by Wayne Zurl
“Hmmm. Want Chinese for lunch? I’m buying.”
She sighed. “Oh, all right, if Mr. Lum can make me that thing he calls Buddhist’s delight.”
“You’re an Episcopalian. Eat something substantial.”
“I do not want you callin’ me Sergeant Goodyear.”
Before I could counter that with a good reason for her to order one of the new Thai curries old man Lum had added to his menu, the frenzied cry of our honorary detective broke my concentration.
“Boss! Sarge! Come look at this. Hurry up. Boss, get in here. Quick!”
Bettye and I abandoned our seats and scurried down the hall to the squad room to find John sitting in front of the TV.
“For chrissakes, John, will you stop watching TV on company time?” I said.
“Can it, Boss. Watch. Watch. They’re taking Leary out in cuffs.”
Sure enough, a TV cameraman had captured Ralph Oliveri and Marty Saunders from the good old FBI in Knoxville walking a handcuffed Ryan Leary from the back door of the justice center to a waiting Crown Victoria. Three other suits followed. Two looked like agents and one must have been the AUSA assigned to lead the violation of civil rights investigation. He had that over-educated, lean and hungry look about him.
“I’ll be damned,” I said.
“Will you look at that?” Bettye added.
And John stuck in, “Some shit, huh, Boss? Uh, sorry, Sarge.”
Chapter Fifteen
Being the world-class detective I fancy myself, it didn’t take me long to learn exactly what happened to Ryan Leary.
The Feds had worked fast and efficiently. A team of first-rate interrogators scooped up detectives Artie Bonnet and Leo Turner, isolated them and laid out their probable future, if they continued to play dumb about the Farris Tingle beating.
While these slick operators held that pair incommunicado, FBI computer geeks scoured personal and departmental emails while communications technicians tracked down every telephone call made between Leary and his minions since young Tingle, the junkie burglar, swiped Leary’s gym bag from the infamous black SUV.
Establishing a line of communication for times that coincided with the incidents Tingle described to investigators put Bonnet and Turner in a strong circumstantial jackpot neither could explain away.
As I’ve always said, dishonest cops are their own worst enemies, and those two were no exception. Knowing that the jig was up and threatened with loss of their pensions and freedom, the pair independently rolled over and formally gave up their boss in written statements. Everything they said jibed with Tingle’s allegations. A Federal judge loved the thoroughness of the investigation and issued a warrant for Leary’s arrest on several serious federal crimes.
For the time being, Leary was out on a very high conditional bail and wearing a monitored ankle bracelet to keep him under house arrest. However, Dayton Corliss, the AUSA in charge of the posse assigned to take down Ryan Leary, was no slouch and wanted an extra pound of flesh. He asked for pre-trial incarceration based on the assumption that Leary would potentially intimidate or otherwise tamper with the witnesses who could testify against him. This not only included Bonnet and Turner, but the two uniformed deputies involved with the apprehension of Farris Tingle, who also rolled over on everyone quicker than you can say, ‘Your pensions are sliding into the cesspool, gentlemen.’
The judge granted J.R. Tolbert’s motion for a bail hearing set seven days later. If Tolbert could convince the judge Leary was not a risk to confront the witnesses, he’d most likely remain under house arrest. If not, Ryan would spend his pre-trial days in administrative segregation at some Federal slammer.
Either scenario worked for me. All I had to do was convince the hamstrung Leary to live with the charges for beating Farris Tingle and confess to killing nine people.
Before the ink could dry on the video tape of Ryan Leary’s perp march out of the Justice Center in handcuffs, my phone rang. Sheriff Joe Don Hartung had a proposition for me.
“Sam, I’m assumin’ you’ve heard what’s happenin’ ta Ryan.”
Having less faith in his chief deputy than the sheriff, I tap-danced around committing myself to backing a fellow cop.
“I did,” was the best I would offer.
“I jest don’t know what to say. I’m hopin’ that Ryan’s lawyer can git this ironed out quick-like. I jest hate this, I surely do.”
