by Colin Conway
Without looking up, Durand said, “Let’s review some things. Tell me about Gary Stone.”
“Stone was a three-year police officer.” Watson’s voice was devoid of its usual enthusiasm. “A member of the department’s Anti-Crime Team. He was—”
“Describe that,” Durand interrupted.
“What?” Watson said, tilting her head back toward Durand but not bothering to turn around.
Curado didn’t wait for the interpretation of Durand’s demand. “The ACT was a six-man team made up of four officers, one detective, and a sergeant.”
Watson flashed a look of irritation toward her fellow attorney.
“Its mission,” Curado continued, “was directed enforcement against high-profile offenders using crime analytics.”
Durand nodded. Esteban Curado was a lean man in his late thirties. He’d been with the department for nearly a decade now and had been on her team for the last two.
“Stone was a member of this team,” Watson jumped back into the conversation. “He was gunned down during a search for one of these high-profile offenders. His partner—”
“Tyler Garrett,” Curado interrupted.
Watson frowned at the man behind the wheel. “May I continue?”
Curado ignored her question and checked the driver’s side mirror before changing lanes.
“Garrett shot and killed Officer Stone’s assailant,” Watson said as she turned in her seat to face Durand. “No motivation has been tied to Stone’s killing. The sister agency, Spokane County Sheriff’s Office, is still investigating the case. Therefore, no ruling has been made whether Garrett’s shooting was justifiable or not.”
“Can’t imagine it won’t be,” Curado said. “Stone was murdered, and Garrett returned fire almost immediately. Seems it would have been a slam-dunk review by the county.”
“Everyone has to jump through hoops,” Durand muttered. “Even us.”
Curado eyed her with curiosity.
“All that is public information,” Durand said, “so the first thing I want you to do is get your hands on the initial shooting report. Better yet, get the county’s report.”
“What if the county says no?” Curado asked. He didn’t bother looking back when he spoke.
Durand inhaled deeply again and glanced out her window. “Ask nicely.”
Curado said, “What if—” but Watson chopped off his question.
“We’ll handle it,” she said assertively.
Durand glanced down to her file for a moment then asked, “Tell me about Tyler Garrett.”
“Former SWAT officer,” Watson said. “Recipient of the Lifesaving Award.”
“He’s been involved in two shootings,” Curado added. He flicked the indicator to signal a lane change just as he moved around a slow-moving pickup. “The first was two years ago, an ambush after he initiated a traffic stop and was targeted by shooters from a nearby house.”
Watson said, “The victim in that shooting was a white male. A known criminal. No gun was found at the scene. Even so, the shooting was ruled justified by the investigating agency. The county sheriff again.”
Durand nodded with satisfaction. They had reviewed the files back in D.C., but she wanted to ensure her attorneys had the pertinent details committed to memory so they could think on their feet. She disapproved of those subordinates who had to constantly refer to a file while interviewing witnesses. It looked weak and ineffectual.
“What do we know about the ambushers?” she asked.
Curado looked in the rearview mirror. “Nothing.”
“I’ve been—” She gripped the file as Curado hit the brakes, then accelerated to move around a semi. “I’ve been thinking about that.”
“Sorry,” he said into the mirror. “These Washington drivers…”
Durand smirked and reset the file on her lap.
Watson’s brow furrowed. “I’ve been thinking about that, too.”
Édelie Durand waited patiently for her subordinate to begin.
“My father was a cop,” Watson said, “and I’ve got to say, if someone ever shot at him, I don’t think the department would have rested until they had the shooter identified.”
Curado’s eyes met Durand’s in the rearview.
Watson continued. “And this wasn’t just a shooting, if there can be such a thing. It was an ambush—a planned and coordinated attack. And SPD leaves the question of who was responsible unanswered? They’ve never identified possible suspects? What the hell?”
Durand cocked her head. “They had other problems that might have pulled attention away from that.”
“You mean the murdered detective?” Curado suggested.
“Butch Talbott,” Durand said. “Killed in Liberty Lake.”
“Where is that, by the way?” he asked.
“East of here,” Watson said and pointed straight ahead. “And their police department never found his shooter, either.”
“State patrol assisted in that investigation,” Curado added.
“That makes it worse.” Danielle Watson’s head swiveled between Durand and Curado. “You see my point, don’t you? Two cops. One dead. One ambushed. No arrests. Isn’t that suspicious?”
“What are you suggesting?” Durand asked.
“Maybe it’s a cover-up.”
“A cover-up?” Durand asked.
“Why not?” Watson said. “It’s happened before.”
Durand waited for Curado to meet her eyes in the mirror, but his gaze remained firmly locked on the road. She turned her attention back to Watson. “I agree with your assertion that it looks suspicious but be careful to jump to a conclusion without knowing the facts.”
Watson lifted her chin to the file in Durand’s lap. “We’ve got the facts. We reviewed them back home. We even got the reports from Liberty Lake to give us a fuller picture.”
“There’s a lot of area still to shine some light on.” Durand noticed a name in the file and her finger dropped to it. She tapped a chipped fingernail under it several times before saying, “I want to interview Tyler Garrett.”
