Chapter 67: Good Cop, Bad Cop

Thursday, December 19, 1985

I got up a bit late, then spent the morning dealing with presents. After wrapping the presents I already had, I went shopping and found a cookbook I thought Mom would like and a travel book about Scotland for Dad. I was nearly certain they had neither book.

I had less luck with Camille and Francis. Maybe Jas and I could band together.

Cammie got home around noon. We had lunch together, mostly talking about the meeting, and then headed over to the CSPD office. Ken was waiting when we got there, and we found a quiet place to talk. This wasn’t a particularly confidential discussion, and I wasn’t worried about anyone overhearing us.

Mostly, he wanted to know how we wanted to play it. Cammie and I agreed: we wanted a cessation of any police-connected harassment whatsoever, including from children of officers. We wanted an apology, and that needed to be in writing and something we had in case things went south later. All records (arrest, toxicology screen, and so forth) needed to be completely expunged, but we wanted copies of them just in case.

On the other hand, we didn’t want to crucify Chief Palko — not even close. We didn’t even particularly want to crucify the officers. If the Chief wanted to, that was his business. We just wanted them off of our backs permanently.

We added that any concessions we could get from the City of College Station as a whole were good. They would likely be informal and nothing we could get in writing, but we were doing them a favor by not dragging their police department into court and making a public scandal out of this. Making it public would be a scandal, too. I knew how to play the media well enough to know we could get this on the news. Once one station had it, it would spread. We wouldn’t threaten that, but it could be implied, if necessary.

Money wasn’t an objective. We wanted some on the table, but that was to prove they were serious. Anything without a reasonable dollar figure wasn’t a serious offer, just an attempt to placate some college kids. We were better than that, and Chief Palko had already confirmed that he knew it.

We didn’t tell Ken we would probably make sure the money wound up back in Chief Palko’s hands. Ken would get paid, and that was all that really mattered. It would make more of an impression on both the Chief and his bosses that we would forgo cash to make a point.

Since he was our attorney, and covered by attorney-client privilege, we mentioned Camel and the resulting reasons for not upsetting the city. That seemed to impress Ken and shift his thinking a bit. We now had something else to gain (or, potentially, to lose, if the city got pissed off at us). He saw the obvious: a smooth working relationship between the city and Camel might pay dividends for years. A city pissed at us might make life unbearable and could quickly eat up the settlement money.

When we went in, the receptionist seemed to recognize us immediately. That was a good sign. She greeted us by name, then asked us to follow her to the Chief’s office.

Chief Palko himself turned out to be in his late 30s or early 40s. Slightly thinning hair, tall, in good shape, and his bearing said ‘police,’ ‘ex-military,’ or both.

He had a firm handshake with me — but not too firm — and was very cordial with Cammie.

We started off with Ken, Cammie, myself, Chief Palko, and a guy named Harry Penders who was apparently a ‘Special Assistant to the Mayor.’ Probably the sort of guy you call on when the shit has hit the fan and you need damage control. In other words, the mayor’s ‘fixer.’

Chief Palko led off, saying, “As I said to Steve on the phone, we want to apologize clearly and directly to you, Miss Clarke, and also to Steve. We need to make this right, and I’m going to make certain we do.”

Cammie smiled and said, “You can call me Cammie. We’re really not much on formality most of the time. Look ... this isn’t entirely a surprise. Oh, I wasn’t looking askance at the police until fairly recently, but there were several incidents down where we’re from with the local police. My parents know some officers there. Even if they didn’t put anyone up to it — and I’m not saying they did — word travels and people get hotheaded. It bothers me that it got here, but we acknowledge that you had no way to know until this all blew up.”

Chief Palko smiled and said, “Thank you, Cammie, Ma’am. Sorry, but I was raised to be polite.”

Everyone smiled at that.

He continued, saying, “I’m still investigating what happened, but it’s clear that there were serious failures along the way. This does give me the advantage of being able to point to a real-life example and say, ‘Sooner or later you are going to make a mistake, and when you do, it’s not going to go well for you at all.’”

