Never the Crime

by Colin Conway

  Stone stood stock-still. He knew better than to say anything that might provoke the incident further.

  Sikes stopped moving and smiled. “Better be careful now, Gary.”

  They stared at each for a moment. Stone knew the mayor wanted him to ask why but he forced himself to remain quiet.

  Finally, Sikes shrugged. “Now that I know you’ve actually got a pair of jimmies, I’m going to come by and kick them occasionally, just to remind you who’s in charge.”

  Stone’s eyes widened.

  The mayor opened the office door and looked back. “Enjoy your day, Officer Stone.”

  CHAPTER 29

  “You had lunch yet, Tom?” the chief asked.

  Captain Tom Farrell nodded. They were sitting in the chief’s office. Farrell wasn’t sure why, but he wasn’t surprised at being summoned. Baumgartner always seemed to like and respect him, and since the Garrett incident, the chief had relied upon his counsel more frequently.

  Which makes it that much harder to keep lying to him.

  “I ate earlier,” he answered.

  “Damn,” Baumgartner muttered. “I was hoping we could grab a cheesesteak or something.”

  Farrell thought that Baumgartner could do with a few more salads instead of cheesesteaks, but he didn’t say anything. He liked the chief and wanted him to stick around for a long time, but giving dietary advice wasn’t why he was there, and he knew it.

  Baumgartner shrugged and lifted his phone. “Marilyn? Call over to The High Nooner for a soup and sandwich. The usual. Thanks.”

  He hung up and turned his attention to Farrell.

  “It’s probably better that we talk out of the public eye anyway,” he said. “We have a problem, and I want your thoughts on it.”

  “Yes, sir,” Farrell said.

  Baumgartner gave him a strange look. “All these years working together, Tom, and even behind closed doors, you never call me Bob. Why is that?”

  Farrell thought for a moment. Baumgartner came on the department a few years ahead of him, and he was already a bit of an emerging legend by the time Farrell got out of the academy. He’d been one of Farrell’s training officers, probably his best. Then Baumgartner became a sergeant, and Farrell was on his squad. Baumgartner’s Battalion was the proud nickname they’d emblazoned on some black T-shirts to wear under their patrol vests. The trend of following the future chief up the promotional ladder continued to the present. Farrell was always just a rung or two behind.

  “It’s a matter of respect,” he said. “You’re the chief. This is the chief’s office.”

  “So if we go golfing on a Saturday, off duty, I can pry a ‘Bob’ out of you?”

  Farrell smiled a little. “Golfing is still pretty close to work. Maybe if we went fishing.”

  “Fair enough.” Baumgartner took a deep breath, and let it out, all business again. “Here’s the deal.”

  Farrell sat and listened while the chief laid out the details about Bethany Rabe. It was tragic, but at first, Farrell didn’t see the problem for the police department. For Dennis Hahn, sure. But how did this cause the chief any concern?

  Then he got it. “Stone’s visit. He cleared it One-David, didn’t he?”

  Baumgartner shook his head. “No, he wrote a report.” The chief slid a packet of papers across the desk to him.

  Farrell picked up the report. The first thing he noticed was that it was one of the old forms. He shrugged that off. Maybe Stone didn’t have the report writing software on his computer at city hall. Then he saw that the officer had written the report by hand, which was odd. An envelope and a short letter was attached to the end of the report.

  He read through the officer’s narrative. Stone’s writing was clear and concise. He addressed everything Farrell would have thought to ask, even though Betty Rabe refused to be explicit and wavered in her allegations regarding the assault. He wondered if she was afraid because the man she was accusing was powerful. If so, it would be a valid concern.

  When he finished the report, he thought about it for a few seconds longer. There was no way he could solve the riddle as to what really happened simply by reading a police report, no matter how well written it was. He felt bad for Betty Rabe, especially after reading through her letter.

  “Seventeen years old,” he said. “It’s a shame.”

