The Greatest Good Read online

  Copyright © 2018 by Craig N. Hooper

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  www.craignhooper.com

  Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Book Layout © 2017 BookDesignTemplates.com

  The Greatest Good/ Craig N. Hooper. – 2nd ed.

  For Janine

  To seek the highest good is to live well.

  ―st. augustine

  Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 1

  I lied to the police and was arrested at ten minutes to eight on an otherwise fine and sunny Southern California morning.

  I was sitting on a cold metal chair in a holding room at the Long Beach Police Department. Of course, I wasn’t arrested for lying, but the lie did lead to my current predicament. In my defense, I had two decent reasons to lie: one personal and the other professional. Right now the cops were hopefully speaking with my boss to verify my professional reason for lying. My personal reason was too painful to think about.

  My left foot tapped the concrete floor. Aside from the humming of the air conditioner, it was the only sound in the room. I glanced at my watch and sighed.

  Just as I spun the watch face around so I couldn’t see it, the holding room door screeched open and a plain clothes cop stepped in. He looked like a sergeant, maybe a detective. I wasn’t sure. He glared at me, then back kicked the door shut. The sound bounced off the cinder block walls and reverberated through the room. The cop took three long strides and stopped in front of the table, but he didn’t sit down. Instead, he plopped a manila file folder onto the table and placed a cellphone on top of it. He crossed his arms.

  I looked at the phone, then back to the cop. “Did my boss call and vouch for me? He at least confirmed my identity and credentials, right?”

  “Your boss didn’t call,” the cop said.

  “Do you want me to call him?” I motioned to the cellphone. “Is that what this is about?”

  I reached for the phone, but the cop trapped my hand against the table. He leaned forward and put his weight onto my hand.

  “We know exactly who you are,” the cop said. “In fact, Agent Chase, a number of cops are hunched over a laptop in the break room watching the infamous video that got you suspended. I guess I should call you ‘former’ Agent Chase. Isn’t that right?”

  I yanked my hand out and glared at the cop. A year ago I’d lost my cool with a creepy sexual predator on a popular TV show. The video footage went viral, which led to my suspension. Sure, I was pissed about the suspension, but what hurt the most was losing custody of my three-year-old son, Simon, over the whole thing.

  I kept the stare going, debating my next move. Time was ticking, and I was already late for an important job. I stood and spun my watch around. “You’ve confirmed my identity and occupation then, so the weapons the cops found shouldn’t be a problem. And unless you’re going to charge me with obstructing justice, which I believe is a stretch, I guess I’m free to go.”

  “Sit down.”

  I didn’t.

  The cop jabbed at my chair. “Sit down now.”

  I didn’t sit. “Are you bent out of shape because of the video?”

  “No, I don’t give a rip about the video. What bothers me is this...” He slid the phone off the folder and pulled out the paper I’d written my statement on. He waved the paper in the air. “This is garbage, a complete lie, and you know it. Don’t you, Gary?”

  My given name was Garrison Chase. Gary was not the short form of Garrison. When people called me Gary, I tried not to jump down their throats and correct them. Only Mom could call me Gary and get away with it.

  I took a deep breath. “I go by Chase actually. And I’m not a liar. I made a mistake this morning.”

  He scoffed. “You are a liar, Gary.”

  I balled my fists up and released them, then stepped toward the cop until our faces were eighteen inches apart. The man had even-toned, mocha-colored skin, but it was all pockmarked, like he’d been pelted in the face with a BB gun at a young age. His nationality was beyond me. I watched his Adam’s apple bob slightly.

  After a moment, he backed off and took a seat in a chair across the table from mine. “So, you work in Cyber Crimes for the feds, but you’re currently on suspension and don’t have a badge or any sort of law enforcement credentials?”

  “Correct,” I said, taking a seat. “I trust my boss will vouch for me on the weapons. My suspension’s nearly over, by the way.”

  At least, that was the hope I clung to.

  The cop looked at the statement I’d written. “Let me get this morning’s story straight. A neighbor calls the cops because he witnesses one person chasing another person. It’s just before dawn so it’s fairly dark and the neighbor can’t make out many details, but he does notice that the chaser is wearing a dark bathrobe and holding a gun, and the chasee is unarmed. So the cops canvass the neighborhood to see if anyone else witnessed the chase. When they come to your door and ask if you know anything about the incident, you tell them you don’t know a thing.”

  “Sounds about right,” I said.

  He held out his hands. “But you were the chaser. Right?”

  “I was.”

  “And you were chasing an intruder who broke into your house? That’s your story?”

  “Correct.”

  He squinted at me. “So you lied to Officer Palmer and Officer Kowalski about the incident?”

