Charlie-316

by Colin Conway

  “Wardell Clint? Are you serious?”

  “Do I look like I’m making a joke, Tom?”

  Farrell stared at Baumgartner in surprise. “Why?” he asked, but as soon as the words came out of his mouth, he understood.

  “It makes sense to have good optics on this one. He’s the natural choice. Once you think about it, you’ll understand. Make it the party line and get him out here.” Baumgartner motioned toward Garrett. “He deserves for us to handle this one perfectly. He’s a good cop.”

  “He is,” Farrell agreed, but he knew Garrett was more than that. He was a perfect image of the new SPD. Handsome, college educated, family man, and best of all, black.

  “They don’t make many like him, do they?” Baumgartner said, watching Garrett sitting on the steps.

  “I suppose not.”

  “I’m going to check on him. Then let’s get him out of here, huh? Get him home to his family.”

  Farrell nodded. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Baumgartner turned and plodded toward Garrett. The two SWAT officers somehow found a way to stand a little straighter as the chief approached. Farrell didn’t see Dale Thomas in the immediate vicinity, but that didn’t matter. There was no way he was keeping the chief from having his moment with Ty Garrett. If he tried, that’d be his problem.

  Farrell’s problem was more immediate. He found Flowers and broke the news to him.

  “They want Wardell Clint? The Honey Badger?” Flowers shook his head. “Tell me you’re kidding, Cap.”

  “This comes straight from the chief,” Farrell said. “Or maybe the mayor. I don’t know for sure.”

  “Talbott is up next on the wheel. It’s his turn.”

  “They don’t care about that. They only care about one thing.”

  Flowers nodded. “Yeah, that he’s black.”

  Farrell stared at his lieutenant, surprised that he had vocalized what Farrell was feeling.

  “I mean, I get it and all,” Flowers continued, “but come on, Cap. Clint is a bad choice for this kind of thing. Our shadow is supposed to observe and maybe advise a little. They need to be diplomatic for that sort of thing. Clint is basically the opposite of diplomatic.”

  “I know.”

  “Not to mention the conspiracy and anti-administration crap he’s always spouting. He’s—”

  “It’s done, Dan. There’s no profit in us talking about whether it’s a good idea or not.”

  Flowers sulked about it for a few seconds. Farrell didn’t say anything. He didn’t like having his decisions being made for him at a higher level, either. But that was the way the chain of command worked sometimes.

  Who am I kidding? Farrell thought. This wasn’t about chain of command. It was about politics, pure and simple.

  “Make the call,” he told Flowers.

  Chapter 5

  Detective Wardell Clint didn’t check in at the crime scene right away. Instead, he parked on the next block over, and walked. For a while, he stood with the crowd that had assembled at the yellow tape of the outer perimeter, observing what he could, and listening to the stray bits of conversation. The snippets he picked up were largely anti-police but only mildly so. He heard a sense of resignation in the words, as if there was a collective acceptance that the SPD was corrupt when it came to dealing with people of color or poverty. It was just something that had to be endured in Spokane, like cold winters or potholes in the streets.

  Clint didn’t entirely agree with the sentiment, at least not where it concerned line-level members of the department. The admin was crooked, he knew, and either purposefully in league with the politicians or incompetent puppets of the same. He wasn’t sure which, but he did know that most of the cops working the street were solid.

  Clint made his way toward where the media was gathered. He stayed far enough away to avoid being recognized and asked questions but close enough to get a sense of the mood. It didn’t take long for him to decide that the mood was hungry and impatient. He wondered briefly what story they’d decide to concoct, how they’d spin things. There was really no telling. The media agenda was a fickle one, except that it was usually anti-police. With the Philadelphia shooting, he expected that trend to continue.

  He circled around and approached the crime scene from the street where the police vehicles were parked. He scanned the license plates, spotting a couple of county ones. That meant the lead investigators were already here. They were supposed to wait for him to start any formal investigating, but he doubted they would. Not that most county dicks could investigate anything more complicated than a shoplifting anyway.

