Marital Privilege

by Greg Sisk

  Not Burton. Burton’s father had been a dentist.

  When Burton decided to get his bachelor’s degree in “Law Enforcement” at Minnesota State University in Mankato during his sophomore year, his father had been disappointed. He had hoped his son would follow in his footsteps and become a “true professional.”

  Burton senior would have been most pleased to see his son pursue a career in the medical profession, but even a law degree would have been enough to satisfy his father’s dream of having another “professional” in the family.

  Burton had graduated from “Mankato State” and taken a job as a junior police officer in the southwestern Minneapolis suburb of Eden Prairie. One evening, he invited his father to ride along with him in the squad car. Burton’s father watched his son deal firmly but politely with a drunk driver, skillfully defuse a neighborhood dispute that threatened to turn into a fist fight, and respond to the call of an injured man who had fallen off a ladder in his house, where Burton also had offered comfort to the man’s distraught wife and young children.

  At the end of the evening, his father had said to him in a quiet but clear voice, “I guess you really did become a professional after all.”

  Burton’s father had been dead for more than ten years now. But Burton still felt a thrill of pride go through him whenever he thought of those words from his father on that night more than two decades ago.

  Nonetheless, years and years of responding to calls on just about everything under the sun (and after the sun had set for that matter) had not prepared him for his arrival at the scene of an apparent assassination attempt by the means of a car bomb. And it wasn’t just that such an episode was rare in Eden Prairie. It was rare anywhere in the United States.

  There was no doubt this had been a car bomb. Contrary to the typical Hollywood car crash scene in which the vehicles explode into flames, Burton knew that cars rarely detonated, no matter how devastating the crash. Cars involved in an accident could catch on fire and burn—he had seen that a few times—although flames were hardly a common aftereffect of a vehicle accident. Almost never would a car explode.

  This car, however, plainly had exploded. The blown out front windows of the house, the shredded lower branches of the large oak tree in the yard, the pieces of the vehicle flung here and there throughout the driveway and the yard left no room for doubt. This had been an explosion.

  And it had been no accident. This was a homicide.

  Dispatch from the police department headquarters told Burton by radio that some television reporters were already speculating as to whether this was a terrorist incident. Sadly, Burton thought, the leap by some in the media to that assumption probably was because of the large population of Somali immigrants in Eden Prairie, nearly all of whom were Muslims. To be sure, there had been a group of Somali teenagers who had been enticed from Minnesota back to Somalia to fight for an extremist Islamist group in that nation’s civil war, which in turn had generated considerable news attention. But, as the Eden Prairie police well knew, while there were a few bad eggs in the Somali community as with any other group of people, you could hardly find a more law-abiding and hard-working set of people anywhere.

  And, in any event, it was clear to those on the scene that this outrage had been targeted at a specific person or persons—not some attempt to stoke fear in the general public. And terrorists certainly wouldn’t carry a bomb with them to attach to a car at the scene.

  The car was no longer burning. Burton had told the firefighters to use as little water and fire-extinguishing foam as possible and simply make sure no flames continued to erupt. He wanted to disturb the scene as little as possible, so as not to damage any forensic evidence that might remain in the now wet but still smoldering mess of metal and plastic.

  The medical examiner was slowly pulling a gurney away with a small body bag. The medical examiner must have noticed Burton’s tight lips and doleful eyes, because he stopped for a moment and called to Burton on the porch, “If it makes you feel any better, the kid didn’t suffer. I can already tell that the initial force of the explosion killed him instantly. He never felt the flames.”

  Burton replied, “Actually, hearing that does make me feel a little better. A little. Thanks.”

  “If you think it would help any,” the medical examiner said, “feel free to let the parents know as well.”

  “I will,” Burton nodded.

  He continued to watch as the gurney bumped down the long curving driveway to a waiting van.

  In an episode of terrible timing, Bill Klein stepped outside on the front porch next to Burton just as the gurney was being loaded into the medical examiner’s van.

