by Mark Zubro
“It starts with Clayton Griffin, the assistant Chief of Detectives.”
“We talked to him this morning,” Fenwick said. “He warned us to be careful, but not specifically about himself.”
Molton said, “The whole Carruthers case is being built up as one where you guys, his colleagues, are blowing the whistle on police corruption, so it’s all your fault.”
Fenwick said, “Carruthers is a colossal asshole who almost killed who knows how many people, and it’s our fault?”
“You Tased him and saved a victim. It’s being twisted against you.”
Turner said, “It’s a set-up. What has Carruthers got?”
“It’s bigger than Carruthers,” Molton said. “It’s all those who’ve covered up for him over the years. All those he’s been involved with. They’re saying you’ve had complaints against you, both of you.”
Fenwick said, “Complaints are part of the job.”
Turner said, “I’ve had three, and Fenwick’s had one. Those are incredibly low numbers for as long as we’ve been on the job.”
“I know that. You know that. And Fenwick’s is from one incident the first day he was a beat cop. His bulk bashed into a poor guy’s street cart. The guy complained. A lot.”
Fenwick scratched his head. “I apologized. The guy gives me free food to this day.”
Molton said, “Makes no difference.”
Fenwick asked, “How many complaints does Carruthers have?”
“I would never talk about other personnel. The disappeared ones or the real ones?” He didn’t wait for them to answer but said, “According to Barb Dams’s count, ninety-six.”
Fenwick whistled.
Molton continued, “And Rodriguez has none. She said she gave you those records.”
Turner said, “But they’re after us.”
“Yup.”
“Is Rodriguez in trouble?” Fenwick asked.
“Not with me. And neither are you with me. But the three of you are on the hot-shit list, but not in a good way, but they have to be real careful about going after you two. You guys are heroes to the community.”
“It’ll be a slow death,” Turner guessed. “A leak to the press here. Fake news there. You know how fake news is the rage these days.”
“There are some on our side,” Molton said, “but this is bigger than sides.”
“They want us gone?” Turner asked.
“They want us dead,” Fenwick said.
Molton didn’t contradict him.
A nurse poked her head into the room and pointed at Turner and Fenwick. She said, “You guys are on the news.”
They all stepped into the hallway to look at the nearest monitor. It was a local TV station with continuous coverage of the storm. They saw pictures of Turner and Fenwick carrying the kids to safety. There was a separate clip of Turner carrying Wolfe. The reporter giving a voice over said, “We’ve discovered these are the same two police detectives who saved DeShawn Jackson.”
Fenwick said, “Fuck.”
The nurse said to Fenwick, “You know you’re bleeding.”
Fenwick looked at his arm. “Double fuck.”
The nurse took him into an emergency room bay where she removed his previous arm bandage, examined him for a few moments, and said, “A few of your stitches came loose. I can fix that right up.” She even examined the wound on his head and said it was scabbing over nicely, and he didn’t even need to wear a bandage on it if he didn’t want to. Fenwick chose not to.
As she fussed, she said, “You guys are such heroes.”
Fenwick had the sense to keep his mouth shut.
She gave him more pain pills.
After she left, Turner said, “They can tell it’s us on the video. You’ve got all that bulk and that white bandage shows up clearly. I guess I’m playing Robin to your hefty Batman.”
Fenwick said, “This heroic bullshit is driving me nuts.”
Turner nodded.
Fenwick said, “We need to stop doing it.”
“You know you grouse, but if it happened again you’d do the exact same things.”
“Fine. I just don’t want to hear about it, or be on someone’s goddamn television.”
“Even if you weren’t a cop, and you were presented with an emergency, you’d still act.”
“It’s not my fault. I was born that way.”
Molton said, “That’s what they all say.”
Turner tuned out the next five minutes of Fenwick complaining then returned to the information on Shaitan and Bettencourt’s murders. They told Molton what they’d found at the encampment.
Molton shook his head about the duplicate cops. “That’s nutty and dangerous.”
“How so?” Fenwick asked.
“Sending someone to impersonate you? A decision to do that has to come from high up. That’s even clearer evidence to me that the murder and the Carruthers incident are connected.”
Turner and Fenwick nodded.
Molton continued. “What’s worse for them, is the more people they get involved in whatever conspiracy is going on, the more likely it is to break against them. A conspiracy becomes unwieldy. Too many people know what’s going on. Somebody blabs or breaks.”
Fenwick said, “Soon, I hope.”
Turner asked, “We’re working both cases, aren’t we? The Carruthers fiasco on the street and the killing of the protestors on the roof.”
Molton said, “Yes. I can’t believe they aren’t connected. There’s some shit going on and the three of us know it. We’ve all said a million times we don’t believe in coincidences. We have no choice but to come down on the side that they’re connected. Safer for us all around if we think of it that way. And if it turns out they aren’t connected, it won’t be the first time we chased our tails getting a case solved.”
They emerged from the bay Fenwick had been treated in. Molton said, “If you want off the case at any point, please let me know. Otherwise, you are my guys and this is your case. Period.” He promised to work on the duplicate cops issue from his end. He left.
