by Colin Conway
“How’d he look?” Clint asked.
“Farrell?” Zielinski shook his head. “Like a man walking to the gallows.”
Clint frowned. Coupled with Hill’s discovery of his case file, this latest development made it clear. Time was up.
“I’m going after Garrett,” Clint said. “If Farrell spills to DOJ, that’s it. They shut us down, and we don’t get him.” He didn’t bother to tell Zielinski about Hill. It wouldn’t change anything.
Zielinski looked around to see if anyone was listening. Then he leaned closer. “You’ve got enough to arrest him,” he said. “But enough to charge? Enough to convict?”
“It doesn’t matter. It has to be now. We get him in cuffs and hope the rest falls into place.”
Ellis. Maybe Angela, too. Get Marty Hill on board, and bridge all the cases together, including the incomplete forensics. It could work.
“I’m in,” Zielinski said. “I might be screwed, but at least I can do this.”
Clint understood. He motioned toward the computer. “He’s not on duty. I was trying to get his schedule from the payroll program, but it’s a clunky piece of shit.” Clint rose from his chair. “We’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way.”
“Let’s go,” Zielinski said.
Before either of them could take a step, Chief Baumgartner strode angrily into the bullpen. When he saw Clint, he made a beeline for him.
“Shit,” Clint muttered under his breath.
When Baumgartner was an arm’s length from Clint, he stopped. “Do you have enough to arrest Tyler Garrett?” he growled at him.
Clint stared at him, momentarily shocked. Next to him, Zielinski let out a small gasp.
Their reaction seemed to irritate the chief. “I know everything, god damn it,” he snapped. “Do you think I’m stupid? Now answer my question—do you have enough to arrest Tyler Garrett?”
“Yes, sir,” Clint said.
Baumgartner pointed a thick finger at him. “Then go do it.”
“Yes, sir,” Clint repeated. He turned to Zielinski. “We’ll try his girlfriend’s condo first.”
“What?” Baumgartner said. “No. He’s in the training room up the hall with DOJ.”
That surprised Clint, too, but it was a lucky break.
“Come on,” ordered the chief.
He turned and headed out of the bullpen. Clint took three swift strides to reach his side. Zielinski trailed behind them.
As they left the Investigative Division, Baumgartner turned toward Clint with a glare. “As soon as he’s in cuffs, get him in the box. I want a confession.”
“I understand.”
Baumgartner turned his eyes straight ahead again. Then he asked, “Was it your idea or Farrell’s?”
“What part, Chief?”
“All of it,” Baumgartner said. Then he added, “Keeping me out of the loop.”
Clint didn’t reply.
“That’s what I thought,” the chief said.
When they reached their destination, all Clint saw was an empty room with stacks of papers on the table.
We’re too late He should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.
Baumgartner’s face pinched into a scowl. “He read me. God damn it.” Baumgartner slammed his fist down on the table, causing it to rattle from the force.
“What do you mean?” Clint asked him.
Baumgartner gave him a look of frustrated embarrassment. He pointed to the window in the door. “He saw me looking in on him during the DOJ interview. He must have read my expression and knew something was up. That’s why he left early.”
Clint knew that the chief was right. Garrett was like a wild animal that sensed danger and fled. The question was, where to?
Baumgartner’s voice was low and dark. “You go get him, Wardell.”
“I will.” Clint thought for a moment. “Should we put it out to patrol? That would give us more eyes, and a wider net.”
Baumgartner considered briefly but shook his head. “After what happened two years ago, how many of our own people will believe it? We already cried wolf once. He’ll get tipped off.”
Clint nodded. Someone sympathetic would tell him what was happening, and then he really would run for it. Right now, he was spooked but not certain. He might still go to a familiar place, making it easier to find him.
Baumgartner leaned forward. “Besides, I want to keep this off DOJ’s radar until they’re gone. We bring him in, not the feds. We fix our own mess.”
