One Night In San Francisco

The Slip

San Francisco, July 2nd, 2013. 11:24 PM.

As the tired Crown Victoria exited the police garage amid a huge caravan of police cars, Clancy McCutchen sat behind the wheel. His brows were furrowed and his mouth had slackened into that familiar upward curve once again.

What was happening? In all his years as investigating crimes from an idiot with a bomb in his underwear to a full on cult suicide, nothing has jarred him like this.

There is a moment in schools all over the country, the moment that teachers teach for. The moment they toil and deal with unappreciative little demons for years for. The lightbulb moment. The moment where the kid went, "Ohhhhh" and you saw his or her face light up and a grin spread over their face. The moment that makes you realize the full extent of the saying "Knowledge is Power". The moment where everything is revealed.

Clancy lived for those moments. He didn't know why he loved it so much. Figuring it all out. Finding the one puzzle piece that had eluded him the whole time. Finding the one book he needed to leave for school. Finding his cell phone when he thought he had left at that table at Panda Express. The palpable feeling of relief and success that he knew he was close to ending it was greater than anything.

But that moment was absent. It was wiped completely from his mind this night. They had no leads. No slip-ups by this assailant. He or she was way too good. And either too powerful or too wealthy. Either way, they had succeeded thus far. The lightbulb moment had given Clancy the slip.

But Clancy had wondered already about if it was "thus far" yet. The criminal had definitely left a huge implant on the city. The nation would wake up to some news tomorrow. But would there be anymore to be made this night?

There was only one place to go. To catch a criminal, as the cliched saying goes, you have to---

"Where we going, Clance?" James asked quietly. And as he finished those words, Clancy suddenly knew.

"Well, to catch a criminal, James, you simply have to think like one."

The mullet is a notoriously slippery fish to catch with your hands. So to catch it sometimes you just have to break the rules and use a net.

The gray sedan pulled up to the curb and found a narrow space to wedge its way into. Which was a harder thing than normal on this night. For out of all the SFPD cars surrounding the cordoned off street, the Crown Victoria was the only one without a flashing light and blaring siren.

Captain Shuttlesworth was standing right inside the caution tape with a clipboard, chatting with a perky looking woman. Clancy and James waited until she had leftm and then raced over before anyone else could talk to the stern leader.

Judas Shuttlesworth was an unflappable man. The ironic thing about the African-American man with the square, always-chewing-gum mouth, the narrow, suspicious eyes and intimidating stature was his name, given to him by drunk-happy parents when he was born in the backseat of a speeding Bxster some fity years ago. Because the most admirable trait about him was that he would literally stay loyal to his force through thick and thin. The stories told about him bordered on legendary, and James had heard enough from Clancy to have formed a general picture about him. And the man surpassed all those.

"Hey, Capt. This is James Wilson, err, a special witness who could shed light on our guy," Clancy started confidently enough.

The fifty-something man squinted and stared hard at James, inducing sweat all over his body instantly. Then, just as the unease was ready to reach its unbearable climax, he seemed to deicde James was no threat and sighed. "What you got for me, Clancy?"