Look the Other Way

by Leigh Jones

  Business reporter Jessica Linton normally covered openings, but this project had all the makings of a boondoggle. Mattingly wanted more than a fluff piece about it. Kate had already written volumes about developer Eduardo Reyes’ request for tax rebates and special permits. Despite the negative press and some vocal opposition from neighborhood groups, the city council approved the deal shortly after the new mayor took office in January. Reyes promised the complex, designed as a short-term holding facility for cargo, would help lure businesses and, more importantly, jobs back to the island. Mattingly had voiced his doubts in at least five editorials during the last six months. But Mayor Matthew Hanes, Reyes’ college buddy, supported the project and pushed it through with minimal resistance.

  Mattingly often called Reyes the most influential, least accountable person on the island.

  Knowing she couldn’t put it off any longer, Kate climbed out of her car and started walking toward the warehouse. As she got closer, she could see Reyes making his way across the long loading dock, where island dignitaries had started to gather. His thick chest seemed to swell more than normal. His wavy black hair shimmered with an oil slick’s iridescence. Beyond the open roll doors, Kate spotted tables spread with finger foods. Big fans on either side pushed the thick morning air in velvety waves across the small crowd. Kate sighed. She could already feel a trickle of sweat working its way down the small of her back.

  Reyes greeted her at the top of the stairs leading to the front door.

  “The Gazette sent its prettiest reporter,” he crooned loudly. “What an honor!”

  Kate managed to keep from rolling her eyes as she held out her hand. Reyes took it in both of his and squeezed. It galled Kate to see Reyes gloat over her presence, knowing how vehemently her boss opposed the project.

  “If you need anything, you just let me know,” Reyes said with a wink, his gaze quickly sliding over her shoulder to the group walking up behind her.

  “Matthew! It’s a great day for Galveston.”

  Mayor Matthew Hanes took the steps two at a time and grabbed his friend’s hand in a clasp that turned into the back-slapping embrace used only by men who call each other “brother.”

  Kate marveled at what still seemed like an unlikely friendship, the depth of which she discovered while covering Hanes’ mayoral campaign. Reyes and Hanes graduated in the same class from Galveston’s Ball High School, but they came from opposite ends of the island’s social spectrum. They didn’t become friends until college.

  Hanes spent 10 years practicing maritime law before running for city council. After two terms representing District 6, he ran for mayor. Reyes financed almost his entire campaign with one fundraiser in Houston attended by most of their law school classmates, who expected as a matter of course they would help fund the political campaigns of some of their number. Despite grousing in the Gazette’s op-ed pages about big city lawyers buying the election, Hanes won in a landslide.

  His support for Reyes’ warehouse project was the least he could do to show his gratitude.

  Kate expected Reyes to kick off the ceremony, but it was Hanes who stepped up to the microphone first.

  “Thank you so much for coming,” he said, gripping the mic stand with one hand and leaning slightly to the side, crooner style. “As my friend here has already said, this is a great day for Galveston.”

  The audience, mostly elected officials, business owners, Chamber of Commerce members, and people trying to curry favor, clapped enthusiastically. Kate pressed her lips together to keep from smirking. What patsies.

  “There were many who said this project would never happen. There were some who said it would be bad for our island. Our friends at the Gazette called it a...wait, let me make sure I get this right...a boondoggle. Dontcha just love that word?” with this, he grinned at Kate. A man in a suit standing beside her snickered. “But we knew it would succeed. And Eduardo Reyes never gave up on his dream of bringing jobs back to this city. No one loves Galveston more than my friend, and yours, Eduardo Reyes.”

  Apparently unable to contain his excitement any longer, Reyes jumped up and clasped the mayor in another “brother” hug. He laughed and feigned shushing motions as the small crowd clapped again. Then he cradled the microphone in both hands and brought it to his face, inches from his full lips.

  “Thank you, my friends. Thank you, thank you. We did this together, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your support. When I was a boy, I would listen to my father and my uncles tell stories about the island as she was when they were growing up. Busy, prosperous and full of jobs! That’s the dream I’ve carried with me all these years, and that’s the dream I give you today.”

  While he spoke, two men in khaki overalls stretched a bright red ribbon across the roll door behind him.

  “This new warehouse is just a small piece of the puzzle. But I hope it will be the beginning of more good things to come for the city we all love.”

  One of the men in overalls handed Reyes a pair of large, black scissors. Holding them up, Reyes turned toward the ribbon, pausing just long enough to savor the moment. Then, with an almost menacing slashing motion, he severed the taught plastic, snapping the halves apart. The audience cheered, surging toward the fans and food as Reyes motioned them inside.

  Kate scanned the crowd and picked out a few familiar faces. Joe Henry Miles, chairman of the Port of Galveston, pumped Reyes’ hand and slapped him on the shoulder. Miles, Mayor Hanes’ fishing buddy, shared the vision of Galveston’s resurrection, largely because the port would play a big role. Behind Miles, Tim Hammond hovered. As head of the dock worker’s union, Hammond threw his support behind Reyes’ project, bringing dozens of longshoremen to line the edges of the council chambers during debates on permits and tax incentives. Their presence filled the room with a vague threat, along with the tang of saltwater and sweat. Although their activities today bore little resemblance to the violent lawlessness of 30 years ago, many islanders still viewed them as little more than thugs. The project’s opponents always eyed them with suspicion and made a show of leaving the meetings en mass, invoking the protection of the herd.

