We entered Zeb’s Place. Zeb stood behind the bar. He saw me and waved. “I saw you on the news. Congratulations.”
“Thank you, Zeb.”
“And these are your police force?”
“These are some of my officers. My command squad.” I introduced them.
“Come, we must celebrate,” Zeb continued. “I will make lunch for you and your entire squad.”
I shook my head. “That is not why we are here, Zeb. I want to talk to you about the long-term rental on your back room.”
“Long term. Hmmm. I would have to consider the cost on that lost opportunity.”
“I will have someone from the mayor’s office talk to you about the details. I just want to look it over to see if it will fit our needs.”
“Indeed, I understand. We are not making cubic fast enough around here. Sometimes you have to make do with what you can find.”
I could see the gleam in his eyes. He was absolutely right. The city was overdue for some expansion. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but I could also see the calculation going on. He could charge me pretty well for this space. I had seen the back room on my last visit to Zeb’s, and it was spacious enough for our needs. Now we looked it over, checking the power, communications capabilities, and lighting.
Ammon looked toward the back. “We could add some partitions in here. Some soundproofing. You can have a couple of interview rooms.”
“Not bad,” I said. “We will need more than that, though. We will need holding. That will have to go across the Concourse in the Admin Center.”
As we inspected, Zeb came in with a plate of spicy soy wings and a pitcher of sweet tea. “Officers, police duty must work up an appetite.”
Ammon and Monè immediately grabbed for the plate. I said, “Halt.” Zeb’s eyes lifted in surprise. “Zeb, please, first I need an invoice for this.”
“But this is my treat. I want to show my appreciation for the police.”
“An invoice, Zeb. We shall talk about it later. And, please, we need to be alone.”
Zeb left, the door sliding shut behind him. I looked at Monè and Ammon and then at the rest of them. “All right, I do not know how things were run in Public Safety, but this was covered in your briefing. I know that. No gratuities. No gifts. No exceptions.”
“But, ma’am . . . ,” Ammon said.
“No ‘buts.’ You are going to be paid well for this work. There is no need for you to be taking free lunches. It will only end up getting us into trouble eventually. Rockford and the rest of the journos are going to be watching us, looking for trouble. This is a new experiment in Martian self-governance, and I am not going to see it messed up because somebody wanted some free wings.”
There was some grumbling, the first sign I had seen that I was going to have to watch this group carefully. And these were the best that Anthony had hired. I had my work cut out for me.
When I got home that night, Nick was working on simulated emergencies he could create. I tried to talk to him about how my day went, but he really was not paying attention, so I turned to my crime reports. I had not realized until Anthony had approached me how much small crime there could be in a city of fifty thousand. Simple stuff like fights arising out of minor disputes, property damage, bored kids, or drunkards. But also some petty thefts. I was even surprised to see a couple of muggings.
And the squad assigned to Port Shannon Lopez had a number of customs reports. Those made me uncomfortable. There is a constant debate within the Martian community on free trade versus regulated trade with tariffs to support the operation of government facilities. Philosophically I was a free trader; but officially, well, I had to enforce the regulations. The trade rules mostly involved issues of safety and resource management. We had to have inspections to make sure no diseases were brought in.
We had to worry about what went out too. As we found more water supplies, Mars was slowly becoming self-sufficient in terms of air and water and organics, but we still had to have the tightest recycling to keep a safety buffer. If any Martian exports included net water or net organics, then like it or not tariffs were the answer to make sure we were compensated for the loss.
The customs reports were really a mess: people trying to slip past the inspection point, and shippers trying to shade the organics declarations on their customs papers. Plus there were reports of a possible customs shakedown that Wagner was investigating. And the port district had the highest rate of pickpocketing and other petty larceny in the city. It was clear that we had some lowlifes who thought tourists and ships’ crews were easy marks.
I was frankly surprised at the overall amount of crime, so I started researching the older records. I was alarmed to find out how much had been going on under Public Safety that we had just never noticed. Nick and I lived in a poorer part of the city, but still a safe neighborhood, and we had not even known there were unsafe parts; but if you looked around the port area, organics processing, and some of the older, smaller excavations, there were surprising pockets of violence and larceny that you never would have known if you did not see the reports.
And now I would be seeing them every day. It was a new side to my adopted home city, and I did not particularly like it.
9. THE NEW ROUTINE
The next morning when I woke up, Nick had breakfast ready. He set my plate down as I came in from the shower still buttoning the sleeves of my uniform.
“It smells good, Nico,” I said.
“Hot off the grill, and just the way you like the eggs,” he said. I noticed they were real eggs. Well, vat-grown eggs, but not soy eggs. Nick had splurged on this breakfast.
“So what is the occasion?”
“Occasion?”
“Real eggs?”
“I just thought you ought to start your day with a good meal.”
“You are not very convincing, Nick. If that is the truth, it is not the whole truth.”
“Well, just thought I’d find out when your days off are, so we could go out and inspect some expedition sites in more detail.”
I sighed and set my fork down. “Nick, I will not have days off for a while.”
“You can’t work your people that much.”