Friday 11:28 P.M.
Turner and Fenwick stood in the hall. Judy Wilson stormed off the elevator, spotted them, and rushed forward. She barged through the knots of cops. Barb Dams emerged from the elevator a few seconds later. She stood there as if on guard.
Wilson got to them, looked around, and pulled them into the original room where they’d begun talking to Molton. She asked, “How’s Sanchez?”
“Doctor said he’s going to be okay,” Turner said. “What’s wrong?”
“Joe and I got a visit from Lyal DeGroot, the head of the Internal Review investigation. It was about an hour ago. He was working oddly late, I thought.”
Fenwick said, “I thought we weren’t supposed to talk to each other about contacts with them.”
Wilson leaned close, Her voice was low and fierce. “Bullshit. It’s all bullshit. They or he, only care about getting both of you. That even seems secondary to getting Carruthers off the hook.”
“What did he say?” Turner asked.
“He asked questions about you guys. About how often you lied. If you guys covered for each other. He wanted to know if you’d used Tasers on children.”
“We haven’t,” Fenwick began.
“Listen to me! They wanted to know if you’d ever fired your weapons.”
“But that would be in reports,” Fenwick said.
Wilson said, “I’m as exasperated as you. You’ve got to know this shit. It’s like they’re taking every complaint against Carruthers and trying to claim you were part of it or you did it.”
Fenwick was not to be denied. “Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit!”
“Keep your voice down,” Wilson said. “DeGroot claimed he came to question us about the Carruthers incident. He challenged every statement you gave us. He almost accused us of lying. You think I’m pissed. You should see Roosevelt.” She shook her head. “It’s all about you guys and anything you’ve done while you’ve
been on the force. Frankly, I think if you took time on the job to breathe, they’re going to try to get you for that.”
Fenwick said, “I knew that breathing shit was overrated.”
Barb Dams entered the room with a beat cop straggling behind her. She tapped him on the arm, “Officer Arnold was out here. He claims he was posted to this duty.”
“What duty is that?” Fenwick demanded.
“I don’t answer to you,” Arnold said.
Commander Palakowski of the local district stuck his head in. “I need Officer Arnold out here now.”
Palakowski and the beat cop left.
Dams said, “He was eavesdropping.” She pointed at Wilson. “I noticed him follow you when you walked down the hall.”
They reported Wilson’s news to her.
Dams said, “We better read Molton into this.” She and Wilson left. Dams was already on her phone as they waited for the elevator.
In the hall, Fenwick and Turner’s union rep, Yutka, hurried up to them.
“What the hell is going on?” Fenwick asked.
Yutka said, “Everybody knows about the shooting. Everybody knows you’re here. I have news that you need to hear.”
They hustled back into the empty room.
“First of all, the investigation of the incident itself. I think that’s the key or one of the main keys to why Carruthers has gotten away with so much for so long.”
“How’s that?”
“DeGroot has led the Carruthers investigations, if not all of them, close to all of them. Mostly what he does is nothing. He doesn’t interview officers or witnesses. Or if he does, it’s years later, or incompletely and in a slapdash way.”
“But why?” Fenwick asked. “Who told him to do this?”
“I was not able to find that out. As far as I can tell, the word on what to do about Carruthers goes up the chain of command within the department itself.” Yutka shook his head. “I have to admit, from the investigation reports I’ve seen, Carruthers has never said anything stupid.”
Fenwick demanded, “How is that possible? He leads the world in stupidity.”
“Before he answers, he always turns to his lawyer.”
“Just smart enough,” Turner said.
Fenwick said, “Wait a second. We showed up at the scene. Carruthers was bellowing. Are they going to what? Arrest us for failure to obey a police officer? Resisting arrest?”
“If they could, they would have already. I don’t know what they’re crazy enough to try. Your Commander is fighting madly for you in every forum. You’re lucky.”
“If he wasn’t behind us?”
“You’d be toast.”
Both detectives raised their eyebrows.
Turner said, “We’re only being saved because we have a boss who is on our side?”
“There’s your reputations, which they will do their best to destroy. There’s your records, which they will lie about. There’s who and what you are, as regular guys doing their jobs who stumbled into heroism, twice now in two days, all of which they will try to sully. But you knew that, right?”
Turner asked, “How do you sully saving kids from a lightning storm?”
“Give them a chance.”
Turner was exasperated. “There’s video.”
“I’m giving you the worst case scenarios.”
Fenwick said, “I’m not sure who to be angriest at.”
Yutka asked, “Did you really arrange for the protesters to be able to use the washroom in the parking garage?”
“Yeah.”
Yutka pointed at Fenwick. “Some guy in bib overalls tried to say you threatened him, but he had no witnesses, plus it seems there was a crowd of protesters around when he was complaining. The crowd was on your side claiming you were saints.”
“Saint Fenwick. I like the sound of that.”
Turner said, “Spare me.”
“What do you suggest we do?” Fenwick asked.
“Nothing.”
“All of that?” Fenwick asked.
“It’s got to come crashing down on them.”
“It hasn’t so far,” Turner said.
“There’s more. There’s talk of destroying the tent city. That the protesters are taking pot shots at Chicago cops.”
