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Mac had thought about just repairing the damage downstairs and not telling anyone. But it wouldn’t work. Angie was going to have to know, obviously — her photos were destroyed. And it was evidence in the much larger story of police corruption.
He called Joe Dunbar.
“I was going to call you,” Joe said as he picked up. “I owe you a big apology. I wasn’t there when you needed me to be.”
Mac hesitated, confused. Then he realized he was talking about not answering his phone when Shorty had called him. “Not important,” Mac said. “But can you come to the house? I need to file a police report.”
“You could learn to call 911 like a normal person,” Joe observed. Then he paused. “Scratch that — that was stupid. I’m on my way.”
Mac snorted and went into the kitchen to scramble some eggs. Like a normal person? When had he ever aspired to be normal? Of course it was even more absurd when you thought about the current circumstances — which were anything but normal.
He ate the eggs, washed up everything, and was trying to decide whether to run a load of laundry, when the front doorbell rang. He walked through the house, avoiding looking at the damage, to let Joe in.
“Holy shit,” Joe said, looking at the door. “Someone broke into your house.”
Mac rolled his eyes. “Twice,” he said sourly. So much for his vaunted security. “This happened yesterday morning, and it’s not even the important break-in. This one is.” He gestured to the spray-painted wall.
Joe stared at the vandalism. “While you were in jail?” he asked at last.
Mac started to agree, then hesitated. “Sometime after Angie left to rescue me at the reservoir,” he qualified. “So after 10 p.m.?”
“Mac, about that,” Joe began. He ran a hand over his head. His hair was close-cropped today, and he was clean-shaven. “I’m sorry,” he said finally. “I turned my phone off when I got home from work. Your number — Shorty’s number too — would have rung through, but I’ve got a blocker on for numbers I don’t know. I called him this morning and apologized too. I let you all down. But to be honest? By the time Shorty called me, I was shit-faced drunk. I couldn’t have come to your rescue anyway.”
“You seemed sober by the time you got to the Fairchild’s,” Mac said.
“My last drink last night was probably around 7 p.m.,” Joe said ruefully. “And then I passed out. So when Angie called and said there was trouble, I decided I could make it. I probably would have still blown a DUI.”
“Drinking alone? Phone blocker? Is it that bad?” Mac asked. He knew Joe was all but frozen out at work. His co-workers had made it clear that they disapproved of him going public about department corruption. And unlike Nick who had accepted a transfer to Internal Affairs, Joe was still going back into the homicide unit every day.
“It’s bad,” Joe admitted. “It’s not just a cold shoulder like I let you all believe. Harassing phone calls, emails, messages in my locker and on my car. A dead rat on my car last week. Petty shit, but it’s constant. And it gets to me after a while, you know?”
Mac didn’t consider a dead rat on his car petty. “Drinking alone isn’t good, Joe,” he said instead.
Joe started to get indignant, and Mac stopped him. “I’m a reformed drunk, not some tea-totaling crusader,” Mac said. “And I know. I was more the ‘go out and party and don’t stop until you pass out’ kind of drunk. Or the get ‘shit-faced and tear the bar apart’ drunk. But solo drinking? Yeah, been there. Bad news. Passed out at 7 p.m.? Done that. Also bad news. I know all the ways to be a drunk, Joe.”
Joe’s shoulders dropped, as if he felt defeated. He nodded. “I’ve got my application out,” he said. “But I really can’t leave the area until the criminal cases are done. And no one in the region is going to hire me. I’m a pariah. I crossed the blue line. Even those who agree with what I did, don’t want me in their unit.”
“You went up to north precinct last night,” Mac observed. “How did that go?”
Joe snorted. “OK, I stand corrected. If you have just lost a third of your officers you’ll welcome me with open arms.”
Mac grinned. “Sherry Grant seemed like good people,” he observed. “Not so sure about Abrams. Seems like his head knows the right thing, but he lacks the backbone to actually do it. Found some backbone last night — guess threatening to kill a reporter was his bridge too far.”