  Kate made smalltalk with a few Chamber of Commerce wags, picking up quotes about how great the new warehouse complex would be for the city. While she dutifully captured another round of breathless hyperbole, her mind wandered back to her conversation with Johnson. His genuine anger almost convinced her he really had nothing to share. But a nagging suspicion prompted her to try the mayor, hoping she could surprise him into revealing something.

  “Pretty crazy about this murder in Fish Village, huh?” she asked, catching him while everyone else flocked to the food table. She kept her question purposely vague, hoping Hanes might think she knew more than she did.

  “Well, it’s baffling, that’s for sure,” Hanes said. “But the police are doing everything they can, and I’m sure they’ll turn up something soon. The important thing we all need to remember is that Galveston is safe. This is an isolated incident, and no one planning a trip to the beach this weekend has anything to fear.”

  He looked pointedly at the notebook in which Kate had written nothing down. She smiled sweetly.

  “Indeed. Well, thank you very much, Mayor Hanes. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Despite the ambiguity of the mayor’s confidence in the police, Kate was pretty certain he wasn’t hinting at, or trying to hide, anything specific. She sighed as she walked back to her car, the mid-morning air heavy as it poured down her throat. Her damp shirt clung to the small of her back. Maybe she owed Johnson an apology after all.

  Chapter 5

  The next night, Kate sat at the half-moon table reserved for reporters at the front of the city council chamber, eyeing a restless crowd. Dozens of city workers fidgeted shoulder-to-shoulder in the back of the room. Garbage collectors in grimy blue uniforms stood next to accountants in shirtsleeves and ties. The ones in the back stood on tip-toe to peer over those in front, hoping to spot a co-worker
who might have saved them a seat in the stuffed-to-overflowing benches. Along the wall, police officers huddled in twos and threes. They hadn’t been called in to keep the peace. They were there to remind their bosses the cuts they made affected real people with families to feed and bills to pay.

  Hanes wanted to cut 10 percent from the city’s expenditures for the following year, part of his pro-business campaign platform. But to do it, he had to take on the police union, which lobbied for, and generally got, a 3 percent pay raise every year. To avoid accusations of inequality, the city council approved the same increase for civilian workers, who didn’t have bargaining rights. In addition to freezing salaries this year, Hanes planned to cut pension benefits. The combined reductions would allow the city to cut the property tax rate by a quarter percent, saving the average homeowner about $60 on his tax bill. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

  “Alright, I’d like to call this meeting to order,” Hanes said, giving the wooden block on the desk two good whacks with his gavel. The audience stood obediently to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, the only thing everyone in the room could agree on. After issuing a proclamation recognizing National Hotdog Week and a resolution thanking a Boy Scout troop for cleaning up a neighborhood park, Hanes brought the discussion back to the only item on the agenda most people cared about.

  The audience members would have their say first, then the council would take up its debate. Kate didn’t expect any surprises. She was pretty sure Hanes had enough votes to push his agenda through. And the council wouldn’t approve the budget for another six weeks, giving the mayor plenty of time to win over any holdouts. He didn’t usually mind opposition, as long as he had the votes to carry his proposals through. But Kate knew he really wanted a unanimous decision on this one.

  The first person to the microphone was a technician from one of the water treatment plants. Dingy baseball cap crushed between his hands, the man cleared his throat and shifted his weight from his left foot to his right foot and back again. His bushy, white mustache twitched as he worked himself up to say his piece.

  “My name is José Martinez. I started working for the city when I was 18. I won’t say how old I am now, but you can probably tell I’m a long way from a teenager.”

  The audience laughed, a gentle encouragement that seemed to give the self-conscious man more courage.

  “I’m proud o’ my job, even though it’s not glamorous. It’s hot, dirty work. I shovel people’s shi--, I mean poop, all day. That’s all the stuff you folks flush down your fancy commodes,” he said, turning to look at the stone-faced neighborhood representatives sitting closest to him.

  “You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff I’ve seen. You peoples is nasty.”

  At this, the city workers roared with laughter. Kate could see why they picked Martinez to speak first. He flashed a grin over his shoulder.

  “Mr. Martinez, we would like to hear what you have to say, but please restrict your comments to the budget proposal,” Hanes said, attempting to bring the technician to order with a scowl.

  “Here’s the thing, Mr. Mayor,” Martinez said, after licking his lips and swallowing hard. “We work hard for the little bit o’ pay we get. And we’re grateful for it, don’t get me wrong. But it’s not easy making ends meet here. Food’s expensive. Rent’s expensive. Insurance—it’s really expensive. Some of us can’t afford it. And what’s gonna happen if we get another storm? We’re due.”

