Code Four

by Colin Conway

  “You know it is.”

  “We all knew it at the scene, six weeks ago. Tell me something I don’t know.”

  Harris looked exasperated. “That’s what I’ve been doing with this briefing.”

  “No. You’ve been detailing tasks.”

  “Tasks are important.”

  “They are,” Clint agreed. “Tasks are crucial. But they are outputs. What’s the outcome?”

  “Look, I don’t need you to lecture me on—”

  “Why did Leon Strayer shoot Officer Gary Stone?” Clint asked.

  “That’s impossible to know. Strayer is dead.”

  Clint narrowed his eyes slightly. “So the only way to figure out a person’s motive is if they confess it? You must be some detective.”

  McNutt dropped his arms and took a half step forward. Clint shot him a warning look. At the same time, Harris lifted a restraining hand toward McNutt. With a scowl, the male detective stepped back, crossing his arms again.

  “Now you’re just being a dick,” Harris said to Clint. “Are you purposefully trying to insult me?”

  “If that’s what it takes to get you to think outside of the box.”

  “There is no box,” Harris snapped. “That’s a worn-out cliché. My job is to find and analyze evidence.”

  “Fine. My question stands. Why did Strayer shoot Officer Stone?”

  “I have a theory,” Harris said grudgingly.

  Clint turned up his hand. “Let’s hear it.”

  Harris hesitated, then said, “There was a third body at the scene.”

  “Richard Van Pelt.”

  “Right. He lived there. That’s who Garrett and Stone were going to contact at the house that day. Apparently, they saw Van Pelt as a way to get to his half-brother, who was someone their Anti-Crime Team was targeting.”

  Clint nodded. The short-lived Anti-Crime Team had enjoyed significant success in its brief run.

  “Van Pelt was killed with a shotgun, just like Gary Stone,” Harris continued. “I believe that Strayer murdered Van Pelt. Officers Stone and Garrett arrived before he could flee the scene. He was trapped, so he decided to shoot it out.”

  “So your theory is that it was all a coincidence?”

  Harris shrugged. “More like bad timing. Officer Stone didn’t know what was waiting for him behind that door. He stumbled into an unplanned ambush.” She peered more closely at Clint. “Why? Do you have a better theory?”

  I do, Clint thought.

  But not one I can share with you.

  So instead, he shook his head and said, “No. I’m just the token black man on this detail.”

  Harris rolled her eyes. “You bust my balls with the race card? You don’t have something better? Come on. Where’s the legendary Wardell Clint conspiracy theories? The uncanny insight? Seriously, educate me.”

  Her sarcasm glanced off Clint without effect. “Even if your theory is correct, it doesn’t explain why Strayer killed Van Pelt.”

  “I don’t know why. Maybe something to do with his half-brother, William Schloss.”

  “But you interviewed Schloss,” Clint said. “I saw the report.”

  “Then you know he didn’t say squat,” McNutt said. “Which means that Strayer probably killed Van Pelt over some junkie burglar bullshit vendetta. It doesn’t matter. The case is sewn up. Why are you making this more difficult than it has to be?”

  Clint didn’t answer. Even if he could share all he knew, he wouldn’t give McNutt the satisfaction. He realized this was the end of the investigation as far as McNutt and Harris were concerned. As a formality, they’d likely leave the case open until the remainder of the lab work came back, just in case any of those findings conflicted with their conclusions. But he expected they’d send over a preliminary findings report to the chief and the sheriff. The two chief executives would read about the tragedy of two aggressive police officers on a directed-enforcement team who stumbled upon a murder-in-progress, resulting in one officer killed and the other forced to take the life of a suspect.

  Only Clint knew that wasn’t what happened. The problem was proving it.

  “Remember to copy me on all your reports,” he said abruptly, then turned and strode away. McNutt muttered a curse after him.

  Clint walked through the Sheriff’s Office side of the Public Safety Building, not making eye contact with anyone. His mind whirred through Harris’s investigation one more time, looking for anything he’d learned that he didn’t already know. There was nothing of consequence.

