Charlie-316

by Colin Conway

  The chief nodded. “At the end, yeah.”

  “And who knows about the drugs, right?”

  Again, another nod from the chief, this one more reluctant.

  “Add them all together and it’s too much.”

  “Isn’t there a benefit to sticking by our man?”

  “It may look good to the line level officers, but the rest of the world is going to be screaming thin blue line. I don’t see any positive outcome at this point.”

  “There’s another piece,” the chief said, giving him a meaningful look.

  “That he’s black,” Farrell said.

  “Exactly.”

  “You can’t let that be a factor,” Farrell said.

  “Have you been paying attention to the outside world, Tom? Race matters.”

  “Not here. What matters here is behavior. That’s what we need to focus on. Behavior, and facts.”

  The chief leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his belly, settling deep into thought.

  Farrell waited patiently.

  Finally, the chief let out a long sigh. “I don’t want to abandon one of my men, Tom. It just doesn’t sit right. This is a good department, full of solid men and women. What kind of message does it send to them if we just sacrifice Garrett to the wolves? If he isn’t guilty—”

  “Guilty of what, sir?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Farrell ticked off his fingers, one at a time. “Was it a bad shoot? Was he the aggressor in the attack? Is he into drugs?”

  “I have a hard time believing it.”

  “I do, too. Garrett has always seemed like a solid officer. If any one of these things came along in isolation, I’d be right there with you, calling bullshit. But all three, one right after another?” Farrell gave him a knowing look.

  “I see your point.”

  “I get no joy in making it,” Farrell said. “At this point, he’s going to have to weather these three storms, and so are we. It might be that what’s in his best interest and what’s in the best interest of the department are no longer the same thing. Where does your greater loyalty lie?”

  “My loyalty?” the chief asked. “Or my duty?”

  Farrell shrugged. “Either way, we have a responsibility to those other three hundred cops that wear this badge, don’t we?”

  “So, we suspend him?”

  “That’s my recommendation. Let’s suspend him with pay pending the outcome of the criminal investigations.”

  “I’ll advise the mayor.”

  “There’s one final issue, boss.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Garrett’s lifesaving award. We were supposed to present it to him tomorrow.”

  The chief shook his head. “Well, cancel the damn ceremony, Tom. We’re not doing it from jail.”

  Chapter 26

  Detective Clint was waiting at Harris’s desk when she arrived.

  “Good morning, Detective,” he said, his tone cordial but reserved.

  “You’re in my chair,” Harris told him.

  Clint rose slowly and pulled out McNutt’s desk chair.

  “That’s Shaun’s desk,” Harris sad.

  Clint ignored her, settling into McNutt’s chair. He planted both feet on the floor and leaned forward, raising his eyebrows. “We segregating chairs now?”

  She scowled. “You know that’s not it. It’s about respect.”

  Clint gave her a doubtful look. “Respect, huh?”

  “Yes.” She opened her desk drawer and put her purse inside. It would sit there until the end of the day. “You know, like respecting the boundaries of an investigation.”

  “Or talking to your partner about something first, instead of running to daddy to whine and tattle?”

  Harris felt her cheeks flush. “I did not whine.”

  “You did. You are now.”

  “Bullshit!” she snapped. “You’re not my partner. Shaun is my partner. You’re the goddamn shadow.”

  Clint watched her with a clinical eye. “You’ve got a little bit of a potty mouth there, Detective.”

  “Fuck you, Clint.”

  “Whoa!” McNutt said as he entered the bullpen. He strode over to the two of them. “What’s going on? Get out of my chair!”

  Clint rose with exaggerated slowness. “You people are touchy in the morning.”

  Harris said, “You people?”

  “You know what I mean,” Clint said.

  “Sure I do,” she said. “Different rules for you than us. Your indignation is righteous. Ours is contemptuous.”

  McNutt looked from Clint to Harris, not following the exchange. “What’s the problem?”

  “No problem here,” Clint said.

  Harris forced her emotions under control. She didn’t like how easily Clint made her angry. Normally, she prided herself on her logic and emotional balance, but something about him got under her skin.

  “It’s fine,” she said through gritted teeth. “As long as you remember your place.”

  “Excuse me?” Clint said. “My place?”

  Frustrated, Harris threw her hands in the air. “As the shadow.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “I’m lead investigator,” Harris said. “If you keep stepping outside the foul lines, I’ll get you tossed off this case.”

  “Hunh,” Clint grunted. “Seems to me you already tried. How’d that work out for you?”

  Harris shook her head. “All I did is ask your bosses to yank your chain a little—”

  “Yank my chain?” Clint interrupted, his hand mimed grabbing a leash and pulling it from his neck.

  Harris ignored him and continued, “—to remind you whose investigation this is. That’s it.”

  “Well, consider me reminded. Can we get to work now?”

  “Fine.” Harris bit off the word.

  The three of them stood next to the desks, looking at one another awkwardly, and waiting. McNutt glared at Clint, but the SPD detective didn’t seem to care. He finally broke the silence. “A briefing maybe?”

