by David DeLee
Gregg held a manicured hand out to Flynn. “That would be Trial Division Bureau Chief Joseph Gregg.”
And did Flynn mention pompous?
The man had a distinct upper crust accent. One he must’ve cultivated over the years apparently, because he didn’t talk that way when they worked together all those years earlier. To Flynn it was simply upper West Side snobbery.
The cop shook the man’s hand and didn’t remind him they’d worked together back in the day. The attorney’s hand was warm and soft. Pampered. And felt oily. His clear polished fingernails were shiny in the overhead florescent lighting. And the man had used an overabundant of Axe body spray.
“What’s going on?” Flynn asked, turning his attention to Whalen.
For a bureau chief to emerge from Hogan Place and be seen anywhere other than in front of a TV camera crew, much less slumming it at a precinct, while not unheard of, definitely fell into the category of unusual. Like Bigfoot sightings.
“You’ve done good work over the years, Detective Flynn. Have an admirable service record. One that hasn’t gone unnoticed by the DA, I’m here to tell you,” Gregg said, like his say so meant something. Maybe it did, but not to Flynn.
He glanced over at Whalen. “Am I receiving a commendation or getting fired?”
Gregg erupted in laughter. It sounded hollow and fake, and over the top for such a lame joke. “That’s funny. A good one.”
“Captain, what’s going on?”
Whalen waved a hand toward Gregg, indicating it was his show.
Prescott sat silent in her chair. Her hands folded demurely in her lap. She remained pensive. Not a demeanor he often associated with the usually fiery Brooke Prescott.
“I’ll get right to the point, Detective,” Gregg said. “The DA’s Office is trying to get out ahead on this DeShawn Beach situation.”
“I didn’t know it was a situation.”
“It’s not, yet.” He stuck one hand in his pants pocket. The bottom of his buttoned suit jacket draped over his arm as he waved the other one, looking like a male model hawking a useless product on TV no one needed or wanted. “And we want to keep it that way. That’s why I’m here. Catch me up on where we are in the investigation, would you?”
Flynn glanced at Whalen. The captain nodded, giving him approval to go on.
Gregg’s face twisted with annoyance, clearly not appreciating Flynn’s deference to his boss over him, but he quickly masked it with a bright toothpaste ad smile.
“We’re just getting started—”
“The boy was shot nearly twelve hours ago. Surely we’ve got something by now?”
“It’s an investigation, not a fucking race.”
Gregg ignored Flynn’s comment. “We’re just lucky the news hasn’t gone viral with this yet. Twelve hours into a twenty-four hour news cycle is—”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about the news cycle.”
“Frank,” Whalen warned.
“You should,” Gregg said, making it sound like a reprimand.
“Why’s that, counselor?”
“Because the media’s going to drive the narrative of this case, whether you like it or not. They haven’t had a juicy abuse of police power case to sink their teeth into in quite some time. The Police Commissioner and the DA want it to stay that way.”
“Well,” Flynn said. “I can’t control the media, and it sounds like you’re afraid you can’t either.”
“You’re absolutely right. We can’t. But we can get out ahead of it. We must. The way to do that is to give them results. Feed them information early and regularly so they don’t have time to sit around and make shit up. That’s the way we stay ahead of the media.”
“That’s your wheelhouse, and I’m good with that,” Frank said. “I’ll investigate. You do the press conferences.”
“It’s not that simple, Detective.” Gregg’s tone suggested his annoyance with Flynn was growing with each exchange. “Everything needs to come through my office. That means anything you know, I know. Immediately.”
“As in I’m working for you?”
“No,” Whalen said, getting to his feet.
Gregg spoke over him. “No, but you do need to report in with me. Directly.”
“That’s not how this works,” Whalen said, locking horns with Gregg.
“Normally, Captain, you’d be right. But this is not business as usual. We need to take extraordinary measures. We must get this right.”
“What does that mean?” Flynn asked, taking a step toward Gregg. “Are you saying I might fuck up this investigation?”
