Never the Crime

by Colin Conway

  “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I just said it, didn’t I?”

  “I’m double-checking.”

  “Well, double-check your ass next time. Or get your hearing examined.”

  Zielinski let out a small sigh. “C’mon, man, it sounds like we’re done. This guy is no threat.”

  “I could be a threat!” Lyle protested. “You think just because I’m in a wheelchair—”

  Zielinski turned to him, interrupting. “Really? You could be a threat? Because if so, we’ve got to take you to jail, right now. Directly. Do not pass go.”

  Lyle stared at him, stunned.

  “Is that really what you want? I’ll get to touch all your stuff then.”

  Lyle looked from Zielinski to Stone. “I’m not a threat,” he muttered.

  “What?” Zielinski asked, leaning forward.

  “I’m not a threat,” Lyle repeated, still barely above a whisper.

  “I didn’t think so.” Zielinski looked to Stone for confirmation that they were finished.

  Stone hesitated, as if he wanted to pursue the interview further, but after a moment, he nodded. “I’m going to believe you, Mr. Bunney, but please consider how you phrase your letters in the future.”

  Lyle scowled, muttering about freedom of the press under his breath.

  “Thanks for taking the time to speak with us today,” Stone said, removing a business card from his pocket and putting it on the table near Bunny. Then he glanced at Zielinski and headed out the door. Zielinski followed. When the front door closed behind him, he heard Lyle turning the deadbolt lock.

  Once they reached Stone’s car, Zielinski shook his head. “That guy’s a complete one-oh-five.”

  Stone gave him a confused look. “What’s that?”

  “Old radio code for mentals.”

  “One-oh-five,” Stone repeated. His phone buzzed, and he checked his text. Then he glanced up at Zielinski. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude. That was Marilyn.”

  “Your girlfriend?”

  “What? No. Marilyn. The chief’s secretary?”

  You little name-dropping prick.

  “The chief wants me back at the department ASAP. I gotta go.”

  “Charlie Bravo time, huh?”

  Stone scowled. “What’s with the Charlie Bravo bit? Is that another old radio code?”

  “Something like that.” Zielinski turned to go, then stopped. “Wait. You’re not expecting me to cut paper on this, are you? Or is this a One-David call?”

  One-David was the clearance code for a contact without a report. This call merited at least a brief report, though. Zielinski wondered if Stone was going to try to dump it on him, using the chief’s summons as an excuse.

  Stone shook his head. “No, I’ve got it. Thanks for the help.”

  Zielinski grunted a reply and walked back to his own car without looking back. Somehow, he didn’t think watching the chief’s little minion scurry away in his new car would improve his mood. It was only after he closed the car door and started the engine that another thought occurred to him.

  I should’ve made nice with the kid. He could’ve helped me out with this demeanor complaint in IA. Put in a good word with his pal, the chief.

  Zielinski shrugged. It didn’t matter. The complaint was bullshit, anyway.

  He cleared the call with the disposition code of Two-David, an assist with no report. Then he made the notation CB to file report. He laughed at the note, wondering if any of the other guys would notice it.

  He pulled away from the curb. Before he made it a block, the dispatcher sent him another call for service.

  Back to the grind.

  CHAPTER 3

  This is ugly, Captain Dana Hatcher thought.

  The latest batch of crime statistics from the FBI were about to be released to the public and she sat at her desk, staring at an advance copy. No matter which way she turned the page, the numbers sucked.

  The FBI comparison report provided an in-depth look at specific crimes within each jurisdiction and ranked each jurisdiction in comparison to similar-sized communities throughout the country. Spokane made the top ten in several categories, which wasn’t a good thing.

  She wished she could take some solace in the fact that the report lagged by six months, but the internal reports from the department’s own crime analysis unit showed a continued steady increase in several categories. Things weren’t getting better, they were getting worse. The city was bleeding, and as the captain of patrol, a lot of the responsibility to stop the flow of blood fell right on Hatcher’s shoulders. Hatcher pushed the report away and rubbed her eyes.

