OFFICER INVOLVED

by Lynch, Sean

  The motorcycle deputy slowly removed his hand. “He ain’t very friendly,” he said over his shoulder to his buddy, “is he?”

  “He ain’t very friendly at all,” the African-American deputy agreed.

  “You’re right,” Kearns said as he walked past. “We aren’t friends. My friends wouldn’t try to get me to violate orders talking about something we all know I’m not supposed to discuss.”

  “You wanna stay alive in this business,” the African-American deputy said, “you’d better have some friends.”

  “Friends like you two I can do without.” He turned back to face them. “The next time either of you lay a hand on me,” he said, “I’ll put you in a wheelchair.” He walked out.

  Chapter 7

  Kearns parked his soft-top Jeep in the complex’s gated parking lot and headed for Paige’s townhome, where he’d been staying since completing the sheriff’s academy. As he was about to insert his key into the lock, the door of the townhome adjacent to Paige’s flew open.

  “Hello there, young policeman.”

  He turned to find the familiar face of Mrs. Murphy, the complex’s oldest resident, peering up at him. The Irish widow was eighty-nine years old, stood a mere five feet tall, and was stooped with the ravages of age. But her eyes were animated, and sparkled with each word she spoke.

  “Evening, Mrs. Murphy,” Kearns said. “How are you tonight?”

  “Hell kid,” she said with a grin, “I’m barely this side of the grave. Any day now the Grim Reaper himself will come a-knocking on my door and let me have it.”

  “Nonsense,” Kearns said. “If the reaper showed up at your doorstep you’d invite him inside, get him drunk, take liberties, and then kick his ass out. You’ll be around long after I’m wearing a casket for a tuxedo.”

  Mrs. Murphy rocked her head back and laughed herself into a mild coughing fit. She winked at Kearns. “You’re probably right,” she said. “Good night, Kiddo; gotta run. Doogie Howser’s coming on in few minutes.”

  Mrs. Murphy loved to sit at the front window of her townhome and observe the comings and goings of her neighbors and their guests. Since her unit was situated at the intersection of two rows of townhouses, and overlooked the parking lot, she had a birds-eye view of the entire community.

  Kearns waited until he was sure Mrs. Murphy had shut and locked her door before going to Paige’s. When he turned his key in the lock and entered, he found Paige standing inside the doorway with her arms folded. She was clad in athletic shorts, an oversized T-shirt, running shoes, and her long hair was tucked inside a Cal Berkeley baseball cap. She greeted him with a less-than-pleasant expression on her face.

  “Good evening, Kevin,” she said, with mock cordiality and a strained smile. “Look who stopped by to see you?”

  Kearns glanced past Paige and saw Deputy Danny Gregory, his former academy roommate, sprawled on the couch in the living room.

  “Hi-ya, Kevin,” Gregory said, without getting up. He was holding a beer which Kearns recognized as originating from Paige’s refrigerator.

  Daniel Joseph Gregory stood a couple of inches taller than Kearns and weighed fifty pounds less. His wise-cracking personality contrasted sharply with Kearns’ normally reserved posture, and the duo was dubbed ‘The Odd Couple’ by their academy instructors. Gregory had no prior military experience, and it was only through Kearns’ help that he survived the rigors of their four-month law enforcement training ordeal.

  “I was telling Paige how fine she looked,” Gregory said. “Cover of Cosmopolitan is where she belongs; not the D.A.’s office.” Paige rolled her eyes.

  “He was also telling me,” she said, “that you were involved in a shooting incident today.”

  “That’s right,” Kearns said.

  “When were you going to tell me?” she said.

  “When I got home,” he answered. He broke into a sheepish grin. “Honey, I’m home.”

  Page Callen, the only child of Judge Eugene Callen, was an Alameda County deputy district attorney; the same county where Kearns was currently employed as a deputy sheriff. She was a tall, freckled, blond woman in her late twenties with intelligent blue eyes and a physique honed by regular workouts. Paige had been a deputy D.A. since graduating from law school, a position she was hesitant to admit was obtained through her father’s political influence. She and Kearns met and became intimate the previous autumn when he and his partner, Private Investigator Bob Farrell, were hired by Judge Callen to catch the homicidal stalker who’d threatened her life.

