Cold Blue

by Gary Neece

  Erica came from money—old money. Her father, Phillip Hessler, made no attempt to hide the fact that he disapproved of the man who’d “knocked-up” his baby. He had higher aspirations for his daughter. Thorpe figured the man had hoped for an Ivy League investment banker as a future son-in-law, not some knuckle-dragging civil servant with a gun. The two married in a large downtown Methodist church with Erica clearly showing in her white wedding dress. When the father gave his daughter away, he did so with a glare that should have burned a hole right through Thorpe’s rented tuxedo. The relationship with his in-laws would never improve.

  Thorpe, in the delivery room on the night Ella was born, didn’t experience any of those overwhelming emotions other fathers describe when excitedly recalling the births of their children. He made sure he said all the right things and smiled on cue. Two days later, mother and child came home to the apartment. Erica didn’t feel well, and Thorpe was burdened with the majority of childcare. One short week of tending to Ella—the diaper changing, the bottle feedings at 3 a.m., the standing over the crib to make sure the baby still drew breath, the worrying that comes with caring for something so small, fragile, and, yes, precious—had broken Thorpe down.

  He loved his little girl more than anything he had loved in his entire life. Childcare wasn’t a burden any longer; it was a privilege. This innocent baby, Ella, looked to Thorpe to take care of her, and that’s just what he planned to do. Thorpe wasn’t the only one changed by being a parent. Erica settled down, and, to his surprise, turned out to be an excellent mother. As Ella grew, so did the relationship between Erica and Thorpe. He might not have been in love, but his caring deepened. Thorpe’s love for Ella, however, grew beyond even his own comprehension. He knew if he lost her, he too would be lost forever.

  FOLLOWING THEIR WORKOUT, JEFF LEFT Thorpe’s property more concerned than when he’d arrived. When they’d partnered together, they spent upwards of eight hours a day with each other five days a week and had often hung out on their off days. When you’ve spent that amount of time with a person, you damned well got to know him. Maybe not his history, if he were unwilling to share. But you reach a point where you knew another person’s thoughts, even if the words weren’t spoken.

  Jeff sensed a shift within Thorpe. He’d already been close to becoming unhinged, but now there was something…new. Jeff couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was but decided he’d be keeping a closer eye on his best friend.

  Monday

  February 5

  Evening

  POLICE LOVE THEIR ACRONYMS, AND the Tulsa Police Department was no exception. Thorpe supervised the Organized Gang Unit, or OGU. The OGU operated out of the Special Investigation’s Division or SID, which housed the department’s undercover units. In addition to the OGU, the division was also home to the Vice Unit, two narcotics units, the Intelligence Unit, and the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force or OCDETF, a unit comprised of DEA agents and Tulsa police officers—both entities being cross deputized. Tulsa officers, integrated with the FBI’s counter terrorism unit, also worked out of the office. The personnel working at SID were a motley bunch. Some had the boy or girl next-door appearance while others looked as though they should be shooting crank in a darkened corner of a seedy bar.

  The Special Investigations Division, more commonly referred to as “The Office” by those who worked there, was relocated every few years in an attempt to keep the location secret, thereby deterring countersurveillance. Currently the office was located on the southwest corner of a busy intersection in East Tulsa. SID personnel accessed the office via a concrete ramp on the south side of the building. At the top of the ramp, a tall gate and an electronic card reader kept the uninvited at bay. The gate was posted “ITPS Inc., AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.” ITPS stood for It’s The Police Stupid—a testament to the fact that cops do have a sense of humor. If allowed through the gate, one parked on a lot that—in reality—was the roof of the second floor of the building. The first two floors were occupied by regular citizens who didn’t have access to the third. The third level was half parking lot and half office building.

  Situated in a fairly nefarious neighborhood, officers could sit atop their own elevated parking lot, look over the short wall, and observe drug sales occurring on a daily basis. The Sheridan Commons, a low-rent, pay-by-the-night or by-the-week “whoretel,” sat just to the south. It was a major prostitution and street-level narcotics hub, owned and operated by a Middle Eastern man shadier than a Live Oak in July.

