Shallow Grave

by Brian Thiem

  Chapter 9

  Sinclair’s watch read nine o’clock as he munched on the last of the granola bars he kept stashed in his desk drawer. It wasn’t the dinner he had planned a few days ago, but Alyssa understood when he texted her in the afternoon to cancel their date. Two hours ago, Maloney had stepped into the homicide office and addressed his ten investigators. A few were on the phone or computers, but most just sat there waiting for something to break—a call to action. Maloney told everyone to go home—they could get a fresh start in the morning. Sinclair was prepared to stay there all night. It didn’t matter that there was nothing productive to do and he was already fatigued from the 2:00 AM callout; it was his case, and he would work around the clock until Phil’s killer was behind bars. Sinclair and Braddock had spent the previous hours calling every federal agent in their contacts lists, but no one knew what Phil was working. If Phil had been gunned down in a gang-related murder, the entire unit would have hit the streets and kicked down the doors of every gangbanger in the city. Having no place to direct their wrath was frustrating. Sinclair had walked out the door with his lieutenant and fellow investigators, only to circle back and return to his desk where he reread the reports, looking for something he had missed.

  Sinclair pulled out his phone, went to his favorites list, and pressed Alyssa Morelli. This was the third time they tried to make a go of a relationship. They went out a few times ten years ago, but Alyssa cut it off. Looking back, Sinclair knew she was smart for doing so. He was a long-haired narc back then, living a crazy life fueled by adrenalin and booze. They’d both gone their separate ways, her marrying a doctor and living the country-club lifestyle for seven years, until she realized she couldn’t be the kind of housewife her husband wanted her to be. Meanwhile, Sinclair had married a beautiful, successful prosecutor in the DA’s office. That marriage ended shortly after he returned from his Army reserve deployment to Iraq, when his wife couldn’t handle his excessive drinking and emotional paralysis. He and Alyssa went out a few times after Braddock reunited them last December, and Sinclair had felt an intense connection between them. Then Sinclair’s life literally blew up. He stopped a group of anarchists in the midst of a school massacre plot, saving Alyssa, along with numerous students and teachers. But he was lucky to have survived the bomb blast that killed his attackers.

  Once Sinclair recovered from his injuries, Alyssa received a call offering her a nursing position with a nonprofit organization that was providing medical services for the thousands of refugees fleeing the war-torn regions of the Middle East and Africa. Although he outwardly supported her decision to take the assignment, he secretly resented that she’d left just as they were trying to kindle a relationship.

  She had just returned from Italy last week. Having been gone for half a year, she’d spent the weekend getting settled into her old life. She’d only had time for a quick coffee the day after she got home. Her olive skin was more deeply tanned than usual after her time in Italy and looked even richer against the white sleeveless shirt she wore over her short skirt. They’d made plans to see each other several times after work this week and to spend all of Saturday together, at which time Sinclair was sure he’d finally get lucky. “I’m glad you called,” Alyssa said. “I can’t even imagine what it must be like to be responsible for solving the murder of your former partner.”

  His emotions were so jumbled, he didn’t even know how he felt. “I try not to think about it,” he said. “We have a job to do, and people are depending on us to do it.”

  As soon as he said it, he knew it sounded too much like Clint Eastwood, not the kind of man he wanted to be around Alyssa. But he didn’t know how to backtrack. “I really hate screwing up our plans for this week,” he said.

  He pictured her grabbing a handful of her sleek dark hair and tossing it over her shoulder and across her chest. “There’s no timetable that we need to abide by, Matt. I’m not going anywhere, and I’ll still be around when you solve this case.”

  “It’s not too late. Do you want to come over to my place for a while?”

  When they had dinner last December and Sinclair suggested their evening continue beyond the restaurant parking lot, she made it clear she wasn’t the type to sleep with a man on the first date. He wondered if after being apart for the past months, Alyssa set the date clock back to zero.

  The line was silent for a few beats. When she finally spoke, her voice was soft and sweet. “I want our first time to be special, to wake up next to you in the morning and not have to rush off to work. Or have you leave in the middle of the night when a lead comes in on this case.”