Cammie nodded.

“That makes sense, and sounds like what we wanted to hear.”

Harry spoke up, saying, “Let me just ask. Do your parents own the house you’re living in?”

It was Cammie’s and my turn to exchange looks. I’m pretty sure she wanted to know what I thought we should say, and I wanted her to decide. It wasn’t Camel’s house, but she was the real estate queen.

Ken interrupted and said, “Let’s confer for a second.”

Cammie and I whispered to each other, and I made it clear she could say whatever she wanted. They clearly knew something. In hindsight, it was pretty obvious why they would.

Cammie took it, once we got going. She smiled and said, “No.”

Harry frowned, and said, “It’s owned by an ‘MNMS, LLC’ the initials of which...”

Cammie said, “Can we agree this part of the discussion is confidential? Not leaving this room, that sort of thing?”

Harry and Bob looked at each other, and Bob said, “Unless there’s a crime...”

“No crime,” she said, grinning. “Plus, you are the Chief of Police. Mentioning a crime...”

She shrugged, then added, “I mean, we’re trying not to get harassed by the police.”

She said it lightly enough that everyone laughed, rather than it sounding like the rebuke it could have been.

Harry said, “We agree. It’s a well-anonymized LLC, and we’ll respect your wanting to keep things private. That, or whatever else, unless — as Bob said — something against the law turns up.”

Ken said, “I’m not going to suggest getting that in writing, because we would be here all day, but I will say I’m a witness to the agreement, and no one wants things to be more crosswise, I don’t think.”

Harry said, “We’ll definitely keep a lid on it. That’s a promise.”

“You’ve got my word on that,” Chief Palko added.

Cammie nodded, smiled again, and said, “Thanks. So ... that’s correct, about the initials. But our parents don’t own it. The perhaps not subtly enough named LLC started by my housemate here owns it.”

“Guilty,” I said, chuckling just a bit.

Cammie said, “Before you ask, or think that’s a dodge, Steve owns the LLC outright, and none of the money was gifted by parents.”

“Technically, that’s not true,” I said. “Maybe as much as $2,000 of it came from Christmas gifts and the like. Maybe.”

Cammie chuckled and said, “Fair enough.”

Harry said, “How...?”

Then he stopped, pondered, and said, “Don’t answer that. Just in case.”

Bob chuckled and said, “I’m fairly certain they’re not bank robbers. Just at a guess.”

“Not so far,” I said. “Some things happened. I got a nice settlement from a drunk driver who crashed into my car, my sister inherited a fair bit from her father...”

They looked at each other. I could see the potential confusion.

“My sister is also my cousin. After my uncle — her father — passed away, my parents adopted her.”

“‘My sister is also my cousin’ sounds like a Mississippi joke,” Bob said, chuckling.

“It does!” Harry agreed.

We chuckled, too. It really did.

“Anyway ... we decided having a house here would be much better than dealing with the dorms, both because we already had long-term romantic relationships and because two of those were same-sex,” I said.

“Not that we knew about the house until later,” Cammie said.

“You’re right, though,” I said. “The LLC name is a poor choice. We just wanted to keep it from being dreadfully obvious when you look at the title records.”

“It wouldn’t be obvious if I didn’t know all four names,” Harry said. “We’ve done our homework, obviously, though you still had a big surprise there. But ... suffice it to say, you’re not the usual college students. Steve, you’ve been in the newspapers and on television multiple times. Both of you are national champion debaters and high achievers overall. And ... it goes on. Even if you were the typical students, we would be taking this seriously. Under the circumstances, that’s even more true. We’re aware of how this would look if it got in the news.”

Cammie snorted a bit and said, “You think? ‘College Station Police Department harasses girl; connection to her parents, who she has a restraining order against; misuse of police resources, false arrest... ‘“

Harry paled, but only slightly, I think because Cammie’s tone wasn’t threatening.