  He should have expected that. He’d seen how Tyler Garrett had carefully orchestrated everything since that hot August night almost two years ago when he had been in the shooting that started this odyssey.

  Todd Trotter was the unarmed suspect that Garrett shot to death on a traffic stop. Clint had been assigned to shadow Harris and McNutt for that investigation, too. While he had been sarcastic when he called himself the token black man on her case a few minutes before, that was exactly what he had been on the Trotter shooting. The chief himself had reportedly demanded he be assigned. Typical of the brass, the chief was more concerned about the optics of the situation than whether Clint was a good detective. A black officer had just shot a white suspect. It might have been the reverse of how the scenario played out to a bad end in some cities, but Clint could see how it would be a problem in Spokane. He still resented being assigned simply because of his race, though.

  In the end, what he discovered stunned him, and he’d been dealing with it ever since. The enormity of Tyler Garrett’s actions was only matched by the politics in play around them both. Clint developed enough circumstantial evidence to support an arrest, but it didn’t matter. Politics trumped his facts. After initially backing away from Garrett after the shooting and an arrest for drugs found under his bathroom sink, the city abruptly changed direction and embraced him as a favorite son. The Trotter shooting was ruled clean, the drug charges inexplicably dropped, and Garrett was awarded a cash settlement to avoid a lawsuit. That effectively put Clint’s investigation on ice.

  Clint wondered now if he should have forced the issue right then, two years ago. If he had, would the chief have seen it the way he did? He wasn’t sure. Baumgartner struck Clint as old-school honest. The man believed in the truth but was pragmatic about it. Sometimes that meant swallowing a lie. And the mayor was a hard-headed, self-serving politician who wouldn’t budge unless it benefited him. Once he decided that Garrett was more use to him as a hero than a sacrifice, it was a done deal, one that Baumgartner was forced to accept.

  I hate politics.

  A voice broke into his thoughts. “Wardell?”

  He glanced toward the sound. It came from Jody Lauren, a crime scene technician. Her unit provided forensic services to both the Sheriff’s Office and to the police. Clint had worked with her many times, and she was good at her job. He started his own career in the same unit, so if he had a soft spot for anyone at all, it was for the crime scene techs.

  “How are you?” he asked, gesturing toward her swollen belly.

  “Miserable.” Jody grinned. “And I’ve got another eleven weeks to go.”

  Clint struggled for some kind of small talk. He quickly calculated her due date. “Tuesday is a good day to be born,” he said.

  Jody chuckled at that. “The way I feel, any day is a good day for this little parasite to come out.”

  Clint couldn’t think of a response, so he forced a smile that felt more like a grimace.

  Jody said, “Did you get the findings on the fingernail scrapings in the Meyer case?”

  That piqued his interest. “Not yet. Did you?”

  “No. But I checked with the lab early yesterday, and the supervisor there said they were working on them as we spoke. If they finished, the report might be in your box already.”

  Clint wondered briefly why the lab steadfastly refused to simply email reports, instead of using the antiquated interoffice mail system that was about as efficient as the pony express.
“I’ll check as soon as I get back.”

  “Sorry it’s taken so long,” Jody said.

  “Not your fault. You did your part, getting the skin from under her nails in the first place. You can’t control that they’re backed up at the lab.”

  “I know. Anyway, I have to get to the bathroom.” She patted her stomach. “I tell ya, this little girl must be Irish, the way she is stomping on my bladder.”

  Clint nodded his goodbye. He continued out of the county side of the building, and past the records division.

  Like so many others, Jody was blissfully unaware that the murder of Sonya Meyer was also connected to Garrett. Clint hadn’t suspected so when he was assigned the case as next up in the rotation. But when Garrett inserted himself into the investigation, Clint knew he was involved somehow. The officer claimed to be there at the behest of a councilman, who turned out to have been having an affair with Meyer. Even so, it wasn’t the councilman’s DNA Clint expected to find under Meyer’s nails from where she’d scratched her assailant. He hoped to find Garrett’s, but hope was not a plan. Besides that, Garrett had appeared uninjured at the time, so Clint was skeptical. Slam-dunk evidence like that had been nonexistent in his unsanctioned, off-book case against Garrett.

