Close Case

by Alafair Burke

  I showered, dressed, and placed my fat bundle of a New York Times into a backpack, but I couldn’t quite ready myself for the drive to Chinatown for dumplings. Instead, I called the front desk at Emanuel Legacy. After a few requests, I was connected to the ICU. The doctors had cleared Selma for visitors. The hours were from two to four in the afternoon. My sports watch was approaching one o’clock when I hung up.

  “Chuck, do you mind if we skip the dim sum today?”

  I found a small crowd of people standing in the hall outside Selma’s hospital room. Among them was a familiar face—the young reporter from the Oregonian, the one with the nauseatingly sweet name.

  “Holly?” I asked.

  “Heidi, actually.” I peeked over the shoulder of a woman blocking the entrance to Room 328. Selma was sleeping, tubes running from a bandage over her left arm. Importantly, though, I saw a rise and fall in her chest, a slight smile on her restful face.

  “You know Selma too?” I asked.

  “I think I need to tell you more about that story I was talking about.”

  An hour and a Jell-O pudding parfait later in the hospital cafeteria, I had heard Heidi Hatmaker’s story. Percy’s notes. The statistics. Officers Powell and Foster. The theory. Heidi’s conversation with Selma in the Kennedy School parking lot just hours before the shooting. And, most importantly, the article taped to Heidi’s front door that morning.

  “Can you think of anyone—anyone—who might have left that article for you, just to make sure you saw it?” I asked. “Someone at the paper who knew you were talking to Selma about the story?”

  “No. I didn’t even know I would talk to Selma about the story until I went to the meeting yesterday. And as it turns out, she didn’t know anything.”

  “You hadn’t met Selma at all before yesterday?”

  “Met her? No. I called her once—”

  “About the story?”

  Heidi shook her head. “After you guys searched Percy’s office, Selma contacted the paper trying to get Percy’s belongings for the family. I packed them up and then called her.”

  “And who knew about that?”

  “Only the facilities manager. I think this has something to do with my talking to her yesterday about Percy’s story. I saw that patrol car swing around twice in—literally—like three minutes. Then, just like that, Selma and Janelle get shot, and someone wants to make sure I know about it.”

  In a moment of frankness, Percy had told his parents that someone was following him. In hindsight, I should have taken the comment more seriously.

  “Did you talk to Janelle about the story too?”

  “No, just Selma.”

  “Let’s try to find out what else Selma knows.”

  The patient was awake by the time we walked back to her room. “Well, look at the two of you,” Selma said, brightening slightly with the addition of two new people to her get-well entourage. “How did I get so lucky to have all these visitors?”

  She was doing her best to appear perky, but her friend’s death hung heavily over the room. Heidi and I smiled uncomfortably at the sea of faces staring at us through the doorway, wondering who the hell we were and why we were visiting their beloved survivor.

  “We both heard what happened last night and just wanted to wish you well and tell you we’re so sorry about Janelle.”

  “Sweet, sweet Janelle. Only one shot hit me and, wouldn’t you know it, my big old thigh came in handy for once. Poor little Janelle wasn’t so lucky.”

  “Yes, well, I’m sorry for your loss. For all of you,” I said, nodding to the others in the room. “I know it’s not the best time, but when you’ve got a chance, Selma, I do want to ask you a few questions.” She knew I was from the DA’s office. I wouldn’t have to be any more specific for her to infer my questions were investigative.

  Within a few minutes, Selma had emptied out her hospital room, explaining she was tired but just fine. Once we were alone, I told her that someone had left a copy of the newspaper article about the shooting on Heidi’s front door.

  “Well, what in the world could that be about? Maybe one of your reporter friends making sure you saw the article?” she asked.

  Heidi shook her head. “No one at the paper knows I talked to you yesterday.”

  “After you saw Heidi, did you talk to anyone about what she told you? About the story Percy had been working on?”

