Play this Song While You Read
Detective Jack Parsons was late. He should have been at the crime scene over an hour ago but he had forgotten that he needed to pick up his son Benji from school and take him to his select baseball team practice which was all the way up in Frisco, a suburb north of Dallas but could have been another country compared to his normal beat downtown. Normally his wife(now ex-wife) Sarah managed the sports carpool on Saturdays but she had called him early that morning asking for a favor. She was a little cryptic about why she couldn’t pick up Benji but over the past 6 months since the divorce had been finalized she started to share less and less of her personal life with Jack.
As he pulls his unmarked cruiser up to the park, Jack waves to Benji through the front windshield as trots over to the field with his glove and bat in hand. Coach Pete Barnes, one of the assistant coaches and also a retired DPD officer sees Jack and gives him the “wait a second” motion.
Jack sighs knowing he’s already late and Barnes will want to talk his ear off. He slowly walks over to Jacks car with his trademark limp. Officer Barnes was chasing a bank robbery suspect years ago and when the suspect disappeared in an abandoned building. Officer Barnes, rather than calling for backup decided to pursue. The building was windowless and extremely dark and right as he entered the building and turned on his flashlight he heard a gunshot to his left and felt an immediate, searing pain in his right knee. He went down but not before getting three shots off himself. He was pretty sure he’d hit the suspect because he could hear him groaning about 100 feet away but couldn’t see him even with his flashlight. Not knowing if the suspect would continue to shoot he immediately called for backup and was able to hobble back to the door of the old building. He sat down against the brick wall and waited, always keeping an eye on the door in case the suspect decided to follow him. In about 3 minutes ½ of the Dallas police force was there given the “officer down” call and started to sweep the building. The ended up finding the suspect dead back in a corner of the building. He had 2 gunshot wounds, one of them being fatal. Barnes ended up with a shattered knee cap and after several surgeries was able to walk, but that was the end of his police career. He retired two months later.
“Hey Jack – how goes it”, Barnes asks.
Jack puts the car in drive and slowly edges away from the curb to signal he doesn’t have time to chat.
“Sorry Pete – got to get moving. I caught a murder case down in Deep Ellum and need to get down there asap”.
“Understood Jack – go get ‘em” Barnes waves and walks back towards the dugout.
As the car pulls away Coach Barnes turns back to look at the Dallas County plates and longfully wishes he was still out there catching bad guys. His life is now babysitting his two grandkids, t ball practice and racing to Luby’s every night at 4:30 to beat the crowd. Not exactly the retirement he had envisioned for himself.
Jack heads south on Central Expressway in his unmarked Caprice Classic towards Deep Ellum and reaches under the seat for his flask. Unfortunately the long hours and the longer divorce had started to take his toll on him. He was always a fixture at Ships Lounge, the old dive bar where most of the older, crustier, cops would congregate after work, but now the party started a little earlier. He knew he could be suspended or worse for drinking on the job, but he just took a few sips throughout the day and chased them with several sticks of Doublemint. No one would ever know and did he really care if they did?
He takes the exit off of 75 and cuts over to Good Latimer street. He’s still a few blocks away but can see several squad cars with their lights on and a pretty decent crowd standing around. He runs the next red light after looking both ways and pulls his car up onto the curb near the yellow police tape. He starts to get out and notices the flask lying on the passenger seat. He reaches back in and tucks it back under the driver’s side seat and grabs a “DPD” parka because a light rain has started to fall.
As he walks towards the scene, Jack slips on the parka, ducks under the police tape and nods to Keith Hodges, a younger officer managing the crowd. Hodges nods back and immediately turns and yells at two of the onlookers who were getting a little close to the tape.
Jack can see his partner, Detective Janet Messing talking to what looks like witnesses. About 10 feet to her left is what appears to be a body, now covered by a white sheet but with one shoeless foot sticking out. Jack walks over to the body, lifts the sheet and sees it’s a white male, about 18 years old with what appears to be a single gunshot to the side of his head. He’s wearing the standard issue 90’s grunge uniform of flannel shirt, jeans and combat boots. As Jack is putting on his rubber gloves to search his pockets Detective Messing comes up behind him.
“Nice of you to grace us with your presence Jack” Messing says dryly as they both stare at the body without making eye contact.
Messing was short but fit, with long, dark hair tucked under her rain hat and a couple of years older than Jack at 46. Coincidentally both had graduated from the academy together years ago in Austin although they took separate paths to get up to Dallas. Jack ended up staying in Austin and worked his way up through the ranks before something happened that would change the trajectory of his career.
About 12 years ago while Jack was in Austin on patrol in the early hours of the morning, he pulled over a car that had been swerving in and out of their lane. It was on West 6th, famous for its bars and nightlife and drunk drivers were as proliferate as the famous bats under the South Congress bridge.
After following the car for several minutes with his lights on, Jack finally got them to pull over onto a side street after running the siren and shining his spotlight into the vehicle, where it appeared that several college students were having a little too much fun.
Jack sat in the car for a few minutes while he called in the plate to dispatch. It comes back to William B. Beach with an address in Pemberton, where the rich people lived. Jack thinks back to the election party he had just worked a few months ago for the new governor of Texas named Brandon Beach. Was his first name William? He didn’t know and really didn’t care….