The lawyer took a step back.
“Certainly not.” He smoothed his expensive silk tie, ensuring that it ran straight down over his two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar dress shirt. “We couldn’t be more confident in your captain’s decision to have you spearhead this investigation.”
Confident in Whalen’s decision. But me, not so much? Flynn thought, well aware of his own baggage.
“We’re merely requesting you keep my office in the loop.”
“That’s not what you’re asking,” Whalen said. “And I won’t stand for it. My cops work for me. And who the hell is ‘we’?”
“I’m sorry you see it that way, Captain,” Gregg said. “If we need to take this…squabble to the DA and the PC to settle it, that’s fine by me, but give Rhodes a call first.”
Glenn Rhodes, the Department’s Chief of Detectives. Whalen clenched his jaw and a vein pulsed along his temple, but he remained silent.
Gregg turned his attention to Flynn. “Tell me what you’ve learned.”
Again Flynn turned to Whalen, who leaned over his fist pressed into the surface of his desk. He nodded his head and waved for Flynn to go ahead.
“We have Stokes’ statement. Everything he’s told us is consistent and supported by the forensics found at the scene.”
“We’re sure this boy was unarmed?” Gregg asked.
“Yes,” Flynn said. “He had a cell phone in his hand. In the dark and in the rain, it looked like a weapon.”
“Looked like a weapon,” Gregg repeated. “No matter how we spin that, we’re going to look culpable.”
“I disagree,” Flynn said.
“Oh, really? How so, Detective?”
“Detective Levy and I have verified that DeShawn Beach was up to no good out there.”
“A black teenager out at three in the morning,” Gregg said. “Of course, he was up to no good.”
Flynn let that go. “He burglarized an apartment. The one Stokes said he saw him crawling out of. We found the boy’s discarded backpack. All of which supports Stokes’ version of events.”
“You found the backpack? Tell me it contained stolen property?”
Flynn nodded. “It did. A kitten named Mr. Pumpkin-White. It’s orange and white. Very cute.”
Whalen grinned and Brooke snickered, earning her a withering scowl from Gregg. “You find something amusing in all this, Ms. Prescott?” When she didn’t answer, he said, “I see a headline. Unarmed black kid killed by overzealous cop over a cat.”
“It substantiates Stokes’ statement, Gregg. That the boy was a criminal, committing a crime,” Whalen said. “Making it reasonable to assume the boy would resist police capture. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
He circled out from behind his desk. Clearly he’d had enough and was building up a good head of steam. “It shows that Stokes’ statement holds up to scrutiny. And if that’s the case, then Stokes, as a decorated officer of the NYPD, deserves the benefit of the doubt with regard to the rest of his statement while we investigate further and until, if, or when, we find otherwise.”
“That’s not how the media or the public will see it, Captain.”
“That’s not our problem, counselor.”
“You’re wrong, Captain,” Gregg said. “This city, this nation’s, already on a razor’s edge when it comes to police brutally, the unjustified killing of young people of color, and minority community
relations in a word, suck. A single spark and this city will erupt in a race war the likes it hasn’t seen in fifty years.”
“That’s way above our pay grade here at the Seventh, counselor,” Whalen said. “You and your people at Hogan Place and 1PP get to figure all that out. We street level grunts just do our best to get to the truth.”
“Which is exactly why I’m here, Captain. It just so happens I’m on my way to One Police Plaza, to attend an emergency strategy meeting with my boss, and yours, on the fourteenth floor.”
The fourteenth floor was the Police Commissioner’s Office.
“I need to tell them something. Otherwise we’ll all look like fools.”
“Tell ’em this,” Whalen said. “Tell ’em you and I and my lead detective had this very informative conversation here today.”
As Whalen spoke, he took Gregg by the elbow and steered him toward the door. Brooke came to her feet. She visibly struggled to not smile at the captain’s technique of ejecting Gregg from his office. She followed them toward the door, giving Flynn an apologetic smile, while Whalen kept on talking.