  Most of his effort had involved following Garrett, who was notably careful, and finding little of value.

  Things changed when Garrett was assigned to the Anti-Crime Team. His customary caution slipped. Clint’s surveillance eventually caught Garrett meeting with a man named Earl Ellis. He’d been unable to get a good picture of the two together, but the lead still broke his investigation open.

  Clint began following Ellis instead, and that soon revealed a network of drug dealers that the man met on an ongoing basis. One of them had a telltale fishhook scar on his cheek. It was only later, when Clint saw the dead man lying in a house on Havana Street, that he learned his name.

  Leon Strayer.

  The picture was immediately clear to Clint, even though he couldn’t share it with Detective Harris. Garrett must have told Ellis to recruit a shooter. Ellis chose Strayer, whose task was to kill Richard Van Pelt in his home and lay in wait for officers Stone and Garrett. Garrett manufactured the reason for him and Stone to go to the house. When Stone came through the front door of 5606 North Havana Street, Strayer gunned him down. Then Tyler Garrett coldly dispatched Strayer.

  Clint wasn’t sure why Garrett chose to kill Stone. All he knew for certain was that Gary Stone was dead and Tyler Garrett was responsible.

  He knew it.

  He couldn’t prove it.

  Not yet.

  In the aftermath of Stone’s death, Clint watched with growing anger as the police department and the public further lionized Garrett. It galled him that a man could sully the badge the way Garrett so brazenly did and get away with it. And yet, what proof did Clint have? He had photographs of Ellis meeting with Strayer, but no physical evidence connecting Ellis and Garrett. To build a case even on circumstantial evidence, he needed to at least prove that connection. So far, he couldn’t.

  And now Ellis had disappeared, too.

  Clint realized that he had to consider the very real possibility that Garrett had killed Ellis. As his only link to the rest of his criminal network, Ellis represented Garrett’s greatest threat. But he was also Garrett’s shield from the street-level dealers he employed. Since Ellis handled all those interactions, Garrett was insulated.

  It was a quandary, and Clint wasn’t sure how Garrett would resolve it. But the longer Ellis remained missing, the better the chances that Garrett had eliminated him. Which was a shame, because if he could have found a way to turn Ellis into a cooperating witness, Garrett’s entire house of cards would come tumbling down.

  Clint strode into the Major Crimes bullpen. Detective Marty Hill sat at his desk, hunched over and mumbling into a digital recorder. Later, a secretary would transcribe the report. The process was supposed to be faster and more efficient, but in Clint’s experience, the timesaving was a push at best. He preferred to type his own reports. If the department really wanted to be more efficient, they’d mandate that detectives get some keyboarding skills.

  At his own desk, Clint performed a quick yet surreptitious inspection to ensure that nothing had been disturbed. All his drawers and cabinets were still locked, though the locking mechanisms were chintzy. The nothing case file that Lieutenant Flowers had assigned him yesterday lay undisturbed on his desktop. He’d left the file, six inches away and perfectly aligned at a right angle with the edge of his landline telephone, as a ruse to see if anyone was snooping through his things. The still-locked drawers and cabinets suggested no one had, but he knew how easy the desk locks could be defeated. The file remained undisturbed, however, still perfectly square to the phone.

  His diligence was mostly out of habit. He rarely kept his Garrett-related notes in his desk. Most of the time, he stored them in a locked box in his trunk and only reviewed them at home or in his car. On the rare occasion that he brought a file to his desk, he guarded it carefully.

  Satisfied, Clint headed toward the mailboxes outside the lieutenant’s office to see if Jody was correct about the lab report on the Meyer case. Halfway there, someone called his name.

  “Wardell.”

  Clint recognized Captain Tom Farrell’s voice before he turned. “Captain?”

  “We need to talk.”

