by Colin Conway
“There wasn’t any cover-up,” he said. The tone of the mayor’s voice had softened slightly.
“What’s the name of your river?” she asked.
“The Spokane. And that allegation was disproved.”
Durand inhaled deeply before turning away from the window. “A councilman had a relationship with a seventeen-year-old.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t.”
“When she reported the rape to your office, you asked Chief Baumgartner to handle it quietly.”
Sikes swiped more sweat from his forehead before drying his hand along the side of his pants.
“Or am I misunderstanding the chain of events?”
“Baumgartner,” Sikes said. “Baumgartner handled it that way. I never wanted it to be quiet.”
Durand cocked her head. “You didn’t?”
“Not me. No fucking way. Baumgartner was looking for leverage. It was what he wanted. He’s a political shark, that one.” The mayor shook his finger at her. “He suggested we keep it quiet. It was his idea. He said we should find out if there was something there. And if there was, we could use it against the councilman.”
“How would you use it?”
The mayor repeatedly blinked as he considered an answer.
“Should I repeat the question?”
Sikes shook his head. “I don’t know how he would use it.”
“So the chief presents a cockamamie idea like that and you went along with it?”
Another swipe and another wipe along the pant leg, but the mayor kept his mouth shut. His hand settled around his ankle and he angrily grasped it. She wondered if he imagined strangling her.
“And when it all blew up?” Durand asked.
“I disciplined him.”
She nodded. So far, the mayor was confirming everything she had read in the newspaper’s coverage of the events. “A three-day suspension,” she said. “You sure showed him.”
Sikes flexed his jaw. “I’m still the goddamn mayor and you need to show some respect.”
She closed her eyes and nodded several times. When she opened her eyes she said, “Mr. Mayor.” She paused to let it stand out from what she was about to say. “That girl killed herself.”
New beads of sweat formed on the mayor’s forehead. She was no longer sure these were from his workout. “We don’t know if that had anything to do with—”
“A three-day suspension for the chief and the councilman walks away from his post.”
Sikes pointed at her. “I kicked out that little shit, too. The one that caused the whole thing.”
“Who’s that?”
“Gary Stone. Baumgartner’s spy.”
“The officer who investigated the girl’s allegation.”
“That’s right. He’s the one to blame.”
“And you kicked him out of where exactly?”
“Here,” Sikes said and pointed absently toward somewhere on the seventh floor. “He had an office just down the hall.”
“So you removed him from city hall after the newspaper reported this incident?”
“I couldn’t trust that little prick no more.”
“You think he leaked the story?”
“He denied it. So did Baumgartner. But who else could it have been?”
Durand smiled. “So what you’re telling me, Mr. Mayor…” Again, she paused when she used his official title. “Is that you punished a whistleblower?”
His eyes widened. “That’s not what I did.” Realizing his initial reaction was too small for the gravity of Durand’s accusation, Sikes jumped to his feet and stared at her. “He never blew a whistle. He never gave me a chance to fix anything. That little shit talked to the news.”
“And you know that how?”
The mayor’s fists balled. “I know because I know.”
Durand nodded and turned back to the windows. “And the chief got three days off.”
“That’s right. Without pay.”
“And you got nothing.”
“I think you’re over-simplifying—”
“You’ve had a string of bad luck under your administration.”
“Bullshit,” Sikes said. “That’s bullshit. I’ve done great things while in office. Better than any administration before me. All you’ve got to do is look around to see what I’ve done. There’s been more—”
Durand spun to him. The move surprised the mayor, and he took a reflexive step back.
“Two dead cops,” she said and held up as many fingers. Then she pointed both those fingers at Sikes. “Those deaths happened on your watch.”
“Baumgartner,” he blurted. “It was his watch, too. Those cops are Baumgartner’s responsibility.”
“But he’s your chief of police.”
“My… so that’s how it is, huh?” Sikes straightened and wiped his brow again. The two stood in an uneasy silence for several moments. Finally, Sikes spoke but his words were careful and slow. “What if he’s gone? You know what I’m suggesting, don’t you? If that happens, does that get rid of you?”
“Me?”
The mayor clucked his tongue. “The federal government. Don’t play dense. If I agree to dump Baumgartner, can I make this whole thing go away?”
At that moment, Édelie Durand imagined Mayor Andrew Sikes to be Humpty Dumpty. He had fallen off his wall and been mightily cracked, but he was still in one piece and trying to reclaim his place atop his perch. She needed to push him off his ledge again.
“Why haven’t you found the shooters who ambushed Tyler Garrett?”
Sikes lowered his head as he thought. As he did so, she realized she was going to have to thank Dani Watson for this line of questioning.
“Mr. Mayor?”
He looked up. Confusion was in his eyes.
“The shooters?” Durand repeated. “How come you—”
“I thought we had arrested them.” His tone was no longer combative.
She shook her head. “As far as we can tell, no arrests. Not for that.”
“Baumgartner,” he muttered.
“But the city did pay Garrett three-quarters of a million as a settlement for false arrest.” She held up a hand. “Please don’t say Baumgartner. He wasn’t the one who told you to settle.”
