Why would any cop—after getting the training and the gun and the badge—want to work in media relations, where zero police work was ever done? I knew the job put you on TV almost every night and got your name in the paper all the time, but it wasn’t cop work.

“Hey, Jack,” Minter said to me in a friendly manner as we shook hands.

I immediately acted like I had called for the meeting.

“Hey, Lieutenant. Thanks for seeing me. I was wondering if I could get a mug shot of the suspect named Hicks for my story.”

Minter nodded.

“No problem, he’s an adult. You want any others?”

“No, probably just him. They don’t like running mug shots, so I probably will only be able to use one, if I’m lucky.”

“It’s funny that you want a photo of Hicks.”

“Why?”

He reached behind his back to the desk and brought around a file. He opened it and handed me an 8 × 10 photo. It was a surveillance shot with police codes in the lower right frame. It was of me handing Darnell Hicks the fifty dollars he had charged me in street tax the day before. I immediately noted how grainy the shot was and knew it had been taken from a distance and at a low angle. Remembering the parking lot where the payoff had taken place, I knew I had been in the heart of the Rodia projects and the only way the shot could have been taken was if it had been taken from inside one of the surrounding apartment buildings. I now knew what Grossman had meant by community support and cooperation. At least one resident in Rodia had allowed them to use an apartment as a surveillance post.

I held the photo up.

“Are you giving me this for my scrapbook?”

“No, I was just wondering if you can tell me about it. If you have a problem, Jack, I can help.”

He had a phony smile on his face. And I was smart enough to know what was happening. He was trying to squeeze me. A photo out of context like this could certainly send the wrong message if leaked to a boss or competitor. But I smiled right back.

“What do you want, Lieutenant?”

“We don’t want to stir up controversy where there isn’t any needed, Jack. Like with this photo. It could have several different meanings. Why go there?”

The point was clear. Lay off the community backlash angle. Minter and the command staff above him knew that the Times set the table as far as what was news in this town. The TV channels and everybody else followed its lead. If it could be controlled or at least contained, then the rest of the local media would fall in line.

“I guess you didn’t get the memo,” I said. “I’m out. I got a pink slip on Friday, Lieutenant, so there isn’t anything you can do to me.