Never the Crime

by Colin Conway

  The mayor was staring at him, so he finally said, “I’ve always been more about re-establishing order.”

  “That’s because you think like a cop,” Sikes said.

  “I am a cop.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re the chief of police. That’s a politician, just like me.”

  I’m nothing like you.

  “And,” the mayor said, “every politician should appreciate and love chaos. You know why?”

  Baumgartner knew why, but he shrugged anyway.

  “Opportunity,” Sikes said. “Chaos is opportunity.”

  Baumgartner had a flash of the schemer from Game of Thrones pronouncing chaos is a laddah! and tried not to smirk. He must have failed to completely suppress the expression, because Sikes gave him a curious look.

  “You’ve never thought of it that way?”

  “I’ve heard of never letting a good crisis go to waste,” Baumgartner said. “I suppose I agree with that.”

  “This is the same thing. While these dick yankers are running around getting crucified in the media, you know who isn’t? Me. Instead of dealing with the media, I can do the work I’m supposed to do.”

  “Armstrong and Buckner have tended to support you on most issues except public safety.”

  “True, but with both of them distracted by this media circus, I should be able to get some public safety measures passed that they would have fought me on.” Sikes spread his hands. “You see? Opportunity.”

  Baumgartner saw his point. “It’s preferable to the alternative,” he allowed. Being in the center of a public storm with every media eye trained on him wasn’t something he relished. It had been at the worst during the Garrett incident, and he wasn’t eager to live through that again. If a couple of councilors wanted to take the heat for a while, that was fine by him. “Do you want me to send a detective down to work with Human Resources on the Armstrong investigation?”

  The mayor shook his head. “No, let’s give it a while. Let HR finish their part.”

  Baumgartner narrowed his eyes. “From what it sounds like, he could be guilty of trading in special influence, which is a felony.”

  “And if HR finds any evidence of something criminal along those lines, I’ll have them report it.”

  “The problem is that they investigate personnel matters, not crimes. If they step all over the investigation, it makes it messier for my detectives when they try to follow-up and make a case out of it.”

  “You mean it might cause the entire thing to be drawn out longer?” Sikes asked, a gleam in his eye.

  Baumgartner saw his meaning, but still didn’t like it. “It muddies the waters and makes it difficult to successfully bring charges against the suspect.”

  “But it keeps the attention on the case, doesn’t it? And we need to keep the spotlight shining where it is,” Sikes said. “And the way to do that is to stay ahead of the game. Speaking of which, any more news on the Hahn letter?”

  “Nothing yet,” he said. “We’re still working on it.”

  “Stone talked to the girl, though, right?”

  “He did.”

  “And?”

  “She’s flaky.”

  “Meaning?”

  Baumgartner took a breath and let it out. “Mister Mayor, let me put it this way. There are two kinds of sexual assault cases we encounter. One is the obvious kind, where there’s physical assault, clear evidence, a credible victim, and a lying suspect.”

  Sikes nodded impatiently, waving for him to continue. “Of course. And the other is what? He said, she said?”

  “Basically. It’s hard to pin down whether there was consent when that’s all you have to go on. It’s even harder when the victim is…a little flighty.”

  “You know what that sounds like?” Sikes asked.

  “What?”

  “Like nothing I’d ever want to hear you say in public.”

  “Please,” Baumgartner said. “I’m not that stupid.”

  Sikes didn’t answer, but let the moment hang. Then he said, “She’s flighty, huh?”

  “Wouldn’t commit to whether it was a sexual assault or not.”

  “He’s finished either way,” Sikes said. “She’s seventeen.”

  “There’s a big difference between sexually assaulting a seventeen-year-old girl,” Baumgartner said, “and having an illicit affair with one.”

  “Not as far as the politics are concerned. He’s toast.” Sikes shook his head. “All the tail out there, and stupid Dennis couldn’t get past his Britney Spears fantasy.”

  Baumgartner wondered if Hahn would even know who Britney Spears was, but it didn’t matter. He got the point.

  “Stay on top of this,” Sikes told him. “I want to know what we’ve got so I can decide whether to stir up another shit storm once this Armstrong circus fades from the front page. Or…” He thought about it for a few moments, a broad smile spreading across his face. “Or we put this in our pocket for a rainy day, when we really need Mister Straight and Narrow Dennis Hahn to go along on something.”

  Baumgartner didn’t answer. He realized politics were necessary, but he never liked the taste.

  “Bob?” the mayor pressed.

  The chief shrugged. “Shit storms seem to happen all on their own. And leverage is pretty good to have.”

  The mayor slapped his desk. “Now you’re thinking like a politician!”

  Sikes laughed, but Baumgartner didn’t join in.

  CHAPTER 22

  Captain Dana Hatcher was already irritated by the time her patrol staff meeting got to the subject of her idea for a patrol strike team. For starters, she’d brought coffee and donuts. She thought it would be nice to treat her lieutenants, and the sugar and caffeine would help all of them stay alert during the meeting.

  However, two of the lieutenants were fitness nuts who looked at both offerings as if Hatcher had offered them poison with a mucus chaser. The other four lieutenants were happy to slurp and munch the fare, but not one offered a thank you.

