Behind the Badge (5 page)

CHAPTER 11

Though official details regarding Devin Buckner’s murder were scarce, word had spread enough through the city that more socially-conscious residents were already making their voices heard. Television crews were camped out on Pratt Street, near the mouth of the Inner Harbor, where a handful of protestors had gathered. It was the same spot at which Occupy Wall Street protestors had set up tents two years earlier, but now it was occupied by those holding up signs mourning the 17-year-old boy and asking for police to be held accountable. One sign even harkened back to an old NWA rap track that referred to the police in a less-than-polite manner. Unsurprisingly, the TV crew was focused on that sign and little else.

A young man in shoulder-length dreads and a faded Ravens hoodie addressed the throng, speaking into the bullhorn clutched in his right hand. “When will this stop?!” he all but pleaded, a chorus of
amen
and
preach
shouted from his audience. “When will we finally see justice in this godforsaken city?!”

As he spoke, the self-appointed leader of the group side-eyed the WTZ camera that had been thrust in his face. He lowered the bullhorn and took a step back, his lips curling into a sneer inside his thin black goatee. “Man, get that shit out my face!”

The cameraman never moved, as oblivious to the order as the traffic crawling along Pratt Street. At this point, several of the protestors had taken notice, shouting expletives and hurling orders of their own at the cameraman. “You’re not welcome here!” one of the women shouted.

“You’re as bad as the cops!” yelled an elderly man hunched over his cane.

The grassy patch in front of the Port of Baltimore had often been a prime spot for social gatherings of this nature, with the Inner Harbor a picturesque backdrop to cries for equality and justice and mercy. Those cries were often ignored, if not outright mocked, and that as much as anything stoked the tensions that plagued this city. Pedro Mendoza’s murder a little over a year ago had been no different.

At that point, a demonstration on this small field had erupted into a full-blown riot once police had arrived and escalated the situation. Prior to the cops’ arrival, the protestors had merely been exercising their First Amendment rights. It wasn’t until the riot gear and police dogs showed up that things got out of hand.

Now that the TV crews had shown up, it was only a matter of time before the police showed up again. The man with the bullhorn, whose name was Leo, rolled his eyes. He knew it was only a matter of time before someone from the BPD showed up, and as much as he hoped things wouldn’t build up any further, he had no faith that they wouldn’t.

“I said get that shit out my face,” he repeated in a softer tone, stepping away from the cameraman and using his bullhorn to block his face. But the cameraman matched Leo step-for-step. One of the protestors emerged from the crowd with a scowl on his face, his black and orange Orioles cap tilted to the right.

“Listen to the man!”

“Freedom of the press, asshole,” the cameraman said without once pulling his gaze from his viewfinder. “I have just as much a right to be here as you.”

“That ‘freedom of the press’ thing’s real nice,” Leo said. “Means you can go back to your little cave and edit this shit to suit your agenda.”

“No agenda here.” Again, the cameraman never stopped filming.

“Oh, no?” The other man who had spoken up shook his head and made a
tsk
sound. “Then why don’t you come right out and say what we already know? Why the secrets? You can’t say somethin’ without the cops clearin’ it first?”

“Justice for Devin Buckner!” several voices shouted.

“I’ll call the cops,” the cameraman warned.

Leo shrugged and set his bullhorn onto the ground before approaching the camera. “And what?” He jabbed at the lens with his finger. “You’ll tell them we’re out here exercising our right to free speech? Oh, I’m sorry, there’s a gathering of black people out here, so
obviously
we must be violent!”

The cameraman said nothing and held his ground.

Leo grabbed the camera with both hands, training the lens on his face. “We will not stand for this anymore! You hear me? Another one of us is dead on these streets, and we have
had it
! Didn’t we learn from the last time this happened? Wasn’t seeing this city burn enough to teach you people what happens when you mess with us? Or do y’all hate us so bad that you don’t care what happens, just so long as it’s
our
blood being spilled?”

The chorus behind Leo intensified with every word, the crowd emerging in the frame with their signs and their vocal expressions of support.

