The trashcan was, in fact, a curious 8-year-old boy enamored by the brutal energy of the city. Old enough to understand the dichotomy of good and evil, cops vs. robbers, but too young to understand the real costs of the morality play, he hounded his parents night after night to venture outside in search of cops on their heroic crusades. Night after night, his parents refused, aware of the very real danger associated with his request. Eventually, after sufficient pestering under the reasonable belief that, statistically, he'd be fine, his parents had allowed him outside after hours, acquiescing to his desires to find some action via a major bust, a raid, or simply an arrest. His desires did not disappoint.
After Tannehill fired into the alley, a couple of patrolmen lazily followed to inspect the events. They found the boy, unmoving, covered under the refuse of the garbage can. The common violence of so many previous raids come and gone caused them to simply shrug at the tragic scene that lay before them. They nonchalantly mumbled something about the senseless tragedy of it all before informing Tannehill that he had gunned down a child.
Stunned and shaking, still more from the response to the loud noise that preceded the incident than from the realization yet of what occurred, he could only ask, "Is he dead?"
"Yup," one of the patrolmen answered laconically. Everyone in the vicinity expected the typical platitudes before moving on with the night's work. Someone else would be responsible for informing the child's parents and his name would fade into the annals of history.
"Good," was all Tannehill could blurt out. His emotional response had outstripped his verbal acuity and his intent was to signal that at least the boy hadn't suffered or, worse, faced the prospect of suffering for the next several decades if he were unlucky enough to have been hit in spine or head and still survive.
However, the faces of all the men turned toward him indicated that they didn't pick up on his intent, only on his literal exclamation.
Some looked on in horror. Others in self-satisfied disgust. Here was one of the department's golden boys, Johnny College, the cop too good to accept a little fiduciary thank you on a public servant's salary, gloating over the death of a child. None of them bothered to look at their own cavalier attitude toward the accident, only at their superior standing toward Tannehill's seemingly depraved response.
It was this combination of jealousy and repugnance that led to the events that followed. The bootleggers, already nervous about their small-time role as the fall guys on the big-time stage, had begun packing up the critical infrastructure and cash when they heard the trashcan crash to the ground and only hastened their effort after the gunshot, assuming they would likely be on the receiving end of the next round. By the time the raiding party had regrouped, the bootleggers had put two full city blocks between themselves and their former establishment.
On first briefings, the politicians and department heads thought nothing more of the night's events. This wasn't the first child who'd been caught in the crossfire in the pursuit of law and order, and this certainly wasn't the first busted raid that netted no positive propaganda for the city.
However, some of the patrolmen on the raid had correctly surmised the city's diminishing tolerance of violence in the name of a movement they couldn't increasingly understand nor support. Those same patrolmen used the opportunity to drag the department's standard-bearer through the mud and found a willing confederate in Phil Spinoza.
Spinoza saw his opportunity to effect change in the city's standard operating procedure, and, if he had to sacrifice a former friend on what was likely hearsay and, even, outright mendacity from his sources, then it was worth it for the greater public good.
It wasn't as if the department and the city weren't rotten to the core and that the lies for one particular incident weren't stand-ins for the likely horrors and mistruths they covered up on every other raid. It wasn't as if Tannehill, his former friend, even if not an active participant in the corruption, wasn't a willing accomplice in their cover-ups. He, their Golden Boy, stood in front of a podium day in and day out championing their methods while knowing full-well the bloodstains on their collective hands. He, their Golden Boy, who had been shipped off as part of the infantry but somehow, miraculously, saw no action. Wasn't he supposed to be the most likely to die in the trenches? Instead, Spinoza had to see the horrors of war day in and day out while Tannehill remained safe. He, their Golden Boy, who had to face one event - albeit horrific - of an ill-placed mortar, while Spinoza viewed the results of several ill-placed mortars and had to comfort the maimed and dying in languages he couldn't completely understand. He, their Golden Boy, who was spared the ravages of the Spanish Influenza, while Spinoza's entire family was gutted. He, their Golden Boy, who could cower behind a desk, ducking at every sharp noise and still receive a hero's welcome, while Spinoza covered every grizzly maneuver in the city night after night.
Putting his biases aside, Spinoza decided that whatever his feelings for Tannehill, positive or negative, and whatever dubious sources abound around this particular incident and its happenings, this was the story that could finally shine a light on a corrupt department led by the guidance of a corrupt polity. This was the way forward for change. The means may not be the straightest method of accounting for the night's events, but they would ultimately be justified by the greater civic ends.
Spinoza worked feverishly to compile the facts over the days following the raid and ensured that he was able to publish his story before a cynical public began to assume that another child lost to the war on crime was just the price to pay to live in a large American city.
[Author's Note: Today's edition weighs in at 1059 words and contributes to a grand total of 33895 for the (now, actually) novel (or at least novella). This also marks the first time since January that I've published multiple chapters in a month. Given my renewed energy and a solid week left in mid-summer, there's even an opportunity I may be able to get another chapter finished before August.]
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