by Colin Conway
“Well, you’re a police officer and so is her boyfriend. I thought you might know him.”
“Who’s her boyfriend?”
“Justin something.”
Clint thought for a moment. “Pomeroy?”
“Yes, that’s it. You know him?”
Clint gave her a wide smile. “I do. Do me a favor, okay?”
“Of course.”
“Don’t say anything to either of them. I’ll catch up to them later and surprise them. Can you do that for me?”
“Sure.”
Clint thanked her and left.
In his car, he mulled it over.
The house where the shooters ambushed Garrett from was for sale. The realtor for the house was the girlfriend of Detective Justin Pomeroy. Pomeroy and his partner, Butch Talbott, were the detectives who arrested Garrett for possession of drugs and assault.
Coincidence existed in this world, but in Clint’s experience, the more nefarious the coincidence, the less likely it was actually a coincidence and the more likely it was intentional.
The assault on Garrett still bothered him. Was it part of whatever was going on against the officer? If so, who was behind it? Or was it just hick-fueled racism?
An even bigger problem than the assault was the drugs. If they indeed belonged to Garrett, then he was dirty. That certainly seemed to be how the media (and, he guessed, the admin) saw him. Clint wasn’t so sure. Perhaps, Garrett arranged the attack on himself? The very idea was ludicrous. Clint supposed that the attack could be drug-related, but he seriously doubted it, just like he doubted the man was involved in drugs at all.
That meant someone planted the drugs. Talbott was the best candidate. Why would he do that?
Clint’s mind clicked through the Byzantine maze of potential storylines. The possibilities rang in his ears. There were so many variables that he had a difficult time forming a solid theory. He needed more information, even if it only helped him with the process of elimination.
He found Kelly Davis at Atticus Coffee, the one habit that he knew she rarely broke. She had her face up to take in the sun with her eyes closed. A half-empty cup of iced coffee sat on the table in front of her. When he blocked her sun and his shadow fell over her face, she opened her eyes and regarded him calmly.
“Detective,” she said. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
Clint smiled, but there was no humor in it. The last time they’d crossed paths, she’d been hounding him for information on a dead prostitute that was rumored to have been routinely servicing a state senator whenever he was in town. The fact that it was a male prostitute made it even more salacious for the Spokane crowd, so Davis was eager to get confirmation. Clint wouldn’t give it. He’d determined that the rumors about the senator were true, but he’d also confirmed he was in Olympia when the murder occurred. That made the assignation irrelevant to the murder investigation, and Clint wasn’t about to share it with the media. He barely even shared relevant facts unless he was forced by his bosses, much less the irrelevant ones.
“I read your article this morning,” he said.
“I’m honored.”
Clint pulled out the chair next to her and sat down. “Very informative.”
“It was an opinion piece, but I’m glad it still informed,” Davis said.
“Who’s your source?”
Davis looked at him innocently. “Aren’t you just direct?”
“I don’t have time to play patty cake. You’re getting your intel from somewhere.”
“Says you.”
“It’s obvious. Is your man inside the department or city hall?”
“Maybe it’s a she.”
“I don’t care if it’s a talking parrot. I just want to know who.”
“You know I won’t divulge my sources.”
“I need to know.”
She gave him a sardonic smile. “Kind of like I needed to know about a certain senator last time we talked? I seem to recall you saying something about a confidential informant during that discussion.”
“This is different.”
“Yeah. This time I have the information and you need it.”
“No. All you wanted was dirt on a politician to write something sensational.”
“It’s true, then?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Funny, I didn’t have you pegged for a Republican, Ward.”
Clint scowled. “It’s Wardell and I’m not. I just don’t see why you are so eager to wreck a man’s life just for entertainment value. You’re doing it with Garrett, too. Your article is building a case against him in the public eye.”
“His actions are doing that.”
“His actions are still being investigated.”
“Which actions do you mean? The shooting, the beating, or the drugs?”
“All of it, yet it won’t matter what the investigation shows. He’s not going to get a fair shake if you and your pals keep playing this for ratings.”
Clint had sought out Davis because her opinion piece had tickled the back of his brain, especially the more he thought about the new information concerning Pomeroy’s connection to the ambush house. He wanted to know who was feeding information to the newspaper about the case.
Davis reached for her iced coffee and took a long sip, eyeing Clint over the top of the cup. When she put it down, she said, “You think he’s clean? In all of this?”
“I’m not here to be another source for you, Kelly.”
“Off the record, then.”
Clint considered. He believed most, if not all, journalist were snakes. He avoided talking to them unless he had to. He’d been misquoted before and seen facts twisted to suit the story the reporter wanted to tell, but he knew that everyone had a set of values and a code and honoring the phrase “off the record” was one thing that seemed to be sacrosanct with all of them.
“Off the record,” he repeated.
“Yes.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with the shoot.”
Davis’ eyes bugged out at him. “He shot an unarmed guy in the back!”
“It was an ambush. I think the rest will be cleared up.”
