Close Case

by Alafair Burke

  “When was this? When did you start cutting back on their numbers?” I asked.

  “Around the end of August.” The bureau had only published the statistics through August on its Web site. Apparently the numbers would be less skewed in the months since, thanks to Alison’s assistance.

  “Is that everything?”

  Alison looked at her husband. “No. A couple of weeks later, the sergeants started to get on the officers for letting low-level dealers off with warnings instead of taking them in. Right after that, Powell asked me to destroy actual arrest records for him and Foster—always on drug cases. They’d bring people in and make it look like they were processing them for arrests, paper work and all. But then instead of transporting them to the jail, they’d cut them loose in the neighborhood. They wanted me to make sure the arrest reports didn’t get processed.” The practice explained the complaints from residents that dealers who were arrested would magically reappear on the same corner within the hour.

  “You had to have known something was up, Alison.”

  “I figured it out eventually.”

  “And you did this for them out of—what? Friendship? Loyalty?” I asked.

  “No. I told them I wouldn’t throw out arrest records. But they didn’t seem to want to accept that answer and then—well, then they offered to pay me.” I started to ask why she needed the money, then remembered a frustrated conversation during the summer about infertility treatment. “We already took a second mortgage on the house for shots that weren’t working. We need in vitro.”

  “Alison,” I said, shaking my head sadly at her desperation.

  “I know, it was stupid. So incredibly stupid.”

  “How long have you known?” I asked Matt. He said nothing.

  “I told him about a month ago. It’s not his fault. He was—well, angry, to say the least.”

  “Why didn’t you come forward?”

  This time Matt answered. “I couldn’t think of a safe way to get her out of it. Think about it: I didn’t know who else was involved or how things would play out with her word against theirs.” He paused, struggling for the right words to convey the complexity of their dilemma. “Have you ever heard of slow cover?”

  My blank expression told him I hadn’t.

  “Cops who make enemies of other cops don’t necessarily get help when they push their panic buttons.”

  I thought about the red button I had nearly triggered the night Chuck arrested Trevor Hanks, and Chuck’s unwillingness to see my side of the police–district attorney divide. If scorned cops will imperil one of their own, could Chuck have worried—consciously or not—about living with a prosecutor who wasn’t part of the code?

  “How’d you get involved with Percy?”

  “Powell and Foster told me that Percy Crenshaw was asking questions. We needed to be even more careful about the records. I had to make sure their numbers looked normal. Instead, I called Percy and started giving him information.”

  “You never heard either of them mention Andre Brouse?”

  She shook her head.

  “Can you help her?” Matt asked.

  “It’s not just her, Matt. You withheld information in a murder investigation.”

  “I know. I’ll handle whatever needs to be done, but I want you to do what you can for Alison.”

  Alison started to argue, and I immediately understood what they must have been discussing during the daylong car ride.

  “Is there something else I need to know, Matt? Chuck says you were more than a little sensitive about your whereabouts on Sunday night.”

  “I still feel like shit for the way I talked to him. I really did forget to log back in after the call at City Grill. But the more he pushed, the more I started to think he actually suspected me of killing Percy. I lost it.”

  “I’ll let you explain that to him yourself,” I said. I didn’t mention that Chuck apparently wasn’t speaking to me directly anymore.

  “If it makes any difference, we really were close to calling Chuck—and you—on our own before.”

  I nodded, realizing none of us could know what they would have done if I hadn’t made the connection first.

  “It was because of Chuck’s partner, actually,” Matt added. “I guess Chuck told him how I acted Friday. Lo and behold, Calabrese was waiting for me later at the precinct. Said he figured I wasn’t being straight with my buddy, and I’d only do that to Chuck if I was worried about diming someone else up.”

  “You think he knew about this?”

  “No, not like that. I got the feeling he thought it was minor, like I was off having a drink with another cop or something. But everything he said about it hit me right inside—that one lie would start another, that it was better just to be honest and take the consequences, that I was putting Chuck in a bind. I don’t know; it just got to me. Then when we saw the story this morning about the investigation into Percy’s murder being reopened, we knew we had to say something.”

