Shallow Grave

by Brian Thiem

  Two agents headed toward Yates’s city council office to search it while two others bagged a laptop that was sitting on the mayor’s desk and sifted through an assortment of papers and files.

  “Follow my lead,” Uppy said. “This is what we Feds do best.” He headed down the marble stairs, through the ornate lobby, and out the front door. Sinclair and Braddock followed, holding their handcuffed prisoners with firm grips on their upper arms. A crowd of TV news vans and reporters were assembled outside City Hall’s main entrance. All the cameras turned toward them as they came down the steps. With their mouths shut and faces void of any expression, Sinclair, Braddock, and Uppy marched through the throng of reporters toward the street where they had parked their cars. Sinclair glanced over his shoulder and saw Campbell and the FBI special agent in charge of the San Francisco field office surrounded by cameras.

  *

  Sinclair was operating on autopilot. The caffeine he’d been feeding his body was no longer working, and his thought process felt like molasses. As they suspected, Yates invoked his right to an attorney before they made it halfway to the PAB, so they drove him directly to the jail and booked him for murder, a no-bail offense.

  He and Braddock cruised by Kozlov’s house and watched as Maloney, the rest of the homicide unit, and a team of evidence technicians scoured the area where Phil had been shot. As much as Sinclair wanted to get involved, he knew it was best to stay on the sidelines given his fuzzy status and his even fuzzier brain.

  Sinclair sat in the Crown Vic beside Braddock outside Kozlov’s house and phoned Phil’s wife. Calling the mother or wife of a murder victim to tell her he got the killer was normally one of his greatest joys. But when Abby answered the phone, Sinclair felt nothing but sadness. He told her how Phil died and that Yates, Lopez, and Tiny would stand trial for his murder.

  “It makes no sense,” she said. “A careless accident? And all they had to do was take him to the hospital? It’s so senseless.”

  “I know,” Sinclair said. Murder was essentially a senseless act. Yet people always wanted it to make sense.

  Sinclair listened to her tears, her confusion, and her anger. She wanted answers that didn’t exist. Phil’s death made no sense. It never would. The network of spouses—police survivors—had already reached out to her. Knowing she was not alone was comforting, but the fact that there were so many other women and men whose spouses were killed in the line of duty was nothing if not disheartening. Sinclair promised he’d be there if she ever needed anything—even if it was to mow the lawn or fix a leaky faucet. He meant it, but he knew she’d never call. He wanted to apologize to her for how he treated Phil during the last six months. To make amends for doubting Phil’s motives. For believing he’d forgotten his oath. But he knew he couldn’t put that burden on her. Not now. Not ever.

  Braddock drove their car to the Oakland FBI office. Archard told them agents had arrested Kozlov at his office along with several other executives. Lopez was in an interview room spilling her guts in an attempt to avoid prison. Teams of agents streamed in carrying boxes of files and other evidence.

  At 11:35 PM, Sinclair trudged up the steps behind Braddock and into the homicide office. Maloney was sitting in the main office chatting with the homicide sergeants who’d just returned from Kozlov’s house. Sinclair accepted handshakes and backslaps from everyone and plopped into his desk chair.

  “The techs are still at Kozlov’s house,” Maloney said. “We’ve verified Tiny was telling the truth. They found a shell casing, footprints, and blood, which I’m sure will match up with Phil’s DNA. They also found security camera footage from that night.”

  “What?” Sinclair asked.

  Maloney laughed. “Kozlov’s wife, who looks like an old, worn-out Russian mail-order bride, had accused her neighbors of letting their dogs poop on her lawn. Without telling her husband, she had their security company add motion-activated cameras outside to try to catch them. It’s not the clearest video, but it shows everything from the accidental shooting to them putting Phil’s body in the van.”

  If he wasn’t so exhausted, Sinclair would’ve laughed.

  The door opened, and Chief Brown and US Attorney Campbell stepped inside.

  Sinclair didn’t know if it was the fatigue, the adrenalin, or that he just didn’t care anymore, but he blurted out, “We got them, Chief. As hard as you tried, you couldn’t keep me from getting Phil’s killers.”

  Brown walked across the room, opened a large manila envelope, pulled out Sinclair’s badge and police ID card, and handed it to him. He set the envelope on the desk and glanced at the Kimber .45 on Sinclair’s belt. “Your gun’s inside. I take it you had a spare one at home.”

  Sinclair stared at him, speechless.

  “Chief Brown was the one who initiated this investigation more than a year ago,” Campbell said to Sinclair. “He noticed an overly cozy relationship between Kozlov and Yates and requested the attorney general and FBI open a political corruption inquiry. Your cracking open the escort service’s records was the catalyst we needed to get people talking. For this to work, Chief Brown had to play along with Yates, so Agent Archard and I were the only people who knew he was working with us.”

