Never the Crime

by Colin Conway

  Nothing.

  Clint clenched and unclenched his jaw. If he wasn’t absolutely one hundred percent certain of Garrett’s guilt, logic would have forced him to abandon this…what was this? A crusade? An obsession? It didn’t matter, because Clint knew the truth, so he had no choice but to keep at it.

  As far as who Garrett was visiting at the cemetery, that part was easy. Garrett’s father was interred elsewhere, but his longtime mentor and friend, Delmar Oakley, was buried there. About once a week, Garrett stopped to pay his respects. Clint wondered if those respects were legitimate or if it was one more charade Garrett played.

  Before he could decide, the cemetery gate opened, and a marked police cruiser edged out. A few moments later, Garrett’s lights activated, and he zipped into northbound traffic. Clint stayed where he was, but turned up the volume on his radio, which was set to the south channel.

  Garrett’s smooth, professional voice came over the airway. “Charlie three sixteen, a traffic stop.”

  “Charlie three sixteen, go ahead,” came the dispatcher’s reply.

  “A white BMW M3,” Garrett reported, reciting the license plate number. “Government Way and Fort George Wright Drive. Code four.”

  “Copy. Code four.”

  Clint had to adjust his position behind the sign to get a bead on the traffic stop location. Through his binoculars, he watched Garrett exit his patrol car and walk confidently to the offender’s car, where he spoke briefly and retrieved the driver’s paperwork before returning to his car. Clint switched his radio to the data channel to see if Garrett ran the driver’s name with the dispatcher but heard nothing. That meant Garrett was using his mobile data computer, just like he was supposed to. The perfect patrol officer, following policy.

  Clint smirked. He wished he had that setup in his detective’s vehicle, but the system was expensive and strictly for patrol use.

  He made a note of the time of the stop and the license plate. He could run Garrett’s unit history tomorrow from the station and fill in the gaps.

  Garrett returned to the car he’d stopped and handed the driver her paperwork. After a brief conversation, he walked back to his patrol car. The BMW crept carefully back onto the road and drove away. Garrett made a U-turn and headed south, turning off his overhead lights as soon as the maneuver was complete.

  “Charlie three sixteen, I’m clear of that stop. One-David.”

  Clint recognized the disposition code. Officer contact, no report. He wrote No ticket on his notepad. He waited until Garrett was almost up to the bend in the long straightaway, before leaving his hiding place and following southbound.

  It only took another minute for the dispatcher to send Garrett and another unit on a domestic violence call in East Central. That was Garrett’s assigned beat within the district, but Clint knew no one would say a word to him about being temporarily out of his beat. Being the model officer had its perks.

  Clint cruised slowly toward the DV call, parking in the lot of a nearby park when he arrived. The swimming pools weren’t open yet, so the lot was mostly empty. He sat and listened to the occasional radio traffic from Garrett or his partner. This time, since they were inside the house, they had to utilize the data dispatcher to check both names, and a third with a different last name. Clint could have guessed at the dynamics happening, but he didn’t care. Garrett was his concern.

  They eventually arrested one of the males, and it was Garrett who transported the prisoner for domestic violence assault. Clint paralleled Garrett’s trip to jail and watched from the middle of the crowded employee parking lot as the officer pulled into the sally port of the booking area.

  Clint checked his watch. If he went home now, he’d get four, maybe five hours of sleep. He needed it, too. He’d been burning the proverbial candle at both ends for twenty-one long months, and the strain took a toll. And for all his trouble, Tyler Garrett seemed to have gone straight.

  Bullshit.

  Clint didn’t buy it. But isn’t that what he should want? For Garrett to be legit?

  No, he decided. That was what the mayor wanted, what the public expected, and what the department needed. Even if they once suspected Garrett had been everything that his worst accusers said he was, all they wanted now was for him to be exactly what Clint was seeing—a model officer.

  Clint wanted something else.

  He wanted justice.

  Suppressing a yawn, Clint pulled out of the parking lot and headed home. He wasn’t giving up, but he needed to snatch a few hours of sleep. Shadowing Garrett was a priority, but he had cases to work, too.

  Justice was going to have to wait at least another day.

  WEDNESDAY

  It is a very trying task for deceitful people, always to have to cover up their lack of sincerity and to repair the breaking of their word.

  —Madeleine de Souvre, French writer

  CHAPTER 10

  Gary Stone woke before his alarm sounded. It wasn’t hard since he’d slept horribly. He’d called it a night after eleven and slipped out of bed shortly after four. He trundled out to his kitchen and started a pot of coffee. He then turned around and stared at his closed laptop. He leaned back against the counter and thought about last night.

  When he returned home following the interview with Councilman Hahn, he was prepared to write his report.

  Chief Baumgartner had instructed him to file the report by hand, but that was old-school and unproductive. The department still kept a few of the blank forms around for emergency use, but it was a throwback to another time—an era before the online reporting system. Now officers entered their reports directly into the system, thereby reducing the time for follow-up by detectives and other agencies. Once it had been entered and approved by a supervisor, anyone with system clearance had access to it. It was a vast improvement over yesteryear.

