That photograph of her by the ambulance, a helicopter landing in the background, her eyes cast down and face bravely tragic, was sensational. The next morning it was staring out from racks, boxes, and stacks of papers throughout the greater Charlotte-Mecklenburg area. Brazil’s story was the most stunning profile of courage Packer had ever seen. The entire metro desk was in awe. How the hell did he get all this? Hammer wasn’t known for divulging anything personal about herself or her family, and suddenly, in a time when discretion was most vital, she revealed all to this rookie reporter?

The mayor, city manager, city council, and Cahoon were not likewise impressed. They were interviewed by several television and radio reporters and were openly critical of Hammer, who continued to draw far too much attention to the serial murders and other social problems in the Queen City. It was feared that several companies and a restaurant chain were reconsidering their choice of Charlotte as a new location. Businessmen were canceling meetings. It was rumored that sites for a computer chip manufacturing plant and a Disney theme park were being scouted in Virginia.

Charlotte’s mayor, city manager, and several city councilmen promised that there would be a full police investigation into the accidental shooting. Cahoon, in a brief statement, agreed this was fair. The men smelled blood and were crazed by it. Panesa did not often get directly involved in choosing sides, but he rolled up his sleeves on this one and penned an impassioned editorial on the Opinion page that ran Sunday morning.

It was called HORNET’S NEST, and in it, Panesa went into great detail about the city’s ills as seen through the eyes of an unflagging, humane woman, their beloved chief, who was embattled by her own demons and yet “has never let us down or burdened us with her private pain,” Panesa wrote. “Now is the time to support Chief Hammer, to show her respect and caring, and prove that we, too, can stand up and make the right choices.” Panesa went on to allude to Brazil’s story of Hammer in the E.R. bringing a blanket and water to a young man dying of AIDS. “That, citizens of Charlotte, is not only community policing but Christianity,” Panesa wrote. “Let Mayor Search, city council, or Solomon Cahoon throw the first stone.”

This went on for days, things stirred up, hostility rising from Cahoon’s crown and swarming through the mayor’s window. Telephone lines angrily buzzed as the city fathers plotted on secure phones, devising a way to run Hammer out of town.

“It’s got to be the public that decides,” the mayor said to the city manager. “The citizens have got to want it.”

“No other way,” Cahoon agreed in a conference call from his mighty desk, as he viewed his kingdom between aluminum pipes. “It’s entirely up to the citizens.”

The last thing Cahoon wanted was pissed-off people changing banks. If enough of them did and went on to First Union, CCB, BB&T, First Citizens Bank, or Wachovia, it could catch up with Cahoon and hurt him. It could become an epidemic, infecting the big, healthy investors like a computer virus, Ebola, salmonella, hemorraghic fever.