by Mike Markel
“Yes.”
“Do you agree that your decision not to follow regs when you apprehended him constituted an unacceptable deviation from policy?”
“Well, sir, yes and no.” Good thing about being unemployed: you can’t piss off the boss.
“Yes and no? I would have thought that was a straightforward question.”
“It was, sir. Very straightforward. It’s just that I can’t give you a straightforward answer.”
“You do agree that the regulations call for you to cuff a suspect when you arrest him for murder?”
“I’m aware of that, sir.”
“It was a felony murder case. He could have taken control of your automobile at any moment. He could have grabbed your pistol. He could have thrown you over that cliff. How was your decision not to cuff him not an unacceptable deviation from policy?”
“Well, sir, obviously it was a deviation from policy. I’m just not sure it was unacceptable.”
He looked at me for a good five seconds. I looked back at him. If I gave a shit what he thought of me, this moment would have been somewhat awkward.
“Explain,” he said.
“I knew Endriss wasn’t going to jump me or take my pistol or anything—”
“You knew? How did you know?”
“Well, sir, that’s another one of those questions.”
“The straightforward kind that you can’t answer in a straightforward way?”
“Exactly, sir. I didn’t know like it was a mathematical impossibility. More like the monkey in the room with the typewriters. It’s possible one of them’ll eventually type out a Shakespeare play, but the smart money says it’s not gonna happen, you know what I mean?”
His face was an empty billboard. “Let’s say you are correct that it was highly unlikely that Endriss was going to put up any resistance. What was the countervailing benefit of not following regs?”
“Not exactly sure what ‘countervailing’ means, Chief, but if you’re asking what good did I think was gonna come out of not following that reg, my answer would be I knew that once I cuffed him, he would stop being a person for a real long time, maybe forever. Once he was in the system, he would become an animal. And since I knew he wasn’t a danger to me or anyone else, I wanted him to still be a person for as long as he could. That was how I figured it.” I shrugged, signaling I wasn’t trying to insult him by defending my decision. Just telling him what I was thinking. “But I didn’t have any beef with getting fired. Still don’t.”
“You understand that, even if your analysis of that situation was accurate, there is the larger issue of the integrity of the regulations themselves?”
“I understand where you’re going, Chief, but to be completely honest with you, I thought that letting this guy see the ocean one more time before I brought him in was kinda more real than the integrity of the regs. And,” I added, to underscore how he didn’t need to waste his time explaining Why Rules Are Important, “like I said, I’m okay with being fired.”
The chief jotted down some notes on the legal pad. He looked up at me. “Let me turn to another issue. On November 17, you were involved in a traffic accident when you were off duty. Is that correct?”
I felt a sharp pain in my stomach, then a pressure going up through my trunk, all the way up to my neck. I didn’t say anything.
“I asked you a question. Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“In that accident, you sustained minor injuries, as did the driver of the other vehicle. And a passenger in the other vehicle—Annie Pritchard, age seven—sustained—”
“That’s right, Chief. Annie Pritchard, age seven, sustained traumatic brain injury when the engine in my damn car crashed into the passenger compartment of the minivan because I didn’t see the stop sign because I was distracted and my reflexes were real slow because I had been drinking. She was in the hospital for forty-three days, and she’s seeing a therapist two times a week because her reflexes aren’t working as good as they used to. The doctors say it’s too soon to tell whether she sustained any permanent damage. Yes, that’s correct. Yes, I did that to her.”
I brushed a tear away from my eye. That’s right, Chief, I thought, that’s who you’re talking to here, and I’m well aware of what I am. But I appreciate you reminding me.
“According to the police report, the accident occurred at 7:42 pm, yet the Blood Alcohol Test was not recorded until 1:14 am, more than five hours after that. How do you explain that?”
“That would be another unacceptable deviation, I guess, sir.”