  McNutt started to answer, but Harris interrupted him. She picked up her case file and flipped it open, all business. “All right. Here’s where we’re at. The canvass of the immediate area yielded no witnesses who saw anything of substance.”

  “No one saw anything, huh?”

  “Not exactly, but our best witnesses didn’t see anything prior to Officer Zielinski’s arrival.”

  “One of the idiots even thought he was the shooter,” McNutt interjected, but Clint continued to ignore him.

  “We’ve run down several of Trotter’s known associates and interviewed them,” Harris continued. “So far, no real useful information there, either.”

  “Not surprising,” Clint said.

  “No, but we had to do it.”

  “True, true. What about the house?”

  “We pulled the property records. The owners are Mark and Stephanie Seaver. Shaun did a background on them and it came back clean, so we are going to interview them later today.”

  Clint didn’t seem impressed. “Forensics?”

  “Not much is back yet. The shell casings had no prints, partial or otherwise. Whoever fired those rounds was careful.”

  Clint pressed his lips together in thought. “Not even partials, you say?”

  Harris shook her head. “Why?”

  “Just putting it through the grinder.” He smiled absently. “What’s that mean to you? The missing prints.”

  “It’s like I said. The guy—”

  “Or guys,” Clint said.

  She shrugged. “Either way…careful. Why?”

  “I see a couple of possibilities. One, you’ve got an individual or pair of individuals who are cautious enough to wipe down ammo as standard practice before loading.”

  “Which is some paranoid shit, you ask me,” McNutt said.

  Clint shrugged. “You say paranoid, I say cautio
us. If wiping down ammo is a habit, then you’re dealing with a certain kind of person. If it wasn’t a matter of habit, but something done specifically for this event, then this shooting was definitely premeditated.”

  “If it was premeditated, then it wasn’t a crime of opportunity,” Harris said.

  “That logic follows,” Clint admitted.

  “Didn’t you say earlier that this was a crime of opportunity?”

  “No. I said it could be. It could also have been an intentional ambush. There could have been one shooter or two. The evidence doesn’t rule anything out yet.”

  Harris hesitated, mildly surprised. She expected Clint to dig in his heels on the issue of whether this was an ambush or not. His willingness to accept new facts so easily didn’t fit his reputation, or her perception of him.

  “Is that all you’ve got going?” he asked her. “The homeowners?”

  “There’s still forensics to come back, and the autopsy is today. Are you going?”

  Clint shook his head. “The M.E. knows her job. She doesn’t miss a thing. And you’ll be there, right?”

  “Yes.” Autopsies were her least favorite part of the job, second only to crime scenes with ripe, decaying dead bodies. Yet she was the lead investigator and attending the autopsy was her duty.

  “What else?” Clint asked.

  “We still have a couple of Trotter’s associates to locate. We’re hoping for some kind of connection there.”

  “Hope isn’t a plan.”

  “Oh, Christ,” McNutt muttered loudly. “Such wisdom.”

  “Our plan is to locate these last two known associates of Trotter,” Harris clarified, “and find out if there’s a connection.”

  “It’s a dead end.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It’s a dead end,” Clint repeated. “You know it, too.”

  “It’s a loose end, not a dead end,” Harris said. “One we have to sew up.”

  “You should interview Garrett now,” Clint told her. “Before this other shit gets out of control.”

  “Interviewing the shooter is the last step in the process.”

  “Interviewing him now is the best step.”

  “We’ll interview him after his seventy-two is up, and when we’ve got everything else handled.”

  “Is that what it says to do in your little green investigator’s book?”

  “Listen—” Harris began, but McNutt stepped forward and interrupted her.

  “I’ve had just about enough of your bullshit, Clint,” he growled, puffing out his chest. “Cass is lead, you’re the shadow. What is so hard about that?”

  Clint ignored him, leaning slightly to the side to look past him and meet Harris’s gaze. “Interview him now. It’s the best move. He can clear some things up. If you wait until—”

  McNutt thrust both arms outward toward Clint’s chest, startling Harris.

  Except Clint was no longer there.

  Clint leaned and turned, his movement flowing. He caught McNutt’s right wrist as it went past him and twisted it while he grasped the detective’s fingers with his other hand and stepped slightly forward. A seemingly small downward motion brought McNutt’s hand toward his own chest, bent around at an uncomfortable angle. He let out a surprised, painful grunt and dropped to his knees.

  Harris recovered from her surprise. “Let him go!”

  “I will,” Clint said.

  “Now!”

  Clint leaned forward slightly, applying more pressure. McNutt let out a small cry and dropped further, his buttocks slamming into his heels. Clint put his face near McNutt’s. “A pound or two more and your wrist shatters, Detective.”

  Harris took a half step toward Clint but he shot her a dangerous look, so she stopped. Then she dropped her hand onto the butt of her gun. “Let him go.”

  Clint turned away from her, back to McNutt. “How about I let you go, like she asks? You be cool, and we just pretend this didn’t happen?”

  McNutt didn’t reply for a second, but then bobbed his head twice.

  Clint released him and stepped away.

  Harris braced herself, unsure if McNutt would charge at Clint or even go for his own gun. The muscled detective just glared at Clint while rubbing his wrist. Clint stared back cautiously.