  “The extra bar getting to you already?”

  Hatcher opened her eyes to see Captain Tom Farrell settling into the seat across from her desk. He hadn’t knocked, just walked right in. For a moment, she wondered why. Did he still think of her as a lieutenant?

  Or is it because I’m a woman?

  She dismissed the second thought. Farrell was senior to her, that was all.

  “I won’t lie,” she said. “Things were easier when I was a lieutenant.”

  Farrell pointed to the captain’s bars on his collar. “Double the bars, triple the headaches. That’s executive leadership.”

  “I’ve been finding that out.”

  “It’s been three months now, so your feet should be pretty wet.”

  “It’s not my feet I’m worried about. It’s more like the water is up to my neck.” She pointed at the report on her desk. “The NIBRS report gets released to the public next month. When people see these numbers, it’s going to be brutal. And city hall has this advance report, too, so you know they’ll be ready when people start clamoring.”

  Farrell nodded sympathetically. “Yeah, I saw it. We’re getting absolutely raped on stolen vehicles and burglaries.”

  Raped? Are you kidding me? Hatcher clenched her jaw, letting the description begrudgingly pass without comment. “Fraud is up, too. All property crime, really.”

  “The UCRs are six months old, though.”

  Hatcher frowned. The FBI report was previously called the Uniform Crime Report (UCR), but that changed years ago to NIBRS, the National Incident-Based Reporting System. It was far more precise and covered many more categories than its predecessor. She knew Farrell only used the term UCR out of habit, but the fact still mildly irritated her.

  “You shouldn’t frown like that,” Farrell said. “It makes you look angry.”

  Her frown deepened. That comment was definitely because she was a woman. “I am angry, Tom. Our own analytics for the last two months show crime up, too. We’ve got to do something about it.”

  “Like what?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

  Farrell nodded slowly, then shrugged. “These things are cyclical, Dana. Crime goes up in the summer when it’s warm, and it hibernates a little in the winter. You’re seeing an uptick from the winter numbers now that spring is here.”

  Hatcher shook her head. “Property crime is much higher compared to this same time period last year. The overall trend line is sharply up. I’d say we have to get ahead of this, but I think the truth is that we’re already behind.”

  “We’re always behind the curve. It’s the nature of police work.”

  “Maybe,” she conceded, “but we’re falling further behind, and I’m worried.”

  “Worried about what, exactly?”

  “About how bad it might get,” Hatcher said. “Tom, we have to put our heads together on this. You’re in charge of Investigations, I’m in charge of Patrol. Between the two of us, we’ve got to be proactive. If we don’t, these numbers are only going to get worse, and it’s going to start to look like a full-fledged crime epidemic. One we’ll get blamed for.”

  Farrell sighed. “We’ll take the hit, for sure. And it won’t matter that your patrol cops are running from one call to the next, or
that my detectives are carrying bigger caseloads than ever before. We’ll get blamed, just like we get credit when crime goes down. But let me tell you something I’ve learned. The crime rate is a lot like the economy. It’s too big and has too many moving parts for anyone, including us, to have a major impact on it. Sure, we can do some things, and maybe after we do them, the crime rate will drop, but does that mean we actually caused it? I mean, any more than a tax cut or a tax increase has any significant impact on the economy?”

  Hatcher stared at him in mild surprise. “Are you really trying to say that the police don’t have an impact on the crime rate?”

  “No. I’m saying we greatly overestimate how much of one we have. A big snowstorm or a new Costco opening has more of an impact than we do.”

  Hatcher shook her head. “I don’t believe that. I can’t believe that.”

  “Either way, it doesn’t matter,” Farrell said. “We’re expected to make a concerted effort, so we have to do whatever we can, and take whatever victories we can get.”

  Hatcher wondered if Farrell should think about retiring. His philosophy reeked of cynicism.