  The thing was, not long ago, she’d been one of them. She served as a patrol lieutenant with four of the six before being promoted to captain. At least two of those had directly competed for the position against her, and although she didn’t hold a grudge, it was clear both of them did. It was hard enough to command former peers, and harder yet when those peers felt passed over. She was fairly certain that they questioned whether her selection was based on merit or the perceived need to promote a woman. All in all, it was a tall order to connect with this group.

  Unlike her predecessor, Hatcher led off her patrol staff meetings with a minimum of pronouncements from her or the chief’s office. Only the highest priority items got any time on the agenda on the front end. Instead, she let her lieutenants go first, giving them the chance to get their ideas and issues out on the table while everyone was still fresh. In theory, this method should have demonstrated how much she valued them.

  In practice, Hatcher thought their behavior showed they considered it a weakness—one of a feminine nature.

  So when they finally got around to her agenda items, the attention level of several lieutenants was wavering. With this in mind, she rushed through her proposal for a patrol strike team. The body language on display told her it was not being well received. As she explained her idea, she saw crossed arms, backward leans, averted gazes, and even one less-than-subtle eye roll that passed between two of them.

  “Excuse me, Captain?” Lieutenant Larry Keon interrupted.

  Hatcher looked up. “Larry?”

  “I’m just wondering, ma’am. Where are these extra bodies coming from? To form your team, I mean. New hires?”

  “I covered that already.”

  “No, ma’am. You didn’t.”

  Hatcher opened her mouth to argue but was suddenly unsure. It was in her proposal, but had she skipped over it while rushing through the details? Now she couldn’t be certain.

  �
�I’m taking one body from each sector. Days and nights.”

  Keon blinked and shook his head. “Adam, Baker, Charlie, David. Days and nights. So that’s…eight bodies?”

  “That’s right. But we’ll start with just four.”

  Keon sighed. “Captain, my guys are running from call to call as it is. You’re talking about taking bodies, which leaves more calls for service for the remaining officers to handle. They’re already slammed. Not to mention, I’ve had to direct my sergeants to deny vacation requests to maintain minimum staffing levels. The men won’t accept this.”

  Hatcher leaned forward. “The officers will accept it,” she corrected.

  He sighed. “You know what I meant.”

  “I know what you said.”

  Keon glanced across the table at another lieutenant. Hatcher could read his sentiment in that look, but she didn’t care.

  “I’ve considered the point you bring up, Larry,” she tried to explain. “Because on the surface, you’re absolutely right. Fewer bodies means more work for those that remain. But there are two considerations that will keep that from being the case.” She looked around the room, seeing a mixture of disdain and boredom on several faces. “First, when this team starts addressing these high-profile targets, all of the crimes that those targets commit will come off the table. There will be fewer crimes, thus fewer calls for your officers to respond to.”

  “If they do that,” Keon muttered.

  “They will. That’s their purpose. Second, if we have to raise the threshold for which calls we respond to or how long some calls hold before a response, we will. In case you forgot, dispatch falls under my command, too.”

  “So my guys who are running call to call will still be allowed to grab a quick lunch, even if there are calls holding?”

  “As long as they’re not high priority or emergency calls, yes.”

  Keon looked doubtful, and he wasn’t the only one in the room. “That sounds great in theory,” he said, in a voice that suggested nothing of the sort. “But you know as well as I do that the first time some citizen who goes to church with the mayor or bowls with a city council member has to wait for a cop to show up for two hours, and then drives by a sandwich shop and sees my guys getting that quick lunch, the shit will hit the fan, and we’ll be right back to clearing the screen being the priority.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “That most certainly will happen,” Keon argued. “It’s inevitable. If you think it won’t, you’re dreaming.”

  Hatcher gritted her teeth. “I mean that when it does happen, we’re not changing anything. I will stand by my decision.”

  “Stand by it all you want, but when the mayor orders the chief and chief orders you, everyone knows that you’ll order one of us, and it’ll be just like I said.” Keon held up his hands. “Running call to call.” He shook his head. “We can’t spare the bodies, Captain.”

  Hatcher kept her frustration in check. “I hear your concern.” She glanced around the room. “Are there any other suggestions about this plan? Other critiques?”

  No one answered.

  “Come on, guys. I want your input on this.”

  Keon shook his head. “Without enough manpower to support something like this, it just isn’t feasible. Pointing out all the other flaws in the plan is a waste of time when the whole thing is a nonstarter.”

  Hatcher’s frustration kicked up another notch. All the other flaws? Her first instinct was to snap back at Keon and put him in his place. She didn’t need him man-splaining staffing issues to her. She needed him to professionally critique her plan so she could perfect it. If he was so fixated on the staffing issue that he couldn’t do that, he should feel free to shut the hell up and let his colleagues do the heavy lifting for him.

  Maybe she should have said exactly that, but she knew that if she did, the response from those colleagues wouldn’t be compliant, or sympathetic. They’d think one word: bitch. In her experience, any time she exhibited a strong opinion or used her proper authority, that was how she was seen.

  Of course, if she said nothing, then she had just let her lieutenant shut her down, and that made her weak. Essentially, she couldn’t win.