“Today?” Curado asked. “We’ll get him set up—”
“No,” Durand said. “Last. I want to interview him after we get an understanding of the department’s culture. We’ll conduct our reviews and interviews then I’ll sit with him. Did you read the media coverage that I emailed you?”
“It wasn’t very complimentary,” Curado said. “Most of the local politicians don’t think very highly of their own police department. Even the mayor, apparently its most vocal supporter, suspended the chief for an improper report filing on a rape investigation.”
“The thing with the teenage girl, right?” Watson said. “If that isn’t a cover-up, I don’t know what is.”
Durand rubbed the edge of the folder. There had been a recent incident that appeared as if the mayor and the chief colluded to hide a rape allegation against a councilman. The young woman who attempted to report the attack ended up taking her life. It didn’t appear that anyone did much of an investigation into the handling of the case beyond the mayor’s suspending of the chief for three days.
“If I read between the lines,” Watson said, “it sure sounds like their chief is bulletproof.”
Durand sniffed dismissively. “Nobody is bulletproof.”
They drove in silence for a couple minutes. As the Denali exited the freeway and pulled to a stoplight, Curado asked Watson, “So this Garrett, you think what? He was infected by the culture somehow?”
“How could anyone not be?” Watson said as she dropped back into her seat. “Everywhere we’ve gone, it’s the same thing—male-dominated groups, drunk on testosterone and the idea of us versus them, protecting citizens they look down upon. How do they not get infected by that?” She tapped her chest. “I would get infected by that.”
Curado glanced once at Watson but didn’t bother responding. He shook his head and remained silent.
“Don’t let your personal biases affect how we do b
usiness,” Durand reminded.
Watson looked back to her supervisor. She rolled her lips into her mouth and nodded once.
Durand caught a reflection of a smile hinting on Curado’s lips. His eyes danced with delight at his fellow attorney’s dismay.
“That goes for you, too, Steve.”
Curado’s smile faded.
Durand’s chin tucked into her chest and her eyebrows raised. “Don’t think I’m not aware of your biases as well. We all have them, and we need to watch for them constantly. The division is relying on us for an objective recommendation. Understand?”
The two attorneys glanced at each other before mumbling like scolded children, “Yes, ma’am.”
Durand dropped her attention to the file again. She hadn’t read a single word from it during the trip. Instead, the words seemed to blur together whenever she looked at it. The file had given her a convenient excuse to avoid conversation on the plane and allowed her time to be alone with her thoughts.
As far as she was concerned, she needed to get into this town, assess if there was a problem, and get out. It was as simple as that. She was not there to fix anything that was broken nor develop a long-term plan to do so.
All she had to do was slap the hornet’s nest and see if anything flew out.
And if something did, she’d go home and call in the exterminators.
Chapter 5
Captain Tom Farrell washed his hands at the sink. His stomach gurgled and his bowels felt loose, but there was nothing he could do about that now. The captains and lieutenants were assembled in one of the conference rooms down the hall. It was up to him to break the news to them about the Department of Justice, answer their questions, and give them their marching orders. It was a task that required him to appear calm and confident.
He felt neither.
Farrell turned off the faucet and shook water from his hands. Then he reached for a paper towel. The nervous pain that wrenched in his gut was unlike any he’d felt before. For a moment, he wondered if he was having a heart attack.
No such luck, he told himself.
He dried his hands and tossed the used paper towel toward the garbage. The wet, limp brown paper caught the rim of the container and fluttered to the ground instead. Farrell stared at it for a moment, then muttered, “Screw it,” and left the restroom.
This all went back to Tyler Garrett. Outside of that, he had nothing to fear, and this department had nothing to fear, from the Department of Justice. Sure, the Betty Rabe incident with the philandering councilman had been dicey, but Farrell blamed most of that on the mayor. Aside from Garrett, he believed that the Spokane Police Department was a good one, with cops who worked hard, and who cared.
But Garrett was a cancer, and like cancer polluting the cells around it, Garrett had polluted others around him.
Including Farrell.
Even if DOJ discovered the entire slate of Garrett’s crimes, that wouldn’t be the story, he knew. The story would be how a crooked white captain conducted an off-book investigation of a black officer for two years.
He could see the headlines, and the narratives that people would fill in. He’d only be half-surprised if Garrett didn’t somehow manage to come out of it a hero again, just like he did after the Trotter shooting and everything that followed.
He made it to the open conference door far too soon. Before entering, he took a deep breath and tried to steady himself. Then he walked in.
The murmur of conversation ceased as soon as the assembled group saw he’d arrived. He motioned for one of the lieutenants to close the door and began.
“Here’s what’s happening,” he said. “We are going to have a visit today from the Department of Justice.”
The room exploded. Questions flew at him in a torrent, most of them angry in tone. Farrell gave them a few moments, then raised his hands for quiet.
“I know you’re wondering why. So are we.”
“Who’s we?” Captain Dana Hatcher asked. She stood along the wall, her arms crossed.
