| |
Mac sauntered through the station. He was headed to see the public information officer, but he was in no hurry to reach him. The PIO’s job was to tell him what the police wanted the public to know — not necessarily provide him with the information he wanted. Usually the PIO didn’t know. Cops didn’t tell the PIO things. Lots of times, cops told Mac before they’d tell the poor SOB. Thankless job — neither the people he represented or the press he talked to trusted him.
Today, there was two police stations. One was bustling along as usual. A cop at a desk interviewing a sullen young man who needed a bath. A shave wouldn’t hurt either. Two cops had coffee and were looking over donuts someone had brought in. Cops in uniform came in and out. Nothing to see here.
But there was a second station today that the normal-operations crowd studiously ignored. Something was going down, and they didn’t want to get swept up in it. Mac didn’t blame them. He chatted with some of the cops he knew. A couple of them had known him when he was a teen. They teased him as they always did. “Still gives me a start that you’re wandering around loose in here,” an older cop said with a shake of his head. “I keep thinking who fucked up and where did you hide his body?”
Mac laughed at all the jokes. Even the ones that had been told before. Why not? “There definitely was a day when you couldn’t have gotten me in here without cuffs and two burly guys,” Mac agreed. “Who knew? All you needed to do was offer me a paycheck, and here I am.”
“And now we can’t get rid of you,” a lieutenant said sourly as he walked by. The older street cop winked at Mac and they both grinned behind the lieutenant’s back.
But that other station? The grim one? Those were the people Mac needed to pry open. He stopped at desk sergeant’s desk. “So, what happened, Sarah?” he asked quietly. She didn’t even look up at him.
“Go away, Mac,” she said, talking to the report she was reading. “Not the day for someone like me to be seen talking to someone like you.”
“Good to see you,” Mac said a bit louder, and moved on. He finally reached the PIO. “So, what do you have for me on Nick Rodriguez?” he asked directly.
The man blanched. For all that Mac thought they kept him in the dark and fed him bullshit, he didn’t think Steve Evans was a bad guy. Quite the contrary. He was good natured, affable, and the kind of guy you’d invite to your Saturday barbeque. “Don’t look at me, Mac,” he said. “Any information on that will come from higher up than me.”
Mac’s eyes narrowed. “Chief’s office?” he asked. “Because I thought you handled the press release of almost everything.”
“This is one of those things that makes it an almost,” he muttered. “No one is telling me anything.”
“But you knew there was something about Nick,” Mac pursued. “So off the record, what’s the scoop in here?”
He hesitated. Mac waited. “All I know is that Nick Rodriguez is in intensive care in the hospital. I was told it was not job related.”
Mac raised his eyebrows at that. “A cop gets shot up in a drive-by — how could it not be job related?” he said, keeping his voice low. This was a conversation both of them would deny happened.
“Is that what happened? You know more than I do then,” Steve Evans said sourly. “Not surprising. There are all kinds of rumors flying about. Most of them involve drugs, on the take, gangs, and the IA was investigating him.”
Mac rolled his eyes. “And is there anyone who buys that? About Nick Rodriguez?”
Steve Evans shrugged. “Wouldn’t have been last week,” he agreed. “But I’ve had two people tell me this morning they always thought his rep was too good to be true.”
“And Joe Dunbar?” Mac asked casually.
“What about him? I haven’t seen him this morning.”
Mac nodded. He hesitated. “He got set up Friday night,” he said softly. You gave a little info back when you had it. That’s how it worked. “He’s out on medical leave too.”
“Just the two of them?” Steve asked. He pulled a sheet of paper out of the printer and handed it to Mac. Mac glanced at it, a press release about a new gun safety program in the schools. He took it and nodded his thanks.
“That’s a very interesting question,” Mac said slowly. “They’re the two I know about.” He started to walk away, then he paused. “Steve? Who’s president of the union?”
“Sgt. Scott McBride,” he said. “He’s in the North District Precinct.”
Mac nodded. “I know him,” he said. “Didn’t know he was president of the union.”
“Mac?” Steve said hesitantly. “Be careful.”
Mac looked at him. Normally he’d say something flippant, but Steve Evans was truly worried. He nodded. “I will be,” he said quietly.
When he glanced back before turning into another hallway, Steve Evans was talking on the phone and looking at him. Mac frowned. He’d like to know who he was talking to. He’d really like to know.
