The last thing that Reg wanted to do was to talk to the police. Well, maybe the second last, the last being to be alone with Corvin Hunter. She didn’t want to talk to them or to go to the police station or bail a gnome out of jail.
But she couldn’t bear the abject misery on Forst’s face. He didn’t have a clue how the human justice system worked. He didn’t know what to do and even if he did, his ability to speak—his outside words—were limited. He needed someone who knew what she was doing and could talk to the police to find out how to have his twin released.
She could call the main number for the police department, but she hoped to shortcut that by calling Detective Jessup, who could maybe smooth the way for her. Jessup could at least talk to the officers involved in the arrest, in case they were not part of the magical community. It didn’t seem like very many in the police department knew about the magical community. Which must make some of the crime they dealt with in Black Sands seem very bizarre.
“Reg,” Jessup greeted when she saw Reg’s caller ID on the phone and picked up the call. She sounded pleased. It was back to ‘Reg’ instead of ‘Miss Rawlins,’ which she reverted to when Reg was a person of interest. “What can I do for you?”
This time she was interested in helping. Reg decided to use it to her best advantage.
“I have a friend with a problem.”
“Sure. What’s the problem?”
“His brother has been arrested; I’m not sure what for. Sounds like he got in the way of some developer who wants to appropriate his land. He’s in jail, and…”
“And you want to know how to get him out.”
“Yes. Maybe on bail, or maybe just to have the charges dropped. I doubt if he’s really guilty of any lawbreaking.”
“If he’s been arrested, I have to assume that he did something. What’s this guy’s name?”
“Fir Blumenthal.”
“Okay, hang on a second.” Reg could hear her computer keys tapping away. “Ooh. Eco-terrorism?”
“Seriously? What the heck is eco-terrorism?”
“Looks like he is suspected of sabotaging a bunch of industrial equipment. Trespassing. He chained himself to a tree.”
“He’s just trying to protect his land.”
“Doesn’t work if it’s not your own land. You know anything about the backstory?”
“Well… he’s a gnome.”
“Ah. We’ve run into this kind of thing before. They don’t understand the way the modern world works. Private ownership of land and development and that kind of thing. They think that whatever land they squat on is theirs, and they’ll buckle down and do whatever they can to keep other people from destroying ‘their’ land or removing them from it.”
“Isn’t there any treaty protecting them? Don’t they have any of their own land? Any rights?”
“They’ve never been particularly interested in making agreements with humans or any other races. They just want to tend their gardens or forests and be left alone. Unfortunately… there’s more and more encroachment on their land, and it’s getting harder and harder for them to find virgin territory where they can stay for any amount of time.”
“So what can you do? Can you get the charges dropped? Get him out on bail?”
“I can try talking to the powers that be around here. He probably hasn’t given any explanation of why he was acting the way he was. They think he’s just some eco-nut.”
“And you can convince them otherwise?”
“I’ll do my best. Are you going to come down here to get him?”
“Uh… I’d rather not. But if I have to.”
“Could you? It helps to have some citizen saying that he’s not a danger and he’s not going to cause any more trouble. Because I doubt he’ll defend himself. They aren’t much for talking.”
“Well, for outside talking.”
There was a pause. “Outside talking?”
“That’s what they call it—communicating out loud. Forst says it’s really hard for them. But they’re fine with inside talking.”
“And what is inside talking?”
“Telepathy.”
“Oh.” Jessup laughed. “Trust you! The trouble is, they can’t communicate telepathically with the rest of us. The cops aren’t going to know how to communicate with him. He’s not deaf or disabled. They can talk if forced to. So people assume that they’re just hard to get along with.”
“Can’t you tell them he is disabled?”
“I’ll try. It’s not exactly true, but I can’t very well tell them he’s a gnome.”
“What would you tell them if he could only speak using a voice synthesizer or picture board or sign language?”
“I wouldn’t have any problem telling them that he was disabled then. Because it’s true.”
“Then how is this any different? He’s not physically built for verbal communication. It doesn’t matter if he can say a word here and there. He needs assistance. Accommodations.”