  “Under any circumstances, it’s a tragedy.” Baumgartner took another heavy breath. “And now it’s a tragedy that might become a shit storm.”

  “How so?”

  “You’re holding the only copy of the report, Tom.”

  “What?”

  The chief just stared at him, letting it sink in.

  Farrell looked down at the report again and realized what was missing. There was no report number. “This is a black hole report?”

  The chief nodded.

  Farrell considered it, surprised. “Stone did this?”

  “For me, but yeah.”

  “He knew what he was being asked to do?”

  “I made it clear.” The chief studied Farrell. “Why do you ask, Tom?”

  Farrell spread his hands a little and shook his head slowly. “I just never…he seemed like a straight-laced guy. A little vanilla, a real Melvin Milquetoast sort.”

  “He’s a bit of a cake-eater, but he knows the score. He’s more businessman than cop, and a businessman is closer to a politician than most people think.”

  Farrell didn’t answer. Instead, he scanned through the report again, noting the level of detail in light of what the chief had told him about Stone.

  Interesting.

  “Look, Tom, it was the mayor who asked me to look into this. I didn’t realize it right away, but it’s clear to me now that he wanted to control the information and use it against Hahn if it panned out to be criminal. If it was a consensual affair—”

  “Consensual? Hahn’s what? In his forties? And a councilman. She’s a seventeen-year-old girl. I have a bit of a problem calling that relationship consensual.”

  “Sixteen is the age of consent in Washington,” Baumgartner pointed out.

  “He’s in a position of power, though. If she interned for him or was in some kind of a mentorship capacity, the law looks at that differently.”

  “It’ll be your detectives that figure out that part when this hurricane makes landfall. Which I think it will, because the mayor will leak it eventually. The best-case scenario for Hahn when the people hear the details is that he dies a political death. Worst case for him, it’s deemed criminal.” Baumgartner leaned forward. “But for the mayor, and for us, the problem is this report. I think I misplayed this one.”

  Farrell set the packet of papers back on the chief’s desk. “What are you going to do?”

  “I see two choices.” He lifted the report and set it on the corner of his desk. “One is to shred this.”

  Farrell frowned. “That might be illegal,” he said. “Besides, we’re not the CIA.”

  “I don’t like it, either, but it’s the cleanest option. This is the only written evidence of the event. There’s no entry in the CAD system, either. Unless someone saw Stone interview her, or she told someone…” he trailed off.

  “Or she sent an email,” Farrell added. “Or she put it on some form of social media somewhere old guys like us never even heard of.” He shook his head emphatically. “Chief, not only is that the wrong thing to do, it’s a bad idea. Look at history. It’s never the crime that gets people in the most trouble. It’s the cover-up that follows that sinks them. You shred that report, and the public finds out, you lose the one thing you have with the people of this city that will keep you in that chair no matter who the mayor is or what the crime stats are. Trust.”

  Baumgartner nodded. “I just had to look at all my options, that’s all.”

  “Well, I can’t agree to that one.”

  “You’re right, Tom. I’m not going to do it.” He fingered the edge of the report. “The
alternative is ugly, though. This report isn’t in the system.”

  “Yet.”

  Baumgartner looked up at him. “There’s a way to input it now? Or is it too late?”

  “It’s never too late. But the report number, and the date the number is generated, will both be after Stone’s interview and the girl’s suicide. Anyone who looks closely will see the discrepancy and point it out. It still looks bad and will cause questions.”

  The chief pressed his lips together. “How am I supposed to answer that question without lying? Because I can’t do that, any more than I can shred this fucking letter.”

  Farrell thought about it. “If you enter the report into the system and assign it to my division for follow-up, then you can honestly say the case is active. By policy, we limit public discussion on active cases, and you’ve always been consistent about that.”

  “If I were a reporter,” Baumgartner said, “and I was asking about the timing of the events versus the timing of when the report was entered into the system, I wouldn’t be satisfied with ‘this is an active case, so we’re not discussing it.’”