He headed down the hallway to the Office of Police Accountability. People were always trying to improve their image by changing the name, making it sound fancy, he thought sourly. No one called them that. They were IA, and yes, they were out to get you. People glanced at him, but no one tried to stop him. He walked in; the front desk was empty. The whole office seemed empty. He frowned.
“Hello?” he called out.
No one responded, so he headed back to the director’s office. His office was empty too. A meeting, he thought, wondering where. He leaned against the wall outside the director’s office, pulled out his notepad and started to make a list of questions. Someone would find him eventually.
He looked up when he heard shouting. Two men, white shirts and ties, were yelling at each other. One was pointing a finger in the other man’s face. Mac watched, trying to hear what they were saying. Another man came out of the room behind them.
“Break it up, you two,” he ordered. Mac recognized him from his photo on the wall. The director, Trevor Lorde. He was 45, a Black man who had worked his way up the ranks to precinct captain before taking this position. Mac couldn’t think of a more thankless job. Even the PIO got to shoot the breeze in the breakroom. He glanced down the hallway and saw Mac.
“Go on,” he told his two staffers. “Get out of here. I want a report by the end of the day.”
He stalked down the hall toward Mac, and Mac tensed preparing for a fight. Verbal fight, he tried to tell his hindbrain. His hindbrain just didn’t seem to make that distinction.
“In my office,” Trevor Lorde said, and he walked in and sat down behind his desk. Mac followed him in. “Close the door.”
Mac did.
“This conversation never happened,” Trevor Lorde said coldly.
“Agreed,” Mac said. “I’ll call you back for on the record comments when we get to that point.”
“And I’ll say no comment,” he countered.
Mac shrugged.
Trevor Lorde snorted. “What the hell happened to Nick Rodriguez?” he demanded.
Mac sat down. “Did you see this morning’s paper?” he asked.
Lorde nodded once.
“Did you know about it before that?” Mac asked.
“No,” Lorde said. “And heads will roll over that.”
“What were you and Nick working on? I’d ask Nick, but he’s in a medically induced coma at the UW Medical Center under guard by the FBI,” Mac said.
Lorde winced. “I can’t comment on an on-going investigation,” he said carefully. Mac noted the confirmation that there was an on-going case. “Why FBI?”
“He’s got friends in high places,” Mac said. “Or low places, depending on how you view the FBI. Good thing too. Some street cops tried to bluster their way into his room Friday night. Hinky shit. And there’s still no crime scene investigation happening at the Rodriguez house.”
“That’s happening now,” Lorde said. “Under my direction. But 60 hours later? What the fuck?”
Mac laughed. Lorde was normally a composed, articulate man. This was the first time he had talked to him directly. Usually he was on some stage with the police chief talking about accountability.
“What happened to the investigation the Chief promised after the Army of God blew up the abortion clinics and there were cops involved?” Mac asked.
Lorde got very still. “An officer was fired for letting a person of interest go without notifying the case’s supervisory lieutenant. Several others were reprimanded. It was determined that it was the impulsive act of one man who knew the boy personally. Why do you ask?”
“It was more than that, and you know it,” Mac said coldly. “That was your wake-up call, if you didn’t already know you had cops with white Christian nationalist sympathies. And if that didn’t do it, the mess last spring should have. There were dozens of police officers who were participating in the Sensei’s call for white men to arm themselves.”
“Nothing illegal about that,” Lorde responded, but his eyes gave him away. He was furious about it. Or about Mac calling him on it. Mac wondered which.
“Oh? I thought the department had a social media policy for its officers,” Mac said, watching him carefully. “And somehow, telling a bunch of shmucks that when SHTF the police would be counting on them for backup to keep peace in the streets doesn’t seem to comply. Especially when racism gets tossed in the mix.”
“And if you have evidence against specific officers of specific offenses, this office would pursue it aggressively,” Lorde said. “But without that, there is no investigation.”
Actually, Mac could provide that, but he wasn’t going to admit it. He’d stolen the Sensei’s hard drive when he and Rand had confronted the man last spring. He had all of his newsletter subscribers. He still sent out an occasional newsletter promoting gun safety and civic involvement. He’d seen what it looked like when people went off a drug cold-turkey. He figured the hate Sensei had been spewing was just another drug, and they’d need to be weaned off slowly, or even more of them would be losing it.
“So hypothetically, what kind of investigation might you be doing that would result in danger to the officers who were assisting you?” Mac asked carefully. He’d used his wait time to craft that one carefully.
Trevor Lorde looked at him. “You know where I can find Dunbar?”
“Yes,” Mac said.
