Never the Crime

by Colin Conway

  You’re not a cop. You’re an accountant.

  “Well excuse me if I’m going to defer to the people who are actually reviewing police reports every day,” Hatcher said, “not quartermaster invoices.”

  “Easy…” the chief rumbled. “We’re all friends here. Dana, tell me your plan.”

  Hatcher met the chief’s gaze. “If the estimate Michelle gave me is even close to accurate, it seems clear that we need to target these prolific offenders. If we can arrest them and get them out of circulation, it should reduce our crime rate substantially.”

  “How do you propose to do that?”

  “I’m going to create a specialized team of patrol officers, drawn from existing manpower. To start with, it’ll be a team of four. If successful, I’ll add four more officers and we’ll field two teams, working opposite shifts from each other to increase coverage.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Targeting these offenders.”

  “What do you mean by ‘targeting’?” Barry chimed in. “That sounds like profiling.”

  “We will target prolific criminals based upon their current criminal behavior. It isn’t profiling. Not even close.”

  Barry, you’re an idiot, Farrell thought. He liked how Hatcher put him in his place.

  Hatcher glanced down at her notes. “As it stands, these criminals go on a mini-crime spree, doing damage to three, four, five victims in a row. These cases get reported a day later, maybe assigned for follow-up to different detectives, maybe not. Each event is treated separately, and by the time any heat from these crimes reach the perpetrator, they’ve already moved on to another six or eight victims. They probably don’t remember the crime well enough to confess to it if they wanted to.”

  “It sounds like we’re in a sorry state,” Baumgartner said. Farrell caught the slightest bit of irritation in his tone. He hoped Hatcher did, too.

  “We’re always playing catch up,” she explained. “We’re like…” She paused, looking for the right analogy.

  “Like Lucy and Ethel at the chocolate factory,” Farrell supplied. “We can’t wrap the candy quickly enough. The pieces just keep coming down the conveyor belt.”

  “Exactly.”

  “It’s been this way, more or less, since 1960,” Baumgartner grumbled.

  “Sir?”

  Baumgartner waved her question away. “Tell me the rest of your plan.”

  “That’s the main thrust of it,” Hatcher said, a little flummoxed. “Tom said he’d provide a single detective to the team, to handle search warrants and follow-up, as well as coordinate with the prosecutor.”

  “That’s it?”

  “I mean…” Hatcher paused before continuing, “Yes, sir. That’s the broad strokes of it.” She lifted a small packet of papers. “I have more details here. Logistics, scheduling, potential candidates.”

  Baumgartner seemed to think about it for all of six seconds. “I appreciate your efforts, Captain, but I’m going to deny your proposal.”

  “Proposal? Sir, it’s a plan that I intend to—”

  “Plan, proposal, whatever. It is denied.”

  Hatcher stared at the chief in what looked to Farrell like a cross between disbelief and anger. “May I ask why?”

  Baumgartner took a deep breath and let it out. He glanced at his watch. “Yeah, all right. I’ll tell you my reasons. But first, let me say that I appreciate your effort, and I agree with you that we have an obvious problem here. What you propose isn’t a viable solution.”

  Hatcher stared at him, seeming to be waiting for his explanation.

  “For starters, you don’t have the staffing for this. Every body you pull off of patrol means more calls for service that the poor bastards left in the district have to answer.”

  “Sir, if the team targets the top offenders, those report calls will drop dramatically, and—”

  “I heard your plan,” the chief said tersely. “Do you want to know why I denied it?”

  Hatcher pressed her lips together briefly, then gave him a short nod.

  Careful, Dana. Baumgartner was generally fair, but he could get prickly at times. Especially if he was interrupted.

  The chief held up one finger. “Insufficient staffing. Let’s face it, that right there is a deal-killer, even if there weren’t other considerations. How do you implement a plan with insufficient bodies to fill holes? You can’t.” He held up a second finger. “Direction. I assume you’re going to select your hard chargers for this team? Real meat-eaters?”

  Hatcher nodded, her face reddening. “Of course.”

  “I would, too. They’d be a perfect fit. Except that most of those guys are very headstrong and almost every one of them has their own particular thing that they are into. You cut them loose in a small group, untethered from answering calls for service, they’re going to chase whichever rabbits interest them the most. Whatever crimes are the sexiest to them. That’s what they’ll focus on, whether it’s part of your five percent or not.”

  “Sir, that’s why I’d tell them what I want them to focus on. They’d be directed—”

  “What? From your office?” Baumgartner shook his head. “No, once those kind of cops get out into the field, your directives won’t mean much, if anything. They’ll be pounding away at dope or gangs or stolen autos or whatever flips their switch. And that tendency brings up the other big reason why I’m saying no to this.” He gave Hatcher a meaningful look. “Teams like this with a great deal of autonomy and a mandate to aggressively attack crime almost always end up making stupid mistakes. I’m thinking Rampart, or that gang emphasis patrol in Seattle last year. We don’t need the scandal. Find another plan, Dana.”

  Hatcher looked deflated and angry at the same time. “Yes, sir.”

  Farrell lifted his fingers to get the chief’s attention. Baumgartner nodded to him to proceed.