He approached the vehicle, a brand new Chevrolet Tahoe with the music still at high volume and all of the windows still up. He shines his flashlight into the truck and taps the drivers side glass with the end. The driver, a young frat boy type, shields his eyes from the light and rolls down the window about halfway.
“Hey officer, how are you”? The frat boy says with equal parts sarcasm and tequila as Jack tries to decide which was stronger.
“License and proof of insurance” Jack said sternly as he pans the rest of the truck with his flashlight. There is a girl in the front seat who doesn’t look much older than 16 and two other young men in the back seat, one of them clearly passed out slumped against the rear window with what looks like crusted vomit on his shirt.
Without moving towards his wallet or glove box, the driver looked at Jack and with a smirk and says, “what’s the problem”?
“You crossed over your lane several times without signaling”, Jack deadpans as he glares right into frat boys eyes. And by the smell of your vehicle it’s pretty obvious why. License and proof of insurance”. Jack’s patience was gone, not that it was there to begin with.
The kid fumbles around in his center console, finds his license and asks the young girl in the passenger seat to get in the glove box and find the insurance which she hands him.
As he hands both to Jack the kid that was passed out in the back seat wakes up, opens the door and begins to puke all over the sidewalk by Jack’s feet. Jack sidesteps some of the overspray and walks back to his patrol car. As he’s calling in Brent Beach’s drivers license he sees that Brent is on a car phone. “Spoiled brats” Jack mutters as he waits for a response from dispatch.
Brent didn’t have any warrants or outstanding traffic violations so Jack opens the door of his patrol car and starts to walk back to start sobriety tests. Just as he’s about to pull Brent out of the car two unmarked black suburbans pull behind Jack’s patrol car. Two large men, both in Texas Department of Safety uniforms, both of which look like ex Longhorn football players walk briskly up to Jack.
“Officer Parsons, could we have a quick word with you” one of the men ask.
Despite the fact that these gentlemen technically outrank Jack, he doesn’t like anyone trying to get in the middle of his scene. He’s a little surprised they called him out by name he can already see where this probably going if in fact this kid is the governors son.
The two men slow their pace and one of them holds up his badge.. “I’m Officer James and this is Officer Kendall. We are with the Texas Department of Safety and work on Governor Beach’s security detail. We just wanted to talk with you briefly about the situation” as Officer James nods towards the Tahoe.
Jack looks back at the car full of kids and then turns and slowly walks back towards the DPS officers.
“Officer Parsons, the driver of the car you pulled over is Governor Beach’s oldest son Brent”
“I already know that fellas”, Jack says holding up Brent’s drivers license. “And he’s hammered, underage and has 3 other kids with him, all of which appear to be minors and one of them is over there puking.
All three officers look towards the Tahoe as puker lets another stomach full go, this time painting the back tire.
“Officer Parson’s, we aren’t asking you to stop what you are doing. We heard the call come in at our station at the Governors mansion and since we are so close wanted to come by to see if we could assist”.
“No boys, I think I have everything handled. I was just getting ready to pull your boy Brett out and start sobriety testing. I’m not expecting him to pass”.
“Well, don’t let us get in your way. We just wanted to let you know that Governor Beach has been a huge supporter of law enforcement. He’s signed some recent legislation authorizing raises for Texas cops wants everyone to know that he has your back.
Jack gives a faint smile, admitting that any raise would be welcome to he and his family.
Officer James, leans in closer and lowers his voice. “In fact, we just had an opening on his detail if you happened to have any interest. The hours are better and I’m sure you already know about the pay”.
Jack smirks and thinks to himself. If he’s such a big supporter of enforcing the law why am I being bribed with a job to let his kid go? “Guys, while I’m interested in the job I need to go ahead and do mine right now. I’d appreciate it if you got back in your cars. Please tell the Governor this isn’t personal, but his kid is out here driving recklessly and could have seriously injured himself, his passengers or other innocent people on the road tonite”.
“Are you sure Office Parsons”?, one of them asks leaning in a little to close for Jacks’ comfort and with a much unfriendlier tone this time.
Jack started to think about what a raise could do for him. He and Sarah were just barely scraping by now that Austin was getting more and more expensive with all of the tech people moving in. Between her kindergarten teacher’s salary they could pay their bills but that was about it. Benji was two but they had already been talking about private schools knowing there was no way they could afford sending him to one.
Besides, was this punk kid really worth it? He’s have to do a mountain of paperwork and he was sure the kid would be bailed out within an hour or two, the charges dismissed and all of this would have been a big hassle.
Jack sighs, “If you guys take the kids home immediately and leave the car I’ll give him a pass. Tonite”.
“Appreciate it Parsons”, one of the troopers says and pats Jacks’ shoulder. If you have some time tomorrow swing by the Governors Mansion around Noon for lunch. He’d like to meet you.
Jack shakes their hands and walks back to the kids. Brent had turned the music back up and was singing obnoxiously to somer rap song as Jack approaches. . Without turning the music down he reaches his hand out the window and Brent sarcastically says “License, proof of insurance” and howls laughing.
Jack hands him both documents back, leans in the car and whispers “you’re lucky Brat. I mean Brent” Brent’s smile fades as the DPS officers come up to the car and tell them they are taking them home.
Jack gets back in his patrol car and and drives by as the troopers are pulling puker out and carrying him back to their car, with the others following slowly behind.