  Thorpe arrived at the office a few minutes before 6 p.m., when darkness was already descending. Thorpe had ten investigators and one corporal under his command. His corporal and four of his officers normally worked dayshift hours from eleven in the morning to seven at night. Thorpe chose to work the late shift from 6 p.m. till 2 a.m. with the six nightshift officers. However, because of the nature of the work, schedules changed on a daily basis and overtime was abundant. Well, it had been abundant until the new division commander arrived a few months ago. Now officers went home on time even in the midst of developing investigations—all in order to make the new major, Richard Duncan, look like an overtime savior to his bosses.

  Thorpe docked his undercover truck beneath the amber lights of the parking area. Then, dimly illuminated by the yellow haze, strode across the lot and swiped his card a second time to gain entry. As usual, the division’s secretary and all the brass had left for the evening. Deeper into the building, he found two of his nightshift officers already at their desks. One, Jennifer Williams, shouted at him across the OGU bullpen.

  “Hey, Carnac, can we serve a warrant tonight?”

  “Carnac” was a name Thorpe picked up a couple of years earlier. Most criminals had cool nicknames like Deuce, Fast Eddie, Machine Gun Kelly, whatever. But a police officer would never give another cop a good moniker. A few had tried to assume favorable nicknames for themselves—always with disastrous consequences.

  Thorpe’s label was a reference to “Carnac the Magnificent,” a character made famous by the late Johnny Carson. In the skit, Johnny would wear a ridiculously gigantic turban on his head. As always, Ed McMahon played the straight man. Carson as Carnac would produce an envelope, which McMahon would claim was “hermetically sealed.” Carnac would then use his psychic powers to come up with a punch line answer to an unknown question. After announcing the punch line, Carnac would open the envelope and read the question. The bit would go something like this:

  Carnac would hold an envelope to his turban and state, “A triple and a double, catcher’s and fielder’s, and Dolly Parton.”

  McMahon: “A triple and a double, catcher’s and fielder’s, and Dolly Parton.”

  Carnac: “Name two big hits, two big mitts…and a famous country singer.”

  Thorpe had earned this nickname while serving a search warrant on a methamphetamine lab near Lewis and Independence. One of his officers had obtained the warrant utilizing a “trash pull.”

  The courts have deemed once refuse is abandoned at the curb it is no longer protected by search and seizure laws. Investigators generally “pull” the trash and replace it with another bag in the early morning hours while everyone’s asleep (though it’s sometimes difficult to determine when a crankster sleeps, since they’re often up for days on end). And it’s always a bit awkward when you get caught stealing garbage. Feigning being drunk off one’s ass is the preferred tactic for avoiding lengthy explanations. No one likes talking to someone who’s shitfaced, not even meth-heads.

  You can learn a lot about a person from going through their trash, right down to their menstrual cycles. In this instance, officers found blister packs from numerous cold and allergy pills, which contained pseudoephedrine. They’d also located Heet bottles and items covered with iodine stains. All of these components are used in the “Red-P” method of methamphetamine production. A background check on the occupants revealed prior arrests for drug possession and related offenses. The contents of the trash, bolstered by the reside
nt’s criminal history, were more than enough to obtain a search warrant for the property.

  Search warrant services on methamphetamine labs are rarely fun. They’re inherently dangerous because of a multitude of toxic chemicals used in the manufacturing process. In addition, the “cook” itself produces phosphorus gas, which is lethal. Added to the mix are cooks who are at the extreme end of paranoia. Labs often explode, and cooks sometimes implement booby traps to injure officers.

  The residence involved in this particular search warrant was the quintessential crank house. Located in the midst of lower-class homes, it had a large lot surrounded by an eight-foot privacy fence, vehicles in various stages of disrepair carpeting the yard, black plastic sheeting on the windows to provide concealment, and upholstered furniture on the front porch. The only things missing were the requisite Chevy El Camino and Confederate flag.

  In addition to their usual equipment, the first three officers staged at the front door wore self-contained breathing apparatuses (SCBAs) and Nomex fatigues. The SCBAs protected against toxins in the air, while Nomex offered minimal protection against explosions and flash fires. The first officer wore an air monitor around his neck that checked for toxic and explosive chemicals. The monitor is designed to let out a piercing alarm if it detects specific elements above a certain threshold. If the alarm goes off, the search warrant is over, and everyone gets out. Immediately.

