by Chris Culver
“Did you find the homeowners?”
I nodded and tried to say something, but my throat felt thick. I swallowed hard and then coughed to clear my throat.
“Yeah, I found them.” My voice threatened to crack, so I coughed again, hoping it would lend me strength. “They’re dead. We need to clear the second floor.”
He nodded and followed me through the kitchen and then upstairs. As we walked on that plush carpet in the hallway, I felt like I was floating, like the world moved around me while I stood still. We went through each of the rooms on the second floor, checking the closets, beneath the beds, in cabinets, everywhere someone could hide, to make sure the house was empty. Throughout the search, my mind stayed in the basement, on those I had left behind. After searching the last bedroom, I walked to the top of the steps.
I heard it, then. A tapping noise and a pair of soft footsteps that could have belonged to a child. Or to someone attempting to ambush us.
The hackles on the back of my neck rose, and I slowly removed my firearm from its holster.
“Downstairs,” I mouthed. My young partner nodded and positioned himself behind me on the steps. I appreciated the carpet because it’d muffle our footsteps, but I didn’t like our position. In a firefight, the second floor would give us a tactical advantage, but I didn’t plan to shoot anybody if I could help it. If we had found our killer, I wanted to take him alive.
I took the first three steps and then crouched and pivoted so I could see the entryway, my weapon held in front of me. I found a small Asian woman with a cell phone staring back from the front hallway. Kristen Tanaka, a reporter with one of the local television stations.
“Who are the bodies in the basement, Detective?”
I didn’t lower my firearm. “Drop the cell phone and slowly put your hands on your head.”
Instead of dropping anything, she held the phone toward me and hit a button, presumably snapping a picture. She turned the phone toward herself and then touched the screen. “My producer knows I’m here, and now my Twitter followers know you’re pointing a gun at me. Are you really going to shoot a second unarmed person in a week?”
I put my weapon back in its holster. Reporters were tricky. Even if I had cause to arrest her—and I did have cause here—the amount of ill will she could create would overshadow any good it did. There were better ways to deal with her.
“You’re illegally trespassing at the scene of a quadruple homicide.”
She titled her head to the side. “Who are the bodies, Detective Rashid?”
“That’s none of your business,” I said, taking the stairs down to look her directly in the eye. “Give me the phone.”
“I push one button, and photos of your victims go straight to my Twitter feed and the six o’clock news. Come on, Ash. We can help each other out here. I’m just doing my job. Whose house is this? I’ve already got a researcher looking it up.”
Tanaka and I had run up against each other before. She was pushy, which I could respect, but her moral compass left much to be desired.
“If you refuse to put your phone down, I will Tase you.”
She tilted her head down and smiled, blinking rapidly. “That doesn’t look like a Taser.”
“How about the one behind you?”
She turned to look over her shoulder, and in that time, I stepped forward and wrenched the phone from her hand, causing her to stamp her foot like a child.
“Give me my phone back.”
I ignored her and looked at the screen. She had already posted the pictures to Twitter and her station’s Facebook page under the caption “Breaking News. Caution: gruesome.” I jerked my head up to look at her.
“Do you have any idea what you just did?” I asked.
“I broke a major story, a quadruple homicide involving two police officers.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “You just posted pictures of four dead human beings—one of whom was a child—before we could even tell their families.”
She crossed her arms and stuck her chin out at me. “I’m doing my job. Cut the self-righteous act.”
I held out the phone. “Take your phone and get scarce.”
She snatched the phone from my hand. “Is this where you threaten me?”
My hands started to tremble. “Get out of here before I arrest you for trespassing and interfering with my investigation.”
She hesitated, and I gritted my teeth.
“Get out. Now.”
She practically sprinted out the door. I balled my hands into fists and exhaled through clenched teeth. I looked at my partner. “Follow her out and make sure she gets back to her truck. Then find out how she got in.”
He nodded and jogged out after her. My entire body trembled. If I stayed in that house, I knew I’d do something—punch a wall, slam a door—that would potentially contaminate the crime scene, so I walked to the front lawn and pulled off my tactical vest. The cold air hit my throat, opening it up slightly. We sorted out the Kristen Tanaka mess easily; her cameraman and the producer she had brought with her had made such a scene that the old-timer I had asked to deal with the media needed help. He called my officer stationed near the front door, and while those two dealt with that situation, Kristen climbed through the hedges from two houses down to infiltrate the Penningtons’ home.
I put the old-timer on the logbook and asked the other two officers to deal with crowd control until backup arrived. After that, things settled into a familiar, easy routine. As always happens when an officer goes down, police officers came by the dozen in civilian vehicles and in patrol cars. I used some to work the scene and sent the others home. Paul Murphy arrived maybe twenty minutes later to take over. His face was ashen and somber, his brow red. No smile met my gaze and no jokes seemed forthcoming.
“You heard?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I heard. The whole city’s heard. I know Tanaka’s done some awful things before, but this…” His voice trailed off, and he took a breath and then shook his head. “Doug Osbourne’s wife found out he died by watching the six o’clock news. That’s not right.”