  For a brief second, Burton thought Klein had mercifully missed the transition. Then he watched Klein’s eyes travel down the driveway, move back to the burned car, go back down again to the gurney and the van, and then come to a stop at Burton’s face. Burton could see in Klein’s eyes that the significance of the event had not been missed.

  “If it’s any comfort, and I know it probably isn’t,” Burton said, “the medical examiner told me that death was instantaneous. He didn’t suffer.”

  Klein’s lip trembled, and he nodded. “You can come inside now to the kitchen if you like,” he said to Burton. “The living room is a mess, with broken glass from the front windows thrown all around the room.”

  Burton followed Klein back into the house, where they bypassed the living room and proceeded down the hallway that led directly back to the kitchen at the rear of the house.

  Klein slouched into a chair next to a breakfast nook. He looked wrung out. Burton remained standing.

  “I know you’re eager to get to the hospital to check on your wife,” Burton began, “so I’ll make this brief. This should only take ten or fifteen minutes. I’ll then see that you are taken directly and rapidly to the hospital. We can follow up with further questions later.”

  Klein nodded again, as he looked at the floor.

  “If you haven’t realized already, you should know that this plainly was not an accident.”

  Klein looked up for a moment, and his eyes grew wide. But he didn’t seem surprised. “I figured as much,” he said in a low voice. “I’ve seen explosions before. This looked like one.”

  Well now that’s interesting, thought Burton. “You’ve seen explosions before?” he followed up.

  “Yes, we use explosives—TNT specifically—in our construction work.”

  “Tell me about your line of work. How are you employed?”

  “I’m a construction engineer. But I don’t do much of that any more. Now I guess I’m a glorified foreman watching over work crews on construction sites.”

  “And where do you work, Mr. Klein?”

  “For Insignia Construction. My father-in-law, George Peterson, owns it.”

  “So, you say that you use dynamite in the company.”

  “TNT, actually,” corrected Klein. “Most people think they’re the same, but TNT’s a different chemical compound than dynamite and more stable, better suited to construction work.”

  “In what way does your company use TNT?”

  “Is this really necessary now?” asked Klein. “Couldn’t this wait?”

  “I promise I’ll keep this brief. When something like this happens, we need to jump on the investigation right away and collect as much information as we can from the start. Please bear with me for just a few more minutes.”

  Klein looked distracted. “I’m sorry. What did you ask me?”

  “You told me that your company uses TNT. I wanted to know how it’s used.”

  Klein hesitated, but when he began to answer, drawing on his expertise in this field, he appeared to pull himself together and became more articulate. “Well, parts of central Minnesota are underlined with granite, which originally was buried very deep in th
e earth. Through uplift over the eons and erosion of the softer material on the surface by the glaciers in the last ice age thousands of years ago, the granite comes up close to the surface in several regions. We sometimes need to use TNT to blast away boulders or break up rock ledges to make room for roads or foundations for buildings, especially in some of the new subdivisions near St. Cloud.”

  Hmm, thought Burton, so this guy is no stranger to explosives. But he turned the questions in a new direction.

  “So,” Burton continued, “can you think of any reason someone was trying to kill your wife . . . or your son?”

  “Actually,” Klein said, “Candace was taking my car for the day. I’m usually the one driving the Honda coupe.”

  “Perhaps then you were the target,” suggested Burton. “Can you think of anyone who would want to kill you?”

  “To kill me?” repeated Klein with what appeared to be genuine bewilderment. “I can’t imagine that anyone would hate me so much as to want to blow me up in my car.”

  “Have there been any problems at work, anyone who’s angry or might have a grudge?” followed up Burton.

  “Well,” Klein said, “we did have to fire this fellow, Olin Pirkle, recently. We caught him stealing supplies. He was a longtime employee too. He was pretty angry about it. He left a couple of nasty messages on my phone when he learned I’d reported him to the police for theft.”

