Hornet's Nest (14 page)

“911!” Brazil yelled into the mike connecting him into the newsroom. Disgusted, he yelled at himself this time, “Oh now that was helpful.”

“What was that?” the newsroom crackled back.

Brazil squealed off in pursuit, flipping headlights on. The thieves were having a hard time moving fast and holding on to their hard-earned rewards. Smaller boxes dropped first, primarily Walkmans, portable CD players, and computer modems. Brazil could tell that these two would hang on to boom boxes and miniature televisions until the bitter end. He raised the newsroom on the radio, and this time instructed an editor to call 911 and put the phone near the base station so a dispatcher could hear what Brazil was saying.

“Burglary in progress.” He was talking like a machine gun, weaving after his quarry. “Southpark Mall. Two white males running east on Fairview Road. I’m in pursuit. You might want a unit at the rear of Radio Shack to collect what they’ve dropped before someone else does.”

The thieves cut through a parking lot, then through another alleyway. Brazil broadcast their every step, on their heels like a border collie herding sheep. Neither young man could legally buy beer and both had been smoking dope, stealing, lying, and jailing since they were old enough for their pants to fall off. Neither was in premiere shape. Shooting hoops and boogeying in front of friends and on street corners was one thing. But running wide open for blocks was definitely another. Devon, especially, knew one lung, and possibly
both, would rupture any second. Sweat was stinging his eyes. His legs might buckle, and unless he was having vision disturbances, too, the flashing red and blue lights of his childhood were closing in like UFOs from all corners of the planet.

“Man!” Devon gasped. “Let’s drop it! Run!”

“I am running, man!”

As for Ro, whose name was short for something no one could recall, he would be damned before he would relinquish what he had his arms around. The TV alone would keep him in rocks for a week, unless he traded it in on a new pistol, this time one with a holster. The Smith & Wesson stainless steel .357 revolver with its four-inch barrel jammed in the back of his baggy jeans wasn’t going to stay put much longer. Ro could feel it slipping as sweat blurred his vision and sirens screamed.

“Shit,” Ro complained.

The gun was completely submerged now, and working its way down. Oh Lord, he hoped he didn’t shoot himself in some private place. He would never live it down. The revolver slid through layers of huge boxer shorts, burrowing down his thigh, his knee, and finally peeking out at the top of a leather Fila. Ro helped it along by shaking his leg. This was no easy feat while running with half the Charlotte Police Department and some crazy-ass white boy in a BMW about to run Ro down. The gun clattered against pavement as the circle of white cars with flashing lights was complete around Devon and Ro. The two bandits simply stopped in their tracks.

“Shit,” Ro said again.

In all fairness, Brazil’s reward for his valiant contribution to community policing should have been the pleasure of cuffing the suspects and tucking them into the back of a patrol car. But he had no enforcement powers. For that matter, he was on the newspaper’s payroll this night, and it was no simple matter to explain why he happened to be parked in a dark alleyway behind a Radio Shack when the burglary occurred.
He and Officer Weed went round and round about this as Brazil gave his statement in the front seat of Weed’s cruiser.

“Let’s try this again,” Weed was saying. “You were sitting back there with your headlights off for what reason?”

“I thought I was being followed,” Brazil patiently explained one more time.

Weed looked at him, and had no idea what to make of this one except that she knew the reporter was lying. All of them did. Weed was willing to bet the guy had parked back there to sleep on the job, maybe jerk off, smoke a little weed, or all of the above.

“Being followed by who?” Weed had her shiny metal clipboard in her lap, as she worked on her report.

“Some guy in a white Ford,” Brazil said. “Wasn’t anybody I knew.”

It was late by the time Brazil rolled away from the Southpark scene, without a word of thanks from any officer there, he noted. The way he calculated it, he had about an hour to kill before he needed to get back to the newsroom and write up what he’d gotten during his eight-hour shift, which wasn’t much, in his mind.

He wasn’t far from the area of Myers Park where Michelle Johnson’s horrible accident had occurred, and for some reason, he was haunted by that awful night, and by her. He cruised slowly past the mansions of Eastover and fantasized about who lived inside them and what they must feel about the neighbors killed. The Rollins family had lived around the corner from the Mint Museum. When Brazil was in front of their stately white brick house with its copper roof, he stopped. He sat and stared. The only lights on were for the benefit of burglars, because nobody in the family was home, or ever would be. He thought of a mother, a father, and three young children, gone in one violent minute, lifelines randomly intersecting in exactly the horribly wrong way, and all was lost.

