Darktown by Thomas Mullen Page A

about our superior officers? Or maybe you have a pink slip in that notebook, and we can just sign our jobs away and be done with it? That’d be easier, wouldn’t it?”
    One of the many complications the Negro officers faced was the fact that one of them, Xavier Little, happened to be nephew of the owner of the Daily Times. After the officers were sworn in, the Times ran an extensive interview with him. As far as Boggs could tell, Little said nothing remotely controversial in the story, yet the day after it hit the stands, McInnis excoriated them all. Do not talk to the newspapers again, ever. You are not spokesmen for your people. You are goddamn beat cops, and that’s all you will be, or you will be unemployed. The fact that the paper had been an early champion of the push for colored officers, and was eager to chronicle their every move, made this an especially delicate dance for the eight of them.
    Toon held out his hands. “I’m on your side here, gentlemen.”
    â€œWhose side?” Smith looked in every direction. “Which side? How’s that work again?”
    Boggs’s head was pounding and he desperately needed sleep. He was not thinking clearly. Surely that explained why he then said, “You really want to be helpful? I’ve got something for your paper, but you didn’t get it from me. Understood?”
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œWe have a body,” Boggs said, “a colored girl, teens or maybe early twenties. Found dead, shot in the chest. No ID or anything.” Smith paced a few steps away, loudly sucking in his breath, all but yelling Mistake, mistake, mistake. If McInnis knew Boggs was saying this, they’d be in serious trouble. But Boggs was livid at the judge, livid at Dunlow from last night, livid about the fact that white investigators had done nothing to look into the murder. “All she had was a yellow dress and a heart-shaped locket. We could wait around until someone thinks their daughter or wife is missing, but if you put a note in the paper somewhere . . .”
    â€œWhat else?”
    â€œThat’s all we know.” He didn’t want to tell Toon they found her in garbage. If a husband or parent had to learn that, they should hear it from an officer, in person.
    Toon had an impressive stare. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
    It was a mistake to have said this much. But Boggs felt such rage, hehadn’t been able to hold himself back. White cops had just let his case against Poe die. Dunlow had beaten a man in front of him the other night. And apparently someone, most likely his own superior officer, had retyped his report on the colored Jane Doe. Falsified it by deleting the reference to Brian Underhill, the last known person seen with the victim, probably to protect the ex-cop. People were undercutting Boggs at every turn, making him look stupid and helpless. He refused to be helpless.
    â€œThe last known person to be with her was a middle-aged white man,” he said. “Do not disclose that.”
    Toon nodded slowly. “Okay, I’ll run something. Call me when you have more.”

    This was hardly the first time they had been humiliated in court, but that didn’t make it any easier. In fact, they’d spent so much time preparing for this case because they’d thought that their efforts would finally overwhelm the hard-breathing judge’s bias. They had thought that what they did mattered.
    â€œI thought you locked it?” Smith said, opening the former custodial closet’s door.
    â€œI did.”
    Smith hit the switch as Boggs closed the door behind him. Their civilian clothes, which they had hung on pegs, were strewn on the floor.
    â€œFor God’s sake.” Smith picked up his shirt and his slacks, shaking the dust bunnies from them.
    Boggs did the same with his shirt. He looked around for his pants. “You’re kidding.”
    He