Because it makes you look like a horse’s ass or because you really believe Leary is innocent?
“Uh-huh.”
“Sam, this puts us in a bad position.”
You think?
“Everybody from the newspapers ta the governor is askin’ when we’re gonna find this Riverside Strangler,” he said. “And now that Ryan ain’t gonna be here and his two detectives are, uh, on administrative leave, I don’t know what ta do.” Joe Don sounded distraught.
Isn’t that why you have the ‘legendary detective’ on board?
“I’m guessing Turner and Bonnet are going to be indefinitely indisposed?”
The sheriff sighed and sounded as if the fate of the free world was his responsibility. “Afraid so.”
“Sounds like you’ve got both feet in a bucket of chicken manure.”
“Ta say the least.”
“So, what’s your plan?”
“Uh, I was hopin’ that, uh, that is ta say, uh, I wanted ta ask ya I, uh…Shoot, Sam, would you take over the Strangler task force?”
Should I be flattered or see this as it probably was—an opportunity to dump a floundering investigation on an outsider? What to do? What to do?
“Look, Joe D, I appreciate the fact that you have confidence in me, but I couldn’t possibly take on that job and continue to run Prospect PD concurrently.”
And implement my plan to nail your chief deputy for all those pesky unsolved murders.
I tried a different approach. “I know the FBI has offered Ryan assistance with the cases several times. I suggest you call Carl Harmon. He’ll fix you up with a team of investigators.”
And he’ll probably shitcan Lew Schmecke and his tribe of assistant legendary private eyes.
“Sam, I’m sure you can understand how I’d hate to call in Federal people for a local case.” He sounded like he’d rather cut off his left arm.
“I do, but under the circumstances, you don’t have much choice.”
“Oh, Lord have mercy.”
After kissing off Joe Don Hartung and preparing to tell Bettye and John how little time we had to nail down a case against Leary, Lonnie Ray Wilson stepped out from behind my desk with great vigor.
“Hot damn, but I’m in.”
I stepped over to the doorway to my office. “What’s that mean?”
“Means I broke into Leary’s computer at the sheriff’s office. But that was the easy part. Combing through his hard drive for deleted emails and other files took all my time.”
“And?”
“And the best part was an email forwarded to himself.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He sent something from his work computer to his home PC. And that allowed me to hack into all his private stuff. All his stuff.” He had a grin that would have made the Cheshire Cat jealous.
“Will you get to the point?”
Lonnie sighed like he was speaking to a total moron. “He forwarded the email to Andy’s account—which is on his home computer.”
“Aha.”
“You bet. Having an origin made it easy to get into his private stuff. I couldn’t do it before because the damn thing bounced all over the world. But now I’ve got Andy.”
“So Ryan Leary is Andy? You’re sure?”
“No doubt in my mind.”
“Can you access all the Andy emails?”
“I can, but I gotta do it before somebody deletes anything.”
“What are you waiting for?”
“It’s downloading as we speak.”
“Okay, another seventy-five bucks well
spent.”
“A bargain.”
“What kind of email did he forward?”
“Something from an account with a user name of Stones.”
“Stones?”
“Uh-huh. Kinda cryptic, but I’ll let you read it. Maybe it’ll mean something to you.”
“Could you pin down a better ID for Stones?”
“Not yet. He’s also got his stuff bouncing from one IP to another, from one continent to another.”
Lonnie Ray was still smiling. “But I’m still working on Leary’s hard drive. If I can keep it up without interruption, there may be more stuff you can use.”
“I’m glad you’re optimistic. And do what you’ve gotta do.”
“I’ll get on it.”
“Even if you locate Stones, I’ve still got to dream up a way to use this rather damning, but illegally gotten information, in court.”
Lonnie obtained the link between [email protected] and [email protected] without benefit of a warrant to intrude on Leary’s private property. The Fourth Amendment promised to scream from the sidelines about my methods. No court would allow me to introduce anything I had into evidence, and J.R. Tolbert would certainly move to exclude it as ‘fruit of the poisoned tree’.
