theft, all those exciting assignments women got back in the days when they weren’t
allowed in patrol. She did not believe in fat.
“I mean, come on!” West said after a bite.
“The last Observer cop reporter screwed us so bad you sued the newspaper.”
Hammer did not like to think about Weinstein, the worthless wonder, a criminal, really,
whose MO was to walk into the duty captain’s office or the investigative division when
no one was around. He stole reports right off desks, printers, and fax machines. This
collaborative behavior culminated in his writing a front-page Sunday profile about
Hammer, claiming she commandeered the police helicopter for personal use. She
ordered off-duty cops to chauffeur her and do domestic jobs around her house. When her
daughter was picked up for drunk driving, Hammer had the charges fixed. None of it was
true. She did not even have a daughter.
Hammer got up, clearly frustrated and disturbed by the mess the world was in. She
looked out a window, hands in the pockets of her skirt, her back to West.
“The Charlotte Observer, the city, think we don’t understand them or care,” she started her evangelism again.
“And I know they don’t understand us. Or care.”
West crumpled breakfast trash, and scored two points in disgust.
“All the Observer cares about is winning another Pulitzer Prize,” she said.
Hammer turned around, as serious as West had ever seen her.
“I had lunch with the new publisher yesterday. First time any of us have had a civilized
conversation with anyone from there in a decade, at least.
A miracle. ” She began her habitual pacing, gesturing with passion. She loved her
mission in life.
“We really want to try this. Could it blow up in our faces? Absolutely.” She paused.
“But what if it worked? Andy Brazil …”
“Who?” West scowled.
“Very, very determined,” Hammer went on, ‘completed our academy for volunteers,
highest marks we’ve ever had. Impressed the hell out of the instructors. Does that mean
he won’t burn us, Virginia? No, no. But what I’m not going to have is this young
reporter out there screwing up an investigation, getting the wrong view of what we do.
He’s not going to be lied to, stonewalled, hit on, hurt. ”
West put her head in her hands, groaning. Hammer returned to her desk and sat.
“If this goes well,” the chief went on, ‘think how good it could be for the department, for community policing here and around the world.
How many times have I heard you say, “If only every citizen could ride just one night
with us” ”
“I’ll never say it again.” West meant it.
Hammer leaned over her desk, pointing her ringer at a deputy chief she admired and
sometimes wanted to shake for thinking too small.
“I want you out on the street again,” she ordered.
“With Andy Brazil. Give him a dose he won’t forget.”
“Goddamn it, Judy!” West exclaimed.
“Don’t do this to me. I’m up to my ears decentralizing investigations. The street crime
unit’s all screwed up, two of my captains out. Goode and I can’t agree on anything, as
usual …”
Hammer wasn’t listening. She put on reading glasses, and began reviewing a memo.
“Set it up today,” she said.
Andy Brazil ran hard and fast. He blew out loudly, checking the time on his Casio watch
as he sprinted around the Davidson College track, in the small town of the same name,
north of the big city. It was here he had grown up and gone to school on tennis and
academic scholarships. He had lived at the college all his life, really, in a dilapidated
frame house on Main Street, across from a cemetery that, like the recently turned coed
school, was older than the Civil War.
Until several years ago, his mother had worked in the college food service, and Brazil
had grown up on the campus, watching rich kids and Rhodes scholars on their way in a
hurry. Even when he was about to graduate magna cum laude, some of his classmates,
usually the cheerleaders, thought he was a townie. They flirted with him as he ladled eggs