Chapter 48: The Third Time

Damn it, it looks like Cagge has already engaged the suspect in gunfire. Jimmy tried the back door; it was unlocked, so he drew his revolver and walked right in. As he neared the suspect's position, he took aim and shouted, "Pulaski County Police, hands up, drop your weapon!" The suspect spun around and leveled his pistol at Jimmy.

Jimmy had been waiting for this exact moment. The moment the suspect pointed a gun at him, it became a standard, justified use-of-force confrontation. Jimmy fired a single round directly into the suspect's neck. The kinetic energy of the bullet twisted the suspect's body instantly before sending him crashing to the floor, his pistol flying out of his hand and clattering onto the ground.

"Scene secure!" Jimmy shouted so Cagge could hear him, then walked over to kick the handgun far away. Holstering his revolver, he walked to the corner, pulled the doctor to his feet, gave him a quick pat-down search, and untied his bonds.

The doctor seemed to have strong nerves. Even after a shootout, he remained sitting in the corner without uttering a sound, looking entirely unpanicked.

Cagge walked in from the front clinic area, cast a single glance at the suspect, and immediately bypassed any attempts at resuscitation.

The suspect had taken a bullet to the neck and, after lying on the floor for just a short moment, had already lost a massive amount of blood. His clothes and the floor were soaked red. Jimmy's shot had undoubtedly struck the carotid artery; with that volume of hemorrhage, he was beyond saving. There was no point trying.

Cagge holstered his weapon and used his portable radio to notify dispatch, requesting an ambulance.

After communicating with dispatch, Cagge walked straight over to the doctor and began questioning him about what had happened.

"This man came in complaining of a headache, asking me for painkillers, and then held me at gunpoint, forcing me into the back storage room. He was looking for naloxone, but I was completely out, and my new shipment hadn't arrived yet. He didn't believe me, tied me up, and started searching the storage room himself. That's when you guys arrived."

Cagge had a rough grasp of the situation now. A formal incident report would require bringing the doctor back to the precinct for an official statement. After finishing his questions, Cagge walked over to Jimmy.

Jimmy was already familiar with the routine. He unbuckled his duty belt and sidearm, handed them over to Cagge, and then found a chair to sit on while waiting for the ambulance and the rest of the backup to arrive. Once the scene was processed, he would need to return to the precinct with Cagge for debriefing. Having been through this twice before, Jimmy wasn't worried in the least. This time, he had the doctor as an eyewitness to testify that the suspect had drawn a weapon on him first.

Cagge carried Jimmy's duty belt and sidearm outside to lock them in the patrol car for safekeeping. As for leaving Jimmy and the doctor alone together in the room, he had zero concerns; compared to Jimmy, the doctor's physique posed no threat whatsoever.

The doctor was likely still in shock, standing with his back against the wall and not daring to move. Jimmy waved a hand to catch his attention, pulled a crate from nearby, and placed it next to him. The doctor came over and sat down, though his hands were still trembling visibly.

Jimmy asked casually, "Doctor, try to calm down. You're safe now."

"Yes, yes, I'm safe. May I use the restroom?"

"Let's wait a moment, the lieutenant will be here shortly. I can't really escort you to the restroom right now."

The doctor was the sole witness and the only victim at the scene. While forcing him to hold it might seem a bit inhumane, there was no alternative; someone had to accompany him at all times. Besides, Jimmy didn't feel like moving around either, and according protocol, he wasn't allowed to act on his own authority anyway.

Cagge returned, escorted the doctor to the restroom to freshen up, and then had him change his clothes. Since the lab coat was covered in the suspect's fingerprints, it was stripped off directly, dropped into an evidence bag, and slated for transport back to the precinct.

Once the ambulance arrived and hauled the body away, Cagge finished outlining the corpse's position on the floor, cleared the ammunition from the suspect's pistol before dropping it into an evidence bag, and collected a sample of blood for archival purposes.

Jimmy and Cagge returned to the station with the doctor. Standard procedure dictated that Cagge would head to the interrogation room to take the statement while Jimmy retired to the break room to wait for dawn and the subsequent Internal Affairs investigation.

Early the next morning, Chief James broke precedent by rising exceptionally early and arriving at the precinct long before usual. This was already the third officer-involved fatal shooting of the year—previously, they were lucky to see one in a twelve-month span, and the kicker was that all three fatal shootings had been committed by the exact same officer.

The Chief scratched his head, wondering if pulling Jimmy into his department had been a blessing or a curse. Either way, when he gave his report to the county board of commissioners, it was guaranteed to be used as ammunition against him for police brutality.

Following the conclusion of the routine inquiry, Chief James promptly slapped Jimmy with a week of administrative leave, ordering him to stay home and rest up. It was probably best to keep loose cannons like him off the streets for a while.

The length of the administrative leave Jimmy received this time was unusually generous. He certainly hadn't expected this outcome; he had assumed he would just wait a couple of days like before, secure the preliminary findings from the prosecutor's office, and head right back to work.

Still, a longer break wasn't a bad thing—it gave Jimmy a chance to attend to his side hustle. He gave Professor Morgan a call to check on the patent's progress and received fantastic news: it had already passed into the expert review stage at the United States Patent and Trademark Office's Arkansas regional branch.

The patent application filed this time was a nationwide one. Once it cleared the review at the USPTO's Arkansas branch, it would still need to be submitted to the USPTO headquarters for official recordation. Thanks to the relentless efforts of the law school, Jimmy's patent application had been granted an unimaginable processing speed. At the current rate, they estimated results would be in roughly a month.

Naturally, the law school had a vested interest in this. Bowen School of Law was not a household name; it was simply one of the constituent schools of the University of Arkansas, an institution whose national rankings were modest at best. They deeply cherished this rare opportunity to provide law students with hands-on, end-to-end practical experience.

The vast majority of law school students never got practical opportunities like this. The USPTO's pilot practice program had very limited slots, with only around sixty-odd law schools participating nationwide. Given Bowen's reputation, they stood virtually zero chance; in fact, not a single school in the entire state of Arkansas had ever managed to get into the program.

Normally, law students had to graduate, secure internships at various law firms, and only then participate in actual cases in a very limited capacity. Opportunities to gain real case experience before graduation were exceedingly rare for these aspiring attorneys.

The opportunity Jimmy was providing allowed them to participate in patent and trademark cases from inception to completion. Such successful cases would look phenomenal on their resumes. However, not everyone had the luxury of bringing their own projects to the school and securing faculty approval.

Jimmy was extraordinarily lucky. Perhaps Dean Linton had suffered a momentary lapse in reason, or perhaps he just felt a twinge of pity for a high-school-educated cop, but he had actually agreed to let a professor lead students through this project. To Jimmy, it felt like pie falling straight out of the sky—a piping hot pie landing directly in his lap.