12
DRUG DISPUTE SUSPECTED IN CLAIREMONT AMBUSH SHOOTINGS THAT LEFT TWO DEAD
Two area men were shot to death last night as they shared beers around a fire ring at an apartment complex recreation center. Witnesses reported a single male, described as a white or Latino man in his twenties, fleeing the scene after fatally shooting Riley James, 23, and Elray Harrison, 21, at approximately 1:20 a.m. Drug paraphernalia and large amounts of cash were found on the victims’ bodies, leading to speculation that a drug deal gone awry might have motivated the murders.
Families of the victims, however, argue that James and Harrison may have been drug users, but they were not criminals and did not otherwise engage in illegal activities.
“Riley was a nice kid,” his uncle Colum James told reporters. “Maybe not set on his course in life, but he meant no harm to anyone. I can’t see him getting involved in something like that.”
Elray Harrison’s mother, Arminta McCann, agrees. “Elray didn’t engage in violent behavior, not ever. He wasn’t that kind of man.”
They’d gotten some great stuff at Helen Scott’s.
Casey had known it while they were filming, she could just tell; she’d gotten that buzzing feeling that let her know when she’d plugged into something good, something real.
But seeing it again, on her laptop …
Damn. It was really good.
“We’ve got enough of that painting we can use it for a voice-over,” Rose said in her ear.
“Yeah, I like that.”
Rose was at the station. Casey sat in her living room. The plan was for her to do the edit after they hashed it out—it wasn’t like she had anything else to do, and Rose had plenty. And she wasn’t a bad editor. One advantage of the one-man-band jobs she’d done in the past. Shooting, writing, and editing your own pieces—she’d learned a lot. Though it was hard work doing the whole job on your own, even dangerous at times. She’d had her camera stolen once, when she’d been shooting a stand-up and had the camera positioned across the street.
She thought about that night at the brewery. If she’d been by herself …
“What do you think about the Drake book?” Rose asked. “Worth getting into? It’s a little obscure, but … ”
The cover of True Men Will Rise, the graphic novel by George Drake with its supposed fascist themes, was up on the screen now: the man in the long coat, the burning circle atop a tall pole.
A circle with two crossed lines inside of it, a starburst in its center.
“Shit,” Casey said. “Any way you can get me a copy? Today?”
A little Googling ID’ed the circle with the cross inside. It had different names: the Bolgar Cross, the Sunwheel, Woden’s Cross, a common symbol that dated back to Neolithic times. The cross without the starburst was used now by Pagans, Native Americans, and, sometimes, neo-Nazis and white supremacists. The overwhelming use of most versions of the cross is non-extremist, an anti-hate website informed her. Care must be taken to judge its use in context.
The starburst was an original element as far as she could tell, added by Drake.
It looked like the tattoo she’d glimpsed on Lucas’s arm, the clerk at the convenience store who’d claimed to know Alan Jay Chastain.
“I’ve got to try to talk to him.”
“What’s the approach?” Rose asked.
“I don’t know, show him the comic? Ask him about the tattoo? Grill him about his relationship with Chastain?”
“I don’t think we can just ambush him. All of this, the tattoo, the comic … we don’t really know what the connections are or if there even are any.”
“So we find him and ask him for an interview. There’s time, right?”
A hesitation on the other end of the line. “Look, Jordan’s going to want to see something soon. Like tomorrow. We’ve got enough here to put together something really solid.”
“Can we just … can we just make an attempt to interview this guy? If we can’t, we can’t. But I think it’s worth a try.”
Another pause. “Okay. If we can get something from him today. A commitment at least.”
“Great. I’ll go there right now. I can use a GoPro and take an Uber or something.”
“No. Are you kidding?”
“Well, I know you’re busy, and I’m sure the photographers are already booked.”
She could hear Rose take in a deep breath.
“Casey. Listen. You are not going to go confront a guy who you just told me might be an extremist who claims to be friends with a mass murderer who almost killed you. Do you hear how crazy that sounds?”
“You said we have to move on this today. Who else is going to do it?”
“Just … hang on, let me think.” Now Casey heard her exhale. “Okay. Let me see if I can find out if he’s working and what time he gets off.”
“You’re going to call? We don’t want to scare him off.”
“Look, I know how to bullshit people on the phone, okay?”
Casey realized her pulse was racing. Calm down, she told herself, and stop being a bitch. “I know. Sorry. I’m just … I’m tired of not being able to do my job the way I used to. And I want … ” The words stuck in her throat. It was all she could do not to cry.
Don’t you dare, she thought.
“I want this story to mean something,” she said.
“I hear you. I’ll see what we can do.”
God, I sounded utterly unhinged, Casey thought. It’s just a story on a local news show. She wasn’t going to change the world with it. She wasn’t going to make much of a difference at all.
None of this means anything.
Don’t go down that road, she told herself. Just don’t. Do the work, and stop acting crazy.
If none of it meant anything, she still needed to do something. And she was only going to get so much mileage for being one of the little fucker’s victims.
Rose called back fifteen minutes later.
“He’s not there. He called in sick this morning.” Her voice sounded … strange. Casey couldn’t pinpoint the emotion in it.
“Did you get a home address? A last name?”
“No. The guy I talked to was not into sharing data.”
“But if we go there, to the store? Do you think … ?”
“I don’t know.” Rose managed a slight chuckle. “You’ve got me thinking all kinds of things. Like, should we call the police?”
“The police? What, and tell them about a comic book and a tattoo?”
“That a friend of Alan Chastain’s has changed his routine and called in sick. Because that’s what they do before they go off.”
Casey felt something crawl up her spine. No, she told herself, that’s just your fear. It’s not real.
“Or he has a cold. Or food poisoning.”
“It’s not like this guy is a source. We have no obligation to protect him. If he’s … if he’s up to something, arguably we have a moral duty to report it.”
“And if he’s not up to something? We want to screw up his life by reporting him to law enforcement?”
“I don’t know,” Rose repeated. “Look, you’re the one who said you thought there was something off about him and he gave you the creeps.”
“We’re gonna get laughed out of the cop shop if we call this in. You think they’re going to listen to my feelings? Nobody cares about that.” She knew she sounded angry. She was angry.
“I listened,” Rose said. “I’m going to talk to Jordan.”
“Fine. And after that, what we should be doing is trying to find this guy. How’s about that for moral duty?”
“I’ll call you back,” Rose said, and hung up.
“Shit!”
Casey stared at her phone for a moment, then chucked it against a couch cushion.
You need to stop acting crazy, remember?
But she wasn’t proposing that they do anything dangerous. Just go to the store. Get his last name. See if they could find an address, or a phone number. Talk to the guy.
What was the point of giving a totally sketchy tip to the police, who probably wouldn’t do anything about it anyway? The point was to get the story.
They were right. It wasn’t so hard when you knew you were doing the right thing.
He’d picked that nigger and that piece of white trash because no one would give a shit if they got popped. He’d seen them around, he knew what they were like. Sitting out there for hours by the barbecue pit, vaping weed and drinking tallboys. Playing music so loud in the beater pickup the white guy owned that his windows rattled when it drove by.
Not all blacks were niggers; he didn’t think that. Some were good, hardworking people. Christians. But a nigger was a nigger, and he knew one when he saw one. And that white guy? A nigger-lover. Even worse.
They weren’t adding anything to the world.