  “Screw the reporters. They don’t have to like it.”

  “When the media doesn’t like something, they focus on it. And if they don’t have facts, they speculate. They may do it from behind the safety of rhetorical questions and allegedly, but the message gets across all the same. And that doesn’t even factor in someone from city hall leaking information.” He shook his head. “How am I supposed to argue that commenting on this timing issue would somehow compromise the investigation? It sounds like a political dodge.”

  “That’s because it is.”

  “How about some advice here instead of being Captain Obvious?”

  Farrell hadn’t seen the chief like this since the Garrett incident. It was disconcerting. “Then just answer the question,” he said. “Call it an administrative delay. Or a routing error.”

  “Lie, you mean.”

  Farrell gave him a look of mild rebuke. “You were talking about shredding a black hole report two minutes ago. Now coloring the facts a little is too much?”

  Baumgartner considered. “I guess it was an administrative delay, when you really look at it. Due to a routing error. Stone should have entered the report and had it cc’d to me, but the whole thing happened backwards.”

  “And Stone is solid enough for that? Even though you told him to do it in the first place?”

  “He’s a stand-up guy,” the chief said. “I trust him.”

  A stand-up guy. The description irked Farrell. It was one of those terms that both cops and mobsters used to mean the exact same thing.

  “There’s your answer,” he said. “It’s still not strictly above board, but it won’t turn into Watergate.”

  Baumgartner nodded slowly, seeming to let the idea sink in. “I think this is the best option,” he finally said. Then he sighed again. “You know, when I came on this job, everything was so black-and-white. There were the good guys—and that was us—and the bad guys who were out there doing harm. We went out and caught the bad guys, and that was it. It was good-versus-evil. Simpler times.”

  “I don’t think it was ever that simple,” Farrell said quietly. “We had our illusions then, that’s all.”

  “Illusions.” Baumgartner repeated the word, seeming to muse over it. “Illusions about the right thing to do and the wrong thing to do, huh? Only no one ever tells you about all those cracks in between. All the fucking gray. When is telling a small lie beneficial for the greater good? How much of the truth can you omit before what you’re saying is a lie?”

  Farrell didn’t know what to say. At some point during their career, he supposed every cop went through the same thing the chief was describing. The nature of the job resided in the gray. For some officers, this conflict might come early. For others, it could end up being a rude awakening later on. Either way, it was a question every cop faced. He imagined that the chief faced it more frequently and with higher stakes. He was responsible for the fate of the entire department, not just his own career. If there was one thing he knew about Robert Baumgartner, it was where his loyalty lay. It rested firmly with the men and women of the department. He felt sure that if it came down to his career or the agency, Baumgartner would fall on his sword.

  And all the while, I just keep up pretenses, knowing the real truth about Garrett. He was in no position to be judging anyone on degrees of truth.

  “Thanks, Tom,” Baumgartner broke into his reverie. “I needed a clear head to bounce this thing off of.”

  “Sure.”

  “Switching gears, will you do me a favor?”

  “Of course.”

  “Check into how Tyler Garrett is doing.”

  Farrell’s radar pinged loudly. Did Baumgartner know more than he let on? Was he aware of how he and Clint had been monitoring Garrett since the shooting?

  He cleared his throat. “Why?”

  “He responded to the suicide call. He saw Stone’s card there, so he followed up with him about it. I want to make sure it’s not a loose end, and that he’s still tracking smoothly. It was a rough go there a while back, you know?”

  Farrell nodded, watching Baumgartner as he spoke. He looked for any sort of tell, but Baumgartner would have made an excellent poker player, because he saw nothing. Or perhaps there was nothing to see. He couldn’t be sure.

  For a moment, he considered telling the chief everything. Just laying out the entire mess of what he knew, and what he’d done. What he and Clint were still doing. It was Baumgartner’s department. He deserved to know, and maybe he could help.

