Chapter 32 – Heel Turn
After my alarm went off, I spent the eight minutes my snooze afforded me thinking about last night. I couldn't help but remember how distant Harris got after he'd spoken to Lassard in his office. He was totally focused on some idea in his head, and anything I asked him after that barely got a response. I wondered what he was thinking. I guess I would find out soon. He hadn't even mentioned meeting up after dismissal tonight.
When we were to meet in morning formation, I dreaded what I'd find. I could see now that Harris and Callahan were already waiting on the lawn and Harris was standing straight-backed and proud as he jutted out his chin, baton tucked under an arm. Callahan seemed to be off-put by his determination and stood a distance away, seeming to glance over at him warily.
When a couple of us cadets startled to trickle towards the two instructors, it was clear that Callahan was glowering at him. Her anger became even more apparent when the reporter vehicles predictably began showing up in the cul de sac, the reporters and their cameramen making a beeline for our barely forming squadron. At this point, the A squad cadets were all present, along with Fenster and I.
"Here they come now, day five," Callahan remarked irritably, gesturing at the cars as she strode toward Harris. "They'll never go away, as long as you keep directing their questions back to yourself. When are you gonna realize they don't care about hearing your—"
"You want me to talk about Tackleberry then?" Harris interrupted, raising his eyebrows, directly challenging her. "Fine," he said, matter-of-factly as he turned on his heel, "I will."
And with that, he strode away from the squadron, a smug grin on his face, directly toward two reporter-cameraman pairs from the most popular local news stations. The predictable question about Captain Tackleberry again came up, but this time, Harris did not turn away.
"My opinion of Captain Eugene Tackleberry," Harris said, looking amused, as he looked at each camera in turn. "Ah, it's funny you should mention that…."
I attempted to move a little closer to Harris as he spoke, but I didn't even have to—he spoke in a loud, confident voice; he was a completely different person than the man who'd spoken to Lassard last night.
"As Tackleberry's senior instructor and later as his colleague, I bore witness to many potentially alarming behaviors and tendencies of his involving impulsivity and overzealousness," Harris began, his voice strong and words seemingly rehearsed. "Frankly, he should have been removed from the academy as a cadet, but the same bureaucracy that prevents me from attaining my proper rank prevented Tackleberry from being seen as the liability he is, both to our academy and to our police force."
My jaw dropped. Harris had been so insistent that no one know his feelings on Tackleberry, but now he was sharing them, with an uncomfortable level of confidence and swagger. Had he taken some kind of drug? What the hell was going on here? Unlike yesterday, Harris said nothing kind about Tackleberry, as he'd done with Lassard. Did he have some kind of death wish? I blinked several times in the morning sun, watching the A squad guys fidget about uncomfortably. Callahan had since lowered her sunglasses and was also gaping at Harris unabashedly.
"Lieutenant Harris, what sort of bureaucracy do you mean?" the first reporter asked, Harris's grinning face illuminated in the camera's light. "Is this some sort of…. massive police conspiracy?"
"You could call it that," Harris explained. "It's the kind of bureaucracy that allows a man to retain a position of power well after the mandated age of retirement. It's the kind of bureaucracy that promotes those officers who have the right connections or the right friends," he replied quickly. "As a man with only my many years of faithful service to the Metropolitan Police Department to speak on my behalf, I am unable to rise high enough in the ranks to really take action regarding the many long-standing issues in our police force."
"Do you have any specific examples of those who've risen the ranks in this way?"
"Lieutenant Harris, do you believe that Captain Tackleberry should be disciplined?" the second reporter blurted.
"That is up to a court of law to decide," Harris said, choosing to answer the second question. "I would never try to unduly influence the judicial proc—"
"What about all the statements from his peers?" the second reporter interrupted. "All the positive statements from Captain Mahoney and Sergeant Jones, and—"
"I never let personal feelings get in the way of objectivity," Harris said. "Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for many of my colleagues. That's my statement."
