In the Line of Duty

by Carolyn Arnold

  “Pull up Brown’s social—”

  “Okay, okay.” Terry brought up Brown’s Facebook and went to his friends list. Ford’s face was looking back at them among the profile pictures.

  Madison’s insides were twisting. “So what’s the connection between Barry, Brown, Snyder, Coleman, and Cousins?”

  “You could possibly throw Sommer and Godfrey into the mix, too.” Terry’s chair groaned as he sat back and rubbed the back of his neck.

  Madison’s cell phone rang, and she grabbed it before the second ring. She hung up after a minute and smiled at Terry. “They found the BMW.”

  “Where was it?”

  “Outside the city, tucked away in a ditch under some foliage. Apparently a family stopped alongside the road to let their son go to the bathroom.”

  It was just a matter of time, and they’d have all their answers. She felt it. Forensics would tie things up in a neat little bow.

  “We have to figure out motive…” she said, her mind back on the real reason she’d rushed back to the station.

  “What haven’t you told me yet?” Terry asked.

  “When I was with Snyder—”

  “Held hostage by her, you mean.”

  “Po-tayto, po-tahto.” That’s what she said now, but at the time, she hadn’t been feeling so in control. “She said, and I quote, ‘Why do you have to take away everyone we love?’”

  “Huh…”

  “That’s what I thought. She said it in reference to Coleman, but it must go deeper than that. Who is we? And who is everyone?”

  “What do you think she meant?”

  “I think that she lost someone and blames Barry for it, and for her to use we, it wasn’t just her loss. Snyder—and whoever else is involved with this vendetta—planned to kill him and they organized it like a hit.”

  Terry didn’t say anything but slowly nodded.

  “Have you ever wondered why it was so easy for Cousins to get his uncle’s car, his gun, his bullets?” she asked. “I think he wanted him to have them.”

  “Do you think he set everything up?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I think we should have his financial information rushed over.”

  “I’ll get on that right now.” Terry pulled his cell phone out.

  As he put through the request, she thought over the investigation so far, how everyone had played their part in getting things to this point. Maybe collaborating wasn’t such a bad thing. Typically—and no offense to Terry—she’d be fine to operate solo. But sometimes exceptions needed to be made, and sometimes people were stronger with others than by themselves.

  When Terry finished with his call, she said, “Let’s pull everyone’s file, get everything organized in the squad room, and call a meeting.”

  “Wait, what?”

  She smiled at him. “You heard me.”

  She’d made a promise to Joni, and there was strength in numbers.

  -

  Chapter 51

  MADISON AND TERRY WERE PUTTING up the last couple of photographs on the whiteboard at the front of the room when detectives started coming into the room. Sovereign was the first through the door, followed by Stanford.

  Sovereign pointed to the board. “Looks like quite the spread.”

  Madison stood back and looked at it, marveling at how fast she and Terry had pulled it together.

  The board was organized into five columns. In the first one, there were a few pictures of Barry, including one of him from twenty years ago when he had been sworn in as an officer. Beneath that was a photograph of the bloody pavement at Rico’s where he’d gone down.

  Next over, the heading read, GAS STATION and had DMV photos of Rico Beck, Melody Ford, and Janet Hines. Next, INVOLVED BUT HOW? There were pictures of Erica Snyder and Russell Coleman. Next to his name, the words self-declared driver.

  Next, three pictures were set out vertically in the order of Travis Sommer, Mike Godfrey, and Clark Cousins. The title was DEVIL’S REBELS.

  Beneath that was the last photograph. It was of Phil Brown. Under his photo, she had written CONNECTION? followed by HIS BMW, GUN, AND AMMUNITION. From the photo itself, she had a line connecting to Cousins’s photo with the words uncle/nephew. There was a second line going from Brown to Ford. EXACT CONNECTION?

  More detectives and officers had gathered now, including Troy. He smiled at her subtly before taking a seat at the table. Obviously her playing hard to get and avoiding answering his question didn’t bother him too much.

  Andrea came in with Sergeant Winston, and he closed the door. His eyes skimmed over the board, and then he looked at Madison and nodded. She just hoped he didn’t get used to this amount of communication and cooperation. But enough time had passed, and all of them owed it to Barry to get his killer behind bars once and for all.

  She addressed her colleagues. “This is where our case has taken us thus far.”

  “You’re missing the Hellions, Knight.” This came from Copeland.

  “We all know by now that that direction—unfortunately—never produced results,” she said. “I left explored and eliminated avenues off the board.”

  “Yet you have people from the gas station up there?” Copeland asked, his tone incredulous.

  “Yes. Let me catch everyone up, and we can put our heads together and give some closure to Barry and his family,” she said.

  A wave of silence fell over the room.

  She let the quiet ride for a while, each officer in the room seemingly weighted down with grief and regret that Barry’s killer was still at large.

  “Detective Grant and I figure there must have been a hit orchestrated against Barry.” She pointed to Ford’s photo, then Snyder’s, Cousins’s, Coleman’s, and finally Brown’s. “We can make some connections but not all of them are linked. And that’s not getting into motives yet… We know that Barry’s history and past cases were looked into, and we also know that there was no connection between him and the people on the board. At least nothing that stands out, but we have to be missing something. Snyder mentioned that we took away ‘everyone we loved.’ She made it pretty clear that she and Coleman had a romantic relationship, but she was also referring to someone else.”