“I am going to work them pretty hard, but I shall work myself harder. I must watch my squad and keep on top of what is going on in the other squads until we get a routine established across the city. Some of the squads out there are falling back into their Public Safety habits. They are not doing a decent job of investigating at all. They are not out patrolling, they are lounging around. I shall have to do a lot of surprise inspections. You remember those?”
“Understood. If you need, I could do some for you.”
I took his hand. “No, you cannot, Nico. This is my job. You turned it down. You are a civilian, and I envy you that, but that means that you cannot do anything to help me on this. You keep working on the school, and leave the police work to me.”
I headed off to Zeb’s, and my command squad was gathered there. Our first day had been largely orientation and going out to meet the public. Now I had to make shift and neighborhood assignments for my command squad. Then I had to spend the other half of the day dropping in on each squad to see if my interim commanders there had their schedules and squad assignments in order.
It was long after dinner when I finally got home. I brought a bucket of gumbo from Zeb’s to share with Nick; but he had already eaten and was working on his trees. So I had a bowl of gumbo, stored the rest, and went back to my reports.
That became my routine: morning meeting with my squad, follow up on any cases that they brought in that needed work, afternoon training and inspection tours, then dinnertime meeting with my night-shift squad to keep up with what they were up to. Then home for reports. We expected a lot from the department, learning on the job, so I expected even more from myself.
Soon I settled into a rhythm with it. It was a couple weeks before I realized that Nick was no longer trying to find time with me. He had
settled into a routine where we had breakfast together, dinner rarely, and spent most of our time at home wrapped up in our responsibilities—with him spending more time on trees than on exercises. I made a note to find some time off, with a question mark after it. I did not know where the time would come from.
10. TROUBLE IN THE RANKS
In my third week as police chief, I shook up my inspection schedule. I figured the squads had gotten used to me showing up at particular times, so I needed to find out how they behaved when they did not expect me—starting with my command squad. I popped into Zeb’s during the dinner rush on Tuesday, waiting until there was a lot of noise that could cover my entrance. When I walked into the squad room, I found Monè and Ammon both behind their desks, leaning forward over steaming plates of jambalaya. When they saw me, they both sat straighter, pulling away from the food.
I looked up. “You had better have paid for those meals.”
“Sure we did, Ms. Morais,” Monè said.
“So if I go and ask Zeb for the receipts, it will show draws out of both of your accounts, right?”
Ammon pushed the plate away. “Oh, come on, ma’am, it’s just a little food. Zeb’s just showing appreciation that we’re keeping the place safe.”
“‘Showing appreciation’ is how graft is always excused. You two are on report, and we are going to discuss this with the mayor tomorrow morning, 0900 sharp. If Rockford and, God help us, Grace get ahold of this, the force would be a complete embarrassment to the mayor; and they would be right to raise a stink. So I want you to explain this to the mayor and let him decide whether to give you walking papers or not. But do not expect me to stand up for you. If you cannot figure it out yet: this is wrong.”
“But, ma’am . . . ,” Ammon said.
“No ‘buts.’ Where are Flagg and Schippers?”
Monè answered, “Out on call, ma’am.”
“They have patrol officers with them?”
“Yes, and the rest have been reporting in.”
“Kind of a busy night. It seems like folks are getting riled up about all this election business. There are a lot more minor assaults than usual. Maybe I need to put you two on double shifts to keep you busy, since you have nothing better to do than embarrass me and the mayor.”
Monè looked at his feet. “We’re sorry, ma’am.”
“You should be. But for now I shall cover the desk here. You go out and you pay Zeb for this. You will make me regret I found this decent space. Here you have room to work around each other without stepping on each other, but you abuse it. Maybe I should go back and find us a broom closet at the Admin Center. Would you like that better?”
“No, ma’am,” Monè answered.
“No, ma’am.”
“All right. Go pay Zeb. As soon as I get Flagg and Schippers back from the field, I want you two out there, and I want you out on patrol every night this week. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Dismissed.”
I thought I had been clever, finding a space that we could get without having to worry about rearranging the Admin Center or displacing any tenants. But space was not the problem. Somehow I had to get thorough to my squad and the whole force that we were not going to put up with graft. I knew it was a concern for police forces everywhere, but my standards were higher than that. I would not let people believe that my force could be bought.
The next morning Anthony chewed out Monè and Ammon. He did it on an open circuit to all squads so they could all hear how serious he was about it. Then he confirmed my order putting them on patrol for the week and informed all of the squads watching that graft was not going to be tolerated.
Afterward we met in his office. “So what do I do, Rosalia?” he asked. “Do I need monitor cams in every squad room?”
“It would not help,” I said. “The transfers can be arranged outside of the sight of the cams. And you will never get approval for more thorough monitoring, that is too much privacy violation. Even if it prevents corruption, it will cause resentment.”
“So, what, we need an internal affairs department?”
“Same problem. We might need one eventually, but they cause as much strife as they solve. The officers hate feeling like their own people are watching them.”
“So what do we do?”
“Be vigilant, and be very visible and swift in punishing problems when they are exposed. Our force has to learn that we are serious and we shall not put up with this.”
