“Me either.”
“What’re we gonna do?” she asks.
I shake my head. “Haven’t figured that out yet.”
She frowns and nods and says, “I keep thinking about what you said about your faith embracing chaos, about it being trust and practice more than belief and . . . it’s helping me.”
When I reached my car, Frannie Schultz had been getting out of hers with a sad little bouquet of grocery store flowers.
“For Derek’s . . .” she says, nodding at the flowers, then to his grave.
“Been thinkin’ about all that happened,” she says. “Can’t imagine what . . . what you must be carrying around.”
I don’t say anything but my expression is a mixture of acknowledgment and sadness.
“I begged him not to do it,” she says. “Pleaded. He had no business out in that hallway. Big dumb goof. But he’s my hero.”
“As he should be.”
“You’re my hero too,” she says. “I know it’s corny and . . . it’s embarrassing, but . . . it’s true. What you did for us, what people like you do all the time to help to keep us safe.”
My weary, bloodshot eyes begin to sting again and I blink back tears.
“Just wanted you to know that,” she says. “And that we don’t blame you and you shouldn’t blame yourself—not for some dumb, random, tragic accident.”
Even now, sitting in my car outside the small, antiquated Episcopal church in Pottersville, her words provide some semblance of something like comfort.
Next to the copy of the complaint on the seat is a bottle of Absolut, its seal, for the moment, still intact.
I watch as slowly one by one the disparate, downtrodden men and women who number themselves among the countless friends of Bill W arrive and make their way around to the musty old Sunday School room in the back.
Most of the faces are familiar, but the few new ones mixed in have the same unsure but resolute look, the same hesitant but determined carriage.
I stare after them with respect and admiration and on more than one occasion grab my door handle to go and join them, but long after the last one enters the safe, sacred space, I’m still out here alone with my regrets, only the complaint and the Absolut to keep them company.
Eventually, I get out of the car, but instead of joining my anonymous friends, I enter the empty sanctuary to mourn the boy who would never become a man, the heroic teenager who just wanted to be helpful, who I had robbed of his first date with Frannie Schultz and everything he could’ve fit into the lifetime still due him.
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Chapter 1
“I’m not trying to be a martyr,” Malia Goodman says. “I’d much rather live for the cause than die for it.”
Author and activist Malia Goodman is a forty-something African-American woman with cinnamon skin so flawless it looks to have been airbrushed on by a skilled and careful artist who takes great pride in his work.
She is tall and athletic and attractive—exceptionally so, though her allure is as much the result of her bearing and her bruised soul as her big, bright, black eyes and the features of her heart-shaped face.
Merrill and I are in her hotel room at the Holiday Inn on MLK across from the mall in Panama City. Her handler, Rodney Livingston, a tall, bony, older black man, and her assistant, Tana Kay, a small, pale, plain-looking black woman in her late twenties, are also present.
The remodeled room is light and airy—a stark contrast to the dark, dramatic, Victorian whorehouse-looking decor with blood-red drapes it had once flaunted.
“I’m not particularly brave or heroic,” she says.
She is both, and it speaks well of her that her self-deprecation seems genuine.
A social justice activist specializing in police-civilian relations and a New York Times bestselling author of books on the same subject, she is in a particularly poignant and unique position to speak about policing procedures and the criminal justice system.
Her new book, Shots Fired, is an in-depth look at police and policing techniques, including a look at the alarming number of shootings of unarmed citizens by law enforcement.
On an extended book tour that involves marches, protests, and rallies, she typically stays anywhere from two days to two weeks in each city she visits and attempts to expose injustice while there. Two police shootings—one out in Panama City Beach and one in Downtown Panama City—have brought her to town.
Though not officially associated with any other groups or movements, Malia’s work often parallels and occasionally intersects them.
“Don’t get me wrong, there are days when joining Graham and Malik is far more appealing than anything this world has to offer, but . . . I’m enough of a coward to want to die peacefully in my sleep of old age.”
In separate and unrelated incidents, both Malia’s husband, Graham, and her son, Malik, had been shot and killed.
Graham Goodman had been a detective with the LAPD who was killed in the line of duty by a drug dealer high on bath salts as he was attempted to question about the death of his girlfriend. Malik Jackson, an up-and-coming young rapper and aspiring actor, had been gunned down by police during a routine traffic stop. Malik, who was unarmed and happened to be black, was shot and killed by a white cop. Graham, who was a highly respected and decorated cop who happened to be white, was shot and killed by a black drug dealer.
At times Malia’s writings and speeches sound like she’s the staunchest defender and apologist for law enforcement. At others she sounds like the angry mother of an unarmed son who was executed by those very same police. The truth is she is both, with both supporters and detractors on both sides—and recently someone from the second group has made both threats and attempts on her life.
That’s why we’re here. Well, that’s why Merrill is here. He’s interviewing to provide security for her while she’s in the area for a series of speeches, protests, and book signings. I’m here because I’m on administrative leave and not in a good way, and Merrill has been taking every chance he can to get me out of the house and away from the alcohol and self-loathing I have stockpiled there.