  “Ward!”

  He turned and spotted Lieutenant Flowers coming toward him. He stopped in place and waited patiently for his boss to come all the way to him. Life was full of small power struggles, and Clint was determined to win as many of them as possible.

  “Don’t call me that,” he told Flowers when he was close enough.

  “Huh?”

  “It’s Wardell, not Ward. You know this, Lieutenant.”

  “Oh, yeah. Sorry. I always figured Ward was short for it, that’s all. Like my name, you know?”

  Clint said nothing.

  “It’s Dan, short for Daniel,” Flowers offered.

  Clint didn’t reply.

  “When did you get here?” Flowers asked.

  “Just now. Why?”

  “Relax. I just wondered.”

  “No, I mean why am I here?”

  “I told you on the phone. We’ve got an officer involved and need you to shadow the county.”

  Clint tilted his head, studying the lieutenant. “What’s the angle?”

  Flowers gave him an exasperated look but tried to plaster patience over the top of it. To Clint, the expression looked more like he was patronizing him. “Angle?”

  “Why am I here?”

  “You’re up,” Flowers lied easily.

  Clint shook his head emphatically. “No, I’m not. I know how the wheel works. Talbott is up next with Pomeroy after him. Then at least two more after Pomeroy. I caught the call out before last. There’s no way I am up, Lieutenant.”

  Flowers took a deep breath. “You’re right. The chief asked for you specifically.”

  “Me? Why?”

  Flowers looked uncomfortable. “You’re a good fit for this one.”

  Clint stared at him, thinking. He knew most people didn’t like him much. That included the white shirts of command and other detectives. It was one reason he didn’t have a partner anymore. He didn’t care. It took a few years after he got his detective’s shield, but finally everyone had come to an understanding that the best approach was to give him a case and let him work it alone. Since results were what mattered most, there was an uneasy peace in this arrangement.

  “Are you telling me Talbott can’t handle this?” he asked, suspicious.

  “He could,” Flowers admitted, “but like I said, you’re a better fit.”

  Clint wondered what kind of shit storm they had on their hands, and why he was being lined up to be the patsy, to take the blame. Another Sirhan Sirhan or something. He thought about waiting to find out how bad it was for himself but decided to just ask instead.

  “What kind of bullshit is this, Lieutenant?”

  “None. The chief asked for you. That’s all there is to it.”

  “I say again, why?”

  Flowers seemed to struggle to find an answer. Clint watched him, his mind rifling through the possibilities. He kept coming back to the patsy theory.

  Finally, Flowers said, “We need you on this one.”

  Need?

  Clint shifted gears, and suddenly it all made sense. They weren’t out to screw him this time. They needed him. That could only mean one thing.

  “Who’s the shooter?” he asked, but before Flowers could answer, he suddenly clapped his hands together. He immediately harangued the lieutenant. “There are four black officers on t
his department. I’m one. Tammy Preston is two. She’s a sergeant in community services, so I don’t guess it’s her. That leaves either Bo Sherman or everyone’s favorite poster child, Ty Garrett. Which is it?”

  “It’s Garrett,” Flowers admitted.

  “What a coincidence. He gets into a shooting, and suddenly the chief wants me involved. I wonder why?”

  “There’s nothing to wonder about. We all know the reality of the world we live in.”

  “You all created that world.”

  “You all?” The patience in Flowers’s tone slipped. “Who all?”

  “You know who you are,” Clint said. “And you know this is bullshit.”

  Flowers glanced around to see if anyone was listening, then lowered his voice. “It’s not bullshit, goddamnit. It’s strategic, that’s all.”

  “Color it any way you want. We both know the truth.”

  “Listen,” Flowers said. “This is a sensitive situation. The suspect is white.”

  “Ninety percent of the suspects in this city are white,” Clint said. “You know why? Because ninety percent of this city is white. Do the math, Lieutenant. It ain’t hard.”

