by Frank Zafiro
In the end the chief came to Payne’s rescue. “Thanks for your insight, Officer Chisolm. I appreciate you coming down here in the middle of your night.”
Chisolm nodded. “My pleasure, sir.” He rose, turned on his heel, and strode out of the office without a word.
“Guess the young bull isn’t quite ready to rule the herd yet,” Crawford observed, still chuckling.
“That’s enough of that,” the chief said evenly, but he was looking at Payne. “Agent Payne, do you have a problem with Officer Chisolm?”
Payne clenched his jaw and didn’t answer.
“Should I take your silence as a yes?”
Crawford said, “You could, Chief. Or you could take it as one man being unhappy about the fact another man got him fired from a certain River City Police Department a few years back.”
The chief glanced at Crawford and then back at Payne. “You used to work here?”
Payne blinked slowly. “I went through the police academy and served briefly with the River City Police Department before I moved on to federal law enforcement,” he said in measured tones.
The chief remained silent. Renee could almost see the gears turning behind the thoughtful expression. Crawford drew a breath to say something, but the chief held his hand up and stopped him before he could utter a sound. His eyes remained on Payne. After a few moments he said, “Agent Payne, I am very grateful for federal assistance in this matter, and I am more than happy to have the criminals in this case charged federally. There’s no issue there. But if you have a grudge against any of my officers, I suggest you stow it. If you can’t do that, I’ll give your SAC a call and we’ll get an agent in here who doesn’t have any issues.”
Payne swallowed and shook his head. “That won’t be necessary,” he whispered. “It’s just that Officer Chisolm was not very kind to me during our training experience.”
“Tom doesn’t suffer fools,” Crawford managed to say before the chief waved his hand and cut him off again.
“I’ll take your word,” the chief said, “that this’ll be the last time we need to speak of this.”
“You have it,” Payne said.
“Good. Then let’s move on. What is your recommendation on how to move forward with this case?”
Payne took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Renee almost felt sorry for the young agent. Almost.
“Well,” Payne said, “obviously Detective Browning should continue to work this case in whatever manner he sees fit. As long as I am updated frequently, I don’t see any conflict there.”
Browning barely reacted, but Renee noticed a flicker of irritation pass across his face, which was about as expressive as the veteran detective was likely to get.
“On the overall front, I think we need to initiate some surveillance. If we properly monitor the key players, we may develop enough probable cause for a wiretap and other devices and we should be able to build a chargeable RICO case.”
Crawford snorted slightly and shook his head.
The chief glanced over at him. “You take issue with this approach, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, I do, sir,” Crawford shot back, his voice confident. “I’ve been assigned to Investigations for a lot of years and I can tell you that working the case is the only way to work a case.” Crawford looked over at Payne. “These feds are happy to carry on surveillance until the second coming, but we don’t have the resources for that. Besides, I don’t think we have the time.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning these Russians aren’t going to sit on their hands waiting for the federal government to decide there’s sufficient probable cause to make some major RICO case. Those cases take years. We don’t even have weeks if we’re going to be successful in stemming the tide here.” He pointed to Renee. “You heard what she had to say. These Russkies don’t mess around. If we’re going to get a handle on this situation, it has to be sooner, not later.”
The chief glanced at Payne and waited for his reply.
“My recommendation stands,” the young agent said briskly. “We’ve built numerous solid cases based on short-term surveillance, and the agency is more than capable of adapting and moving quickly when a situation becomes more rapidly evolving.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Crawford. “I’ve noticed that.”
Payne looked askance at Crawford.
Crawford’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, you want examples?” He raised his thumb. “Ruby Ridge.” He raised his index finger. “Waco, Texas.”
“Waco was the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms,” Payne said.
“Federal is federal,” Crawford shot back. “And I think the reason you want to do surveillance is because that’s all you feds know how to do.”
“Surveillance is an effective tool,” Payne replied.
“I don’t disagree,” Crawford said. “But like I said, we don’t have the resources for it and we don’t have the time. Neither do you. You don’t even have enough resources to guard your own protected witness.”
“I might be able to break free some additional resources,” Payne began, but Crawford shook his head.
“It doesn’t matter, because like I said, we don’t have the time to build a case like the one you’re talking about.”
Payne leaned back in his chair and glared condescendingly at Crawford. Then he said, “Is Sergeant Morgan still the range master here?”
“What the hell has that got to do with anything?” Crawford asked.
“Humor me,” Payne said.
“He is,” Reott answered.
“Well,” Payne said, “I recall him to be a very gruff man of few words, and those words were often repeated. I assume this was to ensure that the students learned these lessons that he deemed critical to firing accurately and surviving in a gunfight.”
“Duh,” Crawford said. He glanced at Reott, Renee, and then the chief. “What’s the point?”
“The point is, that one of his more common statements was you can’t miss fast enough. Have you ever heard him say that, Lieutenant?”
“Sure,” Crawford said.
“And do you understand what that tenet means?”
Crawford leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Don’t talk to me like you’re a professor, you little shit. I don’t work for you.”
“But you do work for me,” the chief said. “And I’d like to hear the agent’s point.”
