He bypassed his tailored suits and his crisp, decorated uniform. Tonight, he was not putting on a show for the press. Tonight, it was personal. He pulled on a dark gray turtleneck, a heavy black wool trench coat, and a pair of dark leather gloves. He walked to the safe in his study, dialed the combination, and retrieved his off-duty piece, a compact Glock 19, and slid it into his shoulder holster.
He didn't grab his badge case. He slipped the golden shield directly into his coat pocket. Dimitar James was the chief of police for the city of Fairview. He was the first black man to hold the position in the city's 150-year history. He had earned the spot not through politics but through 30 years of grinding brilliant police work.
He had started as a beat cop in the southside, worked his way through homicide, commanded the narcotics division, and eventually cleaned out the corruption in the upper brass to claim the top spot. He was respected by the mayor, feared by the gangs, and revered by the good cops. But he knew the fourth precinct. He knew the culture there. It was a holdover from a bygone era, a boy's club, where old school cops thought a badge was a license to enforce their own personal prejudices.
He had been slowly transferring the worst offenders out, tightening policies and demanding accountability. But clearly the message hadn't reached officer Bernard Perry. Dimitar stepped out into the freezing rain and climbed into his personal vehicle, a jet black unmarked Ford Expedition. He didn't use lights or sirens. He drove the speed limit, his mind operating with the cold precision of a supercomputer.
He mentally reviewed everything he knew about Bernard Perry. excessive force complaints, disciplinary hearings that had miraculously resulted in slaps on the wrist thanks to a strong union rep. A pattern of racially biased traffic stops that the internal affairs division was currently quietly building a federal queson. Perry had just handed the chief the final nail for his own coffin, and he had used the chief's own flesh and blood to do it. It took exactly 22 minutes for the Ford Expedition to pull into the visitor parking lot of the fourth precinct. Inside the station, the 3:30 a. m. lull had fully settled in.
Sergeant Miller was reading a paperback novel behind the desk. Officer Harrison was sitting in a corner desk, nervously writing and rewriting his incident report, trying to figure out how to make Perry's lies sound plausible on paper. Perry himself was sitting in the break area adjacent to the booking desk, his boots propped up on a plastic table. He was eating a powdered donut and holding a cup of coffee, holding court with two other patrolmen. I'm telling you, Perry laughed loudly, powder dusting his uniform chin.
She tried to hit me with the whole I know my rights. I'm in law school routine. I shot that down real quick. Tossed her in the back. These kids today, they need to learn respect.
Sometimes you just got to put the fear of God in them to remind them who runs the streets. The heavy double doors of the precinct lobby hissed open. A gust of freezing, rain soaked air swept through the room, causing the loose papers on the bulletin board to flutter wildly. Footsteps echoed on the linoleum floor. slow, heavy, deliberate. Sergeant Miller looked up from his book, annoyed by the draft.
He saw a tall, broad-shouldered man in a black trench coat walking toward the booking desk. The man's face was shadowed, his posture rigidly straight. "Can I help you, sir? " Miller asked, his tone carrying the bored authority of a desk sergeant dealing with a late night civilian. If you're here to post bail, you'll have to wait until the magistrate arrives at 8.