  With that one story from Matt York, I finally had the confidence in my gut that Chuck had implored me to feel earlier. Mike Calabrese might be rough around the edges, but at his core he was one of the good ones. And Chuck had been right. By going to his lieutenant, I had screwed them both over.

  By the time I met Tommy Garcia and Alan Carson at the Internal Affairs Division offices in Central Precinct as scheduled, I had an arrest warrant in hand for Powell based on information provided by two confidential and reliable informants.

  “I know you’re capable of great things, Kincaid, but you’ve got a what?” Garcia apparently wasn’t certain he’d heard me right.

  “An arrest warrant, signed by one Judge David Lesh after reviewing the fastest affidavit I’ve ever drafted.”

  “I can’t imagine any judge signing off for an arrest on what we’ve got.”

  I backed up and told them about the Yorks.

  “They could be in deeper than they’re admitting,” Carson suggested.

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so. Alison was desperate for money and didn’t realize how bad it would get. By the time she was in, they couldn’t think of a way out.”

  “They could have come to us,” Carson protested.

  “Yeah, well, according to what I heard from Matt today, they didn’t think that was realistic. Something about slow cover?”

  “Urban legend,” Carson said.

  Tommy scoffed, and I couldn’t help but think of my recent ticket and the ignored attempts to report the car prowl at my house.

  “Anyway, that’s part of what they were afraid of. Then Alison hears Powell and Foster saying that Percy’s on to the connection between them and Brouse.”

  “Wait,” Tommy said. “Alison York can give us Brouse? She heard them use his name?”

  “No, sorry, that was me filling in the blanks. She heard them say Percy had figured it out. She and Matt talked it through and saw Percy as a way of getting the problem to end without her having to come forward.”

  “The plan didn’t exactly work,” Garcia said dryly.

  “And now they’re truly contrite, appealing for lenience from the DA?” Carson asked sarcastically.

  “I didn’t make any deals other than to say I’d go to bat for them.”

  “You done good, Sammie,” Garcia said. “Let’s pick up Jamie Powell.”

  Powell wasn’t exactly calling attention to whatever money he received for his complicity. We arrived in two separate detective vehicles at a modest ranch house in the suburb of Beaverton. The open garage door revealed a Dodge Caravan and a Chevy Malibu.

  The idea of a corrupt cop with four kids brings to mind a certain age, but I knew from his file that he was younger than I was. Still, the boyish face that answered the door came as a surprise.

  Carson introduced the three of us, including respective titles. Internal Affairs, the Drug Unit, and the DA’s Major Crimes Unit. The implication was clear. “Do you want to come with us, or do you want to talk here?”

 
Powell initially feigned confusion, but his expression quickly changed when a woman inside asked who was at the door. The moment he’d dreaded had finally come. “Can I tell my wife I’m going?”

  “I can’t leave you by yourself,” Carson said. Too many cops end the problem on their own with their service weapon.

  “Yeah, all right. Come on in.” Alan stepped inside while we waited on the porch. “Hon, this is Alan, my buddy from work. Something’s come up. I got to go in early…. No, everything’s fine.”

  Thirty minutes later, the four of us were back at IAD with a union delegate for Powell. Carson was laying out the case against him, along with Powell’s options. Even the union rep conceded that Powell had an incentive to cooperate. We were offering an extraordinary deal under the circumstances: full immunity from prosecution. He would leave the force, keep his pension, and stay insured for a year. Not a single day as a former cop behind bars. In exchange, he would corroborate the case against Foster and, most importantly, wear a wire to give us Brouse. The deal was good for half an hour. After that, we were booking him and trying our luck with Foster.

  “Give you Andre for what?” he asked.

  “Everything.” The scope of the drug activity alone could land Brouse in prison for life if we convinced the Feds to remand him. I wanted him in state prison, though. “What do you know about Percy Crenshaw?”