  “I did, but I had two good reasons to do so. I’m not saying that makes it right; I shouldn’t have lied. It was a stupid mistake. I’d do anything to take it back, but that was what happened at the time.”

  “And you didn’t tell the officers right away that you were a fed, or former fed, or whatever the hell your official status is?”

  “I didn’t.”

  He started scribbling notes on a piece of paper in the manila folder.

  I looked at my watch, then wished I hadn’t. My right foot started tapping the floor. A few days ago, my boss, Frank Lemming, offered me a job; my first since the suspension. Frank said if the test job went well, he’d lobby his superiors and try to get me reinstated. Frank was going to freak out when he spoke with the cops. Tardiness on my first day of the new job could cost me my career. My lie and subsequent arrest could even cost me more than that, but I refused to entertain that thought.

  I wiped my palms on my pants. The cop kept writing. What could he possi
bly still be writing? Leaning forward, I said, “Can I explain things, give you the quick story and cut right to the chase?”

  The cop stopped writing, patted down his out-of-control brown hair, and leaned forward. His hair puffed out five or six inches from his head in every direction. It looked like brown cotton candy, if there was such a thing. I tended to fixate on people’s hair when I first met them, probably because I was bald. As soon as my hairline had started receding at age thirty, I’d shaved my head and kept it that way; my way of giving the balding gene the middle finger.

  “Fine,” the cop said. “Go ahead. Tell me what happened; start at the beginning. And try not to lie.”

  I ignored the comment and cleared my throat. “So I was in the bathroom when I heard the intruder break in—”

  “What were you doing in the bathroom?”

  “Really?”

  The cop didn’t respond.

  “Fine. I was on the toilet and heard the intruder fumbling with the doorknob.”

  “And the door was locked?”

  “It was.”

  He jotted a note. “What’d you do next?”

  “Listened. When I heard the latch click into place, I knew the intruder had picked the lock and was inside. The whole break-in was a rookie production, by the way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You keep the knob turned when you’re closing a door, so the latch doesn’t click. Even teenagers sneaking in late at night know that. And about three feet from my front door is a squeaky board. The intruder stepped on it twice. Once, I understand, but not twice. So I knew I was dealing with an amateur burglar, maybe a local teenager with a troubled past, somebody like that.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I bailed. Punched out the bathroom screen window, stepped on the toilet seat, and launched through the window.”

  “What are you, like six foot two?”

  “Six four. What does that have to do with anything?”

  “You’re a big guy. Why didn’t you confront the intruder?”

  “I couldn’t see if the intruder was armed or not.”

  “But you said the intruder was an amateur, maybe even a teenager. A person like that wouldn’t have a gun.”

  I shrugged. “Probably not, you’re right. But if the intruder did have a weapon and I came charging out of the bathroom, who knows what would’ve happened? An amateur with a gun is totally unpredictable. I didn’t want to take that chance. And besides, I wasn’t letting the intruder off. I planned to go after the person.”

  He nodded and took a note. Then he used his pointer finger to loosen the collar of his dress shirt, which was buttoned to the top even though he wasn’t wearing a tie. The white shirt was flawless, not a wrinkle in sight. Either the guy was a wizard with an iron or he paid for his shirts to be cleaned and pressed. Whatever the case, he was obviously meticulous about details. I made a mental note not to leave out a single thing.

  “Okay,” he said. “After you went out the window what happened?”

  “I ran down the alley. When I hit the beach boardwalk at the end of the alley, I doubled back toward my house and stopped at my car to pick up a revolver I keep under the passenger seat. By that point, the intruder was running down the street toward a car.”

  “What kind of car?”

  “A black Monte Carlo.”

  “Any details about the intruder?”

  “A male, for sure. I could tell by the body shape. He wore a black hoodie. It was fairly dark still, so I couldn’t see his face.”

  “License plate?”

  “He was in the car and gone before I was close enough to read the plate.”

  The cop leaned back and patted his hair. “So you didn’t call the police to report the break in? And when the cops arrived and asked if you knew anything, you blatantly lied to their faces. Why would you do that?”

  “I’m on thin ice with the Bureau,” I said. “Been on paid suspension for too long. I finally got a chance to redeem myself when I was offered a job to protect the governor’s son, Stanley Tuchek. Maybe you’ve heard about him and the death threats he received on his Facebook page?”

  The cop leaned forward. “You were chosen for that job?”

  “Thanks for the confidence boost.”

  He didn’t respond.

  I shook it off. “I have no idea why I was chosen, but I was happy to take the assignment since I haven’t worked in close to a year. Today is the first day of protection.” I looked at my watch and cursed in my head. “I’m already a half hour late for picking up Stanley. My boss will already be pissed, I know him. Beyond pissed, actually. And the governor’s probably going to have my head.”

  “So you didn’t want to be late for the assignment? That’s why you lied?”

