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  FINAL ORDERS

  HAZARD AND SOMERSET: ARROWS IN THE HAND

  BOOK 5

  GREGORY ASHE

  H&B

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Final Orders

  Copyright © 2022 Gregory Ashe

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. For permission requests and all other inquiries, contact: [email protected]

  Published by Hodgkin & Blount

  https://www.hodgkinandblount.com/

  [email protected]

  Published 2022

  Printed in the United States of America

  Version 1.04

  Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-63621-035-3

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-63621-034-6

  CHAPTER ONE

  MAY 14

  THURSDAY

  7:06 PM

  “I AM HERE today because I care about our children.”

  Hazard snorted. He glanced over, hoping for some shared sentiment, and then scowled. He whispered, “Put away your phone.”

  His foster-son, Colt, hunched over the device and tapped the screen faster.

  “As an American, I believe in the rights and dignity of every citizen.”

  The words pulled Hazard’s attention back up to the podium. The speaker was a woman in her early forties, trim but obviously fighting for it, hair expensively bleached so that she almost looked like a natural blonde. She was wearing a dark suit; Hazard guessed she had a closetful of them at home, all of them described on the tag with phrases like “flattering to the figure” and “bold lines” and “boardroom-ready.” Her name was Joyce Sturgis, and she’d contoured on her makeup so thickly that it looked like a peel-away.

  Most of the audience, though, was gazing at her with respect bordering on worship. A couple of middle-aged white ladies to Hazard’s right were clutching hands with an intensity that suggested cliff diving or the plunge of a roller coaster. The man directly in front of Hazard—older, white, with thick graying fur on his arms—wore a t-shirt that showed American-flag-themed boxing gloves and the words USA—CONSECUTIVE CHAMPION—TWO WORLD WARS. A heavyset Asian man in a rumpled suit had propped a sign against his chest that said WOULD JESUS READ YOUR BOOK?; he’d been waving it before one of the police officers in attendance made him put it down.

  The mere fact that they needed police in attendance at a school board meeting should have been ridiculous. Had been ridiculous, in fact, when Hazard had been home, talking it over with his husband. But only a few months before, a group of concerned parents had stormed a school board meeting and sent the board running—literally. And now, glancing across the room toward his husband, John-Henry Somerset, in his police chief’s uniform, Hazard didn’t think it was quite so ridiculous. Somers’s face was set in hard lines as he scanned the crowd. Opposite him, Sam Yarmark was in uniform and providing additional security at the event; maybe it was the fluorescent lighting, or maybe Somers was having an effect as Yarmark’s mentor, but Hazard had to admit that Yarmark no longer looked like a little wiener in that uniform.

  People filled the high school gymnasium—standing room only—and the number of bodies, combined with a warm May evening, meant that the room was simmering. The smell of sweat mixed with wax from the floorboards. The spaces between Joyce’s words were filled with the hum of the old speaker system and the restless squeak of soles on wood.

  “But as a Christian—” Joyce didn’t exactly pause, but she timed her breath right, and it stirred a murmur of approval from the crowd. “—I believe in Jesus Christ, and my faith and my responsibility to our children mean I have to be here today, even if I wish I didn’t. I thank God for my family, who have chosen to support me in spite of the opposition we’re facing from certain members of our community.”

  That last jab was doubtless directed at Hazard and others who had come to speak against Joyce tonight. The group included a wide range of people from Wahredua’s communities, among them several of Hazard’s friends: Dulac, Somers’s former partner, and his boyfriend, Darnell; Noah and Rebeca, Hazard’s neighbors; Nico, Hazard’s onetime ex and current administrative assistant; and Cora, Somers’s ex-wife. Dulac’s current partner, Detective Yolanda Palomo, had joined them too, although she stood a few feet off, an invisible line separating her from the friends.

  “My daughter is a student at Wahredua High,” Joyce said, indicating a girl near the podium. The girl was stout, and she had black, frizzy hair and a bad complexion. She’d taken a page from her mother’s book; her makeup aimed for Vogue, but it had ended up closer to Mad Magazine. “And my husband and I are alumni.” Her husband, seated next to the girl, had to be in his mid-forties. His face had something too pathetic to be called a beard, and he’d squeezed himself into a turquoise knit polo and cargo shorts—Hazard assumed that since the Pope wasn’t in attendance, pants were optional. “It makes me sad to see how far this institution has fallen. I’m ashamed of what these men and women are doing to our community.”

  “Bitch,” Dulac whispered.

  Hazard glanced over. Darnell had a hand on Dulac’s arm, but the detective ignored him. Something—anger?—pinched his face, and his hands were curled into fists so tightly that his knuckles blanched. Hazard was about to ask Dulac to be quiet, but then harsh breathing made him turn his head. Nico was pushing back shaggy hair. Sweat dotted his forehead, and under the coppery tone to his skin, he looked pale.

  “Are you—” Hazard started to ask.

  Nico cut him off with a violent shake of his head.

  “Come on,” Cora whispered. “I need some air.”