  Sinclair didn’t know what to say. There was too much to process.

  “What about Phil?” Braddock asked.

  “We kept what Chief Brown and Phil were doing strictly compartmented,” Campbell said. “In a sense, your police chief was working undercover, and you all know the importance of protecting the identity of an officer who’s infiltrating a criminal enterprise. We knew Yates was buying it, and not even Phil was wise to it when he reported his informant overheard Kozlov bragging about having a police chief in his pocket.”

  “Were Assistant Chief James and Farrington in on your plan?” Braddock asked.

  “No,” Brown replied. “Lieutenant Farrington obeys orders without question. Every organization needs people like him. If there was anything in Phil’s office about the task force, I needed to contain it. Chief James sensed something was going on and was starting to dig to figure it out. I’ve already briefed him on everything and apologized for having to shut him out.”

  “So that was the purpose of suspending me—to shut me out?” Sinclair asked.

  Brown smiled. “Matt, you’re like a bulldog that won’t let go of his prey no matter what. We thought we had you under control after the Thrill Kill Murders when the US attorney and I both talked to you, but after Phil’s death, you went after Yates with such determination, we knew of no other way to stop you from prematurely blowing months of work.”

  “When Yates called Chief Brown and demanded he do something about you, we had to act to show the chief was still Yates’s stooge,” Campbell said. “We later realized that if you believed Chief Brown was on the take, you wouldn’t have reported everything you were discovering, specifically the identity of Phil’s CI, so we had to take a chance and ask you to join our task force.”

  Sinclair huffed. “That worked well.”

  “I should’ve handled our little meeting better,” Campbell acknowledged. “Trusted you more.”

  “I’m sorry I had to treat you the way I did,” Brown said. “I’ve told the personnel manager to void any reference of your suspension. It never happened. Amend your time sheets and overtime reports to show you were on duty continuously.”

  Maloney stood and looked at his homicide detectives. “Is anyone doing anything right now that can’t wait until tomorrow?” When no one said anything, he continued, “Then get out of here and get some sleep. We’ve got a funeral tomorrow.”

  Chapter 58

  Sinclair, Braddock, and the other four pallbearers, wearing their dress uniforms, sat at attention on the raised platform on one side of the podium. Guest speakers and dignitaries sat in a row of chairs on the other side. Four members of the department’s honor guard stood at parade rest alongside a flag-draped casket in front of the podium and dignitaries. A row of people in black suits a
nd dresses sat directly in front of the casket—Abby, Phil’s daughters, and other family members. Beyond them were row after row of men and women in the OPD dress uniform and white gloves. Gloved hands occasionally rose to their eyes. Beyond them were more rows of dress uniforms in many colors, representing officers from departments around the Bay Area and throughout the state as well as smaller contingents from major departments across the nation. Behind them were thousands of people in civilian clothing: investigators and agents from other agencies, judges, attorneys, probation officers, retired police, and nonsworn employees of the department and the countless agencies that worked within the criminal justice system, as well as thousands of citizens who never worked with Phil or knew him but were there to pay their respects for what he had done as a law enforcement officer.

  After the opening by the department chaplain, they sat through speeches by the governor, the state attorney general, a US senator, and several local officials. Chief Clarence Brown eventually took the podium and spoke of the Phil Roberts his fellow officers knew. He told stories that brought laughter and tears about a man who dedicated his life to his family, friends, fellow officers, and citizens of Oakland.

  “Before I conclude and turn this back over to the chaplain,” Brown said, “I want to talk about what Phil considered the most meaningful assignment of his career—that of a homicide investigator. Last night, I was in the homicide office discussing the results of the extraordinary efforts by this department and our friends in the FBI and other federal agencies to bring to justice those responsible for Sergeant Roberts’s murder. I was trying to come up with words to express what Phil did for many years in that unit and what the men and women still working there do every day. And there it was—on a plaque hanging on the wall. These words describe what Phil did and why he did it and embody the very essence of the homicide detective, like those who would stop at nothing to find Sergeant Roberts’s killers.”

  Brown cleared his throat, turned to the next page of his notes, and read,

  The Homicide Investigator’s Creed

  No greater honor will ever be bestowed on you as a police officer or a more profound duty imposed on you than when you are entrusted with the investigation of the death of a human being. It is your moral duty, and as an officer entrusted with such a duty, it is incumbent upon you to follow the course of events and the facts as they develop to their ultimate conclusion. It is a heavy responsibility. As such, let no person deter you from the truth or your personal conviction to see that justice is done.