“Well… yeah. So when you get down here, you can have a little chat with him in a private meeting room, and then you can advocate for him. I’m sure if you make a big stink about how his rights are being violated because of his disability, they’ll be quick enough to let him go. No one wants that kind of publicity.”
Reg took Jessup’s advice and stormed into the police station, demanding that she be allowed to see her client, making plenty of noise about how they were brutalizing a homeless, disabled man, ripping him from his home and treating him like an animal, locking him up in a cage.
“Ma’am, ma’am,” the desk clerk made motions for her to calm down. “Please, there’s no need to yell. I don’t know what has happened, but I’m sure we can work it out. Abusive language and behavior are not going to get you anywhere and will not be tolerated.”
“You’ve locked him up! Don’t you people have any sense? Aren’t your officers given any disability training? But what was I expecting in a run-down little Podunk town like this? Of course you’re going to act like commandos instead of knowing how we treat people in the twenty-first century.”
“Who is it you are here to talk to us about?” the clerk asked, fingers hovering over the keyboard.
“Fir Blumenthal. Arrested yesterday afternoon. For daring to sit on his own property.”
The woman brought the record up on her screen and scanned the information. “According to this, he was not sitting on his own property. He is not the registered owner, and the owner wanted him removed.”
“Have you never heard of homelessness? Squatting? Just because someone doesn’t have title, that doesn’t mean they don’t have rights! You can’t just lock people up because they don’t have a place to live! It’s outrageous.”
“I’m sure we can get this all sorted out. Do you have a place for Mr. Blumenthal to go? Someone who will vouch for him and put him up?”
“Now you’re going to treat him like he’s incompetent when you haven’t even met him? Just because he has different communication needs than you, that doesn’t make him less of a person. It doesn’t mean he can’t take care of himself. He has the same rights as anyone else. Do you require anyone else to prove that they’ll be ‘taken care of’ when they are released?”
“I just meant… you said that he didn’t have a home… I would be remiss if I didn’t try to make sure that he was going to a safe situation and wasn’t just going to be out on the street.”
“Do you know how many homeless people there are out there? Are you telling me that the police are in the business of making sure that they all have safe homes to go to? That’s not your job. You can’t discriminate against him because he’s indigent.”
The clerk rolled her shoulders, frowning and trying to find some way to handle the situation without being ripped apart for being elitist or ableist. “Look, ma’am. I’m trying to help you here. This man was arrested for being a nuisance and a possible danger. We can’t just let him go and pretend that nothing happened.”
“Of course you can, you do it all the time. If there isn’t enough evidence to build a case against Mr. Blumenthal, then you have to let him go. You can’t just keep holding him because his brain doesn’t work the same way as yours does. People who are considered to be a danger are released all the time. Suspected murderers, pedophiles, drug dealers. If you don’t have enough to convict them, you have to let them go. End of story.”
The clerk sighed, putting her hands flat on the desk in front of her and bowing her head in defeat. “Let me find someone who can help you with this.”
Reg was shunted from one person to another, giving her spiel and attacking wherever possible, until someone agreed that she should be allowed to talk to her client. No one asked what kind of client he was. Probably no one dared, knowing she could go into a rant about how patients’ rights were protected and they weren’t allowed to ask anything that invaded his privacy or his relationship to a counselor or social worker or medical professional, whatever it was that Reg was pretending to be.
“Detective Jessup said that you were coming and that you would want to meet with Mr. Blumenthal,” a tall, thin policeman advised Reg, acting like he had known what was going on all the time and hadn’t been caught off-guard by Reg’s invasion of the police department or Jessup’s call advising that they should help her out. “If you’ll just come this way…”
Reg followed the policeman. She couldn’t help grinning when he wasn’t looking at her. She’d never had so much fun in a police station, and she’d pulled some pretty bold scams in her time. She was enjoying the outraged mama bear act.
He offered her a seat on one of the plastic chairs, offered her coffee or water, and promised that Mr. Blumenthal would be brought in shortly. Reg sat down to relax, knowing that it could be another hour or more before they made it through all of the bureaucratic roadblocks and got him from the jail cell to the meeting room. She looked around the room, painted a flat green, with anti-drug posters, warnings about not smoking, and various other visual pollution.