Brad Parks - The Good Cop

Oh. Right. A nipple.

“Sorry, friend,” I said. “I got two of those, but neither is going to do you much good.”

Jaquille screamed some more and I became aware of my desire to do something, anything to make him stop. So I stuck my finger in his mouth. He immediately clamped down on it. Hard. Like he intended to suck the nail clean off my finger.

But at least he was quiet, contentedly taking these long pulls on my finger like it was going to get him somewhere. I kept worrying he would figure out nothing worthwhile was going to come of it, but he seemed unbothered. He was just looking up at me with those big, glassy, grateful eyes, like I was the only important thing in his tiny little universe. I was starting to understand how it is parents first fall in love with their kids. Another human being-even a shriveled, alien-looking one-gazes at you like that, and it makes you feel like you’ll do anything for them.

“Don’t worry, little guy,” I cooed. “I got your back.”

Jaquille sucked a few more times, his eyes never leaving my face.

“Oh, look at you, you’re a natural,” Mimi said as she descended the stairs.

“Yeah, don’t let that get out.”

“Here you go,” she said, taking the baby from me. “How’s my little man?”

As soon as I pried my finger from his mouth, Jaquille renewed his protest. I was going to take that as a perfectly good excuse to announce my departure, then the doorbell rang.

“I’m sorry, can you answer that?” she asked. “If this baby doesn’t eat, no one around here is going to be able to think.”

Since when had I become the nanny and the butler? As Mimi disappeared with the baby into the kitchen, I opened the door.

The man standing there was huge, dark-skinned, and cologne-doused. He had on a gray pinstripe suit that, at a quick glance, looked like it was silk and custom-tailored. He wore a hangdog look on his drooping face, gold-wire-framed glasses, and a fedora, which he doffed as he entered. He looked familiar, though I couldn’t say why.

“Good day to you, sir,” he said in a deep, bass voice, walking in like I had already invited him. “Is Noemi here?”

He took care to pronounce Mimi’s full name, doing it so deliberately it sounded more like “No Emmy”-like it was something with which Susan Lucci would have once been familiar. As soon as he was done, I heard her call from the kitchen, “Pastor Al! Come in, come in!”

The man shuffled in and I backed up to give him room. He was at least five inches taller than me, and if I could guess from the size of the body filling his suit, he needed one of those scales that went beyond three hundred pounds. He was dabbing sweat with a handkerchief, even though it wasn’t that hot.

“Have a seat, Pastor Al. I’m just heating a bottle for the baby,” Mimi said.

Finally, my brain clicked in and I realized who Pastor Al was and why he looked familiar. He was one of Newark’s celebrity ministers, a man well represented in the three Bs of local outdoor advertising-billboards, buses, and benches. His church, Redeemer Love Christian, was a nondenominational house of God that used the slogan “Let Jesus Redeem You” and always featured “The Reverend Doctor Alvin LeRioux, an Anointed Man of God” in its advertisements.

We had written a story about the church not long ago. It had something like eight thousand members, many of whom had been talked into tithing by the anointed man of God. The story raised the question of where that money all went-other than the three Bs and the chauffeured SUV that the good Reverend Doctor was known to ride around the city in-but never fully answered it. Unlike other nonprofits, churches are exempt from laws requiring them to expose their finances to public inspection.

Suffice it to say, the piece probably wasn’t Pastor Al’s favorite reading material. I had heard talk that after our story ran, he gave a sermon calling our newspaper an agent of Satan-or something similarly unflattering. I can’t say that kind of talk made me want to like him any more than he liked me. Still, he was a man of some standing in the community, and I was going to treat him with all due respect.

“Reverend LeRioux, I’m Carter Ross with the Eagle-Examiner, ” I said, extending a hand. He shook it, though I could tell he didn’t want to. I could also tell I was going to smell like his cologne for the rest of the day, no matter how many times I washed myself.

“I’ll be out in a second,” Mimi called.

Pastor Al hobbled in arthritic fashion over to one of the couches, where he landed heavily. He stared straight ahead, dabbed his forehead, and seemed to be making a point of not talking to me. The baby was still caterwauling, then abruptly quieted-the bottle, at long last, had been delivered.

Mimi came into the room a moment later with a happily suckling Jaquille cradled in one arm.

“Pastor Al!” she said.

“Noemi, my child,” he said, without getting up.

“It’s so good of you to come.”

“I came as soon as I heard.”

I thought, at that point, he would offer a prayer, read some Scripture, or do something appropriately nonsecular. Instead, he gestured at me.

“Noemi, I was hoping we could share some words in confidence,” he said. “I am troubled by the presence of a reporter here.”

And I am troubled by ministers who wear two-thousand-dollar silk suits. But at least I’m polite enough to keep it to myself.

He continued: “I know the media enjoys publicizing tragedy for its own purposes. But these are private moments to be shared by family and loved ones.”

Mimi looked over at me, obviously torn. I had earned her trust, and I could tell she liked me. But, at the same time, Pastor Al trumped Reporter Carter in her world.

I saved her the trouble of having to kick me out.

“Actually, I was just leaving,” I said. “I’ll call you later.”

Pastor Al was still mopping his forehead as I left.

* * *

Relieved to be no longer serving as a human pacifier, I returned to my car, having already decided on my next course of action. With apologies to Mike Fusco, I had to figure out if Darius Kipps had been a straight-up cop.

If he wasn’t, it meant he probably did kill himself, in which case I was just wasting my time. It’s not that crooked cops don’t make for great copy-they do-it was Brodie’s suicide policy. There would just be no getting around it. Besides, I’d never get anything on-the-record. No one was going to piss on a dead cop’s grave, even if he was bent.

Then again, if Darius Kipps wasn’t dirty, it opened the possibility the suicide wasn’t what it seemed, in which case I had a load of dynamite on my hands. Either way, I wasn’t going to find my answer in the phone book or on the Internet. I was going to find it on the streets.

I started driving through the heart of the hood, down a series of avenues I have come to know as well as any place I’ve ever lived. During my years at the Eagle-Examiner , the milieu had become familiar, even comfortable: the vacant lots and abandoned buildings, the aging Victorians and ancient storefronts, the new construction and glistening chain stores. It’s the hodgepodge that is present-day Newark, a city forever striving to renew itself, with mixed results.

I love it when some visiting journalist parachutes into town for three days to write the Definitive Newark Story. Because the fact is, if they’re looking to write “Newark: City on the Rise,” they’ll find that. And if they’re looking to write “Newark: Still the Same Hellhole Despite What the Mayor Keeps Telling People,” they’ll find that, too. To me, the city is like its own kind of Rorschach test. What you choose to see-whether you want to be optimistic or pessimistic in your view-says as much about you as it does about the place.