The Betrayers

by James Patrick Hunt

  “Yeah. About two minutes ago. County or even Glenwood PD may have a photographer there already, though I doubt it. Even if they do, we got to make sure there’s no gaps. Can you make it?”

  “Sure.”

  “Good. It’s Manchester and Bryant Place. Got that?”

  “Manchester and Bryant Place. Yeah.”

  Hastings clicked off that call. Two conscientious detectives and a good crime scene photographer would be meeting him there. He relaxed, a little.

  FOUR

  A minute later Hastings was driving eighty mph down I-64 with the blue light on his dashboard flashing the traffic away in front of him and Karen Brady was forgotten. God, two cops machine-gunned. Gangbangers, bank robbers … how did it happen? Forest Park whisked behind him as he drove farther west, then got off the exit ramp onto Brentwood Avenue and took it south to Manchester Road, drove farther west until he saw the scene.

  He didn’t need Karen’s directions. The scene was lit up like a night game. Ambulances, a fire engine, camera crews, media trucks with tree-sized light stands for the news correspondents along with at least a dozen patrol cars from metro and county. A large crowd of people, which was not unusual for a murder. But much more than that. Hastings parked the Jag and moved closer. It was then that he realized another distinction between this situation and a typical homicide: the sight of police officers visibly shaken. Crying. Crying because two brothers were slain. And not just by a couple of bangers with Saturday night specials, but machine-gunned. It was as Hastings thought earlier: deliberate, savage … something more than a violation of law … a rule had been broken.

  Hastings presented his police identification and threaded his way through the crowd until he got close enough to see the victims.

  And when he did, he was pretty shaken himself. Two county deputies, in uniform, bloody and ragged and undignified in their lifelessness. He found himself choking back a gulp of horror. The cop in him reacted without thought.

  “Oh, God,” he said, quietly. “Motherfuckers. You rotten motherfuckers.”

  FIVE

  The top-ranking patrol sergeant at the crime scene filled Hastings in before his detectives showed up.

  A couple was driving back from the movies when they saw the flashing lights of the sheriff’s patrol car and what they thought were a couple of people lying down next to it. They circled back and saw that the men on the ground were police officers. Then they got real scared and called 911. They stayed in their car and left it running because two dead police officers frightened them. Stayed in their car until two other patrol units came and determined that whoever had done the killing was gone. Then they came and gave statements.

  The patrol sergeant said, “They felt bad for staying in their car, but I told them they shouldn’t. It’s a goddamn frightening thing, Lieutenant, seeing two police officers shot to death.”

  Hastings said, “I know.” He put his hand to his mouth for a moment, then took it off. He said, “Did you keep the witnesses here?”

  “Of course, Lieutenant.”

  “Okay. Have the spouses been notified?”

  “Yeah. The county sheriff notified them. The young one, Childers, he wasn’t married. Hummel was.”

  “You knew Hummel?”

  The sergeant did not swallow, but there was a pause. “Not that well, Lieutenant, but yeah, I knew him. He was a good man. A joker.”

  “Jesus, I’m sorry.”

  The patrol sergeant made an effort and kept his voice low and controlled. “Awful,” he said.

  Murph and Rhodes got there about twenty minutes later. They signed the crime sign-in sheet.

  Detective Howard Rhodes was a big, tall man in his early thirties. Hastings did not know him that well because he had only been on his squad for a few months. He was the only black detective on their team and though he was conscious of it he certainly never spoke of it. So far, he had shown the makings of a good detective.

