by Jack Quaid
They wanted answers, but they weren’t asking the right questions.
Journalists had covered the story since it first broke, with reports of gunfire outside the Westin Hotel. Each had their theories. Some of the more enthusiastic bloggers had even published them. A rumor was going around that a cop’s wife had been kidnapped. Another, that Angus Sullivan had broken out of jail. The truth of it was, nobody knew what was happening. But they all knew it was big.
Chief Mackler was in her office on the eleventh floor, running through her statement.
‘The most important thing is to let the public know you are in control, and that the new police force you created is fully equipped to handle this situation,’ Fiona Templeton said. ‘They’ll want to know the ins and outs of every aspect of the investigation. Once the situation is resolved, and only then, give them the full picture.’
Mackler looked out her office window, down to the media vans littered along St Kilda Road. ‘Do we know how much they know?’
‘I’ve been on the phone with the editors. Not much.’
Mackler turned from the window. She had a suit on, and her makeup and hair were perfect. She was TV ready. The perfect image of what the public expected from a police chief.
She made her way out to the front of the building and stood where she was told to: with the Detroit Police emblem on the wall behind her and natural light on her face. She stood tall and firm, just as she had been instructed. And when she opened her mouth, she gave the media vague statements that had the shape of something substantial but none of the content. She used police terminology and avoided specifics at all costs.
When she was finished, they machine-gunned questions at her.
‘Is it true that the family of a Detroit Police member has been kidnapped?’
‘I cannot comment on that at this time.’
‘So, it’s true?’
‘I cannot comment on that at this time.’
‘Are the citizens of Detroit safe on the streets?’
‘Of course they are. We are doing what we have always done…’
‘We have reports that there were two separate shootouts in the CBD. Are the incidents connected?’
‘Both incidents were minor. Nobody was injured, and the situations were resolved quickly by the police department.’
‘Is it true that the suspects are current serving Detroit Police officers?’
‘That is highly unlikely, but we are keeping open all avenues of investigation at this time.’
‘Do the events of today have any link to the Hailstrum scandal three years ago?’
‘None whatsoever.’
‘Chief, we’ve heard rumors that ex DPD detective Angus Sullivan has been brought in to work on the investigation?’
‘Mr. Sullivan has been brought in as an adviser only. He is being kept under strict guard and is in no way playing an active role in this investigation.’
‘Will his efforts today lessen his sentence?’
‘No. Mr. Sullivan is not receiving any reward or compensation for his assistance.’
‘Does his involvement mean that the scope of the investigation includes police corruption?’
‘Mr. Sullivan’s involvement is part of an ongoing investigation, and that is all I will say on the matter at this point in time. Thank you.’
Mackler stepped out of the lights and back into the lobby of the Major Crimes building. She turned to her senior staff. ‘Where the fuck are Angus Sullivan and Jim Jones?’
Chapter Forty Seven
The press conference played on a television down the far end of Internal Affairs. A couple of cops gathered around with cups of cheap coffee in their hands, while the rest of them pushed phones to their ears, hit the computers, and chased up any leads on the whereabouts of Monique Jones. They had a few promising calls. CCTV footage showed Campbell and Monique at Amsterdam station. The news van that Deacon and Horse knocked off was found dumped in Flat Rock, and God was sighted car-jacking a BMW on Strahmoor Street. All the leads sounded promising; all turned out to be nothing.
Jones sat at a desk in the far corner of the room, holding his wife’s hand. Lopez was taking Sarah’s statement. She typed fast and barely looked at the monitor. Her eyes were on Sarah the entire time, looking for any minor inflections in body language that told more than the words coming out of her mouth.
‘Campbell put a gun to the back of his head.’
‘Who?’ Lopez asked.
‘Sullivan.’
Lopez’s eyebrows raised. ‘And then what happened?’
Sarah’s voice was cold, as if she were retelling a story of something that had happened to somebody else. ‘Then he cut my ring finger off.’
