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house…
    Yeah, right. Couldn’t sell a house that
quick. Have to sell it from—wherever. And even then, he had only 14
years in it, on a 30-year mortgage.
    Had to be a way out, Hicks told
himself…spotting a gray cloud through the windshield. He watched it
creep across the sky, its shadow passing over the old tree.
    And he was again captivated by the bare
branches that stirred in the January wind. Like the gnarled fingers
of a decayed hand reaching from out of the grave. His boy, come
alive in the earth, suffocating, struggling desperately for his
freedom.
    Jefferson, Hicks lamented.
    Freedom, he thought.
    Money…

Chapter 13
    Captain Harold Davis sat at his desk
studying the report filed by Officers Doyle and Diaz. What they had
seen last night when they came upon Lieutenant Hicks beating the
19-year-old Earl Sinclair. And then their interview with the night
clerk at the convenience store.
    The Captain’s eyes dropped to his stomach.
Hardly able to get his uniform buttoned he would have to order some
new ones.
    “Sorry, what was that?” the Captain said,
raising his eyes.
    Inspector General Carol Cole sat in the
leather chair at a corner of the desk. On her lap lay a copy of the
patrolmen’s report. In her hands a history file on Lieutenant
Hicks.
    She said, “I was just asking the Lieutenant
about race relations here at Harbor Division.”
    Hicks was at the other corner of the desk,
in a straight-back chair that made him look all the bigger. Tim
Burns, he thought, says the inspector general is a woman but leaves
out she’s black. Color-blind fool, Hicks smiled inwardly; or maybe
Burns didn’t know the color part, he thought. Hicks wondering then
if he’d get some sympathy out of her, figuring the color card ought
to be in his favor.
    Captain Davis was doing his own wondering.
“What’s race relations got to do with it?” he asked Carol Cole.
    “Maybe nothing,” she said. “The Lieutenant
is the only African-American under your command. Might add to the
pressure of the job. Vis-a-vis his unorthodox behavior last
night.”
    Visa-a-what? the Captain asked himself. Got
myself one smart-ass black bitch here. “No, no, we don’t have that
sort of problem,” he said.
    Yeah, right, Hicks thought.
    Captain Davis clasped his plump hands on the
desk. “Okay now, let’s get on with the real problem.”
    “Yes, let’s do,” Carol Cole answered with a
look at Hicks. “The loss of your son and the divorce that followed?
Your file indicates you had no department counseling at the time.
You didn’t feel you needed any?”
    “No, ma’am, not back then,” the Lieutenant
said softly, appearing sorrowful, eyes lowered to the floor.
“Looking back over last night, I should’a gotten help.
Yeah…should’a.”
    This is it, Hicks thought. Like Burns said,
gotta use it. “I saw the Sinclair kid as my son. Saw my boy in him
an’ wanted to teach him a lesson. Beat some sense into him. Save
him from…”
    Hicks lifted his eyes to Carol Cole and felt
the moisture in them. Damn, real tears. And why shouldn’t they be;
his boy, Jefferson, gone forever.
    Carol Cole cleared her throat and said,
“Would you be willing to see someone at Psych Services?”
    “Sure ‘nough would,” Hicks nodded.
    Captain Davis thinking the bitch is on
Hicks’ side. What a fucked-up show this is. “Okay,” he said, “he
sees a head doctor, then what?”
    The inspector general shifted in the leather
chair. “All right,” she said, facing the Captain directly. “On
Monday morning the Lieutenant will meet with the city attorney.”
Adding with a glance toward Hicks, “I’ll be there with you.” Then
back to the Captain, “On Tuesday morning he’ll meet with Internal
Affairs. Which means you may keep him on until they make their
decision, and that should come on Thursday.”
    Shifting her weight back toward Hicks she
said, “Tomorrow is Saturday. We have a psychiatrist at Psych
Services who puts in a half day. How is eleven