“Tell ’em we understand the grave urgency of this situation, and we’re working around the clock to get to the bottom of what happened. Tell ’em we’ve got our best people on it. Then you tell them the best way for us to get results, to resolve this in situation in the quickest way possible, is for you, and the brass, to stay the fuck out of our hair.”
Gregg opened his mouth to speak but snapped it shut. He stepped back as the door swung inward and the tall, lanky form of Detective Lovato filled the doorway. If ever there was a contest to find the person most likely to not be cop, Lovato with his lanky, long limbs and bald head except for a halo of baby fine hair and a thin comb over would win hands down.
“Sorry to disturb you, Cap’n, but I think you…” the detective looked at each of them, “all of you need to see this.”
They filed out of the tiny office and into the squad room.
“What is it?” Whalen asked.
The detectives in the room had abandoned their desks and were standing huddled around the TV hung in the corner. On the screen was a shot of the front steps of City Hall, as it had been earlier when Flynn went into Whalen’s office. But now there was a crowd of reporters around the podium. Lovato aimed the remote at the TV, turning up the sound as several people gathered behind the podium containing multiple microphones.
Flynn recognized the ring-leader, as did every person in the room. It was Theodore Goodall.
“Son of a bitch,” Gregg said. “Already?”
The detectives shushed him as Goodall began to speak.
The civil rights leader thanked the press for coming out on such short notice and for waiting patiently in the inclement weather. The rain still falling. He introduced the people with him. They were of little importance to Flynn except for Eleanor Beach and her son Trey, who stood to Goodall’s left. She had her arm around her son’s shoulders and a white handkerchief in her hand. She dabbed at her nose. Trey stood in an ill-fitting suit with his hands clasped in front of him like an uncomfortable choirboy at Sunday services.
“As you all have heard by now,” Goodall began. “There’s been yet another tragic shooting in our beloved city. Another senseless murder of an unarmed young African American killed at the hands of overzealous police officers in this great city of ours. A beautiful young man who had his whole bright future ahead of him, gunned down by the NYPD for no reason other than being Black in America.”
He waited a beat for that to sink in. Over the feed could be heard the murmur of voices, the feedback whine of hastily set up microphones, the click of cameras going off. Eleanor Beach openly sobbed, and the rest of the people around Goodall, including his right-hand man, Sonny Tillman, looked appropriately downcast and sad.
“The police are already actively working to cover up the facts of this tragic incident. As early as this morning I meet with the detectives assigned to investigate this case, two lily-white cops who we are to believe are concerned with black justice.” He raised his voice. “I don’t think so!”
Gregg stared over at Flynn. “Is that true?”
“Shush!” The room said.
“Those same detectives told me…to my face…that there were no witnesses to this horrible deed. That all we had was the word of the racist white cop who needlessly, violently, murdered an innocent young man of color.”
Someone in the crowd of police officers moaned, “Oh, give me a break.”
“Well, ladies and gentlemen,” Goodall said. “I’m here to tell you that is a lie!”
“What is he talking about?” Gregg asked.
Flynn shrugged and jutted his chin toward the TV.
At the podium, Goodall stepped to one side. From behind the civil rights leader and between him and the Beaches, a short, black youth stepped forward. He wore an open plaid shirt under a thick padded high school football jacket with soiled plastic sleeves.
Goodall draped his arm over the kid like a proud father. “This brave young man’s name is Kevin Wills. Kevin is…was DeShawn Beach’s best friend. They went to school together. Attended East Side Community Public High School together. Last night, Kevin lost his friend when a police officer cowardly gunned him down for no reason at all.” The youth bowed his head, appearing distraught and in mourning. “Kevin Wills helplessly watched as Officer Ben Stokes…” The group of cops collectively gasped at the officer’s name being revealed on live TV. Gregg and Whalen spat out curses. “…relentlessly chased down DeShawn Beach and shot him and killed him, right in front of his best friend.”
