by JoAnn Ross
“Yes, Chief. I’ll sent out texts now. Anyone who doesn’t respond right away, I’ll call.”
“Thanks.”
“What are you going to do?” Bodhi asked, looking interested for the first time since Aiden had called his dad to accept the job.
Aiden grinned. “I have a hunch, but if I told you, it wouldn’t be as much fun to watch. Right now I have some calls to make, and if I’m right, we’re visiting a judge, then my family’s bank.”
CHAPTER TEN
THE FOLLOWING MORNING all ten full- and part-time members of his police force filed into his office carrying tall cups from Cops and Coffee and doughnuts that Donna—who’d been the first to arrive, taking over from the Salish county 911 operator contracted to handle the night shift—had brought. They filled the room to the walls, which showed how small an office had come with the job. Aiden wasn’t surprised when the deputy chief was the last to show up.
“Since we’ve all got things to do, I’m going to cut to the chase,” he said. That stopped the various murmured conversations in their tracks. “I’ve called you all in to talk about courtesy cards.”
The silence was deafening. He also noticed that not a single officer looked at any of the others.
“Here’s the deal,” he said. “I don’t care how things were done in the past. This is now, and this department doesn’t take bribes.”
“They’re not bribes,” James shot back. “They’re exactly what they say they are. Courtesy cards.”
Aiden folded his arms. “So, would that mean you give them out to everyone in town? Maybe throw them from the Fourth of July police float like Mardi Gras beads?” His voice was mild; the iced anger in his eyes was not.
“I’m saying that if someone in town wants to support the police department, then the police department is going to appreciate them back.”
“Appreciation might be a ticket to the annual fire and police fund-raising spaghetti dinner,” Aiden said. “But courtesy cards don’t just represent bribery, they’re embezzlement.”
More looks. “You just hit a nerve, dude,” Bodhi said. “You’ve got those two guys in the back sweating.”
It was James’s turn to fold arms beefy from weightlifting over the beer gut that strained at the buttons of his blue uniform shirt. “No. Fucking. Way.”
“Way,” Aiden said. He waited a moment, aware that the next two minutes would define his tenure as chief. “Give me the fine amounts for each increment of speeding infraction.”
“Why the hell should I know? I’m not a damn judge.”
“The town can be grateful for that.” Aiden, who’d studied the fines preparing for his first day, rattled them off. “That’s not chump change. It means that every time you hand out a courtesy card, you’re possibly costing the town hundreds of dollars. You may not have your hand directly in the till, James, but you and anyone else who hands them out in lieu of ticketing actual infractions is stealing from the coffers that fund every single agency in town.
“When there’s less money to apportion, less gets spent on roads, the library, the school, the harbor, fire department, every single bit of business. Including funding us. Which is why you all would’ve had to buy your own bulletproof vests last year if the schoolkids hadn’t come up with the idea to have an online fund-raiser.”
“No shit. The kids did that?” Bodhi said.
“You don’t get it,” James said on dangerous growl. “You think you can come here from California—” he heaped an extra helping of scorn on the state’s name—and bring your big-city ways to our town.”
“Since you’re taking this personal, we’re taking the conversation into the back room.” Which served as a supply and coffee room.
“Hell, no. You have anything else to say to me, you can damn well say it here in front of witnesses so you can’t go spreading lies around town.” It was obvious, as his hard gaze swept over the others, he was counting on them supporting him over the guy from LA whose father got him the position James believed was his right. “Your choice.”
Aiden shrugged. James wasn’t going to be able to say he hadn’t been warned. Like all bullies, he believed that bluster was a sign of power. He was about to be proven wrong.
“I was born here,” Aiden reminded him. “My family were early settlers. So, that makes it my town, too.”
“You left. While the rest of us stayed. The job of chief damn well should’ve gone to me when Axel retired.” There was a pause. “He promised it to me right before that stroke.”
Experience had taught Aiden to read a lie. But since it wasn’t relevant, he wasn’t going to call the other man on it. “I left to fight for and defend my country. As a US Marine. And let me tell you here and now that one thing you don’t want to do is mess with a Marine. But that’s not why I’m firing you.”
“What?” His mouth gaped open like a landed trout. “You can’t fire me!”
“I can. And I am. Not because you spent a good deal of your shift hanging out at the casino. And not because you’ve been using your courtesy cards as Christmas presents to all your relatives—”
“That’s a lie.” But it did have some of fellow officers, who’d remained as mute as stones, exchanging looks.
Aiden arched a black brow. And waited. Apparently the deputy chief was as bad at interrogation as he was everything else because as the silence stretched out, he caved. Sort of.
“You have no damn way of knowing what the hell I give my relatives for Christmas.”
“I called your wife’s cousin. Who happens to be one of the cafeteria ladies at the high school and belongs to my mother’s book club.”