  “That’s probably a good place to start then,” said Burton. “It wouldn’t be the first time that a disgruntled employee . . .”

  “Former employee now,” interjected Klein.

  “Former employee then. It wouldn’t be the first time that a disgruntled former employee acted out his anger. To your knowledge, would this Pirkle have had any access to explosives, such as the explosives you use?”

  “Well, Pirkle was one of those in the company trained in using TNT. But he didn’t have the codes for accessing the locked cabinet containing the TNT.”

  “Who did have those codes, Mr. Klein?”

  “Well, George Peterson, my father-in-law who owns the company. And I do.”

  “You do?” asked Burton.

  “Yes, but I certainly wouldn’t try to blow up myself. My life isn’t that bad,” said Klein, with an accent in his voice that Burton thought sounded like Klein was trying to convince himself as much as the police officer.

  “What about your father-in law?”

  “No,” said Klein. He then looked down at the floor and uttered in a barely audible mumble, “He could hardly keep running my life if I were dead.”

  Burton said nothing. He made a mental note that he’d touched a sore spot.

  • • •

  Before he could continue, Burton’s new partner, Melissa Garth, who had recently joined the department from another suburban police force, poked her head into the kitchen and announced: “ATF’s here.”

  Already! thought Burton. He could hardly be shocked to learn that agents of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives would rush to the scene of a car bombing. ATF agents were no strangers to weapons and weapons violations. Still, Burton supposed, even most ATF agents had never seen an actual car bombing. And ATF did have a field office in St. Paul, just twenty miles away from Eden Prairie.

  He supposed it was better coming sooner rather than later, when he would have invested even more time into the investigation. Just as he had predicted, the Eden Prairie police were going to be pushed out of the case. He had thought he might make it until noon, rather than being shut out by mid-morning.

  It wasn’t that Burton thought poorly of the ATF, that he doubted their greater expertise in dealing with this unique kind of crime, or even that he resented the fact that they would take control of the investigation of a crime taking place in his town. He knew that ATF forensics agents and labs could do a better job evaluating the evidence from an event involving explosives than could the Eden Prairie police department or even the Hennepin County Sheriff’s crime lab.

  No, what annoyed Burton was thinking about the time that he and his fellow officers had already spent this morning at the scene. Everything they had done would now be second-guessed and repeated. They undoubtedly would be pressed into escorting federal agents around for days without being able to contribute anything meaningful.

  Burton was also upset about how the department might look in the eyes of the public, as Eden Prairie police got pushed to the sidelines. Phone calls from local press and concerned citizens still would pour into the Eden Prairie police department, while Burton and his fellow officers either would know nothing or be forbidden from sharing anything they did know.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Klein,” Burton said turning back to Klein in the kitchen nook. “Please wait here. I may have to move on now, but someone will be back in a few minutes to talk with you.”

  • • •

  “Lieutenant Burton,” said a slight, short, clean-shaven, gray-haired man waiting for him on the porch, “I’m Alex Kramer, special agent in charge with the ATF’s violent crimes bureau at the St. Paul division.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Agent Kramer,” lied Burton.

  “Call me ‘Alex,’” Kramer replied. “I’m sure you’re thinking we’re going to sweep in here, take over, and push you aside. Well, not to worry, Lieutenant.”

  “‘Ed’ is all right,” said Burton.

  “Not to worry, Ed. Between you and me, with federal budget cuts, we’re short-staffed at ATF, especially here in the St. Paul division. I’ve got several positions vacant and don’t know when, if ever, I’ll be able to fill them.”

  Burton remained dubious. He knew all too well that federal law enforcement tended to guard jealously its jurisdictional priorities. Why would ATF be willing to share any of the glory with a city police department?

  Kramer sensed Burton’s skepticism. “So now you’re thinking,” Kramer said, “even if short-staffed, why would any federal law enforcement agency be so eager to partner with a city police department? Or why wouldn’t we look for support from the FBI before turning to city law enforcement?”