  *

  On the short drive home, Sinclair thought about what it would be like to spend all day in bed with Alyssa, her small, sleek body next to him, under him, on top of him. As pleasant as the thoughts were, his attention kept jumping back to the case and what he needed to do first thing in the morning: see if the crime lab had any results from the scene and autopsy evidence, arrange to meet with Phil’s wife, follow up with the Intel officers concerning outside agency investigators Phil had contact with, and get a one-on-one meeting with the chief if Maloney hadn’t had any luck with him. He’d also have to remember to fill out his overtime slips: six hours on Jankowski’s case and then three hours on Roberts’s murder. There was nothing worse than completing your time sheet on Friday morning and trying to reconstruct all the overtime you worked.

  A thought came to him. He pulled out his cell phone, scrolled through his recent calls, and pressed the number for Fletcher.

  “Hey, Sarge, what’s up?” Fletcher yelled over loud background noise. He sounded drunk.

  “What do you guys do with your overtime slips?”

  “What do you mean? We fill them out, turn them in to our sergeant—”

  “I mean Phil’s overtime—”

  “Sarge, I can’t hear you, can you speak up?”

  “Where’re you at?” Sinclair asked.

  “Over at the Warehouse, toasting a fallen warrior.”

  “Stay there,” Sinclair said and ended the call.

  Chapter 10

  Ten minutes later, Sinclair parked his car in a yellow zone on Webster Street, halfway down the block from the bar. Located in the old warehouse and produce district of Oakland, an area now filling with trendy restaurants and high-rent condos, the Warehouse had been the department’s unofficial cop bar since the mideighties. Before Sinclair quit drinking, he’d spent many nights there.

  A few dozen off-duty cops congregated on the sidewalk and street outside the front door smoking cigarettes and cigars. When they recognized Sinclair, they picked up their drinks and beer bottles from the curb. Normally, the off-duty cops policed themselves and didn’t allow open containers outside, but tonight wasn’t a normal night for Oakland officers. A muscular man with the typical patrol officer’s crew cut asked, “You’re the primary on Sergeant Roberts’s murder, right?”

  “Yeah,” Sinclair said. “But everyone in homicide’s working it.”

  The cop took a long pull of his beer. “You know who did it?”

  “Not yet, but I will.” Sinclair scanned the faces in the crowd and, before another half-tanked cop could pepper him with more questions, asked, “Anyone seen Kurt Fletcher?”

  “He’s holding court at the big table inside,” a stocky female officer said.

  Sinclair pushed through the door. The jukebox was playing a country-western song Sinclair didn’t recognize. Every seat and barstool was taken but one. Thirty more people stood in the area between the bar and tables. Sinclair recognized most of them, although he didn’t know many of the younger officers by name. He spotted Fletcher sitting at one of the large round tables with his three other Intel officers, along with Jankowski, O’Connor, and Larsen from homicide. In front of an empty chair were eight full shot glasses.

  Jankowski said something to a young officer at the next table. The officer stood and slid his chair to Jankowski, who pulled it to their table. “Buy a round and j
oin us,” he said to Sinclair.

  Affixed to the wall behind the mahogany bar were hundreds of patches from police departments around the world, as well as plaques and other police memorabilia. Sinclair recognized the bartender, Joe, one of the owners.

  “Sorry for your loss, Matt.” He glanced at two stools at the end of the bar. “I poured you and Phil many a drink here.”

  Sinclair nodded. Not too many years ago, two of these barstools had practically had his and Phil’s name on them. If someone was sitting there when they came in, a bartender or one of the regulars told the patron those seats belonged to the top two homicide detectives in the Bay Area. “The table wants a round of shots, Joe. What’re they drinking?”

  “Because Phil drank single malt Scotch, that’s what the guys wanted. But they’d go broke the way they’re pounding them down, so I’m pouring the house label. None of ’em can tell the difference.” He arranged eight shot glasses on a tray and filled them. He then grabbed another shot glass, filled it from a bottle under the bar, and placed it on the tray in front of Sinclair. “Ginger ale, my friend.”