“It was Sherry’s bridge too far,” Joe corrected. “Abrams got pissed when McBride got in his face. It was the disrespect. But yeah, by the time I got up there, they were trying to figure out how to staff three shifts with a third of their men out on leave. They were grateful to have me.”
Joe turned back to the wall. “Let me call an officer and a crime scene team,” he said. “In and of itself, it’s petty crime. But it’s connected to a bigger case, and we need the report.”
“I’m supposed to file a report about McBride, too,” Mac said, adding it to his mental list. “Can you take that report later? I feel like we need to get to Fairchild’s. This worries me a lot.”
“Why?” Joe asked. “I mean, it’s a threat, and it’s an invasion into your home. I get that. But what are you seeing? You’ve got well-honed instincts. So tell me.”
Mac expelled a breath of air. “I don’t think it is aimed at me,” he admitted. “I think it’s a message to Angie. She saw something, took a picture of something, and someone noticed. And they’re telling her that she needs to look away — or they would destroy her, as they destroyed these photos. They didn’t go upstairs, Joe. Just this room. And really, most of the other damage is just cosmetic. They were delivering a message. To Angie.”
Joe looked around the room again, then examined the wall more closely. “You say they? More than one?”
Mac considered that. “Maybe just one,” he conceded. “My first thought was McBride, and that he was in a fit of rage. But it’s not rage. It’s too controlled. It’s a message. Might be McBride. He left the scene of the shooting last night without permission. Did he come here, and leave this? Maybe. Or it might have been someone else. But I really feel the need to get to Angie.”
Joe nodded. He called someone, speaking softly. Mac ignored him and stared at the wall. He should have had Leatherstocking take him to Fairchild House, but all he had wanted was his own bed. He really couldn’t believe Leatherstocking had brought him home, honestly. He remembered the attorney easing his Mercedes down the back alley and snickered.
“He’s on his way,” Joe said. “So I talked to Shorty. And then I talked to Nick — sounds like you had quite the night. Nick says you’re pretty entertaining when you’re sleep-deprived.”
Mac rolled his eyes. “So I’ve been told.”
“Did you really take their guns?” Joe said, laughing hard.
“Yes?” Mac said uncertainly, because he really couldn’t recall the whole thing. It was in fragments. “I don’t think they had expected to be locked up in the dark for that long. Go in, get us, bring us out. Dispose of us on the way to wherever — general population, they said. Well, they called it gen pop, but whatever. But then the doors didn’t re-open. At first, I was just messing with them, but then they started talking about shooting a latch open — in a cell block? They could kill someone and not even know. So I decided — apparently — that they shouldn’t have guns if they couldn’t be trusted with them. And I took them away from them.” He shrugged.
Joe kept laughing. He looked at Mac, shook his head, and laughed some more. “You freaked out the cops and jailers,” he said cheerfully. “You were so matter-of-fact about it. They said you sounded like a kid on the playground.”
Mac rolled his eyes. “Yeah, not the first time I’ve freaked out the cops. Not the first time I’ve freaked people out while sleep-deprived. And you should have seen me when I was sleep-deprived and drinking. Or so my squad would tell me later.”
There was a knock on the door. That was fast, Mac thought. He checked first, and yes there were two uniformed officers on his front porch. Not that that meant anything. “These the men you called?” he asked softly. When Joe looked and nodded, Mac let them in. He thought it was telling that Joe hadn’t ribbed him about being paranoid.
Ten minutes later, they were on their way. The officers promised to have someone secure the front door. Mac didn’t bother to ask how; he was going to have to replace the whole door anyway.
He could still do with more sleep. Four hours was hardly enough. He felt fragmented. He had his wallet, phone, keys, and a pistol in an ankle holster, but he didn’t know where his backpack and camera were. Didn’t know for sure where his laptop was, although he thought Angie had it. Or Janet. Maybe Shorty? But he needed it. He wanted to look through those ID photos so badly he could hardly contain it.
And he needed to talk to Angie. Needed to see her, reassure himself she was OK.
“She’s fine, Mac,” Joe said, correctly interpreting his anxiety. “Someone would have called one of us if there was a problem.”