“Anyway . . .” Malia says to Merrill. “You look like you’d be good for the job. Hell, you look like you could stop a scud missile, let alone a crazy with a gun, but . . . well . . . would you? Would you really put yourself in harm’s way to protect me?”
Merrill nods, but doesn’t say anything.
“That’s it?” she says. “That’s all I get? A nod?”
“I can verbalize it if you like,” he says.
“I would like.”
“I would,” he says.
“Why?” she asks, trying to suppress an amused smile.
“Because I said I would,” he says.
She nods as if she understands. “You’ll risk your life to keep your word,” she says.
He nods.
She waits for him to elaborate but he doesn’t, and there is an awkward silence.
Like the colorful carpeted hallway, the room smells of commercial cleaning products and an air freshener questioning its identity. Does it want to be citrus or floral? It has so far been unable to decide.
“Your code includes death before dishonor?” she asks.
“That’s not the way I would put it, but . . . something like that.”
“And that’s it?”
He shakes his head.
“Then what else?” she asks.
“In your case,” he says, “there’s more to it than just my word.”
“Like what? Do you mind explaining it to me?”
“If I said I’d protect a white supremacist, I would,” he says. “Even if it costs me my life to do it. But with you . . . Let’s just say your views are far more in line with mine than a white supremacist’s would be.”
“All my views?” she asks.
“Most of them.”
“On both sides of the issue—my support and defense of cops and my calls for reforms that would keep unarmed citizens from gett
ing killed?”
He nods. “Some of my best friends are cops.”
She gives him a radiant smile and something passes between them—something indefinable that includes both appreciation and attraction.
“And,” Merrill adds, “though I am rarely unarmed, I am a black man.”
“So you’ll protect me more than you would the white supremacists?”
He shakes his head. “The same. I was just trying to reassure you, let you know what my answer to Marley’s question is.”
“Which question is that?”
“How long will they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look?”
She is visibly moved that he regards her as one of our social prophets.
“And your answer is?” she asks, her voice thick with emotion.
“No longer.”
She nods. “You’re hired. Rodney will handle all the details. I’ve got a conference call I need to be on, but you’re most certainly hired. And I’d like you to start as soon as possible.”
Merrill nods.
When Malia stands, Tana and Rodney jump to their feet as well. Merrill and I also stand—just not as quickly or enthusiastically.
Malia shakes Merrill’s hand and then mine, and then Rodney leads us out of her room. Before the door closes, she and Tana are already going over the talking points for the conference call.
As soon as Malia’s hotel door is closed behind us, Rodney’s demeanor changes. “Okay,” he says, “now that we’ve got that out of the way we can have the real interview. And I’d really like to meet with Merrill alone.”
Merrill starts to protest, but I cut him off.
“Sure,” I say. “I have somewhere I need to be anyway.”
“Cool,” Rodney says. “It’s nothing personal, just . . . you know.”
“Don’t go far,” Merrill says. “I’ll hit you up soon as I’m done.”
Chapter 2
While Merrill meets with Rodney in his room upstairs, I meet with Merrick McKnight downstairs in the bar.
Like the rest of the hotel, the bar has been remodeled. It’s lighter and brighter and more open.
I liked it better before.
Merrick and I were meant to get together later in the evening, but when I called him and told him my schedule had unexpectedly freed up sooner than I had thought it would, he said he was both close by and available to meet now.
“Cheers,” I say, holding up my vodka and cranberry.
“Cheers,” he says, clinking his bottle of Bud Light against my glass.
We both sip our drinks as an uncomfortable silence creeps in around us.
Merrick had asked to meet with me and had not said why, so I drink as I wait for him to introduce a topic of conversation, glancing occasionally at the basketball game on the muted TV monitor mounted above the bar.
It’s my first drink of the day and it’s all a first drink should be.
“I’ve never seen you drink before,” Merrick says.
“Is that why things just got awkward?”
He shakes his head. “Well, maybe,” he says. “But if it is, it’s only part of the reason. The biggest is what I need to talk to you about.”
I nod and wait and drink.
Near the open entrance of the bar, beyond which the mostly empty lobby can be seen, a balding black man with a too thick beard softly plays a grand piano.
“There’re actually two things I wanted to talk to you about,” he says.
“Is one any easier than the other?” I ask.
He nods. “A little.”
“Well, why not start with it?”
He nods again, takes a long pull on his Bud and sits the bottle on the beige bar top in front of him.
“I’m worried about you,” he says. “We all are.”
I nod again slowly and say, “I can see why you would be and I appreciate it.”
“That’s not the first thing I wanted to talk to you about but it sort of sets it up,” he says.
I take another drink.
A loud burst of laughter erupts from the lobby as three inebriated women in their late twenties pitch forward through the sliding glass doors, holding on to each other for support.
