The Mind Man

Chapter nineteen

From her eighth floor room at the Crowne Plaza LAX Laura could watch the steady procession of airplanes on their approach to the airport's southern runways. 

She found it very difficult to concentrate on the task at hand, which was finalizing the articles she had written whilst in California for submission to her editor. Her mind continually drifted back to her last unconventional conversation with Chuck, and Farrell's reaction to her newspaper. 

The Sergeant was predictably tight-lipped at the second interview which had been rescheduled to the following day. She queried him until he became angry but he had divulged nothing. He persistently repeated that his behavior the previous day was just an overreaction to some ongoing police business and that she should not interpret anything from it. She didn't want to jeopardize his deputy's career so she kept that conversation to herself. Besides that, she was feeling a little uneasy at deploying such a tactic to extrude information. Although, a story was a story and it wasn't her fault that he had been naive enough to talk loosely to a journalist. However, she would leave it up to Chuck to speak if he deemed it worthy of mention. With Farrell keeping quiet on the subject she presumed, quite understandably, that Chuck had kept the incident to himself. 

But now her mind was racing. The reaction of Farrell to the plane crash was so real and charged with emotion it told her in no uncertain terms that there was something going on that was worth investigating. But what it was she couldn't tell, and that kept bothering her. It nagged her to a point where she struggled to complete her assignment. Now she was running late and she needed to focus to get it out before she caught her return flight. 

While she had been in California there had been some sporadic outbursts of rioting within Los Angeles but nothing on the scale which the authorities feared. The creator of the damaging video was quickly arrested and it turned out to be a Sacramento man in his late thirties who drew constant attention to himself from the PD. He was an unemployed misfit barely worthy of mention in print. The inquiry was dropped, the man charged, and the world moved on. 

To salvage the trip Laura visited the central south district of Los Angeles and spoke to administrative authorities there, as well as local residents and small business operators, to compile an article on how the region had fared since the 1992 riots. It was indeed a grim scenario. There was a distinct lack of normal city furniture. She found basic amenities such as fast-food restaurants, chain stores, multiplex movie theaters, diners and coffeehouses hauntingly scarce. Big business had abandoned the area and poor ethnic communities were turning on each other. Unemployment, poverty, boredom, crime and a sense of abandonment were rife. Without the influx of the large national chains and business investment the area was doomed and could simmer for years ready to explode with any catalyst. 

Just before the nominated checkout time she hit the send button on her laptop and grabbed her belongings before heading for the elevator.

"Damn!" her cellphone rang as she was next in line at reception. It was a Sacramento number which she didn't recognize so she decided to answer. 

She was surprised and a little annoyed to hear Chuck's voice. "Good morning Chuck. How are you?" Laura struggled with the phone and her bags as she moved up to the desk. 

"Is everything alright ma'am?" 

"Yes, I have a shuttle bus waiting to take me to the terminal. I'm at LAX. I'm catching a flight back to the UK in a couple of hours." 

"Oh...I just wanted to say that I feel kinda bad about the other day in the office here. I'm really sorry." 

"No that's okay. I feel terrible doing that to you. I shouldn't have done it. It was a spontaneous reaction to what was happening...you know with Sergeant Farrell."