Jones closed his eyes, took in a breath, and climbed to his feet. He wanted to yell, punch, kick, scream. He wanted to destroy something.
The elevator doors at the other end of the office opened. Jones saw Sullivan handcuffed, with two uniforms on either side of him.
Jones made a line for him.
Lopez called out, O’Conner put a hand on his shoulder, but Jones pushed on.
The uniforms with Sullivan must have thought Jones was heading over to congratulate them.
Jones swung instead. A low left hook to the ribs. Sullivan barreled over. Coughed. The Internal Affairs cop stepped back for another blow, but by that time, the entire room could see what was going to happen, and a couple of badges from Homicide pulled him back.
Jones yelled, ‘You piece of fucking shit. You are never getting out of jail. NEVER!’
Sullivan didn’t say a word. He just copped it sweet.
‘I will bury you in the worst fucking shithole I can find.’
‘ENOUGH!’ Chief Mackler shouted from the back of the room. She pointed a manicured nail Jones’s way. ‘He’s your son of a bitch,’ she said. ‘You brought this on yourself.’
‘At least I was out there,’ Jones said. ‘Not on the fucking television.’
‘You almost got your family killed.’
‘I saved Sarah.’
‘And you may have killed your daughter.’
Jones shook free of the Homicide badges and was about to get into it with Mackler when, from the other side of the room, a mobile phone rang.
Lopez held it high above her head. ‘It’s him.’
Documented Evidence Insert Number #307
DOCUMENT TYPE: Official Detroit Police telephone call transcript: ‘Recorded at the Chief’s request’
DATE: 31/01/2012
CONFIDENTIAL: ‘Chief’s Eyes Only’
PERSONS: JAMES JONES, WILLIAM CAMPBELL, MONIQUE JONES
* * *
>>BEGINNING OF TRANSCRIPT<<
* * *
JAMES JONES: I want my daughter.
WILLIAM CAMPBELL: Then you know what you have to do.
(PAUSE)
JAMES JONES: Let me talk to her.
(INDISTINGUISHABLE SOUNDS)
MONIQUE JONES: Dad?
(INDISTINGUISHABLE SOUNDS)
JAMES JONES: Monique?
WILLIAM CAMPBELL: Unless I see you hold a press conference, I’m going to start cutting off bits and pieces. You’ve got two minutes to decide.
* * *
>>TRANSCRIPT ENDS<<
* * *
There was a lot of yelling and bad noise. Panic had set in. Sullivan leaned against a desk and watched as things fell apart.
O’Conner picked up a telephone. ‘I’ll call the press back.’
‘You will do no such thing,’ Mackler said, with enough grunt in her voice to make anyone back down.
O’Conner’s old hand slammed the receiver down. ‘We don’t have any other choice.’
‘We do not negotiate with criminals!’ she yelled.
‘We don’t have any other choice!’
Mackler scanned the room. Everybody was on their feet, waiting. ‘Okay, people, you have ninety seconds to give me options.’
People spat out the first thoughts that came into their minds
.
‘Stall them?’ a third-year narco called out.
‘We’ve done that; it didn’t work. What else?’
‘Hit the street, pool our CIs; they’ll turn up.’
‘Take too long. What else?’ Mackler shouted, ‘Come on!’
‘Close the city down. No one leaves, no one enters,’ a uniform with a face full of pimples was stupid enough to say.
Mackler gave him a dirty look. ‘This is all shit, people!’ Her face was growing red, and her hair, which ten minutes ago had been perfect, was falling out of place.
The room was quiet.
Then O’Conner said, ‘Give them what they want.’
Silence.
‘It’ll destroy everything we’ve worked for.’ Mackler pointed to Jones. ‘Everything that man has worked for.’
Since he’d hung up from the call with Campbell, Jim Jones hadn’t said a word. He sat by his wife’s side, still holding her hand, while she cried quietly and prepared herself for the worst.