Brazil had never heard much about rich people dying in car wrecks or shoot-outs. Now and then their private planes went down, and he recalled there had been a serial rapist in Myers Park back in the eighties. Brazil imagined a young
male in a hood knocking on doors, his sole intention to rape a woman home alone. Was it resentment that fired such cruelty? An
up yours
to the rich? Brazil tried to put himself in the mindset of such a young violent man as he watched lighted windows flow past.

He realized the rapist had probably done exactly what Brazil was doing this night. He would have browsed, stalked, but most likely on foot. He would have spied and planned, the actual awful act incidental to the fantasy of it. Brazil could not think of much worse than to be sexually violated. He had been scorned by enough rednecks in his brief life to fear rape as a woman might. He would never forget what Chief Briddlewood of Davidson security had told him once.
Don’t ever go to jail, boy. You won’t stand up straight the whole time you’re there.

The wreck was right about where Selwyn and the various Queens Roads got confused, and Brazil recognized the scene instantly as he approached. What he had not expected was the Nissan pulled off the street. As he got closer, he was shocked to recognize Officer Michelle Johnson inside it, crying in the dark. Brazil parked on the shoulder. He got out and walked toward the officer’s personal car, his footsteps sure and directed as if he were in charge of whatever was going on. He stared through the driver’s window, transfixed by the sight of Johnson crying, and his heart began to thud. She looked up and saw him and was startled. She grabbed her pistol, then realized it was that reporter. She relaxed but was enraged. She rolled her window down.

“Get the fuck away from me!” she said.

He stared at her and could not move. Johnson cranked the engine.

“Vultures! Fucking vultures!” she screamed.

Brazil was frozen. He was acting so oddly and atypically for a reporter that Johnson was taken aback. She lost interest in leaving. She did not move, as they stared at each other.

“I want to help.” Brazil was impassioned.

A streetlight shone on broken glass and black stains on pavement and illuminated the gouged tree the Mercedes had been wrapped around. Fresh tears started. Johnson wiped her
face with her hands, her humiliation complete as this reporter continued to watch her. She heaved and moaned, as if overwhelmed by a seizure, and was aware of the pistol that could end all of it.

“When I was ten,” the reporter spoke, “my dad was a cop here. About your age when he got killed on duty. Sort of like you feel you’ve been.”

Johnson looked up at him as she wept.

“Eight-twenty-two
P
.
M
., March twenty-ninth. A Sunday. They said it was his fault,” Brazil went on, his voice trembling. “Was in plain clothes, followed a stolen car out of his district, wasn’t supposed to make a traffic stop in Adam Two. The backup never got there. Not in time. He did the best he could, but . . .” His voice caught, and he cleared his throat. “He never had a chance to tell his story.”

Brazil stared off into the dark, furious at a street, at a night, that had robbed him of his life, too. He pounded his fist on top of the car.

“My dad wasn’t a bad cop!” he cried.

Johnson had gotten strangely quiet and felt empty inside. “I’d rather be him,” she said. “I’d rather be dead.”

“No.” Brazil bent down, at her eye level. “No.” He saw her left hand on the steering wheel and the wedding band she wore. He reached in and gripped her arm. “Don’t leave anybody behind,” he said.

“I turned in my badge today,” Johnson told him.

“They made you do that?” he protested. “There’s no evidence you . . .”

“No one made me. I did it,” she cut him off. “They think I’m a monster!” She broke down more.

Brazil was determined. “We can change that,” he said. “Let me help.”

She unlocked her car and he got in.

C
hief Hammer was watering her plants when West walked in the next morning. West carried coffee and another healthy breakfast from Bojangles, this time a sausage-egg biscuit and Bo-Rounds, for a little variety. The chief’s phone was going crazy, but Hammer was busy atomizing orchids. She glanced up without a greeting. Hammer was well known for one-two punch announcements in her faint Arkansas accent.

“So.” She sprayed. “He gets in a pursuit, resulting in two arrests. Single-handedly cracking a string of Radio Shack burglaries that has plagued the city for eight months.”