  Farrell glanced at the shredder next to Baumgartner’s desk. Then he said, “Why not ask Dana? She’s the patrol captain. Garrett’s under her command.”

  Baumgartner frowned. “I’m asking you. You can look into it with these other considerations in mind, and I’d like to keep the loop tight on this one. Understood?”

  “Got it.”

  “Besides, Hatcher has always been too soft on her own troops. You know that. When she was a sergeant, they used to call her Mother Hen.”

  “She takes care of her people,” Farrell admitted. “That’s not a bad trait.”

  “Unless the benefit to her people is detrimental to another team. Or to the officer. Not holding people accountable may seem like protection, Tom, but it hurts everyone in the long run.”

  Farrell didn’t answer. All he could think of was Betty Rabe. Who was being held accountable for everything surrounding her death? And what about Tyler Garrett? When was he going to be held accountable?

  “Anyway, check up on him for me, okay?” the chief asked.

  Farrell nodded woodenly. “I will.”

  CHAPTER 30

  “You wanted to see me, Cap?”

  Hatcher saw Officer Ray Zielinski standing in her open doorway. She pushed aside her paperwork and motioned toward the door. “Close that.”

  Zielinski’s face looked stricken, but he swung the door shut. When he turned back around, he remained standing.

  “Go ahead and have a seat, Ray.”

  His eyes flicked to the empty chair in front of her desk, then up to her. “Do I need a union rep for this, Captain?”

  “A union rep?” Hatcher was surprised at the thought. “No, why?”

  Zielinski motioned toward the closed door. “The captain calls me on my day off, then has me close the door? Now, I’m wondering if this a Sarge and Ray talk or a captain to patrolman talk.”

  Hatcher thought about it for a second. “I guess it’s more of an unofficial captain to patrol officer talk, Ray, but nothing that requires a union rep.”

  Zielinski hesitated, then took the seat. He didn’t say anything, only waited.

  She decided to get straight to the point. “I asked IA about your demeanor complaint. The lieutenant over there, Sutherland, didn’t want to talk about it. But I worked on him a bit and found out that it probably
isn’t going anywhere.”

  “No?” Zielinski looked suddenly hopeful.

  “Probably not. After making the initial complaint, the complainant hasn’t been cooperative with the investigators. He’s canceled several interviews, claiming to be too busy.”

  Zielinski nodded. “I believe it. He was a self-important douche bag.”

  Hatcher frowned at the term but didn’t bother to address it. “He sounds like the kind of guy who figures he already did his part by making the initial complaint and they should just do their job and figure out the rest.”

  “That fits.”

  “Sutherland said they were doing their due diligence, but he expects this one to die on the vine.”

  “That’s great news.”

  “It’s not a done deal, just a possibility.”

  “At this point, I’ll take it.”

  “Don’t get too excited. There was something else he told me.”

  Zielinski’s eyes widened and his nostrils flared. An expression of panic flashed across his face. “What is it?”

  My God, he’s really feeling the stress.

  Hatcher wondered what she could do to help him. There wasn’t much, but one thing an officer like Zielinski appreciated was honesty, so she gave it to him. “You’ve got another complaint coming.”

  “Another? What for?”

  “It’s for demeanor again.”

  She thought she saw his concern fade slightly, but she couldn’t be sure. Maybe it was just the shock wearing off. “Did you go on an agency assist recently?”

  Zielinski started to shrug but stopped. “Wait. It’s Lyle Bunney, isn’t it? Cap, he’s crazy. He writes these wacked out letters to senators, councilmen, even the chief.”

  Hatcher glanced at her notes. “No, this complaint came from a woman. Lindsay Wagner?”

  Zielinski slumped. “Shit.”

  “Who is she?”

  “She’s a he,” Zielinski said. “A social worker with Mental Health.”

  Hatcher put it together. “You were there to assist him with the one-oh-five?”

  Zielinski nodded.

  “Were you being a smartass?”