  “Andre didn’t do that.”

  “That’s not what I asked you. I asked you what you knew about it.”

  “Andre heard Crenshaw had been asking about him. He obviously wasn’t pleased. When I found out he’d been killed, I confronted Andre at Jay-J’s. Regardless of what you might think of me, no way was I willing to look the other way on a murder.”

  Tommy and Alan exchanged skeptical glances.

  “He didn’t even know about it. Don’t get me wrong—he was happy when I told him, like he couldn’t believe his own stupid luck—but he was obviously surprised. He didn’t do it.”

  “What about Selma Gooding and Janelle Rogers?”

  His body slumped as he exhaled, realizing we had tied in the Buckeye shooting.

  “The clock’s ticking,” Carson prompted.

  Powell looked to his delegate, who said nothing. We clearly had the power here. “On that one, I think Andre at least knows who did it. Foster saw that new female reporter talking to Selma on Saturday and told Andre about it. When the call came in about the drive-by, Foster called Andre, pissed off. Andre blamed it on some kid getting crazy, trying to gain favor with him. He said he was going to take care of it, in his words. Foster told him not to do anything stupid, but everything was obviously getting out of control.”

  Just like Foster and Powell had convinced themselves they were just a little bit corrupt, Andre Brouse had probably allowed them to live that illusion, letting them in on the drug operation but leaving them out of the messy details.

  “When do you wear the wire?” I asked. He didn’t respond to the question. “Do we need to talk to Foster or not?”

  Powell had seen perps in a similar position and knew he had no choice. If he didn’t take the deal, Foster would. “I’m supposed to meet Brouse at the club at the start of shift. Four o’clock.”

  Forty-five minutes. “Can we get him wired by then?” I asked Carson.

  “We can do it right now.”

  “Let’s do it,” Powell said. “Can I call my wife? Get her to take the kids to her mother’s?”

  Alan nodded. “I’ll send an escort with them if you want.”

  “Brouse doesn’t check you?” I asked.

  “Not for a couple of years.”

  Carson assured me that would be the case. “Are you kidding?” he said. “No one’s more trustworthy to a guy like Brouse than a guy like Powell. A dirty cop’s got more to lose.”

  I checked for messages back at the office while Carson and a technician wired Powell for sound. With Frist out and me away for more than four hours, the unit could be falling apart. And maybe Chuck had called.

  Only one new message. “Hi, this is Marcy Wellington. My husband—or I guess soon-to-be ex-husband—is Peter Anderson? A witness for you on the Percy Crenshaw case? Anyway, we’ve been having some problems, and”—I heard her sniffle into the phone—“anyway, I need to talk to someone. Can you please call me back?”

  I’d heard plenty of complaints from DV deputies about these kinds of calls—domestic violence victims turning futilely to prosecutors to understand the confusing combination of fear, anger, betrayal, and sadness that came with being hit by someone you still loved.

  I started to save the message for later, then stopped. Janelle Rogers had been killed the day after I blew off a request for help from Heidi Hatmaker. Shit. For all I knew, Anderson could be threatening his wife and claiming he’d get away with it because he knew a DA. I didn’t want to read about Marcy Wellington’s murder in the paper tomorrow morning, knowing I could’ve stopped it. I scribbled Marcy’s number on a legal pad.

  “How are we looking?” I asked Carson.

  “Just a minute. He’s putting on his uniform.”

  I called the bureau switchboard and asked to be connected to the Domestic Violence Unit. The unit’s assistant told me no one was in; she’d have an officer call me back later. I explained I was out of the office and left my pager number.

  “We’re about ready,” Tommy said.

  As we were getting ready to walk out, Powell said, “What about my gun?”

  “We can’t let you have that,” Carson explained. Powell’s union rep protested, but Carson held strong. “As far as we’re concerned, he’s not even a cop anymore.”

  Powell spoke up for himself. “I can’t go in on duty, in uniform, without my gun. He’ll know immediately.”