  Selma didn’t hesitate. “I talk to everyone about everything all the time. Heidi told me Percy was working on something having to do with Buckeye, so I called around when I got home to see if anyone knew those police officers she brought up. What were their names?”

  “Jamie Powell and Curt Foster,” Heidi reminder her.

  “Those are the ones. Funny how I knew those names yesterday right after we talked. Can’t remember either one of them today. But I didn’t find anything out for you. The downside of our little group is we tend to be pretty law-abiding. We see the community policing officers, and that’s about it.”

  “Who did you talk to about them?” I asked.

  “Just the group. You met a couple of them—Janelle, of course, and Reverend Byron. I called a couple more, but then, of course, they may have talked to people beyond that. We’re grassroots that way.”

  I looked at Heidi. What was she thinking, disclosing the specific targets of her story with someone like Selma, plugged into the neighborhood network like an overloaded power strip?

  “Why was Janelle over?”

  “Oh, she was always just so intrigued by anything having to do with the neighborhood and the police. After I called her, she wanted to know if anyone else had heard anything, what Heidi was working on—just gossip, really.”

  “And Percy never mentioned anything at all to you about this story?” I asked.

  “Like I told Heidi the other day, Percy would talk to us about our problems and show us his stories when they were done, but we never really knew exactly what he was up to until we saw it right there in black-and-white. Why are you asking me all this?”

  “Just trying to make sure it doesn’t have anything to do with what happened last night,” I explained.

  “The police sent someone from a special gang team to see me. They thought maybe all my days of chasing people off the stoop might have finally caught up with me. I hope that wasn’t it. God help me if I did something to hurt Janelle.”

  Heidi and I exchanged a look across Selma’s bed. No, this definitely had something to do with Percy’s story.

  I stepped into the lobby and used my cell phone to call Jessica again.

  “My God, Kincaid. If you haven’t noticed, I’m trying to enjoy my last few weekends of childless freedom here.”

  “Well, how about I help you out a little? Do you mind if I take the Buckeye shooting from you?”

  “Let’s see…do I mind if you do my work for me? Am I missing something?”

  “I don’t think it’s a gang case.” I told her about Heidi’s theory of a conspiracy between Northeast Portland drug dealers and officers at the precinct. “Do you know anything about Jamie Powell or Curt Foster? Percy had their names down in his notes.”

  “Vaguely, but just as the initial responders to some gang cases. From there the detectives take over. You don’t know them from DVD?”

  “The names sound vaguely familiar, but nothing stands out. Anyway, the reporter talked to Selma about the story, mentioned Powell and Foster, and then Selma made a bunch of phone calls asking around about them, including one to Janelle Rogers. A few hours later, her house gets shot up, and Janelle’s dead.”

  “Oh, come on, you think a cop would shoot some old women for poking around?”

  “Maybe, or a freaked-out dealer. Maybe they meant to miss; I don’t know.”

  “Or your Percy Crenshaw story could be totally unrelated. From what my detectives told me, there are some people in the ’hood who wouldn’t mind losing the assistance of people like Ms. Gooding.”

  “I haven’t mention
ed the best part.” I told her about the newspaper article on Heidi’s door.

  “OK, now that is a little weird.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You really don’t mind taking the case?”

  “It makes sense that I should.” Briefly, I told her about the disintegration of my case against Corbett and Hanks. “MCT’s going to have to look at Percy’s murder again anyway, and this could be part of the big picture.” Lisa Lopez had suggested Matt York as a suspect because he had motive, access to Hanks’s Jeep in the impound lot, and the kind of knowledge suggested by an evidence-laden bat planted in a suspect’s neighborhood. The same could be said of Powell and Foster.

  “Fine with me,” Jessica said. “I’m warning you, though. We haven’t found a single witness yet. It’s starting to look like just another Buckeye misdemeanor.”

  I had heard the term before around the Gang Unit. When one gangbanger shoots another, the only witnesses tend to be still other gangbangers who have their own ideas about the right way to identify and punish wrongdoers. As a result, deputies in the Gang Unit get used to pleading out their cases, big-time.