  Upon knocking the front door off its hinges with a battering ram, the first thing they saw was—you guessed it—a Confederate flag. The air quality seemed fine and the entry team entered the residence. Two officers “held” the staircase to the second floor as others cleared the lower portion of the dwelling for suspects. Earlier, surveillance reported observing the main target enter the house, yet they hadn’t yet encountered a single person. Ground level rendered safe, Thorpe ascended the stairs after notifying another officer to follow at a reasonable distance.

  Hallways are one of the most dangerous portions of any search warrant. Officers call them fatal funnels because you progress down a corridor with no cover or concealment. If a suspect steps out and fires rounds down a hallway, he’s likely going to “cut meat.” Stairways are even more perilous. They’re hallways with uneven footing where the bad guy has the high ground. Consequently, a bunch of officers on a stairway at the same time is a worse idea than entering an adolescent male’s bedroom without knocking.

  When Thorpe reached the top of the stairs, he found another hallway with three bedrooms and a bath. He motioned for additional officers and together they cleared the bathroom and two of the three bedrooms. The door to the final bedroom at the end of the hallway was closed. Thorpe took up a position in a room on the left side of the hallway near the closed room. Another officer approached the door from a room on the right side of the hallway. That officer approached from the hinged side and reached across for the doorknob. As the officer reached, Thorpe was overcome with a feeling of impending doom unlike any he’d ever experienced.

  Thorpe hissed, “Stop.” Sensing the urgency in his sergeant’s voice, the officer stepped back into the room on the right and took cover.

  Thorpe remembered feeling flustered as he had not heard, seen or even smelled anything indicating circumstances more dangerous than usual. The only thing substantiating his concern was that Intelligence had been certain the main target was inside, yet his squad had not encountered a single suspect. Still, Intelligence had erred on numerous occasions. Rather than dismiss his unwarranted apprehension, Thorpe called for an officer to retrieve a bullet-resistant shield and sent another officer to collect the ram, which had been discarded on the front porch.

  When both officers were in place, he directed the officer with the shield to approach the door and crack it open, about an inch “to let the room cook.” The room sat dark, nothing moved. Yet Thorpe felt a presence. Thorpe stood just inside the doorway using the doorjamb for cover. Attached to his Glock was a high-intensity flashlight slicing a wedge of illumination inside the partially open door eight feet ahead.

  Thorpe tapped all his senses in an effort to understand his foreboding of the room beyond. He was sure every officer felt it, or maybe they just sensed Thorpe’s unease. Regardless, he was so attuned he could hear fabrics stretching and contracting as weary officers breathed in and out under the mounting stress. Still, nothing tangible seeped from the space ahead, only darkened corners and silence. Despite the quiet, lack of odor, or any visual clues, the room may as well been aglow with brimstone based on Thorpe’s nape hairs standing at attention.

  Thorpe could smell Donnie Edward’s cologne. In fact he could pinpoint the officer’s exact location solely from his labored breaths. In addition to the stress everyone felt, Donnie had raced to fetch the ram and lugged the heavy instrument back up the stairs. Donnie resembled in size an NCCA Division I defensive end, and with good reason; that’s what he was before joining the department. These days his appearance was closer to a “one percenter” motorcycle club member—his hair and beard approximated two feet in length. Because of Donnie’s size, Thorpe often put him in charge of the ram—as was the case on this warrant.

  “Donnie, on my right,” Thorpe ordered the officer to his side.

  “What’s up, Sarge?”

  “Donnie, I want you to launch that ram at the door and get your ass back in here before it hits. You think you can do that?” Thorpe whispered, never taking his eyes off the room ahead.

  “Yeah, no problem. What’s the deal?”

  “Just got a bad feeling.” Thorpe directed his officer into the hall with a bit of pressure on the larger man’s shoulder.