“All right,” Clint said. That was fine with him. Only there was no we about it. He was going to take down Tyler Garrett. No one else.
Baumgartner pointed at Zielinski. “And you stay the hell away from this.”
Zielinski swallowed but didn’t answer.
Baumgartner returned his gaze to Clint. “Do it,” he said, and walked away, headed toward mahogany row. Both Clint and Zielinski watched him go.
“What the hell just happened?” Zielinski whispered.
“I’ve been blessed by the man,” said Clint. He turned to Zielinski. “You should go home.”
Zielinski shook his head. “I’m not staying away from this.”
“You heard the chief.”
“I don’t care. I’m not going.”
“This needs to be as clean as possible,” Clint argued. Before the chief’s directive, he’d been fine with Zielinski’s help. But that changed when Baumgartner gave a clear order.
Zielinski snorted. “Clean? Are you kidding me?”
“You’re not even on duty,” Clint pointed out.
Zielinski gave him a hard stare. “Wardell, please. I need to do this.”
Clint hesitated. The argument was pointless, only serving to waste time. Besides, disobeying the chief at this stage of the game was essentially a misdemeanor in a field full of felonies. “Fine. I’ll call his wife. You head over to his girlfriend’s condo. If either of us spots him, call. Keep an eye on him, and only ask for help from patrol if you have to.”
Zielinski nodded gravely. He turned and headed out the door.
Clint reached for his phone.
Chapter 47
Farrell let the question hang in the air for as long as he dared.
“Captain?” Durand asked. “What’s the answer? Who was your target with the Anti-Crime Team?”
He saw the trap she’d prepared for him. It was carefully constructed, with facts and inferences, witnesses, and suspicious behaviors. He knew that if he took a step forward, he’d spring that trap, and then things really would be over.
I let down everyone. The department, certainly. And Jun Yang. She hadn’t deserved the shitty mission he handed her. Gary Stone, too. He paid for Farrell’s mistakes with his life. Of course, he’d been letting down Clint since their partnership began, and now he was on the verge of letting down his chief of police, too.
If he stepped forward and sprung Durand’s trap, there would not only be a consent decree slapped on the police department, but Farrell doubted she and her team would even leave as planned. They’d burrow in and keep investigating, calling back to Washington, D.C. for reinforcements. Neither he nor Clint would bring down Garrett, and who knew what the feds might do. They might finish the job for them, but he was willing to bet it was just as likely they’d lionize the dirty cop, especially if he was willing to talk. A rogue captain was a better catch than a dirty patrol officer.
Farrell knew Garrett was dirty, but how much could he and Clint prove?
More than that, how important was it that they, the Spokane Police Department, clean up their own dirty linen?
He thought everything depended on it.
Durand was staring at him with an expression that was equal parts intelligence, frustration, and regret. He didn’t bother trying to decipher the reason for those sentiments. A more overwhelming thought settled into his mind with finality.
My career is over.
And I am destroyed.
“Captain?” Durand repeated.
; A sorrowful calmness came over him in that moment. He realized what he had to do. He couldn’t give her anything that led to suspecting Tyler Garrett. No matter what, she and her team had to leave as planned. That would give the chief and Clint a chance to bring Garrett in themselves.
“I was targeting hippos,” Farrell said, surprised at how steady his voice sounded. Just a few minutes ago, he’d felt like he could have collapsed from weariness, vomited, or even wept. Now, he was resigned.
Durand’s face scrunched in confusion. “I’m sorry…hippos?”
“High-profile offenders,” Farrell explained. “HPOs. Hippos is the street jargon.”
Durand pressed her lips together in momentary frustration. “I wasn’t asking about the mission of your team. I’m talking about your ulterior motive.”
“I didn’t have one.”