“We just wanna be left alone, man,” Leo continued, his face softening and a deep sadness forming in his eyes. “We just wanna live our lives, try to make things better for one another. But don’t get me wrong: this keeps up, we will not stand quietly. You leave us alone, we’ll leave you alone. Don’t test us.”

◊◊◊

“You think they’ll listen?” Whitney Blankenship asked with a trace of hope in her voice as her father, Reginald, turned off the television.

“Shit no!” he groused as he tossed the remote aside. “We’ve been sayin’ shit like that since the 1960s, ain’t made a damn bit of difference.”

All Blankenship could do was stare at the television, taking in her distorted reflection against the now-black surface. Having lost Devin at such a young age was a tragedy in and of itself, but knowing
how
he died -- knowing that his name was now synonymous with so many others throughout the country -- was enough to turn her stomach. More than once since returning home, she had cursed BPD regulations for forcing her off the case, even though she was glad to know her colleagues were on it.

“Ain’t shit gonna happen,” Reginald continued with a dismissive wave of his hand -- a hand that wore the championship ring he had won in 1989 with the San Francisco 49ers. “Cops won’t solve the case, cause they don’t care.”

“You don’t know that,” Blankenship bit back with so much vehemence that it surprised even her. Her shoulders slumped and she gave her father an apologetic smile. “I mean… my team’s on the case. They’re good cops.”

“I’m sure they are,” Reginald countered.

“No, you don’t get it.” Blankenship stood and began pacing in front of the television. “Detective Andersen? She’s, like, the best cop I’ve ever worked with. Not cause she’s smarter than anyone or she notices things, but… she’s relentless. If I could hand-pick someone to work this case, it would be her.”

“No,
you
don’t get it.” Reginald rose and grabbed his daughter by the shoulders, his expression softening. “I’m not saying your friends
won’t
solve the case. I’m saying they
can’t
.”

Blankenship frowned in confusion.

“Baby, what makes you think Downtown will let them?”

“Be-” Blankenship blinked and faltered. “Because that’s their job. To catch killers.”

“Even when those killers are wearing badges?”

Her frown deepened. Blankenship hadn’t been a detective for long, and she still clung to some of that idealism she had coming out of the Academy. The job hadn’t yet jaded her the way it had many of the other veterans, but from the sound of it, that was exactly the attitude her father wanted her to have.

“Look, Whitney…” Reginald pursed his lips and shook his head. “I love that you’re a cop, and I love that you believe you work with people who understand what being a cop is
supposed
to mean. But I’m telling you… there’s no winning this. There never has been, and there never will be. Because at the end of the day, the people pulling the strings? They don’t look like you and me.”

“If that’s true?” Blankenship had a hard time believing that – because if it was, then had the Civil Rights era actually meant anything? “Then I pity anyone from downtown who stands in my team’s way.”

“And I will pity your team when they’re on the unemployment line,” Reginald shot back.

CHAPTER 12

“Officer Carter,” Jill greeted as she pushed her way through the glass door leading into the conference room adjacent to Captain Richards' office. Whereas much of the precinct was dimly lit, the conference room was bathed in sunlight pouring in through the blinds. “Thank you for coming in on such short notice. I'm Detective Andersen.”

Nolan Carter -- all six feet, five inches of him -- stood and gave Jill a sturdy handshake. It was the sort of handshake that would have left her hand cramping were she a normal person, but her reinforced skeleton gave her the bearings necessary to take the grip in stride. Carter's smile was as plastic as they came, not even coming close to reaching his eyes. “Of course,” he said before returning to his seat. “Sergeant Renault said this was urgent.”

“It is,” Jill said, taking her seat across from Carter and pulling a small stack of glossy photographs from the black leather-bound notepad in front of her. “We're working the homicide of a 17-year-old boy named Devin Buckner, and we're trying to track down the unmarked van present at the crime scene.” Sliding the photographs across the mahogany table, she never once broke eye contact. “Do you recognize this van?”