His eyes bounced around for a moment before he said, “My former chief of staff. Heavy on the former.”
“Your former—”
“That’s right. My biggest mistake was trusting the advice of someone I shouldn’t. He wanted to sabotage my administration. The little shit ran against me in the next election. I think he was setting me up all along, from way back.”
Durand inhaled deeply. She had heard enough.
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Mayor.”
“Wait. Aren’t we going to discuss the logistics for your visit? That type of thing?”
“This here,” Durand pointed to the floor, “was for us to meet. It wasn’t to set the grounds for anything. That will come later.”
“Later?”
Durand nodded. “If we open a formal inquiry.”
“You’re not doing that now?”
She shook her head. “We’re only here to get the lay of the land.”
“Of course,” Sikes said, forcing a smile that looked close to reptilian. “Of course.”
He extended a sweaty hand.
Durand politely bowed and headed for the door. Before leaving, she said, “Mr. Mayor?”
He had remained standing near the couch.
“Huh?”
“In the incidents we discussed, there was never one name mentioned as having any culpability in these matters.”
“Who’s that?”
“You.”
Sikes touched his blue tie. “Me?”
“Do you think you have any responsibility in what’s occurred?”
His brow furrowed and he smirked. “What did I do?”
Durand shook her head. “We’ll be in touch.”
Chapter 12
Ray Zielinski nursed
a beer at end of the bar of the Happy Time Tavern. The small, rectangular establishment was barely larger than a three-car garage, but it still afforded him some measure of privacy.
He’d been debating whether or not to order a shot for the past half hour while watching a courtroom reality show on the small TV mounted on the wall. The dispute involved damage to a borrowed car, which reminded him a little too much of his own situation. The entire mess he was in with Darold Barden started with a minor collision in his patrol car.
I should’ve just reported it. If I had done that…
If he’d done that, what? There would have been a founded collision investigation, resulting in some sort of sanction. His concern at the time was that he already had two open demeanor investigations in Internal Affairs. If either of those had come back founded, the collision would have served as a springboard to greater punishment.
Like suspension, you mean?
Zielinski shook his head ruefully. Suspension, even without pay, wasn’t a big deal to him anymore. Not when he was looking at the possibility of termination. All because the guy he bumped into with his cruiser had called in a favor. Get the abusive guy who was dating his ex-girlfriend to leave her alone. It sounded simple, but it had grown into a mess. He wished he could ask for a do-over, take his preventable collision finding along with the reprimand or suspension that went with it. It was far better than the jackpot he was in now after paying back the other driver for not reporting the incident. In the end, Zielinski inserted himself into a stupid situation that he only made stupider, and now here he was.
In a bar, in the middle of the day.
Was it even noon yet?
He glanced at his watch. A little after one. Well, that was good, at least. He wasn’t an alcoholic on top of everything else.
Above him, the TV plaintiff whined to the TV judge about the TV defendant. All three parties seemed more concerned about their performance than the actual outcome of the case. Zielinski wondered if the dispute was real, or if it had been contrived for the drama of the program. Reality television that was scripted. The thought made his head spin.
Maybe he did need that shot.
He hesitated, though. The Happy Time was, as the name would suggest, a friendly hole-in-the-wall place. Cops were welcome alongside every other walk of life. But it wasn’t a cop bar, so he wasn’t insulated. His words and actions were still on display and seen through the public lens. It wouldn’t do for him to get sloppy drunk. Sitting here in the middle of a weekday was bad enough.
If he’d wanted to get hammered, the place for that was the Maxwell House, the last true cop bar in the city. There, he was just another guy getting his drink on. The non-police patrons were used to cops, having shed most of the preconceptions that much of the public had, so he didn’t have to worry about upholding the dignity of his position.
Of course, like everything else in his life, the Maxwell House was fading away, at least as a cop bar. His generation still frequented the place, but the younger cops flitted from popular bar to trendy brewpub, and the tradition of the Maxwell House slowly died.
It didn’t matter. He couldn’t show his face there right now anyway. He was persona non grata at the department, and he was sure that extended beyond the walls of the Public Safety Building to include cop bars. So he sat at the Happy Time instead, where at least no one would find him. He sipped his beer, longed for a shot, and watched a contrived courtroom argument on a television that hung above the bar.
“Hello, Ray.”
Zielinski turned to the stool next to him in time to see Detective Wardell Clint settle onto it. While he gaped in astonishment, Pamela, the daytime bartender, walked down.
“Seltzer water,” Clint told her. “My day isn’t over quite yet.”
She nodded and moved away.
“Whuh-what are you doing here?” Zielinski sputtered.
“I came to speak with you.”
“No, I mean, how did you know I was here?”
Clint frowned. “I talked to the subcontractor you’ve been working for. He said there weren’t any jobs today.”
“You talked to…?” Zielinski shook his head in surprise.
“You weren’t at home, either. So I figured the most likely option was that you were having a liquid lunch somewhere.”
