Roz Fox - Annie's Neighborhood

“That’s kind of you, but I see you’re still in uniform. I’m sure you have other duties.”

“No, I’m off. I intended to go home and get out of the uniform before dropping by here. But a late call tied me up.”

“Then I accept your offer. I’ll dump the coffee and go see if the librarians would like the cookies. They’re open until nine.”

Sky snagged a cookie and a napkin. He set it aside with a grin. “Those look tasty. I’ll work up an appetite folding chairs.”

“Here, take another.” Annie added a second cookie to his napkin. “Do you want a cup of coffee, too, before I get rid of it?” She unplugged the pot.

“Hold on, that’s hot and it’s heavy. I’ll pour us each a cup, then carry the pot to the sink in the men’s room. You go ahead and deliver cookies to the library staff.”

“You’re being nice for a man who sounded quite cranky about my ideas a few days ago. Why the change of heart?”

“Serve and protect is a motto I take seriously. My feelings toward this town are complicated. The other day I wasn’t convinced your plan had merit. Part of my reason for coming tonight was to possibly be enlightened. Now I’ll help you pack up, and then I’ll follow you home. I don’t like what you said about possible gang meddling.”

“I don’t need you to follow me home. And it’s high time someone stood up to those bullies. That’s all they are. Bullies who use scare tactics to frighten people and get what they want.”

“Uh-huh. That’s about the size of it. They’re also very good at operating from the shadows. All the same, we’ll do this my way.”

“Okay, knock yourself out. Since you seem to be keeping track, my next move is to go door-to-door to speak to everyone in the neighborhood. Can they count on your force for quick assistance if I convince them to call 9-1-1 if they see a drug deal going down? Or if they spot gang members shaking down younger kids for school lunch money? I hear that residents often don’t call the cops because your response time is slow or nil—and because of fear of gang retaliation.”

“We do our best.” Sky filled two paper cups with coffee and set them near his cookies. “I can’t make the promises you want on behalf of my department, Annie. Number one, my small force is already stretched thin. Second, I don’t believe that in most cases it helps to arrest local kids for petty crimes they’ve been coerced into pulling off. It just adds to parents’ misery. Especially poor parents.”

“How else can you get the names of gang leaders if you aren’t putting pressure on the kids you know are members?”

“You’re assuming these local kids actually know who the leaders are. I promise you I hauled in a lot of kids when I first took this job. They were too frightened to rat out anyone. Fear is debilitating.”

“But without cooperation from police, I doubt residents will commit to even the first small step in taking back our neighborhood.”

Her dogged determination to go out on a limb to save a neighborhood she hadn’t been part of for quite a few years baffled Sky. If he could sell his house he’d move from Briar Run in a second. “I’ll go pour this out,” he muttered, hefting the urn. “We can talk some more while we drink our coffee.”

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