  “It all comes back to drugs, when you think about,” Farrell said. “Mostly meth, but heroin, a lot more now that marijuana has been legalized.”

  Hatcher nodded in agreement. She knew this.

  Farrell continued, explaining anyway. “Users need money for their dope, so they break into houses and cars, or just steal the cars to sell or use as meth taxis. They write bad checks, shoplift, scam old people, the whole gamut.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s not going to stop unless people stop being addicted to drugs.”

  “Isn’t your narcotics unit supposed to be working on that?”

  Farrell chuckled. “Touché. But their mandate isn’t to focus on the user level. They’re working on the supply side of things, targeting mid-level dealers. The idea is to take away the supply and make it harder for dopers to get their dope.”

  “The problem with that concept is when less dope is available, it costs more, so these people have to steal more stuff to get enough money to pay for their fix. That drives up the theft stats. Less available product actually makes things worse.”

  “In the short term, yes.”

  Hatcher raised the NIBRS report from her desk. “These numbers are six months old. I’d say we’re edging into mid-to-long-term territory.”

  “You’re the new kid on the block, command-wise,” Farrell continued. “You always had good ideas as a lieutenant. What’s your idea here?”

  Hatcher took a deep breath and leaned back in her chair. “You say that the crime rate is hard to impact in the same way the economy does, right?”

  Farrell nodded.

  “Well,” she said, “some things have a disproportionate impact. Have you heard of the Pareto Principle?”

  Farrell squinted. “No.”

  “Sometimes it’s called the eighty/twenty rule.”

  His eyes registered recognition. “Oh, sure. It’s a leadership thing. You’ll spend eighty percent of your time dealing with twenty percent of your people, right?”

  “Right, but it has a broader scope than that. The principle says that eighty percent of your outcomes result from twenty percent of your causes.” She waited for a moment for Farrell to catch on, but he kept watching her and waiting, so she continued. “If we apply this to our crime here in Spokane, how does that look?”

  Farrell considered. “Twenty percent of our criminals are doing eighty percent of the crime.”

  “Exactly. Our twenty percent is probably those same dopers you were just talking about. I think it’s a considerably smaller percentage than twenty, but I’ll have to get crime analysis to run those numbers to be sure.”

  “So you want to target the twenty percent?”

  “Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  “Of course,” Farrell said. “It’s not a new idea. You arrest a high-profile offender, you get more bang for your buck.”

  “So what if we created a team that did nothing but target those high-profile offenders?” Hatcher said. “We untether a few hard-charging patrol cops from the radio so they don’t have to answer calls, and send them out hunting for the most active criminals. Plus, we add a detective to the team to handle search warrants and routine follow-up and to coordinate with the prosecutor.” She made a fist and dropped it onto her desk with a thud. “We could crush a lot of crime that way.”

  Farrell thought about it. “Sort of a search and destroy team, huh?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And you have the staffing for this?”

  “No, but I’m willing to pull a few bodies from answering the radio. If that means a few lower priority calls for service have to wait longer or simply get dumped, I think the tradeoff is worth it.”

  “That’ll piss off the citizens who made those calls,” he warned.

  “More people are going to be pissed about bigger issues if we don’t deal with this situation.”

  “True,” Farrell agreed. He thought about it some more before answering. “It could work,” he said. “And if nothing else, no one could say we sat on our hands doing nothing while the crime rate continued to climb, right?”

  “Maybe we’ll even make a dent.”

  Farrell nodded. “It’s a good idea, Dana. You should take the lead on it.”

  Hatcher blinked. It had never occurred to her to do otherwise. She was the patrol captain, and the team would be largely comprised of patrol officers. Besides, it was her idea.

  “Okay,” she said. “I will.”

  “I’ll assign you a detective when you’re up and running.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You got a name for your team yet?”

  She shook her head. “I hadn’t even thought about that. I was focused on how it will work.”

