Code Four

by Colin Conway

  “No,” Farrell agreed. He forced himself to keep his jaw from clenching.

  “Stone was killed in the line of duty.” Curado looked back down at his notes. “Officer Yang resigned from the department. Officer Zielinski is currently suspended. And Officer Garrett shot and killed a second suspect in as many years.”

  Farrell tried to go on the offensive. “What are you getting at?” Even to his own ear, his words lacked the verve of the self-righteous.

  Curado looked up, meeting his gaze. “Just stating facts, Tom. But I’d like to get the context.”

  Farrell tilted his head left and right, stretching the tension from his neck. He was suddenly glad that Yang had resigned. She wasn’t here, so she couldn’t tell Curado or his posse about how he had used her as his eyes within the team. That, at least, was a blessing.

  Curado waited, his expression still friendly and open.

  “The context is that some asshole criminal shot a good officer,” Farrell snapped. “And after that, I suppose Yang decided she didn’t like being a cop. One of her partners got murdered. Who can blame her?”

  “Not me,” Curado agreed.

  “Zielinski’s a good cop who is accused of making one bad decision, and we’re looking into that. But anyone who thinks ill of him should investigate the shooting incident he was involved in earlier this year. That’ll tell you who he is. He had every justification to shoot but didn’t. And Garrett…” Farrell trailed off.

  Curado nodded, encouraging him. “And Garrett…what?”

  Farrell wanted to scream that Garrett was a disgrace to the profession. That Curado’s brother would be as ashamed of him as Farrell was. But he knew he couldn’t. Bringing down Garrett had to happen in the right way, or the slippery bastard would wriggle free. And on top of that, there would be repercussions for Farrell because of his own secret methods.

  “Garrett responded the way he was trained,” he said. “I know it’s getting popular these days to criticize a cop for actually winning a gun fight, but that’s how we prefer it here.”

  Curado laughed lightly. “I think we all do, Tom.”

  Don’t call me Tom, you fakey son of a bitch.

  “An officer died,” he said instead. “It had an impact, as it should.”

  “I’m sorry for that,” Curado said. “I know it must have been hard.”

  Farrell accepted his condolences with a brief nod.

  “And I’m sorry to dredge up these memories. I know the wounds must still be fresh. But it’s my job to ask.”

  “I get it.”

  “What can you tell me about this incident with Bethany Rabe and a councilman?” Curado asked.

  Farrell almost groaned.

  Chapter 21

  Clint found her at the park located less than a mile from her house on Five Mile Prairie.

  Garrett’s house.

  Not anymore. She’d given him the boot, and since then there didn’t appear to be much in the way of love lost. He’d seen plenty of interaction between Angela Garrett and her ex-husband since she’d kicked him out of their home. She kept it civil when the children were present, and never seemed to go beyond a quiet, biting remark even when they were alone. Those spiked when Garrett took up with a young woman named Tiana Kennedy and dipped again when Angela started dating a real estate broker named William Cardwell.

  Clint imagined that last part stung Garrett the most. An older white man with money was shacking up with his wife. Clint didn’t necessarily doubt that Cardwell had some issues of his own, but he was glad to see that Garrett had lost at something. Considering the man had been winning against all odds since he pulled the trigger and launched the bullet that killed Todd Trotter, Clint took a small but grim satisfaction in this one defeat.

  Tyler Garrett lost his wife.

  Cardwell wasn’t with her now. Clint remained in his car, watching long enough to confirm this. He waited a little bit longer while the kids became fully engaged in their play. The boy, Jake, found a trio of other boys near his age and the group threw a small blue and green plastic football around. His little sister, Molly, made a friend on the climbing gear. For her part, Angela Garrett sat at the nearby bench, reading from a tablet and glancing up frequently to check on both of her children. She must have brought them here directly after her shift, as she still wore her nurse’s uniform.

  Clint got out of his car. He angled his approach so that she wouldn’t see him until he was at the bench where she sat. Once he was there, he conspicuously stepped into her peripheral vision.

  She looked up almost immediately. As soon as she recognized Clint, she scowled. “What do you want?”

  Clint sat on the bench but left a respectful space between them. “To talk.”

  “I’ve got nothing to say.”

  He looked at her, his expression impassive. “I think you do.” He noticed her name tag, which read Angela Berg. “Berg? That’s your maiden name, isn’t it?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  Clint thought about it. “It supports a theory I have.”

  Angela flipped the cover over her tablet screen. “I can get a restraining order, you know?”

  “Like the one you have against your ex-husband?”

  “I dropped that.”

  Clint shrugged. “It’s inconvenient to exchange the kids that way, isn’t it? With a third party. Only you never really adhered to it, so I guess it doesn’t matter.”

  “This is harassment. If I call your sergeant—”

  “I don’t have one. But I have a lieutenant. Would you like to call him?”

  Angela looked at him uncertainly. “Maybe I will.”

  “I’ll give you the number. Do you know what will happen if you call?”

  “As long as you stop hassling me, I don’t care.”