Please don’t come into the bar. Please don’t come into the bar. Please don’t—
“Oooh, piano,” one of them says. “Let’s go into the bar. Let’s ’o to . . . bar. Come on. Just one ’ore ’ittle drink.”
“Tiff,” one of her friends says with great emphasis, “you promised. Nightcap in the room then straight to bed.”
“Er’ry par’y has a pooper an’ at this par’y . . . and at ’is . . . You are it. Hey, Mr. Pia’o Man.”
Her voice grows even louder and the piano player stops mid-note on the chorus of “Walking in Memphis” and starts playing Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.”
The abrupt transition into the new tune is lost on Tiff.
“Hey, Mr. Piano Man,” she says again. “My lame friends’re makin’ me go up ’o ’ed. See you ’nother time for some tic . . . tickle . . . ticklin’ ’ose ivories.”
The three young women stumble out of view and eventually out of earshot.
“How are you?” Merrick asks.
“I thought we just covered that. Probably about how I seem,” I say.
He frowns. “Sorry to hear that.”
He pauses a moment and looks around the bar. I follow his gaze.
Besides us, there are only five other people in the spacious bar—the bartender, the piano player, a middle-aged man in a business suit at the other end of the bar, and a couple at a table in the far back corner whispering intimately between kissing intensely.
“You’ve always been there for me,” he says. “Always so understanding and accepting and positive. I really appreciate the way you’ve always been with me and my kids.”
The bartender looks down our way and asks if we’re ready for another yet. Merrick shakes his head though his bottle is almost empty, so I assume he’s only having one.
“Thing is . . .” he continues, “you do so much for so many . . . I wanna make sure somebody is doing something for you. I wish I could, but . . . I’m no counselor or sponsor or whatever, but . . . I know someone who is. A friend of mine happens to be a really great counselor. You two have a lot in common. I’ve often thought—even before . . . now . . .before what you’re dealing with—that I should introduce you two because I know you’ll hit it off. He works out of the country and is only here for a few weeks every three months. I’ve told him about you and . . . I think it’d really do you good to talk to him.”
“Thank you,” I say. “That means a lot. I really appreciate you thinking about me.”
The pianist is now playing a rousing rendition of “Sweet Caroline,” really banging the bamp bamp bams.
“Will you talk to him?” he asks.
I start to shrug, but stop.
“As a favor to me,” he adds. “Will you? Please.”
I nod.
“You will?”
I nod again. “I will.”
“Ah man, you don’t know how happy that makes me,” he says. “How relieved it makes me feel.”
His genuine delight at my willingness to talk to his friend on top of the kindness he is showing me stings my eyes and makes my throat constrict. I glance away, blinking and trying hard to swallow.
When I am able to look back at him, I say, “That was the easier of the two things you needed to talk to me about?”
He nods and smiles, but the smile quickly fades into a frown.
“No easy way to say it,” he says. “So I guess I’ll just . . . Reggie and I broke up.”
“Really?”
I’m completely caught off guard. Based on the occasional offhanded comment made by Reggie, I guess I’ve known they’ve had issues—but what couple doesn’t? I never suspected anything like this, had no idea they had already pronounced time of death.
“She hasn’t said anything to you?” he asks.
I
shake my head.
“That’s so like her,” he says. “Probably part of the reason we broke up—she buries most everything. Not really willing to talk about much of anything.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that y’all are—”
“It’s been comin’ a while. Everything started so good between us—so damn good. Best ever, but then . . . I don’t know . . . our differences started showing more, became more pronounced. We drifted apart. Started arguing more. And no matter what I tried she . . . she just wasn’t willing to talk about it. It’s so funny . . . you think it’ll be the big things—somebody having an affair or going through some sort of crisis or you’ll have some big issue related to sex or kids or money, but . . . and then it’s just a million little things. You get so far apart you can’t figure out how to get back together—or why you ever were in the first place.”
“I really hate to hear that,” I say. “How are you doing with it? You okay?”
“I’m okay. I really am. Like I said it’s been a long time coming. I mean, I hate it, but . . . I’m okay. It wasn’t all of a sudden like someone dying or something. It didn’t catch either of us by surprise.”
“Well, it certainly has me,” I say.
“I wanted to talk to you because I knew I’d be seeing you less and I wanted you to know and to keep an eye on Reggie—to help her if she’ll let you.”
“Of course,” I say. “I’ll look out for her.”
“I know you’re going through your own shit right now.”
“That’s the best thing for it,” I say. “Get out of my own cycle of self-pity by helping someone else. But I’ll still see you.”
“I’m actually moving over here,” he says. “Casey already attends college and works over here and there’s a good school for Kevin. I can’t make a living as a journalist in Wewa. I’ve taken a job with the News Herald. I’m sure our paths will still cross occasionally but probably not nearly as often. That’s why I wanted to go ahead and tell you in person—that and to introduce you to Dave.”
“Dave?”
“My counselor friend I was telling you about.”
“Oh. Gotcha.”
True Crime Fiction Page 126