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After supper, Mac went for a run around the perimeter of the property. It wasn’t enough to burn off the rage and impatience. He wanted to go do something. Preferably hit something or someone. He wished he could go to the gym — a workout with the heavy bag would do him good.
And then blow some shit up, he thought with a snort. Still, a good solid day of reporting tomorrow, and they would make real progress. And then he’d give Whalen a call and ask for an interview.
Both Whalens.
And the police union representative. McBride was the president, but the union had professional staff. Lobbyists as well as attorneys. And Andrew Whalen probably had his own attorney. He made a list in his head as he ran the path for a second lap. He burned with anger at the suicide coverup. That needed to be a top priority story. He thought he might call Lorde in the morning and talk to him. Maybe he could try his cell tonight.
He considered McBride. He showed up a lot in this story — never center stage, but he was there. He made a mental note that he needed to profile him next. After Whalen. He frowned. Maybe he should ask McBride questions during blotter calls?
He slowed down as he reached the guard gate. Brian Winters was there. Mac stuck his head in and praised him for following instructions with the phones.
“Good lesson for me,” Brian said. Mac could hear the relief in his voice. “I’m glad I didn’t take them home with me. Or forget to wipe them down. Did you hear anything?”
“Bellevue cops are pissed,” Mac said cheerfully. “SPD didn’t involve them, claimed it was a confidential tip about a drug bust. So the two departments are feuding.”
“And that makes you happy?”
“SPD has a rogue unit,” Mac said soberly. “They are not the good guys in this story, Brian. They’re the bad guys. They’re the ones who shot up those houses. You need to remember that. Not all cops are good guys.”
“Hard to think like that,” Brian said. “But do as you’re told? That works for me.”
Mac laughed. “That’s a good start,” he said and finished his lap to the house. The conversation troubled him. He needed to call Kevin Winters. His guards knew there were to be no admissions to the house. Did they know that included cops? Even cops with papers? That needed to be clear with them all.
Really clear.
Angie was waiting for him when he came through the kitchen door. It was interesting what rooms got used and which ones didn’t. No one used the living room, for instance. But there was almost always someone hanging out in the kitchen.
“I called the hospital to check on Craig Anderson,” she said. “He was treated and checked himself out over the objections of the doctor.”
Mac looked at her. “You’re worried about him?” he asked.
She shrugged, and then nodded. “That bullet was meant for you,” she said. “He tipped you off and saved your life.”
“Shorty backs up my phone on a regular basis,” Mac said. “Let’s see if I still have his telephone number and you can call him. He likes you.”
“He likes you too,” she protested.
“But he feels protective of you. Me? He likes to challenge me,” Mac pointed out as they went looking for Shorty. He was in the computer room. And he was the only one there.
“Where did everyone go?” Mac asked.
“Misaki told me it was none of my business,” Shorty said. “And Ruri just giggled. So I’m going to mind my own business. Because? You notice that Joe Dunbar isn’t here either.”
Mac grinned. Go Joe, he thought. Then he explained what he was looking for. Shorty logged into his computer, did a search, and rattled off a number for Angie. Then he realized she didn’t have a phone.
“Damn it,” Shorty muttered. He reached into a box near his work station and brought out two phones. “Ruri says these can’t be interfered with. I didn’t ask questions. But here you go.”
Mac plugged in the important numbers he had memorized: Angie, Janet, Shorty. He needed the rest of the team. Shorty sighed, and held out his hand. Mac gave him the phone, and Shorty plugged it into his laptop. “Tell me whose numbers you need.”
Mac gave him the team names, adding in the reporters who were at the office. “Do you have numbers for the two Whalens?” he asked. Shorty nodded and added them. “Andy Malloy?” He thought for a moment. “Might as well add the North Precinct hit squad, if you’ve got their numbers.”
“Just their work numbers, not the cells,” Shorty said. He unplugged Mac’s phone and handed it back to him, and then he did the same thing for Angie’s phone. Angie smiled her thanks, and went off to call Craig Anderson.
Mac looked at Shorty. “We good?” he asked.
Shorty looked puzzled. “Why wouldn’t we be?”
“I’ve dragged you into yet another mess where you’re carrying a gun and mucking around in computers illegally,” Mac said.
Shorty shook his head. “I walked into this one on my own,” he said ruefully. “I’m good. And it’s interesting to watch Janet organize a set of stories like this. I synthesize a lot of data and boil it down for my clients. She does the opposite, almost. She takes the data and expands it so that people can understand the story and the people behind it. Interesting.”
Mac considered that and nodded. Very interesting viewpoint.
“Where did Tim go?” he asked.
“Bed, I think,” Shorty said. “Are you sure about him, Mac? I kind of like the little prick, but let’s face it, a year ago he was on their team.”