  “Hopefully, if I follow the trail on Percy’s story, we’ll find our shooter.”

  “And maybe Percy’s killer. You’ll leave a message for the boss?”

  “No problem.”

  I called Duncan’s frequently checked voice mail immediately to make sure I didn’t forget. Only the unit supervisors are entrusted with Duncan’s pager number, and they know better than to use it except for a catastrophic emergency.

  My next call was a little tougher. As I dialed the home number for the Yorks, I wondered if there was a tactful way to question a woman whose marriage was falling apart and whose husband had been treated as a possible murder suspect. Just my luck; the betrayed husband answered.

  “Matt? It’s Samantha Kincaid.” I felt like I had to say something before asking for Alison. “I can’t imagine what the last week has been like for you. I hope you understand—”

  “Jealous husband’s always a possibility,” he observed bluntly.

  “Well, never a real possibility in this case.” I was struggling for some other consolation, but Matt apparently didn’t want to hear it.

  “What’s up, Sam?”

  “I was actually calling for Alison.”

  “May I ask what it’s about?”

  “Something has come up on the case. I wanted to see if she might know anything about it. You know, from talking to Percy.” Yikes, this was worse than I imagined.

  “I see. Um, I guess it’s up to her.” He must have hit the mute button. A full minute went by before Alison picked up.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey. Matt told you why I was calling?”

  “Sort of.”

  “I’m tracking down a story Percy was working on. Did Percy ever say anything to you about suspecting police officers of being involved in drug traffic?”

  “No. Doesn’t sound familiar.”

  “He never mentioned it to you?”

  “No. It wasn’t that kind of a thing. Not a lot of talking, you know?”

  “Anything about Officers Jamie Powell or Curt Foster?”

  She lowered her voice. “Do you know the position you’re putting me in right now? I can’t exactly give you the details, but it was only a few times in a few weeks. He never told me anything about his stories. Now, please, just leave us alone.”

  “I’m sorry, Alison. I—”

  “Goodbye, Sam. Tell Chuck I said hello.”

  I closed my phone, ashamed. Percy didn’t get where he was by sharing the facts he dug up with other people, yet I had called Alison anyway. Just because I could.

  Selma Gooding and Janelle Rogers had already paid the price for being dragged into this story. I knew I could decipher a few notes in a reporter’s book and do it without hurting the innocent people around him even more. I just needed to think.

  From memory, I dialed the cell number of my favorite sergeant in the Drug and Vice Division.

  “Yo, what’s up in the big MCT? Have you forgotten about us little people yet?”

  “Tommy, I just saw you two weeks ago in the pit.” Thanks to similar eating habits, Tommy Garcia and I run into each other frequently in the food court at the mall next to the courthouse. And every time he hassles me about my promotion into the big leagues.

  “Yeah, but you never call me anymore.”

  “Until just now. How much do you know about what’s going on with street-level crack sales up in Northeast Precinct?”

  “I know we’re not finding as much of it as we want to.”

  “How so?”

  “The whole year, we just haven’t been pulling as much crack off the streets as we used to, although North and Northeast Portland are the main districts for crack, at least traditionally.”

  “Maybe it’s just fallen out of favor. More heroin and meth?”

  “Yeah, right,” he said, laughing. “You and I both know that crack doesn’t fall out of favor until you take so much of it off the streets that it’s no longer a cheap high. And in those long-ass joint task force meetings with the Feds, they keep telling us that, if anything, the amount of crack coming into the entire Pacific Northwest has been going up.”

  “So the question is, with all the policing we throw at street-level drug sales, why aren’t you finding the rocks?”

  “Precisely. It’s frustrating as hell. Now that I’ve enlightened you, are you going to tell me what’s up?”

  “How much do you care if a few cops get pissed at you?” Tommy was familiar enough with my penchant for understatement to know that a few meant a lot and pissed meant bloodthirsty.

  “I forgot how much trouble you cause, Kincaid. Let’s see, are these angry cops going to be good cops?”