  Murph the Surf, the other detective, had replaced detective Marvin Tate after Marvin got shot by a doctor wanted for murder. Hastings later caught the doctor and arrested him for the attempt to kill Detective Tate as well as for two other murders, one of them committed twenty years earlier. Tate had survived the shooting and had made a good recovery. He sued the doctor for assault and battery in civil court and got a judgment against him for half a million dollars; it was not often that shooters were worth suing, but the doctor had money. After healing, Marvin Tate decided that he no longer wanted to be a police officer. It was an awkward scene when he came to Hastings and told him he was going to become something called a financial planner. Awkward because he felt guilty for quitting and ashamed for being afraid and Hastings felt guilty for being relieved. Because even before the shooting, Hastings had thought that Marvin was not cut out to be a detective. Maybe not even cut out to be a police officer. So they spoke to each other like mutually unhappy spouses wanting to end the marriage without telling the other just why. The detectives took him out to lunch on his last day and when it was done everyone felt the lifting of a burden of guilt and quiet betrayal.

  Tim Murphy, in contrast, fit right in. He was in his late thirties and was of a build and size that was almost slight. But he had that air of fearlessness and menace about him that non-Irish cops tend to envy. In another time and place, the English Black and Tans would have placed a bounty on him, dead or alive, though preferably dead. He was a self-assured man who wore sports coats with knit ties that had gone out of fashion during Reagan’s second term. Hastings liked him.

  Murph and Rhodes greeted Hastings with a nod and “George” respectively and looked at the bodies of the dead policemen. Murph’s face twisted in a way that Hastings had never seen before.

  Murph said, “Can’t we cover them up?”

  Hastings shook his head. “No. They have to be left as they are until the MEs get here. You know that.”

  Rhodes looked away as if he were afraid Murph would start weeping and would need some privacy. It was a human gesture and Hastings noted it.

  Murph said, “Who fucking does this?”

  “I don’t know,” Hastings said. “But we’ve been assigned to it, so I need you to pull yourself together.” He looked directly at the older detective. “Okay?”

  Murph nodded.

  Rhodes said, “You want us to canvass the neighborhood?”

  “Yeah,” Hastings said. “Take opposite sides of the street and work your way down the block. Then do the block after that. If you have to wake people up, wake them up.”

  The men nodded and left.

  Hastings did not tell them not to talk to any reporters because he knew they were professionals and they already knew better.

  Hastings looked across the yellow tape to where a rudimentary command center had been made, outside of the crime scene because the two should never be in the same place. There he saw Chief Mark Grassino, Assistant Chief Fenton Murray, the official department media spokesman Aaron Pressler, and Sergeant Bobby Cain standing in a circle talking.

  Right away, Hastings was pissed off. Cain was a sergeant detective under Hastings’s command and the place he should have been was next to Hastings asking what he should do next. But no, he was in a conversation bouquet with the Men of Power, nodding affirmations to the brass and standing with his hands in his pockets like he was Bobby fucking Kennedy, the little shithead. Cain came from a wealthy, influential family. His father was a well-connected attorney, the sort people go to when they’re considering running for city council or something similar. As a local kingmaker, Dad could have secured Bobby something simple, like superintendent of public works, but Bobby wanted to be a police officer. And this decision was something of a mystery to the rank-and-file police officers. Some believed that Bobby was using the Department to groom himself for higher office. Perhaps mayor or, years down the road, governor. In any event, they resented him for it. They resented his apparent lack of shame in using his father’s name and power to move up the chain of comm
and. George Hastings was not the only policeman who wished Cain would hurry up and finish his apprenticeship and leave them all the fuck alone.

  Now, as if on cue to further aggravate the situation, Cain happened to look over and see Hastings looking at him. Cain put his hand up and, using his fingers, gestured for Hastings to come over there.

  Hastings had to steady himself and suppress a fair amount of rage. Oh, boy, he thought, someone’s going to get his fingers snapped off and shoved up his ass.

  Hastings stared back at Cain and then very deliberately shook his head and then crooked a finger to Cain. No, homey, you come over here. He felt better when he saw Bobby Cain’s expression change before he said something to the chiefs and walked over to the primary crime scene. It let some steam off, but not much.

  Bobby Cain said, “Hey, George. Uh, the chief wanted to give a statement to the media.”

  Hastings said, “Okay.”