Mac nodded. “I know,” he said. “But....” How could he explain that he wanted to make sure Tim didn’t go that direction — more for Janet’s sake than for Tim’s. He shrugged. “He’s not wrong,” Mac pointed out. “He does know the religious aspects better than any of us. Tomorrow he’s got classes on campus. I can leave him there if you think I should.”
Shorty shook his head. “No, he knows where we are,” he said slowly. “I’d be happier if he didn’t leave here at all — even for classes. He could call someone. Deliberately, or just call Naomi to reassure her that he’s OK, and then Naomi mentions something to someone, or someone overhears them. He’s too close to that world.”
Mac nodded. He didn’t disagree.
He pulled Lorde’s business card out of his wallet and called him.
“Wondered if you would call,” Trevor Lorde said. “Dunbar tell you?”
“Yeah,” Mac said. “He’s pretty upset.”
“Don’t let him quit,” Lorde said. “We need good cops like him. And there aren’t as many as there should be.”
“So, how is it that the three Stooges and Sgt. McBride still have jobs?” Mac asked. “They have already killed someone on the job. And this crap has been going on for years. What the hell?”
“Do you know how hard it is to get a police officer fired?” Lorde responded. “Half of the officers who get fired are reinstated later by an outside arbitrator. Half. They don’t have to sue the department or hire an attorney or anything. They just put on a tie, show up with a union rep and tell their story to the court-appointed arbitrator. And half will show up for work on Monday.
“And you know... not every officer who should be fired gets fired in the first place.” Lorde paused and took a deep breath. “But suicide rulings? They hardly ever get scrutinized. You all don’t run them either. We don’t even tell you — I checked. Why? Grieving families, I guess. Smart way to camouflage suspicious deaths.”
Mac told him about the story he’d read. Lorde was silent. “Fuck,” he said finally.
“Joe thinks these were police brutality deaths not cop vigilante deaths,” Mac said. “You agree with that?”
“We on the record?”
“No,” Mac said slowly. “Not yet.”
“Then yeah, probably,” Lorde said. “But I won’t comment for sure until I see the new autopsies.”
“Are you getting the permission to do that?”
“So far I have permission for three,” he said. “Two were cremated. The family is hesitant in one case, and can’t be located in another. And I’ve left messages for the others.”
“Who will do the new autopsy?” Mac asked.
“The medical examiner, himself,” Lorde said. “Our assistant examiner is on leave, pending investigation.”
Mac considered that. “Captain Lorde, I’m going to have to do a story if it’s gotten that far,” he said a bit more formally. “Can I call you back tomorrow for official comments?”
“Yes,” he said. “I won’t release anything until after you do. Only fair.”
Mac snorted. He’d been beaten by TV stations on his own story before. He hated it.
“I appreciate it,” he said.
“Get these bastards, Mac,” Lorde said.
“I thought that was your job,” Mac said.
“Yeah. So, did I. And look how well that’s going.”
Mac said nothing to that. He had looked — Lorde had sent him to the website for a reason, and there it was: the police chief overruled his recommendations roughly two out five times. He couldn’t find a single case where the police chief went against the union. Lorde’s wins only came when the union didn’t oppose his recommendation. “Don’t you quit either,” Mac said quietly. The man didn’t respond. “I’ll call in the morning for comment.”
Shorty looked at Mac when he got off the call. “Hard to be a Black cop,” he said. “And a Black cop policing White cops? That’s a fast road to burnout.”
Mac said nothing for a while. “Not easy to be a Latino cop either, apparently.”
Shorty nodded and then changed the subject. “I’m working on data about Whalen. Misaki wasn’t joking about him being a recluse. I don’t know much about the man personally at all. I can tell you his net worth — although I’m not sure I believe those claims, to be honest. I can tell you he’s gone bankrupt twice, and rebounded. That generally means he shafted everyone else in the start-up and rebounded at their expense. And then I found this.” He turned his laptop around so Mac could read the screen. It was an article in a high-tech magazine from shortly after President Obama’s first inauguration. Mac sat down to read it. Whalen had said that having Democrats in power was bad for the high-tech industry. Not true, but also not highly relevant to his current story. Mac glanced at Shorty.
“Keep reading.”
Mac scrolled down. And then he saw it. “He’s a birther?” Mac asked, referring to those who said Obama wasn’t born in the United States.
“Keep reading.”
Mac wasn’t sure what the reporter had said to set the man off, but Whalen had gone on a tirade, and the reporter had put it all in the article. He grinned. He knew that technique. He’d used it with the Parker story, as a matter of fact. But this tirade? Whalen was talking about police needing to get tougher with the hoodlums — his word — that were destroying the fabric of American life. That it shouldn’t be three strikes and you’re out, it should be one strike and you’re dead.