“Detective, the BAC was recorded by Officer Matt Browning, who was the first officer on the scene.” He turned some pages in my file. “That’s the same officer you had a brief relationship with some time earlier, is that not?”
“That’s none of your goddamn business, who I do or do not have a relationship with. Sir.”
“What I am trying to establish here, Detective, is whether you ordered him to delay the BAC because you did not want a DUI, maybe as high as vehicular manslaughter if the girl died.”
“That’s right, Chief. I didn’t want a DUI or vehicular manslaughter. I wanted to stay on the force, stay on the case, not screw up my son any more than necessary. Write it down. I ordered Officer Browning to delay the BAC. It was all me. I was drunk. I almost killed the kid. I ordered Browning to wait until my blood was below .08. What are we doing here?” I could hear my voice getting high. “You want to change my Inattentive Driving to DUI? Fine, do it. I don’t give a fuck. Give me the form. I’ll sign it.” I was standing, my palms on the edge of his desk.
“Sit down, Detective.” There was a slight edge to his voice, which showed impressive restraint, given the size of the axe on mine. “Now,” he said.
I sat down, but I was coming apart. “What you have just told me is untrue. You did not order Officer Browning to delay the BAC. He admits to doing that himself, and I will take appropriate measures to deal with that situation.”
“Okay, Chief, whatever,” I said, standing up again. “You got enough for your exit interview? We did our interview, so now I’m gonna exit, okay?” I turned to go.
“No, Detective, that’s not okay.” He reached into a desk drawer and pulled out his hip holster, with his service revolver in it. He stood and slid the holster over his belt on the right side. “Come with me.”
“All due respect, Chief, unless you’re gonna take me into custody, you got no right to tell me—”
“Detective.” He looked at me. “I’m asking you to come with me.”
I followed him out of his office.
“Back in an hour,” he said to his receptionist. He led me down the hall and out to the parking lot behind headquarters. We got in his dark gray Buick.
He started driving west, toward 53. We got on the highway, stayed on it for a couple of miles, and turned off an unmarked road just past the Meadows development. Two-hundred yards in, he rolled up to the six-feet tall hurricane fencing that enclosed a rectangular bowl about a hundred feet by four-hundred. Ten-foot tall berms rose from the other three sides of the area.
Murtaugh popped the trunk and pulled out a Smith & Wesson 9mm, two Robinson .223’s, and a couple pairs of clamshell earmuffs. “Let’s do some shooting.” He handed me a rifle, the pistol, and a pair of earmuffs.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s do some shooting.” A play date with the chief.
The chief unlocked the padlocked gate and we went in. We put our weapons down on the plastic picnic table inside the gate. He removed his suit jacket and folded it carefully so the lining would rest on the dusty table.
I’d never been to this firing range, which the chief had built soon after he took over the department. It looked pretty nice, with a bunch of sand-filled 55-gallon drums up front for cops to use as cover in drills. Extending out a hundred yards were a couple dozen steel targets of different sorts deployed at twenty-five, fifty, seventy-five, and one-hundred yards. Yard markers, the kind they hav
e at driving ranges at golf courses, marked off the distances along the berm on the left.
“I like to come out here and shoot. Things can get too noisy back at headquarters.”
“Okay,” I said. Whatever.
“You like to shoot?”
“Sure.” We had to qualify on pistols and rifles twice a year. I was average—not the best, not the worst. But I was lying to him. I had no interest in shooting.
“You see those metal targets?” He was pointing to black silhouettes of a trunk and head, each with a white steel circle, maybe eight inches across, next to the head of the silhouette, like a cartoon bubble. “Know what those are?”
“Nope.”
“The black part is the hostage. The white circle is the head of the bad guy.” He put his earmuffs on, took his pistol out of the holster, checked the clip, and got into the two-handed stance. He aimed at one of the targets at the twenty-five-yard marker and squeezed off a round. I heard the ping as the white circle swiveled around from the left side to the right side of the hostage head.