  Donnie threw the ram and stepped behind Thorpe before the eighty-pound projectile slammed into the door, knocking it wide open. A shotgun blast came from the right side of the unsecured room, taking out a chunk of sheetrock just left of the battered door.

  A shotgun blast in an enclosed space will definitely wake your ass up. Following the blast, a redheaded maniac with saucer-size eyes came running out of the room kamikaze style, carrying a long-barrel gun in his hands. Thorpe fired one shot with his Glock .40-caliber handgun into the center of the man’s face, the round catching the man in the bridge of the nose. Because of the suspect’s forward motion, he began to fall face first into the middle of the hallway near Thorpe’s feet. Not taking any chances, Thorpe fired two more rounds downward, into the back of the man’s head before it impacted with the floor. Then he immediately brought his weapon up toward the open door, scanning for additional threats.

  At the conclusion of the warrant service, one of the officers asked how he knew what had been waiting on the other side. Thorpe answered with his usual sarcasm, “Didn’t you know I was psychic?”

  The officer responded, “Yeah, right, Carnac the Magnificent.” And the nickname stuck.

  All shootings involving a police officer are investigated by both Homicide and investigators with the Office of Integrity and Compliance, formerly known as Internal Affairs. Thorpe didn’t know the reason for the name change—maybe they thought the elaborate term lent more credibility or maybe they just wanted to soften their image. Police departments around the country were too busy trying to pacify leftwing liberals instead of doing their jobs, which used to be fighting crime. Despite the official name change, officers still referred to them as Internal Affairs.

  Most IA investigators were pretty decent cops. Unlike their portrayal in the movies, the busting of a fellow officer was not a fast track to promotion—at least not in Tulsa. Recently, Thorpe’s buddy Jeff Gobin had transferred to IA.

  As far as Homicide, Thorpe had the utmost respect for the sergeant in charge of that unit, Robert Hull, and for the majority of investigators under his command. In Thorpe’s opinion, Robert Hull was one of the finest cops on the department. During the subsequent investigation, most questions centered on how Thorpe knew a threat lurked behind the closed door. Thorpe’s disclosure that he “had a feeling” raised the eyebrows of several investigators th
ough none officially called bullshit on the matter.

  Another point of contention was the two slugs to the back of the head. After Thorpe’s first shot the suspect fell in such a way that he had a line of fire into the room where Thorpe’s team huddled, and Thorpe didn’t want to learn the man was still alive via a shotgun blast cleaving one of his officer’s heads. Homicide and IA had no problem with his explanation. However, the Tulsa County District Attorney hesitated signing off on a justifiable shooting because of the last two rounds. For political reasons, DA’s often went after police officers with fervor, a potential problem when you have lawyers—most of whom who would shit themselves if placed in similar circumstances—reviewing deadly force situations. Yet they sit back in their air-conditioned offices and Monday-morning quarterback events that at the time were tense and rapidly evolving. After five weeks of paid suspension, the DA finally blessed the shooting justifiable, and Thorpe was reinstated to the Gang Unit.

  “Hey, Carnac, can we serve a warrant tonight or what?” Jennifer asked again. Officer Williams had many good qualities; patience not one of them.

  “I don’t think there are any in front of you. Let me see it,” Thorpe said, carrying the warrant back to his office to review.

  Every sergeant at SID had his own office. Most garnished theirs with lamps, pictures, and the requisite framings of all the accolades they’d received since kindergarten. Thorpe’s was sparse. Besides his desk and computer station, he had a small television and a confiscated leather couch for late nights at work. Otherwise, everything that hung on his wall was functional. He had two cork boards filled with various documents and a large paper calendar serving as his décor.

  Besides, Thorpe spent as little time as possible inside his office. He answered emails, returned phone calls, and distributed case assignments within an hour of arriving. He devoted the rest of his shift to what officers should be doing—throwing bad guys in jail. The new major, Richard Duncan, had arrived only a few months ago and was already making that job more difficult. He seemed determined to turn the division into a bunch of gun-toting secretaries. Officers now spent half their shifts with busywork instead of crime fighting. They wasted countless hours feeding a cumbersome case-management system. A simple drug arrest now resulted in five hours of post-booking paperwork. Progress.