CHAPTER THREE
Although Grant McGraw was the chief of the Belgrave Police Department, he had not heard about any consultant coming to his jurisdiction at all. He was in his regular morning meeting with his senior leadership staff: his captain and lieutenants and their recorder: Sergeant Carter. They met in the Chief’s office every morning to review the overnight stats. It had been another bad night in Belgrave. Including ninety-eight burglaries.
“Ninety-eight?” Grant was astounded.
“And those are the ones we know about,” said Carter. “More reports may be coming in later. It’s a major problem nowadays. Might be a ring, an outside gang, but we don’t know that yet. There were also forty-seven assaults.”
“Anybody dead is the question?” asked Captain Ryan Jeffers, called Cap by the front-line employees, or RJ by those who knew him well. The only African American, and Grant’s second-in-command, on the force.
“There were no deaths. But get this,” said Carter. “We had sixty-six DV calls overnight.”
Nobody could believe it. “Damn,” said RJ. “Domestic Violence is the thing now? That number keeps rising every single week.”
“Have you seen some of these wives lately?” asked Lieutenant Pete Kerrigan, affectionately called Lieutenant Pete by his men. Pushing sixty, he was the oldest person in the room and one of the oldest on the force. “It’s no wonder husbands are beating the crap out of them.”
The men laughed. Grant, who didn’t crack a smile, tossed another NoDoz into his cup of coffee.
RJ picked up on it as soon as he did it. “Another sleepless night, Chief?”
“Does he ever sleep?” asked Pete. “I heard he was here before four a.m. this morning.”
Before Grant could address their comments, which he had no intentions of addressing anyway, his office door flung open and Mayor Dooney Rickter walked in. The men that sat in front of Grant’s desk all quickly stood to their feet.
RJ slapped on that fake smile the townspeople loved. “Good morning, Mayor!”
“How you doing, RJ? Saw you on the links yesterday. You need help.”
RJ laughed. “I hear I’m doing better than you.”
“You are. But that don’t mean you don’t need help.”
RJ laughed again. It was expected of him.
“Good morning, Mayor,” various others in the room said, too, attempting to get on the mayor’s good side, but he ignored the rest of them. Everybody knew RJ was his favorite. The mayor had wanted to appoint RJ as chief years ago, but the old guard in town, the members of the Belgrave Oversight Board (the BOBs, as they were called), wouldn’t hear of it. They wanted Grant McGraw. He, they felt, was one of them. Dooney tossed a red folder on his desk.
Grant, who sat behind the desk, didn’t touch it. “What’s this?”
“We got trouble.” They all looked at the mayor. “That’s what it is.”
“If you’re talking about the overnight stats,” Grant started, but Dooney cut him off.
“You think I’d waste my time coming here about some overnight stats?”
Grant, now concerned, looked at the folder, but still didn’t touch it. “What kind of trouble are you talking about then?”
“It’s been nearly two years since that deranged governor of ours ordered every police department in the state to submit DNA samples in every single case where there was evidence capable of being tested. You remember that?”
Grant nodded. “I remember.”
“Well the results are in. Boy are they in. Tallahassee’s going ballistic. Effective immediately, every police department in the state of Florida that placed poorly will get a so-called police consultant shoved down our throats to reverse the troubling trends.”
“Make yourself plain, Dooney.” Grant hated the mayor’s histrionics. “What are you talking about?”
“Those DNA test results proved that many men and ladies currently incarcerated in this state didn’t do the crime. The DNA, at least as far as our progressive governor is concerned, exonerates them.”
“How many people are we really talking about, Mayor?” RJ asked him. “Can’t be that many.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, RJ.” The mayor looked flustered. “It’s way more than you think. But that’s not even the worst of it.”
“What is it?” asked Grant.
“They ranked each police department based on their percentage of exonerations. A high exoneration percentage puts you near the bottom. A low exoneration percentage puts you near the top, which is where every department wants to be.”
“Let me guess,” said Lieutenant Pete. “We were near the bottom?”
“Near it? No. We ARE the bottom!”
Everybody stiffened. “We are?” asked RJ.
“What was our percentage?” Grant asked.
“Forty-nine percent,” said the mayor. “Forty-doggone-nine percent!”
They were all floored. The men looked at each other, and then at their boss. But Grant was looking at his boss, the mayor. “Are you telling me that forty-nine percent of the perpetrators my department arrested were exonerated after their DNA was tested?”
“That’s what I’m telling you. That’s exactly what I’m telling you.” They could tell the mayor was livid. “You don’t just have a bad rate. You have the worst rate in the entire state!” The mayor yelled this out. “Numeral uno is this police department. You’re the worst of the worst. And not by a little bit either. The next worse has an eighteen percent exoneration rate. Just eighteen percent. When we’re at FORTY-NINE PERCENT!” He yelled it out again. “Nearly half of everybody you arrested and are now incarcerated are innocent and, after a judge reviews their cases, will undoubtedly be freed! This is a public relations nightmare!”
Grant was devastated, but he didn’t let his men see it. His men weren’t devastated, because it didn’t happen on their watch, but they were equally shocked. And RJ, as usual, summed it up. “We knew we weren’t the best police force,” he said, “but damn !”
“That’s why I took the time out of my busy schedule to come down here,” Dooney said. “This is not a trial run. This is the real deal. Governor Chauncey Devere has made clear that if this department doesn’t clean up its act, the state will take over the running of our entire force. And he’ll be glad to do it too. His ass knows I’m running for governor next year. But he can’t run against me, so he wants Jake Crocker, his assistant AG, to run against me. He knows I’m more popular than old Jake will ever be, so they need to tarnish me as much as they can. Make no mistake about it. He’ll be glad to take over anything I’m in charge of just to show I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”
The mayor looked at the chief. “Over my dead body he’ll take over this department. You hear me, McGraw? Over my dead body he will.”
Then the mayor exhaled to calm himself back down. “In the back of that folder, after the results, is the consultant the AG’s office hired to assist us. Which means she can’t be that good if they gave her to us.”
“She’s hired to do what exactly?” asked Grant.
“To consult. To find out what’s wrong with y’all and why y’all keep arresting innocent people! What do you think she’s here to do? To nursemaid you?”
“Just because those tests says that the DNA wasn’t theirs,” said Pete, “that don’t mean they’re all innocent.”
Grant rolled his eyes. The mayor gave Pete a chilling look. “And I wonder why my police department is dead last. Only a fool like you would say a fool thing like that, Lieutenant. We’re dead last because we have idiots like you in high positions!”
Then the mayor calmed back down again and looked at Grant. “Listen to the consultant.”
“Arriving when?”
“Bright and early tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow?” Grant had not expected to hear that. “That soon?”
“I told you Governor Devere will do anything in his power to destroy me. Did you hear anything I just said? Yes tomorrow! So clean up your act.” Then the mayor just stared at Grant. “Look at you. Unshaven. Bloodshot eyes. Wrinkled suit. When we were in high school you were the quarterback. You were the one voted best dressed and most likely to succeed and all that other bull-crap. Now look at you. Look like you just rolled out of bed and came to work. This department is a disgrace and you know why? Because you, their leader, is a disgrace. Which means I’m a disgrace for being forced to hire your sorry ass. Clean this shit up, McGraw. And I mean now!”
Then the mayor left the office, slamming the door behind him.