Make It True
"People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe." --Andy Rooney
This story is from my new short story collection, Make It True. I hope you like it enough to consider buying the whole book. :-)
Lieutenant Blane Ormond stood with his hands folded at his belly just under his tactical vest. He wasn’t all that tall--5’10” in his duty boots--but at this moment, he loomed over the young man sitting on the curb with his hands cuffed behind him. He stared down and studied him, a scrawny white boy, age 19, torn jeans, a black Rammstein t-shirt and short, red hair that stood on its ends. His driver’s license identified him as Mitchell Gore of Vineland. Ormond turned and approached the car, a 2024 BMW M235i in metallic midnight blue. He reached onto the hood where he’d laid the evidence. He picked up the clear plastic bag containing small capsules of white powder with yellow tops and turned to the detained young man.
“You’re a little far from home, aren’t you, Mitch?”
No response. Backup officers lingered a few steps away, watching.
“A lot of drugs you got there.”
“That’s not mine.”
“Oh? Whose is it?”
“I dunno.” Mitch turned his head down to the pavement.
Ormond replaced the bag onto the hood, then picked up the pistol. “And this. A Glock 19.”
Mitch turned his head up to face the cop. “That’s not mine.”
“Whose is it?”
“I dunno.”
Ormond replaced the gun on the hood and returned to his detainee. “The car comes back as stolen. From an address in Vineland, where you’re from.”
“I didn’t steal it. I borrowed it.”
