ROLL CALL ~ A Prison List (True Prison Story) (13 page)
Read ROLL CALL ~ A Prison List (True Prison Story) Online
Authors: Glenn Langohr
Jade wondered how Damon got busted. He never brings any pot to the house. He keeps it in storage and seemed really careful who he did business with. I wonder what he’s going to do now. Maybe it’s a good thing he got in trouble. Now maybe he’ll find a real job, start another business or go to a technical school or a trade school. That all cost money that we don’t have. We can barely afford all our bills as it is. Just this morning when I went to the free clinic in Laguna Beach for my check up I got denied. I guess Damon’s right about the invasion. You have to be from outside of the U.S. to get free medical.
Detective Marks watched his partner carry the backpack found in the back of Damon’s truck into the evidence locker room. He watched detective Pincher deal with cataloging the seized marijuana and remembered the scene at the Best Western. After telling Bob Prescott that his cooperation as an informant wasn’t going to count if a conviction of sales wasn’t obtained on Damon, he’d really blown his top.
He’d yelled, “I’ve never had a criminal outsmart me, and I’m not about to start now!”
Detective Marks remembered how he tried to console his partner. “Damon didn’t outsmart you! He’s on his way to jail for Possession for sales and transporting for the purpose of sales. It’s a good bust.”
Detective Pincher had exploded, “The sale never happened! Don’t you remember your training and seminars? He only had one bag of pot in the back of his truck where anyone could have thrown it… There wasn’t any pay owe sheets to prove he’s selling product, there isn’t a scale to prove he’s weighing product… It’s a fragile case the district attorney might just throw out. Even if they get a conviction it will get plea bargained to almost nothing. Just a possession, probably. Damon will probably only get a slap on the hand and informal probation!”
Detective Marks remembered telling his partner, “You can’t take the whole world on your shoulders. I remember that part of our seminars. That’s what you’re doing. You have to let the courts do their job and not worry about it. Not every bust is going to go down exactly the way you want it to.”
Detective Pincher had ranted and raved and finally found the solution in his head. “We blew it! I blew it! I should have had the phone conversation between Bob Prescott and Damon Smith recorded! We would have been able to give it to the district attorney and it would have insured the sales charge! God dammit!”
Detective Marks wondered if his partner was doing what he thought he was doing with the pound of pot. He had it on the counter and opened the freezer sized zip lock bag. He reached inside it and pulled some out and put it in a smaller sandwich sized zip lock bag. He did the same thing two more times. He sealed the bag that once held a pound of marijuana in it and taped the necessary paper work to the outside of it. The paperwork consisted of the name of the suspect, the arresting detective, the time, date and the weight of the narcotic. Detective Pincher wrote the weight down at 418 grams, 30 grams short of a pound. He then placed it in the evidence locker, shut the door and shut the lock on it and said, “Let’s go to Damon’s house and wait for him to get there.”
Damon walked through the last corridor of the county jail with his up-coming court date paper in one hand and a plastic bag of his property in the other. Outside the jail he squinted his eyes against the midday sun and felt the excitement of being free from the jail eroding into anxiety. He thought to himself, it’s time to face the music. That started with calling Jade. What am I going to tell her? What is she going to ask me? She’s going to remind me over and over about the one and done rule. The, if I ever got busted it’s over forever, new career. She’s going to want to know what my new career is going to be. I don’t want to get back into landscaping and compete with the illegal migrants who will underbid me at every turn… Damon caught himself from allowing the same bitter resentments from building any more Momentum and stopped that train of thought. It was time to be a man and face it for what it is. I should have held on to the handful of clients I still had and advertized harder for more. Even if I would have suffered through some hard times, I’d still have been better off than I am now.
Jade pulled up in the Buick looking pissed. Her hair was in pony tails so tight it had to be on. Her white tank top looked like it had the baby’s throw up on it and it didn’t look comfortable. Damon sat down in the passenger seat and reached over into the backseat to give Ryan a hug and with his free hand held his daughter’s foot.
