The Posture of Innocence, epilogue 2

The cost is tallied up by Commissioner Scott in a gray and gloomy fall, Captain Lee helps everyone deal with it and move on while doing what he needs to do, and the big winners plan their next moves ...

... But that's another story! This is the last chapter of the The Posture of Innocence, and if you have been reading along or jumped in at any point, thank you for reading! Just in case this is your first read, don't despair! Here are the prologue, day 1, day 2, day 3, day 3.5, day 4, day 4.5, day 5, day 5.5, day 6, day 7, day 7.5, day 8, day 9, day 9.5, day 10, day 10.5, day 11, day 11.5, day 12, day 12.5, day 13, day 13.5, day 14, day 15, day 16, day 16.5, day 17, day 18, day 19, day 19.5, day 20, day 20.5, day 21, day 22, day 22.5, day 23, day 23.5, day 24, day 24.5, day 25, day 25.5, day 26, day 26.5, day 27, day 27.5, day 28, day 28.5, day 29, day 29.5, day 30, day 30.5, day 31, day 31.5, day 32, day 32.5, day 33, day 33.5, day 34, day 34.5, day 35, day 35.5, day 36, day 36.5, day 37, day 37.5, day 38, day 38.5, day 39, day 39.5, day 40, day 40.5, day 41, day 41.5, day 42, day 42.5, day 43, day 44, day 44.5, day 45, day 46, day 46.33, day 46.67, day 47, day 47.5, day 48, day 48.5, day 49, day 49.5, day 50, day 50.5, day 51, day 51.5, and epilogue 1!

Captain Lee was thinking of something his younger lieutenants had not thought of in the middle of all the work … leadership positions at all levels of Big Loft's law enforcement and civil life were vacant, and young men determined to do right were gravely needed. By assigning more and more public responsibility to his lieutenants and less and less to himself, he was positioning them for all manner of promotion. If the division was going to be dissolved, and it was looking very likely, then his men were going to move up, not down.

Commissioner Scott knew what Captain Lee was doing, and concurred, knowing that the budget numbers were looking worse and worse and worse. He had been concerned about the possibility of his grandchildren having to pay some kind of reparations out to Black people, but went humbly to the Lord daily and confessed both his greed regarding the future and his lack of understanding that judgment was much nearer than he arrogantly assumed it was, and was not going to be avoided. The check was going to have to be cut by his generation in Big Loft, not his grandchildren's – the crush of lawsuits against Big Loft in both its public and private aspects went above bankruptcy numbers for the city a mere week after the Ridgeline Fire.

The only saving graces for the police department were that it was an essential city service, and that Commissioner Scott had followed the example of Captain Ironwood Hamilton in Tinyville – he had decided to come clean, and thus had allowed Captain Lee that press conference. Inevitably, there would have to be “reconstruction” for the entire department … but what is reconstructed is meant to survive.

Other institutions would not necessarily have so kind a fate – the bank runs and small stock panics had already started in several financial institutions, and thus Big Loft's economy in total, already greatly burdened by the massive fire and the lawsuits, wobbled as the brightness of summer faded into a gray, gloomy fall … the lingering smoke and the fall fogs and the regular pollution left a kind of smog over the city and the taste of ash both literally and figuratively in the city's mouth.

And there the matter sat on the first day there was suddenly nothing extra to do – a regular week of work, and the cold case division came down into the smog like everyone else, that middle week of October. Captain Lee locked the last of three file cabinets regarding the Soames matter and all its aftermath, and that was that.

But nothing was settled. Jetson Black's prediction about the haughty women who disdained his Black manhood came to pass, for those women and a lot of haughty men as well: now that the news was totally out, the department's survivors had to deal with how their colleagues – not the local Black people, not the local immigrants, not the few remaining Natives, not the “liberal” media – but how their colleagues had destroyed their chances at a certain future. On one hand, BLPD had come clean and that helped, and it also helped that the Lofton County Free Voice, having flushed out its biggest targets, had also let BLPD breathe for a little while. Some improvement … but never in history had an organization so powerful had to make do with so little. That much work. That much humiliation, just to survive.

Leave it to Lieutenant Anderson, who had been with Captain Lee at the first breaking of the Soames case, to come with the question …

“Well, where is our happy ending?” he said one day about 20 minutes before the end of the workday. “We broke this 25-year-old travesty of justice wide open, got Mrs. Tallie Mae and Mr. Tom Jones and their family justice, opened the door to clean out the department and give Commissioner Scott the room to get it right, cleaned out the corruption that funded all that corruption, and have been running here, there, and everywhere making sure it all sticks. And what do we have? None of us may even have a job next year! Where is our happy ending?”