Zielinski wished it weren’t true. No work on a weekday? He should have called his kids. They were out of school for the summer. He could have taken them to the zoo or something. Then he remembered Spokane no longer had a zoo. Besides, his kids were too old for the zoo and they mostly avoided doing things with him unless they had to.
He couldn’t get past the fact that Clint had found him. “How’d you know I was here, though?”
Clint gave him the same frown again. “Come on. You’re not going to show your face at the Maxwell House. After that, there’s only four police-friendly bars left in this town that you’d be likely to go to.”
“Where else did you look?”
“This was the first place, but I got lucky.” He shook his head. “Don’t look so amazed. It isn’t exactly rocket science.”
Pamela plonked a club soda in front of Clint. Zielinski watched as the detective removed the lime and bit into it, then followed that with a swig of the soda water.
When Clint framed it that way, Zielinski supposed finding him wasn’t such a tall order. He’d become predictable, a man of habit. Unfortunately, most of those habits were bad ones.
“What do you want?” he asked, suddenly irritated with Clint having disturbed his solitude.
“DOJ has arrived in Spokane,” Clint pronounced.
“I heard.”
Clint raised a brow, as if impressed.
“Don’t look so amazed. I had a meeting this morning with Dale Thomas, but I don’t know any more than them being in town.”
A faint hint of a smile touched Clint’s lips. “This is only the beginning, an exploratory trip. They’ll scare together a few facts that fit their opinion of Spokane as a corrupt police department in a corrupt city, and then they’ll scuttle back to Washington, D.C. and make their report. That’s when the big guns come out.”
“You make it sound like a foregone conclusion.”
“Son, please. This is the federal government we’re talking about here. All of this is for show, so they can get what they want.”
“You mean a consent decree.”
Clint nodded. “Justice comes in, takes over the department, and remakes it in a kinder, gentler, more politically correct image. Uncle Sam saves the citizens from the evils of a corrupt local police.” He shook his head. “It’s a song they keep playing over and over.”
Zielinski didn’t answer. Wardell Clint’s conspiracy-ridden view of the world was legendary, and he had no desire to see how deep the man thought the rabbit hole went.
“What do I care? That’s for the brass to worry about.”
Clint huffed. “You know better than that. Shit rolls downhill, not up. Under normal circumstances, that’s what you should be worried about.”
“Normal circumstances?”
“As in common. Everyday. Run-of-the-mill.”
“No, I know what normal means, but what do you mean?” Zielinski wondered if Clint was referring to his current situation, and the looming danger of a long suspension or getting outright fired.
Clint glanced at Pamela, who had propped open the service door. She held a lit cigarette past the threshold and leaned out to take a drag. Seemingly satisfied that she was out of earshot, Clint said, “When DOJ comes in and takes over, our chance to nail Tyler Garrett goes with it.”
Zielinski’s stomach fell. He’d heard enough about the golden child of the department to last a lifetime. Then a thought occurred to him. “Wait, wouldn’t DOJ being here help catch Garrett? That’s the kind of thing they’re looking for, isn’t it?”
“Don’t be naïve.”
“Maybe having outsiders—”
“DOJ isn’t interesting in taking down indi
viduals,” Clint said brusquely. “Their interest is in taking over departments. I’m sure they’d delight in finding out all about Garrett, but only because they would use it to point to systemic corruption, to justify a consent decree.”
Zielinski mulled it over. “Still, it might cast a little sunshine on things.”
Clint snorted. “You want sunshine, go to San Diego. Trust me on this. If DOJ comes in, the odds of Garrett seeing justice go down considerably. And I wouldn’t put it past the crafty son of a bitch to go running to them himself if he gets hemmed in. Cut a deal for immunity and tell them whatever they want to hear.”
Zielinski let out a heavy breath and watched his beer ripple from it. He felt incredibly weary. “I don’t care,” he said. “I’ve got troubles of my own.”
“And those aren’t going away,” Clint agreed. “But our window to bring in this case is closing fast.”
Zielinski took in Clint’s words. He recalled the hot August night, two years ago, when he’d been the first to arrive on the scene of the Todd Trotter shooting. His own words echoed back to him now.
Tell me this was a good shooting.
Garrett had assured him it was. And the city and the prosecutor had eventually agreed with him. But Zielinski had suspected differently, and that suspicion blossomed into outright certainty. His time on the Anti-Crime Team with Garrett only reinforced that belief. Then, in the aftermath of Gary Stone’s death, Clint had confirmed it for him.
“It isn’t my problem,” he said, though his words rang hollow even to his own ears.
“Not your problem?” Clint cocked his head. “Is this the same man who came to my desk, hounding me about what a dirty fiend Tyler Garrett was? Huh? Begging me for information? The same man who—”
Pamela flicked away her cigarette and closed the back door. She went to the sink behind the bar and began to wash her hands.
Clint noticed and lowered his voice. “The same man who I took into my confidence after what happened to Stone?”
Zielinski took a slug of his beer. “That was then, this is now.”
“That is a platitude, not a philosophy.” Clint leaned forward into Zielinski’s personal space. “Do you want to risk this man going free? After all that we know he’s done?”