Courageous (3 page)

“I’ll try to remember that.”

“We have two new warrants today: Clyde and Jamar Holloman. Two frequent fliers who opened up a drug operation on the 600 block of Sheffield. I’d like both warrant teams to handle this one. Everyone else stick to your normal beats. Now the sheriff has something he wants to tell us this morning. Sheriff?”

A tall, sandy-haired man in uniform entered the room. From his haircut down, he looked like a Marine because he was one. His steely blue eyes seemed tired. Sheriff Brandon Gentry rarely made appearances in the muster room, so the deputies knew this must be important.

“An e-mail came across my desk I’d like to share with you. A recent study was done on the increase in violent gang activity. It says almost every case has something in common. Runaways, dropouts, kids on drugs, teens in prison.”

Sheriff Gentry paused and checked the printout. “The attribute they share is most of them came from a fatherless home. That makes kids growing up without dads our worst problem and the source of a thousand other problems. The study shows when a father is absent, kids are five times more likely to commit suicide, ten times more likely to abuse drugs, fourteen times more likely to commit rape, and twenty times more likely to go to prison.”

He eyed the deputies before he continued. “The study ends by saying, ‘As fathers check out in increasing numbers, these percentages continue to rise, with escalating gang violence and crime.’”

The sheriff lowered the paper. “So maybe you’re thinking, why tell us this, since by the time we face it on the streets, it’s usually too late? The answer is what we’ve told you a hundred times—the divorce rate for cops is high. I know your shift work is hard. But the bottom line is this: when you clock out, go home and love your families. All right, you’re dismissed. Get out of here.”

The sheriff strode out, and the deputies rose.

“‘Go home and love your families’?” Sergeant Brad Bronson snorted, addressing Sergeant Murphy. “In the old days they just told us, ‘Round up the bad guys and do your job!’”

“Yeah, and most of us were getting divorces, including you and me. The sheriff’s just trying to look out for the men. You might wanna show more respect.”

“He’s all hat and no cattle,” Bronson said to Murphy, way too loudly. “He’s been livin’ too long in high cotton.”

Adam sized up Brad Bronson, a piece of work if there ever was one. Six and a half feet tall, over three hundred pounds nonstrategically distributed, he was saggy fleshed, a giant marshmallow in pants, but still managed to intimidate. The hair that once grew on his huge billiard ball head had been rerouted out his ears. His forehead was the gray of smudged newsprint, some veins permanently broken from his history of head-butting uncooperative perps. Thick-throated and chinless, Bronson smelled of cigar smoke. The sergeant believed “too stupid to live” was a valid jury verdict.

Shane whispered to Adam, “There’s a lot of gravity in this world, but Bronson uses more than his share.”

“Well, boys,” Bronson said with a growl, “I’ll keep the streets safe while you take the ladies to the ballet.”

“Where you headed today, Sarge?” Adam asked.

“The toughest part of town. ’Course, the toughest part of town is wherever I happen to be standin’.” Even now, Bronson gave Adam his hundred-yard stare, the one that would have made Clint Eastwood in his prime melt like a salted slug. He cleared his throat, sounding like he was mixing cement.

Bronson acted tough, but Adam sensed more beneath the surface. In the twelve years Adam had known him, Bronson had been through two wives and had four children between them. Bronson constantly caused headaches for his superiors. He’d earned the particular ire of the public information officer, who repeatedly lectured him on his public demeanor and disdain for the media.

As the deputies made small talk on their way out, several shook hands with Nathan.

“Hold on,” Shane told Adam, then went to talk with Riley Cooper.

Adam approached Cooper’s partner, Jeff Henderson, forty feet away, standing by his patrol car. Now a fifty-six-year-old veteran, Jeff had made a career of breaking in rookies, as he’d done with Adam seventeen years earlier. Last year, after their youngest son’s graduation, Jeff’s wife, Emma, had filed for divorce and moved to California to live near the older children and grandchildren.

Jeff’s jaw was still chiseled, but his cheeks were fleshier and his blue eyes that used to flash bright seemed dimmer now. Adam reached out his hand. Jeff shook it, his grip looser than before.