“He OK?”
“Bullet wound in his leg,” Mac said. “He’s pissed. He got set up, and when he called for backup, no one came. He may never recover from that. But the leg will be fine.”
Lorde winced. “White Christian nationalism as you call it is a growing problem around the country,” he said in a professorial voice. “Police are as susceptible to that as any other group, I suppose, but it is particularly alarming when police forget why — and who — they serve. For any reason. There have been some calls for increased education about racism. There has also been some pushback. The same with the department’s attempts to discipline officers who violate department procedures and norms.”
Mac’s eyes narrowed as he parsed that logic. “The union went to bat for the officers from a year ago?”
Trevor Lorde’s face gave nothing away. “Do you track lawsuits against the city and police?”
“I don’t,” Mac said. “There’s a courts reporter who does.” Or should, he thought. Did she?
Mac brought up something else. “I’ve been thinking that although they call my beat the cop beat, it’s really the crime beat. We hardly cover the police as an institution at all. Not in the way the city government reporter covers the city council, for instance.”
Lorde cocked his head as if that was interesting. “That’s true,” he agreed.
“If I were to change that,” Mac said slowly. “What institutional processes and boards would I want to look at?”
Trevor Lorde tapped his fingers on the desk as he thought. He reached into his desk and pulled out a handbook. “This is a manual put together for community activists on how the police department is run. You might find it useful. There are some citizen oversight committees you should think about — if you mean what you say about covering the police not just crime. Also? All of our cases and findings are on our website — including the Chief’s reversal letters.”
Mac stared at the man. “Are they now,” he said slowly. He’d need to look at those.
He took the manual and shoved it into the pocket of his windbreaker.
“Thank you,” he said sincerely. “I’ll look at it.” He hesitated. “I get the feeling Dunbar might know more than he realizes about Friday night. But I’m not asking the right questions.”
Lorde looked at him steadily. “I’d like to have that conversation with Detective Dunbar myself,” he said. “You might pass that on if you have the chance.” He pulled out a business card wrote something on the back and handed it to him. “If he’s interested.”
Mac took the card and added it to his pocket.
“And the question I really have for him is: does the name Andy Malloy mean anything to him?”
Mac started. “Means something to me,” he muttered.
Trevor Lorde raised an eyebrow inviting him to elaborate. Mac looked back at him steadily, and Lorde smiled briefly. “And if the names Roger Hightower and Dwight Mason mean anything?”
“Those are two of the men who tried to get into Rodriguez’s room,” Mac said. “The FBI had to pull rank to keep them out. Joe knew them; he was there. He implied one of them had a dirty jacket.”
“Two of how many?” Trevor Lorde said, and he leaned forward intently.
“A Peter Donovan was with them as well,” Mac said. “And they mentioned a Sgt. McBride as authorizing it.”
“Did they now?” Trevor Lorde sat back in his chair as if those names meant something to him. He looked at Mac. “Ask Dunbar about the murder at Green Lake Reservoir he investigated in July. And you might run that list of names past that courts reporter of yours.”
Mac nodded and stood up. That was more than he’d expected to get from this man. Lorde was angry — angry enough to talk to a reporter. Just like Dunbar had called a reporter for backup? That was a troubling thought.
He pulled out a business card of his own from his wallet, scratched out the old cell number, hesitated and then he put down his new one.
“You are now the only person who has that number who isn’t in lockdown for safety reasons,” Mac said levelly. “Just so you know. You can use it. Don’t give it to anyone — not even the Chief. If the number gets to the wrong person? I’ll come back looking for you.”
Lorde looked at it, and shook his head. “I don’t want it,” he said. “There’s a leak in this office, and I don’t trust anyone or anything, not even myself, to keep confidentiality right now. If I need you, I’ll call Conte and he can find you, I assume?”
Mac nodded and put the business card back in his wallet. “Stay safe, then,” he said. “The men who came for Nick had serious firepower. And even more concerning in some ways, they had sophisticated tech support. More than those three stooges could provide.”
Lorde laughed a bit at his nickname for them, and then nodded. “Take care of yourself and them,” he said.
Mac walked out of the office, thoroughly spooked by the conversation. He needed to find a quiet place and think things through while they were still fresh in his mind. He thought about it, and smiled. He headed toward Nick Rodriguez’s office.
Why not? Nick wasn’t using it. It was probably locked, Mac acknowledged. But if it wasn’t, he could sit there and think.
And he wouldn’t even rifle through Nick’s files.
Maybe.