  Burton didn’t say anything, but nodded slightly.

  Kramer smiled and said, “We really are short-handed at ATF. And the local FBI isn’t in much better shape. Oh, yes, federal budgets on law enforcement have gone up—but that money is going mostly to Homeland Security. If a case has a terrorism angle, then the federal resources are nearly unlimited. But you and I know this car bombing isn’t going to turn out to have any link to international or even domestic terrorism. It’s too targeted. Homeland Security will lose interest very quickly.”

  Burton nodded again, more vigorously.

  Kramer widened his grin and continued in a confiding manner, “Given the sensational nature of a car bombing case, I’m sure the FBI could find agents only too happy to help. The problem is that the FBI wouldn’t just help on the case. They’d take the case. I don’t want to lose ATF jurisdiction here. This is so clearly an ATF matter—involving explosives, damages to a vehicle, a death—that I don’t want to set a precedent by surrendering this matter to the FBI just because ATF doesn’t have the manpower to handle it alone right now.

  “So I think we’ve got a win-win situation for both ATF and Eden Prairie police. If you want it, you folks get to be fully involved in the case and get credit as full partners. And ATF gets to keep the matter and maintain jurisdictional authority.”

  “Won’t the FBI or other federal law enforcement agencies constantly try to push their way into the case?” asked Burton.

  “Of course, of course,” agreed Kramer. “But I’ve got just the story line to fend them off. Remember that botched ATF raid on that Laotian drug lord’s house here in Eden Prairie, where we expected to find a cache of illegal firearms and came up with diddly-squat?”

  Burton nodded again. Every cop in Ede
n Prairie was familiar with that episode, even though the local police hadn’t been invited to the party. Eden Prairie was hardly immune to the ravages of the illegal drug scourge, but the more violent episodes usually occurred in the inner city areas. In this case, an “alleged” Laotian gang leader from St. Paul apparently had thought to find sanctuary away from the rough-and-tumble of the streets by buying a house out in the western suburbs. Burton knew that Eden Prairie police had kept an eye on that house from time to time, particularly after a drive-by shooting a few months earlier in which multiple shots had been fired at the house. No one had been hurt, and no one at the house was talking. Word on the street was that it was part of a drug war between two rival Laotian gangs.

  “So here’s my line,” related Kramer. “I’ll say that one of the reasons we came up empty in that firearms raid was that the feds had decided to go it alone and had failed to consult with the Eden Prairie police in advance. I’ll say that the local Eden Prairie police could have strengthened intelligence on this gang leader through their greater familiarity with the Eden Prairie situation. Then I’ll say that we cannot afford to make that mistake again and thus ATF is taking the lead in effective investigation by fully cooperating with local law enforcement.”

  Burton smiled appreciatively. “You do know that we in the Eden Prairie police department really didn’t know any more about that Laotian drug boss than you guys did. The fact he had a house here in Eden Prairie didn’t exactly mean that Eden Prairie cops were on intimate terms with him.”

  “I know that. You know that,” replied Kramer. “But it certainly sounds like it could have been true.”

  “And in this car bomb case,” returned Burton, indulging his fondness for quotations, “as Henry Kissinger once said, it would have ‘the added virtue of being true.’ From what I’ve learned thus far, this case has all the trappings of a simple homicide, even if the weapon was most unusual. Basic police work may be the key. And we certainly can do that.”

  “Now to be sure, I’ll have jurisdictional authority over the case and it may result eventually in a federal prosecution,” emphasized Kramer. “And we’ll want to make sure the wreckage is studied by our forensic experts without any interference. But if you’re willing, and your police chief agrees, I’d appreciate your help in conducting interviews with witnesses, doing the leg-work in the investigation, and such things. I promise you’ll be kept in the loop and be a real part of the investigation.”