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Harry said. “Both that it would look terrible — because it is terrible — and also because you would know what to say and who to say it to.”

Cammie just nodded.

I took over (Were we playing ‘good cop, bad cop’ here? With the actual police?) and said, “So, what are we looking at, gentlemen?”

Chief Palko and Harry looked at each other. The Chief apparently lost, because he said, “We’re working on compensation, which we intend to be generous. Half of the council is either on vacation now or will be within two days, so we can’t get anything done all that quickly. In the meantime, the department will clamp down on everything. I’m not offering to fix your tickets, now or in the future. It’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card. But anything involving you, your housemates, or anyone at your address, or who we know to be connected to your address, runs through me. Get a traffic ticket, I sign off before it goes to municipal court. If you speed, you speed. If someone claims you were speeding and I don’t see appropriately detailed information to back that up, it’s not getting to court. Ditto traffic tickets, especially nonsense like failure to stop claims from someone two blocks behind you. Or parking tickets that require tenths-of-an-inch measurements.”

“That sounds entirely fair,” I said. “You can’t offer us carte blanche, and I would be worried if you did. That’s not a well-run department either.”

He nodded.

“So, that, plus compensation, and obviously the arrest record needs to go, too. The right way, expunged by a judge, with a paper trail. We’re ready to file for that. Our guy just needs to talk to Ken here to dot some i’s and cross some t’s. You’ll get copies of everything, mind you. You’ll be able to prove it happened if you need to. Because, if you need to, I’ve probably blown it and it won’t be me you’re talking to. But no one else is getting those records, and you’ll have copies that show any arrest was made in error if anyone somehow gets them. I know how these things go. We’re not having any gotchas where, a decade later, some piece of paper pops out and you need to explain it. We know that could be a problem for either of you.”

Cammie and I looked at each other, then Ken, and all three of us nodded. That had been a big one, and it was nice to hear them address it forthrightly.

“We’re also working with a couple of departments down where you’re from, just making sure they’re aware that their officers talked to our officers and got the ball rolling on some bad stuff.”

“That sounds good,” Cammie said. “I’ve been worried about friends of ours getting harassed down there. The others’ parents, say. We don’t have published addresses, so we’re harder to find here — though obviously that didn’t work — but my parents aren’t the only source of trouble going on.”

Chief Palko nodded, and said, “Mark Frederick passed some of that along. Figures; people who get in the press get that sort of thing. We should be on your side for that, not the ones making trouble. Not that we can do anything, but at least you should know that, if you call the police, they’ll help, not make things worse.”

“We’re pretty sure no one has our address but the people connected through Cammie’s parents, at least,” I said. “Now that we know ... I think we know, anyway ... where the graffiti was coming from...”

Chief Palko sighed. “It’ll be in the settlement. Not specifically, but ... well, there are privacy reasons that force me to be vague. We know who it was, and it has been strongly impressed on him that he’s put his future, both in sports and in life, in jeopardy and he needs to clean up his act. We could file charges, send him to juvie, that sort of thing. I would rather not, but...”

Cammie shook her head, and said, “He’s a dumb kid. He cost us some paint and some worry. It’s not worth screwing up his life if he cleans up his act. The thing is ... um ... if he gets sent to juvie, I worry that he’ll just decide ‘gay people ruined my life!’ He might anyway, but that’s on him. And, I mean, if he does, he’s wrong, but I’d much rather he thinks, ‘Gee, these people aren’t as awful as I thought they were. Maybe I screwed up,’ and that’s not going to happen if we get vindictive.”

Bob and Harry exchanged another look, then nodded.

“Thanks, Ma’am.” Bob said. “Cammie, rather. We appreciate it.”

Harry took over, saying, “As a city, we’re also going to express our sympathies. You own property here. We want to be a good city for people to own property in. If anything goes wrong, we’ll help settle things down.”

Cammie jumped in and said, “Does that apply to all properties we might own?”