True, Mac thought, but it didn’t really ease his fears. He had put her in jeopardy with this story.
“And no, it’s not your fault,” Joe continued. Mac looked at him sourly. Was he that easy to read now? “Angie’s a professional reporter, too. And she sees things with that camera of hers — it’s uncanny, sometimes. But you need to treat her as an equal and a colleague, not someone to be protected, or she’s not going to forgive you.”
“I feel like I need to protect all of my colleagues,” Mac muttered, although he acknowledged his point was valid.
“And all of your friends, even the cops and FBI,” Joe agreed. “And we think it’s kind of cute. But she won’t. Women don’t. They get patronized too much to see it that way.”
Mac stared at him. “When did you get so smart about women?”
Joe laughed at that. “I’ve got four sisters,” he said. “And we’re close. Believe me I get an earful. They’re determined that their brother will not be an asshole — their words.”
Mac grinned. “Point taken.”
They found parking, not always easy on a Saturday near the university. Mac was relieved to see that his car hadn’t been towed. Rand was still parked in the alley. And that looked like Stan’s car. Were they here too?
“Is that Shorty’s Lexus?” Mac asked.
“He said he might come over,” Joe agreed. “Is he OK? Or am I projecting?”
Mac frowned. “I’m not sure. I thought maybe something was wrong last night, and then, well, things went to shit, and I haven’t thought about it since then.”
“Look at us, talking about our feelings and shit,” Joe mocked as they walked up the steps to the front door. Mac snickered.
It was Angie who opened the door for them. She stared at Mac, and then she wrapped her arms around him, leaning her face against his chest. He held her tightly. Home, he thought. He’d been looking for a home for a long time. Turned out home was a person, not a place.
“Get a room,” Joe said, nudging them aside.
Well, maybe home was people.
“But maybe not here,” Angie murmured. Mac laughed and let her go.
“Looks like the Parker House gang is all here,” he said.
“Nick is still down at the jail,” Janet said from the kitchen. “But I’m sure he will get here eventually. Naomi assures us we’re welcome. And I actually think she’s crazy enough to mean it.”
Mac kept one arm around Angie as they moved inside. “I need to talk to you,” he said quietly. “We were vandalized last night.” He told her what happened. “I think the message was aimed at you. I think you saw something, shot something — or someone thinks you did — and they’re warning you off. So you need to think back. Go through your photos from the past few days. What did you see?”
Angie stared at him appalled — not scared, he noted with amusement — appalled. “Mac! Do you know how many photos that is? Hundreds. Maybe a thousand.”
“Really?” Mac asked. “You take that many?”
She nodded. “Back in the film era, people had to plan their shots, and they took just a few. But now? There’s no cost involved in shooting lots. Although the photo editor grumps that we’ve lost something in the process — he says photogs planning their shots made for better photography. And given some of the shit I see coming through when I’ve got the desk, he might be right. Anyway. I have a lot of photos.”
“She isn’t the only one,” Shorty said. He was leaning on the doorway to the dining room. “Daniel is in here. We’re going through his photos. I’m trying to set up a database. But finding a couple of hundred ID photos intermingled with five years of cute kid pics is daunting.”
“Do you delete photos off your phone?” Mac asked him, curious now.
“I will from now on,” Shorty muttered as he disappeared back into the dining room. “I have your laptop by the way.”
Mac looked out to the courtyard where Stan and Rand were talking. Talking vehemently. Janet followed his eyes. “They’re talking logistics, that’s all,” she said quietly. “We’re running out of safe places. I suggested retreating to the Parker House again. They were not amused.”
Mac guessed they wouldn’t be. Naomi looked out at the two men as well. “We could repeat last night,” she said slowly. “Having Rand here made me feel like we were safe. But....” She trailed off, looking at the dining room where Daniel was. Myint was in the living room. He’d picked up a book, but Mac thought he might just be pretending.
Tim and Maiah were in the kitchen too. “I could move upstairs to that empty room,” he offered quietly. “Then Rand and his two... two whatever they are, could have the basement.”