  “Chief, I think Dana’s one hundred percent right on the need to be proactive, and I’m more than willing to provide the detective she mentioned.” He caught Hatcher’s eye and saw a flicker of hopeful gratitude there. “Can I make a couple of suggestions about the plan?”

  “Tom, I already denied it. We’re burning daylight here.”

  “You might not be as inclined to deny her plan with a couple of changes,” Farrell assured him.

  Baumgartner frowned, but waved for him to continue.

  “I want to say first that I agree with her estimate on the high frequency offenders, and the rough proportion of crime they are responsible for. I know staffing is tight on patrol, but if she lets a few low priority calls drop off the bottom of the call response, at least temporarily, that will ease the burden on the patrol cops who lose a body for the team.”

  “Those changes to the call response threshold come with a cost,” Baumgartner said. “Unhappy citizens.”

  “That’s why the changes are temporary, just in place long enough to get the first few arrests. Those arrests will reduce the crime rate, without a doubt. Then she can return the threshold to its previous levels, and the call load on the patrol teams will be roughly the same.”

  Baumgartner didn’t appear to like the idea, but he didn’t stop Farrell either, so the captain continued.

  “The tendency to chase their favorite quarry is a potential problem, but one we can overcome by assigning a sergeant to the team as well.”

  “Full time?”

  “Completely dedicated, yes.”

  “And where does he come from?”

  “Patrol,” Farrell said. “There are several teams that could run without their sergeant for a six-month period. These teams have strong corporals and mature officers. You can take a sergeant for Dana’s team, and the patrol team that loses him will be fine. If the strike team is a success, you should be able to get city hall to fund a full-time sergeant. If it isn’t, he goes back to his original team.”

  “Fat chance of those stingy bastards funding another sergeant’s position.” B
aumgartner groused. He glanced at Barry. “Is there somewhere in the budget we could shake loose enough for one sergeant slot?”

  Barry grinned at the chief. “Your wish is my command, my liege.”

  Baumgartner frowned, then turned his attention back to Farrell. “So this sergeant would be directing their activities?”

  “Yes, right there on the ground with them. And I’d have the sergeant report directly to the captain for strategic direction. Maybe Ellis can assign a dedicated crime analyst to help the sergeant determine the best targets.”

  “I could probably make that work,” Ellis said, his focus directed toward Farrell. “I can give you one analyst for about an hour a day. More, if the team shows results.”

  “That’s perfect,” Farrell said. “The sergeant gets fresh intel from crime analysis and directs the team’s activity in person. That close supervision solves your hot-dogging concern, and your corruption concern.”

  Baumgartner scratched his chin. “Yeah, I guess I could see that working. Maybe. With the right sergeant.” He thought some more, then nodded. “When you put it that way, I like it. Write it up and get it to me by close of business today, Tom.”

  Farrell blinked at him. “Write it up?”

  “Yeah, I want to see your plan on my desk by close of business. Is that a problem?”

  “Sir, it was Dana’s…” Farrell trailed off, looking over at Hatcher, who stared at him in shocked anger. He turned back to Baumgartner. The chief’s glare cut into him.

  “Get it done, Tom,” the chief said. “We need this.”

  “Yes, sir,” he answered. “I’ll do that.”

  “Moving on,” Baumgartner said, turning his attention to Barry again. “The budget. Take us through the numbers as of today.”

  Farrell tried to find a way to both listen to Barry drone on about the minutiae of the police budget, and to block him out at the same time. After an interminable review of the financial situation which essentially boiled down to, the budget was okay but would probably get worse next fiscal year, Barry finally surrendered the floor.

  “Anything else?” the chief asked. When no one answered, he dismissed the group. He rose and walked toward the door that led to the short hallway connecting to his office. Barry scrambled to his feet and walked out with the chief, reminding Farrell of a remora fish with a shark. Ellis gathered his notes and headed out the opposite door, into the main corridor.

  Farrell glanced over at Hatcher, who was openly glaring at him. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Well, it looks like you got your plan implemented.”

  “My plan?”

  “Everyone knows it was your plan. All I did was tweak it a little and—”

  “Call it your own.”

  He stopped, surprised. “I never did that.”

  Hatcher stood, her angry gaze remaining fixed on Farrell. “Fuck you, Tom,” she said, then stormed out of the meeting room, leaving him behind to regret how things had played out.

  CHAPTER 40

  The knock on his door caused Gary Stone to look up from his computer.

  “Checking out some porn, Stoney?” Tyler Garrett asked as he settled into the chair opposite him.

  “What? No way. I would never.”

  “You know they can track that stuff, right?” He smiled.

  Stone relaxed. “What are you doing here?”

  Garrett shifted in his chair and crossed his legs. He wore gray slacks and a blue buttoned-down shirt. “I’m gonna talk with your boy, Hahn.”

  Stone’s eyebrows raised. “He was already down here this morning telling me I had to get you to back off.”

  “Funny how that works.”

  “How what works?”

  “They think they own you, don’t they?”

  Stone thought about it.

  “They think because you’re in their house, they can have you jump when they say jump. Fetch when they say fetch, like some kind of cake-eater. Do you feel like doing that?”

