Crystal Meth Cowboys by John Knoerle Read Free Book Online Page A

0800 one week to the day from the fatal shoot and were told by a smiling PsychoSarge to report across the plaza to the City Administration Building, Room #100, they knew who that final member would be.
    Wes Lyedecker thought Mayor Lester T. Krumrie's office looked more like a den, with golf trophies on the shelves of the pressed oak bookcase and framed photos of the Mayor in garish golf outfits doing the grip-and-grin with retired athletes on the eighteenth hole. The Mayor's clear acrylic desk wasn't wide enough to accomodate all three members of the Board, so Chief Sunomoka and CJ the narc, a gaunt acne-pocked man with long orange-rinsed hair, sat angled in at the corners. Bell and Lyedecker sat facing them.
    The Chief looked to the Mayor, who was studying copies of the reports in Bell's jacket. Wes couldn't remember ever seeing a bald politician before. All the pols in Massachusetts had serious hair. And why did they call him 'Boss Hogg'? He wasn't fat. Perhaps it was the slight upturn to his nose that let you see up his nostrils.
    Boss Hogg raised his head from the reports. Though he never looked, he seemed to know that the Chief was waiting for him. The Mayor rapped his knuckles softly on the desk. "Quite an impressive record," he said. "Quite an impressive record." Mayor Krumrie laid his hands flat on the desk. One was suntanned, one was pale. Wes wondered why.
    The Mayor picked up a copy of form 5683-F and studied the first page. He turned to the Narrative Supplement. Wes studied the pale hand and saw a tan line at the wrist. Ah. Golf glove. "Officer Bell, in your report you say that Mr. Bjornstedt was unarmed."
    "Initially. Yes, sir."
    The Mayor turned a page. The Chief and CJ did likewise. "You say he, Mr. Bjornstedt, took Officer Lyedecker's gun." Boss Hogg looked up, showing his nostrils.
    "Yes, sir."
    Wes held his breath. The Mayor was going to ask if the naked man had ever proffered the weapon. Bell had insisted on 'the subject
raised
the weapon' in the Narrative Supplement, neglecting to mention that the subject had raised the weapon all the way to the ceiling. This was going to be the key question, Wes felt sure.
    "Yet the subject never fired that gun. Is that correct?"
    "Yes, sir," said Bell through his teeth.
    The Mayor tapped his pen on the last page of the Narrative Supplement. "Yet you fired three two-shot blasts…at extended intervals."
    "The intervals were very brief, sir."
    Boss Hogg fished around amongst the sheaves of papers splayed out in front of him. He found the affadavit he was looking for and held it up for Bell to see. "Well, according to a guest in a nearby room at the Coach House…" The Mayor read from the affadavit. "'There were two gunshots. Then a long pause, some yelling and two moregunshots…Another long pause, no yelling. Then two final gunshots.'" The Mayor lowered the affadavit to his desk and waited for an explanation.
    Bell worked a piece of grit from his eye. He didn't get it. Boss Hogg was a gold-plated card-carrying asshole, everyone knew that. But he liked to portay himself as pro-police. Why was he doing this with an election just around the corner?
    Wes felt both relieved and guilt-stricken. The Mayor had apparently assumed that 'raised' the weapon meant 'pointed' the weapon. If the gun were aimed at Bell then the intervals between shots hardly mattered. Their lie of omission on the Narrative Supplement had worked.
    "Mr. Mayor,
sir
," said Bell, folding his hands in his lap to keep himself from wagging his finger at the Napoleonic little prick. "I could have squeezed off six rounds in quick succession. I did not. The
reason
I did not is that, in a small, enclosed space, my partner close to the line of fire, an adjoining motel room next door, I wanted to neutralize the threat to our lives with the smallest possible expenditure of rounds." Bell ached to tell the famous story of the accidentally discharged pistol round that exited the wall of a house, shattered a