“Pretty nice, huh? You hit the circle, it’s all set up on the other side for your next shot.” He got back in position, squeezed the trigger again. The white circle pinged again and swung back to the left side of the hostage. “You try.”
I didn’t want to. I hadn’t shot in almost a year, and twenty-five yards was outside my accuracy range with a pistol, even when I was sharp. I put my earmuffs on, checked my clip, and got in position. I fired a round. Dirt sprayed up in the distance. I tried a second round. I heard a ping, but the white circle didn’t move. I’d just taken out the hostage. Well, that’s one way to end a confrontation.
“I’m gonna move in a little closer. I wouldn’t use a pistol on a hostage taker at twenty-five yards.”
“Probably a good idea,” the chief said.
I killed a couple more hostages, finally started hitting the bad guy at about twelve yards. I was getting into the rhythm of it.
I walked back to the table, where the chief was checking the clip on his Robinson .223. “Let’s try the rifles.”
“Which set of targets?” I said.
“Hundred yards,” he said. “Hit any of the closer ones and we can ruin them. Get dimples in them, they can deflect wildly.”
I could tell the chief wanted to get down in the dirt, but his suit looked like it cost as much as the Robinson. He bent his knees, leaning his elbows on one of the drums, closed an eye, and squeezed off a round. I saw the white circle spin around to the other side, then a moment later heard the metallic ping. I tried a round and heard a dull, distant thud as it buried in the berm. We shot about twenty rounds each, alternating. He missed one. I landed one.
We walked back toward the plastic picnic table and put the rifles and the earmuffs down. “Nice range,” I said.
“Yeah, it’s a good setup.”
“Get any pushback from the housing development?”
“We did at the start, especially from the night shooting. But we built up the berms some more and did a better job giving them a heads-up. Plus, we explained why it’s good that we all know how to shoot straight.”
He took a handkerchief from his pocket and dusted off one of the plastic benches next to the table. Apparently, we were going to talk now. I sat opposite to him and folded my hands on the table.
“I want to resolve your employment situation.”
I laughed. “I thought that me being fired made it resolved enough.”
The sun was breaking free of the berm on the east. “You’re a mess. To start with, you’re an alcoholic. I could tell that from the things you said at the AA meeting yesterday. You know it, but you’re still in denial. I understand that. It’s very common.”
“Am I supposed to say something now?”
“Only if you want to.” His ice-blue eyes were locked on mine.
“Pass.”
“Your shooting is terrible.”
“Yeah, well, I haven’t fired anything for a year. You’d be kind of rusty, too.”
“That’s not it. Your mechanics are fine, but your hands are shaking.”
I looked down at them. He was right.
“You haven’t had a drink yet today, is that right?”
“You brought me out here to see if my hands shake?”
“No, I already knew you’re an alcoholic. I brought you out here because I wanted to get in some range time. And because I wanted to talk to you privately. Without being interrupted.”
I looked at him. “Okay, Chief, what would you like to talk about?”
“First thing: ratchet back the attitude. I know you’re going through a rough time, but it wasn’t me got you where you are.”
“What would you like to talk about, Chief?” I had taken a little edge off the question. Not all of it, but as much as I could.
“You’ve got some bad stuff going on. Besides the alcoholism. You’ve got a poor relationship with your ex-husband—and a son who’s almost fifteen who’s got some problems. In addition, you felt isolated here on the job because of your gender, which was largely the result of a dysfunctional culture that never should have been tolerated—and which, I assure you, will no longer be tolerated.” He paused and looked at me.
“Yeah, well, thanks for those insights, Chief,” I said, standing. “You wanna give me a lift back to headquarters? I gotta go home now and go back to bed.”
“On the other hand,” he said, “you have the potential to become an excellent detective.”
I stopped.
“Sit down, Seagate. Please.”
I did it.
