SIXTEEN

A few hours later, Hastings was in his office with Klosterman. It was close to end of watch and Klosterman was sitting in front of Hastings’s desk.

Klosterman said, “What does she do?”

“She reads a lot,” Hastings said. “She goes to coffee shops. She watches a lot of television. She buys things on eBay. He gave her enough money in the divorce that she doesn’t have to work. I think it’d be better for her if she had something to do.”

“You mean, during this?”

“No, I mean in general. I got the feeling she’s pretty well educated. That at one time she had genuine feelings for Penmark. She said that when they married, she had no idea he’d get rich. She doesn’t think he did either.”

“But he did.”

“And bought himself another wife.”

“She hate the new wife?”

“Oh yeah. But … if it hadn’t been Lexie Lacquere, it would have been someone else. He found a new life and Adele didn’t fit into it.”

“Would that make her vengeful?”

“Sure. But not enough to hire someone to kidnap her own daughter. If that’s what you’re suggesting.”

Klosterman shrugged.

Hastings said, “God. She can’t even control her own dog. It was heartbreaking.”

“A house off Wydown, yeah, that’s heartbreaking.”

“Christ, Joe, show some fucking compassion. Her daughter’s been abducted.”

“Sorry.”

“That’s all right. Jesus, she told me she feels like she’s a prisoner in that house. It sounds silly if you’re outside of it. But if you’re there, you understand what she means.”

“How?”

“Well, she’s … she’s a misfit. Yeah, she’s got the money. Enough money not to have to worry about living. But those groups—those society groups—they’re not going to let someone like her in. They invent clubs like that to keep people like her out.”

“Evolution at work, Georgie.”

“I thought you Catholic types didn’t believe in that.”

“Yeah. Well, police work makes it hard for us mackerel snappers to cling to all our traditions. She couldn’t make it in Penmark’s new life, so he cut her out of it. Survival of the fittest and all that … shit. Now he’s rich, and on top of being abandoned by him, her daughter’s been kidnapped. Does she like the girl?”

“Her daughter?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah. Loves her. I don’t think the daughter’s cut her out. I don’t think.”

“Are you worried about her?”

“Yeah, I am. I think if Cordelia’s killed, her mother won’t survive it.”

Klosterman said, “You think she’d…”

“Yeah.”

Hastings had checked Adele Beckwith’s bathrooms for sleeping pills. Had even asked her if she kept firearms in the house. (She didn’t.) After that, he gave her the number of a counselor and told her to call the woman if she felt like she was in trouble. He gave her his own number as well and told her she could call him anytime she wanted to talk. Did all that and hoped it would help, though he didn’t feel too secure about it.

Klosterman left it alone. It wasn’t something they could do much about. Klosterman sighed and said, “They check out Judy Chen’s vehicle?”

“Yeah.”

“So nothing?”

“No,” Hastings said. “We found a lot of her prints on the videotape and car, but nothing else. They tried.”

The FBI had brought in their Evidence Response Team (ERT). They had nicer vehicles than Metro and more personnel. Well trained and well equipped, they went over everything, but they were no closer to knowing who kidnapped Cordelia Penmark than they had been before.

Klosterman said, “And the phone?”

Hastings said, “That part’s interesting. We did trace a number. The owner of the number lives in Sunset Hills. But it’s a duplicate number.”

“A duplicate?”

“Yeah. They duplicated a SIM card. And we triangulated it, but all we found out was that the call was made near Judy Chen’s apartment.”

“So maybe she was right,” Klosterman said. “Maybe they were watching her when they called her.”

“I think they were. As to the kidnappers, we seem to be dealing with someone who knows electronics. And telecommunications.”

“What did you think of the feds?”

“Gabler, I don’t know. Kubiak’s an asshole. He almost ran the witness off.”

“Kubiak … is he a blond-haired guy with glasses?”

“Yeah.”

“I think I know who he is.”

“Yeah?”

Klosterman said, “You know Fred Krafft?”

“Yeah, I worked evening shift with him about five years ago. He’s a good guy.”