  “I know the demographics,” Flowers snapped. “What I’m telling you is that we’ve got a black officer who shot a white suspect. It’s sensitive.”

  “More sensitive than when a white cop shoots a black man?”

  “No,” Flowers said firmly. “Not more. Just different.”

  “Those differences are only in your head. That’s why things are so messed up in this country.”

  “It doesn’t matter!” Flowers snapped. “There’s other problems here, too, all right?”

  Clint grew suspicious again. “Like what?”

  Flower took a deep breath and let it out. “The suspect was hit in the back.”

  Clint shrugged. “So? It happens all the time. The suspect presents the threat and by the time the officer reacts, he’s turned away. Action, reaction. It’s physiology. It’s physics. It might be a media problem, but it’s not a criminal one.”

  Flowers just stared at him.

  “There’s more?” Clint asked.

  Reluctantly, Flowers nodded. “We haven’t found the gun yet.”

  “You haven’t…” Clint dropped off into thought. Maybe they were bringing him in to be some kind of patsy. Or were they planning to serve up Officer Ty Garrett as a sacrifice?

  He shook his head at that. As much as he saw Garrett as a puppet for the image makers of the SPD, he had to admit the officer had a good reputation. He carried his weight on patrol, answering calls, and he had been a SWAT member for several years. Maybe he was a little too willing to smile for the cameras and be featured in promotional materials, but Clint had learned a long time ago that everyone found a way to get by in this world. If you were black, the way was harder, which meant you had to play along at times.

  “Listen, man,” Flowers began. “I just need you to watch over the county’s investigation. That’s it. Make sure they hit every detail and do a good job. Our man deserves nothing less.”

  Clint mulled it over. If the plan was to sacrifice Garrett or make him a patsy of some kind, Flowers wasn’t in on it. Of course, the powers that be could just be manipulating the lieutenant, too.

  “This is bullshit,” he repeated. “You have a protocol in place, and you all preach sticking to it until it isn’t convenient for you anymore.”

  “Policies are guidelines,” Flowers said.

  “Yeah, that’s what you guys always say when you break it. Funny how it ends up being an ironclad rule when a worker bee like me violates one.”

  “Jesus. Why do you have to make everything so hard?”

  “I’m only speaking truth.”

  “Yeah?” Flowers’ voice grew hard and anger crept into his tone. “How’s this for truth, Detective? We’ve got something in this profession called chain of command. It works like this: the chief makes a decision on how things are gonna be, and he tells the captain, who tells me, who tells you. Then you do it.”

  Clint stared back at him, wordless.

  Pointing at him, Flowers said, “Do your job, Detective Clint.”

  Clint nodded curtly. This was authority, and he understood that perfectly. “Yes, sir.”

  Flowers gave him a long look, then turned and walked away.

  Detective Wardell Clint waited until he was out of hearing range before muttering, “Ofay.” Then he went to find the county detectives, before they completely tanked the investigation.

  Chapter 6

  Detective Cassidy Harris crouched down near the deceased. She scanned the body slowly, looking for any meaningful details, trying to catalogue as many small facts in her mind as she could. Photographs would capture the scene, but nothing replaced in-person investigation. She only got a single chance to get it right the first time, and she wanted to do exactly that.

  Her partner, Detective Shaun McNutt, stood nearby with his hands on his hips, surveying the scene. She wasn’t sure what he was looking at and tried to ignore him. He was an adequate detective, based on what she’d seen over the last six months of working with him, but she got the sense that he was more in love with the idea of being a homicide investigator than doing the actual work. If the choice came between pulling an extra hour following up on a lead or hitting the gym, McNutt was in his Under Armour gear and out the door to All-Fitness quicker than she could say Lou Ferrigno.