She examined an exotic white blossom and sprayed again. Hammer was striking in a black silk suit with subtle pinstripes, and a black silk blouse with a high collar and black onyx beads. West loved the way her boss dressed. West was proud to work for a woman who looked so sharp and had good legs, and was decent to people and plants, and could still kick butt with the best of them.

“And he somehow managed to get the truth from Johnson.” Hammer nodded at the morning paper on her desk. “Clearing up this notion that she’s responsible for those poor people’s deaths. Johnson’s not going to quit.”

Hammer moved over to a calamondin tree near a window
and plucked dead leaves from bushy branches that always bore fruit. “I talked to her this morning,” she went on. “All this, and Brazil wasn’t even riding with us.” She stopped what she was doing and looked up at her deputy chief. “You’re right. He can’t be out by himself. God knows what he’d do if he had a uniform on. I wish I could transfer him to another city about three thousand miles from here.”

West smiled as her boss worried about spider mites and quenched a corn plant with a small plastic watering can. “What you wish,” West said to her, “is that he worked for you.” Paper crackled as she dug into her Bojangles bag.

“You eat too much junk,” Hammer told her. “If I ate all the crap you do, I’d be a medicine ball.”

“Brazil called me.” West finally got around to this as she folded back a greasy wrapper. “You know why he was behind that Radio Shack?”

“No.” Hammer started on African violets, glancing curiously at West.

Five minutes later, Hammer was walking with purpose down a long hallway on the first floor. She did not look friendly. Police she passed stared and nodded. She reached a door and opened it. Uniformed officers inside the roll call room were startled to see their well-dressed leader walk in. Deputy Chief Jeannie Goode was in the midst of briefing dozens of the troops about her latest concerns.

“All, I mean
all
inquiries get routed to the duty captain . . .” Goode was saying before the vision of Hammer walking toward her cut the meeting short. Goode knew trouble when she saw it.

“Deputy Chief Goode,” Hammer said for all to hear. “Do you know what harassment is?”

The color drained from Goode’s face. She thought she might faint, and leaned against the blackboard while cops stared, paralyzed. Goode could not believe the chief was about to dress her down in front of thirty-three lowly David One street cops, two sergeants, and one captain.

“Let’s go upstairs to my office,” Goode suggested with a weak smile.

Hammer stood in front of her troops and crossed her arms.
She was very calm when she replied, “I think everyone could benefit from this. It has been reported to me that officers tailed an
Observer
reporter all over the city.”

“Says who?” Goode challenged. “Him? And you believe him?”

“I never said it was a him,” Hammer informed her.

The chief paused for a long time and the silence in the room gave Goode chills. Goode thought about the pink Kaopectate tablets in her desk drawer. The third floor seemed very far away.

“One more time.” Hammer looked at everyone. “It will cost you.”

High heels snapped as she walked out. When she tried to reach Andy Brazil at home, someone else answered the phone. The woman was either drunk or did not have her teeth in, perhaps both. Hammer hung up and tried Panesa.

“Judy, I will not have my reporters intimidated, bullied . . .” Panesa jumped right in.

“Richard, I know,” Hammer simply said, staring out at the skyline and discouraged. “Please accept my apology and my promise that something like this will not happen again. I’m also giving Brazil a special commendation for his assisting the police last night.”

“When?”

“Immediately.”

“And we can put that in the paper,” Panesa said.

Hammer had to laugh. She liked this man. “Tell you what,” Hammer said. “You put that in the paper, but do me a favor. Leave out the part about why Brazil was hiding in an alleyway.”

Panesa had to think about this for a moment. Generally, cops abusing their power, harassing a citizen, was a much better story than something positive, such as a citizen helping or making a difference by doing the right thing, and demonstrating community responsibility and being appreciated for it.

“Now listen,” Hammer spoke again. “It happens again, then run it one-A, Richard, okay? I wouldn’t blame you. But
don’t punish the entire police department because of one asshole.”

“Which asshole?” Now Panesa was really interested, and maybe pulling Hammer’s chain just a little.

“It’s been taken care of.” Hammer had nothing more to say about it. “What’s Brazil’s phone number? I’m going to call him.”

This impressed Panesa even more. The publisher could see Brazil beyond glass. As usual, Brazil was in early, working on something no one had asked him to do. Panesa scanned a phone sheet and gave Hammer Brazil’s extension. Panesa thoroughly enjoyed watching Brazil’s stunned expression when he snatched up his phone a moment later and it was the chief of police.