  Clint ignored her answer. “What will happen is my lieutenant will want to know why I made contact with you. When I tell him I’m investigating Tyler Garrett, he’ll want to know why. When he hears why, he will promptly shit kittens and call the chief. And after that, the world will change radically for all of us.”

  Angela stared at him. Her lips parted but no sound came out.

  “Don’t worry too much,” Clint assured her. “That day is coming sooner rather than later, anyway. The only real question is this: when it does, what side of things do you want to find yourself on?”

  Angela closed her mouth but said nothing.

  Clint pressed on. “You’re not part of his bullshit, Angela. I know this is true.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she whispered.

  “If you were part of it, you wouldn’t have kicked him out.” Clint leaned forward. “I don’t need you to break this case open for me. I just need you to step up after it does.”

  Angela watched him, her lips pressed in a thin line.

  Clint pushed forward. “Don’t go down with him. Help take him down.”

  Something flickered in her expression, but he couldn’t read it precisely.

  “Do it for your kids,” he finished.

  Angela Berg didn’t speak. She looked at Clint with an inscrutable expression for a long while. Clint waited patiently. He didn’t know for sure how much she knew, but he sensed it was more than enough to help build his case. And while he didn’t like to think in terms of trial strategy while he was still in the investigative phase, some things were worth considering in advance. Stripping Garrett of the last semblance of being a family man would be one more way to tear down the public image he’d built up for himself.

  “Let me be perfectly clear,” Angela said. Her tone was firm and unwavering. “I may be divorced from my ex-husband, but he is the father of my children. For their sake, I keep a cordial relationship with him.”

  “I realize that. That’s not what I’m asking you about.”

  “I wasn’t finished,” she said curtly. She let a moment of silence stand as emphasis, then continued. “I don’t know what you are talking about, and I want you to leave
me and my children alone. If you bother me again, I will file an IA complaint. Are we clear?”

  “We are.” Clint stood. “But remember this—you’re Angela Berg again for a reason, and we both know it.”

  He walked back to his car and drove away.

  Chapter 22

  “This is your fault.” Mayor Andrew Sikes leaned forward in his chair and rested his elbows on the edge of his desk.

  Robert Baumgartner tilted his head slightly.

  “You heard me right,” Sikes said. “Your fault.”

  Asshole, Robert Baumgartner thought. Instead of voicing that, though, he said, “How’s it my fault?”

  “What? You think it’s mine?”

  “You’re the mayor.”

  Sikes pounded the desk then pointed at the chief. “Don’t you try that.”

  “Try what?”

  “Passing the turd to me.” The mayor shook his head. “This pile of shit stays on your desk. Where it belongs.”

  “We’re not in this together?”

  Sikes laughed once. It was a mean bark that could have passed for a holler. “Together? It’s your people they’re investigating. Not mine. They’re not down here investigating the utilities department.”

  “So SPD is my sole responsibility?”

  The mayor’s eyes narrowed. “I see what you’re doing, you sneaky fuck. Let me clarify. When there’s trouble, it’s yours. You earned it.”

  That’s what Baumgartner figured. He decided to change the course of the conversation. “I heard the head of their team interviewed you.”

  “A peach, that one.”

  “How’d it go?”

  “Once I put her in her place, it went fine.”

  Baumgartner fought a smile. “Her place?”

  “She thought she could tell me they were going to poke around my city. Not on my watch, I said.”

  “They’re still poking around.”

  The mayor clucked his tongue. “That’s because I agreed to it, not because she told me she was doing it. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  Baumgartner shrugged.

  Sikes was quiet for a moment as he thought. His eyes dropped and he rubbed a finger under his nose. He stole a quick glance at the chief then lowered his gaze again. Finally, he looked up to say, “She made it sound like corruption is running rampant in your department. Quite frankly, it got me worried.”

  “No, it didn’t.”

  “Don’t tell me what I thought, Bob. She made some pretty scary observations. That’s why I gave her free rein.”

  This time Baumgartner didn’t fight his growing smile. “You gave her free rein, huh?”

  “Like she can just walk in and take it? She needs my permission.” Sikes frowned. “I did what I did because she made a good case.”

  “And if she finds something because of her free rein?”

  “Then I’ll clean up the department.”

  “That’s not how it works.”

  “Don’t tell me how it works. I’m not an idiot. You and your cronies like to think so. Don’t shake your head. I know. Trust me, I know how you think.”

  Baumgartner wondered if he should point out that the mayor had just corrected him for suggesting that he knew what the mayor thought, and now the mayor was doing exactly the same thing to him. In the end, he figured it would be bad form.

  “Anyway,” Sikes continued, “Justice will give some recommendations. I’ll follow the ones I like, then I’ll—”

  “You follow them all.”

  The mayor’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll follow the ones I want.”

  “If you don’t do what they say, they’ll slap us with a consent decree.”

  “You say it like it’s the arrival of the boogeyman or something. Even the staff around here is afraid to say it aloud.” He lifted his hands and wriggled his fingers. “Oh, consent decree. Does that scare the shit out of you?”

  “Should scare you, too.”

  Sikes smirked.