  “Thanks, Joe.” One of the few advantages of having had your drinking problems splashed all over the papers was that everyone knew you were an alcoholic, so Sinclair didn’t have to hide it or explain why he no longer drank, as did many of his friends in AA.

  Sinclair pulled two twenties from his wallet and held them out. The bartender took one and said, “Police discount.”

  Sinclair set the tray on the table and took his mock drink. Fletcher slid one shot in front of Phil’s empty chair, and everyone else raised a glass. Sinclair said, “To Phil, a partner, a friend, and a cop’s cop.” Sinclair downed his ginger ale and watched as the others swallowed their shots. Sinclair listened as the cops at the table told tales of Phil’s career, some hilarious, others terrifying. It took him back to the numerous nights when he’d swapped stories here with fellow officers over numerous beers, the stories becoming more embellished the drunker the storyteller got. Legends were born at the Warehouse.

  When one of the Intel officers began telling the same story for a third time, Sinclair pulled a Macanudo Robust from the inside pocket of his suitcoat and said to Fletcher, “I’m going out for a smoke. You wanna join me?”

  Fletcher grabbed his Budweiser bottle and followed him out the door. Sinclair led them down the sidewalk away from the crowd congregating by the front door and pulled out his lighter.

  “You don’t see those often.” Fletcher gestured toward Sinclair’s Zippo. “You really are old school.”

  “Bought it in Baghdad about six years ago,” he said, puffing on the cigar until it was lit. “It’s a reminder of some brother soldiers who didn’t come home.”

  Fletcher shook a Marlboro from a pack and lit it with a disposable lighter. “Yeah, I forgot you were there. Marines, right?”

  “Army. I was in the reserves, and they called me back for a year.” Sinclair took a few puffs of his cigar, drew a mouthful of smoke into his lungs, and exhaled. “I was thinking that maybe Phil wrote what he was doing on his overtime slips and maybe you guys keep copies of them.”

  “If we’re working a straight investigation, we complete the slip just like the rest of the department does, with the RD number and all the necessary details to justify the overtime,” he said. “If it’s one of our Intel cases, we write our OT slips vaguely because everyone and his mother sees them before they end up in the accounting section. So we just list our Intel number and a few words of what we did, such as surveillance or preparing a warrant. We leave out all names and locations. Anything that could compromise a case.”

  “Do you maintain a log of case numbers?” Sinclair asked.

  “Sure, in a set of books in the office.”

  “What about copies of your OT slips?” he asked, knowing that the CID admin made copies of all overtime slips and time sheets every Friday for homicide, robbery, and the other investigative units in the division before delivering them to the accounting section.

  “Yeah, the sergeant makes copies of everything and files them. Accounting is always screwing up and losing shit, so we need to keep our own copies.”

  “I’d like to take a look at what you have.”

  “Now?” Fletcher asked.

  “Unless you’re doing something more important than solving Phil’s murder.”

  *

  Five minutes later, Sinclair followed Fletcher into the intelligence section office and watched him punch a code into the alarm panel by the door. Fletcher pulled a hardcover record book with a green canvas cover from a bookshelf in the main office and opened it where a ribbon marked a page. In the left column was a sequence of numbers preceded by the letter E. Following the number were columns for the date; the investigator’s name; the general category, such as drugs, gangs, or terrorism; the location; and additional information.

  “What’s the E stand for?” Sinclair asked.

  “That’s the letter for this year. There’s no rhyme or reason for it other than that’s how it was done back in the fifties when the intelligence section created a filing system. The first case that year was A-1 and the first case the next year was B-1. When they got to Z, they started all over again.”

  Sinclair chuckled. “While the rest of the department went to a multimillion-dollar law records management system, you continue to record information in a ledger just like the ancient Romans.”

  “When the department created LRMS, they bragged about firewalls and all that stuff, but the reality is, people who didn’t have the need to know would be able to access our information, and if the wrong people did . . . well, you get the idea. We have some info that’s computerized, but often the old system works just fine.”