“Judy Hammer.” The familiar voice was strong over the line.

“Yes, ma’am.” Brazil sat up straighter, knocked over his coffee, shoved back his chair, and grabbed notepads out of the way of a tepid flood.

“Look, I know all about last night.” The chief went straight to the point. “I just want you to hear from me that this sort of behavior is absolutely not condoned by the Charlotte Police Department. It is not condoned by me and will not be repeated. Please accept my apology, Andy.”

Hearing her say his name made him warm all over. His ears turned red. “Yes, ma’am” was all he seemed capable of uttering, repeatedly.

He used words for a living, and were there any available when he needed them? He was devastated when she hung up. She had to think he was lobotomized, a wimp, a dolt. He could have at least thanked her, for God’s sake! Brazil wiped up coffee. He stared blankly into his computer screen. She wouldn’t get on the phone if he called her back, he supposed. She would be off on other important things by now. No way she’d waste any more time on him. Brazil was oblivious to the story he was writing about First Union Bank’s minimal losses in a fraud case. Tommy Axel, not so far away, typically, did not exist.

• • •

Axel had been looking at Brazil all morning and was certain Brazil’s feelings were stirring. The guy was blushing even as Axel stared. That definitely was a good sign. Axel could hardly concentrate on his Wynonna Judd review, which was unfortunate for her. What might have been a splashy story about her latest fabulous album was destined for mindless jargon that no doubt would cost her millions in sales. Axel had that power. He sighed, working up the courage to ask Brazil yet one more time to do dinner, a concert, or a club with male strippers. Maybe he could get Brazil drunk, get him to smoke a little dope, jazz him up, and show him what life was about.

Brazil was in despair as he glanced again at the phone. Oh, what the hell. What happened to having guts? He grabbed the receiver, flipped through his Rolodex, and dialed.

“Chief Hammer’s office,” a man answered.

Brazil cleared his throat. “Andy Brazil with the
Observer
,” he said in a remarkably steady voice. “I wonder if I might have a word with her.”

“And this is in regard to what?”

Brazil was not about to be scared off the case. It was too late. There was no place to run, really.

“I’m returning her phone call,” he bravely said, as if it were perfectly normal for the chief to call him and for him to get back to her.

Captain Horgess was thrown off. What did Hammer do? Dial this reporter’s number herself? Horgess hated it when she did that instead of placing all calls through him. Damn it. He couldn’t keep track of that woman. She was out of control. Horgess punched the hold button without bothering to tell Brazil. Two seconds later, Hammer’s voice was on the line, shocking Brazil.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” he quickly said to her.

“That’s quite all right. What can I help you with?” she replied.

“Oh, not a thing. I mean this isn’t about a story. I just wanted to thank you for what you did.”

Hammer was quiet. Since when did reporters thank her for anything?

Brazil interpreted the silence wrongly. Oh God, now she really thought he was stupid. “Well, I won’t take up your time.” He was talking faster and faster, thoroughly decompensating. “Uh, I, well. It’s just that it was a big thing to do. I thought so. When you didn’t have to. Someone in your position, I mean. Most wouldn’t.”

Hammer smiled, drumming her nails on a stack of paperwork. She needed a manicure. “I’ll see you around the department,” she told him, and her heart was pricked as she hung up.

She had two sons and they hurt her on a regular basis. This did not prevent her from calling them every Sunday night, or setting up a college trust for the grandbabies, and offering to send plane tickets whenever a visit was possible. Hammer’s sons did not have her drive, and she secretly blamed this on the bad genetic wiring of their father, who was all egg white and no yolk, in truth. No bloody wonder it had always required so many tries for Hammer to get pregnant. As it turned out, Seth’s sperm count could be done on one hand. Randy and Jude were single, with families. They were still finding themselves in Venice Beach and Greenwich Village. Randy wanted to be an actor. Jude played drums in a band. Both of them were waiters. Hammer adored them. Seth did not, and this was directly related to how seldom they came to town and why their mother ached in private.

The chief was suddenly depressed. She felt as if she might be coming down with something. She buzzed Captain Horgess. “What do I have scheduled for lunch?” she asked.

“Councilman Snider,” came the reply.

“Cancel him and get West on the phone,” she said. “Tell her to meet me in my office at noon.”