CHAPTER TWO
Why would a former police lieutenant take a job that barely pays above minimum wage ?
And at her age too?
Was she fired?
Did she quit before she got fired?
Did she sleep her way to the top and got caught?
What’s her story? Everybody’s got one.
She heard the whispers on a daily basis and saw the fingers pointing and elbows knocking every time she walked past one of her much younger colleagues. It was a new position in the state of Florida, that of a police consultant, and almost all of those hired were kids straight out of college looking to pad their resumes as they waited for far better positions in a recession where jobs were scarce. There were others, however, who were there because they were old and just plain broke and anything would do. That was Marti.
At thirty-seven, she was old compared to most of her young colleagues, and she was definitely broke after years of living off her savings and barely able to get out of bed to get a real job. Three-and-a-half years ago she decided she couldn’t do it anymore. She sold her home at a loss because of what happened there, and left Memphis and Tennessee for good. She drifted from state to state and town to town, looking for a place to call home, but she’d always end up feeling out of place. Then she’d move to yet another town in yet another state and the disconnected feelings continued.
But once her savings were completely exhausted, she had no option but to get it together and get back to work. Being a cop was out of the question. Although that was all she knew, she knew she could never go back to that. But being a police consultant? Unlike her young colleagues who didn’t know squat about real police work, she could consult with both hands behind her back. She knew what she was doing. That was why she believed, as her very first assignment, they gave her the worst case of police incompetence any of them had ever heard of.
But as she drove past the Welcome to Belgrave sign, it was also clear that knowing what she was doing and loving what she was doing were two different things. Some days she understood why she was living paycheck to paycheck and was okay with it. She understood how she got where she was. She understood she was just getting back on her feet. But other days she still couldn’t believe this was what her life had devolved into. Four years ago she was a lieutenant in Tennessee and well on her way to yet another promotion. Now she was a low-paying consultant in Florida driving into a town she’d never heard of before she got the assignment.
And even after she looked it up, she was surprised to learn that it had nearly fifty thousand residents and wasn’t some super-tiny little nothing town as she had assumed. But it also had a lot of crime, among the worse stats in the state, and a longstanding mid-sized police force so badly run that it astounded her still.
That was why she drove right past the Belgrave Police Department to conduct a tour of the city for herself. But not before noticing that the space marked for Chief of Police had what looked like a brand-new Mercedes-Maybach parked there. Which just screamed corruption to her. How in the world could the chief of a town this size afford a car like that? But she kept on driving.
Jake Crocker, the Assistant Attorney General that oversaw the consultant program, said Belgrave was a nice, clean town that she would love. And when she first arrived, it appeared to be exactly that. Nice. Clean. And very white. Not all, but nearly all. On that side of town.
On that side of town she saw a thriving city with gorgeous buildings like the convention center and the museum, and beautiful homes with landscaped lawns and tree-lined streets, and nice, three-to-four-star hotels galore. Plenty of space. Plenty of room to roam.
But she kept driving because she knew better. She came from the other side of town. That was why she looked for the tracks. And once she found them and drove over those railroad tracks, she saw that other side of town.
On that other side of town was adject poverty of a staggering degree. The mangy dogs running loose and wild. The filth and the trash. The stray cats everywhere. The children playing soccer on dirt roads and grown men sitting under shade trees playing checkers while their women sat on dilapidated porches and decks playing cards. From the mostly white trailer park poverty to the mostly black clapboard house poverty, they were all stacked there together with too little room to roam and not enough room to even feel free.
It was a study in complete contrast compared to the gorgeously appointed streets that visitors first viewed when they entered the town. But Marti knew there had to be another side because she’d seen it too many times before. Like going to Asia where all you saw were immaculately clean streets and the marvel of architectural design and light and glam galore. Until you kept driving. Then you saw the real town.
Marti was seeing the real town where she’d say at least two-thirds of the Belgrave population lived. It was a tale of two cities in one town. And she’d bet the bank that it was that other side of town that comprised that forty-nine percent wrongful incarceration rate she was there to investigate. No question about it. She’d bet the farm on it too.
She hooked a U-turn, decided it was time to check in, and made her way back toward the Belgrave Police Department to announce her arrival. And it was going to be a very unceremonious welcome she was sure.