  After a moment, Nico nodded, and he stumbled along with her as they forced a path through the crowd. Cora cast a backward glance, and Hazard didn’t need a cue card to know what that meant; Nico’s panic attacks had been getting worse.

  “She’s a fucking bitch,” Dulac whispered a little more loudly. The two women clutching hands turned to glare at him, and Hazard glared back until they looked away.

  “She’s full of it,” Noah whispered. “She’s just doing this for the attention.”

  Rebeca made a disagreeing noise. “I got into that ‘concerned parents’ group for a few days.” She drew the air quotes with her fingers. “The one they have on Facebook. That was how long it took them to drill down into my profile and realize I was a crazy liberal. I don’t think they’re doing it for the attention, at least, not all of them. Some of those people are legit nuts.”

  “And that’s a public health expert’s opinion,” Noah said with a grin.

  “We have to face an ugly truth,” Joyce said, her voice booming over the speakers with new volume. “And the truth is that the adults we have entrusted our children to are peddling pornography.”

  A ripple went through the crowd, and in its wake, an ugly murmur. The man in the CONSECUTIVE CHAMPIONS shirt leaned forward like he was at a dog fight.

  “They are using that pornography to warp our children’s minds. They are using it to groom them for sexual predators.”

  “Fucking bullshit,” Dulac muttered. His mouth was white on one side where he was biting it. “I fucking love that book.”

  “This man is part of that. He’s preparing to deliver our children up to pedophiles.”

  Another ugly shiver went
through the throng, and Hazard felt it, saw it, something stirring and stretching—this crowd was about to become a mob. When Joyce turned to point behind her, everyone followed her finger.

  Theo Stratford was around Hazard’s age. He was a good-looking man, built wide across the shoulders, with strawberry-blond hair tied up in a bun as a concession to the formality of the evening. He had a heavy beard, and it accented his jaw and his cheekbones. He kept his face neutral, but he had one hand wrapped around a hardback book, and even from across the room Hazard could see the strain there.

  “Tonight, I’m calling for the school board to request Mr. Stratford’s resignation.”

  “I thought it was doctor,” Noah murmured.

  “And because we’re fortunate to have the chief of police here, I am also asking him to do his duty as a sworn officer and arrest Mr. Stratford for distributing pornography to minors and for distribution of child pornography.”

  Behind Theo, his partner, Auggie, had his arms folded across his chest. He was short, his skin light brown, his dark hair cut and styled so fashionably that Hazard had once caught Nico taking a picture of it. He was annoyingly attractive and seemed to know it, and it only made things worse that he was, apparently, a decent human being. At that moment, granted, a decent human being who looked like he was contemplating murder.

  “Mrs. Sturgis—” That was one of the school board members—Hazard couldn’t remember her name. “—you have one minute remaining.”

  “I know what he’s going to say when he gets up here,” Joyce told the crowd. “He’s going to tell you that this book and other books like it are about showing tolerance for people who are different from us. I’m all for tolerance. But this book, and the other pornography he’s distributing, has no place in the hands of innocent children, let alone in a classroom. What he’s going to tell you, about social-emotional learning and about supporting students and about diversity, it’s what experts call a ‘false flag’ event. Like school shootings—”

  “Mrs. Sturgis,” one of the board members said sharply.

  “—these aren’t real problems. They’re things that people, bad people, are using to scare you into giving up your rights as Americans.”

  “That’s time, Mrs. Sturgis,” the woman said.

  “They’re trying to scare you into giving up your rights as parents, your Second Amendment rights—”

  “Mrs. Sturgis, that’s time. You need to cede the floor.”

  “They’re trying to scare you into giving up your God.”

  “Mrs. Sturgis!” The female school board member gestured to Yarmark, who started making his way through the crowd.

  “And they’re trying to scare you into giving up your children! I ask that the school board do the right thing tonight and cancel this author’s visit, remove her books from our school, and ensure that appropriate legal action is taken against the men and women who have been grooming our children for pedophiles and sex traffickers!”

  “Your time is up—”

  “Thank you and goodnight!”

  When Joyce stepped away from the podium, cheers surged up. The two women to Hazard’s right raised their joined hands, shaking them in the air. The CONSECUTIVE CHAMPIONS guy clapped his hands overhead. The man in the rumpled suit held up his sign again. WOULD JESUS READ YOUR BOOK? Christ, Hazard thought. He wasn’t even sure Jesus would read the Bible anymore.

  As Joyce and her family cleared the area around the podium, Theo stepped forward, and Auggie took one of the seats behind him.

  “This is fucking bullshit,” Dulac said to no one in particular. “I’m going to say—fuck me. Is that Carmichael? And Keller?”

  Hazard followed his gaze. Joyce and her husband were talking to another man and woman now. The man was Dusty Keller, one of Somers’s first hires—the man had lasted less than a year on the force because he was a complete and utter asshat. The woman was Miranda Carmichael, one of the department’s four detectives. She was in a t-shirt that said SAVE OUR CHILDREN, and she was nodding aggressively with every word that Joyce said.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Hazard said. He caught Palomo’s face in profile and turned; her expression was blank as she watched her colleague—and former colleague—across the room.