  “Think of something sexy. It’ll make the chief more likely to approve it.”

  Hatcher frowned. “You think I need permission for this? I’m supposed to be the captain of patrol. I’m trying to solve a problem here.”

  “You could just do it and beg forgiveness later,” Farrell said. “But I think we all know how that would go over with the chief. Besides, you’re not just talking about patrol here. You want a detective and I wouldn’t be surprised if the prosecutor ends up wanting to funnel all the cases to one attorney, so what you’ve got is multi-divisional, multi-agency collaboration. If I were you, I’d at least plan on advising the chief of your plan, even if you aren’t necessarily saying mother-may-I.”

  Hatcher considered his words. “All right. Thanks, Tom.”

  He smiled at her and stood. At the door, he stopped and said, “The bars look good on you, by the way. I’m glad you got promoted.”

  After Farrell left, Hatcher touched the twin bars on her collar. Then she reached for a legal pad and started making notes.

  CHAPTER 4

  Chief Robert Baumgartner slid the letter across his desk toward Gary Stone, then waited while his Special Police Problems officer read it. He remembered when he first came across Stone while attending the police academy graduation to give a few remarks. During the informal milling around that occurred afterwards, he found himself standing next to Stone. At first, he was put off by how little of the high-speed, low-drag alpha-hunter persona the new officer seemed to have. Frankly, he had wondered if Stone was the kind of kid who had his milk money taken from him by bullies every day at school. Or whatever bullies did nowadays. Maybe they reprogrammed his iPod, or something.

  It only took a little while to see that while Stone wasn’t cut from the cloth of the hyper-aggressive, meat-eater mold that Baumgartner preferred in his frontline cops, he also wasn’t intimidated by much. He carried on a conversation that was respectful of the chief’s position, but without the awe or the sycophancy that he sometimes experienced from those supposedly tougher cops.

  And he seemed smart.

&nbs
p; Afterwards, he talked to the academy commander and looked through Stone’s file. A picture soon emerged of a different kind of cop, with a different set of skills. Baumgartner saw the value in those skills, and although it took a few years for him to find the right way to exploit them, he had Stone correctly positioned now.

  Stone glanced up from the letter. “This is a pretty serious accusation Miss Rabe is making.”

  “It is,” the chief agreed.

  “The press will freak when they get wind of it. A married city councilman accused of having sex with a seventeen-year-old?”

  “Sixteen is the age of consent,” Baumgartner said.

  “Really? What about a teacher sleeping with a high school student? Aren’t the students sometimes older than sixteen?”

  Baumgartner waved his hand. “That’s a supervisory relationship, but you’re complicating the issue. Like I said, sixteen is the age to worry about here and since that’s the case, Hahn shouldn’t be in jeopardy with the law.”

  “Maybe not,” Stone said. “The sharks will smell blood in the water, either way. Of course, Councilman Buckner will be thrilled. This is way worse than him and the babysitter. It’ll take the heat off him in a heartbeat.”

  “Let’s not worry about that right now,” the chief said. “This information isn’t in the public domain just yet.”

  “I see,” Stone said. “Because it’s an ongoing investigation, you mean?”

  “In a way, yes.”

  “In a way?”

  Baumgartner pointed at the letter in Stone’s grasp. “I want you to look into this, Gary.” Stone was one of the few patrol officers the chief addressed by first name. “And I want you to be discreet about it.”

  Stone looked surprised. “Wait. Shouldn’t a sexual assault detective investigate?”

  “Under normal circumstances,” Baumgartner agreed, “but these aren’t normal circumstances. We’ve got the Buckner situation, for one thing. As you pointed out, the accused is another council member. That makes things…volatile.”

  “I see your point.” Stone glanced down at the letter with a look of uncertainty. “Her letter is a little vague, sir. I mean, she’s clear about being seventeen, and she’s clear about having sex with Councilman Hahn, but she sort of hints at a later sexual assault.”