“How are you, Jeff?”

He shrugged. “Can’t complain. Wouldn’t do any good if I did.” His once-booming voice now seemed as weak as his handshake. Though he smiled, it appeared pasted on.

“How’s Jeff Jr.?”

“Still alive, I guess. He hasn’t spoken to me for a year. He and his sister side with their mother. Brent’s at college now, hasn’t been back.”

“I’m sorry, Jeff.”

“That’s life.”

“How’s the stomach?”

“Sometimes it’s okay, other times . . . feels like it happened yesterday.”

“It” happened fourteen years ago when Jeff and Adam confronted a shoplifter fleeing a store. Jeff tackled him on the sidewalk, and the guy buried a blade deep in Jeff’s stomach. It pierced his small intestine. He’d had two surgeries and unending therapy, but things hadn’t been right since.

Time was supposed to heal Jeff, but it didn’t. It just made him older. Some cops stayed fresh; many became shopworn. Jeff put in his time now, doing his job with less passion. He had another young partner, Riley Cooper, who was eager, as Adam had been. But Jeff didn’t appear the energetic mentor anymore. He had so much to offer, yet he no longer seemed to offer it. Sadly, Adam thought, that wasn’t just Riley’s loss, but Jeff’s.

Whether it was the ongoing pain or the trauma of the stabbing, the Jeff that Adam had known years ago and the one he knew now weren’t the same guy. At first, Emma had been the model cop’s wife, standing by her man, trying to help him. But he wouldn’t let her. One day thirteen years ago, Adam went to pick up Jeff at his house. Before Adam got to the door, it opened. Jeff came out in a fury and slammed it behind him. Emma called out the window, “Stop blaming your family! We’re not the ones who stuck that knife in you!”

Adam had never forgotten that awkward moment. Neither had Jeff, though he never let on.

Jeff peered at Adam as if through a fog. “Your family okay?”

“Yeah. You know, the usual stuff. But we’re fine.”

Jeff nodded. To Adam they seemed like two old men on the front porch in their rocking chairs saying, “Yessir” to each other with nothing to talk about. He thought of inviting Jeff fishing or to a ball game. But if they couldn’t keep a conversation going for five minutes, why shoot for hours?

“Ready to go, Adam!” Shane called as Riley Cooper, sunglasses donned and full of strength and youthful enthusiasm, approached Jeff’s car.

“Later, Jeff,” Adam said.

“Later.”

As Adam walked toward Shane and his car, he thought about the sheriff’s encouragement to leave his work behind him when his shift was over. How many times had he been told that? A hundred? How many times had he actually done it? A half dozen?

Now Adam Mitchell had to serve arrest warrants on a couple of those fatherless young men the sheriff talked about. And if he wasn’t careful, they could make Adam’s kids fatherless too.

Seventeen-year-old Derrick Freeman made his way from the train tracks toward Washington and Roosevelt. Tall and slender, he was dressed in a purple plaid shirt with a black Volcom tee underneath and long black denim shorts. He approached an abandoned warehouse, cell phone to his ear.

“I can’t do that right now, Gramma! I’ll be home later.” His jaw clenched. “I don’t know when. I’m gonna take care of that later. Bye. I said
bye
!”

He crammed the phone into his pocket and peered into a shadowy building.

Big Antoine, TJ’s right-hand man, spoke out of a dark corner. “Hey, man, why you talkin’ to yo gramma like that?”

Derrick squinted. He saw Antoine leaning against a concrete pillar, wearing a camo do-rag and closely trimmed goatee, dressed in an Army shirt. Torn-off sleeves emphasized bulging muscles. He slowly and deliberately skinned an apple.

“Tired of her naggin’ me. I’m gonna do what I wanna do, man.”

“Ain’t she takin’ care of you?”

“She workin’ all the time. I take care of myself.”

The way Antoine used the knife on the apple made Derrick’s nerve endings crawl. He wondered if someone with that same kind of knife had put the two scars on Antoine’s right cheek.

“So you ain’t got nobody? Well, little wannabe, you better be sure you ready to do this. It ain’t no game, man.”