  Clint glanced around. They stood in the broad walkway that separated the detectives’ bullpen and the secretary pool, and near the lieutenant’s office. Clint couldn’t imagine a worse place to discuss secrets.

  “Not here,” he said.

  “Now!” Farrell snapped.

  Before Clint could respond, the captain wheeled and strode away.

  Clint considered ignoring him and continuing with his own business. But he knew Farrell would be back—they shared too many secrets for him not to return. Ever since the formation of the Anti-Crime Team, Farrell had seemingly become more and more unraveled. Clint didn’t want to risk a slip of the tongue from the harried administrator, so he followed.

  Farrell led him down the hall and out the west doors, an employee-only entrance. It was also a favorite place for smokers to congregate, in clear violation of the state law regarding proximity to a building entrance. There were no smokers now, however.

  Ten yards away from the door, Farrell stopped and waited. Clint moved close enough to the captain to encourage a low tone of voice. Farrell got the point, as he spoke in a hushed whisper.

  “DOJ is coming.”

  Clint pulled back in mild surprise. “Here?”

  “Yes, here. Today.”

  “Why?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “So you’re telling me shit you have no idea about? Just to raise my blood pressure?”

  “No,” Farrell said. He waved his hand, irritated. “The chief figures it’s because of everything. Stone, the business with the councilman, Garrett’s shooting, all of it. It adds up to something, and they’re interested.”

  “Good for them.”

  “Don’t be flippant. This is serious.”

  Clint shook his head. “If the feds want to poke around, what do I care?”

  Farrell’s eyes widened. “Seriously?” He glanced around to make sure no one was nearby. “If they find out we’ve been running a secret investigation off the books on Garrett for two years…” He let the thought hang in the air.

  Clint twirled his finger. “Then what?”

  Farrell’s expression was incredulous. “Have you suddenly forgotten how precarious our situation is here?”

  “Precarious?” Clint shook his head at the word, finding it an overstatement. “DOJ coming doesn’t matter. Do you really think that some half-assed fed is going to break open a case I’ve been trying to crack for two years?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “It sounds like the point.”

  “Goddammit, Wardell. The point is that when we bring this case i
n, it has to be done right. Otherwise, you and I will end up with our asses in a sling.”

  Clint shrugged. That much was true.

  “Don’t shrug like it doesn’t matter,” said Farrell. “I don’t want any stink on this when we take him down.”

  Clint grunted. “Captain, you’re aiming way too high. Everything about this case stinks. We can’t avoid that now. There’s only one thing we need to focus on.”

  “Which is?”

  “Justice.”

  Farrell let out long sigh of frustration. “Well, the Department of Justice is coming here on a fact-finding mission later today. And if they don’t like what they see, they’ll report back to Washington, D.C., and we’ll have a full-fledged investigation on our hands. Once that happens, the most likely outcome is a consent decree.”

  Clint thought about that. He knew little about consent decrees, but he did know that if DOJ slapped one on the department, it was tantamount to a complete takeover. The ensuing demands would hamstring his efforts to bring down Garrett. Not only would everyone from the lieutenants on up be scrambling to create or modify policy or gather data, but that shit would roll downhill to the detectives and officers. Moreover, the increased, constant scrutiny might result in exactly what Farrell feared—the premature revelation of their two-year, clandestine investigation into Tyler Garrett before they had sufficient evidence to charge him.

  Under the cloud of suspicion that came with a consent decree, he knew that it wouldn’t necessarily be Garrett’s wrongdoing that got the most attention. Clint and Farrell’s methods would come under fire, and the DOJ investigators would almost certainly see that as proof of a corrupt department. Clint believed there was some minor crooked behavior going on at SPD and especially city hall, but outside of everything surrounding Garrett, things were a long way from corrupt.

  “I see what you mean,” he said.

  “Good.”

  “We’ll need to be careful.”

  “What?” Farrell shook his head. “Careful? No. We need to suspend the Garrett investigation while DOJ is still in the house. Stop everything. Once they leave, we can—”