Jade exploded, “What happened? I’ve been here with the kids all night waiting for you!! We’ve been here for over twelve hours!”
A brief glance at Jade was all it took to realize looking directly at her wasn’t the answer. Damon opened his wallet to hand over the money, a desperate measure. The $300 that was in there was gone. Still looking at the empty wallet Damon answered, “I dealt with someone I shouldn’t have and got set up.”
After explaining the details, as expected, Jade hammered home the one and done rule. “You know you promised to stop if you ever got busted… What are you going to do now?”
Damon stared out the window while Jade left the jail. As soon as she got on the freeway she filled the silence.
“Damon you need a job… My parents are going to be so pissed off about this! They’re going to tell me, ‘We told you Damon wasn’t any good for you! Why are you with him? All those questions are going to come up again…You better get a job right away! What kind of job are you going to get?”
Damon shrank down in his seat and explained his new understanding, that even though the migrants obtained a lot of his landscaping clients, he should have bunkered down and held onto what he could…
Jade interrupted, “That’s all well and good Damon, and I’m glad you had your epiphany… But that doesn’t just fix everything and provide you a job!”
“I’ll start another business.”
“Damon that costs a lot of money and it’s risky! More than half of the new businesses go out of business within the first year. Why don’t you get a minimum wage job anywhere to start? Or go to school and learn a trade so you can get some skills to make more money… Maybe you can do both at the same time.”
“I’ve got $8,000 in the bank.”
Jade looked at Damon. He had a confused look on his face. She softened. “Damon, you better put that money in my name just to be safe. What if the Sheriffs try to seize it. We need that money for an attorney for you.”
“I don’t want to waste that money on an attorney. We need it for rent, food and the kids! Besides, they can’t seize that money. I saved that money from landscaping, and it’s been in my bank since high school. My pot money was what we were living on month to month.”
This time, detective Pincher studied the perimeter of Damon’s apartment in Dana Point to hide their vehicle better. He drove the Taurus up Crystal Lantern and passed Damon’s apartment. Just passed it, he turned left on another street that allowed him to circle up above Damon’s on a perch where the street dead ended.
Detective Marks got out of the passenger seat and noticed he could see Damon’s apartment through a gap in the row of houses. He watched his partner step out of the driver side and put on his bullet proof vest over the same Hawaiian print shirt he’d had on yesterday. It was going on twenty hours since that shift started.
Detective Pincher looked through the gap at Damon’s apartment and said, “This is a good spot. No matter which way Damon pulls up to his residence he won’t be able to see us.”
Detective Pincher waited for his partner to say something. He didn’t. He hadn’t said anything since the evidence locker room. “What kind of outfit did you change into on your break. Those pants look like chollo pants, what are they Dickies? That Volcom shirt you have on doesn’t go with the pants. What are you trying to look like, a gang banger who surfs? You should dress more like me so we can blend in better.”
Detective Marks thought to himself, anyone other than the actors in the T.V. show Hawaii Five-0 would clash with you. I dress the way the rest of the scene does around here. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Detective Marks looked toward the ocean and marveled at the post card view. He looked down the hill to where Crystal Lantern connected with P.C.H., then at the row of shops, restaurants and exquisite landscaping, then at the ocean in the background with the sun above it in a pink cascade, an hour away from setting.
Looking the other way at Damon’s apartment through the gap in houses at the only other direction Damon could arrive from, detective Pincher thought out loud. “You know about the code of silence we share in as a brotherhood fighting bad guys, right? It’s us against them, and we watch each other’s back instead of pulling each other down. Remember how we are trained to write reports a certain way to ensure the conviction. Sometimes we have to tweak things a little to make sure the bad guy doesn’t slip off our hook and continue being a bad guy. If we look at the big picture, and do our jobs thoroughly… That shouldn’t happen.”