  Although they initially disliked each other intensely, the shared experience of dealing with Raymond Cowell’s vengeful attempts on Paige as a means to exact revenge on her father fine-tuned their reluctant attraction to a fever pitch. They had been together ever since.

  But cracks had lately begun to show in their relationship. The fact that Kearns was a couple of years junior to Paige, had only recently returned from a four-month absence in the sheriff’s academy, and was preoccupied with his demanding status as a rookie in the Field Training Program, coupled with Paige’s equally-demanding career as a county prosecutor, left them little time for romance. In the return to normalcy after her stalker’s murderous spree was brought to an end, it had become increasingly apparent that she and Kearns possessed personalities and career goals which were not necessarily conducive to a long-term relationship with each other.

  “I’m going to the gym,” Paige announced, picking up her keys and opening the door. “Perhaps,” she said, giving Gregory a disapproving stare, “we’ll have an opportunity to talk privately when I return.”

  “Meow,” Gregory said, once Paige had gone. “Somebody needs to take a Midol.”

  “Check your lip,” Kearns warned him.

  “Sensitive,” Gregory chided. “The mark of a whipped man.”

  “What are you doing here?” Kearns said. “We’ve barely spoken since we got out of the academy. Why are you suddenly at my doorstep?”

  “You’re the one who left the jail and moved on,” Gregory said, “not me. You’re the hotshot being groomed for a patrol slot, only a couple of months out of the academy. I’m still stuck in the Custody Division, handing out baloney sandwiches to inmates and doing asshole checks.”

  “That isn’t my fault,” Kearns said, getting a beer of his own from the refrigerator.

  During their time at the academy, Gregory spent his days goofing and slacking off. He was a perennial last-place finisher in almost every phase of their training, and barely earned enough points to graduate.

  Kearns, on the other hand, earned near-perfect academic marks, was the top recruit in physical fitness, and finished second place overall in the firearms qualifications.

  Kearns understood from his tour in the army that it wasn’t uncommon for military or police training instructors to assign a strong candidate to partner with a weak one, as a means to test both candidate’s temperance and ability to manage the conflict which inevitably arose from contrasting personalities training in close proximity. Kearns tolerated Gregory, did what he could to help him along without compromising his own training, and focused on maximizing his own performance.

  After they’d graduated, and were assigned to the jail at Santa Rita, Kearns once again applied his focus, effort, and discipline to working hard, doing a solid job, and maintaining professional, though not particularly close, relationships with his fellow deputies. In short order he earned the respect of his co-workers and superiors alike, and a reputation as a resourceful deputy who could be relied upon to perform well under difficult and challenging circumstances.

  Deputy Danny Gregory, lacking Kearns’ work ethic and willingness to develop one, took a different route to acceptance within the deputy ranks. He elected to continue to cultivate his class-clown persona even more than in the academy. He compensated for his mediocre work performance by drinking with his co-workers and supervisors after work, with him footing the bill. He figured what he lacked in ability he would make up in p
opularity and political savvy. To a degree, it had worked.

  The marginal-at-best Deputy Gregory, on the basis of his burgeoning popularity as ‘one of the boys,’ barely completed his Jail Training Program. Kearns easily completed his J.T.P. and was subsequently recommended for a coveted position in the Field Training Program, the mandatory precursor to patrol deputy status. This was to the envy and dismay of a number of more senior deputies, many of whom had been waiting years for a transfer out of the jail and into the field.

  Though they worked the same swing shift in the jail before Kearns had been transferred to the Patrol Division, he hadn’t socialized with his former academy roommate after graduation. He didn’t want to. He’d known troops like Gregory in the army. Soldiers like Deputy Daniel Gregory were derisively known as garri-troopers; too far forward to wear ties, too far to the rear to get shot at, generally a pain in the ass, and a detriment to the overall operation of the unit.