  “I’m going to say something,” Dulac repeated, and he began to press his way through the crowd toward the podium.

  Theo adjusted the mic. The speakers shrilled and quieted. Then Theo said, “I understand that tonight is a difficult night for many people, myself included.”

  A few jeers went up. CONSECUTIVE CHAMPIONS shouted, “Sit down!”

  “My name is Theo Stratford, and I’m an English teacher at Wahredua High School. I’m also the teacher who coordinated Ms. Loretta Ames’s visit; she’s the author of some of the books we’re discussing.” He held up the hardback as evidence, but it was too far away for Hazard to read the title. “I believe that many of you are here because you are worried about your children and you want to keep them safe. I understand that; I have a daughter. I’d do anything in the world to keep her safe.” He paused. He swallowed. When he continued, his voice was thick. “But ignorance is not the same thing as safety. Every day, children in our school struggle with issues represented in the books that are being challenged tonight. Every day, children struggle to feel accepted for who they are, to feel loved, to feel safe. They live with hate and ridicule and abuse. They face it at home. They come to school and face it from peers. They face it from some of their teachers. And for those children, these books are a lifeline. I’d ask you to consider: how can we ask children not to read about the very things that they are experiencing in their daily lives?”

  The silence had a vibration like a strummed chord falling still. Then Keller shouted, “Pervert!”

  “One more outburst like that,” the female school board member said, “and we’ll clear the room. Dr. Stratford?”

  He nodded. “I’d like to read to you some excerpts from assignments—work done by students after reading Ms. Ames’s book. I know I don’t have much time, but I hope this will give you a sense of how meaningful this book is for the children we all care about.” He held up a piece of paper. “This is from a sophomore: ‘I never knew anybody else felt the way I did.’ This is from another sophomore: ‘I cried all night because I did the same thing to my cousin when he came out and I wish I hadn’t.’ This is from a senior: ‘I didn’t know. I really didn’t know.’ This is from a junior: ‘I’m straight, but I’m going to join the gay student thing because of this book. Thank you for having us read it.’ From a senior: ‘I wish I’d read this book four years ago. I wouldn’t have tried to kill myself.’”

  The gravity of the words settled over the crowd. A few of the men shifted their weight and looked around. The women next to Hazard released their joined hands.

  Behind Theo, a boy started to pace. The movement drew Hazard’s attention; it had a familiar quality—ragged speed, uneven timing, the boy with his shoulders tight and his arms stiff at his sides. It was the adolescent male gearing up for a fight.

  “Shit,” Hazard said. “Colt?”

  Colt made a noise. He was still bent over his phone.

  “Colt, right now.”

  “What, jeez? Ash is being such a dick. I know he has his phone, but he’s taking forever to answer because he’s with Gwen, and—”

  “I don’t care about Ash or his girlfriend. I need you to—”

  “She’s not his girlfriend!”

  “Colt, focus. Who’s that?”

  “Huh? Oh. Evan. Uh, Pawloski. Why? Is he—oh, damn!”

  Hazard looked up in time to see Evan charge the podium.

  Auggie must have spotted him out of the corner of his eye because he let out a warning cry and got to his feet. He was too slow to intercept Evan, but the shout alerted Theo, who turned just in time to get punched in the face. Theo’s head rocked back, and he stumbled, hip-checking the podium. It rocked, and hi
s papers fluttered down to the floor.

  Evan pressed his advantage, swinging again, but Theo managed to get clear of the next punch, and then Auggie was there, shoving Evan back. The boy was shouting—the exact words were garbled, but “fucking queer” came through, as did “faggot.”

  “Order! Order!” The school board member was slapping the table. “Police!”

  Somers was trying to get through the crowd. Yarmark was closer, but the press of bodies slowed him.

  Dulac, however, was right there. He broke free from the crowd and jogged toward Auggie and Evan, who were still struggling. His movement seemed to trigger the rest of the crowd into action; Joyce’s husband ran toward the scrum, and Dusty Keller was only a step behind him.

  “Motherfucker,” Hazard said. “John and Yarmark can’t handle this shit on their own.” He pushed Colt toward Noah. “Get him out of here.”

  Noah gave a tight, worried nod, and he and Rebeca began shepherding Colt toward the door. The crowd was dissolving—some of the people streaming toward the doors, more of them pressing in toward the fight. Hazard moved with the current for the first few paces. Then he began to shove, clearing a path.

  “Police!” shouted a voice next to him. Palomo pushed a red-faced, middle-aged white guy out of her way. She had her badge thrust out in front of her, and that, combined with the vigorous use of elbows, cleared a path for her.

  Hazard and Palomo reached the fray at the same time as a fresh cluster of men, all of them bearded, all of them in camo.

  “Get out of here,” Palomo shouted. “Police! You will be placed under arrest—”

  “Shut up, you cunt dyke,” one of them said, swinging a lazy backhand.

  Palomo did something—Hazard wasn’t sure exactly what—and a moment later the big, bearded guy’s camo ass was flat on the floor. He had a moment to appreciate the sight of his husband, in uniform, charging into the melee, grabbing Joyce’s husband by the polo and dragging him off Dulac.