  From the audience, a few people murmured “Mmm-hum” and “That’s right!” In the front rows, the neighborhood representatives shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

  “This tax cut don’t amount to much. They don’t really need it. But we depend on our pay raise just to keep up. If you take that away from us, our lives is only gonna get harder. We’ll keep doing our work. I’ll keep shoveling your poop. But it’s just gonna be hard. And me and my wife’s raising our grandson. He wants to play football next year. How’m I gonna tell him he can’t ‘cause I can’t afford the registration fee? It’s just not right. That’s all.”

  Martinez sat down and someone else replaced him. Kate’s fingers flew over her laptop’s keys, the faint clicking punctuating each speaker’s declaration of deprivation and hardship. The homeowners were lucky they had the mayor on their side. Their statements lacked the emotional impact of the employees’ appeals. Reining in spending made sense, they said. Maxing out the tax base hurt the city’s bond rating and made it harder to borrow money for the big improvements the 100-year-old water and sewer systems needed. The city would never attract more businesses and developments if the taxes kept climbing, they warned.

  “You just have to ask yourself what kind of city do you want,” said Daniel Price, president of the Silk Stocking District’s homeowners’ association. He grasped each side of the podium with his hands and stood with one foot forward, as though he were giving a lecture. Kate imagined if she could get close enough, she might be able to hear his starched white shirt crackle every time he moved. “Are we going to stay stuck in this rut, wasting the potential of our little slice of paradise? Or are we going to seize this opportunity and run with it? If we don’t get our spending under control, if we continue to let the police union dictate 60 percent of the city’s budget, it’s going to get a lot harder to live here. Not just for us, but for you too.”

  Following Martinez’s example, he turned around and looked hard at the city worker section of the audience.

  “If they have to raise taxes to cover never ending salary increases, we’ll all pay. That extra money on your paycheck will only go right back to the city when you pay your property taxes.”

  Turning back to the council, he jabbed his finger in their direction for emphasis.

  “You just remember what you said when you ran for office, not just the mayor, but all of you. You all pledged to cut taxes. Now’s the time to make good on that promise. If you don’t, I guarantee you someone else will be sitting in your seats two years from now.”

  Paul Petronello, the head of the police union, was the last to speak, swaggering up the aisle to the microphone almost two hours after the meeting started. He must have known he was fighting a losing battle, but no stranger to the proceedings would have guessed it by his almost nonchalant attitude. Kate decided he was just too proud to let anyone see his cause going down in flames.

  “Police officers have a lot of options for jobs in this area,” he said. “All of the Houston suburbs in the northern part of the county offer much better assignments. Patrolling neighborhoods with million dollar homes is a lot less dangerous than cruising through the projects. Remember what it was like here in the 1980s? Whole sections of town belonged to drug dealers and gangs. Shootings happened weekly, not monthly.”

  Out of better options, Petronello played the only card that might make the council members change their minds—threaten a drop in tourism.

  “You don’t want to go back to the days when visitors feared getting mugged, carjacked, or worse if they got lost in the wrong part of town. But if you cut our pay, a lot of these guys will start looking for other jobs,” he said, motioning toward the officers standing against the walls. “Even if you don’t think we deserve a decent wage for putting our lives on the line every day to keep this city safe, consider what kind of protection you’ll get if the only officers who come here are the ones who can’t get jobs anywhere else. We’ve worked hard over the last three decades to make this city safe. Think long and hard before you throw it all away.”

  After Petronello sat down, the council took a 15 minute recess. Kate cracked her knuckles and stretched, her back and fingers stiff from hunching over the keyboard for so long. As she made her way through the crowd to the back of the room, she looked for Johnson. She didn’t really expect to see him. She’d never seen him at a council meeting. When she asked him about it one time, he admitted he watched them on TV at home. She wondered what he thought of the debate.

  Another day had passed since the Fish Village murder
and the police still had no leads and no clue about the victim’s identity. Kate was certain now she owed Johnson an apology, but she hadn’t worked her way up to it yet. She was only doing her job, after all. The police worked for the people, and they had a duty to share what they knew, as long as it didn’t hurt the investigation.

  But Kate had to admit now Johnson wasn’t holding out on her. He really had no news to share. Even so, she told herself her approach was justified. Her tiff with Johnson was just part of the faltering dance reporters had to do with public officials to keep them honest. But the truth was, she hated apologizing for anything. Apologizing put you in someone else’s debt, and she hated owing anyone anything. That helped her stay independent, she reasoned. But it also kept her alone.

  Kate made it back to her seat just in time to watch the council members file out of the conference room where they spent the recess, grazing on finger foods and fruit platters. Judging by their expressions, the break had fortified them against the emotional pleas they’d endured during the first half of the meeting. Only two of the council members smiled out at the audience. Terrance White represented a district where many of the city workers lived. Julia Escoveda’s brother was a police officer, and she had taken large campaign donations from the police union. They were the only two council members Hanes had not persuaded to support the budget cuts.

  “As you know, this is just a discussion item,” Hanes said after rapping his gavel on the desk. “No decisions will be made tonight. I can’t speak for my fellow council members, but I’ve been moved by what you’ve said—all of you. I don’t want to make life harder for any of my fellow islanders.”