  “A consent decree is a binding agreement between a police department and the federal government,” Baumgartner said.

  “I know what it is.”

  “If one is put in place, an outside entity that Justice designates will monitor us. We don’t get a say in it. That monitor reviews everything. Every traffic stop. Every citizen contact. Every use of force. Everything.”

  “I get it.” Sikes crossed his arms and set his jaw.

  Baumgartner continued. “They’ll second guess everything we do. It’s like having a juiced-up Internal Affairs on our backs, and it only goes away when Justice believes we’ve cleaned up our act in perfect accordance with their imposed guidelines. It’s nonnegotiable.”

  The mayor’s smirk returned. “Whatever. Won’t happen.”

  “You can’t say that.”

  “Let me fill you in on something. It takes two parties to have an agreement. Two. And I won’t agree to it. Boom. Done. Problem solved. No decree.”

  Baumgartner stared at Sikes. He wanted to ask him why he always had to be so dense, but there were times the mayor acted this way just to knock people off-kilter. Perhaps that’s what he was doing now. The chief couldn’t be sure. “If you refuse, they will withhold their direct grants and block all other federal dollars going to our department. It’s a lot of money. Nineteen percent of our personnel budget, for starters.”

  “We’ll make cuts.”

  Baumgartner rode right over his comment. “To say nothing of the public relations disaster it would be. Every news jockey would be asking why we refused to cooperate. So would our citizens. Trust in the department would drop like a hot rock.”

  “Maybe,” Sikes muttered as his eyes drifted down to his fingers as they tapped along the edge of his desk. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe what?”

  Sikes smiled maliciously then, and Baumgartner realized he’d bitten onto a hook that the mayor had dangled.

  “Maybe I should go ahead and ask Justice to put that decree on the department now.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “It would allow me to get rid of you. Nice and easy.” The mayor clapped his hands together a couple times as if cleaning dust away.

  Baumgartner wasn’t surprised. He and the mayor’s relationship had been contentious for some time. Sikes had previously intimated that he wanted to get rid of Baumgartner, but the department’s success and the chief’s popularity made it difficult.

  Sikes smirked self-righteously. “No one could say shit about it then, could they?”

  “No, they couldn’t,” Baumgartner said. “If Justice slaps us with a consent decree, there’ll be calls for reform and one of the loudest would likely be for a change at the top.”

  Sikes leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. “So you see my dilemma. Should I sit back and fight the inevitable? Or do I lean in and ask them for it now? Get ahead of the curve.”

  “When I said a change at the top, I was talking about you.”

  With a thud, Sikes dropped his chair forward. “Me?”

  “Yeah, you.”

  “But the decree is for the police department.”

  “Which is part of the city.”

  The mayor’s eyes jumped left and right. It seemed clear to Baumgartner that Sikes was looking for some path to victory. He decided to help him find it.

  “Consent decrees aren’t the death of a department and they don’t have to be the death of a police chief’s career. They don’t have to be the end of a mayor’s career, either.”

  Sykes eyed him cautiously. “What are you saying?”

  “To survive something like this, we need to do it as a united force.”

  “United?”

  “We can’t be split in leadership. We need to point in the same direction. Work as one, so to speak.”

  “But it’s your department.” Sykes barely hid the whine in his voice. “You’re the chief.”

  “And you’re the mayor,” Baumgartner said. “You’re ultimately responsibl
e. And for a guy that wants to change the term limits around his office, I would think you would want the best story possible around you now.”

  “But a consent decree…”

  “Like you said, it’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “I believe this: we stay together, and we survive.”

  Sikes rubbed his mouth as he thought. “Bullshit,” he muttered. “You’re just trying to save your job.”

  “I’m trying to save yours, too.”

  “No,” Sikes said. “You’re fucking with me. I see what you’re doing.”

  Baumgartner stood. He’d had enough. “Do what you want. Ask for the decree and get rid of me. I’ll even throw this in the mix. If the consent decree comes down, I’ll quit if you ask me.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’ll be doing me a favor.” It was Baumgartner’s turn to point a finger. “Because then I can talk openly about you.”

  Sikes threw his hands in the air. “What did I do?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. What did I do?”

  “For starters, you meddled in the Bethany Rabe affair and caused a seventeen-year-old girl to kill herself.”

  “But I—”

  The chief thrust his finger at the mayor. “And in a rush to get a headline, you demanded we arrest Tyler Garrett, which ultimately cost the city three-quarters of a million dollars.”

  “That’s not how—”

  Now, Baumgartner tapped the side of his temple. “And I haven’t forgotten all the dirty political dealings I’ve watched you do over the past. Or the shitty things you’ve said about the council. Without the badge holding me back, I’m just another private citizen. I’ll be able to tell anyone I want about anything I want. Maybe I’ll even write a book.”

  Sikes stood and put his palms on his desk. “That’s blackmail!”

  “No, Mister Mayor, that’s the first amendment. It’s not even slander, since it’s all true. And when you’re impeached, or recalled, or whatever the hell it is they do to a mayor, you know who the first person the next mayor is going to call?”