Naomi studied him. “And no lectures to the other residents about anything?” she said severely. Mac stifled a laugh.
“And no lectures,” Tim promised. He hesitated, looking at Maiah who was washing dishes. “And I’d feel better knowing that anyone who came for her would have to get past me.” He looked at Mac defensively as if he expected to be laughed at. Mac snorted. It wouldn’t be coming from him — he thought paranoia was much more sensible than Naomi’s inexplicable hospitality.
Mac studied the young man for a moment. “You have a weapon?” he asked. Tim shook his head. “You liked a rifle before, right?”
“A shotgun is better,” Tim said.
Mac turned to Naomi. “I can’t disagree with him. But it’s your call. I have a shotgun out in the SUV.”
Naomi swallowed hard. “Is this what the world is becoming?” she asked. Her voice sounded strangled. “We have to arm ourselves to protect ourselves?”
Mac didn’t point out he’d always been armed — since he was 12. Who else was going to protect him, if he didn’t? And now he had all these other people to protect.
“Yes,” Janet said, answering her question. “And it worries me too. Worse, we’re armed to protect ourselves from police — the people we should be able to rely on for protection. The rhetoric is escalating, Naomi. You must hear it at church.”
Naomi nodded, her expression a mix of worry and sadness. Janet’s smile back was sad too, Mac thought as he watched the two women. They had a lot in common, the way they were raised. But they’d made different choices — forced to make some hard choices. And yet here they were, two very different people, but some of the strongest women he knew. And he knew a lot of strong women, when he thought about it.
“I read the studies, talk to experts, because it does trouble me,” Janet was saying. “Christian beliefs are merging with nationalism in this country — white Christians, at least. It hasn’t infected the Black church as far as I can see. But you probably hear more of it directly than I do.”
Naomi nodded. “I hear it. Some churches are worse than others,” she said. “They say we need to fight for Jesus — which isn’t what Jesus taught at all! I’m hardly speaking to some of my oldest friends, who think we need to make America a Christian country.” She shook her head. “A Christian country with guns,” she added wryly. Mac snickered at that — when you put it that way, it did seem a bit weird, he acknowledged, even as little about the church as he knew, that seemed weird.
“How about the Korean church? Or in other countries?” Naomi asked, confusing Mac. It didn’t seem to confuse Janet, he noted. Well, he could ask her later.
“Some,” Janet said. “But the merger of the militant church and American nationalism — authoritarianism, really — is the growing concern. You don’t see that merger of the militant church and government interests in other countries.” She paused to consider that, then went on with a shrug, “We’re not only becoming increasingly authoritarian, we believe God ordains it. And law enforcement is particularly susceptible to that message, I think.”
“And the American church is also tempted,” Naomi agreed. She looked out at the courtyard where Rand and Stan were still talking. She took a deep breath, and nodded. “Give Tim a shotgun, Mac,” she said. “I’ll talk to them. They can use the basement as a safehouse.”
An amazing woman, Mac thought. He wouldn’t have understood what a leap that required two years ago. But he did now. His six months with Kate had been an education in a world he’d barely known existed. When he went out after the shotgun, Angie was still at his side.
“I’m torn,” she said conversationally. “I have always wanted to be Janet when I grew up — now I might want to be Naomi, instead.”
Mac squeezed her shoulders. “I think you should be Angie when you grow up,” he said. “She’s the one who drove north to rescue me, convinced a cop to help her, and managed to get us all out safely. I think Angie Wilson is going to be just fine when she ‘grows up.’”
Angie was silent, and he peered down at her face to see tears in her eyes. “What?” he said, alarmed. “What did I say wrong?”
She laughed and hugged him. “Nothing,” she said. “What you said was perfect.”
Confused, Mac hugged her back, and kept his mouth shut. Take the win, bro, he told himself. Just take the win.