  Hastings let a silence fall between them. There was the background murmur of people talking, reporters asking questions, technicians setting up camera shots, police officers swearing and crying while others crossed themselves.

  Cain realized Hastings was not going to say anything else. So he said, “Well, I mean, what have we got?”

  Hastings said, “Well, let me ask you something: did you get here before I did?”

  “Uh, yeah, I guess.”

  Hastings lifted his hands in a gesture that said, well then?

  Cain said, “Well, I was waiting for you to get here and then the chief came and he wanted to know what was going on.”

  It was a lame rationalization, Hastings thought. But two police officers were dead and Hastings decided not to put any more energy into putting Cain in his place. He thought about giving Cain a short summary of what little he knew to take back to the chief, but he didn’t trust Cain. Cain was just the sort to consciously or unconsciously screw it up and have the chief tell the media something completely foreign to Hastings.

  Hastings said, “I’ll talk to him.” He put a hand on Cain’s shoulder because he could see that the young sergeant intended to come with him. “I need you to stay here. Talk with the patrol sergeant. He’s got all the uniformed officers’ statements. Review them immediately and then report to me what you find out.”

  There was a look on Cain’s face as if he were considering it, but before Hastings could say anything, Cain had turned and walked toward the patrol sergeant as ordered.

  Hastings’s previous contact with Chief Grassino had been limited to a handshake at a fraternal order of police (FOP) Christmas dinner. Mark Grassino was not from St. Louis. Most of his police career had been with the Atlanta police department, where he had been assistant police chief. The city had brought him in and made him chief with the hope that he would improve race relations in the community. No noticeable improvement was made thereafter, but at least people didn’t really talk about it anymore. Hastings did not really know the man and had not formed any reason to trust or distrust him.

  Chief Grassino shook Hastings’s hand and said, “George”; obviously someone had reminded him of Hastings’s first name.

  “Chief,” Hastings said, “I really don’t have anything much at this stage. The Pathfinder was stolen yesterday from Florissant. It’s machine-gun fire, by the pattern against the vehicle. Nine millimeter slugs, probably from a MAC-10 or an Uzi. It could be that they stopped the driver and the driver got out and hit them with a burst. But I doubt that happened. The positioning of the bodies, I think the shooter would have to have been standing”—Hastings pointed—“there. Or sitting in a car.”

  The chief said, “A drive-by.”

  “Maybe.”

  “On police officers.”

  Hastings hesitated. “Yes,” he said. “Keep in mind, I haven’t seen any ballistics report, but unless the driver managed to hide a machine gun beneath his coat or something and then get the police officers between the Pathfinder and him … it’s just not likely that happened.”

  Chief Grassino said, “Are you suggesting that this was set up?”

  “Well, a lot of things are possible. But yes, a setup is a reasonable possibility.” Hastings looked out at the media trucks. “Respectfully, sir, I would ask that you not tell that to the press.”

  “You think that would cause some sort of panic?”

  “Yes, sir, I do. If people think these men were killed by a random crackhead, that’s one thing. If they think it was, well, political … that is, if they were targeted because they were policemen, well, that scares people.”

  The chief said, “It scares me too, Lieutenant.”

  SIX

  Hastings left the crime scene around 3:00 A.M. and drove home. He lived in a two-bedroom condominium in St. Louis Hills. The condo was on Nottingham Avenue across the street from a park that covered two city blocks. It was a quaint, parochial neighborhood with a vaguely English sensibility. There was a church on each of the four corners of the park, the Catholic one being closest to Hastings’s home. Lot of families in the neighborhood. Amy went to school at St. Gabriel’s just down the street. Before the divorce, Hastings used to walk her there. Now that he had gotten joint custody of Amy, he still did, though it was no longer everyday.

  George Hastings was raised in the Presbyterian church, but he had not attended services regularly since he was a teenager. Anne Klosterman, a devout Catholic herself, had once told her husband that George’s agnosticism had something to do with his father being a churchgoing louse, but Joe had said father issues probably had little to do with it and that it may have stemmed more from his general distrust of institutions. Which is not at all ironic for some policemen.