  *

  Sinclair puffed on a cigar Jankowski had given him as he stood in a small circle of fellow investigators. The midafternoon sun beat down on them through a cloudless sky. About a hundred officers, all in civilian attire now, had formed conversation groups on the second-floor deck of the OPOA building, a few blocks from the PAB. Below, hundreds more congregated in the parking lot and the barricaded street. Sinclair and the other pallbearers had carried Phil’s coffin to the waiting hearse several hours ago and watched as it left with a motorcycle escort for a private graveside ceremony a few miles from Roberts’s house. A steady stream of officers returned to the PAB, changed out of uniform, and arrived at the OPOA office, where food and an open bar greeted them. In the past, Sinclair would’ve stayed there until well past midnight.

  Braddock grabbed a beer from an ice-filled bucket and pulled Sinclair aside. “I’m sorry I didn’t do more to defend you when Chief Brown suspended you.”

  “Are you crazy?” Sinclair flicked the ash off his cigar. “You needed to keep your head down exactly as you did so one of us could continue the investigation.”

  “When I discovered you were operating on your own, I didn’t know whether to be pissed at you for the risk you were taking or envious of your courage to keep up the fight.”

  “I’ve walked that line between courage and stupidity a few times too many,” he said.

  She took a sip of her beer. “I’m really going to miss Phil.”

  Braddock found it so easy to apologize. He wondered why it was so hard for him to do the same. “Me too. I wish I could tell him how sorry I am for not trusting him during those last few months and for thinking the worst when I found the money and Sheila’s photo.”

  “He knows,” she said.

  “You think?”

  “Phil’s smiling down on us right now, and he’s really proud of what we did. I think he’s sorry he couldn’t tell us about the task force and grateful you were able to finish what he started.”

  “I’d like to think so.”

  “Big plans for your day off tomorrow?” she asked.

  “Alyssa’s off, so we were going to spend the day together.”

  Braddock smiled. “I’m glad.”

  He looked at his watch. “She should be leaving the hospital about now, so I think I’ll call her.”

  Braddock returned to their coworkers as Sinclair turned away and called Alyssa.

  “Is your funeral over?” she asked.

  “I’m at the reception and getting ready to take off. Are we still on for dinner?”

  “Sure, give me a half hour to shower and change. Maybe an hour if it’s a fancy place. Where are we going?”

  “I know a great little Italian restaurant in Old Town Sacramento. Traffic getting there will probably suck, and if you’re okay with it, I’d like to make a stop on the way.”

  “I don’t mind the traffic. It’ll give us plenty of time to talk. Are we stopping to visit your father?”

  Although Sinclair regretted some of the hatred he’d felt for his father for all those years because he thought he’d killed Lucky, he wasn’t ready to give up the resentments he still harbored for everything else he had done. He didn’t know if he’d ever be ready. But there was one thing he wanted to do that might be a step toward the healing he sought. “No,” he said. “I want to take a walk along a river and stop at the gravesite of a childhood friend and say the good-bye I never had a chance to say before.”

  Acknowledgments

  As my writing career progresses another year, my law enforcement career falls further into the past. I’m grateful to those active and retired police officers and other law enforcement professionals who help keep my stories and police procedures current as well as friends who give me advice on everything from heart attacks to security guard licensing: Bob Crawford, Wendy Cross, Tyrone Davis, Rich Fanelli, Harlan Goodson, Shawn Howard, Julie Jaechsch, Steve Mauser, Tony Morgan, Tim Nolan, Steve Paich, Tim Sanchez, and Rachael Van Sloten. If I missed anyone, I’m sorry.

  I would not be where I am today without my wonderful agent, Paula Munier, who continues to offer encouragement, support, and a critical eye that makes me a better writer. Without Matt Martz and his amazing team at Crooked Lane Books, especially Maddie Caldwell, Sarah Poppe, Heather Boak, Dana Kaye, and Julia Borcherts, the Detective Matt Sinclair Mystery series would be nothing but a dream. They continue to amaze me with spot-on editorial advice and savvy marketing and publicity. Thanks also to my writers groups: Hilton Head Island Writers Network, Sun City Sunscribers, and WCSU MFA Grads. Your support, advice, and fellowship are invaluable.

  Thanks also to my readers. It blows me away to realize that people around the country who don’t even know me read my books and want to discuss Matt Sinclair’s strengths and flaws and whether he and Alyssa will actually get together. And of course, thank you, Cathy, for your love and support. I know it’s not always easy explaining to friends when your husband’s unavailable for golf, dinners, and other events because he’s busy killing people and trying to help Sinclair and Braddock figure out who did it.

 

 

 
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