Page 49 of Demo
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I part ways with Monty after the presser and head to the police headquarters. I called Chief Scott back this morning and agreed to stop by this afternoon, but he gave me no indication as to why he wanted to see me.
“Greetings, Ms. Mitchell,” is the welcome I get from Reggie, who is working the front desk at headquarters today.
“Hey there, Reginald! What’s happening? Gimme the goods.”
Reggie smiles while leaning back and rubbing his round belly hidden under his uniform. “You know they don’t tell me nothin’ around here,” he says. “Not high enough on the food chain.”
Reggie has a reddish hue to his short-cropped and thinning hair, speckled with white, and his skin is pale with a red flush that easily creeps into his cheeks and up his neck when he laughs.
After placing a call to the chief’s office to let them know I’m here, he gestures to one of the chairs against the wall for me to wait in as we shoot the shit.
After just a few minutes, an officer I’ve seen before but don’t really know appears in the doorway to the main hall. “Ms. Mitchell?”
“That’s me.” I shoot up.
“Deputy Clark,” he tips his head in greeting. “Chief Scott is ready for you.” He steps aside and we walk side by side down the short hallway toward the chief’s office, which I know is at the end.
As we do, I can’t help but notice how large Deputy Clark is. Close to six feet tall, with broad shoulders and tight arm muscles lined with veins. He raps his knuckles on the chief’s door to announce our arrival to his office. It’s a small room, white with no embellishments. There is just a desk he is sitting behind, two chairs in front of it, and a filing cabinet and bookshelf to one side.
As I walk in, the chief stands up and stretches his hand out to me, and I take it. “Ms. Mitchell, nice to see you again.” He’s oddly cheery, which automatically has me on edge. As the chief and I each sit, it’s then I notice Deputy Clark is still in the room, and he’s standing next to Sgt. Henderson.
But more importantly, I wonder why they are here.
“Lyzbeth, thanks for coming in to see me,” the chief begins, still friendly as all get-out. I smile and nod. “So, I wanted to give you a tip. We’ve got a couple of cars headed over to Chuck Aster’s place tonight.”
“Chuck Aster, as in the city councilman?”
“That’s the one. We’ve been investigating him for a while. Got a tip a few months back a colleague noticed some, well, inappropriate images he left up on his laptop one day. The Bureau of Criminal Investigations got a subpoena for his computers and other devices. Turns out he’s into youngins, if you get my drift.”
“Gross.” I can’t keep the word from leaving my mouth. It gets a chuckle from the guy behind me.
“Yes, gross, indeed,” Scott continues. “Anyway, I’m telling you, exclusively. You and Monty can get a photo of Aster being arrested. Should happen well before press time tonight.”
I sit on that information for a minute. Surely, the chief would be elated to have Aster’s arrest in the papers tomorrow morning—a show of his dandy police work. So, why not leak the information to a bigger news outlet, or a television news station?
“Here’s the address,” the chief hands me a piece of paper with a number and street name scribbled on it. I take it, and sit back, remaining silent. “I’ll be able to answer more questions tonight, but right now I can only give you the minimum.”
I look at the paper in my hands, then up at the chief. “Why me?”
He leans back in his chair. “Why? Well, Lyzbeth, you’ve always been good to us here at the department.”
I think that over. “Actually, I haven’t,” I retort, and he gives me a strange look. “Remember last year when we outlined the district attorney’s accusations of your mishandling of the assault case at the former Kodak building? And a few months ago, when I ran with your ‘no comment’ on the police misconduct allegations. You personally called and ripped me a new one for that.”
The chief looks down at his folded hands and chuckles. “Oh, I dunno, Lyzbeth. I guess I’m letting bygones be bygones.”
Huh?Fuck bygones.
“Yeah, that’s not going to work for me,” I say. “What’s the give-and-take here?”
He just looks at me. “Look, I just know that you’ve been going after some stories out of our department lately and thought I’d throw you a bone.”
Oh, that was definitely the wrong thing to say.
“First of all, I don’t need any bones thrown my way,” I say as I glance back down at the address in my hand and commit it to memory. “Second, what do you mean, going after some stories?”
The chief puts his hands up. “No need to get defensive. I’m just thinking this is a better lead than circling around past stories.”