  Carson and I exchanged glances. We’d been moving so quickly we hadn’t thought all the details through. “Then we take the bullets out,” I said.

  “No way,” the union rep said. “You can’t send him into a club full of gangbangers, with them thinking he’s armed, when he’s not.”

  “And we can’t let him have a loaded gun,” Carson said.

  The union rep started to ask for time to consult with Powell privately, but Powell waved him off. “That’s a deal killer,” he said. “My kids are better off with me on trial than me dead.”

  For a guy who’d blown it all, today Jamie Powell had shown good judgment. When it came to cutting the deal, he needed us more than we needed him. But we needed him enough, and were moving quickly enough, to grant him this one. Carson made the call, and I approved it. We were ready to go.

  Tailing Jamie Powell’s patrol vehicle to the club in a unmarked van with Tommy Garcia, Alan Carson, and the technician, I still hadn’t heard anything from the DV unit. Whether it was the adrenaline from what was about to happen, my anal-retentive desire to square away the loose end of Marcy Wellington’s phone call, or simply an excuse, I used Tommy’s cell to call Chuck.

  “Hey, I can’t really talk right now.”

  “Neither can I.”

  Tommy Garcia was sitting next to me, and I had approximately three minutes before Powell walked into Jay-J’s. I wasn’t calling about our relationship.

  I walked him through the situation with Marcy Wellington. “I tried calling DV, but they’re not getting back to me. Can you call them for me? Just stay on them until they go out there.”

  “Sure. Are you all right? You sound frantic.”

  Now wasn’t the time. “It’s that thing I was working on yesterday. A lot has happened today, though. We should talk.”

  “Yeah, OK,” he said, sounding rushed. “Can I call you later?”

  Music to my ears. “Yeah, or just come home.”

  “I’ll call you.”

  So much for the music. “Um, OK. You’ll probably get voice mail, but I’ve been checking them all day. Someone stole my purse last night, so I don’t have my cell—”

  “Last night? Someone broke into the house?”

  “No
, my car. And then no one from fucking Northeast Precinct would come to the house to take a report. They said it was policy, but I got the whole cold-shoulder gist, if that’s what they were aiming for.”

  Chuck was clearly annoyed at the police response—or lack thereof—and, for once, I actually appreciated his protectiveness.

  Unfortunately, his irritation wasn’t limited to the precinct. “Why didn’t you call me? Were you trying to make me feel even worse about leaving?”

  “How did I do anything to make you feel bad?” In the driver’s seat, Tommy looked out his window when we stopped at a light. “Look, I’m in the middle of a million things right now. Can you please just call DV for me? I don’t have anyone else to call.” My voice broke slightly as I realized the truth carried in that single sentence.

  “Yeah, fine. I’ll talk to you later.”

  He hung up just as Powell’s patrol car pulled into the Jay-J’s parking lot.

  “Here we go,” Garcia said, cutting the engine.

  24

  As planned, we monitored electronically from the parking lot of an Italian restaurant across the street from the club. In the back of the van, Carson and the technician hit a button to feed Powell’s audio to our speaker.

  “Getting out now,” Powell said, just as his car door opened. We were clear.

  We watched him enter Jay-J’s, and soon the van was filled with the thumping beat of a rap artist who’d survived multiple gunshots to the face. “At four in the afternoon?” I asked.

  “Consider that Muzak, Kincaid,” Tommy said. “Twelve hours from now, you can’t hear yourself think in that place.”

  The sound of the bass line dulled as we heard a door shut. Powell had walked into the back office. According to Powell, he had demanded this meeting with Brouse last week. With Percy’s prying and then his murder, it was all becoming too much for him. Powell’s plan, if you believed what he said, was to pull out, to tell Andre he was going to do his job right from now on. As we listened, what he did instead—and what I suspected he planned to do all along—was demand additional money. He wouldn’t get to keep the cash, but we’d get the corroboration we needed to nail Brouse.