  Hastings’s ex-wife, Eileen, was also a Catholic, in a way that Hastings had never quite figured out. Eileen actually owned paperback copies of the Catechism, Vatican II, Evangelium Vitae, and Chesterton’s Orthodoxy. She could tell you the name of a conference that took place in 1930 wherein the Anglican Church formally split with the Vatican over the issue of birth control. She could explain in detail why she thought Cornwell’s book Hitler’s Pope was “a lot of shit.” And it was Eileen who filed for divorce and, within three months, married a lawyer she was working for who was about as religious as Ted Turner.

  Eileen had given birth to Amy out of wedlock five years before she met Hastings. Amy’s biological father was a man who styled himself an artist and left for California before the delivery. He had never attempted to support the child. Eileen had lived with her parents in Kirkwood and finished college. Hastings met her at a party, fell in love with her, and married her. He adopted Amy a year later. No one doubted that he adored Eileen. She was not popular with his friends and certainly not with other cops’ wives. But to him she was clever, charming, stylish, and almost too beautiful. He soon discovered, though, that when it came to Amy, he felt he had won some sort of lottery. Until she became part of his life, he had not been aware of how much he could enjoy being a father. Perhaps because of this, he had hesitated to raise the subject of having more children in the early years of his marriage to Eileen. But as time went on, he did raise the subject with increasing frequency.

  But Eileen Hastings was not interested in having any more children and she thought well enough of her husband to be candid about it. She had never misled him on that score.

  “I’m too self-absorbed to be a parent, George.”

  “But you’re a parent now.”

  “Not again. I don’t want to do it again.”

  She meant it too. Whatever else could be said about her, she usually meant what she said.

  Last year he had found out she was having an affair with her boss. He was mortified and shocked. On top of that, he felt foolish because he had not seen it coming. He, the great detective and leader of men, was unaware. Amy, who was eleven years old at the time, probably sensed what was going on before he did. By the time the divorce proceedings were done, Eileen had ensured that they had joint custody of Amy and had even told Hastings that h
e would always be Amy’s father. He decided that she meant it and was grateful to her. He was not sure he would have survived if he had lost Amy.

  Hastings walked up the flight of stairs to his condo, unlocked the door, and let himself in. Closed the door behind him and switched on the lights to an empty home. The condo had a front living room that poured into a dining room, a kitchen, bathroom, and two bedrooms. The living room was sparsely furnished, now that Eileen’s knickknacks were gone. Hastings had to admit he liked it better this way. He tossed his keys on a couple of magazines on the coffee table. He read more since the divorce because he had gotten rid of the cable television. Initially, it had been because he feared he would depend on cable like a drug to cope with loneliness, but he soon came to see that it gave him some relief that his daughter was not exposed to HBO or, worse, shows like The Shield. Quality television, maybe, but he did not want his twelve-year-old daughter to learn about sex from Kim Cattrall. Such things will bring out the James Dobson in most fathers.

  The quiet surrounded him. He was tired. Friday, he thought. Tomorrow is Friday. He would have to pick up Amy at Eileen’s and drive her to school. He looked at his watch. If he were lucky, he could get four hours of sleep. If the adrenaline and horror of the dead policemen did not prevent him from closing his eyes and shutting down for a little while.

  Ted and Eileen lived in a split-level house in West County. It had five bedrooms and the carpet had been replaced by wood floors. There was a swimming pool in the backyard. Amy said that once, at a party, she had seen Ted jump from the second-story balcony into the pool. She said, “What an idiot.” Amy didn’t seem to respect Ted very much. She said it was like living with a forty-five-year-old boy. It warmed Hastings to hear these sorts of observations from Amy, and after a time he came to believe that she meant them sincerely and was not just saying them for the sake of cheering him up. Though he would not have minded if that had been her intent.