  Sinclair didn’t need convincing. Too many people in the department insisted on progress all the time. Quite often, it wasn’t progress at all, merely change for the sake of change that only created confusion and additional bureaucracy.

  Fletcher flipped back a page in the ledger, showing an entry that read, E-11, Fletcher, Gangs/Guns, 50th Ave & Bancroft, Mongols MCC reportedly selling guns. “This is an example. I initiated this case number based on a tip from a Southern Cal PD. They had an informant who said the Mongols motorcycle gang was establishing a foothold in Oakland around Fiftieth and Bancroft to sell guns to Hispanic gangs in the area.”

  “And all your work is documented in a case file somewhere?”

  “Sure. On that tip, I conducted surveillance on the area, worked with informants, checked real estate records, and all kind of other stuff to eventually determine the info was bogus. The paperwork is filed in one of our locked unit file cabinets, and electronic files are on my computer.”

  Sinclair scanned the log, looking for cases with Phil’s name. He found one from March. It read, E-24, Roberts, S. “This must be one of Phil’s cases, but there’re no details listed.”

  “He normally assigns cases to us, so he’s not usually listed as the case officer, unless it’s one of those secret ones I told you about. I’ll bet this is the parks and rec thing I mentioned. Hang on and I’ll tell you for sure.” Fletcher sat at his desk, started his computer, and clicked through some files. “Yup, here’s a surveillance log I did when I followed that knucklehead around one night. Same case number.”

  Sinclair tried to turn the doorknob of Roberts’s office door. “Who’s got a key to his office?”

  “I’ve got one because I’m the acting sergeant when he takes a day off.” Fletcher pulled a key ring from his pocket and fitted a key into the lock. He jiggled it, but it wouldn’t turn. Fletcher slammed his hand on the door. “That motherfucking Farrington changed the locks.”

  That didn’t surprise Sinclair. “Can I see the overtime files?”

  Fletcher removed a file folder marked with last week’s date. Sinclair removed Phil’s time sheet. He’d worked eighteen hours of overtime. The last slip was for four hours on Thursday. It listed a case number, and the only description of the overtime
worked was, Meeting. Sinclair read off the case number to Fletcher, who scrolled through the case log.

  “That’s the umbrella case for the joint terrorism task force. They have a meeting in San Francisco once a month, and Sarge goes along with our JTTF officer. After the meeting, the Feds go to a local bar. That’s where the real interesting stuff gets discussed.”

  “Sipping scotch at time and a half,” Sinclair said. “I guess that’s why everyone wants to work Intel.” Sinclair went to the next slip. “Tuesday, four to ten, surveillance, D-eighty-four.”

  Fletcher flipped back a few pages in the ledger. “That’s one of Sergeant Roberts’s S cases. No date when he initiated the case, but the sequence indicates he recorded it December last year.”

  “Any idea what it was about?”

  “The number doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “Who would know, if it’s not in the log?”

  “The S means it’s secret or sensitive. Maybe the assistant chief since he has to sign off on Sergeant Roberts’s overtime. The chief for sure.”

  The last overtime slip attached to that weekly time sheet was on the previous Friday from four to midnight and listed the same case number. The notation read, Meeting.

  Sinclair pulled the previous week’s folder and found an overtime slip for a meeting on that Friday and another four-hour surveillance with the same case number. The time sheet and overtime slips for the previous week showed the same.

  “Looks like he’s been meeting someone after work every Friday and conducting a surveillance during the week on this sensitive case.”

  “Most of the guys try to get out of here early on Friday to beat the traffic. I had no idea he was working every Friday night.”

  “Can I get copies of this?” he asked Fletcher.

  “How about I make you copies tomorrow when my head’s a bit clearer?”

  “If Farrington figures this out, these files could be gone by then.”

  It was nearly midnight by the time Sinclair had copied all the overtime paperwork and dropped Fletcher back at the Warehouse. The crowd had grown as evening shift officers got off work. Sinclair knew in his heart he couldn’t drink, but he missed the ability of the alcohol and camaraderie of the bar to numb his feelings about the passing of a brother officer. And the reminder that it could easily have been him.