Never the Crime

by Colin Conway

  “This isn’t Los Angeles,” Farrell argued. “Or Chicago. It’s different here.”

  “It’s the same.” Clint pointed at the captain. “You create an autonomous squad of patrol officers like that and turn them loose, you’ll regret it.” When Farrell didn’t respond immediately, Clint added, “If you don’t believe me, trust your own experience. You don’t have to look any further than Tyler Garrett.”

  Farrell’s neck reddened slightly. “He’s the reason I think it’s a good idea.”

  Clint squinted at him. “How does that make any goddamn sense?”

  “A team like this with Garrett on it solves the problem of narrowing his field.” Farrell seemed a little too pleased with himself. “We create a small team around Garrett and catch him in our trap.”

  “It’s still a dumb idea,” Clint said.

  “Why?”

  “For all the reasons I just said. You put Garrett on a team like that, it’s like taking him to the buffet. He’ll feast on that opportunity. Plus, I can’t follow a team like that as easily as I can follow an officer on patrol. But none of that matters, because Garrett is too smart to fall for this. He’ll see you coming a mile away.”

  “Not if we’re careful. Not if we do it right.”

  “You’re not putting me on that team,” Clint said. “I’ll tell you what.”

  “I agree. That’d be too obvious. But…”

  Clint looked at him, suspicious. “What?”

  Farrell shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Maybe it’s time to widen our circle on this.”

  He looked away abruptly and dropped his car into gear.

  “What’s wrong?” Farrell asked.

  “You’re talking stupid shit,” Clint said. “So I’m leaving.”

  “Stand down,” Farrell said forcefully. “That’s an order, Detective.”

  Clint glared at him. The captain was testing the bounds of his respect for the chain of command now. He made no move to put the car back into park. “Do you really think you can throw your bars around at this point, Captain? Because you ask me, we are way beyond the veil where that’s concerned. This is a whole different thing we got going on.”

  And I don’t call you massah.

  Farrell stared back at him for a few moments, then his gaze softened. “You’re right, Wardell.”

  “I know I’m right.”

  “Look, I’m sorry. But at least hear me out, okay? These are thoughts for discussion. Not decisions.”

  Clint continued to stare, mulling it over. He was unmoved by Farrell’s retreat. At the same time, he needed to assess how reliable the captain still was, and how much he could trust the man. There was only one way to do that.

  He slammed the car into Park and let his foot fall away from the brake pedal. “Spin your web,” he said, crossing his arms.

  “I’m wondering if now might be a good time to bring the chief up to speed. Get him on board so that when we—”

  “You bring Baumgartner on board, and there is no longer any we,” Clint said. “He will torch this little operation in a nanosecond. You’ll be forced to retire, and I’ll probably end up in jail.”

  “Why do you say that? The chief is old school. He isn’t going to want to see this stand. And he could bring some more assets to bear.”

  Clint snorted. “He’s part of the brass, like you. The only thing you can trust less than the brass is a politician, and the chief is both. Him and all the other politicians put this Garrett mess behind them almost two years ago. They don’t want to see it come back around.” Clint shook his head deliberately. “Do not trust him with this.”

  “I…” Farrell trailed off, and appeared lost in thought, as if he was contemplating Clint’s words.

  “There’s something else I should tell you,” Clint said. “We’re not the only ones interested in Garrett. Ray Zielinski came by my desk, asking about him.”

  Farrell looked surprised. “Zielinski? How could he know anything?”

  “He worked with Garrett. He was first to respond to the shooting.”

  “How much do you think he knows?” Farrell looked worried.

  “I don’t think he knows anything. I believe he suspects a lot. But there’s no way he has any inside information, or he’d have shared it with me. He seemed to want to see Garrett taken down.”

  Farrell pointed. “See? There’s a guy we could bring onto the strike team. Have him watching Garrett and working with you. It could work.”

  “It won’t work. Like I said, the man is cunning. He’ll see Zielinski coming from the jump.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “He will. Besides, you really want to be telling someone about everything we know? Everything we did? Because that shit ain’t pretty, and I don’t have any reason to trust Ray Zielinski other than maybe he hates Tyler Garrett.”

  “We’re going to have to come clean eventually.”

  “I’m fine with full disclosure once we’ve got Garrett dead to rights. If we can prove all that he did before, and catch him at the same old tricks again, nobody is going to be too worried about what we knew and when, or how we conducted this investigation. Nobody that matters, anyway. Absent that trump card, it’s a risk bringing someone else in on what we know. Even if I agreed to doing it, it wouldn’t be for Ray Zielinski.”

  “Who, then?”

  “Right now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Nobody. Right now, I’m starting to wish you didn’t know about this, Captain.”

  A flash of anger crossed Farrell’s face. “You don’t have to worry about me, Wardell. I’m solid.”

  Clint didn’t answer. He wondered suddenly if the captain had already told the chief and was floating the idea this way to see how he’d react. He watched Farrell’s expression to see if he could pry out an answer, but Farrell seemed sincere.