‘But it may just save a little girl,’ O’Conner said.
Mackler stared him down, and O’Conner knew that by that time tomorrow, no matter how things panned out, he’d be out of a job.
The debate continued. Everybody knew the best course of action but couldn’t agree on what that was. Sullivan watched Jones, through the chaos of the swearing and sweating, console his wife. He couldn’t hear their words, but their words didn’t matter.
The telephone rang. Lopez pounced on it and called for quiet. Again, she held the phone high above her head and walked over to Jones. He pushed it to his ear.
‘I’ll do it,’ he said.
Chapter Forty Eight
Everyone wanted a say.
They argued about the phrasing of what Jones would say, and whether or not he should be standing in front of the Detroit Police logo or be in uniform when he made his statement. It was all bullshit. They were all looking to cover their own asses. Sullivan made his way through the busy cops and headed to Jones’s office, out of which spilled badges, bosses, and PR.
Sullivan pushed between the bodies and made his way to the front of the group.
‘It’s all about limiting the damage,’ Fiona Templeton said. ‘The fallout from this thing could be massive, but if we pull it off, the situation may just work in our favor.’
‘The key,’ Mackler said, everyone taking notes, tapping them into their tablets and phones, ‘is to focus on not what has happened, but on what we are going to do to fix the situation.’
‘What about Monique?’ Sullivan asked. ‘Who’s going to focus on that?’
‘That’s not your concern anymore,’ Mackler said.
‘Does anybody really think this is about Jones confessing? Campbell’s no fool; he’s working a bigger angle here, and you need to focus on what that is.’
Templeton said smoothly, ‘Our reputation is the only thing that’s going to get us through this ordeal.’
‘Police work is the only thing that’s going to get you through this,’ Sullivan said.
‘Can someone get him out of here?’ Mackler yelled. ‘And have the first available uniform take him back to jail.’
Sullivan was escorted out by a couple of brand-new badges he didn’t know and pushed toward a desk.
An hour before, a journalist from the Detroit Free Press had been found snooping around. Mackler had thrown him into a cell and had the two emergency exits and elevators placed under guard. No one without authorization could enter, which also meant that Sullivan couldn’t leave.
He lit a cigarette and took a drag.
A cop sitting at the desk across from him covered the mouthpiece of the phone she was talking into. ‘What are you doing? You can’t smoke in here.’
Sullivan gave her a half smile and buried the cigarette under his foot. As tired and as sore as he was, he couldn’t sit still and paced around the office. The smell of stale sweat and burnt coffee hung in the air. Everyone was running on adrenaline.
He took a seat at an empty desk and watched as the meeting in Jones’s office disbanded. Badges rushed away to perform whatever Mackler had tasked them with, while Jim Jones exited slowly, gave Sarah a reassuring look, and was led through the room to a waiting elevator.
Sullivan caught a glimpse of Jones’s face as the doors closed. It was full of anger.
O’Conner was half standing, half sitting on the edge of the desk. ‘It’s going to be a shitstorm,’ he said.
Sullivan watched the room operate. They were good, hardworking cops, for the most part; inexperienced but with their hearts in the right place.
‘This floor was where Major Crimes used to be,’ Sullivan said.
‘Internal Affairs moved in here about a year ago.’
Sullivan ran his fingers along the cheap desk in front of him. ‘This used to be my desk.’
‘That was a long time ago, kid,’ O’Conner said.
‘Not for me, it wasn’t.’