I wanted to scream and shout, but I couldn’t. Paul and I were the two most senior officers in sight, which meant we both needed to appear cool and collected so that the officers under our command knew what to do. All the while, beneath the surface, my temper simmered and my grief for families I barely knew grew. Mark Pennington was eight years old, just a few years older than my daughter. When I closed my eyes, I still saw him wrapped around his mother’s body, and it tore me up inside. But I swallowed it down because our team needed a professional in charge.
“It’s not right,” I said. “And we’ll deal with her when we can. In the meantime, you need anything else from me?”
His eyes focused on me. “Your statement about what happened, but that can wait.”
“I’ll make myself available. Meantime, I’ve got some stuff to do.”
Paul nodded and then turned and started directing officers working the scene. While he did that, I called Mike Bowers on his cell phone. He answered on the fifth ring.
“It’s Ash. Have you been watching the news?” I asked, looking around to make sure none of the reporters had managed to sneak through the police barricade.
“Yeah.”
“I think Detective Murphy needs some assistance out here. This could get real ugly if our officers’ families arrive.”
Bowers sighed. “I’m already on my way. Meantime, we need to talk. You didn’t handle Kristen Tanaka well. She was clearly in the wrong, but that’s going to come back on you. I can guarantee that.”
“Then this will really piss her off. You should subpoena her phone records.”
Bowers actually chuckled. “Say again?”
“We need her phone records. She got here the same time I did. No one had even called 911 yet, so I’m guessing the person who called me called her, too.”
He paused. “If you’re serious, her station’s going to fight you with all t
hey’ve got. The way she uses social media, she’ll have us looking like thugs out to crush free speech.”
“We’ve got four bodies, including two police officers and a child. If you don’t go after her, you’ll have a revolt from the rank-and-file.”
I counted to five before Bowers said anything. “I’ll talk to the Sylvia and the prosecutors. Maybe we can work out something with Tanaka’s station.”
“Good. Get on that.”
I hung up before Bowers could respond, already planning my next step. Kristen Tanaka wasn’t the only person willing to manipulate public opinion through the media. We needed to play some offense. I walked to the police barricade. The cameramen congregated around me immediately, jockeying and shoving each other aside for the best shot, their bright lights blasting my face. I squinted and held up my hand, waiting for my eyes to adjust. When they did, I saw a number of familiar faces, the ones I saw every time I turned on the evening news. I had given interviews to a couple of them, so I knew they were mostly good people. Others, though, were opportunistic assholes.
“Detective Rashid, can you tell us what happened tonight?” asked a reporter.
“First of all, I didn’t come out here to speak as Detective Rashid. I’m coming here to talk to you as a father, and a human being. Four people, four very good people, lost their lives tonight. None of them and none of their families deserve what happened to them. None of them deserved what one of you did tonight, either.”
One cameraman started to lower his camera, but the others stayed riveted on me. They probably hoped I’d start screaming at them, threatening them. A video like that posted to the Internet could get their stations national attention.
“I understand yours is a competitive business in which seconds count. I also believe there are lines you don’t cross, no matter the competitive advantage it may give you. At least one of you spoke to a killer tonight. You were given this address, and you arrived well before anyone called us. You took pictures of our victims, and you broadcast them before we could notify their families. You hurt people needlessly to benefit yourself.”
I searched for one reporter in the crowd. “Ms. Tanaka, you crossed a line that shouldn’t have been crossed. I just want you to know how deeply ashamed I am of you. Our officers gave their lives protecting two innocent victims. A mom and her eight-year-old son lost their lives tonight. The least you can do is respect their deaths.”
I took a breath and then a step back, feigning resignation when more than anything in the world I wanted to shout at her. “That’s all I’ve got. The department’s public relations team will give an official statement later.”
The lights of the cameras dimmed. One of the uniformed officers manning the barricade clapped. A second officer joined, but it didn’t go beyond those two. I appreciated their support, but I hadn’t spoken for their benefit. One short speech wouldn’t make the public turn on Kristen Tanaka, but we needed to put her on the defensive. It might be the only thing that kept her from screwing us in the future.
That done, I walked back to my car and called Special Agent Havelock. His phone actually rang this time, and he picked up after two rings.
“Detective Rashid,” he said. “That was quite a moving speech. Channel 7 ran it live.”
“Yeah. We need to talk. If you refuse, I’m going to the press with everything I know about Miguel Navarra.”
Which was precisely nothing. Hopefully he wouldn’t call me on the bluff.
“You remember the Hardee’s we met at a couple of months ago?” asked Havelock. “Meet me there in half an hour. I’ve got to get something out of my office.”
“See you then.”
Chapter 21
I left the crime scene and took I-70 east across town and then I-465 north to Castleton. My meeting was in a restaurant parking lot beside a strip mall on the corner of Eighty-Sixth Street and Allisonville Road, just a couple of blocks from the FBI field office. Even with little traffic, it took me almost twenty-five minutes to get there. The stores around me had closed hours earlier, but the fast-food workers still toiled away, likely cleaning the place for the night. I doubted they’d want to see me this late in the evening, so I stayed in my car and waited. Havelock arrived in a black SUV approximately fifteen minutes later. The last few times I had seen him, he had the preened look of a man who took his appearance very seriously. Now, though, he wore an Indianapolis Colts sweatshirt and a harried expression on his face.