“The chief and I,” Farrell answered
A low murmur went through the group, and Farrell realized he’d made a mistake. He may have been Baumgartner’s closest confidante, but he was also the same rank as several other captains in the room. Baumgartner had abolished the assistant and deputy chief positions many years ago, immediately after being appointed as chief of police. He tended to rotate the traditional second-in-command duties amongst the various captains. But since the days of Garrett’s first shooting, Baumgartner had kept Farrell closer than anyone else. Farrell knew this had not gone unnoticed.
“Was there a command staff meeting I missed?” Hatcher asked, barely containing her sarcasm.
“No,” Farrell said. “It was an impromptu discussion. The chief only found out about it this morning.”
“What are they doing here?” asked one of the lieutenants.
“He already told you,” Hatcher said. “They don’t know.”
Farrell clenched his jaw. With the ongoing Garrett situation and now DOJ swooping in, the last thing he needed was a renewed skirmish in the cold war he’d found himself engaged in with Hatcher. Given how things turned out, he wished he’d never heard of the Anti-Crime Team. He should have let the idea die when Hatcher proposed it and the chief threw up a stop sign. Instead, he helped convince Baumgartner, who responded by putting him in charge of the unit. Not only did he fail to ensnare Garrett like he’d hoped, but he made a career-long enemy of Hatcher in the process.
He pressed on. “The chief believes their visit is exploratory. The media coverage we’ve gotten over the last couple of years has been highly critical, some of it inflammatory. DOJ sees smoke, so they’re here to find out if there’s any fire.”
“Exploratory, Captain?” Lieutenant Keon asked doubtfully.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” Farrell said, hoping his words were convincing. “It should be painless.”
“I had to have exploratory surgery of my colon last year,” Keon said. “I’m here to tell you, it ain’t painless.”
Some nervous laughter rumbled through the group, but most of it sounded forced to Farrell’s ear.
“The chief’s directions are simple,” he continued. “If one of the DOJ investigators asks you a question, answer it, and answer truthfully.”
“Of course we’ll be truthful,” Hatcher said. “We’re the police. We don’t lie.”
“I realize that,” Farrell said. “That goes without saying.”
“But you just said it.”
“I was…affirming it.”
“Oh.” Hatcher muttered something out of the side of her mouth to the lieutenant next to her, who smirked.
Before the Garrett mess, Tom Farrell would have torn into Hatcher right then. Captain or not, he was senior to her and she was being both insubordinate and disrespectful. But right now, he didn’t have the energy. Besides, he understood why she hated him. If he were in her place, he’d feel the same way.
“Answer all of their questions,” Farrell repeated. “But don’t offer anything. Just answer what is asked, and no more.”
“Sounds like when we’re on the witness stand,” Keon said. “Are we on trial, Captain?”
“No. But we think…” Farrell winced, then corrected himself. “The chief believes they are fishing. They’re looking for something to be wrong, and more information is just more of an opportunity for them to see ghosts in the bushes.”
“You think they’re here because of Stone? Or because Tyler Garrett’s been in a couple shootings?” This came from Bo Sherman, a newly made sergeant. Farrell wasn’t sure why a sergeant was in the room, but guessed Sherman was standing in for his lieutenant on days off or sick. “If a cop is always running toward danger, sooner or later he’s going to end up in a critical incident. Or doesn’t DOJ realize that?” Sherman said, then quickly added, “Sir.”
Farrell shrugged. “I don’t know if that’s the reason.”
“It’s not about G
arrett,” Hatcher replied immediately. “It’s about leadership, and how it has responded to officer-involved shootings, political scandals, and the murder of one of our own.” She fixed her gaze on Farrell. “That kind of thing gets the attention of the feds.”
Farrell noticed how Hatcher had used it instead of we when she referred to leadership, thereby excluding herself. The way she rattled off her statement made him pretty certain she’d picked it up from her friend, Councilwoman Margaret Patterson. That coalition was danger from another corner he wished he didn’t have to worry about.
“If we’re transparent with them,” Farrell said, trying to salvage the meeting, “then it’ll end up being about nothing, except to validate to them what we all already know—that this is a clean department made up of good people.”
There were some muttered positive replies, but just as many dubious looks. Farrell suspected it wasn’t because the leaders in the room didn’t agree with his sentiment about the agency. Rather, it was born of a deep suspicion of the feds and the prevalent concern that if they wanted to find something dirty, that’s what they’d see.
“Let your sergeants know what’s going on,” Farrell said. “And make sure the troops don’t worry about it and focus on getting the job done like always.” Everyone kept staring at him, so he added, “That is all.”
The assembled group shuffled out the door. He noticed Keon and several other lieutenants scowling. Hatcher studiously ignored him while Barry, the administrative captain, seemed unaffected by the news. He wished he could be so blissfully ignorant.
I’ve got to get through the DOJ visit, and then find a way to close out the Garrett case before they come back.
He toyed with the idea that they might not come back, but he knew that rarely happened. When the feds looked for corruption, they almost always found something good enough to slap that label onto it.
Farrell waited until the room was empty, then sank into a nearby chair. He was already drained, and the day had barely begun.
Chapter 6