Mac’s eyes widened at that. Not much shocked him, but that was... quite a statement.
“Keep reading.”
Whalen mentioned his son was a cop, and then talked about his fund for officers who needed attorneys to protect themselves from retaliation for having just done their jobs. “They shouldn’t have to pay legal defense fees out of their own pocket,” he said. “So, any cop in Seattle knows that if he needs an attorney with the balls to take on City Hall, the money is there. No cop should be penalized for doing his part to keep the streets of Seattle free from the thugs that make other cities so unlivable. It’s not going to happen in my town.”
Mac sat back. “Well now,” he said. “Do we know how many cops he’s paid for their defense?”
“Working on it,” Shorty said. “You might ask Trevor Lorde that in the morning. But Mac? I found a Facebook page for the Seattle Defense Fund. The posts sound a lot like the Sensei page, but it’s also talking about how it’s ‘time for police to step up.’ And ‘we’ve got your back’ kind of rhetoric.”
Mac started jotting down questions. One list for Lorde, one list for Whalen.
“Mac? You listening to me? Because I think he’s offering a bounty for dead ‘thugs,’” Shorty said, making air quotes around the word thug. He turned his computer back around and called up Facebook, and read the pinned post: “Police who do the heavy lifting need to be compensated for it. Fewer thugs means better quality of life — something to be rewarded. A DM to the admin for this page will tell you how.”
Mac jerked backward. “Shit.”
Shorty nodded. “That’s who is bankrolling this attack on Rodriguez,” he said quietly. “I don’t know if he’s laundering money through the church or does it directly. And he’s probably got the technological expertise to do the computer work we saw. If not himself, he’s got staff who could.”
Mac frowned thoughtfully at the last. “His company got a website? A Facebook page? Can we find out the names of his staff?”
Shorty grinned. “On it,” he said. “You going to call them?”
Oh yeah, he was. Did you work on the blackout of XYZ neighborhoods Friday night? Did you set up the redirection of calls so that a cop couldn’t call for help? Did you impersonate a dispatcher and redirect calls while people shot the hell out of a family’s home?
And who was the cop you directed calls to?
And finally, how does it feel to work for a racist son of a bitch? Will you testify against him? Or go down alongside him?
Yeah, Mac thought savagely. He wanted a staff list all right. He wanted to hear how people justified this as just a paycheck.
And he was going to ask Whalen as well.
Angie came back into the room. She looked upset. Mac looked at her, but she shook her head. “Later.”
He nodded, and looked at the time. “Then let’s call it a night,” he said. “Tomorrow, I need to go into the office with Janet. I finally get the later shift, and I’m still working at 6 a.m.” It made Angie laugh, which had been his point. She tugged at him, pulling Mac to his feet.
“And here I had plans,” she said with mock sorrow.
“Really? I could listen to your plans,” Mac teased.
They paused at the door. “Shorty?” Mac said. “Get some sleep.”
“In a few,” Shorty said absently. “I want to track down one more thing. Oh, before I forget. I took sick leave for the rest of the week. I’m too vulnerable coming out of that building. The note said someone’s watching the school — I think they’re still there.”
Mac nodded. “Good,” he said. “I’d prefer no one left the house at all, but that’s not reasonable. Or so I’m told.”
Shorty grinned at him. “When did you let reasonable become an issue? Getting old there, man?”
Mac flinched, but he laughed and flipped him off. He draped his arm around Angie’s shoulders. “So you going to tell me about Anderson before or after your plans?”
They took the stairs up to the third floor. “He said he was fine, just a scratch,” she said. “And he said he went home to Marysville. But he said Andy Malloy was pissed. He missed you and blames Craig for it. And he shot at and missed Janet. Craig said he was just sitting outside the hospital waiting to see who came out that he recognized. So I said, how does he recognize Janet?”
Mac pulled her into their bedroom. “Because he’s got a rogue’s gallery as well,” he said. “Just like we do.”
She laughed a bit. “Guess so,” she said. “Craig said Malloy’s gone nuts. He keeps ranting that he can’t go to prison, he’s a former cop. They’ll kill him in there. And that your testimony is all that could send him down. Rants about that traffic stop years ago and that he should have taken care of it then. Craig said to watch your back.”
Mac held her, until he felt her start to relax from the stress. “Babe, I always watch my back,” he said. “And I watch your back too. We’re going to be OK, you and I, I promise.”
She smiled up at him. She was such a short thing — something he forgot sometimes. “So, old man? You got a birthday coming up or something?”
“Or something,” he agreed. He didn’t want to think about it. She narrowed her eyes, and looked at him thoughtfully. He kissed her. Take that subject off her mind.
Or at least, take that subject off his mind.