  “Not so much. In fact, I want to get that guy.”

  “Oh, yeah? Why is that?”

  “Because of how he thinks he did nothing wrong with Betty Rabe.”

  “He didn’t, though, right? That’s what your report said. And he didn’t kill her. She killed herself.”

  “The relationship was wrong. Period. Regardless of what happened after.”

  Garrett waggled his hand. “Maybe, maybe not.”

  “Whatever. Hahn’s smug about it, like he gets away with it no matter what. He says that he didn’t have any effect on her, but I can tell you he did. I saw her. I talked with her. She was hurt by what happened and probably felt guilty, too.”

  “Probably.”

  “I hate guys like him. Guys who get away with whatever they do. I sort of wish I could have found something to nail him with. I’d have loved to see the look on his face when the cuffs go on.”

  “Get some righteous payback, huh?”

  “No, that’s not what I mean.”

  “Relax, Stoney. Don’t be so uptight. That’s the power shift way. Someone fucks with you, you fuck them back.” Garrett looked around the office. “Are you not planning on staying here long?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Your place is sort of nice. This is stark, man. I wouldn’t want to work here. I’d at least want a picture of my family. Or my girl.”

  “I don’t have a girl.”

  Garrett studied Stone. The way he looked at him made Stone uncomfortable. It was the way a kid studied a fly before he plucked the wings off it.

  “You’re not gay, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Saving yourself?”

  “No,” Stone said with a nervous chuckle.

  “Then why no girlfriend?”

  “I had one. We broke up. I haven’t found one I like enough to be with.”

  “Seriously, Stoney? You don’t have an intermediate girl?”

  “What’s an intermediate girl?”

  “An in-between girl. One that you spend time with until you find the right girl.”

  Stone shook his head. “That’s not me.”

  “You don’t hook-up just to hook-up?”

  “That’s not me.” Stone repeated.

  “Okay, Stoney. I get it. I like you, man. You march to your own drummer.” Garrett nodded then. “So keep on marchin’. Don’t let me push you into something like that. Stay true to yourself.”

  Stone’s chest swelled with pride. To hear admiration from Garrett, his patrolman role model, was a big deal. “So what are you going to talk with Hahn about? I thought Betty Rabe’s suicide was already done. What more do you need to know?”

  “Funny you should ask. I’ve been thinking about her suicide. Perhaps it was…something else.”

  “Something else?” Stone said, a sinking feeling in his stomach. “I don’t understand.”

  “I’ll know more after I talk with him. But a little forewarning, things could get ugly and I think you’re going to have to make a decision about your report.”

  “My report?”

  “You should either get a report number and turn it in to records or destroy it, leaving the only copy with the chief. If things break a certain way, you’ll have to lay everything at his feet.”

  Stone blanched. “I can’t turn it in. That would ruin my career.”

  Garrett shrugged. “I understand.”

  “Ty? What are you going to do?”

  Garrett ignored the question. “Now, if it was me, I’d tear it up, burn it, and throw the ashes into the river. You don’t need that kind of shit hanging over you. Trust me.”

  “What are you going to do?” Stone asked again.

  Garrett stood and smoothed his pants. “Wish me luck,” he said and left the office.

  Stone considered Garrett’s warning as he watched him leave.

  CHAPTER 41

  Tyler Garrett walked off the elevator onto the sixth f
loor and the offices of the city council members. He’d been there a few times before, but it had been some time. He scanned the offices that ringed the outer wall, ignoring the desks in the bullpen area where the assistants sat.

  Garrett headed toward Dennis Hahn’s office. He stopped to talk with the assistant who sat in front. Her name plate read J. Carter.

  She looked up at him with surprise. “Oh,” she said.

  “I need to speak with the councilman.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “It’s not on your calendar. We met this weekend.” The woman was about to ask another question, but Garrett said, “You should ask him,” and nodded in the direction of Hahn.

  The woman glanced over her shoulder at the councilman who stared directly at the man next to her.

  “Uh, I guess you can—”

  Garrett didn’t wait for her permission and walked into the councilman’s office. He shut the door behind him.

  “What are you doing here?” Hahn asked.

  “We were to finish my interview in your office,” Garrett said, dropping into a chair. “I thought that’s what you wanted.”

  Hahn’s eyes glanced to his assistant, then back to Garrett. “People can see you.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  “Well, I am. I don’t want to be seen with you.”

  “All right,” Garrett said. He stood then and put his hand on the doorknob. “Let’s go to the station. We’ll finish the interview there.” He twisted the knob.

  “Officer, you will wait!” Hahn said emphatically as he stood. His face twisted in anger.

  Garrett’s hand remained on the knob. “Officer? Really? And what am I supposed to wait for? For you to jerk my chain?”

  “You work for the city,” Hahn said, his voice wavering. “I lead the city. Therefore, you work for me.”

  He chuckled. “Oh, shit. You think you have some leverage here. Well, fuck you, man.” He lifted his cell phone and waggled it. “How about I call for a uniform to escort you down to the station?”

  Garrett yanked open the door and stepped out of the councilman’s office.