Davis shook her head in disbelief. “What about the beating? They’re calling it ‘six seconds of brutality’ on TV.”
“It’s six seconds of TV bullshit.”
“Hey, I’m a newspaper writer, you won’t get any argument from me. Still, the video looks vicious.”
“I have it on good authority that the video doesn’t show the entire story.”
“He’s clean there, too?”
“Might be.”
“And the drugs?”
“I thinks so, but I don’t know for sure. That’s why I need to know your source.”
She shook her head again. “I can’t do that.”
“It’s important.”
“Why?”
“I need to know if your information is accurate.”
Davis considered. “How about if I tell you I believe it is? Is that good enough?”
“No.”
“I wouldn’t have printed it if I didn’t think it was reliable.”
“That’s not entirely true. If you can cite a source, you can run with it. Especially if it sells papers.”
She leaned back. “We’re back to not playing nice again, huh? If that’s the case, how about we go back on the record?”
It was Clint’s turn to give her a long look. Then he said, “You really don’t care what happens to this man, do you?”
“Why do you care so much?” she asked, turning it around on him. “You seem hell-bent on proving him innocent.”
“It’s not about that. What’s happening to him is the same thing I’ve seen happen to good men too often. The bosses conspire, they use them, and they destroy a career or an entire life. Then they just move right along, as if nothing happened. Sometimes it’s about power, sometimes politics, sometimes hate. I don’t kn
ow which it is here. Maybe all three. A good man is getting caught up in all that, and I can’t let that happen.” He looked at her meaningfully. “You should care about that, too.”
“It’s not my job to care about him. It’s my job to write the truth.”
“No, it’s your job to sell newspapers.”
“That, too. I need people to read my words. I don’t have a cushy union job like you.”
Clint stood then. It was one thing to listen to a reporter’s self-righteous justification for being one step removed from writing for The National Enquirer, but when she called the job he did cushy, that was too much.
“I feel stupid,” he said as he left. “When you said you wanted the truth, I thought for a second we were on the same side.”
Chapter 31
End of day press conferences typically held little appeal for Cody Lofton. They were often poorly attended by the press, council members or the caring public. This one was different, however. Networks like CNN, FOX News, and MSNBC had reporters and camera teams on scene. They were begging for exclusive one-on-one interviews with the mayor and Chief Baumgartner. All had been refused.
That didn’t stop others, though, from accepting invitations to be interviewed. Several city council members had jumped at the chance to be in the spotlight of national television.
Sikes was beside himself with the unwanted attention. He loved being the big fish in a little pond but did not like being a little fish in a big frying pan. The mayor had spent most of the day in front of the television watching various takes on the Garrett video. Whenever the city was brought into the discussion he would go into hysterics.
“Why are they saying we are responsible for Garrett? We didn’t make him.”
Lofton had repeatedly tried to calm him, but to no avail.
“It feels like they’re coming after me,” Sikes whined.
He had asked Lofton if there were ways to immediately stop the storm by terminating Baumgartner. Lofton assured him that would only make the story bigger and uglier.
Truth be told, Lofton was now worried about the press conference.
Much had occurred regarding Garrett in such a short amount of time and the mayor was not handling the overload as he should. He looked tired and wasn’t carrying the weight of responsibility well.
Sikes had spiraled into a myopic conspiracy and Lofton couldn’t understand why. Sikes was normally smarter than what he displayed. The only reason Lofton could find was the amount of television coverage they were experiencing. Never had anything Sikes and Lofton been involved with received this much coverage. Lofton found it unsettling, but he resolved it by turning off the coverage and focusing on the various tasks at hand. Sikes did the opposite and developed tunnel vision on the problem.
Lofton hadn’t seen the man in this light before. He always knew that Sikes had his stress points, but to see him crack so easily was disappointing.
The late afternoon sun had moved into a position behind city hall, so it made using it to his advantage with the press conference impossible. Scheduling a press conference in Huntington Park behind city hall would have been an option for a normal, smaller conference, but that wasn’t a possibility for today.
The crowd in front of city hall was at least a couple hundred people now. They were roped off behind the news crews. Many of the onlookers had homemade signs. Some of the signs read All Lives Matter, Impeach Sikes, and Free Garrett. One had blood splattered lettering on a blue background that simply said Fuck the Police!
Due to the attendance, a contingent of police officers was required to block off a portion of the street and redirect traffic away from city hall. The officers maintained a professional demeanor, ignoring the inflammatory signs and the occasional taunts, but their presence only served to heighten the tension.
Cody Lofton exited the building behind Mayor Sikes, Chief Baumgartner, and Captain Farrell. Amanda Donahue was beside him. The crowd noise jumped several levels as those in attendance soon started with catcalls.
It’s a circus, Lofton thought, and immediately smiled.
“What’s so funny?” Amanda asked.
“This. It’s amazing.”