Small towns, Aiden thought. No wonder they always had higher crime-solving statistic rates than cities. There were no secrets. Since news spread in Honeymoon Harbor faster than it took to drive from one end of town to the other, what happened here in the office definitely wasn’t going to stay here. Which was why, although it damn well hadn’t been the way things had worked in LA, he was glad James didn’t take him up on his offer to have this conversation in private. This way there’d be less speculation and lies woven in with the gossip, and the facts about what happened would be right out there on the table.
“She told me she and her husband each get one every year,” Aiden said. “She also told me they toss them out because they don’t approve. Maybe she doesn’t keep them because she’s a good, law-abiding woman. Or maybe because she gets paid from the town coffers and hasn’t had a pay raise in three years. Partly because of the money you and the others handing them out have cost the town. Whatever her reason, you’re busted.”
A wave of low muttering moved through the ranks. He could tell from the ones whose complexions went gray who else he was dealing with.
“I could check with more relatives,” he told James, “but we both know that’d be a waste of my time and theirs and there’s no point in causing family dissention. The reason you’re fired is because you’ve skimmed from a fund that was set up to help both serving and retired officers and their families.”
“That’s a lie.”
“You may have forgotten, my family founded the bank that financed most of the town’s early buildings and still does. And although my grandfather’s mostly retired, he keeps a hand in the business. Enough that once I got a warrant yesterday, he was more than willing to go through the fund’s account. And guess what? Some of those payments for services went to dummy accounts set up in the names of various online businesses, all that list your wife as the owner.”
And didn’t that cause more muttering? None of it seeming to go James’s way.
“I donated fifty dollars we couldn’t afford to that fund,” one of the retired volunteers offered. “Supposedly to help a fellow cop who needed transportation to the VA hospital.”
“And my wife insisted we donate because it said on the website officers’ kids
needed school supplies,” another said.
The dam broke, with a lot of troops complaining, listing one or more of the reasons they’d chipped in. Being public servants in a small town, the salaried cops didn’t make all that much and the volunteers had dug into their own savings and retirement accounts.
“This is a waste of time. I’m getting out of here and going the hell back to work.” James turned and began marching toward the door. Aiden could feel everyone else in the room holding their collective breaths to see how this was going to play out.
“You’re not going anywhere, because I’m placing you under arrest.”
Don James spun around and fisted his beefy hands on his broad hips. His face was as red as a boiled Dungeness crab. “You can’t do that.”
“I can and I am. And since I don’t have much confidence you’ve bothered to memorize them, I’m going to read you your rights.”
“I fucking know them.”
Aiden ignored him. “You have the right to remain silent and to refuse to answer questions. Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking to the police and to have an attorney present during questioning now or in the future. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish. If you decide to answer questions now without an attorney present, you will still have the right to stop answering at any time until you talk to an attorney.”
“This is bullshit.”
“Like I said, tell it to the judge. I called the DA, who called Judge Baker, and your bail hearing is at ten tomorrow morning. Since you’ve more or less served the community for sixteen years, I suspect the DA might be willing to cut a deal with your attorney that keeps you out of jail. Meanwhile you’ll be staying here as a guest of Honeymoon Harbor.”
The room had gone as quiet as St. Peter the Fisherman’s Church on a Monday morning.
“I want a lawyer.”
Aiden shrugged. “Your choice. Meanwhile, I’ll need your weapon. And your badge.”
James slammed the Glock down on the desk, and threw his badge hard enough to send it skidding over the top of the desk, where it landed on the floor.
“Owens.” Aiden turned toward one of the newer recruits, a recent graduate of Clearwater Community College, who he assumed didn’t have a personal history with the former deputy police chief. “Would you please escort our guest to a cell?”
If James’s face got any redder, his head would’ve burst into flames. Aiden wondered about his blood pressure, and realized he was going to have to assign someone to watch him during the night.
“Okay.” He blew out a breath as the two men walked through the door to what was laughingly referred to as the cellblock, which held all of three cells. Which had never been filled since he’d been here, and so far had only been used for a couple of drunk-to-the-gills fishermen who’d gotten into a fistfight at the harbor over crab traps.
“Here’s the deal. I’m not going to investigate who’s been handing out the cards. But that practice stops now. And if you know any person who happens to have one, then you’d better retrieve it. Because I’m not going to look on it at all kindly if I hear of anyone trying to use one. And in the event a citizen does hand you one, you’re to confiscate it and politely explain that they’ve expired.”
He paused, and glanced around, noting a few shifty, back-and-forth glances that gave him an even better idea who’d been taking advantage of the situation.
“Now, let’s get back to work.”
As everyone filed out, one officer, Jennifer Stone, lingered behind. According to her file, she had been on the force for the five years, since graduating from UW with a degree in criminal justice. Her dad had been a cop who’d had the dubious distinction of being the one and only Honeymoon Harbor officer ever killed in the line of duty. Sergeant Ken Stone had been shot during what he’d expected to be a routine traffic stop.