  “I know you don’t trust anyone,” Farrell said. “And I understand why. But that’s the problem with you, Wardell. You’ve got one brilliant foot squarely set in reality, and the other one in the muck and mire of conspiracy theories and distrust. What scares me is that I don’t think you realize this or know the difference.”

  Clint let out a small chuckle. “You’re scared?”

  “I’m concerned, yeah. It doesn’t help that you look like you haven’t—”

  “Maybe you should be scared,” Clint interrupted. “We’re the last two standing. Everyone else who got in Garrett’s way is dead.”

  Farrell stared at him, slack-jawed.

  Chew on that for a while. He put his car in gear and, with a chirp of his tires, accelerated away.

  SATURDAY

  Fear and lies fester in darkness. The truth may wound, but it cuts clean.

  —Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel’s Avatar

  CHAPTER 32

  Ray Zielinski was drunk by the time he realized he was still partially in uniform. He’d draped his gun belt and vest over the two hooks on the back of his bedroom door and hung his long sleeve shirt in the small closet, but he still wore the black mock turtleneck with the SPD insignia on the throat, his uniform pants, and duty boots.

  Meanwhile the bottle of Jameson looked more empty than full, and considering he’d only just cracked the seal after getting home from an extra duty gig, that was no small feat.

  The job had been presence detail at one of the local credit unions. They’d been robbed twice in the span of a month, and management decided they needed some extra police attention to reassure customers and employees. He stood around the lobby for six hours, being visible. A half-trained monkey could have done it. It was the most boring way to spend a day that he could imagine, but at least it paid.

  The fact it was a Saturday wasn’t lost on him. When he asked one of the employees what the hell ever happened to banker’s hours, she told him, “We are not a bank and our customers’ needs come first.”

  Zielinski hadn’t answered her, mostly because the first three things t
hat came to his mind would have landed him in Internal Affairs with another demeanor complaint. The teller had that tight-mouthed bitchy look that he recognized. She’d never have let his comments pass.

  He raised his glass and toasted his own restraint. Then he blurted out all three responses, one after another, laughing darkly as he snapped them out into his empty apartment.

  The toast left his glass drained. He briefly considered capping the bottle. He had a Sunday detail scheduled, after all. But he poured himself another two fingers of Jameson anyway and sat in the only chair in the living room.

  “Christ,” he said to the tiny apartment. “I don’t even have a couch. My apartment is so fucking small and I’m so fucking broke that I don’t even have…” He paused and belched. “…a fucking loveseat.”

  This wasn’t who he wanted to be. Not some poor bastard without a couch.

  It wouldn’t be for much longer, he hoped. As long as Amber gave up on her alimoney extension, he’d start to recover financially. If not, he was screwed. Jody’s orthodontic bill was only the start of more expenses for the kids as they became teenagers. And even though he was paying through the nose, neither of them wanted anything to do with him. Sure, some of that was typical teenage bullshit. But it was also them still being pissed over the divorce, and then him marrying Amber. Now that they were getting old enough to have some say in when and how often they visited him, that say was usually Not today, Dad. I’m busy.

  That he didn’t have many windows of opportunity to see them didn’t make it any easier. He was either working patrol or working extra duty details. He missed a gymnastics meet a few weeks ago to stand guard at a car show, and you’d think he’d forgotten a birthday and Christmas. Besides, he thought it was another gymnastics practice, not a competition.

  “Ray, my friend,” he told himself in a voice of mock solemnity, “you are hanging on by a very thin thread.”

  The news from Captain Hatcher yesterday hadn’t helped. Another demeanor complaint, this one from Lindsay Wagner. No way that guy wasn’t going to follow through, unlike Mr. Big Shot from his previous complaint. He guessed it was about a hundred percent chance this one came back founded, starting the progressive discipline express, and worse yet, getting him suspended from the extra details that were his financial lifeline.

  At least it hadn’t been the black hole collision.

  His mind flashed to the fender bender he didn’t report, and his stomach instantly hurt. That’s what he initially thought Hatcher was going to bring up when she said he had a new complaint. What was he thinking? Even though he was hammered now, he still realized it had been a bad decision. Trust your future to a civilian? Trust one of the people who thought they knew everything about police work and actually knew almost nothing?

  “Not smart,” he muttered, and took another sip.

  At least Neil, the driver, hadn’t complained. Even so, it galled him that the whole reason the guy even decided to cut Zielinski a break was because he’d been buddies with Garrett in high school. Or was it college? He couldn’t remember, but the two of them played some sport together, and that made Neil think cops were okay people.

  “Some of us are, pal,” Zielinski said, lifting his glass in a mock toast that nearly sloshed his drink out. “And some of us aren’t.”

  Fucking Garrett. Even if all the newspaper said about him wasn’t true, and Zielinski was starting to think it might’ve been, he still didn’t like the way Garrett acted like royalty around the department. Yeah, he’d been a good cop before the shooting, or at least seemed like it. But either he pulled some dirty shit, which made him no better than the people they both put in jail, or…what?

  Zielinski concentrated on the thought. Or…even if the city tried to screw him over, he still didn’t have to act all self-righteous and holier-than-thou about it.