“He’s a shift sergeant now, on patrol. Last year, he arrested some crankhead turd, brings him down to the station. The guy’s cuffed and Fred sets him on the bench in the booking room. Now you know Fred, right? Not an abusive guy. Never even talks smack to suspects. Well, this turd, he starts kicking and shouting, saying I’m gonna fuck your wife and your kids, and he’s getting the other detainees riled up. They’re still in the booking room, so Fred tells the guy to be quiet. Doesn’t do any good. Fred tells him again, be quiet or I’m gonna O.C. spray you. The guy keeps going, shouting and kicking, and so Fred walks over and sprays him in the face. Well, the spray hits the guy and it doesn’t even fucking faze him. So now Fred thinks the guy’s on fucking PCP or something; O.C. spray isn’t fucking working on the guy. Fred’s eyes go wide open and the turd launches out of the chair onto Fred. They roll around on the ground for a while, Fred gets his fucking wrist broken, the turd, he gets his lip cut. Some other guys join in, they subdue him and get him off to a cell. After that, Fred leaves and goes to the emergency room to get his wrist splint. End of story, right? No. The guy’s lawyer files a tort claim against the city for excessive force against Fred—”

Hastings said, “I heard about this.”

“Yeah, Fred’s captain, who wasn’t even there, he tells the prosecutor that he’s always had ‘concerns’ about Fred. Which is bullshit if you know Fred. But Lew Goodgame, that’s the captain, he’s always hated Fred. So the prosecutor dismisses the criminal case against the turd. They do an internal affairs investigation on Fred. He gets cleared. Because Fred was just following the standard use-of-force continuum.”

Both Hastings and Klosterman were aware of the common misperception, outside of law enforcement, about the use of O.C. or pepper spray. That misperception is that the use of pepper spray is unnecessarily cruel or extreme and that thuggish police officers are all too quick to use it. But actually, pepper spray rates somewhere near the bottom of the use-of-force continuum. In other words, the officers are typically trained to use pepper spray before escalating to physical force such as closed fists, nightsticks, expandable batons, and firearms. The purpose of pepper spray is not to injure but to subdue. While it is, for a short duration, a pretty nasty thing to experience, it does not bruise or cause physical injury as a fist or a baton or a trained attack dog or a firearm would. To many civilian observers, the sight of a police officer pepper spraying a person in the face (the only place where it is effective) seems sadistic. But officers are encouraged to use it if it is reasonably believed that its use will prevent the use of a more serious force.

Hastings said, “So he was cleared?”

“Yeah, he was cleared on the IA investigation, but then the FBI did its own criminal investigation. And Craig Kubiak headed that up. From what I heard, he was just a prick. He’d haul officers in for what he called an ‘investigatory interview.’ The minute any one of them said Fred was clean, he’d start threatening them with criminal perjury charges. The guy was just fucking abusive. The lawyer for the police union showed Kubiak the policy manual on O.C. spray, showed him the report clearing Fred, showed him that everything Fred did was legit. But he could give a shit. He wanted Fred’s scalp.”

“Yeah, but Fred Krafft was cleared.”

“Yeah, after about a year. A very long fucking year for Fred. And Agent Kubiak did everything he could to get the grand jury to indict Fred. It was the U.S. attorney that dropped it. So for a year Fred, his wife, they were just waiting for agents to show up and arrest him. That’s not fun. The point is, Kubiak wasn’t doing an investigation; he was witch-hunting.”

Hastings shrugged. Craig Kubiak would hardly be the first witch-hunter in law enforcement.

“Well, yeah,” Hastings said, “but would there have been an investigation if not for Captain Goodgame?”

Klosterman tried to wave that away. He wanted to hold on to the black-and-white notion. Feds bad, Metro good.

Hastings said, “It’s not just feds that go after city cops. We do it to each other too.” It was one of the more depressing aspects of the job, Hastings knew. Cops testifying against other cops in internal affairs hearings, sometimes stretching truth, sometimes just downright fabricating. The “blue code of silence” civilians believed existed was an illusion; truth was more often than not trampled over by fear and ambition.

Klosterman said, “You never have.”