“I’ve reviewed the case file on the Arlen Hagerty murder. I’ve interviewed your partner, Detective Miner, extensively. Your instincts are first-rate. You handled the investigation very effectively, putting the appropriate amount of pressure on the suspects and witnesses. You resisted the unwarranted intrusion of Chief Arnold, who wanted to divert resources from the murder here in Rawlings to a higher-profile murder that occurred out of our jurisdiction, even though you knew that resisting him could hurt your career. Finally, you have the one indispensable quality of a real detective: you want to see justice done. You want to get the bad guy.”
I shielded my eyes from the sun. “Can you tell me where you’re going with this?”
“As I said, I want to resolve your employment situation. First thing, I want you to agree to take a Fitness for Duty examination by a psychiatrist tomorrow morning at eight.
“What’s the point of that? You know I blew the Hagerty case. You know I’m a drunk. Now you know I can’t shoot. You really need a psychiatrist to tell you I’m unfit for duty? Just give me a piece of paper that says I formally resign. I’m happy to sign it.”
He paused. “No, I want you to take the FFD. If you fail it, I can terminate you properly. If you pass it, I can put you on medical leave.”
“What’s that get me?”
“For one thing, it gets you health benefits. And, if an opening occurs and you’ve passed the FFD, I have the option of re-hiring you.”
“You’d re-hire me due to me passing a test?”
“Probably not. You’ve got the worst attitude I’ve seen in many years, you have a record of insubordination, and you probably don’t have what it takes to get sober.”
“Good talk,” I said. “How about that lift back to headquarters?”
“Back in Sacramento, we had some success with AA for the alcoholic officers. We put them on probationary status, had them attend an AA meeting every day for ninety days—on their own time, unpaid. They didn’t do a good job at the start. Most of them were as bad as you were yesterday. But they have a phrase at AA: ‘fake it till you make it.’ We monitored their attendance and participation, and we did random drug and alcohol testing and any other monitoring that we deemed necessary and appropriate for ninety days. If, at the end of that period, their performance on the job and in AA had been satisfactory, we lifted the probation.”
I felt myself kind of breaking d
own. “Did it work?”
“Sixty percent of the time we re-hired them, and most of them stayed sober.”
We sat there for a few moments. I could hear a few cars going by on 53 a few hundred yards away. There was a far-off whine from some lawn equipment coming from the Meadows on the other side of the berm.
“You’d give me that deal?”
“I need to make one thing clear: I do not tolerate unacceptable deviations from policy and regulations. I understand, on a human level, your decision not to cuff the suspect in San Diego. For the reasons I mentioned, however, that deviation was unacceptable. Policy and regs exist for a purpose. Granted, that suspect had gone through a terrible thing, losing his daughter. But have you considered that he could have pled to temporary insanity and been acquitted, or done a few years and then been on probation? And as you said, if he really wasn’t a danger to anyone, the months he would’ve spent in custody preparing for his trial could have given him the time he needed to process what had happened. Right about now, six months after his arrest, he might have been a free man, or at least he could have been doing something productive in some sort of halfway house or other community.
“But he does not have that opportunity. Because of your own personal situation, especially your own despair about injuring the child, you chose a course of action that enabled him to take his own life. You wanted to kill yourself, Detective, and he’s dead.”
It was some weeks before I figured out what Murtaugh was doing. I heard the echo of the word potential. I had the potential to be an excellent detective. But I wasn’t yet. I certainly wasn’t when I let the suspect take a flier. So Murtaugh might be willing to let me back—on his own terms. He’d have me for ninety days. Chances were excellent I’d screw up the AA meetings. Chances were also excellent the two of us would get into it over something or other. It wouldn’t have to be real dramatic like me wanting to kill myself but killing a suspect instead. It would probably be something stupid like me not filling out forms the way he wanted me to. So I’d quit and he’d publish some article about Motivating Fuck-up Detectives in a cop magazine, and he’d feel all professional about how he’d clearly laid out the rules but I just wasn’t ready to follow them.