. What had happened to the citation? It couldn’t just disappear into thin air.

  He checked the trash cans. He looked under the newspaper. He opened the paper and shook it. He flipped through each and every page, hoping it had somehow gotten wedged into one of the folds. It was still on the desk when he and Berend had escorted Durango into the interior office. He’d made sure of that.

  Bob Farren couldn’t have been more flummoxed at that moment if Lieutenant Berend’s wife had walked naked into the room and sat on the edge of the desk the way she did at night in his dreams.

  24

  THE NEXT DAY’S HEADLINES SQUIRTED as much juice as the ones about the arrest from the previous day: “Favoritism Evident in Pulling of Ticket.” The accompanying article said an anonymous police source had turned Goddson’s citation over to the paper.

  Coleman called a meeting of his deputy chiefs and press relations people as soon as he flipped the lights on in his office. “Did you all see this?” he asked, holding the newspaper in front for all to see. “Who’s responsible for this?”

  “Responsible for what exactly?” Deputy Chief Montano asked. “For pulling the ticket or for leaking it to the press?”

  “For pulling the ticket, that’s not how we do things around here. Who pulled the damn ticket?” Coleman glanced around the room waiting for a confession.

  “I had the ticket pulled, Chief,” Browner said. “You said yourself it stunk of attitude arrest and it seemed like a darn clean thing to do.”

  Coleman waited a few seconds, something he only did when struggling to control his anger. “The press’ll have my ass for this, Hal, a
nd you know it,” he said. “We have systems in place for this sort of thing. What in the world were you thinking?”

  Browner sat silent.

  Coleman knew everybody present understood Browner’s anger about being passed over back when Coleman skipped a rank for the Chief’s promotion. Browner thought he should already be the chief and wanted to be the next one. Having the Mayor on his side would certainly boost his chances, especially if Coleman laid an egg on this thing.

  Browner leaned back and folded his arms defensively. Coleman kept the focus in Browner’s direction.

  “How are we going to play this?” Coleman asked his press liaison after glaring at Browner long enough to make him fidget. “This thing’s got stingers.”

  “Well, first, Chief, you better say you pulled the ticket,” Will Roberson said. “We can’t let it out that somebody in the ranks takes it on himself to do something like this without your permission. Just play it like a normal thing to do and let’s see if the reporters let it all die down in a few days.”

  “All right,” Coleman said, the slight tremor in his voice giving the lie to his calm exterior. “When we’re through here, let’s just everybody go about our business like it’s no big deal. I’ll handle the damage control as best I can. Hal,” he said as he pushed his chair away from the table, “you don’t talk to the press about this thing anymore.”

  Everyone filtered out of the conference room, Coleman bringing up the rear. He squared his shoulders, wiped the scuffed toes of his Ferragamos against the back of his pants, ran a comb through his coal black hair and walked into the reception room outside his office. It was standing room only.

  “Chief, who pulled Goddson’s citation?” Murray demanded as Coleman stepped in.

  “When I was informed of the circumstances, I had it pulled.”

  None of this sounded like Coleman’s style and Coleman knew that Murray knew it.

  “Why would you do a thing like that, Chief?” Murray asked. “Isn’t that what the courts are for?”

  “We held it up, but we didn’t tear it up,” Coleman said. “We’re still looking into this thing.”

  “Still, don’t you think it looks like there’s two standards of justice in play here?” Murray pressed. “One for the Mayor’s Office and another one for everybody else?”

  The reporters spotted a stunning woman in the corner, her arms folded across the front of an elegantly tailored jacket. They shifted their attention toward the President of the Police Officers’ Association before Coleman answered.

  Nearly every officer on the department was a member of the association that negotiated salary contracts with the Mayor and city council and provided legal and administrative support for officers in trouble.

  Sgt. Caroline Rood was a highly visible and striking spokesperson for the organization. She sported neck-length hair the color of the stars twirling in Van Gogh’s Starry Night and her lips glistened with a discreet amount of peach-colored lipstick. In addition to being a savvy politico with ambitions to climb the ranks, Rood’s status as the department’s lead instructor in arrest and control techniques boosted her reputation among the rank-and-file.

  “Sgt. Rood, what’s the POA’s position on the Chief’s pulling Goddson’s ticket?” Murray asked.

  “Aaron Goddson’s a bully.” Rood strode into the crowd of reporters to expose Denny who stood hidden behind her. “People go to jail every day for less than what he did. Officer Durango here should be congratulated for his professional restraint.”

  “What do you think about all this?” Murray asked Denny.

  “It embarrassed me,” Denny said, beginning his coached statement. “I’m angry that this happened. I simply wanted to get the message out at the rally that San Diego’s losing a lot of good cops and Mr. Goddson attacked me for no reason. His behavior could only be described as rude and aggressive and he’s saying really bad things about me and the other officers. I had the police called like any other citizen would do and had a citation issued. It’s too bad someone like him has the clout to commit a battery and shift the blame onto the victim. The Mayor’s complaint is totally unwarranted, but I’m confident the investigation will be fair.”

  “We’re here to see that it is,” Sergeant Rood said.

  25

  “W-W-W, ONE JOHN GO AHEAD,” Officer Pat Randolph told dispatch.