  “Look into her family history, see if she’s lost anyone recently,” Sovereign suggested.

  “But no one in her family history was connected to Barry. So we need to brainstorm that more.” A few of the detectives scribbled notes on pieces of paper. “On a different note, Brown’s phone records show that he and Ford communicated on a regular basis.”

  “She’s a married woman,” Terry added.

  “All right, so she and Brown were having an affair,” Troy began. “How does that connect to Snyder, who picked up the prepaid phone that led to Cousins taking Brown’s car?”

  “So none of these people have any relatives who Barry arrested?” a detective asked.

  Madison shook her head, summoning her patience. She’d already said that. “Not that we’ve been able to find yet.”

  “And the connection between Ford, Snyder, Cousins, Coleman, and Brown?”

  “Like I said, we don’t exactly know how they all connect yet. We need to figure that out.” She paused for a beat. “Now who had the most reason to want Barry dead? Who, besides Snyder, feels they lost everyone they loved because of him? That’s the big question that could lead us in the right direction.”

  “Can we put Brown in communication with Snyder?” Winston asked.

  Madison turned to study the board. They had communication confirmed between Cousins and Snyder, Snyder and Coleman, Cousins and Brown, and Brown and Ford. Cousins claimed his uncle let him have the car, and didn’t deny that he also knew about him taking the gun and ammo. But Brown swore his nephew wasn’t involved with any of this. Brown and Ford were seemingly having an affair. Brown had to be awar
e his car was, in the least, being used for something shady, or why remove the plates? If he was just simply helping out his nephew, why not just hand over his car? And that wasn’t even touching on the gun and ammo. Brown had to be involved with orchestrating the entire setup, which meant there had to be evidence—or a connection, at least—between Brown and Snyder. Then her mind skipped to Ford. Was she connected to Snyder? She could have been the go-between for Brown.

  “Knight?” Winston asked.

  Madison then became aware of the detectives whispering in the room, talking to one another. She must have spaced out on them. She turned around, looking at Terry. “Ford and Snyder must be connected.”

  “Okay, but how?” Terry asked.

  “Their backgrounds…” She went fishing through file folders on the table until she had both reports. She put them side by side.

  The room went quiet as she scanned the reports. She shuffled through page after page looking for their previous addresses. But something struck her before she worked through them all.

  “Wait a second… Snyder was brought into child services as a baby and put into the system. Her mother’s name is listed as unknown.” Madison flipped to Ford’s background. “Ford’s mother was Grace Cole…”

  What was she missing? She looked up at the room, then back to the laptop on the table in front of her. She pulled up the name Grace Cole. It was the one they’d have searched against Barry, but it hadn’t come up with any results. Pulling a report on the woman herself hadn’t been necessary, but that’s what she was doing now. The results filled up the screen, and she felt her stomach sink. “Grace Cole had changed her name from Grace Boyd.”

  “Knight?” Winston asked. “Keep talking.”

  She didn’t acknowledge him but searched the system for the name Grace Boyd, and that popped a result. She sat in the nearest chair. “Ford’s mother, Grace Boyd, does have an arrest record. Barry was the one who filed it.”

  “When was that?” Troy asked.

  “She was convicted of prostitution two years ago. She served forty-five days but was given three years’ probation. But she broke it within the last month. Barry was also the one to write her up and arrest her for doing so.”

  “I’m still missing Ford’s motive, not to mention Snyder’s,” Sovereign said.

  “Grace died in jail a couple weeks ago from a drug overdose. Ford could have held Barry accountable,” Madison ground out.

  “Okay, but Snyder…” Sovereign repeated.

  “Hang on a second.” Troy came around to Madison and gestured to the laptop. “May I?”

  “Sure.”

  She rolled her chair to the side to let Troy in. She watched him search the obits, and seconds later, the one for Grace Boyd showed on-screen. She read it along with him. “…left behind two daughters, Melody and Erica.”

  Madison and Troy were looking at each other now.

  Why do you have to take away everyone we love?

  Everyone being Russell Coleman and Grace Boyd and we being Snyder and Ford. Grace Boyd must have been living a rough lifestyle when she’d abandoned Snyder, although she didn’t have an arrest history beyond the last two years.

  People in the room were talking among themselves. How did everyone else fit into this? Ford had grown up with her mother and had obviously found out about Snyder. Had Snyder pulled in her bad-boy boyfriend, Russell Coleman, and had Ford manipulated Brown? But both men fit the physicality of the driver…

  “Ford could have known when Barry filled his cruiser’s tank. And she was conveniently away,” Winston said.

  The black hoodie… Snyder… The small build of the shooter… “Shit!”

  “Pardon?” Winston said.

  “Ford was the shooter. She wasn’t out of town, she’d just shot Barry!”

  “Do you have anything to prove your theory?”

  “Not yet. But I will.”

  “And the Devil’s Rebels? Why did they even get pulled into all this?” Winston asked, shooting off in another direction.