Carter frowned when he took the first photograph into his hand, the crease in his forehead exaggerated by the shadows afforded by the blinds.

“I don't get it,” he said. “I haven't driven this thing in over a year.”

“What happened to it?”

“Downtown refused to pay for replacement brakes and a new front end,” Carter explained, his upper lip curling into a sneer. “So as far as I knew, it went off to the scrap heap.”

“Why would this van need all those repairs?” Jill asked. “Aside from the brakes and the front end, I mean.” She began rifling through a series of hand-scribbled notes on yellow legal pad paper. “Records show repairs for the transmission, body work on the rear end, engine tune-ups far more frequent than the manufacturer recommends... it's almost as if this vehicle was being pushed well past its limits on a regular basis.”

Anger flashed in Carter's hazel eyes, and Jill could see the twitch in his arms. “What are you implying, Detective?”

“I'm doing you a favor, Officer,” Jill began, pulling another series of images, grainy stills form surveillance footage, from her notepad. “We could be having this conversation in one of the interrogation rooms. But from one badge to another, I think you deserve the benefit of the doubt... for now.”

“Lady, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“Three men and a woman, all wearing masks, shot Devin Buckner in the temple, execution style, this morning on the corner of Madison and Tyson. But before they did that, they took him on a trip... in an unmarked white van that looks a lot like your old tactical ride. This child was already on his last legs before the bullet lodged into his brain. Broken nose, shattered collarbone, dislocated shoulder, kneecap snapped in two... and the autopsy's not even finished yet.”

Jill studied Carter as she read off the laundry list of injuries, her own stomach churning in a mix of bile and hatred. With the revelation of each new injury, she saw Carter's eyes divert to a random spot on the table instead of the photographs splayed out before him. His brow furrowed until he was sitting in a full scowl, his jaw clenched and the tension making his shoulders taut. Yet Jill never once tore her gaze from him.

“A year ago, something similar happened to Pedro Mendoza.” Jill paused to study Carter's reaction. He had none. “Before Pedro, there was Reggie Dawson. Before him, Andre Scofield. Donald Wilson, LaTrice Samuels, Benjamin Cartwright, Lamar Goodwin... do you see where I'm going with this?”

“Look,” Carter finally spoke, his hands clenched into fists as they rested on the table, “you got something to say, just come right out and say it.”

Jill held his stare, grateful for the late nights of poker she used to enjoy with Captain Richards while she was still in the Academy. If nothing else, he taught her a mean poker face. Carter blinked after what felt like several minutes, and his shoulders slumped. Carter wasn’t bad in that department, either; his face held no expression when Jill rattled off the other names. Then again, if this man was capable of killing a teenager in cold blood, having it thrown in his face likely wouldn’t be a bother.

“Officer Carter,” she said, pointing at the still from the video of Devin's murder, “is that your van?”

The look of disgust on Carter's face was palpable. “No.”

Jill sat back in her chair, folding her arms over her chest. “Officer, what caliber handgun do you have?”

Carter leaned forward. “The fuck kinda question is that?”

“A legitimate one,” she shot back. “The handgun the department issued you when you received your badge... what kind is it?”

Carter leaned back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest and raising his chin so that he was looking over his nose at Jill. He crossed his legs at the ankles, the scowl on his face slowly morphing into a self-important smirk the longer the silence dragged on. Not that the silence surprised Jill; she had her suspicions that Officer Carter would clam up once he realized the nature of her questions. It still annoyed her, but it wasn't that surprising.

“Officer Carter,” she cautioned, “you can answer the question in here, or in Interrogation.”

“Sig P230,” Carter spat.

“And are you familiar with Devin Buckner?”

“Never met the kid in my life.”

Jill pulled out a head shot of the victim, one the family had provided. “What about now?”

“We're done here.” Carter pushed himself out of his chair and yanked the door to the conference room open. “You wanna harass me again, Detective, make sure you go through my captain first. Or better yet, keep your nose out of shit that doesn't concern you before someone comes for your badge.”