“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.
Chapter Ten.
Chief 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 every one 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.