“But did you… ?”
“Isn’t it true you aren’t driving your own car because the police have it?”
Questions and accusations rip the morning air like shrapnel as I walk toward my building. 1 have nothing more to say. I am the chief. I am poised and calm and unafraid. I did nothing wrong. There is one reporter whom I do remember, because how could I forget a tall, white-haired, chisel-featured African American whose name is Washington George? He wears a long leather trench coat and presses behind me as I struggle to open the glass door leading inside the building.
“Can I just ask you one thing?” he says. “You remember me? That’s not my question.” A smile. “I’m Washington George. I work for the AP.”
“I remember you.”
“Here, let me help you with that.” He holds the door and we go inside the lobby, where the security guard looks at me, and I know that look now. My notoriety is reflected in people’s eyes. My heart sinks. “Good morning, Jeff,” I say as I walk past the console.
A nod.
I pass my plastic ID over the electronic eye and the door leading into my side of the building unlocks. Washington George is still with me, and he is saying something about information he has that he thinks I need to know, but I am not listening. A woman sits in my reception area. She huddles in a chair and seems sad and small amid polished granite and glass blocks. This is not a good place to be. I always ache for anyone who finds himself in my reception area. “Is someone helping you?” I ask her.
She is dressed in a black skirt and nurses’ shoes, a dark raincoat pulled tightly around her. She hugs her pocketbook as if someone might steal it. “I’m just waiting,” she says in a hushed voice.
“Who are you here to see?”
“Well, I don’t rightly know,” she stammers, her eyes swimming in tears. Sobs well up inside her and her nose begins to run. “It’s about my boy. Do you think I might see him? I don’t understand what y’all are doing to him in there.” Her chin trembles and she wipes her nose on the back of her hand. “I just need to see him.”
Fielding left me a message about today’s cases, and I know that one of them is a teenage boy who supposedly hanged himself. What was the name? White? I ask her and she nods. Benny, she gives me his first name. I presume she is Mrs. White and she nods again and explains that she and her son changed their last name to White after she got remarried a few years back. I tell her to come on with meand now she is crying hardand we will find out what is going on with Benny. Whatever Washington George has to tell me will have to wait.
“I don’t think you’re going to want it to wait,” he replies.
“All right, all right. Come on in with me and I’ll get to you as soon as I can.” I am saying this as I let us into my office with another pass of my ID key. Cleta is entering cases into our computer, and she instantly blushes when she sees me.
“Good morning,” she tries to be her usual cheerful self. But she has that look in her eye, the look I’ve grown to hate and fear. I can only imagine what my staff has been saying among themselves this morning, and it doesn’t escape my attention that the newspaper is folded on top of Cleta’s desk and she has tried to cover it with her sweater. Cleta has put on weight over the holidays and has dark circles under her eyes. I am making everybody miserable.
“Who’s taking care of Benny White?” I ask her.
“I think Dr. Fielding is.” She looks at Mrs. White and gets up from her workstation. “Can I take your coat? What about some coffee?”
I tell Cleta to take Mrs. White to my conference room and Washington George can wait in the medical library. I find my secretary, Rose. I am so relieved to see her that I forget about my troubles, nor does she reflect them to me by giving me a lookthat secretive, curious, embarrassed look. Rose is just Rose. If anything, disaster irons more starch in her than usual. She meets my eyes and shakes her head. “I’m so disgusted I could spit nails,” she says when I show up in her doorway. “The most ridiculous hogwash I’ve ever heard of my entire life.” She picks up her copy of the paper and shakes it at me as if I am a bad dog. “Don’t you let this bother you, Dr. Scar-petta.” As if it is that simple. “More chicken crap than Kentucky Fried, that damn Buford Righter. He can’t come out and just tell you to your face, can he? So you have to find out this way?” Shaking the paper again.