[Source](https://unsplash.com/photos/xsGApcVbojU)
After assigning a copy of the details of the Battler case to his lieutenants, Captain Lee settled into his own thoughts as they read and reviewed and made notes. He had already been through the case, and would add to their material his directives after they had a chance to think through the case. It would take all six of them working together to handle this one.
The Battler case was one of the ones Captain Lee had saved up until he had felt all his lieutenants were ready for it … he had trained them on “easier” cold cases. Yet, now with looming budget cuts and the reality that their division would likely be broken up if not dissolved completely (because budget people had this idea that if a case had waited 5+ years to be solved, it could wait some more), Captain Lee started bringing out the “graduate level” work.
In his mind, as he waited on his lieutenants, Captain Lee was pondering another mystery … a ton of people were now feeding his department clues. Some had to be within the department, in high places … someone had to be inside the Black community in Lofton County, investigating matters, sending information and even convincing said people, who knew they could pay a terrible price even in 2019 for talking with the wrong police officer, that Captain Lee was the right police officer. That, by itself, staggered Captain Lee's imagination, for every day, and every year, he transformed more physically into the statuesque image of the greatest Lee terror to Black freedom there ever had been. But, he had consistently stood against the legacy of his ancestral uncle R.E. Lee, and, apparently, it was paying off in clues!
Someone also had to be very high in Lofton County's elite, perhaps settling scores or clearing the way for some new scheme, with access to financial documents and secret agreements.
But Captain Lee did not deal in speculation, even privately. Speculation without evidence was always based largely on personal impressions and prejudices, and to maintain his edge as an investigator, he could not allow himself such thought patterns.
What he knew for certain about all three sources – or more, because they could have been source *types* – their information always checked out, and there was never the intimation of desiring payment or other corrupt favors in return. The Battler case had a ton of holes in it that needed to be plugged, including conflicting eye witness reports. Perhaps the “extended” cold case division might be able to help sort all that out...
In the great irony of human perspective, Captain Lee probably would have been tickled to know that James Varick IV of the *Lofton County Free Voice* and his friend and renowned private investigator Jetson Black thought of Captain Lee and the entire cold case division as an adjunct to what they were doing in Lofton County! Because they understood all the matters of law and order as they had been experienced in the Black community, they actually were using the cold case division to put the official finish on work they had already begun.
And so it was that Mr. Varick said to Mr. Black, that very morning...
“Sooner or later, that Battler case has to got come up. We can't start this one, but if Lee stays honest, it has got to come up … .”
**Photo by Dmitry Ratushny on Unsplash**