Jon Talton - Powers of Arrest

“Police, step back.”

The assailant was huge, with baggy black jeans and a dirty Reds cap. His pockets, embroidered with what looked like sequins, drooped nearly down to the backs of his knees. He looked over at Will and mouthed a profanity, again swinging his leg hard into the other man’s side. He was in his mid-twenties, wearing heavy black boots, with thick toes and heels, and silver buckles and chains ornamenting the tops. His rap sheet was long.

“I thought you was dead, Borders.”

“You’re going to be if you don’t step back, Junior,” Will said.

“Motherfucka’ owes me money. He gotta pay!”

He said this as if it were a rational justification. Another day at the office. “Ain’t that right, cocksucka’? You give me my money!” He raised the boot to stomp the man’s head.

Before the surgery, Will would already have been out of the car, at the sidewalk, and had Junior, Clarence Kavon James Jr., prone on the pavement. But he couldn’t do that now. And he didn’t have time to pull out his cane and walk with difficulty the short distance to the crime. As if that would allow him to control the suspect. A small crowd was gathering, encouraging the beating.

Will unsnapped the holster on his belt and in seconds had his pistol aimed across the car roof.

“I said stop, asshole.” His voice, at least, was still commanding. The gun was leveled at the man’s chest.

A wide brown angry face stared at him with the usual empty sociopath eyes. It was dusted with darker freckles on either side of a wide nose. Will and Dodds had put his father in prison seven years ago for murder. The rotten apple didn’t fall too far from the rotten tree. With his leg cocked in the air, he looked like a malevolent drum major. He slowly lowered his boot halfway to the concrete.

“What, Borders? You gonna shoot another unarmed black man?”

“Yes, Junior. Did I say police? There, I’ve identified myself. You people, move away now so I can shoot this unarmed black man!” The dozen onlookers backed a few paces away.

“I’m a man of color!”

“You’re assaulting a man of color, Junior. Get on the ground, now!”

“This is a G thang, Borders, none y’all’s bidness.”

“It’s a police thing now, Junior. Lower your foot or lose it.”

Junior glowered at him. Will didn’t know what the hell he would do if the suspect didn’t comply.

The look of defiance seemed to last an hour. Then he spat in Will’s direction and lowered himself to the pavement with studied dignity.

“Hands! Spread out your arms and show me your hands.”

The man did as ordered. The victim, wearing layers of old clothes and agony on his face, lay in a fetal position on the sidewalk, moaning.

“Stay there.” He continued to lean on the roof, keeping the gun on the man. He whispered to himself. “Now, if only the cavalry will arrive.” Traffic went by on Central Parkway. The road had been the Miami and Erie barge canal in the nineteenth century. Underneath it was Cincinnati’s never-finished, never-opened subway. Now it was only a spacious dividing line between Over-the-Rhine and the central business district. Will was sweating, the wet spring air starting to fill the sky.

He saw the white paint of the cruiser out of his peripheral vision and a uniformed officer sprang out and handcuffed the kicker. Another unit arrived and two more unis walked to Junior, lifting him to his feet.

“Police fucking brutality! You gonna let The Man do this to a brother!? We need another riot!”

The onlookers walked away quickly in every direction.

Junior was far from done. “Every man has his boiling point! His boiling point, bro! You, too, Borders! Every man has his boiling point!” The yelling was muffled when he was placed in the prisoner compartment of a cruiser and the door was shut.

Will holstered his firearm and sat heavily in his car, using the radio to request a fire department medic unit. The dispatcher acknowledged his request as his cell rang. He swiveled into the seat, using both hands to lift his weak left leg inside, and answered.

“Good morning, Specialist Borders.” It was Amy Garrett, the chief’s secretary, using the department and union’s technical term for his rank. She usually gave this greeting in a voice where you could almost see her smile, high cheekbones, and tasteful-but-short skirt. Amy could almost make you look forward to a visit to the chief’s office. All the cops wanted to sleep with her. She was happily married. Imagine that, Will thought, happily married. Today she sounded different. “Busy morning, huh?”

He assumed she meant the homicide that Dodds was working. He had already used his iPad to type out the preliminary report for the police department Web site, not naming the victim, saying that Cincinnati homicide detectives were investigating. The iPad was easier to use for such tasks than the clunky police laptop mounted between the seats. Now he said, “You don’t know the half of it,” as he felt his heart rate start to go down and he could still hear Junior shouting at him from inside the prisoner compartment of the squad car.

“There’s been an incident in Kenton County.”

He waited.

“You need to go down there.”

His trouble meter was registering high. Kenton was Covington, right across the river from downtown, but another state, another county, another jurisdiction, and, thank God, another public information officer.

“What’s up, Amy? What aren’t you telling me?”

Her voice lowered to nearly a whisper. “It’s Kristen Gruber. She’s been found dead. Probable homicide.”

“What do you mean?” He blurted it in exactly the same way he had heard countless family and friends of dead people do, back when he was a homicide detective delivering bad news.

“Will, she’s been killed. Are you hearing me?”

“Yes.” He let himself exhale. “Was she on the job?”

“No. We don’t have a lot of details yet. She was found on a boat.”

“Who knows? Anybody in the media?”

“Nobody yet. But you’d better get down there. This will be national news.”

“What am I supposed to do? What’s the plan? Is a homicide team coming?”

“It’s only you,” she said. “Go down and find out what they have. Then the commanders will hold a press conference. This is direct from the chief, Will. He wants you to begin an investigation.”

Will hesitated. “Amy, I’m the PIO.”

“You’re a veteran homicide detective, Will. You’ll be the liaison officer between this department and the Kentucky cops. As far as the chief is concerned, you’re the lead detective on this for us.”

The lead.

She added, “Now be nice to them down there.”

“On my way.”

“So are you going to…” A tall young uni stood at the car door. Then he saw it was Borders. The one who walked with a cane.

“He was kicking the other guy,” Will said. “Clarence Kevon James Junior. Street name of Junior. He’s on probation. I’ll add to your incident report later.”

“Great,” the kid said sarcastically. “You have powers of arrest, detective.”

“Paperwork comes with the job, son. I’ve got to go.” Before the uni could protest further, Will slammed the car door, backed up, and raced toward the Ohio River.

Kristen Gruber. Officer Kristen Gruber. He could see her face as he raced past Piatt Park, the Netherland Plaza Hotel, and the dense cluster of buildings that lined both sides of Fourth Street. The intense blue eyes, easy smile, and the blond hair worn in a pixie cut. But she was no pixie. She was one of the most gung-ho cops he had known. He even remembered her badge number.

In a roundabout way, Kristen was responsible for him having this job. She had been the public information officer. With her girl-next-door good looks, athletic build, and perfect television presence, she was ideal for the department’s makeover after the riots. She had set up the Web site and the Twitter account that Will now had to feed like a machine. Transparency, the chief said. She could have remained the PIO forever if it hadn’t been for the show.