"Lieutenant Harris, the police conspiracy—"
"That will be all," Harris said, shutting them down with a wave of his baton.
With that, he turned away from the reporters, to face a partially-present squadron that was collectively gaping at him, myself included.
"Did I not say, Goldberg, that there is a time and place for a statement?" Harris said, addressing the cadet who'd started the argument about Tackleberry yesterday in class. "That was it."
I could see Callahan taking a deep breath and holding it, her dark sunglasses obscuring her eyes. By the veins that stuck out in her arms and neck, though, she seemed livid.
"Lieutenant Harris, a word," she said, staring at him. "Cadets, remain here until we return. Lieutenant Harris and I have something important to discuss."
He followed her with the most shit-eating grin I'd ever seen on his face. I stood there dumbly as I sat down on the grass, unsure of what to think. Callahan and Harris strode off towards the main building and disappeared inside.
Where had this sudden stark change in Harris come from? Had it been because I'd had the commandant speak to him? Or was it because the pranks had gone overboard? Lassard would never promote him now, being as he'd directly insulted Lassard in his interview by implying he should have retired long ago. It was like I was watching him dig a hole and throw himself into it. I wondered if I'd even get to see him this weekend. I was stuck on campus without a car and he hadn't said anything about meeting up. If he was to feign this perfect cop picture, then any interaction with me would have to stop.
"Where are Callahan and Harris?" Mullers asked, when she arrived at the lawn a minute or so later.
"You missed quite the scene," Fenster remarked, hearing her question. "Lieutenant Harris just told two reporters a bunch of negative things about Captain Tackleberry, and even implied there's some kind of police conspiracy that prevents him from being promoted, or something like that."
"Oh wow," she muttered, looking at me.
"Yeah, then Callahan told him she needed to talk, and they both went in the building," I muttered, standing up as I realized I'd gotten my sweatpants wet in the damp grass.
"Oh shit!" Mullers exclaimed in an excited whisper. "I wonder if she's ever kicked his ass. You know that if they were to tussle on the gym mat, she'd win, hands down."
"True," I commented. "Who do you think will make it back alive?"
I felt my jaw drop as the single figure emerged from the main academy building. Lieutenant Harris was by himself, with Captain Callahan nowhere in sight.
He strode over to the now fully-assembled D squad, a big grin on his face, teeth on full display. In his hand he carried a bullhorn.
"I thought we could start our Friday morning with a nice stroll through the obstacle course," he said, not speaking through the bullhorn. I tried to read through his expression but it was like a veil had been draped over the almost broken man from earlier this week. In its place was the same overconfident jerk I'd first met while in the jail.
"I expect to see all your butts at the starting line in five minutes," his voice boomed, projected through the bullhorn. "Move it, move it, move it!"
As he finished speaking, a gaggle of reporters half-ran towards him. The smile still stubbornly on his face, he put his hand up and his head down, refusing to say any more. Now that he'd piqued their interest, he had an audience for the crazy claims he was making. He'd turned an incident involving a single police officer into a conspiracy involving the entire police force, a conspiracy that didn't let cops like him get ahead.
But I had heard his stories either directly or indirectly, stories in which he'd been kidnapped and held hostage and failed his undercover work multiple times. Not only that, but I'd heard his very recent testimony in the former mayor's court case about how he'd screwed up multiple times in trying to catch the Wilson Heights gang, and in fact had been leaking information about the police to the mastermind himself! He was forgetting his own failures in his assumption as to why he wasn't commandant. He had, of course, saved me from Ace and from the robber who'd tried to steal his Corvette, in addition to co-saving D squad from Connie Manson. But as long as Lassard was commandant, no one else was commandant—couldn't he see that?
But maybe, just maybe, this was a way to discredit Commandant Lassard. If he made it clear that it was the system that let Lassard keep his job and not his ability to lead, then maybe Lassard would be forced to retire as a result. I didn't know. But Harris was definitely up to some shady crap.