Mayor Sikes stepped up to the lectern and reached into his jacket for his notes. When he couldn’t find them, he glanced over to Lofton, who shook his head. Sikes looked at the crowd and his hands gripped the edges of the lectern. He was already sweating profusely, and red blotches had formed on his cheeks. “Thank you for coming this afternoon.”
“Said your girlfriend,” someone yelled from the crowd.
Sikes scowled, scanning the crowd, then continued, “I’d like to recognize Chief Farrell and Captain Baumgartner.”
Lofton made eye contact with Baumgartner and apologetically shrugged for the mayor’s error.
“I’d also like to recognize my chief of staff Cody Lofton and my assistant, Amanda.”
The mayor smiled too long at Amanda and she knew it. The crowd knew it as well. She glanced at Lofton who shook his head.
Someone in the crowd wolf-whistled and several people laughed.
The mayor recovered and said, “We’re here today to talk about Officer Tyler Garrett. A great officer, one of Spokane’s finest—”
“Murderer!” a voice yelled.
“We don’t know that,” the mayor responded.
Lofton cringed. He was engaging with the audience and hadn’t even started to get his message across.
The mayor rocked the lectern forward as he spoke. “As you know, Officer Garrett was involved in a shooting—”
“Sir, what do you know about the video recording of Officer Garrett’s assault?” Kelly Davis from the Spokesman-Review yelled.
“We have the person who made the video here with us,” Sikes said, pointing at a mid-fifties Hispanic woman in a floral dress. “I’m sorry I forgot your name.”
Lofton shook his head in disbelief. They had scripted this presentation perfectly. It would have played beautifully, but now it was train off the tracks and running downhill.
“Rena Alvarado,” the woman shouted.
“Rene Alzado,” the mayor said, “is a citizen—”
“Rena Alvarado!” the woman shouted and then shook her head in disgust.
The crowd laughed at the mayor’s mistake and it took him a moment to realize what had occurred. His face flushed with embarrassment and he was now completely flustered.
Lofton lowered his head and closed his eyes. He no longer wanted to witness this train wreck.
“Rene,” the mayor said, still getting the woman’s name wrong, “is a citizen we are deeply proud of for coming forward with this video.”
Lofton felt a hand slide into his. He opened his eyes and saw Amanda looking at him.
“It will be okay,” she said. Her look was one of genuine care. Maybe this was the true Amanda, Lofton thought.
Lofton knew better than to believe that for long, though. He smiled and squeezed her hand, responding the way she wanted. This was still a game with rules he knew by heart.
He returned his gaze to the lectern and watched the mayor butcher the rest of their message.
Chapter 31
Detective Cassidy Harris stared out the passenger window of the plain marked Chevy Caprice detective’s vehicle. Beside her, McNutt drove, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel to the heavy metal song on the radio.
Harris ignored him, and the thrashing guitars, and kept to her own thoughts. It used to be that when she made good time on a case, she felt positive about it. Tasks checked off the list seemed like progress to her. Such things made sense in her world. As she gained experience as an investigator, she started to differentiate between completing tasks and making progress. She learned that you could do a whole lot of work, finish a slew of tasks, all without accomplishing much of anything.
When she talked to her lieutenant, he never started the conversation by asking what tasks she’d managed to cross off he
r to-do list. He asked about progress. What did they know? How close were they? It was only if they had been stymied on the progress front that he turned to asking what they’d actually done. She imagined that there was a chapter in some management book somewhere about always having some kind of beans to count, some kind of sacrifice to offer to the white shirt gods on Brass Row.
So far, if she measured this case by task completion, they were buzzing along like a pair of fighter jets. But progress? The best Harris could offer up is that they had done some elimination work.
The autopsy revealed nothing that surprised her. The hole in Trotter’s back was confirmed as an entry wound, and the M.E. found the badly damaged bullet inside the body. She doubted that it was intact enough for a match to Garrett’s service weapon, which kept things from being as clean as she’d like. It appeared to be .40 caliber rather than .45, so that was probably enough to seal it. Plus, Garrett said in his tactical interview that he fired at Trotter, and she assumed he’d confirm this in her interview with him.
The biggest downside to the bullet being fragmented is that McNutt would likely seize on the no-match as vindication for his “impossible to match Glocks” position, and lord it over her.
Trotter’s blood came back with some alcohol and cocaine in his system, but only in amounts that would cause minor impairment, especially in a habitual user. He wasn’t drunk or stoned, just buzzed.
There was no gunshot residue on either of his hands, leading Harris to the conclusion that he hadn’t even fired a gun recently, much less shot one at Garrett that night. That didn’t mean Garrett didn’t perceive a threat, but it did mean that the threat wasn’t real. This was another point she’d have to cover in her interview with him. If he was threatened by some action Trotter took and depending on the timing of the shots from the house, she didn’t believe the prosecutor would rule the shooting as criminal.
Harris didn’t worry about that. Usually, her recommendation mattered in a homicide case. Though according to the OIS protocol, the investigating agency sent the case to the prosecutor without recommending charges or offering conclusions. Hers was a straightforward, fact-gathering role.