  “No.”

  “Then I don’t give a shit.”

  “Good. Meet me at Northeast Precinct in an hour. And I might have a reporter there.”

  “You’re fucking with me, right?”

  “Serious as a heart attack,” I said, flipping my phone shut. From what I could tell, Heidi Hatmaker was going to snoop around with or without official cooperation. Given that her last attempt at amateur sleuthing had gotten Selma shot, I’d rather keep an eye on her myself.

  I made one last phone call and then found Heidi in the lobby, freeing a Snickers bar from the slot of the vending machine. “Late breakfast,” she explained.

  A woman after my own heart. “Let’s go, little miss Jessica Fletcher.”

  “Who?” she asked through her first enormous bite of candy bar.

  I shook my head. “You don’t watch nearly enough television.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “First, we’re getting some lunch.” I had skipped my Sunday dumplings, and a pudding parfait plus machine-issued hospital food just wasn’t going to cut it. “Then you’re going to meet some cops.”

  Heidi and I grabbed sandwiches at the Tin Shed Café; then she followed me to the precinct in a cute little BMW that looked like something Chuck would want to take apart and put back together again.

  When we arrived, Alan Carson was waiting for us in the lobby, hair still stiffly in helmet formation. When you only know one Internal Affairs detective, it’s not hard to decide whom to call.

  “I didn’t think you’d get here that quickly.”

  “I told you, if there’s one thing we can do well at IA, it’s organize some files,” he said, holding up two legal-sized manila folders. “Pulling a couple of them for you was the least I could do after you jumped into Frist’s shoes on Hamilton.”

  “That went real well until it fell apart.”

  “Hey, you went for it; sometimes that’s all we can do.” He lowered his voice, even though the lobby was empty at the moment except for us. “Trust me, I know it’s not easy being on the other side of a case from a cop.”

  A few minutes later, Tommy Garcia arrived wearing an Oregon Ducks sweatshirt, jeans, and his always-p
erfect white smile. “You’re off duty?”

  “Yeah, finally got rid of Sundays. But for you, anything. If it pans out, I’ll get some OT, right?”

  Garcia, Carson, and I showed ID to the front receptionist as I asked for an open room. “She’s with me,” I said, pointing to Heidi. I made a point of saying hello to a couple of familiar faces in the hallways once we were buzzed inside. Good. Let word seep out that the new crime reporter was running around with DVD, IA, and a DDA. The more acronyms, the hotter the action.

  I pulled the blinds in the interrogation room, and we got down to business. I introduced Heidi and asked her to explain the theory she had pieced together from Percy’s notes. It started with the fact that cops in Northeast Precinct were stopping and searching black suspects, but then arresting them at lower rates than other suspects. Heidi initially thought Percy was looking into racial profiling or another form of discrimination.

  “But then,” she explained, “I found out that sergeants review the patrol officers’ stop-and-search statistics to gauge their work effort. I also learned—as I’m sure you already know—that different racial cliques control different drugs. When I put it all together, I realized cops might be stopping and searching as required but then underarresting when it came to crack cocaine. Maybe their allegiances were somewhere other than the war on drugs. After I had a theory in place, I realized that two names in Percy’s notes—Powell and Foster—weren’t street names at all, like I had figured, but the names of two officers in Northeast Precinct. So I started looking for more information to nail down the theory.”

  “Like what?” Tommy asked.

  “I came here and read a couple weeks of reports. I went to a Buckeye Neighborhood Association meeting yesterday and then talked to Selma Gooding afterward, in the parking lot.”

  “Now Selma’s in the hospital,” I said, “a friend of hers is dead, Heidi’s getting creepy stories fastened to her front door, and the four of us are going to figure out what to do about it. And, Heidi, there’s one thing I haven’t told you yet. You’re obviously going to have the lead on this once we put it together, but I swear to God, if you go to print before we’re ready, I’ll never talk to you again, and I’ll make sure no one else does either.”