wasn’t known for divulging anything personal about herself or her family, and suddenly,
in a time when discretion was most vital, she revealed all to this rookie reporter?
The mayor, city manager, city council, and Cahoon were not likewise impressed. They
were interviewed by several television and radio reporters, and were openly critical of
Hammer, who continued to draw far too much attention to the serial murders and other
social problems in the Queen City. It was feared that several companies and a restaurant
chain were reconsidering their choice of Charlotte as a new location. Businessmen were
canceling meetings. It was rumored that sites for a computer chip manufacturing plant
and a Disney theme park were being scouted in Virginia.
Charlotte’s mayor, city manager, and several city councilmen promised that there would
be a full police investigation into the accidental shooting. Cahoon, in a brief statement,
agreed this was fair. The men smelled blood and were crazed by it. Panesa did not often
get directly involved in choosing sides, but he rolled up his sleeves on this one and
penned an impassioned editorial on the Opinion page that ran Sunday morning.
It was called HORNET’S NEST, and in it, Panesa went into great detail about the city’s
ills as seen through the eyes of an unflagging, humane woman, their beloved chief, who
was embattled by her own demons and yet ‘has never let us down or burdened us with her
private pain,” Panesa wrote.
“Now is the time to support Chief Hammer, to show her respect and caring, and prove
that we, too, can stand up and make the right choices.” Panesa went on to allude to
Brazil’s story of Hammer in the ER bringing a blanket and water to a young man dying of
AIDS.
“That, citizens of Charlotte, is not only community policing, but Christianity,” Panesa wrote.
“Let Mayor Search, city council, or Solomon Cahoon throw the first stone.”
This went on for days, things stirred up, hostility rising from Gaboon’s crown and
swarming through the mayor’s window. Telephone lines angrily buzzed as the city
fathers plotted on secure phones, devising a way to run Hammer out of town.
“It’s got to be the public that decides,” the mayor said to the city manager.
“The citizens have got to want it.”
“No other way,” Cahoon agreed in a conference call, from his mighty desk, as he viewed his kingdom between aluminum pipes.
“It’s entirely up to the citizens.”
The last thing Cahoon wanted was pissed-off people changing banks. If enough of them
did and went on to First
Union, CCB, BB&T, First Citizens Bank, or Wachovia, it could catch up with Cahoon
and hurt him. It could become an epidemic, infecting the big, healthy investors, like a
computer virus, Ebola, salmonella, hemorraghic fever.
“The problem, damn it, is Panesa,” opined the mayor.
Cahoon felt a fresh wave of outrage. He would not soon recover from the publisher’s
Sunday editorial with its comment about throwing stones. Panesa had to go, too.
Gaboon’s brain raced through his formidable network, contemplating allies in the Knight-
Ridder chain.
This would have to come from on high, at the level of chairman or president. Cahoon
knew them all, but the media was a goddamn centipede. The minute he gave it a prod, it
curled up tight and took care of its own.
“The only person who can control Panesa is you,” the mayor said to Cahoon.
“I’ve tried. He won’t listen to me. It’s like trying to talk sense to Hammer. Forget it.”
Both the publisher and the police chief were unreasonable. They had agendas, and had to
be stopped. Andy Brazil was becoming a problem, as well. Cahoon had been around the
block enough times to know exactly where he would attack.
“Talk to the boy,” Cahoon said to the mayor.
“He’s probably been trying to get quotes from you anyway, right?”
“They all do.”
“So let him come see you, Chuck. Pull him over to our side, where he belongs,” Cahoon said with a smile as he gazed out at the hazy summer sky.
W Brazil had turned his attention to the Black Widow killings, which he was certain
would not stop. He had become obsessed with them, determined that somehow he would