  “Knight?” Troy prompted her to share her thoughts, and whether he knew it or not, he was doing her a favor. The other ones she was having were toxic and self-deprecating.

  “We might never know. Maybe the Devil’s Rebels are nothing more than graffiti artists? The decal was just something Snyder brought up to throw us off.” She hated to even consider that possibility.

  “I’m not buying that. She could have just thought it was a good opportunity to bolster the Devil’s Rebels’ reputation on the street as a gang that should be respected,” Terry suggested.

  It didn’t matter how many times Madison heard the word respect connected to the death of a police officer. It never settled with her. It was a twisted and sick perversion to think the two could even be affiliated. Something told her there was more to it, though.

  Madison shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense. Coleman was her boyfriend and he was in with the Hellions. Why would she want to bolster the reputation of the Devil’s Rebels?”

  “Maybe the Hellions and the Devil’s Rebels have a symbiotic relationship? We did find Cousins there,” Troy said.

  Madison looked at him and nodded.

  “And is Brown connected with the Devil’s Rebels beyond his nephew?” Terry asked.

  “Besides the decal? It could have been stuck on after they took the car,” Madison said.

  “So you don’t think Brown was personally involved now?” Terry asked.

  “Oh, I never said that. It’s too coincidental that Ford and Brown were in a relationship, and Brown’s belongings were used in the shooting,” she said.

  She grabbed a whiteboard marker and started to write on the board:

  Means = Car, gun, ammo provided by Brown

  Motive = Ford and Snyder’s mother died in jail, put away by Weir

  Opportunity = Ford worked at the gas station where Weir regularly filled up

  She was still holding the marker in her hand when she turned to face her colleagues. “I’ve always hated math, but there is a common denominator here, like I said.”

  “Ford,” Terry ground out, obviously filling in the blank on her equation.

  “I strongly believe so.”

  “Her name isn’t noted in means,” Sovereign said. “For a common denominator, there has to be something in common for all of them.”

  “She had a direct connection to the person with the means.” She scribbled, who was in a relationship with Ford, at the end of the means section. “Ford was an adult when her mother went to jail, and Snyder never even knew her mother and now she never would. They both could have seen her death as a motive to take revenge.”

  “All right, but answer me this: how did Ford and Snyder find out about each other?” Sovereign asked.

  His question stumped her, and she was saved by a knock on the door. Seeing as Winston was standing next to it, he answered. It was Cynthia.

  “I have some findings that you’ll want to know about,” Cynthia said, brushing past the sergeant to Madison. “To start with, a quick look at Brown’s bank account shows that five thousand dollars was taken out last Thursday.”

  “He did pay for the hit,” Madison stated, looking at her partner.

  “Brown took out the money and gave it to Ford to give to Snyder,” Terry theorized, “to give to Coleman, to give to Cousins by buying the supplies for the hit.”

  “Wow, this is getting complex,” Winston exhaled.

  “They were trying to cloud the investigation by complicating the trail,” Lou said. “Just like everything else in this case.”

  “I also ran DNA pulled from Brown’s BMW,” Cynthia continued.

  “That was lightning fast,” Madison said.

  “That’s how I work.” Cynthia gave Madison a small smile. “Prints on the steering wheel place Brown and Cousins in
the driver’s seat. I revisited the city’s footage and confirmed that the driver wasn’t wearing gloves, so if it had been Coleman, I’d know.”

  “He must have known about it from Snyder, took the credit to build himself up to the Hellions,” Sovereign suggested.

  “And got himself killed for the trouble,” Troy stated sourly.

  “I also ran prints on the three guns that were collected from Snyder’s place. Yours—” Cynthia pointed to Madison “—Officer Palmer’s, and the one registered to Brown. Brown’s was definitely the weapon used to kill Officer Weir. I pulled four sets of prints from the gun—Brown’s, Cousins’s, Snyder’s, and an unknown.”

  “It’s Brown’s gun,” Madison began. “Cousins could have handed the gun off to Ford…the unknown…” But that didn’t explain why Snyder had the gun in her possession. Maybe Ford gave it to her to hide. “And?” Madison sensed there was more Cynthia had to share.

  “Not so fast. Casings were found in the car. These, the eleven bullets from the magazine, and the one still in the chamber had prints and all came back as matches for Brown.”

  “Brown—not Cousins—loaded the gun for Ford.”

  “Or for his nephew?” Madison hated complications. “Then Cousins handed the gun over to Ford?”

  “So, we still have some question marks. I believe she’ll match the missing fingerprints though,” Terry concluded.

  “I’ll get Ford picked up immediately.” Winston went to storm out of the room.

  Troy caught him before he reached the doorway. “I’d like to be the one to do that, Sarge.”

  “Me too,” Jay Porter said from beside him.

  “And me.” Marc Copeland took position next to Porter, and then the rest of Troy’s team was all there. Even Nick, who would have to stay behind.

  “Very well, then. Go.”

  Troy glanced at her before leading his men from the room. She wanted to follow him and be involved with bringing Ford in, but this was something she knew Troy had to do. She’d have her face time with Ford once they brought her back to the station.