  “Yes, like I tried to tell the beat cops earlier, a police report would entail a bunch of questions and a formal statement. All of that takes time; time I didn’t have this morning. So I made the stupid decision not to call in about the intruder, and then to lie to the officers when they showed up. The intruder didn’t take anything anyway, so I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

  The cop eyed me.

  If he knew my personal reason for lying, he wouldn’t have been so skeptical, but I was hoping to get away with my explanation without getting personal.

  While the cop rifled through the manila file, I sat and stewed over my dumb decisions. I had just finishing brewing a cup of coffee when the cops knocked on my door. After inviting the cops in and lying to them, I offered them some coffee on their way out, probably to assuage my guilt. To my surprise one of the cops actually took me up on the offer. While I went to the kitchen at the back of my house to prepare a cup, the cops got nosy and started poking around my place, which wasn’t hard to do since I lived in a 740 square foot two-bedroom bungalow by the beach.

  Anyway, I’d left my navy-blue robe in the middle of the bathroom floor. I had no idea the cops would be presumptuous enough to open the bathroom door. When the cops spotted the robe, they figured my story was a total lie, so they poked around some more and found twenty-seven guns in my hall closet. They freaked when they found the arsenal. I tried to reason with them, telling them I was a federal agent, but I’d blown my credibility by lying about the intruder. Plus, because of the suspension I didn’t have a badge or credentials to back up who I was, and I didn’t have permits for every gun. Most of the guns were my father’s. He willed them to me after his death; the only thing he willed me, by the way. Two of the guns were banned assault weapons, and I was pretty sure my father had obtained them illegally.

  Dad had been in the ground eighteen months, but he was still wreaking havoc in my life, one way or the other. Of course, the lie was on me, and that was where this all started.

  At any rate, the beat cops wanted nothing to do with me or my story, so they cuffed me and hauled me in for more questioning.

  The cop cleared his throat. “Now it’s my turn to cut right to the chase. The forensics team found something else at your place, which makes me question everything you’ve told me so far.”

  “Found what?”

  The cop turned and paced toward the window. He stopped a foot from the window and kept his back toward me. “I’m trying to get my mind around this lie of yours.”

  “What did they find at my house? You need to tell me what’s going on.”

  The cop spun and pointed at me. “You don’t dictate the terms. Understand, Gary?”

  I put my hands behind my back and balled my fists, then released them and took a slow breath through my nose.

  “Earlier you said you had two reasons to lie.” The cop stopped pointing. He adjusted his tight grey slacks, then put his hands on his hips. “What was the other reason?”

  I opened my mouth, but no words came out.

  “You need to come clean,” the cop said.

  “Fine,” I said. “I have a custody hearing in three days that I’m worried about. My ex-wife Gina is some sort of human b
loodhound. She has an uncanny ability for sniffing out any story that portrays me in a bad light. She also has a number of friends in my neighborhood that keep an eye on me. I didn’t call the cops or tell them anything about the intruder because I didn’t want a formal report filed. If a formal report was filed, Gina would find out through the local paper or maybe a friend. She’d use the break-in against me at the custody hearing. She’d convince the judge I lived in an unfit neighborhood with inadequate home security, something like that. She’s ruthless. I want to be with my son again; that’s all I care about. I lied to the police so I wouldn’t jeopardize my future with my son, as well as because I didn’t want to be late for picking up the governor’s son.”

  The cop widened his stance, but didn’t say anything.

  “Obviously the lie backfired,” I continued. “Now I’m sure Gina will find out about the intruder, plus she’ll find out I’ve been arrested. I can only hope she doesn’t hear about anything until after the custody hearing. I made a stupid mistake that could cost me custody of my son, and my job. I wish I could take it all back. Believe me.”

  The cop stepped toward me. “I think you’re still lying. I think your whole story is fabricated.”

  “What are you talking about?” I stepped toward him. We were a foot apart. I towered over him by about eight inches. I felt my chest rising and falling too rapidly. “I’m not still lying. I did lie to the cops, but I’m not lying to you. I wouldn’t keep lying with everything I have at stake. Didn’t you hear everything I just said?”

  “So you’re sticking with the theory that the intruder was an amateur?”

  “Of course.”

  He brushed by me and grabbed the phone from the table. After fiddling with the screen for a moment, he handed me the cell. “Do you recognize anything?”

  I looked at the photo on the screen. “Sure. That’s the inside of my house.”

  “When the police were confiscating your guns, they took that picture.”

  “So what? It’s a picture of my hallway. The door at the end leads to my bedroom. Am I missing something?”

  “Look closer, Gary.”

  I stepped back out of arm’s length since my hands wanted to find themselves around his neck. I looked closer. “What am I supposed to be seeing?”