When they got back, Naomi was rearranging her household. Tim was carrying his things upstairs. Naomi was talking to the two young women who had rooms on the second floor to make sure they were OK with Tim being on the floor with them. When she came back downstairs, she nodded at Stan and went back into the kitchen where she was cooking something. Mac wondered if he looked pitiful enough she’d feed him.
They really were repeating the Parker House setup, he realized with a shake of his head. And thank God for women who could manage — a household, a newsroom, a safe house....
Shorty came back out of the dining room. “OK, I’ve got a slide show set up for you all to look at it.”
There weren’t quite a hundred IDs, after all. But it was close. He recognized some names and faces. He thought Joe recognized more. They needed Nick, Mac thought. But a lot of them just seemed like people — men, for the most part, and white. To his surprise, Myint wasn’t in there. He didn’t think he saw anyone who looked like he was Burmese either.
“How did you contact McBride?” Mac asked Myint who had followed them into the dining room. “We know you did. But you’re not in here.”
Myint hesitated, then shrugged slightly. “One of our men approached him. He is American. We thought it would go better.”
He was white, Mac interpreted that. “So you negotiated for a look-away once? Do you just pay regularly? How does McBride know when to keep someone away from the reservoir?”
Myint glanced at Rand, then back to Mac. “It is an on-going cost of doing business,” he said. “You must understand that, right? It is hardly the only fee we pay for such a service. We have a regular delivery schedule, of course. And if we have need of a special time, or an additional service, we have a number to text. There is a negotiation over the fee, and that is it.”
“So when you negotiated for this house to be on the look-away list, and for Mac to be distracted, you contacted that number?” Janet asked. Myint nodded. “But you weren’t asking for Mac to be killed, right? Just kept from answering a call for help?”
“We asked for Mac to be distracted, as you put it,” Myint agreed. “We wanted to keep Mackensie Davis out of this unfortunate situation. We got a heads up that Mackensie would be out on a news story Friday evening, and we should proceed then. So we did.”
“How much did you pay?” Mac pursued.
“We paid $100,000,” he said. “But understand, that was for a distraction and a look-away if they were called to this residence. If we had ordered your death, Mackensie Davis, the price would have been much higher. Especially for you. We had no interest in your death — as we told you yesterday morning! I have given this some thought,” he admitted. “I think he must have had a second customer.”
Mac nodded. He did too. “Call me Mac,” he said absently, as he considered it. He looked at Shorty. “Can you build a database of the people with contact information?” Shorty gave a one-shoulder shrug.
“An address,” he said. “Most of them used driver’s licenses which don’t have phone numbers.” He considered it. “I think so — I mean worst case, we type in the info.”
Mac winced. “No, don’t do that,” he said. “I’ll just rummage through the cards.”
“You’re planning on contacting them,” Janet said. Mac nodded.
“We said we were missing the big story,” he pointed out. “Here they are. People who have paid for police ‘protection.’”
She started jotting down ideas on her notepad. “Start with some of the smaller requests,” she said. “Build toward drug suppliers.” She glanced at Myint and then back to her pad.
Mac could feel the excitement building. This would be interesting. Then a thought occurred to him. “Angie? Can you do a similar slide show of your photos for the last 36-48 hours?” he asked.
She nodded and scooted over to sit by Shorty. She had her camera in her hands; of course, she did. “Show us everything,” Mac said. “It might not even have been something that seemed important at the time.”
“Give us a bit,” Shorty said. Mac rightly interpreted that as clear out, and he went out to living room with a trail of people behind him.
“We need Nick,” Mac said to Joe.
“I’ll call him,” he replied. “But I’m going to need to go — I’m on duty at the north precinct at 3 p.m.”
Mac glanced at the time. He was cutting it close. “Thanks for coming and getting me,” he said, then hesitated. “Joe? Be careful?”
Joe started to make some wisecrack, but then he just nodded. “Don’t turn your phone off,” he said wryly.
Mac laughed, but he knew Joe wasn’t joking. And neither was he.