Captain Lee cherished deep paternal love for every young man who was under his divisional leadership, but each of them occupied a certain spot in his heart. Lieutenant Anderson was his “Son of Thunder,” passionate and earnest and always real, and unafraid to run all of that up against his marble-model commander. If his mind thought it, he said it, and although he was often startled by Captain Lee's calm answers, he greatly appreciated the mature perspective Captain Lee gave him.

“To your question, a question: were we owed a happy ending for doing what it has always been our duty to do?” he asked mildly.

Lieutenant Anderson jumped slightly.

“Never even thought about that, sir, ever. You're right.”

“Let me go one step further, Lieutenant. There are people in Lofton County who have reason to celebrate today – but do you know how long their ancestors' only reward for being forced to build this state and this nation was just to survive?”

“Oh, wow, Captain Lee, I certainly never thought of that.”

“Finally, Lieutenant, have we reached an ending? I was under the distinct impression we were alive, and if not, who is exchanging all these questions?”

Lieutenant Anderson cracked up laughing.

“Good point, Captain.”

“Stories end, Lieutenant, but we're not done. That is our reward – to live on, be free, and do more good, a grace withdrawn from many, many people around this case. As for the other part, it is simply our turn to have the taste of ash in our mouths as we go on. It is our turn, Lieutenant. After 400 years of passing that turn to others, we still have come out far ahead of what we deserve.”

Lieutenant Anderson thought about this for several minutes.

“You know,” he said after a little while, “it makes sense. It ain't no fun, but it makes sense.”

“We can't have fun here every day,” Captain Lee said, with a trace of a smile. “We do try to make sure it is true, and that it makes sense.”

“Thank you, sir,” Lieutenant Anderson said. “I really appreciate it.”

He stood to attention.

“Was there any other task required for today? I have filed my report on the Harris case.”

“I have reviewed it – excellent. Call it a night, Lieutenant. Dismissed; see you tomorrow.”

Lieutenant Anderson was actually the last to go; after that, Captain Lee closed down the office and went up to find his sunshine … .

Maggie Thornton, at 4:50pm, was working just as hard as she would at 9:05am … this was one of the things Captain Lee loved about her. He stood and silently observed for a little while before coming through the office on his way to present his final report to the commissioner, and covered her with the approval of his smile as he passed by.

Commissioner Scott was waiting on the report, and marveled at the size of it.

“648 cases, solved out of breaking the Soames case, condensed to the size of a regular-sized paperback,” he said. “Quite a feat, Captain Lee – I mean, the condensing.”

“We've lived through it,” Captain Lee said. “No need to belabor it.”

“Was it really that simple – I mean, you had the rest once you had Officer Cadbury?”

“It was once we had both Officer Cadbury and Captain Calvert. Everything else was just filling in the blanks in terms of all those murders. The challenge was in finding out who was funding all of that, and clearing away my own misconceptions. Mrs. Lancaster outright told me it was Mr. Francis Lofton who kept it going, and I received further information showing the hidden hands. The only real mystery, in the end, was exactly how it was going to play out – and of course we were all unpleasantly surprised.”

“Indeed,” Commissioner Scott said. “Who would have imagined Bruce Deadwood had that great fire in him?”

“People who do,” Captain Lee said, his face perfectly straight, “are more common around us than you think.”

“Oh, I know,” Commissioner Scott said. “That term Mr. Black uses: the posture of innocence – the posture of innocence also allows us the supposition of safety in the midst of a country steeped in violence. I guess we all learned the lesson other communities had to know before now. I feel personally ill about the Ridgeline Fire, though, because that same Blue Ridge Station that could turn out men to beat down some Black art students never laid a glove on Bruce Deadwood or provided any significant help. They were barely able to assist with the evacuation from Cedar Court downward – I've got streaming footage of some old woman directing traffic and keeping people moving more effectively.”

Captain Lee jumped slightly.

“Do you have it with you, Commissioner?”

“Yes, here on my phone.”

Captain Lee looked, and then smiled from relief. There, with the fire at her back, was Mrs. Selene Slocum-Lofton, in charge of the evacuation of her own family and everyone else's, from Cedar Court downward. The survivor had survived, and had helped a bunch of others too – there went Cousin Alexis and the rest, and the Lancasters, and a bunch of other people … .