  “I guess if I kissed as much ass as you,” Gregory said, “maybe I could get a transfer to the Patrol Division, too.”

  “I ain’t the one buying my sergeant and watch commander drinks every night,” Kearns shot back. He plopped on a couch opposite Gregory and opened his beer.

  Kearns was exhausted. The stress of the shooting, the death of his F.T.O., and the grueling investigative interview afterwards had left him bone-tired and irritable. He wasn’t in the mood for company, especially in the form of Danny Gregory, and suffered no delusion about the true reason for the unexpected and non-coincidental timing of his visit.

  “So how’s it going?” Gregory said, with a not-so-subtle change of topic. “You all right? I hear you had quite a day.”

  “I’m fine. Just tired, that’s all.” He took a long pull from his beer.

  “So what happened?” Gregory said, leaning forward.

  “Save your breath,” Kearns said, suddenly realizing he’d admonished another deputy the same way only a short while ago at the station. It seemed everyone wanted to get the inside story about the shootout in San Lorenzo. “It’s not going to work. I’m not going to talk about what happened. Not to you or anybody else. You can go back to your cronies, or whoever it was who put you up to this, and tell them I wouldn’t spill.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gregory said. “I came here tonight out of concern for my old academy buddy.”

  “Cut the shit. We were roomies, remember? I know you.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means,” Kearns said, “you came here tonight to obtain the inside scoop to get in good with the boys at work. It’s your modus operandi. Politics was always your game. What I don’t know is whether somebody sent you, or you came on your own initiative? I guess it doesn’t much matter,” he drained the remainder of his beer in one long gulp, “the reward would be the same. You’d get to be a big-shot for a minute or two.”

  Gregory averted his eyes and Kearns knew he was right.

  “You always did know the score,” Gregory said, “so I won’t insult you by blowing any more smoke up your ass. You’re right; of course people want to know what happened today. It’s like the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and you’re Doc Holliday. The whole department is buzzing about it.”

  “Wouldn’t you be the man-of-the-hour if you could get the exclusive?”

  “It couldn’t hurt. I won’t deny it.”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint your fans.”

  “Come on, Kevin, help a guy out, will you?”

  “You should leave, Danny. I’m too tired for any of this bullshit.”

  Gregory set down his empty beer and stood up. “I’m going,” he said. “You’d better listen up, buddy. You’re in a heap of trouble. You may be a big, tough, freshly-minted patrol deputy, but if I were you I’d be thinking about doing a little politicking if I wanted to save my ass. A lot of people are curious to know why you were down in the projects in San Lorenzo today? Especially when your beat’s in Castro Valley.”

  “I don’t give a damn what people think,” Kearns said.

  “You’d better start giving a damn. Everybody on the department knows that Bernie Trask was into every dirty scheme he could sink his grubby finger in. They say it’s why he got transferred back to Patrol from the Investigations Division. And I hear tell his pal Mendenour wasn’t any better. They used to be partners in Vice. Today somebody cut off Trask’s nose, and Mendenour’s nose along with it. Since you happened to be smack-dab in the middle of it, with your history, people aren’t necessarily seeing that as a good sign.”

  Kearns stood up. “What does, ‘with your history’ mean?”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Gregory said. “People know who you are. Most of them know about the Vernon Slocum thing, and everybody knows about the Ray Cowell incident last fall. It’s no secret you’re connected.”

  “Connected to what?”

  “Now who’s blowing smoke?” Gregory said.

  “You got something to say, spit it out.”

  “Wake up,” Gregory goaded. “You think banging Judge Callen’s daughter isn’t connected? If you don’t, you really are the redneck rube everybody says you are.”

  “If you’re looking to give up solid food for the indefinite future,” Kearns said, clenching his fists and taking a step closer, “keep bumping your gums.”

  “Take it easy,” Gregory said, putting up his hands. “All I’m saying, is that if I were you I’d get off my high horse and recognize friendly advice. Not threaten the guy who’s offering it. Sounds like you’re going to need some friends.”

