The Chef - James Patterson Page 0,3
won’t be the same man who came in.
Which both frightens and exhilarates me.
Chapter 3
TYPICALLY, THE NOPD Use of Force Review Board hearings are handled internally on the third floor, inside a stuffy conference room furnished with a beat-up oval table and a bunch of uncomfortable chairs. I know this because over the course of my fourteen-year career with the department, I’ve testified in three such proceedings on behalf of fellow cops.
But in this, my fourth appearance before the Board, I’m the focus.
Not a great feeling.
Usually the hearings are kept confidential and closed to the public, except in cases where the department is looking to make an example of someone and try and look good to the public.
Like this one.
I’m kept waiting for nearly twenty minutes in the hallway outside the spacious ground-floor briefing room co-opted for today’s event. The uniformed officer acting as the hearing’s sergeant-at-arms—a kid barely out of the academy, with a face so pink and boyish I bet he gets carded at R-rated movies—tells me the committee must first address some “administrative matters.”
“Sounds like a bullshit excuse,” he adds under his breath. He’s clearly trying to buddy up to me, gain some macho props. “This whole thing’s bullshit, if you want the truth, Rooney. Everybody knows it, too. Your shot was cleaner than a nun’s ass.”
I pity-chuckle at the officer’s attempt at humor, but smile with genuine thanks for the support. I couldn’t agree with this kid more. Every police shooting should be investigated thoroughly, but what the department’s making me go through is ridiculous. It’s all politics. Pure PR.
But that’s the job. Sometimes it’s your turn to be “made an example of,” and my number just came up.
It pisses me off so much that some nights I can’t sleep, just replaying the events over and over again in my mind: the chase, the gunshot, the aftermath.
Each time I think it through, I know I made the right choice.
But facts aren’t going to matter today.
Appearances will.
Finally, the young officer opens the door to the briefing room and I walk in. Five NOPD brass are seated behind a polished wooden table up at the front. They range in rank from lieutenant to the big cheese, Deputy Superintendent of Field Operations Charles Bossett, a burly African-American man whose mere presence projects authority.
About two dozen people are crammed into the gallery. As I take my seat by myself at a separate table, I give the crowd a scan. It’s a mix of spectators, reporters, a few department colleagues and police union reps, as well as the friends and family of the late Larry Grant.
His death last month by my use of a department-issued sidearm—which is currently being kept inside a locked steel cage deep in this building’s evidence room, alongside my silver badge—is why we’re all here today.
“For the record,” Deputy Superintendent Bossett begins with a stern voice, “Detective Caleb James Rooney has joined the proceedings.”
“Good afternoon,” I respond with a respectful nod.
Bossett continues. “We now return to the matter of the detective’s use of lethal force in the line of duty against Lawrence Christopher Grant, age twenty-nine, at approximately 11:43 p.m. on the night of January 10, 2018—an episode, we are all aware, that has been the subject of ample media coverage, both local and national.”
No shit, I think. That’s why the department is making such a big spectacle out of this. Not because of the facts of the shooting, which was about as by-the-book as could be. But to try to regain some shred of public respect after all the negative press over the past years.
Grant had been on my radar for a couple months. He was a mid-level Franklin Avenue Soldier and well-known drug dealer. But he was also a devoted husband who coached his little cousin’s youth basketball team and took night classes at nearby Delgado Community College. Not exactly your typical criminal lowlife.
And I’m not exactly your typical police, either. Just try to find another major crimes detective anywhere in the country who moonlights as an award-winning chef and runs a popular food truck in his spare time.
The blogs and papers had a field day with that. The story spread far and wide. The headlines practically wrote themselves. KILLER CHEF TURNS KILLER COP. NOPD IN BOILING WATER AFTER FOODIE FLATFOOT FIRES FIRST. PUBLIC TO CITY: ‘COOKING COP MUST FRY.’
I’ve never tried to keep my double life hidden from anybody. Not from the community, not from my superiors. Killer Chef even catered the policemen’s ball three