  He wished he knew which it was. Knowing might make him feel worse about either Garrett or his own police department, but it wouldn’t eat at him like not knowing did.

  And Dana, what was her problem? When she’d been a sergeant, she’d been intuitive as hell. During his first divorce, they got coffee frequently, and she always seemed to be able to tell when he needed to talk about what was happening, and when he needed to talk about anything but that. But yesterday, he tried to confide in her about Garrett and all he got was more of the party line. How Garrett was a model officer, and Zielinski shouldn’t worry his little mind about it.

  He was sure that she’d finally succumbed to the brass infection. He’d seen it many times before. People changed when they got promoted. Most turned into brassholes. Only one in twenty changed for the better or stayed true to their roots. He honestly thought she’d be that one, but he was wrong. She was one of them now.

  Which left only one person he could talk to: Detective Ward Clint. Heaven forbid, he actually called the man that.

  “Ward!” he yelled into the silence of his apartment.

  Where did he get off being so pretentious about his name? At least people could pronounce his name. Try walking around the world with a last name like Zielinski for a while. Still, Clint was a good at what he did. For a while now, he’d been sure Clint knew something. His skill as a detective was only over-shadowed by his reputation as the Honey Badger.

  “He don’t give a shit,” Zielinski said in a slight falsetto, remembering the YouTube video featuring Clint’s namesake. And Clint didn’t give a shit, either. In a way, Zielinski respected that. He wondered if it made life easier, or harder.

  Clint was a damn good detective. If anyone could figure out if Garrett was the victim or the bad guy, it was Clint. But he said he didn’t know a damn thing. He was a typical honey badger prick asshole son of a bitch, who said…what did he say again?

  Zielinski took another sip of the Jameson, even though he knew that wasn’t going to help cut through all the booze haze he was floating in. He tried to focus on his conversation with Clint, pulling it from his memory banks, running it through his mind.

  He’d practically begged the detective to answer his questions. To tell him he wasn’t crazy. Clint had to be able to see how much this was tearing him apart. Instead of helping a brother out, he said…

  Zielinski focused.

  He said…

  Clint’s direct tone brayed at him in his mind. I don’t know if you’re crazy or not, but your suspicions about this case are not accurate.

  That was it. That was it, word for word. He could sit on the witness stand and testify to it. No compassion, no willingness to help. Just a condescending and dismissive your suspicions about this case are not accurate…

  Zielinski stopped. Blinked.

  He ran the words through his mind again.

  Your suspicions about this case are not accurate.

  About this case…

  One of the things that made Clint a great detective was how precise he was. Every time Zielinski came across him, Clint impressed him with that precision. He was precise across the board, and that included language.

  About this case.

  No way would the man put it that way unless it was an active case for him. He’d say that case but not this case.

  Clint knew. That hard-headed, elitist, anti-social conspiracy nut knew.

  Zielinski thought on it some more while he sipped. He felt sure about his conclusion, but the skeptical part of his mind kept whispering that it was pretty thin, that he was making something out of nothing, that it was good old Detective Jameson solving this one, and it was all bullshit.

  Maybe. But maybe not.

  One thing was for sure. It didn’t make his life any easier. It only added another person to the list of people he could no longer trust.

  Or could he? Clint was probably keeping his cards close to his chest because he didn’t want anyone, including him, to muck up whatever he was working on. Maybe if he had another talk with the man…

  Zielinski’s chin drooped to his chest, and he almost fel
l asleep right there. When he jerked back awake, he put down the empty glass, and staggered to the bedroom. He struggled out of his clothing and flopped onto the bed.

  As a drunken sleep took him, his last thought was, I can help you, Honey Badger.

  CHAPTER 33

  Tyler Garrett parked down the block and exited his car. Even though he wasn’t on shift, it was still a good operational habit. His eyes scanned the neighborhood as he approached the house.

  He’d been by there earlier in the day, but no one had been home. It was his day off, so he was in no hurry to make contact. Truth be told, he didn’t know what kind of outcome he was hoping for. This was more of an exploratory meeting. If something came from it, great. If not, he was out nothing but some time.

  However, there was nothing gained if he didn’t at least try. That’s what he was always telling his son, Jake.

  Councilman Dennis Hahn lived in a mid-century modern home on the South Hill. It was a pretentious dwelling as far as Garrett was concerned. The yard was professionally groomed. The garden was picture-perfect. And the house looked like it belonged on a magazine cover.

  The spring sun had set a couple of hours ago and the house was lit up. Inside, a family moved about. They seemed to be in a good mood as they were laughing. Garrett saw the councilman and a woman he deemed age appropriate for his wife. There were two girls who appeared to be in their late teens. They were giggling and jumping with each other in front of the living room window.

  Garrett took the whole scene in as he approached the house. As he got closer, he could see a television on in the living room, but some music drifted outside.

  He bounded the stairs to the front of the house and rang the doorbell.

  “I’ll get it,” a female called from inside.

  The front door opened, and a teenage girl stood there behind the screen door. She was in black volleyball shorts and a T-shirt. He couldn’t put his finger on the song, but it was a popular dance song he’d heard recently in the clubs.