  Kearns took another step towards his former roommate and looked up at the taller deputy. Gregory’s nervous face was fleshy, and the beginning of a double chin was already forming beneath his jaw. His anemically-thin body sagged, and what muscle tone he’d gained in the academy he’d already lost in a maelstrom of mid-shift donut runs and end-of-shift beer drinking sessions.

  “Listen up, asswipe,” Kearns said. “Our friendship, if we ever had one, ended long before I finished dragging your limp, lame, and lazy ass through the academy. Don’t pretend it’s something it’s not, and don’t try to lean on me to score suck-ass points with your chums back at the jail.” He jabbed Gregory’s concave chest with a rigid finger. “And the next time you’re stupid enough to come to my home unannounced, you’d best bring a few of those friends you keep bragging about. You’ll need them to carry you out.”

  Gregory was again averting his gaze, and desperately trying to look nonchalant, but Kearns could see fear overtake his features.

  “Get out,” Kearns said, stepping aside and motioning towards the door.

  Gregory opened the door.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he said to Kearns. “You ought to know by now; in the cop world, if you ain’t a friendly you’re an enemy. There’s no in-between.”

  “If I have to tell you to get out again,” Kearns said, “It ain’t gonna be with words.” Gregory hastened through the doorway.

  “Nice place,” he said as he walked out. “Being a kept man suits you.”

  “Don’t come back,” Kearns said, working to get a handle on his mounting temper.

  “I won’t,” Gregory called out. “Good luck with Internal Affairs.”

  Chapter 8

  “Hello sailor,” Farrell said. “You lookin’ for a date?”

  “I would normally find that remark rather comical,” Conley replied, getting into the passenger seat of Farrell’s blood-red Oldsmobile, “but after the way you were dressed when you showed up at Deputy Kearns’ interview, I find it somewhat disturbing.”

  Farrell had changed out of his unseemly undercover aerobics workout attire and into a tan, summer-weight suit. He was relaxing behind the wheel of his parked car, a paper bag containing an already-opened pint of bourbon in his hand.

  The sun had long since dropped below the San Francisco Bay, and as usual, the temperature had fallen with the incoming fog. Farrell’s vehicle was parked in the
vast lot of the San Leandro Marina, and Sergeant Conley had pulled up in his unmarked Dodge sedan.

  By day the San Leandro Marina, as part of the East Bay Regional Park District’s shoreline recreational zone, was largely inhabited by joggers, bicyclists, and pedestrians enjoying a stroll along the waterline. At night, however, the area was a haven for gangsters, drug dealers, prostitutes, and those who would seek their illicit services. It was also a good place for a clandestine meeting, because such an encounter would be lost in the crowd of similar furtive rendezvous.

  Once Conley was settled, Farrell handed him the bottle of Jim Beam. The sheriff’s sergeant nodded his thanks and poured three fingers into the Styrofoam cup of coffee he’d brought with him, along with a stack of file folders.

  “Long day?” Farrell said.

  “For me,” Conley said, sipping his Irish coffee. “Not so much for Deputy Trask and Detective Mendenour. Their day ended rather abruptly. Mine ain’t over yet.”

  “You’re not going back to the office, are you?”

  “I have to. I’ve got to brief the undersheriff.”

  “I appreciate you finding time to meet with me,” Farrell said.

  “No problem,” Conley said. “We go back a ways.”

  Farrell had made Conley’s acquaintance more than twenty years prior, when both were newly-assigned detectives with their respective departments. Farrell had just acquired the rank of inspector at the San Francisco Police Department, and Dennis Conley was a detective with the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department across the Bay. Their paths initially crossed during a kidnaping-for-ransom case in which the victim was taken while in the city, but held by a suspect residing in unincorporated Alameda County near Hayward.

  Farrell and Conley had a lot in common. Both were of Irish descent, both were Viet Nam veterans, both were hard-nosed, tenacious investigators, and both had little tolerance for the petty political intrigues which plagued their individual departments and the law enforcement profession in general. That both cops also liked to bend an elbow now and again didn’t strain their bond.