  “Everyone here has a copy of the NIBRS report,” she said, struggling to keep the anger from her voice and failing. “You have the updated numbers from our own crime analysis unit. Unless you’re really bad at math, it’s obvious we are getting our collective asses kicked. Now, we are going to do something about it. If you don’t like my plan, I suggest you come up with a better alternative in the next twenty-four hours, because I’m not going to the next command staff meeting without an answer for the chief when he asks what I’m going to do about these shit numbers.”

  Keon frowned. “Twenty-four hours? That’s not enough time, Captain.”

  “You’ve had this report as long as I have, Lieutenant.”

  He didn’t respond.

  “Does anyone else have anything?” Hatcher asked.

  No one said a word.

  “Then we’re finished,” she said.

  The lieutenants exchanged a few glances, before standing and leaving almost as a group.

  Hatcher sat in the conference room chair, thinking over the meeting. She was losing this group. There seemed to be so many dynamics playing at once. Hard feelings over the promotional process. The call for service demands. All the regular law enforcement and political pressures. And she had no doubt that one woman leading six men played a role, too.

  She stood and started collecting the empty coffee cups. In her haste, she knocked over one that still had some coffee in the bottom. The cold brown liquid splashed out over the conference table.

  Hatcher sighed. She used a couple of paper napkins to wipe up the spilled coffee, and then to sweep donut crumbs into an empty cup. Halfway through the process, she stopped.

  Why am I on clean up duty?

  Goddamn it, she brought the coffee and donuts. Not only did no one think to say thank you, but no one volunteered to clean up, either?

  Besides that, she was the captain. They were lieutenants. If common politeness or gratitude didn’t motivate them, then the police rank structure ought to have.

  Hatcher dropped the napkin onto the table and left the conference room.

  Back in her office, she alternated over stewing about what seemed more and more to be obvious sexism and trying to be pragmatic about how to win her team over. She’d never encountered this much coldness from a group of her followers before. As a sergeant, she experienced great loyalty and appreciation from her officers. Even as a lieutenant, her shift sergeants seemed to genuinely like and respect her. What was different here?

  Was it her? The lieutenants? Something else?

  Hatcher remembered when she made lieutenant, and how it was really the first time that she felt like she was part of the politics of the department. As a sergeant and an officer, she’d been impacted by department politics, but once she hit lieutenant, it changed. Being part of the politics felt altogether different.

  Had she ever been close to any of her fellow lieutenants? She wanted to say yes, but she knew it wasn’t entirely true. At least not to the same degree as other positions earlier in her career. The patrol teams that she led as a sergeant felt like family. Her fellow lieutenants felt like colleagues, at best.

  She turned this over in her mind, trying to decide if she was right or not, and if she was, what she could do about it. Every so often, she’d replay an exchange from her meeting, and then get mad all over again.

  Eventually, she felt bad for leaving the conference room a mess, so she started down the hall to take care of it. Chief Baumgartner came out of the bathroom and headed her direction.

  “Dana,” he said, smiling a little. “How’s it going?”

  “Good, sir. Thanks.”

  “Did you have patrol staff today?” the chief asked.

  Hatcher froze. Had one of her
lieutenants gone to the chief behind her back, telling him about her plan so it could get torpedoed before she even had a chance to present it? “Yes, sir. A while ago.”

  “I thought so,” Baumgartner said. “You left a disaster of a mess.”

  “Me?” Hatcher replied, her stomach burning.

  “You know what I mean. Your team.”

  “Sorry. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Or get one of those lazy lieutenants to do it,” Baumgartner said. He gave her a wink and headed toward his office.

  Hatcher made her way to conference room and finished cleaning up. There were half a dozen Krispy Kreme’s left in the donut box. She thought about taking them down to the detectives’ division and putting them next to the big coffee pot there. Instead, she pushed the box into the garbage with the rest of the remains from her meeting.

  CHAPTER 23

  It was the bottom of the eighth inning and the Seattle Mariners were down four runs against the Texas Rangers. The season had only recently started and it already felt like the M’s were in for another year of futility. It was a feeling he’d known often as a lifelong fan. At least the Mariners had hung around and not bolted for another state like the SuperSonics.

  The game was on the TV with the sound off. Stone had his laptop open, surfing the internet. He might be a diehard fan, but that was no reason to suffer through another thirty minutes of agony until the final out.

  He had started out doing something productive by reading the latest news. Then he got distracted by some gossip on the M’s relief pitcher. Now, he was on YouTube watching the twenty-five greatest trick plays ever pulled off in a Major League Baseball game. The video was halfway through when there was a knock at his front door.

  Stone put the laptop on the coffee table and climbed out of his chair. Checking the peephole first, he was surprised to see the man on the other side of the door. He hurriedly opened it.

  Officer Tyler Garrett smiled at him. “What’s up, Stoney?”

  During his probationary period, he had spent a month on Garrett’s power shift team, the group that straddled swing-shift and graveyard. It was the best team rotation he had as a rookie. Not only did he have a particularly great training officer, but Garrett went out of his way to make him feel like a regular officer and part of the team.