  “This can’t happen,” she said.

  “It didn’t,” Clint said. He turned to her. “Now, are you going to interview Garrett or what?”

  Harris looked at him in partial disbelief. She had difficulty processing what had just occurred. Cops argued, but fighting in the detectives’ office? She never even heard of that, much less seen it before. Clint’s otherworldly calm and his ability to return to their prior conversation unnerved her.

  “When the time is right,” she told him. “Not before.”

  “The time is right.”

  “Says you,” McNutt said.

  Clint pressed his lips together and shook his head. “Who exactly is pressuring you to tank this case?”

  “No one!” Harris’s cheeks flushed again.

  “Then why are you being so by-the-book? Garrett’s ready to talk.”

  “I’m going by the book because that is how professionals conduct investigations. That’s the reason there is a book, Clint. I follow procedure. I don’t cowboy my way through shit. Maybe that’s how you run your cases but not me.”

  “What’s your closure rate?”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Mine’s high. If it was a batting average, I’d be Ted Williams. You know how I get there?”

  “I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

  “By the book.”

  She looked at him, confused. “That’s what I just—”

  “Until the evidence or the situation makes it clear that I need to deviate from the book. Then I do that. Which is what you should do now.”

  She sat in her chair, exasperated. “I don’t even know if I can interview Garrett now, after you contacted him. The whole process might be tainted.”

  “Not an issue. We didn’t discuss any specifics on the shooting. I’ll cut you an additional report to that effect. Now will you go see him?”

  Harris stared at him for a long while. Then she said, very deliberately, “I will interview Officer Garrett when his seventy-two hours is up, and he has his attorney present, after I’ve cleared these other matters and attended the autopsy. All as per protocol.”

  Clint frowned. “Typical county.” He glanced at McNutt and then back at her. “Bush league.”

  Before either of them could reply, Clint turned and strode away.

  McNutt twirled around in his chair and sank into it, still rubbing his wrist. She could sense his embarrassment but didn’t care. She had bigger concerns than his damaged ego.

  “Goddamn Honey Badger,” McNutt muttered. “I should file a complaint against him.”

  She didn’t bother looking at him. “You tried to push him first, Shaun.”

  McNutt didn’t reply right away. Finally, he said, “I said should, not would. Still, he’s a menace. The guy’s a loose cannon.”

  He seemed to be waiting for her to reply. She said nothing, gathering together her notebook and a pair of pens for the autopsy.

  McNutt let out a small, forced chuckle. “He’s a loose cannon with a screw loose.”

  She didn’t laugh at his joke. Instead, she picked up the case file and her notes.

  “You want to get coffee, Cass?”

  “No. I’ve got the autopsy, you’ve got the possible Trotter associates.”

  “Okay.” He sounded dejected. “We’ve got the Seavers later. Both of us.”

  “Yes,” she conceded.

  What a joy that will be, she thought.

  Chapter 27

  Cody Lofton stopped at Amanda Donahue’s desk, which was located just outside Mayor Sikes’ office.

  “Good luck,” she said, her eyes indifferent and her mouth closed. “The
y’re waiting.”

  Lofton shrugged and then readjusted the lines on his suit. He looked good and he knew it, but of all days it was necessary. Today would be a bloodbath and he needed his best armor for the fight.

  He’d seen the Garrett video early in the morning and had gotten a text warning from Lieutenant Dan Flowers. The department was on the hunt for the information leak. Beyond his normal duties, Lofton knew he had to defend against four different angles of attack coming at him: the Garrett video, the leak of information, Mayor Sikes’ anger over Lofton’s involving his wife, and Amanda Donahue. He’d planned his day before leaving his apartment. He would at least plant a seed with Amanda to begin building some sort of strategic relationship.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry how I spoke to you yesterday,” Lofton said. “It wasn’t called for.”

  Amanda’s look softened. “They’re waiting for you.”

  “I thought about it last night and regretted not taking you up on your dinner offer.”

  Lofton imagined a switch flicking on as the old Amanda returned. Her eyes widened, and her mouth opened slightly. She immediately gave Lofton the impression that he was the most important man in the world. If he hadn’t expected the move, it could have been intoxicating.

  “You’re taking a long time getting in there.” She leaned forward and whispered. “Aren’t you worried?”

  “They can wait. It’s more important to make amends with you.”

  Her smile seemed genuine to Lofton, but he couldn’t tell for sure. He decided to accept nothing as true around Amanda but pretend everything was as she wanted.

  “Does he want you to come in and watch?” Lofton asked.

  “Not today.”

  “Too bad,” Lofton said, “I would have liked you in there.”

  That brought a bigger smile and softer eyes. He left her and headed into the mayor’s office. When he stepped inside, he closed the door.

  “You’re late,” Mayor Sikes said, anger in his eyes.

  Lofton nodded, choosing to ignore any type of response and sat on the couch next to Chief Baumgartner. On the wall, FOX News was on with the sound muted. The Ty Garrett video was playing in a smaller box while a panel discussed what they were watching.

  “The chief was telling us what he knows about this video.”