Crawford leaned back, staring daggers at Payne. The agent seemed more comfortable now that he had the chief’s support. “As I understand it,” he continued, “that means you should take enough time to be sure of your shot because you might only get one, and if you hurry the shot and you miss, it could be game over. Do I have that right?”
Crawford didn’t answer.
Payne smiled wanly. “I’ll take your silence as a yes. So, with that in mind I’m sure you can see how this philosophy applies to our current situation. If we rush this case-that is, if we fire too quickly-we will surely miss. And that would be a costly mistake.”
The room fell silent. Renee glanced from face to face, fascinated by the mixture of ego and talent in the room. She wondered sometimes why men who had reached powerful positions couldn’t divest themselves of their ego and cooperate to reach a common goal. But she’d come to the conclusion that their ego not only got them into powerful positions, but made them effective there.
The chief leaned back in his chair. “I appreciate all of you coming to this meeting. I’m going to accept the agent’s recommendation as a course of action.”
Crawford sighed, but the chief ignored him.
“Detective Browning, continue your investigation independent of any Bureau activity. Copy all your reports to Agent Payne.”
Detective Browning nodded. The chief’s gaze fell on to Agent Payne. “Agent, we will continue to provide an officer to the protection detail at the hotel. If you require any backup for emergency reasons during the course of your surveillance, please contact either Lieutenant Crawford or Cap
tain Reott, depending on whether you would prefer uniform or investigative personnel. However,” he added, “we do not have sufficient resources to provide you with any other assistance in your surveillance activities.”
Payne’s expression, which had been noticeably gloating, fell. “No assistance?” he asked.
The chief shook his head. “We’re stretched thin enough just providing basic public safety services to the citizens of River City,” he said. “If you encounter a situation where you need immediate assistance, we’re certainly willing to help. If your investigation progresses to the point where you need help with any operational matters such as search warrants or arrest warrants, we’ll help you on a case-by-case basis.”
Payne sat speechless. Then he cleared his throat, nodded, and stood. “Thank you for your assistance, Chief,” he said in an official tone. “The Bureau appreciates it.”
“Anytime,” the chief answered.
Payne nodded again, turned, and walked briskly out of the room. Renee watched him go, forgetting that it was poor form to smile at another’s discomfort. She let the corners of her mouth do what they wanted to do.
Nothing wrong with a little schadenfreude, she thought.
1753 hours
Katie MacLeod sipped her glass of wine. It was a crisp white that tasted heavily of apple. Curious, she picked up the bottle and perused the label. It was nearly local, having been bottled in Wenatchee.
“So much for that little mystery,” she said to the empty room. Wenatchee was full of apple orchards. It made sense that they’d get into the wine business at some point. Or did it make sense that if they had a winery in the region, apples would find their way into the mix somehow?
Katie took another sip and swished it around before swallowing. It definitely tasted like there was some apple in it. No question. The bigger question was why in the hell she was trying to solve the grand mystery of what ingredients were in a glass of Wenatchee wine.
Maybe it was because it was her third glass with dinner. Katie shrugged and took another sip. This time she didn’t bother swishing. She swilled. Like mama, like daughter, she thought.
That brought a frown to her face. She was not like her mother. That woman drank every day for no reason other than… well, other than she simply drank every day. Katie was having a glass of wine with dinner.
Or three glasses with half a dinner. Whatever. She reached for the bottle and poured the last of it into her glass. Might as well finish it, she figured.
The telephone rang. She had a flash of panic. Maybe it was her mother calling to rebuke her for having those negative thoughts about her. That would be karma in a nutshell, wouldn’t it?
Katie decided she didn’t care. Maybe since she was a little tipsy herself, she’d be able to have something closer to a normal conversation with her mother. Maybe drunk to drunk they’d make more sense, like two people speaking the same foreign language.
Katie picked up the phone, then paused and looked at the caller ID attached to the cord. The rectangular gadget displayed a local number. She didn’t recognize it.
Katie took another deep breath and stared at the unfamiliar number. It had to be Stef. In the space between two rings, her mind raced with images of him. His smile. His short hair barely kinked from lying on the pillow next to her. The anguish on his face after-
No.
He hadn’t called her since the incident with the Rainy Day Rapist. What was that? Over two years ago? Before that, he’d called her every few weeks or so. Usually drunk or whacked out on the pain pills he took. Always a mess. It was not unlike talking to her mother.
Katie knew he was trying to grab onto her like some kind of life preserver, a last vestige of his days as a cop. Maybe he saw her as a way to validate or even redeem himself. But Katie didn’t feel like she was rescuing him from drowning in his own self-pity. It felt like he was going to drag her down with him.
The hard part was that she still cared about him. Maybe even loved him. But she couldn’t save him from himself. That was one thing she’d learned in police work that was always true. And right now, she wasn’t feeling like the strongest of swimmers for him to grab onto.
The phone rang again. After one more it would go to the answering machine. Maybe that was the best solution. Ignore him. Katie set her jaw.
No. Some people ran from their problems. Other people faced up to them. She knew which kind of person she was. She pressed “talk.” “Hello.”
There was a pause, then a female voice asked hesitantly, “Uh, Katie?”