  Even though it meant working for the infamous Sgt. Biletnikoff, Luke and Denny were living the dream they’d talked about so often in the academy. A recent shift change saw them assigned to the same squad and occasionally partnered up.

  “Oh, crap,” Denny said. “There goes Nine-John-Randolph again. Man, its painful hearing him talk over the radio.” The merciless Nine-John epithet dogged the unfortunate Randolph, who usually took around nine try’s to stutter out his call sign.

  The sky had been spitting out a waterfall for three days.

  While it was almost literally true it never rained in Southern California, for a few days every fifth decade or so, the skies spilled out torrents of water sufficient to conjure up images of Noah and the Old Testament.

  In meteorological terms, San Diego’s latitude and longitude made it a near desert and protracted rainfall invariably brought severe flooding to the streets. Nearly every police unit in the city was out of service, handling crashes, providing traffic control around fallen branches, and setting barricades up at flooded intersections to stop unwitting motorists from driving into the raging waters.

  “One-John, all the Heights units are out of service,” the dispatcher said. “Can you respond from downtown to a report of a child who’s fallen into the flood channel at 28th and Marcy Streets?”

  “W-w-w-w-w-w, One-John, 10-4. I’m r-r-r-r-r-, responding from First and Br-Br-Br...”

  “We can get there before this guy acknowledges the call,” Luke said, speeding away from Detox toward the freeway. “If you can ever get through, let her know we’ll be covering.”

  Denny Durango reached for the microphone.

  “Broadway,” Nine-John-Randolph said.

  “Unit 5-King,” Denny said. “We’re 10-8 from our run to Detox and covering that call in the Heights.”

  Sheeted rain pelted the windshield as Luke turned eastbound onto G Street and slowed to twenty-five to assure catching all green lights. As G Street merged with State Route 94, Luke punched the accelerator for a few hundred yards, maneuvered into a partially controlled skid, rounded onto the next exit ramp and turned south onto 28th Street. “Get on the air before Nine-John does and let dispatch know we’re in the area,” Luke said.

  “W, w, w,”

  “Crap,” Denny said. “He beat me to the radio.”

  “W, w, w, w, w, One-John, I’m ten n, n, n, 90-7 in the area.”

  “Unit 5-King, we’re 10-97 in the area,” Denny sputtered as fast as he could, not giving the dispatcher time to respond to Randolph and, more importantly, not giving Nine-John-Randolph a chance to say anything else.

  “Good going. That’s the fastest I’ve ever seen you do anything,” Luke said.

  “Ask around,” Denny said with a smirk. “Fast isn’t always good. Some things I do real slow.”

  Luke shook his head.

  “You know what I’m talking about,” Denny said.

  “Next thing I know, you’ll be lecturing me about how size matters,” Luke said.

  “It doesn’t actually,” Denny said, “unless that’s all you’re offering. Me personally, I like getting them so hot, it’s a bonus prize when they discover what a huge dick they’ve got coming their way.” Denny laughed at his own pun.

  Luke couldn’t help but join in. “What about a woman’s mind?” he asked. “Does that hold any interest at all?”

  “Course,” Denny said. “It’s the mind that tells their bodies to follow me into bed.”

  “That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” Luke said.

  “W-w-w-w-w-, One-John, a citizen just saw the k-k-k, kid being s, swept under the bridge at F
-F-Fortieth and Market.”

  Luke reached down and flipped the overhead lights on. “This flood channel’s a damn river,” he said. “How could he float down there so fast?”

  Rainwater poured through a crack at the top of Denny’s door and soaked his leg as Luke made the sharp left onto Market Street and stomped on the accelerator. “There he is,” Denny panted a few seconds later. “Let me out.” Denny leaned into the door, preparing for a running start. He stumbled into the raging current of waters that poured along the gutter and down the grated drain to the raging channel twenty feet beneath them. Luke sped off to get ahead of the child who swirled uncontrollably in the angry whirl of rapidly flowing water and floating debris.

  “Five-King, let my partner know I’ve lost sight of the kid,” Denny panted into the radio as he ran the banks of the channel, watching the roiling waters for any sign of a flailing child.

  “One-John,” Randolph said. “I just saw his head and then he disappeared again.”

  “What’s your location?” the dispatcher asked.

  “I’ve got One-John in sight and my partner’s right behind him,” Luke said. He pushed the door open, leaped over the flooded gutter and ran to the fence. His thick-toed boot slipped as he tried lifting a leg over the top. The jagged edge of the twisted top links of the fence ripped his pants near his crotch and gouged his flesh before he belly flopped to the ground. He skidded to a stop after sledding along the top of the ice plant for several yards, then scrambled to his feet and burst into a sprint.

  “Tell One-John, I just saw the kid’s head again,” Denny said into his handie-talkie.

  Nine-John-Randolph slogged into the billowing torrent. “I think I see him,” he yelled.

  Denny ran to the bank beside him, holding his baton out for Randolph to grab as a support while he reached down with his other hand and scooped out a rag doll body. A tree branch slammed into Randolph’s back, knocking him head first into the water. The torrent sucked him into a vortex of waters as Denny snatched the child onto the bank.