CHAPTER EIGHT
Marti awakened the next day to find that an emergency Zoom meeting had been called of all the assigned police consultants positioned throughout problematic police departments in the state of Florida. The reason? One of their own had been badly beaten by members of a police squad in north Florida. The AG’s office sought to reassure the nervous consultants about their right to be at those departments and no bullying or harassment would be tolerated.
Marti, who had more police experience than many of those consultants combined, wasn’t nervous at all. After showering and dressing, she sat in her hotel room in front of her computer screen, her coffee in hand, and wished a cop would try to harass her.
But many of her colleagues were not well-versed in the police culture. They were scared. It was a meeting that took well over seven hours to complete as they covered everything from their planning and replanning, their strategies going forward, to reassurance. Plenty of reassuring. All the other consultants viewed it as a wonderfully clarifying and productive meeting. Marti viewed it as a waste of time.
But after the meeting, she didn’t linger. She hurried out of her hotel room, hopped in her car, and made her way to the station. The other consultants had a jumpstart on her already. They had been dispatched to their respective police departments in their respective cities over a week ago. She’d only been on the job in her assigned city one day. And it hadn’t exactly been smooth sailing. This was only her second day on the job. She was at a definite disadvantage.
As she drove to the station it was heavily overcast outside, as if the heavens could open up at any second and pour out a mountain of rain. Which was exactly what she didn’t need. Because it was the kind of drowsy, sleepy weather she wished she could have taken advantage of and stayed in bed. They didn’t want her there. By the way the chief acted yesterday even after she helped their case, meant that he didn’t want her there either. And she absolutely didn’t want to be there! Sleeping in sounded like a great idea to her. Nobody would care if she showed up or didn’t. She even had that long-ass meeting as her excuse. But since nobody on the face of this earth cared about her anyway, she figured she might as well care about herself, and her integrity, and do her job.
She drove even faster.