It took Shorty and Angie an hour to organize a slide show. When she’d said there were a lot of photos, she hadn’t been joking. And she had some video as well. So Naomi suggested an early supper followed by show and tell. It made sense, but Mac was restless. He took a deeper dive into the photos from Daniel’s phone. And he listened to Janet’s interview with Daniel from earlier. She was really good, Mac thought in admiration. He was glad she was his editor, but wow, journalism had lost an amazing reporter when she moved into the editing ranks. He thought it was because she brought knowledge to the interview, just as she had in her conversation with Naomi. Whereas he always felt like he was scrambling to fill in the blanks. He wondered how to get that kind of more comprehensive background. When they had a pause in the action, maybe he’d ask Janet about that.
Mac had ceded the dining room to Shorty and Angie and decided the patio table in the courtyard was a good place to spread out his stuff. He wanted to build a timeline, meshing the requests for assistance from McBride with the timeline he’d developed for Andy Malloy’s attack on Parker House. He was missing a strand, he thought, studying the results. Janet came out of the house carrying her phone.
“I have Michael on the line,” she said. “He has something to say that he wants you to hear as well.”
Michael? Oh, Leatherstocking. Most of the time, Mac forgot he had a first name. Some people were like that. He hadn’t stop calling Stan ‘Agent Warren’ until it became obvious he was going to be a permanent addition to Janet’s life.
“Does he charge time and a half for weekends?” Mac asked.
“I heard that,” Leatherstocking said. Janet was laughing. “And yes, I charge double-time. So your reporter followed up promptly, Janet. I wasn’t expecting to hear from her on the weekend.”
“A newspaper runs 24/7, Michael,” Janet said, suppressing her amusement. “Unlike high-priced attorneys.”
“And I keep telling you, you’re in the wrong business,” Leatherstocking replied. “Unlike newspapering, there will always be a demand for attorneys.”
Mac winced. That hit close to home, but Janet didn’t flinch. Apparently an old joke between the two of them? He hadn’t realized they were friends.
“Well, at least she had the courtesy to email me rather than wake me up at 5 a.m. by dialing my phone over and over,” Leatherstocking groused.
Mac snickered. Had Janet done that? He supposed she had. She didn’t apologize, however.
“Ahhh,” Janet said. “So, it wasn’t really her fault? It’s the fault of a workaholic attorney who checks his email even on Saturday?”
“Something like that,” he agreed. “So she sent me the shell LLCs that the Police Defense Fund hides behind. And one of them rang a bell. But it’s odd. This goes way back. You were probably in D.C. when Andy Malloy killed a Black kid — claimed the kid was threatening him. He was 12, a big 12 year old, but still. Happens all too often in this country.” Leatherstocking stopped mid rant and took a deep breath. “So, Malloy had a lot of friends. God knows why — it wasn’t his scintillating personality. He was a complete boor. And he had more police brutality complaints than any officer, before or since. Although there are a couple who seem to be vying to beat Malloy’s record.”
Mac sat back in his chair. He’d never listened to Leatherstocking go off like this — when you’re paying a man obscene amounts per hour, you stick to the point. He could see why he was considered one of the best attorneys in town — this was quite the closing argument.
“So, even the police union took a step back,” Leatherstocking said. “They did a pro-forma protest on his behalf, and then basically threw up their hands, and said what can we do? And Andy Malloy was pissed. He knew good and well that if the union really wanted to, they could push it and they’d win. The union loses very few battles.” He paused. “You do know that, right?”
“I do,” Mac said, since it seemed to be addressed to him. “And they are the poster child for the saying ‘power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
“Sometimes I forget you only look like a thug,” Leatherstocking muttered.
Janet doubled over laughing. Mac grinned. “I resemble that,” he joked — an oldie but appropriate here. He heard Leatherstocking snicker. “Rodriguez told me a bit of this, once.”
“Yeah, he would know,” Leatherstocking agreed. “So Andy Malloy set up an LLC, called IGE, Inc. He got licensed as a P.I. and opened up for business. And quite frankly it was a gun-for-hire gig. For a price, you could get about anything you wanted.”
“Is that how he funded that gun club?” Mac asked. “I’ve wondered about that.”