“I ... certainly think so...” Harry said, cautiously.

“My girlfriend and I have an LLC — Camel — that currently owns — well, they’re mortgaged — three rental properties in College Station,” she said. “So that’s definitely of interest to us.”

The two of them looked at each other, clearly a bit nonplussed. After a second, Bob chuckled softly and said, “This ... kinda does point out how important it is to head this whole thing off. You’re investing in the community and I’ve got officers treating you like criminals. That’s not how this is supposed to work!”

“I’ll admit, I was wondering why your lawyer in Houston was on the corporate end of things,” Harry said. “That whole thing makes a lot more sense now.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” I said. “Anyway, both MNMS and Camel are keep-it-under-your-hats things, like we said. We want to surprise our parents by how well we’ve done later, not make them worry about losing our shirts in real estate now. And ... I mean, let’s face it. They’re still paying mortgages and we — I, but I think about it as ‘we’ — own one house outright. It’s going to be an interesting conversation, one I would much rather pick the time for.”

Bob chuckled and nodded.

“Your secret is our secret in this case.”

“Definitely,” Harry said. “We’re trying to mend fences, not blow them up!”

That got another laugh from all of us.

“So, yes,” Harry said. “We’ll be aware of Camel — that’s right?”

“It’s Cammie and Melanie, combined,” Cammie said.

“Clever! Also not entirely secret, but...”

“Camel is intended to last for decades,” Cammie said. “MNMS was something Steve thought of on the fly while filling out paperwork, I think.”

“Pretty much that,” I said. “And it followed MnM, which was just Angie and me.”

“MNMSCR would be ridiculous, before you try it,” Cammie said.

“Oh, we’ll move on. I’m only even trying to hide things until maybe a bit before graduation,” I said.

Harry chuckled, then said, “We’ll be aware of Camel and act accordingly. Just like Bob said: we can’t give you carte blanche. If there’s a safety issue, it’s a safety issue. But permitting, compliance, all of that ... we’ll make sure no one is causing unnecessary problems, just like Bob is making sure any grief you get from the police department is directly related to your own actions.”

“And I expect the sum total of that will be ‘zero,’” Bob said. “Can’t find a thing to complain about in your history, here or what’s public in Houston. You’re not looking for trouble, and we’re not looking for it, either. That’s kinda the whole point of this thing.”

“Definitely,” Cammie said. “Like Steve said, offering carte blanche is a red flag, but we’ll certainly agree that the fewer things we need to deal with that aren’t real problems, the better. We don’t have any immediate expansion plans, but we’re certainly not planning to stop at three rental properties. Hopefully, we’ll be good neighbors with the city for a long time, well past graduation.”

“Are we all good with waiting until you return from wherever you’re going during Winter Break? Assuming you are going, what with a house here?” Harry said.

“They’ve got Al Cooper house-sitting,” Bob reminded Harry. “That’s partly why it’s so easy to fix this. It’s much easier to come down like a ton of bricks on the knuckleheads who pulled this stunt when I’ve got a highly trustworthy witness and a recording. And totally clean tox screens, and ... yeah.”

“Oh, right. I guess I knew that,” Harry said.

“We’re fine,” I said. “I think Cammie and Mel will be back first...”

“We will,” she said. “Probably somewhere in the first full week of January.”

“I wouldn’t bank on the four of us — Jasmine, Angie, Paige, or me — being back until the 13th or so,” I said. “Might be a few days earlier, but that’s a Monday and the weekend days won’t help you much.”

“I do envy you the college vacation schedule,” Bob said, chuckling. “But not the tests. Hated the tests!”

“So, yes,” I said. “It sounds very much like we have an agreement in principle, pretty much. Obviously, we’ll want to see the numbers, but everything you’ve said sounds good, and I think we’re at the offer and counteroffer phase, at most, not the ‘nope, we’ll see you in court’ phase. Having this blow up makes everyone’s life worse in a big way.”