Katie thought for a second that it was her mother after all, and that she was here in River City, not back home in Seattle. Her stomach fell. She started to ask who it was, but stopped. If it was her mother, that would set the ball rolling. Instead, she simply said, “Yes.”
The nervous laugh on the other end definitely did not belong to her mother. “Oh, good. I thought I had the wrong number.”
“Who is this?” Katie asked.
“Oh, sorry. It’s Billie Jo.”
“Who?”
“B.J.,” the woman said.
“I don’t know any-”
“B.J. Carson. From work?”
“Oh.” Katie’s mind stopped spinning. She remembered Carson, of course. She’d been the rookie’s first training officer back in the spring. The tall, slender woman had seemed a little bit too much of a lipstick cop to Katie, the kind of woman that became a cop more to meet other cops than to protect and serve. She’d felt a little bit guilty judging her right away, but then again, she’d seen nothing in their four weeks together that changed her mind. Then another thought occurred to her. “How’d you get this number?” she asked, her voice a little sharp.
There was a pause, then Carson answered, “I called Dispatch. Janice gave it to me.”
“Oh.” Well, that made sense then, didn’t it? Katie sipped her wine. She was solving mysteries left and right tonight. But the biggest one still remained. What the hell did Miss River City PD 1998 want?
“Is it all right that I called?” Carson asked.
Katie swallowed and said, “It’s fine.”
“Is this a bad time?”
Katie smiled at that. Was it a bad time? Oh nooo, princess. It was a great time.
“What can I do for you, B.J.?”
Another pause. Katie drew in a breath. How in the hell did this woman expect to be a cop if she didn’t show a little more confidence? She’d get eaten up. Forget the bad guys, even. She wouldn’t get past the other cops.
“Well,” B.J. began, “I wanted to tell you I was sorry to hear about your ankle.”
Katie’s eyes flicked down to her injured ankle propped up on a chair. Her sock-clad toes peeked out of the blue foam support boot her doctor had prescribed. She wiggled them at B.J. in a sarcastic thank-you.
“That’s nice of you,” Katie said flatly. She knew that she should be sweeter about it, but too many things got in the way. Her own lack of tolerance for bullshit was probably the biggest obstacle, but the wine came in a close second. Running in a strong third place was frustration at being sidelined while this woman, who she suspected of being a badge bunny with a badge, was out working the streets.
“Are you coming back soon?” Carson asked.
Katie detected the sincerity in the other woman’s voice and felt a small stab of guilt for her own cattiness. Still, she knew that wasn’t the reason Carson had called. “As soon as my doctor lets me. Is there something going on?”
“Going on?” Carson repeated. Katie heard a trace of panic in her voice.
“Well, you called me,” Katie said. When Carson didn’t answer, she went on. “We don’t exactly go to lunch together, so I was wondering why you were calling.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. She felt guilty for being so blunt, but then she shrugged and finished off the glass of wine. If someone was going to call her out of the blue, they got what they got, right?
“I’m sorry,” Carson said. “May
be I shouldn’t have called.”
Katie put down her wine glass. She wanted to say that maybe Carson was right, but that was a bit too harsh, and she knew she was already going to regret being as rude as she’d been. “No, it’s all right. You just caught me by surprise. I mean, we’re not even on the same platoon, so I’m a little confused, that’s all.”
Carson didn’t answer.
“Look, I appreciate your well wishes on my ankle, but you probably called for another reason, so what can I do for you?”
“Oh, right,” Carson said. “I called because you were the best training officer I had. Plus you were the only woman. And I need some advice.”
“Advice?” Katie shrugged.
“Yeah.On dealing with… it.”
“It?”
“It.The whole thing. Being a woman on this job. Dealing with the men. All the sexual tension. Just… all of it.”
Katie’s mind whirred in several different directions. No one ever taught her how to deal with it. She figured it out on her own, the hard way. By working hard. By being the best cop she could be. By never showing that she was any weaker than her male counterparts. Hell, by never being any weaker than her male counterparts.
Sexual tension? Sure, it existed, but you handled it the way you handled it anywhere else. Professionally. Prudently. And if anything ever happened with anyone on the job, you kept it discreet. Mostly you didn’t let it happen, because it almost always led to disaster. That’s what happened with her and Stef. She’d learned her lesson there on her own. No one pulled her aside and gave her the template for dealing with it. She certainly hadn’t called anyone at home and pleaded for advice.
And who did this Carson chick think she was, anyway? Time was, a rookie remembered his place. Open ears, close mouth. Work hard. Learn. It didn’t come to you on a silver platter. You figured it out over time and if you proved yourself to be a brave and hard worker, the veterans on the platoon gave you some subtle guidance, but you didn’t call them on the phone and ask for it. You earned it. At seven years on the job, Katie knew she was just now entering that veteran phase of her career. She’d earned that respect from most of her platoon mates, with the possible exception of Kahn, and who cared about that prick? She’d faced impossible situations and come through them. Maybe not whole, maybe not all right, but she’d come through. And no one held her hand or gave her some secret potion to deal with all of it. It wouldn’t have mattered if they had, anyway. Some knowledge has no value unless you learn it on your own.