Durand leaned forward. “Jun Yang was put on that team to be a rat. That means you thought there was something there to watch. Now, I don’t think it was Gary Stone. He seemed like too much of a straight arrow. It may have been Ray Zielinski, who’s had plenty of IA trouble. But I don’t know why you’d need a spy for that. You could just have Internal Affairs investigate openly, which they were doing anyway.” She sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. “That leaves Tyler Garrett.”
“You know what I think?” Farrell said. “I think you want to see corruption so badly that you’re looking for monsters under the bed.”
“Really? Then explain Yang to me.”
Farrell shrugged. “I shouldn’t need to, but I will. You’ve been investigating police departments for how long?”
“Eleven years,” Durand said. “What’s your point?”
“I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of other specialty units or directed teams, just like ACT. You know the risk for noble cause corruption that exists in that scenario. Cops start out fudging events a little bit to make a good arrest on a bad guy and that leads to—”
“You don’t have to educate me on noble cause corruption. I taught that block of instruction at Quantico for three semesters.”
“Okay. Then you’ll understand my thinking. Jun Yang was an officer who had already shown absolute integrity, even in the face of a difficult situation. She turned in several classmates who cheated at the academy.”
“I know about this, too.”
“Do you know how hard that is? Especially for a recruit?”
“They cheated. It should be easy.”
“Easy?” Farrell made a dismissive sound with his lips. “If you’ve got ice water running through your veins, maybe. For most people, it’s a hard thing to do. But she did it. And so I knew she’d do it again, if anything hinky started to happen on that team.”
“That’s the reason?” Durand’s expression was skeptical.
“Yes. It helped that being a rookie, she didn’t have any deep connections with anyone here yet that might muddy the waters for her. And it helped that she had a military background and was more mature than our average twenty-one-year-old rookie. But her integrity was the biggest piece.” Farrell gave Durand a long stare. “Ms. Durand, Jun Yang wasn’t my spy. She was my safety valve.”
Durand sat quietly, soaking in his words. Farrell waited. He was fairly certain what was coming next. He wasn’t disappointed.
“To your knowledge,” Durand asked, her tone formal, “was Officer Gary Stone involved in anything illegal, immoral, or corrupt?”
“Of course not.”
“Same for Jun Yang?”
“Pure integrity from her.”
“What about Ray Zielinski?”
Farrell sighed. “Lately, it seems like he has fallen out of the unlucky tree and is hitting every bad decision branch on the way to the ground. But I think he’s stumbling into his mistakes, not searching for them. He’s not a malicious person.”
“And Tyler Garrett?”
Farrell gritted his teeth. His stomach pitched a little when he spoke, but he made himself say the words.
“Officer Garrett is a fine officer,” he said.
Durand watched him for a few moments longer. The frustration in her expression had faded, leaving the intelligence and regret to take up the slack. “I wonder, Captain Farrell, if these answers are ones you’d want read back to you during a full-fledged investigation.”
“Are you coming back for one?”
Durand didn’t reply. She considered Farrell for several moments, then appeared to make a decision. She stood, pushing her chair in. “My team and I are leaving for Washington, D.C. in a few hours, Captain. I’ll make my recommendation and Justice will make a determination regarding further action. But no matter what happens, I believe that one way or another, you’ll have some decisions to answer for.”
Farrell’s gaze was steady when he answered her. “Don’t we all?”
A flash of sadness seemed to pass over Durand’s features, then was gone. He wondered for a moment what it was she had to answer for. He had a crazy thought that he should ask her, even offer to commiserate. But before he could speak, she turned and left the conference room without another word, leaving him to his fate.
Chapter 48
“Grandma left thirty minutes ago,” Royal Harjo said. “He’s in there alone.”
Tyler Garrett stood next to the sun-faded green Ford F-150 and kept his eyes on the front of the little house. Harjo sat in the driver’s seat with the window rolled down.
Even though he was there to deal with Earl Ellis, his mind was clouded with thoughts of Angie and the kids.
Why was he thinking about them now? He shook his head to get rid of their images.