  Before leaving the department, Stone grabbed a couple of the blank forms. He now considered them with disdain. Stone figured he could create the report the way he wanted. The chief would see the light, he thought. Baumgartner always did. He was a smart man and would listen to reason.

  Stone sat at his kitchen table, pushed the blank report forms to the side and opened his laptop. He called up Microsoft Word. He stared at the blank screen for several moments. The department’s new reporting system was so much better than even Word, he thought.

  Stone set about creating a report heading on the blank screen. He listed several categories across the top of the page: date, address, incident type, report number.

  Report number.

  It was then that he began to consider the implications and consequences of a report with no incident number. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. Since he never called it in, no report number had been assigned. Without a number, there would never be an official record for Betty Rabe’s claim of Councilman Hahn’s potential assault.

  Even if he checked out on the call with dispatch yet cleared the call as One-David—officer contact with no report—an incident number would still be generated, creating some record of his time with Betty Rabe. As it was, there was no record of him ever being there. For all purposes, his interviews with both Rabe and Hahn did not exist.

  That’s what this was about.

  He got up from the table and walked around.

  The mayor sent the letter to the chief who then told him to keep it out of the system while he determined the validity of the claim.

  They wanted it kept quiet.

  Why?

  Why would they do that?

  Were Sikes and Baumgartner actually helping Hahn?

  Were they helping him get away with something?

  Stone considered the idea for a moment, then rejected it. No, that didn’t seem like either of them.

  He wasn’t thinking about this correctly. Stone stopped walking in circles and stared at his computer. He wasn’t seeing it like the mayor, nor was he thinking about it like the chief.

/>   Stone liked the mayor. More than that, he liked and respected the chief. He thought Hahn was a douche bag. Hahn didn’t deserve a break and if he did something wrong, he should be pinned to the wall.

  If Sikes and Baumgartner wanted it kept quiet, then should he just shut up and do it?

  Or was he betraying himself by not doing what he thought was right?

  What was the right thing?

  Maybe it was just writing the report by hand and delivering it to the chief.

  Stone continued to stare at the blank computer screen for several minutes until he walked over and closed the laptop. Then he headed to the kitchen, looking for something to eat.

  The coffee pot gurgled, bringing Stone’s attention back to the present. He turned around and noticed the empty box of Ritz crackers and the half-empty jar of peanut butter. Next to them was the empty half-gallon of milk. He frowned.

  He poured himself a cup of black coffee and sat at his kitchen table.

  Last night, he’d thrown his diet completely out of whack by nervous eating. He hadn’t done that since college when he overate before every final exam. The social aspect of higher education had initially been easy, but the studying, geez, the studying had gotten him fat. Then the social aspect got harder. Stone’s parents paid for him to see a therapist to regulate his nervousness. He had to work extra hard to control himself, keeping everything in check whenever life’s pressure got to be too much.

  By the time he went through the academy and the training car, he thought he could handle stress like a pro. Nothing tripped him up in his three-year career until this.

  It didn’t feel right, but how was he to know if it was actually wrong? Life isn’t black-and-white, he thought. It is a rainbow of grays. Maybe this fell into a darker gray, but who was he to tell the chief of police that he was wrong?

  Stone finally settled onto one calming thought. His job was to follow directions and that’s what he was going to do.

  He sat at the kitchen table and pulled one of the blank forms to him. With his pen, he began filling in the empty boxes.

  When he came to the one labeled Report Number, he left it blank.

  CHAPTER 11

  Breakfast used to be Chief Robert Baumgartner’s favorite meal. Nothing beat an omelet stuffed with bacon, sausage, and onions along with a side of hash browns. Wash it down with coffee, and he had enough fuel to get him to dinner if he had to. As busy as the chief’s position tended to be, that happened more often than he liked.

  Since the Tyler Garrett incident twenty-one months ago, breakfast was ruined for him. He still ate, and heartily, if he was being honest, but he didn’t enjoy it as much. The reason for that was simple. Several times a week, he met with the mayor for breakfast. Listening to Mayor Sikes didn’t exactly do much for his appetite.

  “Can you believe that idiot Buckner?” Sikes asked him, shaking his head.

  Baumgartner grunted, shoveling a bite of waffle into his mouth. The Safari Room at the Davenport Hotel made passable waffles, but they were nothing compared to the blue-collar beauty of Waffles n’ More up on Monroe. He missed the days when he could drop in there on his way into work. Most times, graveyard officers would just be finishing up their own end-of-shift breakfasts and it gave him a chance to connect with one or two. If he was lucky, he’d hear a war story from the preceding shift, though these days, officers were cautious about what they said in public, or to him. Even if he missed the graveyard cops, he still got one hell of a waffle and some great conversation from the owner of the place, unlike Sikes and his bullshit.

  “The guy has no political instinct,” Sikes continued. “I mean, if he just shut his mouth and laid low, stopped tapping the babysitter for a little while, this would run through a news cycle or two and be over. Instead, he calls a news conference?” The mayor shook his head again. “Idiot.”