Detective Marks didn’t respond or even turn from his view of P.C.H. and Crystal Lantern. The silence got awkward and he wondered what he should say, if anything.
Detective Pincher filled the silence. “Some of these criminals are smart enough to manipulate the law and it’s our job to be just as cunning to prevent that from happening. We just have to be willing. Willing enough to hop in the dirt they roll around in and find the gray area they’re using to manipulate the law and tweak it right back at them.”
Still looking toward the beach detective Marks said, “I understand.”
Through the gap in the houses detective Pincher saw a female pull up in a Buick and park in the driveway. She and Damon got out, then a little boy with blond hair got out of the backseat and hugged Damon and held his hand. The female reached into the backseat and pulled out a baby.
Detective Pincher said, “Put your vest on, they just pulled up.”
Detective Marks retrieved his vest and police issue two way radio from the Taurus. He put the vest on and asked, “Are you going to call in our position and report the… conditions?”
Detective Pincher watched Damon as he walked with the little boy holding his hand, and the female carrying the baby, open the front door to go inside. He looked back at the Buick and noticed the back door on the driver’s side was still open. They must be coming back for something.
“Let’s go. I’ll call it in when Damon is in handcuffs.”
Ryan came running out of the apartment just as the detectives reached the Buick in the driveway. Ryan looked up and stopped in his tracks seeing the strangers, and then their guns.
“Daddy!! People are here with guns!!”
Detective Pincher trained his gun on Damon’s chest as he came running out.
Damon stopped on the edge of the porch and asked, “What do you want now?”
Detective Pincher took a shuffle step toward Damon and commanded, “Get down on the ground and assume the prone position Damon!”
Detective Marks followed suit. “Down on your stomach Damon! Comply with what we tell you, hands behind your back. Now!”
Damon started to comply. He got on his knees and had his hands in the air and looked at his son. Ryan had a scared, confused look in his eyes and was frozen in place behind the detectives.
As calmly as he could he said, “Ryan, it’s okay bud. Go find your Mommy and have her put you in your room.”
Detective Pincher shuffled closer to Damon and said, “Is that where you have the rest of your pot hidden, in your kid’s room?”
Damon responded immediately. “I’ve never brought pot to my house!!”
Pincher responded, “It’s only an apartment Damon. You have to get shit right with me or I won’t have a future for you. Now get face down so my partner can put the cuffs on you. We’re going to search your apartment for more contraband.”
Ryan saw his Mommy arrive at the door and ran around the detectives and his Daddy. As soon as he got to his Mommy he hugged her legs and looked back at his Daddy.
Laying on the ground with his hands behind his back getting cuffed, Damon said, “Jade put the kids in their room.”
Jade took her son by the hand and went inside leaving the front door open.
Detective Pincher took the opportunity to follow her inside. As Jade put the kids in their room, detective Pincher went straight to the master bedroom.
Detective Marks lifted Damon to his feet and said, “Words of advice for you… You don’t want to get on my partner’s bad side. Now let’s go inside.”
Jade came out of the kid’s bedroom with a phone in her hand. She walked up to detective Marks escorting Damon to take a seat on the couch.
“Where is your search warrant? You’re not supposed to be in our house. I’m calling internal affairs and reporting your names and badge numbers for this.”
Detective Marks stared at Jade’s determined face not knowing what to do. While he thought about what she had said he realized she was right. We don’t have a search warrant.
Damon watched detective Marks reaction. Then he saw detective Pincher come out of his room with what looked like bags of pot in one hand and a digital scale in the other.
Detective Pincher set the bags of pot and Tanita digital scale on the kitchen counter and responded to what he’d overheard Jade say. “Listen young lady. Your front door was open and you didn’t say I couldn’t come in. Even if you had, I have the right to check on the welfare of your children and anyone else that might be in the house to make sure everyone is okay. Both of those reasons give me a legitimate reason to be in your residence. Then while searching your residence for the welfare of your kids, I’m also legally allowed to observe any contraband in plain view.”