We both rolled our windows down at the same time. Before I could tell him anything, he waved me over to his car.
“Get in. It’s too cold to sit outside, and I’d rather not yell from car to car.”
His car did look a little more comfortable than mine, so I stepped out and climbed into the passenger seat of his SUV. Almost immediately, he reached to the seat behind us and handed me a thick stack of papers. After that, he put his car into gear and began reversing out of his parking spot.
“Before we talk, I need you to sign that document,” he said. “There’s a pen in the glove box.”
I shook my head. “I’m not signing anything until I get some answers.”
“And you’re not going to get any answers until you sign that. This is a sensitive topic, and that’s a non-disclosure agreement.” He pulled out of the parking lot and onto Eight-Sixth Street. “If you don’t want to sign it, I’ll drop you off right here.”
As an attorney, I’ve seen a lot of non-disclosure agreements, but rarely have I seen one that went over five pages. This had to go on for fifty.
“This is a lot more than a non-disclosure agreement.”
Havelock pulled to a stop at a light on the corner of Allisonville Road and Eigthy-Sixth street. “That’s the same document my agents sign when earning their commission. The federal government needs a guarantee that we can trust you.”
I flipped through it to see if anything immediately stood out for me. The agreement looked fairly standard except that a violation of it could result in the Department of Justice filing treason charges against me. If I needed to, I was sure I could find a way around it. I signed with a pen from my jacket pocket and looked at Havelock.
“I’ve signed it. Now what else do you want?”
“What makes you think I want anything else?”
I threw the agreement onto the seat behind me. “Because you finally agreed to meet me. You think I can give you something. What?”
I didn’t know if he’d answer me at first, but then he drew a deep breath and squinted while looking at me. “You like living in Indianapolis, don’t you?”
“It’s home,” I said, nodding.
“Well,” said Havelock, shrugging, “my home is Washington, DC. When the bureau promoted me, I thought this would be a temporary assignment, but I’ve been here for five years now. I’m three years from retirement, and I’d like to spend those at home doing something worthwhile. You’re going to help me get there.”
I had a feeling I knew what he wanted, but I wanted to hear him say it. “Oh, good. I thought you wanted something difficult. You get the truck, I’ll help you pack it up. No problem.”
Havelock didn’t even smile. “I want Leonard Wilson, and I want you to help me bring him down.”
Leonard was the prosecuting attorney. I knew he had done some illegal and despicable things in his life, and I knew he had received money from questionable sources for his most recent election, but I hadn’t expected the FBI to have an interest in him.
“Should I be insulted?” I asked. “You used to want me.”
He tilted his head to the side. “That was before I got to know you. Over the last couple of months, our forensic accountants combed through your finances pretty well, but we couldn’t find any irregularities that would indicate you’re on anyone’s payroll but the city of Indianapolis. You got a steal on your house, by the way.”
I sunk back into my seat a little. “I’m so glad your illegal search of my finances cleared me of wrongdoing.”
Havel
ock clucked his tongue and shook his head. “It wasn’t an illegal search. You give to Islamic charities. It’s not hard to find a judge who believes that gives us cause to search through your finances to make sure you’re not funding terrorism. I’d offer to show you the warrant, but it was sealed.”
That should have disgusted me, but I’ve heard similar stories enough that I’ve grown inured to them.
“What’s Leonard doing that interests the FBI?”
“We’ve heard rumors that he picked up where Jack Whittler left off. You prove those rumors right, I’ll arrest Leonard on federal corruption charges, and my superiors will take note of my good work and whisk me out of this wonderful town.”
Jack Whittler was the prosecutor a couple of years back, and under his supervision, justice had come with a price. He did everything his job required of him—he prosecuted the bad guys, ran the office, kissed the appropriate asses of the appropriate judges—but he’d overlook a lot of transgressions and refuse to prosecute strong cases if given the right price. He also wasn’t afraid to harass the enemies of his largest campaign donors. I caught him rubbing elbows with a gangster a couple of years ago and tipped off the FBI. They arrested him, and last I heard, he spent most days in the library of a minimum-security federal prison camp in South Dakota.
Considering IMPD would likely fire me in the next few days, I didn’t have much to lose by saying yes. “Sure. Where are we going?”
“We’re just out for a drive,” he said. “I don’t like staying in one spot too long. Civilians tend to get a little curious.”
A little justifiable paranoia probably wouldn’t hurt any of us.
“I’ve talked to a couple of Barrio Sureño members these past few days,” I said. “Miguel Navarra has come up in every conversation. Who is he?”
“Understand that you cannot tell anyone what I’m about to tell you.” He took his eyes off the road long enough to see me nod. “He was Fuerzas Especiales and retired as a light colonel eight years ago.”