  Baumgartner cut another piece of waffle. Before he could eat it, Sikes spoke.

  “You don’t have an opinion on this?”

  Baumgartner thought about it for a second. “Sure,” he said, “but Buckner is neutral on police issues, at best. Half the time, he’s a negative vote. I don’t really care if he torches himself.”

  “You know what? I agree. I don’t care, either, but I love watching him twist, especially since he’s doing it to himself.” Sikes smiled malevolently. “It’s about time someone else got ravaged by those media jackals.”

  “You should be happy,” Baumgartner said. “You got reelected.”

  “Barely. That little traitor Lofton made a game of it.”

  “Win by an inch, or win by a mile, it’s still a win.”

  “Everyone remembers the landslides. Optics matter, and an overwhelming victory gives you a mandate.”

  “History remembers the winners,” Baumgartner said. “It’s about results.”

  “Easy for you to say.” The mayor’s tone had an underlying sharpness to it. “You’re more popular than Santa Claus.”

  “No one’s more popular than Santa.”

  Sikes wasn’t hearing any of it. “It’s not fair. I get blamed for every damn pothole, burnt out streetlight, and traffic jam, because I’m elected. But you’re a cop, and you’ve been around forever, so you get a pass. It’s all about popularity.”

  Baumgartner snorted and reached for his coffee. “We both know how fast public opinion can change.”

  Just look at the whole Garrett incident. First a hero, then a villain, then a hero again.

  He wondered if Sikes was thinking the same thing, but he couldn’t tell. He knew the mayor resented his standing in the community, but he wasn’t going to apologize for it. He worked hard to build those bridges, and he put in a lot of years coming up through the ranks to earn his position. Sikes might be a rarity in Spokane—a two-term mayor—but as far as Baumgartner was concerned, Sikes still had a way to go before he could say he’d paid his dues like the chief had.

  “As long as we’re on the topic of changing public opinion,” Sikes said, “let’s talk about the crime stats. Have you read through the FBI report?”

  “Of course.” Baumgartner wondered if Sikes knew that the FBI compiled the NIBRS report from the data the individual police agencies sent to Quantico. It wasn’t like any of the numbers were a surprise to him. Besides, he was the one who forwarded the report to the mayor and the council.

  “Property crime is up,” Sikes said, his tone clipped. “Sharply, I might add.”

  “The NIBRS numbers are six months old,” Baumgartner reminded him.

  “Are your current numbers any different?”

  Baumgartner shrugged. “They’re different, but the trend is the same. Property crime is up here, just like most of the country.”

  “See, that’s a problem,” Sikes said, jabbing his finger toward the table for emphasis “It sabotages things.”

  “Yeah?” Baumgartner took a long drink of his coffee, preparing himself for another lecture from Professor Mayor. At least the java here beat out Waffles ’n More’s. He hated to admit it, but sometimes fancier was better.

  “The economy is up,” Sikes explained, in full sage mode. “The housing market is way up, better than anyone expected when it crashed. Those are supposed to be good things.”

  Baumgartner took advantage of Sikes’s monologue to take a bite of bacon.

  “But you know what drives the housing market?”

  “People buying and selling houses?”

  Sikes scowled. “Don’t be simple.” He paused, then shrugged. “But yeah, that’s pretty much it. They say location is the number one factor to most home sales, but the thing about location is that people are looking at more than just a nice view. They’re looking hard at the school system and what the sustained property value will be. The school system is mostly out of your realm, but property value isn’t.”

  Baumgartner swallowed. “The crime rate impacts property value. That’s what you’re saying?”

  “Don’t s
ay it like it’s a theory or something. We both know it’s one hundred percent true.”

  “It is,” Baumgartner. “But the crime pattern seems to be—”

  Sikes held up a hand. “The crime pattern is an upward trend line, that’s what it is. All of these burglaries and stolen cars are going to negate the positive economic growth soon. Not to mention, it will lead to violent crime, and once that kicks in…well, forget it. We might as well be Detroit.”

  Baumgartner wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin. “I get why you’re concerned,” he said. “But let’s be clear about something here. Most of this property crime is being driven by drug use. Dopers are stealing things to supply their habit. These aren’t career criminals on a trajectory to committing murder at some point. What we’ve got are people scrambling around for twenty bucks so they can get their fix for the day.”

  “How long before they turn to robbing convenience stores for that?”

  “Robbery is down. In fact, most violent crimes are down.”

  “Not domestic violence,” the mayor countered. “That’s up, what? Two percent?”

  Someone’s been doing his homework.

  Baumgartner took another drink of coffee and gave the mayor a placid look. “First off, that’s an historically normal variance. Second, you tell me what I’m supposed to do to stop people who live together from arguing and hitting each other?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe work closer with social services?” The light sneer in the mayor’s voice was unmistakable now.

  “We already do, but we are never going to completely eradicate domestic violence, only mitigate it and respond to it when it happens.”