Harjo smoked a brown cigarette. When he exhaled, he blew the smoke through the side of his mouth, away from Garrett and into the cab of his truck.
Garrett rested an elbow in the open car window. “You sure he didn’t leave out the back?”
“If he did, then he’s on foot. Earl seems a man to take his ride with him.” Royal pointed to a red Lincoln Corsair further up the street. “Especially a fine one like that.”
The car was new. He would never have spotted Ellis in it.
“Go through the alley,” Garrett said. “If he comes out, take him.”
“As in…”
Garrett eyed the man behind the steering wheel. “As in drop him.”
Harjo blew out a stream of smoke. “Got it.”
The truck pulled away and drove toward the opposite end of the block. When it turned and disappeared around the corner, Garrett strolled casually toward Aurelia Ellis’s house. His eyes swept the neighborhood. Nobody moved.
A car drove toward him. It was an older car, a Nissan Maxima, and loud rock music boomed from it. He turned his head away as the car passed. It continued out of the neighborhood.
He turned in front of the grandmother’s house and ascended the steps to the front door. Discreetly, he pulled his gun from underneath his shirt and held it against his stomach. Then he stood off to the side of the door, a habit from being in uniform, and knocked.
It wasn’t loud. He didn’t want to draw too much attention from anyone not in the house.
He scanned the neighborhood again. A cat ran from one yard to the next in chase of something Garrett couldn’t see.
He waited a few moments then knocked again. This time a little softer.
Another few seconds passed before the door opened slightly.
Due to where Garrett stood, though, he couldn’t see who was behind the door and they couldn’t see him.
The wait seemed forever for the door to either open further or close.
When it began to slowly shut, Garrett swung his leg around and kicked the door. It banged back into someone. There was a clunk as something fell to the floor.
Garrett charged into the house with his gun extended.
“Don’t,” he said and closed the door.
Earl Ellis was bent at the knees and reaching for a gun on the floor. He slowly straightened and lifted his hands in the air. Garrett removed his bu
rner phone and placed a call. When it was answered, he said, “Come in the back.”
“Who’s with you?” Ellis asked.
He ignored the question and jerked his head toward the open room behind him. “Let’s go in the living room.”
“C’mon, G, you know—”
Garrett grabbed Ellis by the shirt and yanked him into the living room. Ellis stumbled, tripped over the coffee table, and fell into a floral-printed couch with an afghan draped over its back.
“Where’ve you been, Earl?”
Ellis rolled over to his back and lifted his hands again. “Around.”
When Garrett lifted his gun, Ellis turned his head and closed his eyes.
“The fuck does that mean?” Garrett asked. “Around?”
“I had to get out.”
“You’re not making sense, Earl.”
There was a knock at the back door.
“Stand up,” Garrett ordered.
Ellis clumsily got to his feet. Garrett grabbed him by the back of the shirt then pushed him toward the kitchen. He knew there were possible weapons in this room for Ellis to grab—knives, mallets, and pans—and he remained a couple steps back for that reason. If Ellis made any move he didn’t like, he would end the man and move on.
Without being told, Ellis unlocked the rear door and moved out of the way to allow Harjo to enter. As he did, Ellis’s eyes locked onto the revolver in the hand of the latest arrival.
“Earl,” Harjo said flatly.
Ellis glanced back to Garrett. “Jesus, G. It doesn’t have to come to this.”
Garrett tucked his gun in the back of his pants. “Then tell me why you left.”
“Because,” Ellis said. His eyes darted from Garrett to Harjo and back. “There was this detective.”
“Which one?”
“Motherfucker who thinks he’s Virgil Tibbs.”
Royal Harjo said, “Who?”
But Garrett knew exactly who Earl Ellis meant. His lip curled. “Wardell Clint.”
“Guy stopped me after the…” Ellis glanced to Harjo. “The thing we did.”
“What did he say?” Garrett asked.