Derrick took a few steps closer, eyes still on the rotating knife scalping the apple. “Tell TJ I want in. I’m ready.”

“You
think
you ready. TJ’s gonna check you out. Watch out, man. TJ’s a beast.”

Derrick hesitated, then blurted out, “Is it true the Waterhouse kid died when he was jumped in?”

Antoine stared. “Got a little rough. Stuff happens. That kid was weak. TJ don’t mess around. He’s gonna make you prove yo’self.”

Derrick sucked in air, stuck out his chest, and tried to deepen his voice. “Then I’ll just prove myself.”

“Good. Just remember . . . I warned ya.”

Chapter Four

Adam drove with Shane toward southeast Albany, with Nathan and David behind them. Adam pressed the number 2 on his speed dial to reach Victoria. “Listen, a truck with the lumber’s coming soon. Tell them to pile it next to the driveway, okay?”

Adam felt the phone buzz and pulled it away to read the screen. “Hey, Victoria, the sheriff’s calling. I gotta go. Love you. Bye.”

Adam pushed the button to connect. “Hello, sir. Yes. Headed right there.”

Shane pointed left to indicate the turn.

“Yes, sir. We did that. Thank you, sir. Love you. Bye.”

Shane gaped at him wide-eyed.

“Oh no, no, no!” Adam stared disbelievingly at his cell.

Shane snorted. “Did you just tell the sheriff you loved him?”

“I can’t believe I said that. Should I call him back?”

“You gonna tell him you
don’t
?”

Adam grimaced as Shane picked up the car radio. “693c en route to the 600 block of Sheffield. Reference 10-99.”

“10-4,” the dispatcher replied. “693c.”

In the second squad car, Nathan followed Adam and Shane. They were senior officers in this arrest, but this was like the neighborhood Nathan grew up in on Albany’s east side. This westside area had long ago seen its best days and showed no hope of rebound.

The farther they drove, the rougher the neighborhood. As the cruisers approached the house, two gang members sitting on a front porch next to the target house yelled, “5-0,” then walked across the yard. Not for a fight, Adam hoped as he and Shane pulled up and stepped out of the car. He studied their faces. They didn’t match the mug shots accompanying the warrant.

Nathan and David passed the house and turned on the next street, pulling around to the back.

“You want the door, Rookie?” Nathan asked.

“I got it. And I’m not a rookie anymore.” David stationed himself on the grass at the base of the back door stairs. Nathan tipped up his sunglasses and positioned himself where he could see both the side of the house and David. Hands on his hips, Nathan had the steady eyes of a Secret Service agent. David practiced reaching for his Glock 23.

Nathan rolled his eyes.
Not a rookie anymore?

In the front yard, Adam and Shane approached the porch. Shane talked into his shoulder mic, letting the other team know what was happening in front. The window blinds fluttered.

“I got a feeling about this one,” Adam said to Shane, trying to watch the house and the gangsters on the lawn next door at the same time.

“I’m feeling it too.”

Adam checked his radio. “3d, you got the back?”

“10-4,” he heard Nathan say.

They walked up the steps cautiously. Adam hoped he appeared more confident than he felt.
After seventeen years, why aren’t these kinds of moments getting easier?
He remembered something Jeff Henderson had said: “Confidence is what you feel when you don’t understand the situation.”

Adam knocked. A woman opened the door. She could have been twenty or forty. Crack did that—doubled a person’s age.

“Yeah?”

“Hello, ma’am, we’re from the Dougherty County Sheriff’s Department. We have a warrant for the arrests of Clyde and Jamar Holloman.”

The woman quickly exited, throwing her hands up. “I ain’t gettin’ in the middle of this. I ain’t even supposed to be here.”

Smart lady,
Adam thought.
She’s done this drill before.

Adam and Shane stepped slowly into the dark house, each holding a flashlight in one hand, free hands on their guns.

The house was a mess, clothes and food wrappers everywhere. Next to the couch Adam saw a crack pipe and a smashed Coke can.

“They use the same interior decorator you do, Shane.”