Anthony shook his head. “This almost never happened on the Aldrin. How did Nick do it? What does he have that we don’t have?”
I smiled at him. “Nick’s secret was no secret. He hounded out anyone who could not live up to his standards, and replacements were assigned. He just kept weeding them out until he had the best. You do not have that luxury. The only pool you can draw from is people already living here who are willing to be police. You cannot just fire people who are not fitting in, you have to find a way to make them fit. Even if they are not perfect, firing has to be a last resort.”
“You think we can fix this?”
I frowned. “We shall try. Nothing is perfect. We will do pretty good.”
Before I could leave, Alonzo rushed into the office. “Mr. Mayor,” he said, “you’re going to want to see this.”
“See what?”
Alonzo flipped on the big video screen, and there was Tara Rockford. “Repeating, our top story this noonday is a lecture from Mayor Holmes to his own police force regarding issues of graft that have come up in the department.”
“No,” I said.
What came next on the screen was the entire message we had broadcast out to other squads and recorded for the second shifts.
“No,” I said again. “How did she get this so fast?”
“I don’t know,” Anthony said. “I’ve had some suspicion she’s got a mole somewhere in Admin.”
“It did not have to be in Admin,” I said. “We sent this out encrypted to the other squads; but someone there could have decrypted, recorded, and delivered it to her. So we cannot really know who, but somebody is feeding her information.”
Rockford came back on the screen. “This comes on top of revelations of a year-long Public Safety investigation into a rising tide of crime and violence in Maxwell City, something which Mayor Holmes and his people quietly swept under the rug. But now in this exclusive report we can tell you—”
Anthony squinted, and the screen turned off. “God damn it, I didn’t cover anything up. The reports were right there, publicly available. We even discussed them in open council—which was why we instituted a police force.”
“To be fair, Anthony,” I said, “it is a surprise to me, and I thought I had been paying attention.”
“I understand,” he said. “The trend crept up on us slowly, and we only recently realized just how out of control it was. Ms. Morais, you’d better get back on top of your squads. Alonzo and I need to figure out how we’re going to respond to this, and we’d better make it fast.”
“Yes, Mr. Mayor,” Alonzo and I said in unison as he sat down and I got up and left.
I was later than ever getting home that night, worrying over who had leaked our recording. Either we had been hacked, or one of our own police force had passed it along. I did not know which it was, so I had to go out and talk to every squad face-to-face to see if I could pick up anything or anyone who seemed to be hiding something.
I cursed Rockford for putting me in that position. I was too new in the job to be suspecting my own people. That was stress that I did not want to deal with. If Nick had been in charge, he would have gone and confronted them, bawled them all out, maybe gotten into a few fights. He had a knack for finding the answer that way. By ordering people around and observing how they behaved, he would pick up on anomalies. Plain, ordinary human behavior often confused him; but behavior under stress? He was good at analyzing that. Me, I had come up empty.
I wished I could talk it over with him.
Maybe he could give me some new insight. He always made a good sounding board for my problems; but he was fast asleep by the time I got home. There was a container with a bauru sandwich in the fridge, with instructions on how to reheat it. I sat and ate alone. I wondered why I had ever taken this job.
11. THE FIRE
When I woke, Nick was already gone and a note on my comp read: Meeting with SPM. Dinner? SPM was São Paulo Mutual, the insurance company we had sometimes done investigations for.
I could not tell from the words of the note if Nick was angry I had been so late. But that was silly. We were both driven workaholics, as the Americans described it. We understood that about each other. When the job had to be done, you did it. So if I looked at a few words on a screen from Nick and saw something there, it was probably something that I was reading into myself, not something he had put there. I made myself a note that no matter what came up, I would be home on time for dinner that night.
Later I would come to remember the old Yiddish proverb: “Man plans. God laughs.”
The first hint of trouble was a report of a fire at a commercial chamber being handled by DPS, and they sent us a request for crowd control. Part of me rankled at the thought. We were police, we were investigators, we were not crowd control; but we were, when needed. It was all part of the job—I knew that—just a less glamorous part. So, I sent over Vile, Ammon, and some patrol officers to help reroute traffic around the district, while DPS fought the fire and treated any injuries.
It was twenty minutes later when I got the next call from Vile herself. “What is it, Vile, crowd problems? Do you need more officers?”
“Well, ma’am, it’s not a crowd, it’s just one person causing us trouble.”
“And you cannot handle one person?”
“Ma’am, I think you’d better come down here,” she said. “It’s the founder.” Nick.
I made my best speed to the fire site on level 2. The traffic in the area was pretty congested, as people routed around the district. By now the fire had to have been controlled. One advantage of a sealed environment is you can evacuate an area, cut off the pressure, pump in suppression gas, and smother the fire. It is not as easy as it sounds, but it is a technique DPS has mastered over the years. As long as you do not get anybody caught in an evacuated area, you are fine; but it still takes time, and it requires being able to work without civilians getting in the way and getting into trouble.
The Last Campaign (The Near-Earth Mysteries) Page 8