Chapter Forty Nine
Journalists crowded around a makeshift podium. They had been called only twenty minutes earlier, and news vans continued to pull up and park illegally as the crowd simmered down and the press conference began. As Jim Jones exited Major Crimes, cameras pointed his way captured, at twenty-four frames per second, his walk up to the microphone. He tapped it twice, looked at the notes in his hand, drew a heavy breath, and began:
‘For fifteen years, I have been a proud member of the Detroit Police Department. But, in 2001, I committed an act about which I am deeply embarrassed and ashamed. For many years, my wife and I were unable to conceive a child. Then, in December of that year, I was investigating the murder of a suspected drug dealer. My inquiries led me to a house in Herman Gardens. The inside of it was one of the worst environments I have ever encountered in my time as a police officer. The walls were covered with graffiti, the floor covered with discarded syringes, and the air smelled of feces and vomit. As I moved through the premises, I heard cries. I followed the sound down the hall, into what used to be the kitchen, and behind the closed door of a microwave was a newborn baby.’ He looked up from his notes. ‘I stole that child.’
Chapter Fifty
Sullivan and O’Conner stood shoulder to shoulder with the cops of Internal Affairs and listened to Jones’s words as they crackled out of the television speakers. Some of the cops tutted or shook their heads; others turned and walked away. Lopez kicked a rubbish bin clear across the room. None of them liked giving into the whims of criminals, ex-cops or otherwise.
When Jones was finished, he stepped aside, and Mackler fielded questions. O’Conner turned the television off, but by that stage, he and Sullivan were the only ones watching.
Chapter Fifty One
They stared at the telephone for close to an hour.
Nobody said a word.
‘This is bullshit,’ O’Conner said. ‘He’s not calling. We’ve been had.’
Mackler glanced up from her iPad, on which she had been checking the media response to Jones’s confession. It wasn’t good. ‘He’ll call,’ she said.
After seeing Jones’s press conference on television, Mayor Adams had headed over. He stood in the corner, not knowing if he should sit, stand, or make small talk. Since arriving in the room, he had had a crack at all three, none of which panned out.
Sullivan sat in a corner. O’Conner had brought him in and convinced Mackler he might be of some use, and that if he wasn’t, it was no loss. She didn’t want a fight and let him stay. So Sullivan sat there and watched Jones fidget and fumble. He had aged a decade in the last hour. The lines on his face had grown deeper. His confidence and grace had been replaced with an air of insecurity and confusion.
Then the telephone rang.
Documented Evidence Insert Number: #312
DOCUMENT TYPE: Official Detroit Police telephone call transcript: ‘Recorded at the Chief’s request’
DATE: 31/01/2012
CONFIDENTIAL: ‘Chief’s Eyes Only’
PERSO
NS: JAMES JONES, WILLIAM CAMPBELL
* * *
>>BEGINNING OF TRANSCRIPT<<
* * *
JAMES JONES: I’m here.
WILLIAM CAMPBELL: Monique Jones will be traded for Chief Mackler.
JAMES JONES: That’s not what we –
WILLIAM CAMPBELL: - Chief Mackler will come alone. If she does not come alone, Monique Jones will be killed. Chief Mackler will come unarmed. If she does not come unarmed, Monique Jones will be killed. Chief Mackler will follow our instructions to the letter. If she does not follow our instructions to the letter –
JAMES JONES: - I know. . . You will kill her.
WILLIAM CAMPBELL: . . . See, you’re not so stupid after all.
* * *
>>TRANSCRIPT ENDS<<
Chapter Fifty Two
‘This is a bad idea,’ O’Conner said. ‘They’re going to kill them both.’
Mackler stood up behind the desk. ‘We don’t have much of a choice.’
‘Then we can’t do what they say,’ O’Conner said. ‘We need a contingency.’
‘We have a plan,’ Fisher said as he came through the door. He was still in his full SWAT gear, sidearm and all. ‘Me and the boys have been working something up,’ he said.
‘Is it as good as your other plan at the Westin?’ Sullivan said. ‘Because that worked out real nice.’
‘This plan doesn’t involve cutting off the fingers of the hostages,’ Fisher said. ‘We’re going to try and go for something a little more subtle.’
Sullivan laughed, patted his body down for cigarettes, and put an unlit one in his mouth.