“Somebody took pot shots at two of the protesters. They’re dead. Sanchez will recover.”
“They don’t care. They want to respond to violence with violence. So far the mayor’s office has kept a lid on it.”
Turner said, “Just more violence.”
Fenwick said, “And we’ve got a place in this? Sanchez made a sudden move. Not that he heard a shot and moved, but he was leaning over to pick up the teddy bear for that kid. The movement probably saved himself as well as Paul.”
Turner nodded. “Sure feels like that to me.”
Yutka said, “If they don’t clear out the tent city, that will tell you something as well.”
“What?”
Yutka said, “That someone high up in the CPD wants that group there, or hell, even wanted the protesters here. People are still furious over that Department of Justice report. There are all kinds of ways to fight back on that. You guys have a couple of the cleanest records on the force, that itself is easily a threat to some people.”
“We’re no threat,” Fenwick said.
“It’s the perception of your persona.”
Fenwick said, “Huh?”
Yutka said, “You look like good guys.”
Fenwick asked, “Who are we making look bad?”
“All the assholes who’ve been lying all these years. Someone or maybe lots of someones want to drag you down with them.”
They agreed to keep in touch. Yutka left.
They checked on Sanchez. He was on his way to surgery to remove the bullet.
Fenwick and Turner leaned against the wall in the corridor. Fenwick said, “I’m bushed.”
“Me too.”
Friday 11:59 P.M.
Turner and Fenwick returned to the station. They sat with Molton in his office staring at the streetlights over the parking lot.
They drank hot coffee and gazed.
Finally, Fenwick asked, “So what are we investigating?”
Molton said, “Some members of the department are using these protesters as scapegoats, to expand the pool of suspects, to send you in wildly different directions. Maybe, somehow, getting you by killing them.”
Turner asked, “How could it be protesters?”
Fenwick asked, “Do they have the wherewithal to move evidence from crime scene to crime scene?”
Turner said, “It would require near perfect placement or a lot of luck.”
Molton added, “Or expertise which cops would have.”
Fenwick said, “If I was a smart protester killer, I’d do it the opposite way. Use the chaos in the police department to get away with murder.”
“But the planting of so much evidence?” Molton asked.
Turner said, “There’s skill involved. Protesters, some of them, know how to shoot high-powered rifles. So would, or could, a member of the CPD.”
Fenwick asked, “We’ve got infiltrators in the protesters. Are they acting as agent provocateurs?”
Molton said, “No evidence of that, yet.”
Turner asked, “What about the rumor we got that Chicago police gang-raped Shaitan?”
Molton said, “He didn’t report anything. Maybe he happened to be at a consensual orgy where absolutely no one knew who he was. Or it’s fake news.”
Fenwick said, “Or they all knew and wanted to fuck him until it hurt.”
Turner asked, “What’s going to happen to the protester’s tent city?”
Molton shrugged. “I have no idea.”
At their desks, exhausted as they were, they did an hour of paperwork. There was an odd comfort in the relentlessness of bureaucracy. They worked mostly in silence. The day had them both down. The humidity seemed to increase with each second they spent at their d
esks. Turner thought that the amount of relief the fans provided felt as useless as all the work they had done so far on the case.
Saturday 1:05 A.M.
Paul sat with his butt on his front porch, his feet reached to the second step down. He reflected, listened to his house, his neighborhood, his life. He saw no extraneous patrol cars or police officers. He didn’t see much debris. In the far distance, he saw periodic lightning flashes from storms that were now far out over the Lake. He heard no thunder. He saw lights in houses the way they’d always been since he could remember as a child. A few lights dim behind curtains, wind in the trees, the distant sounds of the city, an occasional emergency vehicle, a truck rumbling by on Taylor Street. He leaned forward, put his chin in his hand. It had been a hell of a day, and tomorrow didn’t look much brighter.
Ben came out and sat next to Paul and put his arm around him. Ben wore baggy basketball shorts, a crisp, clean T-shirt, and his favorite running shoes.
Ben caressed his husband’s arm for a moment, rubbed his back for a few seconds, then said, “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just missed being shot.”
Paul shut his eyes and leaned back into his husband’s arm. “Yeah.” He was silent for a moment. “I want to hit out. Worse than Jeff in one of his fits of temper.” They’d been working on the boy’s display of bits of violence since they began to appear about a year ago, perhaps coinciding with the onset of puberty, or simply his way of testing his parents. Paul said, “I don’t believe in violence. I don’t. I’m just so angry. If I could figure out something to go after, I could apply logic to solving the case.”
Ben sat close.
“You okay?” Paul asked.
“Just worried about you.” That sat in silence for a few moments. Ben cleared his throat, “Mrs. Talucci asked if you would stop by as soon as you got home.”
As tired as Paul was, he recognized a low key request from Mrs. Talucci as if it were news of a five alarm fire. She made few requests.
“She tell you what it is?” Paul asked.
Ben shook his head. “She suggested I come with.”
They walked over to Mrs. Talucci’s. The front door was open behind a latched screen door. Graciola, one of the grand-nieces let them in.