“That's a queen of a woman, now, don't get me wrong,” Commissioner Scott said, “and you know, the city is putting her up for an award.”

Captain Lee stifled his response – it was too complex.

“But you know, if Black men and old White women are just coming through and showing up whole stations, where does that leave us?” Commissioner Scott said.

“I prefer to think,” Captain Lee said, as he quietly thanked God that his grandmother had survived, “that when we get ourselves together, look at the help God already has in place.”

Commissioner Scott guffawed.

“Spoken like an old master of your family name that I won't mention!”

“Who left to his descendants the reality that the first mastery necessary, and post-1865, the only one necessary, is mastery of self.”

Mrs. Thornton came in.

“I want to laugh! It's 5:01 and I can do that now!”

She had granted her own wish, for the commissioner and the captain laughed and so did she.

“I think Captain Lee was just talking about you,” the commissioner teased.

“Oh?”

Captain Lee rolled with it, effortlessly.

“When men decide that they are going to do right in their sphere of influence, God kindly provides the help that they need – for the commissioner, that is certainly you, and others will follow that example and get themselves all the way together.”

Commissioner Scott shook his head with a smile.

“I see you got yourself out of that one,” he said.

Captain Lee bowed, with a gleam in his eye.

“Our family has been known for its escape artists,” he said, “since appearing and disappearing from your home state of Maryland, and your hometown, Antietam, in 1862.”

Commissioner Scott went through five different states of mind – confusion, comprehension, disbelief, real comprehension, and disbelief again before bursting out, “I just made one little crack at a Lee joke, one little one, and you come back with that?”

Mrs. Thornton almost fell over, screaming.

“Man, you're in Virginia, on his ground, and your name ain't Grant – why did you even open the door on yourself like that?”

There she was, tears coming out of her eyes, laughing, and that was too much for the commissioner, who started laughing, whereupon Virginia's resident Lee escape artist said “Good night, Commissioner, and Ms. Thornton,” and safely retreated from the scene.

Captain Lee had kept up his new protocols to maintain his well-being – his support group Mondays, therapy Thursdays, walking, music, and visiting family and friends on the weekends – and so went the long way home, making a three-mile walk before returning to his apartment to get the phone call he expected.

“So,” said the more serious but loving voice of Maggie Thornton at home, “tell me what you did to care for yourself this evening, Harry, beside letting our boss from Maryland know not to pick on you.”

“I took a long walk, and you'll find some chinquapins I picked outside your door for you and Margie to share as proof that I provide sustenance as well as entertainment … .”

Also at home, on the phone on a three-way call, were Mr. James Varick IV, Mr. Thomas Stepforth Sr., and Mr. Harvey Harrison, of the Lofton County Free Voice.

“I think we have at last reached the end of all the stuff from the Soames matter directly,” Mr. Varick said. “That space can be better given to exoneration stories, and really digging into the history of the nine financial institutions that have now been exposed.”

“Agreed,” Mr. Harrison said. “I also think it is time that we as a publication begin putting forward a direction on where we think all the money that is going to move around needs to go for us as a people to keep this advance going.”

“Agreed,” said Mr. Varick. “You had some news on that, Thomas?”

“Yes; I spoke with Mr. Black and he connected me with Victor Morton of Morton Technologies – the Morton family is Lofton County native – and also F.J. Lofton IV and Salem Slocum IV of the Black Loftons and Slocums in the DMV area. They are all interested in starting a Black bank right here in Lofton County.”

“Sounds intriguing – not precisely a news affair yet, but, provided all ducks get in a row, it'll make good news at the proper time,” Mr. Varick said. “In the meantime, what we want to emphasize is discipline – the kind of discipline we had that gave us the power to get civil rights, but have put down since. With economic discipline will come opportunity for us as a community, even with the heavy opposition we are now going to get because now millions and billions in cash money is going to move.”

“Better get pointing in the right direction now, before it gets hotter than the Ridgeline Fire,” Mr. Harrison said. “Time to start with Phase 2.”

“Right,” said Mr. Stepforth. “Phase 1 is almost done.”

“The sheriff's department is still going to be a problem,” Mr. Varick said.

“Maybe,” Mr. Stepforth said. “Maybe not. All we need on Sheriff Nottingham is just the right moment. He will slip at some point. He is devilishly smart, and so is old Angler in Shortport … but eventually, they will slip. The evidence is too great – have you not collected it all, all these years? Be encouraged, gentlemen. We are now in position. They are all too compromised to stand much longer, and when they slip, we'll be ready.”