Home Invasion - J. A. Johnstone [46]
She had a strong voice and experience at crowd control, but she had trouble making herself heard over the racket. A couple of guys were rolling around on the cement at her feet, wrestling. Disgusted, she reached down, grabbed the shirt collar of one of them, and hauled him to his feet.
“Mom!” Jack yelped as Alex found herself looking into her son’s face.
Before Alex could say anything, a siren snarled loudly somewhere nearby. After a couple of bursts of near-deafening sound, it shut down, only to be replaced by J. P. Delgado’s voice amplified through a bullhorn. “Break it up! Break it up! Or you’ll all be placed under arrest!”
Delgado had managed to get into one of the police cars parked in the lot, and between the bullhorn and the siren, he stunned the crowd into submission, at least for the moment. Alex gave Jack a little shake and said through clenched teeth, “Stay here. Do not throw another punch. You understand me?”
He jerked his head in an angry nod. His arm was bleeding from a scraped place and a bruise was already starting to come up on his jaw, but he didn’t appear to be badly hurt.
Alex shoved her way through the crowd to the police car. Delgado stood beside the open driver’s door, the bullhorn in his hand. She took it from him and lifted it to her mouth.
“Everyone disperse right now,” she ordered. “Off the streets! Go home! I’m declaring a curfew in effect!”
From the crowd, somebody yelled, “You can’t do that!”
Alex glared in his direction, swung the bullhorn toward him, and barked through it, “You wanna try me?”
Evidently nobody did.
The mob began thinning on the edges as people who hadn’t been directly involved in the fight decided it might be best to do as she said and go home. Alex lowered the bullhorn and asked Delgado, “Do you have any idea what started this?”
Before he could answer, a woman’s strident voice said, “I can tell you what started it. Those young racists you have growing up here attacked my cameraman!”
Alex turned to see an attractive blonde in her twenties standing there. Her clothes were a little rumpled and her previously perfect hair was in slight disarray. She had a microphone in her hand, and a man with a video camera was pointing it at her.
“That cameraman?” Alex asked.
The guy gave her a hostile glance. He had dried blood on his face from a split lip.
“That’s right, Chief,” the reporter said. “You are Chief Alex Bonner, aren’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“Do you have any comment about the riot that broke out here in Home this evening?”
“It wasn’t a riot—” Alex began.
“With all due respect, Chief, you weren’t right in the middle of it. Those rampaging citizens were out of control, and I was afraid for my life.”
With all due respect, Alex thought bleakly. That was what leeches like this reporter said to people they didn’t respect at all.
The blonde went on, “That young man assaulted my associate, and I want him arrested.” She turned to point dramatically at Rowdy, who was standing now with Jack and Steve.
Alex narrowed her eyes at him. “Rowdy, what did you do?”
Before he could answer, the reporter said, “Excuse me? Rowdy? Did you say his name is Rowdy?” Her condescending smirk spoke volumes.
“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with that name, lady,” Rowdy protested. “If it was good enough for Clint Eastwood, it’s good enough for me.”
The blonde never stopped smirking as she said, “What about it, Chief? Are you going to arrest this young man and his friends?”
It was clear she meant Jack and Steve.
Alex faced the three boys. Steve had a hangdog expression on his face, but Jack and Rowdy still looked defiant.
“Did you start this?” Alex demanded of them.
“No, they did,” Jack replied. “She said that Mr. McNamara was to blame for everything that happened, including his wife getting killed.”
“We couldn’t let that go,” Rowdy said. “We just couldn’t, Mrs. Bonner.”
“I’m not Mrs. Bonner right now,” Alex snapped. “I’m Chief Bonner, and I’m putting all three of you in custody.”
Jack’s eyes widened. “Mom!”