Having no more technical knowledge of a computer’s innards than Francis the Talking Mule, I could think for a hundred years and never come up with a plausible explanation that eventually we would have found that link under what a court would call ‘inevitable discovery’.
So, I had to engineer a way to effectively bamboozle the only other law enforcement agency who had legal access to Leary’s computer from a totally unrelated case—my local and friendly G-men.
I called Ralph Oliveri.
“Are you alone?” I asked.
“I’m at my desk in the squad room, but you knew that because you called me.”
“I mean can anyone hear you?”
“Probably not. I don’t know. Why?”
“I want to drop something on you that will make you an all-star.”
“Oh, here we go. What do you want?”
“I want you to catch the Riverside Strangler, and I’ll tell you how.”
“If you know how, why do you need me?”
“That’s what has to remain our little secret—for the moment. I don’t want to do this over the phone.”
“Okay, you want to come here?”
“Not yet. And, as I said, we can’t talk on the phone.”
“Why all the intrigue? What’s going on?”
“I discovered the link I needed, using, uh, a little unconventional investigative procedure.”
Ralph snorted. “You illegally obtained evidence. What else is new? How can I magically make it admissible?”
“That’s what I’ll explain—in private.”
“It’s four o’clock. Even if you jumped in the car right now, by the time you got here, we’d be ready to close up shop for the day.”
“Can you get Carl to stick around tonight for a little OT?”
“I’ve got plans tonight.”
“Oh, for chrissakes. I’m going to hand you the case of the century, and you’ve got a date.”
“What do you think we could do with your brilliant plan tonight?”
I took a long moment to think about that. “You’re right. This will involve other personnel. How about tomorrow? I’ll take you and Carl to lunch, bare my soul and we’ll work out a plan.”
“Wait a minute. Lemme look at my calendar and ask the boss.”
I waited. The seconds passed by interminably. Well, maybe not.
“I’m back,” Ralph said. “We’re good. Where and when?”
I thought for a moment. “How about Puleo’s on North Peters Road? They’ll give us a table away from the crowd for privacy. I’ll be there at 11:45.”
“Yeah, good. I like their lasagna.”
“The lasagna is good, but you should try the shrimp and grits.”
“I don’t eat grits.”
“Eat anything you want, but if you never try the shrimp and grits, you’re a putz.”
“Up yours. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Bettye was sitting at her desk, and John was standing at a file cabinet against the back wall of the reception area.
“I’m going to Knoxville tomorrow to see Ralph and Carl Harmon at noon. Maybe I can get the Feds to manipulate a little of the evidence they have access to and get what we know about Leary admissible.”
“You were going to take Terri to qualify tomorrow at ten,” Bettye reminded me.
“Rats. That’s too late. I won’t be able to give her a fair shake and get to Knoxville in time. Call her back and tell her to meet me at 8:30.”
“Do you know how difficult you make my life?”
“What other boss would allow you to talk like that?”
She fluttered her eyelashes and smiled.
At 8:15 the next morning, I pulled up to the locked gate at the Fraternal Order of Police range. Terry Donnellson was already waiting in her racing green Mini Cooper.
As I would have done, she parked her car facing the entrance to see who drove in after her.
I got out of the Ford, walked toward the gate and tapped on the hood of her car.
“Morning,” I said.
She slipped a bookmark between the pages to save her place and rolled down a window.
“Morning, boss.”
I pointed at the gate. “I’ll open up. Follow me down range. You’ll see the parking area.”
She flipped me a casual salute and sent the car window back up. I dialed up the four-digit combination to the padlock, unraveled the chain and swung the gate to the side.
The range sat in a natural bowl-shaped hollow. Steep mounds with trees and scrub brush everywhere created a partial perimeter for the target line on three sides. Old creosote coated utility poles lying on their sides separated the parking area from the fifty yard line of the range.