Goodall paused. He looked out over the reporters strategically gathered several steps down from him, done deliberately so they’d be forced to look up at him. Also the upward camera angle would make him look larger than life on TV. “This outrage will not stand. The black and Latin community will no longer sit idly by and allow this kind of aggressive violence be brought against our community by an out-of-control New York City Police Department.”
He paused for effect. “We will rise up and make our voices heard. We will fight. We will demand black justice,” he shouted, “and we will have black justice!”
Whalen seized the remote control from Lovato and angrily snapped the TV off. “Son of a bitch.”
Gregg whirled on Flynn. “Did you know about this witness?”
“No.”
“Tell me why we didn’t know about this witness, Detective.” He pointed at the TV. “And he did. Why?”
Flynn squared his shoulders. “Back off!”
“At ease, counselor,” Whalen said. “Every available officer in the Lower Eastside has been canvassing that neighborhood since last night looking for someone, anyone, who saw anything. You know how many people live in those complexes?”
“I don’t care.” Gregg again stabbed at the TV. “Goodall found him. Why couldn’t we?”
“We have no idea if we can even believe,” Flynn said.
“You can bet the media believes him,” Gregg insisted. “This is a perception issue, Detective. If the media convinces the public he’s telling the truth, that’s it, game over.”
“Even if he was there, we don’t know what he saw,” Whalen said. “If anything.”
“I told you we needed to be ahead of this. The way Goodall is. Damn, he’s good at this. We need to change that. We need to show the press, the people, we’re being proactive. That we’re actually doing something.”
“How do you suggest we do that?” Whalen asked.
Gregg rubbed a finger under his lower lip, thinking. “Stokes. He’s still here, right?”
“Yeah, in the box,” Whalen said, uneasily.
“Good,” Gregg said, an idea clearly forming in his head. “Bring him out.”
Whalen appeared skeptical but nodded for Flynn to go get the patrolman.
Flynn didn’t like it, but he followed his boss’s order.
A minute later, Flynn returned to the squad room with Stokes. H
e still wore his borrowed gray sweatshirt and baggy dark blue sweatpants. His eyes were bloodshot and smudged from lack of sleep. In need of a shave he appeared more disheveled than ever.
They passed the breakroom as Levy and Karen Stokes emerged.
Flynn was shocked to see a little girl with them. A redhead, she couldn’t have been older than five. She carried a coloring book and box of crayons with her.
The girl dropped her things and broke away from her mother’s grasp. She threw herself at her father, wrapping her arms around his legs. “DADDY!”
Levy looked at the crowd of cops standing around the squad room. She looked at Gregg and Prescott. To Flynn, she said, “What’s going on?”
Karen saw Stokes. “Ben. Honey!” She rushed toward him. “Are you all right?”
He embraced his wife and his daughter, standing in the middle of the squad room full of detectives watching them.
Gregg shouted, “Keep that woman away from the prisoner.”
Levy arched an eyebrow. “Prisoner?”
Gregg ignored Levy. “Detective Flynn, place this man under arrest.”
It didn’t take a genius to figure out what Gregg’s plan was to get out ahead of the media. Flynn asked anyway, “On what charge?”
Karen cried out. “Arrest? Ben? What’s happening?” She stepped back and looked at Levy, as if she had an explanation. Tears sprang from her eyes.
Rebecca cried out,“Daddy!” She clung tighter to his leg.
Stokes stood in shocked silence, waiting like everyone else for Gregg’s next words.
“For the criminally negligent homicide of DeShawn Beach,” he said. When no one moved, Gregg shouted, “Do it, Detective. Or I’ll get someone who will.”
Flynn looked to Whalen, who nodded. Flynn took Stokes by the arm. “Officer Stokes, please place your hands behind your back.”
“In front of my kid,” Stokes said. “Come on,” he pleaded.
Karen gasped and put a hand over her mouth. Her knees appeared to buckle under her, but Levy was there to catch her. She kept her on her feet.
Flynn ratcheted steel handcuffs around Ben Stokes’ wrists. “I’m sorry it’s going down this way, Stokes. You have the right to remain silent…”