  Not that pumping all that iron didn’t make him nice to look at, she admitted. He knew it, too, and had no problem getting his share of action. The badge was a sex magnet all by itself and McNutt’s chiseled physique made things ridiculously easy for him. That’s probably why he started trying to get her into bed after their first month or so working together. She imagined that he saw her as a challenge. Someone who wasn’t impressed by his badge. That, and the fact that she had a bit of a reputation around the sheriff’s office as an ice princess. Which was only a short gossipy step away from lesbian, in her experience. Quite the conquest for his already over-sized ego.

  Harris shook her head, forcing herself back on task.

  The victim was shirtless, which made it easy for her to examine the bullet wound in his back. Based on the size and clean puncture, she judged it to be an entry wound. The fact that the man was shot in the back didn’t necessarily bother her. If he pointed a gun toward the officer, there might be as long as a full second before even someone who was well-trained could react. In that window of time, the victim might duck or turn in a way that presented his back to the officer, who was already shooting. It happened more than people realized and could have happened here.

  That’s right…could, she reminded herself. Make no assumptions.

  She kept an open mind but found it difficult to believe that an officer would purposefully shoot someone in the back. Especially given what she knew of Officer Ty Garrett. It wasn’t the location of the injury that she found concerning. It was the absence of a gun, or anything that might have been mistaken as a gun.

  There was no question that Garrett had been fired upon. The damage to his patrol car was obvious evidence of that. And even though neither she nor McNutt had examined the living room of the house across the street yet, Lieutenant Flowers had informed them that there were shell casings on the floor. Shots had definitely been fired from the inside of the house.

  Yet, there were no casings beside the body, or in the vicinity. And no damage on the driver’s side, where she would expect it to be if the suspect had fired upon exiting his car.

  What did that mean?

  “What’re you thinking, Cass?” McNutt asked her.

  She didn’t like it when he called her that. No one else did, and it felt like a forced sort of intimacy, like he was trying to get closer to her than she wanted. If she told him to knock it off, it only reinforced her ice princess image. It was a delicate balance. Close enough for them to work effectively together, and for him not t
o flex his testosterone over every disagreement, but distant enough to keep him from making an overt move on her. She had a rule about not dating anyone from work, and she wasn’t about to break it. She saw where it got other women in her field, and she didn’t want to be seen as some kind of trophy, or a punchboard. She was a goddamn detective, and she was good at it. That was how she wanted to be known, but she let the nickname go.

  “No gun,” she said.

  “Nope.”

  “Either there was a gun, and someone took it, or there was never a gun in the first place.”

  “In this neighborhood, I vote someone took it.”

  Harris didn’t reply. There was one place they hadn’t searched yet, and that was under the body. There could be a gun there, or something that in the stress of the situation, Garrett might have mistaken for a gun. A knife, a cell phone, even a black wallet might present itself as a weapon, if someone else was shooting at him from the house at the moment he saw it.

  “Oh, shit,” muttered McNutt.

  Harris looked up. SPD Detective Wardell Clint walked toward them, staring at them through his thin-framed glasses. As always, he had a slightly wild look in his eyes.

  “What the hell is the Honey Badger doing here?” McNutt asked.

  “SPD must really want to tank this investigation if they’re attaching him to it,” she said, hoping she was wrong.

  McNutt laughed a little harder than the joke merited.

  Clint cocked his head at McNutt as he drew close. “Something funny?”

  “Yeah,” McNutt said.

  “You care to share?”

  “Nope.”

  Clint glowered at him. McNutt glared back.

  “You’re in my crime scene, Detective,” Harris interrupted, rising to her feet.

  Clint shook his head. “It’s our crime scene. I’m your shadow.”

  Harris exchanged a look with McNutt.

  “Fill me in,” Clint said.

  Harris took a second to collect herself. She didn’t like Clint, but she prided herself on being professional. The OIS protocol provided for the host agency to assign a shadow for the purpose of observation and, to a lesser extent, to advise. She didn’t have a choice in that, but she wanted to make sure the boundary lines were clearly drawn.