“Probably,” Leatherstocking said. “Although I think it’s more accurate to say the gun club was the legit front for the rest of IGE.”
“IGE,” Janet said slowly. “That’s one of the LLC’s behind the Police Defense Fund.”
“Yeah,” Leatherstocking said. “Do you know what IGE stands for? I Get Even.”
“Malloy’s dead,” Mac said. He’d had Malloy’s blood splatter on him after all.
“He is,” Leatherstocking said. “But he must have had an heir — or maybe partners — because I checked. IGE is still filing federal taxes.”
“Names, Michael?” Janet said urgently. “Do we have names?”
“I have a couple,” Leatherstocking said. “But I can’t tell you how I know them. And you can’t quote me, imply you got them from me, or anything like that. I wouldn’t tell you them, if I didn’t think this was getting extremely dangerous.”
“No, I will never reveal that you have a conscience, so help me God,” Janet said solemnly. Mac snickered.
“No one would believe you if you told them I did,” he countered. “But I’m actually breaking the law here, Janet.”
Janet sobered. “Then don’t,” she said gently. “Tell us where to find the information, and we’ll get it ourselves.”
“I already tried every legal route I could think of and the information doesn’t come up,” Leatherstocking said reluctantly. “So, I’m going to give you a list of names. Some you already know — Winston Whalen, for instance.”
Yeah, Mac knew Win Whalen. “He ran the Police Defense Fund,” he said. “But he announced he was stepping away from it until his name was cleared from these, and I quote, ‘nefarious charges.’”
“And the money is still pouring in,” Janet said. “We pulled the charity forms.”
“So Yesinia said,” Leatherstocking said.
“And I assume the money is going out,” Janet continued. “They’re paying for the defense attorneys representing Rourke and McBride and the others. Two of whom were the fake guards at the jail, Michael.”
“Do we know who the outside man was?” Mac asked.
“No,” Janet said grimly. “Or if someone does, they didn’t share it with me.”
“So there are several big names on the public filing for the Police Defense Fund,” Leatherstocking continued, ignoring that side conversation. “A state representative from Bellevue. A couple of pastors, including Anson Roberts.”
Mac looked at Janet puzzled. Did he know him? “He was the predecessor to Rev. Nielsen out at Valley View,” she said quietly.
Oh. The one who was dismissed for allegations of sexual assault — and never charged. Never even reported to authorities, Mac thought grimly.
But Leatherstocking wasn’t finished. “And the three LLCs, including IGE — one I thought had disappeared. But there it is. And that’s Andy Malloy’s old company — still active.”
So I pulled the old IGE forms,” he said. He didn’t say which forms, or from where, Mac noted. “The board of directors were mostly police, of course. Including the man who was supposed to be in charge of the jail last night. Although Whalen is on a couple of forms. I didn’t realize their relationship went that far back.”
Mac frowned at that. Where had the jail supervisor been when it all went down?
He missed a few names, but Janet was writing them all down. Then one grabbed his attention — George Abrams.
Mac looked at Janet with alarm. “The captain at the north precinct?” he asked.
“Yes,” Leatherstocking said. “Doesn’t mean he’s dirty. Doesn’t mean anything at all, really. Look at all the names I’m giving you. There’s an assistant chief even. But you need to be careful, Mac.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about,” Mac said grimly. “It’s Dunbar. He just got assigned up there to help out because a third of their officers are on administrative leave pending an Internal Affairs inquiry.”
There was silence. “Isn’t he one of the key witnesses for the prosecution?” Leatherstocking asked slowly.
“Yeah,” Mac said. “Anyone else? I’m thinking I might need to drive up to Green Lake this evening.”
“Don’t be hasty,” Leatherstocking warned. “I’ve already gotten you out of jail once today.”
Mac chuckled. “And even gave me a ride home. Don’t worry, I don’t plan to let it happen twice.”
“You need to look at the other entities that Whalen has funded,” Leatherstocking advised. “The fact that he’s been in on this for over a decade is really disturbing.”
“Follow the money,” Janet agreed.
“Exactly,” Leatherstocking said.