Tragically, that event occurred only six months after his wife had died in a ten-car pileup when a truck had dropped a load of logs on a wet and slick mountain road. Although Jennifer had already started law school, she dropped out, returned home and joined the force while parenting her then eight-year-old brother.
“May I say something without you thinking I’m sucking up?” she asked after everyone else had left.
“Sure.”
“I think you’re doing a great job,” she said. “And you make me proud to be a police officer.”
“Thank you.” Even if she was sucking up, it was good to hear.
“I’m relieved you did something about those cards,” she said. “I’ve stopped people who’ve complained when I wouldn’t accept them. That hasn’t gone over real well with some of the guys.”
“I can imagine. You could have come to me.”
“I didn’t know Don was skimming,” she said. “So, it seemed like a gray area. Plus, you’ve never said anything about them, so I thought maybe you approved. And quite honestly, because of my home situation, with my brother and all, I really need this job. So, I didn’t want to rock the boat.”
“Did you know your father arrested me?” Aiden asked.
Color bled from her face, but her brown eyes stayed steady on his.
“No. I didn’t know that, sir.”
“More than once. One time for papering Mrs. Gunderson’s house on Halloween.”
“Small towns,” she said, with a bit of a smile quirking at the corner of her lips. “Did he officially charge you?”
“No. But he did bring me in and make me sit in the cell while I waited for my dad to come pick me up. I was in my rebellious stage at the time, and he said he wanted to show me where I might end up if I didn’t straighten out.”
“That sounds like Dad.” The smile broke free for a quick moment. “We had our own clashes during my teens. His first-date lecture scared off a lot of potential boyfriends.” Her eyes softened with a faint sheen. “There may or may not have been some slamming of doors over house rules.”
“He was tough,” Aiden agreed. “But always fair. He was also the one who got me sent to the Marines for boosting the beer.”
“Oh.” When her brow furrowed, Aiden wondered if she was worrying about the stability of her job again. “I guess I should say I’m sorry?”
“Not necessary. I deserved it. Judge Burns, who’d gotten sick and tired of seeing me in front of his bench gave me a choice. The military as soon as I turned eighteen and graduated, or juvie. I chose the Marines, which taught me a lot about discipline. And honor, that’s only one reason why those cards pissed me off.”
“My dad was a Marine.”
“That’s partly why I chose to be one. Because it took me a while to realize it, but in a way, along with my dad—who I’d been rebelling against mostly because with my dad being mayor and my mom the school principal, my brothers, sister and I were expected to be better behaved than the other kids in town—your father was a role model.”
This time the smile warmed and for a fleeting moment they could have been two friends reminiscing about a special person they’d lost.
“So, getting to the point, I’m appointing you deputy chief.”
“Me?” Her hand flew to the front of her uniform, over her heart, as if to settle its wild beating. “But I’m only twenty-six.”
“True. And that’s going to earn some grumbles from the old retired guys who, deep down, may not have evolved enough to have fully accepted women into the ranks. But you’re older than your years. And due to your upbringing and how you’ve handled all life’s thrown at you you’re the most responsible member of the force. Donna agrees, by the way.”
“She does?” The new deputy chief Stone glanced toward the glass door, where Donna Ormsbee was doing a piss-poor job of pretending not to watch them.
“In forty years working here, she�
�s seen a lot of cops come and go. She said that in your case, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, and you’re one of the best who’s ever worn the Honeymoon Harbor uniform. You’re also the only member of the force I get emails about. Not a single one is a complaint, just appreciation for having gone out of your way to help them in some situation.”
“I was just doing my job.”
“We agree on that. But not everyone takes it as seriously as you do.” As Aiden himself did. Which surprised him. He’d taken the Marines seriously. And his days working for LAPD. But he’d honestly never expected to feel that same sense of responsibility, and even pride, heading up this force that wasn’t big enough to even need a fancy organizational flowchart.
“So, it’s settled? You’ll take the job?”
“Yes, sir. If you’re sure I’m up to it.”
“If I wasn’t sure, I wouldn’t have offered it to you. It also comes with a raise. Not as much as you’d get in Seattle, Tacoma, or even Olympia. But every bit helps, right?”
“It does. My brother wants to play baseball again this summer. He’s going to need a new uniform because he outgrew his old one.”
“A complaint I remember hearing from my mother a lot. My oldest brother, Quinn, and my sister, Brianna, were the only kids in our family who always got new clothes.”
She laughed. Then sobered. “I’ll do my best to live up to your confidence, sir,” she said.
“I’ve not a single doubt. I’ll have Donna put in a requisition for a new badge,” he said. “Meanwhile, I’ll make the announcement at tomorrow morning’s roll call.”
“Good call,” Bodhi said as they both watched her walk out of the office. “Of course, now you’re not going to be able to date her.”
“That wasn’t even in my mind.”
“Of course it wasn’t. Because you’re a straight arrow who’d never end up on a #MeToo social media outing. But, in case you didn’t notice, she’s damn fine.”