I got out of my car as Terri stepped out of the Mini. She looked like a calendar girl for Guns & Ammo magazine. She wore her dark hair in a ponytail, topped off by a sage green camo Army ranger cap. The rest of her outfit consisted of large aviator-style sunglasses, a gray Re-Up Army T-shirt and washed off blue jeans. She carried her gear in a small black duffle bag.
“Not the most sophisticated range facility,” I said, “but it works.”
“Better looking than some of the ranges I re-qualified on overseas,” she said.
“Okay, then this should be like a vacation at a gun spa.”
I handed her a black plastic box that looked like something provided by Tupperware. “Here’s your Glock. Regardless of what you may have heard about polymer frame guns, it’s a good weapon. Just don’t use it to clock a skell with an extremely hard head. The slide might pop off the frame.”
“Say again?” She looked surprised.
“It’s not made to replace the blackjack. Shoot with it. Don’t use it as a club.”
Her big brown eyes looked like small saucers. “Uh, yes, sir.”
Then I handed her a shopping bag.
“Here’s your duty holster, Sam Browne belt, handcuffs and all the crap you’ve got to hang around you. Put it together at home. I assume you’ve got a preference on what goes where. For right now, slide the magazine pouch onto your pants belt.” I handed her a high riding off-duty style holster. “This is an extra I had. Use it today and until you get your own. Then give it back. I’ve got the targets and ammo. You ready to go?”
“That’s it? No class?”
I grinned. “You were a soldier. You qualified with a Beretta and the M-4. What do you want, a brass band?”
“Uh, no, sir.”
“Good. Wait for me to tell you what to do. Then we’ll wing it.”
I placed a canvas bag of ammunition on a former telephone company overhead wire spool turned on its side to be used as a table. I had boxes of .40 caliber rounds for Terri and a box of nine millimeter for my old Glock.
>
“I’m going down range to staple up a few targets. Don’t load your gun until I get back.”
“Yes, sir.”
I posted four black B-27 silhouette targets on the Homosote backboards resting in metal angle iron frames. Above the three on the left, I used a thick Magic Marker to write a T on each. On the one to the right, I wrote an S.
Back at the table, I spoke to Terri. “Obviously the magazines load the same as the Beretta 92 you’re used to. The City of Prospect has provided you with three—one for the gun and two for your pouches. Load them up, and we’ll see how you like the gun.”
Terri snapped ten rounds into each magazine. I took longer cramming sixteen bullets into two of the magazines for my Glock. I didn’t want to get the Smith & Wesson revolver that I usually carried dirty.
Terri waited until I finished and stood by prepared to hear my instructions.
“The big difference between the Beretta and the Glock is the double action only feature. Once you rack a round into the chamber, it’s ready to go. No safety. No external hammer. I ordered your gun with a ‘New York’ trigger. That means it’s a bit safer than the standard Glock arrangement. You have a smooth single stage pull of eight pounds to fire your gun. The other is a putzy trigger safety to encounter and then only five pounds of pull before it goes off. Too many cops have shot subjects with that hair trigger. This one is better.”
She looked and sounded all business. “Yes, sir.”
I put on a pair of shooting glasses and screwed in a pair of earplugs. “Okay. Let’s get started. Put your ears on.”
She took a pair of soundproof earmuffs from her black bag and secured them onto her head.
I spoke a little louder than usual. “Walk to the twenty-five yard line with your three magazines, one in your hand and two in your pouches.”
She began the trek, and I followed.
She stood behind a 2x6 wooden barricade sitting inside a piece of PVC pipe buried in the ground.
“Now we’re going to do it by the numbers,” I said. “I’ll give you the command to load your magazine, and you seat it into the butt of your gun. Then I’ll say, prepare your weapon, and you rack a round into the chamber and holster a loaded weapon. Then I’ll give you the okay to draw the pistol, and at your own speed, fire three rounds at the X-ring. No time limit and use a two hand hold. Use the barricade to steady your aim. After the third shot, holster the weapon. Any questions?”